The Standard-Examiner ran a hard editorial this morning, concerning County Attorney Mark Decaria's long-delayed "Vangate" report. Several readers have brought it up in one of our lower comments sections already, and yes -- we believe it is the kind of strong statement we'd like to see coming out of our home-town newspaper on a very regular basis.
And for those of us who may from time-to-time entertain the notion that the Standard-Examiner is largely irrelevant to the political discussion in our community, take a gander at what just arrived in our email box, just a few short hours after the Std-Ex morning edition arrived on our front porch.
We present this morning for our gentle readers' attention our just-now html-converted version of the document we've all been waiting for-- straight from Mark Decaria's office -- and hot off our electronic presses:
Mark Decaria's 11/1/06 "Vangate" report.
We're posting this now, without our own analysis or editorial comment.
You can bet your boots though, that we'll be talking more about it later.
We won't ever again suggest that the Std-Ex lacks editorial juice.
And don't let the cat get your tongues...
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
36 comments:
Well, DeCaria straddled the fence real good on this one.
Not much of a County Attorney if it took 3 months to figure this answer out which is......
the usual answer to a citizen.....
hire your own attorney at $250.00 an hour and go to court yourself because we don't know the law ourselves and if we did we can't help you.
It is against Utah legal standards to settle anything until a citizen has to hire a private attorney.
Three months to cook up a bowl of PABLUM?
Mark DeCaria is part of the problem.
His investigation of this is a joke and this report confirms it.
To have Godfrey appoint DeCaria to investigate this crime is like having a bank robber chosing who investigates his crimes!
It is a white wash, nothing more, nothing less.
This really does nothing to bring the truth to the citizens. Just a bunch of legaleese bull shit that exonerates the guilty and still puts Jones on the hot seat.
FREE MATT JONES
I'd say it makes all three of them look like they were made for each other.
Shame on the Mayor...Shame on Greiner...Shame on DiCaria!
Shame on the CC for allowing Godfrey to choose the investigative agency!
People who straddle fences, get splinters in their bums.
This report is disgraceful. The whole investigation could've and probably was conducted in an hour over a sandwich in the OPD lunchroom.
Well, Matt Jones, take the advice which is implied in the concluding paragraph of the 'report'. Hire a first class constitutional attorney and sue the dickens out of Ogden! This whole mess would have been avoided if Godfrey's integrity didn't fill an entire room and his brain so that there was no room for common sense. If he wasn't such a vindictive little squirt, having to follow a private citizen and then demand that his chief run a plate, he'd have laughed at the van and gone home that evening where he belonged!
On another note...I was amused to read that Greiner decided to stay in the race after talking to his atty and 'friends'. I didn't know 'friends' opinions carried
legal weight! I bet the feds are impressed as heck.
Gee, what a shock that we have this kind of reaction to this report.
My biggest complaint with the report is that it took 3 months to write that. I guess I will have to read it in depth to figure out what in there could posibly have taken so long to research.
On first reading, I perceive there to be a flaw in DeCaria's conclusion that Greiner did nothing untoward by asking that the plate be run.
It is stated in the background that the reason the Mayor called Greiner with the plate was that Greiner had told him that the police were not involved with the van, and the Mayor saw an officer giving a ride to someone who had exited the van. That is all we see.
A heads-up from the Mayor to Greiner that an officer might be associated with someone who was driving the van, and therefore Greiner might not have been accurate in telling the Mayor there was no police involvement with the van.
What we see is an exchange between two individuals regarding a statement one had made to the other. That's it.
Did the Mayor allege that he had seen a crime being committed? He did not. Was the officer committing a criminal act in driving the private car? In giving someone who had been driving the van a ride? No, and no. Have either the Mayor or the Chief alleged criminal activity here? Not that I can see.
The BCI requires that agencies "use the information received for “criminal justice and criminal justice employment purposes” only."
Decaria states that since "criminal justice employment purposes" is not defined, he can find no violation of the BCI regs here.
I, on the other hand, can find no criminal anything here, and the regs state that criminal justice and criminal justice employment purposes have to be present in order to run plates.
Determining validity of use of the system, therefore, would rely on the presence of the conditions required in order to use it and the proof that those conditions were present.
So I don't agree with that conclusion, no.
Well, quite a report.
A few comments [some which disagree with a couple of the postings above].
a) This took three months? A quarter of a year? Why? Kind of gives new meaning to the phrase "good enough for government work."
b) I don't think the report is a disgrace. I think it is quite damaging to Mayor Godfrey and Chief Greiner. Let's take the Mayor first. It concludes that in following a city employee's wife around town and copying down her license plate number, the Mayor did not do anything illegal. He has the right to follow people around on the public streets if he wants to and write down their license numbers. What the report does not address, and Mr. Decaria evidently did not consider it part of his charge, was the question of whether the Mayor's actions were unethical [as opposed to illegal]. The Mayor has made it plain by his actions, and on one occasion that has been reported, his statements, that he feels free as Mayor to act in any way that is not illegal. That he conflates the terms "ethical" and "legal" and considers them, in his capacity as mayor, to be synonymns. I do not. Nor, I suspect, do most citizens who think their elected officials ought to set a higher standard for themselves than the lowest possible common denominator of action in office: "if it's not illegal, I can and will do it." I expect my Mayor [governor, legislators, Senator, President, Police Chief] to hold him or her self ot a much higher standard, to avoid not only illegal behavior but unethical behavior, to believe that maintaining his integrity involves more... much, much more... than simply avoiding breaking the law. Evidently, the Mayor thinks otherwise.
c) To the question of whether the Chief Greiner acted illegally, the best Mr. DeCaria can say is "probably not." He also in his report states clearly that if he had been asked, he would have recommended against suspending Officer Jones immediately following the Mayor's phone call, and his telling the Mayor "I'll take care of it" in re: Jones. Mr. Decaria spoke pretty plainly on this point, I thought, and in a way the Chief cannot find favorable.
d) Mr. Decaria's report also makes it very plain that the Chief's actions [particularly the timing thereof] in re: officer Jones's suspension absolutely created the suspision, the credible, suspision that the phone call was responable for the suspension. This too cannot be good news for Chief Griener.
e) Mr. Decaria punts, and probably wisely, on whether the Chief violated Officer Jones' first amendment right of free speech. Which means, of course, that he did not clearly conclude, on the record, that Chief Greiner did not. Mr. DeCaria concludes that matter is still very much an open one.
So on balance, I don't see how the report is favorabel to the Chief or to Mayor Godfrey except to say the the former probably did not break the law, and that the latter definitely did not. I think you'd have to be a blindly partisan advocate of Godfrey/Greiner to take the report, on balance, as an exoneration of their conduct.
f) As for Officer Jones, now we know the allegations against him. From what Mr. Decaria summarizes, the evidence seems to be rather thin. But they are substantive charges, not petty ones, and Mr. Decaria concludes they were sifficient, on their own, to have suspended Officer Jones pending further investigation. This matter will now have to be hashed out, I suspect, in the courts. And we need to remember, I think, that Officer Jones is entitled to the same presumption of innocence as anyone accused of criminal conduct. I do note that investigation into one of the incidents was closed after it was looked into by the Ogden PD, and Mr. Jones was not charged in the incident.
On balance, not a good day for the Chief, nor I think for the Mayor. If they were looking for exoneration from Mr. Decaria, on balance, I don't think they got it.
Matt Godfrey certainly stands out as the silliest of these charcters.
I'm still trying to understand why anyone takes him seriously.
Of course cartoonists in Germany tried to characterise Hitler as a clown, until they got deported to Aushwitz.
Several cops have said that a GOOD cop is the recipient of several citizen complaints because he/she is out there doing his job!
Officer Jones was not the only cop on duty when those alleged thefts took place. Plenty of other cops were on duty....why weren't they all placed on admin leave too?
I'm wondering if Greiner didn't orchestrate this report delay to his own advantage. What if he wanted this report to come out at this late date, so that he could take Jones off admin leave and look like a fine fellow JUST BEFORE the election?
He can appear maligned by the Dems and the feds over the Hatch Act...and cleared 'just in the nick o' time, and appear benevolent in reinstating Jones.
Maligned and benevolent...what a combo. Supersize that with his determination to 'fight' for his place on the ballot! Is this a palatable dish to set before the voters or what?
Curmudgeon said...
Important Update On Tonight's Planning Commission Meeting .
See my post under Housekeeping Note & Planning Commission Contact Information one thread down.
thanx, Curm.
Curm
There is and never will be a presumption of innosence for the Mayor or the police chief.
On this blog most have been demanding impeachment for months without any facts.
Our Mayor is assumed to be a Nazi.
So much for all this talk of cival rights, free speech and fairness.
Yes. Godfrey deserves a fair and speedy trial, and then a proper hanging and a Christian burial, of course.
Anon:
Sorry, Anon, but you are wrong. Granted, some are so opposed to the Mayor and those presumed to be his henchmen [sorry, for all my Democratic and Women's Rights sympathies, "henchpersons" just seems wrong somehow], that they assume guilt and are rooting for indictment and conviction. But by no means all posters here. It's an open blog. Folks [within fairly broad bounds of civility lightly but wisely enforced by our Blogmeister] can post pretty much what they like. But "presumers of guilt" does not characterize all or, I think, even most posters here.
As I've said before, I wish advocates of the Mayor and his allies would post here [civilly] more often. It would make the conversation more interesting, overall, and perhaps... just perhaps... both sides might learn something worth learning in the exchange.
Curm
I recognize you as one of those that could hold an intelegent and cival conversation. I have to disagree about the vast majority who post on this blog.
I have often thought that I would like to meet you face to face so that I could learn from where you come.
Curm....Anon says you 'can hold an "intelegant and cival' conversation" (sic). How would he KNOW?????
Well, Wally, lots of people on WC forum can and do hold civil conversations. And I can't generalize about "anon" conversations because there are so damn many anonymouses [What is the plural of anonymous anyway?]. Some seem quite lucid and are certainly civil; some are turd flingers and ravers. I'm never quite sure which anonymous is up at any given moment so it makes it, as I said, hard to generalize.
Oh, Curm boy...was just joshing him about his spelling!
BTW...I thought you were going to get up and speak at the planning commission meeting tonight. You disappointed me.
the plural of anonymous might be anonymi ? works for me.
Wally:
The points I wanted to make in the two minutes I had had been made, more than once, by others. In the interests of time and not pissing off the Commissioners [who had been there since five PM], as the clock neared the witching hour, I decided to pass. What I was going to ask them to do is what they eventually did: to not act precipitously, and send the ordinance revision back for more work. So I don't think anything was lost.
I will write to the Commissioners in re: last night's meeting. A couple of things bothered me [none of which I could have spoken to at the mike]. For example, the Commissioner just to the chair's left said, very late, that "they [pointing at the audience] think we're the enemy." Now, no doubt some members of the crowd did. But all of the comments were civil, no one ranted or attacked the commission or any commissioner. I look upon the Commissioners as Ogden's [and my] first line of defense against bad zoning and unwise development. Not as "the enemy" and I resented having the whole audience, my self and many others included, described as people who consider the Commissioners "the enemy." It's not true, and wild accusations like that do nothing to improve relations between Ogden citizens and their government. [I was pleased to see that most of the Commission did not seem to share his views in this regard. Though one or two seemed to.]
Something else I want to discuss in my letter [planned for next week; off on a business trip tomorrow] is the Peterson Connection. It is doubtless true that the Commission and Staff began looking at updating the Sensitive Area Overlay Ordinance a while ago, and I'm happy to believe that, as one of the Commissioners said, "Mr. Peterson's name has never been mentioned by us in discussing this ordinance. Not once."
However, it is also true, as reported by the SE that Mr. Peterson told the Council that he wants the ordinance revised to eliminate the ban on construction on grades in excess of 30% and that he intends not to present a detailed proposal to the Council until that is done first. It is Mr. Peterson who has joined this issue to his plans, and the fact is, now, the two are joined hip and thigh.
Here's the problem with Mr. Montgomery's insistence [echoed by many of the commissioners] that this ordinance revision affects private properties and not public lands, and so comments in re: and concerns about the Mt. Ogden parklands are not really appropriate to the discussion. That's simply not true. Actions have consequences. And one of the potential consequences of eliminating the 30% slope provisions of the existing ordinance is that it may [I would say will] make sale of the public openlands for development much more likely. [Absent the change, and alterations in the TRD provisions of zoning ordinances] the Mt. Ogden parklands would not be of much use to Mr. Peterson for his 400 plus home development.
So, eliminating the 30% provision of the ordinance may [will] have a substantial impact on existing public lands in Ogden. I don't think the Comissioners or the public are at all out of line in considering that consequence of the proposed revision while deciding if the revision overall is in Ogden's benefit. I am sure the Mayor and Mr. Peterson want to keep the matters compartmentalized and separate. Doing so serves their interests. It does not serve Ogden's. Changing the slope provisions of the Sensitive Overlay Ordinance may have a dramatic impact on the preservation of public open space in Ogden because it will increase the likelyhood that that open space will be sold and thus become private land, subject to the new regulations. In my view, potential consequences of the revision, like this one, are very much the Commission's business.
Last night, Mr. Montgomery dutifully conveyed another of the Administration's talking points: that what happens in the Mt. Ogden Community Plan now being prepared should not concern the planning commision as it discusses the Sensitive Overlay Zone ordinance, because the Mt. Ogden Plan "affects only one community while the Overaly ordinance affects the benchlands from the northern border of the city to the southern." Again, this second attempt at compartmentalizing matters serves the Mayor's and Mr. Peterson's interests nicely.
However, as was pointed out in public comments, the city's largest public park and open space, the Mt. Ogden parklands, happens to be mostly in the Mt. Ogden neighborhood, and so what happens to it, how it is treated in the Mt. Ogden Community Plan, affects residents in the entire city because it is their biggest park that may be impacted. As someone in SGO put it, "Mt. Ogen Park is where Ogden meets Ogden." Absolutely true.
I found it, therefor, disingenous of Mr. Montgomery to keep insisting that the Mt. Ogden Community plan, however it turns out, really does not bear on the Sensitive Overaly Zone ordinance revisions at all. Happy, at least some commissioners seemed to disagree.
No way could these matters have been addressed by me in two minutes. So I thought, the weariness of all being what it manifestly was as Wednesday approached Thursday in the Council Chamber, I would have a better chance to be heard and to make my points on paper than on my feet in two minutes.
Interesting meeting, and I was, overall, happy with what the Comissioners did.
Mono:
The SLTrib has a much fuller, and more balanced, report here.
The Salt Lake Trib's reporting on Decaria's decision.
This is closer to what I thought I read than the conclusions drawn the SE's headline and text.
Can somebody tell me what the vote tally was to defer the proposed changes? Was it unanimous? I spoke at the meeting but couldn't hang around for the end of it.
I did feel Monty's comments were rather obviously disingenuous, but I fear, as he works for Godfrey, that the words may not all have been his own. We all have to do what the boss tells us to.
danny,
The vote was unanimous, to postpone a decision on the Sensitive Area Overlay Zone ordinance until February's meeting, with a work session in January. Three of the commissioners, however, said "reluctantly yes" on the vote.
As the meeting dissolved, they also voted to postpone any consideration of the "mixed use" (aka no zoning) zone, until next month, I believe. By then the room was getting so noisy that I couldn't hear all that was being said.
I concur with Curmudgeon's comments, and would add a huge Thank You to the many citizens who took the time to attend the meeting or to submit written comments. Your voices were definitely heard, even though this won't be the end of the matter (not by a long shot).
On the completely different subject of the vangate report and its coverage in the newspapers, I think I'm almost ready to cancel the Standard-Examiner and subscribe to the Trib.
I think the vote to defer was unanimous, although two Commissioners prefaced their vote with the word "reluctantly."
My overriding impression of last night's meeting is that I am intensely proud to be living in Ogden City right now. The Council Chambers were full (one or two people were sitting on the floor at one time,) and the public was respectfully attentive throughout the four hours I was there except for right at the end, when it did become noisily confusing. As Curmudgeon said, the Witching Hour was upon us. The comments were articulate and eloquent, and the Commissioners receptive, and all who took part in this deserve high praise--especially the Planning Commission for helping this to happen and having a public process work the way it is supposed to work. It should also be given the stamina of the year award, because Commissioners had been on a field trip at 4 PM and the meeting began at 5 PM, adjourning sometime around midnight.
That being said, this proposed change in the law is a matter of deep concern to all of us for the following reasons:
The presentation focused upon additions to the existing ordinance, purportedly to tighten things up for safety reasons. However, upon reading the current ordinance and both revisions, one sees that many of the existing provisions have been cut. These in my opinion are important and necessary provisions, like public access to the mountains, preservation of natural habitat, open space, vegetation, etc.
Also cut are methods and regulations, and these have been replaced by the need for "studies." Instead of conforming to existing regs on hydrology, for instance, the developer simply has a study done on it. This I find alarming in that some "experts," and some "developers" are not entirely ethical and can be paid to say what one wants them to say. If we have an existing process for determining these things, why not just stick with it? Other developers have successfully worked within this existing law, after all.
Other cuts, mentioned by the public last night, were the need for economic feasibility studies and a financial bond. This last had been replaced by the words "financial guarantee." The individual commenting here said that we really need to know if these developments are going to sell, and what was a "financial guarantee?"
Mr. Montgomery addressed this last, and stated that the city no longer requires bonds, but has a "financial guarantee" put in an escrow account, and it consists of "the costs of building plus 10%."
If this is so, then that should have been in there under "Definitions." Its absence leads me to conclude that this was a roughly drawn up revision and had no business being put up for a vote in its present form.
Also of concern is the matter of sewer and water. The first draft stated that all single family homes had to be connected to city sewer and water. The second one omitted any mention of this.
Since it was emphasized that this ordinance would affect the whole of Ogden regarding development, this is really something that should be addressed, one would think. Unless we want septic tanks all over Ogden.
Some of these matters were vaguely addressed by the statement that many omissions were present "in other laws," and this one was purely confined to the Sensitive Overlay question. Habitat, some Commissioners said, had no business being addressed in this law at all.
I find this sort of thing unacceptable. If a law is going to be changed so as to eliminate public access and preservation of habitat, simply stating that these things are covered elsewhere in other laws will not do unless they show us how and where, because those things are important to us and many of us don't want to lose them. And need I also say that prospective developers should be made aware of these provisions in these other laws, should they exist.
During the meeting, this and much more was laboriously gone through, and the decision to table was based on these concerns, upon the fact that it was a huge amount of material that had undergone yet another revision within the last week, thereby necessitating that more time be taken, and also upon the fact that the Mount Ogden Community Plan has not yet been finalized, and members of the public who have been involved in that process were adamant in stating that the proposed change in this existing law was at odds with what the public was saying it wanted in the Mount Ogden Community Plan meetings.
Many portions of the proposed changes were praised by the Commissioners, with Robert Herman stating that, "We're 90% there," but it was obvious that the Commission didn't feel that the ordinance was there yet.
Which, in my opinion, is all to the good.
Og:
Yes, that's the problem. The policy wonks here on WC Forum interested in Vangate have read the actual report, and so they noticed, as you did, that the SE story did not entirely match what the report actually said. But most folks out there who read the SE will not have tracked down the full report on line and read it, and so will have no way to know that the SE summary is not entirely accurate. Or full.
On this one, the SLTrib story ate the SE story's lunch.
In a glaring oversight, I neglected to mention the presence at last night's Planning Commission meeting of two members of the Ogden City Council.
Councilwomen Dorrene Jeske and Amy Wicks were in attendance.
Although the Council's Rules of Procedure forbid Council Members to speak at Planning Commission meetings, these two attended, which leads one to conclude that they came to listen.
Other Ogden City Council members should follow this example, I think. If public opinion is indeed important to them, attendance at this meeting was an excellent way to find out about it.
Thanks, Dian, for the terrific summary. Let me add a few more observations to yours and Curmudgeon's.
It really is true that the existing SAOZ ordinance needs updating, and that some of the proposed changes would strengthen rather than weaken it. These were the aspects that Montgomery emphasized in his presentation.
It really is true that the ordinance affects much more of the city than just the land Peterson wants to acquire. The current extent of the SAOZ is clearly shown on the city's zoning map (large pdf). Last night they also alluded to plans to eventually amend the extent of the zone. They made it sound like the zone would be extended to cover more area, though we'd better watch carefully for any proposed deletions.
It was clear that all eight of the planning commissioners intend to approve some version or other of this revised ordinance eventually. We can ask the commissioners to fix the parts we don't like, but there's no point in asking them to reject all change. The fixing will take a lot of work, because the document is about 30 pages long (including both the new and old text).
I think the commissioners--even those who were pretty happy with the proposed ordinance as written--were genuinely glad to see so many citizens getting involved. In their motion to continue the matter until February, they were careful to specify that the public hearing would also be continued, so citizens would again have an opportunity to speak. On the other hand, the commissioners clearly did not want to be told that this was all intended to make way for the Peterson project, or to make way for selling city-owned park lands for development. (If that's true, then the administration should have no problem with restoring the 30% slope limit and the original density restrictions on slopes over 10%.)
Some of the commissioners also expressed the sentiment that this ordinance should be only about public safety, not about aesthetic or environmental or quality of life issues. But narrowing the scope to just public safety would be a clear departure from the multiple stated purposes of the existing ordinance, and I hope they realize this. One commissioner even went so far as to say that if the city wants to limit development for these non-safety reasons, it will have to compensate property owners for the associated loss of property value. I couldn't tell if this was his personal opinion or his interpretation of "takings" law. The law, however, says that compensation is called for only when zoning restrictions prohibit all building on a piece of property--not when they merely limit the density or the way it can be subdivided, for instance. Otherwise the city would have to compensate me for not letting me open a muffler shop in my back yard.
Besides the eight commissioners, two city attorneys, three planning staff, and two Council members, those in attendance included Scott Schwebke from the Standard-Examiner, Kristen Moulton from the Tribune, Tom Ellison (Peterson's attorney) and Curt Geiger. About two dozen citizens got up to speak on this issue; all were clearly against passing the ordinance in its current form. The speakers included Mary Hall, Sandy Crosland, Deb Badger, David Smith, Therese Grijalva, Jock Glidden, Don Wilson, Bryan Dorsey, Dan Bedford, Alice Mulder, Theresa Holmes, Caril Jennings, Al Stockland, Rob Garner, Sandy Davies, Sharon Beech (forensics expert!), and I apologize to all those I've forgotten. Many others were there to listen, and I recognized several faces to be those of Smart Growth supporters (Mike Vause, Fred and Joy Pashley, George Hall, Chris Bentley, Robyn Cascade) who undoubtedly shared the sentiments of those who spoke.
All in all, a great example of democracy at work.
The contributor list for BOTH candidates is indicative of one of the major problems with campaigns for office. BOTH candidates (and I am sure it is the same all over) have received huge amounts of money from people and /or entities who have NO BUSINESS contributing to that person. GREINER or REID are to represent the people of the 18th DISTRICT. So please tell my why people from SLC, Murray, Farmington, etc. are contributing? And PLEASE do NOT tell me this is a free speech issue - it is NOT!!
Sarge:
Exactly right. Except not all candidates operate this way. A few... a very small handful... refuse pac money [which is how most out of district cash is delivered around the country]. Russ Feingold, I think, takes no pac money, and there are one or two others. But not many.
Legally, meaning as far as the courts are concerned, it is a free speech issue.
But I agree, reducing the number of bought and paid for legislators [county, state and national] would be a very good thing for the Republic. The question is, how to do it. I can think of only one way, but it's a way that has given Republican lawmakers [not only them, but mostly them] the vapors every time it's brought up: publically funded election campaigns. Yes, funded by tax money, with no other contributions permitted on pain of disqualification.
Those of us who think this is a solution worth exploring think, though it would take tax revenues to do it, it would in the end save the taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars because we would no longer have rising to speak "the Senator from Bechtel" or "the Congressman from Enron" and so on. [Before you protest, Democratic congressmen have their snouts stuck as deeply into the corporate till as any others.] To get some idea of what the current system is costing us, just look at the multi-billion dollar give aways to Big Pharma in the Medicare Prescription Drug plan.
How would it work? Every credible candidate for office [and you'd need some way to determine credibility... signatures on petitions, or something] would get the same amount of tax money as all other candidates for that office, one month before election day. And we return to the "equal time" law for radio/tv coverage [that would take out the "independent" ads now flooding the airwaves, which is the main way around McCain-Feingold Act now].
All competing for an office start with the same cash, 30 days out, and the same access to media. And let the chips fall where they may. Perfect system? No. But better than we have now? I think it might be.
If you can think of another way to get Big Bucks out of the races and bought and sold congressmen therefor out as well, I'm all ears.
And of course we'd have, even to try something like this, a way around the Supreme Court's insistence that being able to spend 30 million on a race for the Senate is a free speech right.
Curm - that is NOT the only way to prevent this. All we need is a law requiring ALL donations to come ONLY from those who the person is representing.
Sarge, I agree - with the added provision that there be a limit on the amount that any individual can donate.
This would prevent the fat cat on the hill from owning the politicians like they do now.
Sarge:
Which would invite all kinds of money funneled in from outside via residents. E.g. I live in Sandy, let's say, and want Grenier elected because, as a Republican, he just naturally can be counted on to give away the public interest to the highest bidder. So I "give" money to residents in his district, and they give it to him. Or, to launder it better, I agree to do business with a company in his district, buying say widgets, and paying top dollar on the understanding tha the business owner will funnel the excess profit to Grenier.
Sorry, it think public funding, leveling all candidates to the same dollar amount, access to the press and time is the only way [if it can be done] to truly level the playing field.
Curm
That does seem like the best possible solution to the corruption we have in politics these days.
Politics
Poli = Many
Tics = Blood sucking animals
(Thanks to Kinky Freedman, next governor of Texas!)
Ed:
I have to admit, if I, for my sins, was condemned to live in Texas and vote there, I would be sorely sorely tempted to pull a lever for Kinky come election day. But... but... I keep thinking of the last time voters of a state were enamored of a whacky entertainer and elected him governor to show the politicians a thing or two. Jesse Ventura, elected governor Minnesota. And from what I've read, after one term, the voters, both main stream parties and masses of those who voed for Ventura, where heartily sick of his antics and tossed him out on his ear the first chance they got.
I admit, it would feel good... OH so good... to have Kinky F. inaugurated as Governor of Texas over those stuffed shirt hypocritical right wing extremists who currently dominate both houses there. But I'm not sure it would, the morning after the morning after, once the "take that, you slimy bastards!" euphoria passed, be the best thing for the state and its people.
But damn it would feel SO good the morning after....
Hey Curmudgeon, he couldn't screw it up any worse than those stuffed shirt hypocritical right wing extremist slimy bastards that are now in control have done. At least the eyes of Texas would have something to smile about once in a while. They sure don't get many laughs down there these days.
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