John Anderson: You're welcome.

Singer: During your 20 years in the House, you never served in the majority. How difficult was it to constantly be in the opposition

Anderson: It was difficult. There were times, however, when even being in the minority I could feel that I was having some impact. The most notable example of that was the 8 to 7 vote by which the Open Housing Bill of 1968 came out of the Rules Committee and I joined with the Democratic Majority, from whom, however, the Southern Democrats on the Committee had defected so my vote was needed. And, as a result we adopted the kind of rules on that legislation that allowed the House the next day to take up a Senate version of Open Housing to eliminate discrimination in the sale and leasing of housing that otherwise would have been very much watered down on the House side if it had gone to a committee--a Conference Committee. So that's a notable example where even a Republican serving in a Democratic House (which it was during all of the 20 years that I served there) by forming an alliance on an issue that was of great import to me--a Civil Rights issue. I could accomplish something.

Another example or two would be joining with my very best friend in the House, the late Morris Udall (who, again, was a Democrat), but who believed deeply that we ought to put the great share of pristine beauty of Alaska in the kind of protected areas where it wouldn't fall prey to the developer's blade and get chewed up. And so the Udall-Anderson National Interest Lands Bill, which provided for a great deal of land to be put into parks and forested areas and other areas that were free from development. And that bill passed the House and ultimately passed the Senate and became what is known today as the National Interest Alaska Lands Bill.

Those are a couple of examples when even in the minority you can coalesce with people who have similar interests as you and get something done. Not to say there aren't times when even the minority is right and the majority is wrong, then you can join your own party caucus and at least put on the record--and for the benefit of the press gallery to be reported hopefully elsewhere--your opposition to bill that the Democrats were pushing that I thought were not in the best interests of the country. So the life of a minority member is not entirely futile.

The Current House

Singer: A couple of other issues on which the Republicans were necessary were the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. I know the Democratic leadership really relied on the centrist and liberal members of the Republican caucus to pass a number of their liberal bills, but today it seems like the Republican majority is more loathe to reach out to their Democratic opposition--

Anderson: I think that's true. I think they've moved farther right.

Singer: So what are your feelings on that--the lack of bipartisanship, especially on the House side?

Anderson: I think it's become quite noticeable and frankly I deplore it. I believe we live in a very dangerous world and there are many issues I think on which we as a nation need to forget our partisan differences and unite. That has no... it's impossible. So I think the climate has changed--it's much more polarized. To that extent I think it would be extremely difficult for an independent-minded person like myself to continue to serve on the Republican side of the aisle. It would be very frustrating.

Singer: When you were in the House, you were elected in 1960 and you joined 174 Republicans. That number was as low as 140 and only as high as 192. What advice might you give to the House Democrats, who have at least 200 members right now, pending a race in New York?

Anderson: I don't know what the agenda is going to be in (what is it going to be) the 109th Congress (I guess) when they meet in January. Personally, I'd have to express it in terms of my own deeply-held views that on matters of foreign policy we should not rush--as the House and the Senate both did--to approve a resolution that introduced Armed Forces into Iraq. I thoroughly disapprove of the doctrine of pre-emptive strike that is now at the very center of the foreign policy and the defense policy of this administration.

If I were there now, I think I would be working as hard as I could on both sides of the aisle to try to nip together a coalition of opposition to the kind of foreign policy that this administration has pursued.

Singer: And which side of the aisle would you be on, or would you be like the Senator from Oregon who just pulled a lawn chair in the middle of the aisle*?

Anderson: I might do like my friend Jim Jeffords--with whom I served when he was in the House before he went to the Senate--and I might just decide to resign my partisan role and to publicly declare that I was going to be an Independent, and then obviously seek reelection as an Independent rather than as a member of either major party.

The 1980 Presidential Contest

Singer: Moving on to your race for President. In 1980 you initially ran for the Republican nomination from what some might call the "Rockefeller" wing of the party. How difficult is a moderate or a centrist to be nominated by either party?

Anderson: I think it's much more difficult in the Republican Party today for the reasons that I just finished describing. They have moved very, very much farther to the right than they were during the days that I was in the House between 1961 and 1981. Even with their nomination of Barry Goldwater--which was kind of a flirtation with the far right in 1964--I still don't think the Republicans of that period were basically the hard right bunch that they have become.

Singer: When you dropped out of contention for the nomination, you ran as an Independent with a Democrat, Patrick Lacey, as your running mate. How important of a signal was it then to run on a bipartisan ticket, and how necessary might such a ticket be now--two national leaders, one from each party?

Anderson: You mean if an Independent were to run again, would he have to seek his running mate from one of the major parties?

Singer: How beneficial would it be to our system to have a leader, a Congressional leader from one party and a Congressional leader from another party [to] run either under one party's nomination or as an Independent ticket?

Anderson: I'd like to see the latter. I think we need multi-party politics in this country. We have a Constitution that Gordon Wood and other students of American history have very aptly described as an anti-party Constitution; it was a Constitution against parties. Madison deplored factions, and faction to Madison was simply synonymous with party. They knew all about parties; they had the Conservatives and the Whigs back in the 18th century.

I think we need to get away from the idea that American politics forever and a day must be dominated by the same two parties that today hold control. I would like--I repeat--to see the growth of a strong multi-party system in this country to introduce new ideas, new energy, and I think bring with it a much broader participation by people of different walks of life that see some futility in the kind of perennial jousting that goes on for advantage between the two old parties.

Electoral Reform

Singer: In the December issue of Playboy, you write of five ways to fix the electoral process, including: instant runoff voting, multi-member districts, public finance for campaigns, open presidential debates, and abolishing the Electoral College. Could you expand on one or some of those?

Anderson: I think of all of them the one that is the most promising at the moment is IRV, the instant runoff voting, because it's just worked very successfully to elect a Board of Supervisors up in San Francisco County, where it was used for the first time after having been adopted earlier by referendum or initiative by the voters of San Francisco. Even though for one of the slots to be filled there were 22 candidates, still instant runoff voting worked.

The idea, of course, is to get someone who ends up with 51% of the vote, and you just keep counting the ballots and dropping from the list in the recount the candidate with the fewest number of votes until you emerge with one of the candidates getting 51%. I think instant runoff voting would introduce the American voter to the idea that we aren't tied inevitably and inextricably and eternally to two parties, and two parties only: the Republicans and the Democrats.

See, when a Third Party or an Independent runs today he is dismissed immediately as a spoiler--he can only detract from the race rather than add anything, and simply cause one of the other two major party candidates to lose by drawing off votes from that candidate. But if voters could rank candidates and say "this is my first choice, I like John Anderson the Independent, but if he doesn't win, I'll take the Democrat as my runoff choice." Then if John Anderson doesn't get the majority in the first count, his ballots are not discarded, they're thrown into the heap that's recounted to see where those votes would go for the two candidates still remaining on the ballot.

I think once that idea got into the minds of the American people, they would some point in voting for that Independent or Third Party candidate even though he might not initially be able to get a majority, because they would not be wasting their vote. Their second place choice would count in the recount that would take place when he failed to get that majority when the votes were first counted.

So I think with that introduction into the political mix of the idea that it is feasible to vote for an Independent or Third Party candidate--I repeat myself, I know, but for emphasis. Once they get the idea that they can do that and still not really throw away a ballot (to cast a vote that really didn't count for anything), then I think the Independent movement, or a Third Party movement, could begin to get a respectable showing. They wouldn't get a majority to begin with, but they would get vastly more support than they're now able to draw in the present two party context that we're locked. As time went on, I think the idea of a multi-party system would become just a very logical thing to advance towards.

Politics Today

Singer: Could I just ask you a couple questions on current politics, then I'll let you go? Your fellow Illinois Republican Congressman Donald Rumsfeld now serves as Secretary of Defense. How would you rate his term given the successes and failures we've seen in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Anderson: I think, of course, Mr. Rumsfeld has been arrogant, to say the least. He thought that his "Shock and Awe"--as he called it--program to conquer Iraq would settle the problem very quickly and he relied on people like Ahmed Chalabi for his information, apparently, that they were going to be waving flowers and palm branches and strewing them in the path of the conquering Americans when they strode into Baghdad back in March of 2003. We all know it turned out far differently.

He's never confessed there. He's never admitted how wrong he was. He didn't plan for the kind of turbulent situation that is ongoing even as we speak. I think he has been a failure in office, and as I watch these members of the present administration taking their leave and departing, I'm sorry to see he's not among them.

Singer: And one final question. When you ran for President, one of your signature plans was the so-called "50-50 Plan", which would have raised gas taxes by 50 cents per gallon and would have cut Social Security taxes by 50%. In June of this year you wrote a letter to The Washington Post saying that one of the candidates should step up with such a plan that would revolutionize our energy policy. Neither did.

What can be done now to reduce our consumption? It's something you worked on 25 years ago but still has not been solved today.

Anderson: Given the facts as you've stated them, and the fact that neither party has been willing to espouse the really initially draconian steps that will have to be taken to curb the average American's appetite for imported oil.

I think we're just going to have to move to a regime of conservation, and the only way to drive a program of conservation is the idea I promoted 24 years ago, and that's to put the kind of heavy energy taxes on the consumption of fossil fuels that will force us first to conservation and secondly to spending the money and the time and the resources to develop alternative sources of energy that we don't have to dig out of the ground or drill from oil wells in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Singer: Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

Anderson: All right.

Singer: Have a good day.

Anderson: Bye.