In Praise of Public Service — and Public Servants
In a national culture that mocks public service and public servants, we do well to contemplate what a wonder they are.
Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. I offer insight, analysis and context on Texas and national politics, as well as entertaining stories of life its ownself in the Lone Star State. If you like what you read, please 1) smash the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Yesterday, Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant stepped down from that office after 38 years in public service, 32 of them as an elected official. His successor, Celia Israel, who has been in public service in one form or another for 30+ years, will be sworn in today.
I rise to make a personal privilege speech in defense of public servants.
Happy New Year!
I.
These are bad times for good public servants. The incoming president, Donald Trump, derides the public servants who keep our government functioning as “the Deep State” and “enemies of the people.” Worse still, he thinks he knows better than all of them and encourages that belief in the mindless rabble that slobbers at mention of his name. Lately, he surrounds himself with – and seems ready to delegate key aspects of his presidency to – so-called “entrepreneurs” whose collective experience in government would not fill a thimble. They demonstrate their ignorance every time they open their mouths, and their true agenda is evident: shape government to make themselves wealthier and even less accountable, “serving the people” be damned.
But the rot runs deeper and longer in our culture than that. For at least a generation now, people have been encouraged to believe government is fundamentally incompetent if not corrupt — this Ronald Reagan and his nine most terrifying words: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” The rise of personal computing and the internet have created a strange and lonely people who “do their own research.” And while vast online databases might allow people to do extensive research and draw their own conclusions, most people lack the critical thinking skills to separate the occasional gold nuggets from all the dross and dreck, and worse, that is available.
Nevertheless, it is hard to be sympathetic to public servants. For most of us, our only interactions with them are customer service encounters: meeting with the zoning officials at City Hall to get permission to build a deck, protesting a property appraisal or paying a utility bill. (I hold to the old-fashioned notion that electricity, water and telephone providers, even if privatized, are public utilities and as such owe us a standard of courtesy and helpfulness.) Such encounters can be frustrating and even
But these frustrating encounters, and the stereotypes that grow from them, mask an amazing success story: a governmental workforce (at the national, state and local levels) that is largely well-trained, mostly incorruptible, and dedicated to serving their fellow citizens.
To be sure, it was not always so, but the reforms of the Progressive Era helped create and nurture a culture of civil service that is the envy of most of the world. Try getting out of a speeding ticket in this country by offering the law enforcement officer a bribe: FAFO. Then try getting out of a speeding ticket in many other countries without offering a bribe.
Try getting out of a speeding ticket in this country by offering the law enforcement officer a bribe: FAFO. Then try getting out of a speeding ticket in many other countries without offering a bribe.
Our public servants are not perfect, to be sure. There is the usual incompetence and laziness one finds in any workforce. And we occasionally see public corruption – favored treatment, bribes, misuse of public resources. But the fact that public corruption, when exposed, offends the great majority of citizens is a tribute to its rarity.
I don’t want to overstate my point, but we sometimes forget what a marvelous accomplishment is the “public servant” in this republic of ours.
Which brings me to Bruce Elfant. He is, to my mind, a shining example of what public service should look like.
II.
I first encountered Bruce Elfant when he was a young Travis County deputy constable. He played a minor but important role in a scheme Paul Begala and I had cooked up: serving a Temporary Restraining Order upon the Dean of the University of Texas Engineering School. The TRO was a small part of a larger melodrama which should be told at a later time or, better yet, forgotten altogether.
After several years as a deputy constable, Bruce was elected the Constable for Travis County Precinct Five in 1992. He held that position for 20 years, until he ran for and was elected the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector. Of course, whoever occupies that lofty position is the “Tax Man,” and we feel his presence every January when we have to pay our property taxes. But the Tax Office also does vehicle registration and titling and collects court costs, fines and fees. And, importantly, it handles voter registration for the county.
I talked with Bruce the other day and asked him what he wants his “legacy” to be. He quickly told me three stories.
1.
In the late 1990s, the Brady Bill required that someone petitioning for a concealed handgun license (Texas had passed its concealed handgun bill in 1993, overriding the veto of Governor Ann Richards) had to submit to a background check during a 7-day waiting period.
One day, Bruce got a call from a citizen, who told him that her husband had just been approved for a license, even though she had a protective order against him. Bruce worked with the Austin Police Department, who performed the background checks, to make sure they included the protective order in their response to the license request. Gun vendors, now aware of the potential embarrassment or even liability for selling a gun to someone facing a protective order, cut back on sales in cases where a protective order was in place. This was before the federal Violence Against Women Act made such notifications standard procedure.
2.
In spite of this improvement, the interface between concealed carry permits and domestic violence remained problematic. In the late 1990s. Bruce partnered with the Travis County Attorney’s Office (which handles domestic violence cases) to ensure that, as soon as a concealed carry permit was issued to someone subject to a protective order, the spouse or partner who’d requested the order was immediately notified.
3.
Perhaps most of all, Bruce is proud of his voter registration efforts. When he took office, 82% of Travis County voters were registered. As he leaves office, that percentage stands at 96.3%, the highest in Texas and one of the highest in the nation.
When Bruce took office, 82% of Travis County voters were registered. As he leaves office, that percentage stands at 96.3%, the highest in Texas and one of the highest in the nation.
As I wrote in September:
[T]here’s one part of his job that Bruce especially loves, that gets him out of bed on Saturday mornings and keeps him sitting at tables outside community centers on cold winter evenings.
Bruce believes that being able to choose our leaders is the fundamental right in our democracy. Without that right, all our freedoms and responsibilities are contingent. Bruce has experimented with making it easier to fill out an application and mail or deliver it. He took an obscure provision allowing citizens to become “volunteer deputy registrars” and created a multitude of voter registration drives in campuses and office buildings and bowling alleys throughout the county. …
He also takes his voting rights advocacy to the next level. Every two years when the Legislature meets, Bruce recruits a House member or senator to sponsor pro-voter legislation. Then he patiently works the relevant House and Senate committees, first begging their chairs to even hear the bill, then testifying and lobbying the members to vote for the measure.
As you can imagine, Bruce faces resistance in the Lege, which has never been particularly friendly to voting rights. And yet, Bruce soldiers on. A healthy optimistic spirit is part of it, but another part is a deep commitment to justice and fair play.
III.
Bruce Elfant is, in my opinion, an exemplar of the good public servant, and I am proud to have known and worked with him. He has stepped away from public service – for now (Bruce Elfant for Governor ’26!?). The good news is, his replacement is another public servant who does everything for the right reasons, Celia Israel. I have known and worked with Celia for over 30 years, and I wish her well as she brings her own experience and skills to the challenges of the job.
Postscript
It is New Year’s Day evening as I post this. In New Orleans last night, 15 people were killed and dozens injured when an Army veteran from Texas drove around a police barricade and plowed into revelers on Bourbon Street. The FBI is investigating the killer’s ties to terrorist organizations – an ISIS flag was recovered at the scene. It is also investigating other incidents, including the planting of two pipe bombs set for remote detonation, in the same area.
This is a dark and tragic beginning to the new year for all those involved. I worry about the dark energy in this country and pray there will be no more incidents like this.
We can't have good guys like Elfant as governor. This is Texas. We are 30 years into Republican rule and still swirling down the toilet. Let us praise good men and women of service, but not destroy their souls by having them deal with the Texas legislature.
Bruce is one of those public servants who seems to be exerting his energies for the public good at a rate daunting to most of us. He is among those that have me doubting whether they sleep. They are up early and still at it when many are ready to hit the hay. Bruce has a great legacy. Like you, I believe we will continue seeing Bruce working for the benefit of the people of Texas.