Welcome, everyone! This is a phenomenal turn
out! We're so excited to have you here! So
I'm Kristi Slack. I'm the Director of the
School of Social Work and I'm very pleased
to welcome you to the first Roberta Gassman
distinguished lecture which will be given
by Katy Sorenson, a 1980 alumna of the school.
Before we introduce Katy and her topic, I
just want to say a few things about Roberta,
who has made this event possible. Roberta
is a 1972 MSSW Graduate of the School of Social
Work. Many of you are likely familiar with
her long-time contributions to the school
and to Social Policy in the State. Early in
her career, Roberta was a Social Worker working
with teens and the elderly. Soon, she was
drawn to Public Policy and Community Development
and she worked both in the Public and Private
sectors. Roberta served as Governor Tony Earl's
Policy Advisor on Employment and Woman's Issues,
as Madison's Mayor Paul Soglin's Top Aid,
as the Director of Communications for Dane
County Executive Rick Phelps, and as the Senior
Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Community
Investment for Home Savings Bank. Recognized
as a leader on Employment, Work Force Development
and Labor Issues, on 2003, Governor Jim Doyle
appointed Roberta as Secretary of Wisconsin's
Department of Work Force Development, a 1,600
employee agency charged with leading the state's
efforts to strengthen Wisconsin's Work Force
and meet the needs of job seekers, working
families and employers. Speaking about Roberta,
Governor Doyle commented that, "Roberta lives
and breaths her commitment to advancing woman,
people with minority backgrounds, and people
with disabilities. He noted that under her
tenure, the state's minimum wage has been
raised three times and before that it hadn't
been raised in ten years. Roberta served as
the Head of Work Force Development until 2010.
For a short time after that, Roberta joined
the School of Social Work's Faculty. However,
Washington soon came calling and Roberta was
appointed and now serves as the Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Employment and Training in the
US Department of Labor. The ETA has 18,000
employees and is responsible for providing
high-quality job training, employment, labor
market information and income maintenance
services. In 2010, the School of Social Work
awarded Roberta its Distinguished Alumni Award.
As part of honoring Roberta, her friends,
family members and colleagues made a significant
donation to the school and established the
Roberta Gassman School of Social Work Opportunities
Fund. The Fund is used to assist the school
in the recruitment and retention of students
of color, support programs addressing poverty,
and the needs of people with disabilities
and offer the Roberta Gassman Distinguished
Lecture Series. Today, we are proud to host
the first Roberta Gassman Distinguished Lecture.
We're sorry that Roberta isn't able to attend
today, but her husband noted that Madison
Attorney, Lester Pines, is joining us. I want
to thank you. Thank both you and Roberta for
all of your efforts to make this happen. I
want to thank you all for attending today's
lecture. I'm now going to turn things over
to Mel Morgenbesser, "Where are you Mel? okay,
there you are," a retired, long-term faculty
member who is now helping the school with
it's Alumni Relations and Development Efforts
and he'll introduce speaker Katy Sorenson.
Thank you all for coming. Before I introduce
Katy, I just have a couple of logistic things
for those people after the lecture that want
Continuing Education Units, I have them, so
just come and pick them up. They're for people
who are in Social Work or other Human Services
licensed professions who need documentation
and then if you're in Social Work 275 class
and you haven't yet signed the list, but we
have a list of names just to show that you
were here. Um...My own prepared speech. It
is my pleasure to introduce our speaker for
today, Katy Sorenson. Katy is over there.
Katy is an alumni of the School of Social
Work having graduated with her MSSW degree
in 1980. For two years, after graduation and
prior to her leaving Madison, Katy worked
for the United Way of Dane County and for
[Procada] a local outhome of the drug agency
that's now called Wisconsin Clearing House.
As Katy will share during her talk, she has
a long-time commitment to Civic Activism steming
in part from her attendance at a Civil Rights
Rally when she was ten years old with her
cousins. That commitment has lead her to a
career serving the public in many venues including
a distinguished career in politics. Katy is
currently the President and CEO of the Good
Government Initiative at the University of
Miami. It's a program she developed to educate
elected officials and those seeking election
at the state and local levels and the important
issues related to Governors and I'm sure she'll
talk a little more about that. From 1994 to..uh...1994-2000,
is that right? To 2010, I knew it was longer
than that, that's why I was looking at it
and was like, "This isn't right." From 1994
to 2010, Katy was elected to represent District
8 on the Miami-Dane County Board of County
Commissioners. Her district included more
than 170,000 residents of diverse backgrounds
and it encompassed three cities that a significant
portion of the agricultural land of Dane County.
As a commissioner, she was an outspoken advocate
for human rights and equality for all residents,
for the environment and for manage growth,
regional cooperation, child welfare issues,
and support of the arts. Proudest achievements
included defeating plans for [ill-conceived]
airport at the homestead air reserve base
at a site located between the Everglades and
[Biscane] National Parks and sponsoring and
passing an amendment to the Human Rights Ordinance
which guarantees civil rights to gay and lesbian
citizens. During Katy's 16 years as an elected
official she was often recognized for her
excellence in office. She received the first
ever Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Environment
Award from the friends of the Everglade, Elected
Official of the Year Award from Dane County
Cultural Alliance, and the Public Official
of the Year Award from the Florida Chapter
of the American Planting Association as well
as numerous other awards. Katy now lives in
Miami. She lives in Miami with her husband
and she has two grown children. It's wonderful
to have Katy here to give the first Roberta
Gassman Distinguished Lecture on a topic that
is quite topical right now and something that
I know is also near and dear to Roberta's
heart, so I will introduce our speaker Katy. [Audience Clapping]
Thank you, Mel for the very kind introduction
and great to see you all here! Standing room
only. Wow! This is very cool. And I want to
recognize a very special guest in the audience;
my mother is here. She came from Milwaukee
and I'm very happy to have her here. She gave
me Social Work Values before she even knew
what they were; or I knew what they were.
So, thank you, mom, for being here. [Audience Clapping] And I
have other friends and family that are here,
but the list just got longer and longer, so
you'll have to meet them afterwards, but thank
you all for being here. I can't tell you what
an honor it is to be recognized by my alma
mater and to be here, the place that planted
the seeds of my Public Service career by giving
me the skills and knowledge, the context and
purpose of my work and I will always feel
like a badger although I will admit I am not
a football fan even now that I'm at the University
of Miami where, and don't tell Donna [Shelala]
because we know how she feels about football,
but the University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin
will always be one of my cherished homes.
And to be associated with Roberta Gasman is
really quite an honor. She is a very accomplished
woman; someone who truly understands the critical
length between Public Policy and Social Work
since she served in virtually all levels of
Government, I guess and she took values of
this institution and contributed them to her
work and all levels of government and as Labor
Secretary here in Wisconsin, U.S. Department
of Labor and all those steps along the way,
it's great to be honored to give the first
lecture in her name, so please pass on my
sincere thanks to her. It is a bit daunting
I admit to be asked to give a lecture because
a lecture can note something so scholarly
or else punitive, I'm not sure which, so let's
just call this a talk.
Since the election season is heating up considerably
and it's been pretty hot in Wisconsin for
a while now I understand, it's fitting that
my topic today is Politics: Social Work on
Steroids. I'd like to tell you my story of
how I got from Social Work to Politics and
then to starting my own non-profit organization,
the mission of which is to educate elected
officials and I'd like to discuss the relationship
between Social Work and elected Public Service,
how social work skills and values make better
elected officials, and how understanding and
using political power can make Social Workers
the change agents that they really wish to
be and need to be. As I look out at each one
of you and some of my former professors as
here, so it's great to see you. I know you
all have a story of how you got here, of what
got you interested in being a Social Worker,
or someone interested in Social Work, or just
interested in this event today. Your story,
like all people's stories, is not entirely
linear and has some twists and turns, but
who you are today follows somewhat understandably
if not logically from where you were. So I want
to tell you a little of my story of how I
began in Social Work, served on the Miami-Dane
County Commission for 16 years and why I left
to start the Good Government Initiative. I
grew up in Milwaukee, but frequently visited
my ancestral home of Chicago, where I was
born, and I got interested in activism very
early, as Mel told you in the introduction.
It started out as a civil rights demonstration
in Chicago when I was ten years old in 1965,
who can go ahead and do the math, it's public
record anyway, and the demonstration involved
a group of mostly white suburban woman and
their children picketing the real estate board
in Chicago to get them to end the practice
of Red Lining. Does anyone know what Red Lining
is? Show of hands. Okay, a few. It's where
you draw a red line a map and determine that
blacks can't move into and past that line.
So we wanted to end that practice and the
way that bank perpetuated discrimination and
housing. But being at that rally, at that
age, the age of ten, just gave me a sense
of what activism was and I instinctively knew
that people there were involved in something
important and something meaningful and I realized
there were injustices in my country and that
something needed to be done about it. My awareness
grew as I continued to participate in the
Civil Rights Movement lead by Father Grappy
in Milwaukee. How many here know Father Grappy?
Show of hands. Okay, quite a few. And I became
more aware of the war in Vietnam. My parents
were very concerned about the war and that
became part of my consciousness as well. So
all of these, I think, planted the seeds of
being a Social Worker and I was involved in
demonstrations and when we were shocked and
the rest of the country and I were shocked
when Martin Luther King was assassinated in
1968 when I was in eighth grade and Bobby
Kennedy was assassinated on my graduation
day of eighth grade, so it was clear that
America was changing dramatically and something
was stirring in society. Then I got involved
in the Women's Movement after I read my mother's
copy of the book "Feminine Mystique," Betty
Friedan, show of hands. Okay, good. I realized
that woman were living separate and unequal
lives and we needed to fight for our rights
as well and I bought the first copy of "Miss
Magazine" I think during the time I graduated
from High School in 1972. So as I grew up,
activism was always a part of my life and
I was around people who questioned authority
and worked for change. I was certainly a child
of the 60's and the necessity of social change
and idealism are just in my DNA and I think
that is true for many baby boomers and people
of our generation. When I started college
at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee,
I didn't have a clue as to what I wanted to
be when I grew up, but I knew Social Work
attracted me because of it's emphasis on Social
Justice and I also really like the people
who I knew were involved in Social Work. Working
in the field, I saw many Social Justice issues,
not just issues of equality for woman and
for Black but issues of poverty, abuse, drugs,
family dysfunction, all those issues that
all of you Social Workers know about that
effect people's everyday lives. My first experience
was working a run-away shelter and I saw children
who's lives were disrupted by all kinds of
problems, child sexual abuse, violence, drug
addiction, chaos, and I truly love the people
who are doing the work and truly love the
kids and so I went on to work at the Counseling
Center of Milwaukee, which was the parent
agency of Path Finder's for Run Aways and
that experience made me want to be a Psychotherapist
and that's why I can to Madison to study to
be a Psychotherapist. But, I quickly realized
that one-to-one counseling was just not for
me and in spite of many wonderful instructors,
including the late [Mark Porlmutter] where
I had just a wonderful class and a terrific
experience. [Mark Porlmutter], show of hands.
Yes, some of you know him. He was really a
terrific guy. And I didn't even consider Community
Organizing even though that's what I was really
destined to become. So I went into Social
Work Administration to look at bigger picture
issues in Social Work and even before I graduated,
I got a job, my first job, at United Way, here in Madison, as
a Planning Assistant and [Marsha Grin], the
boss was a cross between Cruella Diville and
Big Nurse in One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo
Nest. We did not hit it off! So when I started
questioning why they gave more money to the
YMCA than the YWCA, why more money to the
Boy Scouts than the Girl Scouts they were
very annoyed with me. But when I started organizing
the Secretary's because they were doing all
of the work and I thought they should be paid
better and the Executive Director was just
having a luncheon as far as I could tell.
They were incensed and I have to tell you
something I did not foresee happened and that
was I got fired. So that really blew me away;
to be fired from my first job, haven't even
finished my Masters Degree, I was 25 years
old. It was jarring and it was really a relief
and that is was exhilarating. I took my unemployment
compensation and volunteered for the Women's
Political Caucus in Madison, Wisconsin and
this is a very grainy picture of Leisl Blockstein.
Anybody remember Leisl Blockstein? Show of
hands. She's a wonderful woman. She was my
mentor. I was the Membership Chair, I was
the Newsletter Editor, I did all kinds of
things for the Women's Political Caucus and
I knew that I had found the world were I really
wanted to be. Worked on Reproductive Rights,
Women's Property Rights on the ERA, we worked
with female political candidates and there
were a lot more women getting elected to office
than there ever had been. It was a time when
we had the first woman Supreme Court Justice,
nominated and put on the Supreme Court Sandra
Day O'Connor. So it was a really exciting
time. Now when my husband graduated from Medical
School here in Madison, we moved to Chicago
and I landed a job in the Mondale for President
Campaign. Show of hands; anybody remember
Walter Mondale? Okay. He happened to be the
guy who had the first woman on a national
ticket, Geraldine Ferraro. But I wasn't really
involved at that point. I looked into a job
on the campaign because my sister had dated
the guy who ran the Illinois [Fermondale]
campaign. It was a great way to get my foot
in the door and I got to get a job. And of
course in Politics, it's not just what you
know, it's who you know, timing, lots of luck,
everything else. So it's my job to set up
press events for visiting dignitaries who
are stopping for [Fermondale] and I got to
meet Barbara Mikulski U.S. Senator then a Congress
Woman, who is also a Social Worker. Dianne
Feinstein who's been the Mayor of San Francisco,
now U.S. Senator and Claude Pepper, who's
probably the Father of Social Security in this country and
a Florida Congressman, but he was always called
a Senator because he served one term in the
Senate. I use them as mentors on the fly and
students, I really recommend this to use as
a strategy. When you meet important people
who are doing important things, talk
to them, ask for advise, just get little snippets
of information from them because it's a great way
to just get mentoring on the fly. I asked
Barbara Mikulski what she thought I should
do if I wanted to run for office some day,
what would she advise me to do and she said,
"Well, why don't you try to work for a legislator."
And I ended up working for Illinois Senator
Dawn Clark Netsch, who was also a Constitutional
Law Professor, a friend by-the-way of Barack
Obama and a very highly ethical and accomplished
legislator. I was a co-founder of Cook County
Democratic Women in Chicago and it was a great
time because there was a reform mayor Harold
Washington. Anybody here know Washington?
Anybody hear that name? Okay, good. First
black mayor of Chicago and very multi-cultural
and inclusive, kind of administration. It
was a great time to be in politics. But after
four years in Chicago, my husband was offered
his first job as an Ophthalmologist in Sacramento,
California. So we took off for yet another
state capitol, Sacramento, and I got a job
as the Executive Director of California Women
Lawyers, were I got to use some of my non-profit
administrative skills and that was terrific
and I'm always thinking because I'm a planner,
of ways to get my resume ready to run for
office some day and in the meantime do some
interesting work and advocacy. So I worked
on a lot of great issues with the California
Women Lawyers as well. Now, California didn't
work out so well for my husband. He needed
to do more surgery or he would lose his skills.
Reluctantly, we went back to..well we ended
up in Florida, in the sleepy town of Deland,
Florida. Anybody...Show of hand for Deland,
you'll really get credit for this. One person
and that's about how many liberals were in
Deland, too! Umm..let's see. I think I got
lost in my slides here. They thought I was
a radical feminist, so that's what this slide
is. My kids and I were three people at the...three
of twelve people at the pro-choice demonstration
on the court house steps of Deland. Anyway,
I knew I couldn't stay there. It wasn't going
to work for me. This was not a community that
was welcoming and open to my kind of politics
and luckily my husband didn't like his boss
there so much either. He had sort of the equivalent
of my previous boss and so we decided to move
to Miami and my nomadic days were over. I
was very excited to be in an urban, international
community. I started volunteering and organizing
and becoming PTA President; because my kids
were in public schools; joined the county
PTA, started testifying in Tallahassee, I
was President of the Women's Emergency Network
that provides abortions for low-income women,
and was President of the Citizen's Coalition
for Public Schools and I even produced an
event for Emily's List which raises money
for pro-choice democratic women. So, you know,
I'm still thinking about running for office,
getting my volunteers together, organizing
people and the one mistake that I made in
Miami and I will always be sorry I didn't
do this is learn Spanish as soon as I got
there because it is really useful to have
another language, especially in Miami. So
I recommend to you, if you move to Miami,
just do it right away. I still haven't done
it. My kids speak Spanish. My husband speaks
Spanish. Not me. I'm monolingual. But when
I read about my County Commissioner in the
paper on Memorial Day in 1994, ethics violations,
allegations of sexual harassment of county
employees and I thought, "hmm," here's my
race and here he is featured in a publication
listed not too long ago of Miami politicians.
Larry Hopkins. It's right there. Larry Hopkins.
I announced on June 15th in the Primary, it
was the end of August. So it was a sprint
of a campaign. My mother came down to work
my campaign. She was right there. The pundace
said I didn't have a chance against a entrenched
and well-funded incumbent, but I have a lot
of volunteers and I had been thinking about
my volunteer group and had especially women
who were incensed about sexual harassment
because this was two years after Anita Hill.
Show of hands for Anita Hill, anybody. Okay,
yes. I testified against Clarance Thomas,
who's appointed the Supreme Court, and there
were about three or four days of just riveting
testimony, however, he still won and got Supreme
Court. But at this time, a lot of harassess
of Larry Hopkins were speaking out and so
I didn't... while I didn't get a lot of encouragement
from the Miami [Intelligencia] in the Pundace,
I had a lot of previous campaign experience
especially working on a Presidential Campaign
which is a lot of experience and that had
taught me well. So I never worked harder than
I did on that campaign. I learned the issues,
in a very short time frame, I learned all
the issues, recruited volunteers, raised money
and went door-to-door meeting voters and I
have to tell you there were very scary moments
and I think as Social Workers you probably
have some scary moments as well. Moments of
self-doubt, fear of failure, second guessing
my decision, wondering what I got myself into
and I often thought of this quote from the poet Audre
Lorde. I love this quote. "When I dare to
be powerful, to use my strength in the service
of my vision, then it becomes less and less
important whether I'm afraid." And I still
conjure up those words when I'm feeling nervous.
Politics in Miami is a blood sport. When I
decided to run, the first thing that happened
when I got home from my press conference announcing
it, was I came home and found my mini van back
window had a rock thrown through it. A little
message, maybe, but I wasn't going to let
that bother me. I was determined to make it
a learning experience whether or not I was
going to win or lose. I felt like I couldn't
lose if I learned a lot along the way. We
just focused on getting our...identifying
our voters, getting the vote out and I had
won the Primary coming in, the first of nine
candidates, by this time people smell blood
in the water, so there were other, there were
seven other male candidates. So there were
eight men and me. I won the Primary with 36%
of the vote, the incumbent came in with only
18% and then it was just me and him in the
General Election and I won with 68% of the
vote. I remember that night, the victory party
the night at my house and I had been practicing
my speech at my friend's house and came home
and saw five television trucks in front of
my house. I said, "Wow, this is real and I'm
a County Commissioner." It was very heady
and humbling to have that kind of support
I had and many people saw it as a victory
for the little because it was hard to beat
an incumbent who's in office and in fact until
2010 no one had defeated a siting County Commissioner
since I did 18 years ago. And many people supported
me because they were sick and tired of the
corruption in Miami politics and wanted good
government. And then ,so, when I began I really
felt like I found my passion and here I am
talking at something as a County Commissioner.
Everything together...came together being
an elected official and it's...and that's...it's
the same passion that goes back to my Social
Work days, to going back to being that little
girl at that demonstration in Chicago and
the idea of justice and Social Justice. I
wasn't much of a Social Worker before I went
into politics, but in politics I really became
a Social Worker. My two biggest achievements,
as Mel mentioned, were stopping a commercial
air port that would have been located in [south
half] between two National Parks, the Everglades
and Fisque National Park and passing the Human
Rights Ordinance, outlawing discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation. Both are
stories of successful community organizing.
When I was first elected, the most contentious
issue was the decision to downsize Homestead
Air Base after Hurricane Andrew and the county
wanted to received the surplus land as an
Airport conveyance and the majority of County
Commission wanted to give it to their friends
on a no-bid deal. So it was a lot of fighting
to make sure that, that didn't happen and
it involved a rag-tag group of environmentalists,
rich people who lived in Ocean Reef where
they didn't want airplanes flying over head,
and an unhappy neighboring constituency and
then it eventually lead to the Clinton White
House. It took a very long time to defeat
the effort, but in 2001, shortly after the
2000 election; remember the 2000 election?
Remember Florida in the 2000 election? Well
had Al Gore supported not having an airport
there, Al Gore may have won because he was
supporting the airport, our mayor, mayor Alex
Penelas was in support of the airport. Alex
was following his lead, thinking he would
get more votes out of Miami if he supported
the airport, of course that didn't really
happen, but my secret weapon was someone,
a Wisconsin native. Her name is Mary Doyle,
the sister of Jim Doyle, who is your
Governor and she at the time was the Head
of the department or the Assistant to Bruce
Bavett, the Secretary of the Department of
Interior and she was...she listened to me
a lot and realized the airport was a terrible
idea and convinced her boss, who then convinced
President Clinton and that was the end of
the airport. So my other tale of successful
community organizing was passing the County's
Human Rights Ordinance in 1998, which outlawed
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The first Human Rights Ordinance was sponsored
and passed in the 70s by former County Commissioner,
Ruth Shack, who's my friend and mentor, and
it was undone by a Christian Coalition and
their unlikely celebrity side-kick, Anita
Bryant, the Florida Orange Juice Queen. Show
of hands, Anita Bryant, anybody. She was a trip. In
1998, the gay and lesbian community thought
it was time to give it another shot, so they
asked me to sponsor the ordinance and I was
really very honored and thrilled to do so.
My heart, as you know by now, has always been
with Social Justice issues and my own sense
of family values made it personal since I
have a beloved gay brother who is here with
us today with his partner, David. And so the
gay and lesbian community, of course this
was before LGBT it was just gay and lesbian
at that time, worked as the county commissioner
and said it was time to pass the ordinance
and by the way we had to do it all behind
the scenes, because in Florida there's this
"[Floor and the Sunshine Law]" where you really
can't... I couldn't speak to my colleagues
directly about the ordinance because you can
only speak in a public meeting. So the activists
had to work on every county commissioner indivisually.
But they all did great organizing and we recruited
a cross-section of the community; Hispanics,
which are a majority of the population in
Miami- Dane County, 62%, tend to be Social-Conservatives,
the African American Clergy (which is tough),
the Arts Community, Chamber of Commerce, business
people, religious leaders, neighborhood associations,
PTAs, you name it, they were all there and
we had a wonderful, gay, head of the whole
movement. George Moresuly who was charismatic
and thoughtful and persuasive, so we had a
great team. Going to the County Commission
meeting that day I had a strange sense of
calm. The vote was 6-6 and one Commissioner
who hadn't committed and he was my fellow
County Commissioner in South Dane, Denis Moss
and African American; known for his caution
and deliberation in making decisions. And
he had heard from many of his African American
clergy that this was not a good idea and against
the bible and all that. So, we heard lots
of testimony that day and you know there's
nothing like having huge groups of really
thoughtful people show up at a public hearing
at a County Commission meeting. We had, because
it was a coin toss, the Anti's went first,
the Pro's went second and the Anti's were
so vitriolic and so ugly and so ignorant and
then our side it was one stellar pillar of
the community after another and we just had
a great group of people and I thought at the
time we had so much going for us and all these
powerful, uplifting speeches that Denis Moss
would have to do the right thing. So when
it came time for the vote, there was just
silence in the Chambers as each commissioner
voted, ay or nah, and I was sitting next to
our Chairwoman, Gwen Morgolas and Barbara
[Carrie Schuler] on the other side, and we
were squeezing each other's hands and closing
out eyes because we had to wait for Denis's
vote and when Denis voted yes the place just
went crazy. The Chambers were just wild and
loud cheers, tears, spontaneous joyful demonstrations,
and the all Anti's just kind of sculpt out,
looking very perturbed and defeated. I had
such a feeling of power that day. It was amazingly
powerful and the satisfaction that power was
being used for something so righteous. So
remember Audre Lorde's words about using my
power in the service in my vision, that was
just so true that day to have that kind of
power to make such a huge change in our community
with a policy that can no longer be used to...we
can no longer discriminate gays and lesbians
in our community. I didn't always meet with
success. After ten years of opposing a private
baseball stadium being built with public money,
they finally built it anyway. But I did hold
it off for a while and made sure there were
environmental protections in the building
that they were doing Green Building techniques
and all that. And I have learned that it's
an important lesson, you don't win everything
but if you're not going to win at least try
and get something in the deal on the way there
and there are smaller goals that you can insist
on. And rarely our victories or defeats complete
and in environmental issues the successes
are only temporary and the defeats are permanent.
So it's always a huge issue working on environmental
issues, making sure that you keep at it. I
sponsored [Pass to Park] issue and I was a
strong advocate for Human Services in Children's
Issues, worked with a lot of community groups.
And now that my Public Service career has
ended, and I ended it voluntarily, on my own
terms, I am so pleased to be able to share
what I have learned with the other Elected
Officials through the Good Government Initiative
at the University of Miami. I started the
program with some initial funding from the
Knight Foundation and with the support of
University's President, your former Chancellor,
Donna Shalala and on the day I left office,
two years ago, well that's when I started
it and that's our mission is to cultivate
leaders of excellence in South Florida through
the development and training of Elected Officials
as well as those running for office and to
engage the community in...um...engage the
community in its governance through our [regional]
education. So I'm trying to create more citizen
involvement in our community. We have elections
in Miami-Dane where only eighteen or nineteen
percent show up in local elections and I just
think that's not acceptable. So currently
we are in the middle of class two of our Cultivating
Leaders of Excellence Program with eighteen
elected officials at the local and state level
and on Saturday we met at the Chapman Homeless
Center and talked about homelessness issues.
Miami-Dane is really a model for working on
the homeless issue and developed a program
were we used a food and beverage tax to have
a dedicated source of funding, built some
assistant centers with a continuum of care
and it's been really successful. But in the
way the course is something I wish I had when
I first been elected. You know people get
elected to office, it's kind of like having
a baby. Nobody gives you an instruction manual
right there and then and it's the same thing
with being elected. And, so I created this
program to fight the evil twins in Politics
of incompetence and corruption. But the Good
Government Initiative provides a venue for
elected officials to learn the simple mechanics
of how government and the legislative process operate
and gives them an opportunity to have conversations
and training on a variety of issues to help
them think things through without being the
glare in the media or the spotlight. So ethics,
budget and finance, land use, economic development,
media relations, dealing with lobbyists, history
of the community, figuring out access to good
policy research and that's I think a role
that the University can play to a great extent
to elected officials and it is not being done
as much as it should, so that's an opportunity
too. Elected officials have to prepare themselves
for a great deal, and the basic nuts and bolts
of government and administration and the legislative
process, and they have to learn all those
skills on the job. It's kind of like retiling
your bathroom while you're taking a shower.
You know it's all coming at you and happening
at once. So the goal is to help them develop
into thoughtful, effective leaders and I think
we're making some progress and I hope that
eventually the community will see this as
kind of the good housekeeping seal of approval
for elected officials and will insisted that
all their elected officials go through the
course. So now let's talk about how this all
relates to Social Work and I think, probably,
you see some of the connections. But I would
argue that every public office has such a
large element of Social Work in it but not
every office holder has the knowledge, values,
or skills of our profession to do that job,
that part of the job effectively. I thought
I knew what Social Work values are, but I
went back to check the NASW code of ethics
to make sure. The preamble to the code of
ethics reads in part as follows, "The primary
mission of the Social Work profession is to
enhance human well-being and help meet the
basic human needs of all people with particular
attention to the needs and empowerment of
people who are vulnerable, oppressed and living
in poverty." It goes on, "Social Workers promote
Social Justice and Social Change with and
on behalf of others. The mission of the Social
Work profession is rooted in a set of core
values: service, social justice, dignity and
worth of the person, importance of human relationships,
integrity and competence." Can you imagine
what our communities might be like, our state
and country might be like if all elected officials
were Social Workers? It would be nothing short
of Utopian! So now let's look at how Social
Work skills and the compe.....the skills and
competencies that they require. In other words,
a good Social Worker will advocate for individual
clients or the community on identified problems,
serve as a broker by connecting individuals
with resources, create and maintain professional
helping relationships, improve problem solving,
coping and development capacities of all people,
be able to engage and communicate with a diverse
population and groups of all sizes, have knowledge
and understanding of human relationships,
provide services to not only support changes
in the individual, but also in his or her
environment as well. And I think that this
set of community organizing skills absolutely
relates to elected officials. Good community
organizer will assist the community in defining
a social problem, being an effective communicator
to help build coalitions in the community,
provide direction and guidance to the community
in order to mobilize for an identified cause,
assisting and establishing new programs to
meet the needs of individuals and groups in
the community, provide advocacy for the needs
of the community. Again, think of our elected
officials. Should Social Work skills be a
prerequisite to holding office? What do ya
think? So, now let's talk about you, especially
the students here. I want to engage you and
the greater community in governance at every
level and we need to step it up. The best
thing about democracy is that the people in
charge...are in charge, but let's be clear
it's not all the people who are in charge.
It's the people who are paying attention and
it's the people who are taking action. One
of the biggest threats to our country, right
now, is that not enough of us are paying
attention and too many of us are throwing
up our hands and using the excuse of citsism.
Saying, "What's the use?" "Why bother?" Well
you can be sure that the lobbyist and special
interests are paying very close attention
because that's their job and they take it
very seriously. They're tenacious, they're
persistent and they have lots of money to
spread their message. But they can only have
as much influence as we let them have. It's
only our silence and our lack of organization
that allows them to be dominant. The voices
that elected officials need to hear are the
voices of the voters and they need to hear
the voices of Social Workers. They need to
understand that if they want to stay in office,
they'll have to listen to us. But until we
begin to speak clearly and force them to listen,
they won't. I was looking at a speech that
Ruth Messanger gave, she was a MSW and former
President of the Burrough of Manhattan, and
she gave this really interesting talk on Social
Workers as advocates and State and Local Government
and she said, "Why should we be involved?"
"Why should you be involved?" Because decisions
made in the political arena affect you professionally
and personally. They determine whether you
can admit or discharge patients, the level
of coverage available to those you want to
help, how are states and localities will address
the program and the problem of welfare reform,
whether the families you treat will have access
to good schools and neighborhood after school
programs, and whether Social Workers will
be licensed. Decisions made in the political
arena also determine what kinds of health
insurance are available to you and your family.
They determine the zoning in your neighborhood,
the quality in your schools, the state of
the roads, bridges, and sewers on which you
and your clients depend. Those decisions must
be our concerns. And what people also really
need to understand is that the biggest policy
decisions are the decisions that are made
in the budget and the taxes required to support
that budget because the budget is the policy.
Repeat: The budget is the policy. Where the
money goes or where the priorities are? Now,
it is very clear to me, what are the right
choices for Miami-Dane, my Miami-Dane community,
and not only in human services but in education
as well and it pains me to see Florida abdicating
its responsibility to public education, giving
our tax dollars to for-profit charter schools,
vouchers, and virtual education. And again,
what keeps coming to mind are the ideas of justice,
equality, empathy, fairness, and prosperity
for all and not just for a few. As a commissioner,
when I spoke to residents and framed the choice
for them, the relatively small sacrifice that
required by some properties owner, for the
good of the community, people were able to
understand issues of justice and the idea
that the haves in our community could help
provide services to everyone. But we are living
in this time of no taxes and "starve the beast"
and give as little as possible to the common
wealth and the emphasis today seems to be
on this "I've got mine" mentality and when
you think of all the welfare or entitlements
in this country, the only people who are aligned
for that are the poor. People who get tax
deductions on their mortgages are not aligned,
the farmers are not aligned, corporations
who get tax benefits are not aligned, and
the only people who really are blamed for
taking any government assistance are poor people.
Elected officials who don't share that world
view but are afraid to speak out need your
voices and your help and support to say you
don't agree with any of that; we have other values.
They need you to be out in the community talking
about how its our collective responsibility to
create a community of sustainable, lasting
value, how we're all in this together, how
it's not just "go it alone for yourself,"
how we're all responsible for each other,
and how public investments in our future makes
sense for us and for future generations. You
need to take your Social Work values and take
that message on the road to your elected
officials. If you want to have a lasting effect
to make your voices heard effectively, you've
gotta organize and we have to organize intelligently.
Often times there are natural allies working
on different issues in government, but they
don't get together in coalitions. I remember
one group of housing advocates and another
group of "hold line on urban sprawl" advocates.
One group was predominately poor and of color,
the other was predominately white. They didn't
really speak to each other but if they had
worked together as a coalition, they could
have then had been much more powerful and
so it was frustrating to me sometimes because
I tried to convince them of these things and
it didn't always stick. But more powerful
coalitions can more for much greater effect
in outcomes. So coming together is vital but
it's only the beginning and when organizing to
make change, it's really important that you
know the structure of government, learn where
the decisions are made, learn which governments
are making which decisions in social policy,
which are local issues, which are state issues,
which are federal issues, and you don't want
to waste your energy on the wrong group. And
it's also really important to know who your
elected officials are. Now, show of hands,
how many of you know who your municipal and
state elected officials are? Show of hands.
Okay, some. Alright, now, how many of them
know, of those elected officials, know who
you are? One, two. Okay. We've got work to
do people. If they don't know who you are,
they're not really going to care what you
think. But if they know who you are and if
you're writing to them, visiting their office,
talking to their staff, educating them about
what this profession is about, what you are
trying to accomplish in this profession, how
important the work you are doing needs to
be funded, they start calling you when they
have a question about it. And there starts
to be a, a relationship starts to develop
and it's so important to get that relationship
going and to have that relationship.
When I, before I ran for office, I attended
so many community meetings and I testified
at so many school board meetings, going up
to Tallahassee, they knew, people started
to know who I was and those things make such
a difference. So for some concrete tips, now
that you're all going to become activists
and learn who are you elected officials are,
it's just key to do your homework ahead of
time and speak to elected to officials before
a public hearing. Some people use to comment
at public hearings and I would think, "Ugh,
they need my course and how to appear at a
public hearing." Sloppy t-shirts, random presentations,
and you get some people who are so snarky
and sarcastic thinking they're really doing
a great job at playing to the crowd, but the
elected officials immediately turn them off.
And say, "Who are these people?" and "Whoever they are, we are going to vote the other way."
And it just doesn't work. But
there's a lot of ways that can work and by
creating that relationship and offering them
your advise and knowledge of an issue that
they have no idea about and start to become
a resource. Letters to the editor, other media
messages work, even if politicians, if they
pretend to ignore them, everyone reads letters,
I don't know any elected official who doesn't
read letters to the editor. Now, there are
all kinds of other media now, social media
and Twitter and Facebook and all that
stuff, they read some of that stuff, but
they always read letters to the editor. They
always read on-bed pieces. Those are really
important vehicles for information. And you
have to target your remarks and your outreach.
Figure out which elected officials are wavering,
if they have an election coming up, if they're
vulnerable, and put your energy there because
the more focused you are the more efficient
your efforts will be. But, remember that it's
much easier to elect people who agree with
you than to change the minds of those who
are already in office. The most powerful weapon
you have is the vote and you need to exercise
it. It is so important. People died to have
the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony worked
for years and years on the vote and then died
before she ever saw women having the right
to vote. It's just so important that you use it.
Bad leaders are elected by good people who
who don't vote. You have to vote and you have to encourage people to run for office. Or run
yourself. That's what I did. Too often getting
elected is a money game, it's full of all
this stuff, contributions, getting money,
but especially at the local level it doesn't
have to be. At Miami-Dane County you can win
a county committee election if you can turn
out 3,000 people. You could swing an election.
You just need to find out what the number
is here or in your home community. But this
country needs more Social Workers in office
and we have way too few. In the Senate, we
have two out of one hundred: Barbara Mikulski
and the Senator from Michigan, Debby Stabenow.
And there are six in the House and I looked
at the NASW website for local elected officials,
they only listed, this was a 2008 website
so it was a little dated, but local and state
only 156 elected officials. Now, I think that's
probably under counting but still way too
few Social Workers. Senator Barbara Mikulski,
in Maryland, now the longest serving woman
in the United States Senate, was a Social
Worker in Baltimore helping at-risk children
and educating seniors about the Medicare program.
She then successfully organized communities
against a plan to build a sixteen lane highway
near Baltimore, near one of Baltimore's poorest
neighborhoods and she helped stop the road
saving [Bells Point] and Baltimore's inner
harbor, which are both thriving communities
today. Can you imagine how America might be
different if we had more Senator Barbara Mikulski's
in the U.S. Senate? I hope that there are
some people in this room right now who are
thinking about running for office or will
think about running for office because our
country really needs you. So in closing, I
want to thank the University of Wisconsin's
School of Social Work again for inviting me here
today and I want you to consider public service
as a logical and valuable step in your Social
Work career and I'd like to end with this
story about...um...Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers
told a story about the Special Olympics and
it speaks, I think, so much to success and happiness,
Social Work values, and the kind of world
that I would want to inhabit. So here goes
the story. This came out of the Seattle Special
Olympics and for the hundred year, yard dash
there were nine contestants, all of them so
called physically or mentally disabled and
in Madison we called them differently abled,
and all nine of them assembled at the starting
line and at the sound of the gun they took
off. But one little boy didn't get very far.
He stumbled and fell and he hurt his knee
and be began to cry. So the other eight children
heard the boy crying and they slowed down
and turned around and ran back to him. Every
single one of them ran back to him. And one
little girl with Down Syndrome bent down and
kissed the boy and said, "This will make it
better." The little boy got up and he and
the rest of the runners linked their arms together
and joyfully walked to the finish line. They
all finished the race at the same time and
when they did, everyone in the stadium stood
up and clapped and whistled for a really long
time. People who were there are still telling
the story with such obvious delight and you
all know why. Because, deep down, we know
that what matters most in this life is more
than just winning for ourselves. What really
matters is helping others win too, even if
it means slowing down and changing our course
now and then. So thank you Social Workers
for your commitment to a better, saner, more
just and prosperous world. I wish for you
strength and courage in your battles and perseverance.
All those qualities will get you and us to
a world that we need to be in and I want to
thank you. Thank you.
