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20 March 2008 at 5.36 pm · Filed under Culture, Political
I’ve been really sick the last four days, and probably spending more time on the Internet than usual. Nothing is more discouraging than a few minutes at the China Daily website, the English-language “news” site which has become increasingly more professional over the years, and thusly, more dangerous.
The lead story on the BBC News webpage is about severe protests and demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet. There, you can read that activists have released graphic photos of dead bodies showing bullet wounds, and that the police have finally admitted to firing shots at some protesters. You’ll also read that riot police raided a monastery, causing 300 monks to run for their lives as police committed acts of “gratuitous violence” and kicked monks in the stomach while they lay on the ground. The phone service had mysteriously been cut. And the BBC’s own reporters noted that there had been severe limitations on their travel and ability to report.
Cruise over to China Daily. The lead story is on the Olympic flame. Click on “China” to get national news stories. The lead story there is “China’s new cabinet maps out working rules.” You have to dig for a story about the crisis, and I found one. 105 Lhasa rioters surrender to police. There, you’ll read that “rioters” killed innocent civilians. There’s no mention of China’s military actions. But, there is a link to a story couple of days old titled, We fired no gunshots — Tibetan government chairman. I wasn’t able to find any article admitting that the government in fact had shot anyone. Rather, I found a humorous and pathetic grab-all story recounting that local religious authorities were decrying the Dalai Lama (who’s won the Nobel Peace Prize), that Tibet’s 1957 military invasion was “peaceful,” and for good measure, that “mobs” stoned a Han Chinese girl’s head without provocation. (The Han are eastern China’s ethnic majority.)
Although China Daily never likes airing China’s own dirty laundry, it always enjoys having a good laugh at the United States — a country where protests against the government usually do not result in death. Some people actually take pride in the fact that this is a country where protesting is legal: a point that seems lost on the site’s editors. Thus, photos of Iraq war protesters are often prominently displayed on the front page, including today. This is pretty typical for the website, but what I found truly bizarre is that the CD has created a special slideshow about Eliot Spitzer. For fans of the absurd, this is not to be missed. What sounds like plaintive Chinese pop music starts up soon into the slides. As the captions peter out, it appears that the editors are simply running out the clock so that they can finish the song. I have asked for a translation.
Also good for a laugh is the commentary, Property boom is here to stay. After the ritualistic paean to Beijing’s “beaming vitality” and the amusingly gushing reference to “millions of skyscrapers being erected” (do the math — even in China, it can’t be millions), the author gets down to business. “Are these sprouting buildings constructed on speculated ground, as property prices have been surging at a pace faster than the average growth in incomes?” The answer is, of course not. Do I even need to spell out the irony here? And tragically, the author has failed to learn his microecon 101, confusingly calling the government to impose “price controls to make housing affordable for everyone” (but China must not “resort to administrative means to rein in housing prices”) while at the same time “subsidizing buyers with cash reimbursement” and cutting deals with developers to cap initial sale prices. Huh? Even Paul Krugman could not get behind this weird a plan, but “the authorities seem to have acknowledged this approach.” And despite the opening reference to China’s glittering array of wealth, the column contains the rare admission that it is “a society where the majority of people cannot afford housing.”
As the Olympics near, we are going to hear more and more about how China is doing for itself. The record continues to be one of shame. And I remind people that it was just 2001 that China’s military captured and interrogated several U.S. airmen after one of their inept pilots caused a mid-air collision. They are not our friends. In the 1980′s, America was obsessed with the prospect of having to surrender our economy to the Japanese, and that was a country we actually got along with. It is a long road from the China of 2008 to the Japan of 1980.
21 April 2007 at 9.19 pm · Filed under City life, Political
Dear Mayor Coleman:
This week, while driving to work, I caught a few minutes of a story on public radio about some new “Young Professionals” initiative. Since I’m 29 and professional-esque, my eyes pricked up. They aired several sound bites from an incredibly excitable consultant about what we could try to improve life here. It sounds like you are trying to attract and keep more young, hip professional citizens in Columbus, which is a good idea and an uphill slog. I’m sure you noticed that the Census recently reported Ohio is now one of the top exporters of talented college graduates.
But what I heard on the radio didn’t do it for me, and since I’m actually in the target demo, I thought I’d let you know. First off, tell your advisors we young professionals never want to be referred to as “YP’s” again. Just go ahead and call us yuppies, but not YP’s. Yucky Poo.
The person on the radio was concerned that we don’t have enough information about what’s going on here. She suggested that we what we want is an online calendar telling us what the local events are. Further, apparently you need to re-invent Mapquest, because “people don’t even know where in their neighborhood the grocery stores are!” She told us that we want more bikeways, and that it (apparently) will be a big draw if Columbus would be the location of the first statewide “young professionals’ conference.” Also, she pointed out that Milwaukee has three and a half people working full time on attracting young professionals, and “even Cincinnati has someone.” Shouldn’t you consider hiring her as a full time YP-attractor, too?
Well, no. You’re the mayor of a big city, and you have services to provide to the general population. Just focus on the basics, and the city will take care of itself.
Take transportation: why was I driving one mile to work, anyway, except for the fact that such a trip on the bus costs $1.50 and takes almost 20 minutes? Connecting the city’s bike routes and parks would be a good idea, but the city’s pace of construction is glacial, downtown still isn’t linked with most of the regional bike assets, and there isn’t a single, real, marked bike lane anywhere in town. It would be nice if we could get more non-stop flights out of CMH, too (but I refuse to ride in the Nationwide-logo Skybus “demonstration plane”).
Fire response time could improve. It took the fire department about fifteen minutes to get here the last time I called, even though the station is only seven blocks away. What were they doing?
Why is garbage collection still free while recycling costs good money? We’re always running out of landfill space. If you really want to attract hip young things, make Columbus a truly green city. I can’t name any environmental initiative you’ve sponsored at all. (Hell, even inept COTA runs bio-diesel buses.)
Finally, I can’t resist pointing out that I was with you when you stared at the first arch over High Street back in 2002, and the dang things still don’t work. Turn the lights on!
I’m not complaining too much; things work reasonably well here (we’re not Cincinnati), but don’t let yourself get distracted with these consultants. No one ever moved to Austin or Seattle or New York because the city government set up a web site. You can’t change the weather or give us an ocean, but you can fix the nuts and bolts. The jobs and residents will follow.
Sincerely,
Bill Cash
10 April 2007 at 12.19 pm · Filed under Political, The law
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed riling up my friends on the left, Marcus Banks and Venezuelan Army Maj. Marty Stroodler, over the issue of D.C. voting rights. To Justme, I would retort that holding a sign reading “Will Make Political Commentary for Money,” and actually eating because of it, is a wonderful dream.
Washington, D.C., which the Supreme Court relegated to mere and literal footnote status last week, is clearly a banana republic that should be squelched until it learns its lesson.
Well, I’m kidding somewhat. In all this debate, I have been disappointed that no one took up for Washington as a normal American city. When I criticized the city for having no industry to speak of, I was sure I would hear “XM Radio!” (In truth, I just tried to think of another employer to include here that wasn’t 1) out on I-66 or I-270, 2) government, 3) quasi-government, 4) education, or 5) food, and I couldn’t do it. Sorry, Lady Columbia.) The city does have parks, rivers, boats, schools, etc. It deserves dignity as a regular place to grow up in, that just happens to have the capital. Tragically, its transient residential status caused the thousands of readers and commenters of our web logs collectively to bypass this aspect of Washington life.
“Retrocession,” or as I call it, “digestion by Maryland,” would degrade this unique character. I oppose it. Those who say it would free Washington of certain burdens, such as having to run a DMV, miss the point. This would strip Washington of its dignity as a special city. Further, it is impossible. The point of creating a “non-residential ‘federal quarter’” is to solve the voting problem by putting its population into a jurisdiction that has Congressional votes (Maryland) while leaving the part of the city that belongs to all America under federal control. The problem is that such a zone, at the minimum, would have to be a triangle containing the Jefferson Memorial, the White House, and the Supreme Court, and there are a lot of people living within that triangle. Either there would have to be forced evacuations for the purpose of creating a sterile zone, or those people would have to be left out of the plan to give voting rights to all citizens. Moreover, a sterile non-residential zone goes against principles of good city planning (Jacobs) and further debauches a grand old lady.
It seems unlikely that Washington will ever have the population to support two representatives. The city is atrophying and has lost about 40% of its population in the last fifty years; at the same time, the number of people supporting a single House seat grows ever higher. In 2010, the number of people needed for a State to claim two seats will exceed one million — five hundred thousand more than Washington has. Washington’s House delegation, if awarded proportionally to the other States, would never exceed one.
Senate representation is a great question. Logically, if the basis for granting a House seat is that people deserve an equal voice in Congress, then there is no reason not to grant a “full” two seats’ Senate representation. Otherwise, we’ll still have the “second-class status” argument hanging out there. (It was amusing to see Stroodler willing to bargain down to a single seat. Washington been down so long, it don’t know what up is.) But while the great constitutional compromise between the large and small States was to create two bodies, the House for the people and the Senate for the States, it does not justify granting Washington two Senate seats for the simple reason that Washington is not a State. (And we all agreed to leave at least part of Washington a “local government” rather than a State.)
I also find it interesting that in all this, nobody advanced the legal argument that the “District Clause” of the Constitution, art. I, cl. 17 (go here and search for “District”; also read interesting annotations), which provides that the Congress has broad powers to control affairs relating to the District, gives Congress the power to add a seat without a constitutional amendment. But I think this is a bad argument; it’s clear that the clause provides the power to control land use, building restrictions, police authority, and those kinds of things; it doesn’t let Congress restructure the Congress by changing its membership. I think it’s sad that some, including the Utahns colluding with the Democrats to add the seat, want to justify the change on this weak ground, rather than embarking on the lengthy moral crusade of amendment. By granting D.C. electoral votes, the American people have already demonstrated that if the cause is just, they will amend the Constitution even at the expense of their own interests. That is the surest route to solving this problem, whatever the solution may be.
29 March 2007 at 12.53 am · Filed under Political, Random
The organization DC Vote has put up a documentary movie on its web site called “Un-Natural State.” It’s worth the eight minutes. (You can also get a teacher’s worksheet because the video apparently complies with Washington ninth grade history and government class standards.)
If you watch this video, you’re going to learn two shocking things.
First, that DC Vote thinks we should rewrite our Constitution so our government can be more like Venezuela’s.
Secondly, that there is a guy who is the United States Senator for the District. I think it is so cute that Washington has a Senator! And, he’s a white former New Yorker!
If you do watch it, let me know what you think. The best part is when 35 seconds in, the narrator asks, “Are things really as they seem?” It’s quite ominous; the shot of birds flying over the head is pure Hitchcock.
22 March 2007 at 11.49 pm · Filed under Political
I’ve been watching the battle over giving Washington, D.C. representation in the United States House of Representatives with some amusement. If you don’t know about this, and you like political arcana, catch up.
As you might know, D.C. license plates proclaim it’s the land of “Taxation Without Representation.” (That’s a great automotive statement easily surpassing New York City’s “Don’t Even Think of Parking Here” signs.) People in Washington think they’re being cheated out of having a Congressman and two Senators, even though they’re free to move to a real State at any time. They do have a non-voting representative, whose sole job seems to be House jester.
People in Utah also feel cheated out of a House seat, too, and they’ve been feeling that way ever since the 2000 census. Why? Because Utah, which has only three representatives, missed the cutoff for a fourth seat by about eight hundred people. They claimed that the Census failed to count Mormon missionaries who were out of the country at the time; they also took issue with a statistical method the Census uses. This bothered them enough to take their case to the Supreme Court, where they lost. (North Carolina has the seat Utah wanted.) This part of the story seems to be missing from the current coverage, and it explains why the Beehive State’s so into this idea.
Fast forward to today. Somebody in Washington (or maybe it was Utah — I’m not sure) got the admittedly savvy idea that if we added one seat for D.C., which would probably go Democrat, we could add one seat for Utah, which would probably go Republican, and keep the balance we have. Everybody wins — Utah’s pacified and Washington’s seat is still as worthless as it is today since it’ll always get canceled out! What a great compromise. (Never mind that it is unconstitutional to add a seats for D.C. — more on that later.)
I read in the Post, however, that yesterday House Republicans attached an amendment to this bill. Now, if the bill passes, the amendment repeals D.C.’s very strict gun laws. This is an even more savvy political move than the original idea, in my view. If liberal Democrats vote for it, hoping to give D.C. its representation, they repeal its gun control laws. Some liberals will now vote against the bill because they’d rather keep the gun control. Realizing this, the Democratic leadership stalled the bill. Now Republicans can say they refused to support the constitutional right to arms.
All this manuevering puts me in the mind of my law review article (which I certainly hope can be described as “forthcoming” someday). I wrote on legislative silliness, and one case in point was LBJ’s 1956 manuevering to get senators from the Pacific Northwest to support an amendment that weakened the civil rights bill so that the South would accept the bill. In exchange for that support, he promised the Northwest his support for a series of federal dams — which actually passed the Senate. The cunning part of this plan was, Johnson’s dam support was worthless because the House never passed the dam bill. The President would probably have vetoed it anyway. It cost nothing to keep his end of the deal, and in exchange, the Northwest gave LBJ his greatest legislative victory.
Republicans have the opportunity to pull the same trick here. Suppose the combined D.C. voting and gun-rights actually passes. It will immediately be challenged by some Republican somewhere, and one of two things will happen. One possibility is the courts will strike down the part of the bill giving D.C. the vote, because D.C.’s not a State and the Constitution gives representation only to States; Utah, however, will probably keep its representative because Congress can change the number of seats at any time. The other possibility is the whole voting part of the bill will go out the window, leaving the gun control repeal on the books. Either way, Republicans win.
I can’t believe Democrats are falling into this trap, except that they are giddy with the intoxication of their big November wins.
The most interesting part of this is why it’s such a big deal for Utah right now. There is another census coming up in three years. At that point, the whole Congressional deck is reshuffled. It would be impossible to predict at this time which State will be in Utah’s position — being the very next in line for a seat, if only the House had room for one more. The thing is, though, there will always be that one State that just didn’t make it. And because of the way the math works, it’s essentially random (but it is always most likely to be California). All this work now, just to get a short-term gain that Utah, with its high growth rate, will almost certainly have outright after 2010 anyway, seems a little late. Where was this idea in 2000?
21 February 2007 at 10.45 pm · Filed under Connextions Lofts, Culture, Political, Random, Work life
Here it is, the famous boldface names entry. Enjoy!
This was the first year in a long time I haven’t been able to issue my usual “Declaration of Spring” to my former counterpart Brian Foster at Nationwide in person. However, the digital version will have to do. Therefore, Brian, it is now Spring! (For the uninitiated, I always decide it’s spring ridiculously early, then complain to people that they’re still wearing their coats. This is to compensate for all the weeks where people tease me about what I’m wearing. Even when it gets back down to zero, I steadfastly maintain that spring has arrived. It’s part of my English stubbornness.)
Yesterday I re-watched The Fog of War, the Oscar-winning documentary about Robert McNamara. It’s surprising how much of that movie is applicable to today’s current Iraq conflict. Based on some of the statements, I doubt McNamara would want to be involved in our war. The most salient part, I thought, was when he told the story of meeting the North Vietnamese at a dinner in the 1990′s. McNamara explains that from the American perspective, the Vietnam War was a cold-war conflict we fought as a proxy. But the Vietnamese, he said, just saw us as the substitute for the French colonialists. The man he talked to said, “You have to think about the war from our perspective. We were never going to give up!” McNamara said that was a fundamental problem with US thinking about the war. I don’t need to spell it out for you — do today’s Iraqis think we’re colonizers rather than liberators?
Speaking of Oscars, I’m still trying to figure out what to wear to local celebrity Kevin Wood’s Oscar party this Sunday. We’ve been told to wear something from the movies, and since my mom threw out my tiara in 1996, I cannot go as The Queen. I hate these costume parties. I always was the person going to Halloween as a fifth-grader or “someone who does not celebrate Halloween.”
Finally, no entry would be complete without a shout out to Jim Fields, who gave us his old bread maker as a last resort in the carb wars. We now turn out oddly-shaped loaves of bread every week. Things are so good these days.
27 April 2006 at 4.21 pm · Filed under Political
I’ve just learned that the Senate may be taking up a proposal that will involve a “$100 gas tax holiday rebate check” going to every family in America. Things are truly getting out of hand when even good Republicans want to solve a problem by throwing money at it.
When were high gas prices ever a problem? I’d love to be snide and say I don’t use gas because I live in the city (and you probably do too if you read this), but that would be unreasonably false. We all depend on oil for all kinds of things, including seeing goods in our pedestrian-friendly stores, buses on our streets, and our precious Amazon and Netflix shipments in the mail. So I won’t play the “city card.”
But high prices send the necessary signal to people: this thing, gas, is precious — don’t use if it you don’t have to. It also sends the right signal to producers: hey, you can make a lot of money if you can sell this stuff. This is exactly how markets are supposed to work! Republicans know better.
If $100 checks really go to families who all spend them solely on gasoline, it will do nothing but further strain the markets. Prices will go up even further because people won’t bear the full cost of consumption and dealers will know people have that extra cash in hand. Of course, I suspect the money will more likely go to general consumption and not be earmarked by anybody for two or three tanks of gas. Meanwhile, the government will have wasted twelve billion dollars.
I vow here and now: if the federal government sends me a check for $100, I will donate it to the transit agency of my choice and not keep a dollar for myself. (If the check is taxable, which would be an amusing farce in itself, then I’ll keep enough money to pay the taxes and donate the rest.)
22 April 2006 at 10.39 pm · Filed under City life, Culture, Political
Today Arnie and I were riding our bikes through the Deaf School Park, enjoying the topiary garden (unfamiliar? click here to visit the “only topiary interpretation of a painting in existence”), when we came across an equally elaborate but less placid tableau.
A drawn, haggard old white guy, dressed horribly in an ugly, too-warm-looking red plaid long-sleeved shirt buttoned all the way to the top, was sitting on one of the benches. While the upper crust cavorted on the Grande Jatte behind him, three youngish-looking college types used two cameras and two microphones to conduct an “interview.” I have to use quotes around that word because for the whole five or six minutes we were there trying to enjoy the scene, he was continuously and bitterly complaining about the Delaware County Board of Elections and various other “criminals” who had collaborated to throw the 2004 election to George Bush. “Every time I’d call down there, they’d say ‘I only have preliminary results, these could change.’ They sure did!” He didn’t pause to slow down as his ire shifted to various precinct captains who, undoubtedly, must have been in on it too. It was remarkably venomous given the gorgeous temperatures and peaceful setting.
Well, I couldn’t resist giving the college kids a good show and an unscripted moment to include in their documentary as they saw fit, so as we lazily pedaled by I called out, “It’s over! It’s over!” Taken aback but only for a second, the man grunted back, “Yeah, our democracy is over, big deal, right?” I rolled my eyes. (I hope I’m in some new hippie movie!)
What you gonna do. If the election was fraudulent in Ohio, it would have taken the complicity of hundreds of election workers in both parties. Under our laws, the two main parties have equal representation at each county board of elections, and any party representative can challenge the qualifications of any voter. We lost, pal, and most likely fair and square. It’s a beautiful spring day. If you want to do something productive, change your shirt and go stumping for Jim Petro. You still have ten days to make a difference!
19 November 2005 at 5.57 pm · Filed under City life, Political
The recent clash over red-light cameras in Ohio has me a little overheated. A healthy debate is good for all of us, but the attempt to step on Columbus is despicable.
To the alarm of certain House Republicans, Columbus City Council recently decided to put up a handful of traffic cameras to catch illegal drivers and to promote safety. The city police have recommended the locations, which are among the most dangerous in the city. Anyone running one of these lights will be videotaped and ticketed by mail. Drivers will have plenty of notice that the cameras are going up: first of all, there’s the spirited public debate; there’ll be signs at the intersections; and only warnings, not tickets, will be issued for 30 days. Violators will be able to watch their infractions on the Internet. City officials say the cameras should act as a deterrent.
The problem is real: red-light running led to more than 200,000 injuries and 928 American deaths in a recent year. And the camera solution, far from being some new-fangled European craze like gay marriage, is a concept that’s been successful in many other cities and states right here in America. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety approves of the idea, citing it as the top cause of urban crashes. The national AAA supports the concept too. And so should anybody who’s worried about the ever-declining standard of civility on our streets.
But it’s not really the merits of the camera proposal that move me to write: it’s the baffling reaction of some Statehouse Republicans, who want to amend state law so that Columbus’s new cameras become impossible. Proponents say cameras have the potential to greatly reduce T-bone crashes, saving our money and our lives. But if state Rep. Jim Raussen has his way, we’ll never get to find out. Proving you can fight City Hall, his House Bill 56 would strip cities of their ability to enforce their laws by way of red-light cameras – unless they have an officer present. Since we can’t afford that, the law essentially makes cameras illegal.
Apparently these extremists can talk out of both sides of their mouths (and I thought they only had a right side). Republicans are the same folks who told us that local control by towns and school districts was far superior to overreaching by distant overseers in Columbus and Washington. Honest local people on city councils, they said, know how to take care of their problems far better than any pompous know-it-all in the capital.
Intelligent design in the schoolhouse? It’s a choice that’s best left up to those parents and civic leaders on the school board. Giant, ugly ads on downtown buildings? The Federal Highway Administration better not bother us with its musty old laws. A conservation plan for the Darby, that would depend solely on willing sellers of land? Granny, get your gun! Local control is the only American way. So why are they against our local decision to try cameras to save lives?
Their opposition is mysterious. This is a classic case of a decision made by citizen-representatives at the local level, affecting only local people. Columbus isn’t putting cameras on the interstates or at our city’s borders; they’re mostly in the center of town. The cameras won’t affect people from out of town unless they choose to drive deep into Columbus — and then break our laws. I’m no defender of one-party rule anywhere, particularly at City Hall, but we, the people of Columbus, put those people on City Council, and extremists in the Statehouse should respect our decisions.
They told us crime is such a serious problem in Ohio, we needed the Ohio Patriot Act, a law putting unprecedented power in the hands of cops. A police officer can now stop you and demand that you give your name, address, and birthday, even if you’re innocent and that officer has no cause to suspect you’ve done anything wrong. But an impartial, proven technology that would catch real criminals, in the act, on videotape? That’s out of line.
Apparently, local control only goes so far. H.B. 56 should be stopped in its tracks.
2 November 2005 at 2.43 am · Filed under City life, Political
Every year, it falls to me to grouse and complain about the abuse of the public trust practiced by certain local candidates who seem to think they own the whole damn road. I’m not talking about the driving, I’m talking about their signs in the public right-of-way.
This year on May 23rd, I wrote to City Attorney Richard Pfeiffer to complain about violations of the Columbus City Code. The relevant section of code is 902.02 (a).
902.02 Obstructing sidewalks or streets.
(a) No person, regardless of intent, shall place, deposit, maintain, or use, or cause or permit to be placed, deposited, maintained, or used upon any street, alley, sidewalk, highway, or right-of-way any materials, containers, vending equipment, structures, appliances, furniture, merchandise, bench, stand, sign, or advertising of any kind, or any other similar device or obstruction except as authorized by the transportation administrator, as required by Chapter 903 of the Columbus City Code.
I did get a very nice and considerate voice mail, along with a suggestion to forward my letter to Public Safety Directory Henry Guzman, but neither of these guys has completely solved the problem.
I don’t drive very often, but I did happen to drive down Olentangy to dinner tonight and in a half-mile stretch, I saw signs from five different candidates! The offenders cluttering the public landscape were:
- Phill Harmon, unendorsed Republican
- Mary Jo Hudson, endorsed Democrat
- Jay Perez, endorsed Democrat
- Mike Rankin, endorsed Democrat
- Amy Salerno, endorsed Republican (Ms. Salerno is the winner of this tacky contest, having staked out seven signs on every corner of the intersection of Goodale and Olentangy River Road)
These signs collect all month, blowing all over the street, and then no one takes them down after the election. Public land belongs to everyone, and is not to be used to one candidate’s personal benefit. And may I remind my readers of the irony here, three of the above candidates openly violating city law and the public trust are running for judge?
Party and qualifications be damned. If you put up a sign on public property, you lose my vote. Let’s have a little dignity and respect for the process.
2 November 2005 at 2.30 am · Filed under Political
Reading the editorial page of the Columbus Dispatch is like being in an abusive relationship. Just when you think you’re safe, you wake up, and out of nowhere you get brained. Unfortunately, unlike a battered wife, I really have to admit that it’s all my fault and I don’t know why I keep going back to him.
This Sunday the Dispatch opposed Reform Ohio Now’s issues 2 through 5. With all the thoughtful writing they’ve done on local city issues and on abuses of power, plus with the series of articles we’ve seen on Ohio’s lopsidedly gerrymandered legislative districts, I was sure they would back at least some of the issues. Unfortunately, I’ll have to be lying to my friends that “I fell down the stairs,” because this hurt and I sure didn’t see it coming.
I was not whole-heartedly behind each issue. In very brief, the issues are:
- 2: absentee voting in advance
- 3: campaign contribution limits
- 4: end party-based gerrymandering of districts
- 5: pass statewide control of elections to a board rather than the Secretary of State
I have been leaning toward opposing 2 and 3 and supporting 4 and 5.
Issue 2 allows people to vote up to 35 days before the date of the actual election. I think this is a terrible idea. While the idea of absentee voting seems nice, a lot can happen in the five weeks before an election. As we allow voting farther and farther ahead, people are more likely to miss defining events on the campaign trail, and once your vote is cast, it can’t be changed. Consider what happened last year in the 26th District where I lived: the Democratic primary was won by Mike Mitchell, who defeated his opponent by only 173 votes. But (according to the paper on March 9, 2004) Mitchell had gotten a DUI citation just two days before the election. He was also charged with going 70 in a 55 and driving on a suspended license. (Unfortunately, this didn’t hit the news until it was too late.) If people had known about this before they voted, I think he would have lost the election. Early voting costs you the chance to make important last-minute decisions.
Issue 3 is campaign contribution limits; I honestly don’t have a strong position here and I don’t want to talk about it. I think they are a mistake.
Issue 4, however, is the real jewel of this year’s reform package. Under issue 4, anyone could submit a plan for the state’s legislative districts, and that plan would be scored for its political competitiveness. The formula — which is insanely complicated (go read it) — gives higher points if a district is more evenly balanced between the two parties. The highest overall point-getting plan generally wins and is chosen by an impartial board. It’s more complicated than that, but it would end the system where last year Democrats won their Ohio House seats by an average of some 60 percent and Republicans by some 40 percent. Gerrymandering used to be more of an art, but in the last go-round, computer mapping technology had advanced so much that these crazy unwinnable districts have been much easier to draw. (I know, because I write mapping software.)
The gerrymandering in our state is really costing us, because the people who get elected just have to win their party primary, not appeal to a broad electorate. In the case of the 26th District, by the way, Mike Mitchell went on to run unopposed in the general election, and he won. (The Dispatch said that the “solution would be worse than the problem” and that “Democrats’ weak challenges to GOP officeholders have played a role in this problem.” But it cuts both ways when Republicans don’t field any candidate at all.)
Issue 5 would take election oversight duties away from the Secretary of State and give them to a board of election officials. Although a board might be less responsive, I think it would be a worthwhile step. In Ohio in 2004, as in Florida in 2000, the Secretary of State was at the center of a heated, disputatious election, and the Secretary of State was also the chairman of the Bush campaign. It presented a ridiculous conflict of interest. I understand Florida has already stripped their SOS of election duties, by the way.
I think the Dispatch does have a good point to make about the complexity and specificity of the laws, saying that “they seek to write highly detailed, prescriptive language and untested policy into the Ohio Constitution. Once there, fixing any deficiencies would require another statewide vote.” While this is true, I am not exactly holding my breath for either party to voluntarily level the playing field. Also, while issues 2 and 3 generally deal with regulation of elections and are probably better suited to being acts of the legislature, issues 4 and 5 are structural in nature and therefore do belong in our state’s constitution. As an alternative, the broad outlines of issue 4′s formula might have been put into the constitution, along with the requirement of a more detailed enabling act to be passed by the legislature, so that the variables could be tinkered with, but I’m not comfortable with anything coming out of the Statehouse these days.
Our electoral system is fundamental to our functioning democracy. Vote yes on issues 4 and 5!
17 March 2005 at 9.40 pm · Filed under Political, The law
The pain from the recent spate of court-related killings won’t be able to heal until some gun nut informs the country that if everyone could carry a firearm inside a courthouse, we wouldn’t have as many crazed defendants grabbing guns and shooting judges. I do hope this brave truth-teller speaks out soon, because it is high time for there to be more loaded weapons around criminals. After all, if guns were illegal, then only criminals would be able to shoot innocent court reporters in cold blood.
30 January 2005 at 10.09 pm · Filed under Political, Work life
So recently, our organization’s officer came to see the gang at work about how we are feeling. It was, as always, a well-intentioned event, and I do think he takes our comments seriously. Unfortunately for everyone, it was at 8am, and I showed up about 50 minutes late, because I forgot about it.
When I came in, though, I walked into a conversation that quickly turned to employee benefits.
Good Buddy #1 was saying that the health insurance is too expensive (I have to paraphrase a little here). “Yeah, I really wish there were some way we could get some kind of basic level of health benefits for free. You know how the pension works, you just get it automatically?” (We are the last people alive who can expect a pension.) “That sure would be nice. Or maybe if there was some way we could choose not to have certain other benefits in exchange for better health insurance.”
Good Buddy #2 chipped in. “Well, you know, my wife quit her job to take care of our new baby, and we had to sign up for health insurance through Nationwide instead of through her old job. And I know she’s a teacher and she worked for the government, but the benefits we get here are nowhere near what they gave us, and the cost is so much higher. I mean, it was a real factor in her making the decision to leave work, you know? If things were different, we might have decided for her to keep working just to keep the insurance.”
I said, “Hey, wait, didn’t you guys vote for Bush last year? Yeah, OK, just checking.” And the Iranian and I shared a rueful laugh.
11 December 2004 at 6.25 pm · Filed under City life, Political, Solely personal
In case you’ve been wondering where I’ve been over the last several months, I’m still here. Moving downtown has had the effect of joining the witness protection program. Add to that the fact that I now have a new Rival brand Crock-Pot Slow Cooker and I couldn’t be more home-bound. So here’s an update from Bill.
I got a parking ticket last week from the good folks at the City of Columbus Parking Violations Bureau. I realize I’m ruining any future political aspirations by admitting this in such a public forum, but I have to explain how it happened. The short version of this story is, the meters on the new 670 cap are enforced from 7am until 10pm on Saturdays, except for the fact that they’re not enforced from 4pm to 6pm. (Logical for a day that doesn’t have a rush hour, isn’t it?) Anyway, I tried to get out of it because I didn’t bother to read the sticker carefully and because the meters just a hundred feet away shut off at six, but it didn’t work and they sent me a nice all-caps letter telling me to pay up. Oh well — it was my mistake. Anyway, gentle reader, be careful parking on that bridge.
I have to give a shout out to the good people at the Mozilla Organization. I got their new Firefox browser and it is really good. In fact, it is the first web browser since Netscape 2.0 I’ve liked better than Internet Explorer. It’s based on the old Netscape code, in fact, so it’s nice to come full circle. They’re pitching it as a good alternative to the security nightmare that is Internet Explorer. Even if you don’t worry about that, though, it’s really fast, and it has tabbed browsing, great keyboard shortcuts, and this wicked cool orange fire logo. Best of all, Windows SP2 makes it pretty seamless to replace IE with Firefox. So, click this button, and if you like it, then, all right.
I feel compelled to discuss the recent dust-up in the papers about COTA and its last-ditch attempt to save its light rail dreams. This week, MORPC agreed to help COTA borrow $4 million for an environmental study on the line. At the same time, the Federal Transit Administration reminded us that its support for the COTA rail plan came with an expiration date, and the support ends soon because COTA never came up with the local matching funds to build the line.
COTA is therefore taking one step forward and one step back. Some of my friends, and some letter writers in the Dispatch, have suggested that we need to get this sales tax moving so that we can regain federal approval. Faithful friends and readers of mine will know nobody likes the idea of urban rail transport — or anything that supplements the highway in our cities — more than I do. But as I’ve been saying for years, COTA’s been so mismanaged that I just can’t support a tax increase until it cleans up its act. Firing the censured manager Ron Barnes was a great first step, but the agency has a lot more to do to rebuild the public confidence. How about starting with firing drivers who run red lights? And fixing the signs that still don’t make sense? How about a web site that works? When COTA takes basic steps such as these and improves its existing operations, I’ll be able to push for the tax increase. Until then, I vote no.
And finally, on a related issue, I believe it’s a mistake for COTA to depend on the sales tax to raise its revenues. Because a light rail system is a fixed, physical infrastructure improvement, and it does primarily benefit those landowners in the region of the corridor, the economically optimal funding source would be a property tax — say on those landowners within two miles of the route plus all of Downtown. This undercuts some of the legitimate argument of those who say they would never use the system and shouldn’t have to pay for it. (However, any decreases in air pollution would benefit the region as a whole, so there should be some way to recover that benefit through a more broad-based tax.) The other main argument I have with a sales tax is that it is regressive, which means the poor spend the largest share of their income meeting the burden of the tax, and the irony of that is that better transit service benefits the poor more than anyone else. The sales tax giveth away and taketh back.
The last COTA levy, which was countywide, predictably had its greatest support along the North High Street corridor and lowest support in the low-density south. The tax increase could have passed comfortably in certain quarters of the city. COTA should explore a funding mechanism, some kind of special district, that would put the cost on those who would use the service and who demonstrably wanted it the most.
5 October 2004 at 8.38 pm · Filed under City life, Connextions Lofts, Political, Solely personal
It’s been a while since I’ve written. Since it’s my policy not really to talk about the boring details of my day or my week, I’ve been reluctant to write much at all. Actually, my life has actually been really busy, but it’s all been that kind of minutiae I’ve had to manage. When you take it day to day, it’s not so bad, but when it’s added up it’s a bit of a fright.
So, in the last couple of months, here’s what I’ve been up to.
I’ve moved downtown into the horribly misspelled “ConneXtions Lofts” building. It’s a nice place to be, and I’ve been having fun worrying about what kind of furniture to buy and what to paint the walls. It’s kind of got me in a state of paralysis because I don’t want to decide. Also, I’m really tired of shopping and choosing. I have managed to spend $497.11 at the Container Store and I feel like I don’t have a damn thing to show for it. (Come see how I finally have plastic bins to put my Thurgood Marshall black history stamps in!)
And in minor news: I made a great weeklong vacation to D.C., Delaware, N.J., and Philadelphia, where I visited the National Constitution Center. My good friend and co-worker Rajni Dutta was made a citizen of the United States at the federal District Court here in Columbus! And Sunday I squoze in one last hurrah, a trip to Cedar Point, thusly capping a pretty good summer.
One other thing I’d say in apology for not writing is, you know that I also like to discuss political events here, but again, so much of what I’d say is obvious or would have been covered by the commentariat so much better. I can say that I checked the voter registrations of almost everybody I know in town and they were all correctly registered — congratulations, Franklin County friends! I’m sure you will all vote correctly. Sample ballots will be available for download on billcash.org later this month.
I’ll leave you with this last thought. I was at the gym recently and overheard a guy say to another guy, “Hell no, I don’t want to go to some damn web site and see somebody head get chopped off!” Can you remember a time when a conversation like that would have been unusual? It seems rather long ago.
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