Just finished reading the book Pat gave me for Mother’s Day – “Somebody’s Gotta Do It (A Memo He knows me well – and he has been listening to me vent for the last 18 or so years, he has now known me. I’ve been venting much longer than the last four years about politics and the state of certain aspects of our society. For those that know me, this doesn’t come as much of a shock, for those that don’t you might wonder what I could have to be upset about. I would tell you plenty. I lean to the passionate side.
When I was younger I honestly wanted to be a US Senator. As I grew older, I realized this was probably not the right job for me. One, I have a hard time not getting upset (see passionate comment) about lots of things and taking verbal abuse from others and two, I have a few skeletons in my closet that I would like to stay there. I also thought said skeletons might keep me from getting elected. I now know that isn’t the case and most of my skeletons are nothing compared to what we now know you can do and get elected.
The last 4-6 years, but especially the last 4 have started me thinking about running for office again. I am deeply and truly concerned about a variety of issues and the state of our country. For me, this is not the America I knew or was raised believing in. I don’t care what party you belong to – nothing we are doing right now is working. Well, frankly there is no work being done, at least not by Congress. There is a reason they are the least liked profession in the US.
So this book – “Somebody’s Gotta Do It (a memoir)” – from Pat arrived at just the right moment. Because we have had some additional free time of late, I had time to read it (no excuses about all the other things I should be doing). I can’t say enough about what a great read it is if you are thinking of running for office or have any interest in politics. Full disclosure, Adrienne Martini is a Democrat and she comes at this book from her left-leaning positions. Martini ran for office because of what happened in 2016. She had so much anger and sadness. She needed a place to channel those feelings and felt she needed to do something. The subtitle of the book says it all – “Why Cursing at the News Won’t Save the Nation, but Your Name on a Local Ballot Can.” The local angle of this book is key and mirrors the way I have been thinking for a while. Due to many reasons, way more gets done now at our local level. This is where real changes are being made that are impacting our lives.
States rights might actually be playing a large role – for you conservative leaning types. I’m not an expert, so I have no idea what all of this will mean for the United States part of the United States of America, but we may just find out. A good bit of what happens in government has always been done on the local level, with most of us not even aware of all of it. During our recent crisis with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a lot of state control play out. Again, for better or worse.
Martini ran for a local office, as a representative on the Otsego (NY) County Board of Representatives, in 2017 and won. The book is about what she learned both while running and after taking office, why she ran and why others like her need to run. It also discusses some of the obstacles to why people don’t run. She talks with others like her that were angry after 2016 and decided to run for office. Most of these people are women and women of color.
I gained many insights from reading the book, some new, some I already knew and felt, but wasn’t sure how to verbalize. Martini did a great job of doing it for me. Halfway through the book, I had decided I would run for some local office as soon as it was time (meaning elections would be held and terms would be ending). I worked for my local government many years ago and am well aware of the good and bad that goes on there. I’m also aware of the large quantity of programs and touches our local government has on our lives each day. So I feel this might be a good place for me to start trying to make a difference. I truly believe that for our government to work and work for all of us, those making the policies need to look more like all of us and the communities that they represent. There needs to be more women. There needs to be more people of color. And if they can be women of color – even better. They also need to be from different backgrounds and bring different life experiences with them. Period. I would not even pretend to know what it is like to be in the shoes of a first generation immigrant with little education access, low wages, living in an area of high crime and violence. Why would others pretend to know? While we can’t always know or have individuals in office that know, we can at least try to engage them in discussions when making policy that impacts their lives.
By engaging I don’t just mean through town halls or emails, let’s get them on city/county committees, encouraging diversity in those running for office, hiring them in government jobs, let’s really engage them. This brings us to our first hurdle for those of different backgrounds running for office, being involved in committees or even frankly voicing their concerns. Martini talks about how in her small community the county board and committees meet during the day, during working hours for the staff that handles the work the board and committees work on. They do this because the meetings take hours – they don’t want the staff to have to work additional hours after work (really long hours, some meetings take 4 or more hours), they don’t have a city manager format, so all decisions must have board approval. This is how they have always done it. For the most part, the only people that have time for this are the retired and business owners (who can set their own schedules). The job also takes a lot of time outside of the meetings and pays very little; in her county just a little over $13,000 a year. So, when you factor all of that in; people working in hourly jobs with no control over their schedules, moms with little kids at home or kids of school age, and just about any working person without lots of control over their schedules simply cannot run for office. Or even sit on committees. Ask yourself, what does that leave us with? Mostly white affluent men. That is not representative of our communities. There is no easy solution for this, but the first step is that if you can run, run.
Which Is why I was thinking I should run. Yes I am affluent, white and educated, but I am at least a woman. A woman who has been on the receiving end of more than her share of harassment. And I wasn’t always affluent. My mother’s parents lived in a housing project. I spent a lot of time there. My mother was the first in her family to get a college degree – frankly to graduate from high school. My dad’s family was better off, but his parents had not been to college. I at least have some perspective and have had family members benefit from the programs our government provides. The very ones that are frequently under fire.
I looked into my village’s board of trustees and committee make up. Here’s what I found. Of the 60 people on committees, 22 were women. That’s 36%. The village break down by gender is 50.77% female. The village board is made up of 7 members, only one member is a woman and the village president is a woman. That’s 28%. I didn’t delve into the make up of our state level representation, but based upon what I’ve seen, it’s probably similar.
So yes, I should run. If nothing else to start the conversation. But…and it’s a big, long buuuutttt…for now I’m not going to. First, see my original reasons for not running – skeletons and passion. After finishing the book, I don’t think my skeletons would matter, but I fear my passion might just get the best of me. In this day and age of social media, I’m just not sure I can manage the daily abuse in a way that would be constructive for me or my family. You say, it’s only a local election for village trustee. I say, I’ve lived here for 15 years and yes, it would probably be ugly. I have not always been treated the best here and I’m not even running for office. That too is too bad. Good people will not run, if we can’t become kinder to one another and be more open minded to differences.
For now, what I am planning to do is figure out how to help others get elected and find some issues dear to me that I can advocate for. This will be my way to channel some of my passion about the injustices I see happening in my community.
But…if you can run, run because somebody’s really gotta do it. And let me know if you need my help.
“There is no hero coming to save us, which is both the bad news and the good news. As important as national politics can be, one person can’t fix it so that we can all disengage again. We have to rebuild from the ground up, one small office at a time. We have to have the hard conversations in coffee shops and realize that we can’t change minds that really don’t want to be changed. It’s exhausting. It’s a mess. It’s frustrating. But we have to do it anyway. Civilization doesn’t just happen.” – Adrienne Martini