Author: Redactor

Categories
ballot access Common Sense initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders term limits

What Was I Thinking?

Tomorrow, I turn 50. Time flies when you’re having fun.

For the last 30-plus years — my entire adult life — I’ve worked in politics. That might not seem like much fun. Politics is a constant struggle, a slog. But working for freedom — in one crusade or another — has been both fulfilling and fun.

Maybe it’s because, as a friend once accused, I’m a pathological optimist. Maybe it’s a whole lot more than that.

I’ve worked through nights, bleary-eyed, peering at voter registration lists. I’ve circulated petitions in 100-degree heat and freezing temperatures. I’ve been vilified in the press, as well as lionized. I’ve been both hounded and praised. I’ve been imprisoned, and threatened with more of the same.

What was I thinking?

I guess I thought, and indeed still think, that we are called upon to do what we believe is right — come what may. Freedom isn’t free. As much as I love words, actions speak much louder.

It’s been hard sometimes. I was in prison for five and a half months when my oldest was only a year old. I was there for refusing to register for the draft.

What was I thinking?

In the words of then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, I thought: “The draft or draft registration destroys the very values our society is committed to defending.” I could not stand idly by while those cherished values were destroyed, nor certainly be any party to it.

My re-education in federal custody fortunately didn’t take. And the road I took has made all the difference.

For instance, I met Ron Paul when, as a slightly younger congressman, he testified at my trial. Three years later, in 1988, I nominated him to run for president on the Libertarian Party ticket.

At a meeting in April of that year, the task of putting Congressman Paul on the ballot for president was handed to me. The next morning I was awakened by a phone call at home — at 6:00 am. And for the next six months the phone never stopped ringing.

I remember my wife calling me at the office to tell me our new home phone number — and urging me not to give it out to people! She’s a lot smarter than I am.

Working with wonderful people across the country, we successfully placed Ron on the ballot in 47 states and the District of Columbia. And Guam. Believe me, it took a lot of hours, daylight and late night.

What was I thinking?

I was thinking that given a choice, people would choose greater freedom, limited government and personal responsibility. We didn’t win, of course. But we weren’t through trying.

Howie Rich and Eric O’Keefe noticed my work on the petition drives and offered me a job running the Tax Accountability Amendment in Illinois. Half a million voters signed petitions to put the measure on the ballot. Then, at 77 percent in the polls, the Illinois Supreme Court took it off the ballot. (The same thing happened again four years later with a term limits petition.)

But, suddenly, freedom was breaking out around the world. The Berlin Wall came down. Czechs poured into the streets. Estonians were singing. We watched with inspiration and then horror as students rallied for weeks in Tiananmen Square only to ultimately be crushed under tanks that rolled over them. Their dream was our dream; it was universal.

The end of the Cold War allowed Americans to cast a full glance at city hall, at the state capitol, at Washington, D.C. We didn’t like what we saw.

Along came term limits.

In 1992, I was hired to run U.S. Term Limits. We were able to help activists in 14 states get on the ballot — the most states to ever vote on a single issue on a single day. All 14 states passed term limits, including my home state of Arkansas.

The issue continued to win at the ballot box in the states and in hundreds of cities and counties — from Wyoming to New York City. Politicians sued. Speaker of the House Tom Foley was one.

In 1994, Republicans swept to a majority in the U.S. House for the first time in 40 years, in no small part due to their embrace of term limitation. One of the biggest upsets was Foley, the only Speaker defeated for re-election since the Civil War, a victim of his own lawsuit to overturn his state’s voters.

And term limits — a case from Arkansas, not Foley’s — went to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, in a narrow 5 to 4 decision, the court struck down Arkansas’s term limits law, and by implication laws enacted in 22 other states.

What was I thinking?

On the steps of the Supreme Court, I told reporters:

All over Washington today, the politicians and the power brokers are happy. You can hear the sound of champagne corks popping. I have a simple message to them. Drink up; you’re outnumbered.

Term limits went nowhere in Congress, of course. There were a few principled supporters, but most wanted a career of perks and power. It’s very seductive.

I was on the wrong side of an 80/20 issue. I was with the 80 percent of Americans for term limits.

What an amazing situation: Our representatives refuse to do what 80 percent of the people want. In essence, they refuse to give back the power we’ve given to them.

The issue won’t go away. At every Tea Party, one sees the homemade two-word signs: Term Limits.

The only negative result of term limits sweeping those states with initiative and referendum has been the backlash. Legislators and their favored special interests have launched a concerted attack on the initiative process for enabling the people to do such a thing in the first place.

What was I thinking?

The initiative process is the greatest protection we citizens have from a government gone wild.

Regular readers of Common Sense know my more recent work in helping citizens across the country petition to put dozens of initiatives on the ballot to protect homes and small businesses from being taken through eminent domain abuse and other initiatives to enact state spending limits.

In the spirit of “no good deed goes unpunished” and in the cesspool that has become our politics, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson indicted three of us, The Oklahoma Three, for “conspiracy to defraud the state” over a 2006 initiative there.

What was I thinking?

The Oklahoma powers-that-be were scared. And they did not want us taking any limits on government spending to a public vote.

And perhaps, for a moment or two, I may have thought “I’m getting too old for this.”

We were innocent of the charge and we fought back. After more than a year and a half with a possible ten-year prison term hanging over our heads, the charges were dismissed. The AG had campaigned in the press that we were guilty, but he had repeatedly blocked our case from going before a judge for a preliminary hearing to determine if there was enough evidence to even go to a trial.

No such hearing was ever completed. Meanwhile, the state’s petition law was struck down as unconstitutional in federal court.

The AG thought he could threaten us into submission. He had offered my co-defendant Susan Johnson a deal: plead guilty and all she’d get would be a small slap on the wrist.

Like so many unsung patriots in this country, she told him to stuff it.

What was she thinking?

All that is necessary for the triumph of good is for the majority of people — who are indeed good at heart — to stand up and be counted. The people are not the problem. They are the solution to the problem.

When government becomes Goliath, the initiative is the people’s slingshot.

Times are tough. Even a little scary. But I’ve never had more hope for the future. Together, I’m convinced we can leave our kids and grandkids an insurance policy. Not one that pays money when we’re gone, but something they’ll need even more:

Freedom.

The key to protecting and restoring freedom is to give the intrinsic decency and the common sense of the American people a chance to prevail. That’s what the initiative and referendum process is all about: an opportunity to place some measure of common sense on the public agenda, and when needed, to check the power of the high and mighty.

As I look back on my five decades, I’m thinking how proud and how lucky I am to serve as president of Citizens in Charge and Citizens in Charge Foundation, the only national organizations committed to protecting the right of citizens to initiative and referendum.

Last year, thanks to your support, we worked in 17 states protecting the rights of over 137 million Americans. This year, we’re already helping local leaders in 14 states and we’re engaged in eight lawsuits to overturn unconstitutional restrictions on citizen petitions. And there’s more to come.

Many times through the years I’ve asked you to make a sacrifice to support our mutual cause. Your generosity has made the difference. Again today, I ask you to help support the work of Citizens in Charge Foundation with a contribution.

Don’t donate $50 to Citizens in Charge Foundation just because I’m turning 50. If that were the only motivation, I’d want you to give $49 or $39 or $21. I’d feel younger.

Give whatever you can afford — $50 or $5 or $500 — because your freedom and mine, as well as freedom for our loved ones, is worth every penny.

We’ll put it to good use in mobilizing citizens, organizing coalitions, putting grassroots pressure on elected officials, defending the rights of citizens in court and in the court of public opinion.

My oldest emailed me to say, “This is a pretty big deal birthday.” I told her that I’ll only be one day older.

And each new day I’ll be happy, having fun, defending what we hold dear, working with great people like you to empower the common sense of the American people, to put citizens in charge.

This is Common Sense. I’m still, for one day more, 49-year old Paul Jacob.

P.S. Please contribute today to our 2010 national campaign to Save the Initiative. And thank you for all you’ve done to stand up for liberty and justice.

P.P.S. When you make a financial gift, your spouse, your friends, your neighbors and co-workers may ask you: Times are tough — what were you thinking?

So tell them. Freedom needs not only your support, but theirs.

Categories
national politics & policies

Democrats versus Majoritarian Tyranny

Senate Democrats are firmly against any attempt to circumvent the 60-vote majority that Senate rules require to prevent a filibuster of major legislation. On principle!

Forget that the recent election of Republican Scott Brown deprives Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority. Democrats won’t even consider trying to shunt that rule aside so they can foist Obamacare on us. No, no, no.

Of course, strangely, newspaper reports say they looking at doing just that. But I can prove otherwise. With evidence from five years ago. Here’s what Senator Obama had to say in 2005: “. . . prompting a change in the Senate rules that really, I think, would change the character of the Senate forever . . . Majoritarian absolute power. . . . and that’s just not what the Founders intended.”

Senator Schumer: “We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this republic are about to be evaporated by the ‘nuclear option.’ The checks and balances which say that if you get 51 percent of the vote, you don’t get your way 100 percent of the time.”

Senator Reid: “Mr. President, the right to extend debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House. In these cases, the filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.”

Wow. Sounds like they really mean it. And they do, right?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy

How to Raise Taxes

Times are tough; state revenues, down. So politicians have a choice: 1. Do the one thing economists definitely warn not to do, raise taxes; or 2. Do the one thing powerful lobbies say not to do, cut spending.

In Washington State, guess which one politicians are doing.

Washington’s governor and majorities in both houses are Democrats, and they’re looking to raise taxes. But they have (or had) one little problem: the voters.

In 2007, Evergreen State citizens had voted in a tax limitation measure, I-960, requiring a public two-thirds legislative vote to raise any tax. The Democrats are balking at this. By a simple majority vote they have in effect nullified the law made directly by their constituents.

This galls supporters of the citizen-made law, especially so since I-960 was the THIRD such initiative. Similar measures had passed earlier, in 1993 and 1998.

House Finance Committee Chairman Ross Hunter says that requiring a two-thirds vote for tax increases makes the budget process “unworkable.” By this he means he can’t spend as much as he’d like.

Tim Eyman, who worked to put the measure on the ballot, counters that this kind of attitude is “an admission that Olympia can’t function if it’s forced to obey the law.” Riffing on the theme, Eyman mocked legislators’ arguments as nothing more than “you peasants don’t understand, the rules don’t apply to us.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Badgering as Democracy in Action

The citizen initiative depends on a few habits and institutions.

Free speech and free association, for instance. It does no good trying to gather signatures to put an issue to a public vote if one is badgered and beat down every time one tries.

Fair play is another. If the government doesn’t allow time to petition, or takes any excuse to invalidate a petition, then the democratic part of the citizen initiative goes out the window.

In recent years we’ve seen a growing sense of hardball against the initiative process. Harassment has become all too common. Many states have begun to “crack down” on gathered petitions, finding the niggliest neutrinos of law to invalidate petitions for initiatives they don’t like.

And now, in Utah, politicians combine post-signature unfairness with the harassing of signatories. State law already allows citizens to withdraw their signatures from a petition. But new legislation would exempt those seeking to remove signatures from the rules petitioners have to follow. The bill would also allow the political parties to call up signatories for a month after the petition is filed and harangue them with reasons why the iniative is a bad.

You guessed it, Utah has initiatives in the offing that politicians would like to off. One is an ethics measure that legislators especially despise. So they seek to twist the rules to scuttle the chance for an open, public vote.

Despicable, but all too common.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

The Obama Approach

President Obama’s credo seems to be that if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. He’s “doubling down,” as the phrase goes. We’re going to get his killer dose of government-controlled medicine whether we want it or not.

Scott Brown’s upset victory in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race killed the Democrats’ filibuster-proof 60-vote advantage. So Obama is now in favor of “bipartisanship.” He’s pretending to listen to Republican doubts about strangling what’s left of freedom in the medical industry.

But Obama’s new health care bill seeks simply to reconcile the House Democrat plan with the Senate Democrat plan. It’s more bichambership than bipartisanship. Under the “new” plan, Americans would still be socked with lots of penalties and commandments.

One addition, though. Obama also wants to create a federal agency that can veto supposedly “unreasonable” increases in health insurance rates. So what happens when the only practical response to huge new costs under the vast panoply of new requirements is to raise rates . . . and government prohibits this?

Might insurance companies be forced out of business?

Might Washington be waiting in the wings, eager to finish the takeover and shove us all into a “public option”?

Obama is pretty relentless, trying to gulp up a huge sector of the economy despite growing and cogent opposition. Not, I think, a particularly admirable quality in this context.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Taking the Initiative (and Referendum)

Maryland State Senator Joan Carter Conway dislikes a certain popular bill, so it probably won’t pass. Why not? Is she so charismatic that she can persuade most fellow lawmakers to vote down any bill she dislikes?

No. Conway chairs the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. Although most committee members support this particular bill, she can kill it just by declining to bring it up for a vote. Then it won’t matter what anybody else thinks — in the committee, the senate, or the whole state.

The bill in question would simply allow direct shipment of wine to Maryland. That’s it. Prohibition was repealed some time ago. But there are still many silly laws regulating how liquor may be distributed and sold, laws that have nothing to do with protecting the public.

Annapolis commentator Eric Hartley argues for legislative term limits, saying it would help break up Maryland’s undemocratic committee system. Yes, but voters need the right of citizen initiative even more — so they can GET the term limits, for one thing.

Maryland citizens do have referendum rights, the right to exercise the “People’s Veto.” But lawmakers have been making it very difficult lately to exercise that veto. Let’s hope the courts strike down those restrictions. And that voters find a way to pass liberty-expanding ballot measures on their own even when their representatives won’t or can’t.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights national politics & policies too much government

Idealism or Brute Power Play?

Senator John McCain and other politicians advocate violating your right to contribute as much as you want to the political candidates you support. They also advocate violating your right to speak as much as you want, either positively or negatively, about a candidate.

Do they support these repressive doctrines out of misguided idealism, or misguided pragmatic politics? Doubtless the answer depends on the individual. But McCain certainly acts as if today’s confusing welter of campaign finance regulation best serves as a very convenient club to beat an upstart challenger over the head and shoulders.

McCain faces a tough primary. His conservative challenger, J.D. Hayworth, a former congressman, is also a radio talk show host. Or at least he was until buddies of the senator began yelping to the Federal Election Commission. See, Hayworth attacked McCain on his show, which supposedly makes his show a form of “political advertising.” As a result of this pressure, Hayworth and the station agreed to take the show off the air.

Jason Rose, who works with Hayworth, calls what happened a “political mugging.” Sounds right to me.

McCain is on record endorsing what his friends did here. So . . . Hayworth can say anything he wants to — à la the First Amendment — unless it’s a criticism of McCain.

Funny how the framers failed to stipulate this when they were putting together the Constitution and that First Amendment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
too much government

Hope and Change in NJ

Spending sprees are fun. The responsible cut-backs after such sprees? Not so much fun.

Seems the recent gubernatorial election made a difference in New Jersey. There’s change there. Also hope.

Last November, running on a platform of fiscal sanity, Republican challenger Chris Christie defeated the Democratic Governor Jon Corzine. And it seems that, unlike a certain U.S. president, Christie has every intention of following through.

In early February, Christie told lawmakers that the state’s finances remain a mess and that the budget passed eight months ago is full of “all of the same worn out tricks of the trade” that have driven New Jersey to the edge of bankruptcy.

He said that the legacy of “irresponsible budgeting of the past, coupled with failed tax policies which lie like a heavy, wet blanket suffocating tax revenues and job growth” require extraordinary steps to bring the budget back into balance.

So on his own initiative, Christie is freezing spending across an array of programs. For example, he is cutting the subsidy to New Jersey Transit and urging managers of public transportation to “improve efficiency . . . revisit its rich union contracts,” be more fiscally responsible and efficient. He’s also targeting bloated government pensions and education funding.

Can Governor Christie complete the pivot to fiscal common sense despite the hurricane of opposition he faces? Time will tell. But it would be hard to imagine a better start.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies responsibility

A Deficit of Common Sense

Congress has just raised the federal debt “ceiling” to $14.3 trillion.

Yes, it’s called a “ceiling,” though I cannot recall seeing any other ceiling so adjustable.

The Associated Press reassures us: The new ceiling means that congressmen won’t have to pass an even higher ceiling until after November. According to the AP, if Congress had to raise the debt limit too close to the election, this would “[feed] a sense among voters that the government is spending too much and putting future generations under a mountain of debt to do it.”

“Feed a sense”? Yes, committing fiscal crime in broad daylight might serve to “feed a sense” that the crime is in fact being committed.

Meanwhile, Moody’s, the Wall Street credit agency, warns that the U.S. is at risk of losing its triple-A credit rating. The federal government must stop its fashionable trillion-dollar annual deficits. But Moody’s also proclaims to understand why the government has run these trillion-dollar deficits. Seeing as how we’re in a recession, it would be politically tough to trim budgets right now.

Let me get this straight. If you’ve been taking on way too much debt, the best solution to the problem is to borrow money even faster and even more irresponsibly? But only for now? Then kick the habit later . . . when it’s suddenly real easy?

No, I don’t think so. Try again, Moody’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption term limits

Bye Bye Bayh

Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana is calling it quits, leaving the Congress after two terms. What’s not to like?

Without mandatory term limits for the office, Mr. Bayh’s self-imposed limit seems an honorable second-best.

Bayh has also openly expressed his disgust with the behavior of this Congress, calling it “brain dead.” No argument from me.

On CBS’s Early Show Bayh clarified his decision to leave government for the private sector, saying, “If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.”

Ouch!

If he’s talking about sustainable, productive jobs, he’s no doubt correct.

But there is something about Evan Bayh’s leave-taking announcement that leaves me more than a little disgusted.

Bayh’s decision surprised most. But it was certainly no surprise to Bayh. Surely contemplating re-election has been on his mind for some time.

By waiting until to the last minute to drop out, Bayh ensures that the people of Indiana will have no say in choosing the Democratic candidate for his position — no campaign, no primary election. The Democrat’s nominee will be installed by the party’s State Central Committee.

Bayh’s departure is unfortunately no departure from the brand of politics that continually games our elections, where the insiders offer voters as little choice as possible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.