Why politics, why public service

There’s a whole generation or two (or three) that came to believe in the good of government when FDR brought them through the Depression, led them through a world war, and gave them old-age security. Another generation heeded JFK’s call that they work for their country, rather than expecting it to work for them. And Ronald Reagan inspired young and old alike to recognize not only government’s good, but especially its limits.

In Virginia, we’ve been blessed by nearly four centuries of legislators who’ve participated in capital assemblies in Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Richmond, all in an effort to preserve our commonwealth’s past, accentuate its current strengths while overcoming certain challenges, and prepare for its immediate and long-term future.

Today, delegates and senators – men and women, Republicans and Democrats as well as a couple of independents, 140 in all – spend a good deal more time in Richmond than in years past. Despite the popular description, ours is no longer a “part-time, citizen legislature.” Virginia’s increasingly sophisticated population and complex economy won’t let its representatives get away with a mere two months of full-time service each winter with no other demands during the other 10 months. Legislators are forever traveling to and from the Capitol, sacrificing more time with family and pay from jobs than most realize.

For most, public service is a way for the elected to help shape our broader society in the family and community traditions that have personally shaped them. Those who’ve grown up adhering to certain social values, whether liberal or conservative, believe strongly enough in them to have predetermined their benefit for everyone else. Liberals want their social preferences to prevail, conservatives theirs. It was true for FDR and his followers as well as Reagan and his. At the root of all this is our seemingly indestructible two-party system.

In the midst of today’s liberal-conservative philosophical struggle lies what for some in Richmond is the nattering business of government, which, euphemistically, is the filling of potholes. However inconvenient the day-to-day work of government may be to those preferring to look higher and broader, it is indeed work that must be done. Potholes must be filled, cops paid, and kids educated, and the infirmed must receive care.

Those wanting the privilege of legislating how these bureaucratic services are efficiently delivered must engage in the science of politics before they can practice its art. Big dollar, poll-driven campaigns, where handlers tell candidates it’s less about what is said than how, is the modern price to be paid before the victors can assemble, assess, debate, and legislate what governors and administrators must do.

Politics – and all the good and bad that’s packed into that single word – is the means to public service’s generally nobler ends. To be sure, politics is a good thing, especially when it helps to properly frame the public debate over the issues that most define our democratic social order. Where politics turns more negative than positive, however, is when its mechanics – the money, the polls, the nuanced campaigns – outright consume those who ostensibly want to better the world around us. At that point, public service is upended. And upending public service is what we can’t afford.

Yet those who’ve been around Virginia’s government for the past decade or so may offer that their view of public service is now cloudier than it once was. When the Democrats’ century-long, iron-fisted hold on government’s reins loosened, lots changed – for both good and bad. While Republicans’ rise added strength and definition to our two-party system, the politics became harder-edged. The closer the GOP got to parity in the House of Delegates and Senate – putting increasingly at stake the Democrats’ historic control – the greater the tendency of both parties focus on politics. Increasingly obscured, arguably, was the view of public service.

All of this is not to say that Virginia’s nearly 400-year-old representative government has somehow become entirely more about its means than its ends. No, not at all. Since Jamestown there’s been that tension between politics and policy, and there always will be.

It is to say, however, that we must forever be cognizant of the need to balance the two. It’s imperative that we maintain a strong two-party system whose participants are able to engage in healthy, sharp debate while keeping in check the competitive processes that govern the debate.

And even within the parties, it’s necessary that debate be fostered – and, yes, even dissidence allowed – so that only the best-vetted propositions are turned into legislation and laws and ultimately enacted for the greatest benefit of the governed.

It’s often said that good politics makes good policy. The converse, it can be reckoned, is that bad politics can lead to bad policy.

Government is about doing social good within the constraints set by our federal and state constitutions. It’s about legislating now with an eye toward the future.

In its essence, government is public service. And it should never be confused with its lesser subset, politics.