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OUR VOTING RIGHTS – A State by State Analysis

January 7, 2013 1:24 pm / 2 Comments on OUR VOTING RIGHTS – A State by State Analysis

In an off handed comment made after the 2012 election, President Barack Obama said we need to fix our election process.  This is a welcome suggestion.  Our election process is badly broken and we need to take a good look at it.  We should start by asking:

What voting rights do I have in my state? 

This is not a commonly asked question, but it should be.  Most of us believe voting rights are guaranteed under the federal constitution. This isn’t exactly true.  The Constitution contains several amendments to prevented states from disenfranchising certain categories of voters. For example, states cannot use race, religion, gender or the age of anyone 18 or older as a means to disqualify a “citizen” from voting.  The actual right of suffrage, however, isn’t a federal guarantee. This is up to the states.  Fixing our voting system will be a state by state effort.

In all our public discussions about elections there is rarely mention of how voting rights differ in various states. When you look at state constitutional language on voting rights, however, you quickly learn that many of the rights we take as granted, such as a right to secret ballots, are nowhere to be found in most state constitutions.  In fact, state constitutional voting rights differ widely from one state to the next.

The wide variation in voting rights are not immediately evident because state laws, administrative regulation and voting practices over time have created consensual frameworks for elections that appear similar from state to state.  For example, the vote counting process is open for public view in most states, but only the constitutions of Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia guarantee public vote counting.  California is the only state guaranteeing that  votes will even be counted.  After candidates concede defeat based on vote projections, the states are not constitutionally obligated to finish counting every ballot.

When elections run smoothly and no questions are raised, everyone consents to the will of the majority. This is true because in a representative democracy, elected officials are expected to represent everyone’s interests and not just the interests of those who voted for them. But when elections are very close and the process seems flawed, explicit constitutional language is essential to protect the democratic process and win over the consent of the minority.  Elections have consequences.  Flawed elections or overtly partisan representation can have dire consequences. Faith in our democracy begins with faith in our voting systems.

I am not a lawyer or constitution expert, but curiosity about state voting rights caused me to survey all fifty state constitutions and document the articulated rights in each.  Some results of this exercise are presented in the tables below.  Keep in mind that some constitutions have very archaic language or formats that make them difficult to interpret.  The information below represents my best effort to classify and document basic voting rights as articulated in state constitutions.  It is followed by a brief discussion for each of the categories presented below.

Basic Voting Right Articulated in Individual State Constitutions
StateVotingRights
 
DISCUSSION OF VOTING RIGHTS FOUND IN STATE CONSTITUTIONS
RIGHT TO HAVE EVERY VOTE COUNTED  –  As mentioned above, California is alone in this protection. This right may seem obvious or implied,  but there are documented instances where absentee ballots have gone missing and uncounted.  One example took place back in 2008 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when garbage bags believed to contain missing ballots were impounded by police but not opened because it was unclear if the missing ballots had to be counted.
GENERAL RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE –  Many state constitutions have high sounding language about how all power is derived by the people, but only nine state explicitly guarantee the right of suffrage.  Suffrage is the right to vote in a democratic process. It is the political franchise itself, not the right of any one individual. It says that elected officials do not have the power to suspending elections.  This seemingly essential right of the people is specifically named in only nine state constitutions.
RIGHT TO FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS – “In any State the authority of the government can only derive from the will of the people as expressed in genuine, free and fair elections held at regular intervals on the basis of universal, equal and secret suffrage.”  So said the Inter-Parliamentary Council at its 154th session in Paris, 26 March, 1994.  Here in the US, the State Department was actually very helpful in sharing their view on Free and Fair Elections with nations whose democracies are less advance than our own.  They provided third-world countries with the following guidelines:
Free and fair elections require:
– Universal suffrage for all eligible men and women to vote
– democracies do not restrict this right from minorities, the disabled, or give it only to those who are literate or who own property
– Freedom to register as a voter or run for public office.
– Freedom of speech for candidates and political parties
– democracies do not restrict candidates or political parties from criticizing the performance of the incumbent.
– Numerous opportunities for the electorate to receive objective information from a free press.
– Freedom to assemble for political rallies and campaigns.
– Rules that require party representatives to maintain a distance from polling places on election day
– election officials, volunteer poll workers, and international monitors may assist voters with the voting process but not the voting choice.
– An impartial or balanced system of conducting elections and verifying election results
– trained election officials must either be politically independent or those overseeing elections should be representative of the parties in the election.
– Accessible polling places, private voting space, secure ballot boxes, and transparent ballot counting.
– Secret ballots – voting by secret ballot ensures that an individual’s choice of party or candidate cannot be used against him or her.
– Legal prohibitions against election fraud
– enforceable laws must exist to prevent vote tampering (e.g. double counting, ghost voting).
– Recount and contestation procedures
– legal mechanisms and processes to review election processes must be established to ensure that elections were conducted properly.
Many states could learn a lot from the State Department.  Only 44% of Americans can claim that Free and Fair Elections are constitutionally protection in their state. It is ironic that the government Website from which the above information comes contains the following disclaimer: “NOTE: The America.gov website is no longer being updated.”
RIGHT TO VOTE BY BALLOT – There are many ways to vote, of course.  You can have a show of hands or call for an assembly to shout yea or nay.  You can even draw straws.  In democratic elections we prefer ballots.  They are discrete and unique to each voter. They allow for the possibility of secret voting.  Until recently they were also made of paper, not electrons.  The decision to redefine “ballot” to include patterns of electrons stored on memory cards was never publicly debated. As with all voting processes in this country, we never got to vote on whether we wanted this change.  Just 28 state constutions guarantee voting by ballot but none of them contain any language to define what is a “ballot”, so electronic voting cannot be easily challenged on constitutional ground.
RIGHT TO SECRET VOTING –  The secrecy of our vote is among our most cherished rights, except it isn’t a constitutional right at all for more than 146 million American citizens.  Secret voting prevents voter intimidation.  It assures us that how we vote can not be used against us later on.  Only 23 states guarantee secrecy in voting.  Several other states guarantee the right to vote in private, but that’s not quite the same thing, is it?
RIGHT TO PUBLIC VOTE COUNTING – Stalin has been credited with saying, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything”.  This speaks volumes for both the right to have our vote counted and the necessity to have all vote counting conducted in public view.  This is especially true when ballots are cast is secret or when they are electronically invisible.  Public vote counting is even more important as we rely more and more on private corporations to count our electronic ballots.  They claim that the software they use to count or votes is so proprietary that even state election officials are not allowed to peek.  Coupled with a trend among election officials to view with suspicion any voter who wants to observe the process, it is shocking that only 3 states constitutionally protect this essential right.
FREQUENCY OF ELECTIONS –  It is one thing to guarantee that the government will hold elections and another to assure they are regularly scheduled.  Ask anyone from a parliamentary democracy about this and they can tell you how the timing of elections can be manipulated to benefit incumbents.  We need clear guidance on when elections should be held. Fifteen states have clear constitutional language about this.  The rest don’t.  While we know when to expect elections in our state only 30% of us have these expectations guaranteed.
PRIVILEGE FROM ARREST AND EXCEPTIONS –  Imagine heading out to vote knowing you have a few outstanding parking tickets.  You show up at your polling place and notice a police presence out front.  Maybe they even appear to be question some voters. Do you try to walk past them to vote or do you turn around and play it safe?
This is the predicament that a privilege from arrest is designed to resolve.  You should not see a uniformed police presence at polling sites or feel any intimidation at all.  A uniformed police officer at a polling site can be especially intimidating to minorities and economically disadvantaged voters. It can suppress the vote.  Unless a voter is wanted for  serious crimes or treasonous, or unless they cause a public disturbance, the privilege from arrest while voting should be guaranteed.  Just 23 states have this guaranteed. Only a third of our citizens are covered by this protection.
RIGHT TO ACCESSIBLE POLLING PLACES –  “… polling places shall be easily accessible to all persons including disabled and elderly persons who are otherwise qualified to vote,” says the New Hampshire State Constitution.  You might think that the “Americans with Disabilities Act” covers this right, but voting doesn’t always take place in buildings covered by the act.  More broadly speaking, a guaranteed access to polling places means adequate numbers of voting machines voting locations that people can  get to without a significant expense of time or money.  This has been a particular problem in “battle states” such as Florida where the lines to vote were many hours long.  It turns out that onlyNew Hampshire and Oklahoma are the only states providing this constitutional protection.
 Here below is a summary voter rights and the percentage of American citizens who are covered under those right.

PERCENTAGE OF CITIZENS COVERED BY THE VOTING RIGHTS 

ARTICULATED IN STATE CONSTITUTIONS
Num. of States

 w/This

 Right

 Percent of  Population

 w/this  Right

  

GENERAL VOTING RIGHTS
1
9.7%
Right to Have Every Vote Counted
9
10.5%
General Right of Suffrage
21
44.0%
Right to Free and Fair Election
28
55.3%
Right to voting by ballot
23
46.7%
Right to secret vote
3
5.6%
Right to Public Vote Counting
15
32.6%
Frequency of Elections Right
23
36.5%
Privilege from Arrest during voting
21
36.5%
Privilege from Arrest Exceptions
2
1.6%
Right to accessible polling place
Num. of 
States
 w/This Right
Percent of Population 
 w/This Right
QUALIFICATIONS and EXCEPTIONS
49
99.6%
Must be A US Citizen
46
91.2%
Must be Registered to vote
20
27.6%
State’s Deployed Solders Can Vote
37
83.9%
Felony Exception
12
15.5%
Treason Exception
13
30.9%
Incarceration Exception
33
69.5%
Mental Capacity Exception
2
0.5%
Moral Conduct or other Exception
23
34.0%
Restoration from Exception
10
17.6%
No quartered solders
2
1.8%
Right to Appeal Voter Ineligibility 

Voting Rights, a State by State Analysis

December 17, 2012 2:51 pm / Leave a comment

What voting rights do you have in your state? 

This is an uncommon question.  We mostly assume that voting rights are contained somewhere in the US Constitution, but this isn’t true.  What the Federal Constitution does say, in several different amendments, is that states cannot use race, religion, gender or the age of anyone 18 years old or older as a means to disqualify a US citizen from voting.  The actual right of suffrage, or the “franchise” as the election process is sometimes called, isn’t a federal right at all. Elections and the voting process are the purview of each sovereign state.

There is a table below which lists the basic voting rights spelled out in our state constitutions.  You will see how voting rights differ significantly from one state to the next.  Before reviewing the table, however, it is important to acknowledge that most states honor a host of voting “rights” and privileges beyond what is articulated in the constitutions. These unarticulated voting rights are often expression in state chapter laws or in the states voting procedures.  

Many of us have come to view voting rights as “unalienable”, but they are not.   Unlike explicit constitutional language, laws passed by legislatures and voting procedures established by the state executive branches of government can be changed or reinterpreted in novel ways. When elections run smoothly no questions are raised.  But should something ever go unexpectedly wrong we need explicit state constitutional protections to redress our grievances. A discussion of each basic voting right contained in the table below will follows, along with a table that summarizes how common these rights are in America. 

 

Basic Voting Right Articulated in State Constitutions

 

RIGHT TO HAVE EVERY VOTE COUNTED –  The first voting right listed on the table above is the right to have every vote counted. California is the only state that has this protection in their constitution. This right may seem obvious or unnecessary at first,  but there are documented instances where absentee ballots have gone missing and uncounted.  One example took place back in 2008 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when garbage bags believed to contain missing ballots were impounded by police but not opened because it was unclear if the missing ballots had to be counted.  This right, then, isn’t about hanging chads or undecipherable ballots, but about the obvious expectation that ballots properly cast are ballots properly counted, even if doing so doesn’t change who won. 

GENERAL RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE –  Many state constitutions have high sounding language about how all power is derived by the people, but only 9 state go on to guarantee the right of suffrage.  Suffrage, according to Wikipedia, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process, It is the political franchise, or simply the franchise, which is distinct from mere voting rights. A  right of suffrage forecloses the possibility of a state one day declaring a state of emergency and suspending elections.  This is a seemingly remote possibility, but not so remote that 9 states have included this protection in their constitution. 

RIGHT TO FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS – “In any State the authority of the government can only derive from the will of the people as expressed in genuine, free and fair elections held at regular intervals on the basis of universal, equal and secret suffrage.”  So said the Inter-Parliamentary Council at its 154th session in Paris, 26 March, 1994.  Here in the US, the State Department was actually very helpful in sharing their view on Free and Fair Elections with nations whose democracies are less advance than our own.  They provide the following guidelines:   

Free and fair elections require:

— Universal suffrage for all eligible men and women to vote – democracies do not restrict this right from minorities, the disabled, or give it only to those who are literate or who own property

— Freedom to register as a voter or run for public office.

— Freedom of speech for candidates and political parties – democracies do not restrict candidates or political parties from criticizing the performance of the incumbent.
— Numerous opportunities for the electorate to receive objective information from a free press.
— Freedom to assemble for political rallies and campaigns.
— Rules that require party representatives to maintain a distance from polling places on election day – election officials, volunteer poll workers, and international monitors may assist voters with the voting process but not the voting choice.
— An impartial or balanced system of conducting elections and verifying election results – trained election officials must either be politically independent or those overseeing elections should be representative of the parties in the election.
— Accessible polling places, private voting space, secure ballot boxes, and transparent ballot counting.
— Secret ballots – voting by secret ballot ensures that an individual’s choice of party or candidate cannot be used against him or her.
— Legal prohibitions against election fraud – enforceable laws must exist to prevent vote tampering (e.g. double counting, ghost voting).
— Recount and contestation procedures – legal mechanisms and processes to review election processes must be established to ensure that elections were conducted properly.

 

Many of our soverign states could learn a lot from what the State Department has been preaching abroad. Only 44% of Americans can claim Free and Fair Elections as a constitutional protection in their state. It is ironic that the government Website from which the above information comes contains the following disclaimer: 

NOTE: The America.gov website is no longer being updated.

 

RIGHT TO VOTE BY BALLOT – There are many ways to vote if you think about it.  You can have a show of hands.  You can call for the yeas and nays and judge the outcome by the volume of shouts.  You can even draw straws.  Ballots, on the other hands are unique to each voter, often secret and never shared by more than one voter. They are usually pre-printed paper, but increasing voting is by electronic ballot.  This is a pre-programmed selection on an electronic device.  Hopefully the results aren’t also pre-programmed (see Blackboxvoting.org for much more on this scary thought)  Originally, voting was conducted using black or white balls, black being no and white being yes.  The voter would pick up the ball of his choice and drop it into a container (or ball lot?).  An important point about ballots is that they can be secret, unlike other methods.  Voting by ballot is a protection found in 26 of 50 state constitutions.

RIGHT TO SECRET VOTING –  The secrecy of our vote is among our most cherished rights, except it isn’t a right at all for more than 146 million American citizens, or at least it isn’t a constitutional right.  Secret voting is essential to assure that how we vote can never be used against us, yet only 21 states have explicit constitutional language to guarantee secrecy in voting.  Several other states guarantee the right to vote in private, but that’s not quite the same thing, is it?

 

RIGHT TO PUBLIC VOTE COUNTING – Stalin has been credited with saying, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything”.  This speaks volumes for both the right to have our vote counted and the necessity to have all vote counting conducted in public view.  This is especially true when ballots are cast is secret or when they are electronically invisible.  Public vote counting is even more important as we rely more and more on private corporations to count our electronic ballots.  They claim that the software they use to count or votes is so proprietary that even state election officials are not allowed to peek.  Coupled with a trend among election officials to view with suspicion any voter who wants to observe the process, it is shocking that only 3 states constitutionally protect this essential right.

FREQUENCY OF ELECTIONS –  It is one thing to guarantee that the government will hold elections and another thing to actually schedule them.  Ask anyone from a parliamentary democracy about this and how it can be manipulated to benefit incumbents.  Perhaps more to the point there should be a performance standard by which to judge whether we have a right to suffrage.  That standard for 15 states is some clear constitutional language about when, or how often elections are to be held.  While 100% of Americans know when to expect their elections, only 30% of them have this guarantee in writing. 

 

PRIVILEGE FROM ARREST AND EXCEPTIONS –  Imagine yourself heading out to perform your civic duty on election day.  You show up to vote and notice a police presence out front.  Maybe you have some outstanding parking tickets or a warrant for not paying child support.  Maybe you missed a municipal court date on some trivial matter.  Do you walk past the police and risk arrest, or do you give up your vote to right out of fear of being arrested?  This is the predicament that a privilege from arrest is designed to resolve.  Unless your crimes are so felonious or treasonous, or unless you cause a public disturbance at the polling site, a  privilege from arrest while going to, coming from or being at the polling place is constitutionally

guaranteed in 21 states.  It should be all 50 states because this scenario is all too common.  We should not see a police presence at or near the polling places.  We are all presumed innocent unless actually convicted of an offense.  No law enforcement authority should prevent anyone from exercising their right to vote.  The absence of this constitutional privilege can have a disproportional impact on minorities and the poor, yet only a third of our citizens are covered by this protection. 

 

RIGHT TO ACCESSIBLE POLLING PLACES –  “… polling places shall be easily accessible to all persons including disabled and elderly persons who are otherwise qualified to vote,” says the New Hampshire State Constitution.   Is this right necessary?  After all, don’t we have the Americans with Disabilities Act?  Yes we do, but does the Americans with Disabilities Act strictly apply?  It’s an open question.  More broadly, do we have a right to expect adequate polling places and voting machines in every community without undo commutation hardships or excessively long lines?  We could do better.  Only New Hampshire has this provision but something more broadly stated would be a good idea for every state constitution.

 Here now is a summary of findings regarding state constitutional voter rights:

   

VOTING RIGHTS ARTICULATED IN US STATE CONSTITUTIONS

Number of States With This Right

Percent of US Population WithThis Right

GENERAL VOTING RIGHTS

1

9.7%

Right to Have Every Vote Counted

9

10.5%

General Right of Suffrage

21

44.0%

Right to Free and Fair Election

26

55.3%

Right to voting by ballot

21

46.7%

Right to secret vote

3

5.6%

Right to Public Vote Counting

15

32.6%

Frequency of Elections Right

21

36.5%

Privilege from Arrest during voting

21

36.5%

Privilege from Arrest Exceptions

2

1.6%

Right to accessible polling place

 

 

 

Number of States With This Right

Percent of US Population WithThis Right

QUALIFICATIONS and EXCEPTIONS

49

99.6%

Must be A US Citizen

46

91.2%

Must be Registered to vote

20

27.6%

State’s Deployed Solders Can Vote

37

83.9%

Felony Exception

12

15.5%

Treason Exception

13

30.9%

Incarceration Exception

33

69.5%

Mental Capacity Exception

2

0.5%

Moral Conduct or other Exception

23

34.0%

Restoration from Exception

10

17.6%

No quartered solders

2

1.8%

Right to Appeal Voter Ineligibility

 

 

Government Jobs Not Rebounding As In Past Recessions

December 14, 2012 11:00 am / Leave a comment

The graph below depicts the rebound in government jobs over the past four recessions.  This time it is different.  Government jobs aren’t returning.  The present financial crisis and austerity budgets at the state level have given governors the green light to radically reduce public sector employment levels in unprecedented ways.  This not only hurts our economy, it damages the ability of state and local governments to serve the needs of its citizens.
 In a prior post I presented original data on state employment data showing the national trend in state austerity budgets.  The private sector job growth has already rebounded to pre-recession levels, but has not caught up to where it should be by now. In contrast, government austerity budgets are keeping public sector employment depressed and below pre-recession levels.  The graph above and the following article add to this information. State governors should be helping to lead us out of this recession and at the least preserving jobs.]

Public-sector austerity in one graph

Posted by  at 03:35 PM ET, 06/11/2012

On Friday, I ran some numbers on public-sector employment:  Since Obama was elected, the public sector has lost about 600,000 jobs. If you put those jobs back, the unemployment rate would be 7.8 percent. [SNIP]

Today, Ben Polak, chairman of the economics department at Yale University, and Peter K. Schott, professor of economics at the Yale School of Management, widen the lens, with similar results: There is something historically different about this recession and its aftermath: in the past, local government employment has been almost recession-proof. This time it’s not.  [SNIP] Go to like to read the rest of Ezra Klein’s article.  Thank you.

A Flat Tax Payroll Deduction Might Save Social Security

December 14, 2012 10:24 am / Leave a comment

DATA DRIVEN POINT OF VIEW: Don’t be fooled.  Discussions about raising or lowering Federal Income Taxes has little to do with Social Security and Medicare, which are separately funded by payroll deductions.  Is there a funding crisis for Social Security and Medicare?  A long term problem, yes.  A crisis, no.  Can America continue to afford these programs given the number of baby boomer retirements?  The answer is yes, of course we can.  We are the wealthiest county on Earth.  Nations with far less wealthier already provide their citizens with much more generous benefits.  The reason we feel the funding punch is that the structure we’ve enacted to pay for federal insurance benefits is so regressive.

The table below makes obvious that wealthy Americans currently share almost none of the burden for Social Security and Medicare benefits.  The problem is that wealth is concentrated at the top of the income scale while payroll deductions are disproportionately collected from the bottom of the scale.  We can continue to raise the contribution rates but this only hurts those who earn the least.  We can keep raising the income cap but this only marginally increases the number of people pay into the system.

—  OR  —

We could institute a flat tax for Social Security and Medicare.  The table below shows what this might generate in premiums at the current 7.65% rate of payroll deductions.  This plan would clearly generate more revenue than needed for current benefits.  A flat payroll tax of significantly less than the current 7.65% would be all that is needed to fully fund Social Security and Medicare. It would reduce payroll taxes for the majority of Americans.

Payroll Taxes for Social Security and Medicare
Total Income from Wages
Amount Currently Deducted
Contribution As a % of Income
Contribution if deductions were based on a flat tax
$1,000
$77
7.65%
$77
This Segment Represents 57 million households
$10,000
$765
7.65%
$765
$50,000
$3,825
7.65%
$3,825
$100,000
$7,650
7.65%
$7,650
$500,000
$8,423
1.68%
$38,250
$1,000,000
$8,423
0.84%
$76,500
There are at least 100,000 household in this segment
$10,000,000
$8,423
0.084%
$765,000
$50,000,000
$8,423
0.017%
$3,825,000
$100,000,000
$8,423
0.0084%
$7,650,000
$500,000,000
$8,423
0.0017%
$38,250,000
$1,000,000,000
$8,423
0.00084%
$76,500,000
$10,000,000,000
$8,423
0.000084%
$765,000,000

This table assumes that income from wages for the wealthy are at least $110,100, which is the income cap for 2012, and assumes they are not self-employed. Income from investments are not subject to payroll deductions.  Employers pay an additional 7.65% in payroll taxes for their employees. The self employed also pay corresponding more in payroll taxes for their Social Security and Medicare benefits. Additional payroll deductions for unemployment and disability insurance may also apply in certain states and with certain individual.

These programs exist for everyone, and everyone should contribute according to their means. Those who are fortunate enough not to need the benefits still have a moral obligation to assure a minimal level of care to those less fortunate, and a social obligation to contributed to those who gave a lifetime of labor creating the fabulous wealth that the wealthy have accumulated.

Originally posted 14th June by 

Our Long-term Debt Will Be Fixed If Congress Does Nothing – But Don’t Count On that!

December 14, 2012 9:26 am / Leave a comment

 According to the Congressional Budget Office information (see below), it appears that if the “do-nothing” Congress actually does nothing the nation’s long term debt outlook would significantly improve.  As it stands, temporary tax cuts are set to expire and automatic budget cuts already passed by Congress with bi-partisan support are set to take effect.  As a result of laws already on the books our long-term debt problem is about to be fixed.  But Congress will have none of this!  Nor should they!

Letting the temporary tax cuts expire will anger the Republican political activist, Grover Norquist, and cause him to hold congressional Republicans in violation of his “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”
Driconian automatic budget cuts are set to go into effect in January, 2013.  Those cuts aimed at the military will slow, but  still not reverse, the ever rising rate of our military spending.  Never mind that our military spending is already twice the combined military budgets of the industrial world, this slowing of military growth is completely unacceptable to conservative Republicans and many Democrats as well.  Cuts in the military are popular with the electorate  however.  But it is the rest of the automatic budget cuts that will bring extraordinary pain to many citizens.  It will be like preforming surgery with a chainsaw and would devastate much of what we have come to expect from our government.
Congress voted for these automatic budget cuts but never really meant it.  It was a game of fiscal chicken that parties agreed to play.  So here we are on the fiscal cliff about to balance the federal budget with a tax hike and a chainsaw.

The 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook: Infographic

june 5, 2012
The 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook Infographic
Posted 19th June by 

The Real Lesson of the “Fast and Furious” Scandal

December 14, 2012 8:59 am / Leave a comment

Thanks to the great reporting of Katherine Eban at Fortune magazine we now know that the “Fast and Furious” scandal was largely manufactured for political gain.  The “Fast and Furious” operation by the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (the ATF) in Arizona was never designed to include the tactic of “gun walking”.  Gun walking is the practice of intentionally not ceasing illegally purchased firearms in order to follow the subsequent chain of possession back to higher level criminals.  It seems a few rogue ATF agents did engaged in an incident of this type on their own initiative, which does make it the AFT’s problem,  but the specific guns the ATF is accused of allowing to walk across the border, one of which was used to kill a border guard named Brian Terry, could not be ceased by the ATF because the Arizona federal Prosecutors decided these weapons were legally purchased. Federal prosecutors in Arizona were broadly interpreting Arizona’s gun laws which are among the weakest gun laws in the nation.

Ideological arguments over the Fast and Furious scandal aside, the real lesson in Eban’s piece is how our love affair with guns and our Second Amendment rights is reeking havoc in neighboring Mexico.  Every day an estimated 2,000 guns are purchased here that end up crossing the boarder into Mexico to arm the drug cartels.  Here is some background on the problems in Mexico:
 In Mexico, the “war on drugs” is quite literally a war
VALLECILLO, Mexico | Wed May 23, 2012 10:11am EDT
(Reuters) – Mexican government forces had bottled up a band of enemy fighters in this tiny village late last year, but feared they would escape into the dusty, rock-strewn hills. So more than 600 soldiers and federal police closed in from all directions with armored Humvees and helicopters.
The outlaws responded with a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault-rifle fire, tearing apart one federal police vehicle. For three days the fighting raged. In the end, according to military accounts of the battle, 22 members of the Zetas drug cartel, two police officers and a soldier were dead, and 20 Zetas were in custody. Dozens more escaped to fight another day. [SNIP]
Mexican and U.S. agents say the Zetas’ paramilitary tactics — based on small, roaming cells of armed operatives — and indiscriminate violence are the driving forces behind a recent escalation in Mexico’s drug war. That conflict, between government forces and the cartels and among the cartels themselves, has claimed about 55,000 lives in the past five years, including more than 3,000 police officers and soldiers.
  
THE RIVER OF IRON: Gun Trafficking Into Mexico
Mexican government officials estimate that some 2,000 weapons purchased in the U.S. are smuggled into Mexico every day.  Guns flow into the hands of the powerful drug cartels of Mexico while cocaine and other drugs flow back across the border to ravage yet another generation of vulnerable young Americans. These well armed cartels operate like insurgency groups effectively challenging the Mexican governments power to enforce law and order.  The cartels are terrorizing and slaughtering the country’s law abiding citizens.  The corrupting influence of guns, drugs and money threatens to destabilize the whole country.
While gun sales are legal and gun ownership is constitutionally protected in the United States, gun sales are prohibited in Mexico.  This makes the problem at the U.S., Mexican border particularly acute.  Furthermore, organizations such as the NRA aggressively oppose any attempt to regulate gun sales in the U.S.  This may suggest why there are currently no federal statutes outlawing firearms trafficking.  It is left to the states to pass such laws.
The U.S. Southern border states have an especially “pro-gun” outlook.  The Phoenix area alone has 853 federally licensed firearms dealers.  Any customers 18 years old or older who can pass a criminal background check may legally buy as many weapons as they like.  There is no waiting periods and no gun permit is required.  Some dealers offer discounts for multiple gun purchases, while others voluntarily restrict customers to one weapon per day.  While gun buyers must certify in writing, in Arizona, that the guns they buy are for personal use, they may change their mind and resell their guns at any time, even in the parking lot of the gun store.  Arizona laws against gun trafficking carry relatively mild sentences and are hard to prosecute.  Because of the weak laws and strong pro-gun attitudes in Arizona, federal prosecutors are reluctant to prosecute those accursed of buying guns on behalf of criminals, and federal prosecutors in Arizona don’t consider huge gun purchases or there quick to a third party to be specific evidence of criminal intent.  This makes the interdiction of illegal gun sales to the Mexican cartels almost impossible in Arizona.  There is no federal gun trafficking law to guid or prod the state laws prohibiting the sale of guns to criminals.

 The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal

June 27, 2012: 5:00 AM ET

The article begins:

FORTUNE — In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth’s ranked high. In 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted Voth to lead Phoenix Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico’s vicious drug war.

PLEASE READ IT:  http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

The Truth About the ATF Scandal Please…

December 14, 2012 8:41 am / Leave a comment

The venerable New Jersey Star Ledger newspaper printed an editorial on June 30, 2012, in which it repeated as fact a purely partisan narrative known as the ATF’s “Fast and Furious” scandal.  Here below is my full response:

Letter to the Editor:
In your editorial, “Boys Behaving Badly“, you didn’t do your homework. Thanks to investigative journalism by Katherine Eban at Fortune magazine we now know the “Fast and Furious” scandal is mostly fiction. This local ATF operation didn’t involve allowing illegally purchased guns to stray beyond the point of sale.  It may be true that one disgruntled ATF agent lost six handguns during his own rogue operation, but this wasn’t sanctioned. Eric Holder apparently didn’t know about this incident when he initially wrote to Congress causing him to provide some misinformation.

As for the 2000 high powered weapons supposedly lost by the ATF, (as per Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa) virtually all of them were legally purchased according to Arizona’s federal prosecutors. This includes the gun later used to kill a U.S. border guard.

The hard truth is that Federal prosecutors broadly interpret Arizona’s gun laws, which are already the weakest in the nation. In Arizona, an unemployed 18 year old with no criminal record can walk into a gun shop, buy fourteen AK-47 assault rifles, certify they are for personal use, change his mind after walking out of the store and then legally sell them to anyone in the parking lot.  It’s as if the gun laws in Arizona were designed for gun traffickers.  Frustrated ATF agents believed the weapons in question were going to criminals but were over ruled.  It is the system that allowed these guns to walk, not the AFT.

Meanwhile, 55,000 Mexican citizens have been killed in the last five years in the battle among drug cartels and Mexican police. It is estimate that 2000 weapons a day cross our Southern border into Mexico and there’s little the AFT can do about it.
I doubt Eric Holder criminally withheld documents from Congress, but the facts about this haven’t filtered out yet. The whole scandal appears to be a political witch hunt. What has become clear, however, is that the guns needed to support Mexican drug cartels are flooding over the border every day while tons of their illegal product floods back here to destroy more American lives.

Thanks to the great reporting of Katherine Eban at Fortune magazine

Note: Many newspapers around the country are probably relying on Congressman Issa’s partisan narrative when reporting on this story.  His commentary has been around for months while the Eban report is just days old.  Even so, it is revealing how much journalists must depend on the messages politicians give them.  Enterprise journalism (or investigative journalism), is what we need to verify what politicians say.  This type of journalism is labor intensive and expensive.  Eban’s investigation took six months.  Corporate media outlets are profit driven, not truth driven enterprises.  Newspapers in particular are in financial trouble.  Readership and advertising sales are down.  I sometimes wonder if readership is down in part because newspapers no longer provide us with trusted, independently verified news?

A Billionaire to Regulate Billionaires at the SEC

December 14, 2012 8:34 am / Leave a comment

A TALE OF TWO NORMS

Norm Champ -- Park Ave Farmer & Upstanding Young Man

Norman B. Champ Jr:  SEC Director and Welfare Prince

NORM AS DIRECTOR:

SEC Names Norm Champ as Director of Division of Investment Management

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2012-129
Washington, D.C., July 5, 2012 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Norm Champ has been named Director of the agency’s Division of Investment Management.
Mr. Champ has been serving as Deputy Director of the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE). He assumes his new duties on July 9 and succeeds Eileen Rominger, who is retiring.
The SEC’s Division of Investment Management protects investors and promotes capital formation through oversight and regulation of the nation’s multi-trillion dollar investment management industry. Prior to joining the SEC staff in 2010, Mr. Champ was general counsel for 10 years as well as a member of the executive committee and a partner at investment management firm Chilton Investment Company, a multi-national adviser to private funds and managed accounts.
“Norm has proven himself to be a natural leader and an expert at managing programs that bolster our financial markets and protect investors,” said SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro. “His breadth of experience and deep insight into so many aspects of the securities industry will well serve investors and the agency.”
Mr. Champ said, “I am honored to join the Division and continue to carry out the SEC’s missions of protecting investors and encouraging capital formation. I look forward to working with the Division’s talented and knowledgeable staff as we continue shaping the rules by which the asset management industry is governed.”
In OCIE, where he sits on the Executive and Operating Committees, Mr. Champ has served as the acting head of the broker-dealer, investment adviser/investment company and credit rating agency exam programs and as acting chief counsel. Mr. Champ led the creation of OCIE’s first Examination Manual.
During his SEC tenure, Mr. Champ has received the Chairman’s Award for Law and Policy for his role in OCIE’s implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act and the Chairman’s Award for Labor-Management Relations for his role in the reorganization of OCIE.
“Norm has made a tremendous contribution to OCIE in the last 2½ years as a leader of the National Examination Program,” said Carlo di Florio, Director of OCIE.
Mr. Champ is a lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he has taught a course on private funds investment management law. Mr. Champ is currently teaching this course to 120 SEC colleagues.
Mr. Champ joined the SEC staff in January 2010 as the Associate Regional Director for Investment Adviser/Investment Company Examinations in the SEC’s New York Regional Office. He became Deputy Director of OCIE in June 2010. Prior to working at Chilton Investment Company, Mr. Champ was a lawyer at the firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell and spent two years as a law clerk for the Honorable Charles S. Haight, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Champ received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1985. He received his master’s degree in 1986 from King’s College University of London, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He earned his juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School, cum laude, in 1989.
NORM AS WELFARE PRINCE:
 
This article was first published in the New York Press.
… Most people know next to nothing about this $20 billion-a-year welfare for the rich program, probably because the billionaires want it that way. Why get the masses worked up? Best to let them think the $200 billion they spent from 1995 through 2006 went to friendly farmers with cute farmhouses, rather than to Chevron or Kenneth Lay. Better to let urban entrepreneurs call themselves backyard farmers and toil away for the locavore movement, than to realize that their rich neighbors are reaping actual “farm” subsidies.

Now, farm subsidies weren’t always this criminal and, until fairly recently, had been doing what New Deal programs were designed to do: help the little guy. But the freemarket “reforms” of the Reagan-Clinton Era warped the welfare, redirecting farm subsidies from the have-nots to the have-mores, bankrupting all but the biggest farmers and depositing farm subsides into the bank accounts of the rich.
There’s no need to go to Iowa to see this welfare-for-the-rich in action. You can see it on the Upper East Side, where billionaire elites collect huge welfare checks from the government just for being rich, while a few blocks away, in one of the poorest, most ghettoized districts in the United States, the city’s black population is being purged from food stamp rolls for smoking some dope. Because, as Mayor Rudy Giuliani once wisely said, “As soon as they stop being dependent on the government, they’re moving in a much healthier direction.”
But brutal freemarket ideas don’t apply to members of Manhattan’s genteel farmer class, even billionaires like Norman B. Champ III, who received nearly a half-million dollars in welfare payments for poor farmers, despite the fact that he lives in a multimillion dollar co-op at 828 Park Avenue. From 1995 to 2006, he raked in a total of $405,807 in dairy, corn and soy subsidies via his stake in the Champ family’s dairy farm in Missouri, his home state. Handout-for-handout, even Reagan’s mythic Cadillac-driving Chicago welfare queen and her $150,000 welfare scam got nothing on Champ, who could buy a Lamborghini and still have money left over to reupholster his private jet.
Norman B. Champ III, 47, was born into a wealthy, upper-crust Missouri family and lived a privileged life (the Champs had a Missouri village named after them in their honor: the Village of Champ). He graduated summa cum laude fromPrinceton University, went to England for a masters in war studies from King’s College and earned a law degree—cum laude, of course—from Harvard, after which he finally settled down at Chilton Investment Company, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. He had added three titles to his name—Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer—by the time the markets crashed. He lost no time jumping ship to a cushy government job with the Securities and Exchange Commission, coming on board in January 2010 to start a new life as a financial regulator at the SEC’s New York Inspections and Examinations Division. He now leads a team of 100 hardworking investigators in a crusade to crack down on the shady dealings of his hedge-fund buddies.
An upper-crust billionaire type who lives in one of the nation’s wealthiest ZIP codes and collects welfare meant for struggling farmers? Whatta champ!
He might not be what most of us expect a welfare queen to look like, but that’s only because we have been duped by the whole poverty thing, convinced that the crumbs we throw the needy are a huge burden on our budget. So we look for any way to cut them off. For those who want to observe a real subsidy queen in his natural habitat, there’s no better place than Park Avenue. I am not trying to be ironic here. The people are literally welfare queens: They live where queens live and take money from the poor like queens do.

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