Month: February 2009
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Federalist Nos. 52 – 53
Federalist No. 52 and Federalist No. 53 begin an exploration of the individual branches of government as defined in the Constitution by considering the purpose, composition, and structure of the House of Representatives. While they were trying to rectify the weaknesses of existing legislative bodies, sometimes it can feel like we still live under a…
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Accountability Now
MoveOn.org has proven that they can be a political force, so has The Daily Kos, and long before either of them existed labor unions were already very influential in politics. That made me very interested to read that those three were teaming up to form a new political action committee called Accountability Now. Their stated…
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Federalist No. 51
Of course the importance of checks and balances in our government is a well known concept as discussed in Federalist No. 51. What I had not previously realized was that splitting the Congress into two houses was a part of the effort on checks and balances. I had always understood that choice to simply be…
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Federalist No. 50
Federalist No. 50 brings forth the distinction between occasional appeals to the people and periodical appeals to the people. While I am not sure that this paper really satisfies the question it does force consideration of the question of what the difference is and how it plays out. The founders clearly settled on periodical appeals…
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Public Transportation
I have just changed my commuting from riding the bus to driving. This was not due to my own choice – my office moved and I was unwilling to take an extra 2 to 3 hours per day to get to and from this highly underserviced area. Coincidentally I had to buy gas on my…
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Running for Treasurer
I have decided to run for the position of Treasurer for the Davis County Republican Party. Those those who are interested can visit my campaign website although any regular readers here will not find any surprises there. The vote is 8 weeks away, but call this an early invitation. Anyone in Davis County who is…
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Public Office and Freedom of Expression
I could not begin to cover the latest situation with Chris Buttars but there is an important issue there. Everyone has a responsibility to refrain from yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater, but public officials have even more reason to be judicious in what they choose to say. As far as I’m concerned that’s a…
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Two Forms of Government
I really appreciated the video that Scott shared yesterday. (You can see the full video below.) It reminded me that there are only two distinct forms of government. One is transient as it depends on the life of the ruler(s) while the other is stable because it is based on a foundation of written law.…
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Senators Seeing the Future (Clearly)
There are obviously a few things that I don’t understand about the Senate. Yesterday I reported that according to Senator Bennett the most important (he said it was most important, it was not simply the first thing on his list) part of the job of a senator is to try to see the future clearly.…
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Community Activism
I have not said anything about this before (mostly because I have not put much energy towards the cause) but today brought great news that the proposed cogeneration plant in West Bountiful has been put on hold. The thing that interested me is that there has been no government obstruction so far to the plans…