Oh, the irony…

Representative Kory Holdaway is resigning from the Utah legislature to become the lobbyist for the UEA (official title: Government Relations Director). Beginning in November, Holdaway will replace Vik Arnold, who retired from the union and now is a leading backer of an effort to impose new ethics rules on legislators through a citizens initiative. One of the components of that initiative is a two-year moratorium on legislators lobbying after leaving office, so apparently hiring a sitting legislator BEFORE the initiative hits the ballot works for the UEA…
The Salt Lake Tribune quoted Senator Sheldon Killpack as saying “UEA’s universal support of this grassroots initiative is clearly tainted with hypocrisy by engaging in an action they condemn,” he said. “That is nothing against Kory. It’s just that consistency of message can’t be interrupted by convenience.”

I’m thinking this supports my assertion that it’s really not about true ethics reform……

Mea Culpa

I posted a video yesterday that “seemed” authentic, but in fact was some hysterical hype. I’ve removed it and I do apologize for passing on something that was not true. There is plenty to get worked up about in today’s political world – fake stuff is not needed and is more than annoying.

The rest of my opinions stand.

Is it really about ethics reform?

Or is it about power and control? To listen to the folks promoting the citizen’s initiative for ethical government, anyone who does not swallow their proposed bill does not want to see ethical behavior. Using questions like “You want ethical legislators, don’t you“, they are out promoting new legislation with the promise that this will solve all the “ethical problems” our state faces. In fact, their proposed legislation – while it contains some good ideas – is a huge legislative shift away from the Utah Constitution and away from the power of the people by putting unlimited and unchecked power in the hands of the very few.

The arguments go something like this: “Support this bill or you are not for ethical government; you LIKE the good old boy network and you are part of the problem…. “

In fact, many of the people who oppose this lengthy bill fight the good old boy network every chance they get – and do not want to see it replaced by the good new boy network. Opponents of the bill DO want ethical legislators and ethical lobbyists (hey – it’s not ALWAYS an oxymoron!) They do want more openness and more transparency. They want more legislators (and other elected officials) willing to lose for what they believe in instead of clinging to their win-at-all-costs mentality and selling our birthright for a mess of pottage, one spoonful at a time.

But no matter the spin, this bill is NOT a workable solution. Our Founding Fathers believed strongly in preventing as much as possible the aggregation of power in the hands of a few, knowing that it would lead to tyranny. This bill creates a commission of just 5 individuals, with an additional 5 (the sponsors of the bill) that have no oversight, no checks and no balances – and lots and lots of power. It gives itself rule-making authority and explicitly removes oversight. By taking away the ability to keep power in check, you pretty much guarantee an exponential increase in abuses of power. During a public hearing on this bill, one of the promoters of this proposed legislation said that “due process” was not necessary, nor was it “owed” to the legislators who voluntarily ran for elected office. She continued by saying that oversight or any ability to keep powers in check by the executive, legislative or judicial branches was also not necessary. She proclaimed this commission free from influence because of that lack of oversight, yet what that really means is 5 people have absolute power to punish any legislator they choose. Don’t like a bill? Find two buddies to file a complaint. Sitting in jail ’cause you broke a law? Get two of your inmate friends and file a complaint against the legislator(s) who passed that law you just broke. And by the way – those legislators don’t even have to still be in office – anything, anytime in the previous 6 years is just fine.

During the process of discovery, the legislator has no rights. None. Zippo. Nada. They don’t deserve “due process”, remember? This bill PREVENTS legislators from bringing evidence in their own defense during the commission’s complaint vetting process. The commission would have subpoena power, but an accused legislator can be blocked at this stage from presenting any information. Once it finally “goes to court” (gets presented in front of the commission), the legislator would then be able to defend him or herself. The commission then makes “recommendations” to the legislature, but at the same time posts the accusations on their website, to remain for 12 months, whether “guilty” or not.

According to an excellent, in-depth article in the Daily Herald:

Other questions involve the commission’s assumption of duties that have been constitutionally assigned to the legislative and judicial branches of government, including appropriating money and disciplining members of the Legislature, as well as granting five private initiative sponsors the power to dictate the pool of names from which the commission would be drawn if the Speaker of the House, Senate president and two minority leaders cannot unanimously agree. The proposal also gives those same five private citizens special access in the event a lawsuit is filed against the commission by allowing them to intervene in cases.

One of the primary promoters of this legislation – Janet Jenson – asserted in the public hearing in Provo last week that one could simply not understand this bill if one were not an attorney like she was. However, as someone who has a keen interest in legislation and the legislative process, I HAVE read the bill and would assert it’s not all that difficult to understand. Someone else who has read it is Dr. William Sederburg, former president of Utah Valley University and now Utah’s Commissioner of Higher Education. He said recently that he had initially been in favor of the ethics initiative as it was explained to him, but after reading it carefully found that he could not support it. “It’s too broad,” Sederburg said. “It just goes too far. That’s pretty much it.”

We want our federal representatives to READ bills BEFORE they vote on them. We should hold ourselves to the same standards. Read the bill and find out what this REALLY does – consolidate and give power to a very, very small number of individuals while punishing those that WE THE PEOPLE elected to represent us. The power still rests with us. If my legislator has serious ethical problems, I’ll lead the fight to get him replaced. You have the same power in your district. Don’t be fooled by the reasonable-sounding title and the flowery phrases used to describe this initiative.

Delusional dog

Here is Friday’s funny.

No insurance? $25,000 fine

On Thursday, the Joint Committee on Taxatation discussed the “mandate penalty” associated with health care reform.  The committee’s chief of staff, Thomas Barthold, said that the IRS would “take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings” if you do not pay the $1900 mandate penalty.

In spite of Sen John Ensign’s arguments that refusal to pay for universal health care could result in fines and/or jail time, the committee rejected an amendment which would eliminate said mandate.  Sen Olympia Snowe, who calls herself a Republican, voted with the Dems to preserve the mandate.

Today, in a follow-up to Sen Ensign’s questioning, Mr. Barthold sent the Senator a note confirming that the consequence of not paying the $1900 tax for not buying health insurance was a misdemeanor charge, up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty.

But we can still choose for ourselves, according to the great O…..

So what’s the deal with Twitter?

Have you heard of Twitter? Do you use it? How do you use it?  KSL did a story this week on how the GOP is winning the political war on Twitter and asked on-line users to vote on which politicians they followed most – national, local, state, city or “I don’t follow politicians”.  Fewer than 60 people voted, but the winner was “I don’t follow politicians”, then “What’s Twitter?“

A much longer article in Politico pointed out that David All, a Republican Internet strategist, was recently hired to be the official tweeter for none other than Congressman Joe Wilson. (Wait! You mean you can make money tweeting for politicians?! Who knew….) All pointed out that “every effective communications professional or major association needs a real strategy for utilizing Twitter at all times — especially during key events where real-time response is crucial.”

In Utah, Rep Chaffetz has over 7000 followers and tweets often as @jasoninthehouse. Rep Matheson has 370+ followers and tweets sporadically as @RepJimMatheson. Sen Hatch tweets frequently as @OrrinHatch and has 6000 followers.  I couldn’t find either Rep Bishop or Senator Bennett on Twitter, although there is an “unofficial re-election” Twitter feed with 98 followers for Senator Bennett.

Very few state politicians are effective at using Twitter – most of them aren’t even on it and likely fall into the category of “What’s Twitter”. Some exceptions: @MarkShurtleff, the Attorney General, with over 8000 followers, and  @governorherbert, our new governor.

So what IS Twitter – and what’s the point?  Often defined as “mini-texting” or “mini-blogging“, it is the sending of short messages – 140 characters or less – and is a quick, almost instantaneous, way to get your short, pointed message out.  If you only want to keep in touch with family and friends – it is not usually the top choice and can definitely be overdone.  (No one cares for updates every 15 minutes, let me tell you.)   Most people wanting to communicate just with family will use Facebook, blogs, email, phone calls or good old fashioned face-to-face contact (all essential modes of communication for politicians, by the way). For those involved in politics, however, it can be a great tool – and believe me – it’s a tool that won’t be ignored by competition come the next election cycle – just ask @CherilynEagar how effective it can be.

So without further ado – here are Holly on the Hill’s Top Ten Twitter Tips for politicians:

* Start using it.  Really.  Just do it.  It doesn’t have to take much time at all – Rep Chaffetz recently said he spends about 15 minutes a day using Twitter AND Facebook.
* Use it regularly – don’t send out one Tweet and never go back to it. Update several times a week, at least.
* Don’t overdo it, either. if you are tweeting 20 times a day, that’s way too much information and you’ll lose people.
* Engage your followers – ask questions, post pictures and tweet what you are passionate about
* Learn to use hash tags – a hash tag is the pound sign followed by one word (no spaces) that can easily be pulled up by the Twitter search engine. For example, if you put #utpol every time you tweet something related to Utah politics, you will be make it likely that more than just your “followers” will see you. But don’t over-do it.
* Re-tweet interesting information, quotes, articles, etc – ie: RT@HollyontheHill.
* Use “Follow Friday” to let your followers know who YOU follow – and please follow real people in your very own district- not just your legislative colleagues.
* Be real – if people wanted to only read your press releases or find out your schedule, they’d look elsewhere.  One of the biggest complaints about politicians tweeting is that they are only sending out boring PR stuff.  Again, be real – let people get to know you.
* Use your phone. Set up your phone to send your tweets and receive the tweets from those you choose to follow closely. It’s easy, I promise.
* Use Twitter apps like TweetDeck (a way to streamline notifications and tweets), Twitpic (for posting pictures), Twhirl – or one of dozens of others – it will make things easier for you.

Finally – a bonus tip – beware of mis-tweets, like oh, I don’t know…..announcing a run for Senate inadvertently maybe….anything you tweet can and likely will live on forever out in Twitter-land.

So jump on in – the water’s fine.  And don’t forget to follow me.

Chaffetz and Magna water

Today the US House of Representatives passed Rep. Jason Chaffetz’ Magna Water District Water Reuse and Groundwater Recharge Act of 2009 (HR 2265).The House of Representative’s Committee on Natural Resources previously approved the bill and reported it favorably to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

Magna Water District constructed an electrodialysis reversal (EDR) drinking water treatment plant to remove harmful arsenic and perchlorate from the Barton Well Field. To address the water shortage issues facing the citizens of northwest Salt Lake County, the District developed a state-of-the-art, first of its type in the world water reuse and recharge facility, known as BIOBROx, which treats the waste stream from the EDR plant to produce high quality effluent that can be used for outdoor irrigation. In doing so, the Magna Water District will be saving over 580 million gallons/year of drinkable water that was formerly being used for irrigation purposes.

Rep. Chaffetz introduced the Magna Water District Water Reuse and Groundwater Recharge Act to address groundwater pollution that was created by the Department of Defense and defense contractors that now necessitates a federal clean up. “We have very limited water supplies in the West and we need every tool in the water toolbox to meet our water supply needs,” Chaffetz said.

This falls right in line with Rep. Chaffetz’ stance that #1, there should be openness in the requests being made and #2, they should have a federal nexus.

The dictionary is wrong

Obama laughs and calls the Mirriam-Webster definition of tax a “stretch”. He should be talking to Clinton about the definition of “is”, too.

Utah GOP State Central Committee

About 125 people spent their Saturday morning – and into the afternoon – at the GOP State Central Committee meeting held in Provo. Of the 180 members of the SCC, 111 were credentialed – dropping to a mere 47 by the last vote of the day.

Chairman Dave Hansen started this first SCC meeting since the June election with the chair’s report. Speaking of the change in executive leadership in the state, he said “It is interesting that we can have two different people do the same job two different ways and both be successful.” He pledged his support to new Governor, Gary Herbert.

He also spoke of the grassroots groups that have sprung up – the Patrick Henry Caucus, the 9-12ers, tea partiers and more. “They have played an important role in getting people motivated and active.”, he said. “Their goals are very similar to ours – we are NOT AT ODDS.” He then quoted Ronald Reagan, “Someone that I agree with 80% of the time is my friend” and invoked the 11th commandment.

He and executive director Ivan Dubois gave attendees a sneak preview of the new website – oh-so-much better….easy to use, lots of links and an especially nice county area. Forums are forth-coming. Sadly, it is not yet live. Stay tuned.

Dave Hansen said this last week was one of the worst so far as chair – he had to listen to a comment from America’s most ineffective president and then comments from ACORN director who are both trying to paint the current unrest and unhappiness with the direction the country is going as a racist issue. Bull puckey. RACE is not the issue!

Bob Hood, on the 2007-2009 Constitution and Bylaws committee, proposed that the party limit the number of members on each committee to two per county and is referring it to the new C&B committee. Since the current committee has 3 members from just one county, it seems unlikely that proposed rule will get very far.

35 candidates total ran for executive committee for each congressional district executive leadership, the audit committee, and the constitution and bylaws committee. Each candidate had up to a minute to speak, but most took far less time. Loudest applause was for those whose speeches were one-liners. Understandably, the speeches and the subsequent voting took the bulk of the meeting.

National Committeewoman Enid Mickelsen‘s report: She is currently vice-chair of the RNC rules committee. She is also on a new committee formed to address the presidential primary timing. They will be working with the DNC to at least discuss whether there can be changes to the timing and parameters of the primaries.

She also talked briefly about “Fair Boundaries Utah” and said that a few clicks of the mouse takes you goes directly to “Act Blue“, a Democrat political activism site. Only one state that currently has an effort to appoint an “unbiased” committee – that’s Utah. Curious that no states under Dem control ever move these types of proposals forward.

National Committeeman Bruce Hough is sitting on a newly formed committee – ethics. (Ok, seriously – that just BEGS the question – why has the RNC NOT had an ethics committee to this point?!)

He also sits on the Strengthening Utah’s Democracy commission along with Dave Hansen and 15 others. He commented briefly on campaign contribution limits, saying that current court trends are rolling back campaign limits and that the Supreme Court is looking at McCain-Feingold. His feeling is that it is a first amendment issue – freedom to express through donations the candidate(s) he supports. He does support openness, transparency and full, rapid disclosure of all campaign contributions.

Dana Dickson stood to promote multiple-round balloting for the next state convention, in opposition to IRV or instant run-off voting. The first opponent spoke against the proposal, saying that IRV allows more people to vote and is a quicker process. The next speaker – Jack Powers – spoke for the proposal and said he favors multiple rounds and doesn’t care if he we have MORE votes – we want more intelligent votes.
Ben Smith spoke against the proposal, Enid spoke for. Todd Weiler spoke against and says he loves the incentive for candidates to be nice to each other. IRV promotes that. Davis county just used IRV to replace Senator Bell and it worked well. Previous national committeewoman Nancy Lord spoke against multiple round balloting as well.

Three additional speakers were lined up waiting to speak against the proposal, but debate was cut-off because they could not find another speaker in favor of the proposal. Amid some confusion on what they were actuall voting for (pro IRV or pro multiple-round), the motion passed. Next year’s state convention will use multiple round balloting.

A resolution in support of HR 1207 and S 604 – the “audit the fed” bills was then brought forward. It passed unanimously and to lots of applause. Brought forward by Kurtis Constantine, secretary of the SL County party and passed out of the Salt Lake county central committee this week. Kurtis spoke not only to the importance of the resolution but also how important it is that the Republican party be clear what they stand for.

Representative Rob Bishop spoke and quipped: “It’s always a pleasure to be a filler while they are counting votes.” He said he would be “hard-pressed to find anything recently that I am proud of besides voting no on really bad legislation.” One interesting, albeit quite concerning, thing he mentioned was how we have 33 minutes to counteract a missile attack on the US – and we have a grand total of 30 missiles to do it with. Dismantling our missile shield program right now seems so, well, unwise.

He also talked briefly about the health care debate and wanted to know if abortion is a right and the government should fund it, should they fund his first amendment rights and buy him a printing press? How about funding our second amendment rights by buying all of us a gun?

In a somewhat ironic twist which showed the down side of multiple-round balloting (taking lots of time), there was no clear winner on round number two and a third round of voting was called for. In the most controversial move of the day, the meeting was adjourned before the final results were in, in a 24-23 vote. The meeting adjourned about 2 pm.

Student loan program being eliminated

Up for consideration today is HR3221, the “Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act”. Sounds like a good plan, right? Well, it eliminates the Federal Family Education Loan program, one that offers subsidized loans through private sources and shifts all student loans to a government-run and taxpayer financed system under the Direct Loan program, as well as creates nine new programs and increases the federal government takeover of early education, higher education, school construction, and more.

According to information released by the Republicans in Congress:

Currently, the federal government provides both subsidized and unsubsidized loans for higher education (both undergraduate and graduate) using two main programs-the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, and the Direct Loan (DL) program. The FFEL loan program offers subsidized loans to students from private lenders. The FFEL program makes it possible for borrowers to get student loans at low interest rates. In contrast, the DL program uses the federal government as the lender to provide capital for all loans (as well as interest on subsidized loans). Under the DL program, the Department of Education serves as the lender and funds come directly from the U.S. Treasury.

In 2007-08, the FFEL program served more than 6.4 million students and parents at 5,000 postsecondary institutions, lending a total of $55.3 billion (or 78 percent of all new federal student loans). This is not a small change, folks and begs the question – why?