Accountability
How long does it take for the wheels of justice to grind ’round to grab a corrupt politician? In Senator Ted Stevens’s case, the answer is “a long time.”
It took a year for the government to charge him with anything, after raiding his Alaska home on July 30, 2007.
Exactly one year later, the senator found himself indicted for failing to report over $250,000 in gifts, including a major renovation of his house courtesy of one of Alaska’s biggest oil field contractors.
I guess I should’ve said the word “alleged” somewhere. But anyone who has studied the career of Mr. Stevens knows that these charges were a long time coming. Back in 2003, I wrote a column for Townhall called “The appearance of corruption.” It was all about Stevens, a man who sure knows how money and politics can work hand in hand.
Corruption?
He’ll no doubt shout “No! No! No!”
But he’s been saying “Yes” to dubious deals for a very long time. He’s been in the Senate for 40 years.
As I wrote in that column I mentioned, the lesson applies, though, to more than just one Alaskan senator: What we have is a “Congress run by career politicians who wield the power of the federal government to thwart competition so they can enrich themselves and their special-interest cronies.”
And that, folks, is corruption.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Give Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal credit for doing the right thing sooner rather than later.
Jindal acted faster than, say, former Governor Gray Davis of California. In 2003, Davis tripled California’s car tax, provoking widespread anger. Finally, Davis agreed it should be repealed . . . but only after voters were about to recall him. Voters weren’t mollified, and Davis was duly ousted.
In Louisiana, the scam didn’t touch taxpayers’ wallets so directly. As symbolism, though, it bit painfully enough. Out of the blue, legislators more than doubled their salaries. The hike would have taken effect in the same session. Governor Jindal had promised to veto any such pay raise. But he flip-flopped. He claimed a veto would make it harder to work with lawmakers, harder to achieve necessary reforms.
Voters vociferously reminded the governor that lawmakers’ abuse of power is one of the things that needs reforming. Many demanded a recall. At first, Jindal stuck to his guns. Then he reversed his reversal and agreed to veto the pay hike. Many lawmakers also changed their minds about the raise.
The moral, I think, is that we citizens must remain engaged in public affairs even after the polls close. Otherwise, it’s too easy for even well-intentioned leaders to succumb to politics as usual. Too often, we elect a decent soul and then just go about our own lives — as he enters the lion’s den alone.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Even in his second term as South Carolina’s governor, Mark Sanford continues to flout the political establishment’s typical way of doing things.
A former congressmen who pledged to limit his tenure to three terms max, Sanford was one of a number of self-limiters in the Congress who showed that keeping one’s word does not amount to a political death sentence. You get the idea of his level of commitment from both the title and content of a book he wrote some years ago, The Trust Committed to Me.
Sanford’s fiscal conservatism is a tough sell wherever political incumbents just want to spend, spend, spend taxpayers’ money. So the governor doesn’t always use his political clout on behalf of incumbents who share his party affiliation but not his principles.
Sanford recently endorsed the candidacy of Ed Rumsey, who is challenging Bill Sandifer for a South Carolina House seat. This was the third time in recent weeks Sanford had endorsed a GOP challenger over a GOP incumbent. This angers Republicans who prioritize partisanship over sound policy.
Governor Sanford has a different idea. He and Sandifer are at odds over the issue of bloated spending. The governor wants to increase the chances that his vetoes will be upheld, instead of routinely overridden.
Sanford’s politics may stir up a ruckus, but, as he puts it, “seats don’t belong to individual members. It is not a franchise one gets to own.”
That’s common sense — and so’s this! I’m Paul Jacob.
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Here’s another interesting court decision in Oklahoma. Oh, this time it’s not a petition with hundreds of thousands of voter signatures being tossed out. And no, it’s not quite as crazy as that ruling allowing a man to photograph up the skirts of girls at the mall.
This time Oklahoma’s highest court has ruled that former State Senator Gene Stipe is entitled to an $84,000 a year state pension.
Gene Stipe was a state legislator for 54 years, the longest in history. But in 2003, facing removal due to term limits and a federal indictment, Stipe resigned. He was then convicted on federal campaign violations and perjury.
Stipe also faces new charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, witness-tampering and illegal monetary transactions. Talk about an experienced legislator.
Oklahoma’s retirement system board ruled that Stipe’s crimes violated his oath of office. A 1981 law requires in such case the pension benefits are forfeit. But the Oklahoma Supreme Court decided otherwise, giving Stipe his full pension. The lone dissenter, Chief Justice Winchester, wrote “I would assert that tampering with an election goes to the very heart” of the oath of office.
Some wonder why Attorney General Drew Edmondson hasn’t investigated Stipe on state charges. But Stipe is a large contributor to Edmondson. When the AG was asked why he hadn’t returned Stipe’s money, Edmondson explained there was no conflict, since, after all, he wasn’t investigating Stipe.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Three. Count ’em. Three special elections where congressional Democrats have defeated Republicans in seats previously held by Republicans, the latest in Mississippi.
GOP Minority Leader John Boehner offered reporters, “[T]his is a change election, and if we want Americans to vote for us, we have to convince them that we can fix Washington.”
Republicans are in big trouble. Because no one much believes they even want to fix Washington, much less that they could accomplish the task. Unless Boehner means “fix” in a different sense, as in “the fix is in.”
Years of pork-barrel pig-outs have taken a toll on the public. After losing the majority in ’06, congressional Republicans are poised to lose a lot more seats in ’08.
Not because folks are inspired by congressional Democrats. Not at all. No, the problem is the negatives associated with Republicans, who have discredited themselves.
In Mississippi, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $1.8 million on ads blasting the Republican candidate for raising taxes.
To win elections you have to connect with voters. Pledge to do what voters want.
I remember back in 1994, when Republicans took the Congress. They had a Contract with America. They had ideas, actual plans. What were they? Hmmm . . . Balanced Budget Amendment . . . Term limits . . . Spending restraint . . . political reforms.
Hey! Should we remind the Republicans about this?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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It’s nice to have friends in high places. Or to sit on high yourself — way up above the law. Or so Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson must think, as he chirps from his high perch.
Last year, State Representative Mike Reynolds detailed publicly that Attorney General Edmondson had violated campaign finance laws. Numerous times.
Some of these Edmondson then sought to rectify, years after the fact. Some not.
But the Attorney General has not been prosecuted. Why, you ask? Well, it’s his job to prosecute such violations, and he has, not too surprisingly, not indicted himself.
Funny though, how Edmondson, a Democrat, has indicted Republicans Brent Rinehardt and Tim Pope for similar alleged violations.
Reynolds has now written to the governor, asking him to appoint an independent counsel. Reynolds argues that the Ethics Commission turns over matters for criminal or civil investigation to Edmondson, who “is hardly in a position to investigate his own campaign committee.”
But Edmondson told a newspaper, “It would be a waste of taxpayer money to pay another attorney to review what the Ethics Commission has already received.”
A spokesman for Governor Brad Henry, also a Democrat, says that the governor will not appoint an independent counsel.
Friends in high places . . . is for the birds.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Are America’s politicians resigned to endless budget deficits and rising debt?
Well, Comptroller General David M. Walker isn’t. As the designated gadfly of the U.S. government’s flaky finances, he’s done a bang-up job. Or, at least, that’s what my accounting friends all say.
But now he has resigned. Effective March 12, he will no longer serve as Comptroller General, or work as the head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
He still hopes to serve as gadfly, though.
You see, he’s heading up the newly founded Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which will seek to educate citizens, businesses, and maybe even that unlikeliest class of uneducated numbskulls, our political class, as to the real dangers we face with continuous deficit spending.
Pete Peterson has been ranked by Forbes magazine as the 165th richest man in America. Now he’s investing over a billion dollars in the new foundation. His first big coup is getting David Walker on board.
Walker says that the move away from government and to full-time critic of government will be for the best. He understandably felt constricted in his old role. As a member of the government, you cannot go on bad-mouthing your bosses endlessly, even if they deserve it. Especially if they deserve it.
Walker also says that he has met all the goals in office that he had set for himself. Save one: “Congress to address the nation’s large and growing fiscal and other key sustainability challenges before a crisis hits.”
Look for more from Walker and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. And more about deficits, debt, and our uncontrolled Congress.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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A recent study shows that men tend to react to holiday shopping as if they were soldiers fighting in a war, or police putting down a riot . . . that is, with extreme stress, high blood pressure, accelerated heart rates.
Maybe that’s why I usually wait so long to do my Christmas shopping. It’s just not healthy.
So, here comes Christmas, and I’m still thinking about my gift list. At the very top of my list is something I wish all Americans had: the right to vote on their own laws.
Yes, what I want most for citizens in every state is to get what only 24 states offer: initiative and referendum.
It’s no panacea. But it does enable “We the People” to nudge — even push — politicians. An amazing number of ballot measures in states with initiative rights have successfully reformed or limited government. Wouldn’t it be great to have that right everywhere?
I know, I know: Wishing for initiative and referendum everywhere is rather like wishing for World Peace. And yet . . . it’s not. We are Americans, and we can affect our own politics. We can tell our representatives that we simply won’t vote for them unless they pledge to give us legal rights to the initiative.
Sure, world peace would be even better. But we can’t control the world. We can, with effort, convince our very own elected politicians to give us a gift that, as they say, keeps on giving.
This is Common Sense. Happy Holidays. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Why would a dictator seek to rid himself of term limits on his own stay in office?
The question answers itself. Dictators don’t want any formal constraints on their power. Power is something they always want more of.
Down in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez has been illustrating this with ever more brazen usurpations. His latest: An attempted overhaul of the Venezuelan constitution by cobbling together 69 amendments, including one to scrap presidential term limits. All in a single referendum. Yes or No, people.
Over the last nine years of his rule, Chavez never lost an election. He lost this one.
Such power grabs are nothing new. In the ancient Roman Republic, magistrates typically served for only a single year, then stepped down. When the republic died with the rise of men like Sulla, Caesar, and Augustus, that was also the end of term limits. Caesar was assassinated after several years as dictator; his successor, Augustus, ruled as an imperial trinity of tribune, censor, and consul for decades.
Thousands of years later, it’s still not easy keeping politicians from serving for life. The current couple heading up Argentina have found a clever way around their country’s term limits. Robert Mugabe, ruler of Zimbabwe, overturned his country’s term limits, too, so he could dictate for going on 28 years now.
Guys like Augustus and Mugabe and Chavez like to use the trappings of democracy. They’d like voters to play along.
Voters don’t have to.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Why hold elections if government is going to ignore the results?
New Jersey voters must be wondering. Last month, a bond issue to borrow $450 million for stem cell research went down to what the New York Times called “a stunning defeat.”
Steve Lonegan, mayor of Bogota, New Jersey, led the opposition, saying, “This is the power of ideas versus big government.”
But New Jersey’s big government boys don’t play that way. You see, two weeks before the election, politicians had already broken ground on a new building to house the research. And after the vote, Governor Jon Corzine said they’d move ahead nonetheless. Senate President Richard Codey agreed, saying, “I think by the time it’s built, we will have the dollars by any means possible.”
One way to get the dough? Going into debt against voter wishes and the state’s constitution. Back in 2002, this same Steve Lonegan sued the State of New Jersey for amassing debt not authorized by the voters — voter authorization being clearly required under the state’s constitution. But in that suit, the state’s highest court simply ignored the constitution, allowing politicians to continue piling on unapproved debt.
Back then, Garden State government had $4 billion in voter-approved debt and $11 billion in non-approved debt. Today, state debt approaches $30 billion.
Lonegan says Jersey politicians are “spitting in the face of every voter in New Jersey.” So he’s mobilizing citizens, which means, hopefully, that Jersey pols are really just spitting into the wind.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Dog bites man — not news. Man bites dog — news.
On this principle, NBC News aired a special segment, a while back, featuring billionaire Warren Buffett saying rich guys like him should be taxed more.
What Buffett was really up to was arguing that rich people should pay Social Security taxes on their whole annual incomes, not on just their first $102,000 earned.
For most of us, this feature of FICA withholding never comes up, practically speaking. But we can still understand it. Payroll withholding may be a tax, but it is a tax designed to support a safety net pension program, not to fund highways or rockets or indoor rain forests.
The idea is that after we pay our safety-net pension, our money is ours to use for other things.
This makes sense as long as you think of Social Security as “paying our own way.” But once you think of it like a huge welfare program, then why not tax the rich more?
Politicians will like this idea, ultimately, for it hides under the rug the one thing they want never to mention again: the fact that, for two-thirds of a century, our so-called representatives — of both parties — squandered our retirement nest egg, our “safety net,” with no thought for the future.
With Buffett’s proposal, they would be saved by the rich.
But why would a smart rich guy want to prop up such a swindle?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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What’s the compromise between spending $14 billion and $15 billion?
In Washington, that’s $23 billion.
The recent Water Resources Development bill was originally approved by the Senate at $14 billion, and by the House for a billion dollars more. So negotiators between the two houses cooked up a compromise.
In most parts of the world, a compromise between two figures is somewhere in between. But math isn’t exactly the strong suit of our elected reps, so the compromise surged eight billion dollars or more too high.
Thankfully, the president stamped a veto on it and the pork-infested projects bill went back to Congress. Which voted to overturn the veto.
The bloated pus sac of special projects for the Army Corps of Engineers is now law.
Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor at the Washington Examiner, wrote about this in early November. He pointed out that Republican political support for the bill was strong. “Too many Republicans,” he wrote, “are more interested in protecting their ability to spend tax dollars to advance their own political interests than they are in using their position to do what they were sent to Washington to do.”
Tapscott then wrote that he thinks that the GOP is dead, for all fiscally conservative intents and purposes. So, he says, it’s time to start talking about “the dead elephant in the living room.”
OK, I may be a political activist, but I’m calling this early: I don’t have dead elephant clean-up duty.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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In a public relations jam? Manipulate the media. But if you get caught . . .
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency held a press conference without any press, putting up FEMA personnel to pose really tough questions to official FEMA spokespeople, media folk figured it out. FEMA, as usual, came out smelling like a skunk.
More recently, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was discovered to have planted questions in an Iowa audience. A college student had wanted to ask a question about Clinton’s energy plan. But a campaign operative told her beforehand that Mrs. Clinton wasn’t all that up on her energy plan. Instead, the operative showed her a question about global warming. Why not use that?
Mysteriously, the student was called on by Mrs. Clinton for one of only four questions out of approximately 200 people in the room.
So the student asked the question. Clinton was quick to mention that she often gets asked that by young people. Gee whiz, what a coincidence, eh?
When the student, feeling used, spoke out about this trickery, Mrs. Clinton attempted to calm the story’s wake. She, of course, knew nothing about it. Such behavior by anyone in her campaign, she went on to say, “will certainly not be tolerated.”
But wait a second. It was Hillary who picked this student out of the crowd. How did Hillary know to do that? Did someone tell her? Who?
And, one more thing: When will the press ask these basic follow-up questions?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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We need a refresher course on pensions.
One of the key parts to a pension system that pays out benefits during one’s golden years is someone actually putting money into the pension fund before those golden years ever begin.
State and local governments, really the politicians who run them, have been awfully generous to state workers, promising hefty pension benefits, and in many cases lifetime healthcare. Only problem is that, as with much of what politicians do, the promise of a pension is easier to make than the payments to actually fund those pensions.
Georgia has a looming $16 billion shortfall.
Michael Nehf, executive director of Georgia’s Employee Retirement System, says, “Our liabilities are growing faster than our assets. It’s not something we have had to face before, with the baby boomers moving from active to retirement status . . . and living longer.”
What are the options? Thankfully, people are still going to insist on living longer. So, what’s left is either to reduce benefits, a bait-and-switch against retired employees, or to raise taxes, socking it to everyone else to cover the politicians’ big promises and teensy-weensy sense of financial responsibility.
But one more thing: let’s get out of these deals where politicians can keep dangling benefits while in office that someone else has to pay for, later. An employer and employee providing for retirement shouldn’t skip the "providing" part.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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A 668-page report prepared by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission purports to support less reports. This Texas government report says that the state requires too many reports.
The Houston Chronicle had fun reporting on this last month. Oh, the irony.
But what the humungous report tells us is not shocking. Politicians like to require reports. And bureaucracies exist to make and file those reports. And most of them do no good whatsoever.
The new report project took a year and a half, with more than 170 agencies canvassed. The state of Texas used to compile a list of around 400 reports, required by law and sent in by agencies. The report commission, however, found more than 1,600. And there are probably many more that haven’t been uncovered.
You see, it turns out that quite a few reports are required to be made and sent to government agencies . . . that no longer exist.
Not surprising. Governments are bureaucracies, and bureaucracies live by paperwork.
Still, the commission found over 400 obsolete reporting requirements, or double requirements. Texas bureaucrats hope to streamline the process.
Good for them. And maybe, soon, it will be easier for Texas citizens to review the reports, too. That’s the final use for a report: citizen review.
It might even be that, were it easier to review government reports, there’d be less support for government activities that require reports.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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When the news came out that the next session of Congress would have a shorter work week, a lot of people unleashed their Inner Scoffers. The country’s in a mess, and the Democrats in Congress want to work less!
But hey: The 110th Congress — the one we are currently enduring — started out with the promise to end the meager two-day work week, to work harder. A lot did come out. But what of value?
And now all we have to look forward to is . . . Fridays off for the upcoming year?
Well, in June, at money time, our representatives will put back on the Friday yoke. But otherwise it’s back down to four days of sessions per week.
This could actually be good. The answer to our problems is probably not more from Congress, but less. Less government spending. Fewer laws. No new programs.
Indeed, the only excuse for more work is to fix the biggest problems Congress has given us — like Social Security, for instance . . . and Medicare . . . farm subsidies, of course . . . and the bottlenecks of transportation regulation.
Maybe Congress should go back to working two days only — if they would add a special day every month devoted to repealing the bad stuff they did in previous years.
But would that provide time enough to repeal enough?
That five-day work week would probably have to be revived.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Money talks. So does Mike Gravel . . . just not on TV.
Late in October, at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Democrat Mike Gravel was denied an opportunity to debate his fellow Democratic presidential aspirants.
Gravel is the former U.S. senator from Alaska who in previous debates had taken on Democratic orthodoxy. This last debate, however, was co-sponsored by the Democratic National Committee and MSNBC, and the network came up with new hoops for candidates to jump through to get included. A candidate must have traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire at least four times, must be polling 5 percent, and must have raised a million bucks.
Turns out that Mike Gravel did the requisite traveling. And he’d polled as high as Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden and Representative Dennis Kucinich — all three on the invite list.
But he hadn’t raised a million dollars yet. Gravel argues, “By stifling my voice on the basis of fundraising dollars, NBC is reinforcing the power of money over our national political discussion and our freedom.”
Gregory Chase is a New Hampshire voter who discovered Gravel by watching an earlier debate. He wrote to NBC saying that he was spending more money for Mike Gravel in New Hampshire, in an independent expenditure, than many of the other candidates were spending. He also pledged to buy a million dollars in advertising or pay NBC that much to get Gravel included.
NBC still said no. Why?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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State Senator Ernie Chambers of Nebraska is suing God.
He claims that God is making terroristic threats against him and his constituents. Chambers has filed his suit to dramatize the fact that another lawsuit is supposedly frivolous, one a woman filed against a Nebraska judge who barred her use of the words “rape” and “victim” in a sexual assault trial.
Except, as usual, Chambers finds a way to demonstrate the exact opposite. Her lawsuit seems of real interest. His? Well . . . frivolous.
When I first read the story I guess I wasn’t all that surprised to see Chambers’s name. You see, last year the good senator sued to overturn Nebraska’s term limits law.
Nebraska limits its legislators’ terms in office to eight years in a row in its single chamber, the unicameral. Voters enacted the limits three separate times, over some hostility from the state’s highest court and without any help from the so-called “representatives” of the people, folks like Chambers.
Sure, Senator Chambers himself demonstrates the need for term limits. And he likes to pretend that the whole idea was a plot to get him. But term limits are not aimed at one person. They cut across the board, bringing in new blood and also pushing out the old.
Chambers has been in office for the last 36 years. He’s termed out in 2008. Both God and man will be glad to see him move on.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Leon Drolet and the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance are not very popular . . . with politicians and Lansing insiders.
But they were clear. Michigan taxpayers told legislators they would launch recalls against those who voted to push big tax increases against citizens.
So, after legislators did hike taxes, what could they expect?
The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance is now working with local leaders on recall petitions against those who voted to raise taxes. Recalls have already been filed against six legislators, and MTA promises that ten — five Democrats and five Republicans — will face recall in what the group calls the “first round.”
Citizen action sure can make a difference.
I love seeing voters hold elected officials accountable. Some folks? Not so much. Remember all the moaning by insiders over the recall of California Governor Gray Davis? Today, in Michigan, there’s even more hysteria.
In Detroit’s Metro Times, Jack Lessenberry impugns the recalls as “a form of fascism.” He compares recall to “When Benito Mussolini . . . [and] his Blackshirts used to intimidate and kill members of Parliament. . . .”
Amazing! Petitioning one’s government for a vote of the people to determine who will represent those people gets equated with political death squads murdering their opponents in cold blood. Who’d think that?
Someone without a good argument. Get a grip, Mr. Lessenberry.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Michigan sure has problems. Big companies are leaving the state. Unemployment is up, foreclosures and bankruptcies increasing.
So, what to do? Well, the governor and many in the legislature pushed for huge tax increases. But a rising group of representatives challenged this plan, and nearly brought government to a halt.
One week the announcement went out that much of the government was shutting down. The next week it was announced that an agreement had been reached.
Taxes? Yup. They're going up.
The near shut-down caused enough panic to scuttle the tax-blocking efforts.
Then came the explanations. How could government almost shut down?
Well, one popular-in-the-press theory blamed term limits. Yes, term limits!
You see, the argument ran, all the newbies just didn't know how to co-operate to pass a budget.
Silly argument, but . . . maybe there's a teensie-weensie bit of truth to it.
Before term limits, Big Government incumbents just steamrolled over all opposition to increasing taxes. Now, the back of the old system has been broken. The major players actually have to deal with other ideas. Like thrift. Like listening to impoverished taxpayers.
Of course, a panic about a government shut-down scuttled the newer ideas. But for a while there term limits did give taxpayers some hope.
Now, always-hopeful taxpayers can turn to recall!
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Humanity’s wisdom is often distilled in easy-to-remember, concise sayings. Maxims. Aphorisms. Problem is, these eloquent exhortations often contradict each other.
For example: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Just take what you’re given and don’t question its value.
But: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” This one says you should worry about the gift, especially if the source is enemies at the gate wishing you harm. Of course, in the myth, the Trojans soon regret accepting that giant gift horse. Because once it is well inside the city, a lot of Greeks pop out wielding spears and swords.
I believe you do have to look at the consequences of accepting gifts, especially gifts from the government. Especially ongoing funding of an enterprise. What strings are attached? Will costs outweigh benefits?
So I applaud the advice of Jack Baribeau, president of Citizen Impact Canada. He says religious groups should think twice about accepting direct government funding of faith-based schools.
Baribeau said his study of education funding in America shows that governments tend to impose controls over activities they finance. He worries that new Canadian efforts to bring religious schools under the umbrella of the public school system could end up shoving private schools into a “one size fits all” model.
Indeed something to worry about, for Canadians and her neighbors too. The word the government uses to justify controls over the activities it funds is “accountability.” What it means is encroachment.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Joan Orie Melvin is a Superior Court justice in Pennsylvania. She recently returned to state coffers $14,402.55. It is good to see her return the money.
Why?
Sometime back, the legislature had given themselves and the judiciary pay raises while ignoring a constitutional requirement that any such raise could only take effect after the next election.
Politicians began feeling the heat right away. But the Supreme Court justices thought they were immune to public outcry. So they approved the raise.
They were wrong. There was an outcry. Prominent citizens called the ruling “twisted.” And judges are beginning to squirm.
There's a retention vote for judges coming up. Voters can say “Yes” to their judges (local and state-level), or “No.” There is no competition. A “Yes” majority means the judge is re-elected. A "No" majority means the judge is out and there is a new election.
A group called PACleanSweep is telling Pennsylvanians that they can take back their government. They are urging voters to just say “No” to every judge who accepted the pay raise against the explicit wording of the constitution.
It’s quite an effort. I hope on election day Pennsylvanians will prove true to their constitutional heritage, throwing out all judges complicit in undermining the rule of law in such a self-serving way.
On a happy note, PACleanSweep has taken Judge Melvin off their hit list; she’s returned her ill-gotten gains. Good for her, good for CleanSweep, and good for Pennsylvania.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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No term-limited legislature in the land is full of happy campers. But Maine’s politicians have staged a camp insurrection. They’ve shoved an eleventh-hour measure onto an off-year election ballot to extend their terms from four two-year terms to six two-year terms, eight years to twelve.
Why? There was no rising popular demand to keep them in their positions longer. Voters passed term limits in 1993 with a 68 percent majority; there’s been little clamor from citizens since.
The clamor comes from the politicians themselves. They don’t want to lose their jobs.
Even politicians who support term limits as they run for office often change their minds. But we do see some happy exceptions. In Maine, one of them is former state Senate President Rick Bennett. He’s the kind of politician one can also safely say is a citizen activist. Bennett and other opponents of the effort to weaken term limits have formed a group, “No More Than Four,” to fight the ballot measure.
Bennett says: “I find it personally rather offensive that the Legislature would seek to undermine the citizens’ expressed will.” He adds: “If people want to change it, let the public go out and get the signatures and put it on the ballot themselves.”
Many Maine politicians disagree. But contrary to their assumptions, they’re not in office to serve themselves. They’ll be reminded of that fact in a couple months, when voters say No to Question Five.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Congress passes many bills without reading them. Some are prepared so close to the vote that not even their sponsors really know what’s in them.
That’s nothing. Now Congress can push through legislation no one reads even faster, lickety-split.
It’s called “hotlining,” and it was designed to get nitpicky business-y kinds of things done quickly. But recently the business has turned serious.
Here’s what happens:
- The Senate Majority and Minority Leaders agree to pass a bill without a vote.
- They call all members of Congress on special hotlines installed in each office, giving a specified amount of time to object -- sometimes as little as 15 minutes.
- If no objection is registered, the bill passes.
In a four-day period this summer, of the 153 hotline calls made, 75 were legislative measures, 61 were nominations, and 17 were post-office-naming bills. A few of these bills authorized hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending.
In a floor speech last year, Sen. Jeff Sessions from Alabama noted that these bills can be as long as 500 pages. Many staffs simply ignore the calls, he said, and “the Senator is deemed to have consented to the passage of some bill” without ever been told diddly or squat.
We’re not supposed to know how sausage is made. Welcome to hotlining. Don’t say “hot dog.” Say “Yikes.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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There’s the real world, and there are representations of it.
I draw a picture of, say, a gun. That picture is of a gun; it is not itself an actual gun. It’s just a, well, doodle.
This being the case — that doodles differ from real threats — then why was a 13-year-old boy near Mesa, Arizona, suspended from school?
He drew a gun . . . on a piece of paper. He didn’t point it at anybody. He made no hit list, he didn’t say “Bang.” No one even got a paper cut.
But school officials treated it as a threat, lectured his poor father on the shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School, and suspended the lad.
The district spokesman insisted that the doodle was “absolutely considered a threat.”
But somehow, knowing that this student was suspended, I’m not feeling any safer.
If our teachers and administrators can’t distinguish real threats from doodles — doodles most boys do, doodles I drew when I was a boy — then what are they teaching the kids? To overreact to everything? To not be able to distinguish small problems from big ones? To treat every symbol or representation as the real thing?
It’s elementary: the map is not the territory, the representation is not the thing represented.
You’d think, then, that teachers would be trying to impart (not erase) that notion from the minds of students.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Is there any way to word it?
I'm thinking of a constitutional amendment, something citizens in initiative states could vote for that would curtail an absolutely insane practice.
I refer to unfunded pension and health care benefits.
I came across this practice most recently in Washington state. An analysis by Amber Gunn of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation shows the state's public employee health benefits plan is accumulating huge debts.
"Over the next 25 years," she writes, "the cost of health benefits for public retirees . . . could reach more than $12 billion."
How? The state doesn't pay for its workers' and pensioners' health care benefits by investing in an insurance policy. Instead, the state simply pays the medical bills as they accumulate.
Now, there are a lot of people who want to turn the whole U.S. health care system into something similar. But it has a drawback. Costs can skyrocket, and you haven't planned in any way to minimize those costs. Taxpayers just keep paying and paying.
No sane business person would concoct such a scheme. But politicians kinda like this method. They can promise anything, and it won't appear on any balance sheet until the promises come due.
Someone else's problem. A future legislator, perhaps.
Citizens in Washington and elsewhere need a carefully-worded rule to prohibit politicians from promising any future benefit without funding that benefit within the year of the promise. Just to prevent utter irresponsibility. And state bankruptcy.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Shocker: Many Oregon politicians don't think Oregon citizens know what they're doing. These politicians are pushing a new ballot measure to undo a property rights measure passed by voters not once but twice.
The disputed initiative is Measure 37, which requires the state to compensate property owners for the loss of value that results from strict land-use and environmental rules . . . rules that, for example, ban people from subdividing their land and giving separate parcels to their own children.
In 2000, Oregonians approved a constitutional amendment requiring compensation, but the state Supreme Court killed it. A few years later voters tried again, with a statute, Measure 37. It passed, too, and was upheld in court.
But now politicians want to "fix" the new law. They're moving to post a new measure on the ballot, Measure 49. House Speaker Jeff Merkley says "we have to do everything we can to make sure Oregonians are getting what they bargained for."
How about, for once, actually getting what they voted for?
Law professor James Huffman observes that foes of Measure 37 want to "split the coalition needed to keep Measure 37 intact by driving a wedge between ordinary folks and business . . ." Of course, property rights aren't a class issue. They're a human rights issue.
I'm betting that Oregon voters understand their unity of interest a little better than those divisive Oregon politicians.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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You just can't escape politics. The barrage keeps coming at us faster and faster. They're moving the presidential primaries up to where we'll probably be electing our next president tomorrow at sunrise.
Even ESPN.com, that once calm oasis, is no longer safe. Gregg Easterbrook, in his regular column there, recently fumed because, as he put it, "wealthy ex-presidents reach into your pockets."
According to a Congressional Research Service report, all three living former chief executives — Carter, Bush and Clinton — filed for the maximum presidential annual retirement pay of $191,000.
Easterbrook complains these are very wealthy men. Sure, they don't "need" the money, but they did do the job. Few people work a job and then turn down the paycheck or benefits or a pension.
But, Easterbrook has a point, writing "Clinton prattles on and on about the horrors of inequality, yet demands $191,000 in bonuses from taxpayers whose median income is about 1/20th of his estimated $10 million."
Bush and Clinton also wanted taxpayers to pay $50,000 for travel. And Bush wanted $13,000 for postage. Gee, fella, try email.
Most outrageous was Bill Clinton's phone bill of $79,000. Sure, Mr. Clinton has the gift of gab, but Easterbrook checked phone pricing, did some math, and determined "It is impossible, physically impossible, to spend $79,000 on telephones!"
If our ex-presidents are going to do the impossible, I wish they'd do it on their own nickel.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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In the words of a great poet, "Let seed be grass and grass turn into . . ." Hey! What's going on in Arvada, Colorado?
Some years ago, the city of Arvada began promoting "water-wise landscaping." To do this, they worked with Luanne Stehno to make her yard more environmentally friendly. The city planted native blue grama grass on her yard, which, for the last few years has grown anywhere from six inches to 20 inches high, and requires she water it every three weeks or so for about 30 minutes.
Ms. Stehno liked the look. And the city was apparently happy.
Until somebody wandered by and complained that her lawn was untidy.
Now the city is telling her to cut the grass or pay to have the city do it. Her grass, you see, is over the 12-inch limit.
When the city instigated her enviro-friendly lawn, Ms. Stehno says no one talked about law codes. And now the people at the city who helped her with her project are keeping mum, not defending her at all. She states, "The city is buckling because one person doesn't like it." And she doesn't like that.
Who would? Cities should not engage in encouraging behavior that other divisions of the same government consider illegal.
Should cities be in the zoning business or the lawn regulation business? Maybe. I doubt it, but maybe. But I think this case suggests, just perhaps, that cities shouldn't be in the lawn development biz.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Politicians and bureaucrats have power and are often careless how they use it. Respect for the rights of innocent people? Not always a priority.
Not even in New Orleans, where so many are struggling to pick themselves back up after one of the toughest gut punches anybody can suffer.
So you live through Hurricane Katrina, return to the city, spend thousands to fix your home. Double-check to make sure it isn't targeted for demolition. Then what? Well, if you're IdaBelle Joshua, two days after City Hall says your home is safe . . . it's smashed. Gone. No prior notice except tiny type in a newspaper somewhere.
New Orleans has a new "get tough" policy, speeding up the rate of demolitions. Perhaps because the federal government is about to stop footing the bill for demolition costs. So hurry, hurry, get it all done, no need for care or consideration.
Robert Brown, president of the Preservation Resource Center, sends DEMOLITION ALERT postcards to New Orleans residents on the demolition list. He reports that frantic owners often have no idea of any problem with their home.
What's IdaBelle Joshua going to do? She says: "I'm a 79-year-old senior citizen, crippled and can't travel, and I can't pay anybody. I will be dead and gone by the time I get any recourse from the city."
Politicians and bureaucrats! They just destroy everything you have and move on. Like some blind storm.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Citizens in Kenai Peninsula, Alaska have had a tough time. But also an easy time.
The Alliance for Concerned Taxpayers says petitions to limit assembly and school board officials to two terms were the most challenging they'd ever done.
Supporters had to collect about 1500 signatures to get the measures on the October ballot. According to citizen activist Vicki Pate, "We had an extremely short window of time to collect the signatures required on each petition. . . ."
That's not all. Term limits had already been passed in the borough. Twice. In the early 90s. And repealed by the borough assembly. Twice.
An all-too-familiar pattern. See, the career politicians, whether in D.C. or down the street at the town hall, just don't like definite, inescapable limits on how long they can hold power. They're determined to kill term limits. So we (the people) just have to be even more determined than ever to protect our democratic rights.
It's been hard, but also easy. People understand term limits. They understand why entrenched political monopolies aren't a great idea. As petitioner Petria Falenberg reports: "In some ways, this was one of the easiest petitions we have ever collected signatures for. . . . It was not uncommon for people to come looking for us. . . ."
So petitioners collected more than twice as many signatures as needed. The petitions have been certified. Term limits will be on the ballot, and it's going to win. Again.
Politicians can't stop progress forever.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Some people you can really count on. Some you can't count on at all.
Both statements pretty much sum up Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. As in "you can count on not being able to count on him."
Blagojevich recently signed a pay raise for legislators, after promising during his campaign that he would definitely not sign any such pay raise. Oops.
As one legislator of the governor's own party put it: "He'll say anything and do the exact opposite. For him to do a complete flip-flop, I would say, it's the only consistent thing he does."
Why did the governor go back on his word? Well, you know, he wanted to bribe legislators and, now I'm just guessing, he really didn't want to use his own money. So Blagojevich gave legislators a nearly 10 percent pay raise using taxpayers' money.
The Governor explained his flip-flop: "I want to say this in a nice way, but that [salary increase] seems to be, among many legislators, the single biggest priority for them." What does he want? The Chicago Tribune stated it plainly: a "a massive expansion of state-subsidized health care."
What is it with bribery and Illinois governors? Former Governor George Ryan was convicted of taking bribes. Now Governor Blagojevich is making bribes . . . to the entire legislature.
The governor should have kept his campaign pledge -- kept his word. That's the right thing to do, even if you do stumble upon a really good political opportunity for bribery.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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It's always good to see old friends — or read about them.
I'm perusing a publication by Americans for Tax Reform called "State, Federal and Local Efforts to Increase Transparency in Government Spending" and bumping into old friends.
Now, I knew that our buddy Tom Coburn, U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, had worked with Barack Obama on transparency at the federal level. But here I read that Coburn teamed up with Brandon Dutcher, a really bright guy I know at the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs. And they succeeded in bringing more openness to state government by getting a bill passed to set up a state website: OKopenbook.gov.
Well, I'll be . . . the sponsor was none other than state Senator Randy Brogdon, the taxpayer's best friend.
And here it looks like Missouri Governor Matt Blunt didn't wait for legislation. He took the initiative and his administration created the Missouri Accountability Portal (or MAP) to disclose state spending. The website is MapYourTaxes.mo.gov.
Now here's something about Minnesota. Hmmm. A bill passed this session requiring disclosure of all government grants and contracts worth more than $25,000. Wow. Want to know the sponsor? My old friend Erik Paulsen, the very state representative who has pushed for years to bring voter initiatives to Minnesota.
Good folks. Glad to know them. And I'm not too surprised they're pushing for voters to be able to find out what's going on with their government.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Virginia is on fire. Not wild fire, thank goodness, and not the weather, either. I'm talking about what The Washington Post called "one of the most successful citizen uprisings . . . in recent memory."
Weeks ago I told you about these new, draconian abusive driver fees passed in Virginia. Politicians claim they needed more money to build roads, as if all the gas and car taxes we pay didn't exist. Knowing that voters wouldn't stand for yet another tax increase, politicians decided to sock it to the few by slapping fines as high as $3,000 on driving offenses.
Well, citizens were furious. But we might never have known how our fellow citizens felt except for the fact that more than 171,000 Virginians have signed an online petition telling the legislature to repeal this abusive law. Wow. That's one in every 45 or 46 Virginians.
Who came up with this idea? Some mastermind political guru?
It was Bryan Ault, a software tester from Alexandria, who told me that he had started the petition because everyone he talked to opposed the law, just like he did. He said, "I needed a way to demonstrate that opposition to legislators."
Bryan Ault was smart. He posted the petition on Craigslist and MySpace. And he got some help from bloggers and various groups like the National Taxpayers Union. But the key to it all was taking action, taking that first step.
One citizen lit a spark and let 171,000 fellow citizens speak out.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Forty percent of Missouri voters believe, wrongly, that the justices of the state's Supreme Court are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the General Assembly. Nearly 90 percent are unaware that the Missouri Bar Association selects three of the seven people who serve on the Appellate Judicial Commission, which in actual fact has the most power in selecting judges. They pick three nominees from which the governor must choose.
And only a very few voters think the Missouri State Bar lawyers should have the greatest input on who serves on the Missouri Supreme Court.
Truth is, though, that the Missouri Bar has something of a lock on the whole process. It's called the Missouri Plan. It's been in operation since 1940. It's supposed to be non-partisan. Bottom line is that lawyers are in control.
The people aren't.
Like all governments, the state of Missouri shows a marked tendency to do as much business as possible behind closed doors. Especially the selection of judges.
Thankfully, a few individuals and groups are now bucking the system, groups like the Adam Smith Foundation and the Federalist Society. If you live in Missouri, you've probably heard about their legwork, research, publicity. And you've no doubt heard some nasty names thrown around, especially by the legal establishment at anyone who dares challenge The Missouri Plan.
Take a grain of salt. Remember: established power doesn't like to give up power.
In Missouri, some sunshine piercing through the politics of judicial selection.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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After the collapse of Minnesota's Interstate 35W bridge, Governor Tim Pawlenty relented on his opposition to increasing gas taxes to pay for infrastructure.
But what was interesting was not the I-told-you-so crowing from Minnesota's tax-increase warriors, but what the New York Times did with the story. It emphasized spending priorities.
The amount spent wasn't the problem in Minnesota. Where it was spent was. As the Times put it, "Despite historic highs in transportation spending, the political muscle of lawmakers, rather than dire need, has typically driven where much of the money goes."
Minnesota Representative James Oberstar chairs the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and he recently boasted about "Minnesota's share" of a recent transportation spending bill. Twelve million dollars is a lot, but the hugest hunk of it went to a 40-mile commuter rail line that few people will use. The remaining $2 million? "[D]ivided among a new bike and walking path and a few other projects."
What the Times suggested I'll baldly state: Unless we're going to privatize the roads, the highest priority of government transportation departments should be to keep existing roads and bridges in good repair. After that, build new infrastructure, but make it transportation most folks will actually use.
Not bike trails and rail lines and politically correct transportation.
It's a matter of meeting people's needs, not politicians'.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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The initiative provides citizens with a great check upon politicians' power.
All citizens should have access to it, be able to file a measure and petition to put it on the ballot. But I'm tempted, sorely tempted, to exclude former politicians from that right.
I know, that would be wrong. But consider Charles Ormond, of Morrilton, Arkansas, and you might be tempted, too.
He has two ballot measures in the works right now. One is an attempt to weaken term limits. It's a clever effort, not seeking to increase the number of terms most representatives may serve but the L E N G T H of each term!
There's also convoluted language in the measure that would especially apply to former legislators like himself.
Ormond's other ballot measure is even more self-serving. It's an attempt to get a lottery and gambling commission into the state. It's another constitutional amendment. And, get this, the title of the measure names himself, Charles Ormond of Morrilton, Arkansas, as the first commissioner of this new agency. For a ten-year term, no less. And at a "reasonable" salary, which commissioners would set for themselves.
Let me pause here. I have to suppress laughter. And a sort of twisted admiration. If you go into politics to serve yourself, why not go all the way?
Back when he was serving the people, Ormond was voted the worst legislator in Arkansas. But what's he aiming for now that he's out, "worst citizen"?
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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I spend a good bit of time taking politicians to task. Why? The way they behave, they're almost asking for it. Hey, they deserve far more.
But, just for balance's sake, let me today congratulate one politician: Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Governor Crist has won awards for his support for transparent government. That's important. But my tip of the hat goes to the Governor for his veto of Senate Bill 900.
The bill, proposed by Senator Bill Posey, would have made it much tougher for citizens to petition their government, specifically for volunteers collecting signatures. One editorial called the legislation "several high hurdles designed to block citizens' proposed constitutional amendments." One provision — to require petitioners to wear a state badge — had previously been ruled unconstitutional.
St. Pete Times columnist Howard Troxler warms my heart. In a recent column, he pointed out that the whole idea behind this legislation was to make the citizen petition process impossible for citizens. A twist he didn't seem very fond of. Florida has already severely restricted voter initiatives, which now require a 60 percent YES vote to prevail.
So, Troxler urged the governor to do more than just veto SB 900; the headline of his column read: "Heck, tear it up and torch it."
No report of any tearing or torching, but Crist did veto the bill. Thanks, Governor.
And thanks should also go to Save the Voters Voice, a coalition that mobilized the public.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Count on the citizens of Nebraska to support term limits. They've passed them three times now. So's the third time the charm?
Count on career politicians to hate term limits. They have this notion that they're entitled to hold power in perpetuity.
In Nebraska, they've had a friend in the courts. The first time voters passed term limits there, the petition requirement was arbitrarily redefined — two years after all the signatures had been submitted and approved.
The second time, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the part of the law that capped congressional terms. So Nebraska judges airily decided that Nebraska voters would not have favored limits on state legislators had congressional term limits not been part of the package.
Now, after Nebraska voters passed term limits a third time, the limits have just been upheld by the state Supreme Court. Despite an idiotic lawsuit by career politicians.
Why? Well, maybe the game is getting a little too transparent. Maybe the justices see there are only so many times they can say voters were too dumb to know what they were doing. Maybe they remember that their colleague who voted to strike it down the first two times was the first justice in Nebraska history to be removed from office by the voters.
A bottom-line lesson from the Heartland: Never accept tyranny, in any form. Don't let them grind you down. Keep fighting. That's how you win.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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For about half a year last year, a Cabinet-level employee of the District of Columbia, Ms. Veronica Pace, was overpaid. Not a small amount. From January through August she accumulated $75,000 over her agreed-upon salary.
Now, errors like this happen all the time, I guess. It's only happened to me in Monopoly. I've picked up a Community Chest card which read that a "bank error in my favor" garnered me $200.
Oh, wait: I have been given too much change at a checkout line. And of course gave it back.
In most situations, one is legally required to pay back errors of that kind, whether from banks, merchants, employers. There's the agreed-upon amount. And then there's money paid because of some sort of calculation error. It's common sense ethics, really.In our nation's capital, though, things are a bit different. There's this law that allows government workers to petition to keep their mistaken gains. And Ms Pace pushed through the paperwork for that petition. She had reasons. There were salary offsets and mistaken legislation and what-have-you.
Two weeks before city administrator Robert C. Bobb resigned, he approved Ms. Pace's request to keep the $75,000. Then this waiver was reviewed, and the city took it back.You could take a number of morals from this story. One is, "Yikes: government is so chaotic that $75,000 can slip through the cracks?"
That's common sense? No.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Pennsylvania State Senator Jim Rhoades probably won't win. So Pennsylvania voters won't win either--not for now.
The senator's bill proposes a right to citizen initiative. Thanks to recent political scandals, there's been much talk of reform lately in Pennsylvania. But the legislature's reform commission, where everything from transparency to term limits is on the table, won't even consider the Rhoades proposal.
It's a catch-22. The legislature "has a stranglehold on what gets done in this state," notes citizen activist Gene Stilp. Initiative rights would allow voters to go directly to fellow citizens, to escape the stranglehold. But this stranglehold is also why the bill is at the bottom of the slush pile.
Stick with it, guys. This is a cause worth fighting for.
Matthew Brouillette, president of the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania, says the initiative "can be a double-edged sword. You can get some good and bad things. Overall, it's a good check on state government."
Yes, but let's qualify that qualifier. Citizens sometimes vote for bad laws. But they're also quicker to correct their mistakes than pompous politicians; witness the voters passing and then repealing a high-speed train project in Florida. And citizen initiative has been a critical check on government: advancing women's suffrage, ending poll taxes, thwarting excessive taxation, imposing term limits, and so on.
Initiative-passed laws at least show public support. Not so much can be said of laws passed by legislators. Special interests can wield tremendous influence on lawmakers. But they can't buy off entire electorates.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Special interest groups would really like to give California's Assembly Speaker, Fabian Nuñez a lot of money. Nuñez is important. The bills now going through the legislature will determine how billions of dollars get directed in the state.
So of course, they want Nuñez's ear. And more.
But there are two things in the way: A $7,200 cap on campaign donations to the Speaker, and the niggling fact that Nuñez is due to be termed out, soon.
Still, Nuñez knows how to nail two birds with one stone. His top political consultant has cooked up a new term limits measure that if passed would allow Nuñez to serve twice as long as Assembly Speaker. And there are no limits on how much you can spend on a ballot initiative.
That's one reason there's so much money behind Nuñez's tricky term limits initiative. I've talked about this measure before, how it pretends to be for tougher term limits while actually weakening them.
What is happening is ugly, but instructive. A politician scheming to stay in power. And powerful interests spending big bucks to cozy up to and keep their politician.
Jay Stewart of the Better Government Association says, "Common sense tells you that if you support an issue near and dear to any legislator, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're probably going to get your phone call returned."
Yes. And return on your investment. Which is why we need term limits.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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