Downhill politics practiced too often in Augusta

Yes, there were frustrations, but on balance, I really enjoyed my 10 years (1989-2000) working as “communications guy” with Republican legislators in the Maine House and Senate. What a great way to learn about the making of state law and how government works. Hired solely on my communication credentials, I came into the State House a clean slate. Never having worked in government or politics, I arrived without prejudice or expectations.

Most of my time at the State House, especially during the steep learning curve of my first years, I observed everything, taking my environment at face value. Mostly I saw elected and appointed officials and staffers from two major political parties who, when together on non-political, non-lawmaking business (ie. chatting in the halls) acted the same as co-workers mingling in any work setting.

With the Legislature in session, and during other political events, the interaction among those same State House groups was more formal, more business-like.

The same work protocol applied to my interactions with State House reporters and lobbyists. Seeing reporters’ offices, where daily State House news was assembled and sent out all over Maine. Putting faces and personalities to reporter names familiar through newspaper bylines, radio and tv appearances. The opportunity to watch these reporters at work, and ask them how or why they did what they did? What a privilege.

In January 2000 I left the State House. Coming back 10 years later as the Senate President’s communications director, the State House atmosphere had changed.

There was always a State House faction among elected officials, the press, political groups, lobbyists that put politics above everything. By 2010 that faction had grown and infected more of the State House operations. If you were not one of “them,” you were the enemy. Any working together was strictly out of necessity, biding time until the faction gained more power. Then they reversed any earlier agreements not part of their political goals.

That faction was using Maine’s Freedom of Access Act (similar to, sometimes mistaken as, the federal Freedom of Information Act known as FOIA) to excess. As one example, political activists used FOAA to demand all my written records concerning a bill on health insurance reform. It was commonplace with this same faction to use selective edits from opponents’ writings to create stink fires in the news.

I, and many other government workers, reacted simply by no longer writing, by not engaging with co-workers, friends, superiors. The normal day-to-day discourse of lawmaking stopped. Imagine having to turn over to antagonists everything you write at work — or face a criminal penalty. How might that change the nature and frequency of your writing?

Today, we see the silencing of certain political points of view taken to further extremes — even violent extremes.

I wasn’t too many days on the job with the Senate President when a left-wing blogger, an acquaintance, tried hard to have me fired. Lifting snippets of other people’s writings from a web forum I co-founded, the blogger, in emails to the Senate President, framed the snippets as politically libelous comments, trying to drive a wedge between the senate president and me: This is from your communications director’s web site. Does the Senate President condone this?

The blogger failed. I was not fired. But for several weeks I thought the blogger might succeed. I had seen the same tactics wreck other careers.

As citizens, we need to think carefully about political behavior we’re willing to support. Once political behavior starts downhill it’s very tough to prevent it hitting rock bottom. It is better all around to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Scott K. Fish has served as a communications staffer for Maine Senate and House Republican caucuses, and was communications director for Senate President Kevin Raye. He founded and edited AsMaineGoes.com and served as director of communications/public relations for Maine’s Department of Corrections until 2015. He is now using his communications skills to serve clients in the private sector.