In one exemplary scene in Beau Willimon’s highly addictive ‘House of Cards’ series, House Majority Whip Frank Underwood visits his sometime paramour, ambitious reporter Zoe Barnes. Within 20 seconds of his climax, she demands the vote count on a pending bill. Frank resists, and a mild disagreement ensues during which he asserts that, despite being twice her age, she “always seems to leave satisfied.”
“How do you know I’m not faking it?” asks Zoe. “Are you?” he asks.
“Doesn’t it say a lot that you can’t tell?” she replies.
Several ‘House of Cards’ reviewers have alluded to the show’s verisimilitude. And the New York Times just started a series about the realism (or not) of the show’s portrayal of journalism. But I haven’t seen any current or ex-legislator analyze its depiction of legislative life – the hits and the misses. As with sex, it’s not always easy to know what’s real and what isn’t.
As a former lawmaker and Missouri Congressional candidate, I’m somewhat acquainted with this world. Let me try to clear some of this up.
Here’s what the show gets right
There’s a thin line between transactional sex and actual prostitution.
In the culmination of a first season theme, an impassive Zoe tells post-coital Frank, “As long as we’re clear about what this is, I can play the whore. Now pay me” (with information). Although I doubt the terms of most arrangements are quite that explicit, I saw transactional sex as a legislator. However, the journalist/legislator pair strikes me as unlikely; legislator/staff and legislator/lobbyist were more frequent pairings, and you could often see the dividends it paid for both parties.
District life and legislative life occupy parallel universes – but when problems arise, district issues come first.
Often legislators face simultaneous crises in parallel spheres – one policy-oriented, one constituent-related. Successful legislators – no matter how high-ranking – address district crises first. An example came in Episode 3 when a young constituent of Frank’s dies in a car accident after being distracted by a phallic roadside sculpture whose erection Frank had supported. A local official who covets Frank’s seat pushes the girl’s parents to sue, dragging Frank into the mess. Despite being deep in Hill negotiations on a critical bill, Frank spends two days back home negotiating a settlement. The untimely death of a constituent may not seem capable of bringing the nation’s business to a halt. But savvy legislators understand that absent re-election, no other goal can be fulfilled.
Being a legislator requires extraordinary multitasking skills.
These days, everyone multitasks. But legislators are often required to multitask on a more emotionally and/or intellectually demanding level. Viewers saw a dramatic example of this during the above storyline, when Frank negotiates with the chief lobbyist for the teachers’ unions while making a tray of sandwiches he was about to share with the bereaved parents. He threads the needle, giving just enough ground to keep the negotiations alive, while maintaining focus on his distraught guests.
Constituents do not mince words.
After Rep. Peter Russo takes a dive and allows a military base in his district to close without putting up a fight, he returns to his office to find a deluge of hate email, with constituents calling him, for instance, a traitorous piece of shit. I can promise that I was called that and far worse by constituents, as were many of my close colleagues. Indeed, a bitter enemy of mine only wrote me one pleasant email in my career – the day I resigned.
Like golf, politics is a game of inches.
The shift of just two votes on Russo’s job creation bill leads to a series of events which spiral out of control, leading to tragedy. Had those two fence-sitting votes gone the other way, the bill would’ve passed and Russo would’ve been a hero back in his district, rather than an embarrassment. I can think of several presidents – or near-presidents – who could confirm this. Kennedy beat Nixon by less than one vote per precinct. George W. Bush beat Al Gore by a butterfly ballot. And Clinton was impeached because of a dress that wasn’t laundered in a timely fashion.
Here’s what they get wrong
Except in very intimate settings, legislators do not tie campaign donations to pending legislation in such bald terms.
As Episode 9 opens, Frank convenes 15 to 20 legislators – along with a dozen staffers – to push Russo’s job creation bill. When asked to explain their apprehensions, one legislator says, “I’ve already been approached by Sancorp with re-election funds.” Another chimes in: “They offered me a donation package with eight different drilling companies.”
Any legislator who said something like this would appear to be for sale – and could be risking serious legal trouble if they ultimately voted with the company in question. With few exceptions, legislators publicly pride themselves on their inability to be bought, and would not – especially in a room of 30 people, including others’ staff – blurt out links between campaign donations and specific legislation, even if they know such links exist. A legislator would either say it privately to another trusted legislator or aide or, in a larger group, would couch it in acceptable terms, code language such as “Sancorp approached me as well, and made it clear that this bill is extremely important to them.” Pork-barrel bills that reach the floor offer funds to at least 218 districts.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: What “House Of Cards” Gets Right — And What It Doesn’t
When contributing RP Jeff Smith, a state senator representing St. Louis, found himself behind bars for political missteps, he discovered a unique business world churning in prisons.
He saw that a meager prisoner’s salary quickly leads to ingenuity. You have to figure out how to get what you want without much money. What Smith saw on the inside struck him as very similar to business leaders he had come in contact with outside of the penitentiary.
He’s been released and has landed a job teaching at the New School. One of his crusades is to figure out a way to harness the ingenuity he experienced behind bars and getting ex-cons back on their feet with a business plan.
Jeremy Gregg works with the same population that Smith found so underutilized and inspiring. Gregg is the chief development officer of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, where inmates take classes on how to build a business.
Minnesota Public Radio’s “The Daily Circuit” discussed harnessing prison ingenuity to get ex-cons on their feet.
Guests
Jeff Smith: Assistant professor of urban policy analysis and management at the New School
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Feb 28, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I have been listening this week to a lot of music from an alternative rock band from the late 80s and early 90s named “Mother Love Bone.”
I know. Great band but name is hard to explain away if I died unexpectedly in a car accident and the police on the scene noticed my IPod set to Mother Love Bone pictured with their gifted and androgynous lead singer, Andy Wood, who died before their debut album from a heroin overdose.
Which is why I am mentioning this now. If some tragedy befalls me and there is talk of my “disturbing interest” for a man my age in a rock band named (there is no subtle way to pronounce it) “Mother Love Bone” —please someone chime in and say it was just a “passing phase” and that I was much better known for my love of classical music, Beethoven, Bach and the boys.
Who, be quick to add, showed clear signs of androgyny too but no one ever mentions that and maybe they (Andy Wood, Beethoven and Bach) were just all great musicians and we should leave it at that.
A study found that Detroit’s declining population, decimated economy and chaotic administration has led to its dysfunction. How can the city turn itself around?
Adam Zemke @adamzemke (Ann Arbor, MI) Michigan State Representative
Jeff Smith @JeffSmithMO (Montclair, NJ) Assistant Professor in the Urban Policy Graduate Program at the New School; Former State Senator for Inner City St. Louis
John Celock @JohnCelockHP (Washington, DC) HuffPost State Government Reporter
John Patrick Leary (Detroit, MI) Asst. Professor of American Literature
Stefen Welch @stefenj (Detroit , MI) Partner Coordinator at Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Feb 27, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
If you feel too old to be young, chances are you are really just too young to be old.
Seriously.
If you think you are too old, past your prime, don’t have it “goin’ on” anymore….puleeez!
Don’t waste our time telling us it can’t be done because your age or can’t try now because, “What will people think?” We know what they’ll think.
The same thing you’ll think if you wait another five years, “Why didn’t I do this 5 years ago?!!”
Want proof your are cheating yourself and others with stories of being on the wrong side of the aging pendulum?
Watch Steve Winwood (the rock star) singing his classic “Dear Mr Fantasy” in “his prime” in 1972.
And then watch Steve Winwood (now the master) singing his classic “Dear Mr Fantasy” 35 years later, “in his prime.”
Someone, I’m sure, told Steve Winwood he was too old for this more recent concert…But he told them, I’m guessing, something like…. “Nah. You can’t be too old if you still haven’t peaked!. Come see me again in 30 years and we’ll talk then. I’ll get you back stage passes.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Wow!!!
I just found out Lent lasts for 40 (forty) days!!!
That’s almost 6 weeks of self-denial!!!
Man….that is a very long time.
That fact wasn’t fully disclosed to me when we joined the Presbyterian Church several years ago. I’m not accusing the church of a bait-and-switch….But “Wow!!”
40 days! Of not doing things we enjoy!
That is a material fact that should have been disclosed in large print on the front page.
I’m not going to make more out of it for now ….and just try to let it go. Maybe I should have been more inquisitive. I just assumed Lent was, like, I dunno— a weekend or week-long thing. About as long as Chanukah but easier to spell and Catholic. And involving putting ashes on your forehead and not eating your favorite food for, like, the weekend.
This is actually some really major league commitment here….
What if we put twice as much ash on our foreheads?
Can we cut in half the amount of self-denials expected of us?
Is there a “Lent for Beginners” program for newbies that starts off slow and builds to full-fledged Lent sacrifices in, like, year 10 or 15?
By Artur Davis, on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
The New Republic’s recent piece on Andrew Cuomo’s presidential ambitions will rankle most conservatives at first glance: its description of the New York Governor as a centrist seems like an ill-fitting label for an unabashed champion of gay marriage, sweeping gun control, decriminalizing marijuana possession, and lately, eroding restrictions on third trimester abortions. But the article is important for a variety of reasons. First, of all the likely Democratic possibilities should Hillary Clinton stay on the sidelines, it is Cuomo who comes closest to Barack Obama’s raw skill and resilience, Cuomo who is best positioned to match either Clinton or Obama as a fundraising machine, and it is the governor who is most likely to reprise Obama’s strength with the metropolitan professionals and suburbanites who are crucial in the big state primaries that will decide the nomination. Short term, the article is illustrative of two points that might explain why extending the Democratic run for another presidential cycle is a more dicey proposition than the gloom about demographics and infighting on the right suggests.
The first point is the extent to which the 21st century brand of centrism in the Democratic Party omits even a scintilla of social conservatism. Cuomo’s stances on social issues may be decidedly to the left of the ground Obama staked out in two presidential campaigns (was it just five ago that Obama was declaring his religious reservations about gay marriage and soft-pedaling his views on abortion?) but they are already orthodoxy among the activists who will dictate the outcomes of caucuses and primaries in 2016 (even in states like South Carolina and Alabama, where the steady migration of conservative Democrats has left primary electorates not much distinguishable from an Iowa or a Maryland).
It’s a shift, though, that will produce a platform and more importantly a nominating campaign that will not resemble the calibrated positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control which Democrats relied on for a generation. Much as 2012 was an object lesson in the Republican shift to the right on subjects like immigration and the distrust in grassroots GOP ranks of every element of Obama’s agenda, the 2016 Democratic race will be a template of what liberal politics sound like when their base has a monopoly on the primaries.
And the reframing of the Democratic Party as an unrestrained defender of social liberalism will have uncertain consequences for the white working class share of their coalition—the share that actually accounted for Obama’s 2012 wins in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, after all four states had elected Republican governors just two years earlier. As Ruy Teixera, who is ordinarily bullish on the prospect of an enduring Democratic coalition, has pointed out, socially progressive politics may no longer be toxic, but they also have no demonstrated appeal to white blue collars who prioritize the manufacturing jobs and wage growth that Obama barely touched in his inaugural speech or State of the Union.
And it is possible that as liberals assert themselves on themes that they barely mentioned in the economy driven environment in 2008 and 2012, that working class voters will be the leading edge of any gathering cultural backlash around, say, guns or reviving third trimester abortions. In addition, the next election will happen against one of two backdrops, either of which could end up disadvantaging Democrats. Either a worst case, another four years of tepid growth accompanied by continued angst that specific policies like Obamacare haven’t slowed premiums and may have cost jobs, or a best case that has its own risks: a return to robust growth would only divert attention from 2012’s focus on economic fairness. Both scenarios will mean that the thorough-going social liberal who emerges as the next Democratic nominee, either Cuomo or someone who has managed to outflank him, will have to fend for blue collar whites (including conservative Catholics) without the competitive edge Obama enjoyed in running two surrogate campaigns against George W. Bush’s record.
At the same time, as the New Republic suggests, the reformer impulses that have distinguished Cuomo’s record in Albany and given him a genuine claim to the political center, may well end up not influencing a Cuomo presidential platform in any real manner. For example, it will be hard for Cuomo to win his party’s nomination by assembing a combination of national positions akin to his budget reforming, cost-cutting maneuvers and his toughness on public sector unions, both of which have enabled him to garner, until recently, eye-popping approval numbers with Republicans.
Reining in spending nationally would require engaging entitlements, which is a more complicated political beast than reworking pension contributions and trimming fat in Albany. As commentators like Ross Douthat have pointed out, there are major differences between the space for reining in public-sector unions and the tougher terrain of selling reductions of entitlements that are universal. Taking on, for example, federal employees is a non-starter for a Democrat who will need to replicate Obama’s strength in the suburbs of northern Virginia, and the issue has never gotten much national traction anyway. There is certainly no substantive or rhetorical evidence that Cuomo is inclined to challenge the liberal consensus that entitlements are foundations of the social contract that should not be seriously disturbed.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Cuomo and the Coming Democratic Dilemma
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 25, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Getting an unpleasant message about yourself….
I heard some awfully wise advice at Sunday School last Sunday.
Our teacher said “Sarcasm is a sign of intelligence……without wisdom!”
His wife added the second part, and I think those are words to live by. So I try to be cautious and watch for sarcasm and crankiness and cut them off before they spread to the tip of my tongue.
But I am usually a little late to the scene. We need others to let us know when we are veering off course and have a tendency to dismiss unflattering feedback about ourselves. It seems to work itself out in ever escalating stages.
For example: When your family tells you that you are being grouchy and sarcastic, you can chew on it and disregard (several consecutive times) without consequence.
When a friend tells you that you are being grouchy and sarcastic, it gives you pause and reminds you to be more cheerful around them next time (or avoid them altogether for a while).
But when a person who is more of an acquaintance (hence objective observer) tells you that you are being grouchy and sarcastic…… Well, put it this way, it’s kind of like when you were a child and your parents told you that you needed to take a bath, but you didn’t. Then a friend suggested a bath, and you ignored them. But when someone who you barely knew suggested it was time “That boy took a bath,” well, you figured it was getting pretty close to the time to take a bath.
Or in this case, to stop being a sarcastic grouch and soften up a bit….at least until you are, as I heard someone once say, “Sweeter than a bumblebees behind.”
Or thereabouts, give or take. ; ) At a minimum, sarcasm is to the soul what poor hygiene is to the body.
And if bystanders notice, it’s time for me some lye soap. For the soul. ; )
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 25, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
The fall that launched a thousand applauses.
Jennifer Lawrence’s fall will become an Oscar trivia question and a perfectly defining moment for one of our greatest actresses.
What makes Jennifer Lawrence so appealing is her accessibility. What makes her so compelling is her naturalness. And what makes her acting so convincing is her authenticity.
No actress I can think of could fall as they ascend the steps to receive their Oscar without being embarrassed and lightly ridiculed. Because of the vanity quotient Hollywood demands.
But tonight we saw an exception. A lady who falls graciously and gracefully “up hill” –again. She fell….as we would fall (we relate) and she gets up for us naturally, authentically, and accessibly– and wasn’t acting at all. And brings this same transparency, energy and charisma to her acting roles.
Tomorrow I can even imagine a few young female fans practicing falling upstairs with the charming aplomb of their heroine.
The acting talent Jennifer Lawrence has isn’t something uniquely special or even uniquely extraordinary. It is, in my view, rather uniquely ordinary–and uniquely refreshing. It’s a realness and substantive lightness that is unaffected and vanity-free.
Here’s wishing her well and hoping she never loses the great gift that allows her to fall uphill. And that she keep doing so.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Feb 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Deep question. Even deeper than a Fortune Cookie fortune. Maybe.
If you were at a Chinese restaurant and your Fortune Cookie didn’t have a slip of paper in it revealing your “fortune,” would you complain to the manager and ask for a new cookie that has an actual “fortune” inside it?
Or say nothing and enjoy the cookie realizing your future probably has little to do with what’s inside a Fortune Cookie, and hence not feel cheated?
Or some other option….like refuse to eat the cookie while Googling on your iPhone about the meaning of receiving a barren Fortune Cookie?
I have a feeling your answer will say a lot about you in some weird “psychology test” way. I have nothing to back me up except a gut feeling.
And mild depression for being cheated out of my fortune with my last Fortune Cookie and a sense of defeatism for not saying anything about it–and worry that the cookie was trying to tell me something important about an impending terrible event that I am ignoring at my peril.
I don’t even want to know my real Fortune Cookie fortune now! ; )
Being a legislator requires extraordinary multitasking skills.
