“She just can’t be chained to a life where nothing’s gained and nothing’s lost, at such a cost.” – Keith Richards

I can sympathize when people say they cannot take one more minute of working at their job. I spent one summer as the salad bar attendant at Ruby Tuesday.

I realize there are worse jobs in the world. Yet, trying to keep the bar stocked with assorted lettuces, dressings and fixings on Sundays after church as waves of families descended upon that sucker like locusts swarming the pharaoh’s fields was a futile exercise.

I also struggled with the slight difference in color between low-fat ranch dressing and all-fat ranch dressing which led to a few reprimands. If you used ranch dressing at the Auburn Ruby Tuesday salad bar in the summer of 2004, you may have been misled, and I apologize for that.

I was lucky enough to find another job at the end of that summer where I was much happier.

All that to say, it makes little sense to criticize someone for leaving one job for a better one. Then again, when it comes to elected officials, I think there is room to make an exception.

When a candidate for office is elected, it is almost the same as the candidate being hired by the people he or she will represent. Since the public cannot fire the elected candidate at will, it is like the candidate is signing a four-year contract of service.

By accepting this symbolic contract, the candidate promises to represent the people’s best interests in matters of government over the length of the contract.

Lately, however, there have been several instances of higher profile elected officials in Alabama who do not seem interested in completing the contract.

The most recent example is president of the Alabama Public Service Commission Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, R-Montgomery, who announced a couple of weeks ago she was resigning her position on the Commission to take a job with the U.S. Agriculture Department as its director of rural development in Alabama.

Again, nothing wrong with taking a new job, but we just had a statewide election to put Cavanaugh in her now former position. She was not even six months into her term before she jumped ship. It feels like a waste of time and money to even have an election when the people’s choice leaves so quickly.

Gov. Kay Ivey has appointed state Rep. Cynthia Almond, R-Tuscaloosa, to take Cavanaugh’s place.

Almond may do a great job with the Commission, but now as a domino effect of Cavanaugh’s decision and Almond’s appointment, the state and Tuscaloosa County have to spend time and resources to have a special election later this year to fill Almond’s vacancy followed by the regular election in 2026 for the same seat.

Unfortunately, Cavanaugh’s situation is far from unique. Late last year Ivey appointed Greg Reed, R-Jasper, as a senior adviser to her cabinet. Reed was serving as president pro tempore of the state Senate at the time, likely the most powerful position in the Senate.

The timing of this move left Reed’s district in west Alabama without any representation in the state Senate during this year’s legislative session.

Cavanaugh and Reed can at least say they are still involved in public service in their new roles. Clay Scofield, R-Arab, left his role as leader of state Senate Republicans in 2023 to work in the political operations wing of the Business Council of Alabama.

Democrats are not immune from this trend either as Rep. Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, the leader of the Democrats in the Alabama House of Representatives, ran for the U.S. House of Representatives last year.

Had Daniels won, he would have left his north Alabama state House constituents high and dry to represent a completely different constituent group plumb on the other end of the state.

The problem with my earlier contract example is the contract is entirely one-sided. There are no repercussions for an elected official for leaving before a term ends. In fact, taxpayers are often stuck with the tab to hold the elections needed to replace the departing officeholder.

In circumstances where ambition or job dissatisfaction outweigh an elected official’s sense of loyalty and service owed to the people who elected him or her, maybe the departing official should be required to cover, or at least defray, the costs involved with electing or appointing a replacement.

If that will not work, then maybe a season spent maintaining a salad bar ought to be arranged.