Some Savvy Sooner

New Stuff forthcoming

2010-02-26T04:54:00.000-08:00

It will soon be time to trudge to the polls. Some will, some won't. Does it really matter?

Bob, Bob, Bob and weave

2008-05-17T15:59:00.000-07:00

I held a brief and vain, I now see, hope that Bob Barr might take the message of the Ron Paul Revolution to the general election as the Libertarian Party presidential nominee. In fact, after my encouraging post on Bob's website he asked me to endorse his candidacy for the LP nomination. We exchanged a few emails, the gist being that I asked him to pledge to feature the abolition of the Federal Reserve prominently as an issue in his campaign. Bob demurred diplomatically. So, I only gave him a statement of general support - not an endorsement. I waited for his official announcement - too much Bob and weave.

He is now officially announced for the nomination. I'm glad Mr. Barr is stepping into this contest. He has the opportunity to learn a lot about libertarians that he doesn't seem to understand yet. Being refused the nomination by the convention could do him good - if he is in this for the long run. I wish him well in his pursuit of a deeper understanding of what libertarians want. In four more years, he might be ready. Today, he doesn't get it. That's not harsh I think. Bob Barr may have come a long way from Langley but he still has long way to go - if he wants to make the effort.

For someone else's take see Tom Knapp's blog: http://knappster.blogspot.com/2008/05/barrs-line-in-sand.html

I like to watch.

2008-05-12T22:37:00.000-07:00

There is a local "non-partisan" election Tuesday in my neighborhood. It's a yes/no issue election. I will vote. I will also request that I watch the ballot counting. I'll let you know what happens Tuesday night.

Political Party Models. Toys before the Revolution

2008-05-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

From the Website of George Phillies, candidate for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination, 2008.

Posted on Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 10:13 PM EST
Local Organization -- The Path to Libertarian Victory

"I begin with the most fundamental issue

The Purpose of a Political Party is

* to Advance Its Agenda,
* to Run Candidates and Win Elections, and
* to Use Electoral Victory to Put Its Program into Effect.

Our objective is to create a Libertarian Party that achieves its purpose in our lifetimes. Our objective is to use democratic practices to put into practice our political agenda, the agenda of freedom, small government, low taxes, and the entire Bill of Rights. Our objective is to elect Libertarians who will put Libertarian policies into effect everywhere. Our objective is Libertarian control of town halls, statehouses, the Federal Congress, and executive branches across the Republic. Our objective is political victory."

-end-

I have selected the item not because it is anomalous. On the contrary, it's representative of a typical model for a political party in the United States. It is a model based upon certain assumptions about the legal context in which a political party is permitted to function. These assumptions are wrong.

Consider objective one: to Advance Its Agenda.

This seems almost self-evident or tautological. Advancing an agenda has many possible modes. The modes for "advancing" depend on the message crafted in the "agenda".

The modes for advancing the agenda are also dependent upon the social constraints which are accepted that limit communication. These constraints range from social and cultural mores to legalized and coercively enforced constraints.

Here my discussion will focus on the coercively enforced constraints.

The first restraint is economic in various forms for licensing and rationing communication. Campaign financing regulation and financial quotas serve to suppress competition by creating a political cartel structure. The communication of certain agendas is burdened by imposing opportunity costs through bureaucratic make work and worry work - forms, labor intensive "expertise", etc. The present scheme of censorship by campaign finance regulation was imposed in the last quarter of the 20th Century. It has functioned adequately to support a two-party political cartel by suppressing competition from 'new' parties.

In the 21st Century no new party or any party in existence since 1974 has demonstrated that it can overcome the campaign finance cartel and survive for more than two election cycles - except by staying below the threshold of electoral significance. In short, only 'Mom and Pop' political parties can exist under this regime because they cannot compete with the cartel.

Campaign finance censorship alone assures that the second objective: to Run Candidates and Win Elections, is so remote as to be 'academic'. Elections can be won, but only local elections that don't threaten cartel power. No state-wide or U.S. Congressional office can be won by a 'new' party - by a personality, yes, but not by a real party candidate.

This means that the intention defined in Objective One cannot be executed by means of Objective Two. The effective blocking of both these two objectives makes Objective Three illusory. The road block of campaign finance cannot be overcome without payment of an enormous tariff to begin effective communication. Such a tariff can be overcome only by billionaires - clients of the cartel itself.

Behind the campaign finance barriers are those electoral processes which have embedded in law since the 1890's.

These legalized barriers are mainly an intricately woven complex of election laws regarding candidate access to the ballot, voter registration censorship and suppression, gerrymandering, etc., and, as necessary, election fraud and false counting of ballots. The attempts to mandate a monopoly of electronic, pre-riggable voting machines is a further example of cartel distrust of a new party gaining favor with the voters.

More deeply embedded are the disregard of Constitutional safeguards against "factions" entrenching themselves in power. The prime example of this is the century long refusal of the cartel parties to enlarge the size of the U.S. House of Representatives so that a reasonable ratio of representation to the population is maintained. The size of the House of Representatives was frozen by law, not by constitutional provision, in the first two decades of the 20th Century by an accord between the Democratic and Republican parties to essentially "split the electorate" between them and reduce the opportunities for new party candidates to emerge and gain a balance of power between the two cartel parties.

This inter-party accord also skewed the Electoral College vote to further impede new party candidates for the Presidency. The Electoral College winner-take-all bias in favor of either of the cartel parties cannot be overcome - even if the states were to allow voters to have their Electoral College vote tallied and allocated by congressional district. The districts are too populous and too few.

There is much more to this, but suffice to say that most new parties while aware of elements of their legalized torture, typically focus on only one or two aspects and tout silver-bullet reforms which they can never hope to implement because they will never get elected to implement them. Furthermore, the new parties tend to couch their appeals to how the system is unfair to their parties. They seldom attempt to show the people how the system is unfair to the people generally.

No new party has formulated a comprehensive analysis and focused on electoral reform as central to the best interests of the American people. As a consequence, many new parties continue to fight among and within themselves over techniques and tactics and public relations and images. This suits the cartel parties just fine and when such superficialities recede into the background in a new party, new exploiters of the superficial can be encouraged to rev-up the same old zero-sum game whose message is: WE must being doing something wrong! The system ain't the real problem...is it? Well, is it?

Sadly, it is the electoral system. New parties can't win by the cartel rules unless and until they take their case directly to the people - both as 'candidates', even if their candidacies are deemed 'illegal', and, by non-election activities. The people of the United States already know their votes seldom do more than defer what the cartel wants. If the cartel wants war, the people will suffer. If the cartel wants monetary disaster, the people will suffer. The voters can complain enough to make the cartel alter its PR, but the people already know they really have no alternatives, but they do wish that they did.

New political parties really have lost over the last quarter-century by default. It's the election, stupid! It's RIGGED! If you won't tell the people the 'how and why' and show them solutions, then you will keep on losing and continue to serve as the 'Mom and Pop' example of how democracy still flourishes in the United States. The reason the people don't vote for new parties is because they can't! A new parties are tolerated as tokens by the cartel parties.

In time, events may get out of the cartel's control and they will experience "instability." At that time, the people will look first to a new party with an agenda that explains how they got screwed at the polling place for so long and how it can prevented in the future. If they can find such a party. If the people cannot find a channel of leadership in such a party, they will seek leaders elsewhere...in a charismatic revolutionary selling them redemption by blood and fire.

In which case, the new parties will share some of the responsibility which the cartel alone should bear.

Happy Mother's Day, may she forgive you.

April 15th: Proof there is no constitution

2008-04-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

There is no constitution. You have no protected rights because the State is not and cannot be the guardian of your rights. You and you alone are the guardian of your rights. Pay those taxes and further your own abuse. None of it belongs to you because none of it is beyond the claim of the State. If you want to begin to recover the means to regain your rights, then buy gold and clean your weapons while you still can. Soon you lose the dispensation and you will have neither guns nor gold. Utterly enslaved.

Don't whine about democracy saving you. You have no candidates of your own and the elections are rigged against you having any candidate of your own. No constitution, no democracy.

Flee or fight. Either is honorable. Submission is never honorable. Get your travel papers in order and get out of the American Reich while you can.

Happy Tax and Death Day.

Inedible Melting Dollar

2008-02-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

Still won't buy gold? Make a sandwich with your dollar bills. One ounce of gold will buy you about 400 hamburgers.

Seditious Petitioning in America

2008-02-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

Who are the Oklahoma 3?

"The Oklahoma 3 were indicted based on allegations of felony misconduct stemming from a 2005 petition drive for the Oklahoma TABOR initiative, which would have placed a Taxpayer Bill of Rights initiative on Oklahoma's November 2006 general election ballot.

Jacob, Johnson, and Carpenter were indicted on felony charges of "conspiracy to defraud the state." Carpenter was charged with a second felony, that of violating the state's petition act. According to an Associated Press report, "The indictment accuses the three of 'willfully, corruptly, deceitfully, fraudulently and feloniously' conspiring with each other to defraud the state through the collection of signatures on the TABOR petition."

The Oklahoma 3 each face up to ten years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Defense efforts immediately went into action, primarily through the FreePaulJacob.com web site. "

-Tom Saunders

http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Oklahoma_3

This indictment also effectively aborted a ballot access petition campaign in Oklahoma.

What is a 'petition for redress of grievances'?

It is a public declaration in specific terms setting forth to those in temporary authority that if certain "laws" are not repealed, then the people will assert their natural right of revolution.

The American war of secession from Great Britain was preceded by numerous such petitions and finally by the Declaration of Independence (or secession).

The right of secession is still accepted in international law. See support for the recent Kosovo secession endorsed even by G. W. Bush. (At least when expedient.)

The modern rebuttal to the right of secession rest on the presumption of democratic "due process", i.e., "fair and free" elections. If the people have access to such elections then, it is asserted, they cannot justify secession or the overthrow of "democratically chosen" authority. Apparently, no matter how oppressive that authority may be of individual human rights. In other words, if a majority votes in a "fair and free" election to accept slavery, then a majority overrules the right of secession. That's the sophistry presented.

How are elections evaluated as fair and free? By the pronouncement of selected officials of some other political regime deemed democratic. Thus, elections are given as an initiation ceremony into the international fraternity of legitimate governments who reserved the right to intervene anywhere to enforce 'legitimate democratic governments'. This fraternity is not a confederation of people in the various states. It is a coalition of ruling elites against the peoples of various states and the right of those people to revolution and secession whenever elections are a sham and fraud - as they are in all countries today. All governments impose barriers to open, fair and free elections. None can invoke the the "self-immunity clause" of democratic consent. Consent of the governed has disappeared world-wide. Therefore, all people have the right to petition for a redress of grievances and undertake revolution and secession.

This is what the prosecution of the Oklahoma 3 exemplifies. This is what the hijacking of the monetary relation and the imposition of the fiat money credit system exemplifies.

The circulation of a petition is a private, consensual activity between political equals. The circulation of money and voluntarily agreed money substitutes is a private, consensual activity between economic equals. Intervention against either of these processes is tyranny and sufficient grounds for secession. Prosecution of the Oklahoma 3 is a link in a chain that connects directly to Kosovo and the gold issue.

If people have the right to choose their own money, no government aspiring to authoritarian control can get a grip on the people's liberty.

Emigration has been an historic means of comparatively peaceful secession from a more oppressive regime to a less oppressive regime. The Americas have been overrun secessionists from Asia and then the entire globe. The recent U.S. influx of partial and complete secessionists from other countries is just normal. Get over it and adopt them as allies in a war of secession against an arbitrary and increasingly inherited quasi-nobility of fascists.

[The government has determined this communication is in violation of law and is terminated. You have been warned!]

NO! You, Sir, Have been warned!

Who cooks the election returns?

2008-02-17T05:02:00.000-08:00

Who is most responsible for the inequities of American elections? See:

The Scope of Congressional Authority in Election Administration (PDF)

The document cited above makes clear that Congress assumes 'penultimate' authority with the support of the U.S. Supreme Court for this claim of authority. For this discussion we will accept the Congressional claim of authority at face value. Therefore, we conclude that the U.S. Congress is also most responsible for the inequities of American elections.

The states do whatever they wish to do because the Congress implicitly condones whatever is done at the state level until or unless the Congress choses to preempt state action. Whatever goes unchallenged at the state level is presumptively upheld by the courts whenever the Congress has refused to act specifically on that issue. Over time ample precedent is built to sustain Congressional inaction.

The partisan coalition of the Congress assures that no state action will be questioned that serves to sustain that coalition from competitive threats unless it takes a form that is grossly embarrassing to the democratic facade.

Oklahoma is a state whose political coalition seems to pride themselves in skating as closely as possible to the grossly embarrassing with its ballot access law, for example. I would like to know if there is any correlation between political corruption (by the number of officeholders convicted) in a state and the restrictiveness of that state's ballot access law. Any political science students want to take on that project?

While the Oklahoma Legislature has a despicable record on this subject since David Boren was in the State House of Representatives, the U.S. Congress claims for itself the discredit of being the most contemptible of the two institutions. In these matters, the courts know what Congressional intent is: leave well enough alone.

The same analysis holds for mere vote counting between coalition members. Either party candidate is far preferable to outsider party candidate. Since losing or stealing votes from outsider candidates does change the final outcome of the election between a D or an R, it's just a technicality. Unless you can poll more than 33 1/3 of the vote, none of your votes really matter. But elections can also be corrupt even between the members of the coalition. One one wonders how the U.S. Supreme Court really decided the 2000 election. Did they just flip a coin in chambers? Letting the people decide is a mere formality. The penultimate authority – Congress – didn't want to touch the election even though it was their constitutional responsibility to do it. Why not left the SCOTUS flip a coin and declare their decision set no precedent?

What constitution? Never mind. Nothing to see here. Move along.

The Last Free Election in America

2008-02-10T03:54:00.000-08:00

I don't know when the last free election was held in the United States. It won't be in 2008. It wasn't in 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980, 1976, 1972, 1968, 1964. Those are the presidential elections I have been eligible to vote in my lifetime. I don't consider any of those elections as free and open contests. Hence, I conclude that the American people have lost all of those elections and they have already lost the 2008 election.

There is really nothing audacious about this claim. The purpose of elections in the U.S. is to restrain political power and sustain a constitutional regime. No living American has seen an election which met this standard.

All elections are flawed exercises, but some are grossly flawed. Elections in the U.S. Have become 'progressively' more grossly flawed since at least the first decade of the 20^th Century. All elections since the War of Secession (Civil War) were flawed by racists barriers. That flaw has diminished, but other flaws have deepened to nullify the effectiveness of elections for every American.

Elections are irrelevant in effecting real political control in the U.S.

For scope let us consider the forthcoming 2008 pseudo-election. What is at risk in every American election? Lives and treasure – life, liberty and property. What has government done to preserve these private values? Nothing. It has operated against them.

Life is not sustained by government killing citizens. Liberty is not sustained by violations of individual rights by government. Property is not sustained by government regulations and monetary depredations.

In short-hand terms its all about war, criminal law, the destruction of private property values, and debasing money and credit.

What “leading candidates” has presented a program to reverse the politicization of criminal law, the politicization of property or money-credit? None. Ron Paul cannot reach the levers of power which would enable the people to control and restrain state power. They have lost the election of 2008.

The consequences will be further and increasingly severe losses of life, liberty and property.

Is there a fall-back strategy for the people? Do they have recourse to failed democracy? Of course, people always have choices and they always fall into two broad categories: violent resistance, revolt, revolution or picking up as many marbles as they can and deserting the regime. Historically, people always use both tactics as best they can in their own personal circumstances.

I think for many people desertion is the best tactic, or buy gold and leave the country. For other people the best tactic is to buy gold and clean their weapons and wait to strike.

The U.S. is now a porous concentration camp. Formal imprisonment is just a transfer from one building to another before you make it through the fences.

So, vote early and vote often, it doesn't matter. Then run!

The People's Gold

2008-01-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

“Gold, which used to be a symbol of the greed of empires, has ironically become a grass-roots revolt against the ‘imperial’ management of money by the state,” says Alvaro Vargas Llosa. - Independent Institute

Rising Gold Prices Signal Inflation Worries

Judging by the run-up in the price of gold, people’s confidence in the U.S. monetary system has waned since 2001, but especially over the past month. Investors worry that inflation and a resulting weakening dollar will inflict lasting damage on the U.S. economy. It is this fear—and the excessive monetary growth that drives price inflation—that has pushed the price of gold above $900 per once, according to Alvaro Vargas Llosa, director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Global Prosperity.

“Unlike oil, whose rising demand has a direct connection to increasing economic production in places such as China, the demand for gold is not tied to productive needs so much as to the psychological factor we usually call insecurity,” writes Vargas Llosa in his latest syndicated column for the Washington Post Writers Group.

“Gold, which used to be a symbol of the greed of empires, has ironically become a grass-roots revolt against the ‘imperial’ management of money by the state,” he continues. “In colonial times, gold was actually the creator of, rather than a safe haven from, inflation: by flooding the European market with bullion from the Americas, the Spanish empire caused a general distortion of prices. Today, the general distortion of prices—reflected in the credit and housing market crisis—has led people, through their investment fund managers, to rush toward gold in search of protection.”

“The People’s Gold,” by Alvaro Vargas Llosa (1/9/08) Spanish Translation

Tell Me Something I don't Know

2008-01-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

Tell me something I don't know as they say on CBS's Chris Mathews Show.

What the hell is a populist-libertarian or libertarian-populist?

In his book The Populist Persuasion Michael Kazin traces "two different but not exclusive strains of vision and protest" in the original US Populist movement: the revivalist "pietistic impulse issuing from the Protestant Reformation;" and the "secular faith of the Enlightenment, the belief that ordinary people could think and act rationally, more rationally, in fact, than their ancestral overlords." - Kazin, The Populist Persuasion, pp. 10-11.

- Producerism-the idea that the real Americans are hard-working people who create goods and wealth while fighting against parasites at the top and bottom of society who pick our pocket...sometimes promoting scapegoating and the blurring of issues of class and economic justice, and with a history of assuming proper citizenship is defined by White males;

- Anti-elitism-a suspicion of politicians, powerful people, the wealthy, and high culture...sometimes leading to conspiracist allegations about control of the world by secret elites, especially the scapegoating of Jews as sinister and powerful manipulators of the economy or media;

- Anti-intellectualism-a distrust of those pointy headed professors in their Ivory Towers...sometimes undercutting rational debate by discarding logic and factual evidence in favor of following the emotional appeals of demagogues;

- Majoritarianism-the notion that the will of the majority of people has absolute primacy in matters of governance...sacrificing rights for minorities, especially people of color;

- Moralism-evangelical-style campaigns rooted in Protestant revivalism... sometimes leading to authoritarian and theocratic attempts to impose orthodoxy, especially relating to gender.

- Americanism-a form of patriotic nationalism...often promoting ethnocentric, nativist, or xenophobic fears that immigrants bring alien ideas and customs that are toxic to our culture.

The resurgent right-wing forms of populism borrow from these traditions. (1)

These six characteristics above mark the establishment academic critique of populism as a proto-fascist movement.

I disagree. As I see it, the essential root of populism in the U.S. is debtor revolt against a creditor elite which has seized control of government to extract rents from the general population by debt and taxes. All the other characteristics cited by establishment academics are transitory contigenicies of historical circumstances. Secondary details, not irrelevant, but secondary consequentials.

Libertarian-populism is rooted in Austrian School economic analysis of money and credit. Populism is like an immune response to the parasitical effects of inflation and debt. The social immune response of populism can cause symptoms that are uncomfortable and even dangerous to an entire society of individuals. But criticizing those symptoms evades the core of disease. That core is best understood by Austrian/libertarian economic analysis.

In a nutshell, libertarian-populism is an accurate explanation of the sentiment for revolt held by the vast majority of people in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries against the Wall Street-Washington 'Axis of Evil'. It is a revolt against the elites' manipulation of money and credit.

Even more bluntly, it's all about the money, stupid!

1) This list is a compilation of points made previously by Canovan and Kazin, as well as John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism 1860-1925 (New York: Atheneum, 1972); Richard Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," in The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965); and David H. Bennett, The Party of Fear: The American Far Right from Nativism to the Militia Movement, (New York: Vintage Books, revised 1995, (1988)).

Why Americans don't save? It's the Axis of Evil!

2008-01-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of economic blather in political circles about the US trade deficit. The typical blather focuses on the currency spread between the dollar and US trading partners. A cheap dollar blather is that it will make US exports cheaper and that will fix the trade deficit. The prospect of that is bleak. The US doesn't make enough stuff to export and currencies cannot be that easily manipulated without other consequences. An alternative fix for the trade deficit is for Americans to save more and not spend so much on imported goods. That would work, but what are Americans supposed to put their savings into?

If we just burned 10% of our cash we couldn't spend it on imports. Is that saving? It would certainly reduce imports by 4 to 8 percent. The point is that putting money into a bank savings account or similar instrument is just a slow way to burn cash and it would reduce imports...somewhat. What's the incentive to defer consumption by "saving" with a slow burn or a sudden bonfire?

Americans don't save because it is irrational in this economic environment. Money spent on any gadget or service returns some benefit greater than just burning your cash.

Fortunately, there is a way to save even now, but 90% or more of the population is clueless about how to do it. The answer: Switch your savings out of the US Dollar into foreign currency - some usually burn slower than the US Dollar. How about a fireproof savings vehicle? Yeah, you know what's coming next.

Buy gold. It's a patriotic act in the sense that it lowers the US trade deficit. It's also patriotic because it undercuts the bankers' central banking cartel and money/credit expansion engine.

Gold is for savings because is the most non-depreciating commodity available. The only thing that might depreciate gold would be a sudden discover of a massive deposit of ore that could be cheaply mined. Not likely at all. It is far more expensive to recover gold than oil. Oil is consumed. Very little gold is 'consumed'. It merely changes forms from bullion to coins to jewelry to bullion. Most of what is used in industrial production is recovered. Gold is a very "sustainable" resource.

Who besides Ron Paul among the candidates is willing to give the game away? No one yet. It's so easy to blame the Chinese or anybody but the financial/banking/political elites. Wall Street-Washington: The Axis of Evil.

2008: A Golden Year

2007-12-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

With so many analysts forecasting that gold will rise to at least $900 an ounce next year and perhaps reach those levels in the first quarter, investors should be accumulating gold at these price levels. Just as gold was a bargain at $340, $540, $640, and $740, it is now a bargain at the $840 level.

I expect to see $1000 gold by April. Your own due diligence is necessary.

Constitutional Conventions and Oaths

2007-12-22T03:18:00.000-08:00

George Phillies ( a candidate for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination) announced his position of taking the Presidential Oath of Office on the Constitution instead of the Bible jogged my memory and fired off a few neurons.

No criticism of George. He can take the Oath on the Constitution or Man, Economy and State. Nothing in the Constitution requires the use of any book to administer the Oath of Office. I recall when being sworn into the USAF no Bibles were used.

No what troubles me is swearing to uphold the Constitution just isn't good enough. The Constitution as a practical instrument has failed. Swearing on the Articles of Confederation would seem to be an odd thing to do for a Constitutional officer. But I think the Articles would be a more realistic political aspiration.

Bill Moyers interviewed Stanford 'Sandy' Levinson who is advocating a constitutional convention be called in his book 'Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong'. I haven't read this book yet, but I have thought about how the American people could extract themselves from the present oppressive regime of government - I have thought about reform within the framework of the present system; I have considered how the people themselves in the states might convene a convention in each state to propose a new national instrument of government and then take 50 proposals and boil them into a series of run-off plebesites to get a final national plebesite head to head with the current regime constitution and an alternative.

I might advocate such a procedure because I am highly suspicious of a centralized convention with a winner take all outcome without the intermediation popular input - elections between all the proposals. Instead of a two-party election.

But I long ago lost all fear of so-called runaway conventions. In fact, a centralized convention would almost certainly be a deadlocked convention which would be a manipulation to support the status quo regime. A very negative waste of time and aspirations.

On the other hand, I see the holding of 50 simultaneous conventions as the opportunity for a genuine popular consensus to be revealed. It would be most illuminating to compare and contrast those 50 proposals for a national constitution. The result might well reveal a pattern which would argue for a national confederation rather than a unitary system - which is what we now have in the costume of a federal system. Federalism has been discredited by the Constitution we now don't have.

Facing the facts, we really have no Constitution at all. We have a system of complex customs of governance in collapse into a fascist dictatorship.

The best of the culture of the American people and the ideals of the original revolution could best be served by a new confederation of states, perhaps even more than just 50 such states with a new document built directly on the foundation of the Declaration of Independence.

You may follow the discussion of a new constitutional convention at :
http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/slevinson/undemocratic/blog/

Happy whichever Holidays.

Isn't Bush more like Chavez?

2007-12-08T00:42:00.000-08:00

You decide: Olbermann Commentary

Better then Walter Cronkite

2007-11-05T21:28:00.000-08:00

Keith Olbermann lays it on the line. The Bush Administration is an especially criminal enterprise.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21644133/

Boo!

2007-10-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

Buy gold and clean your weapons! Booahah!!!

Polled and Depressed

2007-10-11T16:17:00.001-07:00

Entry for October 11, 2007

A few minutes ago I received an automated telephone poll from the
Rassmussen organization. After answering the usual demographic
questions, age, sex, political affiliation, etc., I was given three
choices for parties, of course: D, R, or OTHER!

I answered Other, of course. I wonder if I could organize the Other
Party, they're in all the polls! Wouldn't it be nice to be the Other
National Chairman? A spokesperson for the Others, what prestige!
Almost enough to make one feel Other-worldly.

I was asked which group I thought would have the biggest effect on the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election: 1) African-Americans, 2) Hispanics, 3) Gays, 4) Evangelical Christians 5) I don't know.

I answered 5. I don't know (and I don't care).

Then I was asked if I had to chose, would watch a Presidential debate
or the World Series?

I answered World Series.

Then I was asked how often I watched major league baseball?

I answered seldom. (I can watch a debate when I want online. Why shouldn't I watch the World Series to avoid the terrible counter-programming.)

"Thank you and Good-bye."

I was also asked the standard question about which track the country
was on: right or wrong.

No option for "off-the-track".

I was asked about withdrawing American troops from Iraq.

I answered immediately - immediately.

These were the salient questions.

I've been polled before (not counting online Zogby or Harris), at least
once before. I'm still not impressed.

BTW, I think there was a target demographic for this poll: The likely
voter in the Republican Presidential primary in Oklahoma. Or, perhaps, an undisclosed 'Independent' or 'Other' candidate.

After the Empire Collapses

2007-09-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

Entry for September 30, 2007

This lady is clearly a realist. I concede to her analysis.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkow ski/kwiatkowski1 92.html

In the future I will address my electoral discussions to how a post-imperial republic could be structured. That period may not be so far away if the global fiat money system collapses. One thing is a near certainty: the Empire cannot be voted out of office with ballots.

So, it is not too soon to consider how, and to what extent, new political entities could emerge that would be republics in North America based on a common residual culture.

One should not hope to reconstitute or "restore" the United States as it formerly existed at any time in the past. It was fatally flawed from conception and died because of those genetic flaws. We can learn from the autopsies that are being performed on the corpse.

The Republic is dead. Let's begin to consider alternatives. Like just how limited in power can a republic be? Why shouldn't individuals have memberships in multiple republics? How might compacts to facilitate free trade among republics be negotiated? What if a defense compact among many republics in North America could provide mutual security and avoid the danger of a unitary military state?

All empires collapse because their ambitions atrophy the means to fulfil those ambitions. Or, imperialism bleeds the golden geese until they can no longer produce golden eggs. But the empire dies before the all the geese do.

Bi-partisan bias for unitary government

2007-09-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

Hidden Controls Over the Citizens Choices in Elections

Because national and state elections have been unified in time for so long and because the states do have concurrent jurisdiction with the Congress to administer elections, the constitutionality of many elections practices have gone unchallenged. This negligence has allowed partisans to entrench themselves in power by manipulating election rules to their advantage and suppressing voter sovereignty.

The question I raise here is this: Can a State using its authority to police the initiative petition process (on an issue which affects only State government - term limits- tailor that police power so broadly as to also restrict access the initiative on an issue which affects the rights of U.S. citizens to vote for national offices (Congress and President)?

The question directly implicates the principle of federalism in the American system of dual, and sometimes dueling, governments.

In reading, Judge Leonard's decision in Yes on Term Limits v Savage, it is clear that this question could not be raised. However, there is another initiative petition in circulation sponsored by a coalition of parties seeking the restore the rule which bars access to the ballot to requiring only 5,000 signatures - the standard used from 1924 to 1974.

In Oklahoma circulating a petition to access the ballot does not require the petition circulators be voters in Oklahoma. Given the rulings of the Oklahoma Supreme Court and Federal Judge Tim Leonard in YOTL v Savage, one can anticipate that such a requirement will be added by the legislature to ballot access petitioning as well.

To my knowledge, the present initiative on ballot access reform is not using circulators who are not residents of Oklahoma and they are therefore complying with the existing law affirmed by Judge Leonard.

But are the ballot access initiative proponents wrongly assuming that the YOTL v Savage rule also applies to them?

It may not be so clear. The ballot access initiative seeks to allow U.S. citizens residing in Oklahoma, in their capacity as U. S. electors in a national (and federal) election to vote for both state and national offices. Can the State interpose itself to prevent U.S. citizens from exercise their national suffrage rights? If Oklahoma does not apply the rule requiring resident petition circulators to ballot access petitions, can it apply the more restrictive rule to an initiative which seeks to reduce the requirements for ballot access?

What this line of analysis reveals, I hope, is that the real petition requirement for ballot access in a state is as high the U.S. Supreme Court will tolerate. But in states which have the initiative, the right of citizens to lower that barrier below the U.S. Supreme Courts tolerance level can be stymied by the higher signature threshold for initiatives over ballot access petitions. The consequence is that partisan control of state legislatures is used to entrench control of national offices. In other words, in states which have the initiative, the people are restrained from opening the ballot more than the Supreme Court will allow because the state legislature is further insulated behind the barriers to an initiative.

In short, if you can keep your opponents off the ballot for state office, then you can keep them off the ballot for national offices also and you can use the power to 'police' the initiative process to fortify your partisan control.

The Constitution clearly indicates that states must have a wide latitude to conduct their own affairs, but only so long as state actions do not impair the rights of citizens to exercise their power to control the national government. What has happened is that a long period of control of both the national and the state governments by the same partisans has enabled them to entrench themselves with state laws which also protect their control of the national government. This possibility was not sufficiently addressed by the framers. It continues to remain insufficiently resolved because their is now a unitary bi-partisan government bias against federalism at all levels state and national. The language of the U.S. and state constitutions retains a clear federalist intent. Much devious circumlocution is required to sustain entrenchment of the unitary bi-partisan ideology.

Novel Ideas

2007-09-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

Entry for September 18, 2007

Conspiracy? Conspiracy? Only petty criminals conspire.

It would useful for the reader to consider this first: Black Ops: Conspiracy and 9/11
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson26.html

The author in the referenced article disbelieves complicity by Americans in 9/11 because they are too dim-witted to conceive the idea. Maybe, but they are not to dim-witted to read Tom Clancy and extrapolate.

What I find so anomalous is the continued apparent career of Osama Bin Laden. It's almost as if the U.S. has created and sustained a bogey man with superhuman abilities of evasion and escape or the U.S.government is capable of inflicting genocide anywhere any time on any group, but it cannot kill just one person that the U.S. claims is justified by Presidential edict alone. Such a person as Bin Laden must therefore be pardonable by secret Presidential edict alone.

Perhaps, that is why Bin Laden appears to soldier on. Or he may be dead, but his image is too useful to let his death be discovered. So we may be receiving messages from a virtual Bin Laden F/X. If Bin Laden still lives, he may be living quite comfortably and securely in Saudi Arabia. If Bin Laden is dead, his body may lie in a secret but honored place in the sands of Saudi Arabia. And if should ever become necessary, he remains will be 'found' and verified by 'experts' that he died just his cover story says he died. A man whose great service was to be publicly reviled in Western history and secretly honored by his co-conspirators.

Now, if all this was embellished with names altered and told as fiction by a talent like Tom Clancy, then millions would enjoy the yarn as harmless. But what would become of a real life Jack Ryan who decided to blow the lid off a real life conspiracy?

You can steal this plot line for your own novel. I already have a better one.

Death of the Dollar

2007-09-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

Entry for September 14, 2007

The value of the U.S. dollar has declined about 96% from its value in 1910. It is now approaching a record low against other major currencies.

The value of the dollar has been the responsibility of the Federal Reserve since 1913. It seems obvious the Fed has failed to preserve the dollar.

It is not possible to take political action against the Fed, it is too well entrenched behind the full armed might of the U.S. government. The individual is not powerless however, It is still possible to speculate against the Fed. The time may well have come to do just that because the Fed has almost nothing of value (the dollar and the credit of the U.S.) to support it. They have almost no margin left.

The reserve currency of the world's central banks is nearly worth zero.

I leave it to the reader to explore this issue further for opportunities.

Commentary on an indirect ballot access case

2007-09-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

: Entry for September 09, 2007

The case discussed here was decided in Federal Court in Oklahoma City. You can read the entire opinion by Judge Tim Leonard see here.

Excepts appear in quotes. This case, while it addresses an initiative to place term limits om state offices, bears directly on the effort to circulate an initiative to open access to the ballot for new political parties in Oklahoma. The Judge's ruling bars non-resident circulators for this organization and apparently also the ballot access initiative petition. It is not known whether this decision will be appealed to the 10th Circuit by the plaintiffs.

YES ON TERM LIMITS, INC., et al., )
)
Plaintiffs, )
)
v. ) No. CIV-07-680-L
)
M. SUSAN SAVAGE, individually and )
in her official capacity as Oklahoma )
Secretary of State, et al., )
)
Defendants.

"Prior to 1969, Oklahoma imposed no qualifications on petition circulators. Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton, 501 P.2d 1089, 1092 (Okla. 1972). Beginning that year, Oklahoma law prescribed that petition circulators be qualified electors of the State of Oklahoma and imposed criminal liability on persons other than qualified electors who circulated petitions." (pg 3)

What was the rationale (motivation) of the Legislature for imposting the ban? Not discussed in the opinion of the court and apparently not raised by the plantiff's attorneys.

"It shall be unlawful for any person other than a qualified elector of the State of Oklahoma to circulate any initiative or referendum petition to amend, add to, delete, strike or otherwise change in any way the Constitution or laws of the State of Oklahoma, or of any subdivision of the State of Oklahoma . . . . Every person convicted of a violation of this section shall be punished by a fine of not to exceed One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00), or by imprisonment in the county jail for not to exceed one (1) year, or by both said fine and imprisonment. 34 O.S. § 3.1." (pg 3 footnote)

The Secretary of State is charged with responsibility to enforce this requirement the petition was circulated by lawful resident circulators. The SoS does not verify the validity of the voter's signatures, the (Oklahoma) Supreme Court is charged with administering the validity and sufficiency of the signatures.

Also, any citizen of the state can protest a petition or to object to the Secretary's signature count by filing a written notice with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Interesting.

"Moreover, the court finds Rittberg's and Ferrell's alleged fear of prosecution under § 3.1 is not credible given Rittberg's prior campaign in Oklahoma and Ferrell's lack of knowledge of any criminal penalties. Tr. at 107. In short, plaintiffs have not sustained their burden of demonstrating they have standing to contest the constitutionality of the criminal penalties associated with Oklahoma's residency requirement for petition circulators." (pg 9)

The plantiff's ignorance or avoidance of potential criminal prosecution serves as
an excuse to the court to ignore addressing the constitutionality of the criminal jeopardy in this case. Curious. One must actually violate the law and be prosecuted to gain standing to contest the law.

However, to contest the validity of a petition one need only be a resident of the state to have legal standing and presumably bring a criminal complaint against non-resident circulators.

However, the court was willing to grant the defendants limited standing on the civil issues.

'The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was made applicable to the states pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the State of Oklahoma from abridging the freedom of speech. See U.S. Const. amend. I, amend. XIV. Circulation of initiative petitions "is `core political speech,' because it involves `interactive communication concerning political change.'" Buckley v. Am. Const. Law Found., Inc., 525 U.S. 182, 186 (1999)." (pg 11)

Now we come to the core of the case: Is the State of Oklahoma in compliance with the U.S. Constitution under Amendments I and XIV? In such First Amendment cases the courts discriminate on whether the case passes the "strict scrutiny" test.

"[s]trict scrutiny demands state regulations "impos[ing]`severe burdens' on speech . . . be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest." Strict scrutiny is applicable "where the government restricts the overall quantum of speech available to the election or voting process. . . . [It] is employed where the quantum of speech is limited due to restrictions on . . . the available pool of circulators or other supporters of a candidate or initiative, as in ACLF and Meyer."" (pg 11)

The intricacies of "strict scrutiny" and "compelling state interest" cannot be addressed here. Suffice it to say that they amount to an allegedly higher standard than "necessary and proper".

"By limiting petition circulators to residents only, Oklahoma has restricted the available pool of circulators, particularly professional circulators. The court thus finds the residency requirement is subject to strict scrutiny." (pg 11)

Footnote 11 to pg 11: "Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has recognized "there must be a substantial regulation of elections if they are to be fair and honest and if some sort of order, rather than chaos, is to accompany the democratic processes." Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730 (1974)."

What is unquestionable in courts is that "some sort of order" is indispensable for fair and honest democratic processes. That is the fundamental issue: What kinds of 'order' are sufficient to produce fair and honest elections as opposed to the kinds of order that simply entrench power and stifle democratic processes?

This more fundamental was not raised.

"Defendants" (the State) "contend that "Oklahoma has a compelling interest in [1] preventing fraud and policing and maintaining the integrity of its initiative and referendum" and "[2] restricting the process of self-government to members of its own political community." Defendants' Supplemental Trial Brief at 3, 5 (Doc. No. 41)." (pg 12)

Contention [2] is is rich in its implications. But the court opinion avoids it. Perhaps because it would raise 'novel' arguments and difficult legal analysis.

"The court finds that Oklahoma has a compelling interest in protecting and policing both the integrity and the reliability of its initiative process. See Buckley, 525 U.S. at 191 ("States allowing ballot initiatives have considerable leeway to protect the integrity and reliability of the initiative process, as they have with respect to election processes generally."); Chandler, 292 F.3d at 1241. The integrity of the petition circulators themselves is critical to that process." (pg 12)

The court finds contention [1] is a sufficient basis for its decision and does not address contention [2] at all. The remainder of the opinion is a discussion of the merits of Oklahoma's version of order to police the circulation of initiative petitions as meeting the test of strict scrutiny and compelling state interest under current constitutional legal doctrine.

The plaintiffs lose.

Returning to contention [2]"restricting the process of self-government to members of its own political community."

In a federal system doctrine there are two partially overlapping political communities (state and national). The configuration of that overlap has been the most contentious issue in American political history.

Most elections in the United States fall in that area of overlap. That is, when Oklahoma citizens exercise their rights as members of the Oklahoma political community they are also exercising their rights as members of the national political community. Most of our elections are simultaneously dual state and national elections.

To the extent that the same processes of procedure and administration are applied to both elections, the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution must apply and that means citizens who are exercising political rights OTHER THAN VOTING OR SEEKING ELECTION TO OFFICE in a State must be treated equally as U.S. citizens (I and XIV Amendments). This reasoning appears to be novel.

On this reasoning I contend that the judge got it wrong, at least because the proper issues were not raised. Why not? The legal profession is inherently constrained to acceptable doctrines. These constraints make litigation which challenges acceptable doctrine extremely risky and provocative. Few capable attorneys have the guts for it and the economic incentives.

This reality makes direct political action even more critical. Even direct political action that challenges the judiciary itself. Why target the State Supreme Court Justices who are open to public accountability at the polls (in Oklahoma)? To encourage their colleagues to rethink their habits of thought. It's to make them "feel the heat to see the light."

Furthermore, on the level of practical politics it is far more difficult and obviously self-serving if courts avoid applying very strict scrutiny to restrictions on campaigns directly aimed at unseating them.

Federal judges are unreachable except indirectly though election to national office of members of Congress, Senate and the Presidency. Restrictions on attempts at political reform to open up access to these national as well as state offices necessarily implicates who shall serve on the Federal bench. Hence, State election administration and processes coordinate control of both states and the national government.

Suppression of initiatives which bear on elections in those states which have that constitutional process directly affect elections to national offices in those states.

The decision of the Federal Court in this case directly impaired an effort to enact term limits for Oklahoma state offices only. However, the application of the Judges reasoning does not differentiate between a strictly state application for that "political community" and its application to the "political community" of Oklahomans in the capacity as citizens of the United States. The court did not address this aspect of the case even though the defendants opened the door in their brief.

We infer Judge Leonard wanted to decide the case by the most narrow and conventional doctrine possible. Lawyers who must face such judges are half gagged when they try to argue their cases.

In conclusion, the initiative for more open ballot access should be exempted from this case precedent by applying strict scrutiny and voiding its application to their petition and allowing non-resident petition circulators as legitimate for any citizen of the United States.

Of course, if these issues were raised in a similar case before Judge Leonard he might agree. Just because the door (contention [2]) was open to him and he didn't explicitly slam it shut leaves the Judge or another Judge a way out of a conundrum.

Where's the Model Election Code?

2007-09-05T10:15:00.000-07:00

Entry for September 05, 2007

Customs serve as implicit multilateral contracts
which form a framework to facilitate other more
specific human actions. Elections are social
customs. There is no universal, best or ideal
model for conducting elections. There are superior,
better practices and inferior corrupt practices
in the context of social custom.

Elections are intended by the participants to
minimize social friction. Elections are
supposed to lubricate the inevitable conflict
between coercive authority and voluntary
cooperation. Two very dissimilar realms of
social custom.

The official act of voting in the United States,
for many citizens, constitutes their only
participation in government, and it is
fundamental that elections are conducted with
all possible evidence of integrity. However,
State control of elections constitutes one of
the most difficult problems to solve in the
application of democratic theory and custom.
It is clear that current election laws are
seriously defective. This study will focus
on the analysis of electoral friction and
propose alternatives to current legal rigidities.

I began this research project by querying
for model election code. Curiously, the only
one I found is from 1934! Has no one attempted
to construct a template for a state election
code in nearly 75 years? Apparently not.

The 1934 model code is interesting as a
snapshot of political science thinking
of that era. Excerpts from the report
presenting that Code appear in italics.
In this discussion we shall use the term
“bipartisan” to indicate the two largest
political organizations – traditionally
Democrats or Republicans, but that could
vary under local circumstances. For example,
some other parties could be the
bipartisan elements in a precinct like the
Libertarians and the Greens together
outnumbering either the Republicans or
Democrats.

Excerpts from the 1934 model code appear
in italics.

Every investigation or election contest
brings to light glaring irregularities,
errors, misconduct on the part of precinct
officers, disregard of election laws
and instructions, slipshod practices, and
downright frauds. The entire country
has been shocked from time to time by the
revelation of wholesale election
frauds.... Competent political observers
report that election frauds are ...
are widely prevalent.... Even these election
scandals and the slipshod administration
revealed by election recounts do not indicate
the real state of affairs which prevails
generally in election administration. The
truth of the matter is that the whole
administration- organizations, laws, methods and
procedures, and records-are, for most states,
quite obsolete. The whole system, including the
election laws, requires a thorough revision and
improvement. 1 (Emphasis added.)

Some things just go on and on it seems until,
and if, someone notices.

 
There should never be the slightest question
about the integrity of the ballot box or doubt
cast upon the honesty of the elections. It is
hardly necessary to point out that the presence
of election frauds and sharp practices will
undermine public morale and interest in civic
affairs more quickly than any other condition.
The existence of election frauds is an unfailing
sign of bad government, for frauds cannot be
perpetrated upon a large scale except by a powerful
and corrupt political organization, willing to go
to any length to maintain its control over the
government, and able to afford protection
to those who corruptly carry out its orders.
Fraudulent elections cannot be tolerated by
any self respecting community. Fair elections are
absolutely essential to good government, but do not,
of course, guarantee good government.2
(Emphasis added.)

After three-quarters of a century that does seem
rather evident, but when did we get to the point
of "fair" elections to test that assumption?

The right of the suffrage is an empty formality
where election frauds prevail. Public opinion,
civic interest, and efforts to elect capable
officers and to secure good government are of
no avail in the face of a powerful political machine,
able and willing to corrupt the elections.3

Here we discuss only the administration of
balloting at the point when the ballot is cast by
the voter and exclude consideration of pre-election
bipartisan rigging of the ballot.

There should never be any question about the
accuracy of election results. The returns should
be as accurate as the accounts of a bank or of any other
commercial institution. Would banks or other commercial
or business institutions be willing to operate on the
theory that one error will be offset by another? The
truth of the matter is that our elections at present are
conducted in such manner that errors and inaccuracies
are inevitable,.... 4

Hence much of the focus on regulating the pre-election
campaign showmanship and financing while ignoring the
business end – the ballot and ballot counting.

At the present time inaccuracies are the rule rather
than the exception in election returns. Recounts produce
different results from the original count in practically
every precinct, and the variations are sometimes startling.5

Of course, one proposed solution is to make recounts
moot by just re-tabulating the tabulation in question.
An ephemeral (electronic) ballot is no ballot at all.

A cardinal principle of election administration at present
is that of bipartisanship. It may be observed in the
election statutes in every state in the Union.6

This bipartisanship is the quintessential characteristic
vice of U.S. election administration.

The bipartisan principle results in our elections being
controlled by the very elements of society most bent upon
winning the election - the bitter partisans whose livelihood
may depend upon party victory. Common sense would dictate
that such persons should be debarred from having
any control over elections, but under the bipartisan
theory it is necessary to "set a thief to watch a thief."
Unfortunately, thieves may make bargains. The supposed
opposition of the two leading political parties is little
more than a farce in many large cities. The minority
party is often the tool of the majority party.7

It is obvious that the worst possible procedure is to place
the selection of election administrators in the hands of
the dominant political organizations. It is foolish to expect
honest elections when the very persons who would profit by
fraud control the machinery of elections.

The superior alternative is empanel a jury by lottery from
the large pool of voters who are not government employees
or officials at the precinct level to oversee the conduct
of an election. The term of service for such juries should
be for one election only over a span of days or weeks
- not months. 

This would place original jurisdiction over elections
closest to the voters. Selection by lottery at the
precinct level assures a rotation in office beyond
the control of professional politicians. In a precinct
election jury a significant number of independents and
other party voters would secure oversight along side
the “bipartisans”.

How large should a precinct jury be? Any odd number seven
or larger depending on the precinct size.

How large/small should a precinct be? A minimum is easer
to establish than a maximum. A precinct of only 300 voters
may have a turnout of only ten or fifteen percent in some
elections. This makes the secrecy of the ballot problematic.
But the use of a seven member election jury seems
unjustifiable for such a small precinct. I suggest a
one percent rule, that is, a seven member precinct jury
requires a precinct of at least 700 voters minimum. On the
other hand a precinct jury should not be larger than 11 members.
Therefore, the maximum size for a precinct would be about
1100 to 1200 voters. This would apply to precincts in urban
or suburban communities generally. The only exceptions should
be for very small and relatively isolated rural communities
with fewer than 700 voters. It is entirely possible or even
likely that bipartisans would still dominate a jury in such
small precincts. But an “affirmative action” provision might
require that no more than a majority of such a jury is bipartisan.

1 Model Election Code by Joseph P. Harris, Prof. of Political Science,
University of Washington, 1934; Institute for Government Research
Studies in Administration No. 27, The Brookings Institution,
Washington, D.C. 1934
2ibid
3ibid
4ibid
5ibid
6ibid
7ibid

Where's the Web Service?

2007-08-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Entry for August 30, 2007

While the pieces for a candidate to management a campaign are lying around, the means for the citizen manage political information are even more scattered.

How does one begin to organize information upon which to make an informed judgement on candidates at the ballot? Contemporary political campaigns seem structured to 'cue' voters not inform them. Very well, caveat emptor! It is the citizen's responsibility to either be led by cues or to lead their self. So called grass roots organizations push the cueing approach as well. The approach which would yield the most benefit to voter independence is to offer tools which empower the voters to shape the information from their own biases or philosophy.

Political parties as we have known and loathed them serve only the interests of maintaining and entrenching incumbency. They are essentially service agencies for preserving the power of the failing.

This observation is supported by my comparison of the state of information management tools in the hands of manufacturers of processed consent versus the producers of original consent - voters.

So, where are the tools for the citizens, if they chose to become voters, to filter the demands of processed consent?

It seems their is an opportunity here for a lot of clever hackers. Potentially Very Subversive Stuff - a voter information management system as a web service.

Where's the free software?

2007-08-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

: Entry for August 29, 2007

Just a question: Where is the free, open source software for political campaign management? It appears to me that most of the components are there to be glued together. Public records are generally available to pour in.

Anyone should be able to access the tools for campaigning in a free society. Or, I have I failed to enter a 'magic' query to find this stuff?

Libertarian Politics, Democracy and War

2007-08-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Entry for August 25, 2007

Democracy, for libertarians at least, is not an alternative to markets. Nor is the use of democratic processes to spread that idea subversive anti-market activity, in my opinion. It is an essential activity so long as any state apparatus rest upon markets. So long as there are advocates for the State as a substitute for markets, anti-state “politics” will be necessary. War is the primary function of the State which subverts markets. One cannot be consistently pro-war and pro-market. For a State to wage war against another State, it must first wage war against 'its' own people. It must make war upon them by taxation to bid for the resources to wage a war against others. A voluntarily funded war by one people against another is possible, but religion is about the only motivation capable of doing it. This helps to understand why religious arguments are so frequently used to reinforce war making.

In the 20^th Century an effort was made to substitute Democracy for religion as a motivator for war. It has proved a weak motivator and religion has returned to its traditional role. The war on 'terrorism' relies on religious appeals. But it is really just another war against markets. Those who lack the values to get what they seek by trade will declare the other side anathema to justify stealing what they cannot bid for successfully on the market. This is the means by which States and empires attempt to rise and inevitably fall.

This cycle makes politics indispensable. Democracy makes the 'Death of Politics' possible without waging war literally against the State by revolution. The less a State apparatus fears revolution, the more it follows a course which leads to defeat by another State(s). Democracy when practiced vigorously is a check on runaway State imperialism. Democracy allows markets to function more freely by restraining State war making. Democracy works to minimize State failure not market failure. The United States is a failing State. It is a failing State because it is a failed democracy. The democratic processes of the United States have become so corrupted that popular restraint is no longer effective.

This analysis is the root of my argument for restructuring the democratic processes of the United States. The decline of effective democracy clearly parallels and correlates with the rise of imperial America. I argue it is cause and effect. The rise of imperial America is the cause of the decline of markets. Markets do not need the State to function, but where the State exist, markets need democracy to retard the greatest disease of statism – war.

Politics in a dying democracy is futility. If one would oppose any thing the State would do, one must make sure the democracy can function to enforce the popular will. Where there is no popular will, the will of the people must be resolved in markets. If politics cannot be about preserving democracy, so that democracy can prevent State war-making, then the State will crush the markets to feed its war lust.

Ballots can save us from a resort to bullets. If you give up on the ballot, then the market may not provide you with the bullets when you really need them.

The war against the war-making of the imperial State begins with establishing a better democracy - electoral reform.

Electoral reform means uncaging voters

2007-08-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

Caging is a term used to describe describe quasi-legal or illegal suppression of the vote. It is seen as a weapon which one party uses against another. Actually both parties engage in 'caging' to suppress voters who dissent from the entrenched party duopoly.

Gerrymandering is the most time worn example of caging using 'cracking' and 'packing' to divide the political market between two parties. One thing about such tactics is they become less effective as the number of candidates outside of the duopoly increases. Therefore, alternative party candidates must be suppressed by other techniques such as ballot access restrictions and filing fees to keep the two-parties entrenched.

What is less appreciated is the is the role gerrymandering still has upon new party candidates even when ballot access barriers are drastically lowered. Parties based on appeals that cut across ethnic, socio-economic characteristics have a geographically dispersed constituency. Their constituencies are still 'cracked' or fragmented by geographical divisions. The entrenched parties remain entrenched even with ballot access reforms. This factor controls even if ballot access restrictions are totally removed. In those cases, the minority parties are disparaged as 'spoilers' because they reveal the illusion of 'majority rule'.

However, if geographical boundaries are retained solely for the purpose of counting votes the 'majority rule' convention can be reasserted buy counting individual's votes within a larger context which is closer to proportionality. The solution within the constitutional framework of the U.S. is to allow individuals to swap electoral districts to overcome 'cracking'. This allows voters to voluntarily 'pack' a district and break the hegemony of the entrenched parties to 'crack' them into permanent minority status.

Ten thousand voters in a state who, but for cracking, could control an electoral sub-district are emancipated into a represented group. This consequence alters the 'viability' of new candidates.

So ballot access reform is a necessary, but not sufficient reform to secure a wider base for representation. But even both of these reforms are not sufficient either.

The total population size of the representational district remains to dilute and eliminate new political constituencies. I address this problem as well.

But if when ballot access is open, voters are free to cross electoral boundaries, and electoral districts are reduced in size (more representatives), the voter still confronts a fundamental paradox. The voter must make a 'take it or leave it' choice for only one candidate. The voter cannot express a range of preferences among multiple candidates. This problem is addressed by 'range voting'.

Finally, the problem of how to finance candidates without bribery and extortion remains. Since 1973 I have argued that mandatory anonymous contributions are an essential companion to the anonymous "secret' ballot. This is now technologically feasible and essential to a comprehensive attack on the system of entrenchment which has given Americans such deep cynicism which has allowed the virtual destruction of constitutional civil liberties by the entrenched parties coalition.

The American electoral system is killing democracy and the death of democracy is killing the Republic. Electoral reform is essential to a constitutional restoration. If this fails nothing remains but dictatorship and revolution - a bloody madness that could far exceed the excesses of the French Revolution or even the first American Civil War. Sounds hyperbolic? There is no need to find out. Just take the reform path step by relentless step.

To Build a Better Messenger with a Better Message

2007-08-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

Entry for August 18, 2007

Some LP activists, impatient for success, correctly diagnosed that the LP Platform was a major problem. Unfortunately, their solution was radical surgery. The belief was that "in your face" libertarianism was a show stopper. I have a differing diagnosis and solution. I do not believe it was never a matter of what was in the official platform, it was what wasn't in.

To begin with a party platform never binds candidates. No platform can trump an individual's own judgment. A platform is useful and necessary as an agenda for action which unites candidates. In order to "challenge the cult of the omnipotent state" one must state not only the targets but define HOW one plans to destroy those targets. This requires a plan of intervention in the processes of government to alter the outcomes.

The central process in which to intervene is the process of elections. This was recognized more than a century ago was by the wealthy interests who fostered and manipulated the Populists and Progressive 'movements' to institutionally entrench an apparent two-party system which preserved choice and allegiance. The whole edifice of the state rest upon popular allegiance to the outcomes produced by the system. It has failed. But it remains legally entrenched despite popular cynicism. The task is to mobilize this popular discontent into support for a reform agenda. It will not do to wait for either dictatorship or popular revolution. Either would worse for almost everyone.

The current spate of ideas to alter the electoral process indicate the time is ripe for reform. A libertarian (regardless of affiliation) should take as broad a view as can fit within the existing constraints of the Constitution - not as opinionated by the Supreme Court - the literal constraints. This does not mean that Constitutional Amendments are out of bounds; rather, amendments are a goal for entrenching a more open system not an immediate agenda item.

In my view, besides obvious ballot access issues, libertarians should serious consider voting systems such as range voting, and a cluster of electoral issues that are constitutionally rooted in the U. S. House of Representatives: the size of the House affects the Presidential Electors, decentralization of representation (apportionment), gerrymandering (re-districting), uncaging voters by allowing them to swap congressional districts with a state (voiding the partisan or racial effect of any boundary), anonymous campaign financing, secure paper ballots, and, lastly but not completely, re-empowering the House as the real "Inspector General" of the national government with rigorous oversight to trample down Executive secrecy. The House has the power of the purse and the power to initiate impeachment. If the LP is to make it's long awaited break through its central focus should be on access to the U.S. House of Representatives - NOT the presidential election.

The targets identified above suggest the "How to". Candidates should focus on rallying the public to support reform with specificity. For example, increasing the size of the House to 1776 members or 2012 (any other large 'magic number'). These reform ideas should be the centerpiece of the Libertarian Party platform and they also happen to be reforms which many other political elements could support.

The role of the LP Presidential nominee should be to take the centerpiece of the platform to the broad national electorate and reinforce the message of local congressional candidates. Otherwise, candidates should be respected as much as other activists and the people generally - your are free and expected to pick and choose your level of commitment to any platform issues. No doubt many will be dubious of the prospect of a consensus on the specificity of certain reforms. Fine. Vigorous intellectual ferment can produce the best and essential details.

Any candidate should free to advocate any more radically liberal specifics.

This, I hope, clarifies why I find the current group of contenders for the LP nomination unappealing. It's not what they stand for, it's what they fail to offer to capture 'the spirit of the age'.

LP Candidates for President 2008

2007-08-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

Entry for August 16, 2007

New Messengers - same old message.

I suppose these are all fine people with sincere motivations to build the LP. Having just made a survey looking for points to ponder among them I have concluded that so far there is not much to ponder.

Some candidates are wealthier than others; some candidates appear more telegenic than others; some candidates have a longer pedigree of activism than others; and , finally, some appear to buy in to the smear and fear 'war on terror' just a bit and others not at all. This makes me more or less indifferent to all of them.

How come? Because I see no policy or program of initiative and reform to set any of them apart. I believe this continues to be a serious problem for the LP and its candidates. Recall that the most effective third parties of the past all had agendas for specific changes to the structures and processes of government however faulty and misconceived they may have been. The LP agenda continues to be dominated by a 'roll back the state' by reverse teleology. While necessary that is not sufficient for popular attraction. An 'undo' function doesn't cut it.

The LP and the libertarian movement generally need a serious dose of innovative thinking on redo. My only contribution to this effort is directed at electoral reform, but other contributions are needed in other areas. In this sense all the candidates are equally acceptable as representative of the present libertarian movement regardless of nuances. No candidate is original enough to generate intellectual controversy.

We need shiny, sexy new tools to put in our candidates' tool kit along with the old tried true and well worn ones. It's not the messengers, it's the messengers without a new message!

Caging Voters from the Beginning

2007-08-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

Entry for August 06, 2007

What's the first thing to decide before you can have an election? An agreement among N persons to abide by the outcome of the election. In most groups this established by defining "membership" by consent. But there are competing criteria which do not establish "membership" by consent. Such criteria include kinship, language, religion, sex, age, 'ethnicity', the value of one's property and other characteristics which are not based on consent but circumstances determined by the actions of others - often by others long dead and legendary.

One of the most seemingly neutral criteria for membership is geography, Meaning simply some expanse of the earth's surface defined by a boundary. But boundaries are chosen by someone. The power to define and enforce boundaries is among first claimed by any group on a mission to establish a government. Some will assert that any social group has a form of government. All social groups have enforcible rules, but that does not establish a government. Children engaged in a game during recess are not engaging in government, Such children are gaming until they agree to exclude some one from the game. At that point they are on the path to forming a gang.

A gang which tries to define and enforce boundaries is a proto-government. If they can exclude others from 'their' part of the playground they are playing at government. It is not property that is the basis of the exclusion, it is their co-operative effort to exclude others from that which none of them own. It is proto-eminent domain. The assertion of a right to take without mutual consent.

Democracy and elections have been erected on the ancient customs of territorial gangs. Boundaries are drawn down and then elections are practiced within these boundaries, All the people who live within the accepted boundaries of one village are considered to be a 'natural' grouping for elections. People who live within Adamsville are supposed to naturally vote separately from people who live in adjacent Evesville. It seems natural and convenient. If the two villages are joined together by mutual consent or conquest into a new entity with a new boundary, then new rules for elections must be established.

Eventually many villages can be aggregated into a mighty empire with an enormously lengthy boundary. Typically it will also have many internal sub-boundaries for administrative expediency for command and control of, among other things, elections.

So, having settled that people for reasons of kinship, language, religion, sex, age, 'ethnicity', the value of their collective property and other circumstantial characteristics, have aggregated into a village or a mighty empire that by custom or conviction wants to have elections to decide certain things within their boundary, what is the next thing to decide?

Who within the boundary shall be allowed to vote? Some group must always be excluded. Regardless, of the rationale for it, those who are excluded are always those who can be safely excluded - who cannot effectively insist on inclusion. The exclusion of infants is traditional. Although it is conceivable that parents could act as temporary proxies for children. Beyond children they the exclusions can be based on any of the usual circumstantial characteristics indicated previously. The fewer the characteristics for exclusion the closer a group comes to what has been called 'Universal Suffrage' - even though it is never universal and it is always restricted for command and control in various ways.

All democracies practice limited self-government inversely to the extent of universal suffage. That is, the more universal the suffrage, the civil right to vote, the more limited the scope and effect of the voting on the system of government. These limits are enforced by transferring restrictions from who can vote to how and who and what they they are permitted to vote for or against. When the restrictions become so total that voting is a meaningless ritual, democracy is extinguished.

Some of these restrictions are enshrined in sacramental constitutions and others in more pedestrian law. In most cases geographical boundaries form a central controlling concept: Thou shall not vote on the wrong side of the line. This leads straight to a discussion of gerrymanders, but we shall defer that well worn subject for now and pass on to another less worn.

There is one characteristic about geography. It changes very gradually until there is a catastrophe. In the old land speculator's opinion, land; they just ain't makin' anymore. But people are very reproductive. Over time boundaries become filled with more and more people by 'natural increase'. Handling non-uniformly increasing population within fixed boundaries requires subtle (cunning, insidious) political engineering to maintain internal 'stability'.

Fixed geographic boundaries and growing, fluid populations make for complications in theoretical democracy. In practice, solutions are rather straight forward, just jettison democratic theory. Anything you can get away with long enough is democratic because the people let you get away with it. Problem solved.

Except that not everybody assumes what they are supposed to assume.

Caging Voters II: Pre-revolutionary reform in a democratic tradition

Entry for August 06, 2007

Returning to the intitial question: What's the first thing to decide before you can have an election? An agreement among N persons to abide by the outcome of the election. All elections are intended to have consequences. However the terms of the initial agreement to abide can and should be revised by voters' appraisal of the consequences of the outcomes. This idea is expressed in the statement that people have a right to alter or abolish any form of government. Alteration must mean any change in forms of structure and procedure major or minor. Abolish means secession and renegotiation of all terms and conditions. Secession then can lead to a range of intergroup treaty relations characterized as confederation or alliance.

At what point, we may inquire, should people seek to "alter or abolish" ? Any time they are willing to risk it. Historically, this has been rarely. It is also true that governments are continuously altered, but not always as a consequence of the voters decision in an election or series of elections. When this takes place one may question whether elections still have consequences that matter.

Control of the processes of elections means control of the process of altering the form of government, short of sudden abolition. It means inducing people to abide by outcomes without their consent. It means inducing them substitute faith in process for outcome. The problem can arise that outcomes are so disappointing that the faith in process is challenged. A challenge to electoral process leads to re-examination of the whole history of alterations. A kind of political archeology in public view. Skulls and bones are dug up which prove difficult to explain. If the archaeologists arm themselves to defend their artifacts and theories, revolution is afoot. Abolition enters the bloodstream.

It is often counseled by some contestants that re-negotiations begin before that point is reached. A plethora of proposals for reforms bubble up seeking to mediate and retrench or re-entrench obedience to the outcomes.

It is useful to consider such reform proposals if only to discover where the stress is being expressed. Caged voters, at the very, least will insist on bigger more transparent cages.

In the United States today, the stress is in the electoral system because the outcomes of government are unsatisfying to too many people. Reforms may or may not prevent abolition from entering the bloodstream. Effective reforms must exact deprivation on someone - the entrenched must pay a price. The wise will fold a losing hand, the foolish will go "all in". If they have been caught cheating, retribution will likely follow the pattern of all revolutions since the French. The King of England, George III, was fortunate that the American colonies were far away from London, otherwise he may well have been lynched. And that was fortunate for the Americans too.

Who should 'stock' you ballot?

2007-08-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

Our election system uses a ballot which serves as a candidate shopping list. As a voter you have a restricted list or 'stock' of candidates from which to choose. You are entitled to vote for either one candidate among X others or not at all. If you choose to vote for just one candidate, then the choice becomes how many candidates are allowed to vie for you single vote. That choice is not allowed to you, it is determined by law. The poll here is about your preference for allowing candidates to appear on the ballot (nomination). You may vote any or all of the choices. This polling software does not allow us to measure the relative intensity of your preferences. Unfortunately, this defect is a blind spot in our political culture.

Taking the Load off. Up, Up and Away!

2007-08-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

This discourse may not seem to have any connection to political reform.

The bridge collapse in Minnesota has generated a lot of predictable aftershocks. The media are doing their catchup stories and the Congress is rushing in with money and condolences. Never mind that it was their political bridge that failed.

So what might be done to take the load off the government roads and bridges? How about not putting so much weight on them?

See: http://www.personalblimp.com/index.html

After you finish guffawing consider. What if five percent of commuters used "Sky Yachts"? Well, it would mean less congestion on the roads, but where are you going to park all those blimps? In a vertical tower? Could be.

But perhaps the best use such airships would be as a way to reduce intercity trips within a range of say fifty miles. The airships would be parked and the commuters would rent electric cars or electric motorcycles to get around.

See: http://zeromotorcycles.com/

Hmmm.

An Honest Vote Count: New Developments

2007-07-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

Consider this an addendum to the previous post on An Honest Vote Count.

http://rangevoting.org/RivSmiPRshort.html

Before the Voting Begins

2007-07-27T00:46:00.000-07:00

Entry for July 27, 2007

Control of elections begins long before the voting actually occurs though the actions of the coalition of parties-in-government principally in their legislative and judicial capacities.

An excellent overview how how this came about is presented in a paper by Adam Winkler " Voter's Rights and Party Wrongs" here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=238193

As Winkler concludes in his paper, "...it remains an open question whether early electoral reforms still serve to protect voters from confusion." I would state it more strongly as parties-in-government manipulation, Winker says, "Minor parties have become occasional spectacles instead of vibrant competitors, campaigns are candidate-centered (as opposed to issues), voters have diminished party loyalty, and the presidential nominating system is skewed so that races are effectively over after only a handful of states have held their primaries or caucuses." Italics inserted.

Because voter loyalty is so ephemeral, the parties-in-government have sought to lock in "their" voters with regulations to suppress defections to competing parties and force dissenters into non-voting. The principle right of voters today is to put up or shut up.

Winkler correctly points out that "Resolving these issues may require a reconceptualization of the right to vote and of the nature of party associational rights similar in spirit and ambition to that of reformers at the turn of the last century."

Spirit and ambition, Reconceptualization not a recapitulation. Before proceeding further it would be best to download and study Winkler's paper.

Citation: Winkler, Adam, "Voters' Rights and Parties' Wrongs: Early Political Party Regulation in the State Courts, 1886-1915" . Columbia Law Review, Vol. 100, No. 3, April 2000 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=238193

An Honest Vote Count

2007-07-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

: Entry for July 24, 2007

Even supposing that voter's have an opportunity to choose freely among all willing candidates, it means nothing unless there is an honest ballot count. The present system of voting is unreliable, insecure and unacceptable. We can do better.

Just as access to the ballot has been suppressed by centralized administration, the opportunities for rigging the count have also been centralized by political administrators of the ruling coalition. Legal immunities and centralized counting minimize the counting from public scrutiny. The ultimate shield for abuse is the proprietary voting counting machine. Much recent controversy involves the idea of a voter verified record as a check on electronic voting and vote counting computers. The controversy indicates how flimsy the public trust is of the current system and in the traditional claims of legitimacy by the official regime.

The best solutions are often the simplest. A jury of voters to physically count physical ballots after the polls close in each precinct. The jury vote count would involve twelve persons chosen from among the voters in each precinct on election day. The jury would be compensated and independent. The counting in each precinct would be subject to documentation by video with each ballot imaged and the record retained for twenty years and freely available as a public record.

With this check in place at the ballot box level, it would be acceptable to electronically process the tally from the precincts using open source software which is open to public inspection at any time. The tally records from each precinct and the centralized count would be posted on the internet by both precinct jury counters and the centralized administrators.

This procedure would allow transparent verification of the results by any and all interested persons.

Once all disputes, if any, have been resolved the paper ballots would be recycled for the next election. The manufacture and printing of official paper ballots should also be re-privatized. The form or layout of the ballot would be regulated and the specification would be an open standard such that anyone could produce their own (unmarked) ballot and cast it. Voter may wish to cast their ballots in such a way that no fingerprints or DNA material would tie them to the ballot. One simple method to accomplish this is simply to allow voters to exchange blank ballots among themselves before casting their vote.

This example just came in today. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4830

Next before the voting begins....

Candidate Access to the Ballot as a Voter's Right

2007-07-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

: Entry for July 22, 2007

Dissatisfaction with the American system of elections is pervasive. Which previous reforms have brought us to this crisis? Is reform possible, and, if so, which reforms are really needed?

Americans, by tradition, are wedded to plurality, winner-take-all elections. Alternatives are available, but their adoption does not seem likely any time soon.

Here I focus on possible reforms within the context of the American democratic tradition and the distortion of that tradition by Progressive era reforms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These reforms culminated in the campaign finance reform legislation mania of the 1970s and still wreaking havoc.

The first issue to address is the progressive concept of the secret or anonymous ballot. I support the secret/anonymous ballot as an essential element in securing voter privacy. What I criticize is the misuse of the secret ballot to centralize control of elections. This centralized control entrenched two parties into a coalition to control all electoral access and thwart accountability to the voters. This strategy of centralization of the two party coalition led directly to further entrenchment by prohibitions on funding political campaigns outside of their regulatory monopoly.

The whole progressive scheme has been an agenda to channel with carefully engineered dikes and levies all political activity into two parallel channels. This mindset is consistently indoctrinated into the minds of the public by political elites.; It would not have endured for a century without the active support of those who have profited most. Political faces come and go and are expendable, the process seems immortal. But it isn't. To challenge this 'system' is one of the most dangerous of political heresies. It is more dangerous than advocating the assassination of a political leader; such people are easily and readily replaced. Challenging the sanctity of the electoral system undermines all traditional claims for governing authority. Challenging the electoral system is but one step removed from the advocacy of either anarchy or primitive dictatorship. If democracy has become a fraud, then it is merely a trapping for dictatorship. Democracy cannot be a cover for anarchy.

The secret/anonymous ballot does not require centralized control of the administration of elections. A ballot cast anonymously by an individual is a discrete event. Such balloting has been done for centuries in various ways. The secret ballot does not require massive regulatory administration which serves to limit free voter choice by restricting which citizens can be candidates for representation and which cannot. The clear aim for the last century has been voting by everyone on carefully controlled options.

Restrictions on candidacy are restrictions on voters. The first reform needed is to remove all non-constitutional restrictions on candidacy. The only constitutional restrictions are citizenship and age, and for the Presidency native birth. There are no other constitutional restrictions. Therefore, all restrictions like petitioning for permission are illegitimate. Universal suffrage means universal eligibility for candidacy. This concept is so simple that it is revolutionary by comparison with current practice. Many civil libertarians have difficulty of grasping the obvious logic. So much time is spent negotiating "reasonable" restrictions.

The difficulty with this "reasonable" approach is that the negotiations must be carried on within the terms of the Progressive centralization mindset. The jurists who serve as guardians of this mindset are typically beholden to the two-party coalition. They cannot be independent and impartial except at great personal cost.

The solution to this bottle-neck is direct public challenge by voters themselves. For example, in some states it is possible for voters to remove judges from the bench by voting for "non-retention". The judges must be placed in a position of being on the side of voter's choice or party entrenchment. Either way there must be political consequences for their decisions.

It is not illegitimate for voters to seek to mitigate the centralized control of the ballot by seeking easier ballot access for candidates as independents or new parties. If one wishes to bear the unjust costs of such tactics, one can do so. I think such efforts are less fruitful and inherently discriminatory than a direct challenge by a principle of equal justice of all voters and candidates. Given the opportunity to vote for reduction in restrictions to candidate access to the ballot I will do so, of course. But it does not undermine my opposition to such restrictions anymore than accepting a tax refund undermines my opposition to the tax system.

More reforms, such as honest vote counting, will be discussed in the future.

No Judicial Barons

2007-07-05T17:27:00.000-07:00

A pattern seems to be emerging from recent court decisions - it's not only Oklahoma. The 2008 election means big trouble for candidates of the entrenched parties at the federal level and maybe deeper. The judges are ruling on cases to keep insurgent parties and independent candidates off the ballot in 2008. The Supreme Court signals it will back up these decisions. Look at the details on Richard Winger's Ballot Access News for just the last few months.

Perhaps before the 2008 General Election a coalition will emerge to reject all state judges up for retention who have demonstrated a zest for ballot access suppression. Oklahoma is only the worst of the worst. It getting worse all over. Expect more case law in the next few months to suppress defections from the entrenched parties. It would be interesting and gratifying to see a dozen or so judges lose their jobs in 2008. It would certainly pack more political punch than a "third party" or independent presidential candidate getting a few million votes no matter which way it tips the electoral college - if at all.

What might the fall out be? A flurry of constitutional amendments from state legislatures to remove judges from the reach of the voters probably. And more law journal articles about how crappy American election law is. Can the entrenched establishment get away with election nullification? When a ruling class becomes really desperate, their actions can provoke revolution. The ruling coalition starts to break ranks and run for cover and another "evil empire" bites the dust. Maybe...

Overall, 87% of state court judges face the voters either through direct or retention election, according to the National Center for State Courts (www.ncsc.dni.us.). However, the most common way to gain a seat on the bench is through a midterm appointment – more than half of all state judges initially take the bench this way. Currently, there are six methods or combinations of methods for selecting judges for both appellate and general jurisdiction courts:
• Sixteen states use some form of merit selection through a nominating commission;
• Six states use gubernatorial or legislative appointment without a nominating commission;
• Eight states have partisan elections;
• Thirteen states have nonpartisan elections;
• Nine states – including Missouri – combine merit selection with elections for different levels of court and jurisdictions; and
• Nine states using elections have merit plans only to fill
mid-term vacancies on some or all levels of their courts.

members.mobar.org/pdfs/about/judicial_selection.pdf

These people aren't barons. They are parolees serving to protect the rights of citizens. If they fail to show 'good behavior', their paroles should be revoked and they can go back to being just lawyers.

I think an evaluation of the rulings of sitting judges and justices on issues of electoral equity could produce a 'ten most unwanted list' for rejection at the polls. Initially three nominees for 'most unwanted' are three Justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2008 - Colbert, Lavender and Watt. It shouldn't be too hard in the next 12 months to find seven more in the country.

Revolt of the printing masses!

2007-06-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

There is seldom anything in tech that sends me ballistic but this is one.

http://news.com.com/Can+cryptography+prevent+printer-ink+
piracy/2100-1041-6193424.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e43

How can you have a free press when business wants to monopolize your ink. This is Microsoftism gone totally berserk. You can take your ink cartridges and shove them up tight and clear outta sight!

I didn't read the invisible shrink wrap license that didn't come with the cartridge. It must have been encrypted on the inside of the cartridge.

If you think this idea is gonna fly, I've got some pale yellow ink for you! Use it for cologne.

Anybody for a startup printer company - one universal cartridge will work in all models. And don't even think about laser cartridges either.

It appears you'll have to reassemble the link by hand. Strange limitation for this kind of site.
|

Three to throw off the train in 2008

2007-06-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

The three of nine Justice up for retention/rejection in 2008 are:
Justice Robert E. Lavender, Justice Tom Colbert, and Justice Joseph M. Watt.

Since the refusal to hear the case on ballot access was a unanimous decision, all three should be reject in 2008. The next three up for rejection in 2010 are: Justice Steven W. Taylor, Justice James R. Winchester and Justice Rudolph Hargrave; followed in 2012 by Justices Opala, Kauger and Edmondson, if they are still on the bench.

Developments pending...

No Free Rides!

2007-06-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

Oklahoma law requires that presidential candidates of “new parties” obtain the valid signatures of registered voters equal to five percent of the of the total vote cast for President or Governor in the previous general election. Based on the 2006 General election that means about 46,000 valid signatures for the 2008 general election. But course, not all signatures will be valid for various reasons. Therefore, additional signatures must always be gathered to provide a cushion against disqualified signatures. The rule of thumb is to obtain at least fifteen percent more than the minimum. In this case that means at least 52,000 signatures and 54,000 is better to virtually guarantee 46,000 valid signatures of currently registered voters.

So let’s assume any party needs 54,000 signatures. How many registered voters are there in Oklahoma? ... The densest concentration of voters are in the major metropolitan areas: Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Lawton. These three cities are where it is most efficient - lowest in costs - to obtain signatures. How many registered voters are in Oklahoma, Tulsa, and Comanche counties? ... This means that 80 to 90 percent of petitioners efforts must be focused in those three counties. This would appear to be advantageous for petitioners. But what about the people in the rest of the state?

Do voters in the metropolitan areas differ in the political attitudes from those in more rural areas? How do these differences affect the costs of obtaining signatures? If it is significantly more costly for petitioners to obtain signatures in rural areas than in metropolitan areas, or vice versa, then the effects of the ballot access law disadvantage one area over the other.

Let us be clear what the effect of ballot access restriction using petitioning for signatures accomplishes. It is what economists call an “in-kind” tax. A tax in-kind cannot be paid by simply writing a check. An in-kind tax typically involves performing some kind of labor or rendering up some commodity to the state. Petitioning for signatures to obtain permission for candidates to appear on the ballot is a tax (in-kind) to obtain a license to run for office. It is a tax in addition to any ordinary filing fees (taxes) which candidates must pay.

But it gets worse. Entrenchment is the term used to identify the use of state power to “dig in” or fortify certain groups in the government from peaceful, democratic challenge by other groups. The entrenched parties - Democratic and Republican - exempt themselves from the tax burden which they place on new competitors. They are exempt from petitioning. They get to simply pay filling fees with a guaranteed refund for almost every one of their candidates. Consequently they have legislated themselves a free ride on the ballot - a privilege status - an entrenchment.

However, even if one agrees that new parties deserve to be penalized for attempting to challenge the entrenched parties - because the petition only gets your candidate on the ballot - it doesn’t get any candidate any votes. The ballot petitioning tax violates one of the so-called canons of “fair” taxation. The idea embedded in the U.S. Constitution was that taxes should levied equally on all people. The idea was “No taxation without representation” and taxation proportionate to representation. The ballot petitioning tax is worse than taxation without representation, it is taxation on the opportunity to seek representation.

Nor is the tax on the opportunity to seek representation levied equally on all parties or all citizens. As indicated above, because it is an in-kind tax which cannot be paid with money (even though it necessitates money being spent to perform), the burden of the tax on opportunity does not fall equally on all citizens. Those citizens and voters living in less densely populated areas are taxed more for the opportunity to seek representation because the in-kind costs are higher for them than for persons in metropolitan areas, if for no other reason, the costs of travel to get where people can sign petitions are higher. It is obvious that gasoline cost more to day than it did in 1974 when this law took effect and even more than it did as recently as 2006. The political advantage for the Democratic and Republican politicians in office is that it makes rural legislators even more immune from competition than their metropolitan colleagues. That means rural voters have less opportunity than even metropolitan voters to throw a rascal out in either of the entrenched parties. Candidates who would run against an incumbent of their own party must run the gauntlet of the primary. Because of the way district boundaries are drawn by the legislators, many districts are “safe” for an incumbent indefinitely. That was one of the reasons why term-limits were enacted. But term-limits were only a partial remedy for the underlying inequity non-competitive ballots. Far, far too many incumbents have no opposition in either a primary or general election. Yet at the same time many public opinion polls indicate that citizens do not believe they are getting their money’s worth from the legislators. Sounds like a classic symptom of monopoly - an arbitrary supply of poor quality goods. That’s bad tax policy even if you approve of the penalty on new parties - unless you’re an incumbent politician in an entrenched party.

Suppose one is not concerned with ballot access restrictions as a tax on opportunity. It is interesting to note that many people adamantly support the idea of freedom of religion because they would not want to see their church suppressed by other sects. The policy adopted by the authors of the Constitution was open access - Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Perhaps the respect for this idea helps to explain why no one has to circulate a petition asking for permission to worship as they choose. The same First Amendment that proclaims freedom of religion also proclaims freedom of speech and association and the right to petition for a redress of grievances. A redress of grievances is most effectively done today through a political party putting candidates on the ballot for election to public office. It is difficult to see why open access for religious diversity has worked so well, but open access for political diversity cannot be allowed. Unless, one concludes that what we really have is an establishment of political doctrine settled in two sects. Of course, if an established state church could tax and suppress it’s competitors like our politicians’ do, then we could advance our society to resemble the 1400s in Europe - wars and inquisitions. Let’s keep that from happening in our politics.

If one agrees that present ballot access restrictions are undesirable and against the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution, then are any ballot access restrictions justifiable?

One of the principal arguments of the entrenches is that voters - you - will be confused if there are “too many” candidates on the ballot. Of course, few, if any, of you are confused by the variety of churches in your neighborhood. But it is a real stretch to imagine that the United States would ever have as many political parties as there are religious sects. But even if there were, where’s the harm to you?

Another of the entrenches arguments is that the “two-party system” is uniquely a stroke of genius which makes our government more stable than foreign multi-party countries. This is an assertion of fact that can be verified within certain limits. The first limit is that we compare our apple against someone else’s apple. What other nation has a Constitution identical or nearly identical to ours, but has a multi-party system? That apple seems hard to find, so they substitute parliamentary oranges. OK. We may as well forget about any other hypothetical limits since the entrenches cannot clear the first hurdle of logic. But we won’t.

The U.S. Constitution does not predispose the government to entrenched “two-party” rule. In fact, persons from other parties have been elected to the U.S. House and Senate, as well as state legislatures, rather often - in the past. In the past two parties did indeed dominate the government, but they were not entrenched by the electoral system and they came and went. The present Democratic/Republican entrenchment has occurred only in the last eighty years or so. How and when it came about has been fairly well understood by historians and political scientists for some time. Why it came about is a matter of some controversy still- there are contending interpretations. I will burden you only with this author’s interpretation.

In my opinion, the tools of the present “two-party” entrenchment are, first, the arbitrary abuse of the principle of the secret ballot which was introduced at the end of the 19th century to remedy genuine election corruption. The government monopolized the production of ballots. In the century before individuals, candidates and parties printed and distributed the ballots for voters to use. This practice worked against privacy in voting and allowed vote-buying and intimidation of voters. It could have been remedied by simply requiring uniformity in the ballots produced by candidates and parties. Why was there a complete government takeover?

Printing and distributing ballots was a cost that had been voluntarily born by private individuals, they invented the mass production of ballots in the first place. The costs were acceptable because few people believed the costs should not be a burden on those taxpayers - who may not vote for any of the candidates in a given election or any election. In other words, printing ballots was a normal cost of campaigning born by candidates. It was a proportionate, voluntary “tax”. Ballots were produced by parties for their candidates - where and as needed. The government takeover of the ballot industry had significant advantages for the largest political parties - subsidy and control of access. They were able to shift the costs of ballot production and marketing on to the general population. But more important was their claim that economy in costs required that mere “expressive” voting for candidates deemed unlikely to win was now a costly and unjust “subsidy” to such candidates - candidates which are “frivolous” and the voters no longer had any need to consider. So the ballot produced by the government must be short on candidates and frugal for the taxpayers. This was described as a policy of impartiality. Cute, eh? The need for ballot uniformity was used as a pretext to enforce control of access to the ballot itself. Entrenchment? Yes.

For some time, other parties continued to stagger on. In time some simply died a natural death, as their single-issue fervor was absorbed by the fattening “major” parties. The more doctrinaire parties continued on until swamped by anti-immigrant and pro-imperialist propaganda by the “major” parties. Some parties simply gave up or were suffocated in their cribs. Potential candidates, no matter what their own convictions, realized that there were only one game with two teams to play on. So controversy was largely moved from the general election campaign to the party primary elections or further hidden inside party councils. After a century of this arrangement candidates today campaign mainly on personality and personal scandal and attacking and defending the presidential candidates of the “major” parties. Some candidates have as their platform simply that they are for or against the President. Cute, eh? Another symptom of entrenchment. No candidate independence or originality and damn paltry representation. Political entrenchment has an irresistible momentum toward dictatorship. This momentum was not totally unforeseen by the Founders of the Republic. The Jeffersonians advised “rotation in office” to prevent entrenchment. It took nearly a century to overcome their advice and rig the entrenchment of two particular parties into one nearly impregnable coalition.

Today, we have an almost perfect black hole of entrenchment. All power flows to the center. As wise as we would like to believe they were the Founders and authors of the Constitution did not and could not anticipate the consequences of the flaws they placed in their document. And I say “their” document deliberately. The alleged Constitution of today is the one which the two entrenched party elites want. They “interpret” it to mean whatever is expedient for them. It has now reached the point of mindlessness. Consider the decision of the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2007 to refuse to hear a case for more open ballot access brought by the Libertarian Party from 2004. Note that opening the ballot to wider access for other parties would gain no particular advantage for the Libertarians over any other “minor” party. The sole effect of more open ballot access would be to restore to voters the power they once possessed to control the government. The voters could accept or reject any candidates of any parties. Instead of “splitting their ticket” just one way or the other between the entrenched parties, voter could “split their ticket” six ways to Sunday if the wished. In fact, in earlier times when ballot access was far more open, it was unusual for more than five parties’ candidates to appear on the ballot and then only for a few select offices. The ballots were never “a mile long” as the entrenches charge would happen.

It all comes down to this: The entrenched parties lie to stay in power - they even lie to themselves. Someone will always believe what they say and vote for them. But your right to say “NO!” is not a privilege which they may allow or not as they please. If you want to say “yes” that’s your business, but if you have ever just once wished you had another choice on the ballot in an election, then you should understand why you didn’t see it. Not voting is a valid protest against our rigged system of elections, but it is a weak form of protest. A stronger form of protest is to support open ballot access for all candidates, so you can sort them out for yourself on election day. That’s not an exclusively Libertarian position, the Green Party, the Constitution Party, and other parties now unknown support that position. We must or we will be politically exterminated - figuratively speaking - for now.

What can you do to open up the system? First, sign any petition to put a party on the ballot and sign any petition that asks for open ballot access. Second, penalize the entrenches by any peaceful means you can. Don’t give them any campaign donations, don’t vote for them. Ridicule them, shun them and make them the butt of your jokes. Third, stop rubber stamping judges for retention on the ballot. Vote against retention for all Justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. That is what your ballot is for, use it. That message will be heard. Tell people to vote against the Justices and explain how the Oklahoma Supreme Court is bulldozing anyone who is trying to challenge the entrenches. This is a fundamental issue not a narrow case with equal merits on both sides. The Court has failed to uphold the “free and equal” provision for elections in the Oklahoma Constitution and sought cover themselves behind the U.S. Supreme Court’s maximum limit for restrictions. The Oklahoma State Supreme Court is the core bastion of the two-party entrenchment in Oklahoma. They serve political ends and they must suffer political consequences.

All other states are far less restrictive than Oklahoma and the Oklahoma’s Supreme Court has the discretion to measure the law against the state’s own “free and equal” provision. You, the voter’s have the discretion to remove them from office for that lack of due diligence and prejudicial partiality to entrenched partisan interests. No “free ride” for judges; no entrenched parties.

Here's the list:

JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF OKLAHOMA
District 1 - Robert E. Lavender, Claremore
District 2 - Steven W. Taylor, McAlester
District 3 - Marian P. Opala, Oklahoma City
District 4 - Yvonne Kauger, Colony
District 5 - James R. Winchester, Chickasha
District 6 - Tom Colbert, Tulsa
District 7 - James E. Edmondson, Muskogee
District 8 - Rudolph Hargrave, Wewoka
District 9 - Joseph M. Watt, Altus

Ideas Needed for the Here and Now

2007-06-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

"Those who stress the importance of ideas in society and politics tend to concentrate solely on the long run, on future generations. All that is true and important and must never be forgotten. But ideas are not only for the ages; they are vitally important in the here-and-now."

"In times of revolutionary ferment in particular, social and political change tends to be sudden and swift."
- Murray N. Rothbard

When elites begin to abandon a regime that can no longer reliably protect their interests, a substitute must be sought, even if it was previously ignored, neglected, ridiculed, patronized, rejected and suppressed. The most obvious and readily available substitutes like dictatorship are known to be dangerous to elite interests as well as everyone else's. In societies with tradition of popular consent and some measure of democratic accountability, the tendency will be to find a substitute which most closely resembles and seems most compatible with those traditions.

In the United States, the libertarian tradition most closely fits that requirement as a substitute and replacement for an abandoned regime. The Libertarian Party has been in existence for a generation. That should make it a contender as a prime elemental partner in a new political system. The LP could be expected to a likely vehicle for elites support. But the elites would likely demand certain modifications from the traditional libertarian ideology. The LP may have sufficient depth in its own elites to withstand such pressures.

In part, this is because the LP and other insurgent parties have been suppressed and denied opportunities to chose and elect officeholders to anchor the LP tradition as a 'legitimized minority' with the credibility to claim popular authority. The elites have allowed this to happen, when they have not encouraged it and the result leaves them trapped without a credible vehicle to exit from a political collapse. The consequence may well be that they will realize too late that they repeated the mistakes which led to the aftermath of the French Revolution.

It does one little good to sit smugly today and say, "Well, they've got it coming!" Societies cannot function without complex divisions of labor culturally and economically. It is not good enough to take a vindictive Marxian position. Elites must be rehabilitated and taught to appreciate the limitations of their role in a free society. The most recent example of elite sociopathy has been the neocons. In cases of blatantly criminal behavior some must be deprived of their freedom, perhaps, for life. Historically, once the lust for blood is in the streets, it is too late for talk of rehabilitation.

I would hope that soon the Libertarian Party will announce its non-negotiable opposition to the death penalty. And that we prepare to stand against all blood-lusting mobs indulging in suicidal vindictive orgies. We cannot let allow the blowback from the Bush Administration's insanity to turn Americans into terrorists against one another. The Libertarians deserve access to the ballot because we are the cultural and economic elites best hope for freedom as well as our own. How much credibility we can build as elected leaders amidst a torrent of corruption and sociopathy remains for us to prove, if we have the opportunity that is ours by right - not permission.

Leading Oklahoma Newspaper Takes Favorable Notice

2007-06-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

A lead editorial in the June 4, 2007 edition of the The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma's largest newspaper, noted that Richard Winger, Ballot Access News Editor, has done for ballot law what the Wall Street Journal has done for tort reform. Commenting on the rebuff by the Oklahoma Supreme Court of a 2004 lawsuit by the Libertarian Party, the Oklahoman said,"The Libertarians lawsuit is anything but frivolous. Having the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation is no badge of honor,...."

Libertarians, the Greens and the Constitution Party have all formed a coalition to gain redress from the Oklahoma Legislature without success. The incumbent parties coalition is as just as unified against competition as the challenging coalition is unified for it. One way or another the voters will have make the final adjudication since, the Legislature and the Courts have both failed.

Dysfunctional Ballots, Dysfunctional Congress, Dysfunctional Government.

2007-06-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Entry for June 03, 2007

Can the ballot box be restored to full functionality?

While it is intellectually legitimate to question the use of ballots to resolve questions of public choice, that is not my concern here. I begin for the sake of this discussion by accepting the premise that balloting is authorized, embodies and is presupposed by the U.S. Constitution. In contrast. the Declaration of Independence was never put a vote of the general public. It is a revolutionary document.

The Articles of Confederation were not put a vote of the general public, but adopted by the revolutionary legislative elites. The Constitution was bitterly contested and was voted upon by a large number of adult males after the Revolution was won and a mini-state apparatus had been installed..

The idea of a Constitution is now an embedded tradition in our social-political culture. Voting is just as embedded. What is not embedded or even widely understood among voters is what balloting is supposed to accomplish under our Constitution. I surmise that most people who regard themselves are legally eligible to vote believe that balloting is primarily making a choice between which of two parties' candidates to trust. Each voter brings a more or less coherent configuration of policy preferences to the ballot and makes a "hiring decision" on which applicant best advances their value preferences. Once the results of all the voters "hiring decisions" are announced, the voter believes they are honor bound to accept the result until the next round of "hiring decisions" rolls around.

Some voters may be aware more less acutely that the "hiring decision" place before them on the ballot has already been screened by existing employees - the parties already "hired". So the union of incumbent politicians pre-select candidates for the campaign interviews before any hiring decision can be made by the voters.

The incumbents union uses a variety of barriers to entry to pre-configure the ballot in their favor. Most voters have an idea what a gerrymander is. They may not know all the subtleties of how it gets engineered by the incumbents union. Most voters today know that access to the interview process of campaigning as a candidate with access to the ballot is more or less some kind of licensing process which restricts the voters' choices. Fewer voters have any inkling of how the number of hiring slots is manipulated by the incumbents union to keep employee turnover to a minimum. These are only a few of the ways balloting has become more of a ritual than a hiring decision. A large number of voters now know the process is rigged and that rigging has led to gross employee negligence and malfeasance and criminality. In large measure, the entrenched parties - the incumbents union - is directly responsible and are beginning to be held responsible by voters who are formally abandoning the union to declare themselves Independents. The barriers to exiting the incumbents union are low for voters. The barriers to entry into any other affiliation of non-incumbents are very high for the reasons just cited. But more people are willing to exit.

This means that pressures for entry can also build. The Union knows what's up. They have a strategy for putting such pressure into a cul-de-sac. It is a Trojan horse candidacy for President. The union simply sets up a sham alternative and drives the "exiteers "into a blind alley. It was done with Ross Perot and it is being prepared for this election with Unity '08. It's not important which wing of the Union prevails in any given election because their power in the Congress and the Judiciary guarantees that they cannot lose effective control of the government. The whole point of the Trojan horse campaign is to assure that the Union has all bases covered. Even if the Trojan candidate wins, they remain in control because they are insiders too. Surrogate Presidents are nothing new in American politics.

For this tried and proven strategy to work for the Union it must be coupled with election regulations that cripple any legitimate anti-incumbent candidates. These safeguards have been carefully legislated and adjudicated and remain in place no matter what kind of revolt occurs at the ballot box.

What is especially intriguing about this upcoming cycle is that the voters may be getting just a little ahead in knowing how to evade the snares that have been laid for them. It just gets curiouser and curiouser.

What happens if the voters start to look down the ballot from the Presidential charade at the candidates who do not have Trojan horses to shield them? Hmmmm. More about that later.

Fortunately, jurists do read election results and follow campaigns. Why wouldn't they? Their fortunes are tied to the Union also. When a fresh breeze begins to blow, their's is a judicial tendency to hunker down and see where the fallout lands. Here in Oklahoma the recent unanimous decision by the State Supreme Court to refuse to examine the Libertarian Party's ballot access case from 2004 may also indicate Union heat not to rock the boat with a gale on the horizon. It was an easy decision to reach for the Court because the plausibility of ballot access barriers is difficult to justify with any respectable legal jargon. Oklahoma's is the least justifiable in the entire nation. Well, that's the kind of dirty work that the Union occasionally requires of its members.

Events in this election cycle may given some justification to other members of the Union to exit from their oppressive working conditions. After 2008, the Courts, for example, may suddenly recover a sense of independence and wisdom in the original meaning of the words in the First Amendment. Free speech and freedom of private political association may well become legally relevant again. It all depends on the unintended consequences of the Union's efforts to cover their flanks.

After this impending fiasco, we may be able to move toward restoring the ballot box to full functionality.

The Deeper Agenda II

2007-06-02T23:06:00.000-07:00

We have identified five widely supported schools, factions or doctrinaires who attempt to inculcate judicial rules for deciding disputes involving the political relations between (1) individuals acting the capacities of voters, (2) individuals acting in concert as political party organizations and candidates, (3) individuals acting as elites with some means of influence beyond that of a voter, e.g. campaign financiers, media managers, (4) individuals acting as non-governmental organization spokespersons (NGO lobbyists), (5) individuals acting as the ballot casting electorate, and (6) individuals acting as the government at all levels.

With at least five dimensions for explanation and at least six categories of actors it would appear that understanding might be an undertaking of major complexity. However, there are obvious common factors which offer some possibilities for simplification. Everything has to do with individuals. All the political functions are performed by individuals claiming some authority to act politically in one or more specialized roles.

(0) At the minimal level is the unspecialized potential voter. This person has some claim to a right to vote which others recognize as legitimate. The unspecialized potential voter may or may not exercise the right which they reserve the right to claim at any election. This pool of the unspecialized potential voters is a reservoir of latent influence or power. They are non-rational actors. Not much can be said about the political influence of this group in the calculations of all others. We omit them from our formal list of political actors.

(1) The next level of specialized individuals are those who fully intend to vote and engage in some level of information searching activity to reach a voting decision. They may or may not vote, but if they do or do not, they can be characterized as rational actors regardless of whether an observer agrees with that person's reasoning process. This group has a bullseye on their foreheads. They are the principal target of all other specialized individuals.

(2) The next level of specialized individuals are those who are called activists. Typically they are habitual voters. These individuals often integrate information into a form which they can articulate in an attempt to influence others at this same level, a higher level or a previous 'lower' level. If they have a potential reach of influence which is wide enough, we may consider them as a member of an elite - they have influence beyond there own vote. This 'elite' may range from a person who can reach the minds of their extended family, co-workers, others in some social organization or they may be professional media pundits with a national following. Often candidates emerge or are recruited from this group.

(3) The next specialized level of individuals are amateur, semi-professionals or professionals who work primarily though a political party or quasi-party organization. They are vendors of skills required by candidates seeking election. They may also be campaign financiers or managers of media organizations. These individuals often function as brokers for access to commercial conduits for political 'speech'. They are recognizably an elite. Because of their limited numbers the votes of this group have a marginal effect on elections.

(4) A closely related specialized level to the previous one are individuals acting as spokesperson for 'non-partisan' non-governmental organizations. These individuals support and oppose 'policies' rather than candidates, e.g., churches, citizen lobbies, etc. These political actors are also an 'elite'. Their power is based on their apparent persuasive influence, not on their voting numbers.

(5) Oddly as it may seem, the next higher specialized set of individuals are those persons who actually voted in an election. They are not persons who may or may not vote. They are persons who actually did vote. They are the electorate. All the lower levels must measure their success or failure by the decisions of this group. The relationship between this group and all the others is the lynch pin of any analysis of a constitutional democratic republic.

(6a) The last level of specialized individuals is obvious. Individuals in government all act in a political capacity. They are their positions either because they were elected or admitted to government by those who were elected. This category includes professional and career government employees. They owe their status and livelihood to elected officials. Candidates for the most important elective offices frequently are selected from this caste.

(6b) A special subcategory in this class are judicial officers who are exempt from most other limitations on government employment. One might say this group is the cream of the elites. They are powerful to the extend that all lower levels of political specialists appeal to them to resolve policy disputes and their decisions are accepted. As individuals their power is reputational only. They rely on the political power of all the subordinate elements to execute their will. To defy a Supreme Court decision is equivalent to declaring oneself in insurrection against the entire state apparatus and possibly accused of heresy against humanity.

This briefly describes the functional categories of individuals in the American political system. Each of the five (or other) explanatory or justifying analyses of American politics must deal with at least these six major categories of individuals. I will focus much of my discussion on category 6b.

I hope to continue in the not to distant future...

The Deeper Agenda

2007-06-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

Entry for June 02, 2007

The idea of elections has triumphed universally in Western culture and dominates in all major cultures except Islam. But there is not universal agreement on what purposes elections should serve, or which purpose is the most important one.

In the United States the question of access to the ballot demonstrates considerable differences of opinion on the purposes of elections. Almost all other conflicts related to elections, I contend, are implicitly related to ballot access.

According to legal scholars, who I find quite enlightening, it is remarkable to note that legal disputes related directly to elections and political parties have increased sharply in the last fifty years. Why this is so I am not prepared to say yet. What has become clear, as legal scholars have pointed out, is that in large measure judges have been unable to agree on a coherent theory for defining the relationships between political candidates, political parties, the state, and the individual, as citizen and voter. Judicial confusion has itself spawned more litigation - even if jurists often refuse to hear a case it may be because they have nothing to offer beyond the status quo. Or, giving no opinion is less embarrassing than giving a poor opinion.

Why does this matter to those of us trying to circulate petitions in Oklahoma in 2007? Well, I'll put it in my own street vernacular. If you want to escape from prison, you better understand how the guards think.

I largely agree with the legal scholars who have identified five distinguishable "schools" or "factions" that are competing in legal circles for dominance in this area.

The first, and probably the most traditional, faction is the "federalist", nationalist, or corporative managerial. The second, and probably just as old, faction is the "anti-federalist", individualist, or libertarian. The third faction we can call the progressives. The fourth, more recent faction can be called the pluralists. The fifth
faction springs from only the later part of the 20th century just when the courts began to take on these cases; we can call this group the political marketeers. The last faction is me - the last to the soirée.

So we have five eminent factions of buckaroos and one old mustang. If you don't want to get ridden into the ground you better try to understand what those buckaroos are up to.

Before I wrap up this posting I'll try to give you a further indication of where I'm headed. Litigation is the only way to keep the more or less libertarian argument before the courts and possibly win judges over before they die or leave the bench. We have been attempting to break new ground in the legal tradition in this country. It don't come easy. Even the greatest of advocates cannot get keep an innocent person from being convicted. There is no DNA test to exonerate the defendants in these cases. That is why the ultimate court is street court - the ballot box. And that is why so many ingenious people want to keep the judiciary spinning until their doctrine prevails and ours doesn't.

Nevertheless, we must continue to make our presence felt on the street and in the courts. If even one player shows up for the game you have not forfeited. As for me, I'll hang up my cleats when they pry them off my cold cicada encrusted feet in about 17 years or so.

To be continued, of course... how long is really up to the readers isn't it? Oats, anyone?

Hypothetical poll - It's a secret ballot. Only you will know.
Should any candidate appear on the ballot regardless of party?

* Yes, I can make up my own mind.
* No, I prefer to have others veto my vote.
* None of the Above - I can't vote, won't vote.
* Only if I, the respondent, am the candidate.
* Elections? Whatever...Don't bother me.
* I'm from KOKH Fox 25 News. How dare you!

How Fascism Grows in a Culture

2007-05-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Oklahoma!

It now appears clear that there was micro-management intervention in the presentation of the Newscast on Fox 25 KOKH on May 29.

I was interviewed by Andrew Speno news anchor on Oklahoma City station KOKH Fox 25. The news event was my effort to circulate a petition for access to the ballot for 2008 as required by Oklahoma election law.

That law has been under litigation since 2004 and finally reached the Oklahoma Supreme Court and they decided unanimously to refuse to hear the case. Therefore, any political candidates attempting to exercise the right to seek public office in Oklahoma under any party label other Democrat or Republican are effectively suppressed by a law which many regard as illegal under both the Oklahoma and U.S. Constitutions.

Mr. Speno and I had an amiable interview for nearly fifty minutes about ballot access law in Oklahoma and my potential candidacy for U.S. Representative in 2008. Later that evening Mr. Speno's report appeared in the Fox 25 nine o'clock newscast which seemed to me generally favorable, even though I was portrayed as a "lone crusader" who
obtained on one citizen signature before being ejected from the premises by the property owner - Albertson's supermarket.

At the conclusion of the Fox news story Mr. Speno announced that Fox was going to poll their viewers whether all political parties should appear on the ballot in Oklahoma. The poll never appeared on the their web site www.okcfox.com.

First, the anchor would not have announced the poll on ballot access if he did not have the normal authority to do so. Second, management must have a political agenda which motivates their intervention on the reporter's normal professional practices. Such micro-management indicates a corporate policy of news shaping. News shaping is
crypto-propaganda. Propaganda is the dissemination of a particular doctrine and the suppression by censorship of controversy with any opposing doctrines. Crypto-propaganda is the attempt to insinuate
doctrine without overt admission that doctrine is being promoted.

There is nothing illegal about such activity under the First Amendment. It is simply ethically wrong. Obviously its practitioners disagree. They must believe they are serving some greater good which justifies subterfuge. This does not make all Fox employees bad people from our ethical standard so long as they resist the attempts.

However, the time will come when they will have to choose between a more professional (libertarian?) ethic and overt complicity. The culprits are management at Fox. This is how fascism takes root in a culture.

I must now admit that my exercise in petitioning yesterday was more than an attempt to challenge the oppression of election law in Oklahoma. Previously I was engaged in a campaign for Congress which was suppressed by Oklahoma ballot law. KOKH interviewed me about that campaign. The presentation of that interview was suspicious. As we
begin this campaign to achieve ballot access by compliance under a stupidly prejudicial law which is beneath judicial notice in this state, I wanted to 'mystery shop' KOKH news policy. Events, I contend, support my conclusions. The Fox management was caught didling their viewers with crypto-propaganda.

They can't even conduct an unscientific poll (for entertainment value alone) about access to the ballot without intervention from management.

Fox viewers beware!

D. Frank Robinson, Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives 2006

Dysfunctional Ballot- Dysfunctional Congress- Dysfunctional Government

2007-05-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

"The Democrats should not have caved in to the president. They should have continued to send him bills with a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. So he vetoes them. Eventually the president himself would cut off funds for the troops."

"As an alternative, Congress could inform the president that unless he accepts a timetable for withdrawal, Congress will stop funding the war. If the Democrats are sincere in their claimed desire to end the war, this is the way to do it."

"The power of the purse rests firmly in the hands of Congress. No matter what the president desires to do, if Congress refuses to fund it, the president is helpless. He cannot spend a dime that Congress has not authorized and appropriated."
- Charley Reese
May 28, 2007
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese362.html

Saying that there were not enough votes to over-ride a Presidential veto was an excuse not a reason for caving in.

It is possible that the habit of servility in the Congress is too deep among long-time incumbents that no other outcome could have been expected and that does seem closer to a reason than hiding behind the veil of the veto. Still the habit of Congressional servility does not explain the votes of many of the new House Democrats. Consider these votes from Thursday night on the Iraq supplemental. And remember it was a supplemental. The bill would not have shut down the Department of Defense.

Those voting 'Aye' to set a timeline for withdrawal:
Michael Arcuri, NY
Bruce Braley, Iowa
Kathy Castor, FL
Yvette Clark. NY
Steve Cohen, TN
Joe Courtney, CT
Keith Ellison, MN
John Hall, NY
Phil Hare, Ill
Mazie Hirono, HI
Paul Hodes, NH
Henry Johnson, GA
Ron Klein, FL
David Loebsack, Iowa
Jerry McNerney, CA
Chris Murphy, CT
Patrick Murphy, PA
Ed Perlmutter, CO
John Sarbanes, MD
Carol Shea-Porter, NH
Betty Sutton, OH
Peter Welch, VT
John Yarmuth, KY
That's 23 for Congressional authority.

Those caving-in:
Jason Altmire, PA
Nancy Borda, KS
Chris Carney, PA
Joe Donnelly, IN
Brad Ellsworth, IN
Gabrielle Giffords, AZ
Kirsten Gillibrand, NY
Baron Hill, IN
Steve Kagen, WI
Nicholas Lampson, TX
Tim Mahoney, FL
Harry Mitchell, AZ
Ciro Rodriguez, TX
Heath Shuler, NC
Zackary Space, OH
Timothy Walz, MN
Charles Wilson, OH
That's 17 cave-ins to Presidential power over the Constitutional authority of the Congress.

The point here is that it doesn't matter whether you think the war in Iraq should continue or stop. Under the Constitution, if a majority of the House wants to stop spending money on anything, then the spending has to stop. Whether you or I think they are right or wrong is supposed be settled at the ballot box.

But what if the ballot box no longer serves to discipline the U.S. House of Representatives? Then, the electoral system is fatally dysfunctional. That makes the House dysfunctional and that allows a dysfunctional President to rule autocratically. That means the Constitutional order has collapsed into mere semblances of any democratic check on dictatorship. The only check on a reckless President is his own calculations of what he can get away with before provoking civil disobedience and rebellion. This authoritarian insecurity leads to more and more ruthless methods of a police state.

If you can't fix what's wrong with the ballot box, you must resort to 'other means'. The issue now is: can the ballot box be restored to full functionality?

When the blowback comes sweeping down the plains

2007-05-26T04:49:00.000-07:00

Blowback is a term often used when foreign policy has adverse unintended consequences. Blowback can also be domestic.
Consider this opinion from:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts211.html

President Bush, the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party have proved to the entire world that the American people have no voice. The American people have no more ability to affect their government’s policy than inmates in a gulag would have.

What do people in other countries think when they hear Bush prattle on about "freedom and democracy" while he ignores opinion polls and election results and detains people without warrants, tortures them, and puts them before military tribunals in which they are denied even knowing the evidence against them? Bush has contrived a situation for defendants in which no defense is possible. In Bush’s America, people can be executed on the basis of hearsay and secret evidence. If this is "freedom and democracy," what is tyranny?

- Paul Craig Roberts
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile: Dos Visiones – La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello, 2000).

We need to elect some junk yard dogs to Congress

2007-05-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

The general purposes of oversight — and what constitutes this function — can be stated in more specific terms. These terms unavoidably overlap because of the numerous and multifaceted dimensions of oversight. A brief list includes:

1. review the agency rule-making process;
2. monitor the use of contractors and consultants for government services;
3. encourage and promote cooperation between the branches;
4. examine agency personnel procedures;
5. acquire information useful in future policymaking;
6. investigate constituent complaints and media critiques;
7. assess whether program design and execution maximize the delivery of services to beneficiaries - governmental and private;
8. compare the effectiveness of one program with another;
9. protect agencies and programs against unjustified criticisms; and
10. study federal evaluation activities.

That's a lot of promises for 435 people on a couple of dozen committees to keep. So they don't, because they can't. The Congress wants the prestige of looking as if they do. Prestige is a poor substitute for power when the Executive branch needs all of the above done to it. And when the Congress launches a real investigation it seems that is the only thing it can do.

Nothing can be done about the number Senators to do the jobs. But the U.S. House of Representatives can be made larger. With more Congresspersons they could dig further afield and deeper. But, that it just about the last thing any President would tolerate. Which makes a good argument for doing it.

A larger House would cost more money. But we try it for ten years and see if they didn't recover all their costs and a lot more in cutting out Executive branch waste, fraud and abuse corruption. If they failed in ten years, the size of the House could be reduced in size after the next census. If they stopped just one military misadventure by the President they would have paid for themselves ten times over!

Flogging to be continued...

We need to elect some junk yard dogs to Congress

2007-05-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Part 2.
SOME HISTORICAL OPINIONS on the Watchdog function of Congress:

James Wilson (The Works of James Wilson, 1896, vol. II, p. 29), an architect of the Constitution and Associate Justice on the first Supreme Court:

"The house of representatives . . . form the grand inquest of the state. They will diligently inquire into grievances, arising both from men and things."

Woodrow Wilson (Congressional Government, 1885, p. 297), perhaps the first scholar to use the term “oversight” to refer to the review and investigation of the executive branch:

"Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration. It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function."

John Stuart Mill (Considerations on Representative Government, 1861, p. 104), British utilitarian philosopher:

". . . the proper office of a representative assembly is to watch and control the government; to throw the light of publicity on its acts; to compel a full exposition and justification of all of them which any one considers questionable . . ."

These are only samples of the weight of scholarly opinion. There is clearly agreement that the major focus of the Congressional investigative or 'oversight' function is the Executive Branch and the Presidency. It now seems that the last significant and effective oversight of the Executive Branch by the Congress was the Church committee of the U. S. Senate.

The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precursor to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee investigated intelligence gathering for illegality by the CIA and FBI after certain activities had been revealed by the Watergate affair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee (05/22/2007)

"Committee subpoenas and contempt citations have been effective instruments for gaining access to executive branch documents that are initially withheld. The pressure that builds from these two techniques generally results in the Administration offering new accommodations to satisfy legislative needs. Although both branches at times seek assistance from the courts, the general message from federal judges is that an agreement hammered out between the two branches is better than a directive handed down by a court."

"Congress has as much right to agency documents for oversight purposes as it does for legislation. Executive claims of “deliberative process,” “enforcement sensitive,” “ongoing investigation,” or “foreign policy considerations” have not been, in themselves, adequate grounds for keeping documents from Congress. On the issue of withholding information from Congress, there are often sharp differences within an Administration, especially between the Justice Department and the agencies."

"Further, these case studies show that statutory language that authorizes withholding information from the public is not a legitimate reason for withholding information from Congress. Sharing sensitive information with congressional committees is not the same as sharing information with the public. Courts assume that congressional committees will exercise their powers responsibly. Legislative committees have demonstrated that they have reliable procedures for protecting confidentiality. Finally, congressional capacity to subpoena agency documents from private organizations is not an adequate substitute for receiving them directly from the agency."

Congressional Investigations: Subpoenas and Contempt Power
April 2, 2003
Congressional Research Service RL31836

When Congress doesn't find out something, it's because it doesn't really want to know. The public be damned.

See also: http://www.fsmlaw.org/fsm/code/title03/T03_Ch04.htm

To be continued...

Absolute power corrupts more than the powerful...

2007-05-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

An excellent insight into the political psyche of many Americans:

Why Bush hasn't been impeached
Congress, the media and most of the American people have yet to turn decisively against Bush because to do so would be to turn against some part of themselves.

By Gary Kamiya in Salon, May. 22, 2007

However, what he does not discuss is that for many other Americans impeachment is simply a non-option because they no longer feel elected representatives will listen or can be made to listen. Many feel the corruption of the state has become so entrenched that Americans no longer trust anyone in authority to use that authority to do the right thing.

It can be summed up this way: Absolute power corrupts absolutely and so does absolute powerlessness. Too many people feel their own sense of powerlessness is a sign of their own corruption. Americans are becoming abject and hopeless. This is a very dangerous situation for everyone.

We need to elect some junk yard dogs to Congress

2007-05-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

In blunt colloquial terms, we have too few watch dogs and too many lap dogs in the U.S. House of Representatives. Enlarging the size of the U.S. House of Representatives would bring much needed talent to bear on the task of curbing Executive and bureaucratic hubris, secrecy, abuse and incompetence. We need more people in the U.S. House to get more brains and more guts confronting excessive Executive power.

What is "congressional oversight?" Simply put, it's members of Congress monitoring Executive Branch activities. The dictionary definition of "oversight" is "watchful care; superintendence; general supervision."

Congress regards oversight as "the authority to conduct inquiries or investigations of the executive, to have access to records or materials held by the executive, or to issue subpoenas for documents or testimony from the executive."

For Members of Congress, especially in the House of Representatives, to exercise their oversight responsibility they must have a clear understanding of their authority to do so. In addition, Members must have sufficient time, staff resources and independence from obstructive leadership to investigate. It is seldom considered that there must be enough Members with a diversity of talents to undertake the tasks.

Furthermore, rigorous Congressional oversight with more Members would have the added benefit of lessening the citizen's last resort to the courts for relief, if any relief is to had at all.

The Constitution grants Congress extensive authority to oversee and investigate executive branch activities. The constitutional authority for Congress to conduct oversight stems from such explicit and implicit provisions as:

1. The power of the purse. The Constitution provides that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Each year the Committee on Appropriations of the House reviews the financial practices and needs of federal agencies. The appropriations process allows the Congress to exercise extensive control over the activities of executive agencies. Congress can define the precise purposes for which money may be spent, adjust funding levels, and prohibit expenditures for certain purposes.

2. The power to organize the executive branch. Congress has the authority to create, abolish, reorganize, and fund federal departments and agencies. It has the authority to assign or reassign functions to departments and agencies, and grant new forms of authority and staff to administrators. Congress, in short, exercises ultimate authority over executive branch organization and generally over policy.

3. The power to make all laws for “carrying into Execution” Congress’s own enumerated powers as well as those of the executive. Article I grants Congress a wide range of powers, such as the power to tax and coin money; regulate foreign and interstate commerce; declare war; provide for the creation and maintenance of armed forces; and establish post offices.

Augmenting these specific powers is the so-called “Elastic Clause,” which gives Congress the authority “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” Clearly, these provisions grant broad authority to regulate and oversee departmental activities established by law.

4. The power to confirm officers of the United States. The confirmation process not only involves the determination of a nominee’s suitability for an executive (or judicial) position, but also provides an opportunity to examine the current policies and programs of an agency along with those policies and programs that the nominee intends to pursue.

5. The power of investigation and inquiry. A traditional method of exercising the oversight function, an implied power, is through investigations and inquiries into executive branch operations. Legislators often seek to know how effectively and efficiently programs are working, how well agency officials are responding to legislative directives, and how the public perceives the programs. The investigatory method helps to ensure a more responsible, less costly bureaucracy, while supplying Congress with information needed to formulate new legislation and repeal inevitable mistakes.

6. Impeachment and removal. Impeachment provides Congress with a powerful, ultimate oversight tool to investigate alleged executive and judicial misbehavior, and to eliminate such misbehavior through the convictions and removal from office of the offending individuals. A rigorous exercise of Congressional oversight should make it far less necessary for Congress to resort to impeachments as the last resort. In fact, every impeachment is indicative of some prior failure of Congressional oversight.

To be continued...

Ballot Access Video

2007-05-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

Interview with the nation's foremost expert on ballot access for political candidates. Why is the only place you can shop for a candidate is the 'company store'. Do you really want to "Owe your soul to the company store?"

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
- 16 Tons - Classic Country Hit by Tennessee Ernie Ford

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6268924193831315957&q=libertarian+alternative

Oklahoma Supreme Court : Our lips are sealed too.

2007-05-16T18:05:00.000-07:00

Judiciously Speaking _.|.. and I really mean it!

Entry for May 16, 2007

Oklahoma Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Ballot Access Case
May 15th, 2007
On May 15, the Oklahoma Supreme Court refused to hear the Libertarian Party's ballot access case, a case that had been filed in 2004. The case is Libertarian Political Organization v Clingman. The party had spent a great deal of money in 2004 to submit a petition signed by 2% of the last vote cast, but the law requires 5%. The party had felt that turning in a petition signed by 27,000 signatures would establish that it had a modicum of voter support. The fact that no one else even tried in 2004, and that Oklahoma voters were the only voters with no choices for president on their ballot except Bush and Kerry in 2004, also seemed powerful evidence that the law is too strict.

The Oklahoma Constitution says that elections shall be "free and equal", but that doesn't seem to mean anything in the real world. Oklahoma is one of 5 states that doesn't permit write-ins, so Oklahoma voters who wanted to vote for someone other than Bush or Kerry in 2004 completely lost their right to vote.

http://www.ballot- access.org/ 2007/05/15/ oklahoma- supreme-court- refuses-to- hear-ballot- access-case/ #comment- 61734

Rove administration engaged in election rigging

2007-05-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

Charging voter fraud to divert attention from efforts to rig the count?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/13/AR2007051301106.html

The election system in the United States can no longer be trusted. Voting machines and the computers that add vote totals are being run with computer programs or software that can change vote totals. Where historic voter fraud required dozens of people colluding, now a small circle of corrupt election officials and voting machine technicians can skew results.

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/

Gerrymandering and a cure for it

2007-05-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

Something for the 'Left Behind'
Entry for May 12, 2007

In my previous discussions I have advocated allowing voters in congressional districts to 'swap their ballots' with voters in another district by producing ballots on demand at all polling places. There still remained the situation of voters who, for whatever reason, would not avail themselves of this option. How do we prevent them from being gerrymandered to advantage certain candidates? The following would appear to be a solution. It is compatible with Voter Choice of Districts and, as I see it, both together are superior to either alone. Full details can be seen using the link below to rangevoting.org My recommendation does not yet extend to the idea of range voting itself -- yet. I am still studying that.

Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm (executive summary)

1. Gerrymandering in 2006 USA is enormous and pervasive. It appears to be more severe than in any other major democracy.
2. Gerrymandering can lead to near-permanent 1-party domination and essentially eliminate voter choice.
3. A simple cure is to draw all districts with the "shortest splitline algorithm" involving approximately-bisecting a state's population with the shortest eligible splitting line.
4. This way all districts have simple shapes, are completely unbiased, are easily independently checked, and you don't have to trust anybody.
5. Experimental fact: "Independent" and "bi-partisan" district-drawing commissions often do not work to stop gerrymandering.

http://rangevoting.org/GerryExec.html

Default constituency districts

2007-05-12T00:04:00.000-07:00

In my previous discussions I have advocate allowing voters in congressional districts to 'swap their ballots' with voters in another district by producing ballots on demand at all polling places. There still remained the situation of voters who, for whatever reason, would not avail themselves of this option. How do we prevent them from being gerrymandered to advantage certain candidates? The following would appear to be a solution. It is compatible with Voter Choice of Districts and, as I see it, both together are superior to either alone. Full details can be seen using the link below to rangevoting.org My recommendation does not yet extend to the idea of range voting itself -- yet. I am still studying that.

Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm (executive summary)

1. Gerrymandering in 2006 USA is enormous and pervasive. It appears to be more severe than in any other major democracy.
2. Gerrymandering can lead to near-permanent 1-party domination and essentially eliminate voter choice.
3. A simple cure is to draw all districts with the "shortest splitline algorithm" involving approximately-bisecting a state's population with the shortest eligible splitting line.
4. This way all districts have simple shapes, are completely unbiased, are easily independently checked, and you don't have to trust anybody.
5. Experimental fact: "Independent" and "bi-partisan" district-drawing commissions often do not work to stop gerrymandering.

http://rangevoting.org/GerryExec.html

Screw 'em when they vote, Screw 'em all around!

2007-05-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

HELP AMERICA VOTE ACT (HAVA) LOBBYIST LIST http://www.blackboxvoting.org

Question: What happens if you lobby a lawmaker for $4 billion in expenditures for touch-screen (DRE) voting machines and go back to that same lawmaker two years later asking to dump DREs?

Answer: You lose credibility. It might be hard to lobby for other things. It's politically embarrassing. And your members, or funders, might have a few questions to ask about the prudence of your lobbying expenditures.

BUT HOW COULD ANYONE HAVE KNOWN?

The road to voting computers was paved with good intentions. No one knew that some of the programmers for voting computers would turn out to be convicted embezzlers.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/14318.html

No one realized that the main sponsor of the HAVA bill -- Rep. Bob Ney -- would end up going to jail on corruption charges.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/46466.html

Few realized that the federal testing labs, Ciber and Wyle, weren't doing their jobs and their overseers -- NASED and now the EAC -- failed to check their work.
Wyle failures (Bowen Hearing): http://www.blackboxvoting.org/itahearing.pdf
Ciber failures: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/46428.html

HAVA bought a lemon.

WHO BIT INTO IT?

Progressive public interest groups. Labor unions. Civil rights groups.

While many election reform activists are under the impression that touch-screen (DRE) voting machines were some sort of Republican plot to take over America, the truth is that lobbying for the DRE-seeking "Help America Vote Act" came primarily from the foundation of the Democratic Party itself.

Activists throughout America have expressed surprise at the Democratic Party's unwillingness to pull DREs off the shelf. One reason is simply this: To do so would damage the credibility of those who lobbied for HAVA. And those who lobbied for HAVA just happen to be the biggest funders and activist workhorses for the Democratic Party itself.

WHO INVESTED THEIR CREDIBILITY (AND MEMBERSHIP FUNDS) TO LOBBY FOR HAVA?

1. Public interest groups - mostly progressive
2. Labor unions
3. Minority rights groups
4. Disability rights groups
5. Industry

Of these, the first four tend to favor Democrats but the fifth group -- industry, the group charged with writing the computer code that counts America's votes -- is made of of vendors that are more often close to the Republican Party.

Democrats lobbied HAVA in but to a large extent, Republican-affiliated vendors executed the mechanics of the plan. Some would call this comical; others, tragic.

PUBLIC INTEREST GROUP HAVA LOBBYISTS

1. People for the American Way
2. Common Cause
3. American Civil Liberties Union
4. League of Women Voters
5. American Jewish Committee
6. Hadassah
7. American Association for Retired Persons
8. Public Citizen
9. American Network of Community Options and Resources
10. Constitution Project (Georgetown University)
11. Open Society Policy Center (Soros)
12. American Bar Association

LABOR UNION HAVA LOBBYISTS

1. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
2. Laborers International Union of North America
3. International Brotherhood of Teamsters
4. United Auto Workers
5. American Federation of Teachers
6. AFL-CIO
7. UNITE (Industrial & Textile employees)

Of the seven HAVA-lobbying groups above, five are among the Top-20 largest donors of all time to any political party. All five donate almost exclusively to the Democratic Party and its candidates. None of the top 20 Republican donors lobbied for HAVA.

According to OpenSecrets.org, the labor unions that lobbied for HAVA have given nearly $150 million to support Democrats since 1989, and six were in the Top-20 Democratic PAC funders for 2006-06.

MINORITY RIGHTS HAVA LOBBYISTS

1. NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
2. National Council of La Raza
3. Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF)

DISABILITY RIGHTS HAVA LOBBYISTS

1. American Foundation for the Blind
2. The ARC of the United States
3. National Disability Rights Network
4. Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
5. United Cerebral Palsy Association
6. Paralyzed Veterans of America

Black Box Voting has been unable to locate the lobbying disclosure forms for the American Association of Persons with Disabilities (AAPD) featuring the vocal Jim Dickson, nor did we find any disclosure forms for the National Federation for the Blind (NFB), the group that took $1 million from Diebold. Misfiled? Misnamed? Overlooked? Omitted?

Link for NFB $1 million from Diebold: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/36492.html

COUNTY GOVERNMENT HAVA LOBBYING
1. Riverside County, Calif.
2. San Diego County, Calif.
3. Ventura County, Calif.
4. Miami-Dade County, FL

INDUSTRY & BUSINESS HAVA LOBBYISTS

1. Accenture
2. VoteHere
3. Election Systems & Software
4. AccuPoll
5. Danaher
6. Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs
7. US Business & Industry Council
8. Assocation of Technology Act Projects

Not found on lobbying forms pushing HAVA: The SAIC, the ITAA, and Diebold.

Diebold Election Systems Inc does not show up on the 2001-02 HAVA lobbying forms, but did lobby for elections issues in 2004 and 2005.

Also notably missing are the firms referenced by R. Doug Lewis of "The Election Center" in an August 2003 meeting. In this tape recorded meeting, he said that HAVA was put into place by an election systems task force which included Lockheed, Northrop-Grumman, EDS, and Accenture.

Of these, only Accenture shows up the lobbying forms, and there is no entity called Election anything, except for Election System & Software and another company, election.com, which lobbied for Internet voting. (See Chapter 8 of Black Box Voting for more on the Saudi-owned election.com, which was later taken over by Accenture - http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf - See Chapter 16 for more information on the tape recorded meeting: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-16.pdf )

What about Choicepoint? Choicepoint says it didn't lobby for HAVA. Choicepoint says it hasn't had any involvement in elections.

The lobbying forms don't show lobbying for voting machines, but a lobbying firm called Fleishman-Hillard Government Relations filed a registration form in 2002 indicating they planned to lobby for "Election Reform" on behalf of Choicepoint. Muddying things up, no 2002 lobbying form appeared showing that they did. In 2001, however, a lobbying form clearly puts Choicepoint in the middle of HAVA lobbying, showing that Choicepoint was involving itself in lobbying for the voter registration component of HAVA.

Choicepoint has repeatedly stated that they have "no involvement whatsoever" in elections, and in rebuttal to a controversial article that appeared for a short while on OpEd News, Choicepoint came on to deny that they lobbied for HAVA. More on Choicepoint here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/17778.html

Choicepoint, a controversial database broker, clearly cannot state that it has "no involvement in elections."

Choicepoint stakeholder Donna Curling, wife of Choicepoint chief Doug Curling, has continued to fund election reform lobbying by providing funding for some of the activists working on the Holt Bill.

THEY THOUGHT DRE VOTING MACHINES WOULD HELP THEM BUILD THE DEMOCRATIC BASE

Those who lobbied for HAVA were convinced that the DRE machines would solve problems, helping more people vote.

1. Many of the HAVA reformers believed that with DREs, people with less education would be more likely to fill out the whole ballot. In fact, they reasoned, the DRE machines would be easier to use for educationally disadvantaged populations, minorities, non-English-speaking voters, and the disabled.

Few studies back these conclusions up, and those that do have generally not been replicated, or were not peer reviewed, and sometimes show methodology that is as flawed as the lemons HAVA bought. The occasional studies that have been done -- even those prepared by DRE advocates -- sometimes end up with troubling caveats. A Georgia study purported to show that "most people like voting on the DREs" (but rarely mentions the small print: The same study showed that the African-Americans surveyed distrusted the touch-screens).

2. The citizens' right to oversee local elections -- and especially the citizens' right to even get access to information -- has been all but eliminated through the implementation of HAVA. The original civil rights concept was virtuous.

Federal Government is the entity that enacted civil rights, HAVA reformers reasoned, so therefore let's ask the federal government to fix our elections process.

Be careful what you ask for. It just might get "fixed."

REAL SOLUTIONS

If federal government is going to correct anything, it should start with enacting tougher standards to give citizens Freedom of Access to Elections Information -- mandating that the system actually PRODUCE the information needed for citizens to make sure the right candidate was place in office, in a TIMELY manner, that is COST EFFECTIVE and USABLE, prohibiting removal of the information through proprietary claims.

And above all, local CITIZEN oversight must be protected. In almost every case, discoveries of problems with elections and the computers that count them have been discovered by ordinary citizens, not by government oversight, auditors, consultants, certifiers, or experts.

And if we are going to rid ourselves of the DREs, we need to get past the -- er -- little "problem" of the threat to credibility if former HAVA lobbyists take the courageous step of changing course.

They couldn't have known. Perhaps a set of tough investigative hearings can provide the evidence to brace those backbones for the change in direction. Look to Calif. Secretary of State Debra Bowen's well-prepped, no-nonsense hearings on the certification process for examples, and start by issuing subpoenas to Diebold's master programmer, Talbot Iredale, and Ciber's Shawn Southworth (who refused to show up for Bowen's hearing).

This thing can be done. It doesn't need a bandaid, it needs a disinfectant.

SEE FOR YOURSELF HOW HAVA CAME TO BE:

Photocopies of the lobbying forms are in the process of being uploaded to the Black Box Voting Document Archive. You will find lobbying forms for all of the groups listed above as they are uploaded here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/46539.html

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

A convenient update to a really inconvenient truth!

2007-05-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

At least one scholar has comprehensively studied the apportionment amendment.

Scholarly analysis of the case for the reapportionment amendment. Very through!

http://www.thirty-thousand.org/

See thirty-thousand.org for many details. The author of that site does not endorse the opinions presented here.

A really inconvenient truth! - Part Five

2007-05-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

Authoritarianism by the Numbers: A really inconvenient truth!
D. Frank Robinson
Copyright 2007

Part Five

( 2.) Does the proposed amendment make our system more politically responsive or protect individual rights? A campaign for ratification of the 28th Amendment could initiate a spirited national debate on a number of issues related to representation and elections. Furthermore, a companion amendment which simply corrects the last clause could be ratified in tandem with the 28th Amendment as the 29th Amendment. There is no other Constitutional way to correct the original defective language in the pending 28th Amendment. The two amendments could take effect almost concurrently with the 29th contingent on the ratification of the 28th. A larger House of Representatives with smaller constituencies would open greater access by the public to the Congress. The closer to the Census, the better for ratification. The larger the number of constituent-districts, the greater the opportunity for a more diverse and proportionally representative Congress.

( 3.) Are there significant practical or legal obstacles to the achievement of the objectives of the proposed amendment by other means? There would appear to be fewer practical obstacles to enlarging the number of Representatives with the capabilities of existing technology than have been encountered in trying to convert the entire electorate to electronic voting. Legal obstacles to ratification would almost certainly emerge from opponents. The merits of those alleged obstacles might well have to be litigated. That is simply part of the process.

( 4.) Is the proposed amendment consistent with related constitutional doctrine that the amendment leaves intact? Congressional hearings to draft the 29th Amendment would implicate the work of the First Congress in drafting the pending 28th Amendment. These issues would no doubt be addressed in drafting the provisions of the 29th. Enlarging the size of the U.S. House of Representatives would tend to mitigate issues surrounding the 'fairness' of re-districting. More districts means more options for boundaries acceptable to all parties.

( 5.) Does the amendment embody enforceable, and not merely aspirational standards? If the provisioning of 435 seats is enforceable, the provisioning of perhaps 1776 seats should also be enforceable. It would not necessarily thwart the aspirations of incumbent congresspersons to be re-elected. There would be plenty of seats to accommodate them and none of them would be forced to run against one another. The number of seats would increase for every state.

( 6.) Have proponents of the proposed amendment attempted to think though...ways in which the amendment would interact with other constitutional provisions and principles? Yes.

( 7.) Has there been full and fair debate on the merits of the proposed amendment? No. Not yet. That's the problem before us. Shall the people confront the incumbent Congress? It is notable that resolutions were introduced in the 107th, 108th and 109th Congresses to appoint a commission to make recommendations on “the appropriate size of membership of the House of Representatives.” No action has been taken. We must conclude that since the Congress does not want the issue even studied and discussed, it is entirely appropriate for citizens to independently study and discuss this issue in the context of the pending apportionment amendment to the U. S. Constitution. This amendment presents a viable opportunity for a 'velvet revolution' - revolution under the Constitution.

( 8.) Has Congress provided for a nonextendable deadline for ratification by the states so as to ensure that there is a contemporaneous consensus by Congress and the states that the proposed amendment is desirable? I find guideline Eight most objectionable. This concern is not really applicable to the pending 28th amendment. However, it does raise an interesting issue. Where is the constitutional authority for the Congress to place any limit on the time for consideration of proposed amendments by the states? Any such limit is over-reaching by the Congress and a violation of the rights of the states. The First Congress did not do it. The 27th Amendment has been adopted legitimately and there is no reason why this pending amendment, or any other proposed amendment for that matter, should carry an infirmity which previous amendments have not carried. In Coleman v. Miller, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the ratification of a constitutional amendment is “political” in nature and that Congress has the power via Article V of the U.S. Constitution to modify the mode of an amendment's ratification. SCOTUS got it wrong again. Nevertheless, a nonextendable deadline clause of seven years in the proposed 29th Amendment would have no detrimental effect on the 28th. The pending amendment cannot be withdrawn from the states. If it does not become the 28th Amendment, it could be the 29th or the 30th Amendment.

Parenthetically, it seems entirely appropriate to consider another amendment that would clearly prohibit the Congress from planting timed improvised explosive devices (time limits for ratification) in Constitutional amendments, but that is another matter for another time.

In conclusion, it appears reasonable that the pending 28th amendment, which was intended to assure both (a) proportionality between representation and constituency and (b) perpetual enlargements of the U. S. House of Representatives, meets at least six of the eight criteria suggested by the Constitution Project. Or phrasing it another way, only six of the eight criteria are applicable to this amendment. It is therefore not really necessary to fully engage the last two criteria in this instance. If the argument on the first six criteria is sufficient for the 28th Amendment, then it is also sufficient for the correcting companion 29th Amendment - with or without a deadline provision is a matter of lesser controversy in this particular case.

The world's largest parliamentary or legislative body is the: National People's Congress, China with 2,937 members. China has a population of about 1.3 billion. There is one member in their Congress for every 434,000 people. The U. S. House of Representatives has 435 members. Each member of the U.S. House represents an average of 647,000 people. That's one and a half as many as the as the average Chinese representative. To have the same ratio of members as China the U. S. House would need to add 213 members. Of course this comparison is not necessarily relevant for U. S. citizens. Chinese citizens have very little influence on their rigidly authoritarian government. The relevant issue for Americans is whether we have more influence on this government or whether the government is merely better at disguising its authoritarian character? You probably knew the answer already. So what are you going to do about it?

End

Stop the World! Breaking History!

2007-05-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

ONE Member of Congress wanted to enlarge the House in 2001

May 21, 2001

The following “Dear Colleague” letter was sent by the office of Rep. Alcee Hastings to other Members of the U.S. House of Representatatives.

Dear Colleague:

In the past 90 years, the U.S. has become the second most underrepresented democracy in the entire world, but the size of the House of Representatives has remained the same. In the past 90 years, U.S. population has more than tripled, but the size of the House of Representatives has remained the same. In the past 90 years, four states have joined the Union, but the size of the House of Representatives has remained the same. In fact, in the past 90 years, Congress has addressed permanently increasing the size of the House of Representatives only once.

British House of Commons

659 Members

1 Member per 90,288 people

Canadian House of Commons

301 Members

1 Member per 103,924 people

South Africa National Assembly

400 Members

1 Member per 108,553 people
German Bundestag

669 Members

1 Member per 123,752 people
Austrailia House of Representatives

148 Members

1 Member per 129,521 people
Japan Shugi-in

500 Members

1 Member per 253,100 people
Russia State Duma

450 Members

1 Member per 324,447 people
Nigeria House of Representatives

360 Members

1 Member per 342,605 people
Brazil Camara dos Deputados

513 Members

1 Member per 467,190 people
U.S. House of Representatives

435 Members

1 Member per 645,632 people
Indian Lok Sabha

552 Members

1 Member per 1,836,963 people

While the U.S. claims the title “Leader of the Free World,” after India, it is the least representative democracy in the world! If you don’t believe me, just look at how the U.S. House of Representatives compares to other democratic country’s representative bodies:

The effect that an increase in the size of the House of Representatives will have on the American political system is obvious. Increasing the size of the House will result in a reduced amount of campaign spending, smaller Congressional districts, more personal interaction between Members of Congress and their constituents, and most importantly, better representation for the American people.

On February 23, 2001, I introduced H.R. 506, a resolution to create a commission to study the size of the House of Representatives and the method by which representatives are chosen. I invite you to become a cosponsor of this essential piece of legislation aimed at putting the power back into the hands of the people. If you would like to become a cosponsor or have any questions, please contact me or David Goldenberg on my staff at 5-1313.

Sincerely,

Alcee L. Hastings
Member of Congress

Still to be continued...

A really inconvenient truth! - Part Four

2007-05-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Authoritarianism by the Numbers: A really inconvenient truth!
D. Frank Robinson
Copyright 2007

Part Four

Is it also irrational to fix the proportion of constituents to Representatives? Or, considering the question from another perspective, is it rational (non-arbitrary) to fix the size of the population in order to have a House of Representatives with a 'workable' number of members? If the size of the population doesn't matter, why not reduce the size of the House to just fifty members – one for each state. Wouldn't that still be democratic? If the fundamental objective is to have the size of the House small enough for them to get along with whatever the program may be, then the fewer the better.

The historical evidence indicates that the size of the House of Representatives was fixed at 435 just when the population was growing in ways that threatened the interests of those who felt more entitled to their offices than any commitment to a principle of proportionality between constituents and the Representative. After all it only a mere custom of only a century's practice. Democratic elements are expendable when it is inexpedient for the few.

The authors of Constitutional amendments in the First Congress were neither stupid nor inattentive. But supposing that this defect in the apportionment amendment was a mistake that just slipped by, why wasn't a corrected Amendment immediately resubmitted for ratification?

Possibly because after ten of the twelve amendments were ratified the political pressure was off the federalist-centralist elements to negotiate a more democratic Congress. Thereafter, the size of the House became a matter of custom not Constitutional law. Customs change it becomes expedient. By the time of the early 20th century expediency finally trumped mere custom. Today, the reverse of the original intent has been elevated to legislation. The current law fixing a maximum size on the House of Representatives reveals how little trust can be placed in mere custom to protect the people's interest.

Or, why at the climax of progressive democratic zeal in the 1930s wasn't an amendment submitted to recover proportionality? Quite likely because Jim Crow in the South and anti-emigrant bias in the North were allied against it.

Or, why in the 1990s, when the 27th Amendment was adopted from the same original basket of twelve wasn't an amendment submitted? In this case the answer is not at all clear yet. It may have been simple lethargy or inertia.

Should 21st century Americans now attempt to ratify a 28th Amendment with the 'improvised explosive device' embedded in the last clause? I think we should. The antique IED can be disarmed with a short 29th Amendment. Besides the Congress has lost its credibility in getting the job done on their own initiative. They must now be driven by a population of defrauded voters.

The language in the last clause consistent with the intended purpose would read this way:
“After the first enumeration required by the first Article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which, the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, **nor less than** one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

But the original language of an amendment pending ratification cannot be changed. It can be partially repealed with language in another amendment which is ratified to be effective after the ratification of the first. A companion amendment to correct the flaw is necessary. A companion amendment could take effect if, and only if, the primary amendment took effect. This is not novel. Many amendments in the past have done exactly that. The language of those amendments is contingent upon the previous language which they are modifying. After one amendment is ratified, another amendment is ratified to unratify the previous one – in whole or in part.
Of course, a companion 29th amendment could also have other clauses concerning the principle of proportionality in apportioning Representatives. The companion amendment would have to go through all the requirements to be placed before the states for ratification. But the 28th Amendment could still continue through the ratification process until the 29th was submitted. But it need not be ratified by the three-fourths of the states and become effective before the 29th is submitted for ratification. The 28th could linger just a few states short of ratification until the 29th was available for ratification. The 29th could then quickly move to 'catch up' with the 28th. Then the 28th could be ratified on one day and the 29th on the next day. The political result would be to make them effective as if they were one amendment. The practical implementation would not take place until the elections after the next decennial census (2012?).
Perhaps all the 'teeming masses' proclaiming their devotion to the spirit and letter of Constitution might welcome this opportunity to revisit the work of the founding generation and put a 21st century 'software patch' on the Constitutional code base. I think the original idea was that the Constitution is an open source project to which anyone can contribute.

To be continued...

A really inconvenient truth! - Part Three

2007-05-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

Authoritarianism by the Numbers: A really inconvenient truth!

D. Frank Robinson

Copyright 2007

Part Three

Had the apportionment amendment been drafted as intended and ratified at any time before the 2000 census, it would have permitted the U.S. House of Representatives today to be composed of as many as 5628 Representatives each with a constituency-district population of 50,004, but no more than that ratio. Also by way of examples, the State of Oklahoma could have had sixty-nine members in the House and Wyoming just ten. Under the existing scheme of a fixed 385 apportioned Representatives Oklahoma has five Representatives and Wyoming has one. The Wyoming Representative has 495,304 constituents. Each Oklahoma Representative has nearly 691,000 constituents. A 7 to 5 ratio is not exactly one person, one vote. It is blatantly not equal proportionality.

It is not necessary to implicate the possible relationship between the ratification of the16th Amendment and the end to proportionality in representation by no longer increasing the size of the House every ten years. It is not necessary, but it could be inferred from the circumstances.

While a House of 5628 Representatives may seem preposterous, isn't a House of 435 Representatives for a population of 300 million also preposterous? The question for Americans today - what number between 435 and 5628 is most acceptable to the people? Almost no one seems to want to seek an answer. It is nevertheless a legitimate and open constitutional question. It should be settled before the next apportionment after the 2010 Census! One could take a half-a-loaf position that 2077 would be a moderate compromise (5628-435/2). One could, but one would need not be constrained by the Constitution from seeking a three-quarter loaf or the whole enchilada.

Unfortunately, ratification of the pending amendment as the 28th by itself will not resolve the issue of a more just proportionality for representation. The amendment was drafted with a defect in its language.

Ratification of the apportionment amendment would make sense only if were adopted with a companion amendment, the 29th, to heal the probably intentional sabotage of the language in the 28th.

The intent was clearly to establish the eventual maximum population size for a Congressional district of 50,000. This would assure that the size of the House of Representatives would continue to increase with the population and could never be arbitrarily capped in size to entrench a class or faction in the House – without another Constitutional amendment to alter the proportionality. The objection of the opponents to Constitution was never that the size of a congressional constituency might become too small or the size of the House might become too large. Or at least that the size of the House membership might become too large in the lifetime of the next few generations. The fear among many people was that the House would become too small and the constituencies too large. The amendment also shows the drafting error, which was probably deliberate, effectively nullified the only plausible purpose of the amendment – too keep the size of the House continually increasing by fixing the maximum proportion between constituents and Representatives. In the amendment's last clause the phrase “nor less than”, which would have been consistent, was apparently altered in a conference committee by a Senator to “nor more than.”

Why do some scholars make this claim? By simply reading the whole amendment in the context of its historic avowed purpose and logic. Given a population of a determinant number, the relationship between the size of a constituent-district is inverse to the number of Representatives apportioned to all districts. Conversely, the number of Representatives apportioned to the whole population is inverse to the population of each constituent-district. If the population of the constituent-districts is allowed to float upward, fewer Representatives need to be apportioned. Or, the more Representatives that are apportioned, the lower the constituent-district population ratio will be for each Representative. One need only inspect the actual historical numbers to see the relationship until 1910.

Every clause modifying the absolute number of Representatives says “not less than.” The phrase in the clauses of “not less than” sets an absolute minimum on the number of Representatives in the House twice, but no maximum. Every clause modifying the proportion of constituents to Representatives says “nor less than.” However, the last clause modifying the proportion of constituents to Representatives reverses the meaning by saying “nor more than.” The phrase in the last clause of “nor more than” sets a minimum on the number of constituents in proportion to the number of Representatives; this means a maximum on the number of Representatives is permissible so long as the ratio of constituents exceeds 50,000 to one Representatives But the minimum number of Representatives had already been set at 200 in the previous clause. Why would the minimum be set redundantly? The result is to create a graphical 'hockey stick' which reverses original construction and a century of practice. Absurd and curious.

As originally drafted, this defect in the provision would create a 'paradox' if the total population declined below two hundred (the minimum number of Representatives) times 50,000 (the minimum number of constituents per Representatives) or ten million in which case any apportionment would be in violation of the provision.

Actually, the case for paradox is worse than that. Every state must have one Representative regardless of population. The Constitution provides no guidance about the status of statehood if the population falls so low as to approach zero in a state. Presumably, if there are enough people to fill the required offices all is well. But if the House must have two hundred Representatives and each state must have one Representative, then there can never be more than two hundred states - ever. That may seem ample, but why create a rule which could limit the number of states? Today, we have 50 states. After deducting one for each state, there must be at least 150 seats for apportionment among the 50 to obtain a minimum of 200 Representatives required in the pending amendment. At the same time there must be at least 50,000 people for each Representative. One hundred fifty times 50,000 = 7,500,000. Suppose 7 million people chose to live in one state and only 500,000 wanted to live in the other 49 states? Hopefully we shall never have face that situation, but why draft such a construction? But if it happened, the Constitution could be amended to restore some proportionality without resorting to forcible deannexation of under-populated states. What is the point of this thought exercise? To demonstrate that fixing the size of the U. S. House of Representatives to any absolute maximum or minimum number is irrational.

To be continued...

A really inconvenient truth! - Part Two

2007-05-08T01:31:00.000-07:00

Authoritarianism by the Numbers: A really inconvenient truth!

D. Frank Robinson

Copyright 2007

Part Two

In the early 20th century rural Congressmen in southern states became jealous of losing power to urban northern states. The newly arrived immigrants were settling in the Northern urban areas and many Southerners, both black and white, were also emigrating north and west. Unable to build a “Berlin Wall” around the South, they simply blocked apportionment and stopped enlarging the size of the House. In fact, after the Census of 1920 the Congress refused to reapportion themselves at all! The provisions of the Constitution became their “inconvenient truth.” And they got away with it. And all of their successors of both traditional parties have gotten away with it again and again and again. They did not simply refuse to reapportion. They refused to reapportion with a larger House of Representatives Just another of America's dirty little open political secrets – just look at the numbers. It is indeed an inconvenient truth for them and an oppressive truth for all of us.

The language of this original amendment indicates an intent to assure the people that the size of the House of Representatives would increase from one Representative per 30,000 population up one Representative per 40,000, then to one Representative per fifty thousand population thereafter and the size of the House could never be reduced below two hundred members. But the text of the amendment as it stands, if ratified today as the 28th , would merely allow, but not require, the U.S. House of Representatives be expanded so that it is composed of as many as one Representative per fifty thousand population maximum and two hundred Representatives minimum. It would change nothing in the composition of a House of 435 member with constituency-districts over 650,000.

The present size of the U.S. House has been fixed at 435 since 1910. The population has tripled since the 1910 Census. The average population of a House district after the 2000 Census is about 650,000 – thirteen fold the size prescribed in the pending amendment. Even a return to the proportionality of 1910 would be a significant liberalization of representation; there would be at least 1305 Representatives. This is not a literal violation of the amendment. But it does raise the question: What was the point of the amendment anyway? Was it just to raise the minimum ratio of population for representation from 1:30,000 to 1:50,000? Was there a widespread fear that representatives faced a scarcity of constituents? Were Madison and his contemporaries in Congress silly, incompetent or devious?

Occasionally, a few pundits have suggested that enlarging the U.S. House of Representatives should be seriously considered. Almost no one in the hired media has had anything to say about democratizing the House, no documentaries on PBS, nor have the public policy think tanks, nor academia, nor 'citizen advocacy' groups taken up the challenge. A century has passed with scarcely a peep from the political elites.

To be continued...

A really inconvenient truth! - Part One

2007-05-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

Authoritarianism by the Numbers: A really inconvenient truth!

D. Frank Robinson

Copyright 2007

Part One

Electoral reform projects seek to change the way that public desires are reflected in elections through electoral systems. Reform projects can include measures designed to reform political parties (typically changes to election laws); to redefine citizen eligibility to vote; to change the way candidates or political parties gain ballot access; to alter the methods for defining electoral constituencies and election district borders; to design or implement new ballot systems or new voting equipment; to tighten scrutineering (by the parties or other observers); to ensure safety of citizens voting; to limit the influence of bribes, coercion, and conflicts of interest; to regulate financing to candidates; to encourage participation and to provide alternative vote-counting procedures altering the rules by which the winners of legislature and executive offices are determined, e.g., runoff voting, instant runoff voting, approval voting, citizen initiatives and referenda, recall elections, or proportional representation .”

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform (05/05/2007)

“Democracy is, at its essence, self-rule. It is the way in which free people govern themselves. But in societies in which large populations are distributed over great distances, town meetings are impractical as a means of making policy decisions on a national scale. In the modern age, when those policy decisions often involve matters of great complexity, public referenda, even at the state level, may be similarly impractical. Thus, democratic societies have developed systems of representative government, in which citizens choose from among their neighbors those men and women who will make decisions for them. How well that system of indirect democracy works, and whether or not its decisions are considered legitimate, depends, ultimately, on the validity of the elections by means of which representatives – Presidents, members of Congress, governors, mayors, state legislators – are chosen.

Every election season produces a rash of complaints that something is just not working right. A President may take office despite the fact that the majority of Americans preferred somebody else (it has happened three times in this country’s history). Turnout may be very low. Citizens may be considered ineligible to vote because they have lived too short a time in a particular community. The polls may close before workers can get back to their home precincts from their jobs, often many miles distant. Elections may favor people with the contacts (or the personal resources) to outspend opponents by huge margins, and they may serve to advance the policy preferences of people with enough money to make substantial contributions to candidates who will advance their interests.

Or perhaps none of these criticisms is valid. The task force will consider the full range of criticisms -- and proposed improvements – in the American election system. Its recommendations will be in the form of a report to organizations involved in the study of electoral reform, (including the constitution project’s election reform initiative and the center for voting and democracy), as well as to the Congressional leadership.”

Mickey Edwards served as a member of Congress for 16 years. He has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, and a regular weekly commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”. He taught for 11 years at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The purpose of this series is to discuss the merits of the only remaining not yet ratified Constitutional Amendment of the original twelve proposed by the first Congress. The amendment concerns the number of Representatives for apportionment of among the States and increasing the size of the U.S. House of Representatives to establish a proportionality closer to that intended by the ratifying delegates and the First Congress.

The merits will be evaluated using the criteria recommended by The Constitution Project in 1997. The pending amendment states:

After the first enumeration required by the first Article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which, the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons. (Emphasis added.)

(1.) Does the proposed amendment address matters that are of more than immediate concern and that are likely to be recognized as abiding importance by subsequent generations?

The Constitution clearly indicates the importance of a minimal proportionality between the Representative and the number of constituents. The original ratio was 1:30,000. In the state convention debates to secure ratification of the Constitution objections were raised that (1) there was insufficient provision to ensure that as the nation grew, the size of the House would continue to be large enough to give the people's Representatives their due influence in the national government and (2) that the districts would remain small enough in population to give the people due influence upon the Representatives. To overcome these objections and secure ratification, promises were made that the first Congress would draft an amendment to make clear that the number of Representatives would increase with the general population and the districts would not become excessively large in population. To fulfill those promises the first of twelve amendments to overcome the many objections was drafted to address the apportionment of Representatives. The compromise ratio was 1:50,000. The ten ratified amendments are known as the Bill of Rights. The original second amendment was ratified in 1992, 203 years after it was drafted and is now designated as the 27th Amendment.

What could be the 28th Amendment was proposed by the first Congress on September 25, 1789, as the first First Amendment. It addressed one of the arguments most frequently advanced against the Constitution. Historians generally agree that the architect of this amendment was almost certainly James Madison serving as a Representative, but there were other fingerprints on it as we shall see.

The authors easily agreed that no matter the population every state shall have one Representative. Then they negotiated a rule which set a minimum population of 30,000 for any additional Representatives for any state in the Constitution. The population number is arbitrary, but it was an agreeable bargain for them and it's still a provision of the Constitution.

What the authors never intended was to set a fixed maximum number of Representatives. Even though the 'first' amendment was intended to make this explicit it was left unratified, but it was not seen as a serious problem. The importance of representational proportionality was acknowledged in practice for a century thereafter because the membership of the House was increased repeatedly after each Census - until the beginning of the 20th century. Then Congress stopped increasing the number of Representatives. By deliberate inaction they guaranteed that the population 'served' by every Representative would increase – less representation with more taxation. The authors carefully measured compromise was reversed into a progressively more authoritarian blend by diluting representation more and more. Just what the ratifying delegates had anticipated and denounced. Because the apportionment amendment was never ratified, no subsequent Congress needed confront the issue by proposing an amendment to repeal it. Why did the Congress at that time want to abandon any proportional restraint? How did all subsequent Congresses get away with it? Is it time to force the Congress to confront what they have done?

To be continued...