Mike Gravel endorses Eric Sundwall

Mike Gravel served as a Democratic US Senator from Alaska from 1969-1981. In 2008, he ran a campaign for President in the Democratic and Libertarian Parties. Since then he has endorsed Independents, Greens, and Libertarians who endorse his National Initiative. Those people have included Neil Keirnan Stephenson (L-MI) and Jesse Johnson (G-WV). Now Gravel has endorses Eric Sundwall (L-NY) too, in his special election for Congress in the 21st District. What follows is the entire endorsement statement:

 

Mike Gravel served as a Democratic US Senator from Alaska from 1969-1981. In 2008, he ran a campaign for President in the Democratic and Libertarian Parties. Since then he has endorsed Independents, Greens, and Libertarians who endorse his National Initiative. Those people have included Neil Keirnan Stephenson (L-MI) and Jesse Johnson (G-WV). Now Gravel has endorses Eric Sundwall (L-NY) too, in his special election for Congress in the 21st District. What follows is the entire endorsement statement:

 

In 2008, I sought both the Democratic and Libertarian nominations for the Presidency.

After years away from electoral politics, I felt energized once more to seek the people’s support

in the political process. It is also with this in mind that I’ve sought to promote the idea of a

National Initiative. Through valid Constitutional means we can re-establish the principles of a

republic and the most cherished aspects of our democracy.

I had the great pleasure in 2008 of working alongside a new generation of Americans,

those seeking to take back their country. Their tireless spirit and use of new technologies is

unlike anything seen in times past. I met Eric Sundwall in Schenectady, NY on April 1, 2008, for 

a taping of his show,

 

Capital Outsider. Eric and I discussed many issues, and he later became

the Chairman of the Libertarian Party of NY. His evenhanded leadership with the NY delegation

was evident at both the state and national Libertarian Conventions.

I promised Eric that day in Schenectady that I would support Libertarian candidates in the

future, and with that he finds himself a unique opportunity. The recently appointed Senator from

NY has left her former House seat open for a special election. Eric ran for that seat in 2006, and

this current election provides a vital opportunity for his voice to be heard. I support Eric

Sundwall in this effort.

This is a unique chance for the entire country to focus on a single political contest and

bring to light many of the issues and ideas that typically receive little media coverage. I know

Eric will bring these ideals to the forefront of his campaign for Congress. So too will he build

bridges and mend political fences to all those Americans who feel their leaders have failed them.

Please help Eric in this exceptional opportunity.

 

Time for state to adopt citizen initiatives

After seeing year after year go by without more progressive ideas coming out of our Legislature (e.g., failing to fund completion of I-49), I have come to the conclusion that it is time for Louisiana to adopt citizen approved initiatives.

After seeing year after year go by without more progressive ideas coming out of our Legislature (e.g., failing to fund completion of I-49), I have come to the conclusion that it is time for Louisiana to adopt citizen approved initiatives.

Part of the law of 24 states, citizen initiatives are a form of direct democracy. Citizen initiatives allow citizens to bypass the Legislature and directly place proposed statutes or constitutional amendments on the ballot for citizen adoption or rejection. With citizen initiatives, the people do not have to rely on the Legislature to change or create a law. Imagine an approved citizen initiative which directed appropriate funding for I-49 and ordered the Louisiana Department of Transportation to complete it by 2010.

The citizen initiative begins by a citizen or group filing a proposal with a state official (usually the state attorney general) for wording approval and compliance with the law. The state official reviews the proposal and then either approves it or asks for changes before approval.

After approval, the person or group circulates the proposal via a petition, collecting a certain number of signatures to have the proposal placed on the ballot. Once enough signatures are obtained, the proposal is then submitted to another state official (usually the secretary of state) for placement on the ballot. The entire citizenry then votes to either approve the proposal or reject it.

Citizen-approved initiatives contain numerous benefits. First, they help citizens overcome big money from special interests. In the book the "Populist Paradox," professor Liz Gerber, from the University of Michigan, found that with citizen initiatives money played a minor role in creating a new law or changing a law.

Since legislators are too often influenced by well-financed special interest groups, citizen initiatives allow the people to work around the problem of legislators being unwilling or unable to place initiatives on the ballot which are to the benefit of the greater good, but may be a problem for certain special interest groups.

Second, studies have shown that citizen initiatives result in better tax policies in those states that have adopted them. With voters acting as a check and balance on the Legislature, the Legislature must use fiscal restraint in its tax-and-spending proposals or else the citizen initiative can be used to reverse poor legislative financial decision making.

Finally, citizen initiatives usually result in higher voter turnout because through the circulation of the petition to get a proposal on the ballot, it creates more interest in the citizenry to get involved early in the political process. In effect, the average person becomes directly involved in the lawmaking process. When this process occurs close to home, it becomes more personal to those people who find the lawmaking occurring in the state capital to be so foreign.

With all of these benefits, it is a surprise that Louisiana has not adopted citizen initiatives. Unfortunately, some legislators in the past have seen citizen initiatives as a threat to their monopoly on power and they are unwilling to share the power with the people. That has occurred right here in Louisiana when attempts have been made to approve citizen initiatives.

The last effort to approve a citizen initiative occurred in 1999 when Gov. Mike Foster tried to get one passed. The Legislature thwarted his efforts and rejected the legislation.

Now that 10 years have passed and many of the old legislators have left office through term limits, perhaps this is a good time to try approval of citizen initiatives again. In order for us to have this option, we need the Legislature to place this on the ballot for citizen approval. As we near a new legislative session next month, this would be a great time to call your legislator and tell them to sponsor a bill to approve citizen initiatives.

While citizen initiatives may not be a cure-all for what has kept our state from reaching its full potential over the years, the option of their use may be enough to put pressure on the Legislature to act more progressively in moving our state forward. If the Legislature fails to act, the people will have the option to act for them.

Checks and balances are the backbone of a democracy and with a citizen initiative acting as a check and balance on legislative authority, it would help our Legislature remember that it needs to always do what is right for the people of our great state.

Scott Wolf, of Shreveport, is a member of The Times Community Board.

First 100 Days: Harness the genie of citizen engagement

dontapscottheadshotDon Tapscott is chairman of the think tank nGenera Insight and the author of 13 books on the impact of the Internet on society.

dontapscottheadshotDon Tapscott is chairman of the think tank nGenera Insight and the author of 13 books on the impact of the Internet on society. His latest book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing your World, discusses the Obama campaign and its implications for democracy. The views expressed are his own.

When President Obama announced last month that he’ll ask ordinary Americans to help him change America, it didn’t take long for the influencers inside the Washington beltway to ring the alarm: What happens if ordinary Americans actually come up with some new ideas to run government? Will things get out of control? Will they become bullies who will force Obama and Congressional lawmakers to bend to their will?

To me, they sound a lot like the traditional marketers who are worried that they’re losing control over their brand. Both marketers and lawmakers are struggling to adjust to a digital world where consumers and voters now have powerful tools to talk back, and even influence the brand or the policy. So let me give the Washington lawmakers the same message I have delivered to the marketers: Let go. You can’t control everything. The genie has slipped out of the bottle and she’s not coming back. And I think this is a really good thing.

For far too long, we’ve been living in what I’ve called a broadcast democracy. Voters only count during election time. They have little or no influence in between elections, when the lawmakers and influencers are in charge and citizenry is inert. The “you vote, I rule” model was all that was possible, until recently.

What the system has lacked until now are mechanisms enabling government to benefit from the wisdom and insight that a nation can collectively offer — on an ongoing basis. I’m not proposing some kind of direct democracy, where citizens can vote every night on the evening news or Web sites. That would be tantamount to a digital mob.

What I am proposing is a way to allow citizens to contribute ideas to the decision-making process – to get them engaged in public life. When citizens become active, good things can happen. We all learn from each other. Initiatives get catalyzed. People become active in improving their communities, country and the world.
This is long overdue. These days, the policy specialists and advisers on the public-sector payroll can barely keep pace with defining the problems, let alone craft the solutions. Government can’t begin to amass the in-house expertise to deal with the myriad challenges that arise. Governments need to create opportunities for sustained dialogue between voters and the elected.

Courtesy of the Internet, public officials can now solicit citizen input at almost no cost, by providing Web-based background information, online discussion, and feedback mechanisms. Government can now involve citizens in setting the policy agenda, which can then be refined on an ongoing basis. Such activity engages and mobilizes citizens, catalyzing real-life initiatives in communities and society as a whole.

When Obama launched Organizing for America, his dialogue with citizens, the idea was to channel the unprecedented grassroots campaign that propelled him to victory into the hard business of changing America. Organizing for America will “talk about and work on the pressing issues facing the country,” said Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe. Obama “believes in grassroots politics,” said Organizing for America’s executive director Mitch Stewart. “He’s going to be your partner. He’s going to listen.”

The first test of the idea came at the weekend, when thousands of meetings of Obama supporters took place across the country. What’s not clear yet is how the president intends to use the Internet to tap into the public’s thinking.

There are lots of Internet-enabled ways to engage America, from policy wikis, citizen juries, deliberative polling, ideation contests, and virtual town halls. I call one of the most promising the digital brainstorm. This is an online way to bring together policy officials and citizens in a real-time, moderated session, to exchange ideas and identify new policy issues and strategies and to mobilize the citizenry.

Here’s how it would work. The president would say, “We’re going to have a national discussion on revitalizing our cities. It starts on Monday at noon and ends the same week on Friday at noon. Anyone can participate through the Web 2.0 discussion community we’ve set up. If you don’t have Internet access, I’ve partnered with corporations, schools, libraries, community computing centers, and shopping malls to give you access. We’ll post background papers. We’ll organize the discussion by region and also by interest groups. There’ll be a business discussion, a discussion of public transit users, and so on. As you participate in the discussion rate the ideas that you come across and the best ideas will rise to the top. I’ll participate daily and give my views. At the end of the process we’ll explore our options for further action.”

The goal is to have a conversation in which people become engaged in political life; think about issues; get active in improving their communities; and mobilize society for positive change. Politicians and citizens alike would become more informed and learn from each other. And collectively we would take a step away from broadcast and toward participatory democracy. As an exercise in government 2.0, it could show that power can be exercised through people, not over people.

I’m currently working with government leaders in several countries to conduct brainstorms of all their citizens. Interestingly, the main topic of choice is climate change, using a question such as “How could our country more effectively contribute to the fight against global warming?” or “How could we reduce carbon emissions in our country?”

If Obama really wants to change America, he should hold digital brainstorms for all Americans, and he should make sure the young people – the Net Geners who have grown up digital – are involved. He’ll need a social movement of young people to bring about real change. This can only happen in public – not through backroom negotiations. Only through open struggle and conflict can a real and lasting change take place.

A Gravel-ly Voice on Change

He’s still here

Mike Gravel won’t go away. The fringe Democratic presidential candidate turned fringe libertarian candidate thundered away Thursday morning at the National Press Club, as he joined a panel brought together by the Citizens in Charge Foundation.

"The people intuitively know they’re being screwed," spouted Gravel.

He’s still here

Mike Gravel won’t go away. The fringe Democratic presidential candidate turned fringe libertarian candidate thundered away Thursday morning at the National Press Club, as he joined a panel brought together by the Citizens in Charge Foundation.

"The people intuitively know they’re being screwed," spouted Gravel.

The former senator touted a platform of stronger democracy based on public initiatives and better representation in the legislature. ”Majority rule is right, because it is in the benefit of the majority," Gravel yelled at a dissenting audience member. At least he still has a forum.

Also appearing: former Rep. Ernest Istook, Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist, Paul Jacob of the Citizens in Charge Foundation, Rob Richie of Fair Vote and Sean Parnell of the Center for Competitive Politics.

Obama presidency: the dangers of bypassing traditional media

The Obama presidency has already shown itself to be far more Internet-savvy and open to communicating directly with the people.  The "YouTube president," as many are already calling him, made significant use of what the New York Times called his  "YouTubing-Facebooking-texting-Twittering grass-roots organization," during the campaign and his team are looking into how these new media can be used by the administ

The Obama presidency has already shown itself to be far more Internet-savvy and open to communicating directly with the people.  The "YouTube president," as many are already calling him, made significant use of what the New York Times called his  "YouTubing-Facebooking-texting-Twittering grass-roots organization," during the campaign and his team are looking into how these new media can be used by the administration. The refurbished WhiteHouse.gov website claims that Obama has committed to making his administration "the most open and transparent in history" and that the president’s executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review. The site seems to be a kind of social networking portal, where dialogue can take place directly between the people and the government.

This by-passing of the traditional media works just fine for an event such as the inauguration, when the inauguration team’s Twitter feed and blog provided fans with updates throughout the day. But when it comes to politics and the day-to-day workings of government, different issues arise with regards to ‘information’ direct from the source.  It is essential to remember the vital role that traditional media has played for the past few hundred years as a intermediary between those in power and the masses: to provide an independent informed voice that can filter out the propaganda amongst the real news. Obviously news outlets have often had their own political agendas, but by seeking out more than one source for each story, the audience has generally had a pretty good chance to get a clear picture of what is going on.

Obama’s administration got off to a rather bad start with the press by refusing to allow journalists to photograph the president in the Oval Office on his first day, spurring a boycott of official White House photographs by the world’s three largest news agencies. The Columbia Journalism Review pointed out the "conspicuous absence of the press from Obama’s transparency agenda," and Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, has expressed his fear that "They’re beginning to create their own journalism, their own description of events of the day, but it’s not an independent voice making that description."

This tendency to target the people directly, coupled with the fact that many news outlets are cutting back on reporting, particularly investigative reporting, could turn out to be worrying indeed. Increased transparency is all very well, but there is the danger, as CJR put it, that "direct democracy" could veer into "direct publicity," if an intelligent, informed journalistic voice which analyses and provides commentary is left out of the equation altogether.  As new organisation created by newspaper executives to fight back against misrepresentation Newspaper Project commented, "newspapers remain essential to our democratic system of government, serving as a watchdog against crime and corruption, and a guide dog for information that allows the public to make informed decisions on the issues of the day." Is the Obama administration going to respect this long-standing function of traditional media?

Source: Columbia Journalism Review, New York Times

Delaware Bill to Establish Initiative Process

Delaware Senator David McBride (D-Hawks Nest) has introduced SB 12, a proposed constitutional amendment to set up a state initiative process. Delaware has never had the initiative for state laws.

No state has added the initiative process since Mississippi did so in the early 1980’s.

Delaware Senator David McBride (D-Hawks Nest) has introduced SB 12, a proposed constitutional amendment to set up a state initiative process. Delaware has never had the initiative for state laws.

No state has added the initiative process since Mississippi did so in the early 1980’s.

From The Archives: Chicagoist Interviews Pat Quinn

As we prepare for Pat Quinn to be sworn in as the 41st Governor of Illinois upon Gov. Blagojevich’s impending removal, we thought we’d dig back into the vaults for this interview. Kevin Robinson sat down with Quinn in April 2007.

As we prepare for Pat Quinn to be sworn in as the 41st Governor of Illinois upon Gov. Blagojevich’s impending removal, we thought we’d dig back into the vaults for this interview. Kevin Robinson sat down with Quinn in April 2007.

2009_01_29_quinn.jpg
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

Not to be confused with the other Pat Quinn, Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn was elected to executive office in 2002, and recently won a second term, defeating Joe Birkett. He served as the elected State Treasurer of Illinois from 1991 to 1995, and was the Commissioner of the Cook County Board of (Property) Tax Appeals in the early eighties. He has also served as Revenue Director for the City of Chicago. In addition to being first in line of succession to the Governor, the Lt. Governor serves on a variety of boards and commissions around the state.

Regarded in political circles as a progressive, Pat Quinn has a record of organizing grassroots political initiatives around the state since the 1970s, including the ultimately unsuccessful push for the "Illinois Initiative," which would have amended the state constitution to give state citizens the power to enact statutes through the process of referenda, much like California. Although the petition drive was successful, it was blocked by the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled that the Illinois Initiative was an "unconstitutional constitutional amendment" and was never put before voters. In 1980 he successfully led the fight for the Cutback amendment to the Illinois Constitution, which reduced the size of the Illinois House of Representatives from 177 to 118 members. In 1983 he led the drive to create the Citizens Utility Board. His undergraduate degree is in International Economics, which he earned at Georgetown, and he holds a law degree from Northwestern and teaches Tax Law at Chicago-Kent. Recently, he has led the fight against utility rate hikes in Illinois, and, much like former Lt. Governor Paul Simon, he has used his position in state government to advocate for taxpayers and other people that lack powerful interests in our political system.

Much like the political culture in this state, Illinois election law has some unusual requirements, among them that candidates for lieutenant governor run separate in the primary from candidates for governor. As such, the two highest elected executives in the state don’t always agree, and the Blagojevich-Quinn administration has been no exception. Chicagoist had the opportunity to sit down with Quinn in his Chicago office a few weeks ago to discuss grassroots activism, tax relief, ethics, public transit, and Paul Simon.

Chicagoist: How did you get started in Illinois politics?

2007_4_at_rally.jpgPat Quinn: Passing petitions. I came back from college, and I believe in grassroots democracy, and there was a campaign for governor, and the first thing I did was I passed petitions to get the candidate on the ballot. I always liked the process of passing petitions, and on my own we started a group called the Coalition for Political Honesty. This was in 1975, 32 years ago, and it was really half a dozen of my friends, and my brother too, so relatives, and we wanted to put a binding referendum on the statewide ballot. The constitution had been adopted in 1970, and it has limited provisions for a binding referendum that had never been tried, and we wanted to try it, try putting something on the ballot on ethics in government. We had a petition drive, and [we passed petitions for the] political honesty initiative, and one of the measures was abolishing the practice of legislators in Illinois collecting their entire salary on the first day in office. We’d had this practice for about a hundred years, and it was kind of a spectacle: you’d get sworn into office and then stampede over to the Treasurer’s Office to collect the whole year’s paycheck. But it gets worse. There was [a state] senator at the time who ran for alderman and got elected and wouldn’t give her salary back that she had taken in advance for the legislature. And that was bad and caused a lot of controversy. And there was another fellow who got convicted of a felony, sent to jail, and had taken his two-year pay in advance and he wouldn’t return it even though he was in the jailhouse. So we had a bill to end this practice; a rookie legislator sponsored it, and it was defeated 17-3 in committee, so it was pretty clear the legislature wasn’t going to do this without a little prodding.

And that was really one of our key petition elements. We went around the state and collected 635,158 signatures, and we filed this petition in Springfield. The powers that be didn’t like the referendum idea, the petition, or the subject, so they said that you had to file all the petition pages in one book and tie it all together, that was the law. Well, the petition was at least 30 feet long. At that time Spike O’Dell wasn’t the morning radio host at WGN, it was a fellow named Wally Phillips, who was very helpful to us, he heard about our dilemma and got on the radio, and then I had engineers calling me, use airplane cable, this and that, to tie it all together. We had a canoe. We literally wheeled it down the street in Springfield, and then wheeled it up the state capitol steps, and filed it, and within a short period of time we got the law passed against advance pay. On a related afternote, the other day I got asked what do you think about the Governor getting booed in Quincy, Ill. I said well, you gotta have a pretty tough hide if you are going to run for office and be governor or lieutenant governor or anything else, and I’ve been booed myself a few times. And one of them was after we did this petition drive and got the law passed against advance pay, which had been kicked out of committee with great might of the legislators, but then the next thing you know they almost unanimously ended the practice after we filed our petition. But I was sitting in the gallery of the [state] House of Representatives after the law was passed, and a fellow saw me up there and he said “Mr. Speaker, we have Pat Quinn in the gallery,” and the entire house stood up and booed for three minutes. A standing boo-vation. Sometimes a knock for them is a plug for you, and that’s really how it began.

2007_4_big_green_bus.jpgC: You mentioned passing petitions and doing grassroots activism. One of the things you supported early in the 70’s was the Illinois Initiative, which would have allowed citizens to put propositions on the ballot. Having been in state government for a while, especially at the executive level, do you still support that kind of initiative?

PQ: I believe in the power of initiative, and referendum and recall; I prefer all of that. Most states have initiative. Midwestern states include Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin has it at the local level, not at the state level, and Wisconsin invented recall. I think the tools of direct democracy don’t replace a representative assembly. They’re going to deal with 99½ percent of the issues. But the safety valve of initiative or referendum, is when there is a subject, like today utility rates are not getting proper attention, the people have a place to go to and put their own measure on the ballot and resolve the question. To me that’s the shortcoming of Illinois politics: a lot of issues never get resolved, never get squarely addressed. They just get just kicked from one year to the next. Initiative is a good way for the voters to put an end to that pretense. So yes, unequivocally I support initiative. I’m the biggest supporter of direct democracy in Illinois. I think the voters are for it, but a lot of elected officials in the legislature I think unfortunately haven’t embraced it. I have a whole philosophy that if we can’t win binding referendum, then let’s try and do at least advisory referendum. That’s how we won the Citizen Utility Board here, we couldn’t put this idea of CUB on the ballot in 1983 as a binding referendum, so we went out in 114 different communities, like Chicago, and put CUB on as an advisory question, for the people to sort of direct the legislature, “now hear this: do something about utilities! The Citizen Utility Board is what we want you to be doing!” And that worked then, a quarter of a century ago. We got that law passed shortly after the CUB referendums were voted on 1983 in April. I would rather have binding initiative, but if you’ve only got it as advisory, what we’ve been trying to do of late is at least reduce the onerous requirements on referendums that even are advisory. An example would be in Chicago. You can put referendums that are advisory on your precinct ballot or ward ballot, or a group of precincts or wards in Chicago. You can’t do that outside of Chicago, around the rest of the state and we’d like to see that available to all citizens. We’d like to see the signature requirements for environmental advisory referendums go down, to make it easier for people to direct the legislature on what is really the challenge of our time.

C: You mention Chicago. Do you think that that’s been an effective tool of democracy in the city?

PQ: I’ve been pleased by the fact that a variety of issues have sort of bubbled up through this local advisory referendum process. In the old days before precinct referendum or ward referendum, the only thing you could do was the whole city. As a matter of fact I won a lawsuit that reduced the signature requirement, it used to be that 25% of registered voters had to sign your petition to put an advisory question on the ballot in Chicago. That was ridiculous! So we knocked it down to 10%, and recently they knocked it down to 8% of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election, roughly that’s about 5% of registered voters. I think that you have to show public support for a referendum to get it on the ballot, but I don’t believe in all these tricky rules that make it difficult. You know, something like today, like the war in Iraq, people should have a way, in their own precinct, if they want to go around and talk to their neighbors and put something on the ballot to say to President Bush what to do, you know, this is American Democracy. I have a brother who’s a history teacher, he’s been doing that for a while, 25 years, 27 years now, and I got a book not too long ago, and you know, before the Declaration of Independence was written in Philadelphia there in 1776, a lot of local town meetings adopted their own Declaration of Independence from Britain. It was sort of like their version back then of advisory referendum, telling the delegates, the Continental Congress, “Tell King George to hit the road!” And so this is an American invention, really, on how to have popular sovereignty., to have the people calling the shots.

C: You talked a little bit about the rate increases, and what has been going on here in the utility industry here in the state. You’ve been in the press a lot as opposing those increases. Can the state really intervene in this rate hike, and if so, how?

PQ: Well, number one, you should remember that the Illinois Commerce Commission is a creature of the General Assembly. It was created by the General Assembly about 100 years ago to deal with the day-to-day issues of utilities, but the ultimate power is the elected representatives of the people. In the current case, the ICC has really dropped the ball, and has done a very poor job in my opinion in dealing with ComEd and Ameren downstate, and the reverse auction that the ICC blessed, there’s not a word of approval for that in the statutes, you know, they just came up with this out of whole cloth. That reverse auction, I think, is heavily biased against real competition, it artificially raised the procurement prices and raised rates on people. Add to that the companies, both of them got into a lot of I think misleading behavior for their own customers, their own loyal customers. Ameren was telling people “hey go electric! Go all electric!” when they knew that on January 1 the former discounts for electric were going away. People in Southern Illinois – I talked to a woman last night, you know, widows and single moms paying these enormous 300% increases, it’s just really a lousy deal. So I think one, the legislature should step in and roll back the rate to where it was on January 1. Two, make a crystal clear law that the reverse auction is not acceptable for procuring power Three, reform how the ICC operates. Personally I think voters should be able to have retention elections to decide whether commissioners should stay on the commission.

But then the most important thing we’ve got to do after doing the first three is have a comprehensive energy policy for the next generation in Illinois. We’ve got to put in the law requirements that ComEd and Ameren invest in renewable power. They’re very, very resistant to that. We’ve worked on that for years with them, and they’ve just put their heads in the sand. Energy efficiency, they’re not leaders in that, helping their customers become more efficient. The whole area of limiting carbon emissions, we’ve got to be leaders. So this is the moment in time where all these issues come together. The reason I said yesterday I thought the Governor should have a special session and a summit on this, is get these big-time executives, with these huge multi-million dollar salaries from the utility companies, get them around a room, around a desk, sit them down, close the door and lock it. And tell them that we’re going to come out with a policy here that’s going to work for everyday people in Illinois. If you don’t have that kind of tough talking, Teddy Roosevelt approach to straightening these big corporations out, we’re going to be, consumers are going to be waiting while the politicians procrastinate. No more waiting while they procrastinate. We don’t want that.

2007_4_at_podium.jpgC: Obviously you’re seen as an advocate of people and taxpayers. You tend to take the side of the little guy. What do you think is the most damaging fiscal policy that the state continues to enforce?

PQ: The biggest problem with Illinois right now is that it has a regressive tax code. Nobody likes paying taxes; April 15 is not my favorite day. Taxes should be based on ability to pay, that’s progressive. Regressive is as you go down the income ladder, the percentage of taxes snatched from the person becomes higher and higher percentages of their income; it’s a system that isn’t based on a person’s ability to pay. I teach tax law at Chicago-Kent Law School, I used to be the State Treasurer, I was the Revenue Director for the City of Chicago and I was also the Tax Appeal Commissioner for Cook County, and I spent a lot of time in college in economics, so these kind of economic issues, to me, I really like grappling with them. It seems to me in our state we have a system where the personal exemption where people can shield some of their income from taxation is never adjusted to inflation. That’s a fundamental failing; the federal tax code always adjusts the personal exemption to inflation, the cost of living. We have an earned income tax credit in Illinois, that’s a good thing, but it’s the most meager amount of tax relief given to working families who are of modest income or are poor. We need to make that much more generous. We need more property tax relief for homeowners, because our system in Illinois is heavily weighted to property taxes it’s the biggest tax in our state. So to me all the talk now, you know the governor wants to raise taxes. When he first announced, he didn’t have a penny of tax relief. Lately he’s talking about, well, he said I raise the tax some more and give you some tax relief. Well to me that’s cart before the horse. I think you should really reform the Illinois tax structure; that should be our mission in the next 60 days. Convince the voters that we can have a fair system with relief to people that need it the most. Those modest income and poor families in Illinois, middle class families, when they get tax relief, their going to spend the money in our economy, they’re not going to mire that money in the bank vault. They’ll spend it locally and help drive our economy. So that’s what I’ve always believed in: close loopholes in the tax code, we have many of them, the code looks like swiss cheese, close it down, use the resulting revenue to cut taxes on ordinary people. I told that to the Governor, he didn’t buy my concept there, but I think my Plan B will be the Plan A before we’re done.

C: What do you say to critics that say closing those loopholes or raising taxes on businesses will chase business out of the state?

PQ: Well, I think a lot of the firms are multi-national firms that do business in every state, and they have been ingenious at using loopholes in the Illinois tax code to shield their income from paying taxes. And the Governor outlined that, I thought very eloquently in his budget address. I said over and over again I thought he described the situation, diagnosed the situation properly. But the remedy, to me, is not to find this esoteric, confusing, complicated, regressive tax, the gross receipts tax, as the remedy for the corporate loophole problem. I think our proposal is to have a taxpayer action board that would be set up to identify the loopholes, recommend that they be closed, the legislature could veto that only like they do with the military base closing commission in Washington; they could vote it down, but if they didn’t the loopholes would be closed in the Illinois tax code, and the resulting revenue could be used, under our plan, for either health, education, or tax relief – and it has to go one-third, one-third, and one-third. I ultimately think that outline, that blueprint, will be what Illinois adopts. I think that’s a much better way to go.

C: When you talk about tax relief and budgets in the State of Illinois, those three things – education, health care and tax relief always seem to come up. On a more local level, what would you propose to solve the transit crisis in the region?

PQ: Well, I take the CTA, and have all my adult life. And I think it really is a crisis. I think the poor service, the trains not always clean as they should be, management leaving a lot to be desired, this should really be addressed. We need the so-called [Regional Transit Authority] to really truly be regional. Too many turf wars between Pace, Metra, CTA, RTA. Given the crisis we have, and the sustainability challenge we have, to have a green way of thinking, where you need to have an excellent public transit system, I think you just can’t hand out money in Springfield to agencies that have been acting in a dysfunctional manner. So I think you have to put some strings on that to get better performance. An example would be a universal pass, which you could use for all transit services, including there’s something we know about called iGo, which is car-sharing. So you have your transit pass, if you wanted to use a car, and use it for an hour, you know you have this not-for-profit entity, and you can get an iGo car, and use your pass to drive for an hour to shop, and then bring it back to where the space is. To me those are the creative solutions we need to have right now.

C: Have you ever considered running for Governor?

PQ: No. No I haven’t.

C: Why not?

PQ: Because I like this job. [Leans forward and picks up a book off the coffee table.] Paul Simon, right below you there, that’s the book. He was an excellent public servant in my opinion. His daughter gave me one of his bowties. [Holds up the bowtie] And Paul Simon was Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. That was his only executive office his whole life. He was State Rep, State Senator, US Congressman, US Senator, and also Lieutenant Governor. And he did that job well. I was in college when he got started, he got sworn in, and he said he wanted to be an ombudsman. I didn’t exactly know what that word meant, so I looked it up. It means the people’s person in Swedish. So that’s what I want to be, in his footsteps. I think this job, you can be the people’s person. This term I intend to really speak out on grievous problems in Illinois. Utility issue we talked about, the tax reform issue, I think ethics is another area that Illinois needs serious improvement in. I ran against George Ryan for Secretary of State in 1994. I lost the election, but I didn’t lose my conscience. I said all the things that were going wrong there. And they came true, well, they all were proved true, let’s put it that way. They were already true, and people found out about them. So I think the election of 2002 was the voters sending a message to clean up the mess of state government, and I don’t think that’s complete. I believe we need campaign finance reform, and the practice of contractors being able to give campaign money to politicians who issue contracts to them. I think we need stronger whistleblower laws at the local level. The state law, we have one, I was involved in getting that passed, but we need one for every local unit of government, including the CTA and RTA, and all the other TA’s out there. And I also think we should have a law that prohibits utilities from making contributions. They’re supposed to be public utilities and they’re running around, acting in their own interest. Those are some of the ethics reforms I’ll be pushing this year.

C: Lieutenant Governor, thank you for you time.

PQ: You’re welcome.

Paradigmatic Revolution: Is President Obama Ready to Talk the Walk?

Paradigmatic Revolution:  Is President Obama Ready to Talk the Walk?

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

We have now had two presidents in the past generation who had difficulty with what No. 41 called “this vision thing,” which was totally beyond his capacity to comprehend.  We have had three presidents, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, who had some holistic direction other than pragmatic compromise or might makes right.

Paradigmatic Revolution:  Is President Obama Ready to Talk the Walk?

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

We have now had two presidents in the past generation who had difficulty with what No. 41 called “this vision thing,” which was totally beyond his capacity to comprehend.  We have had three presidents, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, who had some holistic direction other than pragmatic compromise or might makes right.

What is No 44’s vision?  Is it the same as that of America’s founders as envisioned in the Preamble to the American Constitution?  Our founding document reads: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Founding men and woman of America conceived justice to be the source of order, prosperity, and freedom, and listed “freedom” last as the product of the first four of America’s founding purposes. 

President Obama used the term “justice” only in the phrase “the justice of our cause” (as I heard him this morning he spoke only of “our just cause").  This does not necessarily mean that our cause is the pursuit of justice.  The president’s eloquent and determined speech was reminiscent of Churchill’s speech promising “blood, sweat, and tears,” but nowhere did it portray any paradigm of policy other than freedom.  There was no mention of justice as the source of security, prosperity, and freedom, as enshrined in the Preamble to the American Constitution, which can serve as the American code of human responsibilities and rights, similar to the maqasid al shari’ah in classical Islamic thought and to similar scriptural interpretations in every world religion.

Even a self-serving concept of justice, however, is better than ex-President Bush’s use of “justice” only as a synonym for revenge, as in “Saddam Hussain will experience American justice.”

Does our new president’s inaugural address mean only “more of the same” but with greater determination?  Its real meaning will emerge in action.  He does not talk the walk of justice, but perhaps he will walk without talking.  This may be what Secretary Hillary Clinton in her initial confirmation hearings baptized as “smart power,” because neither “soft power” nor “hard power” are politically correct action-words any more.  As optimistic voters for Barack Obama, perhaps we need merely pray that the new Administration, now only a few hours old, needs to pioneer both good policy and more transparency.

Perhaps presidential candidate Mike Gravel, former U.S. Senator from Alaska before the Republicans took over up there, is right that we need a revolution from below, which is what those who voted for Barack Obama were trying to launch, not from above.  Senator Gravel’s Philadelphia Two initiative, also known as the National Initiative for Democracy, for which I gave $1,000 to get it started a decade ago, called for Direct Democracy.  He pursued this through his Democracy Foundation, which advocated direct action through a constitutional amendment providing for voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives in order to facilitate bottom-up political reform.  He regarded this as a key to a fundamental reform of the entire system of money and credit designed to expand access to universal individual ownership of capital or real, productive wealth, which, in turn, is the key to real political self-determination and freedom both at home and abroad.

This, of course, assumes what many might call a spiritual transformation along the lines of Rabbi Michael Lerner’s call for a “new bottom line,”, which might take much longer than similar reform from the top down by lobbying within the existing system of concentrated economic and political power.

Senator Gravel and his economic mentor, Norman Kurland, co-founder of the American Revolutionary Party, have differed on which is the chicken and which is the egg, but they may both be “prophets before their time.” Perhaps they are both right, and the Obama Administration may be the best and only chance to fulfill the American dream of peace, prosperity, and freedom through compassionate justice.  If President Obama starts both talking and walking, America may indeed succeed, God willing, in renewing its global leadership as “the last, best hope for humanity.”

DEMOCRACY: ORIGINS, REWARDS, AND PROBLEMS

DEMOCRACY: ORIGINS REWARDS AND PROBLEMS

DEMOCRACY: ORIGINS REWARDS AND PROBLEMS
By CHRISTOPHER XENOPOULOS
 JANUS

This being an election year it’s an appropriate time to think about our wonderful democracy, its origins, great powers, rewards and its problems.
Christopher Janus
I have written this column with the help of the excellent reference department of the Wilmette Public Library and lengthy discussions with Professor John N. Kalaras, the president’s educational adviser and UNESCO’s 1999 Professor of the Year.

DEMOCRACY: ORIGINS REWARDS AND PROBLEMS

DEMOCRACY: ORIGINS REWARDS AND PROBLEMS
By CHRISTOPHER XENOPOULOS
 JANUS

This being an election year it’s an appropriate time to think about our wonderful democracy, its origins, great powers, rewards and its problems.
Christopher Janus
I have written this column with the help of the excellent reference department of the Wilmette Public Library and lengthy discussions with Professor John N. Kalaras, the president’s educational adviser and UNESCO’s 1999 Professor of the Year.
The word "democracy" combines the elements of demos, which means people, and kratos, which means power. In the words "monarchy" and "oligarchy" the special element arche means rule, leading or being first. It is possible that the term "democracy" was coined by its detractors who rejected the possibility of, so to speak, a valid "demarchy."
Whatever the original tone, the term was adopted wholeheartedly by the Athenian people, where democracy was invented and flourished five centuries B.C. So, if we go back to the etymology of the word democracy we have:
Demos = people; kratos = power. In other words, the people have the power.
The question we need to ask is: In today’s democracies, around the world and in our beautiful U.S.A., do the "people" have the power?
Does today’s democracy function the same way as it did in Greece during the golden century of Athens? The answer is rather obvious, no.
What are some of the differences?
As concerned citizens we shouldn’t only look into the differences but also explore why. What could some of the reasons be? Does the population size play a role in the effective functionality of democracy?
Every political system relates "directly" to an economic system. For instance democracy = capitalism, communism = totalitarian and so on.
Could the economic system have an impact on democracy?
In a capitalistic system you have a choice and freedom; in a democratic system you have a choice and freedom. You have a choice and the freedom to purchase or not to purchase something. You also have the choice and freedom to vote or not to vote for someone. Are such choices and freedoms executed rationally, equitably?
If you ask an average person about the selection and election of our political representatives, he or she will tell you that indeed we apply a democratic process. Do we really? I don’t think so. If we go back to the initial etymology of the word democracy, which was "the people have the power to make the decision," I have strong reason to believe that it isn’t so. The average citizen looks only at the end of the process and says: "I have a choice, I can vote for whomever I want; I can vote Republican, I can vote Democrat or even independent. I have a choice."
What they don’t really understand is that the "presumed" choice is dictated to them. Here is what they are missing.
In a pure democratic system the people take part in the selection of their representatives. And once they are selected, they go to the "people" for the final vote.
What we have in a "democracy" is that such initial selection is always made by a group of people, the Democratic caucus or the Republican caucus. Therefore, a. select group, whose motives I would question, "selects and appoints" the representatives they want you to "approve" by voting for them. Is that "selection and appointment" democratic? How much input do the "people" have in this? None. The "party" decides who will run.
However, one may argue that every qualifying citizen has the right to run for office, any office.
Theoretically, this is correct. Practically, it’s almost impossible.
Along with the issues I present here, have you ever thought how much money it takes to run for a high offices such as the office of the U.S. Senate, office of the governor or any such office? It takes millions of dollars; usually $10 million to $15 million and, in some cases, even more.
Now, here is a simple thought. A senator gets paid approximately $200,000 per year. And so does a governor. They are elected for five to six years, so, in the best case scenario, they will make in the form of salary $1.2 million.
Now the critical and unexplain-able question: Why would anyone spend more than $10 million dollars to make $1 million in salary over five to six years? If nothing else, this should raise some ethical questions. Of course, you will argue that the $10 million to $15 million spent by each candidate isn’t their own money, it’s raised by the people. Is it really "the people" or possibly "special interest" groups such as lobbyists?
And if it is "special interest" groups, why do such groups con-tribute-invest such big money? Is it always because they like the candidate or because they expect some preferential treatment?
So much for the problems of democracy.
In conclusion, following is an account of the developments and the future of ancient history in Greece where it all started.
Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica around 500 B.C. Athens was one of the very first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, most but not all of them following an Athenian model but none were as powerful or as stable (or as well documented) as that of Athens.
It remains a unique and intriguing experiment in direct democracy where the people did not elect representatives to vote on their behalf but voted on legislation and executive bills in their own right. Participation was by no means open but the in-group of participants was constituted with no reference to economic class and they participated on a scale that was truly phenomenal. The public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.
Solon (594 B.C.), Cleisthenes (509 B.C.), and Ephialtes of Athens (462 B.C.) all contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Historians differ on which of them was responsible for which institutions, and which of them most represented a truly democratic movement. It is most usual to date Athenian democracy from Clesthenes, since Solon’s constitution fell and was replaced by the tyranny of Peisistratus, whereas Ephialtes received Cleisthene’s constitution relatively peacefully. Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, was killed by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were subsequently honored by the Athenians for their alleged restoration of Athenian freedom.
The greatest and longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles; after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolution toward the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts are of the fourth-century modification rather than the Periclean system. It was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 B.C. The Athenian institutions later revived, but the extent to which they were a real democracy is debatable.
Christopher Xenopoulos Janus is the founder and publisher of Greek Heritage, The American Quarterly of Greek Culture. He has written many articles and books, including "The World of Christopher Xenopoulos Janus" (2008).