Category: term limits

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term limits

Unexpected Analogy

Senator Arlen Specter has been around a long time. When he changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat last week, he referenced his early public service on the Warren Commission. Mobbed by enthusiasts, he said, “I don’t think Lee Harvey Oswald had this big a crowd trailing him.”

That wasn’t a parting shot — Specter aims to stay in office. He only switched after polls showed that challenger Pat Toomey — about whose candidacy I reported the week before — would best him in the Republican primary.

Yup. Arlen Specter wants to stay in office so badly that he’s willing to carry on even after he has been effectively repudiated by his party of over 40 years.

Most of the commentary has been about how small a tent the GOP has become. Most pundits say this is bad for Republicans.

I’m not so sure. If the Democrats fail to usher in Nirvana in the next two years — if things, say, get even worse — a narrowed oppositional GOP could turn the electoral climate around pretty fast.

What most interests me, now, is that Specter’s affiliation-​change shows how difficult it is to change currents in government. The old guard can flip, stay in power, and the power brokers switch chairs from friend to foe and vice versa.

If senators served under term limits, this whole issue — and the problem it reveals — would not even come up.

With term limits, a metaphorical Jack Ruby isn’t even necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

The Untold Story of the Oklahoma Three

Receiving an award is a lot nicer than ten years in prison.

As regular listeners know, Rick Carpenter, Susan Johnson, and I were indicted by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson on trumped-​up, politically-​motivated charges stemming from a petition drive to cap state government spending.

For almost two years this indictment hung over our heads. In all that time, the AG never even completed our preliminary hearing. Finally, all charges were dropped.

That vindication came in January. The next month, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, I received the Charlton Heston “Courage Under Fire” Award. And just weeks ago, I was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Sam Adams Alliance for my Oklahoma fight as well as decades of work for term limits and citizen initiative rights.

The recognition is nice … for my whole family, who suffered alongside me these past two years. But let’s also remember my co-​defendants, Rick and Susan.

At one point Edmondson offered Susan Johnson a deal. If she would only plead guilty — saving face for the Attorney General — she would be charged with a misdemeanor, and her record would quickly be expunged.

With her legal bills mounting and her business hammered by the prosecution, she didn’t blink. Instead, she told the AG: “No way.”

Her commitment to doing the right thing led to an important legal victory. She gets my Award for Quiet Courage.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
term limits too much government

Checking Specter

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is an important man. How do I know this? 

A congressman told me.

While Specter is a Republican, his congressional booster happens to be a Democrat. Pennsylvania Congressman Robert Brady credits Specter with passage of Obama’s stimulus bill. 

“[T]his bill would not have passed,” says Brady, “if not for Arlen Specter,” who was one of three Republican senators to break ranks for the presidents’ bailout extravaganza. In case you were wondering, Brady clarified his enthusiasm for the so-​called “stimulus” package. “[E]very congressman is passing out checks, all over the country … because of a man named Arlen Specter.”

Clearly, Brady likes to pass out checks … as do most other congressmen.

But one former congressman doesn’t seem so fond of the program. Pat Toomey ran for Congress back in 1998 pledging to serve just three terms. He won, spent six years fighting wasteful, overbearing government, and then stepped down as promised.

Toomey, until very recently the president of the Club for Growth — a group dedicated to market growth, not growth of government — is likely to challenge Specter next year for his Senate seat.

The difference between Toomey and Specter? Toomey, being the challenger, may ask you to write a check to his campaign, while Specter, being the incumbent, will offer to give you a check … drawn on your account.

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 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.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies term limits too much government

Ears Burning

At the recent World Economic Forum, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned of our government’s flirtations with socialism, that is, a state-​run economy.

Trying not to “gloat,” Putin told the U.S. that “Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence” is a “mistake.” He reminded listeners that state control of the old Soviet economy made the nation “totally uncompetitive.”

Putin then lectured us not to “turn a blind eye to the spirit of free enterprise.”

But why isn’t Putin lecturing Venezuela? That Latin American state’s president, Hugo Chavez, is a classic strong-​arm socialist, marshaling the power of the state, as well as gangs of supporters, to threaten and intimidate his political opponents.

As with any wannabe dictator, Chavez has sought to dismantle term limits. Just 14 months ago, voters rejected his first attempt. But Chavez, having consolidated his hold on the media and other institutions, came right back with another vote to end the limits. This time he won. He can now serve for life.

Only in South America? No. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently voided his own term limits. And he didn’t even bother to allow a public vote on the issue. So, who’s the more anti-​democratic, Chavez or Bloomberg?

When foreign tin-​horn dictators start making as much or more sense than our own politicians, well … it’s long past time for us citizens to make serious changes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.