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What’s it Like for a Mathematician to Run for Congress?

Jerry McNerney

My journey in Congress started when my son, Michael, urged me to run in 2004. He was in the Air Force, and when he received his absentee ballot for the primary election in the mail, he noticed that our political party did not have a candidate for our congressional seat. He called and urged me to run for the seat. He was serving our country, he said, and wanted me to serve our country by running for Congress. It was late in the election cycle since absentee ballots had already gone out, but still time to run as a write-in candidate. After some deliberation, I decided to take on the challenge, but had a lot to learn.

I was not the first mathematician in Congress. Dalip Singh Saund preceded me in the 1950s. From the Fresno, CA area, Dr Saund was also the first Asian American elected to Congress. He clearly climbed some very steep mountains in his career. Today, a large portrait of Dr. Saund hangs in the Capitol building in the stairwell just east of the House floor in tribute to his achievements. Ironically, both Dr Saund and I, the only two mathematicians ever in Congress, are from the Central Valley of California, which makes it seem like the Central Valley is a hotbed of mathematicians in politics.

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My academic math background is differential geometry. I earned a PhD from the University of New Mexico in 1981. Studying math as a graduate student while starting a family was one of the most joyous periods of my life. Any mathematician loves an intellectual challenge that involves understanding and unlocking secrets of our universe.

Politics, on the other hand, involves a different set of interests, skills, and ambitions than mathematics. It’s true that politicians must learn a great deal about the world around them, but being a successful politician in a democracy is more about communicating, relationship building, and projecting a self-image that appeals to a broad spectrum of the electorate. You need to be sociable, and you have to be obsessed about the job to be successful.

After getting my PhD, instead of going into academia, I opted for industry and spent 20+ years developing wind energy and smart grid technologies. This was a very rewarding and sometimes exciting career path. I was on the ground level with the development of some very successful and impactful technologies. I used math skills in developing wind turbine dynamics models and control systems simulations as well as statistics and a general ability to think clearly about field data and wind energy economics. However, the company I worked for during most of my years went bankrupt because of bad engineering management decisions. This made me realize that in industry, I needed to be more than an engineer, I needed to delve into management.

Making the transition to politics from mathematics and engineering was incredibly difficult. Public speaking, raising campaign money, communicating effectively on any subject, listening carefully, empathizing with constituents and donors, being subject to close scrutiny, being on display at all times, being ready for a political confrontation at all times, withstanding public personal criticism, and other experiences in politics are well outside the comfort zone of some mathematicians. In politics, I had to learn to accept that people will outright lie, and I had to be prepared to react in an appropriate way. Being elected to public office also has significant rewards, mainly being able to make a difference in people’s lives, but it’s also an ego boost. Strangers recognized me, often with applause, when I entered a room. Some people were awed to meet me and wanted to take their picture with me and hear my thoughts on any number of issues. As a member of Congress, I had a great staff to manage my schedule, help prevent me from making mistakes, protect me when I did make mistakes, and brief me on issues in front of me. I had a say on many issues of the day and got to participate in committee hearings with some of the biggest experts in the country. I also had the opportunity to meet interesting and prominent people and go on incredible trips overseas.

Let’s take a look at the challenges I faced starting with public speaking. I had taught undergraduate math courses as a graduate student and had given many technical presentations during my years in industry. But public speaking in a political setting is a different experience. For me, being in front of a class of bright students for the first few classes in a semester was always anxiety producing. Professional presentations could also be a challenge. Strong preparation was essential. My consciousness changes when I get in front of people. I would freeze up and forget what I was going to say. When I started running for Congress in 2004, my speeches were terrible. Memorization was impossible. The best thing was to be able to read a speech from a podium. Next best was to have some note sheets with key words. Ad libbing was out of the question. I met with a speech coach, but it didn’t seem to help much. I met with a psychologist, with no improvement. The thing that made a difference was a lesson with an acting coach. It helped me open up. I still stumbled, many times. After one disaster, my biggest donor emailed me that he’d had it with me. I could get slightly choked up while speaking about emotional issues. But I was determined because I was so angry about the 2003 war in Iraq. Whatever it took, I was going to do it. After a while, I realized that people still stuck with me even though I had very bad speaking episodes. I had the worst, the most embarrassing experiences and survived. It would get better, and it did. Sure, I still get nervous and still forget some of what I want to say, but somehow, I get through speeches and often enjoy it. Practice makes better.

Raising campaign money is critical to political success. It is said that money is the mother’s milk of politics. It is true that politicians need campaign money to be successful. Some people are self-funders. I wasn’t. As a sometimes-employed wind energy consultant, I wasn’t rich. I had to depend on donors to produce a campaign. That included hiring political consultants, doing polls, producing and distributing literature, having a field campaign, and getting into mass media. It was frustrating that you could spend lots of money on different campaign activities and have little idea what was effective. As a new candidate, I had no name ID and no fundraising base. Fundraising was a struggle. Some professionals, such as lawyers, have a natural fundraising base. Mathematicians aren’t very big political donors and, neither are wind energy engineers. I had fundraising events that, even with a lot of work, raised less than $100. Considering that you need millions of dollars to win a congressional seat, this was not going to work. I was advised to make a list of everyone I had ever known and call each one and ask for more money than you think they could ever donate. In addition, if I couldn’t raise $100,000 within a couple of weeks, then I shouldn’t waste my time or anyone else’s time. Calling and connecting with friends and acquaintances was fun at first. One thing I learned is that you really can’t guess who will give and who won’t. I spoke to acquaintances who detested my political leanings and will probably never speak to me again. Fundraising got tiresome. I only raised about $40,000 from my personal list and that money disappeared very quickly. I had to purchase lists and start cold calling. I had to schedule “call time” for hours every day. I lost the general election in 2004 but persisted and ran again in 2006. After winning the primary election, I hired a fund-raising advisor who specialized in challengers. He had a list of about 50,000 donors nationwide and told me that I needed to start calling people on the East Coast at 6 a.m. Pacific time and call straight through until 9 p.m. Pacific time, and I needed to do this every day for the next three months. He said it would be like crawling on crushed glass—it was. But it worked. After a few months, I started getting a buzz as a candidate around the country. Donations started flowing in. Fundraising persisted as a requirement well after I got elected. My district was a Republican district, and I was, and am, a Democrat, so I would be targeted until the districts were redrawn after the 2010 census. I had to spend about 20 hours per week on call time. I got a better partisan district after the 2010 election, but then the party demanded that I pay dues to the party’s campaign arm, hundreds of thousands of dollars every two years. It took the enthusiasm from me. It compounds the frustration for me to know that much of the campaign money is used to attack the opponent, and since almost every campaign for Congress does this, it reinforces the general belief that most politicians in Washington are crooks. Everyone hates call time, although some people slog through it better than others.

Communicating and listening are key. I couldn’t be an effective politician if I couldn’t communicate, and I couldn’t communicate if I didn’t listen. Listening, especially to personal issues, takes patience. But when I focused on listening and turned off outside distractions while listening, I began to get something out of it. People brought emotional issues to me, and it energized me to empathize with them.

People will lie to you. This wasn’t something I was used to as a mathematician. I suppose some mathematicians lie, but there’s really no benefit to it because you’ll get caught. The first time someone lied in response to a question I asked in committee, I was so taken aback that I didn’t know how to respond. I blanked out. I learned that I had to prepare for that kind of behavior by being ready to counter or cross-examine in lawyer speak.

Then there’s the issue of being a public figure. My personal life went under a microscope. Anything I said or did was liable to end up in the media. I had to be ready to respond to a personal attack. When someone attacks me unexpectedly, I go into a stunned mode and freeze up. When there was any possibility of a personal attack, I prepared for that. In politics, your family may or may not be attacked in the media, which is even more difficult. I was lucky, no one went after my family.

Walking into Congress for the first time was euphoric. We had Marine guards when we went to the White House and back. It was deeply moving to me that these young men and women would take a bullet for me. I got to meet the president, the first lady, and their staff. I got to choose an office and hire a staff. Hiring my first staff was critically important because they were essential in helping set my congressional direction. Decisions made the first months impacted my entire career.

Committees are the work of Congress. There are hearings in which invited witnesses, sometimes under subpoena, testify. They are usually experts, and every member on the committee has a turn to question the witnesses five minutes in hearings. I had to prepare. If I fumbled, it would end up in the media. I thrived in that setting. I could ask anything, and I developed a reputation for asking technical questions about science or tech issues. Committees also held markups in which bills were discussed and amended. These could be contentious and could last a long time. One markup lasted 27 hours straight. The markup on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) lasted three weeks, although we stopped every night at about 9 or 10 p.m.

Activities on the House floor, votes, debates, and speeches were a big part of the experience. Members are allowed to give one-minute speeches at the beginning of each day on any topic. I gave a one-minute speech on the twin prime problem. It was one of the more memorable speeches I gave since it’s easy to explain and understand in one minute. I got a lot of joking and positive feedback from that one. During House floor votes some members mill around the floor and some stay seated. It seems chaotic, but it’s a good time to connect with colleagues. Voting could run for hours, not ending until the early morning. Some debates were interesting. Most of the time debates were about some arcane subject of interest to a narrow interest group. Sometimes debates were very emotional and contentious. I gave my share of boring speeches, but also gave a few hot speeches that got my blood boiling. Most speeches in the House are read, and that was a good approach for me except that I often make minor stumbles that only I seemed to notice.

Congressional trips, called COngressional DELegations, or CODELs were some of the most rewarding and enjoyable parts of the job. CODELs were usually international, sometimes on military aircraft. We almost always got to meet the head-of-state and other dignitaries in any country we visited, and we had the opportunity to visit historical sights. The staff took care of the planning and execution of the trip details. I took trips with scientific goals in the polar regions, twice to Greenland, once to northern Norway and Alaska, and once to Antarctica. The science in these locations was absolutely stunning, mostly funded by the National Science Foundation, and some by the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The South Pole scientists were measuring resonances in the early universe! I went on a domestic CODEL to the Boulder, CO, area in September of 2022 to visit the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of Colorado. It was a very impressive science community. My last CODEL was to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fusion facility in France in October of 2022, where I urged the directors of the facility to publicly explain the reasons for their delays and cost overruns. They did, which helped clear the air.

Another word about the congressional staff. They are mostly bright, hardworking, idealistic, and committed individuals, mostly in their 20s. I depended on their work. Since I was interested in science issues, they helped me organize caucuses, one of which was the AI Caucus. The young woman who organized caucus meetings with AI experts from around the world was incredibly energetic. The purpose of the caucus was to inform my colleagues and their staffers about AI so they could make good decisions on the subject. In general, the staff kept me in the loop on issues I cared about. Staff who worked directly for a committee were more specialized and were just as helpful on issues related to committee jurisdiction.

People often ask me if I used mathematical thinking in Congress. The answer is somewhat, but not as much as I hoped. My colleagues clearly respected my math PhD background. For example, my colleague and cochair of the AI Caucus would always introduce me by announcing the title of my dissertation. But effectiveness in Congress depends on your jurisdiction and seniority, how much money you raise and use to advance the party goals, how much you get in the news, and how often and authoritatively you speak up in the party caucus and on the House floor. Even on the budget issues and projections, math didn’t play much of a part. My colleagues sometimes looked to my opinions on science/tech issues. I raised my background in committee hearings and markups to illustrate a point and that sometimes made an impression. My background was helpful in understanding technical issues and it was usually very satisfying to be able to participate in discussions about science or technical issues for similar reasons that I might have enjoyed a college course in math or science—the opportunity to learn and help advance the state of the art or at least funding for important science issues.

In appropriations or raising federal dollars, members of Congress can help direct money for their pet causes. It can be an arduous and arcane process, but with persistence and good legislative strategy members can direct federal money to specific projects. In addition to the needs of people in my district in education, transportation, public safety, and so on, I was able to make sure some science and math organizations got federal money. I helped to make sure that the NSF got at least as much money each year as it did in prior years. I made sure the DoE also got as much money as I could for its research projects. In one case, my appropriations for research in solar radiation management was the first government money in any country to do so.

As a mathematician, Congress was frustrating. In the House, I was one of 435 members, each with his or her own priorities and egos. Since you need more than half of the members to get things passed in the House, getting anything done can be very difficult and time consuming. It can take a decade or more to do some things. I started working to get a veterans health center in my district and it took all 16 of my years in Congress to get it done. It takes years or even decades to become a chair of a committee, where most of the power lies in getting legislation passed through the House. After the House passes legislation, the Senate needs to pass the same exact bill before it can go to the Oval Office. The vitriol and shrill attacks in Washington were difficult for me to see and deal with and it was usually counterproductive. I avoided partisan fighting as much as possible, but there were times when it was necessary.

I met with mathematicians frequently in Washington. Sometimes I would be invited to math events, lectures, dinners, or parties. It was reassuring to see more prominent women in mathematics today than when I graduated. I always looked forward to being around other mathematicians. It lifted me up and helped generate enthusiasm for the job.

Being in Congress requires quite a bit of time away from home. Members of Congress either live in the DC area or commute back and forth to their districts every week when Congress is in session, about 40 weeks per year, usually three nights per week. That can be hard on the family, especially if you have kids still at home. My kids are all gone from our home, but it was still difficult on my wife.

I decided to run for Congress for the right reasons, my son’s request, and my determination to help stop an unjust war of choice. I decided to leave for the right reasons as well. Too much money involved in campaigning, hardship on my wife, and a new district after the 2020 census that cut me entirely out of what had been my home in the San Francisco Bay Area. I accomplished a lot for my district, for veterans, and for the issues I focused on. Would I do it again, and was it worth the sacrifice of my personal life? The answer is yes, I feel that I made a difference. But I’m now greatly relieved to get back into activities that I love, such as fusion and AI. I do miss many of my constituents and colleagues and the attention and prestige of being in Congress. But it was time for me to leave Congress, and I very much look forward to re-establishing myself in the mathematics community doing research and trying to make a difference in our world in a way that better suits my personality.

For me, mathematics required a commitment to a rather narrow lane. This can be limiting and reduces the usefulness of mathematics to the more general society at a time when society needs to pull all of its resources together to address its most difficult challenges, especially since this requires some of the most highly talented and driven members of society. I hope this article will encourage mathematicians to be more open to professional activities that may be outside of their academic training, and math departments to be open to inviting mathematicians that have nonacademic experience into their faculty to collaborate and share their knowledge.

My last day as a US congressman was January 3, 2023.

Credits

All photos are courtesy of the author.