Politics Vs. Governance

With distrust in government institutions at a (depressingly) all-time high, we could use a lot more of the latter and significantly less of the former

Howdy! My name is Will Hampton and this is my weekly newsletter on government done right. If you’re receiving this, it’s because you’re already a subscriber (thank you!) or someone referred you here. If you’re in the latter camp, you can manage your subscription using this handy button.

On to today’s newsletter.

To you newbies, my basic premise for Good Government Files is that it’s up to us in local government to save our democracy. We do great work, often unnoticed and usually under-appreciated. In this newsletter, you’ll get a regular dose of good vibes and helpful advice, borne of experience, on governing well.

I’m an optimist. That said, saving democracy sure feels like a bigger ask these days than when I launched GGF all of three months ago. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: We’re so far through the looking glass in national politics that I truly do fear for the republic.

The latest example of government done wrong, though, isn’t about a failure at the federal level. The devastating Maui wildfires appear to be the result of a conspiracy of ineptitude and malfeasance at the local and state levels. (The feds, I should mention, did take some flack for a perceived sluggish relief effort.)

Writer Walter Kirn and journalist Matt Taibbi talked about the Maui wildfire on their always thought-provoking podcast last week. They played a clip of President Biden’s remarks in Maui where he tried to relate to the victims with a story of a kitchen fire at his lake (or was it a pond?) house years ago, when he says he “almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette (chuckles) and my cat. All kidding aside ...” Matt likened the politically tone deaf remark to George W. Bush’s infamous off-the-cuff comment praising FEMA Administrator Michael Brown in the early aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and killed more than 1,800. Walter agreed and added that Biden’s comment came “at a moment when hundreds of people are missing and presumed dead.”

Walter continued:

“I mean, I don't think this Maui incident has caused anyone to feel less than outraged with local, state and federal officials. They have shown absolutely — besides no proper empathy — (no) competence or capability. And, at a time when life is more expensive, and taxes are high, and people are seeing money go abroad. When they see this absolute horror of a disaster, just filed under climate change, given a cursory presidential visit and thrown into the memory hole, it's no surprise there's a populist movement ... This story ravaged me. It seemed, like a Chernobyl, like a Katrina, just an object lesson in the alienation of people on the ground and big leadership elite that keeps wanting us to give (it) faith.”

That disconnect needs to be explored by folks who work with politicians for a living. Which is most of you, dear readers. As the headline to this post makes clear, politics and governance are often in tension. The best enumeration of that tension I’ve seen comes from Lyle Sumek, a local government consultant.

Politics Vs. Governance

Governance is serving the community; 
Politics is getting elected or re-elected. 

Governance is being guided by vision, goals and value to the community; 
Politics is being guided by ideology, a cause or philosophical principle. 

Governance is shaping the community's future for the long term; 
Politics is responding to the moment and current “crisis.” 

Governance is taking responsibility; 
Politics is making promises. 

Governance is exercising an ability to influence others; 
Politics is the use of power. 

Governance is finding pragmatic solutions to problems through collaboration; 
Politics is starting with solutions in mind. 

Governance is being data driven; 
Politics is playing to people's emotions. 

Governance is negotiating by trading off to find a workable compromise; 
Politics is demanding and advocacy to win. 

Governance is educating and mobilizing support; 
Politics is rallying supporters and creating zealots. 

Governance is creating community benefits and value; 
Politics is taking personal credit and receiving personal recognition. 

TODAY'S CRISIS: Politics trumping Governance 

Let me be clear, on Lyle’s behalf. He doesn’t hate politics nor politicians. Far from it. As noted above, his company works to make elected officials and their organizations more effective. (And he’s really good at it. I’ve seen him facilitate at least half a dozen City Council strategic planning retreats.) Being in government work and complaining about politics is like buying a home next to the airport and complaining about the noise. He’s not complaining. He’s simply pointing out what he’s observing in his work with cities big and small and in-between all over the country.

I met up with Lyle earlier this month to ask him about the origin story of Politics Vs. Governance.

He said was facilitating a planning session for a long-term client of his, and “politics was starting to creep into the discussions.” There were two newly elected council members who, he said, were driven by self interests and who had a “total disdain” for local government.

“They actually voted against the minutes,” of a council meeting, he noted, claiming they said they didn’t say what had been included in the minutes (and what had been recorded on tape). “They were creating their own reality.”

Those two were starting to negatively influence a couple of less experienced council members, he said, and were making moves to fire the City Manager. Adding insult to that potential injury, the pair told Lyle they felt like the city didn't need a strategic plan.

So, Lyle asked them, “Then how will you know if you’re succeeding and making progress in the future?”

“Citizens will hold us accountable,” they said.

Lyle reports a not great night’s sleep in his motel bed, troubled by the changing political tide that threatened to undo the work of years of effective strategic planning and implementation by this municipality. In the oft-edifying half-light between sleep and consciousness, Politics Vs. Governance came to him.

“I woke up with great clarity,” he said, “made some notes, and then wrote it up in half an hour.”

I still recall the first time Lyle read it to the City Council in Round Rock, where I worked. I think then Mayor Alan McGraw actually had him read it again. It really resonated, not because things were going haywire in Round Rock, but because elected officials higher up the food chain were making decisions impacting the City that were all about politics and nothing about governance.

Lyle notes he’s received some negative feedback on Politics Vs. Governance over the years.

“Some say it’s degrading to politics,” he says. “But when politicians fight, the community loses.”

In Maui, the fighting resulted in the inability of local and state politicians to govern, i.e., demand mitigation of the non-native grasses that allowed the fire that leveled Lahaina to spread so quickly. Where was governance at the Hawaiian Electric Co., the utility that knew of the threat of its aging wooden poles and uninsulated power lines and failed to replace them?

Here’s what political cowardice looks like.

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

No one likes to raise taxes and fees, I get it. But for the love of all that’s holy, some things are worth raising taxes and fees for, like proactively addressing well-known, high-probability risks.

To state the incandescently obvious, our political fights have gotten exponentially worse. Just so you know where I stand, I blame politicians from both major political parties, as well as the legacy news media (and I’m not alone, as you’ll see below). The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins had a great column last week about the current state of our political fighting under the headline, Trump and Election Denial. (For you non-link followers, it’s not solely about Trump’s denial of election results. He’s looking at y’all too, Hilary Clinton and Stacy Abrams.) Jenkins recites the litany of dirty deeds, i.e., fighting, done by political types since the surprise outcome of the 2016 presidential election and expresses the same lament that I have. He writes:

Beating all, for me, is the failure of any prominent figure to pull on their big-boy pants, the lack of any bipartisan wise person to sit up and say the collusion hoax, FBI meddling in 2016 and 2020, Mr. Trump’s own stop-the-steal hoax, are all one sickness.

That sickness is expressed well in Politics Vs. Governance. There are the obvious results of that sickness in places like Lahaina and New Orleans. But for those of us fighting the good fight in places where good governance is occurring, the spread of that sickness makes our jobs ever harder because it is resulting in an appalling loss of trust in our organizations.

It’s gotten so bad that government is trusted less than the news media. (As someone who’s worked in both government and the news media, boy does that make me feel wonderful.) Here’s a chart from an annual survey on trust by Edelman, the PR behemoth¹.

This year’s trust survey, which queried 32,000-plus people in 28 countries, is titled Navigating a Polarized World. Indeed, that’s an increasing challenge in local government. It’s especially acute for those of you tasked with managing social media platforms, where the polarization is most readily apparent.

From the Edelman report, here are the Four Forces that Lead to Polarization:

1. Economic anxieties — Economic optimism is collapsing around the world, with 24 of 28 countries seeing all-time lows in the number of people who think their families will be better off in five years.

2. Institutional imbalance — Business is now the sole institution seen as competent and ethical; government is viewed as unethical and incompetent. Business is under pressure to step into the void left by government.

3. Mass-class divide — People in the top quartile of income live in a different trust reality than those in the bottom quartile, with 20+ point gaps in Thailand, the United States, and Saudi Arabia.

4. The battle for truth — A shared media environment has given way to echo chambers, making it harder to collaboratively solve problems. Media is not trusted, with especially low trust in social media.

For a boomer like me, it’s hard to believe business is now seen as the only trusted, ethical institution when compared to government, media and non-government organizations (NGOs). Big business used to be the bad guy in that quartet. There’s too much to unpack in those four points for the remainder of this post, but those of us serving local governments can absolutely do something about the “unethical and incompetent” view most hold of government.

Which brings me to the one ray of sunshine in the otherwise dismal outlook shared by Edelman. While government leaders generally are the most distrusted institutional leaders, as the chart below shows, there is trust of “People in my local community.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say most mayors, council members and staff of local governments are more trusted than their state and national peers. We mix and mingle with the citizens we serve all day, every day. Folks get to see the impact of the decisions we make in local government regarding roads, utility systems, parks, libraries and the like.

Still, there’s no question there is increasing distrust in government, and the populist crap we see at the national level is rolling downhill to city halls all across this great country. Anecdotally, the level of vitriol we saw spike during the COVID crisis remains high on those local government social media platforms. And, according to Edelman, it’s not just my friends managing those platforms experiencing it. It’s, uh, pretty much everybody everywhere around the world.

Here’s where I think we can make a difference in local government. As noted above, there’s still trust at the local level So when we do the hard but rewarding work of governing well — of listening, of casting a positive vision for our communities and then backing it up with the strategic plans and actions needed to bring that vision to reality — we can begin to rebuild trust in government as an institution. Like I noted up top, I’m an optimist.

So, I’ll leave you with an optimistic declaration of what happens when we govern well. It’s also from Lyle.

When people lead they make decisions and take action.
When people believe in a bright future they can make a difference.
When they work together as a team it encourages them to accomplish more.
When problems are solved with common sense, people will follow through.
When people learn from setbacks, they will succeed.

My prayer is that we all learn from the mistakes we make as well as the mistakes of others, like the ones discussed above. Lord knows, we could use more success stories in government.

Onward and Upward.

1. Thanks to the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers (TAMIO) for having an Edelman rep discuss the 2023 Trust Barometer at its August webinar.