Pennsylvania State Senator Jim Rhoades probably won’t win. So Pennsylvania voters won’t win either–not for now.

The senator’s bill proposes a right to citizen initiative. Thanks to recent political scandals, there’s been much talk of reform lately in Pennsylvania. But the legislature’s reform commission, where everything from transparency to term limits is on the table, won’t even consider the Rhoades proposal.

It’s a catch-22. The legislature “has a stranglehold on what gets done in this state,” notes citizen activist Gene Stilp. Initiative rights would allow voters to go directly to fellow citizens, to escape the stranglehold. But this stranglehold is also why the bill is at the bottom of the slush pile.

Stick with it, guys. This is a cause worth fighting for.

Matthew Brouillette, president of the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania, says the initiative “can be a double-edged sword. You can get some good and bad things. Overall, it’s a good check on state government.”

Yes, but let’s qualify that qualifier. Citizens sometimes vote for bad laws. But they’re also quicker to correct their mistakes than pompous politicians; witness the voters passing and then repealing a high-speed train project in Florida. And citizen initiative has been a critical check on government: advancing women’s suffrage, ending poll taxes, thwarting excessive taxation, imposing term limits, and so on.

Initiative-passed laws at least show public support. Not so much can be said of laws passed by legislators. Special interests can wield tremendous influence on lawmakers. But they can’t buy off entire electorates.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In recent debates about climate, pollution, trade deficits, and the like, we - and by this I mean you and me, kemosabi - sometimes get hit with challenges like this: “Well, that’s what this scientist recently said in a peer-reviewed journal article. No reputable scientists agree with you,” blah blah blah.

As arguments from authority go, it can be devastating.

But, as economist Robert Higgs recently argued for the Independent Institute, peer reviewed journals don’t make perfect science by magic.

Higgs himself has a long career of being one of those peer reviewers, for more than 30 journals. And he insists that “Peer review . . . varies from being an important control, where the editors and the referees are competent and responsible, to being a complete farce, where they are not.”

His essay on the process is an eye-opener. He describes how an editor can get any article nixed, no problem. And favor a different article, too, almost regardless of merit.

And he notes that in many fields, research is done with government grants, and this process by no means ensures incorruptible research.

His advice? Don’t give up your own expertise. And what is that? Your own judgment and values and risk preference. At the very most, a scientist is only qualifed to talk about his science. Not policy.

So never give ground merely under pressure of cited peer review article. As peer pressure goes, it’s far from infallible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Special interest groups would really like to give California’s Assembly Speaker, Fabian Nuñez a lot of money. Nuñez is important. The bills now going through the legislature will determine how billions of dollars get directed in the state.

So of course, they want Nuñez’s ear. And more.

But there are two things in the way: A $7,200 cap on campaign donations to the Speaker, and the niggling fact that Nuñez is due to be termed out, soon.

Still, Nuñez knows how to nail two birds with one stone. His top political consultant has cooked up a new term limits measure that if passed would allow Nuñez to serve twice as long as Assembly Speaker. And there are no limits on how much you can spend on a ballot initiative.

That’s one reason there’s so much money behind Nuñez’s tricky term limits initiative. I’ve talked about this measure before, how it pretends to be for tougher term limits while actually weakening them.

What is happening is ugly, but instructive. A politician scheming to stay in power. And powerful interests spending big bucks to cozy up to and keep their politician.

Jay Stewart of the Better Government Association says, “Common sense tells you that if you support an issue near and dear to any legislator, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, you’re probably going to get your phone call returned.”

Yes. And return on your investment. Which is why we need term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Recently a National Review writer wanted to know what the big deal is with congressional porkbarrel spending. Sure, pork represents billions and billions of squandered taxpayer dollars. But it’s still a relatively small portion of the federal budget. Shouldn’t fiscal conservatives spend more time on more important battles?

So is pork much more than a “symbol” of government excess?

Yes. Earmarks - taxpayer-funded favor-doling to special interests - work as the major means by which career politicians function as career politicians . . . at the expense of our actual common interests. If citizens successfully roll back pork, a similar strategy could prove useful in helping roll back other misbegotten federal spending.

Replying to National Review, Senator Tom Coburn notes that despite protestations to the contrary, “Congress has the power to spend less money whenever it chooses. It is very simple. Congress can decide to do fewer earmarks and spend less money.”

That’s why I applaud citizen groups like Porkbusters. They aren’t wasting their time. If and when they succeed, it’s not as if no props whatever should be kicked out from under today’s political insiders.

Sure, career politicians believe we should just let them go on doing all they currently do to maintain their power. But many of the rest of us just don’t agree. And we’re not inclined to shut up just yet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Nine hundred forty-seven dollars and 37 cents per page. I suppose you could say that’s the price that Representative William Jefferson, Democrat from Louisiana, paid for keeping bribe money in his home fridge.

The FBI found his $90,000 stash of cold, hard cash some time back, and it earned him 95 pages of a 16-count indictment from the federal government. And a great deal of notoriety.

The Washington DC Examiner looked over the indictment and used the phrase “stark venality.”

And then the Examiner asks the $90,000 question: “How many more Jeffersons [are there] in Congress?”

The Examiner notes that the Jefferson case “follows hard on the heels of prison sentences handed to two of his former congressional colleagues from the Republican side of the aisle, Randy Cunningham of California and Bob Ney of Ohio.” And it looks like these crooks aren’t alone, since there are “ongoing FBI investigations involving” Representatives Mollohan, Calvert, Doolittle, and the infamous Senator to the Bridges to Nowhere, Ted Stevens.

How has the Congressional graft industry worked so well for so long?

The Examiner focuses at one part of the puzzle. The “favor factory” works because earmarks are still secret, despite attempts to bring them to light.

This is exactly right. But it’s not the whole story, as the Examiner admits when it says that Jefferson is not accused of using earmarks in his bribe solicitations.

The real problem is that power corrupts. So we citizens must limit power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.