By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek
“How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part that laws or Kings can cure.” – Samuel Coleridge
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And what, pray tell, have they accomplished in their 60 days of hectic debate and discussion, social events and lobbyist luncheons, endless meetings and hearings, numerous communications with constituents, and hours actually studying the bills on which they are voting?
This year, our elected representatives can certainly boast of having passed a number of bills into law and allocating significant dollars to state agencies and local governments, from a ban on cockfighting to medical marijuana to reform of regional housing authorities to literally hundreds of capital outlay and highway projects. There is a very long list of bills and projects. Yet it is important to point out that it is just a list, pieces of paper authorizing things to be done.
It is often overlooked in media coverage of legislative action and controversy that once our legislators go home at the end of the session, the real work of actually implementing legislation and projects is turned over to the state bureaucracy and to local governments, which are tasked with converting those pieces of paper into meaningful action and projects. To the degree that the passage of new laws and the expenditure of tax dollars accomplishes something positive, we should give most of the credit to state and local government employees whose job it is to make things happen – to carry out policy.
Without intending to diminish the role of our elected legislators, most of whom deserve our respect and gratitude for the work they do (at no pay in
That’s why conference committees should be open
The governor has said the Legislature needs to do more in the area of ethics legislation. I agree. Of special importance, in my opinion, is the opening of conference committees to public scrutiny. Both Heath and I have written about this, so I won’t repeat, except to say again that there is simply no defensible argument that can be made to close a meeting of policymakers who are discussing important legislation. It is the people’s business, and it must be done in public.
So, I hope Governor Bill finds time in his hectic campaign schedule to bring them back one more time to deal with this and other ethics-related issues.
Finally, my opening quote needs to be emphasized here. As a society, we devote a great deal of attention to laws and lawmaking. In our democratic, law-based society, that is understandable. Presumably, laws are passed to invoke changes for the betterment of society; changes in behavior of humans and in human organizations, changes in the patterns of human activity within the society.
But, law-based as we are and change-oriented as we like to think we are, human behavior changes ever so slowly. Traditional ways of doing things, social mores, customs, ways of thinking, the usual practices – these things change little whether laws are passed or not. An accepted legislative maxim is, “laws we can change, but not traditions.”
So, while it is appropriate to congratulate our legislators for the incremental work they do, let us keep it in perspective. It is the values and the productive activity of the participants in our enterprise system that fuels our society, and it is the compassion and good works of many individual citizens that is of far greater importance.
Kadlecek has lived in