Archive: Opinions

I'm a big fan of voting.  I have faith that each vote counts, even with the serpentine voting system we use, especially in presidential elections.  I have been a lot more jaded about the value of lobbying.  How can one voice matter when special interest groups are spending millions to convince politicians to do what they want them to do, and politicians want do do whatever looks good to get re-elected regardless of whether it actually helps people in their districts.

So while I admire our school superintendent Chris Pettograsso for her pluck, I haven't really thought that her lobbying effort would make much of a meaningful dent in Albany.  We are at a point in the school reform debate now, however, where I am reconsidering this cynicism.  Representatives in the Senate and the Assembly, including Lansing's own representatives, are now introducing bills to eliminate the GEA that has siphoned monies intended for schools away into the vast Albany vat of political spending/non-spending.  That's a good thing, right?

On the plus side, it is a result of school districts state-wide banding together to make their voices heard.  Activist educators like Pettograsso have been collectively loud enough to get the attention of representatives in the Legislature.  We have yet to see if the bills will pass, and then whether the Governor signs them or vetoes them.

Her lobbying may not matter in the sense that one individual in or out of the pot doesn't mean no soup.  But it certainly matters in the sense that you don't get soup unless you add the ingredients.  Her voice as a community leader is certainly more likely to be heard than mine as an individual taxpayer, but she has also been rallying the taxpayers to lobby together like the denizens of Whoville, from 'Horton Hears a Who'.

In that book Horton the elephant can hear the voices of a microscopic community because he has big elephant ears.  But when they must make themselves heard or be destroyed because smaller-eared (and minded) creatures can't hear them, one loud 'Yopp!' makes the difference between the Whovillians being heard or obliterated.

Maybe the Whos were on to something.

On occasion I have lent my voice to the individually silent shouts on various causes from time to time.  But I never thought I would impact the outcome.  I did it because it was important to people I admired or cared about and it would make them happier if I added my 'Yopp!' to the racket.

But now I don't know.  If the GEA is killed it will go a long way toward chipping away my cynicism.  I want to think that efforts like Pettograsso's can really make a difference and not just be some existential exercise that makes people feel good for the experience but doesn't yield results.  So I am hoping for the best while dreading my summer school tax bill.

Which gives me an idea.  What if we got a dollar off our taxes for every person that joined a lobbying effort like the one Pettograsso is involved in?  If we all banded together to lobby we probably wouldn't have any property taxes at all.  It would reward communities for banding together to get a good result.  Which is what government is sopposed to do.  And if it did, we wouldn't need lobbying.

I wonder what Horton would think?  At least he was listening.

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