Alden Quayle

Alden Quayle (born 1956) is a Lathadun politician and attorney serving as the current Premier of Lathadu. A member of the Democratic Laborer’s Party, Quayle was first elected to the National Diet in 1996, winning reelection the following three times before being elected to the top seat of leadership within his party. He was first elected Premier by the National Diet in 2016, subsequently winning reelection in 2021. He is a Lathadun Naval Service veteran, having served as a young man past his requirement. As of 2021, he is the only official at the national level to have served more than the required tour of duty in the military.

A member of the DLP’s progressive wing, Quayle is known for his opposition to economic inequality and economic liberalism. On domestic policy, he supports labor rights and protection of the Lathadun social safety net. On foreign policy, he supports reducing inefficiency in military spending while maintaining an effective, citizen-based military and pursuing more diplomatic options abroad. He is known to favor international cooperation, especially when putting greater emphasis on labor rights and environmental concerns when negotiating international trade agreements. Quayle supports workplace democracy and soome loosened centralized state restrictions, and has praised the Ordrish model under Noyonism. Some commentators have described his politics as aligned with the policies of Premier Carmac Kneale, Lathadu’s first Premier under its current government.

Early life and education
Quayle was born in County Ushteyghoo in 1956. He was raised in the southeastern town of Ansmaghtee, the son of Bertram and Joan Quayle. Quayle was born into an economically and politically well-established military family; historically, the Quayles had also been among the most influential in the region’s developing labor movements, particularly in the fields of salt extraction and sugar. In 1978, he graduated from Ansmaghtee Secondary School as the class historian.

Naval career
In 1978, he received a degree in engineering from the Lathadun National Naval Academy in Ushteyghoo, where he was on the Dean’s List and served as vice chairman in student government. He was a good student but was seen as reserved and quiet, in contrast to the academy’s culture of aggressive hazing of freshmen. While in the academy, Quayle fell in love with Una Kinrade, a friend of his sister Renny. The two two married shortly after his graduation in 1978. After receiving his commission, he completed the Naval Officer Basic Course at Fort Cleator (1978) and the Naval Officer Advanced Course (1981). Quayle served in the Navy for eight years, ending his military career to return home due to family considerations.

Career
Quayle earned a degree in law from the Kieran Kneale Law School in Calleebane in 1989. After graduating, he was a practicing attorney with the Faye and Associates Law Firm in Ansmaghtee. As an attorney, Quayle handled a variety of civil cases, chiefly involved family law or succession, though he did not practice criminal law due to his younger brother Loghlan’s status as the local sheriff.

Local office
In 1992, Quayle ran for Mayor of Ansmaghtee, winning by a margin of 8 percent in the final tally. Under his leadership, the town balanced its city budget while expanding its community-trust housing and undergoing extensive revitalization projects. One of Quayle’s primary achievements was improving the town’s waterfront; in 1991, he had campaigned against the unpopular plans of local developers to convert the then-industrial waterfront property into private condominiums, hotels, and offices, which quickly grew into one of his primary campaign points. Under his leadership as mayor, he instead successfully supported a plan that redeveloped the waterfront into a mixed-use district featuring housing, parks, and public spaces.

Quayle consistently commented on national policy debates during his tenure as Mayor, hinting at his future ambitions. In 1994, Ansmaghtee City Hall hosted a foreign policy debate by high-ranking DLP and Lathadun National Party (LNP) members Fogal Nelson and Moreen Kaye. He also hosted and produced a public-access television program, Speaking with the Community, for his tenure as mayor, collaborating with over 30 local musicians to help produce appealing content that spread important news and information while also being appealing. By the end of his term in 1996, Ansmaghtee was ranked by National News and World Report as one of the nation’s best mayors. When he announced his candidacy for national office and left mayoral office in 1996, Sheela Looney, a member of Ansmaghtee City Council, said that Quayle had, “changed the entire nature of politics in Ansmaghtee and the wider region.”

National Diet
Having associated himself closely with the DLP during his tenure as Mayor, Quayle successfully requested a seat from the DLP following the election of 1996, having received a critical endorsement from DLP Campaign Committee Chairman Hane Gorry. He was also endorsed by numerous sitting deputies at the time, including DLP National Committee Chairman and former Mayor of Calleebane Dermot Clarke. Clarke considered Quayle an ally who, “acts in accordance with the DLP second only to his conscience.”

Legislation
While serving as a deputee, Quayle sponsored 32 bills that passed the chamber, averaging 1.6 bills a year, slightly higher than the average 1.4. However, his true effectiveness according to many lies in his skill in the amended process; Quayle sponsored over 500 amendments to bills during his time, many of which became law. The results of these amendments include a ban on imported goods made by child labor, funding for community health centers, outreach programs for servicemembers suffering from physical or mental disorders, and a public database of senior Ministry of State and Defense officialls seeking employment with defense contractors.

In 2006, Quayle helped kill a bill introducing lower barriers to immigration against his party line, arguing that its guest-worker program would depress wages for domestic workers. In 2008, he supported an altered form of the bill after securing a multi-million dollar youth jobs program provision, which he argued would offset the harm of labor market competition with immigrants. In 2009, he successfully added a provision to the annual budget to expand funding for community health centers, especially those in rural areas. In 2015 he helped kill the LNP-driven Workplace Democracy Act, a bill he described as deceptively-named due its repeal of certain existing provisions, such as eliminating the requirement to hire union contractors in government contracts.

Committee assignments
Although a member of the DLP, Quayle often took independent stances on key issues, which frustrated many in his party and even led some to suggest revoking his seniority, which would bar him from serving on committees in a leadership capacity. However, DLP whip Dugal Drem rejected the suggestion, after securing an agreement with Quayle that he would vote the party line on all procedural matters, in large part due to his wider popularity. Quayle became the Chairman of the Budget Committee in 2015 shortly before his election as Premier; he previously chaired the Veteran’s Committee for three years. Starting in 2007, he was also chair of the DLP Outreach Committee. He appointed economics professor Tosha Oclin, a modern monetary theory scholar, as the chief economic advisor for the committee and presented a report on the, “preservation of unions and true workplace democracy in the face of a growing world-wide economy” that included proposals to raise the minimum wage, boost infrastructure spending, and increase pension payments.

As of his becoming Premier in 2016, Quayle’s committee assignments were as follows:
 * Committee on the Budget (Chairman)
 * Committee on the Environment and Public Words
 * Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
 * Committee on Health, Education, and Pensions
 * Committee on Labor and Workplace Democracy
 * Committee on Veterans (former Chair)

Caucus memberships

 * DLP Progressive Caucus
 * Military Veterans Caucus
 * Naval Caucus
 * Aarnieu River Caucus
 * Rural Caucus

Campaign
Following the second term of Premier Nessa Morrison and her announcement that she would be standing down as leader of DLP as custom dictated, Quayle announced his candidacy in the ensuing leadership election, winning multiple endorsements from high-ranking deputies as well as from several prominent trade unions. The only member of both the Progressive and Rural caucasus in the race, he polled first in a blanket poll with 39.9% of the vote. Early in the race, outgoing Minister of State and Defense Kathleen Boyde endorsed Quayle in a speech delivered at the steps of the National University of Lathadu’s student union front steps. He went on to win the leadership contest in 2015, beating two other primary opponents with 56.2% of the vote in the second round.

Meanwhile, the LNP announced its candidate for Premier as party leader Alister Kaye, who received endorsements from select business leaders highlighting his moderate approach to government, fiscal responsibility, and dedication to preventing Lathadu from being wound too tightly into foreign entanglements. A nationwide poll at this time favored Quayle and the DLP with a projected 113 seat coalition majority (out of a total of 199) with the Lathadun Agrarian Party (LAP), Lathadun Ecological Party (LEP), and certain Regionalist and Independent deputies in government as partners. After the election, the DLP-LAP-LEP-Regionalist/Independents successfully formed a coalition government with control of 111 seats in total.

Tenure
On his inauguration day, Quayle announced in a speech that he planned to govern for all Lathaduns, not just those in his majority, and that he would seek cooperation with the opposition where appropriate. “We must respect our fellow citizens for their beliefs,” he opened, “but we cannot allow the mechanisms of government to be stopped based on our disagreements. Everyone in Lathadun should be given the opportunity to succeed and thrive, and we hope to give it to them more than ever before.” One of his first moves was to rescind several undelivered judicial appointments made by his predecessor, many of which had been made for judicial candidates judged as being pro-business and even anti-union. Although one candidate, Mylchrest, brought suit over Quayle’s actions, Lathadu’s Constitutional Court ruled that it had been within his rights to do so.

In 2017, Quayle enacted expansions in key sections of Lathadu’s welfare state, mainly in relation to elderly and disabled pensioners. By the end of his term, the number of Lathaduns without health insurance had been cut in half. According to a study conducted by the NUL College of Business, Quayle’s expansion of public services made over 500,000 individuals eligible for state-provided benefit, of whom many had been uninsured. In 2018, Quayle traveled to Salia on a personal trip to discuss improving trade relations between the two countries and combatting drug smuggling and human trafficking. Quayle traveled with brothers of the Brothers of Mercy monastery, who had established a shelter in Ushteyghoo for child victims of human trafficking and other violent crimes.

Part of Kneale’s campaign had centered on fiscal responsibility through the replacement of older policies with newer, more proactive ones. This included a policy to reduce the nation’s prison population; one of his first actions was to commute 86 out of 100 that the National Board of Pardons had identified as potential candidates. Between this and 2018, Quayle signed 108 additional pardons of the cases the Board of Pardons identified afterward. In 2018, he signed legislation shortening the sentences for nonviolent offenders who showed good behavior while in prison. Quayle also sponsored the enactment of sweeping legislation providing for pre-trial diversion programs for low-risk recidivists, and vocational programs for those in prison that would allow for them to find employment after their sentences ended.

At the end of 2020, Quayle said that it was his top priority moving forward to achieve a pay raise for teachers and school support workers, one of the main points of his national campaign that resulted in his election once again in 2021.

Personal life
Quayle is married to Una Kinrade-Quayle, who he met while in college. She studied at the University of Southern Lathadu and graduated with a business degree in Industrial Management before working as a professor. They married in 1978 and have two sons, Colum and Sandal, and one daughter, Lula. Quayle is the brother of Skianyuiy chief of police Loghlan Quayle, as well as Neuchommeeys County Sheriff Eamon Quayle. Quayle is brother-in-law to District Court Judge Blae Kinrade.

After leaving the navy, boating remained among Quayle’s favorite means of recreation. Having been in boats while fishing from a young age, Quayle has spent much of his free time in watercraft of all kinds. In the early 1990s, he became interested in sailing, and started building a 36-foot trimaran. Later, he owned a 17-foot cutter-rigged boat and a 35-foot ketch-rigged boat. While Quayle has frequently testifying to the pleasure sailing brings him, he has said in recent years that his increasingly poor eyesight and the high costs of maintaining a vessel led him to sell his vessels and abandon the hobby. More recently, he has said that music and exercise are his current means of relaxation.

Religion, heritage, and values
As Quayle described his upbringing as an Ayekist in a 2015 speech: his family regularly attended religious services, although he and his siblings attended public schools and religious observances in the home were generally limited to holiday meals with family and neighbors. As mayor of Ansmaghtee, he allowed a public religious memorial with symbols of Orthopraxical, New Land, and Myrish Ayekism to be placed at the city hall during a religious festival, an action that some community groups contested.

Quayle rarely speaks on religion publicly, describing himself as, “not particularly religious” and “not actively involved” with organized religion. A press package issued by his office states his religion as Orthopraxical Ayekist. He has said that he believes in a divine figure of some kind, but not necessarily in a strict sense: “I think everyone believes in their own ways. To me it means that all of us are connected, that all life is connected.” In 2016 on a late night talk show, host Cara Faragher asked him, “You’ve said that you’re culturally Ayekist but you don’t feel religious; do you believe in the divine, and do you think that’s important for the people of Lathadu?”  Quayle replied:

“I am who I am. What I believe and what my spirituality is about is this: we’re all in this together. That is a good thing in my opinion, but we as human beings have a habit of turning our backs on the suffering of other people, and that’s not just Ayekism. This is what everyone is talking about, that we can’t just worship gain. Life is more than that.”

Quayle does not regularly attend religious services, and does not fast or refrain from working on any prescribed holidays. He attended religious services in memory of the father of a friend in 2011, and in 2015 attended an atonement ceremony with the mayor of Calleebane on the afternoon of a major festival. According to his close friend Malene Joughin, a professor of religious studies at the National University of Lathadu, Quayle’s Ayekist identity is “certainly more ethnic and cultural than religious.” His wife Una is a New Land Ayekist, and he has often expressed admiration for the figures and teachings of that faith.

In popular culture
In 1992, during his tenure as mayor of Ansmaghtee, Quayle sponsored and occasionally appeared on a public access television program called Speaking With the Community, in which he attempted to mix entertainment and political awareness. Although he was skilled with multiple instruments and would occasionally play, he was not a skilled singer, prompting him to very rarely perform vocals in a talking style. As his profile increased with national attention from his time serving in the National Diet, Quayle and his mannerisms have become the subject of many humorous internet trends. The digital-based group Alden Quayle’s Sublime Culturgen Union, where users can submit gens focused around Quayle, received significant attention during the 2016 DLP primary season. In 2020, a still from Speaking with the Community of Quayle holding a musical instrument went viral online, with numerous edits made of the frame.