ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL
Faculty and staff better their own backyards,
and beyond
By Bill Kirtz
Politics can be an ugly business, as this
country's recent helping of chad row has illustrated. Yet some Northeastern-based
politicos choose a sunnier path, turning academic savvy into altruistic
practice.
A presidential campaign veteran organizes a crash
course in politicking for a Ugandan reformer. Public administration experts
toil in the local-government vineyards. A wildlife biologist deftly defends
the common moorhen. Their stories remind us political victories don't have
to be Pyrrhic.
Joseph Warren-special assistant to director of
government relations Thomas Keady Jr.-matched his long-standing interest
in minority-area economic development with Aggrey Awori's push to substitute
democracy for military dictatorship in violence-torn Uganda.
Warren, with the help of African-American studies
department chair Robert Hall, hosted a three-day session at Northeastern
last fall for Awori and seven of his supporters, including an archbishop,
a university professor, and a fellow member of the Ugandan parliament.
Awori, formerly his country's ambassador to Belgium, will run in Uganda's
March presidential elections.
Plenty of expertise turned out for the Shillman
Hall weekend. Warren, a key player in Walter Mondale's and Michael Dukakis's
presidential campaigns, enlisted Keady, an advance man in Bill Clinton's
1996 campaign. Hall recruited department colleague Kwamina Panford. The
NU brain trust advised the visitors about campaign management, fund-raising,
advance work, scheduling, and media relations. Dukakis, distinguished professor
of political science, offered an insider's look at the process over dinner.
Warren says the sessions fulfilled "a dream
I have as an African-American-to see Africa, my homeland, use democracy
as a means by which rulership can be transferred. The old colonial ways
of aggressive militarism must end if Africa is to grow."
What seems certain to grow is Warren's brainchild,
the International Democratic Institute. He reports that representatives
from three other African nations have requested that the institute sponsor
similar NU seminars.
It's a far cry from international leadership to
falling limbs, but political science professor John Portz doesn't mind
late-night calls about tree problems-or myriad evening meetings, or weekend
coffee klatches. They're all part of being a Watertown city councilor.
"If I don't want to do it," says the
public administration scholar, "I shouldn't be in that role."
Portz's day job focuses on state and urban politics,
and he's also co-authored the college textbook American Government: Conflict,
Compromise, and Citizenship with department colleagues Christopher Bosso
and Michael Tolley. He and other NU politician-profs think their grassroots
experiences enhance their classroom performance, and vice versa.
A Midwesterner who moved to Watertown in 1988,
Portz says his appetite for campaigning was whetted when he helped an ultimately
unsuccessful candidate run for local office. He started regularly attending
board meetings and became active on the local Democratic committee. Later,
he was named chair of a blue-ribbon panel on economic development.
His first run for city council proved tougher
than writing about the politics of plant closings. Portz rang more than
1,000 doorbells, mailed more than 1,000 postcards. "It's a very humbling
experience," he discovered, but "it's good for someone in academia.
You tend to get isolated."
Going door-to-door, he says, "you become
the front for national government. One guy yelled that I was some yuppie
who just wanted to raise his taxes. The next day, I met someone who liked
me-I don't know why-and let me put a sign in his yard, and wrote me a hundred-dollar
check."
Portz lost his race but was appointed to a vacant
slot the next year. He won a tough battle in 1997, and ran unopposed two
years later.
He's found that local-election victories carry
more responsibilities than perks. He figures he averages ten to fifteen
hours a week on the job, including two or three nightly meetings, and regular
attendance at Chamber of Commerce, zoning, and planning-board sessions.
Then there's constituent work-dealing with complaints
about rising sidewalks and falling trees. Minor stuff, perhaps, but Portz
knows the folks who interrupt his dinner need to be able to share their
problems. "It's been a really good complement to my academic life,
but it's a big amount of time and [has caused] some stresses and family
pressures."
His biggest payoff: real-world application of
the content of his NU courses. For example, he says, "tonight we start
a charter-review process that will consider term length and the relationship
of the council to the city manager. It's something I talk about in class
all the time." Portz has gotten some students internships on various
Watertown projects, showing them Husky political mavens "aren't just
talking about it, but doing it."
Equally convinced of the value of "getting
your hands dirty" in local politics is law school professor and associate
dean Peter Enrich, a Lexington selectman.
"My wife says I do it as my social life,"
reports the former Dukakis gubernatorial administration highflyer, "but
the experience gives you a real sense of place and community."
Enrich seems a tad overqualified for local politics.
After clerking for then First Circuit judge and now U.S. Supreme Court
justice Stephen Breyer, he became Dukakis's counsel for revenue policy
and a general counsel for administration and finance.
But he finds involvement in Lexington politics
"rich, rewarding, and exciting. You stick a toe in, with certain skills,
and people encourage you to do more. It's hard to say no." Enrich
is particularly proud of his leadership of successful campaigns to block
Proposition 2 1/2's limits on school spending.
And he, too, thinks real-world experience has
an academic payoff. "I teach state and local government, and the input
[from participation] gives you a whole other understanding. You can write
more legitimately, because you've actually been out there."
Local politics have their drawbacks, Enrich concedes.
Although generally convinced he helps his community, "there are weeks
that I think I'm not. Sometimes I'm seen as a newcomer, a pointy-headed
intellectual."
He admits he occasionally wonders why he's spending
leisure evenings approving street signs. But more often, he feels he's
working on matters of significance, such as long-term fiscal planning.
Enrich recently sampled national political pressure
as head of a multitown committee pondering the white-hot controversy over
whether to allow a greater number of commercial flights at Bedford's Hanscom
Field. That battle found him dealing with the Federal Aviation Administration
and other government agencies, as well as area residents and airline owners
vehemently arguing their conflicting views.
All this eats up a lot of hours. "If you
do this well," he says, "you spend a lot of time touching bases.
You might get a question while you're buying stamps. You'll get calls during
dinner."
So how much time does he spend on the civic job?
Enrich answers like a seasoned politico: "I plead the Fifth Amendment
on that."
More forthcoming about his heavy time commitment
in the political arena is biology professor Gwilym Jones, who for fourteen
years headed the committee advising the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries
and Wildlife. Jones estimates that, before stepping down last year, he
spent as many as twenty hours a week formulating policy and regulations.
Under his leadership, the state banned lead shot,
which poisons waterfowl, two years before the federal government did so.
And on his watch, Massachusetts terminated the hunting of the not-so-common
common moorhen.
Like other NUers, Jones believes his political
experience informs his classes. "I felt it extended me as a professor.
It let me be a little Don Quixoteish, fighting for the right."
He admits to a sense of frustration when political
realities mean the right thing isn't done. For instance, the mute swan
population in Massachusetts is exploding. The textbook solution would be
to thin the swans out. Yet popular sentiment (picture happy passengers
in Public Garden swan boats) makes this impossible. So Jones insists that
his applied-ecology students propose real-life, workable solutions to difficult
issues.
Jones, who has steered several students to government
internships and has had many acquaintances from the political arena visit
classes and serve on graduate-thesis committees, thinks "there's no
question that you can make a difference" in state government. And
if you don't, he continues, "someone else is going to do it. So don't
complain about the person doing it in your stead."
Bill Kirtz is an associate professor in the
School of Journalism.
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