Free speech != Freedom from taxation

Aliance Defense Fund, a Phoenix-based group, organized a form of clerical protest yesterday, encouraging a number of pastors across the country to use their sermons to explicitly express views as to how members of their congregation should vote in this year's presidential election.

The purpose of this organized demonstration is to bring a challenge to the 54-year old law which prohibits charitable and tax-exempt groups from openly supporting any candidate for public office. The hope is the government will bring a lawsuit against one or more of these pastors and their churches, a suit which the ADF hopes to win.

The Post article has several quotes from participants, including "The point is the IRS says you can't (openly support a political candidate during a sermon). I'm saying you're wrong."

The entire affair has been portrayed as a matter of "Free speech". However, you don't get free speech without also assuming some responsibility. In this case, the ADF and the 33 pastors who participated in the protest yesterday want the right to express themselves in the political arena without the associated responsibility of actually contributing money (taxes) to support the political structure.

Gosh -- I'd like to have all the privileges of being a citizen without paying any taxes too. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, or should.

There is no suppression of speech here. Any pastor and church which wishes to participate in the political process is free to do so at any time ... with the proviso they pay taxes on the income they receive (and, I believe, property they hold). There is no Constitutional right to tax-exemption. The courts have continuously held, in cases such as Branch Ministries v. Rossotti and United States v. Christian Echoes National Ministry such exeptions exist at the grace of Congress. What Congress provides, Congress may also restrict, or remove altogether.

The ADF should be granted what it wishes for -- all 33 ministries which participated yesterday should be immediately slapped with tax assessments for the full 2008 year on all taxable incomes and properties. When the suit is challenged, appealed, and lost, the ADF and all 33 ministries should be forced to pay the costs the government incurred in defending the the suit.

After all, with the bang-up job all those deregulated corporate financial geniuses have done, we're going to need every extra dollar we can find.

Pathetic dogs

Congressional Democrats rolled over like abused dogs and exposed their cute, furry bellies to be stroked by the President today while signing off on a "compromise" wiretapping bill that gives the White House virtually everything it wants, including effective immunization from prosecution for telecom companies which blatantly and repeatedly violated individual personal privacy laws.

What's worse is there was no reason or need to make this horrid deal. None. Whatsoever. The previous (bad) temporary agreement expired in February, and its not like there have been huge issues since then, or even a lot of political pressure on Dems to come to an agreement, any agreement. The FISA law which has been in effect since the 70's has been more than sufficient. The next time I see masses of Americans rallying along the Mall in support of providing lawsuit immunization for big corporations will be the first.

I assume telecom lobbyists made enough monetary promises to buy what they needed. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother.

Carville symbolizes Clinton attitude

This past week former Democratic presidential candidate and current New Mexico governor Bill Richardson gave his endorsement to Barack Obama in the nomination battle. As has become apparent, this does not sit well with Clinton supporters.

Given Richardson server as both UN ambassador and Secretary of Energy under former President Clinton, some amount of strain can at his announcement is to be expected. Richardson described his discussion with Hillary when he let her know of his plans as cordial, but heated. One Clinton staffer noted that Richardson's announcement came too late to make a difference, presumably alluding to the fact that states with significant Hispanic voting populations such as Texas (Richardson is the nation's only Hispanic governor) had already had their primaries. Snide, yes, but of course the Clinton campaign has an interest in playing down the announcement.

The reaction of Clinton adviser James Carville is a different matter.

The New York Times reported Carville described the act as "An act of betrayal", and went on to say "Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

Just how much does Carville think Richardson was paid for his endorsement? On exactly what grounds does Carville consider Richardson to be a disciple of Hillary? When, exactly, is she scheduled for her cross-fitting? Inquiring minds want to know.

No, the reaction of of the Clinton campaign is the reaction of someone who feels they were "owed" something and didn't get it, sulking 10-year-olds denied a much-desired toy or a sleepover outing with a friend. The truth is Richardson owed neither campaign anything other than his sincere opinion ... and the fact the decision was clearly a difficult and painful one for him simply points out how heartfelt his choice is.

The reaction of the Clinton camp, and Carville in particular, points out why it's the right one.

Election Rigging

Freakonomics has a very interesting Q&A post up with a gentleman named Allen Raymond, who has just written a book titled How to Rig an Election.

For those who don't recognize the name (I did not), Raymond was the G.O.P. political staff person who oversaw an operation to jam phone lines run by the Democratic party in the 2002 New Hampshire Senate primaries, so he's familiar with his topic. He spent three months in prison for his role in the affair.

I encourage people to take a look at the post. I may have to buy the book.

Primary proposal

Opinion seems to be coalescing around the idea our primary system needs an overhaul, and I think there is good chance it will be for the 2012 race. If it is not, the reason will likely be because agreement can't be reached on what work better - a regional approach, random order, time zones, etc.

For whatever reason I was musing about this the morning of the New Hampshire primaries, and thought up a scheme I haven't seen elsewhere, so I wanted to throw it out for consideration.

Anyhow, the basic notions would be to start with the smaller population states and work up to the larger population ones, combined with spreading the primaries out over a regular period.

Pick a day, say the second Tuesday of January, as the day for our first primary. Take the two smallest states in terms of population and hold their primaries that day. One week later hold primaries for the next two least populated, etc. Continue until all primaries are held.

One complaint I can hear already is we already have two small-population states with undue influence on our nomination process. However, to some extent I want to keep that in play. No matter how much time a candidate spends in California or Texas, there simply is not going to be enough time for voters there to truly get to know the candidates in the same way voters in a smaller state can, given a few months of exposure.

I do think, however, this approach does help water down that influence a bit. Rather than having a flood of primaries one month after the leading ones (as is the case this year), it allows time for a candidate to gradually build up, or to overcome early missteps. The entire process would take 24 weeks from the first pair of primaries to the last, plenty of time for things to develop. On the other hand, having only the two primaries each week, and always a week apart, allows sufficient time for the candidates to get to and spend time in each state if they wish (they may opt to use time elsewhere of course if they wish).

I don't advocate going strictly by population. Shuffling things around a bit to keep paired primaries geographically closer seems like a good idea to me. As an example, the least populated states in reverse order (2000 census) are:

Wyoming (least populous), Vermont, Alaska, N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire

Given this list I would suggest the following order for the first five weeks:

Week 1: Wyoming, Montana
Week 2: Vermont, New Hampshire
Week 3: Alaska, Hawaii
Week 4: N. Dakota, S. Dakota
Week 5: Delaware, Rhode Island

And so on.

While the least-populated states allow for voters to get to know candidates more personally, and allow candidates to start building some momentum, the greater mass of the delegates is always late in the process, which would allow for the possibility of late comebacks, voters reacting to events during the campaign, etc.

As I noted before, I haven't seen any proposal along these lines (although they are probably out there somewhere), so it's either inspired or stupid (or both). Feel free to let me know which, and why