Tag: term limits

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initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

Lie, Cheat AND Steal

Memphis, City Council, term limits, lie, cheat, steal

Sometimes lying just isn’t enough. But dishonest politicians have additional weapons at their disposal. There’s cheating. And stealing, too.

Meet the Memphis City Council.

Apparently fearful that their official fibbery through deceptive ballot wording on three council-​referred measures won’t be enough to successfully hoodwink a majority of voters, the council has decided to ramp the chicanery up a notch.

“I think it’s pretty clear that the ordinances were intentionally written by the city council and its attorney to confuse voters,” writes Bruce VanWyngarden, editor of The Memphis Flyer. “They are attempting to extend term limits from two terms to three terms, but they don’t have the courage to ask for it honestly.”

That’s the lying. And here’s where stealing jumps ahead of cheating.

Last week, the city council voted 5 – 3 to snatch upwards of $40,000 in city money and spend it, as the Memphis NBC affiliate reports, “in support of extending term limits, suspending instant runoff voting, and repealing instant runoff voting.”

Council Chairman Berlin Boyd says the goal “is merely educating the constituents and letting them know our position on these referendum items.” But it is the constituents’ money, city tax dollars, not a political slush fund for the Council.

Furthermore, the people’s money should never be spent for or against a question on the ballot. That’s … cheating.

“They are trying to undo the will of the voters,” argues Steve Mulroy, a law professor and instant runoff activist, by “misappropriating public funds” for “a propaganda campaign.”

Precisely.

To keep things in perspective, however, let’s acknowledge that the Memphis City Council has not dismembered anyone with a bonesaw.

Yet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

Corruption, Arkansas-​Style

Arkansas, term limits, corruption, rules, regulations, initiative, democracy

On Friday, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck Issue 3, a citizen-​initiated measure to restore legislative term limits, from Arkansas’ November ballot. The Court declared, 4 – 3, that there weren’t enough “valid” signatures.

This, despite opponents never disputing that more than enough Arkansas voters had signed the petition.

In recent years, legislators have enacted a slew of convoluted laws, purposely designed to wreck the initiative and referendum process.* The regulations give insiders and partisans a myriad of hyper-​technical “gotchas” that can be used to disqualify whole sheets of bonafide voter signatures.

“The legislature,” explained former Governor Mike Huckabee recently, “sucker-​punched the people of Arkansas and expanded their terms. They did it, I think, very dishonestly — by calling it an ethics bill … that had nothing to do with ethics. It was all about giving themselves longer terms.”

Since getting away with that 2014 ballot con job, giving themselves a whopping 16 years in office, seven Arkansas state legislators have been indicted or convicted of corruption. The author of that tricky ballot measure, former Sen. Jon Woods, just began serving an 18-​year federal prison sentence for corruption.

Other corruption, that is.

“It’s one reason I think term limits are a very important part of our political system today,” said Huckabee. It is, he argued, “easier to get involved in things that are corrupt the longer you stay.”

Now, sadly, after 2014’s fraudulent ballot measure and two 4 – 3 state supreme court decisions neutering the entire ballot initiative process, political corruption can continue unabated in the Natural State. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The state supreme court has ignored the clear language in the state constitution regarding such petitions: “No legislation shall be enacted to restrict, hamper or impair the exercise of the rights herein reserved to the people.”

N.B. For relevant links, check yesterday’s splash page for this weekend’s Townhall column.

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term limits

In the Pudding

Mercatus, map, term limits, Democrats, Republicans

Republicans have made much hay of the Mercatus Center map of our United States, colored by fiscal condition. Why? Well, nine out of the ten least financially stable state governments are run by Democrats.

But there’s another way to look at it.

“Only 15 state legislatures in the U.S. are term limited,” U.S. Term Limits President Philip Blumel writes in a letter to the Mercatus folks. “However, four of your top five fiscally healthy states are term limit states.”

And how many of Mercatus’ bottom five states possess term limits?

Zero.

That’s 80 percent of the top states from a fiscal standpoint coming from just 30 percent of states where legislators are limited. And no state with term limits can be found at the bottom of the heap.*

Now, these impressive results do not prove “that this fiscal outperformance is due primarily to term limits,” Blumel admits. Instead, they do “effectively disprove a common objection to term limits.”

Legislators sans term limits are not “too inexperienced.” Indeed, these state rankings show the suffering, instead, lopsided on the states with no limit on how long legislators can stay in office. 

Blumel points out that term-​limitless Illinois, with the “longest speakership in U.S. history under Mike Madigan,” ended up dead last, fiftieth.

“Legislators in term limit legislatures,” he argues, “have a broader range of experience than in non-​term limited legislatures.” 

Reasonable. 

No extrapolation necessary, however, for the basic conclusion: State government fiscal health correlates strongly with legislative term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Mercatus’ results are no aberration. “We have seen term limit states crowd the top end of the ALEC rankings as well,” notes Mr. Blumel.

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

The Perfect Couple

Paul Jacob, Rome, term limits, inititative, ballot

A marriage made in … democracy? 

Last Thursday, at the 2018 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, held at the Palazzo Senatorio in Rome, Italy, I talked about term limits. And initiative and referendum rights.

Italy’s populist Five Star Movement, the leading party in the new ruling coalition, supports both expanding direct citizen-​initiated democracy and the idea of limiting politicians to no more than two terms in office. So, imagine my enthusiasm on a morning panel of Italian academics, public officials, and practitioners of initiative and referendum.

I urged them to marry the two issues — term limits and direct democracy. Together, they counter-​balance the clear conflict of interest elected officials have with doing the will of the people.

“The citizens are ready,” offered Flavia Marzano, Rome’s City Minister for Citizens Participation, referring to direct democracy. “Maybe so far, politicians are not so ready.” 

She added, “We should merit the trust of the citizens.”

That afternoon, in keeping with the forum’s focus on cities, I delivered a short note on how after Nashville, Tennessee, voters passed term limits in 1994, the Metro Council has peppered the ballot with re-​votes in 1996, 1998, 2002, 2015 and now again this November.

Thankfully, what seems like a novel idea in the political world was just common sense at the Global Forum. Here they recognize that, all over the world, people want to be free from tyranny. And all over the world, voters see term limits as an important way to prevent fiefdoms of incumbency, political stagnation and entrenchment, even dictatorship. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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ballot access incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Intentionally Confounding Incumbents

Memphis, ballot, instant runoff, term limits

The three issues on the ballot in Memphis this November are “not complicated,” writes Commercial Appeal columnist David Waters, “unless you read the actual ballot questions.”

Which is all most voters will see.

All three directly affect the self-​interest of members of the Memphis City Council, which placed them on the ballot and determined the language voters will attempt to decipher. 

Waters called that ballot wording “incomprehensible” and “intentionally confounding.” His newspaper colleague, Ryan Poe, accused the council of “trying to stack the deck.”

The first measure would weaken the council’s term limits, passed in 2011 with a 78 percent vote and just about to kick in. The ballot language, Mr. Poe explains, “reads like voters are being asked to place limits on council members … rather than extend them.” By an extra term.

The second issue would repeal Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which was brought forth by citizen petition and enacted via a 71 percent yes vote. The confusing ballot wording brings up a 1991 federal court decision without providing voters any context or explanation.

Though IRV has not yet been used, council incumbents fear it.* This becomes especially clear when you discover that the third ballot question is actually a sneakier, second attempt to repeal IRV.

“Instant runoffs, and run-​off elections in general, tend to make it easier for challengers to unseat incumbents in multi-​candidate district races,” argues Waters. He adds, “Incumbents generally become stronger the longer they are in office.”

To incumbent politicians, reform is a dirty word. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Back in February, the council was caught paying a lobbyist to convince state legislators to restrict their city’s ability to implement Instant Runoff Voting. 

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Categories
general freedom national politics & policies term limits

Wise American Tradition

George Washington, resignation, king, father, term limits

On Sunday, former Pres. Barack Obama acknowledged — in the breach — the “wise American tradition of ex-​presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.” 

The former president’s talk at the University of Illinois made big news in large part because it was a direct attack on the current president.

“We have our first president, George Washington, to thank for setting that example,” Mr. Obama explained to the students. “After he led the colonies to victory, as General Washington, there were no constraints on him, really. He was practically a god to those who had followed him into battle. There was no Constitution.  There were no democratic norms that guided what he should or could do. And he could have made himself all-​powerful; he could have made himself potentially president for life. Instead, he resigned as commander-​in-​chief and moved back to his country estate.”

Noting that “six years later” Washington was elected president, Obama added, “But after two terms, he resigned again and rode off into the sunset.”

The two-​term limit, constitutionally imposed on modern presidents, was established as a tradition when self-​imposed by the man known as the father of our country.

“The point Washington made, the point that is essential to American democracy, is that in a government of, and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class,” the former president concluded, “… only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives determine our course and determine our character.”

On that, Americans across the political spectrum can agree. 

It’s called term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Illustration: detail from “The Resignation of General Washington, December 23, 1783,” oil on canvas, by the American artist John Trumbull.