Even though Vice President Dan Quayle and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, reportedly sometimes fought bitterly over the Job Training Partnership Act in 1982, they joined forces Tuesday to praise it after seven years of operation.
They were part of a forum in which representatives from both parties and houses told Quayle - the author of JTPA in 1982 - how successful they feel the act to help train the underprivileged has been and outlined possible ways to improve it.Hatch led the cheering from the Republicans - even though a recent book called "Making of a Senator: Dan Quayle" by Richard Fenno Jr. revealed that Quayle said some downright nasty things about Hatch possibly hindering the bill back in 1982.
Hatch at the time was chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and then-Sen. Quayle was chairman of a subcommittee that oversaw job training. Hatch had urged Quayle to allow the Reagan administration to make its own job training proposal, but Quayle joined forces with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and moved ahead with JTPA.
Fenno wrote that Quayle said of Hatch at the time, "I can't deal with him. I had to go around him. I asked him to join me, but that's not his conception - joining. He wants to be the leader. He thinks it should be his bill. Well, it's my bill. I did all the work on it. I told him, `Maybe you can get away with this with somebody else, but not me.' Hatch doesn't accomplish anything."
Quayle apologized to Hatch when those comments appeared in the book and on Tuesday went even further to say that without Hatch's help, the Reagan administration may never have supported the bill.
He said Hatch "was very instrumental in the passage of JTPA and particularly in dealing with our friends in the White House."
Then, looking at Hatch, Quayle said, "I remember what we called the people in the White House in those days - and I've changed my mind."
Hatch said, "I have, too."
About the job training act, Hatch said, "JTPA has worked - and worked well . . . . It has provided hope and opportunity for youth, dislocated workers and unskilled adults. It has boosted those facing multiple barriers to employment over the first hurdle to economic independence."