By Brent Batten
Naples Daily News
12/10/07

Burt Saunders may have rocked the political scene last week by announcing an independent run to dislodge Connie Mack as Southwest Florida’s man in Congress.

But who’s to say the political scene couldn’t use a bit of rocking?

A seat in Congress has evolved from the founders’ idea of an interruption of a career to take care of the people’s business to a career unto itself.

Re-election has become a mere formality for those who manage to avoid all but the most egregious of sins.

Mack is not without success as the representative of the 14th District. He can claim at least partial credit for securing the earmark that got the widening of Interstate 75 off dead center. He has taken the lead in sounding the alarm about the threat posed by Venezuela’s leftist president Hugo Chavez.

But his first two terms in Congress are as likely to be remembered for his hook-up with colleague Mary Bono as any legislative accomplishment.

Mack is becoming firmly ensconced in the cult of congressional celebrity.

Is there any doubt that, given the chance, he would remain there until kingdom come?

Mack’s backers will argue that he is gaining seniority and clout in a system that rewards both. Anyone who unseats him will be starting over. Saunders would be doing so without formal standing with the Republican leadership.

But the seniority-based system has given us the abuses of the likes of Don Young, the Alaska congressman who rose to the chairmanship of the House Transportation Committee. His ability to direct millions of taxpayer dollars to questionable projects in sparsely populated areas of his home state is legendary. He is even credited _ blamed, some would say _ for a $10 million addition to the I-75 earmark that would have benefited a political donor in Lee County.

Barring a constitutional amendment, the grip that career politicians hold on Congress won’t be broken by an explosive release but rather by a slow-prying, one seat at a time.

Saunders, a registered Republican, would represent that sort of gradual turnover. A change of personnel representing the region, not a sea change in the political leanings of the region itself.

Granted, Saunders is hardly the poster boy for the notion of the citizen legislator.

While a practicing attorney, he has also held elected office continually since 1986, when he was voted county commissioner.

Eight years in that job, a stint in the Florida House and three terms in the Florida Senate later, Saunders is something of a career politician himself. Had state term limits not ended his time in the Senate, he might have become just as comfortable there as Washington incumbents do in their offices.

Running without party support, or party money, in a strongly Republican region will present a challenge to Saunders. But he has a solid record on the environment, earning 2007 awards from both Audubon of Florida and the Florida Wildlife Federation, which could attract independent voters and Democrats looking for an alternative to the uphill candidacy of their party’s Larry Byrnes.

If nothing else, Saunders’ presence will energize the fall election and require Mack to offer ideas and leadership, not just incumbency.

That’s just the sort of jolt the system and its habitues need.
 

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