Pete Buttigieg in Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg
On Civil Rights:
As mayor, renamed main street as Martin Luther King Blvd
From time to time, someone would come to a council meeting and argue that a street named "MLK Drive" ought to be extended to a longer stretch of the road. It made sense to me; especially compelling was the idea of making sure it was a street with a bus
route, given the significance of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It turns out that one of the few unilateral, unchecked powers that an Indiana mayor has is to rename a street. Every idea I floated for such "toponymic commemoration" met a new angle of
resistance. There turned out to be a natural alternative: Saint Joseph Street. There were enough places already named after our area's patron saint of nearly everything. I announced it, arranged for the street signs to be made, and made it official on
Dr. King's birthday in 2017.
Achieving this took only four years. And now, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard looks good, and so do the busses bearing Dr. King's name that run along it.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.152-4
Feb 12, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Declared "open city" for LGBT, when state became anti-LGBT
My own moral outrage compounded the fact that [RFRA] had just made my job, as a mayor intent on growing our community as an inclusive and welcoming place, more difficult. The bill would preempt local laws like our local nondiscrimination ordinance,
and send a message that people living in our city could not expect to be treated equally. It was a blow to some of our most vulnerable residents--like a teenager at one of our high schools, already in the incredibly difficult process of facing her
sexuality or gender identity, now being told that the state would not protect her rights. The only way to avoid South Bend getting lumped in with the rest of the state was to be vocal. I sought to reassure members of the LGBT community that they
were safe in South Bend, and called on the state to reverse course.
My office distributed stickers reading "COME ON IN: SOUTH BEND IS AN OPEN CITY," and they quickly became appearing in restaurant and shop windows across town.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.213-4
Feb 12, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Someday, politicians won't have to come out as gay
How to reconcile my professional life with the fact that I am gay? I was not eager to become the poster child for LGBT issues; I had strongly supported these causes but did not want to be defined by them. Before explaining it to the world, I had to
explain it to some people in my life. In my case, the top of the list was my Mom and Dad. If any disappointment surfaced at the table that night, it came after my mom looked at me, with a little light in her eyes, and asked, "Is there someone?" Only
after answering no, and seeing the light fade a little, did I realize that the tone of her question had been one of hope. No, there wasn't someone at the moment. But I wished there were.
Someday politicians won't have to come out as gay any more than
one "comes out" as straight. Someone like me would just show up at a social function with a date who was of the same sex, and everyone would figure it out and shrug. Maybe it's already getting to be like that, in some coastal cities. But not in Indiana.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.264-7
Feb 12, 2019
On Corporations:
Supported 2008 auto bailout, to save workers and communities
In December 2008, President Bush boldly initiated a $17.4 billion bailout package, saying, "Bankruptcy now would lead to a disorderly liquidation of American auto companies." To me, "disorderly liquidation" sounded like a cartoon whirlpool, with cars
and workers waving their arms for help in the downward spiral toward the drain. A simpler way to put it was that millions of lives and hundreds of communities stood to be ruined. Yet the move to prevent this disaster was clearly not a political winner--
something about the word "bailout" makes voters allergic--and the Senate was loath to vote for the package. When Congress refused to authorize funds, Bush acted unilaterally, rewiring money that Congress had authorized, with other purposes in mind,
as part of the TARP bank rescue. The new Democratic administration planned to continue the unpopular policy, but as President Obama took office in January 2009. By 2012, this once-unpopular policy had come to be seen as a clear win.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 82-3
Feb 12, 2019
On Corporations:
Companies are not persons; should not have religious rights
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act said that "a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion." But "person" was defined to include companies, building on the legal theory of the 2014 Supreme Court Hobby Lobby case,
which interpreted federal law as giving corporations the same religious rights as people. Effectively this meant that any place of business, from a restaurant to an auto shop, could refuse an LGBT individual or couple, provided its owner cited
religion as the motivation for discriminating. It could even be interpreted to protect a physician denying care to a gay patient. And it would wipe out South Bend's own local ordinance, passed in 2012, which prohibited workplace discrimination against
LGBT residents. Despite the name, its purpose was not to "restore" religious freedom--after all, religious freedom is already guaranteed in the Constitution. The bill's actual purpose, its sponsors would later reveal, was to legalize discrimination.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.209-10
Feb 12, 2019
On Crime:
Concentrate law enforcement on gang-related violence
As the count of shootings rose, I learned of the Boston Miracle. In the late 1990s, during a similar crisis, community leaders tried a new approach to dealing with gang-related violence. Using rigorous analysis to map group associations, a team of
researchers joined with prosecutors, law enforcement, social service providers, and faith leaders to identify and contact the people most likely to kill or be victimized. The young men (nearly always men) were gathered, in person, for a "call-in".
Officials would promise to concentrate all law enforcement attention on anyone involved in the next gang killing--and also offer social services for those prepared to change before that. The overall message was, "We'll help you if you let us & we'll
stop you if you make us," and it was backed by agencies committed to keeping their promises on both enforcement and support. I decided to apply it in South Bend. A violent spring of 2014 gave way to a period of relative peace after the event. It worked.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.149-50
Feb 12, 2019
On Drugs:
Focus on opioid treatment options, not just defining problem
Sometimes, knowing more doesn't help. At a tech conference, I saw a pitch from a startup that would automatically detect patterns of opioid use by scanning for trace amounts in the sewage. The technology is brilliant, and may do a great deal of good in
some places. But in South Bend, our problem wasn't knowing how much opioid use was prevalent in this neighborhood compared to that one; it was the lack of mental health and addiction resources to deal with the issue wherever we found it.
Financing a project to tell us more about the problem could even come at the expense of treatment options, which are grossly underfunded in our country and state health systems.
In cases where we have ample means to fix a problem, then we only need to find it. The rest of the time, reporting an issue is necessary, but not sufficient, for resolving it.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.189
Feb 12, 2019
On Environment:
As mayor, installed "River Lights" outdoor art for $700,000
From the Jefferson Boulevard Bridge, you can see the man-made rapids in the river and the River Lights, a permanent legacy of our 2015 anniversary celebrations. We raised over $700,000 to have an artist install a dynamic light feature to illuminate
the cascades of the river in sweeping and shifting colors. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 153 volunteered the labor to set up the lights. Like all good public art, it has a charismatic quality that invites people to come up
close to it, and to mix with others not like them. On summer evenings you will see clusters of people, clearly from different neighborhoods and lifestyles, walking in the park overlooking the cascades among lighted towers that responded to motion
with patterns matching the lights on the water below. The colors of the light sculpture make up a universal language; very different faces light up the same way, responding to the hues, when it surprises them with a burst of gold or pink.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.133-4
Feb 12, 2019
On Gun Control:
Installed ShotSpotter technology: identify source of gunfire
Over time, I've learned a number of rules that have helped us to make sure that the use of data makes sense, and does good. First, know the difference between reporting an issue and resolving it. In some cases, the two go so closely together that you
can lose track of the distinction. For example, when we installed ShotSpotter technology using microphones to acoustically pinpoint gunshots, we were enhancing our ability to deal with gun violence. An officer could be immediately dispatched to the
scene of a shooting, be it an outdoor fight or a domestic violence case, whether someone called it in or not. And this, in turn would help in the long run to deter gun violence.
But in other cases, knowing more doesn't help. At a tech conference,
I saw a pitch from a startup that would automatically detect patterns of opioid use by scanning for trace amounts in the sewage. Financing a project to tell us more about the problem could come at the expense of treatment options
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.189
Feb 12, 2019
On Homeland Security:
9/11 brought post-Cold War era to new generation of war
Some fashionable scholars had taken to calling the "End of History" after the close of the Cold War. But on a crisp September day in Manhattan, history thundered back into being. It wasn't hard to tell by sundown that
everything would be different, that irony and apathy wouldn't dominate our years after all, that our generation would go to war just as our parents' and their parents' did.
History was back, and our generation's project had been abruptly reassigned--that yesterday we had been absorbed in Clinton-era concerns around globalization,
the distribution of wealth, and the consequences of technology. Like laws of physics, these forces were animating our affairs all along.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 10-11
Feb 12, 2019
On Homeland Security:
Knee-jerk PATRIOT Act undercut American freedoms
[After 9/11], we might have lost our innocence and learned something about the world, but we did not suddenly become wise. One friend summed up how it looked to many: "Doesn't Afghanistan know we have bombs?" It took a while to catch on to the idea that
this was an attack on the United States not by the country of Afghanistan, but Al-Qaeda, protected by the Taliban, which governed most Afghans but was not exactly an administration. We had been attacked by a transnational network, hosted by a rogue
regime presiding over a failed state. The responses were largely knee-jerk; a PATRIOT Act that undercut the freedoms that define America, and several quick steps down the slippery slope to torture. So slow were we to realize how fundamentally
different this was than wars we had studied in school or seen in movies that by October we were bargaining against our own values, moving steadily and surely into the jaws of a trap that Al-Qaeda had laid for us.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 47-8
Feb 12, 2019
On Homeland Security:
Signed up for military in 2008, during Iraq troop surge
[In 2008] three of my friends decided to reach out to the Obama campaign to see if we could be helpful by taking a few days off [from classes at Harvard] to knock on doors.
Our trio spent the days around New Year's 2008 in south-central Iowa, working in towns.The Iraq troop surge was winding down but not yet over. Afghanistan, mostly out of view, was simmering.
Yellow ribbons were everywhere, and more than once I would knock on a door and get into a conversation with a young man who told me he would love to go to the caucus on
Thursday and vote, but couldn't because he was packing up for Basic Training. [He signed up].
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 70-1
Feb 12, 2019
On Homeland Security:
1950s norm was college then military; he followed suit
For my grandfather's generation, military service was a great equalizer--something that Americans (at least, American men) had in common across race, class, and geography.In 1956, a majority of the graduating classes of Stanford, Harvard, and
Princeton joined the military. But in the decades that followed, the once-diverse makeup of our military shifted drastically , especially after Vietnam.
As I reflected on it, I realized that my arrival at Harvard coincided with the near-disappearance of my own childhood interest in serving. At a younger age, when
I had hoped to be an astronaut or a pilot, service in uniform was very much on the table. Indeed, on my mother's side, it was a family tradition. [He signed up for the military].
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 71-2
Feb 12, 2019
On Homeland Security:
Recognize Vietnam Veterans Day, as late honor
At the Vietnam Welcome Home event, I said: "At the end of my tour in Afghanistan, the reception couldn't have been better. At the airport, people lined up to shake our hands, waving flags." A little choked up, I continued to the point. "Many of you did
not get that welcome home. And it's a shame. These days, as a society, we have learned how to separate how we feel about a policy and how we treat the men and women sent overseas to serve. That wasn't true for Vietnam veterans. I'm sorry that not
everyone thanked you properly. I'm sorry that this is coming late: Thank you. And welcome home." Recognizing Vietnam Veterans Day has only begun in the last few years, but it quickly became another occasion for me to see how important a symbolic
act can be. Some of the vet's eyes water. It's clear to them the honor however late in their lives, is meaningful. One of them tells me he was 18 when he went, "They called me a baby-killer when I got back," he says, staring into the distance.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.258-9
Feb 12, 2019
On Jobs:
2009 auto bailout was worthwhile; it saved jobs and pensions
[Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock argued before the Supreme Court to stop the Chrysler bailout, but lost, in June 2009]. In his own mind, Mourdock had stood on principle by defying Washington and the auto workers who had pushed so hard to save their
jobs. But I wonder, sometimes, whether Mourdock talked to any of the families whose livelihoods could have been wrecked by his legal adventure. Did he think about the stakes for them, or was it just numbers on a page to him?
To Mourdock, it seems, the most important issue at stake in the auto rescue was that investors on the bond market would have to take a haircut. To the rest of us, the most important issue was that families lives could be ruined by the same kind
of economic disaster that had nearly killed my hometown half a century earlier.
To me, the whole episode was about what happens when a public official becomes obsessed with ideology.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 87-8
Feb 12, 2019
On Principles & Values:
1990s: Nominated Bernie Sanders for Profile in Courage award
At the urging of my teachers, I had submitted an entry to an essay contest sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library as part of their annual Profile in Courage Award. An obscure Vermont congressman, Bernie Sanders, had been reelected for
years as a socialist--in a (then) generally Republican state. "Socialist" was the dirtiest word in politics, yet he won because people saw that he came by his values honestly. Regardless of whether you agreed politically, it certainly seemed like a
profile in courage to me. Candidates for office can easily develop "an ability to outgrow their convictions in order to win power," and that Sanders was an inspiring exception.
I wrote that Sanders's "real impact has been as a reaction to the
cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system."
I had won first prize, and would be flown to the library in Boston to meet the award committee and accept the scholarship money that went along with it.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 30-1
Feb 12, 2019
On Principles & Values:
2000: worked for Gore, but Bush was same on domestic policy
[In 2000 as Harvard student], I volunteered for Al Gore's campaign that fall, chauffeuring guests around Boston during the run-up to the presidential debate there, but the sense among many students was that Bush and
Gore were barely distinguishable on domestic policy: center-left versus center-right.
The biggest campaign-related excitement was the arrival of riot police on the outskirts of the debate site to contend with Green Party protesters who were marching and chanting, "Let Ralph [Nader] debate."
When Bush ultimately prevailed in the Supreme Court and claimed the presidency, it still felt like little would change from the Clinton era.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 39-40
Feb 12, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Name recognition is key; his is pronounced "Buddha-judge"
[Buttigieg ran for state treasurer in 2010; he lost]. Campaigning for office is enormously difficult, but in a way, it's not very complicated. You have to persuade voters to vote or you, raise money so you can reach more voters, and get other people to
help you do those two things. Half the battle is name recognition, and my biggest problem was that no one had any idea who I was. My name was unfamiliar and unpronounceable. My campaign manager Jeff Harris and I spent half a day just figuring out how to
render it phonetically, settling on the breakdown "Budda Judge," which was close enough and easier to remember than any other way we could think to write down. Plus I was twenty-seven years old, and baby-faced enough to pass for a college student.
In a campaign office, I would be more likely to be taken for an intern or perhaps a young organizer than an actual candidate. My family had no Indiana political connections, and neither did my employer.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 90-3
Feb 12, 2019
On Principles & Values:
My success shows that Democrats can win in Flyover Country
To some, the 2016 election was a kind of revenge by "flyover country," long ignored by the coastal elite in general and by the Democratic party in particular. I certainly felt that our region had been ignored and misunderstood,
but to me that did not have to lead to this kind of electoral outcome; our own story in South Bend showed that honest and optimistic politics could resonate just as well in economically challenged communities.
I wasn't the only one who thought this way, and said so, after the 2016 election astonished and traumatized my party. It crossed my mind to run for chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Who better than a millennial, Midwestern mayor to try to guide the party in a better direction?
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.305-6
Feb 12, 2019
On Principles & Values:
For DNC chair: "A Letter from Flyover Country"
Running for chair made sense, from a generational, regional, and structural perspective. And because I belonged to no faction, it seemed I would help the party transcend an emerging internal struggle between its establishment wing and its new left.
I wrote an essay on the future of the party, called, "A Letter from Flyover Country," and published it online. Seeking to offer a Midwestern, millennial mayor's perspective on where our party had gone wrong and how we could do better,
the essay suggested a values-oriented approach and a much greater concentration on the stories and lived experience of Americans getting through life in our hometowns.
I also believed that this kind of approach could move us beyond a superficial political strategy based on capturing constituency groups individually, with no unifying theme.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.306-8
Feb 12, 2019
On Technology:
Set up 311 phone system for easier contact to city services
Old-fashioned local government is notoriously full of seat-of-the-pants operations. No one could tell me, when I took office, how much it costs to fill in a pothole, or how many times we missed a trash pickup in a given week. If a problem arose, I would
hear about it only when someone contacted a council member to complain, or wrote a letter to the newspaper. Fresh from a job in management consulting, I had promised during the campaign to set up a 311 system, so residents wouldn't have to figure out
the relevant department in order to report a pothole or get a streetlight fixed. When the 311 center opened, we gained something more valuable than a new mechanism for customer service; for the first time, South Bend had a central, constantly updated
data set on what people were calling about. Using that data, the city was able to make countless operational improvements, from cutting the time it took to get a pick-up by our trash crews, to simplifying the way residents paid their water bills.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.185-6
Feb 12, 2019
On Technology:
Created city data map of infrastructure and road assets
My administration created the first objective asset map of the city, cataloging the quantity and quality of streets, fire hydrants, signs, and anything else in a public right-of-way. This work even included an app, to scan the conditions of the road and
report cracks, potholes, and other deterioration. Thinking back to his youth on the street department, one councilman was skeptical. "You have this technology to tell you which streets need repair," he said. "But if your foreman's any good, he ought
to already know that off the top of his head!" Admittedly, the councilman had a point. One of the reasons we had qualified, experienced individuals in organizations is to use their intuition and expertise to solve problems.
For all the power that
data analysis represents, it also has its limitations, and the potential for mischief. You might spend lots of time and resources gathering data that will never be used, or accumulate data that winds up telling you things you already know.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.188-9
Feb 12, 2019
On War & Peace:
Afghanistan war was "outsourced" to the few in uniform
[After 9/11], little was said about personal sacrifice at home for the purpose of winning a national conflict. Kids in World War II saved tinfoil from gum wrappers for the war effort, women
reused nylon stockings as many times as possible, and everyone then knew why they were being asked to pay much higher taxes.
This time around, it seemed that the war effort was wholly outsourced to those few Americans who served in uniform. America tripped over itself to salute them, without seeming to consider the possibility that civilians, too, could accept some risk or
pay some contribution into the cause of freedom. We might have had, in those years, a more serious conversation about what each of us owes to the country in a time of conflict.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 49
Feb 12, 2019
On War & Peace:
Not realistic to demand "with us or with the terrorists"
Soon president [Buh in 2002] was telling us that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," a dictum impossible for America to uphold or enforce in the case of Pakistan and many other states playing the three-dimensional chess game of
geopolitics in the Islamic world. Next it was an "Axis of Evil," and so on. For the home front, the message was that we would be kept safe through the deployment of force and the acceptance of some encroachments on our freedom and privacy.
And also, for some reason, we would need to invade Iraq. Democrats, unsure of themselves, were afraid to sound like an opposition at all, and many carefully avoided opposing the Iraq War for fear of looking unpatriotic. (Some, particularity
Hillary Clinton, would come to regret this posturing.) Instead they tried to change the subject, emphasizing Social Security and Medicare, even though global security was the dominant issue of our moment--even in Indiana.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 50
Feb 12, 2019
On War & Peace:
2002 Iraq War made no strategic sense, even if WMDs existed
[In 2002] our president declared that Saddam Hussein must disarm his chemical and biological weapons, and vow, "If he won't do so voluntarily we will disarm him." The tough talk was rousing, but it made no strategic sense. Saddam was a notoriously
sinister dictator whose top priority, as with all dictators, was his own survival. It followed that he viewed his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons (as most of us believed he had) as an insurance policy to keep him in power. He would only part
with them voluntarily if it would benefit his personal security--an unlikely course for someone who did not trust America. But actually using them would almost certainly lead to his destruction, so he had every reason to sit on his weapons if he had
them. The only scenario where he might use them would be if he had nothing to lose by doing so--and now by invading, we were poised to create that very situation.
He didn't have any WMDs--and so they were not there to be used against American troops.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 51-2
Feb 12, 2019
On War & Peace:
2002: opposed Iraq War because believed WMDs would be used
It turns out that most of us, for and against the war, were wrong about the Saddam's WMDs. He didn't have any--and so they were not there to be used against American troops.Iraq fell quickly, and for a moment it seemed that the invasion was a
vindication of American intervention abroad. Protesters like me looked foolish. Sure, the pretext for war was actually false, but who could quibble over that, as a brutal dictatorship was being turned into a model democracy at relatively little cost to
America?
Then the suicide bombings began. We were not, as the administration had promised, "greeted as liberators." A well-functioning democracy did not emerge. And the ensuing chaos made it clear that the administration had not planned
for the aftermath of the invasion, as Iraqi cities became a kill zone for our troops. We who were against the invasion had been wrong about the weapons, but right about the war. The administration had been wrong about both.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p. 52
Feb 12, 2019
On Welfare & Poverty:
Deal with 1,000 abandoned buildings in 1,000 days
I committed publicity to confront 1,000 vacant and abandoned houses in 1,000 days. It would become one of the defining projects of my administration, but it also had the potential to be my most visible disappointment. Previous administrations had torn
down hundreds, but never seemed to get ahead of the contagion of blight. By the time I was campaigning for mayor, it was the number-one issue we heard about when knocking on doors and making phone calls. Despite years of work and millions of dollars,
there always seemed to be more houses than the city could deal with--so many that when I first took office, no one could confirm how many we even had. Soon after taking office I convened a task force, which spent a year analyzing the problem. The
result was an extensive report. But I was also fearful that we had just done one more exercise in describing the problem, without actually solving it. So, a goal of childlike simplicity: "Let's promise to deal with a thousand houses in a thousand days."
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.167-9
Feb 12, 2019
On Welfare & Poverty:
Public scoreboard showing progress on 1,000 abandoned homes
To actually fix the problem of abandoned houses, [I said publicly], "Let's promise to deal with 1,000 houses in 1,000 days." I added that we should create a real-time online scoreboard to update how many houses we had fixed, demolished, or failed to deal
with I began to understand the difference between my job and everyone else's. The experts could identify the legal tools for addressing neglected property. The council could allocate funds for dealing with the problem. But only a mayor could furnish
the political capital to get the project done, by publicly committing to a goal and owning the risk of missing it.
Checking our website on Day 500, you would have seen that we had nowhere near having 500 houses addressed. By the 1000th day, our
community had addressed not just 1,000, but over 1,100 homes. Hitting such an ambitious goal made it easier for residents to believe we could do very difficult things as a city at a time when civic confidence had been in short supply for decades.
Source: Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg, p.169-70
Feb 12, 2019
Page last updated: May 21, 2019