OUR COMMUNITY
“WE NEED LEADERSHIP IN 
CONGRESS WHO ARE WILLING TO 
WORK TOGETHER AND LIKE EACH 

OTHER EVEN IF THEY DISAGREE.”

— SEN. CARL LEVIN

Q&A from page 13

14 | APRIL 1 • 2021 

were the first Jews to arrive in 
Birmingham in the 1890s, where 
they started a little store at Maple 
and Woodward that eventually 
became four stores.
While I found all that fasci-
nating, this is really a book about 
how government, principally the 
Senate, works, and what needs to 
be done to make it work better. 
Levin does provide a concise and 
mostly interesting history of the 
major issues of our time, espe-
cially the ones in which he played 
a role, from the armed services, 
his best-known area of expertise, 
to the Clinton impeachment to 
the auto industry and financial 
crises of the Great Recession.
There is a weak point or two; 
he discussed the emotionally 
wrenching right-to-die contro-
versy involving a vegetative-state 
patient, Terri Schiavo, without 
mentioning that her feeding 
tube was eventually removed. 
Also, if you aren’t an accountant, 
your eyes may glaze over at the 
level of detail provided when he 
recounts the financial abuses his 
Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations uncovered. 
However, the U.S. Senate is 
divided into show horses and 
work horses, and this is a good 
reminder of how hard a good 
U.S. senator must work to do his 
job the way it is supposed to be 
done.

MAN OF THE SENATE
Nobody ever accused Carl Levin 
of being a slacker. The funda-
mental message of this book is 
one about governing. 
 “If you don’t come to elected 
office willing to compromise, you 
don’t come wanting to govern,
” 
Levin says in discussing the role 
of an elected official. 
He also has a view on the 
nature of his job many who are 
in Congress — or, for that matter, 
any elected position — ought 
to hear. “Being an effective 

representative, I’ve concluded, 
doesn’t necessarily mean voting 
in the way the majority of one’s 
constituents think best.
” Instead, 
he thought it was his job to “seri-
ously study, without arrogance or 
certainly” any issue, “being open 
to and respecting different views,
” 
and then “do what I believed was 
in the best interests of my con-
stituents in the long run.
”
That at times, meant unpopu-
lar votes, from opposing our war 
against Iraq in 2002 to voting 
against the Reagan tax cuts in 
1981, a vote that might have cost 
him reelection, had his opponent, 
astronaut Jack Lousma, not been 
filmed praising Toyota and telling 
Japanese auto executives how 
happy he was that his son drove 
one.
Levin was, and is, thoroughly 
a man of the Senate, including 
its rules and traditions. Some 
reformers may be dismayed 
to learn, for example, that he 
stoutly defends the practice of 
“earmarking” funds for special 
local projects, something oppo-
nents call “pork-barrel” spending. 
Levin believes that while there 
have indeed been some abuses, 
earmarks are “a legitimate part of 
the legislative process.
”
While all will not agree, he 
makes a compelling case for his 
position. He is also adamant-
ly opposed to abolishing the 
much-maligned filibuster. True, 
there are times when it has been 
used to obstruct progress, but 
Levin also thinks it is a huge 
mistake for either party to resort 
to the so-called “nuclear option,
” 
one in which the Senate over-
rules the rule that you need 60 
votes to end debate.
Instead, he recommends that 
instead of just allowing oppo-
nents to stop debate by threat-
ening to filibuster, the majority 
should call their bluff and force 
them to do it; in most cases, he 
thinks those threatening to stage 

ty, but if government is split, 
you have no choice but to 
work together. Sometimes in 
a family, you learn that, too.
You know, Sandy [his 
older brother, former U.S. 
Rep. Sander Levin] is my role 
model. Talk about bringing 
people together! He did that 
as leader of the Democrats in 
the Michigan Senate.
By the way, he is also the 
one who taught me how 
to play squash — starting 
when I was a freshman and 
he was a senior at Harvard 
Law School. We calculated 
a while ago that we’d played 
something like 15,000 games 
together over the years.

How can we fix things?
No. 1, elect a president 
who wants to work togeth-
er — and we’ve done that. 
Trump was the most divisive 
president in our history. He 
appealed to racial biases, 
ethnic biases and set differ-
ent sections of the country 
against each other.

Do you think President 
Biden is the right person 
for the right time?
I sure do. I think his back-
ground is right. Biden is 
known for bringing people 
together to look at prob-
lems. You need someone 
who is not anti-government. 
We worked together in the 
Senate for many years. I 
saw the way he worked with 
people. He was a big part of 
always getting things done. 

But we also need leadership 
in Congress who are willing 
to work together and like 
each other even if they dis-
agree. People who can argue 
but then have a drink together 
and laugh together. They have 
to know how to get along. 

How did you feel when 
you saw the riot at the 
U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6?
I was disgusted, obviously. 
To witness the central pro-
cess of our democracy being 
subject to an attack — a 
betrayal of so much in this 
country and what we stand 
for. But when I see the voters 
in this country defeating a 
divider and electing a unifier, 
it makes me feel confident 
that nothing will tear down 
this democracy. 
I think we withstood a 
storm with Trump. That 
democracy came out stron-
ger than ever. What hap-
pened [Jan. 6] was a real 
lesson for our country, and I 
think we came out stronger.

Finally, why did you write 
this book?
I wanted to share with my 
family and anyone else who 
might be interested what I had 
learned in politics and share it 
with anyone who might pos-
sibly find it an incentive to go 
into public service.
Public service is an hon-
orable profession, whether 
elected or appointed or vol-
unteer. Young people need to 
realize how important it is. 

LEGACY from page 12

