2-4-25

I’m a planner by nature……and I’m a listmaker……sometimes when life seems to

be getting the upper hand it actually makes me feel better to sit down and create

an updated to-do list…..when I’m really grooving I will even make the list and then

rank order the various tasks and set my priorities……I’ve started, or helped to

start, multiple businesses and I learned early on to do a full SWOT analysis to

examine the business case in light of strengths, weaknesses, obstacles and

threats…..when I go to court as an Attorney I try to have a litigation plan with a

desired endstate in mind for my client that comes from having researched the law

to know our position before ever appearing before the Judge…….part of that is

just me…..I’ve taken tests to determine my gifts and talents before and mine have

always been leadership and administration……basically, I like to plan……And I was

trained in the Army to conduct detailed planning …… every operation, every

mission, every training event…….before I took my team downrange in Afghanistan

I had to do a briefback to the higher ups to lay out the plan for everything from

daily operations to escape and evasion…..

Now granted, not every plan survives first contact with the enemy…..that’s the

truth….but if you don’t plan at all, well you know what happens….. the old adage

that “a failure to plan is a plan to fail”…….there’s also another another old saying

from an unknown source that I’ve heard many times…..that “when making a plan

remember that the enemy gets a vote”…….the first saying means clearly that if we

don’t think things through and arrive on the scene with a well thought out plan,

with contingencies, and logistics, and timelines that we are dooming ourselves to

an increased likelihood of failure……but the other means that as surely as we are

making our plans that the enemy is making their’s as well….in other words when

the bullets start flying the enemy has a say in the final outcome and we’d better

remember that…..

Maybe that’s why I’m watching with increasing discomfort as the State of

Alabama has no real legislative agenda……It’s like there’s no plan…..no intended

endstate……no understanding, no list, no analysis…..surely that’s not true……but

wow!.....I’ll talk about it in more detail later, but all we’ve been given thus far,

with the Regular Session starting today (!) is a set of principles……the good

ideas…..and yes, those are extremely important…..you have to know what you

stand for before you can truly take meaningful action……but ya’ll, the session

kicks off today and we don’t have any idea what their legislative priorities are

right now…..and when that happens, what it means is that anything can

happen…..in the absence of mission priorities and task organization the unit can

flounder on the battlefield……the Speaker of the House and the Pro Tem of the

Senate need to tell the world in a cohesive and well-thought out manner what the

priority legislation will be……after all, they are the elected representatives of the

people….do you know what the priority bills are? Neither do I, and I make a living

trying to know these things……

In military planning every young Army Officer is taught to write and disseminate a

five paragraph Operations Order……clearly outlining the mission, the enemy

situations, enunciating the Commanders intent and the intent of next higher

headquarters…..specifying subunit tasks, command and signal, and key

timelines….I’m giving you the rough version but suffice to say it was an orderly

and cogent means of helping to guide the leaders thoughts with the ultimate

purpose clearly in mind…..there is a mission……here is my part….and here’s what I

expect from my own troops……the dissemination of the Order is also

accompanied by several rules……one of which is the “1/3-2/3 rule” that means

that a commander should strive to give 1/3 of his time to planning and then 2/3

of the mission prep time to his subordinates for their own planning……and then,

the ultimate rule…..in preparing for the mission, “at a minimum, always practice

actions on the objective”……meaning that, if nothing else, you’re going to actually

walk through, talk through, run through, the actual fight as best you can……

So yeah, I’m a planner by nature…..but the American people deserve a plan….stop

telling us that we need to write more checks…..tell us what its for! Tell us what we

will achieve! Tell us how it impacts us if we do, and if we don’t!......

Is there a doctrine?......is there a serious analysis?......is there a plan?.....the fact

that I’m having to ask speaks volumes……..

And you can easily apply that notion of good prior planning to the legislature…..

and I’ll give you two examples….one of which I was proud to be a part of…… I

remember former Speaker Newt Gingrich leading the charge into a midterm with

the “Contract With America”….an actual plan of all the things that they were

committed to achieve if the people gave the Republicans the majority…..it was a

part of the plan that swept Republicans and conservatism into an opportunity for

real change……One historical version states it this way: “The Contract with

America was introduced six weeks before the 1994 Congressional election, the

first midterm election of President Bill Clinton's administration, and was signed by

all but two of the Republican members of the House and all of the Party's non-

incumbent Republican congressional candidates.

Proponents say the Contract was revolutionary because it actually offered a

specific list of legislation that were committed to be brought to the floor for a

vote, describing in detail the precise plan of the Congressional Representatives, if

the nation would elect them to the majority…... the Contract with America was

based on principles, but also cited the actual legislation they would pass….it

represented the view of many conservative Republicans on the issues of shrinking

the size of government, promoting lower taxes and greater entrepreneurial

activity, and both tort reform and welfare reform…..and man did it work!

The 1994 elections resulted in Republicans gaining 54 House and 9 U.S.

Senate seats, flipping both chambers. The Contract was seen as a triumph by

party leaders such as Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and

the American conservative movement in general.”…..you see, it was a

plan…..people rally around a plan….we saw the same thing in 2010 when many of

us, including myself, ran for the first time on an agenda that we called the

Handshake With Alabama…..Speaker Mike Hubbard, Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh,

Governor Bob Riley, and all of us as candidates for the House and Senate

collectively promised the citizens of Alabama that if they would elect the first ever

Republican majority to the Alabama Statehouse that there was a list of things we

would accomplish on their behalf…..we all signed on to it…..we all campaigned on

it…..and we took the Alabama Statehouse majority into the red zone for the first

time in 136 years by campaigning statewide on that plan……There’s a book

written about it called “Storming the Statehouse”……other states copied it…..Yes,

plans matter, plans unify, plans breed success because they give focus and

maintain direction……a lack of a plan is a plan to fail……but the enemy gets a

vote? Yes. …….when shots ring out they soon enough start flying in both

directions….don’t think for a minute that the Democrats are going to sit idly by

and just let Republicans have their way…..how do we nullify progressive

influence….how do we galvanize grassroots support for when times get dicey

politically…..how is it that we can keep the caucus focused when there are

different versions of Republicans all of whom will become the target of the left as

it casts its own vote on the “Plan”…….

The 2025 legislative Session starts today…..today!.....Alabama’s elected

Representatives and State Senators are gathering in full today for the opening roll

call……they’re about to get to work…..on what?…..what is the plan Republicans? Is

there a plan? Give us something to rally around……the enemy gets a vote so it

better be a good plan……but the old adage remains……a failure to plan is a plan to

fail…….

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way ….