Senator

Former Senator Jim Webb

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Jim Webb

Politician

Jim Webb is the former Democratic Senator from Virginia. He wrote, introduced, and guided to passage the Post-9.11 GI Bill, the most significant veterans legislation since World War II, and co-authored legislation which exposed 60 billion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan wartime-support contracts. A long-time advocate of fixing America’s broken criminal justice system, Mr. Webb was spotlighted in The Atlantic as one of the world’s “Brave Thinkers” for tackling prison reform and possessing “two things vanishingly rare in Congress: a conscience and a spine.” He went on to give a response to the State of the Union which has been regarded as one of the stronger State of the Union responses in recent memory. 


He previously served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan and is the recipient of the Purple Heart. Webb is also an Emmy Award winning journalist, a filmmaker, and the author of ten books. Since retiring, Webb has continued to be a prolific writer and has written for many national journals including USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.


Jim Webb participated in The White Working-Class Political Revolution with David Kuhn, Charlie Cook, and Moderator Clyde Haberman on January 7, 2021. Kuhn, Webb, Cook, and Haberman discussed how the white working-class was driven away from the Democratic party and towards Republicans and how that schism continues to drive class conflict and political polarization today. The discussion also broached the Democrats inability to make inroads with this demographic and if white working-class voters support Republicans in spite of their own policy preferences.

Al Franken

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Al Franken

Politician & Comedian

Al Franken is an American comedian, politician, media personality, and author who served as a United States senator from Minnesota. He gained notoriety for his work on Saturday Night Live.

After leaving SNL, Franken went on to become a political activist including hosting a radio show, offering commentary and insights and writing several books. He supported military members and often worked on entertaining soldiers. He decided to run for the Senate and win. While in the Senate he supported same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and gun control. In addition, Franken was active in health care reform and fought to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. 

After leaving the Senate, he now hosts his own radio program The Al Franken Show on SeriousXM which covers global affairs, politics, the 2020 presidential election, and entertainment. 

Al Franken participated in the 2020 Post-Election Roundup with Charlie Cook, Jonathan Capehart and Rick Wilson. After approximately two years, $14 billion and countless hours of attention, the 2020 campaign has finally come to a close. Al Franken was a part of the historic panel to discuss Joe Biden winning the presidency and President Trump is still contesting the results.

Senator Gordon Smith

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the honorable Gordon Smith

Former U.S. Senator for Oregon

Gordon Harold Smith is a former United States Senator and businessman from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served two terms in the Senate. Prior to election to the U.S. Senate in 1996, he served in the Oregon State Senate, including one session as President of Oregon’s Senate in 1995. Smith was defeated for reelection in 2008 by Democrat Jeff Merkley. On September 18, 2009, he was named as President of the National Association of Broadcasters.

Smith was hosted by The Common Good in 2006 for a Meet & Greet.

Senator Arlen Specter ✝

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the honorable Arlen Specter ✝

Former U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania

Arlen Specter was a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter was a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the Democratic Party in 2009. First elected in 1980, he represented his state for thirty years in the Senate.

Specter first opened a law firm with Marvin Katz, who would later become a federal judge. Specter served as assistant counsel for the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy and helped devise the “single bullet theory.” In 1965, Specter was elected District Attorney of Philadelphia, a position that he would hold until he lost his re-election bid in 1973. On April 28, 2009, Specter announced that, after 44 years as an elected Republican, he was switching membership to the Democratic Party, On May 18, 2010, Specter was defeated in the Democratic primary by Joe Sestak, who then was defeated by current Senator Pat Toomey in the general election. Toomey replaced Specter on January 3, 2011.

In fall 2011, Specter was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he taught a course on the relationship between Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on separation of powers and the confirmation process.

Arlen Specter passed away at his home in Philadelphia on October 14, 2012 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Specter was hosted by The Common Good in 2007 for a Meet & Greet.

Read more:

Will Dunham, ‘Former senator Arlen Specter, 82, dies of cancer’, Reuters, 14 October 2012

Linda Greenhouse, ‘Senator Specter and the Law’, The New York Times, 20 May 2010

Brian Montopoli, ‘Sen. Arlen Specter To Become a Democrat’, CBS, 28 April 2009

Senator Jon Tester

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Jon Tester

American Politician

R. Jon Tester is the junior United States Senator for Montana, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served as President of the Montana Senate.

Tester was first elected to the Montana State Senate in 1998, after his neighbor, a Republican State Senator, decided not to run for re-election. He was elected the minority whip for the 2001 session. In 2002, he won re-election with 71% of the vote. In 2003, he became minority leader. In 2005, Tester was elected President of the Montana Senate, the chief presiding officer of the Montana Legislature’s upper chamber.

His election as President marked a transition for Montana Democrats as they moved into the majority leadership of the Senate for the first time in more than a decade. Term limits would have prohibited Tester from running for state Senate for a third time. While serving as Senate President, Tester supported increased funding for public education and cutting taxes for small business owners and the working poor. He also worked to make health insurance more affordable and require public utilities to use more renewable energy.

He has made government reform a top priority issue. Tester criticized Republicans in Congress for making policy that is designed “for those who write the biggest campaign checks.” He has stated that Washington culture is “controlled by K Street cronies.” He has spoken against gay marriage and flag burning, but sees Constitutional bans on each issue as unnecessary. Instead of avoiding class issues, Tester has also taken them head-on. On Meet the Press, he asserted that “there’s no more middle class” because of Bush Administration policies.

Tester is a more liberal Democrat on other issues. He is pro-choice and supports embryonic stem cell research, and he has also voted to increase funding for Medicare and SCHIP. In the Senate, Tester continues to advocate increased funding for public education, just as he did in the Montana Legislature. Tester supports middle class tax cuts. He has voted against repealing the Estate Tax and Alternative Minimum Tax, policies he sees as favoring only the wealthy. When criticized for being soft on national security, Tester stated that “the Patriot Act has very little to do with the War on Terrorism” and asserted that “I don’t want to weaken the Patriot Act, I want to repeal it.”  Tester is also a strong supporter of alternative energy, voting to increase wind and solar power funding and decrease emissions. He states that the Kyoto Protocol needs American support in order to have global legitimization.

Twitter: @jontester

Sen. Amy Klobuchar

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Senator Amy Klobuchar

Senior Senator representing Minnesota

Amy Jean Klobuchar is the senior United States Senator from Minnesota. She is running in the 2020 Presidential Campaign and is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. She is the first elected female senator from Minnesota.

Klobuchar was county attorney of Hennepin County, the most populous county in Minnesota. She was a legal adviser to former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and partner in two prominent law firms. Klobuchar has been named by the New York Times as one of the seventeen women most likely to become the first female President of the United States and by MSNBC as a possible nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Klobuchar served as Minnesota’s only senator between January 3 and July 7, 2009, due to the contested results of Minnesota’s senatorial election held the previous year.

Klobuchar spoke at The Common Good as part of the 2008 Democratic National Convention Panel.

Twitter: @amyklobuchar