Emperor's Rants and Observations

News from The Associated Press

Evangelicals generally expect their clergymen to use Jesus’ name whenever and wherever they lead prayer. Many conservative Christians say cultural sensitivity goes way too far if it requires religious leaders to hide their beliefs.

We have brave men and women fighting and dying in foreign countries in what are essentially religious wars.  Isn’t it about time that we quit fanning the flames of intolerance with these silly and meaningless superstitious ceremonies?  What about the idea of freedom FROM religion, which is every bit as important as freedom OF religion.  What is wrong with people going to their place of worship to pray in any form they want for our country and leaders?  Why do we need to have a public spectacle that is likely to offend more people than it serves?

I have nothing against people of faith, ANY faith.  I just wish they would keep it to themselves and out of our government and laws.

Alaska’s Assets in Sudan Targeted.

Lauren Tibbitts-Travis, a 16-year-old sophomore at the local high school, plans to use her Alaska Permanent Fund dividend to pay for college.

But she sees a problem — a problem of conscience.

“Who wants to go to college on blood money?” she said.

Tibbitts-Travis is among supporters of a bill two state lawmakers from Anchorage are sponsoring to force managers of the $38 billion Permanent Fund to dump the stocks of companies doing business in Sudan, the African country whose government has been blamed for genocidal killings in the Darfur region.

First off I’d like to offer a tip of the cap to the 16 year old young lady Lauren Tibbitts-Travis. Regardless whether we agree with her opinion or not, it’s gratifying to see young people like her engaged in our society. Too often the news we read about teens is of the bad variety. Nice reminder that there are still a lot of good kids out there.

The Sudan/Darfur situation is absolutely appalling which I think we all agree on. I don’t believe any of us would want to support the Sudan Government in the midst of this genocide. The US government already forbids US Companies from doing business in Sudan, so all we are talking about is a handful of foreign companies. Something I’m not too excited about anyway. 22 million out of 38 billion is a minuscule percentage (%0.0006 unless I fat fingered the calculator), so I don’t really buy the cost argument against dumping those stocks.

The real question is whether we want our Permanent Fund Managers to invest in a socially conscious manner. I know that Rep Gara has set the limit at “one genocide” but the truth of the matter is that if we start down that path, there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. What if we find that we are investing in a company that is conducting stem cell research? Or a company that is using child labor? How about companies that do business in Iran or North Korea? Wouldn’t all those be considered good targets by some not to invest in? Or even my feeling about investing in any foreign company?

Other states are already investing in socially concious ways. For instance, a core group of state treasurers and controllers are moving their investments into environmentally friendly and clean tech funds, while thinking big about climate change.

I think it’s a discussion worth having, but I think we need to discuss the topic of “Socially Conscious Investing ” of the Permanent Fund, not just this one set of businesses doing business in Sudan.

I’ve done a little reading at Alaskans For Clean Elections. I’ll admit, I warming to the idea. Like many others, I was put off by money going to candidates that I wouldn’t support. But now, I’m beginning to see it another way. The money is really being paid to improve the system. If public financing can improve the system to produce better candidates, better representatives and better government, it’s something we should at least consider.

Over the years I’ve known a number of people that would have made excellent elected officials. One of the things that stopped them was needing PAC and Party support. I think public financing could give us better people and more diverse candidates.

It follows if we can improve the candidates, then we should see an improvement of our representatives as well. Perhaps more frequent challengers to the incumbents, I still like term limits though.

A few election cycles down the road we could see the majority of both houses elected in clean elections. The majority of both houses beholden only to the citizens they represent. Imagine the possibilities. So yeah, I think it may be worth it invest in the system to improve results.

I’m going to do some reading at Arizona’s Citizens Clean Election Commission website. Looks like a good place to start.

With or without “Clean Elections” I have another idea I’ve been harping on here.

Excuse me if you’ve read this before.

A candidate may only accept donations from registered voters eligible to vote for that candidate.

I would be more likely to support a candidate that would make a commitment to that ideal.

I don’t see the “Freedom of Expression” argument here. We already place limits on what the candidates can legally accept. I’m just suggesting that we use my phrase above (or similar with the intended meaning) as THE rule for donations to candidates. Unless you mean that you want to remove all restrictions on candidates in the name of freedom of expression.

Bottom line is that we have to do something to change the status quo.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 – 1955)

Alaskan Best Search – Campaign Finance and Election Reform

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

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