Sharron Angle, who is running for U.S. Senate against Harry Reid, the majority leader seeking a fifth term, had a very good reason for entering politics. The powers that be wouldn’t leave her be.

In his column “Candidate Nobody Is Not to Be Underestimated,” George Will reports that the roots of the grandmother’s current campaign lie three decades in the past. Her son was being forced to repeat kindergarten, so she decided to teach him herself. But although homeschooling was legal in Nevada, you couldn’t do it unless you lived at least 50 miles from a public school.

Angle and other parents trooped to the state legislature to demand change. One job-holder there, annoyed by this torrent of interest by mere citizens in legislative doings, said if he’d “known there would be 500 people here instead of 50 and it would take five hours instead of 30 minutes, I would have thrown it [the legislation] in my drawer, and it would never have seen the light of day.” Angle has been “politically incandescent” ever since.

I like this story for many reasons, in part because my wife and I have home-schooled our kids. One thing you have to teach the young is not to expect politicians to look out for your genuine best interests.

Another is that vigilance is the price of liberty.

A third is that if you want something done right, often you have to do it yourself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Amy Kremer, director of the Tea Party Express, one of the many organizations that try to steer the Tea Party movement, appeared on The View, recently. She stayed on point, talking sense, on the whole:

• The movement is all about fiscal issues, limited government, responsibility, and free markets. No social issues, she said.
• “We have no leader, the leaders are all across the country.” Sarah Palin is not the Tea Party’s leader.
• The Tea Party is non-partisan, crossing “all party lines,” with independents, Democrats, Republicans and libertarians participating.
• Tea Party folk are most angry at the GOP because “there’s no denying that the spending started under Bush.”

Ms. Kremer ably steered the conversation away from the traps that The View folk might have liked to see her fall into. Co-host Joy Behar appeared quite pleased that Kremer acknowledged Bush-era Republicans as responsible for starting this current trend in over-spending.

So, good talking points. Other Tea Party folks should emulate her. I say this in part to reiterate points I made on Townhall not long ago. To seriously tackle our massive fiscal problems, the Tea Party will have to confront spending across the board, including a Sarah Palin/John McCain-style foreign policy.

How is it that people from across the political spectrum can work together in this movement?

It’s simple: No one but a fool would flirt with government insolvency and ruin.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Missouri State Senator Jim Lembke is a hero . . . just for listening.

Senator Lembke helped protect his state’s initiative and referendum process by defeating legislation passed by the House with several restrictive provisions, some already ruled unconstitutional in other states. One provision aims to restrict citizens from petitioning for more than one initiative at a time, which would effectively block eminent domain reformers working on two separate measures.

That same unconstitutional legislation just passed the House again. And again, citizens need the help of Lembke and the Senate.

But the senator has also introduced Bill 818, which would do three simple things. First, it protects voters from having their petition signatures discounted for minor technical errors. Second, it makes it unlawful to purposely mislead signers or to harass or intimidate those signing or circulating a petition. Third, it provides judicial deadlines so that opponents could no longer challenge an initiative’s ballot title and hold it up in court so long that the time to gather signatures is exhausted.

On Monday, a Columbia, Missouri, radio station interviewed Sen. Lembke. The host asked him why he introduced his bill. He said people had talked to him about their experiences with the petition process, and he listened.

Sounds simple, really. More legislators should try it.

We at Citizens in Charge Foundation gave Lembke the April 2010 Lilburne Award. We hope it encourages Lembke and his colleagues to continue to fight for initiative rights.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

We have free speech in America. Guaranteed by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. But a First Amendment guarantee doesn’t make freedom a certainty. It’s not as if we don’t have to stand up for our rights.

But stand up to whom?

Usually, threats to free speech come from government . . . most recently, the government of the town of Southborough, Massachusetts.

The blog MySouthborough.com, run by Susan Fitzgerald, is devoted to her town, providing a platform for residents to speak out and get heard.

And there’s the rub. Sometimes people in government don’t like criticism.

Fitzgerald’s website irked local head honchos last autumn. Someone calling himself (or herself) “Marty” had commented, online, about how the town’s Police Chief Selection Committee was meeting behind closed doors. Marty suggested that committee members were breaking the state’s open meeting requirements, and insinuated that the whole process was prejudiced in favor of one particular applicant.

Sounds fairly innocuous? Not to the town’s counsel, who demanded to know “Marty’s” actual name.

Fitzgerald wouldn’t give it to him, free speech and all. The lawyer blustered about how Marty was intimidating the selection panel. A laughable claim. A blog comment is intimidation?

And then the counsel warned her — intimidating her — to watch more carefully what’s posted on her blog.

Fitzgerald remains firm. And she defends anonymous contributors. “Choosing anonymity doesn’t make their opinion any less valid,” she states.

Or any less protected.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Humor writer. Mom. And politician?

That third item wasn’t in Susan Konig’s life plan. But six years ago, her fellow residents of Westchester County, New York, were having trouble with a local waste company. Susan wondered what she could do about it. Someone suggested she run for office.

But she wasn’t a politician, just a writer — and not even a political writer. And where was she going to find the time?

Still, Susan agreed to give it some thought. Then she got pregnant with her fourth child and stopped giving it thought. Then sewage backed up into her house. Twice. So she ran for the board of trustees as a Republican in a dominantly Democratic town, and won. She worked to curb taxes and spending. She got rid of the irresponsible waste company.

She narrowly lost re-election. After agreeing to run at the country level, she narrowly lost to a Democratic incumbent who had won by a large margin in his previous race.

Susan Konig doesn’t see either electoral loss as a tragedy, given the cage-rattling she accomplished. She learned that a great many people in both parties are sick of runaway taxes and spending. She also learned that even where political establishments are corrupt and calcified, opportunities remain for citizen legislators to do something about it.

Of course, she learned that lesson by proving it, herself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.