Seth Lynn wants to see more ex-military in Congress.
Founder of the nonpartisan Veterans Campaign, which trains veterans interested in running for public office or similar public service, Lynn, 44, has spent the last 15 years ensuring that goal comes to fruition.
“I think most people across the political spectrum agree that we’re not getting the best people where they need to be in office,” he told The Hill. “For some time now, there’s been this untapped leadership resource, people who would be great leaders who don’t really know how to get started. That’s the guiding philosophy of it.”
Today there are 97 legislators who served in the military – 80 in the House and 17 in the Senate – less than one in five members. The total has not exceeded 100 since 2013.
By comparison, in the early 1970s, three-quarters of members of Congress had a military background.
Veteran advocates like Lynn fear the decline means Congress lacks valuable information when drafting defense budget proposals and drafting legislation that addresses national security policy and support for veterans.
“There has been a pretty steep drop in the number of veterans in Congress,” he said, a trend that might be expected given that the end of the military draft has meant fewer Americans serving in the military than ever before.
“We tend to have people with pretty impressive credentials in our political system, but that doesn’t always seem to encourage altruism, putting your country first and working together,” Lynn added. “However, we have a group of young military veterans who embody those values, and that’s the idea here if we can get some of those people.”
A graduate of the Naval Academy, Lynn served for six years as an active-duty Marine Corps officer, during which time he was deployed to Japan, Kuwait and Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
After leaving active duty in the Reserves, he had an interaction with a fellow officer that planted the seeds for what would become the Veterans Campaign.
“I had a boss who had been there for 26 years, a kind of ‘old guy’. He occasionally talked about how there used to be a lot more veterans in Congress and how things were so much better back then. That kind of stuck with me,” Lynn said.
Lynn, who had no experience in politics, believed that many former military personnel would be more likely to be elected to public office if they received the right training.
A few years later, while earning a master’s degree in public relations at Princeton University, surrounded by colleagues with campaign experience, he explored the idea further.
“I realized that I served with a lot of people in the Marine Corps and various services who I thought would be really excellent leaders, but for a lot of good legal reasons, we had no involvement in politics. So no one really had any experience there,” he explained.
Aided by several classmates, he founded the Veterans Campaign first as a student organization.
He contacted several individuals who worked at veteran PACs, including those on the left and the right, before launching a first two-day workshop in September 2009 in Princeton. The program, which featured 75 participants, covered the basics of starting a campaign, including who to hire first, how to raise funds effectively and building a personal brand.
Lynn describes the program as “very multi-partisan,” with participants and instructors from across the spectrum.
The curriculum focuses on the basics such as fundraising, communication, how to do field work and how to choose a team. The workshops also address veteran-specific pitfalls that emerged as the program progressed.
“A lot of veterans have a hard time fundraising, it’s just not something that generally their background lends itself to very well,” Lynn said. “We discussed mental blocks and ways to get around them by thinking about it in a different way, like ‘Hey, I’m not asking for myself. I’m asking for my country. Or ‘Hey, could you invest in the team instead of giving it to me?’
Lynn also witnessed early public interest in candidates leading with their record of service, but that in itself “wouldn’t make people push you.”
While veteran status gives a first-time candidate credibility and gives him a foot in the door, “it won’t be enough to get him to the finish line. And so being able to address the issues that matter most to voters was essential,” he said.
To date, more than 1,000 people have participated in Veterans Campaign workshops. The program was so successful, with Lynn and her team hosting more than eight events a year, that in 2018, the University of San Francisco partnered with the Veterans Campaign for a master’s degree program in public leadership.
The list of people who attended a Veterans Campaign workshop and were elected includes current Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Florida), and former Reps. Scott Taylor (R-Va.) and Peter Meijer (R-Mich.).
“They’re going out and running and winning races,” Lynn said of the program’s alumni. “I just thought it was amazing.”
Another high-profile participant was Amy McGrath, a former Navy fighter pilot who became famous for trying to win Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for his seat in 2020, outbidding the lawmaker by $90 million to $57 millions.
Since the start of the Veterans Campaign nearly 15 years ago, Lynn, like the rest of the country, has seen the political landscape change drastically, with the two sides of the aisle further apart than perhaps ever before.
But not all changes were for the worse. He has witnessed a huge increase in the number of women veterans running for public office, for example.
“What we found is that many of the challenges female candidates face can be overcome with a history of military service. There are questions that female candidates have to face about being tough enough. And that’s not a problem for Tammy Duckworth, for example,” he said referring to the Democratic senator from Illinois, who is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard.
Lynn is now focused on relaunching the program after it was derailed when the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to typical in-person workshops. He plans to hold the first two-day in-person meeting in four years in October.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
