Categories
ballot access national politics & policies political challengers

Seven Million for Show

Complaining about the cost of holding an election is usually done by those who fear the election’s likely outcome, not the price.

I’m not very sympathetic.

Yet, I’m in total agreement with Andrew Wilson, a resident fellow at the Show-Me Institute, whose article “Money Down a Drain: The Millions Spent on Missouri’s No-Show Feb. 7 Election,” states flatly that legislators ought to be “embarrassed” for calling “a statewide election” in which “nobody came.”

Missouri taxpayers forked out $7 million to hold the state’s February 7 presidential primary, which produced only a meager eight percent voter turnout, netting a whopping $25 cost for every vote cast.

The legislature had moved the primary date up to gain a greater edge for the state in determining delegates for deciding the presidential nominee. When that timetable didn’t work with the National Republican Party’s nominating rules, legislation was drafted to cancel the primary.

But the legislature and the governor couldn’t bring the bill beyond the draft stage. Instead, they stuck Show-Me State citizens with spending seven million for, well, show . . .  the primary having been rendered absolutely meaningless in terms of winning delegates.

Hence the low voter turnout.

There is a very simple solution. Let political parties have the freedom to run their own affairs, their own primaries. And let them do it without taxpayer subsidy.

Governments (taxpayers) pay for the general election; parties pay for their primaries.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Ralph Nader

Initiative and referendum is the citizen activist’s ‘ace in the hole.’

Ralph Nader was born on February 27, 1934 .
Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Townhall: Be Like China?

It’s getting to become more and more popular to bash initiative rights — even when those rights are not very relevant. I hear rumblings in California that the hopeless Republicans, there, are gearing up for more of such nonsense. But beware, folks: This puts you in very dangerous company, amongst defenders of outright tyranny. See my column at Townhall.com this weekend.

For references associated with that column, click the links below:

For last week’s column, view it on This Is Common Sense.
 

 

Categories
Thought

Robert Novak, born Feb. 26, 1931

“The Republican Congress should have been courageously advancing the Republican agenda and should not have been afraid of it. But they’re not playing to win; they’re playing not to lose.”

“God put the Republican Party on earth to cut taxes. If they don’t do that, they have no useful function.”

“It is up to the government to keep the government’s secrets.”

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies video

Video: Nick Gillespie Interviewed by Jon Caldara

There’s a lot of interesting talk here at “The Devil’s Advocate”:

Categories
Today

Yellow Revolution 1986 Philippines

On Feb. 25, 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of repressively ruling the nation and Corazon Aquino became the Philippines’ first woman president in a peaceful revolution sometimes called the “Yellow Revolution” because of the yellow ribbons used during street demonstrations.

Categories
Thought

John Marshall, opinion in Marbury v. Madison (1803)

“The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?”

Categories
Today

Marbury v Madison, Johnson impeached

On Feb. 24, 1803, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of William Marbury vs. James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States, confirming the legal principle of judicial review — the ability of the Supreme Court to limit congressional power by declaring legislation unconstitutional.

On Feb. 24, 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Later, he was acquitted by the Senate.

Categories
national politics & policies political challengers

Sorry, Santorum

In Wednesday night’s GOP debate, Rick Santorum, the new frontrunner, found himself apologizing for much of his political record.

“Sure I had some votes. Look, I think we’ve all had votes that I look back on I — I wish I wouldn’t have voted — No Child Left Behind, you’re right,” Santorum stammered.

Unmoved by Santorum’s mea culpa, Rep. Ron Paul offered, “I find it really fascinating that, when people are running for office, they’re really fiscally conservative. When they’re in office, they do something different. And then when they explain themselves, they say, ‘Oh, I want to repeal that.’”

Santorum sought to explain a second time: “I supported No Child Left Behind. . . . I have to admit, I voted for that. It was against the principles I believed in, but, you know, when you’re part of the team, sometimes you take one for the team, for the leader, and I made a mistake.“

Former Sen. Santorum’s biggest stumble may have been acknowledging that he voted for federal funding of Planned Parenthood.

“I’ve always opposed Title X funding, but it’s included in a large appropriation bill that includes a whole host of other things,” Santorum began. “So while, yes, I — I admit I voted for large appropriation bills and there were things in there I didn’t like, things in there I did, but when it came to this issue, I proactively stepped forward and said that we need to do something at least to counterbalance it.”

Santorum’s counterbalancing act? Title 20 — yet more federal spending, this time for abstinence education.

How about abstinence on spending?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture

Fizzle-Gate

When documents from Heartland Institute went public, showing strategy and funding for various climate-related research and advocacy projects, some folks immediately hailed it as a scandal to compare with the “Climate-gate” email embarrassment of sometime back. “Denier-gate” and even “Heartland-gate” were the hastily suffixed monikers for the news story.

But then it was discovered that the leak was the result of an inquiry made by a major climate-change activist, Peter Gleick, who had been slipped some allegedly damning documents and asked Heartland for more information . . . posing as a member of the group’s board of directors.

Even more discrediting to Gleick is the fact that he published the original anonymously supplied documents — some of which appear to be fabrications — along with documents he obtained from Heartland, as if they all had the same provenance.

Worse yet? His own defense. Saying that “rational public debate is desperately needed,” he confesses that his own “judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved.”

Absurd: Gleick’s opponents were not preventing debate, they were insisting on real debate rather than automatic, quasi-religious acceptance of “scientific findings.” Worries about who supports what may be interesting, especially in a political context, but are not relevant to the search for truth or to scientific debate. Relying on who supports what and whom commits the ad hominem fallacy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.