Tag: voting

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ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

Anti-​Democratic Republicans?

political, politics, 2 Party Lockout, political party, politics, exclusion, elections, democracy, collage, photomontage

The Republican Party of Ohio paid lawyers $300,000 to keep a competitor off the ballot.

Typical two-​party corruption. We can blame the party, yes — but also blame the system.

A “two-​party system” is, mathematicians tell us, the logical result of simple plurality/​winner-​takes-​all elections. That is, when the first candidate “past the post” wins enough votes to best any other, that candidate wins.

When you count votes like this, two parties emerge to dominate.

But to really rule the roost, those parties are incentivized to pile on … to make it hard for “minor-​party” challengers. Ballot access becomes a nasty business.

Last year Charlie Earl ran for the governorship of Ohio as a Libertarian Party candidate. But he was blocked from the ballot. And when the Ohio LP “filed a federal lawsuit to try to force Earl’s name on the ballot,” Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges testified that his party had nothing to do with the legal maneuvers involved.

As Borges put it at the time, “Anyone who’s looking for the conspiracy behind it — it’s just not there.”

Now, it turns out, the conspiracy was there. His party paid the bills.

Whether Borges was lying or not — maybe he was clueless about these shenanigans — the deed got done.

More important than whether Borges himself can be held culpable for the ballot-​access conspiracy, it’s the system that encourages such anti-​democratic nonsense that needs changing. First-​past-​the-​post elections must go. There are alternatives, as my friends at FairVote​.org champion.

As Ohio GOP leaders stand shame-​faced with the evidence of evildoing, it’s time to press such reforms.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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2 Party Lockout

 

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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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ballot access general freedom

Sore Winners?

In 2009, Washington state voters considered a ballot question, Referendum 71, on whether to uphold a new law expanding domestic partnership rights. The referendum was the work of opponents of the controversial law; supporters, obviously, would have been happy to see it enacted without challenge.

Some 138,000 Washingtonians signed the petition to post the question. But they failed to prevent the law from taking effect: It was approved last November 53 percent to 47 percent.

Now there’s controversy about whether publicly releasing the names of petition signers can be justified in the name of transparency.

Of course, this is transparency not of government — allowing civic monitoring of power and purse — but of citizens’ political acts. Those eager to see the names mostly claim they want to make sure the signatures are valid. But with 47 percent of the electorate having voted No, is there really any doubt that opposition was widespread enough to yield the required number of petition signatures?

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that petition signers enjoy no First-​Amendment-​implied right to anonymity. But the court suggested that disclosure of the petitioners’ names might be blocked on the grounds of a plausible threat that signers would be harassed, as some foes of the law have been already.

So a group called Protect Marriage Washington has secured a court order to keep the names sealed until it can argue in court that intimidation of petition signers is indeed likely.

Stay tuned.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.