Liberty Movement California Ballot Recommendations

This year's ballot measure don't excite me one way or another, so I was late to analyze them.  But they still will have their impact on the state where I reside, so here are my recommendations.  I don't always agree with the larger Tea Party groups; these recommendations are my own small contribution to increase liberty.

Proposition 1 - Water Bond - NO

In this drought stricken year, who could vote against water bonds?  Well, I can, because the taxpayers get stuck with the long term bill for Big Government projects that won't deliver much more water.  The Libertarian Party argument is:

Water projects are best managed and financed by local water boards, rather than writing grants to state bureaucrats trying to secure expensive bond monies.

Proposition 2 - Budget Stabilization - NO

Proposition 2 would require 3% of state General Fund revenue be deposited in a “rainy day”
fund, and allows up to 10% of revenue be deposited in this account. The measure would
allow the rainy day funds to be spent only in the event of a drop in annual revenue below
the preceding year, adjusted for population and inflation, or in a declared emergency.  This seems like a reasonable idea; but I don't like the way that the measure controls how local districts manage their funds.  Under this law local school districts are limited in how much they can put away in a rainy day fund themselves.  In general, more local control is better for liberty.

Proposition 45 - Healthcare Insurance - NO

This measure is designed to continue to make California an unfriendly business climate, in this case for insurers.  I didn't have to research arguments from liberty friendly groups to know this is a loser.

 • Requires changes to health insurance rates, or anything else affecting the charges associated with health insurance, to be approved by Insurance Commissioner before taking effect.
• Provides for public notice, disclosure, and hearing on health insurance rate changes, and subsequent judicial review.
• Requires sworn statement by health insurer as to accuracy of information submitted to Insurance Commissioner to justify rate changes.
• Does not apply to employer large group health plans.
• Prohibits health, auto, and homeowners insurers from determining policy eligibility or rates based  on lack of prior coverage or credit history.

So vote no to prevent even more bureaucracy and those same bureaucrats from mucking with your healthcare insurance, even more than they do so already.

Proposition 46 - Drug and Alcohol Testing of Doctors - NO

Even more intrusive than Proposition 45; how is it the right of the state to commit law-abiding citizens performing their jobs to submit to intrusive monitoring?  It is not.  Further, it requires doctors to check state databases before prescribing you certain types of medication.  There would never be any identity confusion or stealing of information from government run databases that track your prescriptions, would there? Vote no against this madness.

Proposition 47 - Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanor Penalties. - YES

Here is where I am breaking with some in the Tea Party movement.  I think it worthwhile to post the summary of the initiative as it is little known:

• Requires misdemeanor sentence instead of felony for certain drug possession offenses.
• Requires misdemeanor sentence instead of felony for the following crimes when amount involved is $950 or less: petty theft, receiving stolen property, and forging/writing bad checks.
• Allows felony sentence for these offenses if person has previous conviction for crimes such as rape, murder, or child molestation or is registered sex offender.
• Requires resentencing for persons serving felony sentences for these offenses unless court finds unreasonable public safety risk.
• Applies savings to mental health and drug treatment programs, K–12 schools, and crime victims.

I am against three-strike laws and mandatory minimums, because too many travesties of justice have resulted.  This proposition is a good start in reversing a stupid judicial trend.  It also eliminates some felony categories for mere possession of drugs for personal use.  Restoring some reason to sentencing is worthy goal.

Proposition 48 - Indian Gaming Compacts. - Don't Care

Some Indian tribe would be helped, another hurt by this lawsuit over gaming in the Central Valley near Madera.  There will be federal court cases no matter how this turns out.  It seems unreasonable that some tribes get casinos through this process but others don't, but a vote either way on this measure won't solve the process problems.  UPDATE: My oldest, who works in the hospitality industry says that we should always vote for more casinos.  I am still not convinced.


That's all on the propositions.  I am voting for Republicans across the board for all other offices on my ballot, because the Democrats in this state have allied themselves with evil interests.

UPDATE

I am voting for Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent of Public Instruction based on the California Teacher's Association endorsement of his opponent.  From a HuffPo article on the race:

School reform groups have argued that strict work rules and powerful job protections for teachers have made it hard to fire incompetent educators or enact creative local initiatives - at students' expense.
Tuck, a former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school organization, is allied with the reformers. He has the backing of former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and funding from billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.
Torlakson, a former teacher who has been the state's superintendent of public instruction since 2010, has strong backing from California teachers unions.

The Libertarian Case for Federal Employment

The latest news only reinforces the belief that the Federal government has far exceeded its constitutional bounds.  I find the IRS targeting especially troubling, as it is touches the most Americans and yet appears to be unaccountable.  News of the NSA spying, as egregious as that is, has pushed the even more problematic spying on reporters and potentially the Congress off the front page.  And the death of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi has yet to be adequately explained.  In spite of all this, the federal government is my employer.  How could I work for an employer of whom I am so critical, one might wonder.

First, I work in a part of the federal government that more or less operates within its constitutional bounds.  More importantly, I don't think that those of us in the liberty movement should cede federal employment to the left.  Peggy Noonan discusses the importance of the character of civil servants in the IRS scandal.  Forty years ago, Nixon tried to use the IRS to harass his enemies.

But part of that Watergate story is that Nixon failed. Last week David Dykes of the Greenville (S.C.) News wrote of meeting with 93-year-old Johnnie Mac Walters, head of the IRS almost 40 years ago, in the Nixon era. Mr. Dykes quoted Tim Naftali, former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, who told him the IRS wouldn't do what Nixon asked: "It didn't happen, not because the White House didn't want it to happen, but because people like Johnnie Walters said 'no.' "

Unfortunately, Douglas Shulman the IRS Commissioner during the targeting of liberty movement groups seemed to be acting at the behest of the White House, which was publicly decrying the groups while Democratic Senators were calling for investigations only of conservative groups.

Often, it only takes one person to stand up and say "this is wrong" for a bad policy to get stopped.  This is why we need constitution-abiding, freedom-loving employees on the federal payroll.  I understand that its the taxpayers money we are spending and I do my best to keep that in mind.

A small example, from my own work comes to mind.  Years ago, our agency outsourced most of our standard desktop and networking IT.  Getting with the program and cooperating with the effort, despite its enormous difficulties became the order of the day.  However, in my little pocket and others, we still had research networks to run that were specifically exempted from the monolithic agency IT solution.  However, we were forced onto server based computing solutions before they were ready for prime-time and paid a hefty fee to do so, about $2,000 per year.  In order to maintain the sanity of our users, we maintained an email capability at much lower cost per person.  While the two grand was supposed to deliver much more than just email, that was all it was really used for and it wasn't that good initially.  Many of our users continued to use our research network email address until this became a large public embarrassment, cost be damned.

I came under severe pressure to eliminate the old email completely, but I fought long and hard for some exceptions so that I wouldn't have to shut down.  Fast forward six years and sequestration is getting leadership to rethink their priorities.  $2,000 per year for a solution where the users only use the email looks pricey, all of a sudden.  Next thing you know, my boss is asking me to write a proposal to drop all the users out of the agency system who only use the research network for significant cost savings.

If I hadn't been convinced that in the long run, the cost argument would prevail, I wouldn't have fought so hard in the first place.  I have certainly had my share of failures in other policy areas, unfortunately.  But I believe that if there were more employees with my frame of mind, our government would be more efficient and less intrusive.  To be fair, because the federal government tries to do too much, it will not be efficient until it is much smaller.  Better to have liberty movement types on the inside than not.

Liberty Movement

Some time ago I asked about a new name for the tea party, since it had some branding problems. Some were self-inflicted, most were not. In the video below, Tom Woods, a Ron Paul supporter and author, uses the term "liberty movement" to describe what we are doing.  The term is not evocative of a political party, unlike "tea party." I think the use of "party" in "tea party" helped cement an association with the Republican party. Many of my fellow SLOBs would vehemently object to association with the GOP.  Here in San Diego, Republicans have numerous associations with crony capitalism, a favorite object of scorn and derision in our group.

If you think liberty movement better describes our efforts, I would like to hear your comments.  Much better than my original term "freedom coalition."