Ex-Louisville mayor embraces White House policy role
WASHINGTON — Former Louisville mayor and lieutenant governor Jerry Abramson was asked at the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Friday who was the best retail politician
Abramson looked out into the Capital Hilton Hotel ballroom at the sea of city executives and pointed one out: “Joe Riley,” referring to Charleston, S.C., Mayor Joseph Riley Jr., who is considered the dean of the nation’s mayors and is ending one of the longest runs in any city hall (he started in 1975).
But Abramson is not so bad himself as a personable, successful politician. Holder of the record for longest tenure as mayor of Louisville and now two months into his role as President Obama’s liaison with the nation’s cities and states, Abramson is bringing his considerable people skills and policy-wonk chops to bear on every domestic policy issue the administration handles, including health care, job training, the minimum wage, infrastructure investment and access to community college.
Abramson’s official title takes two lines of his presidential-seal-embossed business card: deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs.
“Our team is the domestic issues of the day,” he said in an interview with The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal
What that means is constant communication between his office in the West Wing of the White House and the country’s mayors, county executives, governors and state legislators.
In the last few weeks, Abramson has been in his element, first meeting with Vice President Biden and presidential speechwriters ahead of Obama’s State of the Union address, then huddling with the mayors during their three-day meeting.
He knows a lot of his city hall colleagues, either because he used to serve with them or has gotten to know them over the years. Abramson also is a former president of the conference, a position from which he was a prominent advocate for urban issues.
A look around the mayors’ meetings would inevitably find Abramson in quiet conference with a mayor on some subject.
“I have been in the nooks and crannies of the hotel,” Abramson said, laughing. He had sessions with the mayors of, among other places, Miami Beach; Los Angles; Seattle; Natchez, Miss.; Racine, Wisc.; Newark; and Philadelphia. That’s just the short list.
Asked if mayors ask for specific things, Abramson laughed. “There always seems to be a project or a need,” he said, adding that as a former mayor he was in their shoes many times, going back to Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
Obama touted Abramson by name in his Jan. 23 speech to the mayors as an indication that “we take our partnership with you seriously because you’re often the place where change happens fastest.”
Abramson is one of four ex-mayors in the administration. The others are former Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx, now secretary of Transportation; former Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Mayor (and former Gov.) Tom Vilsack, now secretary of Agriculture; and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, now secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
“You’ve got an administration with more of a focus on communities — local governments — than I’ve certainly seen in my two decades plus,” Abramson told the mayors during a forum with the Cabinet secretaries.
The mayors of Kentucky’s two largest cities see Abramson’s White House post as a plus.
“He’s always rooting for the home team, so it doesn’t hurt, let’s put it that way,” said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer.
The city already had a very active relationship with the intergovernmental affairs office, so with Abramson there now, “it even makes it easier,” the mayor said.
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray said that he sent Abramson a text message that said: “The three most important words in the English language are ‘I need help.’ “
No more special projects earmarked in congressional spending bills means mayors have to do more work on their own with the federal bureaucracy, Gray said.
Abramson told the mayors that while they need help from the administration, the reverse is also true.
“In this day and age with the tight dollars that are available for services, be they state, be they city or county, collaboration is the name of the game,” he said. And city officials can help Washington in making sure what is proposed is realistic and doable, he added.
Abramson feels he is making a difference at an important time in the history of the Obama presidency.
Many friends asked him why he’d go to Washington in the last two years of the administration. His answer is similar to Obama’s.
“The bottom line here is that we’re in the fourth quarter,” he said. “As folks in Seattle and Green Bay recently understood, the fourth quarter is important.”
“What have we done since I’ve been here? Changed our relations with Cuba; rolled out an immigration executive order because for 580 days the Senate bipartisan bill’s been sitting on the (House) speaker’s desk and nothing’s happened; we’ve cleared a climate arrangement with China. Not bad for six weeks,” he said. “And now we’ve laid out a game plan for a middle-class economic initiative. There is a lot of excitement in the White House these days.”
Another Kentuckian with even more power in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave a negative review to Obama’s State of the Union proposals, saying the president sounded as if he was seeking a third term. In McConnell’s view, the president is ignoring the message from the voters last fall that they wanted a new direction.
Abramson and McConnell have known each other for years and served together as co-chairs on the merger of Louisville and Jefferson County government.
“I see him on the airplane (between Louisville and Washington) from time to time,” Abramson said of McConnell. “We’re always talking basketball and football.”
But selling the Senate GOP leader on Obama initiatives is the job of, quite literally, a different White House department — the legislative affairs office.
“I’ve always had a good working relationship with him, but that’s not in my portfolio,” Abramson said.
On the personal side, Fischer said he has seen “how energized (Abramson) is and how committed he is to doing a great job.”
“He’s found a really great spot for himself,” the mayor said.
No argument from Abramson.
“It’s fun,” he said. “It’s been two months of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington