Character Application and Information Sheet
NS Nation Name: Kavanis
Character Name: Erik Benjamin “Ben” Eriksen
Character Gender: M
Character Age: 60
Character Height: 1.90 m
Character Weight: 90 kg
Character Position/Role/Job: Former Mayor of Oklahoma City, former Governor of Oklahoma, former Drug Czar
Character Country/State of Birth: New York
Character State of Residence: Oklahoma
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: Tom Ridge
Main Strengths:
- Successful legacies as Mayor and Governor, including widely lauded crisis leadership. His leadership in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing is held up as a model, and his management of the 1999 tornado outbreak favorably contrasted (somewhat unfairly) with the response to Hurricane Katrina.
- Experience of winning tough battles with an opposition legislature.
- Authentic conservative credentials with a record of cutting taxes, being “tough on crime”, and very few flip-flops.
- Consistently high ratings from interest groups (e.g. Cato Institute on fiscal policy, NRA-ILA on gun rights) and high approval ratings on leaving office.
- Little name recognition outside of Oklahoma. Turning around Oklahoma City’s waterfront isn’t much of an accomplishment given how few people even know Oklahoma City has a waterfront. His moment in the national limelight, in 1995, has faded from public memory, eclipsed by 9/11. He has few connections to major donor groups and doesn’t represent a key swing state (Oklahoma having swung massively to the red during his career).
- No foreign policy experience or profile other than a few trade missions as governor and two years in a JAG court in Germany 35 years ago! Has no profile on the Iraq War.
- His time as Drug Czar was probably a mistake politically. It neither gave him enough profile to credibly claim serious federal service, nor allowed him to completely escape association with the increasingly unpopular Cush administration. And also, it’s not like he won the War on Drugs in those two years!
- While he’s no one’s idea of a moderate, the two issues on which he did stake out more moderate stances – abortion and immigration – are probably the two on which conservative activists are least forgiving.
- Not an accomplished public speaker nor particularly charismatic in person. He’s a policy wonk at heart who’s more comfortable hammering out the details of budget lines than he is “telling a story”. He’s also deeply ill at ease with using either openly or subtly religious language, in contrast to the Cush approach.
- Secret IC: Pretty much an atheist. Obviously he would never admit this and short of mind control being developed it won’t come out, but he’s not as ready with the references to God, Jesus, and the rest of the crew as other Republicans (and even Democrats) are.
- He’s not old at 60, but he’s certainly not brimming with youthful vitality nor terribly photogenic, and his hearing aid can at times give him the appearance and mannerisms of an older man, something having a new wife half his age does nothing to detract from.
- See also the last two paragraphs about his failures as governor.
Biography:
Early life and education
Ben Eriksen was born in 1947, the oldest of four children of Sofie (née Svensen), a nurse, and Erik, a clerical worker in Washington, D.C., assigned to the Federal Power Commission. The family lived in Falls Church, Virginia, and were on holiday in New York City when Ben was born. From a family mainly of Danish and Norwegian descent, with most of his great-grandparents having been farmers in Minnesota, he is the fourth “Erik Eriksen” in a row in his family, but hated the name as a child and began calling himself Ben, after his maternal grandfather. He is the oldest of four children: his brother (who, confusingly, actually is called Benjamin, but goes by “Jim”) has run (mostly unsuccessfully) for minor public office as a Libertarian, while his sisters, Martine and Liv, are respectively a journalist, and an executive assistant in the office of the NFL Commissioner. His father, a federal employee who did not serve in World War II as he was an essential worker in energy administration, was reassigned throughout Ben’s childhood, and he had attended elementary school in four different states by the time the family finally settled in Tulsa, OK, where they made a permanent home. As a result, Eriksen’s accent is noticeably more Mid-Atlantic than Okie.
He attended Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, where he was quarterback of the football team and elected student body president, as well as being named one of Oklahoma’s Presidential Scholars by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. He attended the University of Oklahoma, where he played both football and baseball, and graduated with a BA with distinction in history in 1969. He then studied at the University of Oklahoma College of Law for a JD in law, graduating in 1972. He was chairman of the University of Oklahoma Young Republicans and campaigned for Richard Nixon’s reelection. After graduation he clerked for Luther L. Bohanon on the United States District Court for the District of Western Oklahoma, the Democratic Chief Justice who had desegregated Oklahoma’s schools in 1961 and subsequently ordered a busing plan.
Military service, early career, and entry into politics
Eriksen joined the US Army and served for three years in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, retiring as a Captain after working in California and Europe. He then returned to Oklahoma and entered private practice, initially as a public defender, alongside a partner [not James Winchester] who was later appointed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court by Eriksen himself. It was work he frankly later admitted to disliking as “it was low paid and most of my clients were guilty”. He switched to the other side and worked as a prosecutor, starting as an assistant district attorney.
He worked on the 1976 Ford campaign as an advance man but was more enthused by the insurgent candidacy of [not-Reagan], whom he campaigned for vigorously in 1980. An enthusiastic supporter of the death penalty, he campaigned successfully for its restoration in Oklahoma following the 1976 Supreme Court decision Gregg v. Georgia. He also worked on several local and state campaigns as a political aide and was known for putting in very long hours: he would commonly work through the day in his legal career, then through the night writing speeches and policy briefs.
In 1980 he entered politics himself, running for and winning a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. At the age of 33 he was regarded as something of rising figure of the Oklahoma Republican Party. In 1982 he ran for the Oklahoma Senate and was elected. He advocated for tough enforcement of drug laws and was an at times combative opponent of Governor [not-Nigh], including leading a successful veto override campaign at a time when Oklahoma state politics were still heavily Democratic. In 1986, he ran for Attorney General of Oklahoma, but suffered his first major political defeat. He was portrayed as overly close to state oil and gas interests, and suffered from Republican fatigue in the six-year itch of the [not-Reagan] presidency.
Mayor of Oklahoma City
In 1987, Eriksen ran for Mayor of Oklahoma City, winning by a 2:1 margin after running as a “law and order” candidate despite at one point having to suspend his campaign after his daughter fell sick. He was initially concerned with civic reform, and completely reorganized the planning and civil service commissions. He instituted campaign finance reform laws and reformed the water board. He promoted development in downtown Oklahoma City but was mainly known for his “good government” reforms. But after being reelected by a heavy margin, he initiated what became his legacy, the ambitious development program Metropolitan Area Projects Plan (MAPS). Following the Penn Square Bank collapse in the early 1980s and the loss of an important contract to Indiana, civic leaders were concerned about Oklahoma’s attractiveness for business and tourism. MAPS was a $350 million public works and redevelopment plan.
The plan was to be funded through an initial voter approved sales tax increase, which was initially unpopular with voters, and at one point trailed by 20 points in the polls. Eriksen’s tireless campaigning helped swing the referendum in favor, and it passed. Extensive downtown redevelopment brought renovations to existing infrastructure such as the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, and construction of new facilities (among them the E.B. Eriksen Downtown Library). A new riverfront and recreational dam complex is now the headquarters for USA Canoe/Kayak and a training center for US Rowing. The development has returned the initial investment several times over, although much of it was completed after Eriksen had left office, as by then he was already eyeing bigger offices.
Under his tenure, Oklahoma City won an All-America City Award from the National Civic League. Crime fell and housebuilding went up, and major businesses began investing. He even made accommodation with union leaders with whom he had clashed during his first term. He worked with Oklahoma Gas & Electric to improve their bond rating situation. In the last year of his mayoralty he was elected President of the National League of Cities, the first Oklahoman to hold the post.
Governor of Oklahoma
In 1994, Eriksen ran for Governor, winning a very tight race in which he failed to obtain an absolute majority but was helped by a third party candidate siphoning off support. His campaign was heavily outspent, dogged by questions about how he would accomplish his ambitious reform agenda given the likely makeup of the state legislature would be heavily Democratic, and beset by negative attacks from his opponents over investing in out-of-state businesses. His win is sometimes judged an “upset” although he always led in polling. Just three months after taking office, the fragile peace of a city whose redevelopment he had led was then disrupted as the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City exploded in what remains the single deadliest act of domestic terrorism in United States history.
Within 45 minutes of the explosion Eriksen had declared a state of emergency, enabling FEMA to provide assistance. He organized state resources for relief and rescue efforts, and later established a fund to provide assistance to victims. He spoke with President [not-Clinton] and the Rev. Billy Graham at the memorial service. Though Oklahoma was sometimes criticized for not making teaching the history of the event mandatory in high schools, in general Eriksen’s response as governor was praised. The event gave him a national profile for the first time.
Eriksen’s first term agenda was essentially conservative, mixing administrative reforms to education, planning, and civic government with promotion of growth through economic development, infrastructure building and tax relief, alongside a tough approach to law enforcement and public safety; he departed somewhat from national Republican trends, though, in favoring environmental protection (the Oklahoma Republican Party pushed him to abolish the new Department of Environmental Quality, but he resisted) and bucked his pro-business tendencies with a special taskforce to regulate the hog and poultry industries. Always a defender of law and order, he signed more death warrants per capita than any other governor in the nation, and did not provide a single case of amnesty. He raised state trooper pay (the lowest in the nation when he took over the statehouse) and signed landmark truth-in-sentencing legislation.
In his first term, Eriksen wanted to improve road quality without increasing property tax, and publicly bet on improving the state economy to make up for lost revenue. During his first session, he sent a paper napkin on which he had drawn a Laffer curve to the Democratic leader in the legislature. Reforms to certain excise taxes helped, and he was able to boast of improved road conditions by the end of his term without having raised taxes. He also reformed the franchise tax on banks and, more controversially, removed the cap on interest rates, before issuing an invitation to banks to move to Oklahoma. His greatest legislative success was the 1995 welfare reform law, the first in the nation and a model for the subsequent national reforms in 1996. He created a public-private partnership to for indigent care, and invested in medical education.
Eriksen had not originally run as an aggressive tax cutter; in his time as Mayor he had campaigned for an increase in sales tax, and presented himself as more concerned with balanced budgets and fiscal prudence. But by 1998, he had put the government in a position to deliver a cut in income tax, the first Oklahoma in over 50 years. Cuts to sales, estate and unemployment taxes combined to form the largest tax break in the state’s history. This essentially assured him of reelection and in a far cry from his narrow victory four years ago, he was reelected in a landslide, winning 70% of the vote.
Having put his efforts into economic development and infrastructure reform in his first term, Eriksen promoted education reform in his second term. Superlatives included the biggest ever investment in education and largest ever pay increase for Oklahoma teachers. Along with the increased spending came higher standards, and Eriksen introduced charter schools to Oklahoma for the first time. He created ten new STEM research centers at universities throughout Oklahoma, attracting tens of millions in research funding and an estimated $100m economic boost. At times he had more success working with Democrats than Republicans on educational issues, but on other issues, the Democratic majority proved intractable, most notably his desire to turn Oklahoma into a right-to-work state. He tried to keep labor costs down by reforming worker’s compensation laws, including by appointing more business-friendly members to Oklahoma’s Worker’s Compensation Court. He eventually won the right-to-work battle when voters approved the constitutional amendment in 2001.
Continuing his law-and-order stance, he signed further truth-in-sentencing legislation, and gave correctional officers and police further pay raises. He expanded the use of mental health courts, formed regional task forces on cattle theft, and made repeat sex offenses a life without parole penalty. Further tax successes included another income tax break, the creation of Oklahoma’s earned income tax credit, managing a 30% property tax cut for farmers and homeowners, permanently repealing the estate tax, and creating a bipartisan commission to study tax simplification. He was not able to achieve his aim of completely eliminating the state income tax by the end of his tenure, however, but he did eliminate what he termed wasteful government programs such as the annual vehicle inspection requirement. He created a special taskforce on the Tar Creek Superfund site. By the end of his tenure he had overseen the largest road construction project in state history, and finally completed the dome for the Oklahoma State Capitol with $20m of private money.
Eriksen ended his term a popular governor denied a certain third term only on account of term limits. However, he was not without controversy. Eriksen had portrayed himself as a “family values” conservative concerned with the state’s high divorce rates (reducing the divorce rate was one of his major campaign planks) and opposed to drug and alcohol abuse, but he did sign a tranche of pardons in his last days, including for his son-of-law for DUI. Oklahoma’s EB-5 visa program for foreign investors was criticized for not delivering meaningful investment. He has said he regretted the state’s investment in wind power during his time as governor as not delivering good value for consumers, and the state did not meaningfully increase the proportion of its power from renewable sources despite his stated desires.
Eriksen also went to court against his own Attorney General and became one of the few Governors to have argued in front of the Supreme Court when he unsuccessfully defended his attempt to dissolve the Department of Commerce and replace it with a new Department of Economic Development as a tactical move to appoint a new Secretary not approved by the legislature. He lost. At the very end of his tenure, Oklahoma’s legislature passed a controversial law banning abortion under virtually all circumstances save for the mother’s life (though not her health). Intended as a challenge to Roe and Casey, the bill would not have taken effect but was a powerful symbol of how far to the right the legislature had swung on social issues. Eriksen had privately urged the legislature not to send him the bill, and eventually vetoed it. Afterwards he said he knew it would be stayed by court order and thrown out by the courts when challenged anyway and that he did not see the point in “wasting government money on pointless show causes”, rhetoric that went down like a cup of cold sick with pro-life campaigners who had hitherto regarded him as an ally.
During his tenure as governor he served as Chairman of the Southern Governors Association, Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, and the Southern States Energy Board, and on the executive committees of the National Governors Association and the National Commission on Energy Policy.
Federal service
Upon leaving office, he was appointed by President Cush to be the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He was approved unanimously by the Senate and held Cabinet-level rank. He took a hard stance opposed to the legalization or decriminalization of narcotics. He was particularly trenchant in his opposition to state-level attempts at relaxing cannabis laws. However, he was a supporter of treatment over incarceration for long-term drug users. Though he proved a capable administrator, he clashed with the administration at times, and after the President’s reelection tendered his resignation.
Since leaving office, he has served on the board of directors of Tenet Healthcare and as an adviser in the private equity group of Lehman Brothers. He has been a consultant to Oklahoma-based businesses and law firms, and provided freelance political analysis for Oklahoma news. He was appointed to the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, has served as a board member for the National Assessment Governing Board, and served on the boards of various nonprofit groups involved with education. He came out strongly in favor of the comprehensive immigration reform. In early 2007, he was seen making a trip to South Carolina, sparking rumors of a possible 2008 Presidential run.
Other Info: During his Army service, he met Jessamyn “Jess” Fisher, a WAF pilot. They married and had four children. His two sons have both run for office, unsuccessfully. Jess passed away shortly before the end of his time as governor. 9 months later he remarried to Brandi Atwater, 30 years his junior. He wears a hearing aid in his left ear. He states he sleeps less than four hours a night and has always been known for his phenomenally long working hours, at times testing the limits of aides half his age.
I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: Kavanis
Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123
