ACEC Chair Dan Larson Addresses Tuesday General Session
With exactly one week to go before voters head to the polls, ACEC Chair Dan Larson made two predictions Tuesday morning: Washington is bracing for divided government, and ACEC is poised to serve as a bridge.
Larson told General Session attendees that the conventional wisdom predicts the House flipping to Democrats, with the Senate remaining a true tossup. “Whatever happens,” he said, “the watchword of the 120th Congress is likely going to be gridlock.”
Infrastructure’s Bipartisan Advantage
But Larson rejected another tenet of conventional wisdom that divided government inevitably means getting nothing done. “It could be a recipe for paralysis, but I prefer to think of it as an opportunity for leverage.” He rested that assertion on the simple premise that infrastructure is the rare issue that transcends partisan rancor and warfare.
“Ideology is fleeting, but infrastructure is not,” he said. “Bridges don’t care who chairs what committee. The grid doesn’t stay on because one side dominated the news cycle.”
A Narrow Window for Action
The strategic implication is urgent, Larson asserted. With surface transportation likely slipping to the incoming Congress, the window for influence is open, but not indefinitely. “Openings close,” he said. “If we want Congress to reach across the aisle, we have to be the ones standing in the middle, with credible data and practical solutions creating the connection…. Our obligation is to bring facts when others bring talking points, and to think in decades when Washington thinks in election cycles.”
Growing Leaders
That mission depends on people, with leadership development not as an add-on, but as the core of ACEC’s work. “Developing leaders can’t be a side project,” Larson declared. “It is the project.”
He went on to give a brief discussion of the four focus areas the ACEC Board approved in May to sharpen the strategic plan: digital transformation; licensure; membership; and workforce. Of membership, Larson offered a memorable line: “Strength in numbers isn’t just a cliché. It’s currency.”
A Reason to Lead
But through it all, advocacy remains the anchor, what Larson referred to as “our foremost commitment.” And with a bitterly divided, gridlocked Washington that is likely to become even more bitterly divided and gridlocked, Larson closed his remarks with a call to action to attendees.
“History suggests that many will treat [divided government] as a reason to stall. We will treat it as a reason to LEAD.”
