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I don't have a real good sense yet for the Senate. I had a lot of friends in the House that were regulars in the Bible study there, [Sen.] Tom Coburn [Oklahoma] comes to mind.

You're coming off a harsh campaign that had a difficult tone at many points. What can you, as a Christian, do to ease partisanship?

I don't think you run away from [differences]. We have to be in the arena, contending for the truth. But we Christians should be doing it in the right spirit—a spirit of love, concern, and compassion. I think that's how you can sometimes take the partisan edge off, with just the style and the way you go about the work that you do and the positions that you take, and the statements and beliefs that you share with the public.

Isn't that difficult, though? Has there ever been a time when you've been disappointed in something you've done? Perhaps you've thought, I didn't do that in the most loving manner. I could have done that better?

Washington is a town where there are a tremendous number of temptations and a tremendous amount of pressure that push you toward kind of the same old way of doing business and the hard-edged partisanship. And you have to constantly be fighting against the hostility and animosity. I think one of the things is you have to consistently pray for humility, and not lose sight of why you're really there. And that leadership is about being a servant. You have to constantly anchor yourself in the truth, seeking God's counsel and prayer, getting input from godly people around you, and being involved in these different Bible studies and activities that help you keep things in their perspective.

In the campaign, you sharply criticized those who blocked the President's judicial nominations. What's ahead?

To shut off a filibuster, you have to have 60 votes in the Senate. We still don't have 60 votes. But we have new leadership on the Democratic side. I hope members of the Senate who previously had been held hostage to their party's leadership will now feel more freedom to vote their conscience. I don't know, maybe they did. But it seems to me that some of these guys who represent states that are more conservative than their national party, might now be thinking twice and might be more inclined to support not only legislation but also judicial nominations that are more in line with their state's interest and their state's fundamental beliefs and values.

When can we expect to see the Federal Marriage Amendment again?

I don't know when there'll be a vote on it. But I know there will be a number of us who intend to be engaged in the debate over protecting traditional marriage. I would hope we are able to get that on the floor to be able to discuss it, debate it, and give the people a voice. The way that the courts have acted of late has pre-empted the legislative and the executive prerogative, and basically the people's voice. I think the majority of people in the country and certainly a clear majority of people in South Dakota very much want to protect traditional marriage. And that's why I think the Federal Marriage Amendment—a Constitutional amendment that takes [marriage] out of the realm of judicial activism—is a very important approach.

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February (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49