Great idea: a federal same-day voter registration law

Thanks to Upper Midwest Democratic Members of Congress Russ Feingold, Amy Klobuchar and Keith Ellison for introducing legislation in the House and Senate for same-day voter registration in federal elections.

This news article from the Dickinson Press out of North Dakota has the skinny.

The idea that citizens who want to vote are told by the government that they are not permitted to do so is appalling. And it happens every election.

Same-day voter registration puts more of the burden on the government -- as it should be -- to make sure that every citizen who wants to vote has an opportunity to do so.

Of course, Congress only has the authority to require same-day voter registration for federal elections, as the Constitution gives the authority to states to run their own elections any way they want.

But just like the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (usually called "motor-voter") that required federal voter registration forms in drivers' license facilities and public welfare offices where government officials regularly interact with citizens, these bills are also the right step led by Congress that most states will probably choose to follow for their state and local elections as well. Only a few states (notably Illinois under then-Governor Jim Edgar) petulantly ran two systems of voter registration, one for federal elections to comply with the NVRA and one for state and local elections. Now the entire nation largely follows the NVRA for state elections as well.

This is real progress and I predict and hope that with President Obama (a guy who got his start in politics with a huge 1992 voter registration drive in Chicago) and a Democratic Congress, the bill will be enacted into law in 2009, effective for the 2010 federal elections.

The General Assembly will decide this week whether we hold a constitutional convention next year

This week is the deadline for the General Assembly to place constitutional amendments on the November ballot. (The Constitution has a six-months-before-the-election deadline).

The main reason to hold a constitutional convention is because voters have not had an opportunity to amend the constitution in a substantive way for over a decade. We have not had the chance to vote on the recall power. We have not had the chance to vote on the flat tax mandate. We have not had the chance to vote on making school funding a right, rather than a goal, of the state. We have not had the chance to vote on reining in the extremely broad amendatory veto power. We have not had the chance to vote on our absolutely broken redistricting regime that essentially works to pick the leaders of the chamber at random.

A constitutional convention would provide an avenue to put these amendments on the ballot for the voters to approve or reject.

If the General Assembly process of asking voters to approve or reject constitutional amendments works -- that is, if the General Assembly does in fact place amendments on the ballot for the voters to accept or reject -- then there isn't much reason for a constitutional convention.

If, however, the General Assembly does not place any amendments on the ballot this year, as they have not for at least a decade, then there is a very good reason for a constitutional convention, because it is the only way for voters to amend the constitution.

This week the General Assembly will decide whether we hold a constitutional convention.

If they find a way to put at least one substantive amendment on the November ballot, the call for a constitutional convention will surely fail.

If they do not find a way to put any amendment on the ballot, then the call for a constitutional convention might pass.

So for those of you who don't want to see a constitutional convention, I suggest you lobby the General Assembly to put an amendment on the ballot this week! (My favorite is SJRCA 92 that would ask voters to scrap the mandate for a flat rate income tax, but you might like recall or redistricting).

Obama tells the truth on gas tax; McCain and Clinton are pander bears

Have you heard of the pander bear?

It's an exotic cousin of the panda bear.

The pander bear is a political candidate who tells voters what they want to hear, even when they know it's a bad idea, in order to win some votes.

And John McCain and Hillary Clinton are both pander bears in Indiana over the gas tax.

We should have raised the gas tax years ago so that we have a reason to use less oil and develop alternative fuels and modern transit. That's essentially what Europe did and now their economy is in a better position to deal with $115 per barrel oil.

Remember, a few years ago, a gallon of gas in the US was cheaper than a gallon of water, so we haven't had to invest in transit and alternative fuels. We just burned the oil and now our economy is in a very bad position to deal with high oil prices.

According to this New York Times article filed an hour ago (we're super-fast on the Internet!), both McCain and Clinton are responding to the economic damage from not raising the gas tax years ago and thus growing economically dependent on cheap oil by .... calling for a cut in the gas tax.

So what will that do? It will essentially end any maintenance of the interstate system and mass transit systems. And it will allow the oil companies and the other side of the War on Terror to make more money, since prices won't really fall.

Senator Barack Obama tells the truth -- one of the core themes of his entire career. His candor is why he is going to be the next President of the United States. 

Obama spoke out against halting a tax on gasoline during the summer months, a move supported by Clinton and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, saying it may not bring down prices and would deplete a fund used for building highways.

"The only way we're going to lower gas prices over the long term is if we start using less oil," Obama said.

Don't feed the pander bears! It will just encourage them.

Instead, support the candidate of candor: Barack Obama.

Obama's magic number is 291. Help him clinch.

It's like baseball.

Near the end of the season, teams that are going to make the playoffs have a magic number of wins (or their rivals' losses) to clinch their spot. We also have a magic number: the number of delegates to pick up in order to clinch the nomination. And our goal is to get that magic number by July 1 when every superdelegate (according to the Chairman of the Party) should make their opinion known.

Our magic number is 291 (according to this Sun-Times report quoting the Obama campaign). Barack Obama needs 291 more delegates to earn the 2024 to win the nomination. And our job is to help secure 291 more delegates for the Obama campaign over the next eight weeks.

There's not all that much more to say besides our efforts ought be focused on winning these primaries and caucuses -- and ensuring that the superdelegates that we are in a position to influence make their pledge public.

The superdelegate closest to where I live is Rahm Emanuel. He's in a tough spot, since his primary voters supported Obama (he lives in Chicago) but his personal friendship with the Clintons is a big part of his life. However, this is a tough business, and in my view, it's time to publicly endorse Obama so that we can move that magic number down to zero.

Remember, the only reason that there is any discussion at all about chaos in Denver is that there are some superdelegates who have so far refused to publicly make a choice between Senators Clinton and Obama. That refusal to choose is damaging.

The magic number is 291. Let's bring it down to zero and clinch this thing.

I'll be on WGN primary night on Milt Rosenberg's Extension 720

Just got word that I'll be discussing the results from the Pennsylvania primary election on Milt Rosenberg's Extension 720 where Senator Clinton will graciously acknowledge the obvious -- she has lost the primary race since she did not earn more than 65% of the vote in Pennsylvania and she can not catch up to Obama's insurmountable lead -- and concede to the next President of the United States, Senator Barack Obama.

Would be nice, wouldn't it?

It's on from 9 pm to 11 pm CST on WGN, 720 am Tuesday night.

History of the English language driven by the French

I subscribe to Delancey Place, a fantastic free email-newsletter with insightful excerpts from books and magazines. I encourage you to subscribe or read the blog. The editor of Delancey Place is Richard Wade Vague.

This is a good one that I'll repost in its entirely.

In today's encore excerpt--many of the reasons that English spelling contains many silent letters and other complexities date from the 15th century, around the time of William Caxton's 1476 introduction the printing press in England:

"In spelling, the [English] language was assimilating the consequences of having a civil service of French scribes, who paid little attention to the traditions of English spelling that had developed in Anglo-Saxon times. Not only did French qu arrive, replacing Old English cw (as in queen), but ch replaced c (in words such as church--Old English cirice), sh and sch replaced sc (as in ship--Old English scip), and much more. Vowels were written in a great number of ways. Much of the irregularity of modern English spelling derives from the forcing together of Old English and French systems of spelling in the Middle Ages. People struggled to find the best way of writing English throughout the period. ... Even Caxton didn't help, at times. Some of his typesetters were Dutch, and they introduced some of their own spelling conventions into their work. That is where the gh in such words as ghost comes from.

"Any desire to standardize would also have been hindered by the ... Great English Vowel Shift, [which] took place in the early 1400s. Before the shift, a word like loud would have been pronounced 'lood'; name as 'nahm'; leaf as 'layf'; mice as 'mees'. ...

"The renewed interest in classical languages and cultures, which formed part of the ethos of the Renaissance, had introduced a new perspective into spelling: etymology. Etymology is the study of the history of words, and there was a widespread view that words should show their history in the way they were spelled. These weren't classicists showing off. There was a genuine belief that it would help people if they could 'see' the original Latin in a Latin-derived English word. So someone added a b to the word typically spelled det, dett, or dette in Middle English, because the source in Latin was debitum, and it became debt, and caught on. Similarly, an o was added to peple, because it came from populum: we find both poeple and people, before the latter became the norm. An s was added to ile and iland, because of Latin insula, so we now have island. There are many more such cases. Some people nowadays find it hard to understand why there are so many 'silent letters' of this kind in English. It is because other people thought they were helping."

David Crystal, The Fight for English: How language pundits ate, shot, and left, Oxford, 2006, pp. 26-9.

Cayman Islands-style economic development by tax haven

How are we going to generate more wealth in Illinois, create more jobs and otherwise strengthen our economy?

The best way is to develop a workforce that is the smartest in the world. It's also very powerful to invest in our infrastructure so our transportation network is strong.

That costs money. And the way to spend that money is with taxes.

There's an alternative strategy for economic development, and the substantive and rich (no pun intended) debate on the Mike Smith Amendment (HJRCA 42) illuminated this strategic difference on economic development policy. The alternative strategy is to attract the wealthiest people possible to live in your state by serving as a tax haven and not taxing them.

That's what the Cayman Islands does, which is why lots of corporations decide to legally move there and avoid American taxation.

And that's essentially what Illinois has been doing, because we soak the poor and middle class with our state and local government. We tax low income people much more than high income people.

Well, that's hasn't been working so well. Our job growth hasn't been as good as it should be. And in my view, that's because about half our schools are dramatically under-funded (or at least, the outcomes aren't very good) and our infrastructure is falling apart. It isn't because we've been taxing high income people too much, because we don't. We have the lowest tax rate of any state in the nation that has an income tax.

So, HJRCA42 would fund education and a capital bill by putting a moderate income tax rate (relative to other states) of 6% on anyone earning $250,000 a year. It would also cut taxes by an average of 12% on everyone who earns less than $250,000.

During debate on the floor today and in the State Government Administration Committee yesterday, several legislators who opposed the amendment felt that this would hurt economic development. Why?

Because by taxing people who have a good year and earn more than $250,000, that could induce them to move somewhere else. And the best way to generate jobs and wealth and economic development, in that view, is to induce wealthy people to live in Illinois by not taxing them much at all.

That's better than investing in a smarter workforce and better schools.

That's better than a modern transportation network.

It's better to keep taxes on the wealthiest low -- like a tax haven, really -- than it is to invest in all of our people through better schools and better public services.

That's the core of the economic development strategy advanced by opponents of this amendment.

And that sure seems like a lame economic development strategy to me.

Progressive constitutional amendments popping all over!

Good things are happening in Springfield as legislators are actively proposing improvements to the constitution -- particularly the ridiculous provision that imposes a flat-rate income tax.

The Illinois Constitution reads:

SECTION 3. LIMITATIONS ON INCOME TAXATION
   (a)  A tax on or measured by income shall be at a
non-graduated rate. At any one time there may be no more than
one such tax imposed by the State for State purposes on
individuals and one such tax so imposed on corporations. In
any such tax imposed upon corporations the rate shall not
exceed the rate imposed on individuals by more than a ratio
of 8 to 5.

What a dumb thing to put in a Constitution: the income tax must be non-graduated. The right type of income tax we should impose on ourselves is a decision for the people to make through our elected representatives, not something that should be restricted by the Constitution.

Fortunately, lots of legislators are working to change this and a new proposal introduced by Elementary and Secondary Education Committee Chair Mike Smith (D-Pekin) looks like it has some legs. He has introduced HJRCA 42 which would do two excellent things.

1. It would cut taxes on most working families by making the first $4200 earned tax-free. Right now only the first $2100 earned is tax free, so we are perpetuating poverty by taking people who make minimum wage. That's dumb.

2. It would create a new tax bracket of $250,000. Any income earned above the quarter-million dollar level would be taxed at 6%, not 3%. So Michael Jordan's $31 million earned last year would face a tax bill of 3% for the first $250,000 and 6% of the net $30,750,000. And you know what? I think he can afford it.

The amendment also indexes those two figures so that they rise with inflation -- another smart move.

Full disclosure: I've been actively working pro bono to get some constitutional amendment on the ballot this November so we can get rid of this dumb flat rate mandate. I am pleasantly surprised by Representative Smith's amendment, which is another way of saying that I had no hand in it.

The best part about HJRCA 42 is that it has been assigned to a committee! Next week it will be heard in Representative Jack Frank's State Government Administration Committee. That is enormous progress as I'm not aware of any other constitutional amendment for a progressive income tax getting assigned to committee in either chamber in the last decade or so.

So this thing can happen. The May 4th deadline is fast approaching to pass a constitutional amendment with a three-fifths vote in each chamber, so if you have not called your state legislators and asked them to put a progressive income tax amendment on the November ballot yet, now is the time.

Of course, if you thought Steve Forbes was right in 1996, and that you think we should use a *higher* income tax rate the *lower* one's income becomes, then you probably won't like these amendments. If, on the other hand, you think that the government should tax us based on our ability to pay that year, then these amendments are very good.

Another very good sign: Downstaters are not scared of a progressive income tax, as Representatives Bradley, Holbrook and Vershoore (as this Bloomington-Normal Pantagraph article makes clear) all support the amendment. There's an incorrect school of thought that Downstaters will always vote against tax increases, no matter how reasonable the proposal or whether the relatively low-income voter will in fact be better off under a progressive tax system, so therefore pushing for a tax increase is folly. I think this amendment is helping to make clear that the consensus for fixing our regressive tax system is growing, particularly Downstate.

Great new Illinois public affairs blog by David Ormsby

Usually the people who really know state government and state politics keep their opinions to themselves or share them exclusively with their paying clients. (Did I just insult myself a little bit? A little bit. Little bit.)

David Ormsby is a nice recent exception to that rule.

He has a new blog called Your Two Cents Less and it is a great read. If you like public policy and Illinois politics, and really, who doesn't?, put it on your daily list.

Thanks to Milt Rosenberg and Bruce DuMont

I just came back from a fun bloggers discussion on Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg. Hiram Wurf and I represented the progressive wing of the nation while Richard Baehr and the proprietor of Copious Dissent represented the dead party. Thanks to Milt and the Extension team for the kind invitation.

It's fairly clear that the idea of Senator McCain as the paragon of national security can only persist if voters believe that we are safer from invading all Muslim nations.

It's probably in the interest of the Democratic Party (and the Republic) to wage a geography 101 campaign for all adults and teach the electorate each of the nations of the Middle East so that everyone can make clear distinctions between, say, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.

I suspect that the common sense view that it makes no sense to invade and occupy Iraq (and consider the same thing with Iran) because an Afghanistan-based terrorist organization successfully attacked the United States has a harder time earning support among people who are not sure which nation is which.

Maybe we should have the Schoolhouse Rock type of animated educational television spots that helped to successfully teach children watching Saturday morning cartoons (like me) updated and launched in prime time for adults.

This Sunday, I'll be on Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont along with my friend Chris Varones. Catch it on WLS from 6 pm to 8 pm on Easter. Thanks to Bruce for the kind invitation.

If Richardson can endorse Barack, why can't Rahm Emanuel?

There is only one super-delegate from Illinois who has not endorsed Barack Obama.

That's Congressman Rahm Emanuel.

He remains neutral in this contest.

Trouble is, the superdelegates are going to decide the nomination.

And that means Rahm Emanuel's vote at the Denver convention will be crucial.

Why hasn't he endorsed Barack Obama when every other Illinois superdelegate and the vast majority of the pledged delegates have done so?

Because President Bill Clinton brought him into national politics and he remains loyal to his former boss. That's not a bad thing. And in fact, there wasn't any reason to complain about his decision to stay neutral, even after his state and the primary voters of his district overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama in the February 5th primary.

Until now.

Now that it's clear that his vote matters. And the dwindling number of unpledged superdelegates are crucial to the entire contest.

Now it's time to pick sides.

Today, Governor Bill Richardson endorsed Barack Obama. Governor Bill Richardson was just as loyal to the Clintons as Rahm Emanuel. Richardson was appointed Ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of the Energy Department by President Clinton. That's a big deal.

But he made a decision -- after the voters of his state weighed in.

Why won't Rahm Emanuel do the same?

It's time for Illinois Democrats to end the Emanuel exemption for endorsements.

It's understandable why he has been neutral. Now, however, with the Clinton campaign signaling their intent to campaign all the way until the August convention in Denver (even though there is no way that Senator Clinton can earn more delegates or total votes than Senator Obama, which means the only way that Senator Clinton can win the nomination is if superdelegates like Rahm Emanual decide to pick her over the majority of voters and majority of pledged delegates), it's time to unify behind Obama.

It's time for Rahm Emanuel to endorse Barack Obama.

Why one big pool -- Medicare for all -- will reduce government spending

The February 2008 edition of Illinois Issues has this insightful piece in Bethany Jaeger's cover story called Collective Action:

Illinois paid nearly $3.9 billion in payroll, or "personal services," in fiscal year 2007. That doesn't include higher education or retirement or Social Security benefits for more than 72,300 employees. But the cost of payroll is $1 billion less than during the previous administration of Gov. George Ryan, who had about 14,000 more employees.

Despite the Blagojevich Administration's smaller head count, group health insurance costs drastically increased to $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2007, compared with $876 million in fiscal year '02.

Wow. So health care is about a third of the cost of salaries -- and the cost of health care is skyrocketing.

Underneath every local government fiscal report is the same story: much higher group health insurance costs.

An answer is to put all public employees in the same government-financed health insurance pool as every one else. It's called Medicare. And it should be expanded to include every one, particularly public employees.

With one big pool, the administrative costs of running each of these group health insurance pools for each level of government disappear. And we can simplify (and almost eliminate) billings with providers since there is only one payor to deal with: Medicare.

Experience important in Obama, Clinton presidential campaign?

Perhaps you are wondering how much experience should matter when you are choosing between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton.

I found the following test from kos on the the votemaster website:

Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom
had spent 20 years in Congress plus had considerable other relevant experience
and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois state
legislature and 2 years in Congress.

Which one do you think would make a better President?

If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked James Buchanan over Abraham
Lincoln.

Your pick disagrees with that of most historians, who see Lincoln as the
greatest President ever and Buchanan as the second worst ever, better only than
Warren "Teapot Dome" Harding.

In other words, experience in hanging around Washington, D.C. should not be the main reason to pick a president. If that were true, then Washington must be working very well, and you would want to continue along the same course by picking the people with the most experience. If you want to change the way that the government is working, then you should not pick someone who has been a big part of the government for a long time. That's just common sense.

It's more important to pick a candidate based on their ability to lead and the judgment they show.

Want convention business? Then keep Sam Zell off welfare

The idea that an asset worth a billion dollars owned by one of the wealthiest men in Illinois should get government money is so preposterous on its face that I'm a little sad that we have to argue whether or not we should put Sam Zell's Chicago Cubs on welfare.

The potential source of government money for Sam Zell and the Tribune Company is a 2% hotel tax currently assessed on every hotel room in the City of Chicago and collected by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority.

The Illinois Welfare For Millionaires Authority -- sorry, I mean the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority -- collects $34,000,000 annually from the hotel tax and picks up another $5 million each from the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago (really, it's $10 million from the State, but 5 of that was supposed to go to the City, so they count it as 5 from each).

You can read their Annual Report (a fine job, actually) to see their budget if you don't believe me.

So, we could decide that, like it or not, we turned the White Sox into the Welfare Sox back in 1987, and built public schools --- oops, I mean public ballpark -- with government money, and since we have to pay off those bonds, we should keep the tax going until the the ballpark is paid off and then .... eliminate the tax. Or use the money to build public schools. Or rebuild the CTA. Or the Dan Ryan. Or something that .... everyone benefits and not just the owners of the White Sox.

Or, we could do what former Governor Jim Thompson apparently wants to do and keep the hotel tax going forever, only this time we can use the money from the tax to make Sam Zell and the owners of theTribune Company richer by renovating Wrigley Field with public money so that they can sell it for more money next year.

Meanwhile, no money for schools, bridges, transit, rail, universities or other things that benefit everyone.

(I know I'm skipping over the $400 million in public money that we decided to spend on the McCaskey family of Lake Forest and the other owners of the Chicago Bears in 2001 -- but you get the idea).

So, who thinks it is a good idea to (a) keep our hotel taxes among the highest in the nation and (b) spend the money from that tax on making Illinois millionaires richer?

Besides former Governor Jim Thompson, I hope the answer is: no elected officials.

There is a consequence to keeping out hotel tax the highest in the country (almost 15%!). When it becomes more expensive to come to Chicago, conventions go elsewhere. We will not attract any more visitors or conventions by making Sam Zell richer. So why exactly are we running convention business out of Chicago to make Sam Zell and the Tribune richer?

This Crain's Chicago Business article explains how Orlando is starting to beat us at attracting conventions. Orlando's hotel tax is 11%. Ours is 15%. If we quit making putting millionaires who own sports teams on welfare, we could split the difference between our current tax and Orlando's current tax and get more competitive -- and maybe attract more conventions.

Illinois Business Roundtable says no we can't to improving Illinois government

The Illinois Business Roundtable (a sort of Chamber of Commerce) released some really excellent research on the 2008 question as to whether we voters should exercise our option to improve our Constitution through calling a convention.

The full report is available from their website here.

Really great stuff on the previous three constitutions and the conventions that led to their successive replacements.

Their conclusion, however, is rather tepid, which is that they aren't interested in a convention. Their reasoning is that because the legislature could be solving big picture issues (like creating good schools in poor areas, or ending the reverse Robin Hood regressive taxes we impose, or modernizing our elections), we don't need to amend the constitution. We just need the legislature and the governor to get to work.

In my view there are structural deficiencies to state government (particularly the excessive authority vested in the Office of the Governor, regardless of who happens to hold the seat) that only a constitutional amendment can solve, and thus a convention is an excellent tool to get some amendments on the 2010 ballot.

But more to the point, the notion that simply because a convention isn't absolutely required due to a clearly deficient constitution, we ought to reject the opportunity that a convention provides to create another avenue to improving Illinois government is wrong-headed.

Any chance we get to improve Illinois government we ought to take.

Those chances don't come around very often.

And when we get a chance to change our government in fundamental ways -- to let the people be heard in another venue and a different context -- that's a chance we need to embrace.

It's the politics of hope over the politics of fear and cynicism.

The position of hope is to say yes, let us take this opportunity to make things better.

The position of cynicism and fear is to say no, it will never work or the special interests won't bend or, more fundamentally, we can't ever really change anyway. So just give up and give in.

We'll never get good schools for poor children in Illinois.

We'll never give more voice to regular people in our elections and in our legislature.

We'll never have the politics that is a model for the nation instead of a political liability for presidential candidates.

I reject that defeatist thinking.

I'm sorry the Roundtable embraces it.

And I hope the people of Illinois join the next President of the United States in saying yes, we can.

And voting yes for the chance to change Illinois government.