Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

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Accountability Common Sense First Amendment rights initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption

Constitutionally Unsuited for the Job

You can’t answer every random fallacy uttered by fierce foes of facts and logic.

Can’t always ignore them either. Like, when your polemical adversary is trying to jail you for ten years. I refer to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who indicted me and two others for abetting democracy in Oklahoma.

Before our recent arraignment, I attended a news conference at which a number of concerned citizens, legislators and leaders of taxpayer and voter groups spoke out against this politically motivated travesty. I noted that we, the Oklahoma 3, acted in good faith to follow Oklahoma’s regulation requiring petition circulators to be state residents. Even though the regulation has been challenged in court as a violation of the First Amendment.

But Mr. Edmondson told reporters, “This is not a First Amendment issue.” Then, admitting the opposite was true, he added, “If the courts determine that the state’s process violates the First Amendment, so be it.”

First, he pretends to be oblivious to the First Amendment issue. Then, he acts as if he can do whatever he pleases, Constitution or not, unless a court steps in to stop him.

As someone observed at FreePaulJacob.com, Edmondson’s cavalier disregard for the Constitution, the very highest law, doesn’t square with his own official responsibilities. It’s just not consistent with his oath of office.

He’s sworn to uphold the Oklahoma constitution and the U.S. Constitution. Not prosecute those of us who take both very seriously.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Bad for Monopolists

The political class hates term limits. It’s official. A new Cato study, “Defining Democracy Down: Explaining the Campaign to Repeal Term Limits,” shows how relentlessly career politicians and their allies have opposed legislative term limits over the years.

The career politicians hate term limits because under term limits their legislative monopolies collapse. Basham observes that “the absence of term limits severely limits the competition for legislative seats. In Idaho, for example, the 2000 election saw 66 percent of state senators and 50 percent of state house members elected without opposition.” No opponent at all. But in states that do have term limits, electoral competition happens regularly.

Basham says repeal efforts usually fail “because they have been led by those who are seemingly intent on preserving their professional advantages and institutional perks regardless of ‘common good’ considerations. Only once have such efforts passed voter inspection.” But the “voter inspection” in question, a referendum in Idaho, was clouded by a confusingly-worded ballot question.

The experience in Idaho suggests that term limits need to be passed as constitutional amendments, rather than as mere statutes. Legislators can repeal a term-limits statute unilaterally, but they must ask voters to roll back a constitutional amendment. And voters tend not to play along. And that, for the political class, is what makes term limits and robust democracy so very bad.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

Killing Me Softly

Here we go again. As soon as the people gain a little democratic power over their own government, the politicians line up to snatch it back.  Now the governors of Arizona and Maine are attacking the initiative and referendum process, or I & R.

I & R is a very good thing because it allows the people to have a say in government a say that can’t be overturned by special interests and politicians. But that’s just the problem, according to folks like Maine Governor Angus King.  King, says, “Government by referendum is not the system that we have in this country.”

But the state of Maine had its first referendum in 1911. King may be taking that last name of his just a little too seriously we’re still a democratic republic, last time I checked, where the people are supposed to be in charge.

Politicians, like King, know they don’t stand a chance of abolishing Initiative and Referendum outright, so instead they just want to strangle it slowly. King wants to hike the number of signatures required on petitions, mandate that a certain percentage of signatures come from each county, and prohibit signature gathering near polling places. Governor Jane Hull of Arizona wants similar restrictions. That way, they can stop people who lack big bucks or big connections from having a say in government.

It’s no way to represent the people, that’s for sure. And come to think of it, that’s another reason for the initiative process.