George Ayoub: Office outside Lincoln should be emulated

The Nebraska Legislature's knickers are starting to bunch because Sen. Annette Dubas wants a satellite office again in Grand Island during the interim.

Apparently the District 34 lawmaker has drawn outside the lines.

The august body has its reasons: the cost of an office; the Internet access already available; the potential liability if a staffer takes a header over the fax machine; the what ifs; and tradition.

Even if these were good reasons -- and one of them may be -- they wouldn't be good enough.

Enough here means justifying the idea of reducing space, time and inconvenience between Dubas and the people she represents.

Not that Dubas has broken any rules. She hasn't.

But, as the Legislature's Executive Committee and Clerk point out, she is traveling uncharted seas, exploring unknown regions, spanning the vast frontier.

Even though to the rest of us it simply looks like she is making herself more accessible to her constituents.

What a concept!

Undeterred, a committee is charged with studying Dubas' breakthrough in democracy. It will, in effect, determine how serious we are about keeping the representative in the notion of representative government.

The Legislature is concerned about the potential for additional costs if every senator wanted an office outside their official digs in Lincoln.

That is a reasonable concern -- but short on evidence.

A year after Dubas had a satellite office in Grand Island last summer, she still seems to be the only senator who wants one.

Never decoding

Technically, Dubas' satellite office is a short stroll inside District 35, but why quibble over a few blocks when her district surrounds the office, which was donated. As in gratis. As in … hello!

Yes, the Internet is a wonderful tool for government to disseminate information rapidly to a huge audience. The Nebraska Legislature's site is user friendly. E-mail can personalize the world of electronics. Telephones can do the same thing.

Sometimes, however, you have to sit across the table, eyeball-to-eyeball, reading body language and assessing tone, understanding passions at a level clicking and surfing can never decode.

One other issue with accessibility: Not everyone has Internet access nor broadband capability.

Constituents can always drive to Lincoln to meet with their senators, a two-day trip for some in western Nebraska. Using that logic, however, never again would we hold hearings anywhere but Lincoln.

All this without a discussion of fuel prices, high enough now that a trip to Lincoln from Dubas' district would be a costly venture. But then some may think the $3.65-a-gallon trip worth the price. With an office in Grand Island they might be able to save some cash and still make their point in person.

Liability issues can be thorny, too, but frankly with one satellite office on the books for last summer and Dubas waiting for a committee to give her direction on another, how much head-over-heels stuff are we talking about? How many personal injuries regularly occur in the Legislature's Capitol offices? Are legislative aides and staff inherently prone to accidents?

Get started

Finally, concerns about using satellite offices for campaigning fall under the "one office is easy to monitor" category. See above.

Here's the deal: Annette Dubas has found a positive, efficient and sound way to serve her constituency. It is natural for the Legislature to raise its eyebrows when something new works and works well.

But rather than find a way to put Dubas out of the satellite office business, it ought to see how it can encourage other senators to emulate her success.

She has plenty of good reasons to help them get started.

George Ayoub is senior writer at The Independent.