State Legislatures Magazine June 2000: Lawmaking-A Family Affair

State Legislatures Magazine: June 2000

Editor's Note: This article appeared in the June 2000 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 364-7700.

Lawmaking-A Family Affair

When Dad's in Congress
No Politics at All

Lawmaking-a Family Affair

It can't be genetics, but there's definitely something infectious about being a family member in public life.

By Dianna Gordon
Sometimes, politics is a family affair. And the inevitable outcome of this situation is a sharing of knowledge-especially if dad and son or husband and wife serve in different divisions of elected government.

Case in point: "When I got here, they already knew who I was," says Idaho Senate President Pro Tem Robert L. Geddes. "I think a lot of people had higher expectations of me than what a freshman could really do."

Senator Geddes is following in the footsteps of his father Representative Robert C. Geddes, a statehouse veteran now serving his 24th year. Not only is the elder Geddes the most senior member of the Idaho Legislature, but he chairs one of the most powerful groups in the institution, the Joint Finance Committee.

"He's been here 24 years," the son muses. "He's spent almost a quarter of a century in lawmaking." On the other hand, Senator Geddes is serving the second half of his third term in the Legislature and was elected Senate president this year.

"I'm pretty proud of my dad," Senator Geddes says. "He was a good role model to follow. I was able to move in his circle of influence, and that circle is very large. I think it helped me, too, when I started because I didn't want to mar his reputation."

Now, as the senior Geddes nears retirement, there's been a reversal of roles.

"Before, I was the one who wanted to rush into things, and he'd temper me. But this year, I'm the one saying, 'Boy, Dad, do you think this is really the right thing to do?'"

The "thing" right now is Representative Geddes' support of an "aggressive tax cut." In his leadership role, however, Senator Geddes says he "can't vote my personal beliefs. I have to represent what is best for the state and other legislators, as well. You have to be more mainstream when you're in a leadership position."

In March, the House passed a massive tax cut bill, but the Senate eviscerated the package, wary of cuts because of the need for money to deal with an ongoing lawsuit over school facilities funding and a recent court decision finding Idaho responsible for years of unfair trucking fees.

Finally, the House and Senate agreed on a compromise tax-cut package in April. The debate had dominated the legislative session, the fourth longest on record.

The two positions - the dad's stance with the House endorsing a deep tax slash and the son's Senate side of the Legislature calling for a more modest cut - don't affect the good-natured bantering between the two men, who have been "roommates" during the session ever since the son joined the Legislature. When asked about his son's advent into politics, Representative Geddes remarks with a dry chuckle, "I kinda feel sorry for him."

"The fact that we've been roommates helps," the younger Geddes says. "At night, he helped me understand the process when I first started. I definitely benefited from his experience."

A strength of the relationship, the elder Geddes says, is that "it does bring together understanding between the two bodies. We get a better feel for what the other chamber is thinking, and it has an effect on the decisions in either the House or the Senate. Communication, the men say, gives each a "a better feel for the other body's needs and issues."

For his part, the elder Geddes now joshes that he's a little miffed that his son "outranks" him. He recalls running for speaker one time years ago and losing by one vote. "He's outdistanced me, and I'm a little devastated," he says, taking obvious, though understated, glee in his son's accomplishment.

If there is disagreement, as there has been this session, Representative Geddes says, "We just fight it out like everyone else." In general, however, the two men "vote the same way" because their political philosophies are similar.

"It's because of our district," the senator explains. "It's very agricultural and conservative. Our people encourage us not to sponsor legislation, but stop as much of it as we can. Our people have the strange philosophy that they can take care of their problems and don't need to give them to government."

WHEN DAD'S IN CONGRESS
Representative Gus Bilirakis of Florida shares some of the same feelings of Senator Geddes about having an influential father. He was elected to the Florida House in 1998, but his dad, Michael, has been in Congress since 1982.

And it is a case of shared passions. Gus is a member of the state House health committee, while his father is chairman of the federal subcommittee on health and environment.

"We very seldom coordinate on anything. He has a good head on his shoulders," the congressman says. But his son has contacted him occasionally on health issues, with Gus working on the state level and Michael on the federal level in providing prescription drug assistance for the poor. "There's been a jiving of thinking in that regard," the elder Bilirakis says.

In fact, Gus, a practicing attorney and community activist who was drafted to run for the statehouse, was greeted by members of the health committee with "now we have a link to Congressman Bilirakis. He's always worked well with us, but now we have a link."

"I think, yes, I have a better federal perspective," Gus says. "And it helps out a lot to have his background and experience available to me. When I vote, though, I very rarely ask his opinion. He respects the fact that I make my own decisions."

Musing on his son's political career, the congressman recalls how Gus was posting neighborhood campaign signs for candidates when he was 7. "And he's been involved with me from Day 1," Congressman Bilirakis says. "He knows the pluses and minuses of public office. He knew it before ever taking office. It's not all peaches and cream. You have no private life. There's the separation from your family. He knew that when he started."

The congressman doesn't believe that having a son in a state legislature has influenced him that much when it comes to national decision making, but he says he now has a better understanding of state legislatures. His visits to the Legislature in Tallahassee have shown him "they do things completely different there than we do here. I have learned more about the workings of the Legislature than I knew."

Congressman Bilirakis does note, however, that sharing information about the way state and federal governments work has been "beneficial" to both father and son. As a U.S. representative, he was concerned with state matters early on when he fought to keep the tobacco settlement money with the states-even before his son ran for the Legislature. "I fought very hard on that one," he says. "The federal government was trying to pick up at least 50 percent of the money. The state of Florida started this [effort against the tobacco companies] years ago. The federal government was invited to participate at that time, but refused to do so. And I thought the money should rightly go to the states."

But they rarely talk politics, the son says. "We're big sports fans; we talk about sports."

NO POLITICS AT ALL
Though the Bilirakis father and son rarely "talk shop," there is another household where politics isn't spoken at all.

David and Neomi Pendleton campaigned together and won seats on separate elected boards at the same time, becoming the only couple in Hawaii where both husband and wife are elected officials. He serves in the state House; she is a member of the state board of education. They have found that peace at home comes from not sharing political information over the dinner table.

"One mistake we made at first was to constantly update each other. We found we were both taking the office home," David says.

They've had disagreements over policy, but they learned not to carry them home. It's here they focus on hearth and family, where they "talk about the kids, we talk about the garden ..."

What they do share is a deep and abiding commitment to their three children, 9, 6 and 1, as David balances his law practice and legislative duties while Neomi handles her board of education responsibilities and her consulting business.

"Politics are tough, but what makes it doubly so for us is that we are both in it. Not only do we make sacrifices, our entire family does," he says.

"Constituents, parents of school children, expect to have your time. And they deserve it. Yet we didn't want to spend all of our time, say, working to improve our public schools when our own children aren't getting their homework done," says Neomi. "We don't want to save the world and lose our own kids, to paraphrase an oft-quoted message."

As to those small constituents, "I think my son wants to take over my husband's seat when he graduates from college," Neomi says. "He's only 9, but he watches CNN and C-Span. He doesn't watch Pokémon cartoons."

So a family tradition in politics may well continue.

Dianna Gordon is an assistant editor of State Legislatures.