Tag: term limits

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Lagniappes à la Legislators

Arkansas Fools

Finally, a legislator with the guts to strike directly at the root of the problem: the People.

Well, not all the people. Just the ones who speak out, who show a lack respect for their elected betters.

In recent years, the Arkansas Legislature has heroically tried to control the chaotic and dangerous excesses of freedom and democracy in the Natural State. Legislators have proposed laws clamping down on citizen petitions, requiring employees to friend their employers on Facebook, outlawing photography in public and . . . well, you get the picture.

Last November, legislators convinced voters to amend the state constitution to weaken term limits and establish an independent commission (appointed by legislators) to raise their pay 148 percent. How? By astutely telling voters that the amendment would “set term limits,” while saying nothing about the pay hike.

Legislators also cleverly curtailed the citizen initiative process, regulating paid petitioners in ways the state constitution prohibits. But they got a pass on that; the eminent state supreme court has ruled in their favor. Then, unwilling to rest on their laurels, legislators introduced a new bill requiring petition campaigns to conduct costly criminal background checks on their paid petitioners.

One opponent called this deeply thoughtful measure “mean-spirited” and “unnecessary.”

Sen. Jon Woods argued the legislation doesn’t go far enough. He filed Senate Bill 0401, which mandates that any person speaking out in any way not in sync with the legislature must shut up.

“Enough pussy-footing around. Let’s end all this free speech hogwash,” Woods said. “We’re the boss!”

For real?

Unfortunately, everything prior to the previous three paragraphs is 100 percent true. Yup, every day is April Fools’ Day at the Arkansas Legislature.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability Common Sense government transparency term limits

The Article V Path

Can Americans term-limit Congress?

Twenty-three states had passed term limits on their congressional delegations by 1995 — many while simultaneously term-limiting state lawmakers.

Voters in most other states lack statewide initiative rights. But if the term limits passed by the 23 had been left alone, the pressure would have been enormous to bring term limits to the whole Congress.

Alas, in its 1995 Thornton decision, the Supreme Court ruled, five to four, that this method of building a more perfect union is constitutionally imperfect.

U.S. Term Limits currently backs an amendment that would originate in Congress to limit House members to three two-year terms and senators to two six-year terms. Just in case congressmen don’t get around to passing such an amendment, though, USTL has also endorsed the Article V path to term limits being promoted by Citizens for Self-Governance.

Article V of the Constitution authorizes states to call a constitutional convention if two thirds of them apply. In 2014, Georgia, Alaska and Florida did formally apply for a convention to consider term limits and other reforms. Lawmakers in many other states advocate similar applications. As with congressionally proposed amendments, any amendment offered by the states’ convention would then have to be ratified by three fourths of the states.

Is Article V a long shot? Yes. Every means of imposing congressional term limits has proven to be a long shot.

When we get there, it will be because one of the long shots paid off.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Don’t think legislators deserve a 150% pay raise?

Arkansas Money Grab

The Arkansas legislature is on track to receive a massive pay hike. You can stop it.

Call (501) 682-1866

Learn more here.

 

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Accountability folly government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall meme term limits too much government

Stop Phony Crony Pay Grab

Arkansas Tricksters

Are people in Arkansas as stupid as their legislators think?

Last November, legislators tricked enough voters to narrowly pass Issue 3.

I’ve addressed before the measure’s dishonest ballot language, mis-identifying a doubling of allowed terms as the “setting of term limits.” And about a much-ballyhooed gift ban that has proven so weak that now most legislators are offered “free meals nearly every day.”

Perhaps the biggest of the tricks used to pass the measure was this: Hide from voters the measure’s establishment of an “Independent Citizens Commission” . . . a majority hand-picked by those same legislators.

This “Legislative Cronies Commission” (as it should be called) has announced it will unilaterally hike pay by an outrageous 150 percent!

The commission claims to have looked at legislative salaries in nearby states, except Texas and Mississippi — two states that just so happen to pay lower salaries. Economic factors were also considered, supposedly, but household income in Arkansas has actually dropped in the last decade.

The commission held only one poorly publicized hearing — at, get this, 10:00 am on a Monday, when most folks were working. No surprise, public comments have run ten to one negative. Letters and emails contain words and phrases such as “shameful,” “insult,” “actually sick to my stomach,” “a joke,” “ludicrous,” “appalled” and “slap in the face.”

This led Larry Ross, chief crony on the commission, to rudely dis citizens, telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he would look at the “quality” of comments, not the “quantity.”

Only a tsunami of public anger can stop this rip-off of Arkansas taxpayers. Act fast. A March 16 meeting is set to finalize the increase.

Tell the Independent [sic] Citizens [yeah, right] Commission what you think: call (501) 682-1866.

This is Common Sense. Paul Jacob.

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An Argument in Favor of Term Limits

“As a lobbyist, I was completely against term limits, and I know a lot of people are against term limits, and I was one of the leaders, because why? As a lobbyist, once you buy a congressional office, you don’t have to re-buy that office in six years, right?”

—JACK ABRAMOFF, Former Lobbyist and Convicted Felon

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Categories
government transparency meme porkbarrel politics too much government

Don’t think legislators deserve a 150% pay raise?

The Arkansas legislature is on track to receive a massive pay hike. You can stop it.

Call (501) 682-1866

Learn more here.

 

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Common Sense

Twelve Isn’t Enough?

If you know anything about term limits and political lifers, you know which one hates the other: Your typical politico disdains and reviles your typical term limit.

But it’s not just the typical term limit that politicians hate. It’s all term limits. In states with six-year or eight-year term limits, politicians often pretend to support the limits, saying they just want to tweak them . . . to get just a little more time.

But where state legislators do have more time, they don’t want to accept term limits either.

Take Nevada, where they are limited to a generous twelve-year stretch.

In Nevada, initiatives to amend the state constitution must be approved twice. Voters there passed twelve-year term limits on many officials, including lawmakers, in 1994 and again 1996. The amendment explicitly included the incumbents’ previous service. The law was retroactive. But the attorney general at the time opined that the law wasn’t retroactive, and incumbents got away with pretending it wasn’t.

That scam was bad enough. But now it’s 2008. And Nevada lawmakers and other incumbents are saying they should be allowed to run for re-election even if they’ve been in power for twelve straight years since 1996.

They’ve got some trumped-up technical excuse. But the bottom line is very familiar. They’re in power. They want to stay there. And to heck with the law . . . and the voters.

Sad, but true.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Edmondson v. Term Limits

Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon is disappointed by the most recent objectionable conduct of his state’s attorney general.

The AG, Drew Edmondson, publicly opposes a bill to term-limit the offices of state officials, including his. The proposal would impose a twelve-year maximum. Mild as far as term limits go, but it still triggers all the alarm bells if you are part of a family dynasty of career politicians.

Senator Brogdon, a supporter of the bill, notes that Attorney General Edmondson typically declines to comment publicly on pending legislation. So it’s “very disappointing” to him that Edmondson is now ignoring that practice.

As for me, I can’t say I’m seriously “disappointed.’ We’re disappointed by LAPSES in character, aren’t we? Not so much when persons with known character flaws – in this case, chronic contempt for democracy, the rule of law, the rights of the innocent – behave just as we expect.

Edmondson, after all, is currently trying to imprison me and two other honorable supporters of citizen initiative rights for our work on a 2005 initiative in Oklahoma. On fictional grounds. (See FreePaulJacob.com for details.) So it’s not like Edmonson has swerved from the straight and narrow. And I’m not exactly spitting up hot coffee.

Maybe I’m nitpicking. It’s always disappointing when power-grabbing incumbents act like power-grabbing incumbents. Would be nice if they changed their stripes. Most never will.

Which is why we need term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.