When I was growing up in the 1950’s Onondaga County was represented in Congress by R. Walter Reihlman, a Republican.
Reihlman represented the district for nine terms from 1946 to 1964.
During those terms, Congress met for no more than three and a half to four months per year in Washington D.C.
The salary went up from $ 10,000 to $ 30,000 during that period.
Clearly, it was not envisioned as a full-time position.
Since 1965, the salary has risen to 174,000 per year and Congress is almost continuously in session.
The position has turned into a full time position and we are now represented by career politicians.
The New York State Legislature has evolved in the same way with the same result.
Proponents of full-time legislators will contend that it is essential because the issues that they deal with are more complex and require the acquisition of expertise.
In my view, this has resulted in a number of developments in the way Congress operates, none of them helpful.
I have observed many times that politics and public office attract people who couldn’t be successful at anything else.
Without naming names, over the course of my lifetimes I’ve seen people rise to the highest levels of power, who have had repeated failures in the private sector.
I’m not talking about the isolated business failure occasioned by an unexpected economic downturn but a track record of failures that defy expectation.
Nonetheless, when these people are elected to office and are repeatedly re-elected, they rise in seniority to genuine positions of power to which they cling desperately to.
The other failing that a full-time legislature has, is that it can result in officeholders who have never had a career doing anything else.
Two examples of this come right to mind and one is a Democrat and the other a Republican.
U.S. Senator and Democratic Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, has been in public office from the moment he graduated from law school. Indeed, Schumer was so anxious to run for office that he never bothered to take the New York State Bar exam.
He went from the New York State Assembly to Congress to the United States Senate without ever having had a career outside of public office.
Another example of this trajectory is Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.
Ryan went from being a congressional staffer to Republican campaign speech writer to another staff position until he was elected to Congress.
Unlike Schumer, he spent one year in the private sector where he worked as the marketing consultant at his family’s construction company as he ran for office.
Both of these politicians are what I call “doing life in public office.”
Neither of them can be said to have had the day to day experiences that people who build businesses or professional practices have.
They don’t know what it means to have to lay employees off or obtain a loan with payment obligations in difficult economic times.
They don’t know what it means to have to lay awake at night wondering if losses will turn to profits so that they can meet payroll, fund retirement accounts, or be able to meet medical expenses, children’s tuition or perhaps put food on the table.
“Doing life in public office” permits them to live in a cocoon where all their needs are met by salaries, staff, and all the other perks that comes with public office.
That leads us to the government shutdown.
I don’t think it is wise to ever shut the government down, no matter how noble the reason.
I am second to know one when I think the government should come up with a solution to DACA that allows those children who were brought to this country at an early age to obtain protected legal status and a path to citizenship.
Trump’s threat to deport these kids, if Congress does not enact a legislative solution, is one of the most callous and cruel threats I’ve ever seen.
Schumer’s decision to shut the government down and then to retreat from it after one day was simply stupid.
I’m not optimistic that, come March 5, we will not start to see deportations.
The only concession that Schumer obtained for his retreat was a promise from Senate Leader Mitch McConnell that he would allow “open debate” on the issue of the “Dreamers.”
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There was no commitment that a legislative solution would be had.
Complicating this problem is that Ryan will not allow any measure to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives unless it is supported by a majority of the House Republican members.
That position forecloses the possibility that a bi-partisan measure, agreed to by moderate Republican members and Democrats, could ever be enacted.
That is the price that Ryan makes Americans pay so that he can hold on to the power of the Speaker’s position.
Schumer ended the shutdown after one day simply because he feared that it would hurt the re-election chances of some of his caucus members.
In sum, the nobility of the “Dreamers” cause was and is sacrificed for the political expediency and preservation of those who will not take a principled stand because they want to cling to their elected positions.
And that, is the problem of being governed by those who sre “doing life in public office.”