Wednesday, October 05, 2005
From the Rose Garden press conference (10/4/05)What Bush said: "We're gonna pay for the Katrina reconstruction with
offsets from non-defense mandatory domestic discretionary spending."
What Bush meant: "Now that we need money to rebuild the oil industry and we most certainly will not rescind my beloved tax cuts we must, only out of neccessity mind you, gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and Welfare and Edumacation and, and, and anything else that helps the poor."
Gerrymandering (v.) - the process of drawing up political districts to favor one party or the other, usually the one in power. It is a time honored tradition used to create a stranglehold on power by filling districts with voters sympthetic to your cause.
In the past week, the problems inherent in allowing one party to handle the reins of our government have been amplified as Tom DeLay (Republican House Majority Leader) has been indicted, not only on conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws but also on charges of money laundering, and the SEC confirmed that they are investigating Bill Frist's sale of HCA (Hospital Corporation of America) stock two weeks prior to the release of a disappointing earnings forecast that sent the stock's price tumbling. Scooter Libby and Karl Rove were confirmed as the originators of the leak that outed CIA agent Valerie Plame and it has been speculated far and wide that even Bush and Cheney could be held criminally liable for the leak.
News here in Ohio hasn't been much better in recent months. Bob Taft's approval rating has plummeted to an unimaginable 15%, (leading one to wonder when it became acceptable for pollsters to question frontal lobotomy patients.) Professional pollsters are flabbergasted by the historic numbers. "Almost any figure who’s elected in a partisan election usually has at least some support from his party," said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll, "Usually there’s a party base. It’s hard mathematically to get that low."
Of the remaning 85% that do not approve, more than half of those "strongly disapprove." And, unlike Bush who despite all that has gone wrong in recent weeks, more than three-fouths of GOP poll takers also disagree with how Taft is running the state. The phrase ". . . into the ground . . ." immediately comes to mind.
In previous months, our great state has been treated to the Larry Householder debacle, which, like all GOP shenanigans, has not seen any press here in Columbus, and the massive Bureau of Worker's Comp Coingate scandal which was too absurd not to be covered. Our political system has become a laughing stock, a playground for the wealthy while the rest of us get the shaft and it starts at the voting booth.
This November, the voters in Ohio will get the chance to take our elections out of the hands of big money. The RON amendments (Issues 2, 3, 4 & 5) will reform our electoral process on an unprecedented scale.
Issue 2 will allow all Ohioans to vote by mail up to 35 days early without having to give a qualifying reason, (i.e. overseas travel or military service.)
Issue 3 would limit campaign contributions to $2000 for statewide elections (governor, Attorney General, etc) and $1000 for legislative elections (state senators and representatives.)
It would also ban corporate contributions altogether and require full disclosure of donors, preventing big wigs from donating thousands of dollars in their infant children's names. (It has happened.)
Issue 4 would end gerrymandering in the state of Ohio and creates an independent commission to oversee the drawing of legislative districts.
Issue 5 would take the duties of supervising an election out of the hands of a partison political operative (namely the Secretary of State) and create a bi-partisan Board of Supervisors.
These issues need to be passed. The Ohio political system has become a joke. In an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this past August quoted David Tobin. Tobin, an Ohio State University law professor, came to Ohio after investigating campaign financing for the U.S. Senate and Justice Department in Washington, D.C. Although his comments are in regard to the Larry Householder investigations, they illustrate the kind of corruption and manipulation that the RON amendments hope to curtail.
"[In the Householder-Forbes affair there] certainly doesn't appear that there was any violation of campaign-finance law, but it highlights the problem in Ohio, where there is a public perception that in order to get anything done you need to make campaign contributions. I spent eight years in political environments in D.C., and there were a lot of campaign-finance abuses . . . but I was surprised when I came to Ohio that a lot of the problems in Ohio are far worse than the problems that we see at the federal level.
"Whether it's actual corruption or just a strong appearance of corruption, I have no way of knowing. But it's clear that, from the outside, it's a system that's in serious need of fixing."
The RON amendments will fix our electoral system and give us renewed confidence in our system of government once again.
Vote Yes on Issues 2, 3, 4 & 5 on November 8th.
