Tag: democracy

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incumbents insider corruption

Involuntary Campaign Contributions

campaign, funding, politicians, elections, democracy, Labyrinth, advertising, propaganda

Incumbent lawmakers should not be looting taxpayer dollars to fund their election campaigns.

Investigative reporter Lee Fang has learned that incumbents of both major parties are ignoring ethics rules in order “to use government money for ads clearly designed to influence voters.” 

Back in the 1990s, I was shocked to discover that the average incumbent congressperson spent more using the franking privilege, government funding of “official” newsletters to constituents, than the average challenger spent in his or her entire campaign. In this video age, they’ve upgraded their bragging to living color.

Here is a bipartisan couple from the many examples Fang discovered:

Democrat: A taxpayer-​funded ad aired by the campaign of New York Representative Tom Suozzi, talks about how “Tom worked across party lines to convince the president” to do something about the border.

Republican: A taxpayer-​funded ad aired by the campaign of Virginia Representative Jen Kiggans, in which she boasts about her track record on issues pertaining to veterans and the military.

Fang has identified at least nine other culprits and put together a YouTube video compiling some of these taxpayer-​funded ads. Everyone sees these as campaign spots — or “campaign-​style ads,” as Fang also puts it.

The ads even say (for example, in Wesley Hunt’s video) that they were “paid for with official funds” from the office of the congressman or with “official funds authorized by the House of Representatives.”

These “official funds” are not voluntary campaign contributions.

Congressmen, you’ve been caught. 

So stop.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law Voting

California’s Electoral Saboteurs

voter ID, immigration, election fraud, citizenship

Thou shalt not check the ID of a person showing up to vote.

California lawmakers — apparently eager to help noncitizens vote — have banned local voter ID laws like that of Huntington Beach.

Attorney General Rob Bonta says that requiring ID to vote “flies in the face” of the principle that “the right to cast your vote is the foundation of our democracy.”

But Huntington Beach didn’t impair “the right to cast your vote.”

Opponents of ID requirements say that the problem is the terrible hardship of presenting a valid ID or perhaps of obtaining one. These may be chores, but they’re hardly ventures into the unknown. If you’re a citizen, you can get ID showing you are. And almost everyone is capable of pulling an ID out of a pocket and displaying it.

Here’s a tell: “An amendment to Senate Bill 1174 that would have explicitly banned illegal migrants from voting was rejected.”

Is there evidence of fraud in American elections? 

Is it major — not a marginal issue having to do with one or two wayward ballots per decade?

Could lawmakers like California State Senator Dave Min, who asserts that “voter ID laws only subvert voter turnout,” be wrong?

Yes. 

The evidence can be found in John Fund’s books, such as Our Broken Elections, Stealing Elections, and Who’s Counting? A more recent report of attempts to undermine the vote and prevent the same is Elizabeth Nickson’s article “The 2024 Cheat and What’s Being Done About It.”

Voter IDs don’t subvert voter turnout, they subvert fraudulent voter turnout.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture international affairs

Elon Musk’s Right Answer

Elon Musk, censorship, EU, free speech, democracy

“By the rules of the complicated pretense which all those people played for one another’s benefit, they should have considered his stand as incomprehensible folly; there should have been rustles of astonishment and derision; there were none; they sat still; they understood.”

These words are from a scene in Atlas Shrugged in which beleaguered industrialist Hank Rearden rejects “this court’s right to try me” and refuses to put on a defense. Thereby giving the best defense of all.

Elon Musk didn’t give a speech.

Instead, when an EU muck-​a-​muck, Thierry Breton, sent him a letter on the eve of Musk’s Twitter interview with presidential candidate Donald Trump, a letter babbling about dire consequences for Twitter if it were to “amplify potentially harmful content [i.e., any deviation from current government dogma] in connection with events with major audience around the world,” Musk responded with a quote and a clip from the movie Tropic Thunder.

Other EU officials are now rushing to disavow Breton’s letter, widely castigated as an attempt to interfere with the U.S. election.

I can’t repeat the line Musk quoted, because we don’t use cuss words here. If you don’t like to hear such words, don’t click into the video clip. Just don’t go there.

Mega-​magnate Elon Musk is often badly wrong about China. But when he’s right, he’s right. Even super right. 

And we need a million more CEOs to be thus willing to stand up to regulators foreign and domestic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law general freedom Voting

Jugglers & Clowns

immigration, voting, democracy, rigged election

“Shall the City of Santa Ana City Charter be amended to allow … noncitizen City residents, including those who are taxpayers and parents, to vote in all City of Santa Ana municipal elections?”

In November, this question about voting will be presented to voters. 

It is true that noncitizens in the city include both “taxpayers and parents,” of course. Still, by this same logic, why not change the ballot language to read “including the childless and the destitute”? Those noncitizens would also get to vote. 

Or get away from one’s tax status and childbirth proclivities altogether and change the wording to “including those who speak French and drink coffee.” Or maybe voters could be made aware that noncitizens will include “shopaholics and known thespians.”

All these statements are the truth and nothing but the truth. How could anyone object?

But object they did. Opponents of the measure filed suit, asking a California court to strike the “taxpayers and parents” wording from the ballot — as prejudicial in favor of the change. 

The court agreed, ordering the city to remove that language “sugarcoating” the proposition. 

But the city refuses (I didn’t know cities could tell courts No!*) and is keeping its current biased language to push a Yes vote on the proposition. 

Rule of law be damned.

My last suggestion to Santa Ana officials is to edit the wording after noncitizens to say, “including jugglers and clowns.” No, wait — that particular identification might be confusing, since it applies far less to noncitizens than to Santa Ana’s city council.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* Unusual, indeed, for a local government to ignore a court order. It likely means the proposition, even if passed, will ultimately be blocked in court as improperly enacted. 

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initiative, referendum, and recall judiciary term limits

A Second Life for Limits

Congress, age limit, voters, democracy

Will the Supreme Court let states impose limits on the representatives and senators they send to Washington, D.C.?

Thanks to events in North Dakota, there’s a good chance this question is about to asked again. 

And get a different answer.

The first time was thirty years ago. The case: U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton.

In May 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in a 5 – 4 decision, that states cannot impose restrictions like term limits on their congressional delegations.

But: “Nothing in the Constitution deprives the people of each State of the power to prescribe eligibility requirements for the candidates who seek to represent them in Congress,” observed Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissent. “And where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people.”

Now 61 percent of North Dakota voters have passed a ballot measure to impose an age limit on their congressmen. The 1995 Supreme Court would have ruled it unconstitutional. The only justice serving on the high court then who is still there is Thomas.

Everybody thinks that North Dakota’s outlawing of ancient candidates will be challenged in court. In a June 17 podcast for U.S. Term Limits, its president, Philip Blumel, says that USTL would welcome such a challenge.

“Surely, U.S. Term Limits versus Thornton would be the basis” for the challenge and would thus “provide an opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the issue.”

Moreover, a case brought in federal court won’t necessarily take years to decide, because “sometimes the [Supreme Court] expedites election-​related cases.”

Fingers crossed, everybody.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTE: Paul Jacob is a former president of U.S. Term Limits and continues to serve on its board of directors. Paul is currently the president of Liberty Initiative Fund, which made significant contributions to North Dakota’s age limits initiative.

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ballot access election law judiciary

A Done Decision

rock climber

We probably needn’t feel suspense about whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court will let certain sloppy voting practices continue.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and the chairman of the Racine County Republican Party filed a lawsuit alleging that Racine city officials illegally used a van to collect absentee ballots in 2022. A circuit court ruled that such mobile voting sites violate state law.

Now, “without allowing any lower appellate courts to rule first,” the state’s supreme court will decide whether the circuit court is right about that.

The high court voted 4 to 3 to accept the case. The three justices who opposed end-​running the appellate courts are conservative (read: Republican); the other four are liberal (read: Democrat).

The Democrat justices voted to take the case at the request of the Democratic National Committee, which leads a political party known to be a proponent of slapdash voting procedures, slapdashery that observers tend to agree favors Democrats.

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, who is part of the conservative bloc, has stated that the “liberal” justices proceeded in this way in order to help the Democrats politically. Ziegler knows her “liberal” colleagues, and I guess they must be the sort of progressives who don’t make conscientious adherence to the law in the service of election integrity a top priority.

So I think what’s about to happen is more of a foregone conclusion than it is a cliffhanger.

We know how the court will decide — but wouldn’t we love a surprise ending?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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