Voice For Liberty

Tag: Politics

  • Kansas Republicans don’t need to do this

    In elections, campaigns may divert from useful discussions of the issues to engage in mudslinging and innuendo. Both parties do it, but an example from the Kansas Republican Party crosses a line and may actually hurt the candidate it was intended to help.

    The mail piece targets Keith Humphrey, a Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Mike Petersen for a spot in the Kansas Senate. As described in Wichita Eagle reporting, “Democratic Senate candidate Keith Humphrey … said the Kansas Republican Party should apologize for an ad it sent to voters that questions why he changed his name and raised questions about his businesses. Citing the Internet Movie Database and online public records, the ad says ‘Keith Humphrey doesn’t want you to know about his background … or that his name hasn’t always been Humphrey.’ … Humphrey said he was born as Keith Desoto and that his name changed when he was adopted at age 11.”

    The mail piece also asks voters to wonder about this: “Owns four different companies, some with no websites or phone numbers.”

    These issues, if we can even dignify them with that term, have nothing to do with someone’s fitness to serve in public office. Campaigning in this way causes people to turn away from politics and civic life, bringing out the worst in our political system. Democrats do this too, with notable examples targeting Michael O’Donnell in the campaign for the August primary. These, like the anti-Humphrey piece, were not sent by the candidates themselves.

    Kansas Republicans — Democrats too, for that matter — would do better to stick to actual issues related to policy when campaigning. There’s much, for example, to highlight about Humphrey that relates to policy. His campaign website’s issues page reads, in part, “The tax plan passed by Sam Brownback and our incumbent state senator increases taxes on working families while slashing funding for education and increasing taxes on working class families throughout the 28th Senate District.”

    Then later: “Unfortunately, cuts to public education over the last three years have gone too far.”

    Actual facts don’t support these claims, as shown in Kansas Democrats wrong on school spending.

    At a campaign forum in Derby, when asked about education funding and school vouchers, Humphrey cited only the base state aid per pupil figures, the same mistaken and unfactual tactics used by the education spending lobby.

    Then after explaining the importance of skilled labor, he said “As far as a voucher program or something of that nature, to me it goes beyond the family right into the community, if, again if we don’t support that skilled labor base, eventually we’re going to lose one of the greatest resources we have here in south-central Kansas.” I would judge that to be non-responsive, or perhaps not understanding the topic of the question.

    Finally, Humphrey was featured in a Derby Informer news story as a business owner skeptical of the Brownback tax reform’s ability to create conditions favorable for more job creation. He said that the tax reduction he expects to receive is not enough to allow him to hire another employee.

    That amount is also not enough to hire, for example, a new schoolteacher, something that Humprey seems to be concerned about. The point of tax reduction is to leave more money in the productive private sector, instead of sending to an inefficient and wasteful government. As a private sector businessman, I’d think Humphrey should understand that, but evidently he doesn’t.

  • Wichita-area legislators on government efficiency

    Who could be against more efficient government? Even those who score poorly on the Kansas Economic Freedom Index say they are in favor of efficiency and eliminating waste. Here’s an example from the campaign website of Nile Dillmore, who is running for re-election:

    “Nile rejects that ‘tax-and-spend’ is the most effective and efficient way to manage government! Nile supports cutting waste and inefficiencies and keeping our tax burden as low as possible.”

    But as is often the case in politics, legislators’ campaign rhetoric and promises don’t align with their actual votes. For example, in the 2011 session of the Kansas Legislature HB 2194 was introduced, which in its original form would have created the Kansas Advisory Council on Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships.

    According to the supplemental note for the bill, “The purpose of the Council would be to ensure that certain state agencies, including the Board of Regents and postsecondary educational institutions, would: 1) focus on the core mission and provide goods and services efficiently and effectively; 2) develop a process to analyze opportunities to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness and provide quality services, operations, functions, and activities; and 3) evaluate for feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency opportunities that could be outsourced. Excluded from the state agencies covered by the bill would be any entity not receiving State General Fund or federal funds appropriation.”

    This bill passed by a vote of 68 to 51 in the House of Representatives and did not advance in the Senate. Wichita-area legislators who are running for re-election and who voted against this bill included Dillmore, Gail Finney, Geraldine Flaharty, Dan Kerschen, Dillmore’s current opponent Brenda Landwehr, and Jim Ward.

    In response to the vote on this bill, Dillmore was quoted in the Wichita Eagle: “Rep. Nile Dillmore , D-Wichita, pointed out that the Republicans cheered 44 days ago when newly elected Gov. Sam Brownback, in his State of the State address, repeatedly said ‘The days of ever-expanding government are over’” ‘What’s our response?’ Dillmore said. ‘Let’s create a commission for this. Let’s create a commission for that. Let’s grow some government.’”

    But this bill — and two others described below — proposed to spend modest amounts aimed at increasing the manageability and efficiency of government, not the actual size and scope of government itself. As it turns out, many in the legislature are happy with the operations of state government remaining in the shadows, despite claims made during campaigns.

    Another bill from 2011 was HB 2158, which would have created performance measures for state agencies and reported that information to the public. The supplemental note says that the bill “as amended, would institute a new process for modifying current performance measures and establishing new standardized performance measures to be used by all state agencies in support of the annual budget requests. State agencies would be required to consult with representatives of the Director of the Budget and the Legislative Research Department to modify each agency’s current performance measures, to standardize such performance measures, and to utilize best practices in all state agencies.” Results of the performance measures would be posted on a public website.

    This bill passed the House of Representatives by a nearly unanimous vote of 119 to 2, with Wichita’s Dillmore and Flaherty the two nay votes. The bill didn’t advance in the Senate.

    Another 2011 bill was HB 2120, which according to its supplemental note “would establish the Kansas Streamlining Government Act, which would have the purpose of improving the performance, efficiency, and operations of state government by reviewing certain state agencies, programs, boards, and commissions.” Fee-funded agencies — examples include Kansas dental board and Kansas real estate commission — would be exempt from this bill.

    In more detail, the text of the bill explains: “The purposes of the Kansas streamlining government act are to improve the performance, streamline the operations, improve the effectiveness and efficiency, and reduce the operating costs of the executive branch of state government by reviewing state programs, policies, processes, original positions, staffing levels, agencies, boards and commissions, identifying those that should be eliminated, combined, reorganized, downsized or otherwise altered, and recommending proposed executive reorganization orders, executive orders, legislation, rules and regulations, or other actions to accomplish such changes and achieve such results.”

    In testimony in support of this legislation, Dave Trabert, President of Kansas Policy Institute offered testimony that echoed findings of the public choice school of economics and politics: “Some people may view a particular expenditure as unnecessary to the fulfillment of a program’s or an agency’s primary mission while others may see it as essential. Absent an independent review, we are expecting government employees to put their own self-interests aside and make completely unbiased decisions on how best to spend taxpayer funds. It’s not that government employees are intentionally wasteful; it’s that they are human beings and setting self-interests aside is challenge we all face.”

    The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 79 to 40. It died in the Senate. Wichita-area legislators who are running for re-election and who voted against this bill included Dillmore, Finney, Flaharty, Landwehr, and Ward.

  • Sedgwick County advance voting

    According to my analysis of data I’ve received from the Sedgwick County Election Office, 74,477 ballots have been mailed and 39,444 people have voted, either by mail or through in-person voting at the election office or advance voting centers.

    For comparison, in the 2010 general election 136,398 people voted in Sedgwick County, and in the 2008 general election, 194,688.

  • Kansas Democrats mailing again, and wrong again

    It’s campaign season, and mail pieces are flying fast, replete with more Kansas Democratic errors.

    Examples come from two mailers from the Kansas Democratic Party targeting Joseph Scapa, a one-term Republican incumbent seeking to return to the House or Representatives.

    Here’s one: “SCAPA voted for the largest cut to school funding in Kansas history — schools are closing, class sizes are increasing and fees are going up on parents. Sub HB 2014 (HJ 5/12/11, p. 1570)”

    This is a repeat of a mistaken claim made on other anti-Scapa mailings, for which Kansas Democrats have apologized.

    Here’s something from another ant-Scapa mail piece from the Kansas Democratic Party: “The Brownback Agenda included the largest cut to public education funding in Kansas history in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations.”

    This claim is incorrect, too. As explained in Kansas Democrats wrong on school spending, the claims of education cuts generally consider only Kansas state spending on schools, neglecting federal and local sources of funds. In the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 schools years, federal aid soared as a result of the Obama stimulus program. These funds almost made up for the decline in state spending, meaning that total spending on Kansas schools declined only slightly.

    (You’d think that Kansas Democrats would want to remind us of the supposedly wonderful things the Obama stimulus accomplished, but evidently not when the facts are inconvenient.)

    Then, who was Kansas governor during the years that Kansas state spending on schools actually declined? Kathleen Sebelius and Mark Parkinson. They’re Democrats, I believe.

    Here’s something else from a mailer from the Kansas Democrats:

    JOE SCAPA is just another rubber stamp for Sam Brownback.
    JOE SCAPA VOTES WITH SAM
    BROWNBACK 92.33% OF THE TIME.*
    Instead of working to create jobs and improve education, Scapa has been nothing more than a rubber stamp for Governor Brownback’s irresponsible agenda.
    *www.KanFocus.com, Republican Support Rankings

    Most people don’t have access to KanFocus, a useful but expensive subscription information service. The rankings that the mailer refers to, according to KanFocus, “… show the percentage of votes on which each Representative voted with and against the majority of Republicans.”

    So it’s not a measure of how closely Representatives’ votes align with Governor Brownback, but with the majority of Republicans. Oops.

    Aside from that, Scapa ranked 56 out of 93 Republicans that cast votes in 2012. Then, consider that most of the Republicans who ranked “higher” than Scapa (meaning they voted less often with the Republican majority) are legislators who in most states would be Democrats.

    An accurate assessment, then, of Scapa’s voting record is that he is relatively independent from the Republican majority in his voting. Which is not the same as the Brownback agenda, as the Democratic Party mailer erroneously claims.

  • Kansas Democrats mail in error

    A mailing by the Kansas Democratic Party citing the voting record of a Kansas House of Representatives candidate holds not only the usual hyperbole and spin, but also a factual error.

    The mailing targets Joseph Scapa, a Republican running for re-election after serving his first term. The Democratic mailing criticizes Scapa for a vote made on the 2011 budget, claiming Scapa’s vote will harm schools. It also makes the usual claim about conservative Republicans — that they are merely rubberstamps for Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.

    Excerpt from mailing from Kansas Democratic Party, incorrectly referring to a vote by Joseph Scapa.

    Except: Scapa voted against the budget and the governor’s position. The mailer is wrong.

    The Democrats also sent the same mailer regarding Jana Goodman. It’s wrong, too.

    Unless, that is, you’re willing to believe that the list of liberal Democrats that voted the same way as Scapa are Brownback puppets and — as the mailer shouts — “failing the test on education.”

    Excerpt of Journal of the Kansas House of Representatives, May 12, 2011, page 1570.

    Update: The following day the Kansas Democratic Party chair apologized for the error.

  • Select judges wisely, considering lawmaking role

    While candidates for judge usually campaign as being “above politics,” as someone who will apply the law impartially without regard to personal beliefs and convictions, the reality is that judges make law. Voters need to recognize this judicial function as they decide their votes.

    A recent paper by Kansas University School of Law Professor Stephen J. Ware (Originalism, Balanced Legal Realism and Judicial Selection: A Case Study) explains the role of judges. Ware’s paper is primarily concered with appellate courts, as that is where judges have the highest level of discretion. But the same principles apply to Kansas district court judges.

    At issue is whether judges are simply arbitrators of the law, or actual participants in the lawmaking process. Ware explains: “This realist view that statutory interpretation often involves ‘substantial judicial discretion’ and therefore constitutes ‘judicial lawmaking, not lawfinding,’ had by the 1950s, ‘become deeply rooted.’”

    A “‘balanced realism,’ to use Brian Tamanaha’s appealing label, recognizes both that judges’ policy preferences have little or no influence on many judicial decisions and that judges’ policy preferences have a significant influence on other judicial decisions. Empirical studies tend to support this balanced view.” In other words, there is some role for ideology in making judicial decisions. Politics, therefore, is involved. Ware quotes Charles Gardner Geyh: “In a post-realist age, the ideological orientation of judicial aspirants matters.” And the higher the court, the more this matters.

    Ware concludes: “Yes, of course judges’ allegiance should be to the law, including our state and federal constitutions. But that allegiance does not ineluctably guide the judge to make a particular choice among various reasonable interpretations of a vague or ambiguous constitutional or statutory provision.” For more, see Kansas lawmakers, including judges, should be selected democratically.

    So voters — when deciding which judges to elect to office or deciding whether to retain those already in office — need to consider politics and ideology, not just technical legal skills or promises to “unflinchingly apply the rule of law.” Voters should ask: Is the candidate likely to be a judge who would make decisions from a limited government perspective, or will the judge be favorably disposed to make decisions that expand the size and power of government?

    While political party membership is a only a rough — and not entirely accurate — indication of the political philosophy of a candidate, it’s about all voters have. Most judicial candidates avoid any mention of politics in their campaign materials and websites. Some don’t even mention the party they belong to, even though the contests may be partisan.

    Ware’s complete paper may be downloaded at no charge here.

  • Role of government in Kansas schools deflects attention from solutions

    Focus on two Kansas school efficiency panels, school spending, and the surrounding politics is deflecting attention away from what Kansas schoolchildren and parents really need: Choice.

    As part of an effort to increase the efficiency of Kansas public schools, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback announced an online portal for reporting inefficiencies. People may remain anonymous if the want. To view the form or report an inefficiency, click on Kansas school efficiency task force inefficiency form.

    Here’s an example to get started: I have received several letters from the Wichita School District using priority mail — an expensive service — to me one sheet of paper. Other government agencies are content to deliver similar correspondence by email.

    This effort, like the Kansas school efficiency task force itself has been harshly criticized by those in the school system. An example from Twitter yesterday is this: “Another Brownback salvo against public education. An insult to all KS schools. Red meat for the uneducated.”

    In response to the governor’s task force, another has been created by KASB, the Kansas Association of School Boards. Its purpose, as described in Topeka Capital-Journal reporting, is to “to analyze options available to local district officials to maximize educational return on investments in K-12 public schools.”

    One might think that the prime mission of a school board advocacy group would already be to “maximize educational return on investments.” What could be more important when considering the lives of Kansas schoolchildren and the plight of taxpayers?

    But I guess schools have to be prodded a bit. Does anyone notice the irony: Those already in charge of Kansas public schools have had the power to implement efficiency measures. They don’t need permission or a task force.

    There’s an incongruity here. On one hand, the public schools are (almost) entirely dependent on tax revenue for their funding. But public school officials object to the term “government schools.” In an email from Wichita School District Interim Superintendent Martin Libhart to Wichita school employees during the 2008 bond issue campaign, he took issue with those who, using his words, “openly refer to public education as ‘government schools.’” To him, this is something that shouldn’t be mentioned.

    I don’t blame them. Last year ABC News reported on the low opinion Americans have of government: “Only 26 percent of Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’re optimistic about ‘our system of government and how well it works,’ down 7 points since October to the fewest in surveys dating to 1974. Almost as many, 23 percent, are pessimistic, the closest these measures ever have come. The rest, a record high, are ‘uncertain’ about the system.”

    Schools want (what they consider) the good things about government — people being forced to pay taxes to support them — while at the same time they try to avoid the justifiably low esteem in which people hold government programs.

    Governmental decisions are made through our political system — that is, unless we want to cede total control to bureaucrats. So we can’t keep politics out of school decisions as long as they are government schools. In today’s Wichita Eagle editorial writer Phillip Brownlee expressed concern for the role of politics in schools, especially surrounding the governor’s efficiency task force, concluding: “Though politics are swirling around the task force, it still may be able to come up with some good suggestions for reducing overhead without harming educational outcomes. If it does, great.” (Eagle editorial: School task force has rocky start)

    I don’t think Brownlee meant to perform this public service, but his editorial is an example of why we need less government involvement in education. Our government — excuse me, public — schools are one of the most powerful ways through which civil society is destroyed. In the process, we replace the innovation and creativity of free markets and economic freedom with moribund governmental programs for our children.

    As an example, take the controversy over what percent of school spending should go into the classroom. This is one of the motivating factors behind the school efficiency task force.

    But consider this: Do we worry about how much the grocery store spends on administration versus other expenses? Do we quarrel over the number of assembly workers vs. managers at a manufacturing company?

    Of course we don’t, at least we who don’t own these organizations. Instead, we recognize that these business firms operate in a competitive environment. That competition is a powerful force that motivates them to find the right mix of management and other expenses, or at least a good mix.

    We also recognize that there are different types of grocery stores. Some offer more customer service than others. People are free to choose which type of store they like best, even on different days.

    Schools in Kansas, however, face few competitive forces. There is little incentive for the public schools to find the right mix of spending, or to increase efficiency, or to offer the wide variety of choice that we have come to expect in the private sector. (It also seems that we’re failing to consider that different types of schools might work best with different mixes of classroom and other spending.)

    This is what we are missing in Kansas. With greater choices available to students and parents, there will be less need for government oversight of schools and all the bickering that accompanies decisions made through the political process.

    Unfortunately, we’re not moving in that direction in Kansas. Last week in Wichita, Governor Brownback had two opportunities to promote school choice in Kansas. On the Joseph Ashby radio program he was asked about school choice, but wouldn’t commit to it as a priority.

    Later that day at the Wichita Pachyderm Club a similar question was asked, and again Brownback wouldn’t commit to school choice. The focus right now is efficiency and to get fourth grade reading levels up, Brownback said. He added that about 28 percent of fourth graders can’t read at basic level, which he described as a “real problem. If you can’t read, the world starts really shrinking around you.”

    It’s a mystery why Governor Brownback hasn’t made school choice a priority in Kansas. Many governors are doing that and instituting other wide-reaching reforms.

  • Are Super PACs good for democracy?

    What exactly is a Super PAC? Professor Bradley Smith, the former Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, brings some clarity to these controversial groups by taking a close look at Super PACs: what they do and how they impact elections.

    In the video, Professor Smith asserts that many of the alleged harms caused by Super PACs are based on misconceptions. According to Smith: “far from being the death knell for democracy, Super PACs have been a positive development.”

    For those worried that Super PACs would lead to Republican dominance in fundraising, we should note that the Obama campaign has been beating the Romney campaign in recent fundraising.

    This video is from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies.

  • On sweatshops, Romney is right

    In the recently-released recording of Mitt Romney talking to donors, the “47 percent” remarks are not all the left is pummeling Romney with: Misinformed beliefs about sweatshops contribute, too.

    In a column, Jim Hightower wrote “But that was not the presidential contender’s only comment in the video that seemed to come from some cold, warped, faraway universe. He also babbled on insensibly about how impoverished Third World people love working in sweatshops. … See, in MittWorld, even life in a Chinese sweatshop is beautiful.” This is typical of liberal reaction to Romney’s remarks, and it’s a reaction that’s based on emotion, not reality.

    While sweatshops are not the place most Americans would choose to work, they are often the best alternative available to workers in some countries. Pay is low compared to U.S. standards because worker productivity is low, and the process of economic development will lead to increases in productivity and pay. But most policies promoted to help the purported plight of sweatshop workers actually lead to harm.

    That was the message of Benjamin Powell. Powell is a professor of economics at Suffolk University in Boston and is affiliated with The Beacon Hill Institute.

    In a lecture given in Kansas, Powell said “Often when people say there’s something wrong with sweatshops, implicitly what they’re saying is ‘while this is bad, the alternative must be better.’ Often the alternatives in these countries are much, much worse.” The alternatives are often subsistence agriculture and working in farm fields, Powell said.

    A sweatshop, according to Powell, is a workplace with low wages (compared to U.S. standards), and poor, possibly unsafe, working conditions and benefits, again compared to U.S. standards. The sweatshops that Powell is defending are those where people voluntarily choose to work. Sweatshops where workers are forced to work under the threat of violence constitute slave labor, which cannot be defended. These are not better than the alternatives available to the forced workers, the evidence being that the workers are forced to work in these sweatshops.

    As evidence of non-sweatshop working conditions is some countries, Powell mentioned the case of a Cambodian girl and her working conditions, as reported by Nicholas D. Kristof in the New York Times in 2004:

    Nhep Chanda is a 17-year-old girl who is one of hundreds of Cambodians who toil all day, every day, picking through the dump for plastic bags, metal cans and bits of food. The stench clogs the nostrils, and parts of the dump are burning, producing acrid smoke that blinds the eyes.

    The scavengers are chased by swarms of flies and biting insects, their hands are caked with filth, and those who are barefoot cut their feet on glass. Some are small children.

    Nhep Chanda averages 75 cents a day for her efforts. For her, the idea of being exploited in a garment factory — working only six days a week, inside instead of in the broiling sun, for up to $2 a day — is a dream.

    In another column, after describing conditions in the dump, Kristof wrote “Talk to these families in the dump, and a job in a sweatshop is a cherished dream, an escalator out of poverty, the kind of gauzy if probably unrealistic ambition that parents everywhere often have for their children.”

    Generally, sweatshop workers are paid much more than most other workers in the country, and their working conditions are much better. Powell mentioned that working inside — rather than outside — is very desirable in most countries. Sweatshops pay higher wages and have better working conditions than the workers’ alternatives. Otherwise, the workers would choose the alternatives.

    Powell reminded the audience that it’s important to remember that in most countries where sweatshops exist, these jobs are much better — both in terms of pay and working conditions — than what the workers face as alternatives. Anything that causes companies to shut down sweatshops or employ fewer workers, then, means that workers lose these better jobs and return to harder work at lower wages, or perhaps no work at all.

    I would ask Hightower, the Texas columnist, this: Who is living in cold, warped, faraway universe? Those who want to close down sweatshops and send people back to scavenging garbage dumps?