SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
December 30, 2020
Sullivan’s Salvos 1/5/21
In this edition:
*Happy New Year!
*My Term as Chair
*New Committee Assignments
*Why Democrats Lose
*Did You Know?
*Welcome to 2021!
Happy New Year! Here’s to a better and brighter year ahead! I have never been big on New Year’s resolutions – you can see that by my weight! But I certainly welcome the “fresh start” feel of the New Year. Especially after 2020! I hope 2021 is good to you and yours!
*My Term as Chair
As you may know, I had the pleasure of serving as the Chair of the Board in 2020. Before you offer any congratulations, understand that the role of Chair is simply rotated amongst the members of the Board. Yes, there is technically an election, but tradition here has been that the position of Chair rotates. There are exceptions where certain Supervisors are passed over, but that has happened under pretty extreme circumstances.
Each county does this somewhat differently. In some counties, a single individual has served as Chair for over 25 years. There are counties that have spirited, contested elections for Chair. In other counties, the role of Chair rotates, but only between members of the majority party. Many counties operate as we do. It is all over the board. (Pun intended!)
Serving as the Chair is interesting. While the Supervisors are definitely all equals, there really is more work involved for the Chair. As always, the amount of work any given Supervisor puts in can and does vary greatly.
There is also at least one additional meeting per week to set the weekly agendas. Plus, the Chair has to sign everything. That might not sound like much, but it would surprise you! I counted, and a couple weeks ago I had over 175 documents requiring my signature!
The biggest difference between serving as Chair and simply serving as a Board member is running the meetings. Running meetings well requires more than just reading the agenda. To do it well, one needs to watch the clock, keep everyone involved, read the room, and clearly summarize things. It is tougher than it looks!
I served as Chair in 2008. Blizzards, floods, evacuations, curfews… I didn’t think it could get wilder. Then we had 2020. Pandemic, unemployment, mask ordinances, BLM protests, a contentious election… never say never! Some may go so far as to say I am a jinx!
In all seriousness, I have been faced with some significant challenges while serving as Chair. I hope you feel I have handled these challenges well. All I can tell you is I did my best.
Good luck to Supervisor Heiden who will serve as Chair and Supervisor Porter who will serve as Vice Chair. I am sure they will do a great job in 2021!
*New Committee Assignments
The Board of Supervisors tries to rotate the committees upon which its’ members serve. We typically serve on any given committee for 2-3 years, then move on. This ensures that all members get a certain amount of exposure to everything we do. It also ensures that a fresh set of eyes gets involved every so often. Sometimes it is more complicated than this, but that is generally how things work.
This rotation takes place in January every year, so we are all taking on some new and different challenges. I will be serving in the following roles for 2020:
I will be returning to the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) of Johnson County Board, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments (ECICOG) Board, and the Local Foods Policy Council. I am looking forward to working with all of those groups. I will also remain the Liaison to Public Health, which as you can imagine, has been a busy assignment.
There are many, many other boards, committees, and commissions of which I am a part. But this gives you a sense of a few of my assignments.
*Why Democrats Lose
There has been a great deal of discussion about the poor showing of Democrats across the country, particularly at lower levels of government. Yes, there are many reasons why. I tend to believe the prevalence of right-wing messages on talk radio, Facebook, and Fox News is the most important obstacle. And that is a tough thing for Democrats to counter. We need smart people who know that territory to really work on it.
There are other reasons, however, that Democrats lose. These are self-inflicted. And unfortunately, those tend to be favoring the rich over the poor. An illustration: earlier in the negotiations over the COVID Relief Bill, Pelosi and Schumer had included language to make high state-level taxes deductible from your federal taxes.
On a certain level, I can see why they wanted this in. Both California and New York have high state taxes. Both are home to many wealthy people who are affected by this. The bigger problem? Those wealthy people are the donors that have their ears.
This was a terrible miscalculation on many levels:
1. COVID relief is an emergency. Bills like these are not the place to tack on pet projects. Focus on COVID relief only! Adding a bunch of extraneous crap merely demonstrates that you are out of touch.
2. Pelosi’s District (CA-12) has a poverty rate of 10%. That means about 75,000 people in her District are really freaking poor. Why not focus on helping them rather than the millionaires? Especially in a crisis! (Iowa’s Second District has about 13% poverty, by comparison – meaning about 100,000 people here are in poverty.)
3. The Federal government has some really important things to accomplish – namely getting COVID treatments and vaccines to the American people. Someone is going to have to pay for that. I nominate the people for whom Pelosi and Schumer were trying to secure the tax cuts.
4. The actions of Schumer and Pelosi actually allowed Mitch McConnell – Mitch McConnell! – to criticize the Democrats for worrying about millionaires at the expense of regular people. And he was right! When I saw his words on the news, I literally cried. I cried because my Party is so corrupted by money that they allowed this truly evil man to be on the right side of an economic issue. Sure, McConnell is only pretending to care. But they allowed him that opening. It is shameful.
Look, it is easy to criticize Democrats at the Federal level for putting the needs of the wealthy ahead of the needs of the poor. But please realize that EXACTLY the same thing is happening in Iowa City. There the City Council is talking about passing a sales tax. The biggest beneficiaries of the sales tax will be the world’s richest corporations (Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc.) whose property taxes will be slashed. The people who will be hurt the most are our poorest residents.
Des Moines is even worse. The supposedly progressive city passed a sales tax, and their policing issues are horrifying. They can claim to be progressive all they want, but actions speak louder than words.
Democrats at EVERY level of government need to wake up. We lose elections because we are not true to the New Deal. And we are going to keep losing elections until we recognize that it is not just people in DC who need to change. We need to change as well.
*DID YOU KNOW? Johnson County is bordered by seven other counties – more than any other county in Iowa.
Anyone interested in learning more about County government should take a look at the County website-
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---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 4:13 PM
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