We got in from the airport only a few minutes before we had the opportunity to learn the president's new nominee for the vice presidency. and I had been asked at the time to call the media with my reaction to That nomination which I thought I might share it with you. I told him that I thought that the anomaly. I was a respected Republican leader. How about that it been so consistently loyal to the president in recent years. I thought we really knew very little about his own position on some very fundamental constitutional questions that relate to the responsibilities of the presidency under the Constitution is use a center on questions of taking the United States into Undeclared Wars. I don't relate to the assertion of executive privilege. And which are tied to question such as impoundment. of funds for a programs enacted by the Congress I do have some idea. However it mr. Ford's position on one constitutional issue the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hi because he's been fairly in favor of restricting the enforcement of the decision of Brown versus the Board of Education. I buy handicapping or crippling the ability of the courts to enforce that decision fully. I said that I don't think he's a likely front-runner and 76 which suggest that the president had more in mind his own interests and Congressional relations. Atlantean trying to build for the future of the Republican Party And I suggested the possibility that through this nomination the president might be trying to buy some insurance against impeachment action. I might say that what was fresh in my mind. Although I didn't tell this to the media. Was it earlier this week. He had helped lead the opposition. against home rule for the District of Columbia And before that had led then they fight to sustain the president's veto of the minimum wage bill. And it wasn't too many months earlier. I have this particular recollection. That in the case. This may not be familiar to some of you but in the case of the United Nations sanctions against Rhodesia. When I wear a 5% majority white government seeks to impose its will on the 95% black African population. State Department was in favor of maintaining the sanctions, but Jerry Ford to graciously explain to me that he had the vote to violate and break the sanctions voted by the UN and because he had several steel companies in this District. This may give you some indication of the kind of person that's before the Congress now is a potential. a new vice president I suppose though In fairness is probably and Justin commented on the prospects that he's likely to be confirmed because he is one of ours is so to speak and Congress likes to confirm that someone has been elevated from their ranks. One might say on this occasion. I suppose has been a side occasionally. Another has been set another times. How did the elevation of Gerald Ford to the vice presidency May improve the from the house may improve the level in both places or perhaps the other view that at least we will consider Matt equipped for purposes of replacing the president. well in a way the possibility of impeachment which is still very much alive particularly in view of the decision of the circuit card at the president must release the tapes. Points up what I regard as start of the departure point for what I want to talk about this morning. because in my view of the Watergate Events the Watergate scandal provide, perhaps the most dramatic example of a very serious malfunctioning in the American system. The question one really must Ponder is how did a person like Nixon ever get elected in the first place his lack of Scruples have been known. Has been known for these many years since his first campaign against you're a bore. He's for a house seat in California. And which the practice of dirty tricks was widespread and then of course the similar tactics in his campaign against Helen Douglas. The second question is how could he assembles so many people around him who were so easily corrupted? Everyone who is closest to him now appears to have been. I prompted in a very serious fashion. Third question is where was the Republican Party during all this time and perhaps the most perplexing question of all why don't the American people demand that he be removed from office. What's it falled here? Like I suspect this is not so much the fall of the American people. As a system that we use through which we give the American people their choices when they go to the polls on Election Day. And that is the conjunction of the election system with our party system in the United States. It clearly did not work in our national interest. I drain the recent elections. What is produced was a person not on a dishonest? That is not only dishonest in a personal way as we find with the vice-president apparently. About a person who became president. I would ideas which attack the fundamental Liberties of our people. And since it wasn't so much Corruption of a personal nature, but Corruption of the office. He has a salt really amounted to crimes against the state. And these are precisely the kinds of crimes that are contemplated the impeachment article of the United States Constitution High crimes and misdemeanors not so much petty theft but assaults against the Integrity of the state or the Constitution or abuse of powers of the office. So this is what the system has produced for us that we have today. I'd like to talk now for a moment about where are the system of Elections? and party find themselves in our quest for social justice in this country. Alaska's baby. Let me identify five main areas in which we fall short measurably short until social justice to the American people first in the mail distribution of income. A mail distribution which finds the very poor in large numbers and with a very few possessing a large share of the national income. The mail distribution which is aggravated by in an equitable tax system. I think a second failure social justice. Can be found in The Chronic unemployment and chronic underemployment with it's particularly harsh consequences for those whose education for those whose social setting? have made it more difficult to find a place in the working force of this country Third I would mention the last bit of leave the failure of access to a VPN access to healthcare. And in the way, this is unique because why we can talk about lack of housing. We leased apparently are prepared to accept some inequality of housing. But when it comes to health care, we are committed. I believe to the idea that regardless of income. The level of healthcare should be the same and this clearly is not happening in society today. enforce the pattern issues that come under quality of life environment conservation related issues of energy Southside only put it 50 cuz I want to talk about it and some greater length discriminatory patterns and society that are institutionalized. Call saying Social practices as well as in our governmental system and in our laws. These are the patterns that are for special concern to women. Patterns of discrimination that permeate the educational system from kindergarten through the graduate schools of our universities. unequal access to credit clear discrimination in employment and discriminatory provisions of Pensions and Social Security laws and in the uneven application of protective laws such as the minimum wage and so on. These are the objectives I think in a general way and one could make the list much longer, but I put these five issues before I go to illustrate some of the shark Cummings of American society. Now if one were to draw Mark these out on a chart as I was going to do what I've given up on that and then you might put underneath the systems that are designed to affect the change and you would that of course put down at least local government state government the federal government and I would add to given the nature of our world today the International System. Because it's abundantly clear that state and local and federal governments can no longer be looked at as isolated from the International System which profoundly affects what happens to us in our daily lives whether the rising bread cost because of a shortage of grain. Resulting from some major transactions overseas or are tenuous hold on energy sources in the Middle East or the breakdown of crater monetary systems. Well, how are these systems working? in relation to the Quest for social justice And I think it's fair to say that they're not working very well. Local government is fragmented lacks resources. You know the interesting thing about local government. Is it almost every other major metropolitan area broad one finds not just the central government of a major city, but you find that the government has been decentralized into sub areas of city government something that's not found in American Urban Administration. I think state government is improving. It's interesting to watch the social Innovation that's beginning to take place at the state level given the limitation of resources, which they face. Attorney the federal system is working very very poorly. One looks not only at the performance of the president about the performance of Congress. And the erratic funding of programs of people have been promised money for the to run. Are they the dismantling of programs such as the war on poverty because of President happens to disagree with a philosophy. The inability of Congress to come to grips with Central issues filed of the welfare of our economy. Finally, I tell you that the International System is not working very well, but you know this but the cartoon I think it was in the morning paper illustrating the importance of the security Council. Is it take off on their inability to act in the Middle East? NATO which is our principal Regional treaty system looking increasingly outmoded as it refuses to live up to its own commitments. a free government in the expansion of Liberties by the maintenance of Greece with in the NATO system And our difficulties in trade and finance. and in other areas what's of the systems are not working very well. And we're not producing that out of the system is the kind of remedial changes to achieve social justice. Which I think all of us want to happen. Well, then if you put on that chart down at the top these objectives for improve social justice and below that the governmental systems which have the capability if they're properly organized and led to change that then underneath that you would put the election system because that's the way in which people come to power in the governmental system and below that the party system. Because it's the party system that is the beginning and most of American life with respect to who gets selected to run for office. The kind of issues we which the candidate is identified. And the kind of discipline if you will that emerges once a party succeeds and gaining office. And one has to say that is you look at that bottom layer where things have to begin. That we are really in our most serious trouble of all of the weaknesses that I've described. I said often before but I'll say it again because of my deep belief in this that the Achilles heel in American society. Today is the weakness of American politics CM capacity of our political systems. To produce the kind of leadership and effective Direction in our governmental system that is causing us to fall short in our quest for social justice while some of the problems are evident the problems of financing. When one reads the stories of the financing of the last presidential campaign, I think the figures now or reaching close to 60 million dollars on the part of the Republicans the ease with which that money was collected and disposed of Beyond anybody's knowledge one has to accept the proposition that this could be nothing else but corrupting. The car sits highlighted with this one incident of this enormous amount of money hundreds of thousands of dollars that came from the dairy cooperatives within a few days of a reversal of federal policy on milks apart prices. The nominating system that we use for president. It doesn't work or it doesn't work very well. I would direct your attention to the fact that if you look at the polls today to see who are the frontrunners and either political party you find its those who buy some accident some Quirk of Fate some prior political event are already well known to the American public. And people are outstanding qualities of leadership like our own Senator Mondale and others are registering one or 2% name recognition and therefore support in the American public. Well, this wouldn't be so serious if we had a party system for nominating presidential nominees, but we don't. One of the unfortunate consequences of the delegates reform efforts of 1969 and 70. What's the fact that states the parties took the easy way out not something we had wanted to happen and proliferated public presidential primaries in which the role of the political party is diminished and the roaded. Well now we have half the states with presidential primary systems. And this means that if you aren't well known publicly. Or unless you become associated with a major causes happened with Senator McGovern a major movement of those who were Souls turned off by the present system. So unhappy about the continuation of the war that they became a movement in themselves, but this is not the normal phenomenon in American politics in a sense when that kind of movement has to take birth. That means there's something already seriously wrong and we oughtn't to design a system to work on the assumption that you're always going to have this kind of major massive movement within a party. We must always make sure that that's possible recognize that in the long run will do better. If our national policies or party policies are ingested in such a fashion. The people are driven to desperation. End of the levels of concern that lead to this kind of a movement. well if we reform campaign financing. We may have solved the rivers of money flowing from private sources. But we haven't done much else and in the case of some kinds of public offices. We may have ensured that incumbents are ever more difficult to defeat. I was sent yesterday with one of the staff people of 88 who's putting together a compilation. Of all of the resources at the disposal of an incumbent member of Congress. Which come doing by virtue of holding that office, but which have enormous political consequences? Not the least of which is the Frank which allows us to mail thousands and thousands of people of pieces free every month. About the staff resources. We have all the equipment everything that goes with that office. But I'm suggesting to you as a those who focus on campaign Finance reform are on the right track, but this alone will not be enough. This will only deal with one facet of a much more deep-rooted problem. The difficulty lies not going to follow this line here a little bit with a question of who becomes the candidate in the first instance because we know that within a strong party system. Which produces strong candidates the possibilities of corruption are diminished 5.99 or perhaps even 100% It's interesting to note. For example that in the Canadian system which uses a parliamentary system with its internal party discipline. but while they worry somewhat about campaign financing limitations This is not prove to be a problem for them. They get money from corporations. Both parties do something we've prohibited but because of the role of the political party which serves as a buffer and is the primary director of votes and activities in the parliament of corruption has been either eliminated or curtail so sharply it's not seeing as the kind of problem we have here in the United States. When I suggested we go to the parliamentary system, but I'm making the part of the role of a party in producing an honest candidate beyond the reach of the normal kinds of options is a key role indeed our practice here in the state of endorsement for example is emulated and very few States across the country. If anything the practice is not to indoors and I find it an astonishing proposition that a political party that calls itself worthy of respect is unable to recommend to the public which candidate they believe to be the most qualified for election to public office. And instead they have deferred to the public primary with all of the consequences which that entails. When are we have been in our party work on two tracks over the last half-dozen years? first on the track of opening up our party system at least at the national level in the car sets with the delegates election reforms were all about the importance of that is to provide a guaranteed access by new people. And to new ideas and these are sometimes joined together and it's absolutely essential that that opening up be continued to not be lost and the efforts to re-ride party reform my own impression is that what is taking place within the Makowski commission is a reasonably acceptable program. of accommodation and compromise the leaves most of the things with which were concerned in place, but the second track is the effort to build or restructure than that of the National Party itself. As all of you know, the national party at at the Miami convention voted to hold a conference in 1974. Which was directed. To adopt a party Charter a constitution if you well for the Democratic Party. Which we hope will do more than the institutionalize the present week system and will put in place some new institutions and capabilities, which will begin to overcome the weakness of our party system. What's wrong with the party system? Nationally? What is you know, it's been really a confederation to 50 state parties. This is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that up until this last year every state regardless of size had two people on a National Committee which was endowed with whatever residual Authority existed between national conventions. There has been no party Constitution. The National Committee exists only by virtue of the fact that at the end of every National Convention. The resolution is passed saying we hereby recreate the National Committee to run Affairs until the next convention. One wonders what might have happened if they forgot the pass that resolution. Problem in this is a symptom of weaknesses that are National parties are dominated by incumbent presidents. One of the best parade in Democratic party Affairs came out of the leadership of Paul Butler in the 1950s. He had a vision of a strong party that reached out and began to involve people in all kinds of important ways. And then came the election of President Kennedy. Who was raised in the state of Massachusetts, which is although a liberal state? Does not have a strong party tradition. One of the consequences why is that instead of maintaining a strong party system we found at the national party was downgraded denigrated the programs and practices that have been developed under Paul Butler. We're left to die. President Johnson continue the same practice President Johnson literally ran the National Committee out of the White House Well, that isn't the tradition of a strong those should not be the Traditions are practices of a strong political party a public office holder is elected not by a party. He's elected by a constituency at large in many cases are friends in the Congress. For example of two Republican or independent support and I don't critics criticize him for that. But the party has its own responsibilities and it ought to have a decent respectful arm's length relationship with incumbent office holders of its own party and it ought to act as a pressure group on that office holder. And I should tell that office holder when the party thinks that he's wrong or that he should do something different or that he should move on some new program. We need to build that kind of relationship into our national party between the national party and incumbent president. This is true in most other countries around the world that is in the Western countries, but there are strong parties and you can have a strong political leader about there's got to be a difference and the relationship between them of strength and respect. Well, I know our national party today there is nothing going on on the issues one would think for example the given the present crisis and American confidence that our national party would have a committee working on campaign Finance reform. It has no such thing underway. It did a point a policy conference. Of what a public officials all of them had their own platforms and as one might have protected and I think perhaps says the national chairman wanted is done virtually nothing. Well, we need a strong National party, but there are those who don't want it. There's always think that the weak national party system serves the interest as they perceive them of their constituents a better than a strong party. I don't know what's going to come out of this fight to build a strong party if I had my way about it given the present state of polarization in our party. It would be to fight at least for the institutionalization of the capacity to make further change in our party without having to go through major crises. Now changing our party has to take place at the quadrennial nominating convention and trying to get the attention of delegates to think about party organization when they're fighting for a presidential nomination is just absolutely impossible. So the one thing we need above all else has to institutionalize a party body with capacitive power to make change between these quadrennial nominating convention so that we can begin to work on further reform not only the party. But in related areas, for example the problem of how we nominate presidential candidates. Let me just conclude them by making this final observation. The issues and a concerned with issues generate the interests of people. This causes candidates to come forward with a deep commitment to social justice. This then leads to good elections and success of the polls and builds the image of the party. Understand permits these concerns with issues to be translated into public policy. You can have a political party that just wants to win elections, but I'll tell you as sure as I'm standing here today that political party won't last very long. There used to be a day when you can keep a party going on patronage, but that is no longer true. And the only common Bond or cement that now holds a party together at the tracks Publix apart is a demonstrated capacity to deal with new issues deal effectively with all these shoes in a way that brings about the growth of public confidence in that political party. I'd like to just close with a comment by Dave brother and his book About two party system. He said our governmental system is not working because the political parties are not working. If we engage ourselves in politics and particularly concern ourselves with the workings of those strangely neglected institutions, they political parties. We may find the instrument of self-renewal in our hands. Thank you very very much.