Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton are trying to capture the White House by declaring that Americans, fed up with being lied to, want a strong dose of truth.
But one wonders whether they have talked to Lowell P. Weicker Jr., who left the Republican Party in 1990 to become the first independent to be elected governor of Connecticut in this century.
He told his constituents the truth about the state`s fiscal mess: There was a projected $3 billion shortfall over the next two fiscal years and to close that gap, Connecticut needed to impose a state income tax and cut the budget $700 million right away.
For that he was vilified and hanged in effigy. Thousands of angry protesters marched to the Connecticut Capitol, some carrying signs that read, ”Impeach the lying geek.”
Weicker fired back in a speech last October at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.
After praising a student protest that led the university for the hearing- impaired to hire its first deaf president in 1988, Weicker said: ”I would like to think the country caught your message-that political activism does work.”
But Americans, he continued, ”have made government a national pastime of never-ending Bronx cheers rather than a million acts of voting. We`ve abandoned the playing field of free elections and constitutional government and become a nation of political couch potatoes and Monday morning
quarterbacks . . .
”Ours is a democracy. If people are upset with the daily results, it is because they have become absentee owners. In the 1988 presidential election, as many Americans of voting age stayed home as went to the polls. It was the lowest voter turnout since the 1924 election between Calvin Coolidge and J. W. Davis. And that was in a time when voters had to hand-crank their Model T`s or ride to the polls in a horse and buggy.
”Nowadays it`s hard just to get someone to drop their bag of Doritos long enough to cross the street to vote. ”
Weicker is learning, like Gov. Jim Florio in New Jersey and other state executives across the country, that honesty in public office has its price.
In 1990, his first year in office, Democrat Florio pushed through a $2.8 billion package of budget cuts and tax increases. His approval rating fell to less than a third of all voters, and last year Republicans were able to win veto-proof control of both the state Senate and General Assembly for the first time in 20 years.
In nearby Connecticut, Weicker also watched his own popularity plummet, and there is little public support for his 4.5 percent income tax measure, which became law.
And those were only the beginning of Weicker`s problems.
Last month, the proposed budget would slice government spending by $1.1 billion more for fiscal 1993, which begins July 1. The new budget calls for deep cuts in social programs championed by Weicker throughout his six years in the Connecticut General Assembly and 18 years in the U.S. Senate.
Under Weicker`s new $8.2 billion budget, only two state agencies would receive increases, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Children and Youth Services.
Weicker`s booming voice grows uncharacteristically weak as he struggles to convey the pain he experienced cutting funds from programs for the elderly, the poor, the disabled and education.
”To be very honest with you, it`s tough for me to do this even for one year,” he said, sitting on a couch in his second-floor office. ”In my case, I had to hold my nose, in terms of my own predispositions and philosophies, knowing that it has to be done in order to secure the future.”
Weicker said he is disappointed that people familiar with his liberal voting record on social issues in the Senate now are questioning whether he has abandoned his traditional beliefs.
”These people, the frailest elements of our society, have so much faith and trust me, and to have that questioned for a moment by anybody, that`s tough to take,” he said.
”Even on the budget last year, people were saying, `Wait and see. He won`t cut the mentally disabled very much because he has a retarded son,`
” recalled the governor who has seven sons. ”Well, it has nothing to do with me. I had to be fair across the board.”
Weicker gained national prominence in 1973 when, as a junior member of the Senate Watergate committee, he was unwilling to blindly defend President Richard Nixon, a fellow Republican, against charges that he participated in a cover-up.
Weicker fought his party`s drift to the right and in 1988 lost his bid to return to the Senate for a fourth term. As governor, the lanky, Yale-trained lawyer remains as outspoken and unconventional as ever.
”I belong to the old school of politics where you made your choice and you took your chances, the politics of accountability,” Weicker explained.
”You could be right or you could be wrong-and your election depended on it.
”Now, the idea is to stay in that gray fog so that you can`t make a mistake. As far as I`m concerned, I can make a mistake. I`ve probably made many. But at least you`ve made some choices.”
His choice to fight for a state income tax last year triggered a 53-day standoff between the governor and the lawmakers. Without a new budget, there were layoffs, some agencies were shut temporarily, local municipalities were uncertain about the amount of money they should anticipate from the state, and the overall legislative process came to a virtual halt.
In the end, the state lawmakers three times passed a budget without the income tax provision, and Weicker vetoed them. In August the Legislature knuckled under and passed the tax.
”I don`t look upon any of the positions I`ve taken on any matters as being particular dicey or risky,” Weicker said. ”And I don`t think I`m doing anything spectacular. It`s just when you do something based on fact or truth, it stands out by itself. Maybe people are used to getting a song-and-dance routine. I don`t have time for it. I`m not good at it. So let`s get down to the nitty-gritty and get done with it.”
John Rathgeber, vice president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, a trade group, said: ”The governor is certainly a risk taker. You got to give him credit for that.
”He has surprised people in the business community with his fiscal conservatism. That may be a strange way to describe someone with an income tax-based budget last year. But he has made progress in reducing the growth in state spending and he has not used gimmicks in his budget packages. He has a pay-as-you-go philosophy.”
Ted Sheldon, a New York advertising executive who lives in Darien, Conn., said he voted for Weicker when he was in the Senate but voted against him when he ran for governor because Weicker was murky on whether he would raise taxes. ”He can`t go to the Republicans for support or the Democrats for support, so he just sticks out his chest and says, `This is the way it`s going to be,` ” Sheldon said. ”If the Legislature passes anything, he vetoes it and, in effect, says, `If you don`t want to play with my ball, then go home.` ”
Connecticut has no sales tax on food; clothing costing less than $75 is also tax-exempt. Sheldon said the governor should have looked at those alternative sources of revenue before imposing a state income tax.
Weicker says he intends to stay his painful course.
”When presented with the bill in the form of $1 billion in service cuts and a first-ever state income tax, 40,000 mobbed the Capitol to protest and demand repeal,” Weicker said in his Gallaudet University speech. ”These Rip Van Winkles had gotten the wakeup call of their life. Yet what made them mad was what people say they expect from government: honesty.”
