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27
Jun 2011

Justice Kagan: not so intellectually honest, as it turns out

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This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States issued the long-anticipated decision in the AZ Free Enterprise Club vs. Bennett (.pdf of opinion) campaign finance case. The Congress Shall Make No Law blog has a good summary and excellent round-up of coverage. Other good blog coverage can be found at Reason, Josh Blackman’s Blog, and WSJ Law Blog.

Given the substantial coverage and analysis everywhere, I’d just like  to focus on one specific issue.

The most junior justice, Elena Kagan, wrote the dissent and, in so doing, has lost all intellectual credibility as far as I am concerned. Apparently neither she nor her clerks actually looked at the factual record in the case — or she was willing to simply ignore it. The primary issue before the Court was whether the matching funds provision of Arizona’s public campaign financing law unconstitutionally burdened free speech. A key part of that First Amendment analysis is looking to whether the government’s purpose in passing the law at issue is a compelling one that the law is narrowly tailored to achieve.

In 2008, the Supreme Court, in Davis v. FEC, declared that to “level the playing field” is not a compelling government interest that would support a campaign finance restriction. Naturally, this had a huge impact on the Arizona case given the massive reams of evidence that the proponents of so-called “Clean Elections” in Arizona specifically intended as a primary purpose to level the playing field with the law. IJ’s summary judgment brief (.pdf) discusses this issue and points to an Exhibit 17. That exhibit was comprised of a lengthy table of documented examples proving that, as one proponent stated, “Clean Elections is NOT about public funding. It’s about spending limits, getting rid of special interests, and leveling the playing field.”

Interestingly, the Clean Elections Commission took the position throughout litigation post-Davis that the Act’s purpose was NOT to level the playing field, but rather to reduce corruption. This is interesting because, both during the discovery phase of the case in 2009 and STILL at the time of oral argument earlier in 2011, the CEC’s website declared the Act’s purpose to be leveling the playing field.

Which brings us back to this excerpt from Justice Kagan’s dissent:

Yet here the majority makes a much stranger claim: that a statement appearing on a government website in 2011 (written by who-knows-whom?) reveals what hundreds of thousands of Arizona’s voters sought to do in 1998 when they enacted the Clean Elections Act by referendum. Just to state that proposition is to know it is wrong.

So the majority has no evidence—zero, none—that the objective of the Act is anything other than the interest that the State asserts, the Act proclaims, and the history of public financing supports: fighting corruption.

Folks, this is what is known as a “straw man” argument. Justice Kagan props up the straw man of the majority’s reference to the Clean Election Commission’s 2011 website so she can beat it down. Nevermind that the majority only noted in passing that the website in 2011 STILL claimed the purpose of Arizona’s law was to “level the playing field” — as the majority explained (and I described above), the record supported a clear finding that the law from the beginning was clearly intended for this primary purpose.

Justice Kagan’s failure to take note of the factual record in her declaration that there was “no evidence — zero, none” was reminiscent of this portion of the oral argument in which Justice Scalia, well, spanked weasely attorney Brad Phillips for misrepresenting the status of the record:

MR. PHILLIPS: Well, Your Honor, independent expenditure groups – there’s no evidence that it really in fact has been deterred.

* * *

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don’t know how you can say that there’s no evidence that it’s been deterred. Is something true just because you say it? [Justice Scalia proceeds to note all the evidence in the record]I do not understand how you can say that there is no evidence. I mean, maybe you might say I do not find the evidence persuasive, but don’t tell me there’s no evidence.

MR. PHILLIPS: Maybe I should say there’s no significant evidence, Your Honor.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Ah.

You can read the entire exchange at pages 33-34 of the oral argument transcript. If only Justice Kagan had been paying attention, perhaps she would have been a bit more honest and dealt with the record in reality, and not the one she conjured with Mr. Phillips.

For shame, Justice Kagan, for shame. I knew I would disagree with you, but with this unsupported hyperbole and straw man argument, I now can no longer see you as intellectually honest.

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Categories: Campaign Finance, SCOTUS
24
Jun 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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Courtesy of Reason’s Friday Funnies.

National

For our SCOTUS watchers, I highly recommend SCOTUSblog’s Friday round-up post with links to coverage of all the opinions released this week.

Heading into summer vacation season, gas prices are on our minds and certainly on President Obama’s:

Yesterday, in a coldly calculated political move, President Barack Obama ordered the release of 30 million barrels of oil from the 727-million barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The idea is to push down the price of gasoline during the summer driving season and garner some polling points with voters. It might work. Oil prices did fall after the announcement.

Read the whole thing in which folks from Reason and CATO suggest selling the whole Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Speaking of Obamanomics policies, there is a great piece up at Reason on The Unseen Effects of the Stimulus:

[I]t is categorically undeniable that the stimulus has funded positions which otherwise might not exist. State governments alone have increased payrolls by more than 40,000 since the recession began, generally using stimulus dollars to cut the paychecks. Just the other day a Republican lawmaker who had blasted Obama’s “failed stimulus” attended a ceremony at a jobs placement center in Rome, New York. Stimulus money paid local youth to refurbish the building. Would they have been jobless otherwise? Impossible to say.

Still, more than 7 million jobs have disappeared from the economy since Barack Obama took office. He will be only the second president since Herbert Hoover to face re-election with fewer people working than when he started. (George W. Bush was the other.) So it seems fair to ask whether stimulus projects have increased the net number of jobs in the United States—or whether they simply have moved a diminishing number of jobs around.

Analogy time. Consider a robber who steals a purse containing $500, who then uses the money to buy himself a new TV. It is categorically undeniable that the theft has created a sale for the TV store. Conservatives who pretend the stimulus has not created any jobs whatsoever stand in the position of an observer trying to deny the TV has been sold.

Yet the liberal analysis lacks any recognition that the purse owner now has $500 less to spend on the laptop computer she was going to buy. The theft has generated one sale only by destroying another.

Ilya Somin has some additional compelling thoughts on the Frank / Paul bill to legalize marijuana:

In recent years, public opinion has become much more favorable towards marijuana legalization, with 46 percent of the public now supporting it. This bill is another sign that legalization is becoming less marginal and more of a mainstream cause.

On the other hand, it is unfortunate that this essentially federalist bill hasn’t attracted any support from conservatives, especially the Tea party faction. After all, the bill does not require nationwide legalization, but merely leaves it up to each state to decide for itself. One of the main themes of the Tea Party is their insistence that the federal government has exceeded its constitutional bounds. The War on Drugs is a particularly extreme example of such federal overreach. Indeed, the federal ban on marijuana is responsible for Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court’s broadest and most questionable interpretation of federal power so far (which I criticized in this article). Raich held that Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce was broad enough to justify a ban on the possession of medical marijuana that had never been sold in any market or ever crossed state lines.

Every lower court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Obamacare individual mandate has relied heavily on Raich. In my view, the mandate goes even further than Raich did. But there’s no doubt that Raich makes life more difficult for mandate opponents. A political movement that is serious about constraining federal power cannot, consistent with its principles, support the present sweeping federal War on Drugs.

Here are some excerpts from today’s Political Diary, which has interesting updates on the Iowa Straw Poll, the economic recovery, and Tim Pawlenty.

Republican presidential contenders bid on spaces Thursday for one of Iowa’s premier political events, the Ames Straw Poll. The poll, to be held this August at the Iowa State University arena, is essentially a dry-run for the first-in-the-nation caucuses. And though the winner of the straw poll hasn’t always won in the February caucuses, the event is seen as a test of organizational might and plays an important role in the expectations game.

The bidding for the GOP campaigns started at $15,000. Craig Robinson, a GOP operative who organized the straw poll in the last presidential election, reported that the choicest lot near Iowa State University’s Hilton Coliseum went to Ron Paul for a hefty $31,000. After Mr. Paul came Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, who paid $18,000, a sum that suggests he wants to be taken seriously.
Missing altogether was Newt Gingrich’s bid. . . .

The remaining spots for the straw poll, in descending order, went to Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Tim Pawlenty. Mitt Romney plans to skip the straw poll — which he won in 2007 only to lose the caucus — and Jon Huntsman is avoiding the state altogether.

* * *

When a new Bloomberg poll finds that 44% of Americans feel that the economy is “worse than when Obama was inaugurated” (versus only 34% who say it is “better”), you know the economic recovery is pretty anemic. Now the Joint Economic Committee has chronicled how weak it is compared to others since World War II.

In a report entitled “Unchartered Depths,” the Committee finds that “employment is now 5.0% below what it was at the start of the recession, 38 months ago. This compares to an average rise in employment of 3.7% over the same period in prior post-WWII recessions.”

On economic growth, real GDP has risen 0.8% over the 13 quarters since the recession began, compared to an average increase of 9.9% in past recoveries. From the beginning of the recession to April 2011, real personal income has grown just .9% compared to 9.4% for the same period in previous post 1960 recessions. . . .

The two sponsors of the report, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas and Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina conclude that this is “the worst economic recovery the American people have suffered through in a lifetime.” The word “recovery” is putting it charitably because most Americans believe the recession is still with us. They may be right.

* * *

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is fond of saying he’s the candidate who can “unite the whole Republican party . . . and then actually go on and win the election.” While his name recognition has been trailing behind other Republican hopefuls in key early primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, a new poll of registered voters in Minnesota from SurveyUSA shows he does well against President Obama.

The poll, conducted late last week, put Mr. Pawlenty in a dead heat with President Obama in a head to head matchup. This is the same Minnesota that voted for Obama by a margin of 11 points in 2008. The fact that Mr. Pawlenty polls relatively well among voters who know him may give credence to the notion that if “Mr. Nice” asserted himself more, he would have a chance at winning the nomination, and maybe even the presidency.

We don’t discount Mr. Pawlenty’s home-state advantage among Minnesota voters, but Republican hopefuls from other deep blue states didn’t fare as well in similar measures. The same SurveyUSA poll had Michele Bachman losing by 14 points, while another recent Public Policy Polling survey has Governor Mitt Romney losing by 20 points in his home state of Massachusetts.

A few months ago, the Foundation for a Free Society released this  video, worth your time to watch:

New Mexico

At 10am this morning, AG King began a news conference at which he will  “address media representatives and respond to questions related to recent inquiries regarding the Vigil-Giron, Foy, Region III, and other cases.” I imagine we’ll have some follow up in our next edition of the digest.

Diane Denish has an interesting column up at NMPolitics.net noting that Serious issues desperately need our attention:

Susana Martinez has a huge challenge on her hands. It is a time of soaring costs, declining revenue, stifling unemployment. Add impending redistricting and its opportunistic politics to the mixture and you have enough to spoil a girl’s day.

Do I think I could have done a better job handling these challenges? Of course I do. That’s why I ran for governor. It’s a moot point, however. Susana won the race, and it behooves me and every New Mexican to hope she does well.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Drug War, National Politics, NM Politics, SCOTUS
23
Jun 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Next week, on June 30th, the annual International Conference on Climate Change begins and will be live-streamed on the internet. You can watch here. The conference will involve discussions aimed at putting an end to global warming alarmism.

We are in the final days of the Supreme Court’s term and big decisions continue to come out, although no word yet on the campaign finance case that most interests me. The court issued five opinions today with some interesting implications, for those interested you should check SCOTUSblog  and Volokh Conspiracy for summaries and Josh Blackman for instant analysis. One of the cases, Bullcoming v. New Mexico, is discussed a bit more in the New Mexico section below.

Earlier this week, the Court issued an important decision that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention: American Electric Power v. Connecticut. As the WSJ Law Blog explained:

[The Court] held that a group of  states can’t bring greenhouse-gas litigation that seeks to cap and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by several utility companies, WSJ reports.

The states had claimed that the utility companies, which operate facilities in 21 states, were a public nuisance because their emissions contribute to global warming.

In an 8-0 opinion written by Justice Ginsburg, the court held that the states and other plaintiffs can’t use federal public-nuisance law to seek court-imposed limits on emissions.

One weather guru is now claiming that the biggest climate problem we face is actually the prospect of an ice age and not global warming. Interesting.

The status of the War on Drugs continues to generate a great deal of attention. WSJ’s Law Blog yesterday noted that Ron Paul and Barney Frank plan to introduce legislation today that would change federal marijuana policy:

Members of Congress, including Barney Frank and presidential contender Ron Paul, plan to introduce a bill tomorrow that would end the federal law’s blanket prohibition of marijuana.

It will be the first such bill introduced in Congress.

Here’s a WSJ report and one from the Oakland Tribune.

The legislation proposes limiting the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or interstate smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states that permit it.

Under the law, states would also be free to tax the drug, according to a press release from advocacy groups that was confirmed by Frank’s office, WSJ reports.

More from Reason here. In related news, AG Holder is expected to issue a statement any day now clarifying the Department of Justice’s position on medical marijuana. Speaking of the pot issue, John Stossel has a piece up discussing Gary Johnson’s campaign platform, and the National Review Online declares that Johnson has the best record on jobs growth:

While all the GOP contenders are quick to hit the “jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra, the former governors running for president have very different records on job creation. According to a National Review Online analysis of seasonally adjusted employment data (looking at the total number of those employed) from the Bureau of Labor website, Gary Johnson has the best record of the official candidates, with a job-growth rate of 11.6 percent during his tenure.

And speaking of presidential candidates, Steve Chapman discusses Rick Perry’s chances:

[A] 2012 race is now tempting Rick Perry, the three-term governor of Texas whose liabilities come with some assets: a record of fiscal frugality and economic growth, a flair for channeling anti-Washington sentiment, a proven fundraising capacity, and an appealing biography (hardscrabble farm upbringing, Eagle Scout, Air Force pilot).

It helps that he delivers a good speech and looks like the lead in an old Western movie. Not for nothing did the late liberal columnist Molly Ivins dub him “Governor Goodhair.”

As that unshakable nickname suggests, though, many people in the Lone Star State—and not only liberals—see Perry as a photogenic lightweight who got his office only by the luck of being first in the line of succession when Texas Gov. George W. Bush was elected president.

In 2006, he won re-election with just 39 percent of the vote in a four-way race. One opponent, musician and humorist Kinky Friedman, used a slogan that was a sly poke at Perry: “How hard can it be?” Only 9 percent of Texas Republicans say they would support him for president. He has not worn well with those who know him best.

Perry has a tendency to make people ask, “Did he really say that?”—as when he indicated an openness to secession, and when he dismissed a TV reporter with, “Adios, mofo.” There is also the implausible yarn he tells of going for a run one morning without his security detail and, when a coyote threatened his dog, drawing his pistol and blowing the varmint away.

According to today’s Political Diary, it seems Rick Perry is all but officially in the race:

Our normally reliable Republican source reports that Mr. Perry has surveyed the field and decided to get in the race later this summer, perhaps around the time of the national prayer meeting that Mr. Perry is hosting on August 6 at a Houston football stadium. Our source also reports that Mr. Perry is aiming to compete in the Iowa Straw Poll, even though it occurs just a week later, on August 13. The thinking is that apparent front-runner Mitt Romney “does not reflect the Republican Party” and is therefore vulnerable to a credible challenge from the right, especially after Mr. Romney’s recent squishy remarks on global warming.

Beyond simply the August 13 event in Ames, Iowa, a big question for Mr. Perry is whether a compressed schedule would allow him to attract enough money and primary voters to win the nomination. Perry campaign adviser David Carney says that question still hasn’t been answered, and even a positive verdict doesn’t necessarily mean the Texan would enter the race. “Then he’s got to saddle up and do a gut check” to determine if he’s ready for the rigors of a presidential run, says Mr. Carney.

As the 2012 GOP primary gets closer, one looming question is where public opinion stands on the role of government and thus which end of the candidate spectrum they will lean toward. Ilya Somin has an important discussion of a recent NYT piece noting that public opinion may be headed in a more libertarian direction:

New York Times polling expert Nate Silver (who is no libertarian himself) summarizes some recent data suggesting that the public is becoming more libertarian . . .

Obviously, the vast majority of the public is not nearly as libertarian as most libertarian activists and intellectuals are. But it does seem to be more libertarian than the median voter of the recent past. Silver also cites the rise of the Tea Party movement as some indication of increasing libertarianism. While the movement undoubtedly includes numerous social conservatives, it has mostly focused on economic issues where libertarians and conservatives agree. Moreover, some survey data suggests that the libertarian contingent in the Tea Party is larger than usually supposed. I discuss some of the evidence in this article.

Today’s video takes a look at ranking freedom in the 50 states:

New Mexico

Big state news at the federal level: the Supreme Court of the U.S. reversed our state supreme court today in an important case, as explained by Jonathan Adler:

Among the six merits opinions released by the Supreme Court this morning was Bullcoming v. New Mexico, a Confrontation Clause challenge to the admissability of a forensic report without calling the author of the report to testify. This was a significant case for Court watchers because the case raised issues that have divided the Court along non-traditional, 5–4 lines, and the replacement of Justices Stevens and Souter with Justices Kagan and Sotomayor had the potential to reverse recent precedents in this and related areas. They did not, however. Rather each voted in line with her predecessor, preserving the court’s 5–4, formalist-pragmatist split on the Confrontation Clause.

In Bullcoming, the Court reaffirmed (and arguably extended) its decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts that a forensic report is testimonial evidence that cannot be introduced without the live testimony of a witness who can attest to the accuracy of its contents. The twist in Bullcoming was that while the forensic analyst who prepared the report at issue — in this case, a report on blood-alcohol content — was unable to testify another analyst from the same lab testified as to how such reports are traditionally made. This was not enough to overcome the Confrontation Clause objection, the Court concluded, as it held the report was inadmissible.

More from Eugene Volokh here.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Drug War, National Politics, NM Politics, SCOTUS
06
Jun 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Ellsworth has been at it again with two great posts recently, one on Palin and one on Ayn Rand vs. Jesus. I suggest you check both out.

One of the biggest stories last week was, of course, the federal indictment of former Senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. To be sure, the man is slimy to a degree few others have reached. That said, his indictment more than anything else is an indictment of our campaign finance laws and strikes me as a waste of our dwindling taxpayer resources. As Powerline explained:

John Edwards has been indicted for alleged violations of the campaign finance laws. Not, as you might assume, because he spent campign funds to support his mistress, Rielle Hunter. Rather, because third parties (“Bunny” Mellon and Fred Baron) gave an Edwards aide money to support Ms. Hunter and, ultimately, Edwards’ baby with her, and to keep Hunter and the baby out of sight. The theory is that Mellon and Baron spent this money to help Edwards’ presidential campign, and the amounts they gave to Ms. Hunter exceeded individual donor limits, and were not reported to the Federal Elections Commission.

* * *

I am no fan of John Edwards, but this prosecution strikes me as unfortunate. Based on a quick review, it does not seem to be an indefensible application of the campaign finance laws, although the government’s theory, as Edwards’ lawyer put it, is “novel and untested.” But what’s the point? The campaign finance laws are intended to keep candidates on a level playing field. (Some would say they are mainly intended to promote the re-election of incumbents, but that is a debate for another day.) The money that was spent here didn’t go for campaign ads or get-out-the-vote efforts. It was invisible to voters. It allowed Edwards to keep his wife (and voters too, of course) in the dark about his girlfriend and baby and relieved Edwards of the need to support them. Those are hardly noble objectives, but is policing this sort of misconduct really the function of campaign finance laws?

The Make No Law Blog had some good points also.

Yesterday, the WSJ had an interesting article on More Calls for a Drug War Cease-Fire:

Almost 100 years after drug prohibition was ushered in, school children report that they can easily access narcotics and surveys indicate they are used across social classes. A May 23 story in the Economist reported that Canada now trumps Mexico as an entryway into the U.S. for the drug “ecstasy.” American jails are taking in record numbers of young minorities and converting them into hardened criminals; gang violence is on the rise; organized crime is undermining U.S. geopolitical interests in places like Mexico, Central America and Afghanistan. Thousands of innocents, including children, have been killed in the mayhem.

Having produced nothing but hardship for the most vulnerable, disrespect for the rule of law, terror in formerly peaceful cities and profit opportunities for gangsters, drug warriors now want to militarize the southern U.S. border.

If history is any guide, says Angelo Codevilla, in a recent Claremont Review of Books essay titled “Our Borders, Ourselves,” this isn’t going to end well. Look at what happened, he warns, in the Peloponnesian War when hostility broke out on the Athenian doorstep: “Having lost a friendly border, Athens turned itself inside out trying to secure an unfriendly one.”

The border is unfriendly not because of too few fences, drones or soldiers, but because American drug habits finance the traffickers. “These dollars, and nothing else,” writes Mr. Codevilla, “are responsible for the near collapse of law and order south of the border and for the insufficiently publicized corruption on the northern side.”

We have met the enemy and it is us, the Claremont Institute scholar posits: “Even if our southern border were completely closed off . . . it would do nothing to change the fact that mind-altering drugs have become morally and politically acceptable to mainstream American society.”

The whole article is worth reading. Speaking of those opposed to the drug war, Gary Johnson’s campaign hit a bit of a snag with his exclusion from the upcoming New Hampshire GOP debate. His campaign makes some good points about why the decision to exclude him is questionable:

“As Governor Johnson has said, his exclusion denies a voice at the debate for a substantial slice of the Republican Party, those who share his undiluted view of personal liberty and real fiscal restraint.

“While we have had no specific explanation from the debate sponsors, it appears that Gary Johnson’s exclusion was based on some mysterious polling arithmetic.  Whatever that arithmetic was, the differences that excluded us while producing invitations for several other less-known candidates would certainly fall within the margin of error of any poll.  CNN didn’t even include Governor Johnson in some of their own April polls, yet we suspect they used those polls in their math.  That makes no sense whatsoever.

“More importantly, at this early stage of the campaign, it is a simple reality that polling numbers are almost entirely a product of name ID, money, and decisions by the media, including the debate sponsors, to cover some candidates more than others.   That a successful two-term governor with an unmatched record for cutting spending and advocating real freedom who is a declared candidate for president is barred from a critical debate on the basis of fractions of percentage points seven months before the first votes are cast is unacceptable.

The Atlantic agrees in its piece Why CNN Is Wrong to Exclude Gary Johnson From Its Debate. In today’s Political Diary, John Fund discusses a possible new entry to the 2012 GOP field.

It looks as if the Republican presidential primary field will have a surprise entry who is guaranteed to liven up the race. Thad McCotter, a congressman from the Detroit suburbs and a self-professed “rock and roll Republican” is about to throw his guitar into the ring.

Mr. McCotter is convinced that a candidate without a huge bankroll can still reach primary voters through new media, e-mail and YouTube. He has just hired a former producer for Fox News’s avant-garde “Red Eye” show as his new communications director. The show has a cult following among Republicans under the age of 40 for its outrageous satire and snarky references to public figures ranging from Alec Baldwin to George Soros.

Mr. McCotter, who plays in a rock band called the Second Amendments and has been known to weave Led Zeppelin lyrics into House floor speeches, has some enthusiastic advocates in the conservative blogosphere. “There’s no one I’d like to see more at a debate than McCotter,” says Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com. “This is a guy that’s blunt, sarcastic, pop-culture-savvy, constitutionally sound and an authentic voice.”

Despite his fresh approach, Mr. McCotter will have to explain some of his deviations from conservative orthodoxy. He has been skeptical of overseas trade deals and often sided with labor on issues such as limiting the use of secret ballots in union elections.

Stay-tuned for tomorrow’s digest in which we’ll review some other recent Political Diary entries on the GOP primary.

On Friday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals heard argument on the NFL’s ongoing dispute with players. The case naturally involves some major legal players: Ted Olson represents the players and Paul Clement represents the NFL. This is interesting because Olson served as W’s Solicitor General from 2001-2004 and Clement served as his Principle Deputy Solicitor General, going on to replace Olson in 2005. You might say the two are familiar with each other. In any event, the court took the matter under advisement and the parties will resume talks this week so a settlement could actually come before a decision.

For those interested in what has been going on at the Supreme Court this year, SCOTUSblog has an updated “Stat Pack” that has analysis and break down of all opinions issued  through May.

New Mexico

Last week, our friends at the Rio Grande Foundation released a new study (.pdf) outlining plans for spurring economic development in New Mexico. Definitely check it out!

Thomas Cole at the Albuquerque Journal had some interesting tidbits in his UpFront column over the weekend. Most importantly, he noted the hypocrisy of lawmakers who are going after university employees for their per diem rates:

We learned this week that the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University are exceeding rates set by state law in reimbursing employees for some travel expenses. . . .

State Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, vice chairman of the Legislative Finance Committee, called UNM’s explanation “legal mumbo jumbo.”

Rep. Rick Miera, chairman of the Legislative Education Study Committee, said the universities need to follow “the rules of the game.”

Oh, the indignation.

Now, the background and a little perspective.

Under the state Per Diem and Mileage Act, the standard per diem, or daily, reimbursement rate for state employees is $85 for in-state travel and $115 for out-of-state trips. That rate is for lodging and meals.

Employees who don’t need lodging or have their lodging paid separately by the state can be reimbursed up to $30 for daily meals while traveling in state and $45 for out of state.

Journal staff writer James Monteleone reported Tuesday that UNM and NMSU are paying $46 to $71 in daily meal allowances, depending upon the travel destinations of employees. A university exec gets $71 if he goes to Santa Fe but $46 for less expensive places like Hobbs and Raton.

The schools say the rates – which are the same as those for federal employees – better reflect the cost of travel for their workers.

The story wasn’t surprising; some state universities have been playing fast and loose with the Per Diem and Mileage Act for years. What needs some perspective are the comments by Varela and Miera. The rules that they want the universities to follow don’t apply to them.

Under the state Constitution and New Mexico law, legislators receive a per diem that is based on Internal Revenue Service rules for expense allowances.

Currently, a lawmaker receives $153 for each day the Legislature is in session and for each day spent on official business, whether in or out of state. That $153 is 80 percent more than the standard in-state per diem rate for state employees and 45 percent higher than the out-of-state rate.

Some more perspective:

Legislators don’t have to travel or even work to collect per diem.

They receive per diem for each day the Legislature is in session even though there are days during a session when the House and Senate don’t convene and committees don’t meet.

Also, on those days when the House and Senate do convene, a legislator doesn’t have to be present to collect per diem. Back in the late 1990s, a senator slipped off to Las Vegas, Nev., to play the slots and still got his per diem.

When the Legislature isn’t in session, a lawmaker can collect per diem for a committee meeting whether he spends 15 minutes or five hours attending the meeting.

The per diem is the same for all legislators, whether they have to travel to Santa Fe from the far reaches of the state or just have to walk across the street.

Varela is a Democrat from Santa Fe, and I live in his district, just a few blocks from the Capitol. He collected more than $21,000 in per diem in 2009.

Miera, a Democrat from Albuquerque, ranked no. 7 in per diem in 2009, with more than $24,000.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Campaign Finance, National Politics, NM Politics Tags: ,
06
Apr 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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Quote of the Day: “government will always do the right thing, but first it must exhaust all other possibilities.” -Winston Churchill.

National

The two biggest national stories are the federal budget and the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, held yesterday. First on the budget, in yesterday’s WSJ Political Diary Stephen Moore discussed the looming possibility of government shutdown given the parties’ lack of agreement on a budget as Obama and Boehner continue to battle:

With just days until the current funding for government agencies expires, a deal between the White House and House Republicans has derailed. The House Republican leadership, pushed by the budget hawks in the party, are insisting on “at least $40 billion to $50 billion in cuts” off the 2011 budget. The White House had hoped for a $33 billion “split the difference” compromise, but the GOP has rejected that, meaning a shutdown is looking increasingly likely.

My House GOP sources say that the Republican caucus has been emboldened by two developments. First, a new Tarrance Group poll finds that while 38% of Americans would blame a shutdown on the Republicans, 41% would blame the White House or congressional Democrats. That same poll also found that almost three out of four voters (73%) say that any budget deal must contain “significant” cuts. And only 23% of voters say that the GOP demand for $100 billion in total cuts this year is “too high.”

Second, Republicans, and especially the freshman House members, are being urged by constituents in their home districts to bring down spending and deficits.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Democrats are in disarray. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is now saying he wants Republicans to get some of the $33 billion in 2011 cuts from entitlement programs. Republicans have countered that Mr. Schumer and his colleagues haven’t revealed what mandatory spending cuts they favor. “So far,” says Mr. Sessions, “the savings from the White House on entitlements is zero.” Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, notes that his 2012 budget will contain the most sweeping entitlement reforms in decades and that “we will see how the Democrats respond to that.”

The House GOP leadership is still worried about the political fallout from a government shutdown, but events may be out of their hands. The tea party wing of the party, for better or worse, is flexing its muscles. For now, Mr. Boehner and the White House are further apart than they were a week ago. Don’t be surprised this weekend if non-essential government services are closed and tens of thousands of non-essential employees don’t have a job to show up for on Monday.

Reason and the WSJ both covered Paul Ryan’s proposed budget. The WSJ calls it “The Ryan Resolution: The most serious attempt to reform government in a generation“:

 Mr. Ryan’s budget rollout is an important political and policy moment because it is the most serious attempt to reform government in at least a generation. The plan offers what voters have been saying they want—a blueprint to address the roots of Washington’s fiscal disorder. It does so not by the usual posturing (“paygo”) and symbolism (balanced budget amendment) but by going to the heart of the spending problem, especially on the vast and rapidly growing health-care entitlements of Medicaid and Medicare. The Wisconsin Republican’s plan is a generational choice, not the usual Beltway echo.

Reason’s Jacob Sullum, on the other hand, notes that some serious deficiencies remain in the Ryan proposal and suggests the Democrats put forth a serious response:

In 2003 Paul Ryan was one of 207 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted for the Medicare prescription drug benefit championed by President George W. Bush—a reckless expansion of a huge program that was already heading for bankruptcy. Yesterday Ryan, who now chairs the House Budget Committee, did partial penance for that budget-busting blunder with a plan that includes ambitious Medicare reforms as well as $5.8 trillion in spending cuts during the next decade.

* * *

Compared to President Obama’s budget proposal, the Ryan plan is a model of restraint, calling for $6.2 trillion less in spending and $4.4 trillion less in new debt over 10 years. Even so, it would not balance the budget until 2040 or so, and it would increase the federal debt, currently about $14 trillion, to more than $23 trillion by 2021. As the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards notes, spending continues to rise during the next decade under the Republican plan, albeit at a slower pace than Obama envisions: 34 percent vs. 55 percent.

* * *

Democrats who do not like Ryan’s mix of cuts should be attacking the “non-security” part of that formulation, since his plan takes only $78 billion, spread over five years, out of a massively bloated Pentagon budget that far exceeds the resources necessary to defend the country. But this laughably inadequate gesture of restraint tracks what Obama already has proposed.

“Ending corporate welfare,” which the Republican plan claims to do, is another potentially fertile area for Democratic counterproposals. Why “reform” agricultural subsidies, for instance, when they should be eliminated entirely? And do Democrats think the Republicans have identified every objectionable business subsidy in the $3.8 trillion budget?

Federal budget coverage is all over the web, check here for links to a bunch of additional articles. Moving on to Wisconsin, where current Justice David Prosser is hanging on by a narrow lead in one of the hottest judicial elections in the country–and one with interesting campaign finance implications as the WSJ’s Law Blog points out:

The race is also a window into the public financing of judicial campaigns and highlights some of the limits of public financing. Wisconsin in 2009 passed a law allowing state Supreme Court candidates to fund their races strictly with public money. The goal of the law was to buttress the appearance that justices are neutral and free from being influenced by private campaign donors. Both Prosser and Kloppenburg were financed with taxpayer dollars.

The thing is, though, that under the  law private advocacy groups are still free to fund television campaign ads expressing their views on races. And spend they have. The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that four special-interest groups (three of which are conservative and one, liberal)  have spent more than $3.5 million combined in the primary and electoral campaigns for the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.  Click here to see a Brennan Center report on the race, which also features links to some of the TV attack-ads that have been run in the election.

The Associated Press has Prosser in the lead by a mere sliver this morning:

As of 7:35 this morning, the Associated Press had results for all but 24 of the state’s 3,630 precincts and Prosser’s overnight lead had grown slightly from fewer than 600 votes to 835 votes.

That close margin had political insiders from both sides talking about the possibility of a recount, which Wisconsin has avoided in statewide races in recent decades. Any recount could be followed by lawsuits – litigation that potentially would be decided by the high court.

Stay tuned.

On another front altogether, our friends at the Institute for Justice have certainly been busy! Last week they filed suit challenging Georgia’s truly awful civil asset forfeiture laws. Take a moment to learn more about the suit in IJ’s latest Freedom Flick:

Coming on the heals of last week’s impressive Supreme Court argument in the challenge to Arizona’s so-called “Clean Elections” law, this week’s school choice victory at the High Court keeps the momentum going for our favorite libertarian litigators. From yesterday’s release:

The U.S. Supreme Court today reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, a legal challenge aimed at halting Arizona’s highly successful and popular private school scholarship tax credit program.  Today’s landmark decision declared that the plaintiffs in the case lack standing to bring the challenge in the first instance because the program is funded by private contributions, not government funds.

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Categories: Congress, National Politics, SCOTUS
29
Mar 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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Of first importance: Atlas Shrugged the Movie

The part 1 of the eagerly anticipated movie is scheduled to open April 15…but not in Albuquerque. The producers have created a way for cities not currently on the schedule for first release to DEMAND the movie. Click on “DEMAND” if you’d like to request a viewing in Albuquerque April 15.

National

President Obama’s defense of American intervention in Libya is top of the national news pile this morning (YouTube has video of his entire speech here). In Monday’s Political Diary, John Fund pointed out that one yet-unanswered question is exactly how we are paying for this operation:

How does the Obama administration plan to pay for its military operations in Libya? Perhaps President Obama will tell us in his address to the nation this evening. But it’s a question that Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley of Iowa asked last week in a letter to the president. And White House spokesman Jay Carney responded by admitting he didn’t have a specific number for how much the no-fly zone was costing but assured reporters that “there are contingency funds . . . for this kind of thing.”

“The fact that funds for contingency military operations exist doesn’t answer the question of how much we’re spending, and will continue to spend, in Libya,” Rep. Braley replied. Indeed, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican, is also worried about where the money for Libya will come from. National Journal magazine estimates that the no-fly zone cost $100 million in Tomahawk missiles alone in its first day.

Yet administration officials insist that they will not be asking for any supplementary spending for Congress. “The operation in Libya is being funded with existing resources at this point,” Office of Management and Budget spokesman Kenneth Baer said last week. “We are not planning to request a supplemental at this time.” But former Pentagon officials say that is an unrealistic stance. “They really start to feel the pressure once [the cost] goes over $1 billion,” said Dov Zakheim, a top Pentagon budget official under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

I don’t know whether he answered the question last night (I was washing my hair, couldn’t make the speech), but I suspect not. Today’s WSJ editorial suggests that the GOP should now be looking for ways to serve as a “constructive opposition” rather than knee-jerk opponents of all things Obama:

President Obama made a substantial case for his Libya intervention for the first time last evening, and however overdue and self-referential (“I refused to let that happen”), we welcome the effort. Perhaps it will give Republicans a reason to emerge as constructive, rather than partisan, foreign-policy critics as well.

We say “perhaps” because the instinctive temptation for some Republicans has been to oppose the Libyan mission led by a Democratic Commander in Chief.

* * *

President Obama made a substantial case for his Libya intervention for the first time last evening, and however overdue and self-referential (“I refused to let that happen”), we welcome the effort. Perhaps it will give Republicans a reason to emerge as constructive, rather than partisan, foreign-policy critics as well.

We say “perhaps” because the instinctive temptation for some Republicans has been to oppose the Libyan mission led by a Democratic Commander in Chief.

* * *

Republicans ought to prod Mr. Obama to push for a faster resolution that ends with the toppling of Gadhafi and his sons from power. Any result short of that guarantees a divided Libya that may well require international peacekeepers to separate the warring factions.

The anti-interventionists among us–and those who are just specifically opposed to the Libya intervention–will appreciate recent posts by the folks over at Reason. Peter Suderman analyzed Obama’s speech, finding it to be really long, lacking in real answers, and “probably Obama’s worst-delivered major speech as president.” Michael Moynihan’s article from last week, “Lost in Libya” is also worth a look.

As noted yesterday, the Supreme Court has now heard arguments relating to Arizona’s public campaign financing scheme and come June we’ll find out whether predictions of a 5-4 decision declaring a portion of the scheme unconstitutional are correct. Naturally, the argument was covered extensively and IJ’s free speech blog, Congress Shall Make No Law, has a fairly comprehensive round up with links to more than twenty articles as well as the argument transcript.  

A classic Scalia quote from the argument: “I don’t know how you can say that there’s no evidence that it’s been deterred. Is something true just because you say it?” (Transcript at p. 33).

New Mexico

The New Mexico Watchdog has several stories of interest. In particular, a report (complete with video) on the worst kept secret about one of our native sons: Gary Johnson is apparently going to announce his run for president at the end of April. Another good piece discusses Santa Feans’ opposition to a tax increase (surprise! even liberals have their tipping point, apparently).

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Categories: 2012 Election, Campaign Finance, Gary Johnson, National Politics, NM Politics, SCOTUS
28
Mar 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

One of my favorite weekday emails is the Wall Street Journals’ Political Diary email, which requires a subscription. I highly recommend you consider subscribing. Here are a couple of peeks into Friday’s Political Diary:

First, Carl Klein takes a look at Michele Bachmann as she moves closer and closer to announcing a run for president by announcing her plan to form an exploratory committee by June.

Ms. Bachmann’s declaration suggests she thinks Sarah Palin is unlikely to run for the nation’s top office. Since the two firebrands occupy a similar political niche, a Palin candidacy would almost certainly crowd out Ms. Bachmann. The Minnesotan, however, apparently doesn’t anticipate that being a problem.

Still, there’s no clear path to the nomination for the third-term congresswoman. Members of the House rarely perform well in presidential runs, and Ms. Bachmann seems unlikely to unite enough strands of the GOP electorate. But that isn’t to say she won’t have an impact. The Republican has already spent a good deal of time stumping in Iowa, often reminding voters that she grew up there. And few doubt her media savvy or fundraising skills. In 2010, her fundraising topped $13 million–a huge sum for a House race–and most of that came from individual donors.

That measure of viability will complicate things for other presidential hopefuls, particularly in Iowa. As both a social conservative and a Tea Party-favorite from a neighboring state, Ms. Bachmann will suck away some of the oxygen from fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty and potential candidate Mitch Daniels, of nearby Indiana, not to mention long-shot candidates like Rick Santorum and Herman Cain.

But Ms. Bachmann’s presence actually helps the candidates the Tea Party is less infatuated with–Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, most notably.

Second, John Fund brings us up to date on recent polling in California regarding public pension issues:

The latest Field poll finds that 46% of Golden State residents believe unions do more good than harm versus only 35% who think the opposite. By a roughly similar margin, respondents also think public employee pensions are too generous, a reversal of how they responded in 2009. But that was before scandals such as the one in Bell, Califorina showed how feckless and even corrupt government officials were rigging the pension game.

When it comes to solutions, the public appears ready to embrace dramatic reforms. A narrow majority supports the recent recommendation of the state’s Little Hoover Commission to reduce pension payout promises for current government employees.

Even normally union-sympathetic Democrats have woken up to the fact that growing pension obligations threaten to crowd out spending for essential government services from police to filling potholes. Field found that 68% of registered Democrats want to establish a ceiling on pension payouts. Two-thirds of Democrats want state and local government employees to pitch in more towards their own retirement.

Even more surprising, 50% of Democrats back the Little Hoover Commission’s proposal to create a 401(k)-type defined contribution plan to go along with a reduction in the current defined benefit plan that government workers currently enjoy. Almost everyone in the private sector now relies on 401(k) plans. Only public sector union workers now routinely enjoy defined benefit plans that guarantee a certain income upon retirement.

* * *

Marcia Fritz, a Democrat who heads the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, says if the impasse continues there is likely to be a ballot measure put before voters to roll back pension promises. “The taxpayer as well as essential government services are being crushed by unsustainable pension obligations,” she told me.

In other news, Fred Barnes tells us that the GOP is winning the budget fight:

[T]he incremental strategy is working. Republicans have passed two short-term measures to keep the government in operation since early March while slashing $10 billion in spending. At this rate, they would achieve the target of GOP congressional leaders of lopping off $61 billion from President Obama’s proposed budget in the final seven months of the 2011 fiscal year.

There’s every reason to believe the incremental strategy would continue to succeed. Democrats are flummoxed by it. They’d like to block more cuts, but they’ve been unable to explain why spending reductions of a few billion dollars at a clip are unacceptable. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried, only to embarrass himself by saying Nevada’s cowboy poetry festival might be jeopardized. Mr. Obama has prudently declined to wade in.

Democrats have themselves to blame for their predicament. They failed to pass a 2011 budget last year, and this year Republicans are taking revenge. By sticking together at the lame duck session in December, Senate Republicans managed to keep spending at last year’s levels. Now the GOP is cutting from that baseline.

The latest extension expires on April 8, around the time Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, releases the Republican budget for 2012—giving the GOP another opportunity for a serious whack at spending. And in May or June, Mr. Obama will ask for a hike in the debt limit, one more juncture at which Republicans can press for spending cuts and budget reforms.

Speaking of the budget, if you disagree with the incremental approach and would like to know who voted against the recently passed continuing resolution, check this listing.

New Mexico

The New Mexico Capitol Report has a couple of interesting posts capturing the latest in Roundhouse news. Of patricular interest is Rep. Conrad James’ post describing his experience in “The education of a first-year lawmaker at the Roundhouse“:

The 50th legislature was quite an experience for a political novice such as me.  Although I have always been an avid consumer of public policy and political debate, navigating the actual machinery of state government as a first-time elected public official was something I knew would be a significant challenge.

* * *

One of the important items I learned was how critical advocates are to the legislative process. Advocates include constituents in my district, New Mexicans outside my district, lobbyists, charity groups, and all the other people and organizations that bring issues to the attention of legislators. I received calls from constituents who needed help to be directed to the appropriate state agency, and I received emails from New Mexicans all over the state that provided me insight on bills that were heading my way in committee or on the House floor. All of these interactions proved invaluable to informing me with regard to proposing new legislation and for casting a vote.

* * *

I found that even though we may have deep-rooted philosophical differences with other people and organizations, there are times when we can at least respect each other for being advocates of principles and ideas — even when we believe each other to be completely wrong and misguided. And although it portends a more stressful legislative process filled with defeat and frustration, I will continue to advocate for limited government and socially/fiscally conservative policies because I believe that they best afford the opportunity for New Mexicans to prosper and fulfill their innate potential as citizens.

Another post worth a look is this look at why some believe Gov. Martinez will veto the unemployment bill.

If you still need a hit of NM political news, don’t forget to stop by NMPolitics.net for the latest news and analysis there. In particular, check out Bill O’Niel’s column “Pension reform is the right thing to do.”

Finally, today was the long-awaited (for some of us) oral argument in the Arizona Clean Elections case. Stay tuned to the Supreme Court blog and the Institute for Justice for post-argument updates and look for the opinion at the end of the term in late June. These cases, of course, have substantial implications for New Mexico’s own schemes providing public financing for political campaigns.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Campaign Finance, National Politics, NM Politics, SCOTUS
25
Mar 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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We are fans of James Taranto and his Best of the Web Today digest. Naturally, we’ve decided to copy that effort with our own offering of daily news and opinion highlights. So here we go.

National News

Our friends at the Wall Street Journal have an excellent editorial about the U.S. involvement in Libya, The Speech Obama Hasn’t Given:

I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest. He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he’s home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support. He has to make a case for his own actions. It’s what presidents do! And this is particularly important now, because there are reasons to fear the current involvement will either escalate and produce a lengthy conflict or collapse and produce humiliation.

Without a formal and extended statement, the air of weirdness, uncertainty and confusion that surrounds this endeavor will only deepen.

Behind the WSJ subscription wall, Review & Outlook has some interesting updates as well.

First, a look (subscription required) at the Wisconsin battle with the unions, which is now in the courts. That is a particularly interesting place to be given Wisconsin’s upcoming state supreme court election on April 5. Conservative Justice David Prosser is facing off with liberal challenger Joanne Kloppenburg, current assistant attorney general and an environmental attorney. Gov. Scott Walker’s attempts at union reform to solve the state’s budget crisis are likely on the line in this April 5 showdown:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is divided 4-3 on many cases and tilts slightly right. A defeat for Justice Prosser would shift that balance, and a notoriously liberal contingent led by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson would dominate when the court hears the Democratic challenges to Mr. Walker’s reforms, which limited collective bargaining and required government unions to be recertified every year by their members. That battle was recently joined when Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi put a hold on the law, and a state appeals court ruled yesterday that the Supreme Court should decide the case.

* * *

Democrats and unions are throwing everything they have at Wisconsin to stop the movement to put taxpayers on a more level playing field with government unions that dominate state politics. They’re promising recall campaigns against Republicans and will eventually take the fight to Governor Walker. Meantime, Ms. Kloppenburg is their immediate hope to undo by judicial fiat what they couldn’t accomplish legislatively.

Second, a story not too many are following:

President Obama met with the winner of the “save award” in the Oval Office the other day, the contest for federal employees who find ways to make government more efficient. Trudy Givens, of Portage, Wisconsin, suggested that the feds stop mailing out paper copies of the Federal Register (available online since 1994) to the provinces. Her good idea will cut about $4 million a year in printing and postage.

We don’t work for the government, but here’s our “save” suggestion: How about not spending some $3.5 million to deceptively promote ObamaCare?

As WSJ goes on to explain, Health and Human Services spent $2.78 million last year on airtime for three cable tv ads, featuring Andy Griffith, and another $404,383.40 to pay for production of the ads. Naturally, the budget for fact-checking stood at zero:

Among Mr. Griffith’s many deceptive claims, he tells his fellow seniors that their Medicare benefits won’t change (they will, most immediately in Medicare Advantage) and that ObamaCare strengthens the program’s finances (it doesn’t, according to the chief Medicare actuary). Lovable ol’ Andy of Mayberry then says “that new health-care law sure sounds good” to him, in a transparent bid to win over senior voters in advance of the 2010 election.

The next time the President wants to run misleading ads ahead of an election, he might hit up the Democratic Party or use his bully pulpit, rather than passing the bill to taxpayers.

In other news, Detroit’s population plummeted by 25% over the past decade, setting the city back a full century.

In all, the city lost more than 237,000 residents, including 185,000 blacks and about 41,000 whites. The Hispanic population ticked up by 1,500. Meanwhile, the black population in neighboring Macomb County more than tripled to 72,723, constituting 8.6% of the county’s population in 2010, compared with 2.7% a decade earlier. Oakland County’s African-American population rose 36% to 164,078.

Detroit’s population has fallen steadily since the heyday of the auto industry in the 1950s, when it peaked around two million, but the declines have accelerated in recent years as manufacturing jobs have disappeared and the mortgage crisis has devastated even stable, middle-class neighborhoods. The number of vacant housing units doubled in the past decade to nearly 80,000, more than one-fifth of the city’s housing stock, the Census Bureau reported.

Full story here.

John Stossel ‘s latest column is an excellent read as he calls for an end to handouts for big business in “End Corporate Welfare“:

In America today, the biggest recipients of handouts are not poor people. They’re corporations.

* * *

Businesses love to have government as their partner. There’s safety in it. Why take chances in a marketplace full of fickle consumers and investors, when you can get secure money and favors from the taxpayers? It’s an old story, and free-market advocates as far back as Adam Smith warned against it. Unfortunately, too many people think “free market” means pro-business. It doesn’t. Free market means laissez faire—prohibit force and fraud, but otherwise leave the marketplace alone. No subsidies, no privileges, no arbitrary regulations. Competition is the most effective regulator.

Finally, Rep. Steve King has an interesting guest-post at Politico on the political power of faith. King concludes:

The three pillars of American exceptionalism are the Judeo-Christian ethic, Western civilization and free-market capitalism. If our U.S. economy is to be strong, these three pillars cannot be separated. Neither can the values of the family and faith coalitions be excluded from the economics debate — they are integral to each other.

These American exceptionalism principles will be discussed Saturday, Mar. 26, when GOP presidential candidates and other national opinion leaders convene at my Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines.

All Americans have a high calling — a religious term — to serve our country by renewing our national culture through faith and free enterprise.

New Mexico News

Capitol Report New Mexico has a several interesting posts this week.

First, a discussion regarding a judge’s ruling on California cap and trade, and whether that ruling could impact New Mexico’s recently-adopted restrictions.

Back on Monday (March 21) a judge in San Francisco ordered a delay in implementing California’s cap and trade system of pollution credits.

Why does that matter to New Mexico? Because, due to its sheer size, California is a crucial piece of the cap and trade puzzle. Without California as a trading partner, New Mexico’s cap and trade policy — which is scheduled to begin in 2012 — could fall apart.

In order for the cap and trade program to exist, there must be a minimum of 100,000 allowances. Without California, experts say, New Mexico wouldn’t have sufficient partnerships with other states and provinces to reach the 100,000 threshold, thus putting the New Mexico program on hold until California’s program is up and running. 

* * *

Gov. Susana Martinez has been a critic of recent decisions by the state’s Environmental Improvement Board (EIB), which adopted the sweeping cap and trade regulations late last year. Upon taking office, Martinez promptly fired all the members of the EIB, saying in a statement “the majority of EIB members have made it clear that they are more interested in advancing political ideology than implementing common-sense policies.” The Governor also refers to cap and trade as “cap and tax” in her public pronouncements.

* * *

Strangely enough, the call to delay implementation of the cap and trade system did not come from the political right, but from the political left.

The Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment argued before Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith that California’s cap and trade system needs to be more — not less – stringent.  According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the plaintiffs said allowing companies the right to exceed emissions levels will hurt surrounding communities, mostly poor and non-white.

Judge Goldsmith ruled Monday that California can still adopt its cap and trade system but said the state had not looked hard enough at alternatives and needed to analyze other options and explain its reasoning.

Our new Lt. Governor already appears to be considering his next move: according to the Capitol Report his latest effort includes a shot at Heather Wilson and thus a step toward the race for U.S. Senate.

Sanchez is in Washington D.C. for the National Lieutenant Governors Association’s winter meeting and spoke to The Hill newspaper Thursday … and he sure sounded like he’s going to throw his hat into the ring for Jeff Bingman’s seat:

“The opportunity to serve is really the issue at hand right now,” he said. “It’s about serving and the opportunity to serve the people of New Mexico and this country.

“Those opportunities for an open United States Senate seat don’t come but once in a lifetime.”

“We think that sometime here in the near future, in the spring, we’ll be making a final decision as far as what our intentions are.”

He also took a shot at Heather Wilson, who has already announced her intention to seek the Republican nomination once Bingaman steps down:

“I think Heather served honorably [as a member of the US House of Representatives]. But if we consider the choices that were made by former establishment candidates, I think it’s clear the choices will be very easy for the people of New Mexico.

“Do they want a return back to the days of moderate-type leaders [whose] conservative compasses [weren’t] pointed in the right direction? Or are they looking for somebody who doesn’t have to reinvent himself? I think the choice for U.S. Senate is abundantly clear.”

Brigette Russell takes us through “What’s wrong with the New Mexico legislature, Part I.” As she points out, our lawmakers no longer either write or read the majority of bills introduced — they couldn’t possibly:

During this year’s session, the 70 members of the House introduced 790 bills, memorials and resolutions.  That’s an average of more than 11 for each member, though numbers of bills introduced ranged from a prodigious 40 by Rep. Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) to none at all by a few members.  

Many of these bills were only a page or two long, others a dozen or two, but some ran hundreds of pages.  If each member had read every single page of every single bill, it is difficult to imagine how they would have been able to attend daily floor sessions and five or six committee meetings a week and still find time to sleep, let alone go to all those parties.

* * *

So how do the members find the time to write all these bills, when they barely have time to read them?   The answer, of course, is that they do not write the bills.  They get an idea for a bill, and pay a visit to the Legislative Council Service, whose staff of bill drafters sits ready to turn, “I think the speed limit ought to be raised,” into 23 pages of incomprehensible legalese.

Russell’s conclusion is intriguing:

People tell me that we can’t go back to constitutional basics, make our legislators to write their own bills and read all of the bills their colleagues wrote, because we live in a complex society that demands a highly professionalized legislature, not a bunch of cowboys and chile farmers writing one page bills that any citizen can understand.  

Maybe they’re right, but I’d like to give it a try anyway.

Finally, the Capitol Report analyzes the rivalry between Gov. Martinez and Senator Sanchez.

The newly-elected Governor and the long-standing Senator from Belen mixed it up on a number of issues and, while neither says in public that they harbor any personal animosity, you can bet they won’t be exchanging Christmas cards either.

The Governor singled out Sanchez for holding up bills that were near and dear to her heart (click here for that story) but her criticisms also seemed intent on casting Sanchez as a symbol of New Mexico’s entrenched political status quo that many voters hold in low regard.

The article includes videos from both Sanchez and Martinez that are worth watching, and the full article is worth your time to read.

Finally, the New Mexico Independent discusses a recent report lauding Albuquerque’s publicly funded campaign systems:

A report released Wednesday by the Center for Governmental Studies said the 2007 and 2009 publicly funded municipal campaigns in Albuquerque were a success, resulting in less money spent in the election and more focus on the issues.

“The citizens of Albuquerque should be proud of their impressive civic achievement in adopting and implementing the Open and Ethical Elections program,” the report (pdf) concluded. “Their determination to reduce expenditures in municipal campaigns has been richly rewarded.”

* * *

Public financing was approved in the 2005 election by Albuquerque voters. The public financing required candidates to collect $5 contributions from 3,287 registered voters, or one percent of the registered voters in the city, in a six-week period to receive roughly $328,000 in publicly-financed campaign money. This was a change from the 2005 election when Martin Chavez raised $1.2 million in his successful re-election.

The candidates were also required to collect signatures from 2 percent of the registered voters in the district or city, depending on the office for which they were running.

The public financing allowed for “seed money” that could be raised for those who wish to explore a mayoral race. Candidates for mayor and city council could raise up to 10 percent of the total money they would receive from the public financing with a $100 contribution limit on donations and $500 of the candidate’s own money. The seed money would later be taken away from the money given once the candidate qualified for public financing.

As the article and report both noted, however, a key provision in the financing systems is currently under attack. The report suggested that Albuquerque consider alternatives to the “opposing funds” provision, which basically matches funds spent or raised by a privately funded opponent. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in a few days on a challenge to Arizona’s state-wide scheme of publicly financed campaigns.

To learn more about the Supreme Court case and the problems inherent in such schemes as found in Albuquerque and Arizona, check out the Institute for Justice’s website (IJ is the public interest law firm leading the challenge to Arizona’s law).

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16
Nov 2010

“Clean Elections” = Dirty Game

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Our friends at the Institute for Justice have a new video highlighting the problems with “clean elections” systems that provide taxpayer financing to political candidates.

IJ’s challenge to Arizona’s “clean elections” is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for certiorari, which the Court will consider at its November 23 conference.

BONUS (semi-related) VIDEO: In other news on wasting taxpayer money in ridiculous and likely unconsititutional schemes, this video provides a great summary of “Quantitative Easing”:

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26
Aug 2010

The Commerce Clause

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One of the primary bases for challenging ObamaCare is the theory that the government is over-reaching beyond its authority granted in the constitution’s commerce clause. Below is an excellent video to explain the history of that clause and how it has led us to modern day congressional authority.

Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All Powerful

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