Today, the FlashReport makes a humble request of Republican legislators in the State Capitol. Back up, and take a 30,000 foot view of what is going on in the State Capitol BEFORE you write your press releases. This time a year, faxes machines and e-mail accounts are being filled up with thousands of press releases from legislative offices touting legislation that has passed out of Committees.
Note to Republicans: The Democrats KILL almost all truly meaningful pieces of legislation proposed by Republicans. This has led, over time, to a few things. First and foremost, less and less truly meaningful pieces of legislation are being introduced by Republicans, which is understandable. Were I in the legislature, I might say to myself, "Why bother introducing a bill to lower income tax rates in California?" given that we know the outcome — certain death. In addition, we see more and more bills being introduced by Republicans that make you scratch your head, and wonder, "Is this why we send folks to Sacramento?"
Don’t get me wrong, many of these GOP bills achieve some important ‘technical fix’ or something that may be important for a very small group. But pretty much the only major legislation that is proposed by Republicans that actually passes through these Democrat-dominated committees are BAD BILLS. Yes, believe it or not, some Republicans actually author legislation that increases the size or scope of California government. I would imagine that these particular GOP bills fare pretty well!
Perhaps a suggestion that I might make to Republican legislators, when considering press releases. I would highlight MEANINGFUL GOP authored bills that you voted for, that FAILED. And also put out released that highlight God-awful Democrat bills that you voted against.
Frankly, this practice of sending out release after release letting the public know about how some obscure bill that fixes some technical glitch in state law is a waste of everyone’s time.
Remember, the measure of an elected legislator should NOT be based on how many bills you introduce, or how many of them become law. But rather on whether you stood tall to oppose the voracious appetite of Democrats to just keep growing, growing, growing government, and shrinking the liberty of Californians.
Use your press releases to help the big-picture effort of contrasting how Republicans would do things differently if we had the majority.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Amen!
April 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
I disagree strongly. Any representative in either party is supposed to go up there to help make people’s lives better, not to grandstand or talk about what they would do differently if they had more power. I am a Democrat, but if I were advising a hardcore Republican legislator on how to talk about his service to the voters of California, I would advise him to talk about what he had done to make their lives better, including ways that I might have found to save them tax dollars or to cut government regulations. Even if these are small steps, they represent progress to conservative voters and are looked on more favorably I suspect that constant whining and complaining about how bad things are.
As far as pontificating on what should be done, that should be the role of people in the media, including talk radio and people involved in things like this blog. Politicians are in office to make decisions and represent their constituents, not to educate or persuade the electorate to their point of view.
When elected officials start posturing and make politics their priority instead of trying to accomplish what they can to advance their ideals, then voters get cynical and think of the whole process as an ongoing game with well paid players and stop paying attention. Even though you may have a philosophical agenda and want to advance that, remember that for real people, those technical changes you talk about make a real difference in their lives and the time spent pontificating is time not spent dealing with real peoples problems.
On the other hand, when you talk about what you have really accomplished in the minority, they tend to believe you will always do the best you can and are more likely to want to give you greater power over how things are run.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
First off, I want to say Bravo to Jon Fleishman. Well said! As for Tom Kaptain’s comments, I must confess, despite knowing better, I was aghast. There is a majority of people who want elected officials to serve to keep our State government working, such that we have an efficient infrastructure. I don’t believe most people choose their elected officials because they want them to go up there to contrive new ways to makes our “lives better,” a subjective notion. I believe most people want to be left alone and want the services Government is in charge of now, to run efficiently and responsibly, without taking more of our hard earned income to do so. If legislators did that, we’d all be overjoyed.
Sending out press releases about the stupid, outrageous, audacious, elitist bills put out by the opposition, and which you, as a legislator, help to defeat, is a great tactic. You educate your constituents on what you do for us, and you expose the depravity of the other side.
Kaptain says politicians should leave leadership to the media. Politicians are elected on the premise that they will lead. Fleishman’s point that legislators should refrain from acting as if their effectiveness is measured by the number of bills they write, and which make it out of committee, is poignant. Legislators, be dragon slayers! Be a David vs. Goliath! Protect us from the insatiable beast of wasteful and arrogant government! Be a hero! Hold the fire line. And send out that press release so we know about the bullet you stopped.
Tom’s premise that politicians or elected officials should leave the politics to the media is absurd. Legislators are politicians. They are elected to lead. They can lead with boldness and integrity, and if they run on the premise of limiting the encroachment of wasteful and inefficient and invasive government, then they should be bold and powerful in their stand for those principles, and not make busy writing sell-out legislation because they want to have something that will capture them the attention from the media with a press release.
Be bold in what you stop from happening. Force the opposition’s hand that they reveal themselves to the public and tell us about it in a press release worthy of your well grounded principles.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Lord…
April 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Tom,
I feel sorry for you if you are waiting for government to “make your life better”. The less the government is involved in my life the
better my life is.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
I say absolutely send out a press release if you support making my life better.
A good way to make my life better?: Voting against, as Martha so aptly put it, “the stupid, outrageous, audacious, elitist bills put out by the opposition, and which you, as a legislator, help to defeat.”
April 14th, 2007 at 12:00 am
First, we elect representatives, not leaders. It’s a small point and to me there might be some occasional (and very rare) reason to publicize something the opposition wants to do that you are against, but not often.
I am not making this point to advance a liberal agenda of more government involvement. I may support such an idea, but I realize that I am in the minority on this blog. But I also think that if I were a conservative, I would much rather hear about the actual steps a legislator has taken to reduce government influence than I would the grandstanding remarks that are in so many press releases.
You may remember multiple posts from different people on this blog talking about certain supposedly conservative legislators had hurt that cause on crucial votes.
Well, that happens on the other side of the aisle too and a big part of the reason is that the whole process has gotten too hard for many regular voters to follow. The idea behind a representative form of government is supposed to be that voters will generally make better decisions if given clear choices that any type of an elite group. Well, I think what is going on in Sacramento is creating a defacto elite group because very few people really know what legislators have done and I think part of the problem is that when you get the type of press releases that Jon talks about, some of them probably do help the conservative cause, but because they don’t seem to be controversial no one wants to talk about them.
On the other hand, I sat in on an interview committee with a very liberal group that was interviewing a Democratic legislator who is going to face a tough primary fight and he proceeded to spend part of his time to the approval of his audience, talking about how George W. Bush should be impeached. It was ludicrous, but typical.
The problem is that we as people who are involved in the process are allowing this type of stuff to happen because we don’t talk enough about what really gets done (or doesn’t get done) instead we focus on shouting over each other like little kids. Does a real conservative believe that a speech outlining their opposition to big government is more important than an action to pass some legislation that curbs some type of government abuse?