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About Paul Jacob

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Paul Jacob is president of the Liberty Initiative Fund, a national organization helping citizens place issues on the ballot to protect individual liberty and hold government accountable.

“If there’s anyone who’s been involved in more citizen initiative campaigns in the history of this country [than Paul Jacob],” said Los Angeles Times reporter Joe Mathews, “I’m not aware of them.”

For more than a decade, Paul was the term limits movement’s leading voice, running U.S. Term Limits, the nation’s largest such group. For his work to bring term limits to Congress, columnist Robert Novak good-naturedly called Jacob “the most hated man in Washington.”

Campaigning for term limits, as well as for spending caps, property rights measures and candidate ballot access, Paul has been involved in over 175 statewide petition drives.

Currently, Paul Jacob hosts Common Sense, an online and print opinion program sponsored by the Great Communicators Foundation, which reaches tens of thousands of online readers and e-mail subscribers. Paul also writes a weekly column for Townhall.com that appears each Sunday.

“The best way to assure freedom of expression, no matter where it may be threatened,” Pulitzer-prize winning columnist, Paul Greenberg, wrote recently, “would be to have an army of utterly determined Paul Jacobs fighting for it.”

Paul won the “Courage Under Fire” award at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference. He has also been named “a rising star in politics” by Campaigns & Elections magazine, received the Society for Individual Liberty’s “Phoenix Award” for “contributions to the advancement of liberty in America,” and was dubbed one of “The Best and the Rightest” by National Journal. 

His writing has been featured in USA Today, The Washington Times, The New York Daily News, Roll Call, Human Events, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Examiner and other publications. He has appeared on numerous television programs and is a consistent guest on talk radio.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Jacob held a number of positions in the Libertarian Party, including serving as chairman of the Arkansas Libertarian Party, national director of the national Libertarian Party and also national ballot access coordinator. Paul also served on the Libertarian National Committee – a position he was elected to from his federal prison cell, while serving a six month sentence for refusing to register for the military draft.

Paul currently serves on the boards of Citizens in Charge, a non-partisan group working to protect and expand voter initiative rights, and the Citizens in Charge Foundation, a charitable foundation conducting research on the initiative process, educating the public and litigating to defend petition rights – both groups he founded. He also serves on the board of the Great Communicators Foundation, a charitable foundation providing communication training to pro-liberty activists, and on the board of the Taxpayers United of America.

Paul lives with his wife Rhonda in Woodbridge, Virginia. They have three children and two grandchildren.


9 replies on “About Paul Jacob”

Paul, congratulations on being so determined and dogged in acting responsibly for American Liberty and our values. Well done.

In light of the recent ruling (6/3/21 ) by Federal judge Roger Benitez overturning a California firearms ban on assault weapons where he ruled it violates the Constitutional right to bear arms, his words, referring to the Second Amendment, I have a suggestion. In my thesis regarding the Second Amendment I think it will prove his ruling right to bear arms” has everything to do with a “militia” and nothing to do with a “person” or individual, which the following will suggest..

Justice Amy Coney Barrett Second Amendment dilemma

In some 225 years neither law professors, academic scholars, teachers, students, lawyers or congressional legislators after much debate have not been able to satisfactorily explain or demonstrate the Framers intended purpose of Second Amendment of the Constitution. I had taken up that challenge allowing  Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s dilemma to understand the true intent of the Second Amendment.

I will relate further by demonstration, the intent of the Framers, my understanding using the associated wording to explain. The Second Amendment states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Militia, a body of citizens organized for military service.

If, as some may argue, the Second Amendment’s “militia” meaning is that every person has a right to keep and bear arms, the only way to describe ones right as a private individual is not as a “militia” but as a “person.” (The individual personality of a human being: self)

The 4th Amendment reminds us, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons….”

The Article of Confederation lists eleven (11) references to“person/s.” The Constitution lists “person” or “persons” 49 times to explicitly describe, clarify and mandate a constitutional legal standing as to a “person” his or her constitutional duty and rights, what he or she can do or not do.

It’s not enough to just say “person/s” is mentioned in the United States Constitution 49 times, but to see it for yourself (forgo listing), and the realization was for the concern envisioned by the Framers that every person be secure in these rights explicitly spelled out, referenced and understood how these rights were to be applied to that “person.”

Whereas, in the Second Amendment any reference to “person” is not to be found. Was there a reason? Which leaves the obvious question, why did the Framers use the noun “person/s” as liberally as they did throughout the Constitution 49 times and not apply this understanding to explicitly convey the same legal standard in defining an individual “persons” right to bear arms as a person?

Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissent in Barr v Kanter (2019) Second Amendment argument acquiesced to 42 references to “person/s, of which 13 characterize either a gun or firearm. Her Second Amendment, “textualism” approach having zero reference to “person/s. Justice Barrett’s  view only recognizes “person/s” in Barr, as well in her many other 7th circuit rulings. It is her refusal to acknowledge, recognize or connect the U.S. Constitution benchmark legislative interpretive precept language of “person/s,” mandated in our Constitution 49 times, to the Second Amendment.
 
Leaving Supreme Court Justice Barrett’s judgment in question.

In the entire U.S. Constitution “militia” is mentioned 5 times. In these references there is no mention of “person” or “persons.” One reference to “people” in the Second Amendment. People, meaning not a person but persons in describing militia.

Now comes the word “shall” mentioned in the Constitution 100 times. SHALL; ought to, must ..

And interestingly, the word “shall” appears in the Second Amendment. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and shall not be infringed.”

“[S]hall not be infringed.” Adding another word “infringed” to clarify any misunderstanding as to the intent of the Second Amendment. Infringe. To encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another;

The condition “Infringe” has put a stop as to any counter thoughts regarding the Second Amendment, as you shall  not infringe or encroach  on beliefs other to what is evident as to the subject “Militia.”

Finally, clarifying “..the right of the people to keep and bear arms…
People. Human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest.

In closing, I am not against guns, everybody has them. I’m against using the Second Amendment illogically as a crutch. If it makes those feel better so be it. Just what it deserves, use it with a wink.

William Heino Sr
.Bourbonnais, IL.

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