Lamar Alexander

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is available now. Updates from former United States Senator Lamar Alexander. 7th generation Tennessean born and raised in Maryville.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

Thank you to Sen. Bill Frist (@bfrist) for highlighting my journey into politics, my three mentors — Sen. Howard Baker, Judge John Minor Wisdom of New Orleans, and Bryce Harlow—and their “enduring influence” in his latest Substack article.

As I write in my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I have concluded that character and temperament are the most important traits for anyone holding public office. Judge Wisdom and Sen. Baker reinforced these values. So did seeing firsthand the stress and the scope of responsibilities of the ten presidents with whom I worked.

Some tell me that putting such a premium on character is naïve. I tell them Bryce Harlow’s story about the time President Eisenhower’s cabinet was divided, and Ike asked, “Well, what would be the right thing to do?”

If a president who was also the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II could make decisions on that basis, perhaps the rest of us could too.

You can read Sen. Frist's article here: https://t.co/eu2rNz06Qw

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

@SenAlexander has been a governor, Secretary of Education and senator. At @MTSU, I asked my close friend how he got started.

“I had three really good mentors”: Howard Baker, Judge John Minor Wisdom and Bryce Harlow.

Read more about what each taught him today in Substack: https://t.co/fc6ao7V96m

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

“I know the congressman, and I know the district, and in my opinion the congressman is fairly representative of the people in the district,” the humorist Will Rogers once told a group of constituents complaining about their congressman.

I repeated that story on Friday at a symposium in George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon (@MountVernon), when Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) of CBS News interviewed former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (@purduemitch) and I about our new memoirs. I reminded those who ask if our country has ever been more divided before that we once had a civil war. We actually had two, since one-third of the colonists were on the British side during the American Revolution.

And I reminded them that last week’s election reminded us that the ballot box is the real cure for those who aren’t happy about the direction of our country.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use the link in my bio to order. https://t.co/T1quO5FtlX

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

Tune into @PBS station WNPT Ch. 8.1 (@nashvillepbs) tonight, Friday, November 6th, from 9:30 PM to 11, to watch Sen. Lamar Alexander’s October 19 interview with Sen. Bill Frist (@bfrist) at the Tucker Theatre on @MTSU's campus about his New York Times best-selling memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, and his and Sen. Frist’s time in public service.

During the interview, they recount how Sen. Alexander was sworn in as Governor of Tennessee three days early, how working together helped pass the 21st Century Cures Act, and how Sen. Frist went from being one of the nation's leading heart surgeons to a Senator. They also discussed the difference in Senate campaigns from 2002 to today, bipartisanship in public life, and the issues the next generation of leaders are facing.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/T1quO5EVwp.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

“He makes Nixon look like a choir boy,” said one Democrat state senator after headlines announced that Tennessee Gov. Ray Blanton had signed pardons for 52 of Tennessee’s most notorious prisoners, murderers, rapists, and robbers, including Roger Humphreys. In chapter 2 of my memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JKF TO TRUMP, I write about how Blanton’s promise to pardon Humphreys helped make me his successor.

One month earlier, in December 1978, FBI agents arrested Edward “Eddie” Sisk, Gov. Blanton’s legal counsel. On that same morning, Tennessee’s retiring first lady, Betty Blanton, was giving a tour of the governor’s residence to her successor, Honey Alexander.

“I’m sorry. There is no way I can take you to look at the master bedroom upstairs because the governor and his advisers are meeting in there,” Mrs. Blanton had said to Honey. The governor had much to discuss in that meeting. The indictments accused Blanton’s chief of security and his extradition officer, as well as Sisk, of twenty-six instances of selling clemencies for cash. There were videotapes to prove it.

“How much would it cost to spring James Earl Ray?” an FBI informant had asked Blanton’s chief of security on one videotape as they sat under surveillance in a Memphis motel room.

Ray was serving ninety-nine years in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary for the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. US Attorney Hardin, who was overhearing the taping in an adjacent room, had suggested the informant try a Hail Mary to test how far the governor’s corrupt aides were willing to go. “Whew, I don’t know. That’s pretty hot. What about $75,000 for an escape?” the chief of security said, according to Hardin. These events reached a crescendo on Monday, January 15 (the day of the surprise opinion), prompting the governor to drive to the Capitol to pardon Humphreys and fifty-one others.

As Tennesseans awoke to Tuesday’s news, you could almost hear explosions of anger popping, house by house. The governor’s new counsel, Robert Lillard, said that there would be as many as eighteen more pardons before the governor left office, and that there was one big name in the group.

Rumors spread that the one big name was James Earl Ray.

You can watch my full discussion with Bill Frist (@bfrist) at @MTSU on YouTube here: https://t.co/U0JYQxx3Hp. It will also be airing on @PBS station WNPT Ch.8.1 Nashville this Friday, November 6, from 9:30 PM to 11.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/cVj7nEA0vI.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

“That’s one time I’ve seen a pure example of people taking politics and throwing it aside,” said Hayes Cooney, the state deputy attorney general, about the day of my early swearing-in. In Chapters 1 and 2 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write about how the participants in that bipartisan boot camp learned other lessons.

We communicated carefully, repeating conversations or rereading a joint statement out loud to one another. We relied on the advice of senior state attorneys and the local federal attorney. We tried to put the best interests of citizens before our own. We avoided placing each other in awkward political positions.

Our actions encouraged our successors in both political parties to work together over the next forty years. Neighbors took notice.

On Friday evening, October 26, 2018, United States Senator Doug Jones, an Alabama Democrat, addressed a national convention of US attorneys in Nashville.

“Our challenge…is to demand…that our public officials and candidates do…as Hal [Hardin] did and as…Lamar Alexander and the cadre of Tennessee Democrats did that January afternoon in 1979—to put state and country above political party. As you can see…in this incredible city of Nashville, the results can be downright amazing.“

Will there be leaders willing to participate in future bipartisan boot camps? I believe the answer is “yes”—if the next generation is nourished in communities where children learn to work well together, to respect public service—and that, for them, anything is possible.

You can watch my full discussion with Bill Frist (@bfrist) at @MTSU on YouTube here: https://t.co/U0JYQxx3Hp. It will also be airing on @PBS station WNPT Ch.8.1 Nashville this Friday, November 6, from 9:30 PM to 11.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/cVj7nEA0vI.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

In Chapter 38 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write about working with George W. Bush and provide an example of why I say he has a “big heart."

On a sunny Saturday, November 2, 2002, the weekend before I won my first election to the Senate, Bush came to Tennessee to campaign for me. Sitting next to him on stage, I noticed redness in his eyes. I thought I saw tears. He told me that he had visited the family of a fallen soldier in nearby Elizabethton. After 9/11, the president had sent troops into combat, and he felt responsible for each one.

Over the next six years, he made about five hundred such visits to 1500 family members of American military men and women killed in action. The families he visited sometimes added to his burden by telling him that they, too, felt he was responsible for their loved one’s death. Bush did not discuss these visits publicly. Like his father, he had no need to call attention to himself. Visits with grieving families were not about him.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/cVj7nEA0vI.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

This Sunday, @cspan's @BookTV will broadcast twice Sen. Lamar Alexander’s October 17 interview at Nashville’s @SoFestofBooks (@VanderbiltU) about his New York Times best-selling memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP. The 50-minute discussion will be broadcast at noon EST on Sunday, November 1, and then 12 hours later at midnight (12:00 a.m. EST on Monday, November 2).

During the interview, Alexander tells stories about the ten presidents with whom he worked during sixty years of seeing public life from almost every angle, including working 50 feet from the Oval Office in the Nixon White House and getting big things done with a president with whose liberal views he disagreed (Obama) and another with whose behavior he disagreed (Trump).

He reflects on his time as Education Secretary in George H.W. Bush’s cabinet and why he believes that Bush’s conduct of the Gulf War provides lessons for President Trump's conduct of the Iran War. He tells why he thinks Ronald Reagan fit the job the best and why George H. W. Bush was the most ”normal” of the ten presidents with whom he worked.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/bxge0fIbv9.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

“Along my six-month walk, I auctioned my plaid shirts to raise campaign funds. At first, $25 was a good price. In Columbia, after television ads of my walk had started, a supporter paid $500. Then, guitar-playing Jerry Reed of Smokey and the Bandit fame began showing up at campaign events wearing his plaid shirt. Sales and prices soared. In this October 1982 photo, Jerry and I are performing during my reelection campaign.”

This is an excerpt from my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, where I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/bxge0fIbv9.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

My summer with JFK’s Justice Department also infused me with a dose of political reality, which I describe in Chapter 6 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP.

As my third year in law school began, I concluded that I would have a happier and more useful life back in Tennessee. Attorney General Kennedy had encouraged us summer interns to consider public service, and suggested that a good place to start would be with our local US attorney. I drove to Chattanooga to apply for a job.

“What is your political party?” asked the US attorney, a Kennedy appointee.

“Why, I’m a Republican. In Maryville, almost everybody is a Republican,” I responded.

“Sorry. We only hire Democrats,” he said.

“But I was told that in the Justice Department, political affiliation doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Who told you that?” the US attorney asked.

“The attorney general,” I said.

“Well, that word hasn’t made it to Chattanooga,” the US attorney answered.

After that, I landed a job with a Knoxville law firm starting in June 1965, when I was to graduate. Meanwhile, NYU Law Associate Dean Robert McKay suggested a detour. John Minor Wisdom, an admired federal judge, was looking for a law clerk. I drove to New Haven, where the judge was speaking at the Yale Law Journal banquet. Afterward, we visited.

“I have already hired a young man from Harvard, but I can pay you three hundred dollars a month in a messenger’s position. I’ll treat you like 58a second clerk,” the judge said. The opportunity to live in New Orleans and learn from such a distinguished jurist was too tempting to turn down. In the second week of September 1965, as hurricane season arrived, I flew to New Orleans to begin my job as messenger for Judge Wisdom, hoping that he would remember to treat me like his law clerk.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/cVj7nEA0vI.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

Most people are surprised to learn that the lowest scores on high school students' Advanced Placement tests are not in math and science, but in U.S. history and Civics. Some students think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court.

In Chapter 30 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write about how I worked with President Reagan, Assistant Education Secretary Checker Finn, and President George H. W. Bush to have The Nation’s Report Card begin announcing academic achievement results at the state level for the first time, creating voluntary de facto national standards. In the 1990s, Governor Phil Bredesen (@PhilBredesen) pointed out that Tennessee students were learning far below these national standards. Tennesseans went to work, and over the last dozen years 4th and 8th grade math and English scores have jumped from 42nd to 16th nationally.

Governor Bredesen and I wrote this @TIME article to encourage states to apply the same effort to civics. Our children need to understand U.S. history and civics in order to understand what it means to be an American.

You can read the article here: https://t.co/eOcWHdxIyx

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/bxge0fIbv9.