Tag: democracy

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Accountability ballot access Common Sense First Amendment rights general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

Really Protecting Our Rights

Incentives matter. Which is why Ohioans have much to celebrate
this week.

Federal District Judge Michael Watson turned his previous temporary injunction against enforcement of Senate Bill 47 into a permanent injunction. That statue outlawed non-​residents from helping Buckeye State residents by gathering petition signatures for an initiative or referendum.

The case is Citizens in Charge v. Husted. Citizens in Charge — where I work — protects initiative rights. Jon Husted is the Ohio Secretary of State.

But Judge Watson went further, declaring Sec. Husted’s office liable for damages to one of our co-​plaintiffs, Cincinnati for Pension Reform. The judge found that “a reasonable official would have understood that enforcement of the residency requirement would violate plaintiffs’ First Amendment right to engage in political speech.”

Public officials have what’s known as “qualified immunity,” which protects them from liability when acting in good faith. A spokesman for Husted offered a defense: they were acting “on the assumption that the law is constitutional.”

“Some qualified-​immunity cases are difficult,” countered election-​law expert Daniel Tokaji. “Not this one.”

Ohio’s residency law was ruled unconstitutional in 2008, after Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign sued. In 2009, the previous secretary of state officially acknowledged the law unenforceable regarding all petitions. Yet, seeking to block citizen petitions, legislators passed it again, and Husted was quick to enforce.

Maurice Thompson of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, our attorney, cheered the “deterrence” this decision provides.

“If public officials from the governor down through the police know that they will be liable for enforcing an unconstitutional law,” he explained, “they are far more likely to take Ohioans’ constitutional rights seriously.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ballot access Common Sense general freedom government transparency

Pierce Petition Power

Jerry Gibbs

Pierce County, Washington, Executive Pat McCarthy charges that “a majority of the County Council bowed to political pressure, even though this could set a terrible precedent that the most basic administrative actions of government can be derailed by the simple act of signing a piece of paper.”

Yeah, right.

At issue is a $127 million construction project to build a new county administration building. Back in February, the Council voted 4 – 3 to move forward on the project.

The total cost of the new building, including financing fees and interest, will add up to $235 million according to Jerry Gibbs and a group called Citizens for Responsible Spending. These activists filed a petition to demand a public vote on the issue next November.

As is all too common these days, their grassroots effort was quickly countered by the big guns: the city filed a lawsuit against them, attempting to block the referendum.

The lawsuit didn’t sit well with people in Pierce County.

“Why don’t they want this voted on by the people?” asked Gibbs.

“This is absolutely an abuse of power,” decried resident Sheila Herron, “this is bullying of a private citizen.”

Council Chair Dan Roach argued that the power to launch a court challenge must come from the council, which had not discussed it. He warned his fellow city officials: “you are sending a very chilling” message to citizens not to “dare try to challenge what we’re doing as the government.”

Last week, the County Council voted 4 – 3 to drop the lawsuit, bowing to political pressure … from the people they represent.

In short, good government broke out.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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video

Video: Krist Novoselic on reason​.tv

Fascinating interview with Krist, former bassist for Nirvana, current chairman of FairVote:

Note, Paul Jacob also serves on the board of FairVote.

Categories
term limits

Democracy vs. Power Grabber

Like many countries with a young democracy, Panama constitutionally term-​limits its president. And like many such countries, Panama has endured a president eager to dispense with the irksome restriction.

Too often, deleting the term limit comes too easy. All it takes is a few cooperative lawmakers of the ruling party or a few cooperative judges; at most, a national referendum, if the officeholder is popular … or ruthless enough to rig it.

In Panama, though, Martinelli — who must sit out the next two terms before running for the presidency again — has been hitting a brick wall.Panama MAP

Amending Panama’s constitution is easier than amending our own. But it still requires the co-​operation of two separate legislative bodies. He could not obtain it.

A referendum was also a non-​starter. Martinelli proved less popular toward the end of his term than he was at the beginning, and Panamanian voters showed little inclination to lengthen his tenure.

He tried packing Panama’s supreme court so that it would determine the constitutional term limit to be unconstitutional. But mass protests forced a retreat there as well.

Finally, the incumbent tried the hand-​picked-​successor gambit — “re-​election in disguise” — ardently campaigning for José Domingo Arias and Arias’s vice presidential candidate, Martinelli’s wife. On May 4, though, Juan Carlos Varela won a three-​way contest for the presidency with a 39 percent plurality.

The result is not a permanent victory for term limits or democracy; such victories are never permanent. But it is a victory, and a big one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption national politics & policies

Professor of Dumbocracy

“It’s not enough for governments to simply be democratic,” Oxford professor Stein Ringen recently wrote in the Washington Post, “they must deliver or decay.”

Deliver what, you ask?

Ringen isn’t clear — surprise, surprise — but attacks “Thatcherite inequality” — though, he admits it’s worse today in Great Britain than when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister (1979 – 1990). Why no progress to his apparent ideal of economic equality? According to Ringen, “concentrations of economic power … have become unmanageable.”

He advances the same analysis of U.S. “democracy,” claiming that power has been “usurped by actors such as PACs, think tanks, media and lobbying organizations.”

Think tanks are a problem?

Ringen doesn’t explain how these additional voices serve to undercut “democracy.” Instead, he simply hurls broadsides against our “mega-​expensive politics,” warning that, “When money is allowed to transgress from markets, where it belongs, to politics, where it has no business, those who control it gain power to decide who the successful candidates will be — those they wish to fund — and what they can decide once they are in office.”

There is generally money on both or numerous sides of any given policy question. There is certainly no monolithic “they” constituting “the rich” who decide our public policy over tea at the club. Pretending there is won’t help democracy.

“It is a misunderstanding to think that candidates chase money,” writes the professor from his ivory tower. “It is money that chases candidates.”

Really? Ringen can easily test his hypothesis: run for office and wait for all that money to chase him down.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
political challengers

The Unkindest Cut

Over three thousand years ago, in ancient Egypt, two wives of the Pharaoh Ramesses III, Tiye and Iset Ta-​Hemdjert, fought over which of their sons would inherit the throne. Queen Tiye organized a harem conspiracy to favor hers. Dead, in the end, was Ramesses III, along with Tiye’s Penteweret, according to court documents.

There’s been considerable mystery surrounding Ramesses’ demise, but recent CT scans show that he almost certainly died of a slit throat. The wound had not previously been noticed because of the extensive wrappings around the pharaohnic mummy’s neck. A Horus eye amulet was found in the wound, undoubtedly placed there by the embalmers, probably for healing and protection in the afterlife.

Another mummy from that time has been determined, by genetic analysis, to be a son of Ramesses. There are strange marks around his neck. Since Penteweret had been found guilty at trial, and was said to have killed himself, and this particular mummy was dishonorably embalmed, the mummy is thought to be his. Perhaps he had hanged himself.

Such was ancient politics. Succession of rulers was often violent — and, even when not violent, there was no assurance that the claimant to the throne would be anything like a good ruler.

Which brings us to one of democracy’s great achievements, perhaps its greatest. Democratic elections do not express the popular will in any sure way. They do not conjure onto this plane of existence a Mandate of Heaven (Chinese), or any instantiation of Horus (ancient Egyptian). What they do is remove rulers from power, peacefully.

And that’s not nothing. Ask the grimace on the face of the remains of Ramesses III.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.