Tag: democracy

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Do Anything

term limits

How far will officeholders go to kill term limits?

Around the country, so-​called representatives have repealed state legislative term limits enacted as statutes rather than constitutional amendments; gone to court to get term limits outlawed; and even, in one or two instances, ignored term limits on themselves until forced to step aside by judicial action.

I bet that even if voters enact a term limits law with a provision specifically prohibiting legislators from sending a question to the ballot to weaken or repeal voter-​enacted term limits, such a prohibition would not stop lawmakers from proposing just such measures.

Well, it’s time for me to collect on the bet.

In the current legislative session, North Dakota State Representative Jim Kasper submitted a resolution, HCR 3019, to ask North Dakotans to weaken legislative term limits they’d passed just five months ago, last November. Kasper wants a limit of 12 consecutive years in a chamber instead of a lifetime limit of eight years.

What a shocker! He’d like to stay in power longer.

The law voters passed months ago states that the legislature “shall not have authority to propose an amendment to this constitution to alter or repeal” the term limits. This ability is instead “reserved to initiative petition of the people.”

It seems so clear.

Nevertheless, Kasper’s unconstitutional constitutional amendment barreled ahead in the North Dakota legislature until finally expiring in the senate just days ago.

Perhaps the new law should have included something about tarring and feathering lawmakers who try to ignore the ban on acting to undermine their term limits?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access election law national politics & policies

Small District Democracy

election reform, voting, Democracy, districts

Virtually every election-​related reform one could imagine was discussed this week at INC ’23 in Austin, Texas. INC stands for Independent National Convention, a gathering of non-​partisan pro-​democracy activists with Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich, two former congresspeople and presidential candidates, headlining the event. 

Speaking on a panel on Election Systems Reform, I highlighted the rhetoric of expanding voting rights. For example, the New York City Council decided to swell those rights by giving non-​citizens the vote — even while a solid majority of New Yorkers were opposed. Recently Washington, D.C.’s Council bestowed local voting rights to people in the city (and country) illegally, as well as to foreign nationals working for foreign governments at the city’s many foreign embassies. 

Allowing the staff at the Chinese and Russian embassies to cast ballots is clearly an expansion of voting rights. But does it make sense?

I also pointed out that making it easier to vote by having, say, six weeks of early voting (as we do in my home state of Virginia) comes with a cost: more expensive campaigns. And anything that increases the price tag of running for office decidedly benefits incumbents.

My key message, however, was this: In a representative democracy, even if the rules and mechanics of the election process are spectacular, we still need someone to vote for, someone to actually represent us.

Making it easier or more efficient or transparent to go through the frustration and angst of our current contests between candidates Bad and Worse, both soon to be bought off, seems of limited appeal.

The change that would best overcome big money political influence and provide real representation to citizens — improving both elections and governance — is simple: a far smaller ratio of citizens to elected representatives. 

Stephen Erickson, executive director of Citizens Rising, specifies “small political districts of 30,000 inhabitants or less, at all levels of government throughout the United States.” Compare that to the average of over 700,000 people in today’s congressional districts.

The audience seemed to think this “Small District Democracy” made common sense. 

I’m Paul Jacob. And I think it is the very best reform we could make.

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Alien National Capital

Joe Biden, democracy, voting, illegal immigrants

While the 58th anniversary of the Selma, Alabama, Bloody Sunday seemed an apt occasion to address the right of all citizens to participate democratically in their government, leaving the job to President Joe Biden was … awkward. He said nothing of consequence.

But back in 2020, candidate Biden said this: “In order to be able to vote, it’s important that you be a U.S. citizen.” That’s consequential.

In 2021, however, when the New York City Council extended suffrage to foreign nationals living legally in the Big Apple, against the will of the majority of New Yorkers, I don’t recall hearing even the slightest peep from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now the wackos in Washington, D.C., have enacted a non-​citizen voting measure that goes further. It allows Russian nationals working for Mr. Putin at their embassy in our nation’s capital to vote on city candidates and ballot issues and welcomes onto Washington’s voter rolls Chinese citizens here promoting Xi Jinping and the interests of his genocidal regime. 

The District of Columbia’s ordinance extends the franchise even to people here illegally, allowing anyone from anywhere in the world able to avoid deportation to cast a ballot. Legally.

Thankfully, House Joint Resolution 24, which seeks to block the D.C. non-​citizen voting ordinance passed the U.S. House last month, garnering support from every Republican present as well as roughly one in five Democrats. Action now moves to the Senate. 

“After years of lamenting so-​called ‘foreign interference’ in our elections,” argues Sen. Tom Cotton (R‑Ark.), “every single Democrat ought to join in invalidating this insane policy.”

But will they? 

Congressional Democrats might claim that their support for local control in D.C. excuses them for allowing this non-​citizen voting measure to become law. But it’s not even a fig-​leaf after Biden declared he would sign the congressional Republicans’ repeal of another D.C. council enactment, a controversial crime “reform” law, which District officials then hurriedly withdrew to placate nervous national Dems.

Talk about awkward!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

Note: Biden certainly has a cavernous credibility gap on election integrity. After he attacked Republicans as “un-​American” and the 2021 election reform legislation enacted in Georgia as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century,” the Peach State saw “record breaking turnout” in last year’s election. Sadly, much of the media merely ignored reality; CBS News headlined one report, “Effect of Georgia’s voting law unclear, despite high turnout.”

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits Voting

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Citizen Initiatives, term limits, North Dakota

North Dakota state representatives (and I use that term loosely) are unhappy. 

Very unhappy.

They have no use for the Ethics Commission that voters established back in 2018 by passing a constitutional amendment initiated by citizen petition. State legislators reacted by trying to — ahem — “fix” the horse the ethics measure “rode in on.” 

That is, wreck the state’s ballot initiative process, to prevent citizens from making such reforms happen … without any “help” from politicians.

Legislators placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot to require that any citizen-​initiated amendment be approved not merely by North Dakota voters, but then by both chambers of the state legislature. Their amendment, amid uproar, was finally amended so that if legislators voted the initiative down, voters would get a second vote on it. 

Still, 62 percent of voters said, “No, thanks!”

Then, in 2022, the state Chamber of Commerce and other special interests attempted to use the citizen petition process, which they always say is way too easy. Yet, these insiders failed to gather enough signatures to qualify their measure requiring a 60 percent supermajority to pass an initiative. 

Meanwhile, term limits supporters gathered enough signatures* and, last November, North Dakotans said, “Yes!” 

Seems politicians in Bismarck, the state capital, are even less fond of term limits. They’ve introduced a raft of bills designed to kill the citizen petition process:

  • House Bill 1452 would slap a 90 percent tax on contributions to ballot measures by any American living outside North Dakota. 
  • House Bill 1230 would fine a campaign committee $10,000 and each of committee member $1,000 each if the petitions they turn in fail to have enough valid signatures to qualify the initiative.
  • Senate Concurrent Resolution 4013 would amend the state constitution to (a) require 25 percent more voter signatures, (b) outlaw any payment to signature gatherers (something the U.S. Supreme Court has already unanimously ruled state governments cannot do), © block new residents from petitioning in the state for in some cases over a year, and (d) mandate a 67 percent vote to pass a citizen-​initiated ballot measure. 

North Dakota legislators prove the case for term limits. And the horse it rode in on: citizen initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Though term limits supporters had to fight the 30-​year incumbent Secretary of State’s attempt to block the petition all the way to the state’s highest court, which ruled unanimously to place term limits before the voters.

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election law general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

O, to Oust!

Santos

Everyone seems to agree: newly-​minted U.S. Rep. George Santos (R‑NY) — if that’s even his real name — is a cheat and a scammer who doesn’t belong in Congress.

Except, of course, Congress is exactly where you’d expect to find such a person!

Especially when voters don’t discover the truth about said candidate until it is too late.

“The constituents in NY‑3 elected Representative Santos in part due to his biographical exaggerations and apparent deceptions,” complains Congressman Brandon Williams (R‑NY).

Still, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R‑Calif.) isn’t comfortable pushing to oust the fraudster — which would require a two-​thirds vote of the House of Representatives — without the Ethics Committee first finding sufficient official wrongdoing. Even given the fantastical pre-​election fibbing, the Speaker points out that “the voters have elected George Santos” and “they have a voice in this process.”

Only that’s the problem. Voters don’t have a voice.

“There is no way for constituents to recall a member of Congress,” informs The Washington Examiner, “though they can be expelled in the House by a two-​thirds vote. This action has only been taken five times in history, only against members convicted of crimes and only twice for crimes other than the treason of joining the Confederacy during the Civil War.”

Speaker McCarthy doesn’t speak for the voters in NY‑3. Neither can two-​thirds (or even ninety-​nine percent) of Congress.

But Congress can and should let voters speak for themselves. 

And not just this once with Serial Liar Santos. Let voters conduct the official ouster whenever those citizens realize they’ve been had, whenever they determine that they have a turkey representing them.

Every member of Congress — Republican, Democrat or independent — should stop virtue-​signaling with press statement pronouncements to the effect that Congressman Santos “should” resign. 

Instead, legislate for the people; give us the power of recall.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom media and media people national politics & policies

How Congress Works

Congress, pawns, power

“Who knew that our time-​tested and powerful democracy could not survive a few days of debate and disagreement on our most important questions?” asked journalist Glenn Greenwald weeks ago during the House voting for Speaker.

“To hear establishment mavens all tell the story,” he pointed out, “the failure of Congress to smoothly and swiftly and immediately elect a speaker that’s been preordained — with little debate (as it usually does) — has put the U.S. Government on the verge of collapse.

“Apparently, a healthy democracy requires that everyone march in lockstep, follow orders from on high, and never question anything,” he added sarcastically. 

Greenwald is onto something.

“One of the dirty secrets of how Congress works in the modern era,” he explained, “has been that actual members of Congress, your representatives, have very little power — almost none. They’re more like little, tiny chess pieces moved around for a tiny coterie of party leaders.

“It’s a dynamic that has turned Congress into a profoundly anti-​democratic institution,” noted Greenwald. “And it’s one of the main reasons why we get so little reform and so much corruption out of [Congress].

“Many Americans remain convinced that the two parties can’t agree on anything … can’t make anything happen, when in fact they’re making a lot happen.” Such as making “tens of trillions of dollars fly out the door.”

Mr. Greenwald blames “a small handful of omnipotent party leaders, from each party, who are willing to play the game, join hands and ensure that totally insulated from election outcomes and public debate, the Washington consensus churns on.”

What to do? Greenwald did not mention term limits. But I just did.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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