Opinion
What About the Public Employees with Guns?
The Republicans are all about putting a harsh spotlight on public employees these days. From teachers to state bureaucrats, public employees have become synonymous in Republican talking points with wasted dollars and a lack of accountability.[pullquote]Shouldn't there be editorials, calls for public safety reform, Gates-foundation-funded data, and a Waiting for Superman II about bad police officers?[/pullquote]
Rob McKenna hit this Republican theme in his announcement for governor on Wednesday night.
"You can't give a five percent pay hike to 40 percent [of state employees] automatically—and not because of performance, but because they’ve been at a desk for another year," he said.
McKenna hit teachers directly on Wednesday as well: “We need to revamp,” he said, so that “teacher retention is tied to evaluation of student achievement, and not solely rely on seniority.”
The theme is perfect for Republicans because the obvious bad guys in this meme are the unions.
There's a notable omission for conservatives when it comes to demanding more precise and rigorous accountability from public employees. Anti-collective bargaining Republican Gov. Scott Walker formally embraced the omission earlier this year when he explicitly excluded the group from his anti-public employees union proposal: The police.
The thing is, just as teachers play an extraordinary role in society, so do cops. Shouldn't there be editorials, calls for public safety reform, Gates-foundation-funded data, and a Waiting for Superman II about bad police officers?
After a series of high-profile episodes of police misconduct including the John T. Williams shooting, you'd think that movie could be made here.
As in the debate over teachers, the question comes down to how exactly to measure police performance. And as with the push for teacher accountability, the police unions complicate the question. What kind of measuring sticks can the public put in place without violating the Seattle Police Officer Guild contracts?
Could a bona fide civilian review board with subpoena power and teeth exist with union rules shielding officers from scrutiny?
Weird then, that conservatives aren't all about taking on the police union. Or perhaps weirder that progressives, the leading advocates for police reform, are all about trying to dilute police union power.
Angry calls for a real civilian review board—one with subpoena power and teeth, as opposed to Seattle's Office of Professional Accountability Review Board, which simply looks for general trends in the SPD's internal investigation and then offers recommendations—erupted during the protests in the wake of the Williams shooting. The lefty protesters were frustrated with the police union.
With such a strong analogy between the teachers unions and the cops union, it's telling that the positions of conservatives and liberals don't line up. Here's what I make of it: The blatant politicization of the accountability issue has jeopardized two movements where there's obvious common ground.
We'd be much further along in the push to hold public servants accountable if the hypocrisy on both sides wasn't so stark.
Rob McKenna hit this Republican theme in his announcement for governor on Wednesday night.
"You can't give a five percent pay hike to 40 percent [of state employees] automatically—and not because of performance, but because they’ve been at a desk for another year," he said.
McKenna hit teachers directly on Wednesday as well: “We need to revamp,” he said, so that “teacher retention is tied to evaluation of student achievement, and not solely rely on seniority.”
The theme is perfect for Republicans because the obvious bad guys in this meme are the unions.
There's a notable omission for conservatives when it comes to demanding more precise and rigorous accountability from public employees. Anti-collective bargaining Republican Gov. Scott Walker formally embraced the omission earlier this year when he explicitly excluded the group from his anti-public employees union proposal: The police.
The thing is, just as teachers play an extraordinary role in society, so do cops. Shouldn't there be editorials, calls for public safety reform, Gates-foundation-funded data, and a Waiting for Superman II about bad police officers?
After a series of high-profile episodes of police misconduct including the John T. Williams shooting, you'd think that movie could be made here.
As in the debate over teachers, the question comes down to how exactly to measure police performance. And as with the push for teacher accountability, the police unions complicate the question. What kind of measuring sticks can the public put in place without violating the Seattle Police Officer Guild contracts?
Could a bona fide civilian review board with subpoena power and teeth exist with union rules shielding officers from scrutiny?
Weird then, that conservatives aren't all about taking on the police union. Or perhaps weirder that progressives, the leading advocates for police reform, are all about trying to dilute police union power.
Angry calls for a real civilian review board—one with subpoena power and teeth, as opposed to Seattle's Office of Professional Accountability Review Board, which simply looks for general trends in the SPD's internal investigation and then offers recommendations—erupted during the protests in the wake of the Williams shooting. The lefty protesters were frustrated with the police union.
With such a strong analogy between the teachers unions and the cops union, it's telling that the positions of conservatives and liberals don't line up. Here's what I make of it: The blatant politicization of the accountability issue has jeopardized two movements where there's obvious common ground.
We'd be much further along in the push to hold public servants accountable if the hypocrisy on both sides wasn't so stark.
