Gingrich and Koch: Character Matters

This essay originally appeared in the December 21, 2011 edition of Politics in Minnesota. This is an abbreviated version of that essay.

Does character count? Stories of New Gingrich’s three marriages and Minnesota Senator Amy Koch’s “inappropriate relationship” with a staffer have again thrown that issue into the news. Whether these private acts or activities should be considered when evaluating public officials fitness for office raises difficult questions about where personal character fits in. Is there no privacy for public officials? Is everything fair game for the voters to ponder when selecting or judging candidates for public office? The simple answer is that character matters, but how and under what circumstances is really the issue.

“Character” is an elusive term. In political parlance it seems to refer to many variables including one’s personal conduct and morality. Supposedly Gingrich’s three marriages and Koch’s inappropriate relationship tell us something about fitness for public office. Maybe simply being unethical in one’s private life is enough to exclude one from public office. But it is not always clear how public and private morality connect.

Character, as Aristotle would declare, refers to habits. To do something once–steal–does not make one an unethical person. We all err. None of us are perfect. But occasional falls from grace do not render us ethically bad. However at some point acts become habits–what we do is a reflection of who we are–and we then can be judged to be unethical or bad when it speaks to our character–when it is a habit of the heart.

But judging when transgressions are habits that form character and when they apply to fitness for office is complex. One of the worst forms of character assassination is dredging up something from a candidate’s past as a way to judge them presently. All of us do dumb things when younger that we regret and the mark of maturity is learning and growing from them. We cannot judge our life as if all our choices were made at the present time.

Past choices might tell us something about the present, but they need to be assessed in terms of how we have grown from them. Not to do that condemns all of us to be ever judged from our youth or an earlier point in time that we may or may not have growth from.

When do past bad ethics form a basis of a present unethical character? Here is where the issue of judgment fits in. Many jobs have technical skills that are required for proficiency. Being a doctor, plumber, or electrician come to mind. But many also require the capacity to make good judgments–often ethical choices. This is the case with elected officials called upon to make decisions about public welfare and the common good. Elected officials are not simply delegates voted into office to do the bidding of the majority. They are elected in part as Edmund Burke pointed out to make good judgments on behalf of their constituents. Citizens are not fully informed about all issues because of time and other factors. The purpose of a representative system is to allow public officials to serve as trustees for the people–rendering their judgments in a way that they can act in the public interest. This trustee relationship necessitates good judgment.

The public is most certainly entitled to consider character as it relates to making good judgment when it comes to determining fitness for office. Here is where personal morality comes in.

Does Gingrich’s three marriages speak to his fitness to be president? Maybe. If those marriages speak to his present character and judgment as president then yes. But even more needs to be asked. Americans rightly hate hypocrisy. Saying one thing and doing another is hypocritical. Making oneself an exception to rules of conduct that is expected of others is the core of being unethical and hypocritical. Gingrich’s 1994 Contract for America demanding that Congress be held to the same standards of conduct others are expected to follow was correct. The problem for Gingrich is that his views on marriage, gay rights, and perhaps even abortion seem at odds with his own personal life. His personal character places into play the right of the public to ask how he can reconcile his own personal code of conduct with the political positions he espouses. This connects to his judgment and the former House Speaker should as part of his campaign clarify how all of these relate to his capacity to make good judgments as president.

Similarly, Amy Koch’s behavior speaks to her fitness for office in at least a couple of ways. The allegations are that the inappropriate behavior implicates a sexual relationship with a Senate staffer. Most of us have learned at work that supervisors should not date subordinates since such relationships raise concerns of favoritism, sexual harassment, and hostile work environments. Senator Koch should understand that. Not to do so and to engage in an ostensible sexual relationship with a subordinate raises questions about good judgment.

But more importantly, Senator Koch is married and she led a Republican chamber last spring that adopted and sent to the voters a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. That amendment rendered a judgment about marriage and the personal morality of others. It is hypocritical that while this amendment was being debated she might have been engaged in a inappropriate relationship at work. Unlike Gingrich where his three marriages and affairs took place in the past and presumably he might have grown and learn from them and he is now a changed person–as he contends–Koch’s behavior is not in the past but now, merging her private and public lives but in terms of the judgments she is making presently as senator and also because of the relationship taking place with a Senate staffer and subordinate. It is all of these facts coming together that place her character and judgment in play.

The Minnesota Budget Deal: Lipstick on a Pig

The deal that ended the government shutdown in Minnesota was terrible both in how it was negotiated and in what it produced. While initially all parties who negotiated it described it as bad, increasingly they are defending it, seeking to find beauty in its ugliness. Yet let’s call this effort what it is—putting lipstick on a pig!

A Bad Budget Process

The government is shutdown. Barricades block access to the capitol. The legislature is suspended. The press and public are barred from observing negotiations. The opposition is kept in the dark. Once a deal is struck and the legislature is allowed to meet the public is given little notice about their deliberations which take place in the dark of the night. Members are restricted in their debate; they have no time to read the bills. They are told to vote for the bills and ordered to be finished by dawn. Sound like politics in a dictatorship or former communist country? Welcome to Minnesota.

From the week before the shutdown to the ugly end last Wednesday, Minnesota was a model in anti-democratic politics that violated all accepted norms of transparency, openness, and accountability. The Republican leadership and Governor Mark Dayton insisted on secrecy to allow for candidate debate, demonstrating hostility to democracy, a contempt for process, and an indifference to open government. What they did is possibly also illegal, violating Minnesota Statutes §13.D, the Open Meetings Law. Were a local government to have done what the legislature and the governor did it would violate the law. The process was bad.

And A Bad Budget Deal

But did the ends justify the means? Did the bad process produce a good result? Except for the delirious who have to salvage something out of it, no one likes the deal struck. But there are two types of dislikes. One is where everyone has to give but the final product is good for the state. The other is where everyone gives and it is bad for the state. The deal struck is the latter.

The budget deal is bad for Minnesota. Nothing was done to address the long term structural deficit the state faces; it is more budget gimmicks. K-12 faces more shifts and possibly borrowing from schools that never gets repaid. Minnesota’s competitive economic edge has historically resided in its highly educated workforce. Yet the budget deal sacrifices long term welfare and economic good for the state, continuing a repeated raiding of education money that questions how much of a priority Minnesota really places on schools.

The tobacco settlement money gets robbed, diverting it from the stated purpose to address health costs and education surrounding smoking. The borrowing here off the tobacco money means increased debt for the state. Thus, Minnesota continues to borrow and shift debt to the future in ways similar to what federal government has done for years. It is no different than paying off one credit card with another. In 2013 Minnesota will be back to the same place it is now. Minnesota is effectively deficit spending but budget tricks and borrowing hide that reality.

In short, long term problems and needed investments are sacrificed to end the current shutdown crisis. The governor and the legislature shut Minnesota government down to reach this deal? Given how bad it was, maybe it would have been better to continue the shutdown.

The Leadership Crisis

But why such a bad deal? One can point to political gridlock, dueling claims of political mandates, ideological polarization, and a host of other issues. But ultimately the blame comes down to a lack of leadership among the three principals–Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, Speaker of the House Kurt Zellers, and Governor Dayton.

But why the lack of leadership? One answer is that all are inexperienced. None of them had ever been responsible for moving a budget through the legislature. For Koch and Zellers, they are new leaders heading up caucuses for the first time in years in the majority, composed of many new members and rookie committee chairs. They were not up to the job. For Dayton, the lack of leadership was surprising given his resume. Yet his experience in executive positions is distant, his relationship with the DFL party has always been fragile, and this was his first time shepherding a budget through the legislature.

Terrific, Minnesota’s political leadership this year were rookies and JVs.

So here is the leadership deficit: If this is the best deal Dayton, Koch, and Zellers can negotiate, with a process that was undemocratic and possibly illegal, then that questions their ability to lead the state and their parties. The three should have never let Minnesota get to this place.

Detached Reality and Altered States: The GOP Response to the Dayton Budget

"This budget is detached from the reality every other state has recognized," Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers.

That's how Speaker Zellers describes Governor Dayton’s budget, especially the provision calling for new taxes on the wealthy. Similarly, Senator Amy Koch, majority leader of the Senate, calls it a “job killing budget.”

Job killing and detached from reality. This is the core argument of the GOP against the Dayton budget. Yet behind the name calling one looks in desperation for the Republican alternative and it has yet to emerge. Just last week Dayton vetoed the $1 billion in cuts the GOP had already suggested. Yet that $1 billion was more than $5 billion short of what is needed, and the GOP has yet to propose how they plan to find the additional money.

The truth is they do not have a solution. Yes they will rant and rave about tax hurting the state economy (little evidence that is true), that there is waste and fraud (little evidence that is true), and that the budget is a job killer (even less evidence that is true). However, they do not have a solution and are afraid to offer one. Why? Two reasons.

First, education, health, and public safety constitute 70%+ of the state budget. Any solution that seeks to address the deficit without cutting these items will not work. As Willie Sutton said when asked why he robs banks: “That is where the money is.” These items include K-12 and other popular programs for health. Cuts to them will be unpopular and the GOP does not want to be the party proposing them. They want to be a majority party beyond 2012 and if they get tagged as the ones who threw grandma out of the nursing home and took books away from Suzie, they are dead. They are hoping Dayton and the DFL take the lead on these cuts and then the GOP can escape blame. Moreover, the $1 billion cuts they suggested so far? Simply trial balloons on programs such as LGA to see how Dayton would react. So far, none of their proposals inflict clear pain upon voters.

The other reason they cannot swallow taxes? Their core constituency seems dead set against it. Tax opposition is the cornerstone of the GOP and the Tea party. To raise taxes is to violate a core belief no matter the reality. To raise taxes means the GOP is no different than the Democrats. To raise taxes also risks alienating many fiscal conservatives who might go elsewhere or not vote if the GOP supports taxes.

Thus the rock and hard place for the MN GOP: Be responsible, compromise, and accept some tax increases on the wealthy along with some spending cuts and risk alienating their base. Oppose tax increases and cut spending to popular programs and lose your majority in 2012. All Dayton and the DFL need to do is figure out how make this GOP dilemma work to their advantage.

Some will argue the GOP can make all these cuts without tax increases, without hurting the state, while also making additional tax cuts, and in the process grow the economy. Sound familiar? About 30 years ago Reagan said he could cut taxes, increase defense spending, and grow the economy without hurting the poor. John Anderson, in running for president against Reagan, said the only way that could be done was with “smoke and mirrors.” He was right then, and now. David Stockman confirmed that.

The basic GOP message on the economy, taxes, and the budget has been smoke and mirrors for 30 years. It has been about cost shifting, fund raiding, program bleeding, living on past spending approaches. It has been about blaming government waste, immigrants, and lazy welfare cheats as the cause of the financial problems we face. It has been about ignoring how the demand for tax cuts to benefit the wealthy have forced a hemorrhaging of the deficit at the national level. It has been about Pawlenty pushing through a law counting inflation for revenue purposes but not for the purposes of state expenditures.

It has been about simply being dishonest about the reality of the budget crisis we are facing. It is about constantly postponing to the future the problems with the present budget and spending scenario. It is about them saying that we do not have a revenue problem but a spending problem. It is about them clinging to a faulty supply theory of economics that is no more than a gloss for tax the poor and give the rich a free lunch.

Dayton’s budget reflects compromises, yet I do not see the compromise coming from the GOP. I give Dayton a lot of credit. His budget is grounded in reality. He is saying to those who got the feast it is time for them to pay for the meal. It is telling those best positioned to bear the risk and costs to assume their burden. It is telling people that we need to ask the best advantaged to stop being so greedy and recognize they have a community duty to pay their debts and help others.

Conversely, Obama and the national GOP are equally culpable in creating the Washington mess. Together they extended Bush era tax cuts that added nearly $1 trillion to the deficit and now both sides are whining that they need to make cuts. Last December Jesse Jackson got it right when he said the tax cuts then meant the poor would lose this spring. Even Pat Buchanan agreed. Obama admitted this week his budget did little to address the bigger structural problems with the budget. No one will do this until after 2012, if then. They have all created a mess they are unwilling to fix.

And then there is Bachmann. She continues to run across the country demanding fiscal accountability and cuts, yet she has no track record on delivering either. She seems more interested in worrying about whether women breast feed in public. Terrific! She has now cornered the anti-lactation vote.

I grew up in the home town of Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone. I know something about altered states. I wonder in the end, who is really living in a different reality.