Emperor’s Rants and Observations

Clouds — Not Storm Warnings — Enter Forecast for Alaska’s Stevens and Young - New York Times

And while campaign contributions play a role in the controversies dogging Stevens and Young, there is little doubt they will enjoy formidable financial advantages in their re-election bids. Stevens as of March 31 had $663,000 cash on hand in his Senate campaign account, while Young had a whopping $1.9 million in reserve.

It’s time to do something about campaign financing and elections. Seriously.

I have voted for Stevens and Young every chance I’ve had since 1978. Back in the day, you may have even caught me working on their campaigns. I have gone to them for help with federal agencies, and their staffs have always responded promptly and courteously. I appreciate all they have done for Alaska and the country. Particularly I appreciate all of the money they have brought to Alaska as funding for so many projects, services and agencies. I’m not going to criticize them now for doing what I have praised them for in the past. Their longevity in office as provided them with powerful committee assignments and leadership positions that have served Alaska well. I’ll be very disheartened if the accusations, innuendo and controversy surrounding them now, turn into actual criminal charges or worse yet, convictions in the future.

That being said. It’s time for them to go. It’s time not because of anything they have or haven’t done. It’s time because the system is broken and the only way the system gets fixed is by removing the road blocks to radical change. Those road blocks include those that benefit most from the status quo like Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young.

Make no mistake about it, nothing but radical and sweeping changes at all levels of government will be sufficient to fix what is wrong and return the power to the people.

Whats wrong.

• The current practice of using seniority as the method for making committee and leadership assignments effectively shut out new ideas and new perspectives.
• Incumbents have an unfair advantage over their challengers. There is no way that a challenger can compete with an incumbents ability to raise campaign funds. An office holder has the ability to help now whereas a challenger may only help in the future.
• Campaign contributions from businesses, groups and political parties dwarf those of individuals. Whether they admit it or not, politicians are influenced by those that support their campaigns. Businesses, groups, and political parties don’t donate huge amounts of cash out of any sense of civic duty, they do it because they want something from the politician, namely their support in return.
• Political Parties have usurped power by restricting ballot access making it much more difficult for third party or independent candidates with their new ideas to get elected.
• Campaigns have become so expensive that candidates (particularly challengers) must spend a good amount of time and effort into obtaining contributions from those with the deepest pockets. This eliminates many potential candidates that find this practice distasteful.
• Too often voters are presented with choosing between the lesser of two evils.

The Fixes. Ten points of change.

• If the President of the United States is limited to two consecutive terms, every office holder at any level should have the same term limits.
• Campaign contributions restricted to individuals eligible to vote for the candidate. No cash or in kind contributions from ineligible to vote individuals or any entity including businesses, organizations, political action committees or political parties.
• Remove political party designations from ballots, registrations and voter information pamphlets.
• Make ballot access the same for every candidate for office. Nomination by petition with 1% of the registered voters in the election district the candidate is running for.
• Replace primary elections with instant runoff.
• Prohibit candidates from accepting campaign donations prior to one year of the date of their election.
• Campaign contributions left over from a campaign must be converted to personal income or donated to charity, not held over to the next campaign.
• Add “None Of The Above” as a ballot option.
• Change election cycles so that 25% of every legislative body is up for election each year.
• Bar politicians from working as a lobbyist for two years after they leave office.

There is no chance of these changes being made as long as we keep electing candidates that benefit from the current system. You can bet the political parties and political action committees will fight till their last dying breath anyone that would dare propose such sweeping changes that would eliminate their ability to buy elections and politicians. Any organization that was created to further these ideas by supporting candidates would run afoul of the very idea of returning the power to the individuals, not groups.

So what to do? We act as individuals and ask candidates to check off yes or no on each of the ten points of change. For myself, I’ll simply write in “none of the above” if there isn’t a candidate that supports all ten points of change. Others may choose to decide to vote for whichever candidate supports the most, or perhaps there are some “must have” points for others.

The bottom line is that each of us can be a catalyst for change, but we have to be willing to turn our backs on the existing power structure. That will take real courage of conviction to vote against short term benefits that status quo offers.

Technorati Tags: Alaska, Politics, Ted Stevens, Don Young, Campaign Finance Reform, Election Reform, Ten Points of Change

Agriculture in Alaska has had a rocky and tumultuous history with government involvement going back to 1897. From the “Evolution of the Cooperative Extension Service in Alaska“:

The earliest reference to this work is found in a report by Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson: The first appropriation “to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate and report to Congress upon the agricultural resources of Alaska, with special reference to the desirability and feasibility of the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in the Territory,” became available July 1, 1897

Throughout the history of Agriculture in Alaska long, vulnerable supply lines have been the primary justification for expending government funds and resources on development and support of agriculture. Not much has changed in 100 years. In fact, Alaskans may be more vulnerable to supply disruptions today. Man made or natural disasters could cut off supplies for an extended amount of time. Rising fuel costs could push the cost of food, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat and poultry, up to the point where many Alaskans couldn’t afford to feed themselves without assistance.

So what is the right and proper role of government in supporting Alaskan agricultural self sufficiency? At one extreme we have the school of thought that it should be left completely to the private sector and allow the free market to determine the winners and losers in agriculture. This would be fine in principle, but ignores the fact that there is no incentive for the free market to protect Alaskans from disruption in the supply of food. Unlike other segments of the private sector farming takes years in some cases to bring a product to market in competitive response to high prices. The size of investment required to start a farm would be too great of a risk for the private sector. At the other extreme would be heavy government subsidies, price supports, ownership, control, and management of transportation, storage and processing facilities. Government simply is not structured to take on the responsibilities of the private sector in this manner. This is a recipe for waste and mismanagement. I think it’s evident that there is a role for government to play in Agriculture in Alaska some where between these two extremes.

Like many other issues in Alaska, there is a lack of vision and long term goals for agriculture in Alaska. Perhaps the most valuable contribution that government can make would be to bring together all of the stake holders to create that vision and set goals for the industry. Their doesn’t appear to be an governmental entity that is charged with that function. The Alaska Board of Agriculture and Conservation (BAC) should have their function expanded to include overseeing the process of developing long term goals and identifying areas where the state may assist private industry in attaining those goals through loans, research, marketing support and coordination with other government agencies and services. If government is going to be involved it has to be in a coordinated, planned support role. Not just tossing money around in the hopes that something will stick and work.

Since Queen P has fired and replaced the members of BAC, this would seem to be a good time to consider expanding their role. However, the first order of business has to be to address the Matanuska Maid crisis. Closing the dairy prematurely could be the tipping point for the demise of agriculture in Alaska. There will be plenty of time to figure out what went wrong and why the Creamery Board decided to close the dairy so abruptly. Right now we need to protect the fragile agricultural industry while moving as quickly as possible to get the dairy into private hands without the constraints of being a government owned entity. Saving agriculture in Alaska depends on propping up the dairy industry in the very short term - three to six months. That should be sufficient time to provide longer term solutions not requiring significant government cash support.

Technorati Tags: Alaska, Matanuska Maid, Dairy

adn.com | money : Governor gets a frosty reception from Mat Maid

“We can’t have a whole entourage waltzing through the dairy,” he said. “You just can’t do that unannounced like that and come in. I don’t care what anyone says. The fact is everybody is treated the same. I don’t care whoever you are.” Palin and the board, which oversees operation of Mat Maid, have been sparring over the decision to close the dairy.

…give me a minute while I compose myself. I have been having laughing fits everytime I think of the Good Queen P sitting in the lobby of a dairy waiting for permission to enter the STATE OWNED DAIRY. I don’t care who you are, that’s funny rite thar.

Ok. So where to go from there.

It really doesn’t make much sense to throw good money after bad. I’m sympathetic to the farmers and the employees of Mat Maid. It also concerns me because any disruption in the supply lines into the state like another Teamsters strike, and we could be without fresh dairy products which isn’t a good thing.

What can we do to keep the farmers and dairy in operation without wasting more money. What could be profitable?

Alaskan Premium Ice Cream.

HotLicks Homemade Ice Cream in Fairbanks has a proof of concept operation. We connect them with Authentic Alaskan Native Made Syrups and Alaska Wild Berry Products. We cut a deal with Princess Lodges and Tours to be the exclusive Ice Cream source for them. We get it into the finest restaurants around the state. We get it into the duty free stores wherever Alaska Airline flies. We package 1/2 pint sizes for sale on Alaska Airlines flights like they do with Alaskan Beer. Alaskans passion for Ice Cream is legendary. We should capitalize on that status and market our own brand of Premium Ice Cream. Let’s get this thing going, who do we contact at Made In Alaska, Alaska Grown (sell it at the farmers markets around the state) and Buy Alaska. Perhaps the Alaska Small Business Development Center can help develop a business plan and find investors or a loan. Are there any grants available for the Dairy Farmers that may help?

Perhaps we need to look at this as an opportunity rather than a problem. Clearly a new approach is needed, and trying to bully the creamery board didn’t work out so well. Perhaps an approach like Cooperative Community Marketing would work where we involve a wider circle of stake holders. It’s part of Alaska’s history, and is worth saving if we can. I’m ready to help if others are interested, you can email me.

Young dismisses tradeoffs for cash claim

“Every story that comes out is the same, with different players and different projects,” he said. “When you are the chairman of the largest committee in the House, and a senior member, and in charge of writing a $290-odd billion bill, it’s a guarantee that you are going to be raising more money than other less senior members. It’s also a guarantee that there will be a plethora of projects for people to look at and pick apart. This is a recycled story.”

Unfortunately Congressman Young is absolutely correct.  This is the never ending story. Until we stop voting for candidates that accept contributions from any source other than their constituents, the story will continue.

Young isn’t the issue here.  The integrity of our elections and representatives across the board is the issue.  It’s not just the Republicans.  Democrats stuff their campaign pockets with cash from special interests just as much as the Republicans.  If you looked closely at the contributions and votes of Democratic members I’m certain you would see the same type of pattern.  It’s the way the system works.

The system is corrupt.  It takes big money to run a campaign to win.  So candidates are forced to whore themselves out to special interest groups if they have any chance of raising money to compete.  Don’t fool yourself, or buy into the nonsense that contributions don’t buy influence.  Of course they do, and any politician that says otherwise is flat lying.  Perhaps lying to themselves as well.

Technorati Tags: Alaska, Politics, Don Young