Tag: lobbyists

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term limits

Legislators Turned Lobbyists Turned Altruists

Michigan, term limits,

Legislative bosses, the state’s most powerful special interests and a fake grassroots organization teamed up a month ago to figure out how best to attack Michigan’s popular term limits law. 

Now comes a lawsuit demanding that a federal court overturn these 27-​year-​old voter-​enacted limits.

“I’m just sitting here watching five former legislators, who are now lobbyists, sitting in the conference [room] of another lobbyist in Lansing talking about how the courts should rescue them from the voters,” Patrick Anderson, author of the 1992 term limits law, told MIRS.* 

Self-​serving? Not at ALL. “When you take the most experienced people out of government,” asserted John Bursch, the legislator-​lobbyists’ attorney, “it shifts the balance of power to career bureaucrats and to lobbyists.”

So, clearly, these kind, meek, caring lobbyists are altruistically rejecting more power and influence for themselves and, instead, working selflessly for the greater good. No wonder everyone loves lobbyists.

In pursuing the legal approach, Bursch did acknowledge, “We think it would be very difficult to put anything on the ballot that would be successful.”

Their legal rationale is as implausible as their putative public-​spiritedness. The lawsuit contends that term limits deny legislators the opportunity to gain law-​making competence while also listing all the wonderful legislation these legislators-​turned-​lobbyists once passed … when working under term limits. 

It’s not a legal argument, either way, but which is it?

“I’m having trouble,” offered Rina Baker with Don’t Touch Term Limits, “remembering a single moment when I wished any of the plaintiffs were still in office.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Unfortunately, this capitol insider publication is behind a paywall, so no link is available.

Michigan, term limits,

from photo by Beth LeBlanc/​The Detroit News

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Accountability incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption local leaders political challengers term limits

Sneaky Lobbyists Prefer Sneakiness

time expired, time limit, term limits, Arkansas, politicians, referendum, vote, lobbyists

The Arkansas Chamber of Commerce’s CEO and chief lobbyist, Randy Zook and Kenneth Wall, have formed Arkansans for Common-​Sense Term Limits. 

The Chamber has a burning hatred for term limits — Common-​Sense or otherwise — just like every other lobbyist and special interest. But Zook and Hall are fibbing in their name because they realize that voters love term limits. 

The ballot committee’s stated purpose? To “advocate for the disqualification or defeat” of the Arkansas Term Limits Amendment, which citizens just petitioned onto the ballot, collecting 129,000 signatures.

Defeating such a popular ballot measure isn’t likely. Instead, these politically-​experienced lobbyists are preparing to sue, hoping to disqualify valid voters’ signatures on some ginned-​up technicality, feigning confusion over the clear ballot language — anything that might keep democracy from coming this November.*

At issue? The difference between real term limits and ridiculous ones.

That is, between term limits set by citizens and those set by legislators themselves. 

Currently, legislators can serve for 16 years in a single seat under the state’s “limits.” And because two-​year Senate terms aren’t counted at all, senators can stay as long as 22 years. 

Legislators snuck this past voters in 2014 with a ballot title claiming only to “establish” term limits … amidst other lies. Politicians thereby turned Arkansas’s toughest-​in-​the-​nation term-​limit law into the nation’s very weakest — a significant 50 percent longer than limits in any other state.**

Unfazed by all the corruption in the Arkansas Legislature, Chamber lobbyists are focused on putting politicians in their pocket for as long as possible. 

But those pesky Arkansas voters are once again in the way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* After recently threatening to challenge the signatures of another initiative petition, Zook had to admit that he was not aware of a single problem or deficiency in the petition. But he quickly added, “It’s a very complicated process.”

** Arkansas’s term limits were the same as Michigan’s until 2014, three terms, six years in the House and two-​terms, eight-​years in the Senate.

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Original photo by Jeff Kubina

 

Categories
general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Regulating Protest responsibility too much government

Undefeated

Missouri Ethics Commission, lobbyist, lobbying, Ron Calzone, Missouri First

It’s over … but it’s not.

A conscientious Show-​Me state activist has won his case, but …

A year ago, the unethical Missouri Ethics Commission fined Ron Calzone $1,000 for not paying a silly $10 fee. To register as a lobbyist. They also ordered him to stop talking to legislators until he complied.

Citizen Calzone didn’t register.

He didn’t pay.

And he didn’t shut up.

On principle.

Instead, he contacted the Freedom Center of Missouri and the Center for Competitive Politics, a national outfit that defends our rights to participate in our supposedly participatory and representative democratic republic.

On Monday, a judge ruled in Ron’s favor, tossing out the “ethics complaint” against him. On a technicality, actually.

Winning is better than losing. But even if someone bothers to try again against Calzone, filing the suit properly*, Calzone would win.

You see, we have rights … including the freedom to talk to those pretending to represent us. It is not at all certain that government has any constitutional authority to regulate paid lobbyists.

But Ron is not a paid lobbyist. He volunteers for Missouri First, a citizen group.

So why did the speech police’s long arm reach out to grab him?

He’s effective.

More than a forthright advocate for what he believes, he has proven smart enough to find ways to allow fellow freedom-​lovers to weigh in on bills they favor or oppose.

This has endeared him neither to legislators nor the lobbying “community” — professionals paid handsomely to lose to Calzone’s grassroots network. They will strike back. You can count on it.

But as long as there are citizens like him, the people will not be defeated.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The charges weren’t filed by a “natural person,” as the law requires, but by the attorney for the Missouri Society of Governmental Consultants, the state lobbyist guild.

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Missouri Ethics Commission, lobbyist, lobbying, Ron Calzone, Missouri First

 

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Common Sense First Amendment rights folly general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall Regulating Protest too much government

Citizen Registration Fee

Ron Calzone, Missouri, citizenship, freedom, lobbyists

It’s not about the ten bucks — or the thousand. An important principle is involved.

Professional lobbyists in Missouri are legally required to submit reports about the corporations, local governments, industries, associations, and special interests for whom they lobby, how much they are paid, and the goodies they bestow upon the politicians they seek to influence. The registration fee is $10.

Problem is, as I revealed at Townhall yesterday, Ron Calzone isn’t a lobbyist. So, naturally enough, he didn’t file.

Calzone is president of Missouri First, a group advocating constitutional governance and mobilizing fellow citizens for an enormous impact on Show-​Me State government. He regularly treks to the capitol, while Missouri First helps folks who can’t get to Jefferson City submit testimony online … all to weigh in on issues like the Second Amendment, property rights, initiative petition rules, and cronyism.

It’s true that Calzone lobbies every time he speaks to a legislator. But hey: he’s not a lobbyist under the legal definition. Why? Because he earns not a penny. Missouri First doesn’t even have a bank account. And Calzone doesn’t represent various clients as a professional lobbyist would; he represents himself — and those citizens who agree with him.

Despite the letter of the law, last week the Missouri Ethics Commission fined Mr. Calzone $1,000 for not registering as a lobbyist. It also ordered him not to speak to any state legislator until he registers.

Ron Calzone — with the help of the Freedom Center of Missouri and the Center for Competitive Politics — is appealing the case.

And will win in court.

Yet, that an “ethics” agency is harassing a citizen volunteer speaking truth to power … speaks volumes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Ron Calzone, Missouri, citizenship, freedom, lobbyists

 

Categories
Accountability government transparency term limits

Listen to Lobbyists

Institutional Memory

With 25 of 40 council seats turning over, “term limit advocates are enthusiastic about the influx of new folks and ideas,” explains Tennessean columnist Frank Daniels III, “but many council members are worried about the loss of knowledge and institutional memory.”

More precisely, “many council members” fret that the city cannot afford the loss of their “knowledge.” Politicians so want to kill such thinking that on today’s Nashville ballot is not one, but two measures to weaken the “eight is enough” council limit. Amendment 1 weakens the limits by 50 percent — from two terms, eight years to three terms, twelve years.

Amendment 2 weakens term limits just like Amendment 1 does. But Amendment 2 also reduces the size of the metro council from 40 representatives to 27. Reducing the number of “politicians” has some popular support, but what’s needed is closer representation. Which means more representatives, not fewer.

Nevertheless, when Amendment 2’s proponent, Councilwoman Emily Evans, was asked why the reduction in the council was combined with weakening term limits, she replied, “You have to give the voters something.”

The perennial argument against term limits asserts that lobbyists, special interests and the bureaucracy will have greater “institutional memory” and, therefore, take advantage of council members.

Talk about hollow! The group pushing Amendment 2 just released their campaign finance report. Their largest donor is the Service Employees International Union, representing city workers — followed by lobbyist after lobbyist, after developer, after payday loan company CEO, and a horde of politicians.

The open secret of our age: lobbyists hate term limits, voters love ’em.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

P.S. And if you live in Nashville, don’t forget to vote today, yet again, to keep the citizen-​initiated, voter-​enacted, three times voter re-​affirmed term limits against the latest ballot schemes of politicians and their cronies

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Institutional Memory

 

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term limits

Too Much Trouble?

Can you believe it? A new political argument … well, not really.

Over at the Michigan Students for a Free Economy website, Isaac Morehouse reports on what he calls the “most honest anti-​term-​limits argument ever.” It’s too much work! Not only politicians, but lobbyists and reporters, too, find it difficult getting to know all the new guys.

Thanks largely to term limits, there are 46 new lawmakers coming into Lansing. According to Michigan political reporter Tim Skubrick, “It’s a very disconcerting feeling to know that you need to get news out of these folks, but … if you got in the elevator with any one of them you’d have no idea if they were lawmakers, staffers or capitol tourists.”

Sure. How much easier making the same old deals with the same old crowd!

Foes of term limits often claim that lobbyists “love” term limits, because lobbyists can presumably leverage their knowledge of issues to more easily control ignorant freshmen legislators. But term limits are a hassle for lobbyists, too. All those new people to befriend, and try to convince that your special interest is identical to the public interest.

Morehouse sees through the arguments. He says that as a citizen concerned about his wallet, he can do without politicians who “know their way around” the capitol and are experts in politics as usual.

Most people can agree — except those who absolutely hate updating the rolodex.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.