I just thought I’d toss out a hello to the newest blogger in my family. My youngest brother finally took the plunge. I hope he enjoys the blogging ocean.
Categories
Month: November 2007
First I would like to thank Steve Urquhart for his comments. And in case anyone got the wrong impression, I had no intention to spar with Steve over this issue or single him out. I respect Rep. Urquhart for his openness on this and many other issues. He has convincingly demonstrated his honest belief that “sunlight [is] the best disinfectant.” The major reason that I singled him out is that I know that he is one member of the legislature that understands the value of blogging discussions.
All that being said, this post is mainly some of my further findings after his comments to my previous post. He said that term limits came in a wave in 1994, but it would be more accurate to say that 1994 was the tail end of the wave. 15 states enacted term limits before 1994, 3 more (including Utah) did so in 1994, and 3 have enacted term limits since 1994. Of the 6 states that have repealed their term limit laws (that’s 28% of states that had such laws), it appears that none of those laws ever lasted long enough to limit the term of any legislator. No state where term limits actually started limiting terms has gone back. My assessment would be that Utah retreated from that legislation prematurely.
The second part of Steve’s response was quite enlightening:
Of course, I realize that people can, and will, argue that we just want to hold the offices for life. That’s their right, and for some legislators it might be true. But people should consider the average lifespan of a legislator. In the House (largely through self-selection), it is right around 4 years. (I heard that number and have never independently verified it; but, it seems accurate. I’ve been there 7 years, and there aren’t many Reps who’ve been there longer than I have).
Since he had not verified the 4 year average I went to the website for the Utah Legislature (a very good site, by the way) and did some quick checking on the 75 members of the house and all 29 senators. In the Senate the mean term length is 7 years with an average of 6.93 so by the time we next have elections the average term will be sitting at 8 years (the longest current term being 18). 14 of the 29 have served between 3 and 7 years, most of the other 15 have served more than 7 years.
In the House, where Steve serves, the mean length of current consecutive service is 5 years with an average of about 5.2 so the average will be 6 years before we next vote. The are a number of representatives who have served 3 years or less consecutively who have previously served in the House, sometimes for more than a decade. If we factor in lifetime service for these representatives the average goes up to nearly 5.5 years. About 70% of the members of the house have served no longer than Steve, although there are many who have served 7 years like he has.
It is comforting to see that we have a pretty good rate of turnover in our state and I hope that it stays that way. So long as we have consistent turnover I think we need to focus more on correcting the imbalance of power between the major parties – as Obi wan had suggested – at least here in Utah.
I asked what people were interested in and the interest seemed to be term limits. I decided to do some initial research and found a good resource on term limits. The states that currently have term limits are:
- ARIZONA
- ARKANSAS
- CALIFORNIA
- COLORADO
- FLORIDA
- LOUISIANA
- MAINE
- MICHIGAN
- MISSOURI
- MONTANA
- NEBRASKA
- NEVADA
- OHIO
- OKLAHOMA
- SOUTH DAKOTA
In addition I was surprised to find that Utah was on a short list of states where term limits had been enacted and later repealed.
- IDAHO
- MASSACHUSETTS
- OREGON
- UTAH
- WASHINGTON
- WYOMING
A little more digging and I learned that Utah enacted term limits by statute in 1994 (just before I was paying close attention to politics) and repealed them in 2003 before they ever affected any legislators (the limit was 12 years and the statute only lasted for 9). So now we know that our Utah legislature is not anxious to limit themselves.
Now I would love to hear from anyone who has experience in the states with term limits. Jason has voiced his unqualified support of the limits in his state. Does anyone else want to share? Are there any opinions on lifetime bans versus limits of consecutive years of service? I am not ready to choose sides on that yet.
I would also be interested to know more about the decision to end limits before they began in Utah. Perhaps Steve Urqhart might have some insights there that he would share (hint – information from 2003, or hints on where to get some would be nice because my short search led to a bunch of dead links).
There has been lots of talk since November 6th about moving on to improve education after the defeat of vouchers. People on both sides of that debate have talked about working together towards a common goal. I have been happy with the tone of talk, but I have wondered what is the next concrete step that we can approach to demonstrate our genuine interest in improving education. After reading The People Have Spoken, and Fans and Foes Vow to Work for Change I have had an idea of where to take a next step.
I’ve never heard a credible argument against merit-pay or performance-based pay for teachers. Does this mean that I have not heard enough discussion on the subject or is it evidence that this might be an area where people who want to improve education can agree? I think that an effort to bring performance-based pay for our teachers would make a great demonstration of our commitment to making changes to improve our education system.
I just went and saw my last show as a season ticket holder at Hale Center theater. I really enjoyed it as I have so many shows there, so why not get season tickets as I have ever since I moved back to Utah? Because HCT is a perfect example of what happens when the government hammer gets overused.
Back in May it was reported that HCT received state grant money in excess of $100,000. Nothing wrong with that except that the five top executives at HCT each earn more than $100,000 annually while the actors are paid no more than $60 per performance (that’s $180 per week unless they are double cast). There was a minor uproar over this when it was first reported. (Here is a copy of the original article from May.)
Before that time I had considered donating money to HCT beyond my annual season ticket price. Afterwords I had second thoughts about that idea. Laura did as well and she wrote to HCT explaining our concerns with taking government money while maintaining such a disturbing pay rate for top executives. Mark Dietlein, the President and CEO of HCT took the time to personally call us and respond to our concerns. In essence he argued that they had done nothing illegal and that the top executive pay was fully disclosed in applying for the grant money. (Kent Collins – a member of the HCT Board of Trustees – offered a similar defense in the Deseret News.)
Some people will argue that the government has a place in supporting the arts, others will argue that funding the arts is not the place for government. Regardless of which side of that argument you fall on I think it would be hard to argue that the government should need to fund an organization that can afford to pay their top executives $100,000 per year – not counting any money they earn through other business deals with the organization (read the original articles if you want to know what I mean there). If the organization needs government grants then they should be paying their top executives a more pedestrian salary (I would say nothing over $60,000 which would save them more money than they received from the grant). This is what happens when the government does things – everything is done by static rules and so long as you follow the rules you may reap the reward without regard to actual need. The rules are never so precise that all in need receive while all without need are turned away.
To the best of my knowledge, Dietlein spoke truly that they had done nothing illegal. But legal is not the final arbiter of right. Collins stated that:
Public funding for HCT is used exclusively to improve HCT’s product by increasing pay for cast and crew, and obtaining technical equipment, sets, scenes and costumes.
He does not seem to recognize that public money has no more buying power than whatever money they are using to pay their top executives six-figure salaries.
I now face the task of finding shows to see at places other than HCT.
While casting about for something to write today I began thinking about what issues are important to me. There are many political subjects I am interested in, but not always new material to write about. Sometimes there is discussion worth following that I don’t feel I have anything to add (like the current warm-fuzzies coming from the “let’s move on from referendum 1” discussion). Other times the news is truly dead or full of things I have no interest in. At those times I have subjects that I am interested in, but I am looking to discuss the issues and not just pontificate in a vacuum. The question is, what should I discuss that other people are interested in?
The answer seemed obvious – ask.
If I were talking about what modifications to our primary election system who would be interested? What if I were talking about the value of term limits for elected officials?
Based on past experience there seems to be some interest in those subjects, but I would like to hear whether others think those are worth discussing and would be interested in participating in such a discussion. Please let me know which of these would interest you – “both” and “neither”
are perfectly valid answers.
Six months after the well-hyped grand opening I made my first visit to IKEA. I had heard many good things (and nothing negative) about IKEA from a variety of sources. The reason that I didn’t go to IKEA before was that I felt no need to go browsing through a bunch of stuff that would make me want to spend money. I was right – and wrong.
IKEA is not a Home Furnishings store as the building states so simply. It is a design philosophy, and a perspective about how we should live life.
I had heard about what great furniture they have – and they do, it’s just the kind of furniture that suits me. I had heard about the children’s play area that makes it possible for parents to shop without boring their kids. Two of my kids could not go there because of the “they must be potty trained” rule (which is perfectly reasonable) so we learned that it is actually fun for the kids to go shopping at IKEA too. My older daughters don’t know what they are missing by staying in the play area – and I don’t plan to tell them for a few more years.
What really sets IKEA apart from other manufacturers is that their understanding of life comes through in everything they do. All four wheels on their shopping carts rotate so you can move the cart in any direction and avoid the 20-point turnaround if you get in a tight spot. Their furniture is modular, so they don’t have to define how large a bookshelf you get to buy – you can just add 30 inch sections to your heart’s content. Everything they sell just begs to be used in real life, and not just in photo-shoots and movie-sets. And they sell all this furniture (which I would be tempted to pay premium prices for) at prices that compete with Walmart.
For people like me who like to design custom solutions it’s nice that I have more options than just taking my pick of what I see in the showroom. Some people might not like it, but I love the fact that I get to assemble the furniture myself after I get home.
In short, I don’t think I’ll even look at furniture at other stores in the future.
LaVarr Webb commented today in Utah Policy Daily on a great column by David Brooks at the New York Times called The Happiness Gap. Brooks was talking about the gap between how happy people are with their own lives and how optimistic they are about government. I think Brooks is right that people are beginning to see through the fallacy that government solutions can fix personal problems, or that one level of government can solve the problems in another level of government. The more we trust to the federal government the more apparent it is that the federal government is not equipped to solve problems created by poor state governments. The same logic holds true with each level of government – state government can’t solve county problems, county government can’t solve city problems, etc.
The thing that really got me was Webb’s concluding paragraph:
I’ve written many times that the job description of the federal government has gotten so immense that it’s impossible to accomplish, hence the deep cynicism about the federal government. The nation’s founders intended for the national government to focus on a few things and do them very well. We need a national resorting of the roles of the different levels of government. A smart presidential candidate would do well to pick up on the mood of the people. (emphasis mine)
Webb was right on except that his last sentence left one thing out – there is a presidential candidate who has picked up on this mood. Ron Paul’s campaign is based on the principle of resorting the roles of the different levels of government – primarily reducing the role of the federal government and allowing states to take their proper place in addressing more of the issues they face. Right now the federal government is doing so much that it can’t even adequately address those issues that are properly in the sphere of the federal government, like national security and immigration. So he may not have known it, but Webb just endorsed Ron Paul as a smart presidential candidate.
One of the greatest things about our country is what happens after we vote. Rarely is there any large shouting about unfairness – calls of “they stole the election.” Most commonly the prevailing attitude among those who continue to be active after the vote is summed up by the question that Jesse asked, “So now what?”
Let’s put this legislation to the side for a while. I know, it’s really tempting to touch up the defeated bill and wheel it on out again, but we have some real work to do between now and then. We need to spend the next five years addressing all of the criticisms we faced this year.
These comments were pointed at the voucher discussion, but the same attitude also relates to candidates who, until the vote, were contending for the same offices based on opposing positions. (For more examples of this attitude read the comments to Jesse’s post.) Once the vote is over, our best citizens offer congratulations to those who won, condolences to those who didn’t, and an invitation to everybody to come together and work to find solutions on the issues that were discussed during the campaign.
Sometimes we might think that voting is where we choose the solutions, but really that is where the work starts. We have chosen a direction as we select candidates and vote on issues, now we have to make the changes that we voted for and tackle the problems that we will face before the next election.
Categories
The Government Hammer
My father-in-law is known for saying, “When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.” Thomas Sowell talks about political crises created by Political “Solutions.”
Government laws and policies, especially the Community Reinvestment Act, pressured lenders to invest in people and places where they would not invest otherwise. Government also created the temporarily very low interest rates that made the mortgages seem affordable for the moment. . .
As for the flames sweeping across southern California, tragic as that is, this has happened time and again before — in the very same places in the very same time of year, just like hurricanes.
Why would people risk building million-dollar homes in the known paths of wildfires? For the same reason that people choose to live in the known paths of hurricanes. Because the government — that is, the taxpayers — will get stuck with a lot of the costs of dealing with those dangers and the costs of rebuilding.
Why is there such a huge amount of inflammable vegetation over such a wide area that fires can reach unstoppable proportions by the time they get to places where people live? Because “open space” has become a political sacred cow beyond rational discussion. . .
In other words, government preserves all the conditions for wildfires and subsidizes people who live in their path.
As for water shortages . . . The federal government’s water projects supply much of the water used in California that enables agriculture to flourish in what would otherwise be a desert.
We have created a culture where government is the solution to every every social “problem” (many time government is used to address preferences like open space which are not actually problems) just as technology is the solution to every technical problem. Lawmakers don’t intend to create crises, but crisis is the natural result when government gets involved in things that it was not designed to address (things like the cost of water or the price of home loans). In other words, if you have a hammer everything may look like a nail, but no matter how skillfully you hammer on a screw it won’t work like a screw – you need a screw driver to succeed with screws.