Eric's Blog

Ted Kennedy’s Real Legacy

The death this week of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy spawned a wonderful outpouring of tributes to the achievements of one of the longest-serving and most effective senators in United States history.

I’ve had my own visceral reactions to his passing, in part because I met the senator in 2006, when he spoke at the ceremony where I received the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award, named after his brother, from the John F. Kennedy Library and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

That day, the senator mostly talked about John Kennedy’s vision for a New Frontier in society, saying, “President Kennedy believed very strongly… that each of us can make a difference and all of us should try.”

Well, Ted Kennedy tried, working tirelessly to make a difference. Observers rightly pointed to his tireless championing of the needs and interests of the poor, despite his own privileged upbringing. His legislative achievements in areas such as higher minimum wages, worker protections, health care and more have helped shape the country as it is today. He saw public office as a particular form of community service, giving back to the rest of society by trying to make it better.

Even more, I think one of the most important aspects of Ted Kennedy’s approach to public service was the way he conducted himself, with a pragmatic and personable approach that has influenced my own efforts as  Los Angeles City Council president.

Yes, Sen. Kennedy certainly had strong partisan instincts, which he ably and regularly voiced. But importantly, he also could reach across the aisle to political opposites such as Utah’s Orrin Hatch, perhaps  the Senate’s most conservative member. The result, Sen. Hatch told National Public Radio this week, was that the two became unlikely but close friends and effective legislative collaborators.

Sen. Hatch spoke fondly and movingly of his personal and professional time with Sen. Kennedy. Often, he said, they would argue vociferously about political issues, but never stopped being friends or colleagues who could work together to create, and pass into law, legislation that made the country better.

Financial Times columnist Clive Crook wrote that Sen. Kennedy “was neither cynic nor soggy centrist. He was passionate, a liberal’s liberal. Yet he was pragmatic, and was capable of liking and respecting people who disagreed with him. Firm principles married to a friendly tolerance of other views…”

Too often in recent years partisan maneuvering for short-term political gain has complicated the work our country needs done at nearly every level of government. Scoring political points sometimes has been more important than effective policy-making.

Ted Kennedy suggested there is a better way, to be a true political leader rather than a mere political combatant. Problem solving over partisanship means addressing the issues with courage, candor, honor and humor. Of all his legacies, this perhaps was Ted Kennedy’s most important one.

I share President Obama’s call for community service. Government can’t by itself fix the many challenges we face, nor can the private sector. Rather, it requires contributions from all of us, working together through a variety of organizations and initiatives, to help this city and this country achieve its ideals and create, as someone once wrote, a more perfect union.

To that end, in coming weeks, we will unveil here an initiative encouraging and highlighting community service throughout Los Angeles. I’ll discuss more on that in subsequent posts. In the meantime, I plan to occasionally talk about people who already are working to make Los Angeles a better place.

One of those people is Raul Macias. Twelve years ago, the Guadalajara native founded Anahuak Youth Sports Association to give youths on the northeast side of Los Angeles access to soccer leagues.

Today, more than 2,000 boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 17 from the communities along the Los Angeles River are taking part in Anahuak’s programs, which also include education, health and environmental work. Together, they promote positive change in their own backyards.

Taking a different approach is Raegan Payne, a writer and actress in Los Angeles’ Westchester neighborhood whose website, TheGoodMuse.com, details her efforts to volunteer for 50 different non-profit projects by the end of this year.

Her Volunteer Journal details project by project her progress so far, working for groups such as the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, Heal the Bay, Project Angel Food, Operation Shanti, The Miracle Project and Tree People.

“Anyone can find an activity that fits their talents and lifestyle, or they might even learn something new,” Raegan told the Culver City News recently. “I’ve learned how to correctly plant a tree, nurse a kitten back to health, teach a group of children to write, test water quality, use a power saw, and so much more. I’m pretty handy to have around now.”

You don’t have to be as ambitious as Raul or Raegan, nor do you have to write about it, to make a difference in Los Angeles. Any community service or volunteer work you can do will help the city and all who live here. And soon, we’ll make it even easier for you to pitch in, helping create a greater Los Angeles.

Note: To learn more about Raul Macias, go to a recent Los Angeles Times article at http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/17/local/me-soccerguy17 To learn more about Raegan Payne’s Mission 50 and read her Volunteer Journal postings, go to http://www.thegoodmuse.com.

California’s latest budget squabbles and eventual precariously balanced deal once again painfully highlight something that’s been apparent for years: the basic structure of our state and local government funding and budgetary decision-making is torturously complex and fundamentally broken.

I won’t dwell here on how to fix the state budget process; plenty of people have already voiced their opinions about that, and will continue to do so. But the current state funding system has repeatedly caused collateral damage to local government operations in ways too few people understand.

As chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s 100,000-strong caucus of local elected officials, I have to say that cities, counties, school districts and other local government agencies deserve better than they have gotten from the state in recent years, and so do their constituents. However we fix the state, it can’t be at the expense of cities, counties, special districts and schools and the vital local services they provide every day to our shared constituents.

When people think of what government does to make their lives better, they tend to think of the things local governments do, such as police and fire, K-12 education, ambulances, health clinics, traffic lights, street repairs, parks, beaches and pools, water, sewers and trash pickup. These are the vital direct services that affect every town’s and every person’s quality of life, and affect it every day.

Yet it is exactly those services that will be hit and hurt yet again as the state takes money from local governments to balance its own budget needs. The latest raids on local funding sources include:

· $2 billion from city, county and special district budgets that now will be “loaned” to the state for the next three years. Local governments that already had made painful cuts, in a timely manner, to balance their budgets now must go back and cut again.

· $1.7 billion in redevelopment funds. Redevelopment revenues are used to stimulate investment and job growth in our most economically challenged neighborhoods. These funds are important to our recovery efforts.

· $4.3 billion from local schools, and the deferral of another $1.7 billion.

If California’s budget process eventually does undergo much-needed reform, we must protect cities, counties, schools and special districts from further state raids that undercut their ability to provide the basic, everyday services that every resident of the state depends on. Local governments need more control over and protection for their funding sources. Let us be able to make vital decisions on how best to provide everyday local services without fear that headaches at another level of government will suddenly land in our laps.

This year’s economic-stimulus package contained a huge range of ideas and programs in its many hundreds of pages and hundreds of billions of dollars of appropriations. Few of those ideas and programs have been as immediate a hit as the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” plan, which gives car-buyers vouchers worth up to $4,500 for trading in their low-mileage vehicle for one that’s significantly more fuel-efficient.

It’s been so big a hit, in fact, that in just one week, it exhausted the $1 billion Congress initially set aside, while depleting the supplies of available vehicles on at least some dealers’ lots here in California. Buyers loved it, the auto companies loved it, dealers loved it and the environment will love it.

I love it, too. It’s the sort of smart, pragmatic, market-aware approach to a set of thorny problems that leverages a modest amount of government money as a catalyst that achieves several important goals at once:

· Need to get the economy going? The government incentives were big enough to encourage a wide swathe of people to open their wallets in the still-stumbling economy and buy a new car.

· Need to stabilize a shaky domestic car industry? Nothing helps like a huge sale that doesn’t hurt your profit margins and clears out inventory. July was the best month of the year so far for carmakers, so good they may need to get those factories building more of the highly efficient vehicles that we need to have an internationally competitive auto industry.

· Need to improve the air? The eligibility requirements, tiered to provide some consumer choice and flexibility, required that older, high-emission cars would be exchanged for vehicles with significantly better fuel efficiency. In fact, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Susan Collins said federal data showed the 250,000 people who’ve already used the program bought cars with mileage improvements that averaged nearly 10 miles more per gallon, much higher than initially projected.

· Need to restart global conversations about controlling greenhouse gases? The Cash for Clunkers program will not only reduce the amount of vehicle-created greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, it sets a strong example for other countries as the Obama Administration lobbies for renewed talks on this complex but vital issue.

· Need to reduce dependence on overseas oil? Less fuel use equates to less need to import oil, and less need to incidentally finance the operations of so many problematic oil-rich but repressive governments.

· Need to help reeling local governments save jobs and provide vital services? The taxes generated by increased vehicle sales will boost the coffers of cities, counties, states and other local government entities.

So, with the lever of a comparatively modest amount of incentive money, the Cash for Clunkers program has been a huge hit, helping move the country a bit closer to achieving an array of important goals. I hope that Congress will quickly re-up the program to ensure continuity and certainty for consumers and dealers, to the benefit of the country.

Just as importantly, I hope we continue to look for other smart solutions. We need more programs that pragmatically achieve important goals by leveraging market forces with intelligent leadership and catalyzing investments. We have a lot to get done and need to be smart, and quick, about it.