In January 1981, at the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, I left my obscure college in upstate New York to spend a semester as an intern in Washington, D.C. working for the congressman from the neighboring district. At the time, I thought my days as a student would soon be over, but I learned quickly that my education was just beginning, and my teacher would be Jack Kemp.
I spent most of the next 11 years working for Jack, in his congressional office, his presidential campaign, and at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Each day was an extended seminar in the liberal arts and sciences. Jack’s interests were broad and his appetite for knowledge insatiable. Once he discovered something intriguing, his generous spirit compelled him to share it with everyone he met. Most congressmen pass out to their constituents a picture of themselves, or a copy of one of their recent speeches. Visitors to the Kemp office were more likely to leave with a speech by Lech Walesa, or a picture of Winston Churchill. Staffers were sent off to the theater to see Les Miserables, and given books that not only had to be read, but discussed.
Jack is often called a man of ideas, and that is true. His ideas helped spur the economic recovery of the 1980s and pave the way for prosperity and growth. As a self-described “backbencher” in Tip O’Neill’s House of Representatives, he was able to work with members of the Democratic party to achieve his goals without sacrificing even the tiniest bit of principle, something today’s backbenchers would do well to emulate. Jack’s vision was a Republican party with a message that speaks to the universal truths of human freedom and dignity is the roadmap to rebuilding a governing majority.
One of Jack’s enduring legacies is the amendment he offered along with Senator Bob Kasten of Wisconsin to deny federal funding to organizations, like the U.N. Fund for Population Control (UNFPA), that supported China’s use of coerced abortion as a method of enforcing its one-child per family rule. The Chinese government was taken aback by this initiative when it was first offered in the mid-1980s and sent its ambassador to meet with Jack in his office on Capitol Hill. The diplomat made some formal comments, and Jack listened quietly, a rare response. When he began to respond, he sought to engage the ambassador on a personal level, taking about his own family and background, and asking the ambassador about his. The ambassador seemed stunned by the personal nature of the conversation, but when Jack asked him, “how many children do and your wife have?” he answered quietly that they had three, two more than the number allowed by his regime’s population control policy. Jack said, “I know you must love them all very much, and believe they each have something unique to contribute. Could you imagine life without any one of them?”
At the heart of this exchange, and everything Jack did, was his unshakeable belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. This is what inspired his passion for job creation and economic growth; his support for freedom fighters in every corner of the globe; his insistence on a strong defense as a deterrent to war; his work on behalf of the poor, the immigrant, the unborn, and the dispossessed. I traveled with him from the union halls in his district outside Buffalo, New York, to the small towns of Iowa and New Hampshire; from the most blighted and desperate slums in the United States to Prince Charles’ private garden at his home, Highgrove. In every circumstance, his message was the same–each and every human being is a precious resource, to be nurtured and defended and given the freedom he needs to fulfill his destiny as, in Kemp’s words, “a master carpenter or a prima ballerina–or even a pro quarterback.”
Jack’s destiny led him to do many extraordinary things, but nothing was more satisfying to him than his life at home with his wife Joanne, his children, and his grandchildren. Joanne once gave me a glimpse into the life they had at home, in what Jack called his “Shangri-la.” She said that marriage was an “adventure,” and that the most important thing parents can give their children is the knowledge that their mother and father love one another. Of all the lessons I learned from Jack Kemp and his family, that was the most important. And like the countless other students who have been privileged to have Jack Kemp as their teacher, I will miss him.
Mary Brunette Cannon is a former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs under Jack Kemp, and worked for him as a policy aide and spokesman from 1981 to 1992.
