There are no shortcuts, no substitutes for time, thought, care, patience, experience, and real human connection. These are the ingredients of good leadership and policy cooking, and we need better folks in organizational kitchens everywhere.
Poor metaphor of fantasy incoming: What if this Congress rolled up its sleeves and engaged fully and in good faith with the proverbial, messy sausage making machine? What would that crew look like and need?
Calm, knowledgeable, creative, exacting head chef.
Multiple competent, energetic, collaborative sous chefs.
Reliable lighting, appliances, cookware, and physical plant.
Efficient and effective back of the house staff.
Friendly, engaged, well-compensated servers.
Welcoming, clean, inclusive space and ambience.
Skeptical and fair critics with well respected platforms.
High standards for safety and working conditions for all.
Windows into the kitchen so consumers may watch their food being made, and so appreciate the labor and complexity involved.
This is the ideal situation, of course, like a Michelin starred restaurant.
The reality of legislative cooking seems more like Ratatouille.
Barack Obama’s memoir of his first term, The Promised Land, calls me to listen again. Oh how I miss seeing him and hearing his words on a regular basis, so inspiring and motivating. The book is long and fascinating. I listened at 1.2x until the last chapter–didn’t want it to end, and I’m still waiting for the second term edition.
So much happened between 2009 and 2013, but the most memorable part of the book chronicled the creation of the Affordable Care Act–in excrutiating detail. It may have been why I sped up the playback; the frustration and sense of repeatedly stalled progress practically gave me heartburn as listener; I can only imagine what it felt like in the White House and congressional chambers. I am so proud that all involved finally hammered something out that has outlived many of their terms in office. I consider it a win for Progressives and the general population, but I wonder how it could have been made better had the process not been quite so adversarial. It did not occur to me until just now to seek an alternative perspective on the process. Ask Google and you shall receive…
Query: “Boener account of ACA negotiations”
AI Overview:
“In his memoir, On the House: A Washington Memoir, former House Speaker John Boehner presents a highly critical account of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) negotiations, blaming what he viewed as President Barack Obama’s “haughty” negotiation style while simultaneously disparaging his own party’s subsequent strategies to dismantle it. [1, 2]
“His reflections on the ACA span the initial 2009–2010 legislative battle and the subsequent 2013 government shutdown:
Initial 2009 Negotiations: Boehner (who was House Minority Leader at the time) claims that a “bunch” of Republicans were open to finding a bipartisan, common-sense compromise on healthcare. However, he asserts that President Obama chose to negotiate “behind closed doors” and was too rigid, pushing the final bill too far to the left rather than engaging in genuine cross-party outreach.
“The 2013 Government Shutdown: Boehner recounts the intense pressure he faced from the Tea Party faction to hold the federal debt ceiling and government funding hostage in exchange for defunding Obamacare. He famously writes that he knew the strategy was a “dumbass” idea and likened it to being “on the Titanic playing chicken with an iceberg.” However, he felt compelled to go along with it because it was his job as the Republican leader. [1, 2]
“The “Repeal and Replace” Illusion: Following his retirement, Boehner openly laughed at the Republican campaign promises of a quick “repeal and replace.” He noted that in his 25 years in Congress, Republicans never once agreed on what a healthcare alternative should actually look like. He warned party leaders that passing a repeal without a viable replacement would leave them entirely responsible for a broken system. [1]
“Ultimately, Boehner acknowledged that the core framework of the ACA—including protections for pre-existing conditions and allowing adult children to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26—was here to stay, and that his party would only ever be able to conservatively tweak its margins rather than fully destroy it. [1]”
The work, the time, the cooks, the kitchen, the end product, the failed attempts to unmake it: Sausage. Some love it, some hate it. Nobody sees it as high cuisine.
Medicare, Medicaid, Women’s suffrage, Title 9: I bet they all looked and felt similar in the political cookhouses of their times. For now, they and the ACA stand, more or less in their inceptual forms, no?
Interestingly, this is NOT the case (pun!) with Roe v. Wade or marriage equality. Wisely, RBG expressed her concerns about the fragile vulnerability of abortion rights, and here we are.
What legislation tops your priority list?
How do you envision that sausage getting made?
Who should lead the effort, and what cooking methods do you endorse them to use?
Do you wish them to rule the kitchen as harsh dictator, cultural guru, or something else?
What costs of your method do you recognize, and how willing are you to pay them (or let someone else pay) in the short and long terms?
It’s so easy for us to demand legislators to ‘get sh*t done’, then yell at them when we don’t hear what we want when they speak publicly. But when we hold their positions hostage to our most extreme and rigid ideological standards, what leeway, autonomy, and creativity do we allow them to do the job we expect?
I had not intended to write so many nights in a row about politics for this 30 day blog challenge. But it’s kind of perfect, and I feel a cosmic smirk at the corners of my lips. The embers of my activist heart reignite a little with each post and it feels gratifying. “Activate to collaborate,” I want to say.
How can we each fan the flames of connection in service of good sausage making?
