Category: government transparency

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Accountability government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

Omission of Character

Democratic Party, gubernatorial nominee, governor, Frank Northam, Lt. Governor, Justin Fairfax, racism, politicians

One downside to jumping to the wrong conclusion is that the failure to even look for the correct, accurate conclusion inevitably follows. 

This sleepy odd-year campaign for governor of Virginia has recently been riled by charges of racism. Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee Frank Northam made the “mistake” of “omitting” the party’s candidate for Lt. Governor, Justin Fairfax, from a small printing of literature for union members about the Democrats’ statewide slate. 

Northam is white and Fairfax is black. 

“[A] slap in the face to Justin and to black voters,” is what Quentin James, who runs a PAC working to elect black candidates, called the removal of Fairfax from the literature. He added that it “reeks of subtle racism” and “sends a signal across the state, that we, as black voters, are expendable.”

Noting that black voters make up 20 percent of the state’s electorate, Think Progress dubbed Fairfax’s deletion: “mindboggling.”  

Was this a “dis” and did it really have anything to do with Fairfax being black?

Well, Fairfax labeled it a “mistake,” but his exclusion from the flyer was certainly not inadvertent. It was by clear-eyed design.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), a $600,000 donor to the coordinated state Democratic campaign, requested that Fairfax be removed from literature their members will distribute. The union is at odds with Fairfax over his opposition to two state pipeline projects the union favors.

So, Northam didn’t throw Fairfax under the bus because Fairfax is black. No sirree. Northam threw Fairfax under the bus to placate a powerful, well-heeled special interest group.

Northam isn’t a racist. He’s just a self-interested, disloyal politician.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency incumbents local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies term limits

Frail and Disoriented

Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Thad Cochran, term limits, age, retirement, politics, placeholder

Senator Thad Cochran sure is experienced: eight years in the House of Representatives followed by 36 years in the upper chamber. So who better to chair the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee?

Rephrase that: who wouldn’t be better?

“The 79-year-old Cochran appeared frail and at times disoriented during a brief hallway interview on Wednesday,” Politico reported. “He was unable to answer whether he would remain chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and at one point, needed a staffer to remind him where the Senate chamber is located.”*

The senator also allegedly had trouble correctly casting his vote on legislation, i.e. deciding between yea and nay.

The Mississippi Republican “has faced questions about his health for the past several years,” the article noted, adding, however, that “his aides and political allies insisted he was fine.”

Fine?

That seems to be the party line. “Top Senate Republicans say they are not pressuring Cochran to retire or step down as Appropriations Committee chairman,” acknowledged Politico.

Why not? Were Cochran to step down — in 2020 or sooner — his replacement would likely be more aligned with President Trump than with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican congressional establishment.

Super-incumbent Cochran only narrowly survived a 2014 challenge from a more conservative candidate in the GOP Primary. How? By mobilizing Democrats to cross over and vote for the more liberal Cochran.

A statesman steps down when no longer able to perform effectively. But the Establishment, on the other hand, sees Cochran’s role not as a representative but as a placeholder.

For their power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

 

* Opponents of term limits always told us that it would take six or eight years for newbie legislators to find the capitol’s bathrooms. That hasn’t turned out to be accurate, but obviously finding the Senate chamber, even after four decades in the capitol, is no gimme.

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Accountability general freedom government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders political challengers

Initiative Surplus?

Truth in Accounting, TIA, Financial State of the States, Sheila Weinberg, initiative, democracy

Only nine out of 50 states can pay their bills and meet their obligations; 41 cannot, barring major tax increases or spending cuts.

That’s what we learn in last month’s “Financial State of the States” report from Truth in Accounting (TIA).

Alaska is in the best shape, “with $11 billion in assets to pay future bills”; New Jersey’s in the worst, needing “to come up with $208 billion in order to meet its promised obligations.”

Sheila Weinberg, TIA’s founder, works hard to counter governments’ creative accounting. It’s trickery, really, which “would be considered criminal for private sector corporations.” One gimmick is “promising to pay employee benefits in the future, but not fully funding the benefits programs as they rack up obligations.”*

Thankfully, TIA’s financial analysis includes items such as already-made pension and healthcare commitments.

Now, let’s expand the analysis, collating these findings to separate between initiative and non-initiative states**:

  • Seven of the nine states with a “taxpayer surplus” — where government can pay its bills and meet its obligations — have the ballot initiative process.
  • The 23 initiative states comprise 46 percent of the states. Yet, initiative states comprise a whopping 78 percent of financially healthy states.
  • Of the 20 states carrying a larger-than-average taxpayer burden, 15 states (75 percent) lack the initiative process.

Granted, this represents a correlation between states with citizen-initiated ballot measures and healthier fiscal policy, not necessarily causation. Still, I’m not surprised states where citizens have more say so are better governed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* “This short term fix allows governments to artificially ‘balance their budgets’ by not counting certain obligations as official debt.”

** There are 23 initiative states and 27 non-initiative states. Two referendum-only states— Maryland and New Mexico — are considered non-initiative states, and so is Illinois. Illinois is considered a non-initiative state, because its ballot initiative process is so severely restricted as to be non-existent. Only one measure has ever appeared on the ballot.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics

Interfering With a Sweet Racket?

Seattle, City Light, corruption, security, police, scandal, cronyism

One way for governments and enterprises to save money is to contract out some or all of their services. Towns, cities, counties, states — even the federal government — engage in such practices all the time.

It is really just outsourcing, as business lingo dubs it.* But, like any system for shifting responsibility away from direct management, it can be corrupted.

As Seattle citizens now learn, courtesy of Seattle Times reporters Mike Carter and Steve Miletich.

It appears that Seattle City Light, the public utility providing electricity to the city, has been contracting exclusively with Seattle’s Finest Security & Traffic Control. For a half a decade. Despite there being direct competition from another firm.

The utility paid “more than $7.8 million over the past five years to provide off-duty police officers for traffic control or security work,” the Times tells us.

The whole story came to light (no pun intended) when a new outfit offering similar services, but based on “gig economy” principles, sought to enter the market. Seattle’s Finest challenged the firm’s licensing, and, allegedly, directed abuse at the firm’s chief executive officer.

A Seattle detective off-handedly described the dominance of Seattle’s Finest “in organized-crime terms — using the word ‘mafia’ — and said nobody would be allowed to interfere with it.”

The FBI has now been called in.

Usually, local government may seem rather humdrum. But a lot of money can go through powerful, privileged hands. Things can get exciting. Terms like “murky” and “intimidation” abound.

Is this a surprise?

Remember: power corrupts; local power corrupts locally.

Right there where we live.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* An economist, R. H. Coase, got a Nobel Prize in no small part for explaining why this sort of contract can work better than establishing a complete firm-employee wage system.

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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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Categories
Accountability crime and punishment government transparency moral hazard responsibility too much government

Half a Win Is Better than None

Terrebonne Parish, Sheriff, Jerry Larpenter, free speech, First Amendment, abuse, ExposeDAT, Jennifer Anderson

Jennifer Anderson criticized her local sheriff. Her family’s home was raided in 2016 by the sheriff as a result.

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter’s reaction to criticism was ugly and unconscionable, but it hasn’t been allowed to stand. On the other hand, the sheriff hasn’t been adequately punished, either.

Jennifer Anderson’s pseudonymous blog ExposeDAT criticized various public figures in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, including with respect to the business relationships between Larpenter and others. Bridling at the criticism — which had to do with assessment of publicly available facts — the sheriff submitted warrants to Facebook and AT&T to track down the identity of the blogger. Then he sent men to raid the Andersons’ home and grab computers and cell phones.

The Andersons fought back, suing in federal court. They wanted the raid and seizure and search of their private stuff to be declared unconstitutional.

Finally, this September, the Andersons reached an undisclosed settlement with Larpenter out of court. According to its terms, the Andersons aren’t allowed to discuss it any detail. But their attorney says the settlement is “a victory for citizens’ right to be critical of their elected officials without fear of retribution.” U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk has said that “Jennifer Anderson’s speech [in her blog] falls squarely within the four corners of the First Amendment.”

All that’s fine, but why hasn’t this sheriff also at least been kicked out of his job for his blatant abuse of power?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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