Lincoln – As good as Ross Benes's new book Rural Rebellion is — and believe me, it is good — there are a few references to the legendary Governor and Senator Jim Exon that could use additional context so no one comes away with misconceptions. Overall, the book gets Jim Exon right; the following are notations for those who want as complete a record as possible, and for me to engage in a little speculation about what Jim Exon might think if he were alive today.*
Yes, Governor Jim Exon was prolific in his vetoes of state legislators' bills, but it had little or nothing to do with partisanship. Any comparison of the Exon record to how Governor Pete Ricketts politicizes his approach to the non-partisan unicameral, as offered by political scientists in the book's chapter on state government, misses the mark. No better example illustrates Exon's thinking than his veto of a bill from state senator John Cavanaugh, a Democrat who would later go on to serve Nebraska with Exon in Washington. As U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said of Jim Exon in his eulogy, "he took on Republicans and Democrats alike who, in his eyes, were being reckless with the taxpayer’s dollar." Exon's record is inapposite to that of Ricketts', for whom politics is everything, even intra-party politics.
Also on the subject of fiscal management, one contributor to the book offered the thought that no one who raises taxes can be re-elected. That's a dangerous over-generalization, which if taken literally could lead to irresponsible outcomes. During Governor Exon's second term, the state sales tax increased from 3% to 3.5%, but then returned to 3% in 1978, the year Exon was elected to the U.S. Senate. Exon explained the increase as a temporary one, albeit to considerable ridicule from those who said that once the rate went up, it would never come down. But Exon's credibility as a fiscally responsible governor won the day, if his subsequent election to the Senate is any indication.
The discussion of the University of Nebraska Regents' lawsuit against Governor Exon also needs more context. When the Regents filed their action in court, NU president Woody Varner called Jim Exon and explained that the lawsuit was not intended to be against him, but against the state legislature for its attempt to earmark university appropriations. Varner said that according to university legal counsel, the legislature could not be sued so the only way to get Nebraska courts to engage the issue was to sue the executive branch, which administered the legislature's earmarks. Exon pushed back, telling Varner that few would ever understand such a convolution, let alone remember it, and that it would all go down in history as a dispute between himself and the university.
And so it has. Ironically, Exon and the regents were on the same side of the issue, as Exon favored a lump-sum appropriation for the university with no earmarks.
The book's assertion that Jim Exon, recognized as he was as a national figure, "would be loathed by today's Democrats" for his position on abortion, goes too far. The word loath may be justified if the point is to accentuate the gap between today's national Democrats and those who, like Exon, once sought compromise positions on abortion, but it is the wrong one if readers are led by such language to think that Exon himself was of a piece with today's anti-abortion movement.
Exon's position approved of abortions in cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother. Occasionally he used the expression "health of the mother" but abandoned it when that wording became associated with a virtually limitless application. Exon was Episcopalian; his position was similar to that of his church, which also struggled with how exactly to express a middle ground on abortion. Notably, Jim Exon was never afraid to take a position that did not satisfy either side of an issue.
What especially bothered Jim Exon about the abortion argument was its potential for tearing his party and his country apart. He pleaded with national party leaders to leave room for compromise and space for Democratic candidates to find positions on abortion that did not doom them to defeat. He failed. The man who from his position on the Senate Budget Committee helped deliver to the country a balanced budget, could not make a dent in the politics of abortion.
If he and I were to have a conversation today about all this (he passed away in 2005), I would offer that the way to repair the political damage the abortion issue has inflicted is to reform our election processes. If a few more states sign on to an interstate compact so as to elect presidents by popular vote, the politics of abortion will lose their salience. The same goes for other reforms, such as open primaries, rank-order voting, and non-partisan redistricting commissions. The charge for these reforms could well be led by the environmental movement, which has every reason to see its battles — and survival of our planet — won or lost in an oblique struggle against single-issue abortion politics. I think Jim Exon might see it the same way.
To be sure, the above comments are not meant to detract from the importance of Rural Rebellion, but to put even sharper focus on the issues they raise. I can't say enough good about the book. Every page is full of insights.
_______________________
* My association with Jim Exon in both Lincoln and Washington is described in Pallesen and Van Pelt, Big Jim Exon (2012).
