USD Magazine, Spring 1995

so-called realignment, with one party in power, has to occur for that to happen." To some extent, political scientists have seen it all before. Even the emergence of Ross Perot's United We Stand as a pop– ular third party, pointed to as clear evidence of voter discontent with the status quo, was not unprecedented. And as in previous cases, it seems destined to be a one-election idea. "The winner– take-all system of American politics favors the two major par– ties," Norton notes. "Third parties are typically gone after one election." Despite their long-range view, however, Norton and Drinan both agree that the past 25 to 30 years have seen some signifi– cant changes in politics, changes that may be responsible for the perception that Americans trust their elected officials less than they ever did. But they say the causes - negative campaigning, talk radio, television sound bites - are here to stay. Professor Michael Pfau begins to nod before the question is fin– ished. He's heard this one before. A great deal of attention was given during the 1994 elections to one poll, which asked a sim– ple question: Do you trust the government to do what is right at least most of the time? Much was made of the fact that in 1964, 76 percent of the people responded that they trusted the government to do what is right, a figure that shrank to 29 per– cent when the same question was asked in 1994. "In 30 years, the government has expanded and become much more complex," says Pfau, a political science professor who specializes in political psychology, or how the public makes sense of political information. "As soon as the government does something, anything, some portion of the population will be alienated. The more government does, the more apt it is to fail in the eyes of some small segment of the population." Add all those segments together, Pfau says, and you end up with a large group of people who distrust the government. Distrust of this sort, Pfau argues, doesn't necessarily indicate a major crisis of confidence. In fact, Pfau says this distrust may be a healthy expression of a more informed, more demanding electorate. "If evaluation of politicians is at an all-time low, it's because people are at an all-time high as far as concern," Pfau says. "People may not like politicians, but at least they know why they don't like them." The fact that Republicans fared so well in the last election may bear out the hypothesis that people are not fed up with all politicians. Some observers believe voters were no more angry in this election than in any other, and were simply exercising their right to elect politicians who will carry out their will. "People were frustrated because they didn't see anything get– ting done," says Molly Smith '86, who worked for several years as a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee. "The Democrats took the hit because they were the majority party when people decided they were going to shake things up." "What people were voting for in November was more than just change for change's sake," says Haddad. "They're upset

When Juan Vargas '83 became a San Diego city councilman in 1993, people weren't lining up at his City Hall office with problems and questions. That's because he wasn't there. "People are often intimidated about going to City Hall with their problems, so we set up a mobile office - which was essentially two chairs, a table and a sign - right in the mid– dle of the district," Vargas recalls. "l sat down to talk with the first person who came by and when I looked up, there were about 20 more people waiting." Vargas estimates that he talked to more than 100 people that first day. And while he still uses his mobile office, he finds that not as many people stop by to complain. "Many of the people were upset about the same things," he says. "Once those problems were solved, fewer people came by." It's clear that Vargas has hit upon a simple solution to what seems to be a complex problem. After the 1994 elections, in which voters shook up Washington by ousting Democrats and putting Republicans in charge of the Congress for the first time in 40 years, many politicians were left wondering what they could do to please the public. Vargas' answer: Be honest and get things done. "You have to listen to people, know what they want done and prioritize that agenda," says Vargas, who ran an unsuc– cessful campaign for the House of Representatives in 1992 before being elected to the City Council the following year. "If something can't be done, if it's beyond our control, we let them know that right away." And as Vargas has discovered, sometimes the best way for politicians to get things done is to do it themselves. When one constituent complained to Vargas about graffiti on a wall fac– ing her house, she was shocked- and pleased - to find Vargas painting the wall himself. Vargas has never been one to shy away from rolling up his sleeves and going to work. The son of Mexican immigrants who he says taught him to believe that hard work and dedica– tion pay off, Vargas spent part of his youth working with his father on an egg ranch. And although he went on to be a teacher and an attorney, he says the biggest influence on his political life is his four-year stint as a member of the Jesuits. "When I thought about entering politics, I looked backed on the philosophy of the Jesuits," says Vargas. "They taught me that life is short, so if you have the opportunity to do some– thing good, you should do it." With that philosophy, Vargas is taking the problems his constituents face one step at a time. He's worked to attract supermarkets and shopping centers to low-income neighbor– hoods that have never had them, build baseball diamonds for little leaguers and construct a new elementary school. And while filling in potholes and fixing broken streetlights may seem like minor tasks, those actions mean a lot to people who have someone to listen to, and help with, their problems. Although Vargas isn't popular with each and every voter in his district, he seems to spend less time worrying about public opinion than he does worrying about how to take actions that might help his constituents . Perhaps that, too, is a lesson for other politicians. "There are people in my district who don't agree with all my politics, but they also feel they can work with me," Vargas says. "Sometimes you make mistakes, sometimes you lose votes, but you have to try to do what is right every time."

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