Category: incumbents

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Accountability incumbents local leaders moral hazard term limits

Too Ignorant to Lead

Oklahoma State Senator, Mike Schulz, term limits

I’m convinced.

Oklahoma State Senator Mike Schulz, leader of his chamber, has persuaded me that he just can’t do his job. He should have resigned years ago. Too late now, alas; he’s about to be termed out of office. 

Well, better late than never, I always say.

Schulz burbles that he’s being ejected by Oklahoma’s lax 12-​year legislative term limits just as he is on the verge of being almost about to begin to make a solid start toward concluding the commencement of embarking upon truly hitting his stride … and I believe him. He also accuses his colleagues of equal lethargy vis-​à-​vis learning their jobs. 

Can such calumny be correct?

Lest I be accused of invidious paraphrase, which I would never, let me quote Schulz’s words in defense of even weaker term limits as transcribed by The Oklahoman: “At the four-​year mark, you start feeling comfortable with what you’re doing. At the eight-​year mark, you know a little bit more but you still don’t know it all. At the 12-​year mark, you certainly know more but you still don’t know everything you need to know.”

Indeed, Schulz recently failed to steer to passage legislation that would have hiked taxes on Oklahomans, thereby demonstrating terrible deficiency in his grasp of tax-​hike leadership.

Gentle Reader, listen to this man. At your next job interview, let your prospective employer know that you feel fully confident in your ability to do a darn good job … within 16 years.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability incumbents media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies term limits

Like Motel Matches

matchbook, Congress, term limits, legislative, power

When President Trump announced he was slapping a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum, a friend asked me how the president could possibly possess such unilateral authority. 

That was my first thought, too, before surmising that Congress had again given away its constitutional power, as its habit, thoughtlessly — like motel matches.*

Writing in National Review, Jay Cost confirmed my suspicion, “Over the past 80 years, authority over tariffs, as well as over all manner of properly legislative functions, has migrated to the executive branch, away from the legislative.”

When FDR sought greater power over trade, Cost explained, “It was as if Congress threw up its hands in exasperation and said to the president, ‘We cannot handle our authority responsibly. Please take it off our hands, for we will screw things up and lose reelection.’”

Ah, the laser-​like focus of modern career politicians … on what’s most important … to them.

“Nobody looks to Congress for redress of grievances anymore …” Cost wrote. “Congress has systematically shrugged power off its shoulders over the past 80 years, and it inevitably screws up the handful of authorities it retains …”

Why? What has led our first branch of government, over the last 80 years or so, to surrender its authority? 

Congress has become much more “experienced,” evermore a career destination. And a lucrative one. 

We desperately need term limits. And we need smaller districts where individual citizens matter more than money and special interests.

Save Congress from itself — before it sets the country afire.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* My mind jumped to Elvis Costello’s song, Motel Matches: “Giving you away, like …” what, precisely, in this case? The authority in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution: “The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.…”

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency incumbents term limits

The Smoking Russian Donut

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), corruption, Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, Dunkin Donuts, FBI, Russia, Russian

“Politicians in prison garb,” headlined a recent Sun Sentinel editorial, “shake trust in government.”

It was not a fashion statement.

“What is it about a long career that makes some politicians — not all, let’s be clear about that — feel the rules don’t apply to them?” asked the paper, which serves Florida’s Broward and Palm Beach counties.

This week, after spending the last 24 years in Congress, former Rep. Corrine Brown (D‑Fla.) began serving a five-​year term in federal prison. Brown was convicted of 18 separate fraud and corruption counts stemming from her use of a public charity to benefit herself. 

Not to be outdone, last week the FBI arrested Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper on various corruption charges following a six-​year undercover sting operation. “From what is now known,” the editorial board judged “the case against Cooper” to be “devastating.”

There are taped conversations, reportedly, between FBI agents posing as “wealthy land owners [seeking] political favors” and the mayor, discussing pay (her) to play (with the city). At one point, undercover agents say a bribe was delivered to the mayor in “a Dunkin’ Donuts bag stuffed with $8,000 in cash and checks from people with a ‘bunch of Russian names.’”

Russians?

“If not so tragic,” the paper wrote of the corruption, “it would be laughable to imagine Russians colluding to control the Hallandale Beach city election.”

Humor is needed, truly. Yet, the Sun Sentinel concluded instead that “term limits are needed in Hallandale Beach.”

Of course.

And needed for Congress. 

Now more than ever.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability incumbents insider corruption local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Queen Sheila: Terror of the Skies

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, boarding pass, United, airlines

What’s all the fuss?

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D‑Tex.) was escorted ahead of all the other passengers onto a United Airlines flight from Houston to Washington, D.C., taking seat 1A in first class. 

The congresswoman described it as “nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary.”

Meanwhile, Jean-​Marie Simon possessed a boarding pass for seat 1A; she attached a photo to her Facebook post. Yet, Simon was stopped when boarding the plane and told her ticket had been cancelled.

Who cancelled it? United claimed Simon did. 

Simon said that’s bunk — and it does seem strange to cancel your flight and then moments later attempt to board.*

“Since this was not any fault of mine,” Rep. Jackson Lee offered, “the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman … an easy target.…”

’Tis the season to cry “racism.”

And yet the congresswoman characterized herself as “kind enough” to apologize “out of the sincerity of my heart” —  and “in the spirit of this season.” 

Doubt her kindness? You have reason:

  • In 2014, Rep. Jackson Lee won Washingtonian magazine’s contest for “meanest” member of Congress — garnering, incredibly, seven times as many votes as the second-​place finisher. 
  • Years ago, after several incidents, Continental Airlines told Jackson Lee that she had to behave or find another airline.
  • “You don’t understand,” the congresswoman once reportedly shouted at a staffer. “I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen.”

Not “Queen for a Day,” mind you: Sheila Jackson Lee has been a congressional queen for the last 23 years! And today she is the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on transportation security.

Feel more secure?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* And, if it was truly her own fault, United appears to be overcompensating in compensating Simon, giving her a seat in Economy Plus, a $500 voucher and numerous apologies (though not yet in writing).

 

Additional Background Information
Daily Caller: Congressional bosses from Hell: Sheila Jackson Lee (2011)
Weekly Standard: Sheila Jackson Lee, Limousine Liberal (2002)

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general freedom incumbents local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Democracy — or Too Much Government?

Democrats, Republicans, reform, democracy, primary, primaries, presidential

The Democratic Party’s Unity Reform Commission met last week to concoct measures to pull the party from the brink of madness and oblivion. 

The commission’s main recommendation? Limit the role of “superdelegates” in the nomination process.

Great — a first step I’ve long advocated. But the whole system needs more serious reform.

Jay Cost covered some of the problems associated with the parties’ candidate selection processes, yesterday, in the online pages of the National Review. Unfortunately, he went off the rails about an alleged “trend toward an unadulterated democratic nomination process,” which he regarded as a “major mistake.”

He misdiagnosed both the problem and the Democrats’ proposed cure. Neither is “too much democracy.” 

America’s partisan voters keep selecting bad candidates because the major party duopoly is a rigged game — designed and regulated by incumbents for incumbents to solidify a protected class of insiders.

Which voters understandably seek to overthrow on a regular basis.

The problem is the whole primary process, which is faux-democratic, a clever ruse to prevent real challengers from emerging, forcing effective politicians through the two-​party mill.

To make things more democratic — to add effective citizen checks on power and privilege — the parties need to be completely divorced from official elections. That is, junk the whole primary system, making the parties bear fully the costs of their own selection processes. Further, the general elections should be thrown open to a wider variety of parties and candidates, with the voting system itself reformed to avoid the sub-​optimal results of our first-​past-​the-​post system.

The problem with our politics isn’t “too much democracy” so much as “too much partisan government.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency incumbents term limits

Power Abuse

term limits, sexual abuse, sexism, accountability, settlements, taxpayer, hush money

At the core of sexual harassment and misconduct is an unchecked power dynamic permitting the abuse. No surprise, then, that our unaccountable Congress is rife with it. 

What to do?

Our sicko congressmen must immediately stop using taxpayer funds to provide “hush” money to keep their victims from telling their stories, as I argued at Townhall yesterday.

Mandatory anti-​sexual harassment training for all congressional employees? Normal folks don’t need special training to avoid acting in despicable ways, and as far as protecting employees goes, such training seems to serve perpetrators more than victims.

One thing Congress won’t do in response? Slap term limits on themselves. 

But term limits, in this as in other forms of corruption, would be very beneficial. 

First, they would mercifully limit the duration of any abuser’s reign. There is indeed some value here. 

But requiring rotation in office creates another critically helpful impact. The expectation that a creep congressman will continue to wield power plays a major role not only in the calculations of that abuser, but also sometimes in the calculus of the victim … especially regarding the fear of coming forward. 

And a limited time in power also has its affect on the thought processes of those around the congressmen, people who might be more likely to do the right thing in reporting misbehavior if they didn’t view their own advancement as so closely tied to the advancement of the member of Congress for whom they work. 

But remember, Congress won’t impose term limits on themselves. That’s our job. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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