Tag: governor

ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Amazing Vanished Rights

Suppose you have the right to walk across a room.

Yet you’re legally chained to a chair.

By your rights, you may get up and walk across the room. But you can’t, because of the chains. You could if only you could. Why, there’s even a document specifying your right to do so. You physically can’t exercise this right; that’s the only problem.

But your right to walk across the room is enshrined and protected.

Or is it?

In fact, we have no right in the sense of a legal ability to do a certain thing if its exercise is, by law, thwarted.

Recently, Idaho lawmakers passed and Governor Little signed a law making it almost impossible for citizens to place a question onto the ballot. Until now, Idaho required that 6 percent of registered voters in 18 of 35 legislative districts sign the petition to send a question to ballot. Gratuitously onerous, but at least possible to comply with.

That possibility was a big problem for opponents of citizen initiative rights, however. Hence the new law, requiring signatures from 6 percent of registered voters in each of 35 districts.

Reclaim Idaho challenged the law. The Idaho Supreme Court is currently hearing the case.

According to Reclaim Idaho co-founder Luke Mayville: “If you claim that the people ought to have a right to put something on the ballot [but] make it impossible to exercise that right, it’s not really much of a right at all.”

Do justice, justices.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Brad Little, democracy, governor, initiative

Accountability scandal

Cuomo Calling

Sunday, after two public accusations of sexual misconduct, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo apologized for anything he may have said that was “misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation,” while maintaining he “never inappropriately touched anybody,” and “never intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable.”

Not even plausible. Intimidating people — making them “feel uncomfortable” — is actually the governor’s modus operandi.

“The recent spate of stories about Gov. Cuomo’s penchant for bullying,” explains Karen Hinton, his former press secretary, in the New York Daily News, “isn’t about behavior that’s unusual in politics. It’s the norm.”

I believe her.

First, it’s widely practiced in politics; and, second, his method has been effective for many years. “A part of that is making sure that people very rarely speak up publicly against him,” a Fordham University political science professor informed The Post.

Bullying is Cuomo’s go-to damage control.

And damage he has aplenty. After being nominated for Time’s “Person of the Year” and winning an Emmy “in recognition of his leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world” — and especially in recognition of him not being Donald Trump — Cuomo has come under fire not only for some faulty judgments, but for actually covering up the data on nursing home deaths.

When news broke of Mr. Cuomo allegedly calling and threatening to “destroy” a lawmaker seeking an investigation into the nursing home scandal, it brought back memories. While working for U.S. Term Limits in the 1990s, I fielded calls from angry politicians on what I dubbed “the prima donna party line.”

In my life, not many people have called to scream like spoiled brats in full tantrum and threaten me — but nearly all have been politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Andrew Cuomo, governor, sexual harassment

political challengers

One of Us?

Tim Eyman, governor, Washington State, democracy,

As the Democratic Party presidential campaign began heating up earlier this year, one of the stars faintly streaking across the sky was Washington State Governor Jay Inslee. In the over-populated ranks of presidential wannabes, he stood out not for being exceptionally nutty, but for so memorably presenting the new Nut Normal of America’s oldest political party.

In August he dropped out for lack of support, but that doesn’t mean his political career is over. He is back in his home state demonstrating the case for term limits.

That is, he is running for a third gubernatorial term.

Fortunately for Evergreen State voters, there are alternatives. Indeed, one in particular: Tim Eyman.

I mention Eyman often enough that I could almost get away without introducing him now. He is arguably the most effective user of initiative and referendum in the country — offering common-sense issues a majority of voters favor, especially tax limitation and reduction measures.

On his campaign website he sports a sweatshirt emblazoned with “Let the Voters Decide,” which is so democratic it almost makes you wonder why the state’s Democratic Party isn’t embracing him.

But we know why — the very last thing Democratic political machines want is democracy!

Running as neither an R nor a D, Mr. Eyman’s campaign slogan is “One of us as Governor!”

And considering the popularity of his many initiative measures designed to combat their elected representatives’ love of raising taxes and “fees” — especially on automobiles — as well as the way politicians in Olympia (including that ultimate insider, Inslee) freak out over the very name “Eyman,” it promises to be a very interesting and entertaining race.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags democracy, governor, Tim Eyman, Washington state

initiative, referendum, and recall

Swampy Moves

Florida, Governor, Ron DeSantis, initiative, referendum,

Late Friday, in the closing hours of Florida’s legislative session, an amendment “was thrown onto the lifeboat of a different, unrelated bill in a last-ditch effort,” reported the Miami Herald, “to limit citizen-driven ballot initiatives.”

With poisonous provisions appended, House Bill 5 rushed through both chambers in mere hours with party-line GOP support. It’s now headed to the desk of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis (R) for a signature.

Or, better yet, a veto.

The legislation forbids campaigns from paying more to petition circulators who work harder and gather more voter signatures. Years ago, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed an identically ridiculous and mean-spirited prohibition passed by that state’s Democratic-dominated legislature, writing: “It doesn’t seem very practical to me to create a system that makes productivity goals a crime.”

Surely, Gov. DeSantis is as adverse to government regulations and red-tape as was Governor Moonbeam.

HB 5 also mandates that a bold statement be placed on the ballot next to any measure estimated to have “increased costs, decreased revenues, a negative impact on the state or local economy, or an indeterminate impact for any of these areas.” Wait . . . if this information is so important to voters, why only inform them when the message is “negative” or “indeterminate,” but not when positive?

The sneaky maneuver “goes to show,” Florida Conservation Voters Director Aliki Moncrief noted, “how little respect [legislators] have for Florida voters.” The leader of one ballot measure effort called it the “ultimate of swampy moves.”

Ask Gov. DeSantis to defend the voters by vetoing HB 5 — call (850) 488-7146 or email him.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Florida, governor, initiative, referendum, Ron DeSantis

A Fake Mystery

Gavin Newsom, Governor, California, gas, tax, prices, folly,

California’s new top banana is playing politics the old-fashioned way: passing the buck.

Last week Governor Gavin Newsom directed the California Energy Commission (CEC) to look into the state’s higher-than-average gasoline prices.

“Independent analysis suggests that an unaccounted-for price differential exists in California’s gas prices and that this price differential may stem in part from inappropriate industry practices,” he wrote in an official letter to the CEC. “These are all important reasons for the Commission to help shed light on what’s going on in our gasoline market.”

Ah, shed light!

We are not talking about the bulb in your outbuilding.

Californians understandably grumble about having to pay higher taxes than elsewhere in the U.S. So Newsom pretends to suspect “inappropriate industry practices.” But what is inappropriate is Newsom’s directive to the CEC. As Christian Britschgi drolly informs us at Reason, Newsom, while lieutenant governor, had “supported a 2017 bill increasing the state’s gas taxes,” which looks like all we really need to know. Raise taxes, and businesses tend to increase prices rather than eat the extra cost. Higher gas prices are the result of higher taxes.

Duh.

But there’s more.

“When running for governor in 2018,” Britschgi explains, “he opposed a ballot initiative that would have repealed that same increase.”

So, is Newsom truly clueless of the obvious?

Hardly. And neither are “17 legislators who voted for the tax hike” who joined the governor in “wanting answers to this difficult headscratcher.” They are doing what pols usually do: deflect; misdirect; blame others . . . hoping that voters don’t pay close enough attention, or remember recent history. And busy people often do not.

Finding a bogeyman helps, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags California, folly, gas, Gavin Newsom, governor, prices, tax

Accountability government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

Omission of Character

Democratic Party, gubernatorial nominee, governor, Frank Northam, Lt. Governor, Justin Fairfax, racism, politicians

One downside to jumping to the wrong conclusion is that the failure to even look for the correct, accurate conclusion inevitably follows.

This sleepy odd-year campaign for governor of Virginia has recently been riled by charges of racism. Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee Frank Northam made the “mistake” of “omitting” the party’s candidate for Lt. Governor, Justin Fairfax, from a small printing of literature for union members about the Democrats’ statewide slate.

Northam is white and Fairfax is black.

“[A] slap in the face to Justin and to black voters,” is what Quentin James, who runs a PAC working to elect black candidates, called the removal of Fairfax from the literature. He added that it “reeks of subtle racism” and “sends a signal across the state, that we, as black voters, are expendable.”

Noting that black voters make up 20 percent of the state’s electorate, Think Progress dubbed Fairfax’s deletion: “mindboggling.”

Was this a “dis” and did it really have anything to do with Fairfax being black?

Well, Fairfax labeled it a “mistake,” but his exclusion from the flyer was certainly not inadvertent. It was by clear-eyed design.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), a $600,000 donor to the coordinated state Democratic campaign, requested that Fairfax be removed from literature their members will distribute. The union is at odds with Fairfax over his opposition to two state pipeline projects the union favors.

So, Northam didn’t throw Fairfax under the bus because Fairfax is black. No sirree. Northam threw Fairfax under the bus to placate a powerful, well-heeled special interest group.

Northam isn’t a racist. He’s just a self-interested, disloyal politician.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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