How conservative is Jon Kyl? The former Republican United States Senator from Arizona has no h in Jon and no e in Kyl. Considering the number of times he must have signed his name over the course of eighteen years in the Senate, preceded by eight in the House, that adds up to a lot of ink he saved the U.S. Treasury. [Sadly, all of the savings was offset by the time spent by the General Accounting Office to figure it out.]
Kyl gets the award for the Senator with the fewest letters in his or her name. I figured it out – really. And I’m going back to the first Congress in 1789 (that’s 1,963 Senators). If my wife knew I did this she would be even more angry when I tell her that I don’t have time to clean out the garage. [FYI – Al Gore is a Jr. so it’s not a tie.]
But that’s not the only award that Kyl has earned. In 2010 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people – on the entire planet.
The 73 year old former Senator was kind enough to speak to me about his career (“always willing to try to help fellow lawyers,” he said), politics and return to private practice in 2013 following his retirement from the so-called world’s most exclusive club. Kyl now serves as Senior Of Counsel in the D.C. office of the venerable Covington & Burling, LLP. Over the course of twenty minutes Kyl was self-deprecating, funny, serious and thoughtful in his responses. We shared a bunch of laughs and I jumped on the chance to tell one of the most powerful people in Washington a political joke.
A Slow Road To Washington
Jon Kyl was born and raised in Nebraska and earned a bachelor’s and law degree from the University of Arizona. Despite being the son of a Congressman from Iowa, it took a while before he made his way to Washington. First Kyl first practiced law for nineteen years, including, he told me, doing a wide array of insurance defense work (which, he also mentioned, he didn’t think he was very good at). Kyl said that he considered himself more effective at appellate argument, and enjoyed it more, and that’s what he “quite quickly got into.” Right he was in assessing his strengths. The art of persuasion, Kyl’s signature when he got to the Senate, made him one of the most influential people in the world.
Kyl’s path to Capitol Hill came about by chance. He explained that his Congressman called to tell him that he wasn’t running for re-election and would Kyl think about it. He knew that if he was ever going to get into politics it would be in Washington like his father. After two decades practicing law, the time was right.
Kyl served in the House from 1987 to 1995, representing Arizona’s 4th District. After that it was three terms in the Senate until his retirement at the end of 2012. He was clearly popular with his constituents. His election wins were as one-sided as Harlem Globetrotters’s games. While in the Senate Kyl served for five years as Minority Whip — the second highest position in the Republican leadership. As a Whip, Kyl’s need to be persuasive had now gone from Phoenix’s Jennings, Strouss & Salmon to the biggest of all stages.
In fact, this is what Kyl pointed to when I asked him about his proudest achievement in office. Having been unanimously elected, and re-elected, to serve as his team’s Whip would have to stand up there he told me. It requires having your colleagues’ confidence. “Whip is not an easy job if you do it right and we did it right and we were successful,” Kyl said, adding “I know that it helped leader McConnell to have a really good Whip team and I think we produced some really good results.”
[As an aside, I was shocked when Kyl told me that he didn’t watch House of Cards. Especially since, as a former Whip, I assumed that he would especially appreciate Kevin Spacey’s character Frank Underwood, who served as a House Whip. So what I thought would be an in-depth discussion of the Netflix juggernaut didn’t happen. Kyl told me he’s never watched it. Just no time he explained. He needs to get the flu and then he can stay home for a week and binge watch all three seasons.]
Kyl is considered to be conservative — fourth most according to National Journal in 2007. He served on the powerful Finance and Judiciary Committees. According to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConell, Kyl forged a reputation for a command of policy and knowledge of its nuances — becoming one who many of his Senate colleagues looked to for policy advice.
Just as timing got Kyl to Washington, it was the same at the end. He explained that, after 26 years on Capitol Hill, it was time to leave after 2012 if he was ever going to have any chance to do anything else. And it hasn’t been hard to walk away he told me — although he was quick to add that he missed speaking with friends in Congress on account of the strictly-interpreted two-year lobbying ban. With that over Kyl is now able to get back to Capitol Hill.
As a stand-up comedian, I jumped in here to tell Kyl a fitting joke that I wrote. In fact, it is so fitting that it really only works if told by a retired member of the Senate. It goes like this. “This is how bad the partisanship has gotten in Washington. I was back up on Capitol Hill the other day and stopped by the Senate cafeteria to grab lunch. Even the peas and carrots are now refusing to be served together.”
Kyl laughed. Really hard. [For real. I have it on tape.] But then, to my surprise, he began to suggest ways to change it. I was like, huh? Kyl must have thought he has back in the Senate and was offering an amendment to my joke. I told Kyl he could have the joke. I guess he’ll use it — as long as he can improve it. [Pardon the plug. I’ll be performing at Gotham Comedy Club in New York on October 5th at 7 PM as part of a New Talent Showcase. Gotham is on 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.]
The Great Persuader
In 2010 Kyl was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. In a piece written by McConnell, the then Senate Minority Leader called Kyl the “great persuader.” McConnell went on: “As minority whip, the No. 2 position in the Senate Republican leadership, [Kyl] is responsible for rallying his Republican colleagues for key legislative votes. What is unique is his single-minded focus on convincing them that a particular vote is in the best interests of their state and the nation. Jon demonstrates continually that the essence of Senate power is the power to persuade.” McConnell said that Kyl “believes in the wisdom contained in a sign on President Reagan’s desk that said, ‘There’s no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.’”
Kyl’s inclusion on Time’s 100 Most Influential list in 2010 seems to have been foreshadowed by the magazine in 2006 when it named him one of America’s Ten Best Senators. A piece titled “Jon Kyl: The Operator” describes several examples of Kyl recruiting other Senators — who he saw as better positioned — to take the more public role in attempting to achieve legislative objectives. “You can accomplish a lot if you’re not necessarily out in front of everything,” he was reported as saying.
Covington & Burling, LLP
Kyl had told me that he left the Senate to have a chance to do something else. That comes in the form of Senior Of Counsel at Covington & Burling. His bio on the firm’s website says that he “advises companies on domestic and international policies that influence U.S. and multi-national businesses” and “assists corporate clients on tax, health care, defense, national security and intellectual property matters.” Kyl told The Wall Street Journal Law Blog in 2013, when he joined Covington, that, while he was prohibited from lobbying for two years, he was not prohibited from giving clients his best advice. Kyl further told The Law Blog that he was returning to the legal sector at a time when businesses are confronting regulatory uncertainty and “turning more and more to folks like myself” to figure out how government works.
I read all of this to Kyl and asked him to elaborate. While of course he couldn’t discuss any specific clients, he explained that sometimes firm clients or other large companies have, or may have, a problem dealing with Capitol Hill or the regulatory environment, or both. They need help from someone who understands how Congress works. Kyl said that sometimes his work involves providing strategic advice and other times it is “actual lobbying.” When needing help with a government regulation, Kyl explained, it’s useful if there are people in Congress who also support the idea and can communicate that to the regulatory agencies.
When I said that it must be useful that nobody would not take Jon Kyl’s call, the former Senator was quick to point out that “one never wants to abuse one’s friends however.” He also told me, in response to my asking, that managing client expectations has not been an issue for him. His firm’s clients are very experienced with government regulations. So despite hiring the former Senate Minority Whip, their general counsels appreciate what can, and cannot, be done.
As I understood Kyl, what he offers clients is pretty simple. It can be hard for an outsider to know or learn what’s happening in Washington. He provides an insider’s knowledge of how Washington operates and what’s going on in the minds of some Senators and Representatives. Of course Kyl is not the only former politician who offers this service. But he’s probably the only one to be formally recognized as one of the world’s most influential people. Not a bad resume item for a lobbyist.
Washington And The Trump Factor
Obviously I had to ask Kyl about the present state of affairs in Washington, which is, of course, the public’s frustration over lack of results, as manifested by the popularity of the three Republican Presidential candidates who have never served a day in public office. Kyl told me that he doesn’t know Donald Trump or Ben Carson but he does Carly Fiorina. He also knows most of the other candidates and he’s sure they are frustrated by not being able to gain any real traction in light of the attention being paid to the outsider-candidates. He said that he couldn’t add anything to what the pundits have generally been saying, but he called it “something political scientists will be writing about for a long time.”
While Kyl and I laughed about some funny things said by one candidate about Trump, he quickly pivoted to sobering: “One should take seriously the frustration of the American People. Inside the beltway there’s kind of this notion well they’ll get over it; well they’re not going to get over it. In many respects the frustration has a valid foundation for it.”
When I used the word “gridlock” in describing the public’s frustration with Congress, Kyl said it was more than just that. He described gridlock as “symptomatic,” explaining that “really liberal or progressive Democrats are not satisfied with what I would suggest is a pretty fundamental transformation of our government by President Obama and certainly conservative Republicans are not satisfied with the response to that. So the activists in both parties would like to see much more robust action on their part and they’re not talking about compromise and they’re not talking about getting along and working these things out together. They’re frustrated.”
Kyl invoked history as a root cause of this frustration, explaining that the way our government was set up does not allow the somewhat radical action that both would like to see happen. He pointed to George Will, who said that their argument ought to be with James Madison, who set our government up as a deliberative process, making quick radical actions fairly uncommon.
The Jon Kyl Collector’s Item
I wrapped up my call with Senator Kyl by letting him know (I was pretty sure he didn’t) that there are two Jon Kyl — U.S. Senate coffee mugs for sale on Ebay. It seemed that some old staffers were cleaning out their attics and cashing in I suggested. They are collector’s items, Kyl said laughing, and imploring that I hurry up and get them while they are still available. Actually I did get one — as a souvenir of my fun and informative chat.
Thank you Senator Kyl for taking the time to speak to Coverage Opinions. And if you improve my peas and carrots joke let me know.