Boldness in Boise
How to change things in politics
I had the chance to hear a local representative speak recently, sharing the latest news about the legislative session. He was very candid about which bills he thought might pass and which he believed had no chance. He emphasized that getting things done in Boise requires building relationships with other representatives as well as the leadership in both the House and the Senate.
While this is true, self evident even, the impression I got was that anyone who wanted to accomplish something in Boise must learn to play the game. This representative claimed to have had several good bills ready to go during last fall’s special session, only to see them ignored by the committee chairs. However, when I asked if he was willing to go on record as supporting a rule change to prevent committee chairs from being able to simply ignore bills, he scoffed. This is just the way things are done in politics.
What is the best way to accomplish political change? Is it to learn to play the game, to compromise with the so-called moderates, the establishment, or the opposing party? Or is it to charge in with (metaphorical) guns blazing, sticking to your principles no matter what?
As usual, it is somewhere in between those extremes.
The danger of the latter approach is obvious - with 35 members of the State Senate and 70 members of the State House, one person cannot make a difference alone. It is difficult to pass legislation if you do not play the game. Leadership will make life difficult for you, by denying you seats on influential committees, by working behind the scenes to kill your bills, or worse. Representative Priscilla Giddings, for example, has been slandered and censured by her own colleagues because she refused to play the game. At a national level, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia found herself attacked by the leadership of both parties and stripped of her committee assignments for not playing the game in DC.
On the other hand, too much compromise, too much cooperation with the existing power structure has its downsides too. If every bill must pass muster with the leadership in the House and the Senate, then we will get nothing but watered-down legislation that does not really accomplish any meaningful change - exactly what we see coming out of Boise right now. Too many people go to Boise intending to be champions of liberty, but are quickly assimilated by the system. Making friends and keeping in the good graces of leadership becomes more important than any principles. Those who have been there the longest are those who most deftly play the game.
I am reminded of an anecdote from the 2016 presidential campaign. Donald Trump was a recent convert to the pro-life cause and had not learned the lingo. When asked what he would do to protect the unborn, he suggested prosecuting both the doctors who perform abortions as well as the women who get them. Conservative commentators reacted with horror. The official position of the pro-life movement was that women who get abortion are all innocent victims, and suggesting that they be prosecuted is an awful thing to say.
But was it? Like the naive boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who does not know what he is supposed to say, President Trump exposed a conceit. Pro-life conservatives were so afraid of turning off pro-choice women that they watered down their message, as if the leftist women who go on social media to “shout” their abortions might be mollified by a movement that considers them victims of society. If we truly believe that abortion is the murder of an innocent human being, then the person who contracts for that murder is as guilty as the hit man doctor. As was often the case, Trump’s instincts were better than those of longtime politicians.
We need more people in politics who come from nonpolitical backgrounds, whose instincts grow out of real life experience rather than political games. We need elected leaders who are common people, not career politicians who only mingle with us during election season. We need to elect enough conservative firebrands so as to remove the necessity of playing the games and kowtowing to leaders who are completely uninterested in reform. Heck, we need new leaders who are willing to change the system, not just those who have played the game so long that it is “their turn”.
One solid step in the right direction would be to remove the ability of committee chairs in the House and the Senate to ignore legislation. The rules of each chamber give the chairs (who are appointed by the leadership, remember) discretion in which bills they bring before their committee for a vote. If they do not like certain legislation, they simply ignore it, and it dies. This discretion is used as cover for game-playing politicians who can demagogue an issue with their constituents, knowing that their bills have zero chance of passing the committee.
Unfortunately, ending this nonsense requires that the House and the Senate vote to change their rules. As I found when I asked the question earlier this week, few elected leaders are willing to go on record supporting such a rule change. They all benefit from the game, no matter how much they claim to want to change things.
Change will only happen in the primaries. Republican voters must step up to fire the career politicians who are standing in the way of meaningful legislation in this state. If not, then we will continue the inevitable leftward slide that has destroyed once-great states such as California, Washington, and Colorado. Before reflexively ticking the box for the incumbent this spring, ask yourself if he or she is really working for you, or just playing the game.
Good article. We are learning more and more about similar shenanigans at the state level in Indiana. Constitutional carry has been passed in the house two years running, yet the chair of the judiciary committee, Liz Brown, has refused to bring the bill to a vote in committee (even though this go around she's literally a co-author) at the behest of senate pro-tem Rod Bray and ultimately our weak R governor, Eric Holcomb, who wants to run for senate and doesn't want to rock the boat - - because he doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to fight for Hoosiers and because ultimately he's part of the political game you described.