Growing wealth widens distance between lawmakers and constituents

●On Washington, the wealthy, and the private sector: “Let’s stop railing against the really wealthy because I got to tell you something, as a guy who has had to pay his own way his whole life, I am greatly offended by the idea that somehow someone in Washington knows how to spend my money better than I do,” Kelly said during emotional remarks during a committee markup in June that attracted lots of attention through YouTube.

Kelly has been critical of the bank bailouts, too. But he declined to say whether he favored the government’s $50 billion bailout of General Motors, which benefited his auto dealership. Had GM gone out of business, it would have deprived Kelly of cars to sell at his Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership, reducing his inventory to Hyundais, Kias and used cars. The government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, which offered financial incentives for consumers to trade in old cars, also helped Kelly sell $2.9 million worth of cars.

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Congressional net worth more than doubles since 1984

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Net worth of members of Congress in 2010.

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As the automaker neared the brink of collapse in December 2008, didn’t he hope the government would offer a lifeline?

“I thought about making my payroll every two weeks,” he said.

From poverty to Congress

In the “hot mill” at the Armco steel plant, Myers supervised about 25 steelworkers, the members of an independent union. The operation transformed slabs of steel in ovens heated to about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit into coils, for later processing. He considered himself neither a worker nor a part of executive management. He was a shift foreman with engineering responsibilities, and each day he wore a work shirt, jeans and work boots.

He had grown up poor. His father, a bricklayer, had a drinking problem, he said, and his mother, a schoolteacher, largely raised Myers and his three siblings. At 9, Myers recalls working at his grandfather’s nine-table restaurant, washing dishes for 10 cents an hour. As a teenager, he started a business mowing lawns and eventually set his eyes on getting one of the co-op jobs at the steel mill, which allowed him to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

That day in the dining room, he had explained to his wife that voters deserved better representation because neither “the Democrats or Republicans are putting up good options for us.”

Besides, he had tried to talk his brother into running, and he wouldn’t do it.He recognized that his run for Congress might seem presumptuous.

“When it started getting around and the fellas down at work heard about it, I thought people might say stuff — you know, down there you stub your toe and they ridicule you,” Myers said. “I suppose some people probably thought, ‘What’s that Myers think he’s doing?’ But no one said anything. I was very grateful.”

He didn’t know much about running a campaign, and it was largely improvised by his wife, Elaine. She organized small gatherings and offered him tips on public speaking — when she noticed people’s feet started shuffling, she flashed him a sign to move on to another subject.

For fundraising, he turned to the president of a local plant who had connections to some of the money in the area.

“I said, ‘Why don’t we have a fundraiser at Elwood Country Club?’ ” recalled Robert Barensfeld, then president of the Elwood City Forge, a local plant, who became his finance chairman. “He thought it was the greatest idea since free beer.”

But while Myers accepted individual contributions, he shunned money from businesses and lobbying groups. Barensfeld said “it was against his principle.” Some of his volunteers thought he should take it, but Myers told them he didn’t want to get elected simply because he had more money.

He lost his first election but was encouraged by the narrow margin of defeat. He ran again in 1974 and won. On the day after his election, a Pittsburgh television station asked him to come be a guest on a news show. Myers told them he couldn’t come because he had worn out both of the family cars during the campaign. The station agreed to send a car for him.

In Washington, Myers in most ways hewed to the Republican line: He voted at times to hold down the government’s debt, for example, and voted against raising Social Security taxes.

But like Kelly, he brought to bear his life experiences.

As might be expected of an engineer, Myers had a scientific cast of mind, according to his staffers at the time, demanding research and numbers to inform his views. But with the steel mills in his district struggling, he was also keenly aware of the problems facing thousands of workers. On issues relating directly to workers, Myers sometimes broke with the party majority.

He supported, for example, a hike in the minimum wage, then $2.30 an hour. He supported an amendment expanding a program that extends unemployment and other benefits to workers adversely affected by trade. He voted for a $4 billion boost to a public works jobs program pushed by President Jimmy Carter.

“I think he realized that good people sometimes fall on hard times,” said James Kunder, who as a young Harvard graduate just out of the Marines worked as an aide to Myers in the ’70s. “He wouldn’t have been elected from that district at that time if he didn’t exude some of that spirit.”

Today, amid the debates on tax rates on the wealthy, he suggests raising the marginal income tax rate on the very highest incomes to 45 percent.

Myers also broke with Republicans on issues relating to business influence in politics, voting to require lobbying groups to disclose mass mailings and proposing an amendment that would force businesses to disclose when former members of the House lobbied on the House floor.

“He clearly saw that money could adversely affect politics,” said Jim Turner, another former aide, then recently out of Yale Divinity School.

Near the beginning of his second term, Myers stunned his staff and many in his district by announcing that he would not run for a third term, which it appeared he could have easily earned. He said he wanted to spend more time with his kids. He returned to the mill, taking a pay cut from the $57,500 that members of Congress then earned. Back in Butler, he coached his son’s baseball team and helped start a soccer program at the high school.

Today, when asked about the effect of wealth on members of Congress, Myers is characteristically detached.

“I guess I could see where someone who made a lot from personal risk-taking and business initiative could have a different outlook. Even if people come with biases, I’m not sure they’re evil biases. I don’t have any problem with someone who has a lot of money. But I don’t have any doubt that my perspective was different from someone who had more money.”

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