It was hard for you to break the ice with some of your Republican colleagues.
And get to a place where a senior party leader like John McCain would
co-sponsor an initiative on War powers.
>> Yeah. >> Could you talk a little bit
about the feel of, one at a time.
Rep, with Senators on the other side of the aisle, and
earning their trust so that you can work together, and-
>> Sure. >> And then the philosophy behind it.
>> Well I will.
You know, I did come into the Senate, I mean, having been, you know,
I'm a Democrat, and I was Chairman of the Democratic Party.
So people knew I had been party chair, but I really worked hard as
party chair to promote the president without name calling anybody.
And, you know, I kind of considered it a, a little bit of an object of pride.
I ran a 19 month campaign to be a, a senator.
The other side scoured through every TV appearance I ever did to see if I was,
you know, ever kind of frothing at the mouth.
And beating up on the other side.
And they could never find a single example of me, kind of going overboard.
Now they would always point out,
now this guy was the chairman of the Democratic party, he's partisan.
But if I had ever on a radio show or on a TV show or
something, kind of gone overboard.
It would have been put up in living color for Virginians to see.
I didn't do the party job that way, because I didn't feel like I needed to.
So I was able to come into the Senate without having burned bridges.
In fact, as party chair I was often on TV shows with Republicans and
I'd be the point and they'd be counterpoint.
But we wouldn't be at odds in a hostile way, and
after the cameras stopped rolling we were getting to know one another.
So I felt like I had the good beginnings of relationships.
And, and what I'm doing,
Jerry, is, every bill that I introduce, I work to find a Republican co-sponsor.
For two reasons.
First I'm no dummy, it's easier to get them passed that way.
I mean that, that's one of the reasons to do it.
If I'm in a body where I've got a Democratic majority but
it's not a super majority.
And there's a House with a Republican majority.
The only bills that I'm likely to ever get passed are bills
that would attract bipartisan support in both houses.
So I always look for bipartisan sponsorship.
But the second reason I do it is, I firmly believe that cooperation is like a muscle.
I mean, and if you exercise it, it gets stronger and if you don't, it gets weaker.
So you always have to demonstrate that you are making the effort.
I, when I've done codels, my first year.
My first year I did two codels.