• « Previous Entries

Category

Legislative process

• 07.16.08
  Scene 1 of an old stage play
  Legislative process (0)

  It looks like Congressional Republicans aren't completely worthless, after all. From the WSJ: The Bush administration's hastily arranged strategy to stabilize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came under siege on Capitol Hill, as Republicans tried to slow it down and Democrats moved to marry it with a program the White House has threatened to veto. They have some redeeming social value, at least for the moment. But I am reminded of the bad old days of the Clinton administration, when Republicans would on issue after issue threaten to do the right thing, but cave under pressure just after ...
  
  
• 06.27.08
  Please, Congress, you’ve done enough
  Legislative process (0)

  Here I'm one of those who is trying to let people know about the joys of bicycling, and Congress has to come along and work against us by coming up with a resolution to promote bicycling. That's all we need, a corrupt organization with a 6 percent approval rating trying to associate with us.
  
  
• 11.28.07
  Kalamazoo Gazette editorializes in favor of corruption
  Bash the Messenger, Legislative process (0)

  The Kalamazoo Gazette thinks it's just fine for the county to hire a lobbyist to get money out of the feds. No, really. It editorialized in favor of it in Tuesday's paper. You can read the full thing here. In a perfect world, lobbying would not be necessary. After all, we have two U.S. senators and several U.S. representatives who are elected to represent the interests of our state and region. Commissioner David Maturen cast the lone dissenting vote. ``I think we already have a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.,'' Maturen said. ``It's called our congressman.'' In the ideal world, the ...
  
  
• 11.20.07
  Sunshine reforms
  Legislative process (0)

  One of my hobby-horse reforms of the legislative process is to bring sunshine onto a practice that The Main Adversary describes in an entry titled, "Three weeks and a cloud of taxes." He writes: For the second weekend in a row the House of Delegates held key votes in the dark of night after most of the press had left and most us had gone to bed. Delegates were voting on versions of bills handed to them minutes before the vote, with no idea of what they were voting on. I say it ought to be that any legislation that isn't ...
  
  
• 10.27.07
  Distinguishable from legislating
  Legislative process (1)

  Like me, The Main Adversary has been greatly influenced by George Will's arguments against the line-item veto. But having thought it over a little more, there is at least one point I'd argue with. But were a president empowered to cancel provisions of legislation, what he would be doing would be indistinguishable from legislating. He would be making, rather than executing, laws, and the separation of powers would be violated. I don't think this is true. When a court strikes down legislation, that is not considered the same as legislating. We make a distinction between initiating a piece of legislation and saying no ...
  
  
• 10.22.07
  George Will on line-item veto
  Legislative process (0)

  Reading this article by George Will is the first time I've ever seen good arguments against a presidential line-item veto.  I am not completely convinced, but I am convinced that his are serious objections.   The best way to evaluate his concerns would be to take a look at places where governors have had that power, to see if the effect has been as he describes.  So where does one start with that?
  
  
• 09.02.07
  It’s not going to make you better
  Legislative process (0)

  Quote from Peggy Noonan in the WSJ: "You'd better be pretty good going in, because it's not going to make you better." She's talking about politicians going into politics. I've often said that politicians are generally less corrupt than their constituents. What often provokes me to say that is seeing what people ask their congresspersons to do for them -- things that a congressperson would have no business doing in a good government. Peggy Noonan is referring to something a little different -- the way politicians both left and right need to change to deal with the Iraq war. A time for ...
  
  
• 08.20.07
  Bike paths and falling bridges
  Legislative process (0)

  Is it true that bike paths like the one in this photo are responsible for bridges falling into the Mississippi River? I encountered this one on a July 2005 bike ride to Homer, Michigan. I've been there since, and still haven't seen any good reason for that particular bike path to exist. The money would have been better spent on the road alongside, which would have made conditions better for both cars and bicycles. A Wall Street Journal editorial, "Of Bridges and Taxes," tells how tax money for highways in Minnesota was spent on many things other than what taxpayers ...
  
  
• 08.04.07
  Earmarks and falling bridges
  Legislative process (0)

  The Wall Street Journal explains how Congressional earmarks endanger our nation's highway bridges: Bridges to Somewhere The cause of Wednesday's bridge collapse in Minneapolis isn't yet known, but that hasn't stopped the tragedy from reigniting the debate over the condition of U.S. "infrastructure," which has to be the ugliest word in the English language. It's even uglier when Congress and the building lobby use it as an excuse to spend more without rethinking their own contributions to the problem. I predict that reform will be strongly resisted. We also need a new version of the nursery rhyme. More specifically, we need ...
  
  
• 07.04.07
  A multi-lingual, English-as-Official-Language society
  Languages, Legislative process (0)

  Paul Greenberg writes: I'm all for the wonderful mosaic of cultures in this country - social, religious, linguistic, culinary and every other kind in this country of countries. Each contributes something to the way we all see things, think about things. We learn from each other. But here there is room for only one, indivisible, unhyphenated civic culture. A civic and civil culture that gives us a common tongue to argue in, and common ground to stand on. Note that having English as the one official language of this country, the language used for government work, would be quite compatible with our ...
  
  

• « Previous Entries