Jul

Shining Light on the DISCLOSE Act

Justice Brandeis famously stated that: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” What does this mean for politics? It is a simple statement that a transparent government, a government without back rooms (smoke-filled or not), is best for the people. This is the motto of , an organization dedicated to the making both government and the electoral process open, honest, and public so that corruption has no dark corner to take root in.

Their organization, which I have highlighted before, is one of the main organizations behind the DISCLOSE Act scheduled to be voted on later today. Yesterday, in a lead up to today’s vote, they listed several things you should say to anyone opposed to this bill. As one of just 7000 active participants in their “Public Equals Online” campaign I am in a unique position to provide counter-point to their claims about the DISCLOSE Act.

Why, when the Supreme Court specifically said “transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages,” are you opposed to a bill that does that?

I am not opposed to bringing transparency into the electoral process, but at what cost? Should the NRA and the Sierra club both be able to stay in the dark and not provide that same transparency to the electorate? Schumer’s new version still allows the NRA and other organizations from the reporting requirements.

How can you claim that the DISCLOSE Act violates first amendment when disclosure regimes have long been upheld as constitutional? Campaign contributions, candidate, party and PAC expenditures and lobbyists disclosures have long been upheld as the legitimate methods of deterring corruption and the appearance of corruption in the political process.

The DISCLOSE Act violates the 1st Amendment rights of speech by trying to carve out exceptions to that speech by specific industries and types of companies. The DISCLOSE Act explicitly prevents 1st amendment rights of foreign-held companies, companies with government contracts greater than &10 Million, or companies who received TARP monies (understandable regulations) and, oil exploration companies with holdings under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The oil restriction is a blatant blocking of 1st Amendment rights and should be stricken from the bill before it even gets to the floor, sadly it won’t because Members of Congress want to use the Gulf Oil spill for political gain.

What is the basis for claiming the bill treats corporations and unions differently? The House and Senate bill ensure that unions and corporations are subject to the same transparency provisions, including disclosure of contributions to electioneering communications and stand-by-your-ad requirements. Under the Senate bill, both corporations and unions are required to report transfers among affiliates, including dues, greater than $50,000.

The disclosure portion of the bill is great, organizations should have to report the top donors and in fact all donations received by the organization. But because of the very structural organization of corporations, trade associations and unions, this only effects the corporations and trade associations whose member donors and companies would need to be disclosed allowing for union dues members to not be reported. This is a travesty of policy that happens too often. A great concept become politicized and corrupted. Also, the affiliate reporting for unions was just barely added by Schumer and isn’t present in the already passed House version.

How is the public served when a shadow group can conceal everything about itself and still influence elections by pumping unlimited amounts of money into campaign ads? The interests of the messenger can easily be disguised by giving a group an innocuous or even misleading name. At its core, the DISCLOSE Act is designed to lift the curtain off of such groups so that pubic can judge the veracity of a campaign ad and the credibility of the speaker.

The interests of the public aren’t served by shadow organizations pumping money into elections and if that were the only goal I had I would be right in line with the Sunlight Foundation. However I look at the broader picture of the bill and after shinning light on it, I see so many things wrong.

At it’s core this bill is a good idea, and a decent attempt, but so much needs to be surgically removed before it becomes healthy for the public good. Congress should be doing its job and working for the good of the people, not working for their own pet projects and partisan politics.

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42/Capitalsim/DC/Policy/Politics

Jul

What does it mean to be a Liberal Republican

When last I declared my political identity as a “Liberal Republican” I had a few people (Namely Ben and Julie) ask me what I meant by “Liberal” so here I go.

I see that there are at least two distinct groups that claim the title Liberal or Progressive. There are the Liberals that originate from the classic liberals like Locke and Hobbes and there are the modern Liberals who originate from Marx. So for the purposes of discussion I will borrow Nate Silver’s term and call the Marx Liberals “Radical” for their reliance on revolting against the status quo, and the Locke Liberals “Rational” due to their reliance in reason.

My basic philosophy in politics, life, and religion is all about continuing progression. To be apathetic and stagnant is to die. I imagine that all of history humanity has been traveling along a giant escalator, the only problem is that this escalator is going down while we are trying to move up.

In aggregate we have grown and climbed higher even with mistakes and pitfalls along the way. I live in a mindset that new things should be tested and applied as they make sense in relation to past events. I don’t believe that we should stick with something solely because it’s tradition and the way we have always done it. After all, that “tradition” had to start somewhere and it usually started with someone bucking the conventional wisdom of the day.

At the same time I recognize the need to not charge forward blindly with untested ideas simply because they aren’t the status quo. Basically if something works then keep it but be malleable enough to adjust it when something better comes along. Survival of the fittest doesn’t mean the strongest but rather those most able to adapt over time.

For example a radical liberal is an enemy to capitalism. They see it as a way for the top few percent to exercise tyranny over the majority. A conservative sees capitalism as the only way to create freedom and equality of merit – a free market produces the best results. As a rational liberal I look at capitalism as a great system when it is balance. I look at the hubris of man and disagree with the right, that a fully free market is a balanced system. So I believe in a guiding hand of regulation.

I identify myself as a Liberal because I am not a conservative who thinks that the status quo should be maintained. I identify as a Republican because the current radical liberals are all grouped with the Democrats and I also don’t think that the status quo needs to be obliterated into chaos either.

I look at both sides and am willing to find solutions to problems on either side. Some say that means I am corruptible, others that I lack convictions and others still that I am lukewarm water that should be spat out. But it is who I am and the beliefs I hold true. How about you? Do you have strength of convictions that cause you to avoid fully open-minded discussion or are you a Liberal Republican as well?

664 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

42/Capitalsim/liberal/Locke/Marx/Republican

Jun

Sunlight Disenfects Corruption: Or Why I Like 17th Amendment

I have been researching political candidates in Utah’s Senate race I hear a lot of talk of Amendments being brought forward as if they are likely to get passed. The politicians are making gestures of empty promises and they know it. Mike Lee is in support of repealing the 17th Amendment. For those of you who don’t have their pocket constitutions ready to whip out, the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished the practice of electing Senators from the state legislatures and instead put power back into the hands of the people.

When the framers originally created the constitution there was a strong fear of mob rule (or the tyranny of the Majority) and so to safeguard against this, the original constitution created the upper house of Congress (The Senate) in such a way that those elected would be chosen by the sharpest minds no the loudest ones. Now while there is merit in that concept – given our age of soundbyte elections – I strongly oppose all this talk of repealing the 17th Amendment for 2 reasons.

1st is Corruption. Corruption was such a fear of the Founders that they wrote in safeguards against it into the original Constitution. The Emolument Clause explicitly prevents Members of Congress to, after leaving congress, take a job in which their was a pay raise given while they were in office. This was to protect against the corruption that they saw upon looking at history. But what they didn’t protect against was people like William A. Clark who I refuse to honor with the title of former Senator.

In 1899 William Clark wanted to become a U.S. Senator and so he spent time literally buying votes in the Montana State Legislature so that he could get elected. You think that Blagojevich is bad, William Clarck litteraly gave bags of cash, $10,000 in a personal, monogrammed envelope got him a vote for the U.S. Senate. His corruption is precisely what the Founders were trying to prevent throughout the Constitution. Mark Twain wrote of Clark,

He is said to have bought legislatures and judges as other men buy food and raiment. By his example he has so excused and so sweetened corruption that in Montana it no longer has has an offensive smell. His history is known to everybody; he is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs. To my mind he is the most disgusting creature that the republic has produced since [Boss] Tweed’s time.

Clark’s defense was to state “I never bought a man who wasn’t for sale”

The second reason I oppose the repeal of the 17th Amendment is because it simply would be a really dumb thing to do. People hear it and it sounds like a great idea. After all, the Beltway status-quo are what elect Senators so why not get their influence out of our elections and force the elections to be focused and maintained by the individual states. I understand what their goal is and I commend it. Senator Bennett was ousted largely by The Club for Growth. And they are located where? a 10 minute walk from my office just off of K St. People are right to be concerned that their elections are being highjacked by “grassroots” movements from outside the state and that candidates are being funded by special interest lobbies.

Most of these repealers are Republican (all I think but I haven’t checked) and this is also a push from the TEA Party. but if you look at what would actually happen on a national scale should it be repealed you would actually have a larger majority of Democrats in the United States Senate. Why? because a majority of the State legislatures are controlled by Democrats who will elect other Democrats. The very people who feel disenfranchised by Government will become even more so if the 17th Amendment is repealed. (see Nate Silver’s article for more comprehensive data)

I do recognize the legitimate concerns from both sides of aisle. Elections are becoming more and more corrupt and influenced by outside special interests. Honestly it is the easiest way to get a law in your favor passed. So rather than channel the energy into an attempt at repealing the 17th Amendment that will ultimately fail (Senators aren’t going to voluntarily give up the reigns of power) we should focus on better campaign reform laws. Laws that shine light into contributions to campaigns and regulations that a certain % of the money raised in an election has to come from inside the state. I don’t have the answer to the problem but I do know that repealing the 17th amendment will only cause more problems. Perhaps we should try something else.

For more information on shining light into elections please visit The Sunlight Foundation and/or their campaign Public Equals Online. They are a phenomenal organization that could use your support of time, money, or just plain spreading the word online.

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17th Amendment/42/DC/Elections/Politics/Sunlight

Jun

Series 42: Immigration

This post is going to focus a little less on the Liberty vs Authority dialectic I have been using and switch instead to a simple policy discussion. Yes I know this makes me a total wonk. In the past week I have had 5 discussions with people on immigration reform so I have had time to temper my argument and find an even better middle road than I held during the election. But before we get into that, lets look at the multi-faceted problem. I will focus mostly on undocumented immigration via our southern border even though a large percentage comes from other countries.

1. Our border has immense security. In the past decade we have tripled the border patrol and yet decreased undocumented immigration by about 5-10% There must be a reason why citizens of Mexico are willing to cross over barbed wire, dig tunnels, jump fences, and swim the Rio Grande, literally risking life and limb to come to this country. Something needs to be done to either make it easier for these people to come here legally or the deterrent needs to be increased.
2. Right now there are roughly 5 million undocumented families. This means that one or more parents are undocumented immigrants while the children and/or one spouse is not. This totals to roughly 13 million people living in the US that would be directly affected by any immigration reform. We need a solution to deal with these fellow humans.

I posit that we really need to radically change immigration laws in this country to allow those who are willing to enter this country, find work, and follow the laws to enter regardless of how many people that brings into this country. We need to eliminate the caps for immigration. To counter the influx of documented workers we need to ensure that these people are contributing to society through a job. Some member of their immediate family household must have a job within 1 year in order to keep worker eligibility.

We also need to beef up enforcement and crackdown on undocumented workers who are working in the drug and human trafficking trades by increasing the punishments for them while doing all we can to stop them from entering the country illegally.

When I look at the fact that our border has been tripled with only an insignificant drop in illegal immigration it illustrates a political vacuum. The conditions in Mexico must be so horrible that crazy Texans who feel that they have a license to shoot on site are better than their current conditions. That tells me that in order to, long-term, curb illegal immigration we have a responsibility to help improve Mexico so that it no longer is such a place that the people desire to flee.

Now what to do with the 13 million? Some will tell you that these people are simply mooching off of the land, sucking the benefits out of our society and social programs without paying a dime in taxes. That is categorically untrue. Nearly all Federal and most state social relief programs are denied to undocumented workers and illegal immigrants pay roughly 65-70% of taxes that a normal US citizen pays, without enjoying many of the same benefits.

So what do you do with people who fled their nation in search of something better, people who crossed deserts, rivers, and mountains to reach America, the land of opportunity? I say that we take the undocumented workers and inform them that they have 6 months to register with the authorities. They will be fingerprinted and background checks will be run based off of those fingerprints. Any major crime will be investigated before these formerly undocumented workers can obtain a green card allowing them to stay in America and work towards becoming a citizen given that they can find gainful employment. Drug and Human traffickers will be extradited back to the Mexican penal system.

Sure these people “broke the law” to enter this country but the law was broken before they violated it. The law is designed to protect unalienable rights and the current system of immigration is destructive and needs to be revised, altered or abolished. Our forefathers are great because they recognized a destructive law and government and stood up, in their duty, to abolish the “absolute Despotism.” We have a duty as human beings to do the same for our neighbors. I support Liberty over Authority and call for human decency to govern over us instead of a tyrannical government.

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42/Authoritarian/DC/Immigration/Libertarian

Apr

Series 42 The Liberty of Net Neutrality

As some of you may noticed I launched my personal website and tied this blog into it. Among the pages is my bucket list where I have listed the Rudyard Kipling Poem “If”. This poem is my guiding script. It is what I turn to for vision on what I should be doing and how I should be acting in any given situation. However it doesn’t lend itself to politics too much.

At least for me, it doesn’t give me any insight into discovering a balance between authority and liberty. I am still searching for my personal baseline and hope that through this series of posts. As I discussed on the comments on my Facebook crosspost of this article my Series 42 posts are more along the lines of “What would I do if I were in a position of power? How would I balance authority and liberty?” Lets get into it for Net Neutrality.

Essentially Net Neutrality is the concept that all content traveling through Internet Service Providers (ie. Comcast, Verizon, Quest) needs to be treated equally and remain private. Back in 2008 the FCC stated that all content must flow equally regardless of filetype or size. Comcast challenged this because they want to be able to enforce a model that gives them control over the traffic. The Washington Post has further analysis here

There are two main principles at play here Equality and Privacy.

Equality: This concept of net neutrality states that regardless of the type of file, be it a text document, a YouTube video, a Netflix Streaming video or a piece of music, should be treated the exact same. This means that ISP’s cannot charge more or downgrade priority on the heavier traffic like movie files. This is important because if ISP’s have the power to regulate content by type they can also wield this power to influence other items. Comcast could increase the speed of Hulu streaming videos (it is acquiring NBC afterall) while downgrading the speed of NBC videos creating an imbalance. This is not a stretch of the imagination as ISP’s have already used this power to shutdown various filetypes from downloading.

Privacy: I believe that we have an inherent right to privacy. We may give up that right by using services like Google, but that is personal choice (this video from Google explains a lot about how they treat your privacy). However while we are giving up our privacy to google by using their services, should we also give up that privacy to ISP’s? If you were shipping a box via FedEx to your buddy Alex you are relinquishing your privacy to Alex. Should FedEx have a right to see inside, analyze, and keep a copy of your package? Should Comcast be able to do the same thing when you send your information to Google?

As a blogger and a user of the Internet I can’t but help want Net Neutrality. I want my content treated equally and securely kept private. To me this is a principle of liberty, particularly when the Internet is used as my primary source for news and politics. I do not want access to that content being controlled by a corporation, by anyone for that matter. However in order to maintain this principle of liberty we need to have regulation in the ISP market.

In this crazy version of politics I am ideologically favoring Liberty, however I must realistically side with government regulation in order to maintain that liberty. So my dear readers (*ahem Ben) Is this a Libertarian approach or an Authoritative approach?

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42/DC/Net Neutrality/Politics

Apr

Series 42: Authority and Liberty

Living in DC I am constantly surrounded by theories and ideas. And as a moderate I find that the biggest unanswered question comes down to the great question. Namely, do you provide incentives to or restrict the choices of individuals in order to shape their lives, or do you let individuals make their own unregulated choice leaving them to face the consequences?

On the political compass this is seen not as an ideological shift of right and left (Conservative or Liberal) as much as a shift of up or down (Libertarian or Authoritative).

On any given issue I am torn between two poles. Do I allow individuals to make their own decisions consequences be damned? Or do I, feeling that I know what’s better try and guide things in that direction? As an overall ideology I don’t think that I can make that distinction at this point in my life. I can try to look at it on a case-by-case basis, but I feel the need to solidify my underlying ideology.

The TV show LOST seems to be demonstrating this principle on some level with two characters, Jacob and MIB (literally Man in Black), who have two philosophies on people. Jacob believes that people can discern between Good and Evil without his help and intervention and MIB who believes that Evil is inherent to humanity. The viewpoints of these individuals aptly demonstrate the dilemma that I face: Jacob the Libertarian & MIB the Authoritarian.

Lets use some real life examples to demonstrate this dichotomy.

Example #1:
The marriage of Same-Sex Attracted Mormon writer Ty Mansfield is set to take place on May 22nd. Ty and Dani met 13 years ago before falling off the grid until around 2008 when they became Facebook friends. In December of last Year they spent 2 ½ weeks with each other and not until the middle of week two did Danielle even realize that Ty was actually dating her. Then a few days later, the last day before Ty went back down to Texas, they DTR’d. That same weekend, Danielle thought that Ty was the man she was going to marry.
To most of the world 3 weeks of dating doesn’t create a marriage, it creates (as one of my coworkers put it) a lustful affair. Add to that that this will be a mixed-orientation marriage and you can see why many of the links on my blogroll are lighting up in controversy over this.
I take a different approach though. I realize that I don’t have all the information. I am not Danielle or Ty and so how would I know what was best for them? How can I presume to have the answer for them? In this regard I have to take a step back and have a Jacobean perspective and let Ty and Dani make their own choices.

Example #2:

California is proposing legislation to legalize marijuana. The argument most often used is “It’s my body and I can put what I want into it. Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?” This is the very answer that leaves me asking, “Do I let you make your own choice to smoke marijuana or do I think I know better that you and prevent you from doing so?”
By looking beyond individual rights and instead looking at how a greater effect I am left with a feeling that the legalization of marijuana would greatly deteriorate the state. It will increase tax revenue which could in-turn ease the tax burden on small business owners providing jobs to the unemployed. It will shrink the black market and lower some crime rates and thus save lives. But in my mind it will also infect (yes, infect the citizen’s with a substance that I feel alters their ability to make rational decisions.
Again I don’t have all the information and so, do I take the Jacobean perspective and let them decide for themselves or do I take the MIB position and control their ability to make that decision? In this case I feel the need to continue to criminalize marijuana despite its ineffectiveness, despite its financial cost. Because I think I know better I am willing to shape policy to restrict individual rights.

So where does this put me? Am I Authoritarian? Am I Libertarian? Does it even matter if I find my balance point between Jacob and MIB? How does this all relate to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers? To Religion? To Gay Marriage? To Education? To Net Neutrality? To the Wisdom of the Crowds? To Life the Universe and Everything?

I don’t know!

For me, All that’s known is that I don’t have a solid ideological platform.

Yet!

This will be a developing series of posts and, because they seek to answer the life the universe and everything, it has been dubbed as 42.

764 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

42/Authoritarian/Church/DC/Homosexuality/Libertarian/LOST/Politics

David B Baker

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