Con(gressional) Air

On a Friday afternoon in July 2014, I sat next to Congressman Ron Kind (D-Wisconsin) on American Airlines FL 1118. This is my story. 

Introduction

I wrote the first iteration of this blog entry in 2014 after sitting next to Congressman Ron Kind on a flight from Reagan National Airport (DCA) to Chicago O’Hare (ORD). I was headed home to the Bay Area. He was headed home to La Crosse, Wisconsin, also via O’Hare. We were captive in the exit row of an MD-80. Congressman Kind will soon become Citizen Kind. He has made a choice not to run in 2022, which is unfortunate. He leaves a legacy of service to his country as a congressman from Wisconsin, serving his district since 1997. 

Representative Ron Kind, as a human being, is as decent and level-headed as anyone I’ve ever met. If I voted in his district, he would get my vote, but this post is not so much about his views as they are about mine — the experience of being able to dish and talk to a lawmaker. Our paths crossed once and this is the impact it had on me. Years from now, the words will mean less, but they will still be here, somewhere. 

It’s often said about people who are retiring that they are a “dying breed,” but the harsh reality is that you can only be effective for so long, and people like Ron know what their limitations are and have the moral ability to judge their own frailties and, at the end of the day, to do what they believe to be the right thing, no matter what that “thing” might be. 

In truth, Mr. Kind should become a Senator, serving in a higher office. He is the steady American we need at the tiller. He is, in one word, responsible. He’s been called the most bipartisan Democrat in Congress.

After sitting next to him for a few hours in 2014, of this I am certain.

Everything I write below reflects my views, not Congressman Kind’s. Let’s be clear, at this point, this long after the event, anything I write my mind may have made up. Time burnishes most narratives. I’m neither journalist nor a professional blogger. No wonk, I – just a citizen library commissioner from the Silicon Valley. What follows, except as noted, is what I generally wrote back in July of 2014, immediately after this flight.

American Airlines Flight 1118, Seat 21A, Friday, July 18, 2021  

I’m on the first leg of a long way home from Reagan National to San José Mineta through Chicago on a DC humid Friday in July. I settle in early and plug in as people board. The equipment is full today and overhead compartment space is disappearing fast. This isn’t a new Virgin America Airbus, this is a ratty American Airlines MD-80, the DC-9’s love child, tough, reliable, and old. It will get us to Chicago. It’s hot and I boarded early to stow my luggage early. 

[In 2014, I was a member of the American Airlines Executive Platinum program, an Exec Plat, an alpha road warrior in my own mind and in the American Airlines reservation system.]

A tall man in khakis and Lands End blue button-down shirt makes his way to my row and sits down next to me. The copy of Roll Call stuffed into the side pocket of his beaten-up, paleo leather briefcase is the first hint he might work on Capitol Hill. Interesting, but I ignore it. Could just be yet another lobbyist. Of course, had he been a lobbyist, he would have been boarding first or absolutely last, and sitting up in First Class.

Who are you with? 

I sold for IBM. In 2014, sales was about getting in front of people. You needed face to face contact to get your point across and forge relationships. It meant hitting the road and meeting people. We aren’t tourists filling the silver tubes; we’re salaried and likely on per diems. Friday is our getaway day, we are going home.  Travel is not vacation, travel is work. Living on the road means working in the seat assigned — engineering PowerPoint presentations, messaging, and writing email cross-country. This life, however sedentary, has its challenges and hazards. I never know if I’m sitting next to the competition, so I always kick off the flight by asking . . . 

“So, who are you with?”  

“I’m in Congress, House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin’s third district, from La Crosse, Wisconsin.”   

In reality he gives me a better description, naming the corners of his district and the key towns, but my eyes glaze over as I go into Constitutional post-toxic shock. 

“Cool.” I say.

Citizenship and my parliamentary roots 

I am sitting next to a real member of Congress whom I do not recognize. I’ve never thought myself a government and civics junkie, but I am. Mildly. I am no Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon in Election), but I was known to take part in our school government. Since I went to school in Selkirk, Manitoba (you can see me in this Canadian National Film Board program filmed in 1973), I was lucky enough to stand and be elected Leader of the Opposition. Wayne Leatherdale, a prototypical, great Canadian – fantastic guy, born leader, loved by all, later became a Mountie, probably looked awesome in serge but unfortunately passed away in 2000 was our Prime Minister.  

Our debates often went something like this: 

Me: “Respectfully Mr. Speaker, the posit by the Government that the sky is blue, while easy to grasp, can only be made by the most ignorant of haggis-eating, David Cassidy lovers.” 

Prime Minister: “Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker! The gentlemen representing the opposition has besmirched my reputation and this Government’s reputation! He’s repeatedly made false, libelous claims, alleging we eat sh_t sandwiches!” 

Me: “Preposterous, Mr. Speaker! First, I would never swear and use such words in this esteemed hall. Second, I would never imply that my esteemed colleague liked bread!”

Adolescent? Puerile? You betcha, but we were play acting — school government is not for real. 

Congress is, allegedly, for real. School government allowed me to learn all sorts of fine parliamentary tricks, the launching of slings and arrows against my unworthy and unsuspecting opponents.

Law School 

At one point, I decided to squander good money on a law degree. I was in my late 40’s, and though paying for law school is akin to having a $25,000 a year drinking habit, it was somewhat easier on the liver. I was pursuing the sublime, looking for higher enlightenment about our government and system.  One of my classmates, Richard Fox, took it a step further and ran twice for Congress in my district as the Republican challenger to Anna Eshoo, our longtime Democratic representative. Short of something happening to Congresswoman Eshoo, he’s hosed, we are an overwhelmingly Democrat district, but you have to hand it to him, he made it through the open primary!

[2021 Note: Richard lost badly in 2016 to Eshoo and was unable to get into the 2020 final election, because of California’s Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act, which stipulated that only the top two candidates moved on to run in November.]

Unlike Ted Cruz, I treasure the fact that I am both Canadian and American (and Québecois). Like Ted, I will never be President, and I freely own up to my Canadianness and revel in it. I am a citizen of the two best countries on the planet. Since Congressman Kind was a Democrat, I knew he was not part of my fellow countryman’s Ted Cruz’s House caucus. At the time, the Canadian Cruz, was trying to run the House from the Senate. (Yeah, I know he’s a freshman senator. What’s the frequency, Ted?) Clearly, I could reason with him. 

I know little about Wisconsin state politics so I’m not going to pretend to have an axe to grind – Wisconsin politics are strictly a Cheesehead concern and, as a Californian, what I think does not matter.  

This is true in all matters but one. The only Wisconsin resident I truly wish ill upon is Bud Selig, but more on that later. Before reading up on it on the Internets, I was vaguely aware of the failed effort to recall Governor Scott Walker, having lived through the process with Gray Davis. At the time, I did not know that Congressman Kind was being recruited to run against Walker.

I am a Carville Democrat – I consider myself as irreverent and obnoxious as a Tea Partier, just with more civil purpose and within the framework of the Constitution. I met James Carville years ago during the Clinton years, flying through Dallas at DFW on yet another business trip. I recognized Mr. Matalin not from his unique facial features, but from the back, by the shape of his head. He looks like an alien, a regular DNC ET.

Only Ms. Matalin knows for sure, but my suspicions were only heightened by his handshake. We had a very brief conversation, of the kind you can only have while making your way to your next flight at DFW as he made his way to his connecting flight to New Orleans. For the record, reading the couple’s book did nothing to allay my fear of an alien invasion.

We boarded the last passengers in time to taxi to a parking spot on the tarmac to free up the gate and wait for twenty minutes because of a ground hold in Chicago. It was a typical Friday at Reagan National. He worried about making his connection into La Crosse; it was going to be a tight for him. I had a healthy 3-hour layover.

“No upgrade?” I asked.

“Don’t take them.”

Surely he had to have the Exec Plat status given his commuting back and forth to his district. The congressman travels coach, and in coach, exit row is as good as it gets. In fact, I eerily start suspecting there are more of them among us seated in the exit rows — people nod to each other in familiarity. I recognize no one. If so, they are better men and women than I – I clawed and fought for every upgrade I can bleed out of American Airlines.

Here’s what it looked like from our row taking off.

Serving since 1997, Congressman Kind cast votes for and against some key bills. How was I going to engage? He has served since 1997, casting votes on all the big issues – Iraq, the ACA, the Shutdown, the liquidity crisis of 2008. How was I going to intelligently engage? 

How could I be interesting and not a pain in the ass, just from a respect of privacy perspective? I had so much, so much, too much to say about a slew of random topics.

If I served in Congress, I’d want some space, but given that he had the misfortune of being in 21B with me next to him 21A, he may have resigned himself to knowing that this was the life he chose, even if I was not from his district, or even Wisconsin.

“Oh shit,” may have come to his mind.

Subjects discussed in the exit row

Armrest diplomacy, Bud Selig, the Supreme Court, Ted Olson, Chief Justice Roberts, the Commerce Clause, the Con Law professor known as Obama, Congressional work ethics, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Tea Party and its effect on Ted Cruz and John Boehner, Terrorism, traveling abroad, and civility in the House of Representatives. 

Armrest diplomacy

You’ve heard me praise Ron Kind. He’s a great human being, but I would be remiss to not to warn future travelers who might share the exit row with him, especially if it involves sharing an armrest.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled – I’m happy (honored even) to have shared an exit row with him, I kept looking for the two green ferns. But the man, the Congressman, kept shoving my elbow off the shared armrest, preventing me from effectively playing Words With Friends on my Kindle FX (not paid links).

I didn’t have a choice. I recounted a near fight I had witnessed on an American flight out of Dallas over armrest space, strictly as a cautionary tale. He seemed to understand me and we landed without further incident, averting a federal dustup of congressional proportions.

Bud Selig, Antichrist

If there was one thing I was unwilling to talk reason about, it was Bud Selig. I made it clear to Congressman Kind that the Selig situation is untenable — something must be done. His interference in the move of the Oakland A’s to San Jose, coupled with his attacks on Barry Bonds and protection of Ryan Braun justifiably earned the Bay Area’s collective disdain (when talking baseball, I use the imperial “we”). He must go. As a personal favor. 

To me. 

Personally.

Simply put, being from Wisconsin, it was clear the Congressman shared some culpability, much like I was responsible for all the bad things in California (can’t think of any). Outside of assuring me Bud was retiring, Congressman Kind was duly noncommittal and evasive on this matter.

I made the same case that Dr. Death and Jack “The Assassin” Tatum made in a sports law symposium I had attended – Bud was out to get Barry, at any cost. If Barry Bonds had been Ryan Braun? Well, he wasn’t, and Bud made sure of that. This Bud is yours, Congressman Kind! Deal with him!

I didn’t dare start talking smack about Aaron Rodgers. The word “cheesehead” never escaped my lips.

SCOTUS Smack

Going to law school means two things, generally. First, you learn to call the Supreme Court of the United States by its initials – SCOTUS. Second, if there’s a SCOTUS opinion, good or bad, on a topic of law, you end up reading it.  This came in handy with Congressman Kind. I felt somehow on equal ground or footing, whether I really was, or not. As Kurt Vonnegut said, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

I pretended to be a Con Law warrior. From hell.

Having read enough SCOTUS to somehow love Antonio Scalia while still disagreeing with his opinions, I can sound authoritative about a whole range of subjects I really know absolutely nothing about, from Marbury to Citizens United.

Representative Kind cut his teeth as a statewide special prosecutor in Wisconsin before winning his seat in Congress. He knows his stuff. I would not have wanted to receive an email invite (or subpoena) from him in his former capacity. We discussed the fiction of the corporation as a person, and what Hobby Lobby and other decisions meant today and what they could mean long-term. Of course, no conversation on this topic goes by without the words – Citizens United, where the Supreme Court morphed a corporation into a person.

Ted Olson and Chief Justice Roberts

We spoke about redemption, and how people were not always who you thought they might be at first glance. In June 2001, my family and I took a trip to Washington, DC. We were given a special tour of the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was before 9/11, and mere citizens could still access the floor of the House and various offices and alcoves throughout the Capitol. It was a different world.

Ted Olson will likely be remembered as one of the greatest American lawyers, ever. On this day, I witnessed Mr. Olson, the Solicitor General of the United States, the attorney who represents the United States in front of the Supreme Court, dress down a Senate page at the Senate entrance. The hapless page failed to recognize him and didn’t immediately allow him and his guest into the US Senate chamber.

Solicitor General Olson held up his credentials shouting, “Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? I am the Solicitor General of the United States!” 

I knew who he was, though not by sight. I was no fan — he had argued and won Bush v. Gore in front of the Supreme Court, resulting in Bush’s ascension to the Presidency. 

But by 2014, Ted Olson had rehabilitated himself, fighting for gay rights. That day, he didn’t outwardly appear to have empathy nor tolerance but fighting for human rights, he showed that not everyone is one-sided. Sadly, we witnessed his outburst a few short, innocent months before he lost his wife, Barbara. Her flight crashed into the Pentagon on September 11th. She called him twice from the plane. 

All props to Mr. Olson.

I also asserted to Congressman Kind that Chief Justice Roberts was a hero based on his upholding of the ACA law, in spite of his conservative creed — he was willing to defer to Congress, which I will always believe to be a Solomon-like ruling in its efficient simplicity. Like Sandra Day O’Connor, he was willing to practice deference and to exude reason at the right time for the good of the country. 

The Congressman was noncommittal on either of these assertions, deferring to my judgment, so to speak. He saw no reason to comment on Mr. Olson or Chief Justice Roberts. 

The Commerce Clause

Most people don’t care and/or have ever heard about the Commerce Clause, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. In a nutshell, the commerce clause grants Congress (defers to Congress) the right to regulate commerce between it and foreign powers, Native Americans, as well as any commerce between the states. The concept is that any regional or local commerce is really national commerce the minute it crosses (or impacts) business transacting across a state line.

The Congressman posited that the Commerce Clause might be under attack by the Court.  I laughed and reassured him, (yes, confidently reassured him) that the Commerce Clause is a wonderfully resilient concept to argue about.

Whichever way the pendulum swings, it always swings back. If the Supremes didn’t have the Commerce Clause to rule on, what else would they be arguing about over the next 250 years? 

I’m not sure but I think Congressman Kind agreed with me.

Constitutional Law, aka Con Law

I love President Obama and I’m proud to say it. All the haters are just that, haters. Among many things, he got Osama, he got America working again, he started us on universal healthcare, and he doesn’t have Darth Vader as a Vice President. My only complaint, I told the honorable representative, was that he had taught Constitutional Law, and that I’d never met a Con Law professor I’ve been completely comfortable about — they tend to be brilliant, but aloof and smug. 

He may have agreed with that one, but again, he didn’t let on. I suspect Representative Kind aced Con Law. 

Congressional Work Ethic

Congress has taken a beating lately. I know what it takes to live on the road and work for a living. I’m not a genius, but I’m no slouch. I completed an MBA and my JD at night while working full-time. I sold meat door-to-door in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the dead of winter. I have demonstrated a work ethic. Congressman Kind works hard and gives a damn. He addressed me and treated me like a human being, soliciting my opinion continuously. He made sure I felt that I was, whether I really am or not, human. That’s a big deal to me and it should matter to his constituents.

Affordable Care Act (ACA)

I was going to bring up the Packers, but I knew well enough to just leave it alone. I had no intention of getting jettisoned off the MD-80 at 33,000 feet by a committed cheesehead congressman. I knew Congressman Kind voted to pass the ACA and I thanked him for it. I don’t have time for debates on this matter. It took courage for him to stand up and vote for the ACA and it was the right thing to do. It’s pretty lame that people will gladly challenge each other to douse themselves with ice water for a good cause unless it involves universal coverage.

My own opinion is clear in this matter; we insured our pets and cars better than each other before the ACA. The congressman patiently listened to me talk about my family’s health care experiences, good and bad. He had heard it before. Recognition of healthcare as a right and not a privilege is nothing but a step in the right direction. If you want to insult me on this one, call me Canadian, a state of being intolerable which apparently Teddy Cruz has found insulting. Had Kind been Paul Ryan, or any other distinguished congressman from Wisconsin from either side of the aisle, I would have been just as rabid in my opinion.

Jerry Brown

We talked about Jerry Brown, and how California had come back. Brown did seemingly unpopular things, like raise taxes, but he prevailed — our economy came back from the edge.  Leaving California would mean dishonoring my parents’ choice to build a new life here. I intend to die in California. The haters can hate us. Just stay away.

The big battle in Wisconsin is over Scott Walker. I really wasn’t familiar with his recall, only that it had occurred. I’m sure that Congressman Kind was involved and he certainly was quoted on the issue. As I found out later, some wanted to draft Congressman Kind to run for Wisconsin governor. He refused to do it.

But I do have opinions about California, and we screwed Gray Davis. Nothing he did warranted a recall. Governor Davis was never convicted (nor even indicted). He didn’t even get the help pregnant, leaving that to Arnold. If Gray truly did suck, California could have waited a few months, saved a few million, and voted him out of office. 

But we chose to recall.

Tea Baggers

Not surprisingly, there were no good words for the Tea Party from Congressman Kind. I was actually struck at his sincerity on this topic, in talking about the logjams in the House caused by the Tea Party. I thought that the congressman was honestly scared, not at the threat to his seat, but to the rampant dysfunction inherent in the House today. Conventional thought (and my opinion, not necessarily shared) is that Boehner is under siege and refuses to reach out across the aisle to form any kind of centrist coalition, for even just one vote — everything is polarized.

[No relevance to today in 2021. None at all.]

The Republican Party today is very much like the Know-Nothings, the 19th century party which tried to stem the influence of immigrants at the time – Irish Catholics mainly. It’s all about the fear of the “Other.”

The Tea Party hijacked the Republican Party in this session, and no one seems to grow a pair to stand up against them.  Eric Cantor’s corpse has been dismembered and displayed at the gates of everyone’s districts as an abject reminder to all rational Republicans who might dare stray from Tea Party and conservative right credo, whatever that might mean.

America, if you wanted a Canadian idiot to screw up the country, why didn’t anyone call me? I could do it cheaper and with a bit more of a conscience than Ted Cruz. Hell, I’m even bilingual. 

[Sadly, in 2016, someone called Trump who harnessed the Tea Party’s insanity and morphed into Trumpism.]

Eastern Europe / why travel matters

We discussed studying and traveling abroad. It’s important to have leadership in this country that is experienced and well-traveled. This became clear when we went into Iraq. The people assigned to run things didn’t really understand anything outside the US – they lived in a bubble. We valued alleged loyalty to a person or ideology versus allegiance to our country.

Earlier in the day, Malaysia Airlines MH17 had been shot down in the Ukraine. The Congressman talked about how he felt he had to go see Eastern Europe after he graduated from college and before law school. The Wall had just fallen and he wanted to see the countries behind the Iron Curtain as they had been before everything changed. I really envy him. I never made it that further east in Europe than Düsseldorf.

We exchanged experiences. Being well-traveled means being a lot like a hunting dog, used to the sound of a gun, not panicked by distraction. I like my leadership to be like that, another reason Ron Kind represents a steady hand on the tiller.

Terrorism

I gave my point of view on terrorism to the Congressman. He just listened on this one. Bottom line, terrorism has been here and will never go away, so let’s get on with life. I’ve long thought that terrorism is something we as Americans, have lived with for years. Forget the gun carnage for a minute that’s baked into the Constitution as the Second Amendment, terrorists from the Anarchists, Red Brigade, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Irish Republican Army, the Front Liberation du Quebec, and of course, the Puerto Rican nationalists have all been out to kill and maim our citizenry. What is so new and so different about today?

To make my point, I asked him about the desk that still sits on the floor of the House, full of bullet holes. Like a doubting Thomas, I put my fingers in a couple of the holes when I was privileged enough to visit the floor of the House in June 2001. They were real bullet holes, put there by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1954. Five members of the House were shot that day.

When does it stop? The “threat” will never stop, but there is some limit, some expectation that it will end.

It won’t, but it could morph. With ISIS, all this thinking goes out the door, but it’s not a war against terrorism, it’s a war. 

[Neither of us could imagine what would go down on January 6, 2021.]

Civility in the House

I had the most trouble with this question because I did not get a remotely positive answer. I wanted to know the name, from him, in his opinion, of the nicest person serving in the House. There must be someone who spans the aisle, who is friended or LinkedIn with everyone (whatever the congressional Facebook / LinkedIn analogy might be).  I so wanted to know.

No answer.

I kept pressing. 

Who was the nicest person in the House? There had to be someone. I think that this was my toughest question.

“Come on! Tell me! Who’s the nicest guy in the House, bar none?”

No answer. 

I kept pressing. 

I was just looking for some hope, I even invoked O’Neill v. Reagan, a regular love fest of big Boston Democrat and Knott’s Berry Farm Republican, how the two warriors somehow got together to compromise, move forward, and make it work, who saw that history would judge them better as brethren than as enemies.

Nothing. Is there no hope?

Conclusion

So what’s next? I’m just a library commissioner. I serve. I bent the knee to my country and her Constitution, inspired by people like Congressman Kind. My politics may be slightly to the left, but my loyalty is to the United States. I am a responsible adult who is giving back as I believe we should all give back what we take. I am an immigrant. English is my second language.

We need leaders like Ron Kind. He’s that good. He gives a shit.  If it were up to me, Mr. Kind would be drafted to serve our country. He is one of the few Democrats who took a licking from Nancy Pelosi, and he stayed true to his party and his country. We need Ron Kind, now in 2021 more than ever.