Maine’s distinguished Senator Margaret Chase Smith once said, “My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned but not bought.”

Senator Smith was an inspiration to many, and she left behind a legacy that is preserved by her library in Skowhegan and by the University of Maine Margaret Chase Policy Center. The Center is dedicated to improving and promoting the public dialogue about policy issues. One of its many public services is a lecture series that has featured speakers such as former Maine Governor and U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith, and former Massachusetts Governor and past presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

It was a great honor to be invited to give the annual Margaret Chase Smith lecture this spring. The theme of the lecture was “The Ethics of Conscience: Continuing the Legacy of Margaret Chase Smith.”

Following are some excerpts from my remarks:

From the first time we met, when I was a senior at Caribou High School, Margaret Chase Smith has been my role model, my inspiration.

She defined integrity by her life of public service, a life that gave power to her words. Words such as these: “The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.”

Of course, one would hope that it would not be necessary to try to legislate integrity. We would hope that all public officials would adhere to the highest ethical standards. And indeed, most elected officials are in government for all the right reasons.

But the recent lobbying scandals…have shocked most of us and spurred public demands for legislative reforms.

We must ban conduct that erodes public confidence in the integrity of government decisions. As we pursue reform, we must take care not to infringe on the constitutional right to petition government. We must keep in mind that lobbying…can provide public officials with useful information that aids, but does not dictate, the decision-making process.

Congress has an obligation to strengthen the crucial bond of trust between those in government and those whom government serves. Our nation faces a great many challenges that the Congress must address but cannot resolve if the public does not trust us to make decisions that serve the public interest.

The Senate committee that I chair developed and approved lobbying reform legislation. Unfortunately, the bill does not address what I believe is one of the leading causes of public cynicism about Congress – the inherently conflicted process by which Congress enforces its own ethics requirements through the House and Senate ethics committees.

That is why Senator Joseph Lieberman and I proposed the creation of a new Office of Public Integrity within the legislative branch. This Office would conduct investigations of possible ethics violations independent of any direct supervision by the House and Senate. This approach would make the enforcement process more credible, transparent, and nonpartisan.

While the Committee deleted our proposal for an Office of Public Integrity, I will try to overcome this setback on the Senate floor when we resume consideration of the bill. Regardless of the fate of the Office of Public Integrity, I am determined to see lobbying reform legislation become law.

Another issue other I wish to discuss is the need for elected officials to work together across party lines to serve the people they represent. That is not as easy as it sounds, but there are some bipartisan success stories.

In 2004, the 9/11 Commission released its final report, and the Homeland Security Committee was given the task of turning its recommendations into legislation that would produce the most comprehensive restructuring of our nation’s Intelligence Community in more than 50 years. This was an incredibly difficult assignment.

The key to the eventual passage of this landmark legislation was an agreement that Senator Lieberman and I made the day after we received this assignment. We agreed that the bill that we would write had to be bipartisan and that our approach would be non-partisan. We decided then and there to work out any differences we had in private and to always present a united front. Our legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 96 to 2.

Then it was on to the conference with the House. The two versions of intelligence reform legislation were similar, but there were many significant differences. We refused to divide along partisan lines.

Every time the negotiations appeared to be hopeless, I would remember the words of Mary Fetchet, who lost her 24-year old son, Brad, on September 11 at the World Trade Center. She said to me, “Please don’t let Brad’s death be in vain. This legislation could help prevent future attacks that would rob other families of their children.” We never gave up, and ultimately, we prevailed.

Finally, there is a form of integrity that involves accepting responsibility and learning from one’s mistakes. To illustrate this, I’ll use a story that is anything but a success: our nation’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

The Committee is now concluding our investigation into the response to Katrina. This has been the most exhaustive investigation we have ever conducted, spanning six months, with 21 hearings and expert testimony from 80 witnesses. In addition, Committee staff conducted more than 300 formal interviews and examined some 820,000 pages of documents. Senator Lieberman has described our investigation as the most comprehensive and bipartisan in his 18 years in the Senate.

There is no question that the flawed response to Katrina turned a terrible natural disaster into an even worse man-made debacle, resulting in needless suffering and loss of life. But much of the flawed response was due to human error. There was a profound failure of leadership at all levels of government – local, state, and federal.

Integrity is not about being perfect. It is, however, about accepting responsibility and striving to learn from mistakes.

Integrity in public office is about making ethical choices, standing tall for one’s principles, and always striving to do better.

I mentioned meeting Margaret Chase Smith when I was in high school. Although I did not realize it at the time, that meeting was the first step in a journey that led me to run for her seat 25 years later. And I am so proud to hold the seat of a Senator whose entire public career personified integrity and service.

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