Conflict, Legitimacy and Government Reform: Equitable Allocation of ...

Panel Discussion
I speak about these matters as a former college professor of political
science, but also as someone with certain government experiences.
I worked for several years as a staff member of the House of
Representatives’ Foreign Affairs committee and as the senior foreign
policy adviser to a US Senator. I learned, often to my horror, how the
legislative process really works, in contrast with the neat and tidy
textbooks I had studied in graduate school. I saw personally how often
elected representatives’ decisions are based on no or fragmentary
information and the power that unelected staff professionals have in
shaping what does or doesn’t get done in Washington. I crossed over to
the “other side” and worked for four years as a member of the Clinton
Administration at the Department of State and the White House. I saw
from the perspective of the executive branch how comparatively “easy”
it was to pass laws that were never executed and how difficult governing
according to principles could be. I saw great political courage, but more
often striking political weakness when decisions were made to advance
the political ambitions of a person or a party at the expense of the
national interest.
I reflect on these experiences now from the distant shores of
California. I often joke to friends still gripped by “Potomac Fever” that
I have “given up” on adults and now work with children in my role as
director of international programs at the Center for Civic Education.
Like many factitious comments this one contains a grain of truth: young
people are the final hope of all societies, including mine, and we risk the
future and squander the present if we do not invest in doing the best we
can for them now.
I appear on this podium I am sure not because of this background
or the expectation that I will offer some profound insights on the
questions posed by the “Rationale.” Rather I suspect it is because I have
the privilege of working with KPI in an effort to deliver on the promise
all generations make to their young: to leave our children a world that is
a better place than we found it. This is a very easy thing to say and a very
difficult thing to accomplish. But together KPI and CCE are doing our
best to fulfill this promise of each generation to the next.
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