The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the December 19, 2024, editions of the Washington Jewish Week, Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and Baltimore Jewish Times:
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| Sen. Ben Cardin (Courtesy of Office of Sen. Ben Cardin) |
There are noticeable signs that change is in the air. Moving boxes are visible and there are empty spaces on some of the walls where photos had been hung. Yet the mood in Sen. Ben Cardin’s office is anything but glum. In fact, there’s a sense of buoyancy even though Cardin’s time as a U.S. senator from Maryland is coming to an end.
The sense of optimism comes right from the top — from Cardin himself. The longtime senator’s warm smile and gregarious demeanor set the tone and infuses his office with the feeling that anything is possible. And as one of the highest-ranking Jewish lawmakers in the nation, Cardin proudly wears his Judaism on his sleeve and embraces it at every turn.
For Cardin, a Baltimore native and graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law who has served in elected office for 58 years, including tenures in the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives and Maryland House of Delegates, public service and helping others is ingrained in his DNA.
Even before seeking elected office, Cardin was engaged in student government and fraternity life and was deeply involved in politics at the University of Pittsburgh as an undergraduate student in the early 1960s.
Noting that his family always has Shabbat dinners together, Cardin remarked that “there are interesting conversations that take place at our Shabbat dinners, and politics was very much part of it growing up.”
Cardin’s decision to pursue a career in politics largely stemmed from a family legacy of public service. His father and uncle were members of the Maryland state legislature and his father was also a Circuit Court judge. “I worked polling places from the time I can remember and attended political meetings with my father from a very young age,” he said.
In addition to political involvement, Cardin’s parents were both involved in Jewish communal activities. His mother was very active in Hadassah and his father was involved in Jewish National Fund, Israel Bonds and the Zionist Organization of America.
As he sets to depart the Senate after 18 years, Cardin ruminated on how the Senate has evolved as an institution during his tenure.
“The collegial atmosphere among senators has remained strong,” he said. “I’ve always had close relations with almost all the members of the United States Senate — not all, but most — and that includes Republicans and Democrats, and have had working relations with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get major bills enacted. But the partisan division of our nation has also been reflected in the way that the Senate operates. So more and more of the agenda is set on a partisan basis, rather than on a collegial basis, on a collaborative basis, and that’s unfortunate.”
Cardin lamented the fact that there are less opportunities to bring issues to the Senate floor for a vote, vigorously debate those issues, and then vote on them accordingly.
Referring to that “great tradition of the United States Senate when I started,” Cardin said he finds the “actions … by both parties to restrict the opportunities for votes on the floor of the United States Senate … to be regrettable.”
He pointed to the use of the filibuster as something that has become an obstacle to advancing legislation in the Senate.
“The use of the filibuster has been abused by both Democrats and Republicans, and it now becomes almost a foregone conclusion that you need 60 votes on every issue,” Cardin said. “It shouldn’t be that way. The routine business of the United States Senate should be done by majority vote. It should not require 60 votes.”
Despite his concerns about several of the changes in the Senate’s parliamentary procedures, Cardin was quick to reiterate that notwithstanding the political divisions that exist, bipartisanship remains an integral part of his work, even telling a story about his bar mitzvah to illustrate his family’s history of working across the political aisle.
“Maryland has a proud history of Democratic and Republican leadership. … Theodore McKeldin [former governor of Maryland and former mayor of Baltimore], a Republican, was a dear friend of our family and actually helped my father politically. He attended my bar mitzvah. It was the only time that Rabbi [Samuel] Rosenblatt at Beth Tfiloh allowed the doors to be opened in the middle of his sermon so the governor could walk in. I’ll never forget that moment.”
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| Sen. Ben Cardin during an official visit to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, on July 6, 2021. (Photo credit: wikicommons/IAEA Imagebank) |
On Dec. 10, Cardin took to the Senate floor to deliver a farewell speech to his Senate colleagues, Marylanders and the American public.
“I come to the floor today to say ‘goodbye,’ as difficult as this may be,” he said. “Let me thank Marylanders for giving me your trust to represent you in this august body. You have supported me in 18 elections. The Hebrew letter for 18 is ‘chai,’ which also means life. Fifty-eight years of my life.
“In my family, I was taught from a young age that it’s our responsibility to make the world a better place — tikkun olam, repair the world — and help those who are less fortunate and are in need — tzedakah, charity,” Cardin said in his Senate address. “These principles were demonstrated to me by the communal activities of my parents. Their principles, these values, have been my North Star that have guided my public service as a legislator.”
Cardin’s speech touched on some of his proudest accomplishments as an elected official, including legislation focusing on seniors, health care and the Chesapeake Bay.
In an interview, Cardin expanded on his legislative achievements and spoke about some additional monumental moments in his storied career, citing the enactment of the first ethics bill that he led as speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates and his work in the House of Representatives on behalf of Soviet Jewry and human rights globally. He also spoke with pride about his work to fight antisemitism and representing the U.S. at the Berlin Conference on Anti-Semitism in 2004, as well as his efforts to counter the BDS movement, which he noted was “started by those who are very much anti-Israel and antisemitic.”
Jewish values play an integral role in Cardin’s life and truly define who he is as a person and how he and his wife Myrna raised their family. Referring to the importance of giving to others, Cardin said his family “always talked about tzedakah — not only what we could do to help, but also giving money.”
“It was expected that part of our money as I grew up was going to go into a tzedakah box, and we talked about where we wanted that money to go,” he said. “To this day, every Friday night, we give money to tzedakah, and we talk about, as a family, where we would like that money to go. So, tzedakah was always part of our family. … This is a crazy world, we recognize that, but we have a lot to be thankful for, and we know that others are not as fortunate, and we can help them.”
One of Cardin’s passions is foreign policy and he has been at the center of a multitude of foreign policy issues in his capacity as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including those concerning Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Cardin spoke about the need to counter autocratic countries that govern through the use of force, calling the U.S. “the beacon of that opportunity” to counter rogue nations and noting that the U.S. must consider “how do we promote our values with reliable alliances?”
Among the issues on which he been especially active and vocal is Israel and the importance of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.
Cardin expressed his profound disappointment with recent efforts by some lawmakers to condition aid to Israel, and even withhold aid to Israel, while Israel is facing battles against several enemies on multiple fronts simultaneously.
“I think those efforts are misguided. I strongly oppose them,” Cardin declared emphatically. “As chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I led successful efforts on the floor of the United States Senate to oppose those types of efforts, and we won by overwhelming majorities. … It’s misguided because it misses the point that Israel is a strong, democratic country that has a special relationship with the United States because of those values … because it’s the only democratic state in the Middle East. It’s a country that we can rely upon for intelligence information, for sharing military strategies, technology. So, that special relationship benefits not just Israel but the United States.
“I don’t agree with everything that the prime minister of Israel is doing,” Cardin said. “I think the prime minister needed to be more strategic in dealing with the use of his military force as it relates to civilian casualties. And I think that we all, including Israel and the United States, need to do more for humanitarian assistance for innocent people who have been hurt by the military campaign. But it does not at all affect my strong belief that the United States has to stand side by side with Israel and has to make sure they have everything they need to defend themselves, and that the villain in this is not the prime minister or Israel — it’s Hamas and Iran — and that we have to focus that spotlight and can’t be distracted. These votes had nothing to do with Israel or with the plight of the Palestinians; it had everything to do with Israel’s ability to defend itself moving forward. And that’s why I say it was misplaced. And I just think it was the wrong message. And I’m glad that the overwhelming majority, including the majority of both parties, opposed those resolutions.”
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When it comes to addressing the rise of antisemitism and the isolation of Israel globally, Cardin has consistently been at the forefront of these issues.
“People really do not have a good grip of history,” he said. “They don’t know the circumstances. They don’t recognize the risk factors that Israelis confront every day. They lose sight of the fact that Hamas took hostages, which is outrageous to start off with, and has not released them, which is even more outrageous, executing some. It’s horrible what Hamas has done. And yet they put a focus on Israel. The focus should be on Hamas and should be on the terrorists.”
“Take a look at the United Nations Human Rights Council prior to Oct. 7,” Cardin added. “The only standing issue they have is Israel? There is such international bias against Israel, a lot of it rooted in antisemitism. I find that good people fall prey to disinformation and follow these individuals who are just trying to promote antisemitism and isolation of Israel, and that’s frustrating. So yes, I’ll speak out against those efforts.”
Cardin is a student of history who believes in the power of government to help people and he wants to use his extensive experience to help new and future elected officials understand what government service is all about and what their primary areas of focus should be.
“First, I would tell them to be learned,” he said. “What I mean by that is to understand history, to try to be as knowledgeable as you possibly can about issues, to guard against disinformation. Secondly, I would urge them to listen, particularly to people who may have different views, because we all can learn from that type of participation. And third, I would suggest that we always practice civility.
“Understand how the system works,” he added. “Know how you can participate in it, be knowledgeable, but always act with civility, and then be willing to compromise, not your principles or your values, but compromise in order to get results done. … We can come up with better solutions when we listen to each other and take the best information available, and those solutions will be more long-lasting if we have broader consensus in developing them.”
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| (Photo credit: wikicommons/MDGovpics) |
“My colleagues who have gone through this, the one consistent advice I get from every one of those colleagues is not to make commitments for a period of time … take a little bit of time before you make those judgments. But I want to follow my passion, and I want to stay active. … And my passion, quite frankly, deals with foreign policy, it deals with the environment, it deals with good governance. So, those are the areas that I would like to be able to pursue and I hope I’ll have the opportunity to do that.”
As Cardin prepares to leave the Senate and step away from elected office after well over a half-century, he has no regrets.
“Certainly, there are mountains I’ve yet to conquer that I would like to have conquered. … But generally, I am extremely proud of what I’ve been able to get done and have no regrets about leaving the United States Senate from the point of view of leaving unfinished business that I think I could have done more to accomplish.”
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