Category: term limits

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency incumbents term limits

The Smoking Russian Donut

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), corruption, Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, Dunkin Donuts, FBI, Russia, Russian

“Politicians in prison garb,” headlined a recent Sun Sentinel editorial, “shake trust in government.”

It was not a fashion statement.

“What is it about a long career that makes some politicians — not all, let’s be clear about that — feel the rules don’t apply to them?” asked the paper, which serves Florida’s Broward and Palm Beach counties.

This week, after spending the last 24 years in Congress, former Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) began serving a five-year term in federal prison. Brown was convicted of 18 separate fraud and corruption counts stemming from her use of a public charity to benefit herself.

Not to be outdone, last week the FBI arrested Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper on various corruption charges following a six-year undercover sting operation. “From what is now known,” the editorial board judged “the case against Cooper” to be “devastating.”

There are taped conversations, reportedly, between FBI agents posing as “wealthy land owners [seeking] political favors” and the mayor, discussing pay (her) to play (with the city). At one point, undercover agents say a bribe was delivered to the mayor in “a Dunkin’ Donuts bag stuffed with $8,000 in cash and checks from people with a ‘bunch of Russian names.’”

Russians?

“If not so tragic,” the paper wrote of the corruption, “it would be laughable to imagine Russians colluding to control the Hallandale Beach city election.”

Humor is needed, truly. Yet, the Sun Sentinel concluded instead that “term limits are needed in Hallandale Beach.”

Of course.

And needed for Congress.

Now more than ever.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people Popular term limits

Let There Be Light

Washington Post, Democracy, term limits,

The Washington Post sports a new masthead slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness,.”

A story in last Sunday’s Metro section suggests that the editors are yet to fully implement the slogan’s implicit mission — providing impartial, unbiased illumination. “Term limits for Maryland legislators?” reads the headline. “Here’s why that’s unlikely,” it immediately answers.

“Term limits seem highly popular in Maryland,” begin the article.

Seem?

What produces that elusive sensory perception? I mean, other than every poll ever taken and, as the Post elaborates, “Voters in the state’s two largest jurisdictions, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, strongly endorsed them at the polls in recent years.”

Add to that three other counties, which had previously enacted term limits, the paper informs.

Still, the idea is “widely considered dead on arrival.”

Why? you ask.

“It’s very difficult,” explains Gov. Larry Hogan, “to convince people to willingly give up their power.”

“People” not as in “the People” but, instead, such as Senate President Mike Miller, a 46-year incumbent and the Senate boss for three decades running, and Speaker Mike Busch, a 31-year incumbent and the longest serving speaker in state history.

But wait . . . why didn’t politicians in those five Maryland counties block term limits like state legislators “likely” will? Did their lack of experience cause them to forget to be self-serving jerks?

No. Counties in Maryland have a ballot initiative process whereby citizens can petition term limits directly to a democratic vote. Their elected servants simply cannot ignore them.

The Post piece could have pointed out that very difference — between the democratic outcomes in those counties and an unrepresentative one at the state capitol.

It did not.

Democracy dies in darkness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility term limits too much government

The Politics of Inertia

Frankenstein, monster, shut down, shutdown, Congress, government, deep state

Congress’s failure to establish, last week, any semblance of budgetary responsibility led to one of those “government shutdowns” that the press likes to yammer about so breathlessly.

Then, early this week, Senate holdouts caved, allowing a short-term fix to bring the federal government fully back to life, like the monster in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab given a defibrillator jolt.

Usually these government shutdowns are caused by Republicans not playing along — Obamacare being the sticking point most recently — but this time the desperate negotiators were Sen. Chuck Schumer (D -NY) and his Democrat gang, whose “heroic” stance was all about immigration reform and “the Dreamers.”

After they folded, and the Monster was bequeathed new life, CNN’s Brooke Baldwin asked former Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz what her party had gained from its temporary obstructionism.

Her answer? “Potential for momentum.”

That had to be one of the more bizarrely drawn happy faces over complete and utter failure that we have witnessed since . . . well, the last one.

Even Ms. Baldwin was incredulous.*

The Democratic Party’s disarray is astounding. If any party has momentum on its side, it is the party of Andy Jackson and William Jennings Bryan, the party of the elitist media, insider government and the Deep State, and the resistance to Trump.

So why its current pathetic fortune? Because the Democrats have rested so long upon their “momentum.”

Inertia can sure have its downside.

On the “bright side,” Democrats will have occasion to revisit this, for no real budget has been established. All Congress even tries to do these days is provide temporary fix after temporary fix.

Call it potential for catastrophe.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The CNN anchor may have been nonplussed by the specter of entropy in the odd Newtonian metaphor.

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Accountability ballot access general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders national politics & policies political challengers responsibility tax policy term limits too much government

What Unlimited Government Costs Us

Tim Eyman, doll, petition, taxes, Washington, initiative, democracy, voters

“Olympia can’t restrain itself,” Tim Eyman wrote the other day, a judgment on legislative irresponsibility hardly unique to the Evergreen State. Citizens around the country have cause to lament the difficulty of obtaining anything close to a good legislature.

Too often the merely “bad” would constitute a significant improvement.

Which is why legislators need to be put on a short leash. Limits on government must be written into law, where possible into either the U.S. Constitution or state constitutions, so the limits cannot be tampered with by legislators, good or bad.

Washington State initiative guru Tim Eyman, cited above, has made a career of working for just those kinds of limits. In 2007, Eyman and the citizen group Voters Want More Choices petitioned onto the statewide ballot a requirement that any tax increase must receive a two-thirds vote from both legislative chambers.

Voters passed the measure* in 2007, 2011 and 2012.

In an email to supporters this month, Eyman presents data — an “amazing real-world comparison” — to help us understand how effective the limits were . . . while they lasted.

He notes that “with the 2/3 rule in effect from 2008-2012, those 5 legislative sessions cost the taxpayers $6.894 billion” in increased taxes.

And he compares that to the five years (2013-2017) since the state’s highest court struck down the voters’ two-thirds mandate: “WITHOUT the 2/3 rule, those 5 legislative sessions cost the taxpayers $23.679 billion.”

“Without the fiscal discipline imposed by citizen initiatives,” Eyman concludes, “politicians cannot hold back.”

Now we have hard evidence for what unlimited government costs us: more than three times more!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Washington State’s ballot initiative process allows voters to pass simple statutes but not constitutional amendments. For two years after passage, legislators must garner a two-thirds vote to override a ballot initiative. After those two years, only a simple majority is required.

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Accountability folly ideological culture local leaders national politics & policies term limits

The Great Dood Drain of ’17

Michigan Congressman John Conyers, scandal, resignation, term limits, nepotism, congress, experience

How can we expect the federal government to continue to function at its usual peak efficiency without the awesome 52 years of experience and institutional knowledge supplied by Michigan Congressman John Conyers?

American government faces a congressional brain drain, Conyers’s resignation in the wake of accusations of sexual harassment not being anything like unique. Yesterday, Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) announced his impending resignation, as did Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) — before allegations against him had even hit the news.

Also imperiled? The talents of an unknown number of other eminent gropers and experienced molesters, a treasury of firsthand knowledge of how government really works.

Sure, the nation survived back when George Washington stepped down after two terms as president; when Congress lost Daniel Webster and Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the institution carried on. 

But just think of the complexity of modern governance, and the great expertise and finely crafted statesmanship exhibited by someone like Congressman Conyers. Are we being sent up the proverbial Detroit River sans oar?

If only someone could step forward with the same skill-set as the iconic Conyers! Well, in announcing his resignation, and that his “legacy can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we’re going through now,” the congressman endorsed his son, John Conyers III, as his replacement.

Qualifications? you dare ask.

Back in 2010, the III tweeted, “My dad’s a f*cking player and reckless as hell! He just got at this doods wife super low-key.” Earlier this year, the young Conyers was arrested (but not prosecuted) on a domestic abuse charge.

Indeed, the “dood” appears more than able to carry on.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies term limits

Illinois’s Chicken-and-Fish Supreme Court

Illinois, Supreme Court, term limits, initiative, democracy, gerrymandering

A constitution is the law of the land only to the extent that it’s enforced. And in Illinois, the right of citizen initiative — provided for in the state constitution — is not enforced.

The constitution’s wording is explicit: “Amendments . . . may be proposed by a petition signed by a [specified number of electors]. . . . Amendments shall be limited to structural and procedural subjects contained in Article IV.”

Does that Article IV discuss the subject of election procedures, including eligibility requirements, thereby opening the door to a citizen-initiated term limits amendment? Yes, it does. Section 2, subsection (c), for example, specifies citizenship, age, and residency requirements.

Yet the Illinois Supreme Court has repeatedly chucked the results of effective petition drives to get a state legislative term limits question on the ballot.

The justices rely on the venerable Fallacy of Tortured Misreading.

Former Illinois legislator Jim Nowlin recently pointed out that in 1976, the court concluded that the wording about how initiative proposals “‘shall be limited to structural and procedural subjects’. . . meant a proposal must make both kinds of changes.” The lone dissenter on the court “opined to the effect: When I see a restaurant sign that says, ‘We have chicken and fish,’ that doesn’t mean you have to order both chicken and fish!”

The right of citizen initiative is a crucial means of reforming government when those in government won’t reform themselves. The citizens of Illinois have that right. But, for now, they also don’t.

That ain’t Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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