Remembering Kirk Fordice

By Mark Garriga 

On April 2, as part of its History Is Lunch series, the Department of Archives and History will present Remembering Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice, The Legacy of Kirk Fordice: His Politics, His Policies, and His People at the Two Mississippi Museums.  The distinguished panel that will be discussing this weighty subject will include key Fordice staffers who were witnesses to the Governor’s astounding, successful underdog campaign and exciting tenure as Mississippi’s first Republican Governor since Reconstruction.  Space does not permit a detailed discussion of the 1991 Governor’s race or Fordice’s eight-year tenure in office (the first Mississippi Governor in modern times to serve two-consecutive terms).  For that, I commend to everyone Andy Taggart and Jere Nash’s excellent book, Mississippi Politics, The Struggle for Power, 1976-2006.  Instead, let me just preview next week’s discussion by stating the obvious: the Fordice years marked an important turning point in our state’s history – and maybe the not so obvious: his legacy is important to preserve. 

In many ways, Kirk Fordice’s election represented something entirely new in our state.  In a clear break with the past: he had never held public office, didn’t attend an Ivy League school, he wasn’t a lawyer, and he wasn’t one of the so-called “Boys of Summer,” a loose collection of younger politicians lionized by the national media as saviors of the New South.  Instead, what he turned out to be was one of the most thoroughly prepared persons to ever occupy the Governor’s Mansion.  Among his many qualifications was the fact that he held two college degrees in engineering, had been the national president of one of the nation’s largest trade groups, the Associated General Contractors, and he was a successful businessman. In addition, he was a talented and passionate extemporaneous speaker, well-versed on the issues of the day, and a voracious reader. (I finally got around to reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged just to get him off my back.) That made him more than a match for the old-school politicians and reporters with whom he frequently tangled. Here is my short list of why I believe that his legacy continues to be important.

Toiling in the vineyard 

Kirk Fordice’s election in 1991, preceded by a handful of notable, but unsuccessful, races by Republican nominees for Governor, was the culmination of decades of hard work by his party.  However, it is important to note that Fordice was not anointed by the Mississippi Republic Party to run for the top office. He worked tirelessly at the local level to promote Republican candidates and causes for many years before he decided to take the plunge. That work included the unglamorous, but vital work required for a political party to put on primaries and financially support candidates.  And after he made that fateful decision to put his own name on the ballot, he faced a tough battle for the nomination. His years of work for a cause he was passionate about, ultimately, paid off.  There’s a lesson there for all of us, in politics or otherwise.

Principle, not populism

            The Governor’s tight embrace of the cause of working men and women was not an act. In the countless interactions we all witnessed between Fordice and the farmers, truck-drivers, homemakers, working parents, and other hard-working Mississippians, it was clear that he appreciated how hard their lives could be. In his public life, the fiery side of his personality was almost always reserved for those whom he believed were only giving lip service to their struggle. His strongly held belief that taxes were too high and that government should not be filled with make-work in the service of vague causes was a core principle, one that he truly believed best served the working people he desperately wanted to help. 

Public service, not personal gain 

            Kirk Fordice had a more than healthy degree of skepticism when it came to those who sought political appointments.  His working rule of thumb was that if you asked for a political job, you were disqualified.  There were exceptions, of course, but that was his default position unless convinced to the contrary. He wanted the government to be filled with people who, like him, cared about honesty and purpose in government. He did not seek office for personal gain and expected everyone around him to abide by the same ethos. 

Economic development – first and last 

To Governor Fordice, Economic development was not simply a talking point. The meetings with business leaders, calls to prospects, and travel to corporate headquarters never let up during his entire eight years in office. His blunt assessments of why it was his priority may have shocked more delicate sensibilities, but he was on-message, day-in and day out: “The best welfare program ever invented is a job.” “My view of job training: This is an alarm clock.  When it rings, you get yourself out of bed and go to work.”  “Government never created a single job; the people who sweat, toil, and invest their hard-earned money to create businesses are the ones who do that.  We just need to get out of their way.”  While the Governor certainly didn’t invent economic development, his complete embrace of it as the best means to improve the lives of his fellow Mississippians is a legacy that subsequent state leaders still embrace.

Disruptor In Chief 

            As the leader of an ultra-minority political party at that time (there were only 27 Republicans elected to the House in 1991), the Governor’s tools to influence legislation were limited. Some faulted him for not trying harder to cozy-up to the legislative leadership. However, having never been a politician, his tolerance for that sort of thing was extremely limited.  The vociferous rants that he was so famous for were not a Governor’s power trip; rather, they were simply Citizen Fordice speaking truth to power.  In his view, you didn’t need to raise taxes to save public education (yet again); state bond debt was still debt; and free federal money is never free.  Although he was keenly aware that his time in office and ability to effect change were both limited, that didn’t stop the Governor and his staff, a never-before-assembled collection of twenty-somethings, outsiders, ousted political veterans and dreamers, from publishing a Team Mississippi agenda before every legislative session, filled with bodacious and, admittedly, sometimes hair-brained, ideas to effect change.  Of course, most of the items were dead-on-arrival (“We’ll give your Governor his hearing, but we ain’t gonna’ pass that ____.”).  But when you felt in your deepest depths, like Kirk Fordice did, that the political leadership that preceded him had absolutely failed our state, it was too hard to just go-along.   

As Governor Fordice’s Chief of Staff for five years, I had a ring-side seat (figuratively, but sometimes almost literally) to an exciting political era.  Unfortunately, many young people in public service today have only the vaguest notion of the significance of his election and tenure.  Hopefully, next week’s gathering will help renew a greater appreciation of those years and core principles of the Fordice legacy.