MISSOURI WATCH: ADMINISTRATION, POLITICS ARE OPPOSITES

If there is an overriding rule on how citizens are best governed (in contrast to the earlier concept of citizens governing themselves), it is that successful public officials never mix partisanship with governing. In the minds of those who are favorably viewed as effective leaders, there is never confusion between administration and politics because the two are separable, divisible and, yes, opposites.

In normal times, if there is such a thing, politics and government are viewed as one, and there are plenty of players out there who swear allegiance to this principle. Their argument is based on experience, for anyone who spends more than a moment observing today's version of representative government will recognize that it has as its foundation a certain amount of hard-ball partisanship, sustained principally by the strength of the two major political parties.

The view of the close affinity of partisanship and good governance stems from a pragmatic understanding of how governments are fashioned to serve constituents. Does anyone believe that Missouri's present governor, Mel Carnahan, would have been re-elected in 1996 without the full support of the Democratic Party in this state? Carnahan was first a Democrat and then a governor, and he was first selected in 1992 because of his allegiance to the former, not demonstrable qualities of vision and leadership as the latter.

Unfortunately it is this allegiance between personal political loyalty and performance in offices of responsibility that fosters so many of today's problems in governance, whether at the national or state level, and more often than we care to acknowledge, at county and municipal levels as well.

Candidates are chosen for one set of qualities (loyalty and dedication) and then expected to perform constitutional duties under a different set of standards (visionary and effective) and when both sets are compatible, the public has no difficulty appreciating the candidate as worthy of support. It is when the official is attached to only one set of standards that the public begins to feel doubtful, even distrustful.

And it is at this precise moment that the elected become ineffective, the public grows restless and resentful and the wheels of representative government grind to a much slower speed, sometimes barely chugging to the next election.

Missouri has seen this stagnation numerous times, too many in the view of anyone who has observed how and when Jefferson City is most effective and least so. If one is inclined to take a cynical path, there have been more than enough of the pejorative periods, too few of the good ones.

Perhaps a more realistic view is that, given the amount of time spent and interest allocated in selecting the proper candidates, Missourians are fortunate to have received better leadership than their personal investment warrants.

It is now disturbing to see so little attention being paid to the men and women whose names will all too quickly appear on ballots this summer and fall. Although 1998 is referred to as an "off-year election," the designation is unfortunate and misleading. We will elect a U.S. senator, all nine of the state's congressional representatives, one-half of the Missouri Senate, all 163 members of the Missouri House of Representatives and one of the six statewide officeholders.

The results of this "off-year election" will determine not only how our state is represented in the nation's Capitol but, perhaps more importantly to our daily lives, how our state is administered in Jefferson City, for certainly this year's balloting will steer the direction Missouri takes between now and the year 2001.

One of the least understood consequences of term limits is the increased necessity for the governed to become more involved in the electoral process. Without the vital ingredient of legislative experience, the public must choose from a growing field of unknown potential leaders and lawmakers and must be willing to expend more than a fleeting second in making choices for numerous public offices. While not doubting the public's ability to do so, one can reasonably be excused for doubting its willingness to invest the interest, time and effort to do so. To paraphrase an old saying, no one ever went broke underestimating the public's misconceptions and mistrust in a system of governance it widely hails but so infrequently participates in.

Realistically speaking, most governments are administered by a minority within a minority. Since we have banked the future of our systems on a partisan, political foundation, we are left with governments at state and federal levels that are administered of the majority. If control rests with a narrow margin in state and national capitals, then control of the majority is by an even smaller minority, and if real power rest only in leadership positions, chosen form a thin majority, then rules of the game are written not by 51 percent but often by a bare 1 percent of the elected.

No wonder Americans, and Missourians, feel left out of the process. There is realistic reason for such feelings, for they are valid. Voters are too frequently viewed as only the means to an end, in this case winning a majority at the polls. From then on, citizens are viewed as extraneous components of governance, even when public policy is formulated and then implemented. Like a load of herded cattle, the public is judged by its willingness to follow the rules laid down by the drovers, with diminishing tolerance for individual freedom.

This is not the vision of the nation's founding fathers who purposefully designed our constitutional system to be governed by recognized, responsible leaders and who fashioned a full measure of participation by the governed. The founders' dream in Philadelphia is becoming a nightmare in Missouri.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editorof Missouri News and Editorial Service.