A Confession: Why I Love Mayor Bill White
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published February 14, 2007, 11:12 am in Voting & Partisanship.
I have written about Houston before--see my "Ode to Irony" about the Houston Ship Channel--but I have tried to make my column more about national and international affairs. Today, I want to get local and talk about why I love Bill White.
And no, this isn't another ironic post. I really do love Bill White. I don't always agree wtih the guy, but he has vision. He's willing to listen. And he seems to know what he's doing.
His 2007 State of the City address is a model for this kind of address. It's what George Bush should have done with his State of the Union. It's what I look for when I want to know the state of the government. There isn't a complicated structure to it. He isn't attempting to lure us into an argument about why some controversial policy is good for us. He isn't trying to alienate anyone in the audience.
Instead, he provides two things: an appraisal of past accomplishments and the outlook for the future. That's what I want from a state address. I want to know what has happened and what I can expect from the future. And Bill White delivers it clearly.
There is one problem here, though, and that's that White is a Democrat. And I happen to have some Democratic sesibilities, if you can't tell. So I may be more lenient on him than I am on Bush or some other Republican candidate. Even though I like to think I'm impartial, the reality is that I'm not. And I know that. And I'm okay with it. But I haeve to let you know it up front, too.
White was educated as a lawyer, but he's also a businessman. And he runs the city like it's a business. He treats the citizens like they're clients, and he attempts to make the city serve those clients. I appreciate that. It means that he doesn't tolerate waste, and he wants the city to work to improve just like a business does. Man, I should be on his campaign team, shouldn't I?
And that gets to the real issue. White is up for reelection again. Yep, I mean again. It's one of the most ridiculous things about this city. Our mayor only gets a term of two years, and he can only keep the post for three terms. So his entire tenure consists of a maximum of six years.
That's just silly.
Two years allows a major to do a year of work. The second year, he must start running again to win the next election. I'm not sure if I would undertake any crazy controversial legislation, period, if I were limited to a two-year term. Think about the president. The president doesn't do much in that last year, and he (or she, as the case may be)doesn't do much in those last two years. Officials know that if they want to get relected, they need more than merely their party's votes. They need the moderates and some of the other side to vote them in, too. So they won't do anything controversial except during the first half of the presidency. But if the first half consists of one year, why bother at all? Why a two-year term, anyway? What's the purpose of it? I know it's not unheard of, but it still doesn't make sense. It stifles growth and prevents mayors from truly reforming the city.
Not that Bill White hasn't tried to reform Houston. Read the State of the City address, and it's clear why he was reelected with 91% of the vote. Read the address, and you will understand the difficulties of Houston, as well as why White is usually viewed as such a good mayor. It explains why he will win his next election with no difficulty.
Perhaps it also explains why I will support him for the Senate or the governorship. Rick Perry probably won't run again in 2010, and Bill White should go for it. Who knows? It could be a stepping stone for the presidency, and I think White would be good at that, too. Can you imagine someone in there trying to whip the Pentagon into shape? Not really. I'm not sure that he's cut out for that kind of job. I almost think he's too good for it. He would get lost in the fray, misunderstood and eaten alive. I hope that's not true, for I would support him there, too, but I mainly hope that he can get to a national level and make a difference. That's what I want. I want someone with the compassionate businessman's attitude to whip things into shape. Once Texans see what he did for Houston, it's a small step to the governor's mansion, but then it's a big leap to the White House, as all of the candidates are learning.
In order to see why I love White, let's look at some specifics of the State of the City.
White says that any growing population depends on "improving student performance and making affordable health insurance more accessible." Amen, Bill White. Two of my primary concerns to say the least. White knows that the federal government must play a large role to solve these huge issues on a national scale, but White will do what he can with his corporation--the city. That's what a businessman does. White says, "This year I will challenge private donors and public and private education providers to help Houston create summer scholarships targeted to give opportunity to students at risk who experience significant drops in reading and math proficiency during the summer vacation." The misplaced modifier there bothers me a little bit, for I don't think he meant that the "drops in reading and math proficiency" occurred "during the summer vacation," even though that's what it says. But I'm willing to forgive that. Still, White knows that it is isn't city money that makes the biggest difference--it is private money.
Then, when it comes to healthcare, he says, "And we will level the playing field for those firms offering health benefits with a 'pay or play' standard for those with whom we contract, with a modest contribution by those firms we do business with who do not provide group health insurance. We will ask other large public and private organizations with contracting responsibilities to join, to discourage those who simply shift cost to the taxpayers of the Hospital District, and provide some funds to defray the cost of a more affordable group health insurance plan for those now uninsured."
If you didn't catch that, I think it's profound. It's something I haven't really considered, either, for it's the way a businessman thinks. Imagine this: I run an apartment building, and I contract a company to dispose of trash at my building. If that company doesn't do what I like, I can make stipulations in the contract. I can say that the company must dispose of waste in X manner. Or, like Bill White, I can say that X company must give health benefits to its employees. If they don't pay for the benefits, they can't play by providing my service. White is the nazi here--"no contract for you!"
It's genius, I think. I wish I had considered it. But I guess that's why I'm not a politician. It doesn't solve the entire healthcare problem by any means. But it treats the government like a corporation. White knows that he can't solve the entire problem, so he decides to concentrate on the portion that he can solve, the portion involving city and contracted employees.
Much of the rest of the address is about energy, and I must admit that I tend to dose when somebody talk about that subject. Yet I can't help but "amen" White every now and then, too. He makes sense. He wants reform, and he wants everyone to play a role. He uses other businesses as a model to claim that the city and the people of the city should treat their power usage as Wal-Mart does, for crying out loud. I never thought Wal-Mart would be a role model for anything, epsecially for a Democratic mayor, but here White is saying that the city and other businesses need to cut their power usage just as Wal-Mart is trying to do. It makes business sense to do it, after all.
So I hope Bill White doesn't end his political career after he finishes with Houston. I hope he goes on to fix some other entity's problems, too. I'm not saying he's solved every problem out there, but the guy knows which ones are important, and he got the business sense to do what he can about them.
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