More On Legislative Viewpoint

As mentioned in my earlier post on the scenery from the legislator's office, "modus operandi", there are aspects important to know if you want to work for rational government. Another item is power structure, and I am going to tell a short tale that may give you some idea of what to look for.

First:
My representative, 4th district, TX, has fought to remove regulation from the runoff from pig farms in Arkansas, for instance. Rep. Ralph Hall has also frankly told the Dallas Morning News that he would not change his vote in favor of letting the Marianas have special rights to abuse workers, knowing what he knew then, in the last election, about Jack Abramoff who funded his trips there.

Now a moral tale:
In Maryland, the Baltimore delegation held the real power, and decided who would have the important posts, by which legislators would promote their interests. Of course, being from Montgomery County, a legislator had to compromise on his role as representative of his own, Montgomery County, voters, to promote Baltimore City interests. Some of the high ranking members of the Maryland legislature from Montgomery County, then, were those who did the least for their own voters.

As a staffer, I was free to be vocal and critical to some extent, and must say I made life difficult for a particular sell-out who happened to be chairing a major financial committee, that is, he chaired the committee as long as he kept from putting his own voters' interests above those of Baltimore.

As a member of the Literature advisory committee of the Maryland Council on the Arts, I was contacted confidentially by the head of the Council, a friend. He was hearing from me and from others about the inequities in funding. There were six 'plums' which received major funding, in millions, and coincidentally were located in the city of Baltimore. Others, such as the Maryland State Theatre, in Olney (not Baltimore), were funded in small numbers - usually a few thousand. He and I discussed it and felt like with the contacts we had we could probably organize hearings to publicize, and enlist sympathies from the rest of the state, to do a review and reorganization of the funding procedures and get a better cut of the pie for the other counties.

My delegate knew he'd get a little grief from the Baltimore delegation on this one, but we had been in Annapolis long enough that he had gained a bit of strength of his own. He advised me to keep it genteel, but to go for it. It took a lot of calling, and some scheduling with the Montgomery County delegate who supervised the committee that reviewed the Arts Council funding. Figures from Olney Theatre, many poet groups including Columbia's great little cadre, a few authors of some prominence, and the director of a small artists' colony (who I'll call X from here on) all agreed to testify, as did several representatives of the Baltimore 'plums'.

We got good media coverage and things looked very good - of course, my delegate got several warning shots from Baltimore delegation members about what would happen to his pet bills, which he countered with jocular reminders of what he would do to theirs. As a freshman delegate, btw, his bills were pretty minor and relegated to hearings maybe, later.

At the hearing our group's testimony made the point well, and there was a lot to show that the inequities in funding were unfair use of public money. Then X came up and tearfully declared that without the Baltimore major plums, the state would lose its standing in the universe, and he couldn't be a part of stripping them of the means to represent the state creditably. There were several nervous titters, and no one called him on the idiocy of what he was saying. Selling out seemed a bit preposterous, but we expected we'd find out later what the price had been.

Minor changes did occur in the write-up of the appropriations bill for the Arts Council, then and in later, more forceful, presentations of the case for distributing public monies equitably. Over the years things have not completely evened out yet - the arts are not a major interest of that many in government, or in the public.

X got an award for playwriting in the following grants. Having received a playwriting award from the council, before I was invited to serve on the Arts Council, I realized this was aimed directly at me. Fortunately, my career has always been lackadaisical at best, and I could laugh at it.

Sorry if this seems unrelated to our goals, such as impeachment, but I always need to remind myself that there are powers to be determined before anything can get done. You can confront them, and you can embarrass them, and you can pull in public support, and you may even win. There are going to be tricks along the way, and you may find out the hard way that you can't count on even the very ones whose interests seem most involved - that what you're trying to do will help the most. Many people have a pretty low price.

Working with legislators also involves looking carefully at the voting record. If you see the votes your particular legislator cast following the interests of other interests besides his constituency, you may need to approach him/her from another angle from the one that you think is closest to his/her best interest. I researched voting records in the basement of the State House in Annapolis, where records are kept of all the votes cast. Wear old clothes.

It's work, and it's worth it, to get hands on in legislative process.