The Congressman’s Office
In 1977 I was twenty years old and had the privilege of working for Congressman Thomas A. Luken of Cincinnati. It started after finishing a three-month stint as a Carter/Mondale campaign Field Coordinator, the lowest level paid position in the successful Presidential campaign. After the inauguration I went back to school, taking classes at American University in Washington, DC. I I also worked in the Luken Congressional Office part time as a paid intern.
The job started with writing letters back to the constituents in Cincinnati. On the major issues like abortion rights and taxes, there was a “form” letter that I personalized for each constituent. This was before the days of office computers, but we did have typewriters that “remembered” a given letter. It would stop at the appropriate times, and the operator would type in a name or location to personalize the document.
But I also found that there were other issues with no office “policy”. Then it was my job to research the issue, talk to relevant agencies or experts, and propose a response. One of the best parts of my job was saying, “Hi, this is Martin Dahlman from Congressman Tom Luken’s office, could you…” on the phone. Responses were usually quick and comprehensive.
Policy Counts
I created “micro-policy” for the Congressman on a variety of issues. Before any letter went out, it had to be approved by the Administrative Aide and the Congressman himself. Tom Luken was a part of every decision, with an old Marine’s view of work. Draft after draft of a letter would be “worked up”, but there would always be scribbled revisions to deal with before we reached a final version.
Eventually I worked my way to bigger tasks. It was the year of the winter “energy shortage” that closed schools throughout Ohio, and I helped relay information about that. I began solving other problems for constituents as an outgrowth of the letters. Then I got the chance to help write legislation for tax credits for energy efficient heating systems. And finally I got to author some minor Congressional speeches. Somewhere buried deep in the Congressional Record, there is a Tom Luken speech that I wrote. Pretty exciting!
Later in the year, I came home to Cincinnati to work in the home office. I served as the Congressman’s local scheduler. My job was to build a schedule, then act as his staff for appointments and events while he was in town. I learned a lot working closely with him and I finished that summer with a true appreciation of his hard work. I also felt like I was missing multiple body parts: the Congressman had a Marine Corps skill of chewing his staff out. Deserving or not, since I was usually nearby, I got it.
Politics and the Taxpayer
In the Carter Campaign getting the job done as quickly as possible was the goal. Need signs: we printed our own and stapled them to telephone poles in the middle of the night. Need volunteers: pickup the phone and call high school kids to come in and work – pizza usually did the trick. The pressure of Election Day made everyday office procedures go out the window.
But in a Congressional office, the law placed a barrier between governing and campaigning. The simplest way to understand it is the “franking privilege”. By Congressional mandate, the United States Postal Service would (and still does) deliver mail with the Congressman’s signature on the envelope instead of a stamp. All of those responses I answered with the automatic typewriters were “franked”.
But the Hatch Act, passed by Congress in 1939, specifies that campaign material cannot be “franked”. In fact, campaign activities cannot occur in government offices, or by government employees on their paid time. They had to be paid for by campaign funds, not taxpayer funds. In fact back in Cincinnati there was the Congressman’s office in the Federal Building where I worked, and there was the Luken campaign office somewhere else. Only the top aides interchanged between the two.
Hatch Act
As the Congressman’s scheduler, I would get requests from the “campaign” for time slots on his schedule. That was usually as far as it went, though I did have the “honor” of driving Mr. Luken in the 1977 City of Cheviot Fourth of July parade. It was my first experience driving a Jeep, and my goal was to shift smoothly so that the Congressman, standing and waving in the back, didn’t get knocked down. I also wanted to avoid running over the little kids marching in front of us. That “breaking news” would look bad in the Cincinnati Post the next day!
But generally the Hatch Act restrictions were clear, and the office kept a distance from the “line”.
Hubris
This week the President of the United States used the White House, Ft. McHenry, the United States Marines, and a United States citizenship ceremony as “props” for his version of the Republican Convention. His Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, went even further, using his standing as the chief diplomat of the United States to make a speech supporting the President from the most famous hotel in Jerusalem, the King David.
The carefully proscribed actions established by the Hatch Act to prevent the abuse of government property, resources, and the powers of incumbency, were thrown out the window. It’s bad enough that Mr. Trump feels it’s appropriate to use Air Force One as the backdrop for his rallies, but now it’s the White House, and even the Marines. And, to provide Mr. Pompeo with a brilliant backdrop, taxpayer funds were spent to fly him to Jerusalem and house him in the King David Hotel.
There seems to be no end to the “sins” of the Trump Administration. The litmus test: if Michelle Obama had addressed the 2012 Democratic Convention from the Rose Garden, the world would have ended. But Donald Trump has erased all the legal norms. He has pardoned his friends and prosecuted his enemies; employed his family members and personally profited from his government’s actions.
As a twenty-year old budding politician learned, the law protects the taxpayers from paying for campaigns they might not support. But what America has learned, is that Donald Trump sees himself as above this law, and many others. There is only one-way to hold him accountable: at the ballot box on November 3rd.
