Go On and Do What You Say You Can Do

My father used to tell me, “Go on and do what you say you can do.”

It was, I always felt, a gentle challenge. I think he cribbed it from a Johnny Cash song.

If you say you're ready to do a thing, prove it. You say you can fix the lawn mower—fix it. You say you can organize a project—do it.

If you want to be a legislator, show me something that suggests you can do legislative work.

Nice teeth, deep pockets, and the ability to deliver a zinger at a “debate” don’t tell me much about that. The hiring process doesn't fit the work. I don't need someone to win a news cycle. I need someone to pass laws.

A legislature is an all-star team whose fans pick the roster. Each constituency chooses its favorite player, then we expect all those independently selected people to work together. The representative from Tennessee didn’t choose the representative from Ohio. They might hate each other. They still have to produce something together.

An all-star team gets a game or two. We're asking this one to govern a city, state, or country.

Being able to win an election proves you're popular. There's overlap between being popular and governing effectively. You have to be persuasive in both instances. But there's a lot more work that doesn't fit that mold. You'll need to understand complex proposals, recognize useful objections, and be able and willing to negotiate with people you personally might not be able to stand.

Being popular shouldn't be the only measure. The Founders clearly never went to high school.

What we need is a way to certify that the candidate in front of us has what it takes to do the actual job.

The parties ought to provide some of that assurance. When the Democrats put someone forward, I’d like to think the candidate has received the Donkey’s Seal of Approval. Someone has checked the record, worked with the person, and concluded that they’re fit for the responsibility.

But winning a party’s nomination and earning its considered approval aren’t necessarily the same event. The label can tell us who won the contest without telling us whether anyone seriously assessed their ability to do the job.

So here’s an idea. The Competency Party: bringing competence to government for the first time since 1787. Trademark pending.

The name needs work. The mission might not.

What if a party made finding and supporting capable legislators its principal business? People who are good at the work, decent enough to trust with power, and capable of getting elected. People who can contribute to a collective effort without needing every accomplishment to have their name on it.

And some of those people might never consider running under the banners we already have. Being smart, capable, and confident doesn't mean you want to spend your evenings glad-handing people and showing off your teeth. You might look at the existing parties and decide there's no room for you there. Or no reason you'd want to join.

That's why this needs to be a party. An endorsement is useful once someone is running. A party can recruit people who otherwise wouldn't run at all, offer them a political home, and help them learn the work and mount a campaign. It gives someone who wants to be a useful legislator a place to start.

I think a sound start would be to commit to never running a candidate for executive office. No mayors, no governors, no presidents. Instead of jockeying for the fancy house, we'd be building a cadre of capable lawmakers.

Prospective candidates would need a record. That needn’t mean a prestigious degree, inherited connections, or years of flattering party officials. It means evidence. What have you organized? What have you finished? What happened when the people you needed disagreed with you? Can anyone who worked alongside you explain why you’d be useful in a legislature?

The assessment can’t belong to an untouchable panel of self-appointed geniuses. The standards used should be published. The results for the selected candidates should be made public. Decisions should be explained whenever possible. And the party members have to be given a meaningful choice among the people who meet those standards—including the ability to reject the entire field.

There should be a way to challenge the selection panel.

And we have to keep assessing the people who win. Incumbency shouldn’t turn a provisional recommendation into a lifetime warranty. What agreements did you help reach, and what did they accomplish? Were you effective on the whole? Did you manage to maintain the standards of competency and decency the party said you met when they sent you to represent them?

This wouldn’t require a shared position on every question. A candidate could favor tighter gun laws or oppose them. Voters would need to know the candidate’s position and decide whether they found it acceptable. The party’s endorsement would certify something narrower: we’ve examined this person and believe they can responsibly do the work.

There would still be boundaries. There are things you just can't do and still be worthy of the mantle. I don't have the entire handbook, but we all know some things should be disqualifying. And being competent doesn't imply any particular platform. Voters would still have to choose.

The common commitments would concern the obligations of office: understand what you’re voting on, account honestly for costs, make workable decisions, examine results, and explain the bargains you accept. Don’t promise an outcome you can’t deliver alone as though everyone else’s agreement were a formality.

And if a Republican or Democrat already meets the standards? Endorse them. The point is to improve the legislature. Rejecting a good legislator because someone else recruited them first would be a backwards way to pursue that mission.

There are plenty of ways this could go wrong. A qualification process can become a loyalty test. An organization devoted to competence can convince itself that its own preferences are proof of intelligence. Nobody should be asked for blind faith in the people handing out the seal.

Keeping an organization accountable is a challenge. That would require structure, checks and balances, and vetting to ensure people are dedicated to the work. We should expect at least as much accountability as we do from any other party. That's a better approach than continuing to pretend that garnering the most votes is the only skill required of our lawmakers.

Of course, this is easy for me. I can say "make sure they're decent people" without having to define decency in a way that can be applied. I'm not looking for donations. I'm proposing the idea with the hope that someone like-minded but better qualified might take it up.

Someone who isn't just persuasive, but also competent.

Because voters go to the polls and choose from the list of names on the ballot. But it doesn't help if there's no way to assess whether the people behind those names are capable, competent, and willing to do the real work.