Transcripts

Interview 2 – July 11, 2008

Johnson:
This is Kathleen Johnson interviewing Cokie Roberts, journalist for NPR [National Public Radio] and ABC News and the daughter of Hale [Boggs] and Lindy Boggs, both former Members of the House of Representatives.30 This is the second interview with Cokie Roberts, and it is taking place in her ABC office in Washington, D.C. The date is July 11, 2008.
In your first interview, I asked you a lot about your father’s career, and today I wanted to focus on your mother’s career and also your career as a correspondent.
Roberts:
Great.
Johnson:
What was the response of your family when your mother decided to run for your father’s vacant seat [in the House]?
Roberts:
You know, she never even made the decision, as she herself says. It just was kind of—it just basically happened. Everyone assumed she’d do it. She had run my father’s offices when he went into the leadership. She ran his congressional office. She had always been his campaign manager because at that point there wasn’t really a Republican Party. By the time he died there was, but when they first started in politics…and so there were so many Democratic factions that if he had picked a campaign manager from any one of those factions, it would have alienated the others and they all supported him. So she was always his campaign manager and she’s very, very good at it. So she basically really knew the district better than he did, so it just didn’t occur to any of us that she would not run. She says that it was just like the old firehorse. The bell rang and, without her ever realizing it, she was out of the gate.
Johnson:
Did you help your mother during this transitional period?
Roberts:
No, I was not. I lived in California and had little-bitty children. But my sister and brother and sister-in-law all came—went to New Orleans—and did campaign for her. And there was a lot of rumor that she was holding the seat for my brother. My brother had run for Congress in Maryland in 1970 and this was March of ’73, I guess. You know, what was that? {laughter} He didn’t live there [in Louisiana], all of that. And so she brought around his daughter, my niece—who was, I guess if it was ’73 and she was born in ’62, so whatever that is, so she was not quite—she was 10 at the time. She brought Elizabeth around and said, “Actually, I’m holding the seat for her. So get used to it!” {laughter}
Johnson:
Do you think she had any difficulty moving from a behind-the-scenes role?
Roberts:
Sure. Absolutely she did. My sister, who was in politics, said to her, “You know, Mom, the hardest part for you is going to be voting because there’s no ‘Maybe’ button. You’re going to have to say, ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ and when you do that, you’re going to alienate some people.” And Mamma was not used to alienating anybody. And so that did turn out to be the hardest part. Because what her role had been for Daddy had been to make everybody think that he was with them and then to soothe the people after it was clear he wasn’t. It became hard for her to be in a more straightforward role.
Also, when she decided to run, or declared or whatever, Mrs. Johnson called her—Lady Bird called her—and said, “Lindy, I think it’s a great idea, but how are you going to do it without a wife?”31 Because they had been so active in their husbands’ political lives that the idea of trying to run an office and run a campaign and run your social life without a partner doing [4:00] that for you just seemed daunting. And it was daunting because she still felt that she needed to do the wifely things—participate with the women and the wives and do the things they were doing.
Johnson:
At the time, did you view your mother as a trailblazer?
Roberts:
No, but that was wrong. And I think she didn’t view herself as a trailblazer, although she was well aware that she was the first woman elected [to the House] from Louisiana. But what happened to her, as well as most other women who went to Congress in those early days, was that they found themselves representing not just the Second Congressional District of Louisiana, but the women of America, as was true for African Americans, and there were a tiny number of Hispanics at the time, Asian Americans.32 And women from all over the country would approach women in Congress—my mother certainly included—and tell them of their difficulties and particularly of problems that specifically affected women. And so she did become a trailblazer for women’s equality, particularly economic equality.
Johnson:
Did she welcome that role?
Roberts:
Yes. In the end, she did. I think she understood how terribly important it was. She was very proud of her relationships with the Women Business Owners and the American Association of University Women. Women’s groups who came to her and then individual women who came to her. I mean, I still hear all over the country when I’m traveling from women who say, you know, “Your mother just made such an enormous difference in my life.” And that’s a wonderful feeling.
But she had always been on the forefront of civil rights, and that had been the sort of trailblazing or politically dangerous role that she and my father had played. And she had always been more adamant about it than he—she wasn’t running. {laughter} But the women’s rights and equality role came as something of a surprise but also a delight.
Johnson:
Your mother…Let me just read a quote from her memoirs that I found.33 She said, “Almost all women’s issues are economic issues, a stunning idea to those persons who want to hear about great women’s issues and expect us to be preoccupied with the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment] or abortion or sexual harassment or whatever is being hotly debated at the moment.” Did her decision to focus on economic issues cause any friction with other Members of Congress, other women at the time?
Roberts:
No, because the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues—which, at the time, was called the Congresswomen’s Caucus and then all the rules changed—they couldn’t raise enough outside money to continue to be the Congresswomen’s Caucus, so they had to let men in.34 The way they came together was on economic issues because they did differ so much. Not on ERA so much, but on abortion. And abortion was such a hot issue at the time—it was the time of all the fights on the Hyde Amendments and all that.35 And so they just, in order to get anything done for women and children and families, they basically just had to agree to put that aside and to focus on the economic issues.
And they did it very self-consciously. They would say, “You’re on Ways and Means. You’re on Banking. You’re on HEW [Health, Education and ][8:00] Welfare[National Organization for Women] and the National Women’s Political Caucus, groups like that.
Johnson:
Since you brought up the [Congressional Women’s] caucus—how did your mother feel about that? Did she think it was useful organization?
Roberts:
Absolutely. My mother was very committed to the Congressional [Women’s] Caucus and was a very, very useful member of it. In fact, when she left, it really sort of fell apart. Many of the Congresswomen told me that it was because of her absence—that she was always the person who could bring people together and soothe them and basically make them behave. They couldn’t have those kinds of fights in front of her.
Johnson:
Your mother represented a diverse congressional district.
Roberts:
To put it mildly.
Johnson:
How do you think she maintained her popularity and her strong connection with her constituents for such a long period of time?
Roberts:
She’s really a nice person. And she really loves people, and she really works her heart out for people. And she worked tirelessly, all the time, for her constituents. Her phone number was always listed. She was always doing constituent services. So much so that the neighboring Members’ of Congress staff got kind of ticked off about it because they would say—when somebody would call and say, “Well, my garbage isn’t getting collected—” and they’d say, “That’s really the city’s problem, not ours.” And they’d say, “Well, when people call Lindy Boggs’ office, that’s not what she says!” And that’s true. Her staff would call the city and tell the city to fix it. So she was very, very committed to constituent services. But not out of a desire to get re-elected—her re-election rates were humongous. It was because that’s really where she was.
And even after she left office, she kept doing it. And it was ridiculous. Her phone would be ringing day and night, and I’d say to her, “Mamma, you know, stop! Why don’t you have an unlisted phone number? There’s a good idea.” And she said, “Because then I couldn’t help people.” I mean, she really wanted to do it. And the great, wonderful thing about my mother is that she absolutely does not treat people any differently from each other. She genuinely looks at every person as God’s creature, and when they present themselves to her, they are all absolutely equal unless they do something outrageous to change that view. So for her it was really—in some ways, even though in some ways it was very, very hard work—it was easy because she was genuinely there. It wasn’t any kind of fake.
Johnson:
Well, it sounds like she had taken her behind-the-scenes role that she had worked on with your father and then was able to modify that to when she was serving in Congress herself.
Roberts:
Right, although, she hated people criticizing her. She was never good at that. And when she’d vote, she’d get critics.
Johnson:
What challenges did the reapportionment in her district pose?
Roberts:
Well, it was a huge challenge because, of course, it was redistricted to be a [12:00] majority-minority district, and, at that point, I think she and Peter Rodino [Jr.] and Wyche Fowler [Jr.], maybe, were the only three whites representing majority-black districts. Wyche, then, ran for the Senate, and John [R.] Lewis took that seat, and, I guess, [Donald] Payne must have Rodino’s seat.36 So they were the last. And so she did have—I mean she had an election [1984], sort of-kind of—she felt she had an election. {laughter} And Israel Augustine, who ran against her…again, it sort of hurt her feelings because he had been a friend and my father had gotten him appointed a judge, and, again, she’s not good at criticism.37 As long as everybody loves her, she’s great. {laughter} And most of the time, everybody does love her, but, you know, a political campaign can be a little rough that way.
So that was a rough year, but it all came out fine. What had happened was not just that it was a majority-black district, but it was a majority-new district. So that there were a lot of people who had never been represented by either her or my father and didn’t know her. She briefly had some out-of-town, fancy political consultants who were giving her terrible advice, which was basically, “Suppress the black vote, heighten the white vote,” and she basically said, “You know, that goes against everything I’ve done my entire political career. Go away; you’re fired.” {laughter}
Some African-American women organized “100 Ladies for Lindy”—and then they became many more than 100—but they worked with her going through the new neighborhoods—I mean new-to-the-district neighborhoods. They were actually somewhat new neighborhoods. Some of them have pumped out…some of the neighborhoods have disappeared since [Hurricane] Katrina because they had been pumped out of the swamp. So, it was a tougher year than most, but I think she still got 60-some percent of the vote, if not more.38
It was funny, though, the night before the election. By the time the night before the election came, it was fine. We knew it was fine. We knew she was going to be fine. But there had been some nail-biting moments up until then, and so, my sister and brother and I all went down to be with her for Election Day. She had this great big four-poster bed in her house on Bourbon Street and we’re all…It’s the middle of the night, and we’re all sitting on different corners of the bed, everybody reverting to childhood behavior, and so she says—we weren’t talking about the election—and finally she says, “You know, I’m nervous about tomorrow.” And we said, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. It’s fine.” And it was fine. But she said, “So why are you all here?” {laughter} “If the doctor said the diagnosis is okay, why aren’t you home?”
Johnson:
During her career, Lindy was an outspoken advocate for preserving the history of the House and of Congress. What do you think sparked her determination in this case?
Roberts:
I think her own family. She had come from a family that had been in this country since Jamestown, and they had always talked about the importance of the history. I think that was really the basis of it. And you know, Southerners like history. And she loves beautiful things and lived in this historic city and old, beautiful houses and all that, so I think it was just natural.
Johnson:
Were other Members reluctant? [16:00]
Roberts:
Sometimes, but the big advantage anytime Mamma would get involved in something, as they all say, is that they couldn’t say no. Bob [Robert] Livingston [Jr.] was always funny about that—“Nobody can say ‘no’ to Lindy.” She would pick and choose the things to do. The Congressional Cemetery was a prime example of something [with which] she was able really to make a difference.39 But all those beautification grants and tax breaks and all that stuff. And some of that had been working with Lady Bird, and so it was still coming out of that relationship, too.
Johnson:
What do you think would be her most enduring legacy on the historic front?
Roberts:
I don’t really know. I’m embarrassed to say that I’m not that aware of all the things she’s done on it.
Johnson:
What is your personal perspective on your mother’s career in Congress? Both as her daughter and then also as a congressional correspondent?
Roberts:
As a congressional correspondent, it was pretty much what I’ve said to you. She really was very, very effective. She was, actually—I remember Steny Hoyer saying this at one point because he was on [the Committee on] Appropriations—she’s the most powerful woman in Congress. And that was true, and nobody knew it, which was very interesting. I remember sitting in the gallery at one point—and she hardly ever made floor speeches but occasionally would when it was something she had to deal with because she continued to work behind the scenes—and some young woman sitting next to me, not knowing we were related, said, “That woman is such an anachronism.” Just having no notion of the power.
And I always felt bad for her that I was a correspondent because there were lots of pieces of legislation that I was covering that she should have gotten more credit for and couldn’t because I was covering them. Now, when there were things that she was really front and center on, Linda Wertheimer would cover it.40
And as her daughter, I was unabashedly proud of her. And it was also very nice for me because she was right there. So I could go down to the Speaker’s Lobby, pull her off the [House] Floor and we could visit for 10 minutes; it was nice to catch up, and it wasn’t Sunday dinner, you know? She was gone for Sunday dinner; she was always in the district.
Johnson:
Do you have a favorite personal anecdote of your mother?
Roberts:
In Congress?
Johnson:
Yes.
Roberts:
Well, she tells the story about equal credit, where she tells the story of just going into the back room and inserting “sex or marital status” and then just sort of saying, “I’m sure this was an omission,” which is a great story.41 But, as I say, it was much more sort of day-in and day-out behind the scenes.
I’ll give you an example. The Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families would not have been created without her, but she did not take the chairmanship because it was terribly important to [name redacted] that he have the chairmanship. And she did that kind of thing all the time. She loved being a Smithsonian regent. Leo Ryan, who was killed in Jonestown [Guyana]—was that his name?42 I think so—came to her and said, “It’s really important to my district that I have that. Will you give it to me?” And she would do it. I mean can you think of any other Member—any male Member—of Congress who would do either of those [20:00] things? Her basic view was “get the job done.” And whatever it takes to get the job done, that’s what I’ll do.
Johnson:
Who do you think had a greater impact on your ideas on politics? Your mother or your father?
Roberts:
My sister used to always say, when I want to do things directly I look at my father as a model and when I want to do things indirectly, I look at mother. And there’s a lot of truth to that. I’m more indirect than my sister was, but that’s because I’m not a politician. I’m not in politics. She had to be more out there.
Johnson:
You mentioned during your first interview that you initially resisted covering Congress. Can you explain your reasons for that reluctance?
Roberts:
Because I had been here all my life and I had grown up in Congress, I resisted coming back to Washington. I wanted to stay abroad. I thought it was interesting; it was eye-opening. I was getting good at it. I thought coming back here was dying. I knew I’d never move again. I was really a pain in the neck about it. That’s an understatement. {laughter} And so I sure as heck wasn’t going to come back here and go up to the Capitol. And I was at a stage of life—my children were seven and nine—where I was very taken with what was going on in schools and what was going on for women’s lives and all that, so that was the stuff I wanted to write about, and I had fun writing about that stuff.
But very soon, the Panama Canal treaties starting being debated—I mean really soon after I started working at NPR—and we were covering them live. For the first time, there was live coverage out of the Senate, and so it was all hands on deck, essentially.43 And so I started filling in there, and then the ’78 campaign came, and Linda Wertheimer, who’s really a very, very dear friend, said to the editors, “How about ‘born-in-the-boiler-room over here?’” {laughter} And so I started doing stories on the campaign, and then it just sort of fell into place.
But I didn’t go full time to the Hill until after the 1980 election, when WETA started putting on the television program, “The Lawmakers.” Paul Duke and Linda [Wertheimer] and I were co-anchoring it.44 And in order to do that, I had to be at the Hill full time. We, basically, at that point—Linda and I would go back and forth—but we basically divided it House and Senate, with me doing the House and her doing the Senate.
Johnson:
Was the Panama Canal your first story as a correspondent?
Roberts:
I don’t think so, no, not as a correspondent.
Johnson:
Do you remember what your first one was?
Roberts:
You mean from the Hill?
Johnson:
Yes.
Roberts:
Oh, maybe it was. I don’t know.
Johnson:
You mentioned in the last interview why you didn’t have a political career, but why did you choose journalism?
Roberts:
I didn’t. It just happened. I was just traveling around the country and the world after my husband, and it was easier to do journalism than anything else. And I had always written. I had always been a good writer and liked writing. It turned out, I was also a good reporter. I liked talking to people and learning what they had to say. But I didn’t have some decision, some epiphany moment.
Johnson:
How do you think your personal history and your connection with the institution assisted you in your job as a correspondent? [24:00]
Roberts:
Immensely. Absolutely immensely. I knew things I didn’t know I knew. I also knew that people like the doormen knew a lot more than freshmen Members of Congress, so I had better sources than most people. I knew that the people in the carryout knew when the adjournment would be. There was the famous story of “When is Congress going to adjourn? When Mrs. McCormack [wife of Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts] packs her hats.” I knew stuff like that. So I was able to get all kinds of information that nobody could figure out how I was getting. And it was because I grew up there.
And as I say, I knew things, like the vote on the previous question. I didn’t even know I knew that, but I knew that. And normally you have to just sit down with someone and explain it. I mean, it’s a ridiculous notion, the vote on the previous question. {laughter} Explaining it to America is always a treat. But I knew that. I had grown up with those words around the dinner table.
Johnson:
Do you think this in any way served as a hindrance for you, the fact that you did have that connection?
Roberts:
Sure. I think that there were Republicans that thought, initially, “How can she possibly be fair?” But they heard my work, and as soon as they heard my work they felt that I was fair. And Democrats thought that I was bending over backwards to be fair, all too fair! I remember one point, Barbara Kennelly said to me, “Are you a Democrat?” I said, “I’m a reporter.” And she said, “Oh…”45 {laughter} You know? So, sure, it had problems. But it also helped. There were people that understood that I cared about the institution and there were people…Tip [Thomas] O’Neill was the Speaker when I started covering Congress, and I’d known him since I was a child, and he also felt somewhat beholden to my family for having become Majority Leader, so that was helpful. {laughter}
Johnson:
Do you think you faced any unrealistic expectations because of your connection? That people thought that, “Well, Cokie will know. She’ll know how to get an answer to this question.”
Roberts:
No. No, I think the main thing was the Republican thing. I think I did know how to get the answers to most of the questions. And the things that I couldn’t get the answers to, nobody could have gotten the answer. I remember saying about some bill—and I can’t even remember what it was—but saying to my editor, “I can’t figure out what the truth is.” And he said, “Boy, that’s a high standard!” {laughter} But nobody could. It was one of those things where it was just a mess, one of those pieces of legislation where you couldn’t tell who was doing what for political reasons and whether they really meant it. It was like that. I think that on procedural things, those were the kinds of things that people expected me to know. And if I didn’t know, I knew how to find out.
Johnson:
What was it like being a correspondent when your mother was such a big political player at the time?
Roberts:
Well, it was great. As I said, I think it was harder on her, but since she was so willing not to take credit, it made it somewhat easier. It would have been very difficult if my father had been—I mean, I couldn’t have done it [28:00] if my father had been alive and Majority Leader. But I think it was very nice. She was very available. She would never tell me anything. She was disgustingly discreet, so I never learned things from her. And that might have been an issue, too. Again, more for her than for me. Where people probably thought she was telling me things, and she wasn’t. She was a terribly good secret-keeper, which really is annoying.
Johnson:
Did you have to shy away from stories? You mentioned that Linda would have to take some.
Roberts:
Yeah, there were times when there were stories in which it would have been inappropriate for me to do. Not just because Mamma was involved, but because of previous friendships. I don’t think she was still in Congress at this point, but when Danny [Daniel] Rostenkowski got in trouble, I didn’t go near that story. He was too old a friend.46
Johnson:
Well, besides the fact that your mother was there and what you just talked about, what other challenges did you face as a correspondent?
Roberts:
Congressional kid? I think there were some other journalists who thought that I had undue access, which, again, was not true. So they were somewhat hostile. There was actually a funny story of one journalist who is still very much around, who said, “It’s terrible. Steve Roberts of the New York Times is having an affair with that reporter from National Public Radio and they’re both married.” Did you catch on, our last names are both Roberts? {laughter} So it wasn’t just that Mamma was there. Steve was there, and his brother, Glenn, was working for Norm Mineta, and of course my brother was all over the place. And then our son was a Page, and then our daughter worked for the Congressional Women’s Caucus. I mean they were all over the place! {laughter}
Johnson:
Did you face any obstacles, during the 1970s especially, but into the ’80s because you were a woman working on the Hill?
Roberts:
No. I certainly faced obstacles as a woman in journalism, but they were more obstacles in terms of getting hired and promoted rather than in terms of people that I was covering or interviewing. And I think that has everything to do with the fact that politicians will talk to anybody. I’ve always joked that if you walked in with a microphone, and you were polka-dotted with three heads, that they’d say, “Sit down, have a cup of coffee, or would you like three?” That that’s what they cared about. They cared about the initials after your name—NPR, ABC, you know. They didn’t care about your sex or anything else, really. I always joked that to walk around the Capitol with a microphone was like a weapon. “Down, boy! Down!” And there were all the jokes, you know. “What’s the most dangerous place in the Capitol? Between Phil Gramm and a camera light.” “What has two legs and is attracted to light? Newt Gingrich.”
Johnson:
How has the reporting of Congress changed since you first started in the 1970s?
Roberts:
I think that it is—with the exception of a couple of newspapers and NPR—it’s deteriorated a lot. It was already on the way, but it is hardly ever covered as an institution. It is covered in opposition to the White House or when there’s scandal. That’s the only institutional thing that’s [32:00] ever covered. So just the day-in and day-out of legislation, by major media, is very rarely covered. But there are now, as with the rest of American culture and politics, there are now specialty newspapers and magazines that do a wonderful job. And the Web. I mean I think Politico and Roll Call and The Hill and all that, the proliferation—and of course Congressional Quarterly—with the proliferation of all that, you really can find out what’s going on in Congress.
Johnson:
Why do you think this change has occurred, in your opinion, of deterioration?
Roberts:
I think the coverage of government as a whole has lessened, and it has to do with focus groups that tell news executives that that’s not what people want to know about. It was also easier in the days before graphics and the ability to set up a satellite any place you were and get live on the air. If you were looking for some way to fill a half hour of nightly news, you could go to a hearing on the Hill and there was a good three minutes. Now, first of all, any piece is about a minute fifteen, and, secondly, you can cover anything from anywhere in the world live, and you can fill in information that you don’t have pictures to cover with graphics or historic footage.
People talk about the shrinking sound bite, but the truth is if you read a newspaper and time a quotation in the newspaper—which I have now done, many times, with a stopwatch—you’ll find that most quotations take about nine to 11 seconds to read. And that is about what a sound bite is on television. And people bemoan that there’s no longer the 30-second sound bite. Well, the 30-second sound bite was there because there was nothing else to put in that picture. Now, you can do a graphic that says—which is really much clearer—that will say, you know, 10 percent of the people will benefit from this, 30 percent of the people will have no impact, 10 percent of the people will find themselves negatively affected by this. And that used to require somebody to say it because there was no other way for the journalist to convey it. So a lot of the changes have to do with the changes in technology.
Johnson:
You’ve had the opportunity to work for NPR and ABC. How would you compare these two experiences?
Roberts:
They’re very similar. The big difference is time. People are always assuming there’s some big difference in commercial versus non-commercial broadcasting, and there isn’t. The big difference—I mean, not in terms of the stories you cover or how you cover—as I say, the big difference is time. My average piece from the Hill for NPR would be four and a half minutes, and my average piece for ABC would be a minute fifteen. That is a difference.
Johnson:
What do you think the benefits are to having both public news outlets and then larger media corporations also covering Congress?
Roberts:
I think the benefits are just to have Congress covered. I think the broadcast, the networks were the only people covering Congress for a very long time, and newspapers, and as I say, now having NPR—NPR is really [36:00] the best place to get broadcast coverage of Congress by far. But I don’t think that there’s a difference, again, in terms of how you approach it. I just think it’s a difference in how much coverage you have. I mean the broadcast—the people who are doing it for the broadcast networks—are doing a very good job. They’re all good reporters, and they cover it constantly. I mean, I have e-mails all day long of what’s going on on the Hill, and I know how it works. They’re at every committee, at every stakeout, you know, pulling Members off the floor and interviewing them. The actual reporting going on is very good. What makes it to the air is another question altogether. With the Web sites, though, it’s better, because you can put much more up on the Web.
Johnson:
So you think that’s [the Web] made an improvement?
Roberts:
Yes, I do.
Johnson:
According to the Congressional Directory, you served on the Executive Committee of Correspondents for the House Radio-TV Gallery.
Roberts:
Forever.
Johnson:
Can you describe this committee and give some background for people that don’t know what it does?
Roberts:
The Congress and the press galleries—the print press, the radio-TV, and the periodical, and then the photographers—have this very odd relationship because we occupy space in the Capitol which obviously belongs to the Congress—well, belongs to the American people but good luck with that one—and the staff is paid for by the Congress, and yet it is this funny position because the Congress doesn’t really want to be in the position of making the rules for the press or of hiring and firing the staff for the press. So it is this odd mixture of relationships where the staff officially works for the Clerk [of the House] or the Secretary of the Senate, but the Committee of Correspondents is elected by the correspondents, the accredited correspondents to the Congress, and that committee is responsible for hiring and firing the staff and for accrediting members of the press. And it, by and large, works. There are times when it all falls apart. There are times when Congress says, “Not so fast.” That did happen with the Voice of America; there was a whole brouhaha about it because the rules of the radio and TV gallery say that you can’t be a government agent and paid by the government, or a lobbyist and all of that, and the Voice of America is obviously paid by the government and the Congress essentially said, “We don’t care what the rules say. You’re credentialing them.” So, occasionally, these things break down. But by and large, it works. The bigger problem these days is within the committees themselves and I, thankfully, have not had to do it for awhile. But deciding who’s a journalist is not easy with blogs and all that.
Johnson:
Were you the first woman to chair the committee?
Roberts:
I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I don’t know. It was terribly important—first of all, it was good citizenship, you know, within the industry, to do that. But it was also terribly important to NPR to have that voice because, at the time, we were a small news organization that was battling the big boys. That’s not the case anymore, but that was the case at the time, and so it was very important for us to have a seat at the table. [40:00]
Johnson:
How closely did you work with the House Radio-TV Gallery staff?
Roberts:
Very, very closely. As I say, first of all, we hired and fired. Actually there was one hysterical moment where there was a woman on the House staff—just in terms of the hiring and firing—who we wanted to get a good raise to. He [House Officer who oversaw her position] thought it was too big a raise, and he was saying, “I know all you TV people get big salaries, but that’s too big a raise.” And actually, the raise that I was promoting for her was more than I was making. And so there was this whole question of how did you deal with it? And she really did—and the steps and all that, it was right. She was right there and somebody had left and it was just …It was one of these, why am I having this fight? She’s going to make more than I am; it’s taking all this time; it’s awful! And so there was a very clear set of what you did under these circumstances, which is you appealed to the Speaker. And so we set up a meeting with Tip and Gary Hymel was his [administrative assistant]…Gary had worked for Daddy, and so we go in, and it’s [name redacted] and the superintendent of the gallery [Tina Tate] and Gary and Tip and me.47 Tip doesn’t say—there’s no conversation. There’s no conversation at all about the issue at hand. It’s just Tip saying, “So, [name redacted], you know, I used to babysit for Cokie, did you know that?” Which is of course total fiction, but he used to say it all the time. “You know that, [name redacted], right? Remember, Cokie, when your dad used to have those parties and oh, God, Eddie Boland and I sat in the car, and we couldn’t get the car out because of the traffic, and we noticed that the help was stealing the booze, and we looked at each other and said, ‘Oh, what the hell, let’s go take the booze.’ Lobbyists are paying for it anyway!” So, message delivered. Problem solved. [Name redacted] got her raise. {laughter} Talk about indirection.
And so we worked constantly with the staff. Sometimes it would be difficult because the staff would be in a very difficult position because a committee chairman would be saying, “We’re not going to let cameras in there.” I mean it’s their playpen. Or “We’ll only let a pool camera in,” which now is common but, at the time, was a big deal. I mean, we’re talking before C-SPAN and all of that, and so you would have to get in fights with people. Talk about no-win for me. I’d get in fights with people who I might be applying for jobs with, and it could be unpleasant. But you really did have to carry the water as a committee member and particularly as the president.
Johnson:
What are your recollections of Tina Tate, the longtime director?48
Roberts:
I actually hired Tina. I was the chairman who hired Tina. She actually [44:00] called me on, I guess, the 20th anniversary and said, “Thanks!” She’s
wonderful. She’s a very smart, very able, accommodating person who really tried desperately to make it all work for everybody, to make it work for the correspondents and to make it work for the Congress. Being in that position can be very tough because you really do have two sets of bosses. She walked that line much better than most. There were others, who will go nameless—this was truer on the Senate side—who really seemed to think that their job was to keep us from covering Congress.
Johnson:
Were there other offices that you worked closely with as a correspondent?
Roberts:
Yes, all the leadership offices. The Speaker’s Office, the Minority Leader’s Office—particularly when Bob [Robert] Michel was Minority Leader—the Whip’s Office, the Majority Leader’s Office, and the Minority Whip’s Office, absolutely. I used to make the rounds of those offices constantly. I knew exactly when the Persian Gulf War was going to break out, having done a little—I just sort of walked around those offices and I came back to the NPR booth and said, “I’m not leaving. This is happening tonight.”
Johnson:
Did it get more difficult, as time went on, to use some of the sources, even just the doormen you mentioned?
Roberts:
They retired! It was rotten of them! But no. As long as they were there, it was fine.
Johnson:
With the change and less people staying around Congress and the increase in partisanship—did that…?
Roberts:
Sure. I mean, that’s when I left. I just couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want to do that.
Johnson:
What other changes in the institution did you witness? Some of the more subtle changes that people on the outside might not be privy to?
Roberts:
Well, the big change is that Members aren’t here. Did I talk about that before when we met? When I was growing up, Congress was here, and then Congress was home. It took two days to get to New Orleans. So when they were here, everybody was together. So families spent a lot of time together. Parents were on PTAs together, and everybody went to church together. There were lots of sort of activities for congressional families and particularly even within state delegations. So there was a tremendous sense of camaraderie and closeness—a real family sense. That’s just gone. There have been many political-science tomes on how people vote, but really, if it wasn’t something important to your district or your party, the way you voted was your buddy asked you to. Not that there aren’t that many things that aren’t important to your district or your party, but there always are some. Your buddy was likely to be the person who you saw at your kids’ school, rather than somebody you just knew through politics.
Johnson:
Based on your reporting on Congress and also your impressions of your mother, how do you think the role of women changed in Congress? Both Members and also support staff?
Roberts:
Oh, enormously. Just enormously. I remember looking around one day at [48:00] a—I think it was Social Security—during the Social Security fix that [Robert (Bob)] Dole and [Daniel] Moynihan finally put together at the end of the session in, what was it, ’83, I guess, probably, but at any rate—looking around the table and behind every one of those men, literally standing behind, was a woman. All the experts were women. And that was a huge change. I actually tried to do a piece about it, and they wouldn’t let me. The women wouldn’t let me because it was no-win for them. If I said, “Carolyn Weaver is really Bob Dole on Social Security,” that didn’t work for her.49 But that change really started to happen in the ’70s, and you saw it, and now it’s enormous. And some of it has to do with education of women and all that. Some of it has to do with pay scale. You can get better women for those salaries than you can men. That is a huge part of it.
In terms of women in Congress, again, enormous difference because you’ve hit a critical mass. When Mamma went, I think there were 16 total, and now if you add in the Delegates, I think we hit 70, don’t we?
Johnson:
More than that.
Roberts:
Are you counting Senate and House?
Johnson:
Right, Senate and House.50
Roberts:
So that’s huge. I kept trying to explain to people while I was out on book tour while Hillary [Clinton] was still viable, you know, having the Speaker of the House [Nancy Pelosi] as a woman is a very big deal.51 I mean, you understand this, but America doesn’t really understand this is a coequal branch of government, and the head of it is a woman! It’s a constitutional office. This is big. So it’s an enormous difference. And there are some things that they continue to do—I’ll separate the House and Senate here—self-consciously in the House. There are an enormous amount of things they continue to do self-consciously as women in the Senate. Going from two to 16 is big. They’re well aware of it, and now that’s going to be a big loss to lose Kay Hutchison because she was one of the best at this.52 Their ability to work across party lines, particularly on issues of economic interest to women, is basically it these days. I mean they’re the bastion of bipartisanship. And part of is that they just want to get together and get away from those men. The testosterone-free zone, please!
In the House, it’s less true, but that’s because the partisanship in the House is just so fierce that it’s really hard to do it, but you still see some of it in the House. Again, losing somebody like Deborah Pryce will be a real loss because she was, again, somebody who was really good at it.53
But I think that they still, and again we have data to support this—the Center on American Women in Politics at Rutgers has done this over the years now with women in state legislatures.54 They are less partisan and less ideological than the men are and will cross party lines on, again, [52:00] mainly on issues that affect women, children, and families, but on other issues as well. It was interesting, for instance—and they were never able to measure it at the national legislature [level] because there weren’t enough women to make it scientifically sound, and I mean we can always report it and anecdotally talk about it and all that, but the first Congress when they were able to do it was after the ’92 election, and you saw it immediately on the assault weapons ban, where you saw Republican women crossing to vote for the assault weapons ban, and, similarly, on welfare reform, Republican women insisting that child support enforcement be federalized. I don’t care what the ideology is, the reality is that men go across state lines, and then their children don’t get money. So it’s that practicality that women bring to the table, much more so than men do. They just live different lives, you know?
Johnson:
Were there any women in particular, besides your mother of course, that you admired?
Roberts:
Oh, lots of them. Pat [Patricia] Schroeder, certainly. Olympia Snowe is somebody I admire a lot. Susan Collins, both of them [Maine Senators]. As I say, Kay Hutchison has been a world-class Senator. Barbara Mikulski is a terrific Senator. Dianne Feinstein is a great Senator. Hillary Clinton is a very good Senator.55 I think Nancy Pelosi is doing a good job. I think she’s doing quite a good job. Barbara Kennelly was a good Member of the House. I mean, lots of them. If I had a book in front of me, I could go down the list. You hate to name names because you leave people out, but [there are] lots of women I admire.
Johnson:
What advice would you offer a new journalist that was starting a career covering Congress?
Roberts:
To get to know people as casually as you can. My first advice would be, don’t come in with some kind of anti-Congress attitude, which is what I think most people do. Most people think that Members of Congress are just out for their own personal gain, whether it be illegal or whether it be political, that everything they do, they just do to get re-elected. I think that attitude is pervasive among reporters, and I think it’s very unfortunate and unfair. I think most Members of Congress, by and large, are good public servants trying to do what they think is right by their lights, for their country and their constituents. I think approaching it from that perspective is a much more useful way to understand what’s going on and to cover it fairly. And to also understand that the Founders had a reason for creating this institution. It should be there. And so I think that that is also very useful.
But then just going down to the Speaker’s Lobby or the President’s Room and pulling people off during the vote and talking to them about what’s going on. Don’t try to do all your work through staff. A lot of people do that. I think that’s a mistake because sometimes staff doesn’t know. Sometimes they have their own agendas, and I think that, also, you can [56:00] get it much more on the record from a Member of Congress, often on tape. I think that that’s a very, very useful thing to do—just go down and get to know them. They will come talk to you. You are a reporter.
Johnson:
Did you find it was more difficult to access Members themselves, though, because staff was increasing, especially on the House side, the hierarchy?
Roberts:
Not when you just go to the floor. The staff isn’t there. That’s the joy of it. Speaker’s Lobby—you’re there and they’re not. You just say to the doorman, “Get me Congressman So-and-so.” I used to have what I called Speaker’s Lobby— whatever this thing is—part of your arm because Members would come through and politicians are so tactile that it’s just horrible. So that I’d stand at the door waiting to see who was there to get somebody off to talk about some piece of legislation or whatever, and they’d walk through the doors, and they’d each grab me right here (around my upper arm). They’d say, “Hi, Cokie. Hi, Cokie. Hi, Cokie!” And I’d have bruises, literally, around my arm. Speaker’s Lobby bruises.
Johnson:
So rather than a handshake, you had a bruised arm.
Roberts:
Right, because you know, they were just walking through. But that is the way to do it, is to not be shy about that. Just go in and talk to them. You know, when you’re doing that, while you’re waiting, you have conversations with the doorpeople, and sometimes you learn something there, too.
Johnson:
Since you have the unusual circumstance of being the child of two former Members, if you were to offer advice to someone who was running for Congress, what would that be?
Roberts:
You mean about serving in Congress or about winning the election?
Johnson:
About serving in Congress.
Roberts:
I guess it would be similar to what I would say to the reporter. Have some respect for the institution. Have respect for the institution, not just your party. And listen—there’s a concept. Stop talking and listen. {laughter} Listen to people…I mean, what’s been so detrimental with the drawing of congressional districts to pick your own voters, is that people have no reason, politically, to talk to anybody other than people just like themselves, much less listen to anybody other than people just like themselves. And that is a real disservice, and it’s why things get drawn out because eventually you’re going to have to come to a compromise that serves the whole nation. You’d be better off if you sort of started out that way and started listening to people about what really would be of use to their districts or the people of their color or whatever it is. I think spending some time across the aisle listening would be a very useful thing.
Johnson:
Is there anything else you want to add about either your parents’ careers or your career that wasn’t brought up today?
Roberts:
I do think that business about districting is terribly important. I think that that’s one of the great negative events of the last 20 years. And, of course, there’s always been funny lines drawn. Before gerrymandering, even in the first congressional election, Patrick Henry drew the lines for James Madison’s seat to look like fingers of a hand, and in each finger were the people that were against the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists, were in [60:00] each of these fingers. And James Monroe, who at that point was an Anti-Federalist—he later switched—was running against Madison. George Washington says to Madison, “You’re going to lose. I’ve been down there. You’re going to lose.” And Madison says, “What? The father of the Constitution?” And Washington says, “Yeah, that’s your basic problem.” So Madison goes and discovers in fact he is going to lose. And so he promised a Bill of Rights, and he got elected, and the First Congress convenes, and he says, “Now we’ve got to do a Bill of Rights,” and everybody says, “Are you out of your mind? We’ve just gone through this ratification battle, and we’ve got all this other stuff to do; we don’t have a currency; we don’t have anything.” And he says, “I promised it! It’s a campaign promise!” So districting problems do have good effects, but since then, they haven’t been so good.
I think that what this business of picking your voters—first of all, is so anti-democratic—it does a few very, very bad things. It creates a far more partisan chamber because you only worry about getting attacked from the true believers of your own party in a primary rather than a general election. Look what just happened to Chris Cannon as a perfect example of that.
You do only represent people who are just like you, so that your desire or even ability to compromise is far less that it used to be.
I’ll give you an example. Bob Livingston used to represent a district that was 30- percent black. So he voted for fair housing, he voted for Martin Luther King holiday, he voted for a variety of things that were not the things that people whose representative in the state legislature was David Duke expected him to do. But he could explain to the yahoos in his district that he had to do it because of the black constituency when it was actually stuff that he wanted to do. Then it was redistricted to be lily-white conservative Republicans, and, you know, it’s almost impossible for that person—it was [David] Vitter, I don’t know who it is now—to do that.56 You just have to be fighting your constituency all the time to do something that would be a sort of national interest thing to do. And that’s true on both sides. It just makes legislating and governing much, much harder.
The President [George W. Bush], actually, was talking to me—I don’t often get to say, “The President was talking to me about it,” {laughter}—when I went with him to meet the Pope. We were talking about immigration, and he’s, you know, he’s basically just furious about immigration, about the failure of the bill, and he said, “It’s all about the way districts are drawn.” And it is fundamentally anti-democratic because the whole idea is you get to throw these people out. In 2006, I must say I was heartened, not for partisan reasons, but I thought they had drawn the districts so cleverly that you’d never be able to register that vote of no confidence, which an off-year election is—it’s either a vote of confidence or no confidence—I was afraid that that had been taken away from the voters, which would really be different from what the Founders had in mind. So the fact that even with that, you were able to change parties and register that vote was heartening, but it’s much harder than it should be. [64:00]
Johnson:
Is there anything else that you wanted to add?
Roberts:
Were there questions on here that…Well, the technological changes are interesting. The first technological change that made a difference in the House was electronic roll calls because when it took 45 minutes to call the roll, they had far fewer roll calls and many more teller votes.57 By making it easier to call the roll, it opened the door for all of these interest groups to have votes just for the purpose of having a report card to go back to the district. Basically meaningless votes, but they’re meaningful in terms of raising money and having these bogus report cards. So that was the first technological change. Particularly the vote on the [House] Journal. What an easy way to run against someone. “He was absent! He didn’t vote on the Journal!” Please. But it works. So everybody has to show up for a Journal vote which, from a reporter’s perspective, was great because they were all right there. So that was the first technological change.
Then, C-SPAN covering the House was such a technological change that the Senate really couldn’t withstand it. Mainly for ego reasons. I remember Bob Byrd saying, “The House is becoming more famous than we are! And we are the upper body.” Then, with getting into every committee, that means that everything can be covered everywhere all the time. That has plusses and minuses from the perspective of being a correspondent because everybody expects you to be sort of riding herd on all of that, and, if you’re not careful, it can make your reporting derivative. That you’re so enmeshed in all the technological stuff of, you know, there’s feeds coming in from here, there, and everywhere, and the internet is constantly updating with wire stories or whatever it is, and you’re not actually down on the ground doing the reporting because there’s so much other stuff you’re having to feed back and all that.
Every time the technology changes, it sort of has an initial impact of being difficult and then you sort of figure it out, but it can be both a blessing and a curse any time it changes. Again, I haven’t done daily reporting of Congress in a long time, so I don’t know sort of how it’s working now, but all those changes, initially, were very helpful and difficult.
Johnson:
But it didn’t change the access you were able to have with Members? [68:00]
Roberts:
No. No. No. I think one of the things that did change in terms of inside the institution—and you certainly heard about this quite explicitly—was, for instance, in leadership races, they started sort of discussing who was good on TV. And, of course, that had never been true before the pervasiveness of television in the institution, and the Sunday talk shows just sort of exacerbated that and the, of course, now with cable. Everybody has to be good on TV.
There was something else I was thinking as I was talking, but I’ve forgotten it because I’m old and senile. {laughter} Let’s see, what else is there? You know, the preserving the history of the House—aside from my mother’s concern—I think it’s wonderful what you all are doing because I remember writing a story one day about one day the electronic voting system broke down, and they did have to call the roll, and nobody knew how to call it, nobody knew how to answer it, all that. It was very funny. It was at the same time that they voted not to have a Historian of the House. Now that was for all kinds of political reasons.58 But it was sort of right there, the two things at the same time. When you don’t have any historical, institutional memory, you really do condemn yourself to fight these same fights over again, and that was certainly true in the ’80s—you kept seeing that because we kept having big classes on that and you’d just say, “Oh, God. We’ve been there, done that.”
I can’t think of anything. If you’re writing something and think of something, just call me.
Johnson:
Okay, well, thank you. Thank you very much.
Roberts:
Okay. All right.

Footnotes

  1. For information on Representative Lindy Boggs, see Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, Women in Congress, 1917–2006 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006): 500–505 and http://womenincongress.house.gov.
  2. Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson was the wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. For more on her life and time as First Lady, see Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007).
  3. “Surrogate representation” is the term used to describe the act of serving as a representative of or spokesperson for a group of persons united by gender or race and not confined to the boundaries of a congressional district or state. This representational style was prevalent among some women in Congress—particularly after the 1960s—to advance a legislative agenda important to women nationwide. To a degree, each minority group in Congress has adopted some form of “surrogate representation.”
  4. Lindy Boggs with Katherine Hatch, Washington Through a Purple Veil: Memoirs of a Southern Woman (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994): 331.
  5. The Congressional Women’s Caucus first met on April 19, 1977. For a history of the caucus, cofounded by Congresswoman Boggs, see Office of History and Preservation, Women in Congress: 546–548; Women’s Policy Inc., “The Women’s Caucus,” http://www.womenspolicy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=History_Accomplishments_Leadership (accessed 7 May 2009).
  6. In 1977, Congresswoman Boggs was one of only six women Representatives to vote for the Hyde Amendment which barred Medicaid funding of abortions. For information on the Hyde Amendments, see Edward Keynes, “Hyde Amendments,” in Donald C. Bacon et al., eds., The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress Volume 2 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995): 1088.
  7. For information on Congressmen John Lewis and Donald Payne, see Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, Black Americans in Congress, 1870–2007 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008): 714–714, 726–727.
  8. In 1969, with the help of Hale Boggs, Augustine became the first African American to receive a state district judgeship in Louisiana.
  9. For more on the 1984 election, see Lindy Boggs, Washington Through a Purple Veil: 332–333, 344; Frances Frank Marcus, “Boggs Is Re-Elected to House in Louisiana Voting,” 1 October 1984, New York Times: B11.
  10. For information on Congresswoman Boggs’ role in the preservation of the Congressional Cemetery, see “Spotlight on Congress’s Cemetery,” 2 July 1987, New York Times: A24; and for historical background on the cemetery, see “Historic Congressional Cemetery,” http://www.congressionalcemetery.org/ (accessed 7 May 2009).
  11. Linda Wertheimer worked with Cokie Roberts as a congressional correspondent for NPR. For more information on the related careers of Cokie Roberts and Linda Wertheimer, see Claudia Dreifus, “Cokie Roberts, Nina Totenberg, and Linda Wertheimer,” 2 January 1994, New York Times: SM14.
  12. To read Representative Lindy Boggs’ recollections of her part in the mark-up of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, see Boggs, Washington Through a Purple Veil: 276–279.
  13. Representative Leo Ryan of California was shot and killed on November 18, 1978, on a congressional delegation visit to Guyana to investigate allegations of abuse at an American camp of cult leader Jim Jones. For more on this tragedy, see “Representative Leo Ryan of California,” Weekly Historical Highlights, Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=222. Five years after Ryan’s death, Congress awarded the slain Congressman the Congressional Gold Medal. For a complete list of recipients, see “Congressional Gold Medal Recipients,” Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/house_history/goldMedal.html.
  14. The House began televising live coverage of the House Floor proceedings in 1979. Both the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and C-SPAN broadcast the proceedings. For more information, see “The Introduction of Televised House Proceedings,” Weekly Historical Highlights, Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=46. The Senate later followed suit, allowing live television coverage of the Senate. See “June 2, 1986, Live Television from the Senate Chamber,” Historical Minute Essays, Senate Historical Office, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/live_television.htm.
  15. For information on the television program “The Lawmakers,” see Arthur Unger, “‘The Lawmakers’—Public TV’s Eye on Congress,” 11 September 1981, Christian Science Monitor: 19.
  16. Office of History and Preservation, Women in Congress: 616–619 and http://womenincongress.house.gov.
  17. For information on Congressman Rostenkowski, see Richard E. Cohen, Rostenkowski: The Pursuit of Power and the End of Old Politics (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999).
  18. For more on Gary Hymel’s career, see Richard L. Lyons, “O’Neill’s Aide Making Career Change,” 9 May 1981, Washington Post: A4.
  19. Tina Tate served as the director of the House Radio-TV Gallery from 1981 to 2007. The Office of History and Preservation conducted four oral history interviews with Tina Tate (June 28, 2007; July 12, 2007; July 1, 2008; August, 28, 2008).
  20. During the 97th and 98th Congresses (1981–1985), Carolyn Weaver worked for the Senate Committee on Finance, chaired at the time by Senator Dole.
  21. During the 110th Congress (2007–2009), 79 women served in the House and 16 in the Senate.
  22. Hillary Clinton made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. For information on Hillary Clinton and Speaker Pelosi, see Office of History and Preservation, Women in Congress: 808–809; 896–897 and http://womenincongress.house.gov.
  23. Ibid., 842–843 and http://womenincongress.house.gov.
  24. Ibid., 898–899 and http://womenincongress.house.gov.
  25. For information on the Center for American Women and Politics, see http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/.
  26. Hillary Clinton resigned from the Senate on January 21, 2009, to become Secretary of State in the Barack Obama administration.
  27. Representative Bobby Jindal of Louisiana succeeded Vitter in the U.S. House in the 109th Congress (2005–2007). Vitter won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004.
  28. Prior to the installation of an electronic voting system in the House in 1973, the reading clerk would recite the list of Members’ names to determine whether a quorum is present or to take a vote. Teller votes—commonly used before the implementation of electronic voting—enabled Representatives to cast “aye” or “no” ballots without being recorded by name. For information on the implementation of electronic voting in the House, see “The First Electronic Vote,” Weekly Historical Highlights, Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=94.
  29. Created in 1983 in preparation for the House Bicentennial, the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives was disbanded in 1995 by Speaker Newt Gingrich.