Victories differ from problem solving

As the Nebraska Legislature put another session in the books last week, my thoughts went to U.S. Sen. George Norris of Nebraska, the fiercely independent progressive Republican and progenitor of the state’s Unicameral. Norris was one of eight subjects in the Pulitzer Prize winning book “Profiles in Courage.”

The book, written by then-Sen. John F. Kennedy, with considerable help from Nebraska’s Ted Sorenson, details eight U.S. senators, whose acts of political courage were more notable for their fortitude than any impact on the Republic.

Modern politics, whether in Nebraska or Washington, D.C., or among school boards and city councils across the country, rarely elicit discussion of political independence. The art of civic persuasion today seems wholly preoccupied with winning — as opposed to governing or problem solving — and toeing a partisan line. True independents need not apply.

Norris once said, “There are too many men who are lured away from what they know to be right because they want to be on the victorious side.”

Sure, everyone loves a winner, especially those of us who are highly competitive. But this isn’t the World Series or pickleball or the March Madness office pool. This is governance. It requires much more than being a single vote better than your opponent. In fact, winning seems to be the easy part, governing the hard part.

All of which makes the Norris quote germane today as talk turns to changing Nebraska’s Electoral College landscape to a winner take all structure via a potential special session of the Legislature this summer. The argument is that Nebraska is out of step with the rest of the country — save Maine. I don’t get it either. Given that logic, will future Legislatures or special sessions call into question the very idea of a Unicameral, the only one of its kind in the nation?

The real attraction of a special session, per the Norris quote, it seems, is winning one Electoral College vote, which might create the aforementioned “victorious side.”

Norris orchestrated a 1917 filibuster in the Senate against arming merchant ships in the runup to Word War I. He was called treasonous and threatened with violence. The filibuster worked, but in the end President Woodrow Wilson armed those ships, and America eventually marched off to war.

Kennedy wrote, “Nothing could sway [Norris] from what he thought was right, from his determination to help all the people, from his hope to save them from the twin tragedies of poverty and war.”

Any legislative body should be asking itself some basic questions before acting, not the least of which is what problem is this solving? What are the consequences of the legislation — intended and unintended? Who is affected and to what extent?

That is not to say the Nebraska senators, your local school board and city council members and perhaps even our federal representatives skip those steps in the legislative process. Our best hope for representative government is that those whose role requires them to transform our hopes and dreams into meaningful laws and policies — solutions to our problems — don’t confuse victory with resolution.

A couple recent examples at the national level give us a pause, however, examples of “messaging,” not problem solving: The Speaker of the House and a presidential candidate are proposing a law to make it illegal for non-U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections … which is already a law.

The House Rules Committee is set to discuss a number of “appliance” bills this week, including the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Refrigerator Freedom Act and the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act. Meanwhile Russia continues its slog toward Kiev, the Middle East remains a tinderbox and innocent war victims in Gaza face famine.

Political independence, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder. As for its practitioners, a price is always exacted, sometimes after you’re long gone.

While Norris served in the Senate for another 26 years after his famous filibuster, some Nebraskans continued to believe he was a traitor. Meanwhile, he helped write the 20th Amendment to the Constitution and convinced Nebraskans that a Unicameral would best serve their purposes. He died in 1944.

In 1957 a Senate committee was formed to honor the nation’s greatest senators. It asked a group of 160 scholars for possible “inductees.” The historians produced 65 names. The committee forwarded five to the entire Senate, George Norris unanimously among them. But after three senators threatened his inclusion with, ironically, a filibuster, he was removed from consideration.

Two of the holdouts? Nebraska’s Carl Curtis and Roman Hruska.

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