As you suggested the other day in your post citing Glen Johnson’s AP story on the Governor’s steady progress this year, the groundwork carefully laid by the Governor over the past year and a half is starting to pay off.
When the General Court shuts down in July, there will many notable achievements to his name – from life sciences to clean energy. I guess the question is where or what next? I’m sure that as you and your colleagues work tirelessly to get the Governor’s first session agenda passed, you are also beginning to turn attention to the next session and the run-in to re-election in 2010.
In a Boston Globe Magazine article earlier this year, Governor Patrick defined his Administration’s goals as schools, jobs and citizenship. He has real success on all of these areas (and I like how they are no emphasized clearly on the Gov’s website): so in education, raising new funds for full-day kindergarten or creating the new Sec of Ed; on jobs, the list is long, running from new companies locating in Mass. to the range of bond legislation passed or soon to be law; and on citizenship, creating the Commonwealth Corp and putting some meat behind his call for service. I’d imagine he will retain these priorities, (and ensure their proper implementation), going forward as he should. But, I had a few thoughts about the agenda and means of pursuing to share. Here goes:
CITIZENSHIP/ACCOUNTABILITY: Recently the the media has run a few lame stories about the increasing size of the Governor’s office budget and staff. Its a predictable and easy story for the media (in this case the Herald) to write, but I’d like to see it get batted back a bit harder. Given that much of the funding increase encompasses the Comm Corp. and initiatives to give people a voice in State Govt, I think an effort to make it clearer what Comm Corp is all about and what the Director of Grassroots Governance is doing, would be worthwhile. I read a related article, maybe in SHNS, that the Senate passed a Republican-Tisei amendment asking for more info about the Gov’s staff (wanted the Gov’s office to post its organogram or something like it on the web), which shows that maybe the legislature does not fully get what these efforts are all about either.
So how to do that? In the short-term, an easy option would be to run an op-ed (maybe pick the Herald to take it to the skeptics directly) about the Governor’s citizenship agenda and why it matters? It could serve a few purposes and target multiple audiences. One audience is the public and people who may be interested in getting involved (and I know there ads up promoting Comm. Corp so this could reinforce them). But, the real audience in this case may be the leg and third estate. It should be made clear in a positive sense what the Governor is using his new staff for on these issues – spell out what they are doing and what they are aiming to achieve. Golden Dome pols (even when they enact the laws that create them) and media hacks love to skewer well-intentioned, but, in their eyes fluffy, initiatives. Time to push back on those notions a bit.
Looking beyond the immediate though, I think spelling out the Governor’s wider goals for citizenship/service could be helpful. What does he want to achieve in this area, after two (or three)-terms in office, when all is said and done? More people voting. More people volunteering. More people running for office. More people attending town meetings or public hearings. More people understanding what their Govt is up to and feeling able to get involved. Or beyond electioneering and democracy, more parents joining their PTAs, or kids joining after-school clubs, more neighbors joining neighborhood watch groups, or families throwing block parties – more people ultimately building social links and generating social capital. It could be all of the above.
The thing is, all of these activities are measurable or at least surveyable. One thing to do would be to gather evidence on levels of political and social participation across the State, in its regions and demographically (enlisting some social researchers, maybe get Robert Putnam’s Sahuaro Seminar folks at Harvard involved). Publish it and then go about setting out some goals for where we want it to be in five years/ten years. Then develop some ideas for how we may raise achieve them and increase social capital.
And to push the agenda further and build on the op-ed or short-term press strategy, it could be worth the Governor giving a major address on the importance of citizenship/service to our future – sometime after Obama wins in November but before he is sworn in. In it he could set out the evidence about participation, give examples of where its making a difference and open up a debate with the public about how we can improve it – because no doubt if what he seeks is public involvement, then it must begin with a very public dialogue on the subject.
And in the realm of unreality, I also sometimes wonder whether we may want to look at some form of constitutional reform down the line. This is wease at this point, but sometimes I feel the way our government works could be improved, made more transparent and accountable in a more direct way and with the force of the constitution behind it. Not more direct democracy (I believe that too often the ballot has been highjacked by special interests to deal with complex issues in a non-sensical up-or-down fashion), but by reforming our representative institutions. I don’t have the ideas about how at this point, but wonder if there is some room to explore this.
Now obviously the citizenship agenda cannot take prominence over the jobs and schools elements of the Governor’s core issues triumvirate. People may not care about volunteering when they can’t get a job or send their kid to a decent school. But the Governor has not and should not be afraid to push the issue of citizenship up the agenda quite publicly. It matters. The relationship between the government and the people it serves is a two-way street. So many of the challenges we face today, from health care to climate change to education require a partnership between people and their government to solve. The people have rights they can exercise, but they also have a responsibility to do so. The nexus between rights and responsibilities should be a point of focus going forward.
SETTING OUT THE AGENDA FOR 2009: I also wonder if the Governor could take setting out his agenda in some new directions. The focus is generally on the Budget and the State of the State. Those two events remain important – but are mostly insider-baseball. What about using the time between the November election and the opening of the 09-10 General Court to lay some groundwork with the public on the agenda to come. Bill filing is always in late Nov/Dec usually. So why not set out the Governor’s legislative agenda (not the bill text but the issues) in a public document (published in print and on the web) before bill filing and invite public comment on the agenda. Give some speeches around the state highlighting the major initiatives the Governor will pursue and hold some town meetings centred on the agenda. Shows the Governor leading and listening at the same time.
In building up to the next Budget, I also think so much more could be done with those pathetically attended and very low-profile hearings A and F run. Didn’t one of those sessions last year have no attendees, other than Leslie Kirwan and the Cabinet sitting there listenting to themselves. There has to be a better way of doing those sessions. Something that actually get’s people involved, are held so people can attend and are forums where meaningful issues around the Budget are discussed. Turn em in to a place where the challenges we face as a State can be discussed in a way peop
le can respond to and where the Governor’s agenda can be presented and considered.
