MCGRANE: What We Inherit

By Secretary of State Phil McGrane

Highlights from the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office
August 21, 2026

What We Inherit

“Today the challenge of political courage looms larger than ever before. For our everyday life is becoming so saturated with the tremendous power of mass communications, that any unpopular or unorthodox course arouses a storm of protests… Our political life is becoming so expensive, so mechanized and so dominated by professional political and public relations men that the idealist who dreams of independent statesmanship is rudely awakened by the necessities of election and accomplishment.”[1]

That wasn’t written in 2026. Or 2006. It was written in 1957.

And yet, nearly 70 years later, it feels remarkably current. We live in an era of constant motion: information overload, endless busyness, a news cycle that never lets a thought finish forming. When do we actually pause? Sit with a hard question? Grapple with something bigger than the topic of the moment?

I struggle with this constantly.

That is why when I was given the opportunity to participate in the Rodel Fellowship, which brings together 24 state and local elected officials from across the country, evenly divided between the political parties, for a series of seminars over two years, I jumped at the chance. The point isn’t to debate the latest political issue. It is to step away from the noise and wrestle with bigger questions of leadership, public service, and the principles we have inherited.

Maybe it’s the philosophy major in me, but I relished the chance to dig into Aristotle, Machiavelli, Kant, George Washington, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and others. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, quoted above, was among the readings. Our conversations ranged from the origins and principles of our system of government to ethics, religion, polarization, resilience, and more.

There was something powerful about having the time and space to explore those questions with elected officials from different places, levels of government, and political perspectives, to listen, challenge our assumptions, and wrestle seriously with ideas people have been debating for centuries.

It was also an important dose of humility.

Our lives can become consumed by whatever is immediately in front of us. The next election. The next controversy. The next deadline. But spend time with these texts and you quickly realize that many of the questions we think are uniquely ours aren’t unique at all.

We are a small part of a much longer human story.

At the same time, we have inherited something extraordinary. Our constitutional system of self-government has been built, tested, debated, defended, and improved upon by generations before us. We don’t own it. For a time, we are simply its stewards.

That carries an obligation. We cannot responsibly carry forward an inheritance we haven’t taken the time to understand. And we cannot become better leaders if we only spend time with people and ideas that reinforce what we already believe.

I’m grateful for the people who shared this experience with me and for the chance to spend a little less time reacting to what is immediately in front of us and a little more time considering what we have been entrusted with.

That may be one of the most important responsibilities of public service.

Phil McGrane

[1] Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy, 1957.

About Phil McGrane

Phil McGrane was elected Idaho’s twenty-eighth Secretary of State and took office on January 2, 2023. McGrane served as elected Clerk of Ada County from 2019-2022. McGrane holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy, a juris doctorate, and a Master of Public Administration. As a fourth-generation Idahoan, Phil has dedicated his career to making elections in the state of Idaho accessible, secure and transparent.

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