Showing 11 - 15 of 15 Items
Date: 2009-03-26
Creator: Grace Reef
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Grace Reef grew up in Portland, Maine, with her father, Norman Reef, an attorney, and her mother, Patricia Reef. In 1974, as a twelve-year-old, she was the first female Little League baseball player, having sued to integrate girls into the program. She first heard of Senator Mitchell when he ran for governor in 1974. She attended Colby College, graduating in 1983 with a degree in public policy. During college she interned in Mitchell’s Senate office in Washington, D.C.; she worked as a legislative correspondent and was later promoted to be a legislative assistant, eventually becoming one of Mitchell’s senior advisors on children and poverty issues and economic development. She worked for minority leader Tom Daschle after Mitchell retired in 1994, continuing to work on issues of welfare reform and child care. She also worked for Senator Chris Dodd as the minority staff director of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families. She has served as director of intergovernmental affairs for the Children’s Defense Fund. At the time of this interview, she was chief of policy and evaluation for the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA).
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: interning in Mitchell’s Senate office; the legislative process; tax reform in the mid-1980s; Mitchell’s decision-making process; the Family Support Act; doing research on child care providers in Maine; child care and development block grants; the Better Child Care Act; the structure of the Senate and the work Mitchell had to do to get legislation passed; Title 4A At Risk Child Care; the compromise on child care vouchers (church-state); Mitchell’s “divide and conquer” approach to dealing with different senators’ doubts and bringing them on board; the Family Medical Leave Act; anecdote of Reef’s presence in the Rose Garden with Mitchell when the Family Medical Leave Act was signed; George H.W. Bush’s saying that they needed a “kinder, gentler nation”; Environment and Public Works Committee work and highway funding; the formula for gas tax returns; miscalculating the formula and watching the bill on the floor of the Senate for three weeks; the National Affordable Housing Act; Mitchell and the Maine delegation; Mitchell’s patience as his greatest attribute; and Mitchell’s sense of humor.
Date: 2008-08-19
Creator: George J Mitchell
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
George J. Mitchell was born on August 20, 1933, in Waterville, Maine, to Mary Saad, a factory worker, and George Mitchell, a laborer. Senator Mitchell spent his youth in Waterville. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College in 1954, he served as an officer in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps until 1956. In 1960 he earned a law degree from Georgetown University. Mitchell worked for Senator Edmund S. Muskie as executive assistant and as deputy campaign manager during Muskie's 1972 presidential campaign. He later became U.S. senator (D-Maine) 1980-1995, Senate majority leader 1989-1995, and, upon his retirement from the Senate, special advisor on Northern Ireland 1995-1998. Since 1998, Senator Mitchell has served on many boards and committees and has received high profile appointments including: chairman of the Sharm el-Sheikh International Fact-Finding Committee on the crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (2000); overseer of the Red Cross Liberty Fund (2001); lead investigator into the illegal use of performance enhancing substances in Major League Baseball (2006); and special envoy for Palestinian-Israeli affairs (2009-2011).
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: early legal career; working for the Justice Department; working on Edmund S. Muskie’s Senate staff; Jensen, Baird law firm (1966-1977); divorce case story; assistant county attorney; chairman of the Maine Democratic Party (1965-1968); Democratic National Committeeman from Maine (1968-1977); U.S. attorney for Maine (1977-1979); drug cases and antique case; federal judge (1979-1980); Ed and Marshall Stern; 1968 Muskie vice presidential campaign; 1980 appointment to Senator Muskie’s Senate seat and Joseph Brennan; Larry Benoit; Paul Ziffren fund-raising story; 1974 Maine gubernatorial campaign; Tax Equity Act; Finance Committee appointment story; and relationship with Maine newspapers/press.
Date: 2009-05-06
Creator: Sheila P Burke
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Sheila Burke was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She earned a B.S. in nursing at the University of San Francisco (class of 1973) and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University. She started working for Senator Dole in May of 1977 to handle health issues on the Senate Finance Committee. A Democrat from California, she was hired due to her prior experience as a nurse with a hands-on understanding of patient care. She became deputy chief of staff in the leader’s office when Senator Dole became minority leader in 1985 and rose to chief of staff in 1986, remaining in that role for ten years until Dole’s retirement; she served a dual role as secretary of the Senate from January to June of 1995. From 1996-2000, she was executive dean and lecturer in public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2000, she joined the Smithsonian Institution, where she rose to the position of deputy secretary and COO until 2007. At the time of this interview, she was a member of the faculty at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and lecturer at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. She is married and has three children.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: George Mitchell and the Senate Finance Committee; Burke’s interest in working for Dole and how she came to be hired; first impressions of George Mitchell; the relationships between Senators Dole and Mitchell, Burke and Martha Pope; tax battles on the Finance Committee; Mitchell’s approach to legislating; Dole’s transition to leader; balancing Senate staff and leader staff interests; the easy working relationship between Dole and Mitchell as leaders and how that compared with Senator Byrd; health care reform and difficult issues surrounding the debate; the issues that Dole and Mitchell had in common and where they differed; Dole’s and Mitchell’s relationships to the White House; the role of partisanship and values; Burke’s experience of being criticized by conservatives in the Senate and the press; Mitchell’s expressing his sympathy for Burke on the occasion of Senator Packwood’s resignation; Burke’s reaction to Mitchell’s decision to retire; the Dole-Mitchell era in the Senate and how those two leaders maintained one another’s trust, elevated the discourse, and were evenly matched; where the Republican Party of 2009 will look for leadership; and Burke’s wish that Mitchell could return to work on the present attempt at health care reform.
Date: 2009-10-09
Creator: Robert 'Bob' M Rozen
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Robert Martin “Bob” Rozen was born on December 11, 1955, in Richmond, Kentucky, to Morris and Rosalyn (Eilenberg) Rozen. He majored in Soviet studies at Miami University (Ohio), graduating in 1977; he earned his law degree at George Washington University. He interned for Senator Wendell Ford as a legislative assistant for the Senate Finance Committee and then continued to work for him after law school. He also earned a master’s in tax law from Georgetown University. He worked on Senator Mitchell’s staff addressing tax, trade, and financial service issues.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Rozen’s working for Wendell Ford on the Finance Committee; working for Mitchell after receiving his master’s of tax law; Rozen’s impression of Mitchell before he began working for him; working for Mitchell; committee hearings with Mitchell; Mitchell’s decision-making process; Mitchell and tax reform; the Mitchell-Danforth task force on low-income housing and tax credit; campaign finance reform; Mitchell and health care; and deficit reduction.
Date: 2009-06-18
Creator: Robert 'Bob' W Packwood
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Robert W. “Bob” Packwood was born on September 11, 1932, in Portland, Oregon. He attended Willamette University, graduating in 1954, and the New York University School of Law, subsequently returning to Oregon to practice law. From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the Oregon legislature, and in 1968 he won election to the U.S. Senate, serving five terms as a Republican. He chaired the Senate Finance Committee from 1985 to 1987 and was active in passing the Tax Reform Acts of 1986 and 1995. He resigned from his Senate seat in 1995. Later he founded Sunrise Research Corporation, a lobbying firm based in New York.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: meeting George Mitchell; how committee assignments are given; Mitchell’s superior leadership abilities that earned him a quick rise to the Senate leadership; Packwood’s electoral history; similarities between Oregon and Maine; capital gains and the Tax Reform Act of 1986; the Republican caucus’s view of Mitchell; qualities that make a good Senate leader; comparing Mitchell to Byrd; Mitchell’s pragmatic and strategic approach to legislating; the different roles of the House and the Senate; what the majority leader job consisted of for Mitchell; Mitchell on the Finance Committee; 1990 Budget Enforcement Act; the Clinton administration’s struggle with health care reform, the Republican opposition, and Mitchell’s role; the Clean Air Act, the NAFTA, round two of GATT, and earmarks; Packwood’s 1992 reelection race; the 1994 elections and the Contract for America; Mitchell’s Senate retirement; the period of Packwood’s resignation; Packwood’s brand of Republicanism; how Packwood would describe Mitchell on the political spectrum; an anecdote about when Mitchell was dating Packwood’s chief of staff, Janet Mullins; and Mitchell’s ability to focus on the end result.