Tom Sadler putting a fly on the tippet of his Tenkara rod in the West. "If you want to understand the ecology, politics and cultures of the West," he says, "then the best place to start is understanding how water arrives and moves across the landscape. And the same is true with public policy and Washington DC." Photo courtesy Tom Sadler
EDITOR'S NOTE: With his introductory essay below, Mountain Journal introduces Tom Sadler who brings decades of experience as a writer and veteran of navigating Washington DC policy issues—issues that require thinking and working across political divides. Sadler also has been a business entrepreneur, a fly-fishing guide and conservationist dealing with freshwater and saltwater fisheries policy. He understands the importance of clean water as much as anyone.
by Tom Sadler
Mountain Journal National Capital City Correspondent
Life can be funny sometimes, and memories that come to the fore in uncertain days can be calming and unsettling. As I write this, Joe Biden has been sworn in as the 46th President of the United States and yet the National Mall, where his predecessors stood in years past, before citizen masses to hear them take the oath of office, was empty.
Why? You know the reason and stating it is not a partisan declaration.
What should have been a peaceful transfer of power was disrupted January 6. Rioters, terrorists and insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol only a short drive from where I am writing this and, for a brief time, shook the foundations of democracy like few events in our history.
I've worked in and around our nation's capital for 40 years. I started in January of 1980 on the staff of US Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-NH) who was known for his sensible political and fiscal conservatism and who, while being a champion of individual liberty and smaller government, empathized and sympathized when fellow citizens needed help, whether they voted for him or not.
During those years, as a young person fresh out of college, I believed, perhaps idealistically, in the role of elected officials and other leaders to do what’s best for all and listen. New Hampshire was a state, not unlike many in the rural West, where politicians took pride in knowing many of their constituents by name and often knew their family history.
I was privileged to attend the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as our 40th president. To this day I continue to be directly involved in federal policy development and I identify as a conservationist who fishes, hunts and has seen the long-term benefits of land protection across the country. I’ve written many stories published in newspapers and magazines, I’ve helped to research and draft legislation, I’ve prepared committee testimony and not long ago I led the Outdoor Writers Association of America that over the decades has been the premier membership organization for newspaper outdoor columnists and writers who enjoy spending a lot of time outdoors.
The terms "fake news" and "alternative facts" were coined by people who knew in advance their actions would be running afoul of truth-telling and used as a shield for deflection. As someone who was taught to recite and know all of the articles of the US Constitution, there's a reason why freedom of the press appears in Article 1. It is there so that the people we elect to higher office and others appointed to political power answer to citizens whose lives are affected by decisions they make. I've interacted with many Republican and Democrat leaders, women and men, and while they didn't always agree with the reporting they received, they valued and defended the role of the so-called Fourth Estate.
Back in the day, when I first went to work for Republican Sen. Rudman, there was an atmosphere of willing collaboration among elected officials and their staffs. We didn’t call it this, then, but public policy got shaped by members of “the radical middle.” It represents a stark counterpoint to today when radical fringes have transformed nearly every issue into a polemic.
Capitol Hill, as it is known, has been my beat all these years. Like any place you get attached to, to see it attacked, trashed and disrespected by ignorant thugs and goons spun up by a web of lies was unimaginable.
This was an attack on our citadel of government. All of the chants of "back the blue [i.e. police in uniform]" and "thin blue line" rhetoric were exposed as nothing more than a cheap slogan. Slogans with no meaning as they beat one Capitol police officer to death on the west front of the Capitol and injured others who stood as sentinels against the rampaging mob. These were fellow Americans bent on killing other Americans. Among others who were attacked were reporters.
Over the coming months and perhaps years, we will learn more about the calamity of January 6 and who was behind it. That day will rightly be recalled in the same way as the attack on Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as a day of infamy.
Days before the inauguration, much of Washington DC's public spaces were transformed into a limited access zone protected by the military—something I had never seen to this extent except after 9/11. Clear and credible threats to violently disrupt the inauguration necessitated this action.
Our fellow Americans were barred from entering these public spaces because of the selfish, irrational actions of some American's bent on a word we seldom hear— sedition. They declared a willingness to kill or capture elected officials who did not hew to their misinformed world view.
As former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming told Mountain Journal’s Todd Wilkinson, "You have to remember that these people were lied to, over and over again" by a person whom they should have been able to trust, Simpson said. He lauds Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah for saying what those in the Senate and House needed to hear, "The best way we could show respect for the voters who were upset is by telling them the truth. That's the burden. That's the duty of leadership."
It is also the duty of the media and I am proud, going forward, to be Mountain Journal's Washington DC correspondent lending perspective to the machinations of how decisions made here affect the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the West and people who live or like to visit there.
Our nation's capital city is built on public land, as beautiful, historic and sacred as Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone, in turn, is every bit a national treasure as the Lincoln Memorial and the long linear green space connecting monuments and shrines along what is known as the National Mall. It holds many physical touchstones venerated by leaders going back generations who came here to make America better for all and knowing the journey never ends.
The selfish, misguided views of a few took this liberty away from the many, including the tradition of swearing in a new president. Has our form of democracy been perfect? Far from it; it still holds many profound contradictions in need of continuous reconciliation with the words that reside in the Constitution.
Tom Sadler, in cowboy hat, with two late friends in Montana's Madison Valley, who shaped his thinking about working across the political aisle to make good things happen. At top: With Alex Diekmann, the Bozeman-based deal maker with the Trust for Public Land, who helped protect more than 100,000 acres of public and private land in the Northern Rockies, important for wildlife habitat conservation, migration corridors and public access. Just above: Sadler and the late Jim Range, a life-long outdoors person who served as chief counsel to US Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, when the senator was Majority Leader in the senate. Range was a champion of bringing America's public land legacy to the attention of young people of all backgrounds, especially inner city kids, helping them solidify their attachment to nature through hiking, hunting, fishing and science. Range helped draft language that appeared in the Clean Water Act and he co-founded the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Photos courtesy Tom Sadler.
My first mentor, Sen. Rudman, taught those of us under his tutelage that being a citizen comes with personal responsibility. Protest is part of DNA and sometimes it has shown itself necessary to effect change.
But the events of January 6 were the work of undemocratic subversives, some of whom have shown a willingness to commit violence, to destroy the very things they claim to champion. We should not and must not ever forget what took place. What’s one important role for journalism? It is to call out lies that masquerade as truth, to hold those who promote them to account, and to provide facts and informed opinion that can be checked.
As Wilkinson noted in his Mountain Journal column, The New West, "Despite hurt feelings that have festered across the aisle for years, societal change starts with individual decisions, including individual elected officials—leaders—setting a better tone. Politicians must have the courage, Simpson added, to stand together before their constituents and beseech them to let their hostilities go. Nothing good will ever come from tearing the country apart, not for one man whom democracy has shown itself to dwarf."
I have known Wilkinson for years and have followed his work as a journalist. And I agree with him that together Washington DC and the Greater Yellowstone region serve as bellwethers for what kind of environment we will heir to future citizens, the same sentiment that guided those who created Yellowstone in 1872, ironically carved out of homelands known to indigenous people.
US Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has a voting record in Congress that few would describe as friendly to the environment, yet she took the courageous step of telling the American people the truth January 12 when she, as a Republican, announced her intention to vote to impeach the president. Like her father, who held her seat before and went on to become US defense secretary and vice president, she understands keenly that the foundation of a representative democracy requires protecting the pillars that guarantee every citizen has a voice and a way to get involved in the process. This is not a fiction.
"The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney said, immediately attracting scorn from some in her party who apparently need to re-learn that basic lessons of civics and bone up on their knowledge of history. “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president. The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."
Notwithstanding differences of opinion on policy, we must never be afraid to acknowledge and say thank you when people put country before politics. Let's hope Rep. Cheney’s example becomes the rule in the months and years to come, not the exception. And it needs to flow across both sides of the aisle.
Sadler on Jeff Laszlo's Granger Ranches and the banks of a fully restored O'Dell Creek in the Madison Valley. Photo by Alex Diekmann
I share all this as a preamble and introduction. I love the Greater Yellowstone region and have spent a lot of time there. In the coming months, I will be writing for Mountain Journal from here in Virginia, not far from the Capitol, where I live surrounded by public lands. My focus will continue to be Washington DC. As Wilkinson has noted in conversations we've had, one of the unfortunate casualties of journalism as we knew it before is the loss of Capitol Hill correspondents for all but the largest commercial media entities.
I will also tell you this: historically much of Washington DC was built on a swamp—a real one—but it is not a swamp in a metaphoric sense nor is it a backwater. Every law that governs what you love about the West was forged here—some better than others. Most of them in modern times have involved citizens from the West coming here to testify before Congress.
My mission will be to look for those compelling stories that reflect MoJo's expanding dedication to public-interest journalism, such as: Advancing the principles of civility, promoting honest and, for sure, passionate discussions informed by facts, demanding accountability from those in positions of power and influence and delivering a thoughtful, truthful analysis to readers. But I have no intention to be a nerdy wonk who is detached from how public policy is realized on the ground.
Because I've spent part of a my life as a fishing guide with a fly-fisherman's attitude and perspective, I look at the future as I look at my beloved mountain trout streams, with a sense of optimism, adventure and expectation. The rivers of Greater Yellowstone begin on public lands in the mountains, flow across private ranch lands and provide benefits to nature, business and society too numerous to name. The Biden Administration brings a different perspective than its predecessor just as the Trump Administration did to its predecessor, and so on.
Already, there are some interesting story lines emerging.
US Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) has been nominated to head the Department of Interior, whose individual bureaus oversee many of the vital pieces of Greater Yellowstone. Haaland has pledged to help all Americans realize that public lands are part of their birthright and she will bring real-life insight to issues involving indigenous sovereignty, treaty rights and the oldest cultural connections to land on the continent. And she already has signaled that Westerners will hold key positions in her cabinet bureau just as Westerners figured prominently in the Trump Administration.
Beyond Haaland, the first indigenous citizen ever to be Interior Secretary, North Carolina's Secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality Michael Regan has vowed to bring science and common sense to the Environmental Protection Agency as we enter a new era of discussing climate change.
Others nominated for cabinet slots mark a departure from the selections of President Trump. Tom Vilsak of Iowa will reprise his role as Secretary of Agriculture which oversees the US Forest Service and certainly means that wildfire policy will receive prominent discussion. Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo will bring business and government experience to the Department of Commerce which has an influence in setting policy for marine environments.
In addition, Biden enters the White House, the same as President Trump did, with both the Senate and House controlled by members of his own party and not by wide margins. What we know so far is that Democrats have vowed to hold more hearings on issues affecting Greater Yellowstone and the West.
It isn’t yet clear what any of this means.
° ° ° °
Back in the day, when I first went to work for Republican Sen. Rudman, there was an atmosphere of willing collaboration among elected officials and their staffs; when people came together significant things got done and it was a continuation of a spirit that, in the 1960s and 1970s yielded, arguably, the most foresighted environmental legislation in American history.
We didn’t call it this, then, but public policy got shaped by members of “the radical middle.” It represents a stark counterpoint to today when radical fringes have transformed nearly every issue into a polemic that divides the country and grinds the working of government to a halt.
There’s a lot at stake for Greater Yellowstone, perhaps most importantly the future of its unsurpassed concentration of wildlife that is confronting issues related to growth and development, rising levels of outdoor recreationists, the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease and climate change. Over the years, I've also worked with people who recognized the limitations and failings of the conservation movement, one of the biggest being its lack of representation by People of Color. I've worked alongside leaders who recognized that first contact with nature—the good stuff it puts into us— must begin in a young person's life as early as possible.
My marching orders from the mobile newsroom format of Mountain Journal are to make the dealings of Washington DC less obscure, less obtuse and seem less far removed from you, the reader, and the lives of people who share a common affinity: if you are reading this it means you care about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and as public land owners, we are all mutual stakeholders. It is one of the true marvels of our representative democracy.
About Tom Sadler
Tom Sadler is Mountain Journal's national correspondent in Washington DC who will be exploring stories important for Greater Yellowstone and the West that emanate from the American seat of government. Sadler, besides being a writer, has worked as a Congressional staffer, professional fly-fishing guide and conservationist, environmental policy researcher and was head of the Outdoor Writers of America Association.
