Prison overcrowding is one of the most serious problems we face here in Texas and is also causes problems in almost every other state. It is a drain on our resources and a threat to our safety. Overcrowding leads to greater violence, more escapes, more drug use, more disease and more expense. Practical solutions to the problem are right in front of us, but our legislators are too cowardly or too corrupt to take action.

As they are today our prisons just suck money away from the taxpayer, do little to rehabilitate, and often put that money into the pockets of corrupt politicians and their cronies. A few of years ago when I ran for State Representative I was up against one of the most corrupt figures in the outrageous prison situation here in Texas. This representative was directly involved in commercial prison management and lobbying for the prison industry at the same time she was serving in the legislature.  Between legislative sessions she was employed by a company which was hired by the state to run prisons for profit, a situation where she benefited directly from making sure that more people were in prison and more tax dollars were being spent on them while nothing was being done to improve the situation at all.

The purpose of prisons is to protect the public from dangerous criminals and ideally to make some efforts to see that those criminals don’t commit further crimes in the future. Right now the system does a poor job with the first and makes no real effort to achieve the second objective. No one seems very interested in remedying this situation. It’s hard to believe so little has been done in recent years while the problems have become worse and worse.  It ought to be pretty simple to make sure that violent criminals stay behind bars, reduce costs to the public for keeping them there, and to lower the overall prison population and eliminate overcrowding and the need to build more prisons.

The first step to cleaning up the prison problem is to stop imprisoning non-violent offenders. Even if we don’t have the legislative good sense to legalize relatively harmless drugs like Marijuana, there is no justification for jailing drug users or other non-violent lawbreakers. Rehabilitation, community service or simple fines for drug related crimes are a much simpler and less expensive solutions. The same applies to other non-violent crimes which can be dealt with through alternative sentencing without sending anyone to jail. Releasing rapists and armed robbers early to reduce overcrowding while people whose only crime is recreational drug use are being taken away from their jobs and families and thrown in prison is an outrage against logic and decency.

The next step is to make prisons pay for themselves. Inmates should be put to work, either in the prison, or under the right conditions, hired out to businesses which need manual labor. Yes, it’s the old idea of the chain-gang, but it was an idea which worked and should never have been abandoned. The money paid for prison labor should go to cover the cost of housing and feeding the prisoner and to victim compensation, either directly to the victims of that inmate, or to a general victims compensation fund. This has worked in other states and would work in Texas just as well.  And before you complain about taking away peoples rights and liberty, check the 13th Amendment where it says “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” – work as part of punishment is not unconstitutional.

These two changes would reduce overcrowding while keeping violent criminals behind bars. They would make new prisons unnecessary, massively reduce the cost of the prison system, keep families together and workers in their jobs, and make Texas a better, safer place to live. It seems obvious, but there’s a lot of money in the prison industry and that gives influence and political power.  When punishment produces profits then prisons become a growth industry, as legislators and law enforcement look for ways to put people in prison rather than realizing that society benefits more from keeping them out.

As another election approaches the issue of marriage equality and where various Republican candidates stand on the Defense of Marriage Act or a possible Constitutional amendment defining marriage is already starting to come up as special interest groups and the media try to force the debate towards divisive social issues.

In this debate, no one seems to be asking the fundamental question which underlies the entire gay marriage issue. Marriage is first and foremost a religious institution. It is a fundamental sacrament in most churches. Why does the government think it should be in the marriage business in the first place. What right do they have to dictate a matter of faith or to decide who can or can’t get married in the first place?

In all this talk about a Defense of Marriage Amendment our legislators seem to have missed the fact that we already have an amendment which defends marriage, the First Amendment. It clearly defends marriage as a sacrement of the church and declares it to be free from government interference when it says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

If my religion recognizes marriage as a sacrament and allows me to marry someone of the same gender, doesn’t the First Amendment clearly say that Congress has no right to prohibit that exercise of religion and that I am free to practice that sacrament? To tell my church what it can and cannot define as a marriage seems like a total violation of this separation of church and state. Marriage isn’t defined in the Constitution any more than Baptism or Confirmation is. The state doesn’t try to interfere in those rituals. Why should it interfere in marriage?

What we need here is not another amendment, but a clear decision from the Supreme Court declaring that the government has no jurisdiction over a religious institution like marriage. Then, if Congress wants to pass a law – it doesn’t even have to be a Constitutional Amendment – which defines what kind of living relationships people can have, they should go to it. Of course any such law would need to pass muster under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which would certainly rule out prohibiting same-sex relationships or polygamy or any other arrangement involving consenting adults.

Once you take marriage out of the arena of law and give it back to the church where it belongs, then any relationship between two people for the purposes of creating a household, combining assets and other activities like raising a family becomes a purely contractual relationship and falls under common law and the partnership laws of the individual states, all of which recognize the right of individuals to enter into binding contracts for extended periods of time and assign rights and legal status to those partnerships under the law, and anything can be written into a partnership contract, including shared control of assets and by extension presumably of children as well. Boilerplate partnership contracts could easily be developed which covered material possessions, powers of attorney, guardianship of children and every other concern and the local courthouse could have different versions available for different needs, so you wouldn’t have to pay for a lawyer.

Couples or members of a plural marriage or any other type of partnership could then file their contract at their local courthouse and that would be that. Or if they wanted, they could go to a church which sanctioned their particular form of marriage and have it recognized as a marriage under the laws of that church with a ceremony and everything. And make no mistake, there are plenty of churches willing to marry just about anyone to anyone else, and if there aren’t someone will certainly start one to fill the need.

This seems like a simple, clean solution to this divisive problem. It doesn’t violate the sacred institution of marriage – in fact it ends years of government violation of religious rights. It doesn’t add more useless junk to the Constitution or waste more time and money on pointless unconstitutional legislation. Finally, it allows consenting adults to live however they want so long as it harms no one else. Marriage protected and equal rights for all. What more could either side of this debate ask for? And if they aren’t satisfied with a solution like this, then let them tell us honestly what greater political agenda and moral values they’re really trying to force down our throats?

Not long ago they put in a stoplight where our street meets the new highway that goes by our neighborhood. No one asked our neighborhood association. No one felt the need to poll the population. It certainly wasn’t put to a vote or even brought up at a planning association meeting. Just as a matter of course that new stoplight included a set of video cameras covering all approaches to the intersection. Now when my neighbors go to work in the morning and come home at night, some faceless bureaucrat in a gray suit has access to a video record of their comings and goings.

Admittedly that information isn’t a lot of use, unless you want to do something like send marshalls out to search their house while they’re gone, or make sure they’re home when you serve a warrant. For that matter, a corrupt peon working for some video monitoring contractor could use that video to figure out when to send his cousin the burglar to stop by and pick up your new home theater system when you’re not home. Or if they’re so inclined they can see if you’ve got your mistress in your passenger seat instead of your wife.

The arrival of big brother’s little prying electronic eyes in our exurban community is troubling, but discomfited though we may be by the possibilities, our woes are just the tip of the surveillance iceberg, which is on display in all its scary grandeur in Chicago. Under the impressive name ‘Operation Virtual Shield‘ a software system commissioned for the Chicago police department and based on technology from IBM will allow them to tie together all of the public and private video cameras in the city, plus hundreds of new cameras which they are installing and run the data through a processing program which will identify potential crimes and suspicious activity and alert a human observer.

This is very much like the data mining of phonecalls which has drawn criticism of the NSA, but instead of sorting through the words of a conversation the computer will sort through peoples actions. Combined with technology like face recognition software this will allow the police to keep track of individuals and their actions extremely effectively and as the network expands they will be able to track suspects and know their every action, or identify potential suspects based on their actions and pursue them electronically.

Tony Ruiz of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications explained that “Mayor Richard M. Daley has had, for many years, a grand plan to incorporate cameras from public entities and private sector businesses into a single unified system allowing first responders access to real time visual data.” This sounds great when it’s all about preventing crime, but what happens when the people running the program decide to broaden the definition of crime or misapply the system for political or personal purposes? Remember, this system is in the hands of a city run by the Daley political machine and they’re not exactly known for their political scruples.  A system like this could be used to dig up dirt on political opponents or to intrude on the privacy of ordinary citizens for any of a number of reasons, some of which may sound legitimate, but all of which involve a fundamental violation of privacy rights under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

In the Liberty Movement we’re all pretty aware of the problems inherent in the PATRIOT Act and the FISA program, but those surveillance programs have been used to monitor the actions of a tiny number of people under very special and limited circumstances. Under the administration of the oldest and most powerful Democratic party machine in the country, the Chicago police are setting up a surveillance network which will monitor the actions of virtually every citizen in the city without the slightest hint of a warrant or anything resembling probable cause. They’re just going to watch everyone all the time because they have the technology and they can do it.

Somewhere in all of this the Bill of Rights seems to have been forgotten. The privacy rights promised in the 4th Amendment have been qualified out of existence. The streets are public space and private businesses own the rights to their video and choose to cooperate with the program voluntarily. If the police wanted to set up video and audio surveillance on someone they’d need to get a warrant, but if the cameras are already there then all protections are out the window.

Years ago, when I lived in the Soviet Union, I learned to accept the fact that I had no real privacy, that there could be people watching me and listening to me even in the most apparently private and personal moments. It’s a disturbing thought, but the truth is that you get used to it and learn to accept it. You operate on the assumption that your life is so mundane that it will likely put the watchers to sleep, plus you really don’t have anything to hide. In that situation it was also very clear what you did and did not do and say. The KGB’s interests were very limited and very specific.

The problem is that today the dividing line between normal activity and crime has become blurry. We’ve moved into an era of ‘super crimes’ with their names written in capital letters like the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, where even the erroneous impression of behavior associated with those high-concern crimes can land you in a lot of hot water. The pressure on law enforcement is intense and the result can be overreaction, like the recent case of the MIT student arrested at gunpoint at Logan Airport for wearing a peculiar homemade t-shirt containing LED lights.

More surveillance, even when computer assisted, means more opportunities to make a mistake or overreact or take something the wrong way. The car circling a building too many times, or the guy standing for too long on the wrong corner, or a bulgy jacket at a crowded event, or any of a hundred other things that raise a red flag and which people do for innocent reasons on a daily basis could lead to disaster. And that’s just the mistakes. The potential for intentional abuse, or excessive enforcement or a self-righteous crackdown on trivial crimes is even more troubling. Even the possibility of our courts being clogged up with petty drug offenders and every prostitute and John on the streets is disturbing.

Other cities around the nation are following Chicago’s lead, including Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco, Baltimore and New York. With the threat of more crime because of economic conditions and the ongoing concern about terrorism and keeping track of the illegal immigrant population, an attempt to take this sort of program national is inevitable. The Department of Homeland Security has been working to centralize crime data from every jurisdiction in the nation in a single federal database. Centralized surveillance has already been implemented in England where the movement of every car is watched at all times and where integration of private video into the system is already under way.

It’s only a matter of time before some congressman who wants to score points as being hard on crime proposes nationwide monitoring of video surveillance using the new system being pioneered in Chicago. They’ll argue it’s for the safety of the people in a time of peril and heads will nod and money will get appropriated and we’ll all be under he watchful eye of big brother. Chicago is a city run by the Democratic Party and their leaders, the same people whose friends in Congress  have rolled over or enthusiastically supported every infringement of our rights in the name of security from the FISA Act to the PATRIOT Act to the cynically misnamed Protect America Act which takes away email and telecommunications privacy rights.  but though they remained silent for too long, one of their usual allies – the ACLU – has become concerned and started to see beyond partisanship to the threat to liberty posed by the growing security state.

In the name of protecting us, government and self-serving politicians have chipped away at the 4th Amendment on the local and national level until now there’s almost nothing left. No more search warrants, no more presumption of innocence, no more probable cause, no more habeas corpus. The needs of almighty security come first and the rights of the citizen are forgotten. Information is power. This new technology and the perception that we are at risk has created a huge opportunity for those who crave power to grab more than their share. Ask yourself this. Is there anyone in government who you really want to trust with all of this information and this kind of power over your life?

Today the Republican Party is at a crossroads. It faces the choice of continuing down a path of failed leadership and forgotten principles, or taking the hard and rutted road back to its beginnings. The party was established to restore the values of our founding fathers in a time much like today, when those values had been forgotten.

Today as in 1854, the political system has fallen into the hands of greedy and ambitious leaders who disregard the rights of the people and promote ideas which are fundamentally un-American because they see them as a route to greater political power and control. The forces of special interests, sectionalism, bureaucratic indifference and institutionalized oppression are stronger than ever before. They will not be stopped unless the Republican Party remembers its purpose and stands up against them.

From its very first platform, the Republican Party has been dedicated to the ideals of the Founding Fathers as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the enlightenment belief that all men have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and property. Although it has occasionally lost sight of those ideals, eventually core values reassert themselves and new leaders of vision set the party back on the right course.

The party was formed in 1854 in an era when the existing parties had strayed too far from the original republican values on which the nation was formed. The new party embraced the ideals of the founding fathers with the goal of securing liberty for those held in slavery and obtaining equality for all members of society.

Through the years the Republican Party has taken the lead on the great moral issues of the times:

* In the Platform of 1860 the party made opposition to slavery a national issue for the first time and expressed clear support for the rights of workers and industry.
* In the Platform of 1876 the Republican Party became the first US political party to endorse equal rights and universal suffrage for women.
* In the Platform of 1892 the Republicans became the first US political party to endorse universal suffrage and access to the polls to Americans of all races.
* In the Platform of 1896 the Republican Party first declared its dedication to fiscally responsible government.
* In the Platform of 1900 the Republicans were the first US political party to take a clear stand in opposition to racial discrimination.

During the early 1900s the Republican party also led the way in opposition to monopolies, in passing child labor laws, workplace safety regulation, and establishing reasonable working hours. The Republican party was also the first party to propose national policies for resource management and conservation. And almost from the moment the 16th Amendment made an income tax legal, the Republican party worked to minimize the tax burden, hold down federal spending, and institute fairer and more limited taxes. By the 1950s the Republican Party had taken the lead in applying federal pressure to implement desegregation and equality in the southern states.

The differences between the Republican and Democratic parties of the modern era were clear as early as 1908 when the Republican Party platform clearly delineated the differences between the two parties, which are still strikingly apparent today:

The present tendencies of the two parties are even more marked by inherent differences. The trend of Democracy is toward socialism, while the Republican party stands for a wise and regulated individualism. Socialism would destroy wealth, Republicanism would prevent its abuse. Socialism would give to each an equal right to take; Republicanism would give to each an equal right to earn. Socialism would offer an equality of possession which would soon leave no one anything to possess, Republicanism would give equality of opportunity which would assure to each his share of a constantly increasing sum of possessions. In line with this tendency the Democratic party of to-day believes in Government ownership, while the Republican party believes in Government regulation. Ultimately Democracy would have the nation own the people, while Republicanism would have the people own the nation.

That description of the Democrats is as accurate today as it was 100 years ago, and the same Republican principles are just as valid today as they were then. Some may have forgotten the history of the party, but defending individual liberty by standing firm in the face of socialism and statism remain at the core of what makes the GOP unique.

The Republican party was born in liberty, and even in the darkest days of racial strife, that dedication to liberty and equality for all Americans regardless of race, creed, religion or lifestyle remained central to the beliefs of the GOP. The party has always dedicated itself to the ideal of the responsible individual citizen being allowed to live life in his own way without unnecessary interference from government. This principle was expressed clearly in the Republican platform of 1964:

Every person has the right to govern himself, to fix his own goals, and to make his own way with a minimum of governmental interference.

This idea of the sovereign individual goes hand in hand with an understanding that government has a legitimate, but limited, role to protect the rights and welfare of the people and to be answerable to the people for its actions. This was expressed clearly in the 1964 Platform:

It is for government to foster and maintain an environment of freedom encouraging every individual to develop to the fullest his God-given powers of mind, heart and body; and, beyond this, government should undertake only needful things, rightly of public concern, which the citizen cannot himself accomplish.

This platform from 40 years ago, written in a time of great national challenge and under the clear-eyed guidance of Senator Barry Goldwater, expresses better than almost any other document the fundamental beliefs of the party, including the principles of individual liberty, but also the importance of the Constitution in protecting that liberty:

Within our Republic the Federal Government should act only in areas where it has Constitutional authority to act, and then only in respect to proven needs where individuals and local or state governments will not or cannot adequately perform. Great power, whether governmental or private, political or economic, must be so checked, balanced and restrained and, where necessary, so dispersed as to prevent it from becoming a threat to freedom any place in the land.

Perhaps most unique in that document was an awareness which seems to be forgotten today, that not only do individuals have responsibility for their actions, but that there is a greater responsibility invested in the government through the social contract to do right by its citizens:

It is a high mission of government to help assure equal opportunity for all, affording every citizen an equal chance at the starting line but never determining who is to win or lose. But government must also reflect the nation’s compassionate concern for those who are unable, through no fault of their own, to provide adequately for themselves.

The high ideals of Republicanism also extend to the behavior of politicians and how they use the sacred trust invested in them by the people:

Government must be restrained in its demands upon and its use of the resources of the people, remembering that it is not the creator but the steward of the wealth it uses; that its goals must ever discipline its means; and that service to all the people, never to selfish or partisan ends, must be the abiding purpose of men entrusted with public power.

Today it seems as if the Republican party and many of its leaders have lost their way. Yet the basic values of the party have not changed, though some seem to only pay lip service and to have forgotten what it has meant to be a Republican for the last 150 years. In the generation since Goldwater reasserted the core values of the party, the lure of power and greed and opportunism has been stronger than ever. This isn’t the first time that this has happened. In the late 19th century the party suffered a similar identity crisis, turning away from core values of liberty towards corporatism and arrogant complacency. Leaders like Teddy Roosevelt set the party back on track, and though the leadership foundered in the aftermath of the Depression, Eisenhower and Goldwater were there to set the party on what should have been an ideal course by the 1960s. Yet Goldwater’s defeat and the rise of socialism in the 1960s followed by the failures of the Nixon era produced a generation of leaders who have been willing to sacrifice principle for votes no matter what unsavory compromises that required. Leaders like Roosevelt and Goldwater understood that it was better to be right and lose an election than to win at any cost, because the price of such a corrupt victory is invariably too high.

This problem has been compounded by an invasion of the GOP by disaffected southern Democrats who were driven away from their party when its northern wing embraced civil rights under Kennedy and Johnson and the policies of the party became increasingly socially progressive and dominated by northern issues. As the Republicans struggled to retain their identity, this influx of angry bigots and religious zealots gave power at the polls at the cost of compromises on fundamental principles which had sustained the party for a hundred years. They were followed by strong-defense Democrats whose imperialist ambitions didn’t fit with the post-Vietnam pacifism of the Democratic Party. Both of these groups brought with them beliefs which were alien to the Republican tradition, including a belief in a strong federal government, an expansionist foreign policy, a bizarre moralistic agenda, a big dose of intolerance and a willingness to sacrifice the rights of individuals in pursuit of their political objectives. Accepting these outsiders was an act of desperation which put the integrity of the party at risk in order to hold on to political power.

Now we are paying the price for compromises which have left the party fractured with no ideological center, our history forgotten and our future uncertain. The weakness of our current generation of leaders and the harm they have done to the party with foolish alliances and venal servility to every bulging purse has to end in this new millenium. We must commit ourselves to lead where our leaders have failed and to retrieve the party from the cesspit of corruption. The GOP must reaffirm an absolute commitment to the idea of true Republican government which serves the people and does not rule over the people, and of restoring a nation dedicated to preserving the liberty of every individual equally and absolutely.

This may mean purging the party of corrupt leaders and unsound ideas so that we can restore fundamental values. We need to remember that big government, corruption, and trying to run people’s lives are the politics of the socialist left and we should not tolerate leaders who are seduced by the power socialism gives to the political class. If this means giving up some power for a few years then we should accept that. We are not worthy to lead the country until we are Republicans again and can earn back the trust and respect of the people. It would be better to be a minority party and the conscience of the nation as we were when the party was born in 1854 than to carry on as an insult to the memories of the idealists who founded the party and led it as a party of principles in past eras. We must restore the party or we will lose the party. We must demand adherence to principles from our leaders or eliminate those leaders for leading the party in the wrong direction.

The extrajudicial execution of Anwar al Awlaki last week was a reminder of ongoing concerns with the powers granted to the president under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force which was passed at the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also an example of the willingness of this president to act outside the limits placed on his office by the Constitution.

This administration, like its predecessor, has placed a very low value on the protections of the Bill of Rights and has treated due process and the rule of law as inconveniences which they can ignore whenever it is expedient. Under the banner of the War on Terror and the authority of the AUMF they have assumed powers which no government is entitled to and have committed acts against their own people which are utterly unacceptable.

The killing of al Awlaki with a drone-fired missile was done on no greater authority than the scratch of the presidential pen and with no respect for his rights as a human being and a United States citizen. There was no trial, no act of Congress, no revocaton of citizenship, not even an evidentiary hearing or a warrant issued by a judge. No element of the legal system was engaged to determine that al Alwalki should die. The president just decreed it and his robotic executioner did the job.

The evidence suggests that this was done purely for convenience and because the administration was incapable of providing strong enough evidence to bring a case against al Awlaki in a court. Because his role had been primarily to inspire and encourage others through his writing and internet videos, there was little or no evidence which connected him directly to any acts of terrorism. Unable to prove their case, the administration decided to go outside the law and kill him on little more than suspicion, primarily for speaking out against the United States, a fundamental right protected under the First Amendment. It was a cowardly act carried out for convenience by a government which has no respect for the principles on which this nation was founded.

The American public greeted the event with a mixture of complacency and jubilation. There was certainly no reason to waste any tears for the newly emerged spiritual leader of the most extreme elements of the Muslim world. Yet most Americans were dismayingly oblivious to the implications of the extrajudicial execution of an American citizen. If the president can sign the death warrant of one citizen based almost entirely on his writings and public statements, what is to stop him from signing away any of our lives when our criticisms of the government and its policies cross some subjective line?

Objections were raised in some quarters. The American Civil Liberties Union filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block the president from taking this action without first going through the courts as required by centuries of common law and the Bill of Rights. Two presidential candidates also spoke up. Both Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson issued statements objecting to the action. Johnson summed up the concerns well, writing:

“If we allow our fervor to eliminate terrorist threats to cause us to cut corners with the Constitution and the fundamental rights of American citizens, whether it be invasions of privacy or the killing of someone born on U.S. soil, I could argue that the terrorists will have ultimately won.

“The world is very likely a better place without al-Awlaki in it, but let us not neglect to ask the tough questions this attack raises and about the laws that allowed it to be carried out.”

Paul touched on the same issues after a speech in New Hampshire, telling reporters:

“We cannot allow the War on Terror to diminish our steadfast adherence to the notion of due process for American citizens…The protections under the Constitution for those accused of crimes do not just apply to people we like – they apply to everyone, including a terrorist like al-Awlaki. It is a question of due process for American citizens.”

Since al Awlaki’s death concerns have been raised that approval for the action came from a “secret panel” of top government officials, acting as a sort of Star Chamber operating outside of the Constitution and the judicial system with no public record of their actions and no accountability to anyone but the president. Speculation has been widespread about the existence of a “kill list” of other terrorists who for one reason or another the administration would like to eliminate without the mess and fuss of a trial or even arrest. This is not how things are supposed to work in America and is more reminiscent of the secret trials of Soviet Russia or even the famous death squads employed by South American dictators in the recent past.

In their statement on the subject the Republican Liberty Caucus summed up what ought to be the main concerns of American citizens in this situation when they asked “Do you want our government to condemn citizens to death in secret and then execute them without a trial or even an arrest warrant? If this is where the War on Terror has brought us, it is time to repeal the AUMF and demand accountability from the government and respect for the Bill of Rights and the rule of law.”

A free nation does not set aside its own laws and kill people for the sake of expediency. Once you start ignoring the law, where do you stop? What limits on government power remain? Last week it was al Awalki, but with no respect for the law or the rights of the people, why shouldn’t it be an outspoken talkshow host or blogger next week?

A nation is only as good as the laws under which it operates and the degree to which it respects the rights of its citizens. When a government sets aside those laws and ignores those rights it is no longer a legitimate government. In fighting the War on Terror, our government and our leaders have themselves become the terrorists.

A version of this article appeared previously on Blogcritics Magazine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 2011
CONTACT: Dave Nalle at 512-656-8011 or chairman@rlc.org

Liberty Republicans Oppose E-Verify Legislation
Proposed Bill Would be a Gross Violation of Personal and Economic Liberty

WASHINGTON, DC — Affirming a long commitment to privacy rights and free enterprise, the Republican Liberty Caucus National Board has joined numerous other pro-liberty organizations in signing a letter in opposition to the “Legal Workforce Act” (HR 2164) and the job-killing and unconstitutional E-Verify system which it would establish.

“Concerns about immigration and hard economic times should not be used as a pretext for legislating away the rights of the people and transferring the cost of immigration enforcement to small businesses,” said RLC Chairman Dave Nalle. “I lived in Russia under Soviet Rule when I was a teenager and remember being required to carry an internal passport and present my papers at government check-points.  I do not want my children and my fellow Americans to ever experience that same violation of their privacy and liberty and E-Verify lays the groundwork for exactly that kind of security state.”

This bill will create a de facto national ID card system which would have to apply to citizens as well as immigrants to be effective.  It violates the rights to free speech and free association of citizens guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.  It will place a huge cost on businesses, raising costs and killing jobs and forcing them to become the government’s immigration komissars.  It opens the door to further legislation which will take away more liberty and hurt small businesses most of all.

“If the federal government is incapable of tracking the immigrant workforce and enforcing the terms of the visas it issues, that problem can’t be solved by transferring that burden and cost to employers,” observed RLC National Board member Bill Westmiller.  ”Rather than following failed policies with bad law, the government’s goal should be to reform the laws to make them conform with modern reality; make them clear, simple and easily enforced.  Walls, armed guards and spies in the workplace can’t make a bad set of laws good.”

“As a nation our needs are best served by market-based solutions to dealing with immigration. Free labor makes the economy stronger and this sort of draconian legislation will drive more workers off the books and out of the tax rolls, expanding the employment black market and leading to crime and exploitation,” said Chairman Nalle.  ”Since 9/11 we have seen too many attacks on our rights in the name of security and economic expediency. We have seen the Bill of Rights shredded and now Congress plans to make another assault on the frst and fourth amendments.  This cannot be tolerated.”

Working with other concerned groups the Republican Liberty Caucus will be calling on our state chapters and our nationwide network of grassroots activists to demand that Congress stop this headlong rush into more bureaucracy, bigger government, greater surveillance and less freedom.  It is an insult to the founding principles of this nation that this law was ever entered for consideration.  It will be a shame if it makes it out of committee and a crime against every citizen if it is not soundly defeated on the floor.

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The Republican Liberty Caucus is a nationwide grassroots organization which promotes individual liberty and limited government within the Republican Party.   You can find more information about the Republican Liberty Caucus at www.rlc.org

To view the coalition letter against E-Verify click here.

The decision by Jack-in-the-Box to nix the toys in their kid’s meals was the latest illustration of America’s nanny state gone wild. Following on the heels of the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s Happy Meal toy-inspired lawsuit against McDonald’s, it is becoming clear that American’s bulging waistlines are in the crosshairs of the food police’s snipers. At least these instances were done without governmental decree; the decision by San Francisco to ban the inclusion of Happy Meals with toys should disturb even the most health-conscious. These sorts of absurd acts make clear the direction this public policy debate is headed.

True, the roughly one in four obese Americans (with percentages even higher in Louisiana) serve as a testament to lack of dietary self-control. But does this call for governments to mandate restaurants serve items their customers might not want? Issuing public health guidelines is one thing; using coercion to force them on us is something else entirely.

Endurance and weight training as well as proper nutrition are excellent contributors to looking and feeling great. But shouldn’t engaging in these rewarding activities be a decision individuals make on their own accord? The cries for government action to combat the obesity crisis assumes both that Americans are too foolish to practice restraint and that private advocacy groups are too incompetent to educate consumers on the perks of healthy living.

If a critical mass of Americans began demanding nutrition labels on menus and sought to cut down on their processed food and sodium intake, establishments would respond to this as swiftly as possible before their competitor across the street did so. That is how a free market operates, not by twisting the arms of fast food companies to act contrary to their customers’ wants. One must wonder how much of a stretch it would be before carrot intake is required to combat blindness or Jack Johnson tunes in the car made mandatory to fight the War on Road Rage.

Likewise, it is inconclusive whether government intervention into its citizens’ diet actually produces the intended results. Lectures from the First Lady are not a guaranteed method of turning couch potatoes into Boston Marathon qualifiers; that is something each person has to want bad enough for themselves. Frankly, some are simply content being several pounds overweight.

The greatest irony of the debate over governments becoming involved in nutrition is the double standard of those agitating for it. There is often an overlap between those who embrace the pro-choice label and those leading the charge against choice in the dietary realm. Being in favor of “choice” apparently does not apply to weighty matters such as calorie counts or salt intake at lunch; apparently, in the minds of some, the masses are not to be trusted with the composition of their diet.

A citizenry truly in favor of choice would recognize that a country free to gorge itself into obesity is infinitely preferable to one where they are legislated into fitness.

One of the serious problems facing the Republican Party is that their leadership cadre is aging and ossifying. The people who make up the county and state committees all over the country are getting older and older and increasingly out of touch with the grassroots of the party and the younger people who vote Republican but aren’t at all satisfied with what the party has come to stand for or the way that it is run.

The party desperately needs new blood and younger leaders who can relate to young voters. Yet it’s awfully hard to get the entrenched blue-hairs to open their fists and share a little power, and even when they do they often aren’t comfortable with the results. Young people want to actually do things and stand up for principles and make the party dynamic and effective and for people who are set in their ways and just want to do the same things that have produced mediocre results for years, that’s threatening.

A classic example of this conflict between the dinosaur elite and the younger generation who want to make the GOP an effective party and a party to be proud of is now on display in Tucson Arizona. Last year they elected as Chairman a young Air Force veteran who had just concluded an unsuccessful run for Congress. 36 year old Brian Miller seemed to be the model of what the party leaders were looking for in a younger Republican to join their ranks. He was younger but not too young and had a military background they could admire, plus he was articulate and had already showed his political commitment by running for office.

For a few months it looked like the Pima County GOP was going to move forward and do great things under Miller’s leadership. Then came the horrendous death of Jose Guerena at the hands of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department SWAT Team. Guerena was a decorated Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War who was gunned down unnecessarily in a bizarrely excessive SWAT raid on his home in which he fired no shots and was shot 22 times.

The incident became an international scandal. Miller was understandably outraged by the situation and sent out an email as Pima County Republican Chairman objecting to the tactics used by the police in the raid, writing “It is my hope that this tragic event will lead to a renewed discussion of the policies that routinely lead to heavily armed and militarized local police invading private homes and a renewed interest in the civil liberties codified in our Bill of Rights.”

Miller continued to be personally outspoken about the need for an investigation and accountability in the case, not saying anything much different than the criticisms of the raid in local and national news media, but this began to rankle some members of his County Republican Executive Committee who like many older Republicans subscribe to a law and order mentality which assumed that whatever the police did was right because they were the good guys and anyone they went after was automatically guilty by assumption.

Miller disagreed, citing things like the rule of law and due process and the Bill of Rights, but that didn’t mean much to his critics who accused him of causing “division and chaos” and that his statements “created serious problems for our elected officials.” The Executive Committee board issued a statement condemning their own Chairman and ultimately demanded his resignation. When he refused they voted 10-2 to effectively suspend him as chairman pending a vote of the entire County Executive Committee on the issue of removing Miller from office. That vote would require a 2/3 majority and is scheduled for tonight.

Miller has been waging a quiet campaign to build support for his position in the several weeks leading up to this vote. He has sworn not to give up without a fight. The outcome of the vote is by no means certain, because as is the case in many county parties nationwide the rank and file precinct chairs are a much more diverse than the established leadership and also tend to be younger. With a 2/3 majority required to oust Miller the vote will likely be very close.

Miller has described the campaign against him as a “political witchhunt” and that some on the board are “avenging old political scores.” It seems quite likely that outrage against Miller’s statements in some quarters are being used by others to advance their desire to regain control of the party leadership.

This specific situation is troubling, but what is more worrisome is what it says about the current state of the Republican Party at a key organizational level. This problem is not isolated and it is not unique. It is something the party will need to come to terms with if it is to survive. It is unhealthy to suppress the next generation of leadership and alienating Republicans who want to be involved from the party leadership is a sure formula for disaster.

It’s a particularly ugly situation because in this case Miller was just speaking up for principles which he grew up believing were what the Republican Party stood for. The party claims that it champions civil liberties, human life and keeping the government off of our backs. The preamble to the Arizona Republican Party Platform says:

“…the citizens of our great state might blossom under
new freedoms borne from less government regulation; and, the prosperity of a society that shall one day come to recognize fully the value of life, the value of each individual, the value of responsibility, the value of the rule of law, and the value of personal dignity.”

Those are the kinds of values the Republican Party is supposed to stand for. In his statements about the Guerena case Brian Miller was clearly concerned about those very issues, justifiably angry that Guerena was deprived of life and dignity and his individual rights in violation of the rule of law and the kind of responsibility we should expect of our government and its agents.

Miller merely asked his fellow Republicans to stand up for the values they claim to believe in and that got him labeled a traitor.  What kind of message does that send to the other young Republicans around the country who might want to get involved in the party?  What kind of party is represented by that kind of hypocrisy?

More and more it has become clear that we have two Republican Parties in the United States.  One is dedicated to principles and one is dedicated to holding on desperately to status and position and failed ideas.  The party of principles is the party which Brian Miller spoke for which he spoke up for Jose Guerena.  That’s the Republican Party I want to be part of.

This article appeared previously on Blogcritics Magazine

To the dismay of many Texans and of civil libertarians nationwide, after a dramatic struggle this week, the Texas legislature’s special session ended on a sour note with the defeat of Rep. David Simpson’s bill opposing invasive TSA searches of airline passengers.

The failure of the bill was made considerably more bitter by the underhanded tactics by which a tiny faction of the House leadership scuttled the bill against overwhelming support from both parties and the public. With all of the hard work put into promoting the bill by grassroots groups, its defeat under questionable circumstances has redirected anger originally aimed only at the TSA to political leaders in Texas, particularly House Speaker Joe Straus.

The story of how such a widely supported bill could end up not being passed is an object lesson of how easily the will of the people can be subverted by those who value power over principle.

During the regular legislative session Rep. Simpson’s anti-groping bill made it through the House of Representatives by unanimous acclamation . It was passed out of committee and onto to the floor of the Senate where it was set to pass when the TSA stepped in and lobbied against it and the Department of Justice issued a letter threatening to close Texas airports if it passed. This lead Lt. Governor David Dewhurst to apply his influence to get the bill which was minutes from passing pulled from the floor.

As the inevitable special session approached, Senator Dan Patrick and other supporters convinced the governor to come on board and support the bill and agree to sign it if they could get a pledge from a majority of the members of the House and Senate to support it. This would let them fast-track the bill through both houses and to the governor for his signature quickly without unduly delaying other legislation.

They got the votes. They notified the Governor’s office that they had the votes and they asked the Governor to call the bill for the special session. Governor Perry was out of town doing a pre-presidential tour and when confronted by a citizen journalist and asked about the bill he said that he was not aware that the necessary votes had been pledged, but when he returned to Austin on Sunday the 19th of June he did put the bill on the call for Monday the 20th.

Already a week had been wasted, but there was still time to pass the bill. Despite the Governor’s support, after the session began on the 20th the bill was not scheduled for consideration until the Friday the 24th, wasting more precious time. Then, when it was scheduled to be introduced on Friday, House Speaker Joe Straus made a public announcement that he thought the bill was a “publicity stunt” and not serious legislation, sending a clear message to his supporters to oppose it. This despite the fact that he had not voted against it in the regular session.

Nonetheless, a version of the bill was introduced in the House and another in the Senate with wording which had been edited by the Attorney General’s office to reduce the chances of the bill being contested in court and to satisfy complaints from Speaker Straus, but because of wrangling over the language any votes on the bill were delayed until Monday with the session scheduled to end on Wednesday.

With the Speaker apparently unwilling to advance the House version of the bill, desperate supporters in the Senate passed their version through committee and passed it on the floor in a matter of hours and sent it on to the House where the decision was made to use the Senate version as written to avoid the possibility that the Speaker would keep the House version off the floor.

The House session didn’t start until 2pm on Tuesday and when the messenger from the Senate arrived with the bill the Speaker’s office refused to accept the bill and it was kept waiting for several hours. This final delay guaranteed that passage of the bill would be extremely difficult because of Constitutional rules about how bills have to pass the House.

Under the Texas Constitution, for a bill to pass the House it has to be read and voted on three times, on three separate days and win each vote. At the point where the bill finally made it to the floor there was less than 24 hours left before the end of the session on Wednesday, so the only way to pass the bill was to hold a vote to suspend that constitutional rule to allow them to hold two of the three votes on the same day. Although there were plenty of votes in favor of the bill – enough to make up a supermajority – the vote to suspend the Constitutional rule required a 4/5 majority, and that was going to be very difficult.

The bill passed its first reading easily on Tuesday and then passed a second reading on Wednesday morning easily 106-27, but by the time the held a vote on the motion to suspend the constitutional rule some members had left and it passed with a 96-26 majority – an overwhelming vote in support of the bill, but not quite enough to meet the 4/5 requirement. Ironically the previous vote did meet that requirement, but it didn’t apply to that particular motion. At that point the bill which so many supported and which was enormously popular with the public, was dead.

Before adjourning the special session, the Speaker allowed Rep. Simpson to make a final speech about the bill and how the legislative process had failed so dismally. Simpson was not afraid to point fingers, saying:

“The people in support of this bill have succeeded in shining the light on those who collaborate with the growing tyranny of our federal government….Its’ defeat only propels the liberty movement in this state. The people now know that it is possible to fight back.”

His sentiments were echoed by a statement from the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas, one of the grassroots groups which had made calls to legislators in support of the bill, which said “We may not have won the final victory today, but we sure flushed out the enemies hiding in the brush.” Another grassroots group, Stop Austin Scanners thought that Governor Perry should share the blame, citing Perry’s “failure to call the bill in a timely manner despite numerous requests to do so, his total lack of stewardship in the process, and Speaker Joe Straus’ willful misconduct are the principal reasons why the legislation was derailed.”

At every step Rep. Simpson and his allies did what was requested by the leadership. They amended the bill. They watered down the language. They even ultimately changed “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” to give the Feds an easy out. Yet despite promises from Governor Perry, they were met with obstruction and delays from the Speaker at every step of the way. With two weeks to pass the bill they ended up having to try to pass it in two days with a special suspension of the rules requiting an outrageously large majority and creating the ironic outcome that a bill which passed easily with a 4/5 majority in the morning when it didn’t need it could not get that same majority in the afternoon when it did.

The defeat of the bill was not a complete loss.  It raised awareness of the issue substantially and drew attention to the forces opposing it and exposed the heavy-handed tactics of the TSA. There’s also some evidence that Simpson’s bill helped influence the TSA’s recent decision to reduce the intensity of their searches of children, though it did not stop them from carrying out a horrendous and highly publicized abuse of a 95 year old Leukemia patient.

This fight is not over. The issue still draws great public interest and anger at the TSA and its practices has never been higher. Supporters in Texas promise to continue to pursue the issue and legislators in a growing number of additonal states are introducing similar legislation. People don’t like having their privacy invaded and their persons violated in the service of excessive security procedures which have never been proven to be at all effective. The people may have lost this battle, but the war is far from over.

A version of this article appeared previously at Blogcritics Magazine.

After much wrangling over two different versions of the bill and various amendments to the language in committee, it looks like a reasonably effective version of the TSA anti-groping bill is poised to pass the Texas legislature and move on for the Governor’s signature on Wednesday. The most significant change is a downgrading of the level of proof required for a legitimate search from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” but the basic objective of the bill – to hold TSA employees accountable for their actions – remains intact.

At this point it would still be helpful to make more calls and send more emails to Texas House members. Their have the final say on the bill in a concluding floor vote sometime Wednesday. You can use this handy tool to send an email, or call your representative directly by looking them up on the House website. If you don’t live in Texas just pick one and call to let them know they’re doing this for all of us.

Our friends at StopAustinScanners.org offer a full report on the steps the bill has gone through and its current status:

This evening, Texas Senate Bill 29 (SB 29), which proposes state prosecution and punishment for the offense of official oppression by the intrusive touching–(a euphemism for TSA groping)–of persons seeking access to public buildings and transportation and defines criminal penalties for such offenses, was moved out of the House Criminal Jurisprudence committee without amendment by a vote of 7 ayes, 1 nay, 1 not present, with no abstentions.  This puts SB 29 on track for final passage on the House floor tomorrow, Wednesday, June 29th.

Both SB 29 and House Bill 41 (HB 41) were passed in their respective chambers yesterday, although HB 41 was subject to multiple amendments that alarmed true proponents of the legislation.  Upon passage in the House, Robert Kepple, Executive Director, of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, recommended abandoning HB 41 for the judicial problems the amendments introduced.

The principal concerns introduced by the amendments to HB 41 were:

1) lowering the standard by which a pat-down might be permitted from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion”,

2) providing a defense if the “actor” (TSA agent) was performing the search pursuant to an explicit grant of federal statutory authority, which is the case for all TSA agents and renders the legislation effectively meaningless,

and,

3) effectively giving the U.S. Supreme Court ultimate authority in defining the propriety of a search.

Mr. Kepple had testified earlier in the day before the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security committee in favor of amending a substituted version of SB 29 to eliminate vagueness and firmly structure the legislation as a matter of Texas state law, and make it enforceable to the maximum extent that is “consistent with federal constitutional requirements”.  This was proposed to correct bad language that was snuck into a version of SB 29 substituted in committee by Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa.

The amendments suggested by Mr. Kepple were later adopted in the Senate version, and are believed to legally restrict TSA agents from offensive touching in the same manner that FBI agents and federal Marshalls are now restricted.  It is believed this modification will provide the public a greater measure of protection, and the State of Texas greater standing in future judicial proceedings.

The language that provided the TSA wider lattitude when defending itself from criminal penalties when performing unlawful searches by lowering the standard from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” is included in SB 29.  Another perceived shortcoming introduced into the bill by amendment allowed grounds for a TSA search to be an “unknown, prohibited or unlawful object”.

While the bill’s proponents strongly objected to this language, wanting the phrase “unknown object” to be stricken, there was general consensus that it would better serve the public good to have slightly flawed statutory law that could be amended as the flaws became more widely known than to have no law at all.

We think the public can now reasonably expect the TSA to use the “unknown object” defense in its vigorous quest to discover all those diaper bombs carried by infants and cancer victims in their last days of life.

The passage of SB 29 in the House Criminal Jurisprudence committee effectively sidelines HB 41, its companion bill, from further consideration, which StopAustinScanners considers to be a major victory.

If you’re a real political action junkie you can watch the final vote live online tomorrow at the Texas House website.