Limitations of recruiting candidates for public office
Hunt illuminates the economic and social sacrifice of serving in a political office, often causing young successful businesspeople to avoid running for public offices.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with James B. Hunt, August 15, 2001. Interview C-0331. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACK FLEER:
-
Another dimension of recruiting people for this is the question of
salary. There's the argument that people who are employed in
public service do not command the kinds of compensation that people in
the private sector do. Was that ever a problem in your recruiting people
for public office?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
It was a very big problem. It just absolutely eliminates the possibility
that you would get anybody who is a real successful person unless they
are independently wealthy. They see it as a stepping stone to something
else they want to do. Or they're just willing to make a
sacrifice in their career and in their income. I frequently brought in
people who were independently wealthy and didn't have to
worry about the impact on their income or their
increase over time of their income. But I would say to you by and large
successful business people are not available to join government
especially younger ones.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
Typically people who, sometimes lawyers would come in and work for you if
they see a judgeship vacant. People, there are people who have ambitions
for themselves who may see this as a good way to get exposure to get
known. Richard Moore, I think, became quite well known as Secretary of
Crime Control and Public Safety through the work in the hurricanes as
well as Crime Control. That was an advantage to him. He ran for state
treasurer. But it is a huge problem trying to get good people to serve.
But it is not impossible. It does eliminate a category of folks pretty
much, but they're, fortunately there're others who
have the resources already or who just care so deeply they want to make
the sacrifice.
- JACK FLEER:
-
What about the loss or the diminishing of personal privacy in your own
life so to speak? Is that a deterrent to people serving? Did you run
into that?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
Increasingly. My wife really chafed under the constant public scrutiny,
the criticism of the press, the lack of privacy, the lack of ability to
have our own private life. I understood it. That's just the
way it works. She was willing for me to run for re-election initially
and to run a second time after I had already served two terms because
she believed very deeply in what we were doing especially in education.
Our children and grandchildren had a big stake in it. But that is a big
problem, and yet what do you do about it? It's the
public's business. I believe in full and open information,
press access to most things. Certainly they, we, you have to remember in
my term we put into place a very, very strict code of ethics. Some
people on my commissions refused to be a part of it and therefore
resigned. I mean their positions on boards and commissions not in the
administration full time. So that's a problem, but
there's still plenty of good people that
believe so strongly that they'll come in and to put up
with that and live with the kind of scrutiny and so forth that goes with
it.