Public servants should work for you

If you were to walk into the office of your state legislator or county supervisor, there’s a more than decent chance that one of the people you’d run into would be a school board trustee, a city council member or even your town’s mayor. But unlike you, instead of seeking help with a constituent issue, he or she would actually be in the midst of doing their day job.

Up and down California, it’s not uncommon for elected officials to also work full-time for other elected officials. But just because a thing is commonplace doesn’t mean it’s good or right. I would argue that it’s not, and I’m authoring legislation to put an end to this practice, which I believe is inherently conflicted and runs counter to the ideals of a healthy system of representative government.

When you add up the number of city councils, school districts, community college districts and other governing structures like water boards, California has almost 4,500 local governmental units. The vast majority of these offices are part-time appointed positions where compensation is at best a modest stipend, along with possibly some level of benefits like health care. Most people who do these jobs look to other work for the bulk of their income. This is by design, informed by an underlying ideal of public service that our system’s framers believed would inspire civic leaders to carve out some of their free time to participate in the sound governance of their communities.

Leaving aside the question of what kind of person chooses willingly to dive into politics these days, it still seems reasonable to assume that, with nearly 40 million residents in the Golden State, there should be plenty of qualified applicants for jobs in the offices of legislators and county supervisors who don’t already represent the same people they’re being hired to serve. At this point, especially if you haven’t pondered this particular question before, you might, like so many of my legislative colleagues, be asking why any of this is a big deal.

To illustrate, consider the following example:

Laura Smith, a resident of Anyville, is concerned that a nearby parcel of open land is being targeted for development by Big Trash Company as a location for a biogas generation plant. Laura, along with her neighbors, goes to their local city councilmember, Tim Tompkins, to express their concerns and urge him to vote against the proposed zoning change to allow the plant to move forward. In addition to being their local council member, however, Councilmember Tompkins is also employed as the district director for state Sen. Ruth Goodnell.

Goodnell, who is already firmly on record as a strong supporter of biogas, is the author of recent legislation providing tax credits for its development. Later that month, at the

City Council’s meeting, Councilmember Tompkins votes to approve the project. Irrespective of Councilmember Tompkins’ stated reasons for his position and eventual vote, under these circumstances it would be reasonable for Laura Smith to question his motives and allegiance.

Laura and the rest of the councilmember’s constituents clearly deserve better. I think we all do, especially since some version of this scenario plays out regularly across our state. My bill, Senate Bill 251, would rectify this in very simple terms. Under its provisions, local elected officials would no longer be permitted to work as paid staff to any other elected official representing the same constituents.

Politics these days, as we all know too, has become a bit of a grubby business, and the more concentrated it becomes, the grubbier it will be.

Eliminating “double-duty” elected officials, and the inherent conflict they create, is one step in the right direction toward reversing that concentration while increasing public confidence in public service.