Advice to lawmakers: plan ahead

For 16 years spread out over three decades, Edwin Edwards was governor of Louisiana. For the past six weeks, he has been a convict settling in for a 10-year stretch – something to do with swapping casino licenses for envelopes stuffed with cash. With many friends, family and unindicted co-conspirators inquiring as to his well-being, the flamboyant, personable extortionist replied with a public letter this week, describing prison as a place of “endless hours of boredom, run by silly, meaningless rules, the purpose of which I cannot understand.”

It’s a common complaint among the orange jumpsuit set. In this case, considering the ample opportunity any four-term governor would have to make the prison environment more enlightened and entertaining – and this particular governor’s two prior warnings as the target of criminal investigations – it is an uncommon example of failing to plan ahead. Add the sad story of Edwin Edwards to the many reasons Americans are rightly famous for not adequately preparing for retirement.

One needn’t be a corrupt pol “pulling a dime” while regretting not being a stronger advocate for air conditioning, cable TV and conjugal visits in penal institutions to grasp the drawbacks of going from one side of the lawmaking process to the other. In California, Jack O’Connell was widely regarded as a smart, hard-working and rather assertive state senator. When the call went out for someone to take on the tough job of leading a commission to develop a plan to reform that state’s huge, ruinously expensive and not very good system of public education, he stepped forward. That heroic task accomplished, he left the legislature to become California’s superintendent of public instruction.

But not for long. The state assembly now is taking up the reform plan. One key element of the plan is to reduce administration costs. A lot of Mr. O’Connell’s old lawmaking “pals” suddenly think doing away with the office of superintendent of public instruction would be a good place to start.

Though not as spectacular as going from the governor’s mansion to Cell Block D or from esteemed colleague to expendable bureaucrat, there are a lot of public servants these days making the difficult transition from leading to being led. In state capitols throughout the land, outgoing governors, termed-out legislators and political appointees suddenly without patrons are clearing out their cubbies. Whether the immediate plans are for a cross-country Winnebago trip or just heading back top the old job at the feed store, there will be a period of adjustment.

There always is after elections. Usually, it’s little more than getting used to driving the speed limit and picking up a bar tab once in awhile. For some, there’s all that, plus a little something called payback.

Consider the case of James “Pate” Philip of Illinois. For 35 years, the suburban Chicago Republican was one that state’s most powerful legislators; for the last 10, he was Senate president. How powerful was he? He kept the Senate chamber just about the only public space in the state where it was legal to smoke a cigar. He could say that the problem with minorities is that they lack a work ethic or that welfare recipients spent all their money on lottery tickets. Other lawmakers, who should have been outraged, merely chuckled at crusty, irascible and very powerful ol’ Pate.

Illinois was one of the few places in the country where the GOP got hammered on Election Day; Republicans there lost just about everything, including control of the Senate. A lot of party leaders are “stepping down” as the result of that debacle. If you’re passing through suburban Chicago, you might see one – suddenly all alone, shivering on a frozen street corner, smoking a cigar.

All over the country, politicians who until recently needed an aide just to lug their clout around are hearing the raspberry. In Massachusetts, Gov. Jane Swift should be enjoying her last few weekends buzzing around in the state helicopter. Instead, she has to endure listening to Gov.-elect Mitt Romney shriek about the state being in the worst jam since the Great Depression. Minnesota’s tough-talking Jesse Ventura isn’t getting much of victory lap, either – not with his successor, Tim Pawlenty, cracking wise about the “big honkin’ deficit” he’s inheriting.

In Arizona, out-going legislators are getting the true bum’s rush. Even though they still have some work to do and the next bunch doesn’t take over until mid-January, the Senate president is asking them to make sure they leave their offices nice and clean. Now.

Chances are, though, that the really sad stories will be small tales of being slighted, rebuffed, even shunned that will be told by hundreds of lawmakers as they return home from years of public service and find the public doesn’t appreciate the effort all that much. Last spring, 42 states found themselves with severe revenue shortfalls allegedly due to flagging capital-gains tax receipts, but really due to spending and taxation policies based on the premise that the irrational exuberance of the ’90s would last forever.

A few states really dug in a fixed those policies (South Dakota is now looking at a surplus). Some made an honest run at policy tinkering and now are stamping out new deficit brushfires as they pop up. Most, however, employed the traditional government approach of making things worse by addressing a long-term problem with sort-term fixes: unpaid days off for state workers; cuts to education without cuts in mandates; shortchanging towns and cities on the revenue-sharing to which they are entitled; shoving bills due now – such as business tax reimbursements – off until the next fiscal year.

Now, many of these lawmakers are going home (40 percent of Maine’s got done) to welcomes distinctly lacking in ticker tape and huzzahs. That once-friendly neighbor, the state worker, won’t lend you his chainsaw. Your old childhood chum, now the school principal, ignores your cheery wave. The first selectman is openly hostile and things are decidedly chilly down at the Rotary Club. Edwin Edwards may be bored, but at least people write to him.

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.