Professor-Politician: The Biography of Alabama Congressman Glen Browder

By Geni Certain and Wayne Flynt

Professor-Politician challenges common depictions of politics as a constant struggle of good-versus-evil and heroes-versus-villains, with “dirty politics” usually winning. The truth is that good government can prevail in Montgomery and Washington.

Journalist Geni Certain recounts Glen Browder’s civic adventures as one of Alabama’s prominent scholars and public officials over the past half-century. This is a story of practical and reform politics told by someone specially positioned to comment on the Alabama government and American democracy.

Certain interviewed knowledgeable people, researched public records, and scoured the Browder Collection at Jacksonville State University for this intriguing and inspiring biography of a civic-oriented leader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781603062527

Geni Certain

Journalist GENI CERTAIN was for thirteen years an editor of The Anniston Star. She also worked as the editor-in-chief of The Daily Home in Talladega before retiring.

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Professor-Politician

The Biography of Alabama Congressman Glen Browder

Geni Certain

with an autobiographical essay by her subject

Glen Browder

NewSouth Books

Montgomery

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright 2012 by Geni Certain. Introduction copyright 2012 by Glen Browder. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58838-254-2

ebook ISBN: 978-1-60306-252-7

LCCN: 2012031511

Visit www.newsouthbooks.com.

To Becky and Jenny Browder

and to Larry and Johanna Wood

Contents

Foreword: A Different Kind of Politician

Autobiographical Essay: Philosophy, Politics, and Good Government

Acknowledgments

I - Prologue: The Professor-Politician

II - Young Glen

III - Dr. Browder

IV - Into the Fire

V - A Reformer Takes Charge

VI - The National Stage

VII - A Blue Dog Points the Way

VIII - Playing Defense

IX - Up or Out

X - The Road Ahead

Epilogue

Sources

Notes

Photographs

Sources of Photographs

Index

About the Author

Foreword

‘A Different Kind of Politician’

Wayne Flynt

Glen Browder was a different kind of politician for lots of reasons. He was certainly the most cerebral Alabama politician of his era, and one of the most thoughtful in American politics. As a professor of political science, he drank deeply from the well of Greek philosophy as well as from the realities of current American political strategy. Like his hero, Plato, he sought to combine public power with virtuous knowledge. He might disappoint his loyalists (and I was one of them) by his votes on individual bills, but he never embarrassed us by his ethical lapses. Once upon a time we would not have praised virtuous knowledge; we would have merely taken it for granted. Not anymore.

Browder took his new Ph.D. from Emory to Jacksonville State University to postulate and teach the abstract theory and current practice of American politics. Somewhere along the way, he developed a yen to take theory into the laboratory of American democracy. In that ambition, he was nearly unique. Most politicians serve in elected office, resign (or more frequently, are defeated), then teach. His journey carried him in the other direction, from academy to the Alabama Legislature to Congress.

Glen represented a mainly working- and lower-middle-class, white, conservative, Democratic constituency during a period of racial change. At first his racial pragmatism and emphasis on common sense and moral leadership served him well. But as the state polarized, black voters considered him too conservative and white voters concluded that he was too liberal. 

To retain the support of blacks, he practiced what he called stealth politics, privately cultivating black leaders, especially ministers, but publicly organizing the famous (or, in the minds of some liberal Democrats, infamous) conservative Blue Dog coalition of Democrats during the 1990s in Congress. Fairly conservative in his personal views and committed philosophically to a balanced budget and fiscal restraint, he helped orchestrate bipartisan pay-as-you-go legislation (later repealed, ironically, by a Republican Congress), that required new congressional programs to be paid for by new sources of revenue or cuts in existing programs. On social issues, race, education, ethics and election reform, and revision of the 1901 Alabama Constitution, he voted consistently progressive.

Like all Congressmen, he deplored pork-barrel projects in theory and especially in other Congressional districts, but fought fiercely to keep Fort McClellan open in his own neighborhood. At least his battle was principled and above-board well before such ethics were mandated by law.

Over his career, times changed, Browder lost an underfunded race for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate, then returned to the classroom. His students were the richer for it. But Alabama lost the services of its finest congressman of his era.

In this well-written biography, Browder emerges as a complex political leader during a critical period of Alabama and American history. Anyone who wants to understand state or national politics will find it a splendid read.

Wayne Flynt is Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus in the Auburn University History Department. Flynt is noted for his studies on poverty’s social impact and is the author of two Pulitzer Prize-nominated books.

Autobiographical Essay

Philosophy, Politics, and Good Government

Glen Browder

Fellas, this here’s my friend Glen Browder. Dr. Glen Browder. A college professor. I don’t think he drinks, smokes, cusses, or messes around; and he really believes in all that philosophical good government crap. But he’s a straight shooter, he don’t run his mouth, and he ain’t gonna f—k his friends.

Thus was I profanely introduced by one of Alabama’s leading politicians into the company of our state’s power elite in a smoke-filled Montgomery motel room in the late 1970s; and I embarked, with precariously balanced baggage of ideals and realities, on a tricky journey of philosophy, politics, and good government.

It has been several decades since that awkward entry into Alabama’s semi-secret society of power and patronage and cronyism. However, most of the politicos from those days are still around, some in elective office, some in government jobs, some in private-sector positions of public import, and some simply peddling influence around Goat Hill.

My course and interests have been more expansive, both geographically and substantively, extending from a legislative district in Calhoun County to the Secretary of State’s office in Montgomery and then to the U.S. Congress in Washington. I like to think of myself as a practical, public-spirited, big-D Democrat and little-r republican—working generally for good government and, specifically, for education reform as an Alabama state legislator (1982–86), for election reform as Alabama’s Secretary of State (1987–89), and for various congressional reforms in Washington (1989–96). Working with figures as diverse as Bill Clinton, George Bush, Newt Gingrich, Dick Gephardt, Tom Foley, Jim Wright, Howell Heflin, Richard Shelby, George Wallace, Don Siegelman, Jim Folsom Jr., Guy Hunt, Fob James, Bill Baxley, Paul Hubbert, Joe Reed, numerous other big-name and countless no-name politicians, the news media, lobbyists, everyday citizens, and my own conscience, I have struggled to make democracy work.

I’ve traveled a difficult but enjoyable course over the years, attempting as much philosophical progress as was politically possible, sometimes achieving significant, enduring reform, and often compromising, uncomfortably but willingly, to the realities of the moment. In the process, my career—including work as an academician, party activist, campaign consultant, and elected official in local, state, national, and international politics—has given me full appreciation of the possibilities and limitations of public service, a realization of my own civic strengths and weaknesses, and a better understanding of Alabama and America. In this opening essay, I will introduce the interplay between philosophical theory and real-world politics as I traveled my practically progressive journey.

My Civic Journey

I should begin by introducing myself and my civic journey in more refined manner than was the case in that smoky motel room in the 1970s.

My full name is John Glen Browder, my professional resume includes twin careers as an elected official and political scientist, and I’ve lived and worked in Alabama, California, Georgia, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and other locales. I’ve always considered myself a positive mixture of professional educator and public servant.

More rhetorically—as I have explained elsewhere—I am an American Dreamer with almost mystical confidence in America and American democracy.[1] It may sound dramatic, but I experience the same excitement about America and American democracy as expressed by Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic treatise on Democracy in America almost two centuries ago.[2] The young Frenchman had come to this country in the 1830s, ostensibly to study bureaucratic practices but really, in his heart and mind, to ascertain the essence of equality in the upstart republic. With great drama of his own, he later articulated the broader grandeur of his quest throughout the new nation:

I confess that . . . I sought there the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress.[3]

Even more dramatically, Tocqueville communicated to his French and European audience startling pronouncements about freedom and self-governance in the great experiment . . . a spectacle for which the world has not been prepared by the history of the past.[4] His eager, grandiose commentary on democratic principles and general equality of conditions in the vital New World surely must have stirred the masses and shocked the royalty of Old Europe.

Tocqueville’s providential pronouncements about the Great Experiment of American democracy were overdrawn, simplistic, and faulty in places, but I found his discussion of democratic destiny informative and inspiring in my personal journey and early professional career.

Actually, Tocqueville didn’t think very highly of American politicians, nor did he provide any positive guidance for aspiring political leaders. Thus, as I began thinking seriously about entering the political arena, I scoured the academic literature for more constructive direction. I was particularly intrigued with Plato’s ideas about the two sides of human life, the balancing of spiritual soul and physical body, the possible combination of virtuous knowledge and public power in pursuit of the good life—i.e., his conception of the Philosopher-King in an ideal society.[5] As Plato explained to his conversant brother, Glaucon, in The Republic, twenty-five centuries ago:

The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands, while the many natures now content to follow either to the exclusion of the other are forcibly debarred from doing so. This is what I have hesitated to say so long, knowing what a paradox it would sound; for it is not easy to see there is no other road to happiness, either for society or the individual.[6]

I had no delusions about becoming America’s Philosopher-King. However, I did aspire—presumptuously but sincerely—to be a Professor-Politician, a less-mythical leader with sufficient civic vision and practical ability to achieve as much philosophical progress as is politically possible. I wanted to do the right thing—and to make it work!

I therefore entered public service, as did many others, with a burning urge to help make the Great Experiment work better than it was working at that time. I was never really moved by ideological or partisan issues, nor did I develop any powerful special interest support groups that would walk through hell with me. If forced to describe my political philosophy, I would say that I was driven by civic love of America and American democracy.

My civic commitment was to make the democratic experiment function the way it should function—in short, good government. Mostly, that commitment meant simply pushing the process to work better; sometimes, however, it required fundamentally reforming the system itself.

Others have shared similar commitment. But my civic flame was fueled by an unusual combination of philosophical motives and political savvy, and my personal fervor was fanned, frankly, by intense ambition and controlled arrogance. My drive, in short, probably burned stronger and hotter and more self-reflectively than that of most. Throughout my career, I wanted to be different from run-of-the-mill public officials. I wanted to do something special.

It had become obvious to me, during my political science days, that civic vision—the inclination to think in Big Ideas about public service and democracy—is a very powerful and positive force in politics. Civic vision is critically important because it endows political leadership with the personal drive, public aura, and popular support for real achievements of enduring significance.

My statements about being a Professor-Politician, about civic vision, and doing the right thing may strike some as glib, self-indulgent rationalization; but my sense of responsibility was genuine—I sincerely wanted to do everything within my power to strengthen our democratic experiment.

I took my job in public service seriously; and I enjoyed doing it. Every day in Montgomery and Washington was a seminar in democracy, and I would have paid for those privileges and experiences.

I was good at the job because I took on the burdens of public office conscientiously—maybe too conscientiously. I engaged public service as a personal responsibility and agonized over most issues and even constituent cases. I felt that I should reach the right decision among public policy options where there were no clearly right or easy options. I believed that restoring public confidence in Alabama government, gaining control of America’s fiscal destiny, and promoting fairness for all our citizens—black and white—were moral objectives for our children and posterity. But I also pushed for more tangible benefits—such as economic help for our local business community, medical treatment for our sick veterans, and Social Security for our elderly citizens.

I considered it my obligation to show up for work wherever, whenever, and however my constituents asked. Weekends, nights, holidays, even special personal and family occasions—I found it impossible to say no if anybody or anything in my district wanted or needed me there. Making all of this work proved to be a frenetic, consuming, euphoric addiction. I led three lives—political scientist, public official, and concerned citizen—and I constantly juggled and balanced the demands of those three lives, often to the detriment of my responsibilities as a husband and father.

First, I tried—as the professor—to incorporate serious theoretical, analytical, and methodological components to my civic vision of public service.

Political science, my pre-electoral profession, thoroughly impacted my notions of civic vision and performance as a public official. I developed (in advance of and in concert with political events and issues) normative considerations and theoretical frameworks—covering all sides of every question and issue—to guide my political behavior. As the reader may have already discerned, I enjoyed constructing conceptual models, schematic diagrams, and just plain lists. I really worked hard to develop rational explanations for practical politics, anything that might help organize and elucidate the political world—or at least the political world as viewed from my perspective. And I applied rigorous tools of research in implementing my political analysis and activities.

Overall, my political science background proved very pertinent and helpful to my political career. Unfortunately, this systematic approach consumed valuable time and attention; it also presented nagging dilemmas that could never be resolved expeditiously or philosophically. My political career probably would have been more enjoyable if I had junked some of my academic inclinations and followed the wisdom of the sports commercial—just do it.

Second, as a public official—or politician—I struggled to merge my civic vision with the unpleasant but practical demands of political survival.

It is no easy task accommodating one’s personal philosophy, the broad, general interests of America, the particularistic and parochial interests of one’s constituents, and the demanding, demeaning requirements of today’s electoral politics.

To be more specific, I can say without question that the toughest part of public service is money—begging people with special interests for campaign contributions today, knowing that tomorrow I would have to make critical decisions and votes weighing their interests against those of other special interests and the general interest (however you may define the broader commonweal). I found it very distasteful asking people for money when I probably was going to vote in their favor; I found it equally impossible to ask someone for money when I disagreed with them and most likely was going to vote against their position. Not only was campaign fundraising personally demeaning, it also conveyed impropriety to the public. One of my close political friends once said he had no problem with this endeavor—I take money from everybody so nobody can claim that I’m bought by one side or the other. But I never got comfortable asking people for money.

Finally, in pursuing the fuzzy notion of civic vision, I had to deal with my own personally conflicted feelings, as a citizen, about America and the American dream. My civic philosophy never easily translated into certainty on normative issues and practical matters in day-to-day politics.

For example, I now enjoy the material benefits of American democracy; and as a public official I appreciate the macroeconomic system that has served us well nationally and internationally. But, as this biography by Geni Certain will show, I grew up poor, outside the charmed circles of American society. Images of poverty and questions of opportunity and fairness figured prominently into the endless choices of public service. How best could I weigh the interests of a free-market economy and mainstream society (to which I now belong) while doing right by the poor, the powerless, and the disadvantaged back home? The moral, ideological, and partisan answers never came clearly or fully.

So I embarked on a journey of civic vision—from Jacksonville, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery, and then on to the United States Congress in Washington—trying to implement the ideals of American democracy while conducting myself in such a way that the people of Alabama—particularly young people—might regain trust in their leaders and government.

Early in that journey, while campaigning for the state legislature, I experienced a personal revelation about my future in politics. I realized that with guts and luck I just might become Alabama’s practical, functional, real-world version of a Philosopher-King—because nobody else wanted the job. There were many good people and outstanding politicians in Alabama, but I was struck by the lack of interest in civic and reform issues among both aspiring candidates and established public officials. Very few professional politicians seemed really interested in such things as clean elections, political ethics, and constitutional reform. I could indeed exercise leadership on good government issues and other important public policy matters in Alabama and possibly beyond—in great part because normal politicos generally did not care for the civic responsibilities and heavy lifting of American democracy.

Alabama’s Enduring Dilemma

Tocqueville and Plato would have found challenges aplenty in promoting their ideas about virtuous leadership and democratic progress in Alabama. I’m convinced that history has inflicted certain peculiar, difficult conditions that make this state very different from the rest of the country. Perhaps more so than any other part of the union, Alabama is a land of an enduring dilemma that has confounded its role in the Great Experiment of American democracy.

In truth, Alabama historically has epitomized a flawed democracy, a more compact, complex version of the broader racial, economic, and political problems of regional history. According to V.O. Key Jr.—a native Texan and perhaps the most insightful analyst of Southern politics at mid-twentieth century—the fundamental flaw of Southern history had been a systemic failure to deal with its problems.[7] Key focused on race as the major peculiarity of Southern life. However, he was quick to expand his analysis to overlapping economic and political factors in troubled Southern society, and he placed particular responsibility on the failed leadership and party system of the South. As he so famously articulated the thesis in Southern Politics in State and Nation (1949):

When all the exceptions are considered, when all the justifications are made, and when all the invidious comparisons are drawn, those of the South and those who love the South are left with the cold, hard fact that the South as a whole has developed no system or practice of political organization and leadership adequate to cope with its problems.[8]

Key also accurately stated at mid-century the daunting civic challenge for Southern political leaders:

Obviously, the conversion of the South into a democracy in the sense that the mass of people vote and have a hand in their governance poses one of the most staggering tasks for statesmanship in the western world. The suffrage problems of the South can claim a closer kinship with those of India, of South Africa, or of the Dutch East Indies than with those of, say, Minnesota. Political leadership in the State of New York or California or Ohio simmers down to matters of the rankest simplicity alongside those that must be dealt with in Georgia or Mississippi or Alabama.[9]

It has been well over half a century since Key’s assessment; but Alabama’s conjoined dilemma of race, poverty, and politics still bedevils us much more than we like to admit.

Consequently, alongside its many endearing charms, Alabama historically has evidenced an almost systemic resistance to political change and progress. I will not go as far as did a disgruntled politician in characterizing the political culture as a militantly ignorant mindset; however, it was clear to me from the beginning that many Alabamians still clung to a way of life that invited such terms as stubborn independence, entrenched racism, and backward, corrupt politics. This cultural intransigence would certainly complicate my service as a Professor-Politician and civic reformer in Montgomery and Washington.

I should admit at this point that, being from South Carolina, I didn’t know much about Alabama when I took a job here right out of Emory University graduate school in 1971; and I did not plan to stick around permanently.

As a newly minted Ph.D. in political science, I was very well aware that Alabama’s history had been a fascinating, contentious, maddening political drama. Politically, the Heart of Dixie had seen a string of histrionic performances, including the birth of the Confederacy, the Scottsboro trials, the Montgomery bus boycott, the Selma to Montgomery march, Bloody Sunday, the stand in the schoolhouse door, and the inaugural manifesto of segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. In the decade prior to my arrival, George Wallace had shared the white-hot spotlight and dark shadows of Alabama’s historic stage with Big Jim Folsom, Martin Luther King Jr., Bull Connor, Rosa Parks, Frank Johnson, and casts of thousands amid universal media attention.

But politics was not the only big show in the Heart of Dixie. As an ex-sportswriter for the Atlanta Journal, I recognized Alabama football as a historic phenomenon of mythical proportions. ROOOOOLLL TIDE! and WAAAAARRR EAGLE! had long been semi-religious chants of fall weekends; and living legends stalked the fields and memories and souls of this section of the country—names like Bear Bryant, Shug Jordan, Don Hutson, Harlon Hill, Bart Starr, Joe Namath, and Kenny Stabler (and I soon would get to see Heisman Trophy winners Pat Sullivan and Bo Jackson in action).

I quickly began to appreciate that Alabama was much, much more than raucous racial drama and football fanaticism. Many distinguished and creative Alabamians have graced the stage of American history and enriched our nation with their lives and achievements. Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Helen Keller, Hugo Black, Lister Hill, John Sparkman, John Bankhead (and his daughter Tallulah), Harper Lee (and her visiting cousin Truman Capote), Zelda (and her husband F. Scott) Fitzgerald, William Bradford Huie, Johnny Mack Brown (the movie cowboy), W. C. Handy, Jimmie Rodgers, Nat (the King) Cole, Hank Williams, the musical group Alabama, and Werner Von Braun (direct from Germany to head up America’s space program in north Alabama). Furthermore, in the sports arena, Alabama had been more than football—Jesse Owens (of Olympic track stardom in Hitler’s backyard), Joe Louis (the great heavyweight boxing champ), Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Satchel Paige (three of the greatest baseball players ever), Charles Barkley (basketball’s colorful all-star and would-be politician), and the Allison family of stockcar racing fame—to name just a few.

I also saw that, slowly and haltingly, the state was attempting to deal with its troubling historical problems. The more progressive elements were preaching New South ideas like racial accommodation, educational progress, and economic development. They touted the state’s rich cultural history, geographic diversity, and recreational opportunities—with frequent references to the international space program (in Huntsville), the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (in Montgomery), and the National Junior Miss Program (in Mobile)—as the real face of Alabama.

Incidentally, I would learn in time and through my dealings with him that George Wallace was more than a classic stereotype of demagoguery, political opportunism, and racial sins. He was, in many ways, a breakthrough populist in a state long run by the Big Mules and Black Belt bosses; he and his wife Lurleen did much for the poor, the uneducated, and the disadvantaged. Toward the end, he lived through his own mortal hell of self-realization about his role in state, national, and world history, and he successfully sought forgiveness from black Alabamians for his segregationist past. After extreme physical and emotional suffering, he realized at least partially the grace and power of redemption before his death.

I observed during those years, both personally and through my own systematic research, that Alabama is inhabited by people of all shapes, sizes, and colors—some good, some bad—and like Americans everywhere, their cultural character reflects their heritage. But Alabamians white and black also are born with a compulsive sense of place and history that exaggerates cultural affinities with nagging legacies of racial prejudice, social deprivation, and wounded pride. Perhaps this regional sensitivity explains why, no matter where we go and what we do, Alabamians (and most Southerners) invariably interject into chance encounters and casual conversations some probing version of Where y’all from? These compulsions also may explain why we have always maintained and projected a stark, distinct, Deep South mentality, a difficult, painful balancing of white and black, independence and community, humility and arrogance, civility and violence, grandeur and tragedy.

Over time, it became clear to me that, in addition to the previously cited lack of vision among run-of-the-mill politicians, there was a major vacuum of leadership on certain critical issues at the top levels of state government in Alabama. Even esteemed leaders—who quite often embraced and articulated the nobler ideals of public service—seemed inattentive and inept at critical points in the political process.

Similar Problems in Washington

Upon arriving in Washington in 1989, I saw some of the very same problems. I was struck especially with the lack of real civic vision. There seemed to be a leadership vacuum—just as in Alabama—and an anti-reform railroad ran regularly between Congress and the White House.

Again, just as in Alabama, there were many good people who contributed positively to national public service. However—other than a handful of elected civic champions, a few do-gooder groups, and the capital media—there was little commitment on the Hill for seriously reviving and reforming our national democratic experiment.

At a time when the national government was in dire straits (including a traumatic shutdown), when the budget process was a shell of irresponsibility (with unprecedented peacetime deficits), when elected representatives seemed completely out of touch (suffering through myriad and tawdry scandals), and even as the public started throwing the rascals out—the establishment exercised only token effort at restoring the spirit and reforming the process of American democracy.

Important people talked often about political reform in our nation’s capital—President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich even shook hands, in front of a national television audience, on changing the campaign finance system. But the strategy of America’s national political leadership seemed to be one of posing for pictures and then making sure that nothing jeopardized the rules of the game that keep them in power.

I’ve played this game with the best of the anti-reformers in Alabama and Washington, and I am convinced that most elected leaders and entrenched special interests did not then and even now do not want to change—or they lack sufficient courage to change their ways. I also am convinced that progressive change and fundamental reform are inevitable for Alabama and American democracy.

Recollective Scorecard—Some Wins

After fourteen years in elective office, my political game plan came to an end, and I embarked on other endeavors. My recollective scorecard shows clear wins and painful losses along the political way. Most of my pleasant recollections can be lumped into the category of initiatives that simply tried to make the process work better; however, periodically I took on the system and attempted fundamental reform.

Among the victories, by my accounting, are several successful initiatives that have improved Alabama politics and American democracy. I don’t claim singular credit for these improvements (nor are they flawless accomplishments); but I do feel that they represent positive developments in public life, and I like to believe that I contributed significantly to their advancement.

Education Reform. As a one-term member of the Alabama House of Representatives, I sponsored several important laws that impacted public education positively. My first major piece of reform legislation emphasized science, math, and other critical needs and established in-service programs throughout the state in which teachers identify deficiencies and address those problems (Governor Wallace later signed a Senate resolution declaring this legislation The Browder Education Reform Act of 1984); some of these programs continue today. The Alabama Career Ladder Act of 1985 established progressive goals, increased educational funding, and mandated a performance-based system for teacher promotion and remuneration. Political misfortunes and fiscal downturn doomed the merit pay program, but other positive provisions survived and flourish today.

Campaign Finance Disclosure. I realized the full interconnectivity of vision, leadership, and the political railroad when I got involved in efforts to change the way we conducted political campaigns in Alabama. The fact was that, despite all our visionary hoopla, no powerful political leaders nor any powerful interest groups within the system were willing to flex their muscle for our reform agenda. The absence of vision and leadership on election reform was no accident—that’s how those in control keep control. So our determined bunch of reformers took over that political railroad just long enough to pass the Alabama Fair Campaign Practices Act of 1988, replacing an outdated and unenforceable system that dated back to 1915. The AFCPA focused the glare of public disclosure and media scrutiny on Goat Hill, and Alabama politics has never been the same.

The Federal Budget. I went to Washington and lobbied hard to get on the Budget Committee, with the idea that American democracy was in trouble. I was