Category: Common Sense

Does it violate campaign finance laws to fly a blimp with somebody’s name on it, and a suggestion to Google that name?

Bradley Smith is a former member of the Federal Election Commission who thinks campaign finance regulations violate free speech. He wants to see how far the ever-longer tentacles of these regulations really reach. So he created a for-profit company called Liberty Political Advertising to solicit funds for a Ron Paul blimp.

The idea is that since LPA is for-profit, not a PAC, “customers” can give as much money as they like. Smith says if Michael Moore’s production of “Fahrenheit 911,” obviously intended to influence the 2004 election, is protected speech, his for-profit project should be too. The FEC may not agree. It may also take years to decide.

Could go either way. But suppose contributing “too much” money to this balloon gets declared a violation. Then, likewise, any political speech paid for with “too much” money might violate it. Newspapers, magazines, broadcasts the Web. Wouldn’t a background story about Ron Paul on any network newscast involve a lot more cash spent by one organization than Mr. Smith’s blimp?

What then? Repeal the First Amendment outright?

Nah. Far better to just junk the regs. Treat the Constitution as if it means that we really do have freedom of speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The Democrats took over Congress, pledging to curb the practice of earmarks.

They didn’t quite succeed. The omnibus spending bill they produced in December was filled with spending projects of a less-than-national character, most of which no congressperson but the original politician who placed it in the bill ever saw.So, just another sad story for fiscal responsibility, eh?

No. Senator Jim DeMint asked Congress’s research organization to prepare a report on the legality of these earmarks, and on the legality of the Executive Branch just ignoring them.

The verdict? Since most earmarks were placed not in the bill itself, but in subsidiary explanatory reports, their status as law falls way short of constitutionality.

So the president could easily issue an Executive Order instructing his underlings simply to ignore the earmarks. They weren’t placed in the omnibus bill as real laws, so it would be just fine to disregard them as the extra-legal finaglings they are.

This became a big issue in late December. Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner, alerted his readers to the issue repeatedly; there was great Internet buzz. But the buzz didn’t yield an immediate and unequivocal response from the White House.

Though anti-pork activists hailed the idea, Democrats have described it as all-out war between the branches of government.

A war on illegal spending? I’m a hawk.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Overkill. That’s becoming the watchword of modern policework.

Take the case of Laura Elkins and John Robbins’s home-repair brouhaha four years ago. The couple had begun work on repairing their roof, raising it a bit in the process.  They had gotten the required permits. But a neighbor complained that the repairs weren’t being done according to the historic preservations laws of the section of the District of Columbia, where they lived.

So what did the District government do? Send out a building inspector?

No. The District sent about a dozen police and D.C. Consumer Regulatory Affairs inspectors, who raided the home. With a warrant and all.

The kids were sick and had stayed home from school. And the police ransacked the place, allegedly looking for evidence.

The couple sued, and in mid-December, the court declared in their favor. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, of the U.S. District for the District of Columbia, ruled that the raid was an “unreasonable search and seizure,” a violation of the family’s constitutional rights to privacy. Another hearing will determine damages.

So why the overkill in the first place? Prior to the raid, the homeowners did everything by the book. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for one neighbor and a head bureaucrat. Or the police, whose behavior ranged from intrusive to frighteningly creepy.

Luckily, we still live in a country with due process, and boy do we need it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It may take big bucks to produce public art. But it doesn’t require vast tax funding.

The chief example of this is the Statue of Liberty, which was a gift from the French, and the restoration of which, some time back, was paid for by private  (mostly American) funds.

Even Maya Lin’s controversial design for the Vietnam Memorial Wall was mostly funded by privately collected monies.

Of course, the quality of art isn’t determined by the funding. I have friends who tell me I have just “got to see” the statue called “Portlandia” in Portland, Oregon, even though they’re pretty certain it was a taxpayer-funded project. I keep forgetting to look for it each time I visit the rainy northwest city.

Most modern public art is garbage, of course. And too much public art is paid for not by volunteer donors but by taxpayers. That’s my main criticism: public art should be supported by the public voluntarily, and politicians should stay out of art patronage.

Right now, the city of Phoenix, Arizona, faces a big budget crunch. And yet the city council awarded $2.5 million to a Massachusetts artist to build a very tall public artwork. The proposed look of the project seems science-fictional to me. It may even become an example of good public art.

What’s bad is spending other people’s money, taxpayers’ money. The people of Phoenix who wanted it should have raised the funds themselves.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Even repressive regimes can have laws granting citizens certain political rights. What matters is the extent to which citizens are actually allowed to use those rights — you know, in real life.

Michigan taxpayers are trying to recall ten state legislators, from both parties, who voted to raise taxes $1.6 billion dollars. Michigan’s constitution provides citizens with a process for recall.

There’s also an effort by a number of elected and appointed government officials to plainly thwart the constitutional rights of these citizens.

State Representative Tim Melton says, “The fight is to keep them off the ballot.” His goal isn’t to win an election, but to prevent the voters from ever getting the opportunity to decide.

State House Democrats plan to use “blockers” against the recall petitioners. One Democrat, unnamed in media reports, says the plan is to “shadow” or “follow” those who circulate the petition and “have a debate with each potential signer in an attempt to convince them not to sign the recalls.”

In other words, a campaign of stalking and voter intimidation.

Those opposing the recalls also plan to tie the effort up in court. One Kent County judge recently felt the need to declare his disdain for the right to recall before ruling that “This [petition] language quite honestly is as clear as any that has come before us.”

You see, elections commissions in Wayne, Macomb and Muskegon counties have all rejected the exact same wording.

Citizens there have had to hire lawyers and appeal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

One excuse for imposing ever more controls on political fundraising and political speech is that campaign money is “corrupting.”

But you can get and spend money in a good way or a bad way. Say you steal it. Okay — bad. But suppose people give it to you voluntarily because they like your ideas and character. Also bad? Or just bad when it’s a dollar more than the legal limit?

We supposedly have “out of control” spending on, say, presidential campaigns. An Orlando Sentinel editorial explains how the endless millions yield endless obligations to special interests. Their solution? Lots more public spending on campaigns. Funding by taxpayers. Divorce financial support for campaigns from personal support.

Actually it’s the campaign finance regulation that corrupts. It boosts incumbents who know how to exploit the system, while often hobbling challengers. But let’s stipulate that privately raised money corrupts all by itself. Just get rid of it, then? In a letter to the editor, one Orlando resident suggests Congress could require campaigns to raise and spend “no more than one dollar.” Because “in that case none of the campaigns would be spending any more than a dollar — or two, if you count matching funds.”

Solves everything, right? No money, no corruption? No special interests, no horse trading, no mutual back-scratching?

Absurd you say? That’s my point.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In theory, there’s supposed to be a difference between politics and governance. But in actual practice, there’s rarely much difference at all.

Take Democratic House Majority Leader Rep. Bill DeWeese. Of the several scandals he found himself embroiled in throughout 2007, the biggest was “Bonusgate,” in which employees of the state of Pennsylvania got big bonus payments for their time working on political campaigns.

Eighty of the 100 Democratic House staffers who were awarded big state bonuses in 2006 either donated money to or worked on the campaigns of eternal candidate DeWeese or his right-hand man, former Rep. Mike Veon.

After the November 2006 election Veon found himself in the private sector. Lucky, in a way, since only after that did the $1.9 million tab for all these election-year bonuses see light.

Representative DeWeese is in a worse pickle, since he’s still in office, and nearly everyone else in his office is pretty clearly guilty. He says that he was “misled” by his staff, and fired seven aides including his chief of staff.

Emails between top Democratic aides and Pennsylvania state house staffers reveal an interesting rating system. Aides received grades as “OK,” “good,” and “rock stars” for their work. For their work on political campaigns, that is.

Prohibitions on politicking by government workers are age-old. But sometimes those in power who make the laws, don’t follow them too well.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Shouldn’t the law apply to everyone equally?

We can argue about what the law should be, or at what rate to tax, or whether a certain regulation is needed. But once public policy is made, it ought to apply to me if it applies to thee. And vice versa.

No special deals for the “politically well-connected.”

Unfortunately, this very American notion of fair play gets tossed in the trash can with alarming frequency.

It just happened recently in High Point, North Carolina. Two big companies, TransTech Pharma and PharmaCore, are staying in High Point and expanding from 125 employees to 330.

First, congratulations. That means more money in the local economy and more tax dollars. Sort of.

I say “sort of” because city government gave over $3 million dollars in so-called incentives to the companies. The state of North Carolina wrote the companies a grant check for $6.5 million  more.

In other words: special deals for the big wheels. At the expense of every other business. Every family.

Councilman Mike Pugh voted no to the incentives. “I know it’s vital to get new industries started and to have them in your city,” he told reporters, “but I don’t believe in extortion. When multimillion dollar companies come to us while small businesses are suffering and say, ‘Give us money or we’ll leave or we won’t come at all,’ well, I think sometimes you just have to call their bluff.”

My goodness, Mike, that’s good old-fashioned American common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

After reading a New York Times article, I’ll stay off South Africa’s roads. Bizarrely tough driving exams are only one reason.

Test-takers give demerits for not looking in rear mirrors every seven seconds, or for coasting back one inch when stopped at a stop sign. And the drivers’ licensing bureau is so complicated that the words “Byzantine” and “Kafka” come to mind . . . to the horror of Byzantium and Franz.

In a follow-up piece, Ryan Hagen expands upon the lesson: “So South Africa must have the safest roads in the world, right? Well, no. The fatality rate per mile is five times higher than that of the United States, and rising fast.”

Why? Lots of people don’t bother getting a license at all. And the requirements, being about as undemocratic and illiberal as one could fear to find this side of totalitarianism, goad the people into near-open revolt; disrespect for the law being generally increased by its nonsensical rigor.

Lots of government programs similarly over-reach. If you demand too much of people, they will come to expect less of themselves. They’ll simply ignore the rules. Ignore the advice. Go outlaw.

The lesson applies to much of what government does, almost everything. We need minimal reasonable requirements in society, yes: Do no murder; don’t steal. Good ideas. Good rules.

But nitpick on every little element of imagined perfection?

Doomed to fail.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Happy New Year! As we begin this campaign year of 2008, the Federal Election Commission lacks a quorum. It can’t make decisions regarding violations of federal campaign laws. The FEC will also lack the ability to send out matching fund checks to those presidential candidates who still play the matching funds game.

That’s actually good, since most federal campaign laws are blatant abridgments of our freedom of speech in the first place.Also good may be the mess itself. It’s a sign of the bankruptcy of the whole system of federal regulation of politics.

How big is the mess? As big as the parties can make it. Democrats won’t confirm the latest Republican nominee for the FEC . . . and Republicans follow suit, refusing to confirm the Democrats’ nominees. Stalemate.

The underlying problem is the unduly partisan nature of the FEC. The commissioners are appointed by their party affiliation. This means an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, who can essentially block enforcement against their party.

But if you aren’t a Republican or a Democrat, say you’re an independent or a Libertarian or a Green, then the FEC certainly isn’t set up to equally protect your political rights. Its very make-up violates the 14th Amendment’s requirement of equal protection under the law.

Partisan politics ought not shut down the FEC. Our Constitution should.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.