As the Speaker leaves, before he can’t hear me, I will say thank you. And thanks again, John. He has something else to do tonight. And I think everybody here hopes that those talks are very, very successful. I’m very grateful for the Bryce Harlow Foundation for this award. As you can tell from my grey hair, I’m old enough to have known every previous foundation honoree personally. True. And, in fact, I’ve had the pleasure not only of meeting all of them, but working with many of them. I’m also very aware therefore that this award puts me in extremely distinguished company.
Receiving the Business-Government Relations award and joining the ranks of distinguished people whose shoulders everyone in this room stands on is both amazingly exciting, deeply humbling and truly an honor. And I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the foundation for the opportunity to share the dais tonight with people that I really admire very much in Washington — Speaker Boehner and then later Senator Kyl and Senator Lieberman. Being here with them makes this a moment that I will treasure and do treasure.
I should say that one of the things I wanted to remind the Speaker of before he had to leave was that we both know what it’s like to grow up in large families. I had seven brothers and sisters and the Speaker had me beat because he had an even dozen. But I think that experience accounts for certainly his ability and maybe part of mine to be very good at two very important political skills, knowing when to assert yourself to get something done, like get that last piece of pie for dinner, and knowing when to compromise to get something done.
And that’s what indeed the Speaker is going to have to do tonight. And although he’s very good natured about it, to say so, he is in a very, very difficult position and a very, very serious issue.
I also want to extend my congratulations to Senator Jon Kyl. You’re going to have a chance to hear in just a few minutes about the many ways that he has advanced business-government relations during his long and distinguished career. And I only can add that I’ve been lucky enough to see first-hand some of the many ways that he has built understanding and trust and respect between business and government during his years in both the House and Senate.
Tonight I’ve got the added great luck also to express my personal gratitude for his service, and indeed as the Speaker said and as some of the speakers on the film said. You will indeed be missed. You’ve done great things for your state and for the nation. And it is an honor to share this occasion with you tonight.
I have very, very great appreciation for what indeed the Speaker and Senator Kyl and Senator Lieberman and all of the elected officials here, current and former have done. It’s partly because there is no way that I could do what they do as well as they do it. My total experience as an elected official was that I was elected to the student council my senior year in high school.
And so when it comes to comparing my firsthand experience with that of the Speaker, with Senator Lieberman, with all of you who have served in elected office, I feel a little bit like a seagull looking at the space shuttle. We both know how to fly, but I have no idea how the other one does it. And I couldn’t hold that job. Nor could I hold my own job without having a great and profound appreciation for what it requires to be an elected official.
The incredible hours, the constant work, the pressure, the burdens on the family, the sacrifices that elected officials have to make for the country and for themselves to serve the country. Simply put, they have one of the most challenging and critically important professions in the nation.
But unfortunately, one of the important measures that society has on that critical job is one that doesn’t appreciate it. It is kind of strange that how we are compensated versus how our counterparts in government are compensated. And the irony of the Bryce Harlow awards is that those of us that are in government relations, in lobbying, generally make out a lot better than elected officials.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think we do a great job and many of you earn your paychecks. But compensation and performance is way out of balance when it comes to elected officials. They deserve so much more for what they do. They should not have to make the kind of financial sacrifice that is necessary to serve our country. And when we see dedicated, accomplished public servants who are forced to quit their jobs, to take care of their families, clearly something is wrong. And so, my thanks to you, sir, and your colleagues and for what you do for the nation.
I also want to acknowledge a couple of other folks in the room who are very, very important to me, not the least of which is my wife Terry. What you may not know is that Terry hired me for my first job at General Electric. First mistake she made. But obviously, her support and support of my family has been key to enjoying and being able to be however successful I have been at this profession.
I also want to thank my colleagues at PhRMA, and my colleagues, my former colleagues, still friends, at the Business Roundtable and almost everybody else in this room over the age of forty-one or forty-two with whom I have worked. Indeed, we all stand on your shoulders. And I very much have benefitted from not only learning from every one of you, but also having had the great pleasure of working for you and working with you.
And everybody in this room who has been distinguished and has been awarded and honored by this award in the past, everybody deserves it. But nobody can stand her as an awardee, now or in the future, without saying two very critical words, Jane Hoover. [applause] Where is Jane? Perhaps the most distinguished awardee.
Let me now turn also to a special group that’s being honored here tonight. It is a great pleasure to be here with the Bryce Harlow Fellows. And you guys are a tough act to follow. Congratulations on your fellowships. I want to salute you for pursuing careers in advocacy and public affairs and government relations or lobbying. Our profession and the nation need more people like you, and I’m glad that we are able to support your training.
However, while we celebrate you here tonight, I should warn you that the profession you’re going to enter is not the most popular one that you might have chosen. In fact, you’ve probably heard a lot about … and terrible things … about lobbyists and the special interests from a lot of glib pundits and office holders.
Let me give you one quote: “The government, which was designed for the people, has gotten into the hands of the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” Sound familiar? Guess who said it? Actually, it was a politician named Woodrow Wilson, almost 100 years ago. And in the decade since Wilson, the rhetoric about lobbyists and other advocates has only gotten even more bitter. Almost everyone who runs for office these days, from either party, either makes an attack on special interest or uses attacks as the center part of their campaign.
And I understand why they do it. Cheap shots and scapegoats have been the staple of politics for years. But these attacks obscure something that is vitally important. And here’s how Mark Twain put it. He said, “No public interest is anything other or nobler than the mass accumulation of private interests.” And I think he was absolutely right. In a democracy, it is exactly the interaction of our rich and diverse array of competing interests from corporations, from unions, from liberal nonprofits, all interests that yield the public interest. It can’t be any other way.
And, in fact, only in an authoritarian state does the government or a single party determine the public interests. So to the young men and women that are here today, I want to say to you always remember when you do government relations with integrity, when you lobby, even when you represent a special interest, you’re helping to make democracy work the way that it should.
I was going to tell you a story that an old person tells, but I’m not going to do it at this point. But I want to instead close by quoting something that Bryce Harlow said in the early ’70s at a tribute dinner. He said, “I have become convinced that the only lasting reward from the trying business of serving the people is one’s inner conviction that he has served faithfully and well. And has kept the public trust and has left this a better place than when he came.”
That’s something that the Speaker was talking about; that’s something that Senator Kyl and others in this room have already achieved and I think it’s a goal for all of us. So, thank you for this great honor. And thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight.