Former Atlanta mayor takes on political ethics at LBJ School

2315 Red River St.

All events free; Franklin keynote requires registration

Full list of programs at bit.ly/11PZ4kD.

As mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin had eight years to practice what she’s about to preach at the University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs: ethics and values in politics.

Those very words, let alone the title of Barbara Jordan Visiting Professor in Ethics and Political Values, would send shivers down many spines. Not Franklin’s.

“The title doesn’t scare me,” Franklin says as she settles in her plain, sparely furnished office. “What I’m wondering is what role I can play in helping the LBJ School. There are people who teach ethics, and it’s a thread that runs through all courses. What I’m hoping is that my years of experience will help inform my role.”

The questions facing anyone in political life, she says, are “How do you maintain your integrity? How do you have control and maintain your compassion and also your civility?”

“It’s one thing to say you’re for open democracy,” she says. “It’s another to live it as a public official. The value is in the openness of the discussion. Andy (former mayor and congressman Andrew Young) used to say, ‘It’s up to you to listen to a person regardless of who the person is.’ Trust is important. To be held accountable. To be honest. It’s important to say what you mean and mean what you say.”

Franklin was Atlanta’s chief administrative officer and city manager under Young, and when she first ran for mayor, she based her campaign on her deep knowledge of government.

“I’d say that, and people just glazed over,” she says. “It became clear that what people really wanted was someone they could trust. So, I ended up running on integrity, innovation and intelligence.” She won — and wound up being known, she recalls happily, as the “sewer mayor,” bringing the city’s antiquated sewer system into federal compliance and working with business leaders to make the city more environmentally sustainable.

A Democrat, she’s proud of linking arms with Republicans to get things done. She’s the daughter of one Democratic parent and one Republican one, so she grew up with the debate.

“Solutions come from both sides of the aisle,” she says. “To some extent, the best solutions come from the discussion. Atlanta, like Austin, tends to be blue, and I had absolutely no problem working with Republicans. They key to that is finding the things you have a mutual concern about. You’re working toward a common good, not party interest.”

On Tuesday, Franklin will deliver the keynote address of the 17th annual Barbara Jordan Forum. A child of the ’60s, she says she looks forward to speaking about the next phase of civil rights in the U.S.

“I think the success of the country, of the democracy, lies with the individual and small actions of many,” she says. “If we had to wait for another Barbara Jordan to come along, we might be in for a long wait. We need to find those few things that can tip the balance in fairness, equality and justice.”

The areas of need, she says, are many: immigration (“We need solutions that are humane, inclusive and represent the values not only that we were founded on but also that we have fought for”), women’s issues such as human trafficking and pay inequality, Native American issues, rural populations, homelessness, mental health, the needs of people with disabilities, persistent poverty.

“It’s educating and inspiring young people to tackle these issues that intrigues me,” she says. “We know Barbara Jordan, LBJ, Martin Luther King. We know the legacy. The question is, how does that inform our opinions and actions today? And I’m as much in search of those answers as anyone else.”

Outside the walls of the LBJ School, Franklin seems to be wasting no time in becoming an Austinite. She lives in a downtown high-rise and sometimes walks to work. She loves the lake and her neighborhood coffee shop. She has explored the LBJ Library and adores every inch of it.

“I’m intrigued because it’s Texas and Austin,” she says, “and I see this intersection of race and culture and history here that I think will inform public policy for a long time.”