Category: ballot access

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Accountability ballot access general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders national politics & policies political challengers responsibility tax policy term limits too much government

What Unlimited Government Costs Us

Tim Eyman, doll, petition, taxes, Washington, initiative, democracy, voters

“Olympia can’t restrain itself,” Tim Eyman wrote the other day, a judgment on legislative irresponsibility hardly unique to the Evergreen State. Citizens around the country have cause to lament the difficulty of obtaining anything close to a good legislature. 

Too often the merely “bad” would constitute a significant improvement.

Which is why legislators need to be put on a short leash. Limits on government must be written into law, where possible into either the U.S. Constitution or state constitutions, so the limits cannot be tampered with by legislators, good or bad.

Washington State initiative guru Tim Eyman, cited above, has made a career of working for just those kinds of limits. In 2007, Eyman and the citizen group Voters Want More Choices petitioned onto the statewide ballot a requirement that any tax increase must receive a two-​thirds vote from both legislative chambers. 

Voters passed the measure* in 2007, 2011 and 2012. 

In an email to supporters this month, Eyman presents data — an “amazing real-​world comparison” — to help us understand how effective the limits were … while they lasted.

He notes that “with the 2/​3 rule in effect from 2008 – 2012, those 5 legislative sessions cost the taxpayers $6.894 billion” in increased taxes.

And he compares that to the five years (2013 – 2017) since the state’s highest court struck down the voters’ two-​thirds mandate: “WITHOUT the 2/​3 rule, those 5 legislative sessions cost the taxpayers $23.679 billion.”

“Without the fiscal discipline imposed by citizen initiatives,” Eyman concludes, “politicians cannot hold back.”

Now we have hard evidence for what unlimited government costs us: more than three times more!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Washington State’s ballot initiative process allows voters to pass simple statutes but not constitutional amendments. For two years after passage, legislators must garner a two-​thirds vote to override a ballot initiative. After those two years, only a simple majority is required.

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Accountability ballot access general freedom government transparency ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption local leaders national politics & policies property rights Regulating Protest responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

The Great Faction

great fiction, government, citizen, initiative, term limits, Paul Jacob

Politics isn’t a pretty business. 

Frédéric Bastiat called the beast it serves “that great fiction” not because it doesn’t exist — intrusive state power sure persists — but rather because what it promises cannot really happen: “everyone living at the expense of everyone else.”

What can we do? How do we counteract a game that is rigged to increase the insanity, not reduce it?

Last week I indicated one thing a minor party with that goal in mind could do: use its power of spoiling elections to change major party behavior, and thus give citizens a fighting chance to restrain governmental metastasis.

Cancer.

I also suggested “blackmailing” the major parties into setting up a system of voting that … ends the power to blackmail! I believe that system — ranked choice voting — holds many positives, not the least of which is ending strategic voting, wherein voters are tempted to “falsify” their own preferences and support candidates they might dislike. This is as corrupting to the citizenry as the Great Fiction itself.

Let’s hope a savvy minor party leverages the major parties, gaining reforms to improve the system. Regardless, we can all — independently — push two other limits on political power:

  1. term limits at all levels, and
  2. initiative and referendum rights in all the states, not just the 26 that have it now.

Initiative and referendum rights would give ordinary citizens the leverage to possibly restrain the mad rush to live at each others’ expense. With the initiative, citizens can gain term limits, which produce more competitive legislative elections and lead to fewer legislators captured by the interests loitering in the capitol.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ballot access folly media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers term limits

If This Be Blackmail…

Hillary Clinton, What Happened, Libertarian, 2-party, ranked choice voting

The Republican Party now boasts of more positions of power than … ever? And yet the GOP is in danger of falling apart.

The Democrats, now forced to endure Hillary Clinton’s new absurdity, What Happened, appear at wits’ end. They just do not “get it.”

Alas, “not getting it” is not limited to the major parties. The Libertarian Party (which is my subject this week) has been around since 1972 … doing the same things over and over … with spectacular lack of electoral success.*

Sure, the party has had no small subtle influence — perhaps most notably the change in marijuana policies. Yet it could have even more. Without electing anybody, as I argued yesterday.

But that’s just the tip of the Titanic-killer. 

Not only could party organizers threaten the major parties with running — and taking away votes — based on their candidates’ positions, Libertarian organizers could also threaten to run against candidates who will not publicly take up the cause of electoral reform.

Particularly, ranked choice voting.

Because of our first-​past-​the-​post elections, Libertarians tend to take away votes from those most similar to themselves. With ranked choice voting (see a sample ballot), a voter whose favorite is a Libertarian will have his second-​favorite choice count** towards that candidate; minor party candidates would no longer work as spoilers. 

And that would allow voters to embrace their real preferences, not pretend to like candidates they actually distrust.

Since major party candidates would, in most circumstances, be hurt less by those closest to them, they should be willing to be “blackmailed” on this.

Jumping into the briar patch of supporting fresh reform to stop the spoilers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*  The 3 million odd votes for the Johnson/​Weld presidential ticket, though a leap ahead from previous outings, was seen by many as a disappointment: that’s all the dynamic duo of former governors could do in a year with the unpopular duo of Trump and Clinton as R and D standard-bearers? 

** That is, in cases where only a small percentage of the vote favors the Libertarian most.

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Accountability ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders national politics & policies political challengers U.S. Constitution

Free to Choose

Milton Friedman, democracy, initiative, referendum, Free to Choose, public interest,

“I think that the most effective way one could possibly move toward greater freedom in the United States, toward a smaller role of government, would be if we could only have a more democratic society.”

Who said that? A Democrat? 

No.

The speaker quickly added, “I don’t mean a capital‑D, I mean a small‑d.”

“That is, I mean if we could have referenda,” the late Milton Friedman explained back in 1987. 

The Nobel Prize winning economist — and co-​author with wife Rose of the bestselling Free to Choose* — was referring to the initiative and referendum process, whereby citizens vote on laws, and in the case of initiatives directly place measures onto the ballot. 

Citizens enjoy initiative and referendum rights in twenty-​four states and roughly 60 percent of cities throughout the country.

“The public at large has always shown itself,” Dr. Friedman observed, correcting himself, “has almost always shown itself to be more libertarian in its views than have their elected representatives.”**

Friedman was not suggesting that a bad law becomes good because it was passed at the ballot box. He simply weighed the odds between two distinct sets of voters. Legislators are a small group, the personal power of each one so closely tied to government that politicians’ personal interests often compete against the public’s. Conversely, the much larger group of voting citizens almost defines the public interest.

Perhaps I was channeling the great doctor of economics when I was once asked, “Do you trust the people?” 

My reply?

“No. But I trust the people a whole lot more than I trust the politicians.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul of Jacob.

 

* The book was first published in January 1980, in tandem with PBS’s airing of the popular “Free to Choose” series.

** He spoke this at a California Libertarian Party conference. Tough crowd.

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ballot access folly general freedom government transparency national politics & policies political challengers

Trumping Popular Vote?

Donald Trump, president, landslide, election, votes, popular, electoral college

A friend, who loves to talk football, sometimes boasts that his team “crushed” the other team, gaining more yards and rolling up more first downs, before dejectedly acknowledging that his team didn’t score as many points as its opponent. They lost.

When a Democrat gloats that Donald Trump lost the popular vote, I am reminded of my friend’s funny football foible.

It helps to gain yards in football, sure, just as it helps to gain votes in a presidential contest. But you win a game by putting the most points on the scoreboard, just as you’re elected president by winning a majority in the Electoral College.

Going forward, we can discuss whether a state’s votes should be awarded proportionally or winner-​take-​all and whether national popular vote should instead be the metric for victory. But the 2016 rules were the rules.

“I would’ve won the popular vote if I was campaigning for the popular vote,” President Trump told ABC News anchor David Muir this week. “I would’ve gone to California, where I didn’t go at all.”

Still, Mr. Trump should appreciate that not only didn’t he garner a majority, he lost by 3 million votes to Hillary Clinton, who was well short of a majority, herself.

Trump continues to claim “a massive landslide” in the Electoral College. He may have “shocked the world,” but in 58 presidential elections thus far, 45 winners gained a greater percentage in the Electoral College.

Again this week, Pres. Trump repeated his belief that “millions of illegal votes” prevented him from winning the popular vote. Specific evidence? None. But he wants an investigation.

This could be a long four years.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

More Forced Registration

vote, election, registration, automatic, illustration

Voting’s a right, not a duty.

So voter registration and actual voting should be made easy. But I’m not for mandating that people vote, or for registering them involuntarily.

Which is why I oppose the Automatic Voter Registration Initiative (AVRI), an indirect Nevada initiative that state officials just announced has turned in enough petition signatures.

Now, you may not be familiar with this “indirect initiative” process. These are initiatives that first go to the legislature and then, should the legislature not pass them, appear on a later ballot (in this case, 2018’s) for voters to either enact or reject.

Currently, when Nevadans conduct business at the Department of Motor Vehicles, they’re asked if they’d like to register to vote. If they opt in, i.e., say “yes,” then the DMV transmits their information to the Secretary of State to be added to the voter rolls.

However, the new initiative would automate the process, so every person’s information gets whisked over to the Secretary of State, whether said person wants to be registered or not. It reads: “Unless the person affirmatively declines in writing,” he or she “shall be deemed to be an applicant to register to vote.”

Declining registration must be “in writing”?

A simple, “No, thank you,” won’t suffice?

Now, I understand: should the AVRI become law, the seriousness of the injury Nevada’s government would inflict on those seeking to remain unregistered admittedly pales in comparison to the Japanese internment camps during World War II, the Trail of Tears, civil asset forfeiture abuse, etc., etc.

But still. Assert a simple truth: people have a right to register and vote, which entails a right not to register and not to vote.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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vote, election, registration, automatic, illustration