Simon Sefzik

4th of July at the White House, 4 years ago today. I remember staying late to help clean up and then walking back to the apartment with my roommate. All the public transportation was closed (and we are too cheap to Uber) so we had quite a walk through DC at like 2am. Pictures are blurry but oh well.

Happy 4th!

“At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

I enjoyed placing flags on the graves of those who served our country at a cemetery in Lynden today. Thank you to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may breath free.

The six People's Initiatives to the Legislature are a really big deal. ALL of them deserve to be heard. Former SRC Sen. Simon Sefzik explains the historical context and why the Initiatives deserve more attention.

Cascadia Weekly: https://ow.ly/YLXa50QHvmY

President’s Day 2024

On my first day at the White House, I received copy of a speech by Tony Snow, former speechwriter for H.W. Bush and, later, George Bush’s Press Secretary. I kept it at my desk every and have found myself returning to its wisdom over the years. More than advice for work, it’s great life advice. I’ve included it below:

“Change of the Guard”

We Washington insiders never tire of Inaugural pomp and pageantry, particularly at times when power changes hands and a new president takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
It never fails: New aides and acolytes flock to town, abuzz with high hopes and vague ambitions. They scamper to balls and celebrations, race gleefully to the museums and monuments, drink in the sights and feel of the picturesque little town on the Potomac. It’s heady stuff, waking up one day and realizing: “Hey, I’m going to work at the White House. The White House. The home of the president of the United States. The mansion of James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. The gravitational center of the Free World. The place of dreams and imagination.”

Those of us who have been through the experience look at the newcomers with parental tenderness. The neophytes, with their excitement and jitters, look like children walking into a brand new school for the first time. They are dressed immaculately. They walk briskly and happily. They luxuriate in everything: the colors, the smells, the hushed-carpet quiet of the West Wing foyer; the echo of heels slapping the slate floors of the Old Executive Office Building.

And yet as one watches the spectacle, one knows that some day these same men and women will stop skipping into the buildings. Their smiles will flatten and dim. But at the end of it all, they’ll wind up wiser and better.

My contribution to the Class of 2001 is some simple, time-tested advice.

1. Don’t get a big head. If you lose your humility, someone will return it with compound interest.
The boneyard of American politics is filled with people who labored under the false impression that their participation in a White House made them unique and special. But as some statesman once observed: The graveyards of the world are filled with indispensable men. Realize that service is an honor, the president is your boss (not the other way around), and you are just a visitor to the history factory.

2. In Washington, you can’t take friendship personally.
This is a corollary to the first rule. People will kiss up to you in ways you cannot imagine. Realize that their professions of ardor have nothing to do with you and everything to do with your job title. The moment you leave, they will court your successor.
Marlin Fitzwater remarked somewhat dolefully after the 1992 loss of the first President Bush that his phone suddenly had stopped ringing. The reporters had moved on. In 1991, while I was a minor grandee in that same White House, I received more than 400 Christmas and holiday cards at the office. The following year, following Mr. Bush’s defeat, I received 25.

3. In Washington, the urgent overwhelms the important.
I got this one from Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation. The nation’s capital serves as a magnifying glass for gossip. It takes a juicy morsel of rumor and concentrates it, as a magnifying glass does a ray of sun, into something instantaneously lethal. Don’t get sucked into fretting over every little thing unless you want to get incinerated. As Mark Twain famously observed: “Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.”

4. Make friends in low places.
Get to know the people who have worked forever at the White House: the cleaners, mail-room employees, the cafeteria cashiers. They know the place better than you ever will. They also belong to one of the most efficient news organizations on Earth. Often, they know what’s going on long before you do and before your superiors have even a faint clue.

5. Stop once a day and pinch yourself.
The White House, with all its pressures, intrigues, triumphs, betrayals, joys and disappointments, is the most special place you ever will work. Look out the gates at the people who slow their gait as they pass, trying to get a glimpse of someone - anyone. They know what you’re likely to forget. You’re blessed.

Work hard. Be honest. Understand the honor of your calling. Leave no room for regrets for someday, in the not-so-distant future, you will be back where you started: On the sidewalk with the other folks, gawking at that grand, glorious, mysterious place where Lincoln walks at night, and our highest hopes and dreams reside.”

I joined Jason Rantz’s show this afternoon to discuss Initiative 1 in Bellingham (minimum wage increase). I’m not optimistic that this proposal will improve affordability. In fact, I think it will harm the very people it’s intended to help.

Listen here 👇

Simon Sefzik (Future 42) - Highlights - The Jason Rantz Show Former state senator Simon Sefzik (Future 42) breaks down the latest minimum wage hike idea out of Bellingham.

This is great!