“I had a question mark in my mind about whether it would be worth it to spend time in elective office. For me at least, the answer is it was very fulfilling and very worthwhile. ”

PHOTO: BRYAN REGAN

“I sometimes think back and wonder how much I’ve given up by having to be the programmatic person in order to rise in leadership but also be able to get things done.”

PHOTO: DANA SMITH

“You have to be prepared to bargain and not get what you really need. Bargaining it down to the point where it’s ineffective doesn’t get me what I want.”

PHOTO: BLAKE DISCHER

Summer 2007

Going Public

By Lewis I. Rice

WHEN THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA widened an interstate, a nearby elementary school wanted a sound barrier to mask the noise. The state refused, so school officials turned to Wib Gulley ’81 for help. The state senator toured the grounds, spoke to students and administrators, and eventually convinced the transportation department to install a wall.

The effort is hardly the stuff of banner headlines or evening news broadcasts. But for Gulley, the wall served as tangible evidence of his desire to improve people’s lives during his time in public office.

Like many Northeastern law graduates, Gulley was drawn to public service. More commonly, students and graduates gravitate to government or nonprofit legal jobs, but some turn to the voters to grant them the chance to serve, including Gulley; Andrew Ketterer ’74, the former attorney general of Maine; and Ralph Martin ’78, the former district attorney of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Others have successfully run for office as legislators or executives who shape public policy. These graduates have faced the sometimes-difficult glare of the public spotlight and the compromises inherent in the political process while trying to use their time in office to make a difference.

“I had a question mark in my mind about whether it would be worth it to spend time in elective office,” says Gulley. “For me at least, the answer is it was very fulfilling and very worthwhile.”

Margaret Wood Hassan ’85 came to the same conclusion, even though she didn’t plan to run for office when she did. Now a state senator in New Hampshire, she ran first in 2002 at the urging of local activists when another candidate dropped out. At the time, she had been lobbying legislators on behalf of children with disabilities (she has one of her own). She lost her first race but won a rematch against the incumbent in 2004.

Hassan learned quickly about tough political campaigns — a mailing from her opponent compared her to a pig, calling her “whole hog” for a state income tax with her name affixed to porcine pictures. But she also enjoyed the process, the chance to meet constituents face to face and learn about the district from the grassroots.

Though she was politically active before her election, she’s gained a newfound appreciation of the legislative body as one of its members.

“It’s people who for the most part are really doing their best according to what their constituents want and need,” Hassan says. “Most people who want to solve problems regardless of party label can get a lot done together, and that’s a pleasant part of it.”

For some graduates, law school served as an inspiration to enter political life. Peter Franchot ’78, who was recently elected comptroller of Maryland after 20 years in the state House of Delegates, says his parents cultivated his enthusiasm for public service, which his time in law school reinforced. “Many of the values that I hold in public life are values that were very present during my experience at Northeastern law school,” he says.

According to Karen Spilka ’80, a state senator in Massachusetts, law school prepared her for the negotiations of the legislative process. She points to a bill she spearheaded to bolster public transportation in her district, west of metropolitan Boston. Though the effort wouldn’t directly impact other lawmakers’ districts, she was still able to muster support.

“This is where the legal training is really helpful,” says Spilka, who previously served as a state representative. “You try to anticipate what the arguments against what you’re pushing for will be and try to logically and strategically come up with the information to provide to the person to overcome that opposition.”

People Matters

Gordon Fox ’91 launched a run for public office shortly after graduating from law school, vying to represent the district in Rhode Island in which he was raised. Now the state House majority leader, Fox says he learned a lesson about lawmaking when he advocated for a civil rights bill to protect gay and lesbian residents. He assumed that the issue would inspire passionate arguments from his fellow legislators, but found that many agreed to vote with him if he supported their pet projects, such as tax relief for their districts.

“At first, I was taken aback by that, but ultimately I think that’s part of the legislative process,” he says. “I sometimes think back and wonder how much I’ve given up by having to be the programmatic person in order to rise in leadership but also be able to get things done. You make those choices every day.”

Sharon McPhail ’76 acknowledges that those choices galled her as a member of the Detroit City Council, on which she served for one four-year term. In fact, she calls the position the worst job she ever had, spanning a career in which she’s worked in private practice and as a division chief in Michigan’s Wayne County prosecutor’s office.

Now general counsel for the city of Detroit, McPhail points to petty infighting on the council that impeded efforts to help the struggling city. She proposed an ordinance, for example, to ban guns from recreation centers. It passed, but two people who voted against it told her they did so because they didn’t like her, she says.

In 1993 and 2005, McPhail lost races for Detroit mayor, a position where it would be easier to affect change, she says.

“An old friend of mine from the council used to tell me that I was an executive type, not a legislative type because I don’t like losing,” McPhail says. “You have to be prepared to bargain and not get what you really need. Bargaining it down to the point where it’s ineffective doesn’t get me what I want.”

Gulley, who resigned from his state senate seat in 2004 to take a job as general counsel for a public transportation agency, experienced both the executive and legislative sides. The mayor of Durham, North Carolina, from 1985 to 1989, before his election to the senate in 1993, he says he was able to implement smart growth policies in the city and improve local transportation services. He also initiated the largest affordable housing project on a per capita basis in the state, he says.

As mayor, he enjoyed more autonomy and a quicker road to progress, he says. Nevertheless, the mayor must also shape an agenda with a city council. Building a coalition that worked together proved to be a significant part of the job, according to Gulley.

“I came in thinking it was going to be 80 percent policy and 20 percent people and personality,” he says. “Of course, the reality is the opposite of that.”

Gulley resigned from the mayor’s office after two terms in order to spend more time with his then-young children and make more money at his law practice (the $20,000 he later made as a part-time legislator was about twice as much as his mayor’s salary).

Give and Take

A political career means balancing such personal considerations. Spilka gave up her own arbitration and mediation practice in order to concentrate on her legislative career. She describes votes taken at midnight, frequent night and weekend work, and low pay. In addition, public figures often face criticism and second-guessing for the decisions they make, she says.

“A lot of people say it’s just not worth it. To me, the rewards are still greater than all of the downsides,“ she says. “I feel that I’m able to make positive changes in people’s lives. As long as I can do that and I love it, I’ll stay.”

That kind of motivation drives many graduates to sustain political careers, despite the personal sacrifices. Hassan, a part-time legislator, earns all of $100 a year to serve as a senator while continuing to practice law. She also points to gratifying legislative achievements, including a bill to require reasonable accommodations under the state disability and antidiscrimination law and the passage of civil unions.

For all the challenges of balancing her many professional responsibilities with her family life, she has embraced the political stage.

“There’s so much to do and so much to learn,” she says. “Other than getting married and having my kids, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Fox tries to maintain his own law practice while working his part-time — but high-profile — legislative seat. He’s mindful of the appearance of conflicts of interests that may arise with the legal business he accepts. Every day, he says, he must reconcile his business interests versus the public interest.

Yet the same idealism that propelled him to a political run after law school still drives him today, Fox says. He cites legislation he helped pass that provided the first long-term investment in affordable housing in the state. It allowed him to see for himself the difference his profession can make.

“When I go out there and watch families and the kids’ eyes when they see they’ve got a clean place to live and a backyard with grass, you see the pride in the parents’ faces,” says Fox. “That’s the fuel that keeps me going.”

McPhail wishes she had the chance to accomplish what she wanted as mayor. When she was a law student, she says, “Northeastern was a place that made you think you could do anything.” Though experience has tempered her idealism, she said she’d still encourage graduates to pursue political careers.

“You never want to crush youthful exuberance. It’s a good thing,” she says. “I now know where you have to go to do it, what’s at risk, and what you have to put up with to make it happen.”

Franchot says he too encourages people to participate in the political process. He experienced it in a different way early in his career as a staff director for Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts, and, during his own five-term stint in the Maryland legislature, he authored a property tax bill that returned more money at the time to state taxpayers than any other piece of legislation in the state’s history, he says.

Now, as comptroller, he’s achieved greater public prominence in a position that serves as the chief fiscal officer of the state. He has prior business experience in a consulting practice but says that public office offers the best chance to accomplish his goals.

“I applaud people who take a different route and have very successful business and legal careers in the private sector,” Franchot says, “but I cannot imagine that they have anywhere near the satisfaction I have had in my career leveraging the power of my positions to help people.”

Lewis I. Rice is a freelance writer in Arlington, Massachusetts.