When Alabama’s Speaker of the House Mac McCutcheon released a statement regarding the 2018 House election results in legislative districts across the state, he did more than take a victory lap, he actually laid out a list of priorities for the next four years.
McCutcheon wrote, “Our infrastructure is in decay, and our roads and bridges must be given much-needed attention. Our public schools are in need of further improvement, and we must invest in security measures that ensure children who are sent to school in the morning return home safely in the afternoon,” McCutcheon said. “And our ethics laws must continue to ensure that elected officials who violate the public’s trust feel the firm hand of justice and the sting of substantial punishment.”
McCutcheon didn’t merely grandstand but cooly and correctly identified most of the state’s immediate challenges, saying, “Our mission is clear and well-defined, and it’s now our job to accomplish it.”
With 90 words, McCutcheon issued a prime objective and a promise to address the needs of our state.
McCutcheon’s list: infrastructure, public schools, school safety and ethics laws are at the top of his agenda. Both Republicans and Democrats should agree that these are important considerations that the state has failed to address for decades fully.
It is far past time for state leadership to take steps to improve our roads and bridges as well as our broadband and tech infrastructure. Without strong public schools and the security to attend them without fear, there is no hope for our state to rise above the low-education status that endangers generation after generation of our young. Lastly, hard sought ethics reform must not be cast aside for politics. Lack of clear ethics statures led to the kinds of corruption that have plagued the state for decades, allowing devious men and women to plunder our state’s riches and resources for personal gain.
Speaker McCutcheon has laid out the agenda saying, “it’s now our job to accomplish it.”
It is incumbent upon all of us who work in politics to come together to support his goals as long as he stays true to the mission.
He also speaks about the “great sacrifices” and “the often unpleasant criticism that comes with life in the public spotlight.”
Grueling work and harsh criticism are to be expected if anything great is ever accomplished.
As President Theodore Roosevelt said in a speech delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France on April 23, 1910, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
With any worthy endeavor, the road forward is fought with trials and routs, but these are but little worries when the future is at stake.
Speaker McCutcheon has set-forth some very worthy goals. We will all be wise in joining together to see them accomplished.
Godspeed from Middle English literally means God give you a prosperous journey, something our state dearly needs.
