On Tuesday afternoon, I had the honor of speaking with the last Democratic Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Thomas Foley of Washington, who served in the position from 1989 to 1995. Before ascending to the post following the resignation of then-Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, Foley served in the Democratic leadership in the House beginning in 1981 and was first elected to the chamber from the Spokane area in 1964.

Foley and I covered a range of issues during our conversation, including how 2006 compares to 1994, Democratic chances of retaking the House this fall, the lack of bipartisan comity on the Hill and the state of the Democratic Party. You can listen to the interview here (warning: an 20.1 megabyte mp3) or read the rush transcript below.

Jonathan Singer: You served in the leadership of the House during some fairly unprecedented times, including the resignation of the Speaker of the House, the indictment of the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and of course the House banking scandal as well. How does the situation today compare?

Tom Foley: Well, I think, first of all, referring to the House banking scandal, as it’s often called, this was, as a recent commentator said, a scandal without a crime. What happened is that Members of Congress were allowed by the bank officials to overdraw their accounts and their imbalances or negative balances were covered by the positive balances of other Members, so there was nothing more than happens today when anyone opens up a commercial bank account, almost always one of the things that’s offered is coverage for overdrafts.

In the House case, for many years there was a small charge made for that, as there is today when people set up a commercial checking account. And then when there was the case in the 1970s, interest rates went very high, without notifying anyone in the leadership, the Sergeant at Arms, who ran the bank, simply dropped making those charges. And the General Accounting Office – now the General Accountability Office – criticized it, told me about it, I told the Republican leader about it, and we instructed the bank officials to correct it. They didn’t do that, against orders, and six months later the matter became public and became a rather large and celebrated case, which didn’t involve anything in the way of criminal activity and very little else, except a kind of minor perk that Members of Congress received to overdraft their accounts. But in any case, it led to the bank’s closure and the replacement of the Sergeant at Arms.

Singer: When you compare it to, say, the indictment of the House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the indictment of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, and Jack Abramoff, etc., how does the situation back then compare to today?

Foley: Well I think, as far as the bank matter is concerned, there is no comparison at all. No one was charged with any offense, there was no government money lost, there was no abuse of any particular Congressional activity, no legislation was effected. So it became a kind of a celebrated political issue, but it wasn’t really a scandal in the sense of criminal activity, abuse of office, loss of government funds, or any kind of special advantage that any outside group received for any support or otherwise.

There has to be a distinction, of course, between the Tom DeLay matter, which is still in process – Congressman DeLay has resigned his Majority Leadership position, but the case is still pending – and the case of Randy “Duke” Cunningham. He has pled guilty to serious offenses involving $2.4 million of bribes and favors received. So that matter has been resolved, in the sense that his guilt has been admitted.

The Abramoff matter involves obviously his pleading guilty to offenses and Michael Scanlon, his associate, doing so, and the possibility that Members of Congress and members of the staff of Congress might be indicted. All of those that have been publicly discussed are Republican Members, but the matter is still pending.

Singer: Political ramification-wise, the latest poll from CBS News puts the American public’s approval of Congress below what it was in early 1994. Do you foresee the possibility that 2006 will yield similar results as 1994, or 1964, ’74 or ’82, for that matter?

Foley: It’s possible. One doesn’t know. I think one of the differences between 1994 and the present is that in the ensuing years, state legislatures have redistricted the Congress, and, for the most part, there has been a heavy tendency towards protecting incumbency districts. In other words, Members of Congress in both parties have had their districts changed in the favor. In a sense, that makes their reelection more likely.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, there are more so-called “red” districts as a result than there are “blue” districts. In addition to being the minority party, the Democrats have structurally fewer seats than the Republicans of these very, very strong incumbent-supporting districts. It is said that fewer than 10 percent – more like 7 or 8 percent – of the House seats every election cycle are in serious question. Open seats, so to speak, where there is a chance of the incumbent being defeated. In almost all other districts, Republican and Democrat, the likelihood of the incumbent being reelected is very strong.

But again, from the standpoint of the Democrats, there are more of the so-called strong Republican seats than strong Democratic seats. And so I think in the opinion of many political observers, it will take a tsunami, political tsunami of a kind to overturn that Republican advantage, in addition to the majority structural Republican advantage.

We’ll see. That tsunami might develop, maybe as a result of a combination of factors, including the unfolding Abramoff matter. It is possible that the low opinion of the public for Congress will affect both parties, but more specifically the majority party, the Republican Party, as the circumstances of 1994 affected the Democrats.

Singer: During the period of Democratic control of Congress and the White House, there was a degree of oversight. You did this when Clinton was President and you were Speaker. The Truman Committee during World War II also stands out as a good example. Do you believe the Republican Congress has been thoroughly enough investigating and conducting oversight during this Bush presidency?

Foley: I think even Republican Members have said that in many cases they think the Republican majority has failed to carry on a very vigorous oversight function. And I think this is one of the key responsibilities of the Congress – both Houses of the Congress – whatever the administration is, whether it’s of the same party as the Congress or the branch of Congress involved or not.

There has been a steady and consistent complaint – not just from Democrats, but from Republicans, as well – that the Congress has been fairly lax in undertaking serious review of administration activities. A recent exception to that has been the investigation of the administration’s response to the Katrina disaster in the Gulf states and in New Orleans, and the undertaking recently of Senator Specter in the Senate to look at the so-called special intelligence program involving the National Security Agency’s review of data involving allegedly telecommunications from outside the United States to Americans that might theoretically involve terrorists.

Singer: Correct me if I’m wrong, but during your tenure as Speaker, relations with House GOP leader Bob Michel were at least somewhat congenial. Today it seems that bipartisan relations on Capitol Hill are almost non-existent. How did things deteriorate to this point, and can the situation be salvaged?

Foley: That’s a very interesting question. I think it’s certainly true that when I was Speaker and Bob Michel was Republican leader, the relations were excellent. We met three or four times a week, Bob and I did, half the time in my office, half the time in his. Our staffs met daily. There was full consultation on the schedule. There was an opportunity for discussion of problems or issues that arose in real time, so that when there were things that were troubling the Republicans or our side, we could frankly discuss them with the leadership on the other side of the aisle.

And I think almost everybody involved at that time – Republicans or Democrats – will attest to the fact that civility has declined, cooperation has diminished, tensions have risen and irritability has grown apace. So that in the opinion of most Members who have served relatively long terms of service and cover both of these periods, there’s not question in the minds of almost all of them that, regardless of what the estimate is of what has brought this condition into existence, that it is the worst time in modern Congressional history.

Singer: Do you think it could go back at all?

Foley: Well, I hope it can improve. A couple of things that have happened recently: two Members of the Congress, one Democrat and one Republican, have organized a group inside the House called Center Aisle, which both Bob Michel and I have endorsed. One of these Members, a Democrat – the other a Republican – found that they could get along when they were in the gymnasium, the House gym, but when they got to the floor, the tensions rose and the bitterness between the two parties was sort of the overriding reality. So they’re trying to get Democrats and Republicans and others to come together in efforts to find ways to restore civility, to restore the ability to disagree and to debate and to dispute issues without making relations personal and the atmosphere poisonous.

I think the other thing that could happen and will be important to watch is if there is a change of leadership, if the Democrats do come back into majority in the House or in the Senate or in both, it will be important for the Democrats, I think, to take a course of establishing respect for rules and regular order that do not simply follow in the pattern of recent years, sort of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth running of the House or the Senate, repeating the offenses that Democrats feel they have suffered under Republican majority back again on Republicans when they become, if they do become a minority.

I think the obligation of whoever is in the majority is not to diminish the right of the majority to rule – that’s part of the system, particularly in the House – but to rule with due respect for the rights of the minority, giving them an opportunity to participate in debate, giving fairer opportunity to examine the legislation when it’s reported from the committee, giving notice of changes that the majority intends to enact by rule or to provide for full participation in conference committees.

There is a kind of urban myth abroad that the Republicans are only doing today, in running the House, what the Democrats did to the minority Republicans in the period of the 40 years that ended in 1994. Well, I wouldn’t say that the Democratic majority had never sinned or never overreached, because I think occasionally we did. I don’t think there’s any comparison, again, between that time and the present time, when, again, by almost any index, the Republican majority has been extremely muscular and aggressive, not only in passing the programs that they undertake to pass, but to do so with a minimum participation and opportunity for the Democratic minority to take part in the deliberations.

Singer: I’d just like to ask you to address a couple specific things that Republicans have done in recent Congresses, one being holding a longer than a three hour vote on the Medicare prescription drug plan. I know that you as Speaker kind of came back from that policy; Speaker Wright had extended some votes, but you tried to do less of that. And also the recent budget reconciliation bill in which the House passed a different version than the Senate knowingly and sent it to the President anyway. I wonder if you could just address those two.

Foley: I think in the first one, there was an instance during the time that Jim Wright was Speaker and I was Majority Leader where one Member of Congress from Texas had promised Jim Wright, as Speaker, that he would vote for a budget bill, and then he left the chamber. Jim Chapman was his name. The Speaker put me in the chair, asked me to take the chair and he went to find Mr. Chapman. And we kept the vote open for I would say 20 minutes beyond what would be the normal time. One should know that there is no, or was not then, any maximum time that a House vote could last. It could not last less than – less than – 15 minutes, but it was typical that it would last maybe 20 or 25 minutes, when straggler Members would come from both parties to vote on the floor. But after all the latecomers had arrived, the vote was announced.

In this case, the case that I am talking about, we kept the vote open for 15 or 20 minutes after the last Member had been coming to the floor, and I think that was a mistake, frankly. It was within the rules, but it was against the regular order. And when Mr. Chapman changed his vote and the bill passed by one vote, the Republican side was enormously angry and upset, and Dick Cheney, the then-Republican Whip, came across the floor and told me this was the worst abuse of power he had ever seen in the House.

Now compared to that, Speaker Hastert kept the vote open on the prescription drug bill for over three hours, while the Secretary of HHS was brought to the floor to help persuade Members to vote for it, and a number of other things took place that finally led to the passage. But compared to 20 minutes, three hours was a vast extension of that, and it’s a bad practice in any event. Even though it can be sometimes argued that it’s within the technical meaning of the rules, particularly if a special rule is passed to accommodate it, it’s still against the traditions of the House, it leads to a feeling of helplessness on the part of the minority, it leads to a feeling of abuse of power by the majority, and commentators from every spectrum of political viewpoint have criticized it.

I think what has happened is that a series of these things has led to a feeling of great anger and frustration on the part of the minority, and it’s one of the things that I think has to change if we’re going to have a restoration of civility and acceptance and harmony in the House.

Singer: How about Speaker Hastert signing off on a bill that he knew was not the same as the Senate bill?

Foley: Well I don’t know the specifics of that, but I think there has generally been a sense that while it’s I think understandable and acceptable for the majority party in the House to work the will of the majority, if you do so at the expense of traditions of regular order, of traditional views of the rules, traditional rules of comity, exercising the muscular or even overpowering force of the majority and diminishing the rights and participation of the minority, it leads to enormous tensions and bad feelings and anger. And I think it’s one of the unfortunate circumstances that exists today.

I don’t criticize former Speaker because I’m a former Speaker and I know the problems that the Speaker has, somewhat like the President, having to be the Speaker of the whole House and at the same time the leader of his own party. But I don’t think there’s any question that people who have watched the House over many, many years would say today that relations between the two parties are at the lowest ebb in their memory.

A new book is about to be published, I think a very good one, which is called The Broken Branch, and it’s a book authored by Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein, who are the two most celebrated and objective scholars of the Congress. And in that book they examine all of these questions and suggest a way that we might step back from this continuing deterioration of both Congressional relations internally and public esteem for the Congress.

Singer: Could I ask you just one last question?

Foley: Sure.

Singer: Are you content with the direction of the Democratic Party today?

Foley: Well, I think the Democratic Party is obviously is… Will Rogers said famously it’s not all together the most organized party in the world. We’re now a party in opposition in the House and the Senate. But I think the party has opportunities, both in Congressional elections this fall and the coming Presidential elections, to regain principal responsibility for the conduct of the American government. And I think that’s a very exciting opportunity.

Obviously we have choices to make, in terms of 2008, in terms of the ticket. The party came very, very close in the last election. Although the popular vote was substantial for the President, a shift of 100,000 votes in Ohio would have changed the outcome.

So I think we still have two vital parties. I proud to be a Democrat. I believe the Democratic vision for the country is the one that offers the greatest hope for Americans in all conditions and I think the greatest hope for American leadership abroad. But we have an obligation to, I think, try to express more clearly and more effectively to the American people our different views on where the country should go and how the national future should be sod. So I’m going to stay as involved as I can in that effort.

Singer: Well, I just want to sincerely thank you for your time. It really has been a great honor speaking with you today.

Foley: It’s been a pleasure, Jonathan.

[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.]