Tag: Utah

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general freedom local leaders Tenth Amendment federalism

Utah and the Tenth

Utah and The Feds

The trouble with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution — the last two items in the Bill of Rights — has not been lack of clarity. The Tenth, at least, is extremely clear: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The problem has been one of enforcement. How do the States prevent the federal government from overreach? Especially when the federal government acts as if no objection to a federal law could be brooked? Especially when the Supreme Court is, ahem, wrong, or hasn’t yet been approached with a challenge.

Utah has rediscovered an old technique. And revived it. Governor Spencer Cox signed into law the “Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act”: “The Legislature may, by concurrent resolution, prohibit a government officer from enforcing or assisting in the enforcement of a federal directive within the state if the Legislature determines the federal directive violates the principles of state sovereignty.”

Ultra clear. And by old precedent — the non-enforcement of The Fugitive Slave Act by some northern states — it provides teeth to the Tenth. If the federal government were to enact (just stretch your mind a bit!) something obviously unconstitutional, like, say, a gun confiscation, the state legislature would simply vote to prohibit any state employee, or subsidiary of the state (county, municipality) from working with federal agents. Federal government agencies don’t have enough manpower to enforce all the rules. The feds rely on the states.

CNN quotes a Democrat representative running against Governor Cox suggesting that the use of this technique would be overruled by the Supreme Court using “the Supremacy Clause.”

No. The Supremacy Clause only applies to the federal government regarding specified (“enumerated”) powers. 

Regarding matters not explicitly stated in the Constitution, it is the States that are supreme.

Or the People.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment education and schooling folly general freedom moral hazard privacy responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Ecstatic with Independence

free range, freedom, Utah, children, walk, outside, law, hysteria

Utah’s legislature unanimously passed it; the governor signed it — the nation’s first measure protecting what’s become known as “free-range parenting.”

It was once known simply as “parenting.”

Certain activities are now exempt from a state law criminalizing child neglect. Children may legally “walk, run or bike to and from school, travel to commercial or recreational facilities, play outside and remain at home unattended” — thereby allowing “a child, whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm, to engage in independent activities . . .”

Back in the day, we apparently played outside in a sort of statutory limbo.

Do we really need a law saying kids can walk on a public street?

Sadly, yes: government agencies across the country are grossly violating the most basic rights of parents to rear independent children.

Regular readers may recall my 2015 defenses* of the Meitiv parents against the absurd charge of “unsubstantiated neglect” leveled against them by Montgomery County (Maryland) Child Protective Services. Ultimately, Maryland authorities acknowledged that permitting one’s kids (in the Meitivs’ case, a 10- and a 6-year-old) to walk on a public sidewalk (from a local park) wasn’t prima facie evidence of a crime. 

The current free-range parenting movement was launched in 2008 when Lenore Skenazy publicly admitted — to mass shock and condemnation — to allowing her 9-year-old son to take a trip alone on New York City’s subway.

“My son got home,” she wrote in the New York Sun, “ecstatic with independence.”

Notice how rare it is to find anyone ecstatic with dependence.

Lesson? An old one: Happiness must be pursued with freedom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* My writings on the Meitivs’ battle to keep their kids:

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Categories
crime and punishment

Cause of Death in Utah

Utah is the happiest state in the country — we’re told. Though the state does have high suicide rates, those might be explainable in biochemical terms, neatly enough. So what are we to make of the Beehive State’s disturbing pattern in other-person homicide?

Police shootings dominate the stats:

A Salt Lake Tribune review of nearly 300 homicides, using media reports, state crime statistics, medical-examiner records and court records, shows that use of force by police is the second-most common circumstance under which Utahns kill each other, surpassed only by intimate partner violence.

And, as the Tribune explains: “so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives — 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan — than has violence between spouses and dating partners.”

The article goes on to talk about police training and other important issues surrounding police use of deadly force, but the long-term trends and are not clear.

We know that violent crime is going down in the country. Are police shootings going up, or have they merely remained stable against the rest of the violence?

Such issues were not addressed in the article. And over at Reason, Anthony L. Fisher brings up the fundamental problem: “This article serves as a useful reminder that there is no national database of shootings by police, and save for a few journalists, academics and sports websites, no efforts to create one.”

The issue is vital, for we give a lot of power to police personnel. And power can corrupt them as much as anyone else. But until we have better information, the big picture remains far too fuzzy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall

Saving Grandma

Republican legislators in Utah are trying to kill Grandma. Don’t dismiss this as a smear. It’s true.

Only spell it GRAMA, which is an acronym for Utah’s 20-year old Government Records Access Management Act, Utah’s open government and information access law. A furiously fast four days after legislators first introduced a bill to gut the open records law, it sailed through both legislative chambers and was quickly signed by the governor.

House Bill 477 changes the core of the GRAMA law, mandating that citizens must prove they deserve access to records, rather than the previous rule requiring government officials to show cause for why a document should not be released. The legislation also exempts text messages, emails and voicemails from being disclosed, the better to keep lobbyists and special interests out of the limelight.

Thankfully, Utah has a statewide process of initiative and referendum. Already a petition to put HB-477 to a referendum is underway. Unfortunately, the task is arduous: The sponsors need 100,000 voters to sign in only 40 days.

To add extra burden, legislators have passed Senate Bill 165, outlawing citizens from using electronic signatures for just such petitions.

Now the furious Utah electorate, joined by an angry media, is creating enough heat that politicians are seeing the light. The Governor is calling a special session to repeal HB-477. And a lawsuit may be filed any day now to strike down the unconstitutional, anti-democratic SB-165.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

E-Power to the People

Disagreement is simply an inescapable part of living with one another. But we should all agree on one thing: The people are sovereign.

The practical question is, how is that sovereignty best instituted? Our experience with those organization and rules we’ve come to rely upon is that, too often, they work against our interests, even working mightily to limit our sovereignty.

Earlier this week, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that electronic signatures should be counted in a case involving an independent candidate for governor who was required by law to gather 1,000 official voter affirmations on a petition.

Of immediate concern is whether the same standard on e-signatures should apply to initiative petitions, which in Utah are required to number over 100,000. Utahns for Ethical Government is asking the AG to count electronic signatures on their measure.

There are certainly issues as to how best to authenticate e-signatures. But can there be any doubt as to the desirability of making it easier for voters to sign petitions and place issues they deem important before their fellow sovereign citizens?

There’s entrenched political opposition to that, though. Utah Governor Gary Herbert says “electronic signatures are part of the future” — but he hopes that’s the far distant future. He wants the legislature to weigh in. Which it may do, working around the judgment of the State Supreme Court.

Will popular sovereignty make it to the Internet, today’s dominant interactivity realm?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense insider corruption political challengers

Vote Absurdly If You Wish

Today is Election Day, with primaries or runoffs in 12 states. Let’s hope at least a few incumbents fall, from both parties.

Most Americans would cheer that. But we’ll then hear TV talking heads and pundits in the press tell us how crazily we’ve voted.

In 1994, ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings condescendingly reported that “The voters had a temper tantrum last week. . . . Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”

Were our choice so limited, I’d say give the two-year olds a shot.

Jennings’s snooty attitude has been echoed again and again this year. Mike Allen, Politico’s chief political writer, said after Utah’s Senator Bennett flamed out in a GOP convention, “There was no reason for his state to turn on him. Nobody delivers for Utah the way he does.”

Allen went on to rant about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s unpopularity in his home state: “Voters are not thinking . . . the idea of Nevada kicking out Harry Reid is absurd! He’s the #1 senator: #1 out of 100. Nobody delivers for Nevada like Harry Reid.”

Apparently, Mr. Allen knows best. Utah and Nevada voters? Fools, the lot of them — for not liking all the presents their big-shot politicians delivered for them.

Common sense, on the other hand, has it that anyone who votes to please the Washington press corps is truly crazy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.