Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

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initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

No Exaggeration Necessary

Artful exaggeration is a part of good writing. Take this example from Yakima Valley Business Times editor Bruce Smith: “All of us who think we already pay too many taxes should bow west toward Mukilteo at least once a day.”

Smith did not figure he could set up a new religion. He was figuratively conveying the importance to the state of Washington of initiative activist Tim Eyman’s recent, successful measure requiring a two-thirds’ vote of the Legislature to hike taxes.

Smith also went on to talk about Tim Eyman’s newest proposal, which he is petitioning to place on the 2009 ballot. The measure is called I-1033, and officially dubbed the Lower Property Taxes Initiative. But Smith notes a feature of the proposal that stretches it, in a sense, beyond a mere property tax lowering device. “What I like most about the measure is that it reins in government growth,” writes Smith. “It limits the rate of government expansion to that of the overall economy.”

But here Smith doesn’t exaggerate at all. “Currently government grows at a level that is about 50 percent higher than that of the private sector,” he explains.

“[B]ureaucrats and the apologists have all sorts of excuses to rationalize why those levels of growth are necessary, but here’s the bottom line: Unless things change, government will become unsustainable.”

Exactly. No hyperbole.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Exploring Recall in Wisconsin

You’ve heard of a campaign exploratory committee?

Well, at recalldoyle.com you can see a recall exploratory effort in full bloom. Not a candidate campaign exploration, but an effort to recall a sitting official.

The site is titled the “Doyle Recall Exploratory Portal,” and organizers of the  effort are serious about doing something about Wisconsin’s governor. The core of their argument is at the center of the page:

WHY RECALL DOYLE? Jim Doyle is the de facto CEO of a $30 billion dollar corporation we call the State of Wisconsin that is being rapidly run into the ground. The buck stops at the top. . . .

  • Record Deficits – 4th Largest in the USA
  • Massive Tax Increases Threaten Prosperity
  • Radical Agenda Drives Away Business, Kills Jobs

. . . An unprecedented fiscal crisis demands bold and immediate action to save Wisconsin from certain financial ruin. The longer we wait, the more damage will be done. The clock is ticking!

If you support the idea of citizens taking control, when politicians go out of control, you can’t help but admire the intent here. And I, for one, wish the effort luck.

I confess, I don’t know everything about Governor Doyle. But knowing, as I do, the general run of the political mill, I’d bet money that the folks at Recall Doyle are doing their state a great service.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Veteran Politicians vs. Veterans

Back in 2005 I testified in the Florida legislature against an attempt to weaken the state’s term limits. Ignoring my testimony, legislators put their anti-limits amendment on the ballot. But as the election approached, they got scared. So scared, in fact, that they went so far as to pull their anti-term limits amendment off the ballot.

Now, four years later, there’s a proposed constitutional amendment to extend the state’s property tax discount for disabled veterans to those veterans who live in Florida now, but were not Florida residents when they entered the military. This popular idea is likely to win legislative approval to be on the ballot.

Well, at least, it was likely . . . until Senator Mike Bennett tacked on an amendment. Bennett wants to weaken Florida’s “eight is enough” term limits law by giving legislators twelves years. He sees latching it to the popular veterans’ measure as the best way to do that.

Notice that when Florida citizens propose constitutional amendments they can only address one subject, no pairing a popular issue with an unrelated unpopular one.

House Majority Leader Adam Hasner called the measure “disrespectful to those men and women who have served our country and are disabled veterans.”

It is also disrespectful to the 77 percent of Floridians who voted for eight-year term limits and want to keep them.

Floridians cherish military veterans.

Veteran politicians? Not so much.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Special Interests of the World Unite

Wish there were an issue that would engender bipartisan co-operation from our legislators? An idea that could bring together special interests of all stripes — from the teachers’ unions to the Chamber of Commerce?

There is: Taking away your initiative rights.

Last week, I was at the Missouri capitol testifying against several bills that would create restrictions for initiative petitions, many identical to those struck down all across the country as unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment.

Show-Me state legislators also came up with something new: A bill to actually prohibit citizens from gathering signatures on more than one petition at a time.

Very convenient. It just so happens that a campaign to stop the state’s rampant eminent domain abuse requires two constitutional changes, thus two petitions.

As a representative for the state’s League of Women Voters put it, they just want to place a few more hurdles in the way of the people. She was joined by many other big capitol lobbies, united by their desire to block the citizens from playing any role in policy.

Fortunately, a number of regular folks, representatives from several grassroots groups, as well as the state’s ACLU attended, urging their representatives to do the unusual — actually represent the people.

Special interests hate the voter initiative process. They know what we know: If there is to be reform, it has to come from the people directly.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy

They Call It “De-Brucing”

Colorado’s constitutional amendment dubbed the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, has made it difficult for politicians to tax and spend like they want.

So politicians engage in all sorts of weird strategems.

Take “de-Brucing.” TABOR’s author is Doug Bruce. TABOR allows voters to make exceptions to the law’s basic limits on spending increases and taxes. So all but four of Colorado’s 178 school districts have voted to “de-Bruce” — that is, to allow more spending, more taxes, than TABOR’s formula would otherwise allow.

In this context, Gov. Bill Ritter worked hard promoting a 2007 law to freeze tax rates. This freeze was designed not to limit increasing tax revenues, but to shore up the pre-TABOR rate of increase. It passed.

What the freeze did was de-Bruce the whole state, even those four school districts that had repeatedly and enthusiastically upheld tax rate reductions created by TABOR.

And now the state supreme court has decided that Ritter’s legal maneuver is just hunky dory.

In Colorado, voters engage in lawful constitutional revisions, and politicians react with obvious unconstitutional law . . . and are backed up by the highest court. So much for constitutionality.

If I lived in Colorado, I’d be voting not to “de-Bruce,” but to “de-Ritter” . . . and be thinking about term limits for judges.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

Remember Scooby-Doo? Debuting in 1969, the plot to every one of the cartoons is the same: Bad guy pretends to be a ghost or monster to steal something. Then he gets caught by the title Great Dane and teenagers Shaggy, Velma, Fred and Daphne. The crook then cries out, “I would’ve got away with it, if it wasn’t for those pesky kids!”

When it comes to politicians and their scary schemes, Texas voters perform the same service as “those pesky kids.”

Last year, Austin citizens voted on a measure that would have stopped the city from giving away millions in subsidies to the Domain shopping center. It failed, though, after a big campaign by city officials arguing the deal was already done and, if altered, taxpayers would be liable for millions of dollars in legal fees.

In Dallas, a measure on this May’s ballot would prohibit the city from owning a convention center. Now a group called Dallas Right to Vote has collected enough signatures to place another measure before voters allowing a public vote on any city giveaway of $1 million or more.

Even Scoob could figure the bad guys’ next move. State Sen. Jeff Wentworth has introduced Senate Bill 690 to double the number of signatures citizens must gather to put these local initiatives on the ballot.

Call Senator Wentworth at (512) 463-0125. Tell him you support those pesky kids — er, voters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Quinn Is In

Blagojevich is out! Quinn is in! There is gubernatorial hope for corruption-riddled Illinois.

Now, admittedly, I don’t agree with Governor Pat Quinn on every issue. But few governors can boast Quinn’s long record as an anti-establishmentarian reformer.

In April of last year, Pat Quinn, then Illinois’s lieutenant governor, was pushing hard for a ballot measure to give voters the power to recall elected officials. This was after the sitting governor, Blago, got in hot water for various corruption, but long before he was caught scheming to sell president-elect Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Certainly, the first target of a new recall power would have been Blagojevich. The bill passed the Illinois house but unfortunately failed in the senate.

Of course, Quinn’s track record goes way beyond the political battles of 2008. In addition to being pro-recall, he is also pro-initiative rights and pro-term limits. In 1994, Quinn did the heavy lifting to put a term limits measure on the ballot. It would have capped state legislative tenure at eight years had not the Illinois Supreme Court outrageously removed the ballot measure, blocking the vote.

Quinn is in. Illinois reformers should beat a path to his door and urge him to push for these necessary changes harder than ever.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

Santelli’s Stimulus Referendum & Tea Party

CNBC’s Rick Santelli struck one awfully big nerve last week. Reporting from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli said things you don’t hear much on TV, from politicians or from talking heads.

Santelli said that “the government is promoting bad behavior” with all the bailouts.

He railed against Obama’s new mortgage bailout plan, asking workers at the Exchange, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage, that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” None answered in the affirmative.

Santelli mocked the recently passed stimulus plan for providing people with “a whopping $8 or $10” and then banking on the notion that citizens won’t save the money, but rush out to spend it.

And he ridiculed “the multiplier that all of these Washington economists are selling us.” Using their logic, Santelli sarcastically concluded, “We never have to worry about the economy again. The government should spend a trillion dollars an hour because we’ll get $1.5 trillion back.”

Most working people understand that “you can’t buy your way into prosperity.”

That’s what I liked best about Rick’s rant. He knows the American people are smarter than the politicians.

I like it that he called for a national, online referendum over the bailouts. The government won’t provide it, but I will. Go to CitizensinCharge.org to cast your ballot.

Santelli also called for a Chicago Tea Party. See you there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

The Year of Reform?

This year has brought good news for freedom and democracy in Oklahoma.

Last month, the state’s attorney general, Drew Edmondson, dropped his appeal of a federal court decision, which had overturned part of Oklahoma’s petition law. The AG also dismissed all charges against the Oklahoma Three — Rick Carpenter, Susan Johnson and me.

Hopefully, with the end of this politically motivated prosecution, the chilling effect it has had on Oklahomans who want to petition government will quickly dissipate.

But still, as State Senator Randy Brogdon points out, Oklahoma’s petition process remains “the most onerous . . . in the nation.” That’s the bad news.

The good news? Senator Brogdon and State Representative Randy Terrill aim to change all that. They’ve introduced legislation to “tear down many of the roadblocks that currently prevent the people from exercising their First Amendment rights.”

There’s a constitutional amendment to lower the signature requirements on petitions, now the highest percentage in the nation. A separate statute would give citizens a year to collect signatures, rather than the short 90-day window currently required. That statute would also clean up the process to prevent petitions from being thrown out arbitrarily.

Only three out of 24 initiative petitions this decade have made the Sooner State’s ballot. “Perhaps relief is on the way,” wrote The Oklahoman newspaper. Brogdon says, “2009 could be the year for reform.”

Now is exactly the right time.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Citizen Government in Gloucester

What does Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, have in common with Gloucester County, Virginia?

Politicians and judges who try their mightiest to keep citizens from influencing government.

In Wilkes-Barre, a judge ruled that Denise Carey would have to pay the court costs for the money spent by the city to trounce her attempt to put a local issue to a vote.

In Gloucester, a group of citizens got angry at four newly elected members of the county’s Board of Supervisors. The four had participated in a closed meeting. So some folks worked to get a Grand Jury, which indicted the supervisors, and then they petitioned to recall them.

The judge who got the case was neither respectful nor amused. He threw out the indictments — and, citing a minor technicality, the petitions too.

He then ruled that the citizen activist group owed $80,000, to cover a majority of the supervisors’ legal bills.

As I told you a few weeks ago, the Wilkes-Barre case had a good ending, with higher courts reversing the judge’s decision.

In Gloucester County, the ACLU is coming to the aid of the group, and the state legislature is considering a law preventing judges in future cases from punishing citizens exercising their rights.

Great — but wouldn’t it be better if politicians and judges respected citizen rights in the first place?

That would be Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.