Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. A key part of the political system — and one of the many great freedoms we have in America — is the ability to vote. We often don’t think about it, perhaps, and some people don’t take the opportunity, but voting is very powerful because it can enable us to determine who our leaders will be and what policies will be followed. Some people thrive in the political environment, some complain about it, and a few throw their hat in the ring with a commitment to make government better. That is the case of James Marlow.
I met James more than a dozen years ago when he was at Lotus (subsequently with IBM). Some years later James, a native Georgian, invited me to come down to Atlanta and give a talk about the future of the Internet. At that point and for another six years James worked for Yahoo!. He has had a passion for politics for a couple of decades and when a U.S. Congressional opening occurred in Georgia’s 10th District, James decided to make a run for it. There is going to be a special election in June. It will be a crowded field of potentially over a dozen candidates. James says that his focus will be on "common sense solutions and bringing innovation to government". The specific areas he is going to hone in on are to improve education (the high school drop out rate is over 30%), healthcare (electronic medical records), and achieving energy independence.
I don’t know anything about Georgia politics or about the opponents that James will face, but one thing I do know is that we need more people in government that have experience in the technology industry. The U.S. Senate includes 53 (53%) lawyers and the Congress overall includes 211 (39%). Many people feel that the American legal system is one of the nation’s top domestic problems. If you feel that way then the fact that the lawyers in Congress have such influence over the political system may keep you up at night.
We need innovative yet simple policies to deal with the major problems in education, healthcare, energy, immigration, and defense. What are the odds of getting simple legislation from our Congress? Currently, congress is seeking advice from the biggest accounting firms to help them rewrite the income tax laws. What are the odds of the result being a simpler tax code? The laws adopted by Congress are highly complex, written by lawyers. Then lawyers represent plaintiffs to sue based on the laws. Then the defendants hire lawyers. When taxes are an issue, both plaintiff and defendant hire professional accountants. Then the accountants hire lawyers to make sure their advise isn’t subject to drawing a suit, but advise often does draw a suit and then another set of plaintiffs and defendants hires another set of lawyers and we end up with layers of lawyers. All of them charging $200-$800 per hour.
The legal aspects of the political system are important. Solid principles have be at the cornerstone of the system and lawyers are needed to write, defend, and prosecute in the legal system. It is a matter of balance. Currently, one might argue that we are out of balance. The key problems of our country require innovative technology solutions. People die because of lack of modern technology in healthcare. We don’t need complex layers of laws to solve this. We need visionary political leaders with technology backgrounds and experience at investing in and deploying advanced technology solutions. I hope when people go to the polls in June in Georgia’s 10th district that they will look beyond political parties and examine the technology experience of the candidates.
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