Leadership Quote by John Breaux

Breaux’s line works because it smuggles a dry, almost folksy analogy into a high-stakes policy fight: don’t confuse risk with disqualification. San Francisco sits on a fault line; everyone knows it; nobody seriously proposes relocating the city. By invoking that shared common sense, he frames his opponents as irrational alarmists trying to “move the city” rather than manage reality. The rhetorical move is classic political jiu-jitsu: concede the hazard, then pivot to practicality and continuity.

The likely context is a debate over placing something controversial but economically valuable in a dangerous or contested location - a refinery, a nuclear or chemical facility, an offshore project, even a federal installation. Breaux, a pro-business centrist Democrat associated with energy-state pragmatism, used this kind of argument to normalize industrial risk: the answer isn’t retreat, it’s engineering, regulation, and preparedness.

The subtext is a defense of sunk infrastructure and the interests tied to it. “We” signals a coalition of reasonable adults - lawmakers, industry, and local stakeholders - drawing a line against what he paints as performative safety politics. At the same time, the analogy quietly limits the moral imagination: it treats the status quo as immovable and reframes relocation as absurd, even when relocation might be exactly what public health advocates would consider if the stakes were asymmetric (who benefits versus who bears the danger).

It’s persuasive because it flatters the listener into pragmatism. It’s revealing because it turns a political choice into a natural fact.