Category: incumbents

What’s Principle Got to Do with It?

Post author By CS Admin
Post date April 26, 2016
1 Comment on What’s Principle Got to Do with It?

Maryland Primary, Chris Van Hollen,Donna Edwards, super PAC, the National Rifle Association, NRA

Today’s Maryland Primary features a competitive race to replace Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski, a 30-year veteran. Two House members, Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards, are seeking the Democratic nomination.

“[T]his is a contest between two candidates,” National Public Radio’s Kojo Nnamdi notes, “who agree on 99 percent of the relevant issues.”

The campaign got interesting, however, with an attack ad first run by a super PAC, Working for Us, and then by Rep. Edwards’s campaign. The ads hit Van Hollen for a special deal he had made trying to get his 2010 DISCLOSE Act passed. The legislation aimed to force non-profit groups to disclose their donors to the government.

Fearing the hostility of the National Rifle Association, Van Hollen cut a backroom deal exempting the gun rights group, along with several other powerful liberal organizations.

Whatever one thinks of the DISCLOSE Act — and I’ll proudly disclose my contempt — shouldn’t we all agree that drafting laws that apply to most groups except those with political clout is flat-out wrong?

Rep. Donna Edwards, an original co-sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, wasn’t amused by Van Hollen’s sell-out. She withdrew her support.

I don’t agree with all her principles, but I am glad she has some.

In Washington, it’s lonely for the principled. President Obama came to Van Hollen’s defense. So did the Washington Post, praising Van Hollen (editorially) as a “leading champion of gun safety,” and via Glenn Kessler’s Fact Checker column, which twisted logic to award the Edwards ad three Pinocchios. Democratic congressional leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, also lauded Van Hollen and attacked Edwards.

Washington: city of celebrated sell-outs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Chris Van Hollen, Donna Edwards, Maryland Primary, NRA, super PAC, the National Rifle Association

Accountability folly government transparency incumbents local leaders responsibility term limits

Incumbent Upon Heaven

Markwayne Mullin, term limits, lies, Oklahoma, politicians, lie

Many who pledged to limit their terms in Congress have gotten elected and, then … actually kept their word. Yet, with the temptations of power, combined with the acute narcissism of politicians, not a few have flung their honor aside to break their promise.

Four years ago, Oklahoma Congressman Markwayne Mullin was a challenger, “who pledged repeatedly … not to serve more than six years in the House.” Okie voters limited their congressional reps to three terms (six years) via a ballot initiative back in 1994. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that and 22 other state-imposed congressional term limits laws just a year later.

NewsOK.com reporter Chris Casteel asked Rep. Mullin if this coming term would, as Mullin vowed, be his last.

A simple yes or no question, eh?

Well, the incumbent’s response was less than unequivocal, “leaving open the possibility that he may run for a fourth term,” Casteel reported.

“Our position on this has not changed,” read Mullin’s official statement. “However, Christie and I will continue to seek the Lord’s guidance and do what is best for our family and the 2nd District of Oklahoma. The only election I am focused on right now is in 2016.”

Hmmm. Do you recall the Lord ever guiding anyone to break his word to the people?

What a dodge!

Mullin is like a burglar announcing, “I’m not sure if I’m going to rob your home when I get out of jail. That’s too far off in the future. But I’m seeking spiritual advice about it.”

Come to think of it, incumbent politicians and burglars have quite a lot in common.

But not Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Markwayne Mullin, oklahoma, politicians, sneaky politicians, term limits, U.S. Term Limits

Common Sense incumbents meme term limits

Scandal-Less

In the 15 states voters have enacted term limits for their state representatives and senators, those politicians and the lobbyists and heads of powerful interest groups constantly complain that the limits are a problem.

I know. That’s why I like term limits.

Am I a broken record on the subject? Perhaps. But let me tell you about a different type of record … criminal.

“Are term limits good ideas for Pa. elected officials?” asked a Newsworks.org headline, after Steve Reed, the former 28-year mayor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, “was arrested on nearly 500 criminal charges that included corruption, theft, bribery and dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity.”

“Top N.Y. lawmaker arrested on corruption charges,” read a January USA Today headline. Sheldon Silver, after more than 20 years as Assembly Speaker was “arrested on federal corruption charges alleging he was involved in a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme for more than a decade.”

In 2009, after Massachusetts saw its third House Speaker in a row indicted, I ranked New Jersey, Illinois and Massachusetts as the three most corrupt states. The top contenders all have one thing in common: a lack of term limits.

A couple years ago, I joined Greg Upchurch, a St. Louis patent attorney and entrepreneur at a conference on term limits in Missouri. Greg (the driving force behind the state’s 1992 initiative) told the audience, mostly opposed to term limits, that the limits are here to stay.

Before term limits, Upchurch pointed out, legislative leaders were going to prison for corruption. With term limits, there simply haven’t been such scandals.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags corruption, democracy, elections, graft, term limits, voting

Accountability folly government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall meme term limits too much government

Stop Phony Crony Pay Grab

Are people in Arkansas as stupid as their legislators think?

Last November, legislators tricked enough voters to narrowly pass Issue 3.

I’ve addressed before the measure’s dishonest ballot language, mis-identifying a doubling of allowed terms as the “setting of term limits.” And about a much-ballyhooed gift ban that has proven so weak that now most legislators are offered “free meals nearly every day.”

Perhaps the biggest of the tricks used to pass the measure was this: Hide from voters the measure’s establishment of an “Independent Citizens Commission” . . . a majority hand-picked by those same legislators.

This “Legislative Cronies Commission” (as it should be called) has announced it will unilaterally hike pay by an outrageous 150 percent!

The commission claims to have looked at legislative salaries in nearby states, except Texas and Mississippi — two states that just so happen to pay lower salaries. Economic factors were also considered, supposedly, but household income in Arkansas has actually dropped in the last decade.

The commission held only one poorly publicized hearing — at, get this, 10:00 am on a Monday, when most folks were working. No surprise, public comments have run ten to one negative. Letters and emails contain words and phrases such as “shameful,” “insult,” “actually sick to my stomach,” “a joke,” “ludicrous,” “appalled” and “slap in the face.”

This led Larry Ross, chief crony on the commission, to rudely dis citizens, telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he would look at the “quality” of comments, not the “quantity.”

Only a tsunami of public anger can stop this rip-off of Arkansas taxpayers. Act fast. A March 16 meeting is set to finalize the increase.

Tell the Independent [sic] Citizens [yeah, right] Commission what you think: call (501) 682‑1866.

This is Common Sense. Paul Jacob.

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Tags initiatives, pay raise, term limits, voters, voting

First Amendment rights incumbents

Congress Got Your Tongue?

Yesterday’s somber thirteenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was marred by a brand new and savage act of violence against the very essence of America: the First Amendment.

Who orchestrated the attack? Responsibility was not claimed by ISIL or ISIS … or North Korea’s Kim Jong-un … or even Dennis Rodman.

The culprits? A majority of the United States Senate.

Fifty-four Democrats voted to scratch out the words “freedom of speech” from the First Amendment to be replaced by giving Congress new power to regulate the spending, and thereby the speech, in their own re-election campaigns.

Conflict of interest, s’il vous plaît?

The assault was only thwarted because a simple majority falls short of the two-thirds required to send the constitutional amendment to the House.

Dubbed the “Democracy for All Amendment,” supporters and their many cheerleaders in the media pretended Senate Joint Resolution 19 would overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and get big money out of politics. Certainly an amendment could do that, explicitly, but this one would have done no such thing.

Instead, SJR 19 would have empowered our despised Congress to regulate as it pleased, with such sweeping power that the amendment’s authors felt the need to reassure supporters (such as the New York Times) by stating expressly in the amendment that, “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”

Let’s hope that, for the 54 Senators who voted to repeal freedom of speech, this goes down as a suicide attack … politically.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags campaign finance regulation, free speech, SJR 19

ballot access incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall

Getting to Ballot in Illinois

Post author By Redactor
Post date September 1, 2014
2 Comments on Getting to Ballot in Illinois

My business is citizen initiatives. So I notice when courts — at the behest of corrupt politicians like hyper-incumbent Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan — block a popular initiative to limit the power of corrupt politicians.

Politicians like, say, Mike Madigan.

The initiative would have forced state lawmakers to step down after eight years in the legislature. Although the petition to post the question earned way more than enough valid signatures, a judge kicked the question off the ballot. Then an appeals court refused to reverse; and, finally, the state supreme court let a ballot deadline pass without reviewing the case. All this obstructionism was rationalized by a derelict misreading of the state constitution and motivated by a desire to preserve and protect Illinois’s political class, which is as bankrupt morally as the state is fiscally.

Another attempt at ballot-blocking proved less successful. It seems that “private detectives” (or maybe just thugs) hired by somebody in Illinois’s GOP establishment tried to intimidate signatories of petitions to get the Libertarian candidate for governor on the ballot. These visibly-armed creeps pushed signers to disavow their signatures in hopes of keeping the LP candidate off the ballot. So far it hasn’t worked, and the Illinois Libertarian Party has filed criminal complaints in the matter.

From these cases I conclude that things are pretty rotten with respect to the state of representative government in the state of Illinois.

Thankfully, voters there want a change. They just have to keep pushing for it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.