Let parties compete locally

(Denver Post, Sept. 20) Some ideas are so dumb, they could only be in the New York Times. “One-party autocracy” in the world’s fastest-growing economy, China, has “great advantages,” according to Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Of course, you’d want the rulers to be an “enlightened group of people.” But Friedman certifies the Beijing autocrats are just that. Right. My subject today happens to be local government in Colorado, not central government in China. I’m addressing the problem of "suppose you held an election and nobody came" – illustrated by five metro school districts calling off their elections for lack of candidates. But Friedman’s howler is apropos. Our schools, transit, and municipalities will run more and more Chinese-style if something doesn’t change. The American way is not paternalistic rule by the enlightened. It’s two-party competition. Yet our state, like most others, bans such competition in elections below the county level. What’s good enough for electing legislators, governors, and even presidents – hot political rivalry between Democrats and Republicans, with other parties also in the mix – is deemed not good enough for picking the mayor, council, school board, or RTD Board. Why?

Nonpartisan local governance is a utopian relic from the Progressive era a hundred years ago. Scientific administration by altruistic experts in the “cities of tomorrow” was supposed to replace self-interested power struggles. Do you see any evidence that it worked out that way? Me neither.

Thank goodness the country at least retained a competitive partisan arena in which power could check power at the state and federal level. Imagine how many presidential terms such aspiring progressive autocrats as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson might have wangled from our grandparents, absent a raucous opposition party to say “Not so fast.”

We know of nothing autocratic about Littleton School Board president Bob Colwell or RTD Board chairman Lee Kemp. Both are no doubt good men. But Colwell and two other Littleton incumbents will take another term this fall by default. No opponents filed against them, so the election was cancelled as state law provides. As for Kemp, he was elected unopposed last time. So were seven of his 14 fellow RTD directors.

Fewer than half the RTD director elections in the past decade have been contested races. School board elections are often uncontested as well. Districts in Aurora, Cherry Creek, Commerce City, and Adams 12 have joined Littleton in calling off their 2009 elections. The school boards association is “no longer surprised when races fail to generate interest,” the Denver Post reported.

Even when local citizens do get to choose between candidates, knowing what you’re getting isn’t easy. When voters in my city of Centennial mark their mail ballots next month, for example, they will have to rely on whispers to know which of the contenders for mayor and council are smaller-government Republicans or bigger-government Democrats. It’s like guessing on unlabelled canned goods at the food bank.

Localities tax and spend on our behalf in the many millions of dollars; schools and RTD spend in the billions. Vital ideas and values are involved. Public safety is involved. The stakes are too high to continue with these milquetoast nonpartisan elections. For better government, we should choose the responsible officials via party nominations and platforms.

Competitive political parties are the best idea the Founding Fathers never had. American self-government has thrived under them for two centuries, expanding opportunity and safeguarding liberty – not to perfection, but far better than the enlightened one-party Chinese.

Now Colorado should let the parties compete locally. Lift the lid. Gun the engines. The unions won’t like it; they make hay in the shadowy, apathetic status quo. The media will also object, fearing erosion of their dominance as information brokers. The Democrats, shrewder behind the scenes than Republicans, won’t welcome the change either. But it’s time.

Constitution? What's that?

We all know that Barack Obama doesn't think much of the Constitution.  And he certainly won't let it get in the way of the government takeover of health care.Courtesy of  Kim Strassel at the WSJ today comes some insightful commentary about what we can now expect from Obama and the merry leftists in Congress. The Baucus Bill has been subject to Congress' death panel and is DOA. Baucus attempted to craft a bipartisan bill that would enjoy a modicum of Republican support, but he ultimately caved to enough liberal demands that it got sufficiently watered down to appeal to precisely nobody. The Republicans find it too costly and pernicious in its penalties and taxes, and the left finds it far to soft on the insurance companies and other villains of the health care industry. Max tried, but in the end he truly made "mischief of one kind...or another" and got promptly "eaten up".

In any event, Strassel makes the very good point that we should all prepare ourselves for a renewed leftward turn in the health care debate as our President caves to the demands of his leftist base:

...Our bipartisan White House grew weary of the bipartisan process and pressured Mr. Baucus to produce. He jettisoned his colleagues and pushed out a product that Messrs. Grassley and Enzi promptly condemned. The White House did such a good job of suggesting that Ms. Snowe was its GOP patsy—a Republican who'd vote for a ham sandwich, if only they asked—that even the miffed Maine senator has stepped back.

The result is two-fold. With no, or little, GOP support, the only way Mr. Baucus can pry his bill out of committee is to allow the left to have its way. The White House knows this, which is why the president—despite seizing on the Baucus legislation in his speech last week—is already abandoning the finance chief and his bill to the tender mercies of West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller and New York's Chuck Schumer. The White House wants a bill, any bill, and this bloc now holds all the votes in committee. Pity Mr. Baucus, who just got used.

Into the hands of Rockefeller and Schumer we fall. And you can bet that what comes now is a highly partisan bill that will attempt the "public option" in one form or another, and a price tag that will be (conservatively) in the Trillion Dollar range. Worse yet, it will be couched in all sorts of creative accounting and political double speak that the public will think its getting steak when it is really horse meat with lots of sauce on it. Those who were gullible enough to elect Mr. Obama may likely be gullible enough to take his latest sleight of hand at face value.

Worse yet, it is apparent that Obama wants a bill -- any bill -- and will do whatever is necessary to force it through, even if it involves using the reconciliation tool that requires just 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to overcome an inevitable Republican filibuster.

What has changed is Mr. Obama's determination to push a bill through, regardless of what his party, or the public, thinks. The White House will make the case to waverers that the political fallout of a health-care failure will be worse than backlash that comes with voting for a bill. Maybe. Behind that is the further threat that Dems will go this alone, via 50-vote reconciliation, if necessary.

Reconciliation was meant to be used only for finance bills, not for momentous, life-altering legislation like major health care reform. The Framers of the Constitution created a system where major political initiatives such as this would be subject to the normal process of debate, with the rights of the minority (in the form of the filibuster) in place. The system of checks and balances was put into place for a reason -- to slow down the system so that radical change would be difficult and would require the support of the minority party.

But no matter. In the power play now going on in Washington, the left wants its way no matter who gets trampled. Obama is already on record as saying that the Constitution "is an imperfect document", and this might as well apply to the rules around health care legislation as well. He, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and the others know best, after all -- and they clearly don't care what the people think or want.

We are in for a rough ride. Keep up the pressure on your local Congressional delegation. The only chance we have is that those in Congress will care more about getting elected than actually reforming health care.

Let's make it clear that an "aye" will result in a "nay" next November.

Remembering our landmark Constitution

Today we celebrate the 222nd anniversary of the completion of the United States Constitution by a hardy assemblage of patriots in 1787, meeting for four months in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. They produced the world’s first written constitution, which has turned out to be the longest continuing constitution as well. While we revere our Constitution we must also be mindful of the obligation that we, the people, imposed upon ourselves so that we can enjoy its benefits in the future for at least as long as we have already. The Constitution has numerous virtues, each one of which merits praise in our public discourse. It is widely understood and appreciated (excepting certain political parties) that the virtue that underlies all the others is limited government. Martin Diamond, who coauthored what was doubtless the best American government textbook ever written, and who was also one of my mentors, spelled out the various ways in which the American government is limited, and each is in its own way, remarkable.

The Constitution limits the scope, the jurisdiction, the powers and the operation of all levels of government. First, it carries out the fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence that limits government to the security of everyone’s liberty. It is emphatically a movement away from ancient governments, which subordinated liberty to the goals of the ruling class, and from medieval governments, which sought to guarantee eternal salvation.

This is also not a government that attempts to guarantee everyone’s satisfaction but leaves them free to make the decisions that promote their happiness. It rejected in advance the totalitarian regimes that cursed so much of the world in the 20^th century, such as fascism, communism and nazism. We must add to that list radical Islam which invades human freedom for the sake of jihad.

Second, the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of both federal and state governments, by broadening that of the former and restricting that of the latter. Before the national government was instituted by nine states’ ratification of the Constitution in 1788 and the first national elections in 1789, we were governed by a loose alliance of sovereign states. It was essentially a military alliance for winning and keeping our independence, but it was incompetent to accomplish even that very well, not to mention the equally important object of promoting commerce among the states and securing adequate revenue.

The Constitution was written mainly to secure a powerful government for the limited purposes of common defense and general welfare through granting it authority to make decisions by the consent of the people, rather than by consent of the state governments. Thus, the Constitution deprived the states of the power to govern the Union, but left with them the vast bulk of domestic powers relating to the safety, welfare, health and education of persons in their jurisdiction.

Liberals today are prone to imagine that the broad authority of the federal government in certain areas somehow justifies any scheme that can be financed by federal revenues. Conservatives, on the other hand, sometimes have difficulty granting the federal government the broad authority over limited objects which it actually possesses. No one stated the matter more clearly than James Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution:

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected." (The Federalist, No. 62)

Third, the federal government is limited to those enumerated powers, particularly in Article I, Section 8, wherein the powers of Congress are set forth. The last clause of that section, known as the necessary and proper clause, does not grant any additional powers but leaves it to the discretion of federal officers the means for "carry[ing all] powers into execution."

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, adopted out of an abundance of caution, reminds us that powers not granted to the federal government, nor prohibited to the states, are left with the states or the people. It does not deny any powers that the original Constitution did not already deny.

Fourth, the Constitution limits the operation of the federal government by distributing powers among three separate and distinct departments with an eye to preventing tyranny by either the government or the people, as well as providing the most competent government possible. Congress has the power to make laws, but it requires the assent of two legislative branches and the approval of the President. The President’s veto power is not absolute, as two thirds of both houses of Congress may override it.

The Supreme Court and other federal courts established by Congress have jurisdiction over cases arising under the law and hear challenges from lower courts to federal authority. The power to declare either state or federal laws null and void was not explicitly stated in the Constitution but was thought to be implied by the fact that a limited government required such a check on legislative authority.

The checks on Congress derive from the fact that the lawmaking power is the greatest of all powers in a republic, which includes regulating the executive and judicial branches, funding them and approving their personnel. It is misleading to speak of some sort of "deadlock of democracy" between three equally frustrated branches as liberals often lament and conservatives sometimes imagine.

Congress can deliberate but it cannot provide leadership when circumstances call for it. Only the president is so constituted by its unity, duration and powers. Congress can make laws but it cannot fairly judge violators. Only an independent judiciary can do that.

The Constitution is also noteworthy for its brevity. It consists of only seven sections, the first of which is as long as the rest combined. This enables persons of average intelligence to read and understand its provisions without resort to voluminous interpretations or obeisance to Platonic guardians. Unfortunately, that has not prevented our states from devising exceedingly long constitutions. (For example, California has amended its constitution more than 500 times!) Nor has it prevented virtual canonization of those wearing judicial robes with their unfathomable interpretations.

Again, it is Madison who has the best criticism of the first corruption and, by implication, of the second:

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? (The Federalist, No. 45)

The Constitution could not have been adopted without compromising with slavery which, sad to say, took a bloody Civil War to extinguish. And it is only as good as we, the people, make it by our continued adherence to its fundamental strictures. Nevertheless, it has continually frustrated the tyrannical ambitions or grandiose schemes of its enemies or confused friends, and God willing it will continue to do so.

Treasurer endorses Phelps

Ron Phelps is by far the best candidate in the race for council in Centennial District 1. In these times when everyone is having to tighten their belts, do without pay raises and deal with possible layoff, Centennial needs a fiscal conservative like Ron Phelps on the city council. Ron is for limited government and low taxes. He wants to do what he can to keep from burdening his District 1 neighbors with higher taxes and out of control government. As a member of the Arapahoe County Citizen Budget Committee appointed by the Commissioners, Ron brings experience with government finance. He has long been active in his community serving on many boards such as CenCON, the Centennial Land Use Board, the Centennial Open Space Trails and Parks Committee (vice-chair), and the Southglenn Area Steering Committee.

Ron is active in the Republican Party as a District Captain and Precinct Leader and a state delegate in 2008.

I hope you will join me in supporting Ron Phelps for Centennial Council in District 1.

What the left misses in the health debate: innovation

Here's the most important question related to health care reform: if you were sick with a serious illness, where would you rather be? England, Canada or the United States?It is no accident that people who are seriously ill come from all over the world to seek treatment in the United States. Centers of excellence like the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins and others utilize cutting edge technology and treatment protocols that continually advance the treatment of cancer and other serious problems. They do so with the full participation of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are using research and development to drive innovation. It is the reason that American health care is the most advanced in the world and works miracles on a daily basis. This system works centrally on the profit motive -- something that the left seems to think is a dirty concept. Pharma and biotech companies spend billions on R&D to advance the efficacy of drugs and treatment technology with the promise of a return on their investment. It drives innovation -- and is an aspect of our health care system that has been both misunderstood and demogogued by proponents of national health care. The left -- including our president -- has made villains of the pharmaceutical industry for daring to charge prices that allow them to recoup their massive investments and make a profit. It is as if the left thinks that all this innovation and progress should come for free, or at the very least as a public service. It might work in their ideal vision of how the world works, but it doesn't work in reality.

And herein lies the real issue related to health care reform: the real threat to innovation that makes the American health care system the best in the world. As Rupert Darwell writes today in the Wall Street Journal, what characterizes the National Health Service in Britain is a lack of investment in technology -- something that reflects the fact that the system is based on rationing -- not investment:

The case for ObamaCare, as with the NHS, rests on what might be termed the "lump of health care" fallacy. But in a market-based system triggering one person's contractual rights to health care does not invalidate someone else's health policy. Instead, increased demand for health care incentivizes new drugs, new therapies and better ways of delivering health care. Government-administered systems are so slow and clumsy that they turn the lump of health-care fallacy into a reality. According to the 2002 Wanless report, used by Tony Blair's government to justify a large tax hike to fund the higher spending, the NHS is late to adopt and slow to diffuse new technology. Still, NHS spending more than doubled to £103 billion in 2009-10 from £40 billion in 1999-2000, equivalent to an average growth rate of over 7% a year after inflation.

Darwell also writes that the NHS is inherently "ageist" -- making treatment decisions that expressly deny care to the elderly.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the NHS is institutionally ageist. The elderly have fewer years left to them; why then should they get health-care resources that would benefit a younger person more? An analysis by a senior U.K.-based health-care expert earlier this decade found that in the U.S. health-care spending per capita goes up steeply for the elderly, while the U.K. didn't show the same pattern. The U.K.'s pattern of health-care spending by age had more in common with the former Soviet bloc.

I'm quite certain that nobody in the U.S. wants our health care system to be like the former Soviet Union. But I'm equally certain that those who are promoting a "public option" haven't thought through the long-range ramifications of creating a publicly-financed system. The supporters of "universal health care" are invested in the social justice aspect of the issue -- but they ignore vital economic incentives that have made the U.S. system the best in the world.