It was a long time ago I tell myself. The check, on the account of the Office of the City Clerk in Sikeston, Missouri, says it will be fifty-six years ago this December. The check, made payable to Kendall Sikes, my father, was for $0.25. The quarter of pay was made quarterly. He served as Mayor for $1 a year.
Dad’s principles, which he freely shared with his sons, included the importance of public service. Often, after spending long days working in a small sporting goods store owned and operated by him and his brother, he would have evening meetings on what he called “city issues.”
I was reminded of his commitment to public service after reading a Politico article this past week titled: “Want to be a foreign agent? Serve in Congress first.”
The article noted that 114 members have registered as foreign agents (a legal requirement) since 1990. Most prominently the article included former Democrat Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, Dick Gephardt, who also ran for President and the influential Republican former House member Vin Weber. The list of foreign agents also included Paul Manafort, who until recently led Donald J. Trump’s campaign and close Hillary Clinton operative, Lanny Davis.
The reality is that a very high percentage of former lawmakers and one-time officials of the Executive Branch convert their service into lobbying jobs, foreign and domestic.
We have arrived at a “stick it to the man” moment in presidential politics because people have simply lost their faith in Washington. Surveys, too numerous to mention, chronicle the disdain. Hillary Clinton will probably be elected President, but it won’t be because of her popularity.
In my book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow I told the story of an African initiative to improve government across the continent.
“In 2006, a sixty-six-year-old billionaire named Mohammed Ibrahim, who had made his fortune in telecommunications, stated, “It’s my conviction that Africa doesn’t need help, doesn’t need aid.” He went on to say that the problem is “governance—the way Africans govern themselves. Without good governance, there’s no way forward.”
Ibrahim’s foundation started a program that year to award cash prizes to leaders who leave office with relatively corruption free records. It offers $5 million over ten years and then $200 thousand a year for the rest of the leader’s life. Here is how the foundation describes its initiative:
“One of the founding initiatives of the Foundation, the Ibrahim Prize, celebrates excellence in African leadership. It is awarded to a former Executive Head of State or Government by an independent Prize Committee composed of eminent figures, including two Nobel Laureates.”
We need a variation on this initiative in the United States. While criteria for such an award are well beyond the scope of this book, I would target the congressional branch, where members often organize their voting around their monetary interests and then cash in when they leave office. So let me suggest several criteria.
First, if a Member of Congress accepts more than a certain percentage of his/her campaign funds from interests over which they have any Congressional power, then they would be disqualified. Second, if they vote for an infrastructure project that will be named for a sitting or former Member of Congress, they should be disqualified. Finally, to be eligible, the Member must not stay in Washington, but return to his/her home district. This last criterion shouldn’t be unpalatable since Members constantly tell their constituents how much they hate living in Washington.”
I would go one step further taking a page from Grover Norquist’s Americans For Tax Reform. Norquist asks each candidate for Congress to take a “Taxpayers Protection Pledge” which essentially precludes those who sign up from voting in favor of a tax increase of any kind. The pledge I would present to candidates would be a commitment to return to their home district when, for whatever reason, they leave the Congress. The only downside is that Washington real estate values might suffer.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
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