Susan Davis: A social worker in Congress

By Donald H. Harrison

WASHINGTON, D.C — Reflecting on a long career, and what she still would like to do in Congress, Rep. Susan Davis (D-California) suggested  that she is more a social worker than a politician, which results in her having a different perspective on many issues.

She met with my grandson, Shor, 14, her press secretary Aaron Hunter, and me on Wednesday, June 24, at a conference table that dominates her inner office within her suite in the Longworth Office Building at the Capitol.

In contrast, Davis’ personal desk, which is piled high with reports and papers,  is quite small .  It is  one that you might mistake for an aide’s.  She explained during an interview that she puts the emphasis on a conference table because  listening to constituents and to advocates for various causes fill many of her hours.  What she doesn’t say, but which I glean, is that she doesn’t have the big-desk ego that typifies some other members of Congress.

Her office hours are sandwiched among meetings of the two committees on which she serves — Armed Services, and Education and the Workforce–and the floor sessions of the House of Representatives.  Because she makes a round trip flight home to her district every week–a five-hour flight between Washington D.C. and San Diego –she usually has plenty of time on the plane for reading.

Like any member of Congress, Davis brought with her to the Capitol a range of experiences that have informed her views on current issues.

After graduation from UC Berkeley, the then Susan Alpert lived on a kibbutz in Israel; returned to school at the University of North Carolina for a master’s degree in social work;  married Steve Davis, an Air Force doctor;  and as a young military wife and mother of sons Jeff and Ben, lived in a Japanese village where most of the residents had never met an American before.

Subsequently the Davises moved to San Diego, where Susan as a social worker became involved with helping to improve education and housing at the Pala Indian Reservation.  The family meanwhile joined Congregation Beth Tefilah, when Rabbi Sam Penner was the spiritual leader, and among their children’s friends was Scott Meltzer, today the rabbi at Ohr Shalom Synagogue.  Along the way, Davis became involved in the League of Women Voters, where she encountered such mentors as the future state senator Lucy Killea and Muriel Goldhammer, and through this experience re-conceptualized the kinds of roles that she, as a woman, could play.

Davis said she was raised by Dr. George and Dora Alpert, a pediatrician father and a mother who had attended Orthodox religious school as a young woman.  “She didn’t carry that on with us, because she didn’t feel that would help us integrate. I was really older when I knew she actually did that,” the congresswoman said.  All four of her Jewish grandparents had lived in Eastern Europe.

“I just don’t  feel that I was pushed to believe that a girl could do anything; I honestly did not feel I received that message,” Davis told us.

What drew her to the League, she reflected, was that “there  were a host of people , a lot of people who were part of that League, and it was a time when as a young parent I had a place to go for inspiration from my peers and a place to bring my child for daycare.”

She became involved in such issues as housing and education, and before long, with encouragement from other League members, she decided to run for a Board of Education seat that Bob Filner was vacating to run for the City Council.  After winning, she served two full terms on the board.

In which of her three elected roles–School Board Member, Assemblywoman or Congresswoman — does she believe she had the most impact on people’s lives? I asked.

Without hesitation, she answered “being on the  school board and only having to convince two other people” — only three votes constitute a majority on the five-member board — “and being so close to the issues that matter to people the most, probably was the most impactful.”

Unlike today when she has many assistants to field phone calls from constituents, back then she had only one part-time helper, Leslie Caspi (a future president of San Diego’s regional American Israel Public Affairs Committee), who then was studying for a doctorate, “but other than that, you
basically took the phone calls,” including the irate ones.

“I remember saying to this one gentleman, ‘Sir, if you spoke to the people that you are trying to reach the way you are talking to me, then I understand why they couldn’t help you.   So let’s start again, and let’s see how I can help you, but I really need you to try and settle down for a minute so we can talk about it.  I hear your stress,  but let’s get through this.’  … I did get him to talk and I listened and we were able to solve his problem … Nothing is more personal to people than their children who they love dearly and they want them to have a good education, and they don’t want their child pushed aside or marginalized or whatever, for any reason, and so I thought it was really helpful to have that experience.”

While still serving on the school board, Davis took a position as director of the Aaron Price Fellowship–a program conceived by Fedmart and Price Club retailer Sol Price and family to memorialize his 15 1/2 year grandson, Aaron.  Sol’s son, Robert, thinking of Ron Ottinger, who was then running for school board, asked Davis if she thought someone serving on the school board would have a conflict of interest mentoring low-income, at risk students in a program to introduce them to the workings of business and government.  Not a conflict, she replied, then after thinking about it some more, called back and said, “I’d like to be considered for that job.”

So she arranged for high school students to go behind the scenes at police stations, at elected officials’ offices, and at business, among other venues.. And in addition to these structured visits, she also asked the students to design their own programs.  One of them, she remembered, was a program about what it is like to live as a gay in a prejudiced society.  Coincidentally, it was just two days after my interview with Davis, that the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to legalize gay marriage in all 50 states.

Davis had to give up the Price Fellows program after she was elected to state Assembly, where she served the maximum of  three two-year terms. In addition to education, she focused in the Legislature on health care and consumer protection.  At the end of her third term, a fellow Democrat and good friend Dede Alpert (no relation) was representing the same district in the State Senate, so running for that seat was not an option.  A controversial Republican, Brian Bilbray, however, was then serving in the congressional seat and Davis took him on and won in the 2000 election.

Seeking appointment to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce was a natural progression for Davis, and so, one might say, was the House Armed Services Committee, for which she drew upon her experiences as an Air Force wife during the Vietnam War.  She gravitated to issues affecting military personnel and their families.

In that capacity, Davis has traveled many times to Iraq and Afghanistan to check in on the Armed Forces personnel serving in those war theaters.

She described her visits as being different from those of many other members of Congress.  “For example, we just had our seventh annual Mother’s Day trip and my thought was not necessarily to meet leaders when you go into countries.  You want to find ways to meet people who are suffering and want to change their lives, who ordinarily members of Congress wouldn’t have an opportunity to meet.”

Back when Democrats were the majority party in the House,  “I led one trip to Afghanistan, but insisted that we go to a remote area of the country that was safe — we weren’t going to do anything stupid — and where we could have an impact by saying ‘we care about you; tell us what your life is like; is there anything that we can do, to help?  We came in as a country to try to change your lot and what can we do to be helpful?'”

At first the Afghan women with whom they met were distrustful, but eventually they began to speak about their lives, unveiling themselves in this all-female gathering.  At the conclusion of the meeting, “we said ‘we really want to come back,’ and we had a look from everybody that said, ‘oh sure, they will never come back’ but we did, we came back and came back and back… ”  Among accomplishments was to find ways for Afghan women to join that country’s military, “which is extraordinary in their culture.”  The delegation successfully pushed in Congress that such women “have some resources and ability to do that.”

Repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the military which permitted gays to serve only if they were discreet about their sexuality was one issue on which she worked as an Armed Services committee member.

“There are issues of relationships in the service in terms of some of the sexual assaults that we have focused on, trying to change that, as well as at the universities,’ Davis reflected.  “How do you impact culture to the extent that people feel that they are family; that they want to act responsibly? That is an important issue. ”

Other areas in which she is taking an interest is “empowerment of women,” saying she would like someday to see a female chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as a female Commander-in-Chief.  (She is supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency.)

Additionally, she said, she would like to see teachers recognized for the professionals that they are, so that some day a kindergarten teacher would be paid as much as a college professor.

Over the years, Davis has mentored various youngsters to follow her into the political system.  San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria, who now is running for an Assembly seat, once was a member of her staff.  So was Ricardo Flores, who is currently campaigning to be come a San Diego City Councilman.

Today in her early 70s, Davis remembers when she worked on an Israeli kibbutz, where some students decided to make aliyah and others, like herself, decided to return to the United States.  Recently, these former students have been getting back in touch with each other, and she said she is amazed by the successes many have become.  True, some people make a fuss over the fact that she is now a member of Congress, but she says she is in awe of the professional careers some of the others have followed.

She recalled that on one occasion, young kibbutzniks performed Mary Poppins in Hebrew, and the boy who played Michael Banks–one of Mary Poppins’ young wards–has now grown up.  Today he is a nuclear scientist.

It’s amazing, is it not, how much potential each of us has?

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  You may comment to donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com or post your comment on this site provided that it is civil and that you identify yourself by your full name and the city and state of your residence.