Month: February 2009

Senator Bennett Breakfast

Warning: Undefined array key "adf" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 69

Warning: Undefined array key "sim_pages" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 70

I went to the breakfast conversation with Senator Bennett in Bountiful this morning before work. Overall I have to say that I am more impressed with the senator after meeting him than before I had met him. Having said that, here are a couple of things I took away from the meeting.

There were very few people at the meeting younger than the senator’s campaign manager (his son) – I counted 5 including myself. I know how hard it can be to cut into a work schedule to participate in a political event like this, but we really do need more people under 35 being more actively involved in politics if we are to penetrate the echo chamber of candidates who have cultivated decades-long relationships with one segment of the population.

One young gentleman there asked a question based on a quote that the Sentaor had referenced from Newt Gingrich:

Walmart does not get ahead by attacking Sears, but by offering better value than Sears.

This young man asked Senator Bennett what value he had to offer us as constituents. Predictably, but disappointingly, Senator Bennett had nothing to offer except seniority. He either does not recognize, or would hate to admit that his seniority is virtually useless now and that if we replace him in 2010 we can have a new senator gaining seniority while the party is out of power in preparation for the time when the Democrats have less than 51 votes again. If we give him another six years we will be electing a new senator in 2016 or possibly as late as 2022 when he will likely no longer have the physical capacity to represent us – and when some seniority would more likely have real value.

I got to talk to the senator after the conversation was officially over and ask my first question for any candidate – what are the two or three most important job functions of the position you are seeking? His answers were – in order:

Try to see the future clearly.
Listen to constituents.
Do your homework.

If I were grading those answers (and I am here) the senator failed a very elementary question. Passing answers would have had the primary job function of a senator as being to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." After that the order of answers might vary somewhat from one person to another but I would have the next one as "communicate with constituents" (that’s communication both ways).

The senator said at the breakfast that a new senator could do nothing more than offer fiery speeches on the Senate floor and that many people in Utah would like that. I think he underestimates the people of Utah and the potential of a new senator. We need someone who has the Constitution at the center of their job description. Such a person can still work with others to do more than offer fiery speeches.

Tags 2010, Bob Bennett, civic participation, senate

technology

Track Voting Records

The Voting Record plugin I mentioned last week is ready for an early release. You can download it here and give it a try. I have not added the function to allow users to search the votes yet, but the votes can be entered and edited by blog authors and displayed on your blog. Instructions etc. are at the plugin page.

Tags civic participation, plugin, tools

life State technology

All is Well

It must be a really slow news day when the newspaper has to tell us something so basic as the fact that gays can’t get a marriage license in Utah. In other "news" the FEC would not allow me to run for President when I turned 18.

Recently I’ve been so busy that I am not really following anything more newsworthy than that anyway. I am working on a plugin that might interest politically active bloggers. I don’t normally talk about plugins on this blog, but I’ll post here when I have something that people can use.

Tags House 20, media, plugin

State technology

Legal Notice – SB 208

I was going to post a summary of the meeting, but many other people have already done a good job of that (Holly, JM Bell, Jason, Bob, Joe). So far, it appears that only JM Bell and BenJoe have taken the time to create something more than a back-of-the-napkin post of quotes and initial reactions. (That’s not a criticism of the other posts, by the way.) From the meeting itself I only want to post one little gem from Sen. Urquhart:

It’s not government’s job to prop up an industry.

I wish someone would tell that to Congress.

Now, my initial thoughts were that I can’t wait to see how the media reacts to this. The very tip of the iceberg comes in the form of a comment that has been posted on a couple of the blogs that wrote initial reactions.

The claim is that the newspapers are already developing a website that would serve a similar purpose of providing more access and wider distribution of legal notices. Personally, I won’t hold my breath. Even if their site is close to production I would have to see it before deciding if it really serves the public. There is no reason that citizens should be mandated to publish through the newspapers – just as there would be no justification for mandating that they could not publish through the newspapers.

If newspapers are pushing to raise the cap on what they can charge for legal notices I have a hard time imagining that they are planning to offer the services of their new website for free or even at a low cost.

I think the heart of the comment is in this paragraph:

As has been the case for centuries, public notice is best served by a third-party, independent source. There should be a be check and balance on government power. In other words, should the fox be watching the henhouse when it comes to legal notices? Also, should the government be in the business of creating its own communications bureaucracy?

I think we need to define who the parties are to this system. The government has nothing to gain by not publishing some legal notice that has been submitted so I’m not sure that you could claim that they are any less independent than the newspapers. I don’t believe that publishing legal notices gives any power to the press. The whole statement sounds like a breathless rush to throw out something that might make people reject this proposal without any real argument against it.

A more thoughtful question was posed during the briefing (I believe by Ethan Millard):

Why should government take over a market that has been a private transaction?

My answer has two parts. First – is it really a private transaction when government has already mandated that the transaction take place? Second – I would not argue that government should take over such transactions, only that there is very little reason why government should avoid making the legal requirement that drives those transactions as painless as possible. If there were already some low-cost way for people to meet the requirements of providing legal notice that provided the requisite distribution of the notice then there would be no reason for this bill.

The fact is that government should not be mandating a captive market, as the legal notice requirement currently does. Newspapers have become dependent on their captive market – that’s not healthy for them and they need to fix it even if SB 208 were not being proposed. Let’s free people to allow publishing of legal notice outside the newspapers and then eliminate the cap on what newspapers can charge for the notice when people choose to publish through the papers.

Tags blogger briefing, connections, laws, legislation, legislature, media, Steve Urquhart, Utah

State technology

A Blogger Press Corps – of Sorts

Post author By David
Post date February 10, 2009
5 Comments on A Blogger Press Corps – of Sorts

I was just talking to Ric Cantrell about the Bloggerpresser that is taking place this afternoon at 4:00 in the senate building (it’s an open invitation – see his post for details on attending live or virtually). I want to share a couple of interesting thoughts from our conversation.

Ric mentioned as he has tried to organize this event that bloggers are not like the traditional press corps. (Not that he expected they would be.) With a standard press conference he can simply email the reporters who cover politics at the various news organizations and know that the conference will be covered. With bloggers there is no definitive list of who is interested or available. He can send an email to those whose emails addresses he has, but that does not guarantee that everyone who would like to come has been informed. There is no central place where anyone can be assured that all the appropriate bloggers will get the information.

That makes me wonder – what would be the best way to deal with this issue? Is it something where political bloggers who wish to cover state legislative issues should be expected to follow senatesite.com to get announcements when they do blogger oriented events? Would it be better to have a Utah Bloggers Pseudo Press Corps email list that interested bloggers could subscribe to for such announcements? (I made that name up as I typed it, don’t hold me to that name if you favor the email list idea.)

Another question I have is – who is interested in the idea of press credentials for bloggers? Who is interested in a non-credentialed Blogger Press Corps? Please let me know if you have interest in this area so that we can expand the group of people who are discussing the possibilities.

Tags blogging, connections, legislature, media, Press Bloggers

State technology

Utah Waste Buster

File this under "technology experiments by public officials" but it seemed worth linking to Utah Waste Buster
if for no other reason than the fact that my senator, Dan Liljenquist, is one of those who is behind this blog. While there are those who complain that this is a waste of money and time (not sure about that since blogger blogs like this are free) I figure that it is worth exploring ways to increase the flow of information between officials and constituents. I’ve added it to my sidebar for now to encourage people to visit and give this a chance of making a difference.

Time will tell if anything truly useful emerges, but I’m always happy to see efforts being made.

Tags connections, Dan Liljenquist, Senate 23, Steve Urquhart, Utah

National

Define “Change”

I have come to the conclusion that I should not listen to national news – it just gets me agitated.

I was driving home listening to NPR and was treated to actual soundbites from the rallying speech that President Obama gave to the Democratic caucus meeting. I had head about that, but hearing these gems really showed that many people must mistake the fact that Obama is articulate by assuming that everything he says must therefore be intelligent and accurate.

The audio clips I heard had the president emphasizing that the people elected him (and the rest of Congress) to change the direction of the country and were not seeking "more of the same." What really got to me was this well phrased analogy:

"I don’t care whether you are driving an SUV or a hybrid, if you are headed toward a cliff you have to change direction."

He’s absolutely right. My reaction was that instead of changing direction when faced with an economic cliff, the president and Congress are accelerating and hoping to grow wings by the time they reach the edge. Let’s examine the "change" that he is promoting.

The president calls inaction irresponsible – it seems to me that inaction is not something that the Bush administration can ever be accused of. In other words inaction would probably be the clearest for of change. Last year the administration got a $150 Billion dollar stimulus bill and later received another $700 Billion to unfreeze the credit markets. That’s $850 Billion in spending last year of money that we don’t have and the result is that we are still in a recession with no end in sight. The change that Obama is promoting is something on the order of $800 Billion in new spending of money that we don’t have. I’m beginning to think the politicians really don’t know the difference between legal tender and monopoly money (too bad the IRS knows the difference all too well).

President Bush and his Republican Congress raised deficit spending to an art form. When Bush got a Democratic Congress there was no change in habits. Now President Obama and his Democratic Congress are trying to build an art acadamy around Bush’s art form – that’s not the change I was looking for.

I understand that the argument Obama is trying to make is that the country is sick and honestly needs surgury. That is an argument that I can accept. The problem is that we have already tried surgury by hatchet – it doesn’t work very well. Our Republican senators are trying to insist on using a scalpel for the surgery. Their profligate economic past opens them up to accusations of hypocrisy – and many of them might very well be acting in full hypocrisy. Regarless of how hypocritical they are being the fact is that surgury with a scalpel is safer and more likely to not kill the patient. This leads to another inconvenient truth. Assuming that the patient survives surgury (whether by hatchet or by scalpel) to get a liver transplant we need to recognize that the disease was not a bad liver, it was alcoholism. Just because you have had a transplant does not mean that it’s safe to go back to the bar.

Tags bailout, Bush, economics, legislation, media, money, Obama

State

How Do They Do It?

Most of the our elected leaders in the state government come from the ranks of retirees, homemakers, business owners, lawyers, and other similar professionals who have a high degree of control over their own schedules. There are a few exceptions however such as Kory Holdaway who is an educator.

As I gain more information and perspective on the word that our legislators do during the session I wonder how an educator could possibly serve in the legislature considering that the session takes 6 out of the 9 months that school is actually in session. Admittedly I don’t know if Rep. Holdaway is a classroom teacher or an administrator and I could see an administrator being able to pull this off, but I wonder how anyone who is not self-employed or has an extremely flexible profession can ever hold such an elective office – are they simply limited to offices such as city council which can be filled largely during evening hours?

Tags legislature, questions, Utah

culture National technology

D-TV Switch

That would be D as in "Delay " not D as in digital.

I have had the opportunity to drive to work for the last couple of days and have been listening to the radio as they discussed this issue. I used to wonder why television stations should be forced to switch to digital signals. Now I recognize that Congress has been holding them back from switching to digital signals exclusively. That leaves me with the question of why it is so important that everybody be able to receive a television signal.

I know I’m odd in the fact that I never watch television (since the middle of 2000), but I really don’t understand why television stations should be forced to serve people through analog. Some will argue that television is an important news source. I argue that the "news" that comes on television is somewhere between uninformative and misinformative most of the time. Some will argue that the entertainment is important. Though I find little television entertainment worth watching (yes, I still do have a vague idea of what’s offered), none of it is necessary and why should Congress be involved in mandating our entertainment options? (I can’t seem to find that section in my pocket Constitution.) Next thing you know, Uncle Sam will be giving away 5 free movie tickets per person per year – like they do in New Zealand (I may be wrong on the exact quantity).

Considering what I heard about how much cheaper it is for stations to broadcast in digital I would bet that, if left to themselves, the television broadcasters would figure out a way to offer the financial incentive necessary to get their customers to switch to digital. But that would be a free market and <sarcasm>we wouldn’t want to try that – free market’s aren’t stable.</sarcasm>

Tags change, change congress, free markets, laws, media, television

culture National

Disturbing Trend

I want to be supportive of our President. I just want to make that clear because I don’t expect this post will convey that feeling.

I’m sure part of it is the spirit of partisanship, and part of it is the media propensity to focus on the scandalous, but I don’t think that any other President has had as pervasive a problem as President Obama is having in getting appointees who have not made very basic financial mistakes.

- Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary owed $26K in back taxes
- Bill Richardson withdrew his name from consideration as Commerce Secretary because of a grand jury investigation into a pay-to-play scheme
- Hillary Clinton’s nomination as Secretary of State was contingent upon some disclosure issues regarding foreign donors to Bill Clinton’s foundation – her confirmation was held up by one day because of lingering concerns
- Tom Daschle will likely still become withdrew his name from consideration to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services despite the fuss about his failure to pay $140K in taxes on a political gift
- Nancy Killefer withdrew her name from filling the position of Chief Performance Officer because of failure to pay unemployment taxes for her domestic help

I’m not sure if it’s comforting or disturbing to think that this may have much less to do with poor picks by the president and more to do with the culture of "anything you can get away with is fine" in Washington.

Tags Clinton, corruption, money, Obama, political figures, taxes