ThisIsCommonSense.org

We elect representatives to draft the laws that govern our nation, but increasingly they are becoming glorified gofers for the federal bureaucracy. Why? In a word: votes. Votes, votes, votes.

Jerry Kammer with the Arizona Republic reports that “as [congressional incumbents] plan for their next election, nothing is more important than what their staffs accomplish for constituents whose Social Security checks haven’t arrived, whose military discharge papers have been lost or who are lost in the bureaucratic alphabet soup of agencies.… When senior congressional staff members were asked a few years ago what part of their work was most important to their bosses’ political futures, 56 percent identified constituent service. Only 11 percent pointed to the legislative record.”

Marlo Lewis of the Los Angeles-​based Reason Foundation adds that constituent service is one more way that “our politics has become kind of an incumbency-​protection machine in which the rules of the game are structured for the benefit of those who hold power …”

Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker points out, “[Constituent service] lets the members be seen … as friends … who can do you a favor.” And favors mean votes. So career politicians seek to be your special connection, to do you the favor of saving you from the bureaucracy they themselves have created, and allowed to run wild. Voters are so happy to get their government-​created problem unsnarled, they forget who created it in the first place.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Sometimes you just have to do it yourself if there’s a way. For term limits and many other reforms, the citizen initiative process is a way that the people, not the politicians, can lay down the law. In 24 states, initiative and referendum allows citizens to propose a law and get a vote on it.

Career politicians hate this direct democracy, because it gives folks the ability to participate directly in determining important questions that affect their lives. The politicians are wondering, golly, shouldn’t I be the one running everybody’s life? So they work hard to throw a monkey wrench in the process.

And looks like they’ve got friends in the media, too. Recently, a horrified editorial in the Bangor Daily News complained that signature gathering was too easy these days, given how the “professionalism of it” has grown.

Why should democracy be easy, right? Maybe each voter should have to get a tooth pulled every time they lend their signature to a petition.

But geez, doesn’t the Bangor Daily News have at least one valid point? They complain about the excessive number of ballot questions that voters and newspaper editors in the state of Maine have had to think about and vote on over the past decade. I mean, there have been 9 whole referendum questions in Maine over the past five years. That’s an average of 1.8 referendums per year. Gosh, it sure is tough to be a citizen who has a say.

America, let’s hope this editorial writer never has to move to California.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I hope you’re sitting down, because I have shocking news. In many of the 19 states with term-​limited legislatures, the politicians don’t really like the limits very much. They say legislators don’t have enough time in six or eight years to learn the ropes and be effective!! Hey, do you need the smelling salts?

When you stop and think about it, though, these legislators may be on to something, something pretty telling. Remember, this is personal testimony. These legislators just can’t “get it” in the six or eight years they’re able to serve. That puts this problem in a whole new light, don’t you see? When legislators vote to extend or repeal term limits they are really crying out for help; it is a legislator’s way of saying, “I’m not worthy.”

Of course, they aren’t honest enough to admit they aren’t up to the job. Instead, they suggest the job is so complex and human beings so innately dumb that just about anybody would have be train for a decade before he could figure out how to submit a bill to committee. But we expect the President of the United States to be competent to fill the job from day one and we only allow presidents to serve for two terms.

Aren’t folks who apply for a job supposed to make sure they’re qualified to do the job? Or at least get up to speed in pretty short order. Isn’t that what your boss expected? And when is the last time a politician ran for reelection on the slogan, “I haven’t found the bathroom yet, but send me back and I’ll keep looking”?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Utah citizens have just stopped Utah politicians from killing term limits in their state. But now the politicians are cutting the heart out of initiative and referendum itself, a process without which Utah, and most states, would never have gotten term limits to begin with.

Utah politicians just passed a bill that would let the legislature “amend” initiatives before they’re even enacted. The governor has signed it. Until now, legislators had to wait at least until an initiative took effect before swinging at it with their meat axe. The immediate target is an initiative passed last November, called “Initiative B.” Initiative B revised forfeiture laws so that innocent third parties have more protection of their property rights. Some people thought law enforcement would be unduly hampered by the changes. So the merits of the initiative were vigorously debated. It passed by a 70 percent majority.

That legislators might not like a particular initiative is no surprise, of course. The whole point of initiatives is to enable citizens to pass laws they judge to be advisable when their representatives disagree. But once an initiative has succeeded, the legislators should respect the rule of law and the duly expressed will of the voters. That is the honorable thing to do. Initiative B is not scheduled to take effect until March 20. But under the new anti-​initiative law, it may be scrapped tomorrow. Not with any legitimacy, to be sure. Not with any respect for the democratic rights of the voters. But who cares about that, right?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are all important documents that speak eloquently to the rights of “We the People” and set clear limits on government power. But in reality, they are all just words. Words don’t give us any rights they only take note of the freedoms we already legitimately have by birthright. And these words on pieces of paper certainly can’t protect our freedoms all by themselves. Our rights are protected only by the commitment we citizens have to defend that Constitution, and thus our rights.

Our Founders understood this. That’s why after the Constitution was proposed, Ben Franklin said a Republic had been created, “if you can keep it.” Thomas Jefferson pointed out, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” To protect our rights against government encroachment, we need to be able to participate actively in the democratic process.

Back in colonial times, voter referendums were unworkable. But today, citizens in 24 states and thousands of localities have voter initiatives, whereby the citizens can, in fact, overrule their elected officials where the citizens really do have a process to control the government. At every level of government, citizens must have the right of initiative and referendum so that our government won’t be under citizen control just in theory, but in actual reality. Politicians spout lots of flowery rhetoric about citizen control of government. So why don’t we actually give it a try?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I always like it when salmon make it safely home. Oh, I’m not talking about the fish. I mean former Congressman Matt Salmon, who seems to have made it downstream to Arizona just fine after 6 years in Congress as a citizen legislator. Matt is in Phoenix now, running his own public affairs firm.

Last year, Salmon kept his term-​limit pledge. He kept his word to the voters. His only regret is that there weren’t more citizen legislators in the ranks of his own party to help change politics as usual. About his time in Washington, Salmon says, “I thought I had signed up for a tour of duty that was really going to mean something.” That agenda included cutting taxes and regulations and balancing the budget. But according to Salmon, “We became the Seinfeld [Congress]. We were about nothing. We spent our time naming bridges.”

Matt is a man after my own heart. I was delighted to learn that one of my own favorite films, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” also inspired Matt during his time in the capital. The movie is about an ordinary, decent person, played by Jimmy Stewart, who goes to Congress to serve and maintains his integrity despite lots and lots of pressure to play politics as usual. Matt Salmon was determined that Mr. Smith would be his role model. He didn’t want to “become a machine built for re-​election.” He says: “This place was not my reason for being.” Good for you, Matt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.