The Founding Fathers would have loved the European Union (they would have let Canada join the US!)

The Articles of Confederation (the United States' governing document from 1781 until before the Constitution replaced it in 1788) allowed Canada to join the United States at any time it wished, simply by accepting the terms of the Articles of Confederation. Here's the language:

Art. XI Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the united states, shall be admitted into, and entited to all the advantages of this union: but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine states.

Even better, any other colony could join up if 9 of the 13 states agreed to it. That's pretty flexible! With a 70% vote of the states, any colony could have joined the United States of America.

Can you imagine Mexico and Canada joining with the United States today in a North American Union? Look at our friends in Europe for an example of the power of a new, modern form of government. The European Union has transformed a continent of perpetual war and bitter enemies into one of the world's strongest economies with almost 500 million people.

Building a North American Union would be one of the smartest long-term investments in our economic well-being we can make. Here, we spend billions on patrolling borders and wasting millions of hours for people and cargo to pass through heavily-fortified checkpoints. And for what? To make it more expensive to for all of us to build businesses, create jobs and improve our quality of life throughout North America.

I can already hear conservatives and those afraid of fundamental improvements in our government resurrect our Founding Fathers and our sacred Constitution as weapons to dismiss any discussion of a North American Union or integrating Canada and Mexico into the United States as un-American or fundamentally unconstitutional. It's nice to learn that the original government of the United States of America explicitly embraced the same progressive spirit now seen in the European Union.

You know, the best way to honor our Founding Fathers is to emulate then, not worship them. They spent their political capital fundamentally improving their governments and they weren't afraid to reject altogether the deficient governments they inherited. We ought to be infused with that same bold spirit of government-making to imagine and create modern institutions.

2010 Illinois primary election calendar shortened: candidate petitions in one month

Lisa Madigan already deserves credit for single-handedly achieving a long-held goal of voters and reformers: she has dramatically shortened the 2010 Illinois primary season. Consider that petitions hit the street in one month and almost no one has decided what they are running for yet. Usually a primary campaign season drags on for more than a year. This time, we're looking at a six month sprint to the February 2 primary, all because of Lisa.

Only when Attorney General Madigan decides what she will be running for in late July (or maybe even early August) will the dominoes fall on the most exciting Democratic primary in ten years.

We'll likely have a contested Democratic primary for the US Senate, Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, Treasurer, Cook County Board President as well as open seats from all the legislators who compete for those seats sparking even more contested primaries. This is exciting!

As an election attorney, it's also a good time for me to remind potential candidates to make sure you hire an attorney to draft your petitions and to fully and thoroughly review them before submitting them. I have seen dozens (hundreds?) of well-intentioned, intelligent, decently-funded candidates knocked off the ballot because they chose not to hire an attorney to navigate the treacherous, technicality-filled waters of Illinois ballot access. Candidates, my number is 312.933.4890 and my email is dan (at) ProgressivePublicAffairs.com . Don't be a statistic!

But for voters, especially the million or so Democratic primary voters, the next seven months will be prime time in setting the direction of the most important Democratic state in the Union (the home of our President). There will never be a better time to get involved in Democratic politics (from the perspective of influencing the direction of the Illinois Democratic party). So pick a candidate and help them out!

Petitions hit the street August 4th for county, state and federal candidates. They are due November 2nd (but most candidates will file on the first day they can, October 26th, to try to get the top spot on the ballot). So they need help now -- or at least, as soon as they know what they are running for.

November 9th is the last day to file objections to those petitions, and thus November and December will be filled with line-by-line challenges to the petitions of those candidates that did not collect far more than the required signatures of registered voters in their district.

The holidays knock out the last two weeks of December, and then we're looking at a final four-week campaign season between New Years Day and February 2, 2010.

The only downside to Lisa's shrinkage of the primary campaign season to less than six months will be a nine-month general election campaign for all the statewide races between the nominees of the major parties (a bit long for my taste). Well, that isn't her fault -- the General Assembly didn't move the primary back from early February. They probably should (on behalf of all the campaign workers freezing outside while walking precincts in January .... how about a May primary?).

After eight years of relative stability, the next two cycles are going to be full of churn (because remember, the 2012 cycle will involve all new districts). This is going to be fun!

Mark Kirk tells China not to trust the US government. Seriously.

The Chinese government is largely financing most of our debt, and now that we're trying to spend our way out of a recession (the right economic policy, by the way), we really need to keep China on our side.

Well, Representative Mark Kirk made that a little more difficult. Here is Representative Mark Kirk in his own words on how he told the Chinese not to believe the United States government!



So, this elected official decided to tell the Chinese government -- our number one creditor and a crucial partner in ensuring that we climb out of this recession -- not to believe the US government. Instead they should believe him, I guess. And if he is successful in convincing the Chinese government not to believe the Obama Administration and the United States government, and they then logically decided not to finance the debt of a government that they didn't believe, then we would really be in a heap of trouble economically.

So thanks Representative Kirk! I hope you are unsuccessful in your efforts to scare the Chinese away from investing in the United States.

Europe votes this week. Imagine if we participated as well

People in 27 European nations are voting this week to elect the members of the European Parliament.

This is a triumph of democracy in the history of the world. Only elections in India involve more people.

The people of Europe speaking several different languages and with grandparents who fought and killed each other have found a way to embrace their common interests and form a European government with continental elections. The European Parliament has some information about elections in English worth a read.

Imagine if we could participate in those elections as well to help set a global climate change policy, or a global policy for trade and immigration, or a global policy towards eradicating money laundering and terrorism. We have shared interests with Europe. Climate change and global economic development are two of the biggest, and I would like a chance to vote for the people who will make these global policies.

Consider North America. While Europe is finding a way to knock down barriers to trade and commerce among their nations, we're putting them up with a new rule requiring passports between the US and Canada and Mexico going into effect this year. What a waste! Those long lines at the borders are the definition of economic waste. We should recognize our common interests with Mexico and Canada and figure out how to integrate our governments (like the postal service or immigration or trucking regulations or drug policy or energy development) where it makes sense to do so. Political integration generates economic benefits.

I find European elections inspiring and I hope to help build support for North American elections in the new few decades. We already have a free trade agreement (where disputes are adjudicated by secretive, appointed officials). We should have an elected body to help resolve disputes and develop North American institutions that make life better for everyone.

Gladwell: Relentless effort trumps skill, and underdogs win more than you think

One of the best ways to win against someone who superior skills is with relentless effort.

That's how underdogs win: they take the fight to their opponent in a socially unacceptable way to trump their opponent's superiority.

Malcolm Gladwell has a good feature in the New Yorker on this topic.

Here is a great slice of his story:

David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.

In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

Some lessons for politics and advocacy: relentless effort for the underdogs is a requirement to win. And when the other side looks strongest, don't play by those rules.

Obama's 100 days on Milt Rosenberg's WGN show tonight

I'm leaving Springfield early to appear on Milt Rosenberg's Extension 720 show tonight from 9 to 11 pm to discuss President Barack Obama's wildly successful first 100 days.

Who would have thought in 1999 when a state senator from Hyde Park was working here in Springfield under Pate Philip's rule and not really moving much legislation at the time that we would be saying that a decade later? Barack's rise is basically the political feel-good story of the generation.

And his Administration is on track to be transformational (like FDR, LBJ or Reagan).

Another difference between Democrats and Republicans

Yesterday, the Senate Republicans voted to keep government barriers in place from citizens and taxpayers from voting while the Democrats in the Illinois Senate Elections Committee voted to reduce some of those government restrictions from citizens voting in elections.

The place was Room 400 of the Illinois Capitol (the same room where President Barack Obama used to chair the Health and Human Services Committee five years ago). The occasion was the meeting of the Senate Elections Committee yesterday. And the topic of discussion was House Bill 267, a proposal advanced by Senator Meeks to cut in half the 14-day period before each election when the government no longer permits citizens to register to vote at their current address.

The four Republican Senators (Dale Righter, Randy Hultgren, David Luechtefeld and Dan Rutherford) were united in opposition to the very concept that the legislature might limit the amount of time that the government denies citizens the ability to register to vote. That would lead on a very dangerous path, they said, to same-day voter registration. Besides, the idea of a herd of voters just showing up to vote that are presumably uneducated in not good government, they said.

Got that? The government officials are going to judge which of the taxpayers and citizens -- who decide whether they get to keep their job -- are worthy enough to vote.

The Democratic Senators -- James Meeks, Terry Link, Ira Silverstein, Lou Viverito and Maggie Crotty -- were united behind the bill and the belief that there should be as few restrictions as possible put up by the government between the people and the ballot. The bill passed on a party-line vote, and it will likely pass the Senate on a party-line vote.

I should have been happy, since I drafted the bill and testified in favor of it. But I was left with a very sour feeling. Why would the Republican legislators oppose the bill -- when the election administrators who run the elections were good enough to suggest an amendment last month that removed their opposition to the bill? So even though the bill is not an administrative burden on the people who actually conduct elections in Illinois, the Republican Senators still opposed the bill on principle!

I think this is a hint as to why the Republican Party is dying. On the same day that Pennsylvania (a big, northern industrial state like Illinois with big cities and small towns) lost its last Republican Senator and went into all-blue status with Arlen Specter's switch and the day before a popular Democratic President celebrates 100 days in office and the most ambitious progressive federal agenda in 30 and maybe 70 years, this vote in the Illinois Senate Elections Committee showed me that Republicans have a hostility towards regular people getting more power. They have a fundamental streak of elitism. And it's deadly for them.

There are exceptions. Beth Coulson and Sid Mathias, two suburban Cook County Republicans, voted for the bill in the House. But every other Republican voted no and every single Democrat voted yes. I think there might be a Republican Senator or two that votes yes.

But at base, the principle that the government should stop citizens from registering to vote -- not because it might be administratively difficult or because there might be fraud, because the election administrators who run elections agreed not to oppose the bill, but just because on principle it is better for democracy and for government if fewer people vote -- that's one of the principles of the Republican Party.

And as long as the Republican Party believes that we're better off when fewer people vote, we Democrats are going to be running governments for a good long time.

White House to announce high speed rail plans Thursday....very exciting

This is very exciting news.

President Barack Obama (who essentially single-handedly transformed American rail policy by investing $8 billion of stimulus funding into rail -- 15 times more than what the federal government had ever invested in one year before) is scheduled to announce the federal plan for how that eight billion will be spent tomorrow in the White House.

And my very first lobbying client (since 2004), Rick Harnish of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, is in Washington right now to participate in that announcement.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice article about the state of intercity rail in the nation today (and the reporter spent some time with Rick this week as you can read from his report).

I can't wait to find out what the Obama Administration is going to do.

Finally! A President who gets it! As the Bush-ites were fond of saying: Elections do have consequences....

Today's special election is a waste; fill vacancies in one election, not two

Today’s special general election between Mike Quigley, Rosanna Pulido and Matt Reichel is a waste of time, money and resources. Taxpayers will shell out almost two million dollars to hold an election in the 5th Congressional district with only three names on the ballot. And the result of the election – the Democratic nominee is going to win – has been a foregone conclusion for a month.

The seat has been vacant since January. Meanwhile, during the debate on the federal stimulus and budget, the 600,000 people of the 5th congressional district have been without a voice in the House. That’s not good, because we have literally lost our seat at the congressional table while federal policy is made. Our election laws should fill a vacancy as quickly as possible to minimize the loss of our political clout.

In this case, the people spoke clearly last month in the primary election: they want a Democrat to represent them in the House.

Look at the numbers from the March 3rd primary: Mike Quigley, Democrat, earned 12,118 votes. Rosanna Pulido, Republican, earned 1,006 while Matt Reichel Green, earned 166. That’s 91% for Quigley, 8% for Pulido and 1% for Reichel. That’s a landslide. So why are we going through the motion of another election today between these three people when Quigley has already earned 91% of the vote last month? Why can’t we give the people what they already voted for?

Illinois should fill a congressional vacancy in one election, not two, particularly when the results are so clear. There are several ways to do it. We could replicate Chicago’s municipal elections where there is a runoff only if no candidate earns a majority of the vote. We could count a vote in the primary election as a straight ticket vote in the general election for whoever the nominee will be. Or we could use Irish-style instant runoff voting where voters rank all the candidates.

But whatever the method, we should absolutely not continue to waste two million dollars and minimize our own clout by waiting a month to finally elect a Representative in a second election when we could get the job done in one day.

Metra should take credit cards -- a Senate bill would require just that

Yesterday Senator Michael Bond (D-Grayslake) and I held a press conference on his legislation that requires Metra to accept credit cards for fare payments.

I represent the Transit Riders' Alliance, a project of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, and we enthusiastically support Senator Bond's bill. Hopefully Metra will just decide to start taking credit cards in the places where it immediately makes sense to do so. If not, we'll keep working to try to pass Senate Bill 577 into law.

There's a new service in the Illinois General Assembly's press room that offers a feed of press conferences. Here's the full, unedited C-SPAN-ish feed of the press conference.



And here is a story in the Daily Herald:

"The problem is fairly simple: they only accept check or cash," [Bond] said. "Metra is the second largest commuter train system in the country and happens to be the only one that doesn't take electronic payment."

Bond says checks are outdated and younger commuters today do not always carry checks or cash because they expect places to take debit or credit. The CTA currently takes credit cards as payment.

Judy Pardonnet, spokeswoman for Metra, said the agency is looking into the change to credit cards and said the procedure will be phased in.

Dan Johnson-Weinberger, representing the Transit Riders' Alliance, said many times people are unaware the trains don't accept credit and debit. "We believe there is some lost revenue from riders who would like to get on the train but because they don't carry a checkbook - and honest to God who does anymore? - and they don't happen to have cash on them, they can't buy," said Johnson-Weinberger.