Axar.az presents an article, "Running and Serving” by John Samuel Tieman.
A young associate in Illinois asked me about running for, and serving on, her city council. The list that follows was initially intended only for her. It occurs to me that I could share it today with folks who might benefit from an insider's view of municipal office. I've only spent one year on my city council. Not much. Nonetheless, I've learned a few things that perhaps can only be learned from the inside. There's no particular order to the list.
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Knowledge is important. But when you are running for office, it's not nearly as important as the integrity and caring that come from love. A wise old pol once told me, “People won't care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Most professions require expertise. Municipal government requires generalization. Rare is the day when you only consider one subject. The annual budget, pensions, conditional use permits, parking meter repair and purchase, public art, storm water, street repair, parks – these could be the subjects of your morning. Constantly, there is new learning. Urban forestry, there's a subject Prof. Adams didn't cover when I was studying medieval history in graduate school. What does a fire truck cost?
Thousands of people are trusting you to make the right decision. If that doesn't humble you, nothing will. Representing thousands should make a politician more open, thoughtful, patient, better informed, conscious of personal limitations, less interested in self and more in search of the common good. Politics should make the politician more dedicated to their neighbor. Politics should broaden the politician. Should. On the other hand, an associate, Kelli Dunaway, who served on the St. Louis County Council, said to me, “There are two types of politicians, public servants and self servants.”
A few years in therapy is a good idea. You need to be familiar with your own patterns of anger, aggression, and narcissism. There is nothing wrong with anger, aggression, and narcissism. Each has its adaptive mode, and each has its maladaptive mode.
Most people think of politics as the raucous debate just before the contentious vote. You'll spend 95% of your time doing constituent services. For which, if you are lucky, one or two folks may email their thanks.
In politics, anger and frustration are the easiest emotions to manipulate. There's a lot to be angry and frustrated about. The difference is between honoring the constructive and manipulating the destructive, between honoring the adaptive and manipulating the maladaptive. It's the difference between dialogue and contempt.
Consider intimacy. Municipal government is the most intimate level of the democratic republic. You need to be good at intimacy. If you are not good with people, you shouldn't go into politics. Politics is about dialogue. Of course, politicians who are good with people can also be manipulative. In my experience, however, that avuncular “Hail fellow well met”, your alderman isn't faking that.
What's hard is not knowing how to vote. What's hard is knowing if you are doing any good.
There's this ancient maxim. “Primum non nocere.“ “First, do no harm.”
About activism. If you come to politics out of an activist mode, you'll need to adapt and adjust. Where once you were an activist, now you are a legislator. Where once you were a protester, now you are a supervisor. Where once you were a disturber, now you are a coalition builder. Our waitress wore a button that said, “Question Authority!” My dinner companion made irritating queries about the check. Finally, the frustrated waitress asked, “Why are you asking all this?” To which my companion replied, “Well, you are the authority.”
In the United States Congress, only about 7% of all bills introduced become law. I have little doubt that some of that 7% were introduced multiple times and took years, perhaps decades, of debate and committee work. You seek a vastly more humble office. But the experience won't be that different. Be patient, persistent, polite. Be the tortoise in the Aesop fable.
If you are not at times overwhelmed, if you are not at times anxious and depressed, you're not doing it right. You'll need ways to comfort yourself. A movie. A novel. A baseball game. Lose yourself in the symphony hall. In my life, I've known more than a few folks who lost themselves in a bottle. Therapy helps.
Politics is about losing more than winning. Remember that thing about how only 7% of all bills become law? 93% didn't. By yourself, you have no power. When you introduce a bill, you can't even discuss it until you get a second. You will lose more than you win, and then one day you'll be out of office. Bet on it. Even when you leave office gracefully, perhaps having never lost an election, you'll leave having many matters left undone. Consider gun proliferation.
Consider gun nuts. Consider right-wing crazies. Consider this. I had lunch with a councilman who mentioned how, in his council chamber, his city installed bulletproof glass. He worries he'll be a target. Why? Because he is a Roman Catholic dedicated to a Franciscan vision of the environment.
Few will notice your constituent services except the constituent. In fact, if everything goes right, no one will notice your work at all. That's the point. Folks will drive to work, cross the street, their houses won't flood, they won't trip over a cracked sidewalk. And no one will notice except you.
If you are a people pleaser, consider this. You will say “No” to an awful lot of people. “I'm sorry, sir, but that tree is on your property, not the city's. I can do nothing to help you.” Get used to that.
When I first ran for City Council, the mayor advised me to set aside $10,000 for campaigning. When I mentioned this to my beloved, she said, “We can easily afford $10,000. But is this what we want to spend ten grand on?” You need to think about that. That and, of course, you could lose. When you lose, I think you get back your $50 filing fee.
A paradox. If you have control issues, you've really picked the wrong job. You will legislate; you will supervise; you will advise. And you will be in charge of almost nothing.
Most aldermanic offices are supposed to be part-time jobs. Don't believe it. I spend some of each day doing municipal work, and many days I spend all day doing municipal work. When I'm not doing it, I'm thinking about it. And, in my case, writing about it. And reading. I've read Cicero, Thomas More, John Quincy Adams, others. I carry a copy of the Constitution.
If you can't oppose a colleague's resolution today, then have lunch with that opponent tomorrow, you're in the wrong business. Politics is about who you love and how you love them. Love doesn't exclude anger. Love doesn't exclude aggression. But it does include these two commandments. There's the Bible's commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Then there's Councilman Tieman's commandment, “Thou shalt not bury thy neighbor alive.”
Idealism is not the opposite of practicality. Love is not the opposite of tough-mindedness.
The institution was here long before you. It will be here long after you are gone.
