Instead of Breaking Maps, Let's Go By Proportions

My rants against the gerrymander are often enough that it's one of my key reform arguments since the old days when this was a different blog.

So whenever I see someone else out there offering a suggestion on how to kill the gerrymander, I pay attention.  This time it's Noah Gordon over at The Atlantic suggesting that we can use Proportional Seating - a parliamentary system used by a lot of European democracies - as a way to end the evils of the gerrymander:

What is proportional representation, or PR? It’s a system that aims to gives parties the same percentage of seats as the percentage of votes they receive—and it might be able to end our gerrymandering wars.
Every ten years, state officials are charged with redrawing district maps to account for population shifts in the Census. In practice, incumbent lawmakers often turn into cartographers with the power to change maps to suit their needs. The problem is epigrammatic: Rather than voters choosing their legislators, legislators are choosing their voters...

...Even with good, non-partisan intentions, it’s getting harder to draw single-member districts that get a party’s seat share to approximate its statewide vote share...

In the United States, those geographical areas could be the states. Imagine Oregon sent five members of the House. Under PR, if Democrats got 60 percent of the statewide vote and Republicans got 40 percent, three Democrats and two Republicans would be elected to the House. Or if the two big parties got 40 percent each, and the Green Party won 20 percent of the vote, the Greens would send a representative to Congress. The largest states could use several smaller electoral districts, so that, for example, someone from San Diego isn’t represented only by northern Californians.

There are different ways of determining which candidates from the parties make it in. Most European democracies use what's called an open-list PR system, where each party nominates (at most) as many candidates as that district sends to its legislature. Voters get a single vote for a candidate that also counts for that candidate’s party.

Think again of five-member Oregon. One popular local Republican wins 40 percent of the vote, and two other Republicans win 10 percent each. All three go to Congress because the party won three-fifths of the state’s votes. The top Libertarian candidate receives 20 percent. He or she, too, goes to Congress. No Democratic candidate gets more than 8 percent of the vote, but because the total number of votes cast for Democrats adds up to 20 percent, the last congressional seat goes to the first-place winner among them...

Proportional voting won't affect the Senate: each state still gets two (although this disproportionately favors the smaller states nowadays).  Proportional will affect the Presidency in terms of the Electoral College, with regards to the numbers that the Congressional seats can add to the table.  Especially if we follow through with my idea that we currently have too few Congresscritters for the larger populated states (we haven't increased the representation since the 1920s, during which our population's tripled).

As Gordon notes in his essay, Proportional voting has its drawbacks: it's more complex than the current Winner-Take-All district voting we currently use, and that geographically large states - California and Texas, obviously - will need to make extra effort to ensure all their representatives don't come from one corner of their state (you don't want all of your officials coming from Los Angeles).

But the benefits of Proportional are great: above all, every vote really does matter.  Gordon notes "Under the current system, a candidate who receives 49 percent of the vote and a candidate who receives 5 percent of it in a two-way House election receive the same reward: none. This provides little incentive for Democrats in rural Georgia to vote in House elections at all, for example."  Under Proportional, the odds improve that your Party/field of candidates can win enough seats to matter to where you NEED to get out your vote (as well as your like-minded neighbors).

Proportional does something else: it breaks the logjam of having two dominant national parties - Republican and Democratic - that are polarizing the entire political spectrum.  With a Proportional system, the lesser parties - Libertarian, Green, or any Moderate/Centrist party that can rise up - now have improved odds to getting at least one seat per mid-sized/large state where the percentages favor those getting 10-15 percent of a vote.  They won't overtake the established machines - the Senate and Presidency still favor a two-party, Winner-Take-All electoral system - but the so-called Third Parties can break the frozen static noise of the national political landscape by forcing a fractured House into forming coalitions like they do in the European democracies.

Picture a U.S. House with 435 seats to share, meaning you need 218 seats to hold a majority.  Now, say the Republicans hold only 207 seats to the Democrats 205.  There's 23 seats belonging to various Third Party Congresscritters, say 8 seats are Libertarian, 6 seats are Green, 1 is a radical Right Wing faction, and the remaining 8 are independent non-party rabblerousers.  The Republicans could form a coalition with the Libertarians, some of the independents, and that one Radical and retain control, but the Libertarians will insist on major trade-offs that would otherwise be poison to the GOP (including giving their members key committee chairs, and pushing a more Libertarian agenda that could rile the nation against the Republicans who will shoulder the blame...).  If the Republicans can't get enough of the factions to join in a coalition, the Democrats could team up with the Greens and enough of the non-party members to reach that 218.

An off-shoot of this will be the interchanging of party members: it will become easier for disgruntled elected officials to switch parties with similar bent without losing their support back home.  This gives other parties the chance to gain effective, organized leaders who know how to campaign and govern.  As the Third Parties gain in stature, the probabilities of needing to form coalitions - which can de-radicalize the partisan nature of politics as more moderate factions gain value - will increase.

The greatest argument against Proportional will be the confusing nature of it at the national level.  It will also require an increase in the number of elected seats in order to ensure every state, including the smallest ones, to have enough seats to share.

But this shouldn't be a problem: as I've noted earlier, we haven't increased our number of Congressional seats since the 1920s.  We're now under-represented at triple the current population and with a greater disconnect between the voters and the Congress.  The real trick, in my estimate, is accurately gauging how many seats we should really have.

We've got a lot of small, mid-sized populated states.  There's 8 states with just one Representative, 5 states with two, 3 states with three, 6 states with four.  Double-digit representation doesn't kick in until you're two-thirds of the way through the state count.  By comparison, there's only 2 states with 18 seats, 2 states with 27 seats, then Texas at 36 and topped by California with 53 seats.  California has roughly one-sixth of the entire nation's population, and you'd like to think they should get enough proportional seating compared to all the smaller populated states that can barely total the same number.

Bumping every state up to have two House seats no matter what helps with the smaller states, but then it's a question of how to increase from there.  A simple, barely thought-out idea would be to break it down by sections: bottom five states have two seats, next bottom five states get three, next five states get five (going by prime number), next five get seven, next five get eleven, so on.  But that doesn't reflect the disparity of populations when we get into the top ten/fifteen states, where one state can be double the number of the next-sized state (California almost doubling that of Texas) and thus deserves a specifically-tailored seating count.

The only other problem would be genuine representation.  Proportional seating will be an advantage to the candidates but what happens if the results have every candidate from one city or one region of a large, diverse state?  As Gordon noted, it'll be up to the states - or federal rules, especially if we use an amendment to make this work - to designate special districts (most likely cities) to ensure at least one representative from each district gets elected.  It will favor the urban over the rural, but that's what representation is supposed to do: favor the people who actually live there.

The other thing about representation will be the gender and ethnic, which is an existing problem already (especially the under-representation of women in Congress).  It will be up to the parties to ensure they get representatives that reflect the population's diversity (it ought to be like that already, although such "outreach" efforts by the Republicans towards women, Blacks, Hispanics, and minorities in general have been painful at best).  Without exact district maps to create minority-majority districts, we run the risk of losing Black and/or Hispanic representation.  Proportional may fix that by encouraging voter turnout anyway, and having enough voters back minority candidates at a state level to ensure healthy representation (it would beg the question if moderate or independent voters will vote with such diversity in mind).

As far as breaking the gerrymanders, Proportional is the simplest method of doing that without getting into the partisan divides struggling over "fair" districting (which still gets violated/ignored) or "impartial" committees (which can still get gamed).  Getting Proportional to work, however...

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Calling Out to the Florida Groups That Get Amendments On Ballot: I Got Ideas.

Okay, so I wanna get three amendments on the ballot for 2016 here in Florida.

• First, if we can get an amendment that requires any Florida election for local, state, and federal offices to remain open for balloting until at least 55 to 60 percent of registered voters can submit their ballots.  Voter turnout sucks otherwise.
• Second, if we can get an amendment that puts a None Of The Above option on each local and state elected office, and require that if the NOTA gets the most votes that a special run-off for that office be held with brand new candidates (and that NOTA remains on the ballot even for the do-overs just in case the parties decide to try to nominate someone worse).
• Third, if we can get an amendment that guarantees every legal resident of Florida has a right to vote unimpeded by these -ssholes running around screaming 'voter fraud' when there's no f-cking voter fraud.  Okay, so the wording on this one needs to get cleaned up a bit...

It's doable under the Initiative Petition system.  The state allows an outside group - an established non-profit that can hold petition drives - to gather a certain number of signatures across the state (has to be state-wide, not all from one area) within a set time period (deadlines are a b-tch) for submission and approval by the state's State dept. (with approval/oversight by the courts to ensure the wording is easy-to-read and fits within legal parameters).

Thing is, I'm looking for the groups who are most capable and active in getting these initiative petitions going.  I think I find them on the websites but when I try to contact or send email, there's no reply back.

I tried FIVOrg but haven't heard back... if they emailed me I hope it didn't get filtered to the Spam folder, lemme go check...  And for that "None of the Above" option there was a Floridians for Political Choice group from more than a decade ago, but that's CLOSED probably defunct...

I might not be looking in the right places.

So if any of these petition groups are surfing the Intertubes and they come across this blog entry, can I just say DUDES AND DUDETTES CALL ME I GOTZ IDEAS.

If not, I'm gonna need to see if any of the kids I knew from high school that became lawyers can help out set up a PAC...

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Early Voting In Florida 2014, October to November. GET OUT THE VOTE, PEOPLE

Early voting for the General Election (Nov. 4th) begins today here in Florida.  Polk County (the state officially begins Oct. 25th, but some counties can go earlier if they want).

This is it.

This is the election to get Rick "No Ethics" Scott out of office, and to vote Charlie Crist back as a Governor we can trust.

This is the election to vote against every Republican on the ballot to break the corrupt power this party has inflicted on our state the last 15-20 years.

This is the election to vote FOR our state's environment in Amendment One and to vote FOR our state to begin medicinal marijuana in Amendment Two and to vote AGAINST the rigged court-packing disaster in Amendment Three.

Early voting is simple.  It's for people who can't get off work or know they won't be available to vote on Election Day itself.  Voting hours (in Polk County at least) are 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Saturday (yes! You can vote on Saturday in case you're working Mon-Fri always and forever), and 10 AM to 6 PM on the one Sunday October 26th.  Each county will list locations where they will have polling places that allow anyone from any part of the county to show up to vote (it does not require a specific precinct for you to use).  Last day of Early Voting in Florida will be November 1st (Saturday).

Bring every possible form of ID with you that shows a photo of you with Elvis shaking your hand, your primary address, blood type, birth origin, dog license cat license fish license, anything and everything in case you run into some a-hole trying to deny your RIGHT to vote.

Turnout for voting is key, people.  Small turnouts mean only the extremist candidates and extremist parties win.  The more voters, the more likely the common-ground common-sense votes carry the day.

GET THE VOTE OUT, PEOPLE.

And for the Love of God DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Danke.

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Florida 2014 Election: Sample Ballots and Reminder (UPDATE)

Just got mine in the mail from the County Elections office.  (UPDATE) If you need a Sample Ballot for your county, PLEASE visit the state map listing the county Elections' offices.  Each site should have a ballot on display for you to view.

Some of you may be voting by mail.  Some of you should plan ahead and vote during the EARLY VOTING cycle between October 20th to November 1st.  Some may be traditionalists and wait until the Day itself, first Tuesday in November which is November 4th.

The key thing is to VOTE.  GET THE VOTE OUT FLORIDA!  I don't wanna see 39 percent or 42 percent turnout this midterms.  I wanna see 76 percent!  I WANNA SEE 90 PERCENT TURNOUT PEOPLE.  Your vote, your voice, your POWER.  VOTE DAMMIT.

But, you might say to the computer screen, I don't know what to vote on!

Well, then, glad you asked, lemme help you out here.  Two basic rules:
1) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN and
2) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE FOR THAT DAMN CROOK RICK SCOTT.

That doesn't help us much, Mr. Blogger you say can you speel it out for us?

Sigh.  Fine.  Let's go through the ballot topics.  Federal first:

1) There is no Senate seat contested (per the 2/3 cycle), so wait until 2016 to vote Marco Rubio out.
2) Any Congressional district you are in that has a Republican candidate and a Democratic candidate, VOTE DEMOCRAT.  Any district you are in that has a Republican candidate and a Libertarian candidate, vote for a valid Write-In Candidate.  Any district where there's a Republican and a No-Party-Affiliate candidate only, vote for the NPA (unless you know the NPA personally as an -sshole, in which case sue the state for emotional damages).  Any district where there's a Republican candidate unchallenged, curse the Old Gods and The New and volunteer to campaign next election on the ballot because dammit you gotta vote that crooked Bent-For-Destruction GOP out of power.

If you're in District 9, vote Alan Grayson.  District 10, vote Alan Cohn.  District 17, vote Will Bronson.  District 3, vote Marihelen Wheeler.  District 12... District 12... BILIRAKIS IS RUNNING UNOPPOSED?!?!  DAMMIT DEMOCRATS, YOU COWARDS.  Whadda ya gonna do, let Bilirakis sit there in office until he retires to let his son inherit the seat the same way Gus inherited it from Mike?!  30-plus years of the same family running a little fiefdom in North Pinellas/West Pasco?!  DAMMIT.

Anyway, any seat where there's a Democrat and a Republican, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE DEMOCRAT.  Let Gus represent the GOP all on his loneso... whadda ya mean there's other unchallenged Republican seats?!  /headdesk

Grrrr.

Next up, the Governor and state official races:

1) VOTE CHARLIE CRIST for governor.  He did a decent job as governor before (made efforts to protect the environment, played fair with the electorate, vetoed a bad and unpopular education bill), not a partisan hack like Scott nor a pocket-lining greedhead like Scott.
2) For Attorney General, vote George Sheldon.  Bondi has been a disaster as AG for Florida: pursuing bad anti-gay and anti-voter court rulings, failing to go after utilities for unfair price hikes, and refusing to pursue many of the conflicts-of-interest cases floating around our state government.  She's been Scott's partner in crime than representing the people's interests.  Sheldon can and should go after the utilities above anything else and will protect the rights of voters and the citizenry over the needs of any partisan in office.
3) For Chief Financial Officer... aaaaaaaauuugggggghhhhhh.  There's a Republican and a Democrat on the ballot, but the papers are complaining about the Democratic Will Rankin's lackluster campaigning and are noting that the Republican Jeff Atwater has actually done an honest job of things in Tallahassee.  Don't do this to me, Florida Dems...
4) For Agricultural Commissioner (which also covers consumer services for some reason)... dammit.  Democrats have another lackluster guy in Thad Hamilton running against Republican Adam Putnam who again has a solid record per the local papers.  Thing is... dammit dammit dammit, cannot vote for ANY Republican at any level of office, it just encourages the party wingnuts to be worse...  On the bright side, the Agriculture slot has a Write-In ballot space.  Find a viable write-in candidate and file a protest vote!

Now for the State legislative offices, both Senate and House:
1) What part of FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN have you not noticed yet?
2) For the Senate seats, there are almost no challenged seats, so there's few if any choices.  Of the 20 seats for election, there are only 5 challenges, meaning two Democrats and 13 Republicans are returning to Tall Hassle unopposed (!).  If there are ANY of those seats with a Write-In ballot choice, I recommend you fill in that Write-In as a protest vote against this ridiculous incumbency.
3) For the House seats, again there are few (less than 30 percent of them) if any challenged seats.  Again this is an insult to the voters that our state-level parties (especially the Democrats) are COWARDS when it comes to forcing incumbents to answer for their legislative sins.  Again, if there are ANY seats with a Write-In ballot choice, fill in the Write-In ballot as a protest vote and slap some fear into both parties.

For the Judicial Retention votes:

Remember last election, Rick "No Ethics" Scott and his buddies tried to actively vote out judges in order to fill those vacancies with his pro-Scott cronies.  It was the first time ever there was a partisan effort against the judges.  As long as Scott is in office, VOTE TO KEEP THE JUDGES (It helps that none of them up for vote have been embarrassments or crooked on the bench).

For the State Amendments on the ballot:

As I wrote earlier, we're down to three so it keeps it short and simple.
VOTE YES ON 1 to protect our wetlands and environment and water supply.
VOTE YES ON 2 to allow for medicinal marijuana and provide an end to the disastrous War on Drugs.
VOTE NO ON 3 to stop Rick Scott from preemptively packing the state courts with his cronies.

For any county-level or city-level tax referendums (referenda? damn my Latin which plural form fits...):

Vote YES on any tax hike program because F-CK YOU Grover Norquist.  Granted, this is more a knee-jerk reaction to the tax-cutting frauds dominating our discourse, but dammit too many of our public services at the county level are getting slashed and burnt here.  Okay, I'll relent: if the tax hike in question is a blatant attempt at lining someone's (a rich corporation) pockets, then don't vote for it.  But if it's for needed social services, please vote YES.

I think there's a rail funding program for Pinellas County on the ballot.  DEFINITELY VOTE YES on Greenlight, Pinellas County: our metro areas need alternative transit options.

Also, for the Pasco County Mosquito Control Board?   Seat Two has four candidates and I don't know a single one of 'em.  You're gonna have to vote for who you know, Pasco County.  (Update 10/25/14: there have been two people commenting that they found my article trying to figure out who to vote to be their Mosquito Hunter Expert, upset I didn't make a recommendation.  So I did some research to dig up any kind of newspaper list, and so far the Tampa Bay Times Recommends list... doesn't make one either!  Sorry, folks, you're gonna have to ask around about which of the four - Matthew "Skeeter" (?) Abbott, Bill Law, Niko Tzoumas, or Jerry Wells - to pick...)

Okay, voters reading this blog, that should help you make your informed decisions on Election Day/Early Voting/Mail-in Balloting.

GO VOTE.  Tell your friends to vote.  Tell your family to vote.  Tell your co-workers to vote.  If your co-workers say they can't vote during the workday, encourage your co-workers to vote on the weekend (including a Sunday October 26th!) during the Early Voting period.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.

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Florida Ballot Amendments 2014: So Few Yet So Important

Another election cycle here in Florida.  Another round of Florida state amendments on the ballot for 2014 for the voters to decide.

Unlike previous ballots like 2012 and 2010 and 2008, this year we've got only three amendments to consider.  Could make for the smallest ballot sheet in recent history.  Deal is, these three are some of the biggest issues to vote on I've seen in ages.

Amendment One: Land Acquisition Trust Fund

The wording on this makes it so Florida has "to acquire, restore, improve, and manage conservation lands including wetlands and forests; fish and wildlife habitat; lands protecting water resources and drinking water sources, including the Everglades, and the water quality of rivers, lakes, and streams; beaches and shores; outdoor recreational lands; working farms and ranches; and historic or geologic sites, by dedicating 33 percent of net revenues from the existing excise tax on documents for 20 years."

What's at stake is funding for a state-founded land trust dedicated towards overall environmental management and protection.  Funding for that trust had been slashed back in 2009, and it seems the current legislature leadership isn't in the mood to find replacement revenues.

If you've never been to Florida, or just moved here, or if you've lived here for 20-40 years and just plain forgot, this state has a very fragile ecosystem and not a lot of room for growth.  Geographically, we're a mid-sized state but population has us as the fourth-most.  That means a lot of our limited resources are getting pulled in a lot of directions, above all our water.  Drinking water is important, as is our lawn maintenance and agricultural needs for water.  Not to mention our state's reliance on tourism with our impressive chain of beaches, rivers, lakes, and parks.  The risk of pollution to key waterways - especially the Everglades - is always high.

I don't buy what I've seen of the opposition's arguments: that this would force a constitutional solution to what normal legislation ought to handle, that it would cause an unbalanced budget, that it would kill job-creating funds.  On the first point, our current legislature hasn't been in any rush to resolve this matter, so we've got nowhere else to go to resolve it.  On the second, we have other ways of balancing the budget IF said legislature opened their fricking minds to the options available: besides, the Fiscal Impact committee that measures the cost benefits of all amendment proposals can't say if this will hurt or boost revenues.  On the third point, any time a Republican says anything will affect "job creators" I don't believe them, because their idea of "jobs creation" is "more money to the rich".

The overall purpose of this amendment is to protect our state's environment and conserve our resources in a way to ensure ourselves and future generations can LIVE HERE.  With regards to Amendment One, I vote YES.

Amendment Two: Medical Marijuana

This one is the doozy, the headache.  The major bout on the general election card this November (in some ways it's a bigger fight than the hotly contested Governor's race between Crist and Scott).  Just arguing over any kind of decriminalization of a drug... this can get messy.  So I'd like to start off simple.

This amendment sets out to allow "the medical use of marijuana for individuals with debilitating diseases as determined by a licensed Florida physician. Allows caregivers to assist patients’ medical use of marijuana. The Department of Health shall register and regulate centers that produce and distribute marijuana for medical purposes and shall issue identification cards to patients and caregivers. Applies only to Florida law. Does not authorize violations of federal law or any non-medical use, possession or production of marijuana."

What this means: marijuana can be used for medicinal purposes for individuals suffering in such a way that only marijuana's effects - usually pain-killing, appetite stimulus, and specific treatment for illnesses like glaucoma - can help them.  The use can only be signed off by licensed state doctors and caregivers (people who can lose such licenses if they're careless or law-breaking).  Treatment and distribution centers have to register and get managed by a state's oversight office, the Department of Health.  The amendment spells out that federal law, which still classifies marijuana as a major - Class I - narcotic, cannot be violated.  That means recreational possession or use of marijuana is a no-no.

Florida isn't the first state to pursue a medical marijuana protocol: both Colorado and Washington are the more recent states that have even legalized the manufacture and sale of marijuana (in Colorado's case even for recreational use).  There are 17 other states with some level of medical marijuana rights, or a decriminalization of pot use to where those arrested aren't jailed for it (they're fined and/or sent to outpatient treatment).  For what it's worth, the decriminalization efforts in other nations - Portugal for example - demonstrates that decriminalization does not lead to massive drug abuse (most drug abuse dropped in fact).

I do admit this amendment is a slippery slope towards an overall decriminalization of marijuana: if effective in showing the use of pot as a medicinal herb, the next argument is obviously how pot is "safe" as a recreational drug.  This is where the debate get worse.  Because there are a lot of people who fear the potential spread and abuse of marijuana as a recreational drug.  Because the keystone of our nation's massive War On Drugs has been a fight against marijuana use across the board, medicinal or otherwise.

Here's the thing: the War On Drugs has been a disaster.  The government is spending billions every year towards fighting it, it's led to the militarization of our police force to abusive levels, and it's led to the packing of our prison system at the state and federal level with a ton of non-violent drug offenders at a human cost of making them more hardened criminals.

It's been forty-plus years of the official start of the War On Drugs and the amount of drug abuse has not abated.  There is an aspect of human behavior we're just not going to be able to overcome with draconian policing and arrests.  The sad thing is that we've seen this all before: we called it Prohibition.

We tried policing human behavior under the good intentions of ending rampant alcoholism, which was viewed as a blight upon society.  The temperance movement in the United States got to be pretty powerful, and during an era of major social and political reform got the 18th Amendment - basically banning all alcohol - passed by 1920.  Rather than end the consumption of beer, whiskey, and other alcoholic drinks, all this did was drive the manufacture and consumption of alcohol underground, into speakeasies and gambling dens and criminal hideouts (and into country clubs, people's homes, other places where social types gather).  Criminal gangs that lived on the edge of society suddenly ran a profitable black market industry that boosted their financial and political clout.  Street wars erupted between these gangs.  The courts were flooded with Prohibition-related cases that clogged up our legal system for years.  Corruption became rampant.  In less than 14 years, we had to pass the 21st Amendment - and if you understand how hard it is to amend the U.S. Constitution, you'll understand how serious a problem this was - to repeal the 18th - we've never repealed an amendment since - just to do something to combat the violence and corruption.

Since then, our nation's fight against alcohol abuse has been more restrained and focused.  We go after direct risks such as Driving Under the Influence of alcohol (since drunk driving is a severe risk to everyone on the streets).  We place chronic drinking addicts into probationary counseling services - rehab clinics and group therapy - rather than jail.  We teach our kids in schools about the dangers of alcohol, and we have laws banning the sale or sharing of alcoholic beverages to the underage.  It's not perfect - we still have alcoholics, and we always will - but it's a good-faith effort, and it's more an effort to treat and save rather than jail and punish.

Instead of treating drug abuse as a crime, we ought to be treating it as a medical/health care issue.  We ought to focus more energy and funding into treatment and counseling, which have been effective means.  We ought to treat the overuse of drugs the way we treat alcohol addiction: as a medical problem, not a crime.

I'm not a drug user.  I don't use marijuana (although I've known people who have).  I don't smoke nicotine cigarettes (which is more lethal than marijuana yet regulated by the feds).  I don't drink any alcohol, not even wine (again, in excess alcohol can be lethal, yet is still regulated by the feds).  I don't want to see any substance abuse of any kind for kids under 18 (in alcohol's case, the age limit is 21).  These are personal preferences for me.  Yet I don't see the severe harm of marijuana.  The death rate from pot overdose is non-existent: the amount of ingested THC (the chemical that makes marijuana the weed we know today) needed to overdose is thousands of times higher than the regular rate of ingestion.  Nearly every pot smoker just smokes one a day: it would take 20,000 of those rolls in one sitting to kill one smoker.  Even pot brownies - arguably more potent - doesn't have enough THC in it to cause death (diabetes, though...)

I honestly don't see why pot is viewed as a Class I danger drug up there with heroin, which is deadly (along with cocaine and oxy, both of which deserve to be Class I but aren't): if anything marijuana ought to be classified a Class III alongside the synthetic THC drug Marinol.

I'll grant you one thing: The most severe problem with marijuana is psychological, the impact it has on the brain.  It can induce depression and cause memory loss, and it can adversely hinder kids' development during their growth into adulthood.  Any artificial drug/stimulant is going to have its' negative effects.  Alcohol can cause cirrhosis of the liver and affect depressive mood swings.  Alcohol in excess also causes violent mood swings that lead to a lot of other deaths (if anything, marijuana users tend not to trash the bar while high).  Smoking nicotine kills the lungs, causes cancer, and has been a major burden to our health care system.  Yet we regulate those drugs as best as possible to prevent kid and teen abuse: we regulate their sale and manufacture to try and reduce the health risks.  We can do the same with marijuana.

And that's not even getting into the legalization of industrial hemp, a cousin to the marijuana plant that's also been banned because of its' tenuous relationship (even though hemp barely contains any THC worth bothering).  At least our national government is making some sensible strides there.

For all these reasons - above all that this amendment is one more steps towards ending a War On Drugs we've already lost and that we can start treating marijuana use in a sensible productive fashion - I am going to vote YES on Amendment Two.

Amendment Three: Judicial Vacancies

This is the legislative-induced amendment proposal allowing the governor to set nominations for judicial vacancies, based off of a nominating committee list of no less than three names and no more than six.  Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it?

Hidden in this amendment is the change making it possible for a current sitting governor to nominate a candidate for a judicial vacancy before that vacancy even happens (the "prospective" part of the amendment's wording).

Say Rick "No Ethics" Scott is still the sitting governor if this amendment passes.  And he's there in office 2015 and he's looking at the State Supreme Court and sees there's three judges facing mandatory retirement in 2019, four years away and during the tenure of the next possible governor (due to term limits, Scott can't run for 2019).  Scott can use the power granted by this proposed amendment to nominate in 2015 three people to fill those eventual vacancies in 2019 even though those judges are still sitting there doing their jobs.  Worse, these nominations can't be overturned or blocked by the next governor, who would want to have the right and authority to nominate his/her own candidates for the office.  In fact, all seven seats on the Florida court can have their "vacancies" filled by a governor who'll be long gone from office by the time all of them are retired out (voluntary or not).

To call this "rigging" or packing a court is an understatement.  This amendment can easily grant a governor who'll be long gone from office the power to put people on any judicial seat without repercussion or any input from the future governor(s), even twenty years down the line.  It denies future voters the power to vote into office a governor that can represent their interests in handling of legal matters relevant to the state in those future times: we'd be stuck with a judge nominated ten or fifteen years ago whose political bias - and yes this is a thing to worry about - won't reflect the current mood or needs.  It doesn't matter if this is a power that can go to governors like Lawton Chiles or even Reubin Askew (arguably the greatest, most honest governor the state of Florida ever had): this is a power that can be abused without limit and can create long-standing animosity and acts of retaliation that would cause decades of legal chaos.

This would be like nominating a replacement Library Director for Broward County Libraries, even though that county system just hired a director and isn't due to retire for another 27 years or so.  In the meantime for those 27 years of waiting, the library system can easily change services, require different resources, respond to new needs for the public that calls for a new brand of leadership that the replacement Director just isn't suited to fill.  This denies the library system the chance to hire at the moment of need the best possible candidate, someone who is versed in that future: instead they're stuck with a rigid, outdated Director more than likely to pursue goals and agendas no longer relevant nor working.

This smacks of Rick Scott and his buddies in the state legislature looking to pack the courts with their pro-corporate, anti-government cronies as soon as possible: the potential shifts in population - even in aging old Florida - is making the Sunshine State more Democrat/Blue by 2020, when even gerrymandering can't save the conservative wingnuts.  Fearing the future, they're hoping to use whatever power they have in the present to rig the game their way for the foreseeable future.  This is an amendment that needs to go down in flames.  For the Love of God, VOTE NO on Amendment Three this year.

And, just one more thing: GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT PEOPLE.  And for the LOVE OF GOD, please vote for Charlie Crist as Governor... get Rick "He's a Goddamn FRAUD" Scott out of office RIGHT NOW.

I thank you.  Stay focused this November, people.

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Open Primary Petition For Florida

While looking at this year's proposed state amendment items, I looked at the list of Active (those not yet filed) amendments floating out there and came across one that I feel deserves a chance for a vote.

A petition for Open Primaries, which allows non-party voters to participate, and to have the primaries competitive between candidates - rather than candidates within each party - setting up the top two vote-getters regardless of party to run for the general election.  It's similar to the primary system they use in California right now.

There's a lot of reasons to support an primary system like this.  It encourages the moderate elements of a party to run an alternative candidate to the (most likely) hard-value candidate the more extremist elements are pushing for.  It would encourage candidates across the board to appeal to the broad base of voters rather than the specific (usually extremist) base of a specific party.  It encourages opposing parties to at least bring in a challenging candidate for a gerrymandered "safe" district that could appeal to the independent/no-party-affiliate voters stuck in that gerrymander, and who could survive the primary as the second-choice candidate to then campaign more fully for the general (that this could weaken gerrymandering overall is another positive).  It gives an independent or third-party candidate a chance to step up.  This does run the risk of more extremist candidates regardless of party to survive to a general election, but competition in my humble opinion is vastly better than a non-competitive district just sitting there with a safe incumbent coasting along doing nothing to appeal to the people (and the crazy 99 times out of 100 should filter out: I trust the majority of voters to do the right thing).

So I'm all for this petition getting to a ballot as a voter referendum.

Here's the deal: You gotta be a resident of the state of Florida, and must be able to verify your address and stuff.  You can't go signing other people's names to it: you can and should ask your friends to get on board and sign for this amendment proposal so we can have it for a vote for 2016.

Here's the link to the MoveOn petition site.  The group promoting this - Florida Independent Voting - has a printable petition you can submit (which I think is the more legitimate process: paperwork counts).

So... can I get the seven people who visit my blog to get their Florida relatives to sign on? (hopeful grin)

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Is This The Time For a Constitutional Convention?

For any of the readers who've been following my political blogging since Day One, you might remember I started off with the idea of blogging over a specific issue: the need to reform our federal government through any number of amendments that would fix things.  I even had the address as reformamendment.blogspot.com...

Of course, that all changed: I ended up ranting about current politics and election woes (GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT) more often, so I re-named the blog (see the banner) and re-created a new address (that old reformamendment one no longer takes you anywhere).

But the interest in reforming/fixing our federal system of governance is still here, which is why I perked up when I saw an Atlantic article asking "Is it time for a Constitutional Convention?":

In January, Gallup found that Americans from across the political spectrum picked the failure of “government” as the top problem facing America today. The vast majority link that failure to the influence of money in politics. Yet more than 90 percent of us don’t see how that influence could be reduced. Washington won’t fix itself, so who else could fix it?

It turns out the framers of our Constitution thought about this problem precisely. Two days before the Constitution was complete, they noticed a bug. In the version they were considering, only Congress could propose amendments to the Constitution. That led Virginia’s George Mason to ask, what if Congress itself was the problem?...

Which lead to the alternative solution: allowing a 2/3rds number of states to call for a convention to submit amendments for consideration.  Which is the point the article writer - Lawrence Lessig, one of the major constitutional scholars out there - is getting at.  He's openly musing over the possibility of enough states getting together for the express purpose of fixing Congress through the amendment process.

I've seen other calls over the years - Larry Sabato has been relatively consistent on the matter - for amendments, and I've joined in on the cry every so often, but I've been reluctant more often than not about pushing amendments as a solution because of one thing: a lot of the proposed amendments are f-cking disasters waiting to explode.

Lessig's article links to another article in Slate, highlighting the movement going on within conservative-led states to get this convention idea off the ground.  One of the primary amendments being pursued is that damned monster known as the Balanced Budget Amendment.  You know, the amendment Republicans conveniently ignore when they're in control of all three branches of government (between 2001 to 2007) but then trumpet and proclaim as our salvation whenever there's a Democrat in the Oval Office (especially now with Obama as President).

I've railed against that damnable balanced budget amendment before: the damn thing is rigged the wrong way.  Every conservative suggestion for a balanced budget involves making it impossible to ever raise tax rates or even create new taxes to, you know, actually pay for sh-t government needs to spend on to make this nation work.  They require a supermajority to raise a tax, yet require a simple majority to cut a tax: they make it too hard to do one thing and too easy to do the opposite, essentially ensuring that the easy thing ALWAYS gets done while the hard (yet sometimes NEEDED) choice never even gets considered.  This doesn't balance anything: all it does is force the government to take different actions, such as massive spending cuts to achieve that "balance" in a false and painful way.

And that's not the only one: that Article V Convention movement - named after the provision allowing it to happen - is also focused on passing amendments allowing Congress to override Supreme Court decisions (and preventing the President from overriding that override with a veto), essentially killing off a checks-and-balance system between the three branches of the federal government; an amendment abolishing the 17th Amendment that provided direct election of U.S. Senators, essentially taking away an individual voter's right and something fully ignoring the corrupt history of state-nominated Senators; an amendment allowing up to 34 states to override any federal laws or regulations deemed "exceeding an economic burden of $100 million," effectively destroying the Commerce Clause under Article I and pretty much giving those states license to kill off FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Civil Rights and Medicare laws, and everything ever born from those two eras.

These aren't exactly the amendments we need: we need genuine reform in federal government such as putting an end to corrupt campaign finance laws that have basically given the uber-rich direct access and control of our elected officials; we need to set tighter limits on a President's power to wage unlimited war and waste trillions of dollars without oversight or accountability; we need an amendment granting us all better voting rights and protection from intimidation and refusal, especially making voting a universal given for all citizens and making it easier to vote period.

Lessig's argument that a state-pushed Constitutional Convention is weak tea: he's arguing for a movement that is not working in the best interests of the American people.  He may have an honest intent - any potential for reform that Congress is unable to even consider is an honest one - but he's backing the wrong damn horse, and he's siding with the wrong team here.  The team he's arguing for is looking to UNDO every genuine reform our nation's had since 1900.

There's an even better solution than this, Mr. Lessig: it's called voter turnout geared towards removing every obstructionist vote in Congress in both the House and Senate.  It's called throwing the damn Far Right Wingnuts OUT of Congress, period.  Every failure of government the last 10-15 years can be laid at the Republicans' doorstep: the refusal to balance their own damn budgets from 2001 until 2007, creating the massive deficits we live with today; the refusal to work with Obama, deciding on obstructing every effort he makes to force history to label Obama "a failure" forever; the failure to maintain ANY oversight of the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading to massive human rights abuses along with literally billions of dollars vanishing into thin air by 2005.  With no-one from that tenure ever being held accountable for the fraud, theft, lies, murder...

We need to vote out a Republican leadership in Congress that DOES NOT lead.  That will go a long way to breaking the damn logjam giving us a broken Congress in the first place, where we won't need a constitutional convention to fix any of that.

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Changing the Senate AND Changing the Veep

I mentioned earlier I had some ideas about fixing the Senate, especially when we consider how undemocratic that body of legislature is today.  What had been a balancing force between states and regional politics has altered into a logjam of political ideology, because the number of states have grown and the population difference between large states and small now unwieldy.

At the same time, I've had some issues regarding the Vice President, that it is for all intents an archaic office with only three functions: being the tie-breaking vote for the Senate (as President of the Senate), service as replacement/back-up to the sitting President, and of course protecting the space-time continuum.

So, like all mad scientists, I figure why not solve both problems with one solution?  (either that or create a giant monster, but for that I need a government grant)

First off, let's look at the office of the Veep: why does it exist, really?  Back in the beginning of the Constitution's formation, the Vice President was the second-place runner-up for the Presidency.  The Roman concept of co-consulships had appealed to the Founders, but they figured a true executive had to be in one person, so to the winner..  The consolation prize for getting second place was getting the President of the Senate, a body that was designed for even-number membership no matter what, meaning the need for a tie-breaker vote.  The Vice-Presidency was there to establish a chain of succession in case of emergency (which would get tested by 1841), and to grant the Senate body a slightly better rank of value over the House (and the Speaker of that body).

However, party formation f-cked that idea up by 1800.  The Founders didn't count on party factions trying to run on two-person tickets to secure both the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, creating a major constitutional crisis that had to be fixed with the Twelfth Amendment.  Now, the runner-up didn't get the Senate tie-breaker seat: the President got a loadstone around his neck in the form of a Veep who had no constitutional office within his own administration while the Senate got someone who answered more to the White House than the Capitol.

The thing is, a Vice President isn't really needed.  In terms of creating a succession chain, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment already establishes the means of determining who can replace the President if death, illness, impeachment and/or criminal prosecution happens.  And it can be tweaked as needed (for example, there is an ongoing push to revamp the succession among Cabinet members to have more national-security type offices - such as the newest one Homeland Security - get priority over other Secretaries such as Education or Housing/Urban Development).  What IS needed even if a VP is no longer part of the Executive branch is a tie-breaking vote for the Senate.

What's also needed for the Senate is a means to counter the unbalanced power that the smaller populated states - such as Wyoming or Montana or Delaware - have over the larger populated states - California and Texas and New York et al.  A handful of senators from enough small states can thwart the political will of senators from larger ones: in essence, a minority of the population can completely stymie the interests of the vast majority.  While the rights of the political minorities ought to be protected, that shouldn't come at the expense of the majority... EVERY... FREAKING... TIME.

More senators elected from the larger states might help counter that: it's been suggested before, so hello Professor Larry Sabato.  Another suggestion was to make ex-Presidents into permanent standing senators representing the whole nation: while it gives former Prezes something to do, it's not exactly a democratic answer (and having a Senator Dubya or Senator Jimmy Carter doesn't look too helpful, ya)... but the idea of nationally elected senators is more promising.

Nationally-elected senators would have the appeal and support of the nation's majority of voters (meaning those residing or sharing in the values of the larger states), providing a counterbalance to those senators from smaller (or more partisan-leaning) states.  Creating these new offices would also provide a start-point for those politicians tempted to run for higher national office (ahem, President) who may not be able to appeal at their residential state's level but at the national level (for example, a moderate Republican residing in Alabama able to run, or a centrist Democrat from Vermont).

Ergo, we can do this:

• Drop the Vice President office.  Presidential campaigns are now free to pursue a life of political fulfillment without juggling the demands of party factions.
• Create electable offices for the U.S. Senate for nationwide representation.  Make it an odd-then-even number of open offices to be filled for each of the Senate election cycles: three open seats for the first cycle, two (or four) open seats for the second, and then two (or four) open seats for the third.  You end up with seven (or eleven) National Senators.
• Have it so that the incoming Senate body votes between the incoming National Senators (who will not vote, as they are the candidates) for the office of Senate President (what the VP is supposed to be).  This is where the odd total number works: the appointed Senate President does not sit on committees but presides over the body, enforces decorum, and casts any tie-breaking votes as needed.  This might also provide wacky hijinks if say the Senate body is mostly one party but the national senators from another: trying to see who gets picked as Senate leader would be fuuuuunnnny (or of course create another constitutional crisis, but then again every action has its own unplanned consequence).
• Every new incoming Senate gets to vote on the Senate President.  It's possible for that person to just serve the two years: it all depends on that person's performance and/or the makeup of the new Senate.
• Insert the Senate President into the chain of succession as part of the Twenty-fifth.  Placed below the President and above the Speaker of the House, where the VP currently has the spot.  This means whoever gets chosen by the Senate to serve as Senate President has to fulfill the office requirements (over 35, resident of the nation 14+ years, must be a natural-born citizen).
• The remaining nationally elected Senators get to sit on committees and vote as regular members of the Senate.

Viola!  The National Senators replace the office of Vice President, and nothing gets lost.  The President no longer has to worry about a Vice President that could serve as a loose cannon or represent an inter-factional force against her (or his) own interests.  The Senate gets to choose their own Senate President who got elected on his/her own terms.  And the interests of the nation's majority has a better chance of getting heard and resolved.

Add this to the other proposal of increasing the number of senators elected from the ten or fifteen most-populated states (Sabato argues for 2 additional, but I feel 1 addition fits within the election cycle), and we reduce the damage that can be done by a small-population Senator even more.

This is a do-able amendment idea that can fix a lot of what's wrong with the U.S. Senate: the other fix - getting rid of Secrets Holds and weakening if not eliminating the filibuster altogether - has to be done by the Senators themselves.

To quote the wise man: What do you think, sirs?

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Florida Ballot Amendments 2012: The Big No

Welcome back to yet another installment - it's 2012 last I checked the calendar - of "We're Voting For WHAT This November?"

You might notice at the title of this blog entry that the subtitle is "The Big No".  That's because, up front, I wanna say that all eleven proposed amendments (minus an 12th that got kicked off the ballot by the state Supreme Court) on the Florida ballot this election are ones pushed by Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott and his GOP brethren in the state legislature.  They're known as "Legislatively Referred Constitutional Amendments" as different from advocacy-based ones (called "Initiated Constitutional Amendments"), just so you know.

All of these proposed amendments are what the wingnut-led Republican legislature and fraudster governor want.  If they want them, WE NEED TO SAY NO TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM.  Very simple this year.  JUST SAY NO to the 2012 state amendments. 

That said, here they are (link to Ballotpedia which provides the references):

Amendment One: Health Care Amendment

This is the same one that was meant to be Amendment Nine back in 2010, but got kicked by the courts for being poorly worded and confusing.  This time they brought it back, but the intent is the same: the GOP are trying to nullify the ObamaCare requirements to mandate that people and/or businesses to purchase some form of health care insurance as a means of reducing overall health care costs.  Which is something even the United States Supreme Court upheld this summer.  Trying to put this into the state constitution is useless: the Supremacy Clause would immediate cancel this.  This is more a publicity stunt, and worse yet an attempt to bring back nullification (John C. Calhoun continues to rot in the deepest pit of Hell for this, among other sins) as a political issue.  As said before, VOTE NO.

Amendment Two: Veterans Property Tax

This is similar to a tax-break amendment offered up in 2010, but whereas that law was for veterans who were residents of Florida when they served this one covers all disabled veterans currently living here regardless if they were citizens of other states during their military careers.
This is arguably a sensible bill: it's a benefit for veterans who served this nation, and especially for those disabled and needing less taxes to burden them.  Unfortunately, this doesn't really benefit a whole of people at the moment, the amendment is being offered at a time where every county is struggling to generate enough tax revenue to pay for ANYTHING, and this is yet another bill being offered by Scott and the wingnut crowd meaning there is something rotten in here somewhere, I know it.  As said before, VOTE NO.

Amendment Three: State Revenue Limitation Changes

This amendment is designed to change the current method of capping state revenues: instead of capping based on personal income growth, this will cap it based on inflation and population changes.  Excess revenues will remain being placed in the "rainy day fund" until it reaches its excess at which point the state uses that money to spend on projects and/or reduce tax rates.
This is based on something called TABOR or "TAxpayer Bill Of Rights": a movement at the state level to change how states garner their tax revenues.  It's telling to note that 20 other states rejected this TABOR amendment: the one state that did - Colorado in 1992 - still had to revise this amendment later in order to pay for education needs by 2001 and had another ballot resolution in 2005 relaxing the harsher TABOR restrictions.  In short, it doesn't work very well.  And again, as the wingnut legislature is keen on this ballot, this reeks.  As said before, VOTE NO.


Amendment Four: Property Tax Caps

The proposed amendment would prohibit increases in the assessed value of homestead property if the fair market value of the property decreases; reduces the limitation on annual assessment increases to non-homestead property; and provides an additional homestead exemption of up to 50 percent of the home's median value to first-time home buyers.  It caps commercial and non-homestead (that is, second or more homes owned by a person/family, not the primary residence) tax appraisal rates at 5 percent a year.
The first part - prohibiting tax increases in assessed value if the fair market value decreases - makes sense: the rest of this ballot is inexcusable.  This is basically an attempt to kill the counties' abilities to raise any revenue at all through property taxes: the Far Right obsession against taxes is getting to the point where honest government services - schools, road repairs, public safety, etc - are going to suffer HARD.  Estimates are that the tax base will get eroded by $1 BILLION over three years.  Considering the state is suffering through a recession, this is the WORST TIME to be cutting off public revenues at all.
Of the ballot amendments on this list, this one clearly and most decisively needs to be VOTE NO.

Amendment Five: Breaking the State Courts

The ballot has an official title, but the one I've given it is more accurate.
This ballot adds to the current system of how State Supreme Court Justices are picked - the governor fills a vacancy based on a recommendations list by an independent judiciary nominations/qualifications board, and the voters later vote to retain or remove, more on that below by the by - by having the Senate vote on confirmation beforehand.  This brings this more into line with how the United States Supreme Court gets filled, but it brings to it the risk of making judicial selections more partisan.  Also, this ballot would change how the courts rules can be overruled by the state legislature.  It would also drop the two-thirds majority vote requirement to a simple majority vote in the legislature to override a judicial ruling.  This ballot also grants the State House Speaker full access to all information from the currently-independent judiciary nominating committee to determine if a judge could be impeached even before that potential judge gets placed on the bench: basically, it allows the state legislature a means of intimidating anyone up for a judicial opening beforehand.
And this also would create TWO separate state Supreme Courts - one for Civil Appeals, one for Criminal Appeals (to my knowledge, no other state has separate high courts like this).  If it happens right now under the current political landscape, this would give Rick "I Mock Your Civil Action" Scott incredible power to nominate a whole slate of vacancies that could tilt both proposed Courts into partisan waters.
In short: this amendment kills the independent, balancing nature of the state's judicial system.  The entire concept of "checks and balances" between government and the courts will be crushed.  Nothing - outside of the federal government and federal courts - will keep the corrupted nature of the state legislature in check.
The state Chamber of Commerce supports this - mostly because it would give them a Civil Court packed with Scott's pro-business buddies.  A good number of state judges, plus the Florida Bar of lawyers, oppose this ballot: I honestly do not recall the last time our judges ever spoke out on any ballot before an election.  That should really tell us how wrong - how partisan - this ballot is.  VOTE NO. 

Amendment Six: Abortion

This proposed ballot would prohibit the use of public funds - except for federal funds, which are hard to come by in the first place - for abortions except as required by federal law and to save the mother's life.  Notice, no exceptions for victims of rape/incest.
This is basically making Florida one of the hardest states for women to be able to make their own medical health AND their own moral decisions. 
The wingnuts are all for this, even though this will make things WORSE for women who have legitimate needs - especially in cases of rape/incest - to get an abortion.  For the Love of a Benevolent and Tolerant God Who Respects A Woman's Right To Choose, VOTE NO.

Amendment Seven: Got booted.  However, thanks to a wrinkle in the law, the state Attorney General could rewrite this proposal and resubmit it once it fills the court's legal requirements, so it came back as Amendment Eight.  See next.

Amendment Eight: Religious B-llshit Amendment

Yes, once again I rewrote the ballot's title in order to make it more accurate.  There is nothing about "Religious Freedom" in this thing.  It's about giving religious groups greater access to public funding, in violation of the basic tenets of the Separation of Church and State.  (It's not about Freedom: It's about Teh MONEY)
The ballot says: Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution providing that no individual or entity may be denied, on the basis of religious identity or belief, governmental benefits, funding, or other support, except as required by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and deleting the prohibition against using revenues from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.  What it means is that churches, religiously-based private schools, and/or religiously-run programs can get state money without ensuring that those programs remain secular in nature.
Proponents argue that they need to remove the current restrictions in order to allow church-led social programs more funding to help others.  Opponents point out this will open the floodgates to allowing religious groups unfettered access to public money, and pave the way to yet another push for the Far Right's "school voucher" agenda that would waste education funding on private schools at the expense of public schools.  Considering that churches and other religious organizations are tax-exempt thanks to the Separation of Church and State clause, this would mean those religious group will not have to put any money INTO state funds and yet be able to TAKE as much money as they can petition for: that is, they get OUR money for nothing.
VOTE NO.


Amendment Nine: Tax Exemption For Surviving Spouses of Veterans/First Responders

This is slightly different than the earlier proposed ballot in that this is a FULL exemption - not a Homestead Exemption which provides a percentage - from any surviving spouse of a soldier or first responder (police, firefighter, I think also EMT) to pay ANY property taxes at all.
This doesn't sound too bad on paper: but remember again, this is coming from a state legislature and state governor obsessed with the idea of killing off EVERY means of government revenue they can think of in order to demolish the entire public sector.  Any hit to tax revenue hurts our ability to pay for those first responders in the FIRST PLACE.  Consider the source of this ballot, and yet again, VOTE NO.

Amendment Ten: Tangible Personal Property Tax

This amendment is meant to strike down the ad valorum taxes levied by local governments - county and city - on any tangible property valued between $25,000 to $50,000.
On the face of it, my biggest concern is "what the HELL gets valued at such a narrow range as $25,000 to $50,000?"  Are we talking about items like cars and yachts or something?  The very nature of this ballot - its strict limitation on anything JUST WITHIN that price range, its focus on capping local governments' ability to raise revenue - makes me think this is a very bad ballot in a list of bad ballots.
VOTE NO.

Amendment Eleven: Senior Homestead Tax Exemption

The purpose of this ballot is to provide what looks to be a full tax exemption on any senior-owned property valued less than $250,000 where the resident is over 65 and had lived at the property over 25 years, and where the resident is determined by other laws as low-income.
This is, once again, an attempt by the wingnuts to kill of the counties' abilities to raise tax revenues.  It looks nice, and it may help those seniors who are on fixed retirement-based incomes.  But it's the Far Right, wanting to kill off another means of revenue: whack this one, and they'll go whack more.  It's also not certain to affect a lot of people, as there are very few elderly people here who have resided at the same place over 25 years.  This is Florida: most of our residents are transplants.
VOTE NO.

Amendment Twelve: State Student Council Association Seating On Board of Governors

Gonna try to explain this one as easy as possible.  The current student representation on the state university system's Board of Governors is filled by the President of the Florida Student Association.  This ballot would drop this in exchange for the current Chair of the council of State University Student Bodies, which would be created by the Board of Governors for each state university.  It's basically changing who gets to sit in the big kid's seat at the grown-ups table.  There may be politics involved here: the potential Chair being more favorable to the Far Right than the current make-up of the Florida Student Association.  In the long term, this doesn't improve a thing.  VOTE NO.

There's one other thing I want to add: the state Republicans - led by Scott - are pushing to have the Supreme Court Justices up for retention voted out. Justices are nominated by the governor to fill a vacancy when one occurs, but they all undergo periodic retention vote as a means of accountability to voters: the Justices can be voted out if there are clearly abusing their authority, but more often than not voters check off the vote and move on (I've never seen a judge voted out to my knowledge, please refresh my memory if this has happened in Florida since 1988 my first voting year).  Neither party - until now, which should be telling you something - has pushed for having all Justices up for retention be voted out: this had always been a non-partisan issue.  But now, Scott and his ilk clearly want to clear out a state Court that does not buckle under to his bullying, forcing out otherwise good judges so that Scott can fill those vacancies with his lackeys and stooges who will then bring a partisan taint to a judiciary that is supposed to be above such pettiness.

With regards to the retention of Justices, for the first time ever, I encourage and IMPLORE the voters of Florida TO RETAIN all three - R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente, and Peggy Quince - up for vote.  If only to tell Rick "F-ck You" Scott and his buddies that they will NOT win this fight, that they will NOT corrupt our state courts with their partisan bullsh-t.

Save our State.  Vote NO on Rick Scott and his misdeeds.  And let's get ready to toss his corrupt ass out the door in 2014.

Also, it would really be swell for everyone in Florida to Stay Sane And Vote Obama.  :-)

Also wik, I once met Senator Bill Nelson en route to a Florida Gators game a few years back, and I also approve of his overall job performance (and again, Go Gators) so yeah Vote Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate.

Not a huge fan of the Bilirakis political machine, so definitely Vote Jonathan Snow for Congress 12th District.

As for the Pasco County Mosquito Control... well, the Mosquitoes were REALLY out of control this year, I think the whole board didn't do a thing to teach them skeeters how to behave in polite society, so shame on...  what, I'm misreading the constitutional authority of the county mosquito control?  Well, okay, that's up in the air still for me...

Did I miss anything?

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Amendment Idea Number 7815

1) Whenever Congress closes its door to take either a vacation or leave to go on fund-raising campaigns, each member of Congress has to pay back to government the daily wages they earned when Congress was in session for each day that Congress is now not in session.
2) Any member of Congress pays back double if that member f-cking complains in public about "lazy" poor people living off the government dole.

Seriously.  We've had lazy Congresses before, but this session was downright obscene.  Gen-X Slackers could only aspire to the lackadaisical attitude of the 112th Congress.  Truman's nemesis Do-Nothing Congress of 1948 actually clocked in to do work compared to these snore-feasters.

And yet you get a good number of them - from a certain political side of the aisle that begins with R and ends in Can('t) - that rails against poor people living off of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, college grants and loans, etc.  Not just poor people but their kids, the elderly, the unemployed, the underemployed, veterans... sheesh.

Time for Congress and all our political leaders to remember just who really is on the political dole.  THEY ARE.  GET TO WORK YOU BUMS.

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Blog Entry 300. The Amendments We Need. For Real.

It's taken some time for me to re-post, and a lot of it is due to a few factors - including job hunting - but above all the fact that this is my 300th post on this blog.

And for all the political ranting and raving I do here, I had a purpose for creating this blog in the first place: to promote Constitutional Amendment ideas in the hope that they can be discussed, ragged on, sniped, dismissed, and ultimately ignored by the blogosphere as a whole once the storm died down.

Heh.

So I spent some time thinking over "Well, okay, what are the top Amendment proposals I have that I really want Americans to promote in order to end government gridlock, media stupidity, wingnut madness, and create a Utopian nation that I'd considered hypocritical because I know that Utopias are a collective pipe dream?"

I decided my 300th post should be the Top Ten list of Amendment ideas that I really really REALLY think should get consideration from the Bottom on up to the Top.

I ended up with Twelve.  My bad.

And so, Copied/Pastied from my word processor, here is:

The Ten – Make That Eleven, Hold on Twelve – Amendments We Really Seriously Need To Save This Nation

One.

The President of the United States, and the people who serve at the pleasure of the President, are not above the law.

Members of Congress, and the people who serve Congress, are not above the law.

The Justices of the Supreme Court, and the people who serve in the Judiciary, are not above the law.

The system of checks and balances between the three branches of federal government shall be maintained at all times.

NOTE: This is my "Fuck You" to Richard Nixon and to anyone following his dark path by taking the Unitary Executive theory of allowing the President to do whatever the hell he/she wants.  But as I thought it over, I felt it constrained the President at the expense of the other two branches of government, so I included them as well.

Two.

Lying is not Protected Speech.

Any elected official, or person working for the federal government, found making false statements regarding laws, policies, government research, public polling, or historical facts will be suspended from duty pending investigation. If found that the person made any false statement while aware of the facts, that person will be removed from public service, and barred from all government employment and election.

NOTE: This is my "Fuck You" to every liar I've railed against on this blog.  If you follow the lies tag to this article, you might pull up the other times I've argued how lying in the political forum has poisoned our discourse and is hurting our nation's ability to get the wrong things made right again.  Breitbart Delendus Est.

Three.

Federal government shall regulate business and finance to ensure the protection of employees from unsafe or unhealthy workplaces, the protection of customers from fraud, and the protection of the nation's communities from large-scale accidents.

NOTE: Regulations exist for a reason: TO PROTECT PEOPLE.  This needs to get spelled out in the Constitution itself.

Four.

The power to wage war or any military action shall be held by the President as Commander-in-Chief. The power to call for war, to fund any war effort, and to oversee any military action shall be held by Congress.

If circumstance requires the President to act immediately on a military action outside of Congressional approval, the President is required to limit such military action to thirty days. The President must appear before a full session of both houses of Congress within three days of initiating the military action to explain to Congress what transpired, why action was needed, and if such action raises to the need for Congress to declare war.

After the required presentation before Congress, the President is required to inform the appropriate Senate committee of the military's assessment for action, and the short-term plans that the military has for carrying out successful operations within another three days. A long-term military plan including any occupation of foreign territory and oversight of any nation-building must be presented to that Senate committee within thirty days only if Congress does vote for war. Any objective that requires occupation and nation-building requires a declaration of war by Congress.

Congress has the right to vote for war which can be deemed ended once established objectives are achieved, or can vote to extend the military action for up to ninety days depending on the military situation. Congress cannot vote for military action extension more than twice: if action must continue Congress should vote for war or not.

The House of Representatives has the right to oversee expenditures committed during the military action or war effort to ensure there is no fraud, embezzlement or theft of funds.

The Senate has the right to oversee military conduct of the military action or war effort, and to receive regular updates from the President on the war's progress and ongoing military assessment.

Congress is require to raise funds through a war tax to pay for the military action or war effort as needed.

NOTE: We have a War Powers Act as law, but people have been noticing the past few wars - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya - that the President hasn't completely asked Congress for full-out War, just military actions.  But this has led to horrendous and mismanaged occupations that include massive loss of funds and massive loss of civilian life.  Not to mention increased burdens on our military and our overall budget.  Obama's failures to fully keep Congress informed or show any sign of accountability over military action in Libya is troubling.  Every part of this amendment idea is to reinforce the checks and balances between the Executive and Legislative, to force Congress to take a more proactive role in the oversight of our war efforts.

Five.

The right of any person held by authorities of federal, state, or local jurisdiction to petition for a writ of habeas corpus will not be suspended under any circumstance, even in time of war.

Any person detained by the military can apply for prisoner of war status and receive legal protections as such, and be released from custody once Congress confirms the war has ended. A person not applicable for prisoner of war status must be tried fairly for any criminal acts that made that person a danger to the safety of our nation's citizenry within a court of law and within reasonable time.

The federal government has the right to retain a person they have basic evidence shows to be a clear danger to the safety of our nation's citizenry, until such time as can be proven in open court that person is no longer a threat or has served out the conditions of a prison sentence issued by the Judiciary.

NOTE: The abuses committed under the PATRIOT Act and committed with regards to prisoners taken during the War On Terror led to this amendment.  The century-old argument over who has the right to suspend habeas - President or Congress - should be answered by this amendment: None do.  This basic legal right is the basis for all legal protection for citizens.  Without habeas, any of us could be held without legal reason.  Abuse of rights would be rampant.  So habeas stays in effect, no matter what.

Six.

If the Senate refuses to advise and consent the President on Executive and Judicial nominations to serve the federal government, the President can fill ALL such vacancies however the President sees fit during that term of office.

NOTE: This is a "Fuck You" to EVERY Senator that has used a Secret Hold to obstruct any nomination before the Senate.  Because of this, half the Judicial system is void of judges, our courts are backlogged, and it's becoming enough of a crisis that even the Chief Justice - normally sitting above the fray - is crying out for it to end.  Not to mention the number of job vacancies at the Executive office that haven't been filled in the last three years!  This is getting out of control.  If a Senator doesn't like a nominee, the Senator can always vote NO.

Seven.

All professions of employment are required at the national level to create and oversee a code of ethics for professional behavior of those who work in said profession, and has the ability to decertify anyone in that profession who fails that code of ethics on a repeating basis.

NOTE: While there will be screams and protests that government shouldn't meddle or regulate, the fact of the matter is our entire business and industry system has issues with a lack of accountability and ethical oversight.  There ARE organizations at the national level for a lot of professions - usually unions or associations - but few of them have any authority to enforce a code of behavior.  Mostly doctors and lawyers and plumbers (I think, I'm not sure about plumbers), but because doctors and lawyers tend to be most vulnerable to liability issues.  But I'm thinking it's time every profession has a system of accountability - teachers, librarians, truck drivers, boat builders, food processors, stock brokers, journalists, jugglers, interior designers, bankers, bakers, dog trainers, people trainers, what have you - to try and clean up a lot of the mess that a decade (or three) of unethical behavior by certain groups - bankers, stock brokers and journalists especially - has led us to.  But if I go after bankers and journalists, might as well include everyone else.  No favors.  Gotta be cruel.

Eight.

The States must uphold equal and fair access to public education as a right to the states' residents and their children.

The States cannot endorse one religious belief over another within the states' public education system. And the states cannot endorse religion where it would interfere with the study of the sciences.

NOTE: This is a "Fuck You" to every Intelligent Design con artist and Creationist bullshitter out there.  Not to mention the Prayer In School crowd who never understood the Founders' intent of Separation of Church And State.  There's a place for God: it's called Church.  The only praying at school should be the week before final exams.  /rimshot
EDIT: This is also a "Fuck You" to every Governor or State lege that's pushing to privatize our school systems.  There's no evidence that privatization improves learning experience for kids and teens, and yet these bozos keep pushing things like vouchers and charter schools as miracle cures.  This also ties into the Prayer In School crowd because vouchers and privatization helps private religious schools more than existing public schools.

Nine.

All persons petitioning the federal government as representative to a group or corporate entity can only lobby for that group / entity after undergoing a basic background check that can be accessed by the public upon request.

All persons working as a lobbying or petitioning representative must recuse themselves if they have direct personal dealings with any member of the office of government that the group / entity is petitioning.

Any person working for the federal government as elected official, civil servant, employee of elected official, or military service is barred from working as a lobbyist or petitioner equal to the amount of time that person worked for the federal government.

Any person or corporate entity of foreign nationality must petition or lobby the United States government through their nation's embassy. They are barred from any financial contribution to a campaign or attempt to petition government through a third party.

NOTE: This is a "Fuck You" to every politician and high-ranking official who exits the public sector to take a lobbyist job ten minutes later at three times the salary and without the ethical oversight (although Amendment Idea Seven. might help with that).  Lobbying as a whole has become a multi-billion dollar industry all its own, and because of legal loopholes and First Amendment abuse that industry is rife with corruption.  Look, people do have a right to petition government, but not at the expense of pork-barrel waste, lopsided legislation that favors a single issue over all others, or one company or industry at the expense of other companies or industries that just don't have the insider connections to make Congress and President do their dances.  Even more terrifying is how foreign governments and foreign-owned companies hire lobbyists to directly petition our government for them: the threat of foreign influence on our government isn't a threat, it's happening on a daily basis.

Ten.

The right of the nation's citizenry to access government documentation at the federal, state and local level shall be maintained. Classification of documents can only apply to matters of national security such as military and defense, treaty negotiations with foreign governments, active criminal investigations that involve undercover work, and any such materials that a court of law determines to be of sensitive issue.

NOTE: It's called Sunshine Laws here in Florida.  And even with the Sunshine in place, our state government goes out of its way to hide meetings, cover up documentation, and avoid accountability at all costs.  At the federal level, it's worse: anybody with a "Classified" stamp and a black ink marker can hide a document or black out entire pages of information to where even Senators can't read them.  The lack of oversight and accountability is shocking.  The wake-up call for me was when Cheney held meetings with energy corporation CEOs to plot out energy policy, and when asked about it declared it was all "national security".  We still have no idea what was really discussed, except that afterward our nation's energy needs got more expensive...  We need to get rid of the excuse of "national security" for nearly everything our government does: our leaders and policy enforcers need to answer for what they do.

Eleven.

Any legislative bill reaching the floor of either the House or the Senate must be certified within three business days by all elected officials that plan on voting for that legislation.

The certification requires the Representative or Senator to sign an oath confirming they have read the legislation up for vote and are aware of the basic elements of that bill. If the Representative or Senator refuses to certify, that person cannot vote Yes or No on the bill, only Present.

The bill cannot be amended nor receive attachments or riders during the certification period. The legislation can only be amended after the vote if there is a need to clean up the language or fix a clerical error within the print. If the bill requires additional work it must be taken off the floor and sent back to the appropriate committee for review and re-work.

If the bill requires more than three days for review, the certification can be extended up to fifteen business days. Any scheduled vacation or recess will be delayed to allow those fifteen business days for Representatives or Senators to review and certify before taking the vote.

NOTE: This is an idea that's been floated before by others more experienced and better-known.  Given the size and complexity of some of the bills reaching the floors of Congress, there's been revelations that a good number of our elected officials don't even know what are IN those bills to begin with.  Something like this amendment can ensure that our elected officials at least read enough of the bill to know what's in it.  And it should prevent a lot of last-minute rider attachments and poison pills that turn some bills into boondoggles and disasters.

Twelve.

If Congress requires a balanced budget, the balancing of the budget shall involve cutting expenditures AND raising revenues through taxation.

All taxes at the federal level must be progressive by design.

Any state requiring that any tax hike or raising of revenue use a supermajority vote to pass, then that state must also require that any tax cut or reduction of revenue require that same supermajority to pass as well.

NOTE: This is a "Fuck You" to every tax-cut obsessive out there.  TAX CUTS DON'T WORK.  And tax cuts to the rich - which is what the tax-cut crowd REALLY wants - REALLY DON'T WORK.  And government exists for a reason: to create and uphold laws, and provide government services that will ensure the safety and well-being of the citizenry.  This is especially for California that's stuck with that supermajority requirement for raising taxes, while the cutting of taxes can get a simple majority vote.  And whenever there is a path of least resistence, our elected officials will take it, which is why California is as screwed as it is.  Make tax-cutting as hard as tax-raising, and at least things will be fair.

So.  There you have it.  Yes.  It's that crazy.  ;-)

And now, to the future.  The purpose of this blog was originally about proposing amendment ideas, but it quickly fell into the trap of "blogging whatever makes me happy or angry at that moment".  So the thing I'm thinking about is: changing the title and focus of this political blog.  Any suggestions from my seven readers (and to my bro Eric, no snarkery about it.  I get enough of that from Phil...).

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