Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Seems every November in Washington state, Tim Eyman of the aptly named Voters Want More Choices has an initiative on the ballot that’s dramatically outspent by the powerful interests who dominate the state’s legislature.

And yet his initiative still wins.

In recent years, each January, as the legislature convenes, here come bills to “reform” the initiative process. Reform meaning kill.

This year’s bills seek to force citizens collecting petitions to register with the government and be licensed. Forget the fact that requiring a license to use one’s First Amendment rights is about as American as Joseph Stalin.

One bill makes sponsors of initiatives liable for any mistakes made by those petitioning. Better to scare away the citizen leaders. Mostly, the goal is to invalidate perfectly valid voter signatures on some technicality committed by the person circulating the measure.

The excuse for these bills, we’re told, is to fight fraud. But Washington’s Secretary of State, in response to a public records request, disclosed they “have no instances of verified forgeries or fraud in the signature gathering process for initiatives in those years (1999 through 2006).” That’s over eight million signatures with zero instances of fraud.

The real reason? The politicians and special interests that live off of our hard work won’t come out and say it, of course, but they figure that if they can’t win a vote of the people, then they’ll find a way to stop the people from voting at all.

That’s just wrong. It’s a fraud.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Do we have the right to say things only when other people can’t hear us?

Such seems to be the principle informing an attempt by the government of St. Louis. The city’s trying to force citizen activist Jim Roos to take down a sign that allegedly violates the city’s zoning laws.

It’s a special sign: painted on the side of an apartment building owned by a “housing ministry” founded by Mr. Roos. The city claims the sign is too big. It’s special in another way, too. It says: “End Eminent Domain Abuse.” Mr. Roos has been fighting such abuse by the city. And now, along with the Institute for Justice, he’s fighting for his freedom of speech.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says there’s a “tricky” constitutional issue at stake — “fighting clutter versus protecting free speech,” supposedly. As if somebody’s ability to call your communication unsightly might justify tossing out the Constitution and our individual rights.

Meanwhile the city has no problem granting exemptions for signs it has no disagreement with. It allows a gas company with downtown offices to display a sign over 1,000 square feet.

So how do we resolve this “tricky” problem?

Simple: Uphold the right of individuals to exercise their freedom of speech and property rights. End zoning laws that violate these rights. And advise persons who don’t like the sign that they are free to look in other directions entirely. Presto, problem solved.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Keeping politics out of government. A good idea, no?

Well, it’s one thing to prohibit government workers from using taxpayer-paid government worktime to engage in elections and campaigning. That works.

But more elaborate schemes, like the Missouri Plan, have perverse effects on both politics and government.

The Missouri Plan is the method that a number of states use to select judges. Instead of directly electing judges by the people — as done in many western states — this scheme gives much of the work and the power to a small committee. The committee is run by the state’s ruling judge, and is made up of bar members and appointees by the governor.

In Missouri, it has usually worked in secret and has put in office some rather left-leaning judges.

It’s not that politics has been taken out of the process. It’s that the people’s political preferences have. They’ve been substituted by the prejudices of legal professionals.

Wow, what an achievement. Messy democratic politics replaced with back-room establishment maneuvering.

The issue got hot last summer, when Governor Matt Blunt faced a liberal slate of nominees pre-selected by the committee. Now, one of Missouri’s Supreme Court members has been promoted by the president, leaving a vacancy.

Meanwhile, a group funded by George Soros, “Justice At Stake,” is defending the corrupt, in-crowd system. Even anti-politics makes for strange bedfellows.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It’s almost E-Day in California. February 5. Extension Day.

”E-Day” is clunky as monikers go. But that’s appropriate, seeing as how Proposition 93 is such a clunkily devious effort.

Prop 93 would double maximum tenure of Assemblymen, increasing it from six years to twelve. And it would boost the tenure of Senators by 50 percent, from eight years to twelve. In short, Prop 93 is a flat-out, unvarnished weakening of term limits.

Indeed, provision for a so-called ”transition period” would allow many sitting legislators to serve even longer than twelve years. As Phil Blumel, president of U.S. Term Limits, puts it: ”It’s a naked power grab by incumbents.”

Yet it’s being promoted as a cut in maximum tenure. The California Secretary of State played along by accepting a proposed ballot summary for the measure that stresses that ”total” possible tenure in both the Senate and Assembly would be trimmed from 14 years to twelve.

Which could now be served in a single chamber.

Funny, the ballot summary doesn’t even mention that the term limit would be boosted 100 percent in the Assembly, 50 percent in the Senate. Of course, term limits are about limiting the tenure on individual offices, not some possible combination of offices.

The whole thing is a rather slithy-toved hat trick. The sordid strategy depends on voters’ never finding out what Prop 93 really does. I bet they will find out.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

What if government could throw you in jail for recording what it does in public?

That may not be what America is coming to. It does seem to be what Newton, Massachusetts, is coming to.

A Newton activist hid his camera during a 2006 political protest in order to tape a police officer. He has been convicted for — get this — wiretapping. That thing you do — or the government does, with or without a warrant — to covertly record conversation that the parties have reason to believe is private.

A district court judge sentenced Peter Lowney to six months probation and imposed a $500 fine for secretly continuing to film after police had ordered him to stop. Lowney hid the still-functioning camera in his coat.

$500. The going rate, I guess, for being a reporter on the job even after somebody in authority objects to being held accountable. Lowney was also ordered to remove any video of the event from the Internet.

Could have been worse. In some societies, watchdogs suffer long imprisonment or even the firing squad for daring to collect and provide such evidence.

But what a lunatic precedent. Is this really a road we want to travel in the United States?

Do we need a formal federal law protecting the civil right of citizens to photograph, film, and otherwise record the public conduct of public officers? That’s what some commentators are advocating. It should be unnecessary. But I guess it isn’t.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

You shouldn’t kick a man when he’s down. Especially when it was wrong to knock him down at all.

But that’s what office-holders who abuse the power of eminent domain often do. First they grab somebody’s property to give to some other private party. Then the victimized former owner can’t even get “just compensation.”

You’re not in the best bargaining position when your stuff is taken by force. To government officials “just compensation” too often means “whatever lowball figure we can get away with, given how we successfully stole this guy’s property to begin with.”

Bruce MacCloud is an eminent domain victim in Long Branch, New Jersey, who is fighting back. An appellate court recently ruled that he deserves $220,000 in compensation for the 2002 destruction of his 17-room Victorian house, his home for 23 years. Destroyed to make way for a new oceanfront development.

In 2002 the city offered him $140,000. MacCloud wants $633,000. So he doesn’t think much of the court’s new modestly greater “offer” being made some five years later. He wants to know, “Where can I buy a home, anywhere, not just on the oceanfront, for $220,000 . . . ?

“I had a home that I owned. I had a roof to put over my kids’ heads, and it was taken from us.”

Bruce MacCloud vows to fight on. He’s representing himself, for now. That’s all he can afford. There aren’t exactly court-appointed attorneys for cases like this.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

“The government is trying to shut our ears and eyes.”

That’s not me saying that. I’m quoting one Thant Zin, a civil servant in Burma. This gentleman told the Associated Press that Burma’s “military regime does not want us to know the truth about our country.”

So, how does Burma shave away knowledge? By increasing taxes on satellite dishes!Most Burmese get their news from satellite TV. Since the Burmese government does not allow a free press within the country, access to the free press outside the country vexes the current junta. So the rulers decided to rocket the cost of satellite dishes upwards, beyond reach of most citizens.

The renewal fee for licensing a satellite dish is now 1 million kyat — about $800. It used to be about five bucks (I’ll let you figure the kyat amount).

According to an article in The Irrawaddy, a news source covering Burma and Southeast Asia, the crackdown doesn’t stop there. Rangoon’s mayor, Brigadier General Aung Lin, is cutting down on the number of licenses for tea shops.

Tea shops play a central role in Burmese culture. Why squelch it? I don’t buy the official explanation, that too many people are wasting time in tea shops. More important, surely, is the fact that the targeted tea shops tend to be the ones with satellite TVs!

There are many reasons to be suspicious of tax-raising and government licensing. Burma shows the biggest one: these are the tools of tyranny.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.