SPECTRUM: How to help our legislators get out of hell

If someone were to describe hell to me, it would be to be thrown into a big pond with 59 other independent-minded, hard-headed, prima-donna types and told to come up with a cohesive strategic plan to save the state three billion dollars, while half-a-million other people stare at you through media binoculars, either goading you on or throwing banana peels at you.

Next week, we send our legislators into hell.

Ironically, they go there voluntarily. Nevertheless, for 90 days they will be slaving to keep Alaska’s engine humming.

While there, they will listen to hundreds of people. Some for them. Most against them. Advocating projects, defending department costs, and talking about taxes. Raising taxes. Income taxes. Industry taxes. They will listen until their ears fall off, which they eventually do.

First, I want to talk about that listening.

The ability to listen in politics is proportional to how much toe you have in the water. With but a toe the arguing is quiet and cordial. Your options are open. Your mind is free. You don’t have to be bathing-suited up. For most of us, we are just sitting on the beach, toes in the water.

Not so for our legislators. They have to dive in.

When you dive into political issues, you undoubtedly get suited up. You prepare your mind to get seeped in the ocean of opinions, to get flooded with facts, and for the issues to become wetter than they are. The winner is the one who avoids the sharks, or if I finish out the description of hell I started, the one who refuses to listen to his enemies, for hell has no love.

That’s how I perceive politics. It is life backwards. Ears inside out. Talking to the deaf. The downfall of humanity.

Well… maybe not that bad.

But listen, politics is mud. It’s dirty. It’s not about listening. It’s about winning. Which is my point. If the citizens of Alaska are relying on the sharkfest of politicians, special interest groups, department leaders, and lobbyists to solve our state’s budget problems, then nobody is listening to you and our ship may already be sunk.

Unfortunately, swimming is not an option then. You must either become a shark or a dolphin. In other words, your voice matters and needs to be heard. But how do you speak your voice?

That’s what I want to talk about second. Politicians are tough people, who have strong minds. So, what moves them?

Though covered in the garb of logic, politics is not merely logic or facts, that is but the ocean. The ability to push a political point is not by its logic but by the weight of its emotional political value.

Emotional political value is the air inside the inner tubes upon which a politician rides. No, it’s not love; remember, love is not in hell. Instead, these are subtle political emotions that allow them to float over the sea of facts and the storms of opinion: loyalty; familiarity; compulsion.

These are the base political emotions that I have witnessed at the root of most legislative decision-making. Loyalty, familiarity, and compulsion are the flotilla that maneuver the bills through the halls of state.

The Votecounts. The Agenda. The Favors. That’s how things get done. Which is why listening is in so short supply. And why speaking requires diplomacy in the currency of these political emotions.

That to me is why politics has been sullied over the years and I would rather remain on the beach with my fellow citizens. But these are urgent times.

I urge you to speak your voice and to use their language: become loyal to a legislator’s cause, become a familiar face to them, and become a compulsory reason for them to act in the best interest of the whole.

Now, for our leaders to get the hell out of Juneau after these next 90 days are up, they’ve got to save Alaska from drowning in its budget crisis. To do that, they are going to need a miracle. Your voice is that miracle they need.