[This article was first published nearly 15 years ago. Its message is just as timely and important today. I hope new readers will find it helpful. I trust the old timers who, like me, struggle with keeping their eye on the important goals, will appreciate a wake up call.]
Walking out of my polling place last November, I was struck again by the often forgotten truth that the voters run this country. It’s easy to disbelieve or ignore, but in the end it really is true. From there, my thoughts wandered off in an odd direction, to a question the professors used to ask us in law school a long time ago. “Where does the law come from?” they used to ask or, “What is the source of the law?” When we started as first year law students, the question maddened us because we thought the answer was obvious. It was in books, of course! Maybe we didn’t know what books yet, but we trusted that it was in the books. By the end of law school, we began to understand the answer really isn’t about the books at all.
Now, more than thirty years after leaving law school, I understand even better where the law comes from. It comes from the same people who vote in the polling places, and many who don’t vote there. The simple answer to the question is: you are the source of the law. The power of this statement may not be immediately obvious. But think about what we mean when we say, “The law requires this or that.” What we’re really saying is some person said the law requires this or that. Occasionally, there is actually something in black and white which says exactly what the person is requiring. But just as often, as you have learned in your lifetimes, what the person is requiring is actually a matter of interpretation; that is, applying what is written to your particular situation.
Those who say what the law is are building inspectors and zoning administrators ruling on permits; planners writing paragraphs in draft comprehensive plans describing the need for manufactured housing; members of boards of zoning appeals who often are engineers, architects, bankers, realtors or other business persons familiar with industry as they grant or deny requests for special exceptions from the zoning ordinance; board of supervisor or council members (who may be your customers or neighbors) who have to vote whether or not to allow manufactured homes in different parts of the county; judges, who used to be lawyers, who have a whole lifetime of stories and experiences about manufactured housing and the people associated with it; juries, made up of your neighbors, friends, and enemies; legislators elected from your area to the General Assembly who frequently are the authors of the actual black letter law; and government employees working in state agencies like DMV or VDOT who have to decide whether to issue a permit. These persons are your contact and your industry’s contact with the law.
What’s the point? Very simple. How these decision-makers interpret and apply the law is largely the product of what they think or feel or believe about you, your product and your industry. All of that grows directly from how you deal with people, and from the attitudes and beliefs you bring to your industry and the housing industry in general.
It is too easy to forget that how you deal with people sooner or later affects how people deal with you. If you are fair, true to your word, gentle with people, and proud of your product, those attitudes will come back to you when the lawmakers make their decisions.
If your attitude is that you are in business to provide quality housing for persons who need or want it, rather than being in the business to trick and rip off people for your benefit only, that attitude will come back in the decisions of the lawmakers.
If your public awareness is easy for all to see – and it is that you are not asking for the moon but only what is fairly yours; if people understand that you listen to fair complaints and objections about your product and your performance; and if people perceive you as being aware of the process of public planning and zoning and your role in it and the needs that the housing market has of you in that process – you will receive back respect and fairness from the public.
If the public understands that you know your rights and that you expect to be
treated fairly, but that you are not out to punish people for honest mistakes or overemphasis on outworn traditions, the public will respect you and help you in enforcing those rights.
You, in the end, really are the source of the law that affects you. It is subtle, but you must remember it every day. Its very subtlety makes it easy to forget; the urgencies and confusions of daily life make it sometimes impossible to remember, but you cannot let this happen. You must remember always that you will receive back from the law what you give to the public and to the people you deal with every day.