Category Archives: Politics

None of the above, ideologically

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The nice young man at the front door asked three questions for a poll he was taking. Two of them aren’t relevant to this column. The third, I shouldn’t have answered.

It was, “Do you consider yourself conservative, liberal, or moderate?”

I hate that question. The answer doesn’t define most of us accurately, and it defines some of us too much.

It doesn’t define us accurately because people are more complicated than a one-word description. Many of us are “conservative” on some issues, “liberal” on others, somewhere in between elsewhere and, in a few areas, off the charts.

Moreover, just as people are complicated, so are political issues. Many don’t fall neatly into one category or another – for example, when and how to use military force.

I’m not a pacifist. Sometimes you’ve just got to kill bad guys. But it was the height of arrogance to think the United States could turn Afghanistan into a Western democracy by force, and we had no business invading Iraq. Or bombing Libya.

War usually does far more harm than good and causes more problems than it solves. It kills and maims people. It wastes resources, enlarges the government, and adds to the national debt. It despoils the environment. As we are seeing in the Middle East, it destabilizes entire regions and sows the seeds for more war. As a people, it first makes us fearful and willing to surrender our liberties. Then we become callous. Just bomb ‘em back to the Stone Age, right?

Looking at those reasons, am I a conservative who distrusts the government, or a bleeding heart liberal who doesn’t want to bomb people? Maybe I’m a little bit of all that, so does that define me as a moderate by default? Maybe I’m just a pragmatist who believes war is usually an ineffective foreign policy tool.

The other problem with these labels is that they define us too much. By labeling ourselves, we limit ourselves.

We all must have guiding principles, but rigid ideology narrows our thought processes. Too many Americans, and far too many elected officials, run every issue through a filter. What’s the liberal position, because I’m a liberal? What’s the conservative position, because I’m a conservative?

That filtering process is intellectually lazy. It makes us less likely to examine issues and makes us more easily manipulated by political and media demagogues. It also divides us into tribes so that our democracy can’t solve anything. A chasm now exists between congressional Republicans and Democrats that few even want to bridge. The only way Congress can function these days is when it’s faced with a crisis. So, occasionally, one is manufactured. How’s that working out?

I’m not asking for everyone to gather in some mushy middle and hug it out. I’m asking for a more thoughtful political process where elected officials and average citizens are more willing to come and reason together. We should appreciate the limits that our life experiences place on us – that I cannot know, for example, what it’s like to be a woman or of a different race, and that maybe as a result I have a few blind spots that are only worsened by blind ideology. I’m asking us to appreciate the idea of synergy, that your idea plus my idea potentially could lead to a better third idea, even if that idea can’t easily be labeled.

By the way, I told the nice young man I’m a “moderate,” and then regretted it. Of the three, it’s the closest to “none of the above,” which is what I will say next time I’m asked.

Issue 1: More democratic, or more meddling?

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Should legislators be entrusted with more power at the expense of the governor and state agencies? You’ll decide by voting yes or no on Issue 1.

The proposal would amend the Arkansas Constitution so that all state agency administrative rules would require approval by a legislative committee before they could go into effect. The committee could make those approvals during legislative sessions or during the interim between sessions. According to the text of the amendment, the Legislature would define how that process occurs.

If I were arguing in support of Issue 1, I’d say this: The Legislature is state government’s most democratic institution. It’s the most transparent and the closest to the people. For average Arkansans, administrative rules hatched by state agencies often are no different than laws: It’s still the government telling us what we can and cannot do. Any new such potential restriction of our liberty should be approved by elected representatives reflecting the will of the people.

Why vote against Issue 1? There are practical and constitutional concerns.

The obvious practical concern is that it will lead to too much legislative meddling and too much politics in day-to-day administrative activities.

Might legislators hold hearings, for example, about when hunting season begins? Certainly – not just about the day, but about the hour. Maybe even the minute.

Legislators generally serve the state pretty well, but sometimes they involve themselves in areas that really aren’t their business and where they aren’t experts. Even though it’s a part-time job, they already gather for regular sessions, fiscal sessions, special sessions, and committee meetings. How could these busy, part-time public servants possibly consider every state agency rule with any sort of competence? Sometimes the details should be left to the full-timers.

The constitutional concern is that Issue 1 fundamentally changes state government’s power structure.

First, it alters the separation of powers between the Legislature and the governor by involving legislators in day-to-day decisions that traditionally have been handled by the executive branch.

Moreover, it potentially gives a lot of power to a few people. In the Legislature, committees are very important, but not all-important. Bills must pass a committee in order to advance, but ultimately both the House and Senate must vote yes or no, followed by the governor’s signature. If Issue 1 passes, the buck stops with “a legislative committee.” What committee, and who will serve on it? The amendment says only vaguely that the Legislature “may provide by law” for one.

This amendment isn’t necessary. If its purpose is to ensure state agencies function democratically, those mechanisms already exist in most cases. Most agencies are under the authority of the state’s governor, elected statewide by voters from Crossett to Bentonville. Agencies hold public hearings where regular Arkansans can comment on proposed rules. Finally, the Legislature already exercises power over state agency rule-making. It funds the agencies. It can write laws that prohibit bad rules from being enacted in the first place. If it doesn’t like an agency’s rule, it can pass a law overturning it.

I started this column by asking if legislators should be entrusted with more power at the expense of the governor and state agencies. Actually, none of them are supposed to be fully trusted in a democracy.

The current system of checks and balances allows that distrust to be exercised in a healthier way than this proposal would. The way it is now, state agencies do their job under the leadership of the governor, while the Legislature has the first say and the last say through the laws it writes. Issue 1 moves that needle too far toward the Legislature and will cause more problems than it will solve.

I’m voting no. You?

After a long campaign, here are reasons to vote FOR Cotton or Pryor

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

While sitting in a crowded waiting room the other day, my wife overheard a woman say she didn’t know what to do about the Senate race. Mark Pryor votes with Obama, the woman said, and Tom Cotton gets all his money from billionaires.

She no doubt reflects a lot of voters. After a year-and-a-half of campaigning and more than 50,000 television ads according to The Center for Public Integrity, the election for U.S. Senate is largely about these caricatures the opposing campaigns have painted about each other.

Who’s to blame? The campaigns, of course, for selling it, and voters for buying it. Members of the media are guilty, too, of course. We mostly just repackage the products the campaigns provide.

So I’m done. We all know why not to vote for these candidates. Here’s why you should vote for them.

You should vote for Tom Cotton because he’s disciplined, and strong, and brave. As a younger man, he took a break from his promising legal career to volunteer for tours of combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a congressman, he’s shown he will not back down from a fight and will not compromise his convictions. He’s taken unpopular stances he knew would be used against him: for raising the retirement age, because the system needs reform; against Hurricane Sandy relief, because politicians had used that tragedy to pack the bill with nonemergency projects; against the farm bill, because most of the money is spent on food stamps, a program that he believes has grown too big in recent years.

You also should vote for him because, if Republicans take over the Senate while keeping the House, then Congress might again function at least somewhat like a legislative body that serves as a check and balance on the executive branch, instead of remaining the divided and dysfunctional mess it’s become.

On the other hand, you should vote for Mark Pryor because he’s compassionate, and determined, and willing to consider others’ points of view. He’s shown he can play the hand dealt him – a good one as the son of a popular former governor and senator, and a bad one fighting cancer or running under the same party label as an unpopular president.

As a senator, he’s been willing to meet with others in the middle when so much of that body has camped out on the wings. When the government shut down, he was part of a group of 14 practical-minded senators who bridged the gap and helped it reopen. He does not forget that the big-picture legislation he passes affects average Arkansans. He also does some of the little things, like helping create a database that keeps track of truck drivers who test positive for drugs and alcohol.

You also should vote for him because, after a half-century of one-party rule under the Democrats, Arkansas should not become a one-party state under the Republicans.

There are reasons to vote for the other two candidates, too. Both Libertarian Nathan LaFrance and Green Party nominee Mark Swaney have put their names on the ballot knowing they represent parties that have no money, no infrastructure, and no chance of winning. They’ve done this because those parties most closely represent their deeply held convictions. They’ve campaigned at their own personal expense and on their own time. When given the chance, they’ve proven able to eloquently explain and defend their positions.

At this point at the end of a long campaign, many of us have determined that all our choices are all bad. Certainly there is much about Cotton and Pryor that I cannot support – especially the way they have torn down each other. Regardless, one of these two men will represent us, and our decision as voters should be based at least partly on choosing who would do it better instead of simply avoiding the one who would do it worse. They both have flaws, and they both have admirable qualities.

So let’s try to vote FOR something, even if all we are voting for is the democratic process itself. People died for this.

Voter ID: Good experiment, bad law

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

When a law punishes more than 1,000 innocent people but doesn’t catch any guilty people, there’s something wrong with the law.

Such is the case with the voter ID requirement that was struck down unanimously by the Arkansas Supreme Court last week. Four justices said it illegally added to the state Constitution’s requirement that a voter be an American citizen, an Arkansas resident above age 18, and lawfully registered to cast a ballot. Three justices based their ruling on the fact that the law wasn’t passed with the necessary two-thirds majority. So now you don’t have to bring your driver’s license when you vote this year.

I supported this law when it was passed, though with reservations. Maintaining ballot integrity is a vital function of our democracy, and requiring voters to present a photo ID seems not overly burdensome.

On the other hand, not everybody has a photo ID – particularly people already marginalized because they are poor. Proponents never demonstrated that voter impersonation is a serious problem or, if it is, that this would solve it. Voter fraud already is illegal, and enforcement mechanisms already are in place: poll workers checking off names, and average citizens who surely would complain if informed they mysteriously had already voted. If someone wants to commit wholesale voter fraud, there are much more efficient ways of doing that than having people impersonate voters one by one.

Regardless of what you think about voter ID laws, they cannot be separated from electoral politics. Supposedly, they result in lower turnout among the poor and disadvantaged who are less likely to have a photo ID and more likely to vote for Democrats. Human nature being what it is, the laws unsurprisingly are often supported by Republicans and often opposed by Democrats.

Thankfully, it’s called “political science” for a reason: Because sometimes the effects of an action can be observed, like an experiment. Such was the case with the primary elections earlier this year. More than 1,000 ballots weren’t counted, many because absentee voters had failed to mail a copy of their photo ID. In fact, the law did not require those voters even to be notified their ballots were thrown out. Meanwhile, not a single person has been charged with any kind of actual voter fraud as a result of the law. Maybe the law deterred potential voter fraudsters, but that can’t be proven.

So somewhere around 1,000 law-abiding citizens did not have their votes counted because of a technicality, while no lawbreaking citizens were brought to justice. The law’s stated intentions – stopping voter fraud – might have been good, but its only demonstrable effects have been bad. The findings from this experiment are clear: This was not a good law.

The law’s flaws might have been overcome were it not for the constitutional problems. Maybe an exception could have been made for absentee voters. Maybe future absentee voters could have been given better information about the necessity of mailing a copy of their photo ID.

But the fact that the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the measure on constitutional grounds raises the bar high for any kind of fix. It probably would take a constitutional amendment now, which means it would have to get through the Legislature and then past the voters.

So for now, and probably for a while, no photo ID will be required. We voters simply must be American citizens, Arkansas residents above age 18, and lawfully registered.

The Constitution doesn’t require us to be informed about our choices, either, though we should choose to do that on our own. There’s probably not enough voter impersonation to matter, but voter apathy and indifference – you don’t have to have a license for those.

The chasm-bridger vs. the true believer

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Which of these two paragraphs makes the most sense to you?

The problem with Congress is that nobody goes to Washington and fights for what’s right. America needs elected officials who will stand on principle. We got into this mess because too many politicians go along to get along.

The problem with Congress is that there aren’t enough members who’ll work with both parties. We can’t get out of this mess unless members of Congress will work with each other, compromise a little, and get something done for the American people

If you’re like me, you might think both paragraphs are true, even though it’s hard for one person to exhibit both qualities. Who do we want: Someone who’ll stand on principle, or someone who will work with others as part of a democratic government with diverse constituencies?

And that’s your Senate race.

Rep. Tom Cotton, the Republican, is paragraph 1. No one can question his willingness to stand on principle as a person or a policymaker. He voted against Hurricane Sandy relief because the package contained too much waste and not enough relief. The other members of Arkansas’ delegation decided they could live with the package’s flaws. He voted against the farm bill because he believes the government is spending too much on food stamps and because he believes food stamps and farm payments should be separate issues. But the reason they are paired is, to pass the bill, historically it’s been necessary to maintain a coalition of rural farm state congressmen and urban representatives with food stamp-receiving constituents. The rest of the state’s delegation voted yes.

Sen. Mark Pryor, the Democrat, is paragraph 2. He’s somewhat of a centrist in a party that has moved left while he represents a state that is voting to the right. He’s inclined to compromise, sometimes joining with other middle ground-seeking senators to try to bridge the chasm between the two sides. When the government shut down last year, he was one of 14 senators, Republican and Democrat, who produced a compromise that ended the impasse and reopened the government. But he’s not one who will lead the charge for a world-changing idea.

Seeing the glass as half empty in this race, either Arkansas’ next senator will stand for too much, or its next senator will not stand for enough. The glass-half-full side is, if there were no chasm-bridgers like Pryor in Congress, nothing would ever get done, and if there were no true believers like Cotton, nothing great would ever get done.

What works best in a democracy is “principled compromise” – the ability to stand on rock-solid principles and then work with others to enact polices that move the country in the best direction, often one small step at a time. Effective elected officials compromise not only because they must, but also because they see the value in another person’s perspective. For a senator to govern as if he cannot be wrong – that’s a dangerous quality to have. But we also know what happens when someone compromises too much. As country singer Aaron Tippin described it, “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

Let’s not forget the two other candidates in the race. Libertarian Nathan LaFrance wants less government than Pryor or even Cotton. Green Party nominee Mark Swaney is generally for more government on issues such as health care and the environment. They’re both paragraph 1 candidates campaigning on principle.

The candidate who wins the election hopefully will practice principled compromise in the Senate over the next six years – standing for what’s right while working with others, and compromising on policies without compromising his values. That’s a difficult tightrope for any of the 100 senators to walk, which is why, these past few years, we haven’t seen enough of them even try.