EP. 44 — CONVERSATIONS: FORMER AMB. TIM ROEMER & FORMER REP. ZACH WAMP

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Weston Wamp: I'm Weston Wamp, and this is “Swamp Stories,” presented by Issue One.

Weston Wamp: As co-chairs of Issue One's ReFormers Caucus, former Indiana Democratic Congressman Tim Roemer and former Tennessee Republican Congressman Zach Wamp often speak about their time working across party lines in Congress. They've continued that work out of office and made a lot of headlines doing so. Recently, Ambassador Roemer penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, calling out his own party for less than honorable campaign practices. Wamp, who is also my dad, has also called out his party a lot in recent years. I hope you enjoy our conversation. This is episode 44, calling balls and strikes with Roemer and Wamp.

Weston Wamp: Well, Ambassador and Congressman slash Dad. Thanks for joining us to talk about an important trend that should be discussed coming out of the primaries, this midterm cycle, and also an opportunity for us just to debrief about the incredible work that you guys have led as the co-chairs of Issue One's ReFormers caucus. But to start out, Ambassador Roemer will you just give us a summary of what led you to want to write the piece that ran recently in the Wall Street Journal about this unusual campaign tactic that the DCCC and others used to support, of all things, a few right wing candidates.

Tim Roemer: Yeah. Thank you Weston. Good to be with you. This strategy or tactic by the DCCC is as transparent as it is twisted. It is a strategy deployed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee using cynicism at its very best or worst to fund and promote election deniers, usually Trump endorsed Republican candidates in primaries, and get them to win so that the Democrat in the fall three months later has a better opportunity to win presumably against a weaker candidate.

Tim Roemer: Now, why is that so wrong? Well, first of all, it's wrong because we hear the argument “the Democrats need to hold onto power. It could come down to a seat. All’s fair in love and politics.” You should, some argue, be able to deploy anything to keep control of the House. I argue that this is crossing a bright red line of morals and ethics that should never be crossed that Democrats who have made Trump and election deniers a campaign issue nationally cannot distort that message and go on the other side to temporarily support election deniers for three or four months with the hope that they'll beat them.

Tim Roemer: That's too cynical. It is politics and its very worst. It is sacrificing a good issue that we have, and it is risking that these election deniers get another three, four months of air time and can promote their election denying lies and conspiracy theories in key states like Michigan, where this happened between Representative Peter Meijer and his challenger, John Gibbs.

Weston Wamp: Dad, your thoughts? I mean this is I think a classic example of some Midwestern Roemer courage. I've seen a lot of it displayed, saw some of it growing up from you. And, then certainly in recent years, as our party has told a lot of half truths and some untruths you've held the line in a way that reminds me of the leadership that Ambassador Roemer's showing here.

Zach Wamp: Yeah, I'm really proud of Tim Roemer for speaking out, not just mildly about this, but boldly about this. Because it is the worst of the “win-at-all-costs” mindset now of America politics. There are things you should not do no matter what, whether it means losing in life and in politics. And, this is an example of that, and his courage to speak out about it against his own party's actions are very similar to your and my courage speaking out about January the sixth and the election deniers and how bad that is. Because in a sense they're very similar.

Zach Wamp: They are people who will not accept reality and will win at all costs and engage in politics that literally sends your generation, Weston, completely in the other direction, saying “I don't want to have anything to do with that, because that's just terrible. And, I don't want to be involved in something that's that unethical.” And, number one, Tim Roemer and I both embrace this notion that neither party has an exclusive on integrity and neither party has an exclusive on ideas, and that while we're in vigorous battles over big issues, we need to treat each other like human beings.

Zach Wamp: And, in this case we've seen awful politics, but this is like he says, the height of cynicism and really unethical and a terrible trend. And, people from both sides need to speak out about these type of actions. Just like we need to speak out together about what happened January the sixth, and anyone who doesn't embrace the peaceful transfer of power and acceptance of free and fair elections after the ballots are all cast. We can do elections better. There's no question they're not perfect, but they're the best in the world. And, we need to recognize that, and we should not let people who don't recognize that destroy the political process like this from both sides.

Weston Wamp: Well, and to put a fine point on it. One of the incumbents who ended up taking the brunt of this strategy was Peter Meijer from Michigan. Young military veteran voted to impeach President Trump. Ambassador, I think that was probably one of the scenarios in which many on your side of the aisle cringed, because nobody would debate that Peter Meijer is a person, whether you agree with him on impeachment or not, he's a person of upstanding character and quite a bit of courage. And, it certainly seemed as though there was a cheap political tactic just to win a seat.

Tim Roemer: Well, that's a good point Weston. This win at all costs philosophy that the Democratic Party seems to be embracing where they will fund this John Gibbs candidate who was Trump endorsed over Peter Meijer, the incumbent who voted for Trump's impeachment, is an existential threat to the way we establish our Constitution, our peaceful transfer of power as a country. It's plain and simple. I've gotten some flack back from the Democratic Party. I organized a letter signed by 35 Democrats, leaders of our party, to object to this DCCC tactic and strategy. But some of the folks in the Democratic Party have struck back and said, "Look, you're off base. We need to be able to preserve our majority. Look at all the issues that are at stake. If we lose the gavel and the speakership and the committee chairs."

Tim Roemer: And, my argument back to them is just as forceful saying, “If you will corrupt power to win at any cost that causes a serious deterioration of trust in our American institutions. And that hurts the United States of America in the short and the long term.” And besides, I argue, that the Democrats now have a pretty compelling agenda of successes that they could sell. They don't need to be taking this very cynical and Machiavellian tactical thrust in taking out Republicans and elevating election deniers. They can talk about a bipartisan infrastructure bill to compete with China. They can talk about the first gun legislation to protect our children from massacres in schools in 20 years. They can talk about the CHIPS and Science Act that's going to create new jobs throughout the Midwest in manufacturing and put the US in a more competitive position on the economy. That's a positive message.

Tim Roemer: Why get down in the mud and the dirt and into the gutter on this tactic taking out a good guy like Peter Meijer? Zach and I will go back and forth, and we will disagree on some issues. But one of the things we agree on is not only do we need a strong democracy, and we need to speak out against the January 6th attack on our Capitol, we need two strong parties. I, as a Democrat, recognize that you have to have a strong Republican Party. That is a viable opposition minority party that can win elections at times. And, we'll fight fiercely with them to win elections, but we're not going to fight dirty. We're not going to fight unethically. We're not going to fight in ways that destroy the Americans' trust in their system.

Weston Wamp: Lastly here, is there a statutory or a legislative remedy? Often these types of issues run up against first amendment concerns. But at the same time, categorically, when you run political ads, you often have to designate whether you're running in support of or in opposition to a candidate. That's just a part of campaign disclosures under federal law. Is it necessary that legislative remedies be considered, or can we just find our way to a cease fire on these types of tactics?

Zach Wamp: You can't legislate yourself into a moral position. You can't legislate morality, so to speak. This is a hard one because of first amendment rights on campaigns. You and I have seen even in our own races Weston, how people's actions are protected in a campaign under the first amendment, even if they're completely outrageous and they're erroneous. Sometimes there's legal recourse. Sometimes there's not. This is where people of conscience like Tim Roemer have to speak out. And, if they do, then it's almost like a check within your own camp of whether or not you can get away with it or not. Because you can get away with things, but that doesn't make them right, and it doesn't make them American. If we're going to sustain this republic, if we're going to preserve it, we have to have people of high character speak.

Zach Wamp: That's one powerful thing about the ReFormers caucus. You get 200 former members of Congress together, they're more likely to tell the truth about things than 200 current members of Congress. Why? Because we don't have the leadership of our parties breathing down our neck, threatening us, telling us how much money we have to give them in order to maintain our positions on committees, et cetera. We don't have as much pressure. That's why you should listen to organizations like Issue One’s ReFormers Caucus with 200 former members of Congress, because collectively we can actually speak to the long term sustainability of certain things in this country, including this.

Zach Wamp: And, this reminds me, this is not just one party or the other, but Weston, you remember this clearly. About 20 years ago, Tom DeLay stood up at one of our conference meetings, a Republican conference and said, "The most important thing that we can do for this country is to hold our majority."

Zach Wamp: And, I challenged him. I stood up, and I said, "Leader DeLay, I would argue with that premise. I believe the most important thing we can do is to stand on the Constitution, do what we said as candidates that we would do, follow through on our commitments, and be honest with the American people. And, being in the majority will take care of itself." If you do the right thing, and you're honorable, the majority will take care of itself. And, so if your “end-justifies-the-means” mindset would cause you to do what we're talking about today, then you're going to fail. Ultimately, you're going to fail. And, we have the ability to tell that truth. And, it's an American notion that if you do the right thing, you will succeed.

Weston Wamp: Ambassador, I'll give you the last word.

Tim Roemer: Well, I agree with what Congressman Wamp has said. We won't agree on everything across parties, and we cannot legislate everything. Some things come down to your conscience and what you're taught by your grandparents and parents and your community and what you learn in church to do the right thing and to bring the right thing and sometimes courage to politics and to the public arena and to stand up for what you believe in, even when that means taking on flack from friends or from your own party or from very powerful and influential people that can stir things up and cause you problems.

Tim Roemer: We can't legislate this answer, but we can do two things about it. One, we can speak out, and write op-eds, and reach out to our leadership. Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney is the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I've sent him the letter signed by 35 prominent Democrats. I've called him and reached out to him to communicate to him directly and tell him that we should stop this. Cease and desist right away. And, I've also reached out to some of the Democratic leadership in Congress who have conversations with Congressman Maloney as the head of the DCCC. There's several members of Congress that can speak to him and could potentially withhold dues to the Democratic Party if he doesn't cease and desist from this.

Tim Roemer: And then the other means is the ReFormers Caucus itself through Issue One. Congressman Wamp and I are co-chairs of this organization. It's over 200 members, former senators, ambassadors, congressmen. It's about half Democrats and half Republicans. And, we go up to the Hill and talk to current members of Congress about reforming the Electoral Count Act, so that we don't have the kind of disruption that we had back on January 6th, in terms of a peaceful transfer of power. And, we update that archaic act, and we do it in a bipartisan way.

Tim Roemer: We're working on things such as individual conversations through the Congressional Dialogue Series and Braver Politics to have a Democrat and a congressman, Republican, sit down together and talk to each other, get to know each other and trust each other. That's the coin of the realm of getting things done and legislating in Congress, working across the aisle. And we're trying to facilitate that kind of trust and those relationships. And, as Congressman Wamp said, we're working on a host of reforms and initiatives at the state level to try to make sure that Democrats and Republicans put our republic and democracy and constitution over party, and we continue to work on securing our poll workers, making sure that other countries can't hack into our election system and have bipartisan solutions to making sure we have fair and free elections. That ReFormers Caucus is doing great work, and we need to continue that and be even more effective in the future.

Weston Wamp: Well, thanks to both of you for your partnership and support of this podcast, and for speaking out on issues like this one. Where the easier route certainly, Ambassador, is just to shut up and hope that your party wins. Thanks to both of you.

Tim Roemer: Pleasure. Nice to be with you. Always great to be with Congressman Wamp.

Zach Wamp: Here, here.

Weston Wamp: Thanks for listening to “Swamp Stories” presented by Issue One, the country's leading political reform organization that unites Republicans, Democrats, and independents to fix our broken political system. Please subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends. Even better rate and review it on Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners. You can find out more at SwampStories.org. I'm your host, Weston Wamp. A special thank you to Executive Producer Dokhi Fassihian, Senior Producer Evan Ottenfield, Producer Sydney Richards, and Editor Parker Tant from ParkerPodcasting.com. “Swamp Stories” is recorded in Tennessee, edited in Texas, and can be found wherever you listen to podcasts.


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