JOHN FUND'S POLITICAL DIARY
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/
They Did It Their Way
Half a dozen retiring pols I'm going to miss.
Thursday, January 2, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
With this month's changing of the guard in Congress and state capitols, it's time for me to note with regret the retirement of several of my favorite politicians. I've selected three Republicans, two Democrats and an independent who in their own way embodied qualities we should all admire in elected officials.
Rep. Dick Armey is retiring after eight years as House majority leader and another eight as a backbencher from Texas. But Mr. Armey was never really a backbencher; he made waves almost from the day he arrived in the House in 1985 as a free-market economics professor determined to prove that "government is dumb and markets are smart."
In 1988 Mr. Armey pulled off an amazing feat by persuading Congress to approve an independent commission to close obsolete military bases. Congress hadn't closed a single base in a dozen years, but the Armey commission recommended closing one in Mr. Armey's own Dallas-area district. Later Mr. Armey then joined with liberal Democrats to reform farm-subsidy programs. In 1994 he was the lead drafter and supporter of the Contract With America that helped win Republicans control of the House for the first time in 40 years. While Mr. Armey failed to score touchdowns in his crusades for a flat tax or school choice, he moved the ball in his direction.
A plain-spoken unpretentious man, Mr. Armey is widely admired for his common sense. When he announced his retirement in December 2001, Paul Gigot observed: "The lessons of his career are that ideas matter, that risk-takers are rewarded and that the way to make a difference is to believe in something and fight for it."
Gov. Roy Barnes was only one of several Georgia Democrats state GOP chairman Ralph Reed's turnout machine flattened in last month's election. But he lost for reasons he can be proud of. Many people thought he had fought too aggressively for the things in which he believed. One was approving a new state flag that highlighted the state seal and relegated the Confederate flag to a small space at the bottom. Most voters didn't care much about the flag issue, but those who did voted overwhelmingly against Mr. Barnes.
But what really sank him was the animus he earned from the state teachers unions for making them accountable for student performance by instituting annual testing of public-school students. He also effectively ended tenure for newly hired teachers. The union refused to endorse him, and his GOP opponent, Sonny Perdue, promised to give teachers their "due process" rights back. Thousands of lifelong Democratic educators abandoned their party's nominee.
"I am so tired of bland leaders that tell us what they want us to hear," Mr. Barnes said after his defeat. For not doing that, he added, "sometimes you pay the price."
Like Dick Armey, Phil Gramm was another free-market economics professor who came to Washington determined to change things. He succeeded. Elected as a Democrat to the House, he infuriated then-Speaker Tip O'Neill by co-sponsoring the 1981 Reagan budget cuts. Thrown off the Budget Committee, he promptly resigned, changed parties and won a special election as a Republican. "I had to choose between Tip O'Neill and y'all, and I decided to stand with y'all," he told voters.
A scant 18 months later, Mr. Gramm won a Senate seat and brought his laser-like legislative skills to that body. He was the sparkplug behind the 1986 Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction law that required automatic budget cuts if deficit targets weren't met. Until abandoned, it held down federal spending. He later played a pivotal role in derailing Hillary Clinton's health-care plan.
After a 1996 presidential campaign in which Mr. Gramm admitted he was "a market failure," he became chairman of the Banking Committee and shepherded into law a repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated banks from investment banking. Dozens of others had tried to push through similar deregulation and failed. Never immensely popular among Senators because of his blunt ways, his keen intelligence will be missed.
Gary Johnson was sworn in to his first term as governor of New Mexico in 1995 on a promise to remain "the consummate antipolitician." He succeeded. Best known nationally for his controversial stand against the drug war, his more lasting legacy will be as a "Governor No" who remained popular while vetoing a record 742 bills, suffering only two veto overrides. He even vetoed a bill his wife pushed that would have waived college tuition for some youths in foster care.
In a state which Al Gore won, Republican Gov. Johnson won re-election with 55% of the vote in 1998 after supporting school choice, opposing hate-crime legislation and privatizing two new prisons. He was able to roll back a six-cent gasoline-tax hike and hold the state's budget to a average 6% annual increase during his two terms. The result is that New Mexico is now one of a handful of states in the country without a deficit. Indeed, incoming Democratic Governor Bill Richardson won in part by promising to push through the income tax cut Mr. Johnson failed to get through the Democratic legislature.
Mr. Johnson left office yesterday, his 50th birthday. An accomplished athlete, he plans to climb Mount Everest next March. His admirers hope that more New Mexico officials will emulate his example and follow his "Seven Principles of Good Government." They are: Be honest and tell the truth; do what's right and fair; determine your goal, plan and act; make sure everyone knows what you are doing; acknowledge mistakes immediately; be reality driven; and do what it takes to get the job done. Mr. Johnson didn't succeed in all of his goals, and sometimes veered off course, but no one can doubt that he fought for his principles and won widespread respect.
Angus King was a lawyer and popular host of a public-television talk show when he decided to run for governor of Maine as an independent in 1994. At first no one thought he stood a chance, but in the end his common-sense platform enabled him to defeat both a Democratic former governor and a Republican future U.S. senator, Susan Collins.
For a governor with no partisan base in the legislature, Mr. King proved an independent could accomplish a fair bit. He reduced some taxes while raising those on gasoline and cigarettes, cut the cost of workmen's compensation and won creation of a $30 million endowment to buy every seventh-grader a laptop computer. He leaned left on social issues, leading the charge against a measure to repeal a gay-rights law. On environmental issues he sided both with those who wanted to preserve open land and those who wanted to challenge the listing of the Maine salmon as an endangered species. On health care, he helped push through a program that mandated the selling of prescription drugs at discount. While popular, the plan effectively involved price controls and overreached. It was properly declared unconstitutional by a federal court last week.
His practical approach proved to be hugely popular, and he won re-election in 1998 with 59% of the vote. That means the Democratic and Republican candidates could only muster 31% between them. As he leaves office, he frets that while people continue to demand more services from government they don't want to pay for them. They then look for "some freebie to pay the bills" like casino gambling, which he staunchly opposes.
Unlike some governors who morph into lobbyists, Mr. King plans a life after politics. He and his wife plan to take his new recreational vehicle across the country on a 5 1/2 month trip, home schooling their children on the way. Many in Maine hope that when he returns he will again provide pungent commentary on the new powers that run the state.
Tony Knowles was born in Oklahoma but was a fraternity brother of President Bush at Yale. After graduation in 1968, he moved way west to Alaska to become a roughneck and later owner of a hamburger chain. Elected mayor of Anchorage at 39, he built many of the city's famous ski and bike trails. In 1994, he was elected governor as a Democrat in this most Republican of states by 536 votes.
During his two terms, Mr. Knowles was often at loggerheads with a Republican legislature over issues such as education spending and health insurance for low-income families. On environmental issues, he was an effective advocate for opening up Alaska's lands for responsible oil exploration. In 1998 he persuaded the Clinton administration to approve oil drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve, even while it continued to block exploration in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.
Mr. Knowles never tired of telling national Democrats that they didn't understand that Alaskans were good stewards of their environment. In 2000, he sent a blistering letter to Jimmy Carter, after the former president went to Alaska and called on the Clinton White House to declare ANWR a national monument. "You used our state as a media prop and platform to project your message to President Clinton," he wrote. "You are wrong in calling for executive action at the midnight hour instead of an open, public democratic process."
Mr. Knowles presided over an Alaskan economy that is now more diversified than ever in its history: 75% of all jobs are now in the private sector. Worried about oscillating oil prices and the effects they had on the state's budget, he proposed reinstating a state income tax in 1999. Anyone who sticks his neck out that way in antitax Alaska deserves credit for forthrightness, however misguided. Mr. Knowles left office last month with enough popularity that he is considered a formidable candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 2004. That seat is now held by Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed to it last month by her father, Frank Murkowski the former senator who succeeded Mr. Knowles as governor.
All of these men, regardless of their politics, decided to serve in office by doing things their way. They all eschewed the roles of timid follower of the public's whims or media darling and made a difference in the areas they most cared about. Most importantly, they never gave up despite frequent disappointments. They may not all be profiles in courage, but they are all profiles in integrity. |
