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A former colleague of Jane Campbell’s in the
Ohio legislature recalls the time he wrote a bill aimed at embarrassing
"deadbeat dads" by displaying their pictures in public
on "Wanted" posters. The only cost involved was a couple
of thousand dollars for printing. The bill passed the Senate easily
and moved over to the House.
Then Campbell got hold of it. By the time the legislation
cleared the House floor, it included provisions establishing paternity
for out-of-wedlock births and providing a whole array of other child-support-enforcement
measures. The author didn’t like these additions, but he couldn’t
bring himself to criticize Campbell for fooling around with his
bill. "I thought she played very fair," he says. "She
never tried to sneak one by." That’s Jane Campbell for
you. She out-maneuvers people, and all they end up saying is what
a nice person she is.
These days, Campbell is practicing her legislative
and interpersonal skills on a different field. After six two-year
terms in the legislature, where she was majority whip and then assistant
Democratic leader, Campbell switched to local government, becoming
president of the Board of County Commissioners in Cuyahoga County,
Ohio’s most populous jurisdiction, with Cleveland as its center.
Campbell’s move to county government surprised
some who knew her. But it was a way to keep working on the issues
she cares most about. She wanted to help manage the transition to
a new welfare system, and the local level was the place to do that.
So far, she has been remarkably successful. Cuyahoga has moved 20,000
families from welfare to work, and is committed to staying with
them as they struggle to keep the jobs and support themselves, offering
child care, health care, training and other services as part of
its standard back-to-work package.
The county’s Early Childhood Initiative, promoted
by Campbell, is funded with $30 million in federal, state and local
money and another $10 million in private funds. Through it, the
county intervenes at the earliest possible stage in a child’s
life. All first-time mothers and teenage mothers receive home visits
from a registered nurse, regardless of income. Where the nurse identifies
a challenge, such as illness or a struggling welfare family, an
ongoing home visitation program is put in place. In the first year
of the program, 6,616 home visits were completed. "Babies are
the only things that come with no instructions," Campbell likes
to say. "Toasters come with four pages of instructions in two
languages. Babies just come home naked."
Campbell also has had a hand in moving Cuyahoga to
performance-based budgeting and performance contracts for job-training
providers, and expanding Medicaid to more of the working poor. All
the county’s efforts in this direction reflect the 47-year-old
Campbell’s priorities and personal interests. She came by them
long ago. Her mother was an ally of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
and a founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization. Jane
Campbell was an activist on women’s issues at the local level
before winning her state legislative seat while she was still in
her 20s.
Moving from a state government setting to a local
commission, Campbell has continued to practice the politics of civility
for which she was known in the legislature. In Cuyahoga County,
she’s had repeated success working with colleagues across partisan
and ideological lines—colleagues who may not buy into her generally
liberal philosophy of government. But if she argues politely, anyone
who challenges her soon finds that she argues tenaciously, and hates
to lose. "There’s a tendency in government to say, ‘Why
not let it ride, let it rest, give it up,’ "Campbell contends.
"I’m not going to give it up. I’m not very patient
about that."
--- Ellen Penman
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