How I Learned Political Cynicism

In the summer of 1963, my best friend Chris and I were attending summer school at Springfield HS in Illinois to pick up some extra credit for graduation the following spring. (I took typing, one of the few things I learned in high school that actually turned out to be useful for the rest of my life.)

Chris's dad "knew somebody" in the state legislature and arranged for us to be "honorary pages" in the House of Representatives for a week, and for that week, after class we'd trot down to the nearby State House, clip on our badges, and earn a few bucks sitting on the pages' bench and running errands for various Democratic representatives.

The Dem's bench was in the front of the Illinois House chamber, right next to the desk of a rep from Chicago named Mike _______. I'm not being coy here, I simply have no idea what his last name was. I'm not sure I knew even then. Mike was the pages' buddy, tipped generously, and used us for everything from getting him a cocktail to picking up his laundry. But the thing that we all liked most about him was that he spent a fair amount of time away from his desk, and if he was going to be away for a vote, one of us lucky pages would get to sit in his chair and vote for him!

At that time, the Illinois House used an electro-mechanical voting system manufactured by the American Totalizator Company. Voting required flipping the electrical switch that sat on each member's desk to the right for "yea" or the left for "nay". Representatives who actually cared about a bill but were going to be away for the vote could vote by pressing the switch in the desired direction and sticking a toothpick in it to hold it there until the machine was turned on to record the vote. Giant "tote boards" with each rep's name and a red and green light were on the wall at the front of the house, Dems on one side and Republicans on the other.

Before Mike would leave the floor, his instructions to the lucky page always went something like this: "Watch the Democratic tote board, and when nearly everybody has voted, vote me with the majority. If the vote is pretty evenly divided, look at the Republican tote board and vote me with the minority. If their vote is evenly divided, don't do anything."

Ah, sweet! Democracy in action! Whenever I catch myself foolishly wondering how so many horribly stupid laws get passed, I remember Mike and the 1963 Illinois State Legislature, and my mind switches back into reality mode.