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Good Governance Matters (redux)
What we can learn from Sen. Raphael Warnock and other legislators who recognize that the value of government is to make lives better
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As the battle for America intensifies and grows uglier in the months ahead, I think it’s useful to remember what the fight is for. In this essay, originally published on December 9, 2022, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and others offered their insights. This included the observation of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the role of government.:“Government is the vehicle for letting us do together what none of us can do alone.”
And Warnock—who sees his work as a senator as an extension of his work as a pastor and a life committed to service—summed up what our votes are all about: “I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children. Voting is faith put into action.”
No matter how much Trump and his Republican enablers are determined to put an end to the American experiment with their grim rejection of democracy and human values, we must not assume they represent the future most Americans want. Producing results, not just spouting grievances, still matters.
Put aside the grievance-filled soundbites. Put aside the constant culture wars. Forget the manufactured skirmishes aimed for Fox News, the obsession with Hunter Biden and his laptop, the sad promise by House Republicans to lard up the next two years with investigations and impeachment hearings and attacks. What matters—what always needs to matter most—is whether our elected officials care about and pursue good governance or not.
Two years ago, when Raphael Warnock announced his plan to run for Senate to unseat Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the pastor from the Ebenezer Baptist Church—Martin Luther King Jr.’s church—quickly addressed the issue on many people’s minds. “Some might ask why a pastor thinks he should serve in the Senate,” he said. “Well, I’ve committed my whole life to service and helping people realize their highest potential. I’ve always thought that my impact doesn’t stop at the church door. That’s actually where it starts.”
Service and being a pastor—these topics were on his mind Tuesday night after he secured his Senate seat for the second time in less than two years. “Here is what I’ve learned as a pastor,” Warnock said. “You can’t lead the people unless you love the people. You can’t love the people unless you know the people. And you can’t know the people unless you walk among the people. You cannot serve if you cannot see me.”
Raphael Warnock’s father was a pastor. His mother picked cotton and tobacco. Born in Savannah, Raphael is one of 12 children. He grew up in public housing and was the first in his family to go to college. From the pulpit, he advocated for expanded health care, voting rights and the need to create job opportunities and overcome racial and economic inequities.
Those same issues have topped his agenda as a U.S. Senator, too. And even as he’s dug into policy—successfully advocating for a cap on the high cost of insulin for Medicare patients, co-authoring the passed CHIPS legislation to expand domestic manufacturing and create more jobs, providing a leading voice on voting rights legislation—he both remembers where he comes from and employs his sermonizing talent to move people and bring them together.
“I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children,” he told the crowd cheering for his victory Tuesday. “Voting is faith put into action. And Georgia, you have been praying with your lips and your legs, with your hands and your feet, your heads and your hearts.”
Calling the people “a multiracial, multi-religious coalition of conscience,” he praised their dedication and the system they came there to support. These were the words of a preacher, but they were spoken by a man who believes in inclusion.
You endured the rain, you endured the long lines, and you voted. And you did it because you believe, as I do, that democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea. This notion that each of us has within us a spark of the divine, that we were created in the Imago Dei, in the image of God. And if you’re not given to that kind of religious language, that’s fine. Our tent is big.
And on this celebratory night, when he paused to acknowledge the “blood-stained ballot” of those who came before to secure “the great American right to vote,” he focused on his responsibility to the people of Georgia. “During these difficult days,” he said, “even as I work on specific public policy proposals and I offer bills and work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get those bills passed, I just want you to know that I see you.”
Earlier on Tuesday, President Biden traveled to Phoenix to visit a massive construction site spanning nearly two miles. He was there to see—and tout—the fruits of good governance.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing had previously committed $12 billion build a new semiconductor and chip facility, but had decided to expand its investment to $40 billion because of the passage of the CHIPS & Science Act, the company’s chairman said. (This was a bill that Warnock, a member of the commerce committee, helped advance.) Besides Biden, attendees included Apple CEO Tim Cook, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, newly reelected Senator Mark Kelly, Governor-elect Katie Hobbs, outgoing GOP Governor Doug Ducey and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, among others.
After noting that the new facility will produce 3-nano chips—“you know what I’m saying,” Biden said amid laughter—he added that “these are the most advanced semiconductor chips on the planet. The chips will power iPhones and MacBooks, as Tim Cook can attest. Apple had to buy all the advanced chips from overseas. Now they’re going to bring more of their supply chain here, home. It can be a game-changer.”
And for Arizona, Biden explained, this represents 10,000 construction jobs and some 10,000 new high-tech jobs, in one of the country’s largest foreign direct investments that substantially expands the state’s growing position as a technology hub. Added to this is billions of new dollars for the state as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, what Biden called “the biggest investment in American infrastructure since Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System.” As he noted when signing that bill several months ago, “we’re delivering results for the American people. We didn’t tear down; we built up. We didn’t look back; we looked forward.”
Meanwhile, the day before, in the upside down world that reminds us how close Arizona came to disaster, sore loser Kari Lake was whining on Steve Bannon’s podcast about how corrupt and unfair the election was. Referring to Monday’s election certification involving Ducey and two other certifiers, she said, “They sat there and signed their names to this sham certification. History will never forgive them. They will go down as three of the very worst in history.”
Her cries of a “crooked election” are unlikely to stop anytime soon. Just yesterday she was on another right-wing program attacking the state she claimed she wanted to lead. “It was ran like they run elections in a banana republic,” she complained. “And the people running it, their number one political goal was to make sure that I didn't get elected...you saw Katie Hobbs certifying this sham election on Monday."
As Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts put it, Lake is “busy lighting match after match, hoping to spark a fire…Given that I don’t believe Lake is having a mental breakdown, I have to assume she’s calculated that her fiery path to fame and fortune lies in setting the state ablaze.”
As much as Lake and her aggrieved ilk imagine the future belongs to them, it’s important to keep our sights on those who are doing the hard and serious work of crafting policy and passing legislation that recognizes the constructive role that government can play in making lives better.
I’d like to give the last word here to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, speaking on the latest episode of a podcast released this week from The New Republic called How to Save a Country. Warren answered the podcast’s titular question like this: “I’d invest more in our people. I’d treat everyone with respect. And I’d be willing to get in the fight because I think our people, I think our freedoms, I think our democracy, are worth fighting for.” And the role of government? “Government is the vehicle for letting us do together what none of us can do alone.”
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