26 FOGHORN Massie began his political career at the local level in his home state of Kentucky. He grew up in a small river town not far from Covington where MariTrends was held. The town was the largest town in the whole county with a pop- ulation of 1,900 and was the county seat. He carried that small town sensibility with him to Massachusetts when he left for college. On his first day there, as he went through a crosswalk a car honked at him. He recalled thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’ve already run into somebody that knows me.” He turned around to see who it was and to wave. Life there was a bit of a culture shock, though he got used to it. After a decade or two away, he moved back to Kentucky and started a business. Eventually, he became involved in local politics as a county judge executive, which he described as an interesting experience. It was a stark contrast to what he’s found after moving to Congress. Massie stated that it’s been frustrating and acknowledged the limitations of power he’s discovered. He shared a story to illustrate his point. A woman called the congressman in office before him and asked what he was going to do about her trash pickup, that she had put the bin at the end of her driveway, but the truck hadn’t come that week. She was annoyed and pushed the congressman to tell her what he was going to do about it. In Massie’s telling, the congressman responded that he was on the infrastructure committee but that they don’t deal with trash pickup. When the Congressman suggested she call her commissioner instead, the woman replied, “I wasn’t going to start that high up.” With that disclaimer and a shared laugh, Massie opened the Q&A session to hear directly from PVA members. The first question addressed the shift of U.S. Coast Guard priorities away from safety and security on the waterways, asking what Congress and the House Committee on Transporta- tion & Infrastructure can do to help. Massie agreed that safety should be one of the top three priorities for the Coast Guard and said he’d make the case for such to the committee chairman. Regarding funding, he drew an analogy to a room of hostages. The goal is often one giant bill, with parties holding back the top issues, like hostages, as pressure to get their own needs and wants met. Massie proposed that instead of one bill, it should be bro- ken down into three or four bills to act on bipartisan issues, effectively releasing some of the hostages. “ There’s not generally any desire in Washington, D.C., not to have the Coast Guard funded,” he said. “It’s a bipartisan thing, and it fits in, I think, the transportation framework, and it should be passed.” While he stated they can try to put a bill on the floor that deals only with the Coast Guard, he was candid in recognition that it was unlikely to happen. Referring to his analogy, he noted, “I don’t think the lead- ership of either party wants to do that because they want FOGHORN FOCUS From left: Congressman Thomas Massie holds up his Congressional voting card as he describes the voting process; PVA members spoke to Massie about top issues in the passenger vessel industry.
View this content as a flipbook by clicking here.