In between overhauling the U.S. health care system and working on financial reform, Chris Dodd has been having lunch with ex-colleagues, who have been giving him advice on life after the Senate.
He’s met with Sam Nunn, Chuck Hagel and George Mitchell, among others. Each has pursued a different path after leaving government but they all seem to be enjoying themselves, Dodd said Monday afternoon, during an interview with the Courant’s editorial board.
The temptation upon leaving the seat of power that is the U.S. Senate is to bite at the first offer that comes your way, Dodd said. “You think no one will call,” he said.
But his friends counseled against that. They urged him to take his time in charting the next chapter, with one former colleague jokingly telling him that it took him years to get out of the commitments he made in those first few months.
Dodd said he will not lobby, but, like Hagel and Nunn, he may teach.
Dodd said he is at peace with his decision to leave the Senate.
In the waning days of 2009, with his political future uncertain, he asked himself if he wanted to spend the next seven years doing the job he’s done for the past 29.
The Senate is a different place than it was in 1980 and “the people I was closest to and friendliest with have moved on,” Dodd said.
And, he said, as much as he loves being a U.S. Senator, the decision not to run for reelection “the right decision.”