Category: politics

Iowa Senate Studies "Tyranny of the Majority"

When the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 there was almost immediate conflict between delegates from the large, heavily populated states and the smaller, less populous ones.

How should the national legislature be constituted? The big states proposed The Virginia Plan which assigned Congressional representation based upon population. The smaller states favored The New Jersey Plan, which assigned an equal number of representatives to each state. Ultimately, both sides accepted the “Connecticut Compromise,” wherein there would be two houses of Congress. In the Senate, each state would get an equal number of Senators and the House of Representatives would be allocated by a state’s population.

Another (somewhat cobbled together) compromise was the “Electoral College” for electing the president. Some delegates thought the president should be elected by Congress, others preferred a popular election. In the end, the Constitution allowed each state to assign a number of “electors” equal to that state’s Congressional delegation, to vote for the president.

Most people don’t really understand the electoral college (myself included). As it is now practiced, each state still gets one elector for each representative and Senator it has in Congress. All but two states instruct their electors to vote for whichever presidential candidate got the most votes in that state. These 48 states, Iowa included, are “winner-take-all,” giving all of their elector votes to the highest vote getter in that state.

It seems unduly complicated and a lot of people don’t like it. That may be why the Iowa State Senate is currently studying a bill that would alter Iowa’s participation in the electoral college.

Pushed by a national group called “National Popular Vote,” Senate Study Bill 1128 would change the instructions that Iowa would give to it’s electors. They would be instructed to vote for whichever candidate got the most votes NATION-WIDE. The new law would be an interstate compact, an agreement, with other states who pledge to do the same thing. It would go into effect as soon as enough states to collectively field 270 electoral votes have signed into the agreement. So far only Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii have signed into the pact.

Critics charge that such a system would create an “urban-centric” presidency. Candidates would focus their time and energy on areas where they could rack up the most popular votes quickly, places such as New York and California, rather than having to focus on winning in various sectors of the country. Once elected, the President would tailor all policies toward appeasing these areas, often at the expense of less populated states.

“National Popular Vote” (NPV) responds to allegations that their plan is an “end run” around the Constitution by correctly pointing out that the Constitution allows states to appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct[.]” NPV might want to read the rest of the Constitution, however, particularly Article One, Section 10, Clause 3 which says, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress […] enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power[.]”

Let’s look at NPV’s plan using Iowa as our model. Iowa has 7 electoral votes, one for each of our five Congressional districts and two Senators. Suppose Candidate A gets 60% of the popular vote here in Iowa. However, Candidate B sweeps LA, New York, Chicago, etc… and gets 51% of the popular vote nation-wide. All of Iowa’s electoral votes would go to Candidate B, who voters in Iowa soundly rejected. If we take this example to the extreme, it would be possible for all 7 of Iowa’s electoral votes to go to a candidate who did not get a single person in Iowa to vote for him.

It’s easy to see how less populous states like Iowa would quickly become mere spectators of presidential elections, allowing other, more populated states to vote FOR us. No thank you. If the electoral college needs reformed, perhaps, like our forefathers in 1787, we can find a mutually-equitable compromise.

I think a better plan would be to adopt the “Congressional District Method” currently used by Maine and Nebraska. Rather than award all of the state’s electors to one candidate, an electoral vote is given to the popular winner in each Congressional district. The two remaining electoral votes, representing the state’s two Senators, are given to whichever candidate had the most votes statewide.

It is a “winner-takes-most” system, rather than the current “winner-takes-all” system. This would ensure that voters in a conservative district of liberal California, for instance, would not be wasting their votes. Nor voters in a liberal district of conservative Texas. In 2008, John McCain carried conservative Nebraska, but Barack Obama still got one electoral vote from the state for winning in it’s 2nd Congressional District.

The “Maine-Nebraska Method” would be more democratic than the current system without completely relegating rural states to political irrelevance. Also, since it would be implemented individually by respective states, it would not run afoul of the Constitution’s “Compact Clause,” mentioned above. Perhaps history books will call the adoption of this plan “The Iowa Compromise.”

O Come All Ye Faithful

Why evangelical Christians should rally to the libertarian cause.

As we wind down our celebration of the birth of Christ and prepare for the new year, I hope that “conservative” Christians, who are wondering where to go after the Republican train wreck of late, will give the Libertarian Party (L.P.) a second look.

If you’ve heard anything about us, you’ve probably heard that we want to legalize pot, gay marriage and all sorts of other things that no doubt turn your gut. Before you let that scare you off, let me explain our take on some of these issues. (Keep in mind that I hold no official position with the party, so if I muck it up, don‘t blame them.)

The L.P. is generally about freedom. The L.P.’s national platform states it fairly well: “We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.” How does this effect issues supposedly important to evangelicals?

Let’s get right to the most contentious issue first: Abortion. I’m not going to lie to you, most Libertarians are probably pro-choice. Wait, come back! Not all of us. There are enough of us pro-life Libertarians for the National Committee to recognize that good Libertarians fall on both sides of the issue. The L.P.’s National Platform says: “Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.”

Yeah, I know that’s a cop-out, but there really is no middle ground here. Since Libertarians support individual rights (life, liberty, and property), there’s somewhat of a conundrum with this issue. Libertarians like me, who believe that life begins at conception, see abortion as the ultimate violation of an unborn person’s right to life. Libertarians who believe that life begins at birth see banning abortion as a violation of the mother’s liberty. To some degree, both sides are right. (Of course, I believe my side is MORE right!)

So where would a nation run by Libertarians leave us pro-lifers? We would be free to speak out against abortion in any manner that we chose (provided we didn’t harm or threaten to harm anyone else). With less money being taken from us in taxes we would be freer to contribute our money to pro-life groups, making them more effective. Since Libertarians support Constitutional restraints on the federal government and recognize that this is NOT a subject that the federal government has authority over, the people of each State would be allowed to decide whether or not abortion should be legal. That might be the best that pro-lifers can hope for, regardless of who’s in power.

Another benefit that a libertarian society would bring is that your church would be vastly more important in the community. Since Libertarians would get rid of government-run “welfare,” private charities and churches would become that much more vital. Religious charities have a long and proud history of helping people. They also generally do so much more efficiently and effectively than wasteful, values-neutral government programs. With lower taxes, more money would be flowing into church coffers and religious institutions could reclaim their historical role as society’s true safety net.

Another power that a libertarian society would give back to the people (and their collective representations, the churches) would be that of educating our children. Many evangelicals hate the fact that they have to send their kids to (or at least fund) government-run schools that teach their children that the basic tenants of their religion are a lot of bunk. Under a Libertarian government, parents would be free to send their kids to whatever school they chose, and they would be able to afford to so. Private and/or religious schools would become the norm, as would home-schooling.

The L.P. platform puts it thusly: “Education, like any other service, is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Schools should be managed locally to achieve greater accountability and parental involvement. Recognizing that the education of children is inextricably linked to moral values, we would return authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. In particular, parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children’s education.” [Emphasis added.]

This is not just a pie in the sky idea. There are small, practical steps we can take in this direction already, such as education tax credits. Groups like Iowa Advocates for Choice in Education are already working on “expanding educational options to all Iowa families.”

All in all, Libertarian policies would reduce government coercion of everyone, including evangelical Christians. So while, yes, others would be freer to do things that you might find sinful, you would be freer to worship as you choose, choose how your money is spent and instruct your children on right and wrong. If the only way to get the government off your back is to get it off everyone’s back, that sounds like a good deal to me.

Ron Paul Gets It

In this interview on CNN, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) raises many of the same points about the downfall of the GOP that I raised in my post “Cinders and Ashes!”

Cinders and Ashes!

One of the benefits of having a two-year-old son is that I now know that, when something traumatic happens, Thomas the Tank Engine usually exclaims, “Cinders and ashes!” I’ll bet there were more than a few folks at the Republican National Committee using similar, albeit less family friendly, utterances the morning after election day. But Thomas’ tagline is a fitting description of the state of the GOP following the election.

If the election of ’06 was a shot fired across the GOP’s bow, the ’08 election was right in their wheelhouse. Neo-conservative (big-government authoritarian) Republican John McCain got stomped by Democrat Barack Obama electorally, 163 to 364. The popular vote was slightly less one-sided, with Obama getting 53% and McCain getting 46%. The Democrats picked up 6 seats in the U.S. Senate and picked up 17 seats in the U.S. House. At the end of it all, the Senate had 57 Democrat seats (only 3 seats short of a filibuster-proof majority) to 40 Republican seats. The House now has 252 Dems and 173 Republicans.

As a one-time stalwart Republican, when I surveyed the wreckage of the GOP, I felt like an immigrant to the U.S. seeing his war-torn former country on CNN, bombed and flattened. I felt sad for my friends who didn’t make it out, but glad that I left when I did.

I didn’t shed too many tears though, because the GOP brought this shellacking on themselves. Many people like myself fought in the trenches to put the GOP in power in the 1990’s. We sent them to DC with a simple mandate: “Cut government.” That included cutting taxes, spending, regulation and intrusiveness. The Republican-controlled federal government did the exact opposite of those things. (I know they cut taxes somewhat. But they didn’t even make those cuts permanent and they increased spending and debt so much that essentially they just delayed paying those taxes rather than eliminating them.)

In essence, once the Republicans were firmly in power, they governed like Democrats. Advocates of smaller, less intrusive federal government suddenly found themselves out in the cold. But, as the last two election cycles showed, the American people will choose real Democrats over wannabe-Democrats every time. The neo-conservative plan to out-Democrat the Democrats resulted in an electoral train wreck.

Supporters of smaller government now have four options:

  1. We can help the GOP rebuild their party, and try to get it to focus on limited government fundamentals. This is essentially what Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty is about.
  2. We can join the Democrats and take whatever reforms we can get.
  3. We can become detached from the political process, hunker down and hope that the big-government Panzers roll past without crushing us.
  4. We can try to build the Libertarian Party or Constitution Party into a major party able to challenge the Demublicans for control.

I’ve thrown in with the merry band of Libertarians, so it’s probably obvious that I support the last option. Paleo-conservatives, libertarians, and constitutionalists gave the Republican Party a fair chance to advance limited government principles. The GOP betrayed that trust. May it rest in peace.

NRA Endorses McCain- Part II

[For a more complete analysis of the NRA’s endorsement of presidential candidate John McCain, read the original post- Strange Bedfellows: NRA Endorses Its Enemy, directly below this post.]

Here’s McCain speaking about the NRA. This is the guy that the NRA endorsed?

http://blip.tv/play/Abf9DYeFGg

Here’s a commercial McCain did for “Americans For Gun Safety”(AGS) seeking to close a non-existent “gun show loophole” using bogus statistics. AGS was founded by Andrew McKelvey, a former member of the board of directors of Handgun Control Inc. and the primary founder of the Million Mom March (against gun rights). AGS received funding from anti-gun nuts George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry via the Tides Center.

Here’s a fact check for the senator: A 1997 study by the National Institute of Justice said only 2% of criminal guns came from gun shows. Hardly an epidemic. Of these few crime guns procured at gun shows, many were purchased by “straw buyers” who could pass a criminal background check (a practice that is already illegal), so additional background checks would do no good. All gun sales at gun shows are governed by the SAME legal requirements as they are anywhere else. There is no “loophole” specific to gun shows.

Gun owners should disregard the NRA sellout and support Bob Barr, who serves on the NRA’s board of directors and has an excellent Second Amendment record. (Bob’s NRA rating: A+, McCain’s NRA rating: C+, McCain’s Gun Owners of America rating: F-)

Strange Bedfellows: NRA Endorses Its Enemy

It’s official: the National Rifle Association (NRA) has endorsed Senator John McCain for President. That’s somewhat surprising considering that the NRA once labeled McCain as “one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment” [right to keep and bear arms], which the NRA supposedly defends. So, how did McCain gain the NRA’s ire, then, ultimately its endorsement?

How McCain got a bad name with gun owners is easy. He co-sponsored the McCain-Lieberman Gun Show Bill to close the supposed “gun show loophole.” While the bill didn’t technically outlaw gun shows, it did open gun show organizers up to so much potential legal trouble as to not make it worth the risk. It was a backdoor ban on gun shows. Thankfully this bill failed.

Later, the McCain-Feingold Act specifically sought to muzzle groups like the NRA from criticizing anti-gun candidates. NRA Executive V.P. Wayne LaPierre called it “the most significant change in the First Amendment since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which tried to make it a crime to criticize a member of Congress.” The NRA was literally first in line at the courthouse doors to file a lawsuit to stop McCain’s law after President Bush signed it. (The lawsuit failed and McCain-Feingold is still the law of the land.)

McCain did commercials for the moderate sounding, yet anti-Second Amendment, group Americans for Gun Safety. McCain voted in favor of both of Bill Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees who voted against the Second Amendment in DC vs Heller. These are just some of McCain’s transgressions against gun owners. For a complete reading check out “John McCain: Conservative or Gun-Grabber?”

Why did the NRA endorse candidate McCain? Because his challenger, Barack Obama, is worse. (For a complete rundown of Obama’s anti-gun record, click here.) But why they would endorse someone who is a proven enemy of the Second Amendment rather than just not endorsing either candidate (as they’ve done several times before) is puzzling. This is just the most recent example of the NRA placing political expediency above principle.

NRA Board Member Russ Howard resigned because the NRA kept giving A grades to anti-gun legislators in his home state of California.

The NRA brags about the recent victory for gun owners in the Supreme Court case of DC vs. Heller, but the group played a negligible role in the win and, fearing a lose, tried to squash the case. Robert A. Levy, the lawyer who helped create and personally financed the case that reaffirmed the Second Amendment as an individual right, said “The N.R.A.’s interference in this process set us back and almost killed the case. It was a very acrimonious relationship.”

In 2007 NRA actively supported the “NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007’’ which was dubbed “the Veteran’s Disarmament Act” by pro-gun critics. Written by Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), arguably the most anti-gun member of Congress, the bill mandated that states turn over all types of personal information about their citizens, potentially including medical records, to the federal government to use in it’s “National Instant Criminal Background Check System” (NICS) for approving gun buyers. Wholly unnecessary, the bill could prevent veterans who have ever sought professional help for post traumatic stress disorder or depression from ever owning guns, even if they present no threat to themselves or others. (How’s that for a disincentive to get the help that some may need?) In addition to hurting gun owners, this bill is a nightmare for advocates of personal privacy rights and state rights.

In 2001 NRA pushed for and got “Project Safe Neighborhoods,” a national initiative supposedly aimed at reducing gun violence. As the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute explains it, “Project Safe Neighborhoods is the public-policy embodiment of the National Rifle Association sound bite ‘we don’t need any new gun control laws; we need to enforce the gun laws on the books.’ The program funds more than 800 new prosecutors (around 200 federal, 600 state level) who will do nothing but pursue gun-law violations full time.” It essentially makes every petty street crime involving a firearm into a federal crime, Tenth Amendment be damned. It is a program of zero-tolerance enforcement of the very gun laws that NRA often argues are unconstitutional and ineffective. Otherwise law-abiding gun owners who get caught in this web for regulatory infractions or accidental violations are acceptable “collateral damages” to the NRA.

The website NRAwol has volumes of examples of the NRA selling out the Second Amendment and America’s gun owners in the name of political expediency dating back to the National Firearms Act of 1934. [A link to this site will now be located in the “National Links” Section to the right.]

Despite all this, I’m not going to cancel my life-membership in the NRA. (I already paid for it after all.) They still do some good too. Their work with match shooting and firearms training is second to none. Politically I believe that they may still fight against the most egregious gun bans. I will just have to bear in mind that their endorsement of candidates and some legislation is meaningless. For all things political I will pay attention to what Gun Owners of America has to say, and continue to roll my eyes when the NRA sends me its usual panhandling fundraiser letters every other week.

Putting Lipstick on the Common Man

There are a lot of things I like about Sarah Palin. She’s pro-Second Amendment. Deservedly or not, she’s got a reputation for fighting wasteful government spending and corruption. Deservedly or not, she’s got a reputation as a tax-cutter. She’s pro-life. (By the way, I think the hypocrisy of the left is on full display on that issue. The liberals, who mindlessly “celebrate diversity” and pride themselves on being the defenders of the weak and downtrodden, stammer in stunned disbelief that Palin knowingly birthed a Down syndrome child who would be “different,” rather than killing him in the womb. O. compassionate liberals!) I like Palin‘s stance on many, but not all, issues.

Besides mere policy preferences, there seems to be other, elemental reasons why Palin is causing many disaffected voters, myself included, to take a second look at the GOP. Since she has a well-armed husband, I’ll stick with the political ones.

Steven F. Hayward hypothesizes in The Weekly Standard that the alternate elation and revulsion to Palin’s nomination is part of a larger civic debate going back to the very founding of the republic. “Lurking just below the surface of the second-guessing about Sarah Palin’s fitness to be president,” he writes, “is the serious question of whether we still believe in the American people’s capacity for self-government, what we mean when we affirm that all American citizens are equal, and whether we tacitly believe there are distinct classes of citizens and that American government at the highest levels is an elite occupation.” Essentially, the debate is: Should ours be a government “of the people, for the people, by the people,” or should it be an oligarchy ruled by an elite minority? Libertarians like myself obviously prefer the former.

This debate was on full display when the idea was floated to crown General Washington king after the revolution. The framers of the Constitution struck a balance between the two opposing viewpoints by giving us the “people‘s house” (the House of Representatives) and the Senate, supposedly populated by sage old gentlemen. The debate is still alive today. Sometimes it is ridiculously obvious, such as when the panting press refers to the Kennedys as “America’s Royal Family,” but usually it’s couched in rhetoric about “experience” or “qualification.” It is behind the visceral dislike of Sarah Palin, as well as the visceral fondness for her.

The three other principals in this race- Obama, Biden and McCain- have not experienced the same questioning of whether or not they’re “qualified” to be president as has Palin. (Although, with only two years in the Senate, Obama has had his “experience” questioned somewhat.) That’s probably because the three men rose through “proper” channels to attain their societal rank. Although our ideas about our ruling elite are somewhat more egalitarian than the royal houses of Europe, there are still rules and velvet ropes controlling entry into that class.

Barack Obama attained his stature in the ruling class through a common avenue: Ivy League education. Obama attended Harvard Law School and Columbia University. In Ivy League schools, students are not only instilled with a sense of elitism, they are given the social networking to back it up. A self-described underperforming student, Obama’s vice president nominee Joe Biden didn’t go to an Ivy League school but Syracuse University College of Law, still none too shabby.

Family tradition charted a much tougher route into elite circles for John McCain, via the U.S. military. Although the military is mostly comprised of working-class heroes, McCain served in the Navy not as a common sailor but as a third generation Naval officer with an admiral daddy and a legacy ticket into the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. (This is not to denigrate McCain’s military service. Even when you’re a legacy, wartime service is no walk in the park, as McCain’s four and a half years of torment at the hands of the enemy demonstrates.)

Despite their varied paths into the ruling class, all three men ended up in the ultimate repository of the cultural elite, the U.S. Senate. Only the Presidency itself is more coveted by the elitists, which explains why so many Senators chase that office like ravenous dogs every four years.

Sarah Palin’s resume stands in stark contrast with the princely pedigrees of the three “distinguished gentlemen” of the Senate. The daughter of a teacher and a secretary, Palin received her college education in small, financially manageable bites at places like North Idaho College and the University of Idaho, far from the ivory towers of the Ivy League. She has never been married to a U.S. President (unlike certain other lady members of the ruling elite) but is married to an oilfield roughneck and commercial fisherman. Being rolled-up sleeves jobs like small town mayor, Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commissioner, and Governor of Alaska, the political positions she’s held were important but are not highly regarded by the national elite.

Although I like Palin, there is no v.p. pick in the world who could make this libertarian vote for the authoritarian McCain. But I do find myself drawn to the idea of Sarah Palin, because the “common man” in this election is the woman.