Tag: democracy

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incumbents insider corruption

The Politics of Exclusion

locks, Republicans, Democrats, democracy, Libertarians, Greens

“The mainstream media screams about Russia stealing elections,” says U.S. senatorial candidate Dale Kerns, “but behind the scenes they pull the strings to keep the duopoly in control.”

Mr. Kerns, who is running in Pennsylvania as a Libertarian in a four-candidate race, has had the rug pulled out from under him. Early on, the League of Women Voters had assured him that he would be able to participate in televised candidate debates in Philadelphia. That opportunity was dashed as the date of the event neared.

“Make no mistake, this is cronyism,” insists Kerns, who notes that “big media corporations collud[e] with big government political parties to keep out competition.”

Eric Boehm covers the scandal/not-a-scandal over at Reason. The early promise of inclusion came from the League, and it was “other organizers” of the event who decided that the Libertarian and Green candidates’ polling numbers were low enough to excuse exclusion.

You might wonder why debate organizers would want to have less interesting debates. But remember: the two entrenched parties’ candidates want to win. Period. The last thing they want are challengers from other parties included, because those challengers can only peel off voters from them.* And though the major-media hosts may wish to seem non-partisan, they almost never refrain from taking a side. 

I do not (and cannot) know which reason contributed more to the Philadelphia renege, so will let you hazard your own guesses. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Which helps explain why the parties tend to “cheat with both hands,” as Nicholas Sarwark, the Libertarian candidate for the mayorship of Phoenix, Arizona, put it.

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Photo from Max Pixel

 

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Accountability government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism political challengers Regulating Protest term limits too much government

Strange It Is

Arlington, Texas, term limits, democracy, initiative,City Council,

Strange for the Arlington, Texas, City Council to hold a meeting on a Sunday evening, much less one to “consider suspending the city charter.”

That is how the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported “the latest twist in the term limit controversy that has engulfed the city with a lawsuit and competing ballot proposals.”

Led by Zack Maxwell, citizens in this Fort Worth adjacent community of 400,000 gathered 11,000 voter signatures to place a term limits charter amendment on the November ballot. It would limit councilmembers to three two-year terms. It also figures in past service, so five of the eight current councilmembers would be blocked from seeking re-election in the coming two years.

With swift legislative prowess, the council responded, passing its own competing “term limits” measure, which incidentally allows them to stay 50 percent longer in office.

But there’s one problem: the council did not follow the law, which requires multiple readings, with one at a regular meeting. 

Actually, there’s a second problem: Mr. Maxwell challenged the council’s unlawful action in court. 

The court blocked the council’s measure. 

That left the council holding an unusual weekend meeting to suspend the rules and re-pass their fumbled alternative to the term limits voters really want. But news travels fast and city hall was “packed.” 

“You’re suspending the rules because your jobs are in jeopardy,” charged one man.

A woman told the council, “You guys should be absolutely embarrassed about this.”

“After hearing from dozens of angry residents,” the paper explained, “[t]he council voted unanimously to not suspend the rules, finally killing its own term limit proposal.”

Politicians doing the right thing . . . having exhausted every other possibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

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Photo from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

 

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

Ask the Next Question

next question, socialism, Republicans, Democrats, regimentation, Democracy, Democratic, lies, politicians

Republicans are very reliable. When given our system’s “Mandate of Heaven” — majorities in both houses of Congress and the Presidency — they can be relied upon to do one thing: add debt by piling up huge deficits.

It happened under George W. Bush, and it is happening under Donald J. Trump: “The Trump administration expects annual budget deficits to rise nearly $100 billion more than previously forecast in each of the next three years,” the Wall Street Journal tells us, “pushing the federal deficit above $1 trillion starting next year.”

Republicans should ask themselves why. And while they ask themselves that, everyone else should ask the next question: why do politicians who say they want one thing so often deliver its opposite?

This is not a mere “right-wing” phenomenon. Leftists say they want “democratic socialism,” but, as Irving Kristol noted, at some point not far down their road to Utopia, “democratic socialists” must choose between democracy and socialism.* By promising everybody everything, too quickly everybody gets shanghaied into service to produce that “everything,” finding themselves conscripts in socialism’s army.

The equation of socialism with regimentation and general un-freedom has been clear for over a century, explained carefully by sociologists, economists and even politicians.* And yet, increasingly, today’s Democrats are embracing a philosophy with proven anti-democratic features.

Could some deep principle be at play?

Probably. It is built into the very nature of state governance, of politics itself. It may be why republics metamorphose into empires, conservatives go radical and liberals become serviles.

Which is why effective democracy requires limited government. To minimize that boomerang effect.

We might start by limiting spending.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Herbert Spencer’s writings on socialism include The Man versus the State (1884) and Industrial Institutions (1896, Principles of Sociology, Vol. III, Part VIII); German politician Eugene Richter’s satire Pictures of the Socialist Future (1896) is well worth reading; and economist Yves Guyot preceded Ludwig von Mises’ classic Die Gemeinwirtschaft (1922, translated as Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, 1950) with several books, including The Tyranny of Socialism (1893) and Socialistic Fallacies (1910).

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Accountability folly general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism responsibility too much government

Minimum Sense

Washington, D.C., City Council, Representation, democracy, initiative, minimum wage, association, Counsel,

Suddenly, the Democrats who dominate the Washington, D.C., City Council seem unwilling to increase the minimum wage for tipped workers — despite their official support for legislative minimum wage rate increases.

And a vote of the citizens.

Initiative 77, which passed easily last month, requires restaurant employers to incrementally increase the “tipped wage” until rates “reach what will be the uniform minimum of $15 an hour by 2025.”

“Initiative 77 is something I believe will be very harmful to our restaurants and, more importantly, our restaurant workers,” argues Councilman Jack Evans, one of three council members pledging repeal.

A spokesperson for One Fair Wage DC, calling a repeal “deeply undemocratic,” notes that “D.C. voters don’t like it when Republicans in Congress do it, and we trust council will not stoop to that level.”

Yet it would not be “the first time the city’s lawmakers overturned a decision by the electorate,” the Washington Post reminds readers, citing “a decision in 2001 when the D.C. Council overturned term limits approved by voters.”*

I’m all for ballot measures to decide any issue the people have a right to decide . . . limited by all of our inalienable rights as individuals. Minimum wage laws constitute an abuse of our First Amendment right to association, which neither legislatures nor voters may legitimately abridge.

That the council doesn’t recognize this right of association, yet nonetheless thinks it should nullify a vote of the people tells you everything you need to know about the sorry state of representation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

 

* And even quoting moi on the incredible hypocrisy dating back 17 years: “If you’re in a city struggling to get representation in the first place, that’s a terrible signal to say that your own local officials don’t respect their own citizens.”

 

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Accountability ballot access folly general freedom ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people national politics & policies political challengers responsibility U.S. Constitution

Should Non-Citizens Vote?

voting, elections, democracy, illegal, aliens, migration, borders, citizens

“A lot of people would like to say this is an immigration issue. It’s really not,” offered Gary Emineth, the head of North Dakotans for Citizen Voting and a candidate for state senator.  

“It’s really about preserving the right for U.S. citizens, and in our case, North Dakota residents, to only be the voters in all elections across the state of North Dakota,” added Emineth. “And that’s why we want it in the constitution.”

Turning in more than 35,000 voter signatures on petitions last Friday, Emineth and others placed a constitutional amendment on this November’s ballot that, if passed, would make voting the exclusive right of U.S. citizens in North Dakota.

Elsewhere in the country, Emineth points out, non-citizens are already voting — in Chicago and San Francisco, and in 11 cities across Maryland. Moreover, campaigns are underway across the country to give non-citizens the vote — in California, Connecticut, New York City, Boston and Montpelier, Vermont.

Opponents claim the North Dakota measure is completely unnecessary, as the state doesn’t currently allow non-citizens to cast a ballot, nor has any city yet attempted to allow non-citizens to vote. But Emineth’s goal is to keep it that way.

Moreover, University of North Dakota Law Professor Steven Morrison acknowledged to The Forum in Fargo that “the proposed amendment does clean up what could be a grammatical loophole since the word ‘every’ doesn’t conclusively exclude non-citizens from voting. . . .”

It is a very simple proposition: Do you want voting to be the exclusive right of U.S. citizens? Or should non-citizens be allowed to vote?

Coming to a ballot near and Fargo.*

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* With some help from Liberty Initiative Fund.

 

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Accountability general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders national politics & policies political challengers term limits

The Other Maine Thing

ranked choice voting, democracy, initiative, referendum, election, voting, Paul Jacob, voting reform, Maine

Tuesday’s biggest election news was the victory for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in Maine. This is the second statewide vote for this reform, which allows voters to rank the candidates by first choice, second choice and so on.*

Voters first passed it in 2016, but the next year the voters’ “representatives” in the legislature repealed the law, overturning their vote.

Undeterred, RCV supporters filed a referendum and again went out and gathered enough petition signatures to refer the legislature’s repeal to a vote of the people. On Tuesday, Maine’s voters vetoed the legislature, keeping Ranked Choice Voting.

Initiative and referendum sure are helpful.

RCV is not partisan; it requires the winner to have some level of support from a majority of voters and fixes the wasted vote problem. In Maine, however, the Republican Party opposed. On election day, Republican Gov. Paul LePage even threatened not to do his duty and certify the results.

“Paul Jacobs (Vice chair of the [FairVote] Board) whom I once knew and thought was a good American,” a Republican friend posted on my Facebook page, “has helped unleash the hounds of Hell” . . . adding that “now the voters are so confused by the terrible procedure that voting will be a nightmare this Tuesday!”

Yet voters used the new voting system for the first time Tuesday in candidate primaries before deciding Question 1 on their ballot — about keeping RCV. As one Portland voter put it, “It’s pretty easy to do, despite the negative publicity.”

We need more control over government with our vote. And when voters speak, politicians should listen.

It wouldn’t hurt political activists to listen, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* I’ve discussed the idea in this space many times — there’s more information on how it works here.

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crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism national politics & policies privacy

Legalize Cancer Fighting

Cannabis World Congress, Marijuana, legalization, decriminalization, law, initiative, citizens, democracy

“Do all former congressmen have to get cancer before we’re gonna get medical marijuana or recreational marijuana?”

That’s what Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie asked Billy Tauzin at the Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition. Tauzin’s a former Representative for Louisiana’s 3rd District. He moved from Congress to lobbying for Big Pharma — I mean, PhRMA, a drug lobbying group — and then to Lenitiv Scientific, where he works now.

The company produces “a line of innovative, high quality cannabis and hemp-derived CBD products,” its website informs. These products, says the former Republican politician, are so effective that he now expresses some regret that he could not have had access to such drugs when he was fighting cancer more than a decade ago. Today’s cancer patients have it easier, because of cannabis-derived products, including CBD.

Hence Gillespie’s question — which almost answers itself.

With a No.

The number of states that have legalized or decriminalized marijuana for recreational or medicinal uses (or both) is growing all the time, usually without the help of politicians with or without cancer.

The movement has mostly been carried on by We, the People through initiative and referendum. Especially the crucial early steps.

But politicians are beginning to follow our leadership.

Which, in a society where citizens are in charge, is all to the good.

Though powerful opposition remains, Tauzin speculates, “I think if we took a silent vote, secret ballot, we’d win tomorrow easily.”

So, given a little more time for Congress to catch up with the culture, freedom can prevail, no cancer necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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education and schooling general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Grading Democracy on the Curve

public schools, education, democracy,, propaganda, ignorance

Voters, we are told, are amazingly ignorant. So, what to do?

“Ultimately, the ideal democracy is one in which as many citizens as possible vote,” writes Dambisa Moyo at The Guardian, “and the voters are armed with the most objective information. Yet today only a fraction of the electorate are voting, and many are armed with a diet of hyped-up statistics and social media propaganda.” Among her proposals is a voting booth access test: “why not give all voters a test of their knowledge?”

I can think of a whole bunch of reasons, as can Ilya Somin, over at Volokh Conspiracy, who considers just a few. One of the more interesting is this: whereas Moyo has no wish to shove poor people out of the voting booth, and so envisions public schools to teach to the test — “the knowledge needed should be part of the core curriculum” — Somin quotes John Stuart Mill about the very political dangers of the very idea of public schooling: “A general State education,” wrote Mill in On Liberty, would inevitably be devised to please and serve “the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation” and must constitute “a despotism over the mind.”

Though Moyo does observe incumbency and political careerism as big problems, she is innocent of the more fundamental issues.

Indeed, she does not consider the obvious: today’s voter ignorance of politics and government is in no small part the result of government schools.

For politicians, general ignorance is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Let’s look for solutions to political problems that do not give politicians more power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Principle and Compromise

De-Escalate Washington, Tim Eyman, Initiative 940, initiative, democracy, shootings

Last Friday, Tim Eyman — the Evergreen State’s best-known ballot initiative practitioner — won an important court case.

But he also scuttled an amazingly impressive compromise between state legislators, police, and the proponents of Initiative 940.

The measure was written and promoted by De-Escalate Washington, a group that includes several relatives of deceased victims of recent controversial police shootings. I-940 would implement violence de-escalation and mental health training for police, and require law enforcement personnel to provide first-aid to save lives. Most likely Washington voters tell pollsters they approve.

De-Escalate Washington got the required signatures, sending this “indirect initiative” to Olympia. The Legislature was faced with three choices:

  • approve the initiative as written;
  • not act, letting the measure go to the ballot; or
  • approve an alternative and place both proposals on the ballot.

The Legislature tried to “create a fourth option”: it passed the measure with amendments.

And that’s what Thurston County Superior Court Judge Christine Schaller found unconstitutional. She sent the measure, un-amended, to the ballot for a vote of the people.

Interestingly, those amendments were the result of negotiations among the measure’s advocates, the police, and the Legislature. There had been many congratulations all around on the “historic” compromise. But, “historic” or no, legislatures must follow the law.

Tim Eyman is pleased that the court defended the constitutionally defined initiative process by definitively siding against the backroom compromise.

And voters will still get the chance to vote on the proposal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers responsibility term limits

The Yellow and White Lines

term limits, elections, voting, limits, white lines, yellow lines, democracy

If I’ve heard it one million times, I’ve heard it ten: “We already have term limits; they’re called elections.” A statement usually offered as the beginning and end of wisdom regarding the problems term limits are designed to tackle.

Equally “profound” is the collateral claim that “the only term limits we need are an informed electorate.”

Such generalities “prove” too much. Any formal restraint of government could be thus airily dismissed.

  • “The only Bill of Rights we need is an informed electorate.”
  • “The only checks and balances we need are an informed electorate.”
  • “The only prerequisites for running for office we need are an informed electorate.”

If formal rules don’t matter, why write these things down or try to enforce them in light of principle and precedent? Just get your informed electorate and let the informed electorate handle it.

To preserve and strengthen our republic and our liberties, we do need an informed electorate. We also need many other things, including well-known, widely accepted, consultable, objective limits on government power.

One such limit limits terms.

Term limits on legislators, executives and even judges combat political corruption, empower informed voters, and give informed and capable electoral challengers more opportunities to effectively present their ideas.

The fact that a given political or cultural factor is crucial to the commonweal doesn’t mean that no other factors are also crucial.

Don’t tell drivers of cars that all they need are skills and gas.  You also need lines on the road — limits to keep us out of the ditch, and from head-on collisions.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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