How it once was and how it ought to be

The following is an edited email from a retired Republican state official who worked collaboratively with Democrats back in the 1980s and 1990s. He was not an anomaly as others did the same.   From his email, which was forwarded to a group that collaborated, it reveals how it used to to be, as well as how it ought to be. The editing is to mask identities.

“When I was serving in the State House in the 1980’s and 90’s there was an atmosphere of cooperation and respect that began to change. As Chair of a (redacted) Committee, I had a remarkable working relationship with the Democrat Senate Finance leadership. We met, we shared meals and I felt that we all wanted what was best for (our state). Common sense and common good were strongly accepted. (Three Democrat) Senators became good friends.

In early 2002, I began to sense a change in the make-up of the General Assembly as new members were elected. The attitudes and integrity of the those new members was affecting the comradery of the institution. So, I came home and told my spouse (redacted), that I was not going to seek reelection. My regret is that I did not work hard to secure new candidates who would continue the balance for the good of our state. Our country’s political future is in jeopardy.”

The person who forwarded this to me was one of those Democrats who worked with him. He is now an Independent, but remains interested in getting mutual conversation going. It has been more of an uphill battle these days.

Just a few more thoughts about how it used to be. In the US Congress, I read there used to be a common eating area that is now used for something else. It promoted conversation between elected officials, even across the aisle. Now, legislators socialize far less.

It was not uncommon to see folks like Senators John McCain and Joe Biden together. When McCain died a few years ago, I watched on “The View,” Biden switch seats to comfort a distraught Meghan McCain. He knew her as well as her father.

Finally, then Senator Barack Obama partnered several times with new Republican Senator Tom
Coburn from Oklahoma to pass legislation. Their partnership was based off a friendship when both started out. They wanted to make a difference and did.

So, collaboration can be done. And, that is how it used to be done. Legislation that is bipartisan will stand the test of time better than one sided legislation or legislation made to look that way as the party orders people not to vote for something for optics. We need to get it together and those folks who do not want it to happen are the ones who need to be questioned not the ones who do.

Saturday in the Park – a few musings for a walk

With all due respect to the band Chicago, one of their most popular songs is the theme for today’s potpourri of topics – Saturday in the Park. So, put on some good walking shoes, add a pair of sunglasses and let’s go for a stroll in the park. A jacket might be required.

After a seemingly endless number of votes, the US Congress has a new Speaker of the House. Sadly, to get elected he chose to make concessions to the most strident group of elected officials, rather than work with the Democrats who will be needed to get the people’s work done.

Unfortunately, this independent and former Republican voter does not hold the new Speaker in high regard as he has missed so many opportunities to be a leader. As one example, he made a great speech laying the blame for the insurrection at the feet of the former president, but then proceeded to erase what he said when called to Mar-a-Lago. I am not a huge fan of Nancy Pelosi, but this is a noticeable step down and this concerns me as the focus over the next two years will not be on productive matters in my view per the stated goals of the caucus.

On a positive note, I was glad to see Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Joe Biden make a joint appearance at a bridge in Kentucky that will be improved by the infrastructure legislation. We need more of this show of bipartisanship in our country. Kudos to both the infrastructure investment and collaboration.

I read where the outgoing president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro trashed their version of the White House on his way out. Given his expected temper tantrum over the election results, following the lead of the former US president’s, it was not a surprise to read what he did following the election.

Leaders need to live up to the role they have been elected to serve. In a democracy, they serve us. They need to tell us the truth and to work together to do serve our needs. Governance is hard enough when they do those things, but nigh impossible when they don’t.

Being silent is not enough – a reprise from last January

Last year about this time, I wrote this plea to leaders in the Republican Party. As an independent and former Republican (and Democrat earlier), this message still holds true, although major strides were made last year. In the mid-terms, Democracy held serve as many of the election deniers were defeated at the polls. We saw some significant pieces of legislation occur on a bipartisan basis, which is the way it should be. We also saw the business of the former president found guilty of tax fraud by a jury, which means it was not a witch hunt as any formal criticism is often called.

Finally, we saw the House Select Committee hear sworn testimony from a significant number of Republicans under oath who shared their concerns over the former president’s seditious words and actions leading up to, on and after January 6, 2021. It should be noted those who criticized these Republicans were not under oath when they did so. Again, if this was a witch hunt, why did these Republicans risk a great deal by testifying?

*************

The courageous few Republicans who are among the truth tellers in their party are strong in principle, but seem to be standing alone or in small groupings way too often. For their truth telling, they are knowingly vilified and some even receive death threats by fans of the former president. Yet, they do it anyway.

Most of the elected officials in the party are keenly aware that Congresswoman Liz Cheney’s question of is the Republican party going to be the party of truth or party of Trump a more than fair question. Yet, they have chosen to be silent. In essence, they are saying to themselves “Don’t poke the bear.” They want to avoid being highlighted by the former president and his bullying and untruthful bent, whose followers will join in the fray.

This spineless tactic is not new. Back in the heyday of the Communist witch hunts and Senator Joe McCarthy, the populist candidate had a huge following. The Republican even rivaled the popularity of President Dwight Eisenhower. From Jon Meacham’s book “The Soul of America,” the historian points out Eisenhower detested McCarthy for his baseless claims that he frequently made up on the spot. Yet, Ike would not publicly demean McCarthy for his claims, only to offer mild comments from time to time.

He and the other Republicans tolerated McCarthy. They remained silent. It was not until the most respected TV journalist Edward R. Murrow exposed McCarthy for what he was that his impact began to ebb. But, the impact of McCarthy’s baseless accusations lingered on for years. The famous question asked by a senior Army official of McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” could be asked of the most recent former president, another populist who tends to make baseless claims.

I encourage all of you who agree with the purpose of this post, to consistently let elected Republican and other officials know you appreciate their political courage for pushing back on the incessant and well-documented untruthful actions and words of the former president. And, let your Republican Senators, Congress person, and GOP leaders know you are concerned about this untruthful path the party has taken. The GOP has lost any veritas it had left. I even let them know how much I admire the courage of the truth tellers and it is a shame they are getting death threats.

The accusations of sedition toward the former president tend to focus more on what he failed to do last January 6. In my view as an Independent and former Republican voter, his consistent baseless claims of election fraud, which he has tried to prove and failed miserably in courts, audits and recounts, are what greased the skids for what happened on January 6.

As his niece said, “My uncle will burn it all down to avoid losing the election.” I knew he would act this way, but what makes me more frustrated are the sycophants who publicly cover for his Big Lie and the too silent many in party leadership who are letting him do it. And, what they fail to realize based on previous history and current actions, the former president will throw them under the bus in a New York minute, even placing them in physical danger with targets on their backs if they do not play ball with him.

Infrastructure bill – letter to the editor

I am very pleased the US Senate passed an infrastructure bill. Here is a letter I sent into my newspaper this weekend. Let’s see if they publish it, but I at least wanted to let others see it, in case they do not.

I applaud the sixty-nine US Senators who approved the much needed Infrastructure bill, including the 19 Republicans (Burr, Tillis as well) who voted for it. The bipartisan push for this bill is very encouraging for this independent voter and shows we can remember how to work together.

This bill is about ten years overdue as our infrastructure is of great concern. Many may not realize we did not get the Chicago Olympics because our airport, train, communication and highway infrastructure was severely outdated. And, that decision was made several years ago. Let’s encourage our legislators to do more of this and cease the tribal politicking that will be our demise.

Please don’t celebrate at halftime – the game is not over

Growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, the annual Georgia/ Florida football game is played in the downtown Gator Bowl, which today has some corporate name on the building. It was dubbed the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party, even though it was a college game where no alcohol is served. Since it is usually a sell out, the networks televise the game locally.

Watching the game with several friends one year, all but one of which were Florida fans, the Gators took a 27 to 14 lead to the halftime locker room over Georgia. My Georgia Bulldogs’ friend had to leave after much teasing and, as he did, he said “Remember gentlemen, they play two halves.” The Bulldogs came roaring back to win 41 to 27, with the Gators not scoring in the second half.

I remember this often, as I see business people and politicians celebrate victories at halftime. I recall two incidents one that happened this week and one in the former president’s first year. This week, President Biden celebrated on the front driveway with a bipartisan group of Senators the agreement on an infrastructure bill that is sorely needed for our country. By the next day, the agreement may be waylaid as the president spoke again pairing the bill with another one he wanted passed during reconciliation. Not smart. Now, the bill may not get passed as he made the other party look bad.

In 2017, former president Trump had House Republicans to the White House to celebrate a repeal and replace bill of the Affordable Care Act. The bill was poorly conceived, debated, and rushed, but there they were spiking the ball saying look what we did. Later that summer, the Senate failed to pass the bill, with Senator John McCain joining a few other Republican Senators to defeat it. McCain noted he was offended how the bill did not follow due process and, as a result, would hurt many millions of Americans.

In this 24×7 news cycle, too many things get reported before they are fully baked. The stories give the impression this is a done deal. The stories are too often portrayed in a zero-sum manner with one side winning, the other side is losing. My business career relied on interpreting laws, regulations and rulings. It is funny, but the press did not refer to the Reagan White House or the Clinton White House when discussing these matters, referring instead to the IRS, Department of Labor, SEC, House, Senate, reconciliation of differing language in the House and Senate bills, etc. It was not reported as a contest.

So, a strong message to legislators and reporters. Do not celebrate at halftime – the game “ain’t over until it’s over” as the famous New York Yankee Yogi Berra used to say. And, reporters and pseudo news people, focus on the what, how, why, and when and less on the who. I have long grown weary of news reporting on who wins or loses in legislation. As noted earlier, it is not a contest. The idea is for the constituents to win.

Note: For sports fans, I want you to Google “Frank Reich and comebacks,” who as a quarterback led two of the greatest comebacks in collegiate and pro football history. In both games, one for his University of Maryland the other the Buffalo Bills, the eventual winning teams were well behind and written off by the announcers. And, if more recent history is for your liking, think Tom Brady and his New England Patriots roaring from behind in the Super Bowl to beat the Atlanta Falcons.

Stop trying to keep your job and start doing your job

Too many legislators and elected incumbents focus on trying to keep their job rather than doing their job. As a result, things do not get done, as every issue becomes a wedge issue rather than one that needs to be solved. I have grown long past weary on this lack of leadership and stewardship.

In my career, I have consulted on and actually been a part of several mergers between organizations, both for-profit and non-profit entities. Effective mergers require due diligence, planning and diplomacy. It should not surprise people, but the majority of mergers fail to be as accretive to the cumulative value of the two separate entities as first envisioned. Some actually are dilutive to that combined value – in other words, they fail.

One of the reasons is people involved tend to focus on keeping their jobs or getting good money to leave. They get overly protective of the way their organization does things, even if they do not know why they do it that way. They worry about keeping their job and less about doing their job. One of my favorite examples is two incumbents in a merger zealously vied for the same job verbally undercutting the efforts of the other. The boss decided to hire neither one of them as both showed their true colors.

Politicians in Washington and other capitols around the world and country tend to do this. They are failing to do their jobs and work together to solve problems. If the other side has an idea, its veracity is less important than the fact it must be defeated as the other side raised it. The fact that neither side owns all of the good ideas and both sides own some bad ones should make a difference.

These people in leadership positions are supposed to solve problems, not bark like a a junkyard dog at the other side. We citizens must insist they work together. Name callers need to be criticized and asked what they do not like about the other side’s ideas. If you do not like something, tell us what you propose and avoid barking at the other side? That serves little purpose and it certainly is not governance or rebuttal argument.

We must tell people in leadership positions to stop trying to keep your job and start doing your job. You owe it to us to do so. If you cannot do this, then resign – it matters not what party you belong to. You could start by stop spending 1/3 of your time or more fundraising and use that time to do the people’s work.

Bipartisan effort in Kentucky

Courtesy of fellow blogger, Kentucky Angel (see link below) comes the following good news story.

Kentucky Democrat Governor Andy Beshear and Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams jointly developed a plan for the General Election that puts the “health and safety of Kentuckians first,” per Beshear, providing more time and options to vote than ever before.

This bipartisanship is refreshing and much needed on this issue. Rather than malign the voting process, they are taking efforts to make sure it works for their citizens. The folks in the White House and Capitol building could learn from this bipartisan focus to help people understanding the challenges they face.

This post is necessarily brief, as I sent a variation into my newspaper because of its bipartisanship. I hope they print it. This represents the kind of collaboration we need to solve problems. Please feel free to spread the word. Thanks Kentucky Angel.

Message From Gov. Andy Beshear

Stop in Nevada

“And she doesn’t know what’s comin’ but she’s sure of what she’s leaving behind,” sings Billy Joel in “Stop in Nevada.” This lyric is pertinent as a stop in Nevada would reveal the only state with a female majority in the stafe legislature.

And, it works well. Nevada has far more bipartisan legislation than any other state. The women legislators find common ground and show men the path forward. As 49% of the state house consists of men, their votes are needed to pass legislation.

The women represent both parties. They socialize and do community service and events together. Republican Assemblywoman Melissa Hardy and Democrat Selena Torres sat for an interview on CBS Saturday Morning News. These two have worked across the aisle to push a bill to improve education.

Hardy said. “I think it has been the most incredible experience of my life,” Torres noted, “I know we have over 90% bipartisanship on the bills passed so far.”

This is what our country needs more of. We need representation that looks like America. Two states I won’t mention have only 15% and 17% female membership in their legislatures. It is important to increase those percentages as women tend to be the primary healthcare giver of the family and make up a higher percentage of teachers. So, dinner table issues of medical bills and education will get more weight.

I also believe women will help us break through zero-sum politicking (I must win and you must lose). It should be noted it took ten female US Senators to avoid the US defaulting on its debts in October 2013 after the government was shut down. This last minute effort was highly commendable and a relief to the male leaders who could not stop their posturing long enough to keep us from driving off a cliff.

We must work together to solve problems. We must demand our politicians do the same, otherwise they are shouting at the wind or come up with extreme versions of laws. I am enthused by the new majority in Nevada as well as the wave of women who won US House seats last fall.

I hope they can break down barriers. The US Congress removed an area where legislators socialized across party lines. Now, about 40% of their time is doing fundraising phone calls, per a retired Congressman. It is hard to work on anything, much less biparisan laws, when you don’t take the time figure out how to pass laws together. Maybe, just maybe, these women will change that paradigm.

Thursday Thumbnails

Happy Thursday. With some rambling thoughts, I decided to throw down a few thumbnail comments below for your digestion.

While I am elated that a bipartisan compromise was reached in the US Senate to possibly end these budget kick-the-can exercises, I must confess concerns that it would increase the debt. Yet, it frustrates me just as much to see members of the Freedom Caucus appear high and mighty against the effort after many of them voted for a tax bill to increase the debt by $1.5 trillion. That is what we call hypocrisy. Nonetheless we are avoiding the looming problem as the debt and interest cost build.

I must confess being tickled at the US President for fussing at the stock market saying it is not reacting well to good news. It reminds of a toddler fussing at the tide for washing his sandcastle away. The stock market is reacting to concerns over inflation and rising interest rates, as well as pulling back on some of the euphoria that had been baked in. My guess is the tide will erode a little more of the sandcastle before settling at a lower level. Less funny was the President inviting a government shutdown if Congress does not fund his wall.

I am delighted Chancellor Angela Merkel has reached an agreement to form a government in Germany. A coalition between her Christian Democrstic Union and the Social Democrats would result. The negative is it would leave the Alternative for Germany as the opposition party giving more voice to their zealous nationalism. Her leadership is needed there, but even moreso around the globe with the United States retrenching from its role with its tempestuous leader at the helm. She and Emmanuel Macron will be the leaders of a more global construct.

If you have not seen “The Post,” with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, please do so. The story is about the consternation as to whether The Washington Post should publish articles about The Pentagon Papers after The New York Times was forbidden to do so after its first set of articles. But, the story goes deeper as it is about a female publisher, Kay Graham, who stood up to everyone (all men) telling her she would be a fool for publishing the articles as she took her company public. She supported her editor, Ben Bradlee and they won their Supreme Court case advocating the freedom of the press. The similarities between the demonizing words used by Nixon and Trump against the press are striking. An interesting sidebar is while this debate was going on, a little break-in at The Watergate Hotel occurred.

That is all for this Thursday. I hope our Congress reaches a deal and keeps the government open. Next up DACA.

The President almost did something good, then…

People need to know that our President is not big into details, nor does he care to be. He is not very conversant on healthcare or the Affordable Care Act, for example. Yet, he almost slipped up and accomplished something good. Alas, he changed his position within 24 hours.

Just last week, he signed two executive orders to help healthcare in the US. Neither order would be very helpful and both will cause premiums to go up under the ACA. In fact, he said if we eliminate the subsidies for deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance on people making less than 2 1/2 the poverty level it would just hurt the insurer’s profits. That simply is not true, as our deficit would go up by $20 Billion per annum and people without subsidies would see premium increases.

But, while this was going on, Senator Chuck Schumer kept telling him about the bipartisan effort of Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray that would stabilize and improve the ACA. Their efforts would restore the subsidies that Trump wanted to do away with. Insurers were pricing 2018 premiums higher sans these subsidies,

Trump encouraged Alexander while Schumer did the same with Murray. The President actually did the right thing, as Alexander and Murray were going about their business in the right way with hearings and committe meetings. This is how legislation should be done, which has been lost on our two Congress chamber leaders.

When Alexander/ Murray announced they reached agreement, the President was supportive. Alexander actually thanked the President for his role in making it happen. Yet, just after Alexander called to thank him, Trump changed his mind and now does not support it. Less than 24 hours had elapsed.

Of course, his support may change and Alexander/ Murray are not done yet, but Trump had a chance to take credit for helping Americans. This could have been a helpful major piece of legislation, which is missing from his tenure. Alas, he realized he would be helping the ACA and he had to destroy it. That is what he promised to his base. While imperfect, the ACA is not broken, but it does need improvements. If it eventually fails, it is on this President and Congress’ shoulders.