A good senator

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

This month’s decision by Clifton Below to step down from the New Hampshire Senate is disappointing. The Lebanon Democrat has been a force of reason and fairness within a government that’s increasingly dismissive of both. But his departure is also understandable: Who but independently wealthy and retired people can long endure the realities of the citizen Legislature, where members are paid $100 per year for what, in his case, involved thousands of hours of public service?

Below, who’s in his late 40s, could have quit in bitter frustration. During the six years he served in the House, followed by six more in the Senate, observers of the Legislature witnessed a declining civility, a diminishing respect for law by lawmakers themselves, a mounting disregard for public servants, a tax gouging of ordinary citizens and a willful discarding of basic services to the needy. But, characteristically, Below announced his retirement without a swipe at anyone or anything, saying he must tend to personal and family needs. He says he’ll be back in the public arena someday, and that’s good.

Below was a model for getting beyond anecdote, the standard tool of discovery and debate in Concord, to bring substance to policy discussions. Sometimes others went along with solutions he backed (such as an agreement with the state’s largest electricity producer that helped protect customers from continued rate shocks) and sometimes he remained in the minority (such as when he championed tax reform).

But, win or lose, he won bipartisan respect for knowing his stuff. And he earned kudos from this newspaper for working tirelessly — though ultimately fruitlessly — to bring sophisticated economic forecasting machinery to the tax debate.