JUST PLAIN FOLKS
CAPITOL CONNECTION
Just plain folks! That’s one of the charms and strengths of America’s fire service. At their best, American firefighters rely on common sense, teamwork, honesty, hard work, loyalty, and discipline. Those are all-American virtues and the reasons firefighters are honored in so many communities.
When a firefighter from a small town in Michigan calls his congressman, the phone gets answered. It’s not fear that motivates that congressman. Many, many groups are better organized and more feared politically. The phone gets answered because of respect. And respect is always more powerful, and certainly more positive, than fear.
Just plain folks. That’s what most firefighters are and what most elected officials want to be —or at least want to seem to be.
Just plain folks. That will be the message in just a few months as primary elections start to suck up money like an Electrolux on sand. That’s the message senators and representatives will try to convey as they roll up their sleeves, place a straw between their teeth, and try to remember how to talk like the folks back home.
Hey, they put their pants on one leg at a time, too. Yessir, just plain folks. Well, you say, just plain folks don’t get to bounce checks, ignore parking tickets, run up huge bills at restaurants, get free rides on airplanes, make S 1,000 for a 10-minute speech, and use the mail for free.
Tlie “just-plain-folks routine” can be awfully hard to swallow. The spectacle of Senator Ted Kennedy evaluating charges of sexual harassment. Reports of White House Chief of Staff John Sununu being chauffeured at taxpayers’ expense to New York City stamp auctions.
Just plain folks? Voters are becoming seriously interested in limiting congressional terms and incomes— and throwing “da bums out.”
I call it the “privileged-character” issue. But, like all other issues worthy of debate, it’s not black and white, cut-and-dried.
Many of these broad-brush accusations are unfair. 1 know more than a few members who don’t act like privileged characters. They’re nice, exceptionally careful people, aware that they and their families are under the public microscope 24 hours a day. ■You run into them at the supermarket, PTA meetings, Little League, and church.
They don’t live like royalty—in fact, it can be downright tough to maintain two households, especially when one of those households is in the highpriced Washington area, where house rentals can hit S2,000 a month.
Some members of Congress are legitimate good guys. Some are not. You may be interested in what kind of people they really are. Or you may be concerned about how they have helped the fire service. Membership in the Congressional Fire Services Caucus is not enough of an indicator. It’s a nice start, but how has your senator or congressman helped move the Fire Service Bill of Rights, sprinkler bills, and other life-safety measures? You need to know.
Washington already is gearing up for the 1992 elections. The President, about one-third of the Senate, and every member of the House must face the voters.
The fire service needs to be part of that process. See for yourself if your representatives are worthy of your support. Find out if they understand your needs or are just mouthing words handed to them a minute earlier by some young aide.
POSTSCRIPT…
The Senate and House attempt to regulate everything—except themselves. Congress routinely exempts itself from all of the compensation, discrimination, work-safety, and health laws it passes.
To me, that sort of hypocrisy is tougher to handle than bounced checks. But every: so often Congress takes its own medicine. It is hardly a trend, but two bills—currently awaiting action—would force federal agencies to deal more responsibly with fire.
Sprinklers in federal buildings. In mid-September, Congressman Rich Boucher (D-VA) introduced the Federal Fire Safety Act of 1991, a bill that requires sprinklers in new federal employee office buildings, federal employee housing, and buildings associated with federal housing and rental assistance programs. The bill also would require sprinklers installed in federal facilities undergoing major renovation.
Congressman Boucher, who chairs the House Science Subcommittee, held hearings on the bill in midSeptember, only to be faced with a barrage of administration naysayers (from the Department of Defense, General Services Administration, and Department of Housing and Urban Development) who say that sprinklers are unnecessary, too costly, and so forth. You know the tune.
As the Washington Post noted the next day: Strangely out of sync with the rest of the administration was U.S. Fire Administrator Olin Greene, who strongly supported Rep. Boucher’s bill. “How dare he not support the Administration’s position?” came the cry from an assortment of unwashed political hacks. But the hacks repeatedly have underestimated Greene’s boss, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Wallace Stickney — a close associate of White House Chief of Staff Sununu. Stickney, like Greene, could not and would not oppose a sprinkler bill. Rumor has it that the White House may soften its position against the Boucher bill. If that happens, the bill stands a fair chance of passing next year.
The “enclave” bill. Congress also is considering the Enclave Fire Protection Act of 1991, sponsored by Representative Jay Meyers (R-KS). The philosophy behind the Act is that if a local fire department is responsible for protecting government property, that department should have access to the property so that it adequately may prepare for emergencies. Fair enough.
Congresswoman Meyers even made special provisions to ensure national security.
H.R. 1424 sits in the House Government Operations Committee, from where it has little chance of escaping. Unspecified administration objections are enough to keep the Meyers bill buried for some time.
It’s too bad! Firefighters’ jobs are dangerous enough. This legislation shouldn’t even be necessary.
