Speech: Scott's Rules

Closing remarks
Central Oregon Realtors Association “Campaign School”
April 26, 2007, Bend, Oregon
Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge

I remember when my wife and I brought our first daughter home from the hospital. We were so excited. The days before had been a blur of activity. The birth itself was exciting, and a parade of well-wishers kept us entertained in the days right after the big event. We packed the gifts in the car and drove home, baby in tow. We stepped into the house, set the baby carrier down on the dining room table, looked at each other and with a sudden, horrible realization, and asked each other, “Now what?”

Getting elected isn’t that much different. The thrill and pace of the campaign leaves little time to think about what you will do in the days immediately following the swearing in. But that day comes, and that’s when you’re going to find out: The skills you need for governing are a whole lot different than the ones you use for campaigning.

Assuming that you are all bright and electable, my job today is to give you some helpful tips about what to do after the inaugural party is over. These are my 10 rules for how to make yourself effective as an elected official, starting from day 1.

Rule Number 1: Beware the Rush!
You will be amazed how many people come to you in the immediate aftermath of the election to tell you about all the “wrongs” that have ever been done to them. They will want your commitment to straighten out all kinds of situations and all kinds of people who are detracting from the quality of the government you will soon be part of. All of them will declare with absolute certainty that they had no doubt you would win and that they were steadfast supporters throughout. (You will soon wonder how your opponent got any votes at all. given all the people who say they were your biggest supporters.) My advice to you is beware, and do nothing. What you are very quickly going to find out is that there is a reason why things are the way they are. There is a reason some people remain in their positions despite somebody’s unhappiness with them. The last thing you want to do is commit yourself before you know the facts to a course of action. That will only lead to backpedaling and awkward explanations later, giving you from the outset a reputation as “wishy washy” and a politician who can’t be trusted. So beware the rush of voters who want to be the first to enlist your help.

Rule Number 2: Make Principled Decisions
Presumably, you ran on some principles in order to get elected (unless you were running unopposed.) Now its time to stand up for those principles and put them into action. Yet from the day you start, you’re going to find your commitment to those principles tested. Like any good elected official, you’re going to start looking for middle ground to satisfy all comers—those who voted for you and those who didn’t. You’re going to get tempted to make peace and find compromise, and if you go there, you will pay for it. Voters do not get angry with politicians who do what is expected. They get angry when elected officials act unpredictably. As far as irritating the electorate, give them some credit. They obviously knew what you stood for when they elected you—assuming the principles by which you are governing are the same as those on which you campaigned—so there is little cost to you to stand up for those principles now. As you start down the decision-making path, just remember this: people who sail down the middle of the channel of the stream are targets for rocks thrown from both sides.

Rule Number 3: Don’t swim in the fish bowl.
The government arena is actually a very small place. Elected officials talk to each other, talk to staff and talk to people with an interest in what the government is doing. Since most of what government does is fairly routine and uninteresting, elected officials tend to not hear from the majority of the community they are supposed to serve. The problem with this, is that sound gets magnified in small spaces, sometimes to deafening proportions. To be an effective elected official, you need to get outside the “fishbowl” and consider issues from the perspective of the entire community, not just the members in front of you. A good way to do this is to put everything to the “newspaper test”--Is the decision you are about to make one that you would want to see on the front of the local newspaper? Then there’s the “family and friends test” Since your family and friends, if they are anything like mine, knew you long before you had electoral ambitions, presumably, they aren’t going to cut you any slack now that you have an “honorable” in front of your name. Ask this network what they think of decisions that are pending, and when Aunt Gladys and Cousin Mort both start scowling or evading the question, think twice about your decision. Finally, there’s the gut check. As elected officials, there is a tendency to let staff talk us out or into that which we somehow instinctively know won’t fly. After all, the staff have the data and the experience, and they ought to know, right? Wrong! Because staff have the benefit of data and experience, staff need to be able to convince you to get you past a knot in your stomach. If they can’t sell you on an idea at a gut level, chances are you will never sell the idea to the public. So listen to your gut reaction. A good instinct is probably what brought you to this job in the first place, and following it, will ensure that you keep it.

Rule number 4: There is no legacy effect.
Lots of politicians, especially once they been in office for a while, start to worry about what kind of legacy they will leave. Forget about it. There is no such thing as a legacy—or at least not one that you created through your own efforts. The fact is you who are the stuff of front pages and dinner party invitations, will be forgotten within days of leaving office. Here’s an example: who was mayor of Bend 30 years ago? Name the last Deschutes County Judge. Who was Governor of Oregon before Tom McCall? Chances are you don’t know. Such legacy as you get will result from this approach: Do good things because they are the right things to do. A legacy may follow, but it won’t be by design.

Rule number 5. The election tomorrow is about what you have done today.
All the tactical election strategies in the world are no substitute for a genuine record of service to the people. Yet an amazing number of elected officials are so busy worrying about how to position themselves for the next election that they forget to do the very thing they were put into office for in the first place! Now is the time to start working on your campaign, simply by doing your job. Start by purchasing a white board. I keep mine hidden behind the door in my office, where I can see if from my desk but most others can’t. On it, I keep the top 10 (or 15 or 20) things I am working on which must get done. What this accomplishes is to keep you focused, when there are million things competing for your attention. If you stop making progress on your list, ask yourself, “why?” and make the necessary adjustments accordingly. As you complete good work for your constituents note them in a private journal. When re-election comes around, instead of wondering in a panic what you’ve been doing the past four years, you’ll find that you have a powerful list of accomplishments, and your problem will be in deciding what to leave out, not what to put into your campaign literature. Best of all and somewhat to your own surprise, you will have developed a reputation as “someone who gets things done,” and that is pure gold in a re-election effort.

Rule number 6: "First do no harm”
This is the “Golden Rule” of elected office. People basically care about three things: 1) personal security, 2) economic security and 3: the security of future generations (meaning, usually, their children and grandchildren.) If you take action which the public believes creates a risk of harm in any one of these categories, the public will react. So listen carefully to what the public is telling you, and when they begin to phrase concerns along any of these lines, perk up your ears and listen. Explain, or if necessary, stop what you’re doing and revise your thinking. It is the most important rule you need to learn to do your job effectively.

Rule number 7: Roosevelt was right.
Remember FDR’s famous line, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” People do not negotiate from a position of fear. Our brains are wired for two reactions when we feel under attack, fight or flight. Neither is a good situation for you. When things get tough, your job, through process and dialogue, is to get people back to a place where they are not frightened and they are not acting out of fear and they can start talking about issues in a rational and reasoned manner. Keep in mind that when people get frightened—when one of the three securities is breached—they start looking for someone to blame. Play it wrong, and that could very well be you

Rule number 8: Kindness goes a long way.
Every argument advanced before you as an elected official, no matter how specious it may seem to you, is relevant and important to the person making it. Belittling that person will only diminish your standing, not theirs. Learn to disagree without being disagreeable. The same goes when you find yourself on the opposite side of your colleagues. Your adversary today may well be the ally you need tomorrow, so make sure that you have to take a different point of view, you validate your colleague and express your regard for his or her analytical powers, and only then disagree respectfully, using your own facts, philosophies and opinions. Federal, and to a lesser degree State, legislative bodies have institutionalized this behavior. That’s why you’ll hear on CSPAN occasionally a member of Congress congratulate the “gentle lady from California” on her grasp of the issue, just before the congressperson ever so politely dissects and eviscerates the same argument on national television. Unfortunately, local government doesn’t have rules to effect civility. It’s a “do it yourself” kind of thing. You and your colleagues set the tone, for better or for worse. Do your part to make it a positive tone, and insist that your colleagues do the same. Leave your disagreements at the council/commission table. You will have to return to face each other another day. Most of all, when you must explain disagreement in the media, try to do it in such a way that acknowledges the opposite point of view and then explain, with all the respect you can muster, why your point of view is the better one.

Rule number 9: Understand the role you play.
One of the greatest challenges faced by newly elected officials is understanding the role of different players in the system. Cities, counties, states and federal government all have different interests and different constituencies. When other bodies come before you or you appear before them, you need to understand where they are coming from. You can’t simply dismiss another part of government as ignorant or malicious. Chances are, you simply aren’t working toward the same goals with the same set of values. That makes you different, not demonic. Getting past those differences requires putting in the time to understand and trust other players in the system. So join professional organizations like AOC and LOC and learn perspective from your peers. Attend the town halls of state and federal legislators and hear the variety of opinion they must balance. Visit legislators and congressmen in their offices, and get a sense of what else is going on besides your little problem, whatever it is. The other side of the equation is understanding properly your relationship with staff. Staff are your technical experts. They are supposed to have the best information, and generally, when they appear before an elected body, they already have data that has led them to position that makes logical sense in terms of finances, history and best practices. Your job as an elected official is not to outsmart the staff—it is to insert the community’s values into the equation, and to address the issue of whether the proposed action does harm to any constituency or violates any of the three securities mentioned previously. It is not your job to produce the data. It is your job to challenge the data, and to let staff explain how the data-driven recommendation will contribute to or at least not conflict with the community’s values. Until you are satisfied that you have achieved that equilibrium, you should not quit pushing, all the while emphasizing and explaining your objective and paying proper deference to the role of staff. This brings me to a final point. Sometime during your career you are going to be told, if you haven’t been already, that the proper way to divide the staff-elected official role is this: elected officials make policy, and staff implements policy. This sounds good in principle, but in fact it’s nonsense. The way a policy is implemented is a form of policymaking in and of itself. It is micromanagement for you to ask at a council meeting what we are doing about fixing the pothole in front of Mrs. Jones’ house. It is good management to ask what is the timelines a citizen may reasonably expect to receive a response from public works when a pot hole is reported, citing by way of example, the one in front of Mrs. Jones house which has yet to be filled despite her having called two weeks ago. That’s an appropriate question, because you as the elected official are ultimately responsible for the welfare of the city or county or district you serve and all the citizens in it, and you can’t ensure their welfare is protected if you aren’t inquiring about how the staff is doing that.

Rule number 10: Keep the homefires burning.
There is no more important piece of advice that I can give you. You will meet a lot of “friends” in this job, starting with the day you are elected. If you are doing it right, you may also lose some friends in this job. Whatever the case, your newfound “friends” will be there until the first time you decide not to run for re-election, and then they will move on to the next person who can do them the favor they are seeking. Your family, on the other hand, loved you before you were elected, and they will love you still for all the same reasons, when you are no longer an elected official. Unlike friends, family is constant, and there will be times when you need them to give you a hug and tell you everything will be okay, and you are not the bad person the letters to the editor say you are this week. Keep in mind that the legislative body which you serve has likely been around a long term. It worked after a fashion before you came along and it will bumble along after you leave. But your family is a fragile creation, which needs constant tending and attention. Whatever joy this job brings you will be fleeting, but a supportive spouse and great kids and the opportunity to enjoy grandkids is forever. So tend to the people who loved you first and love you the most and will love you when it’s over. The rest of us will take care of ourselves.

The career you are considering embarking upon will be one of the most rewarding of your life. It will be, at times, one of the most frustrating of your life. And absolutely, it will be one of the most interesting of your life. Good luck to all of you.