The interview includes discussions of: Muskie’s 1972 Presidential campaign; Muskie’s 1976 Senate campaign; Muskie’s years as Secretary of State; the Budget Act of 1976, the Budget Committee, 1976-1980; environmental protection; the Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee; housing, including the rehabilitation and subsidization of public housing; her Senate legislative work; Muskie’s sincerity, dedication and temper; Sunshine Government; the Sunset Act which makes legislation periodically expire to see if it is worth having; Maine getting an extra million dollars from Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare in 1973; Muskie’s late career, his 80th birthday party in Washington and Lewiston at the Ramada Inn, and his funeral two years later; Social Security benefits for college students with a deceased parent and surviving parent only working part time; French-Canadian migration to industrial centers of Maine; lack of interest in higher education among Franco-Americans of previous generations; depression as contributing to previous generations’ view of the importance of college; changing social mores of high school; first surgeon general’s warning about smoking in 1963; Nixon’s freeze on government hiring; rebuilding Muskie’s staff in 1976 with Maine people; acquiring Gov. Curtis job through contact with Georgette Berube and Bob Couturier (judge of probate); working on projects in Muskie’s office; her impression of pre-Indian Land Claims Settlement Act of 1980; Washington lobbyists as supplicates; transition to Mitchell from Muskie in the Senate, and Mitchell asking staff to stay until Election of 1982; her impression of differences in partisanship between time of Watergate and Clinton impeachment; Democratic control of both houses of Congress and presidency between 1976 and 1980; Reagan’s landslide win and Congressional shifts; the reauthorization of the Clean Water Act; Mitchell’s gubernatorial bid in 1974; U. S. attorney, 1978; Federal judge, 1979; Emery challenge 1982; her impression of decrease in political involvement and increase in those unenrolled in political party as a byproduct of partisanship in politics; the 1986 election in which Democrats retook the U. S. Congress, Mitchell as majority leader; in 1984, Deputy President Pro Temp created for Mitchell in the Senate; the impeachment of Clinton; the Maine State legislature as part-time, under funded, and under staffed; “citizen legislature” as obsolete because of complexity of legislation; political term limits; the Libra Foundation; and the Dinner for Women Lawyers in Maine with Gloria Steinem as speaker.
