Category: government transparency

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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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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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Accountability general freedom government transparency media and media people nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Ad Budget Slashed

Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, advertising, partisan

Republican politicians, who had been running since 2010 on killing ObamaCare, did not. Not when they had a chance. Despite dominating Congress, they failed, because 

  1. they opted for a goofy way to do it (the House’s AHCA plan being a terrible mess, probably worse than the monster it was trying to replace) and 
  2. partly because the libertarians — along with a few “liberal” Republicans — blocked it in the Senate.

But that’s the olds; here’s the news: the Trump Administration has cut back ObamaCare’s advertising budget.

Progress?

I’m not sure. Maybe. Probably not.

The facts: ObamaCare outreach has been cut by 90 percent, and outsourcing grants to groups engaging in sign-​up efforts have been cut by 40 percent:

The Trump administration downplayed the impact of boosted ad spending, noting that during 2017 open enrollment there was a decline of 5 percent in overall sign-​ups. It also saw a 42 percent decline in first-​time enrollment and enrollment of people who pay their premiums decline by 500,000 people.

So, it seems natural to respond to a perceived decline in “demand” with a reduction in “supply” — or any attempt to drum up more “customers” for subsidized policies.

Also natural is the partisan fall-​out, with Democrats crying “foul” over the decided lack of support for their program. As Peter Suderman noted over at Reason, ObamaCare became partisan because it started out partisan.

But it was always — from conception in the Heritage Foundation braintrust* to its current choking gasps — an unworkable monstrosity.

And folks of all parties — and none — should be able to understand that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Note: the Heritage folks not unreasonably distance themselves from their past association with some of ObamaCare’s core notions, and others are skeptical of the distancing.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall

Left Wondering Why

Minneapolis, shooting, police, body camera, Justine Damond, Australian

In Minneapolis’s Fulton neighborhood a makeshift memorial has sprung up. Amidst flowers, a handwritten sign reads, “Why did you shoot and kill our neighbor?”

Police have yet to offer public comment on the police shooting of Justine Damond, the Australian woman killed in the alley behind her home last Saturday night.

“Sadly, her family and I have been provided with almost no additional information from law enforcement,” Justine’s fiancé, Don Damond,* told reporters, “regarding what happened after police arrived.”

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has launched an investigation, but not yet interviewed the two officers at the scene, the only known witnesses. The officers had been responding to Justine’s 911 call reporting what sounded like a sexual assault. 

No gun was found on Justine; a woman in her pajamas otherwise doesn’t seem very threatening.

Local media identified Mohammed Noor, a Somali-​American, as the police officer who fired the bullet that killed Damond. Noor has been on the force since March 2015 and has two previous complaints pending.

Most frustrating, the Washington Post reports that “the officers’ body cameras were not turned on” and … “It’s not clear why …”

Cameras do not work when turned off; public anger and angst are not ameliorated when we cannot see the body cam footage. 

That’s why, back in April, we worked to pass a ballot initiative in Ferguson, Missouri: (a) mandating that police must actually turn on the body cameras they were “using” (after similar incidents, wherein Ferguson police claimed their cameras hadn’t been activated) and (b) setting rules for public access to the video.

The people of Minneapolis, likewise, deserve a more professional police force. Making that happen means taking the initiative: citizens reforming criminal justice policies at the ballot box.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Justine had already taken her fiancé’s last name, even though they were set to marry next month. Her legal name remains Justine Ruszczyk.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

The Police State Is in Sessions

Jeff Sessions, AG, Attorney General, asset forfeiture, civil, Trump

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatens to make himself one of the biggest threats to your liberty.*

President Donald Trump’s pick for Attorney General just promised to encourage police departments to seize the personal property (cars, houses, cash) of criminal suspects.

The practice is called asset forfeiture. It comes in two forms, criminal and civil. Compelling objections have been raised against civil forfeiture, which accounts for nearly 90 percent of all forfeitures. Abuse is rampant in cities, counties and states around the country, routinely used against people who have not even been charged, much less prosecuted and convicted. (Often not really even suspected of criminality.)

“No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime,” he told conference attendees in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Monday.** But how can our top federal law enforcement officer ignore the profound difference between a suspect and a criminal?

No one is a criminal, before the law, until proved in court. Taking away property to make it harder for suspects to defend themselves — which is what RICO laws and other Drug War reforms intended to do — is obviously contrary to the letter of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as well as the spirit of the U.S. Constitution.

Sessions announced he’ll soon offer a “new directive on asset forfeiture — especially for drug traffickers.” Unless he clearly indicates that it will only be used against the property of persons legally convicted of crimes, Sessions will be merely making charges of an “American Police State” stick. 

America’s top lawman argues completely contrary to American principles of justice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Bigger than Eric Holder was. Bigger than Loretta Lynch.

** Sessions also went on to say that “sharing with our partners” — local police departments around the nation — is a good thing. This is, systemically, the most dangerous aspect of it all, for it encourages police departments to take things for their own benefit.

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