The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today in McDonald v. Chicago, otherwise known as the Chicago gun ban case. The court’s decision in this case will determine whether the Fourteenth Amendment means that the Second Amendment right to bear arms should prevent state and local governments from prohibiting citizens’ possession of functional firearms in their homes.

This is a very, very important case — but maybe not for readily apparent reasons. The central question is not so much the meaning of the Second Amendment — that was largely decided by last year’s D.C. gun ban case. Rather, this case concerns the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

When it was drafted and ratified, the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to do several things: First, to ensure that United States citizenship would be universal for those born within the country, and that no state could deny state citizenship to someone who is an American citizen; this was a pressing concern given that the recently Confederate states might well have denied citizenship to freed slaves. Second, to ensure that all citizens were assured of a certain baseline of liberty that could not be denied by any state or local government, because some state governments, when left to their own devices, had previously refused to offer the same protections for liberty enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Under the new amendment, states were required to afford all U.S. citizens the “privileges and immunities” protected under the U.S. Constitution — including a right to travel freely across state lines, a right to earn a living in a common profession, etc. And, finally, the amendment was intended to ensure that all citizens must be treated equally under the law, so that no state could fashion laws that would discriminate against newly freed slaves or other “outsiders.”

Very shortly after the amendment’s ratification, however, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down The Slaughterhouse Cases. At issue was a law in New Orleans that created a butchering cartel controlled by the city, limiting the number of people permitted to practice the profession. The law made it so that citizens could only practice the profession with the city’s permission, and then only at a time and place of the city’s choosing. The city’s butchers sued, claiming that the Fourteenth Amendment prevented a state or local government from infringing upon their right to practice their profession. The Supreme Court responded with a ruling that the vast majority of legal scholars now consider one of the least-defensible in the court’s history (see p. 11 of the brief in the preceding link).

The court couldn’t negate the provision establishing universal citizenship, but its decision in Slaughterhouse completely eviscerated (so to speak) the other provisions of the first section — leaving the states free to limit access to professions, set up sweetheart deals for favored business interests and industries, institute poll taxes or other requirements that disenfranchised targeted segments of the population, and pass the Jim Crow–era segregation laws. Had the Fourteenth Amendment been properly applied from the outset, there might have been no need for a civil rights movement because segregation would never have been permitted in the first place, and freed slaves (as well as new immigrants) would have had easier access to self employment in entry-level professions.

Over time, the Supreme Court realized the evils that states were perpetrating against their citizens and so they came up with the doctrine of “substantive due process” as a way of selectively applying the Bill of Rights to strike down illegitimate state laws. It’s an absolute legal fabrication, but it has allowed the court to address issues of constitutional freedom in the way it has seen fit, without admitting that the court got Slaughterhouse wrong. So, almost the entire Bill of Rights has now been “incorporated” into the idea of substantive due process (meaning that 140 years later, the court has almost completely accomplished the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment), but several of the most important “privileges and immunities” — such as the right to earn a living — remain on the outside looking in. For whatever reason, the court has continued to hesitate in taking the final, proper, liberty-respecting step.

Taking that step would mean that federal courts could strike down state laws in violation of the privileges and immunities that have been neglected for all this time – but that is not only what the Constitution requires, it is inherently a good thing for liberty! Getting the history and constitutional theory correct would simply re-anchor the methods of analysis to their historical underpinnings, instead of allowing the unprincipled free-for-all that sometimes becomes apparent in the way the court addresses constitutional freedoms. I can’t help but think it would be a good thing, both at the philosophical and the practical level.

Oregon, a state that we talk about a lot on this blog because it seems to be in the forefront of a lot of good and bad ideas, just raised taxes through a ballot initiative. Meaning, the good people of Oregon used the power of initiative petition to just jack up the tax rates on business and the “wealthy” in Oregon. A famous anonymous quote (often misattributed to Alexander Tytler and Alexis de Tocqueville) observed, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” Luckily, the people of America have mostly proven that prediction wrong. However, votes like the one in Oregon, as well as the inevitable entitlement crisis we’ll face in about 20 years, may prove it right one day.

And, yes, I am aware that the entitlement crisis is just as much to blame on the elected officials who put the programs in as on the people who support them with their votes.

A Springfield News-Leader article about the Census doesn’t mention the Constitution. Nor does it characterize the Census as a medium for your life story, as the Census Bureau would like you to believe. Instead, it makes participating in the Census sound like a great opportunity to express your dependence on government.

As David Stokes pointed out in the comments to my previous post, local governments want as many people as possible to mail back their Census forms, because Census data determine the allocation of federal funds. A manager in the Springfield Census office puts it bluntly:

“We have to show that there is a need and that there are people here in the community,” she said.

Here’s another quote from her, this time referring to those who don’t participate in the Census as if they were no better than recalcitrant drug addicts:

“We’re trying to be very genuine about how we help the community, and we can’t help them unless they help themselves by cooperating.”

To this manager, civic duty and the Constitution’s directives take second place (if they factor in at all) to grubbing for cash — an effort that will succeed only if you prove that a lot of people in your area need the money. I don’t think this is going to resonate with people. I expect that more people will be enthused about submitting their autobiographies than about begging for handouts.

The “let the government help you” theme reminds me of something from a campaign in 2000. As part of his bid for lieutenant governor, Wendell Bailey ran an ad on the radio that went like this: First, the announcer said, “Seniors have problems.” Then you heard the distraught voice of a senior crying, “We need help!” The announcer came back on with the slogan, “Wendell will work.” Bailey ended up losing the election, and I don’t think the tone of his radio advertising made the campaign any easier for him. People just don’t rally around the idea that they’re helpless.

I’d prefer that officials stress the constitutional source for the Census, but if they’re not going to do that, they might do better to focus on the stories rather than the tax dollars.

This article in the Southeast Missourian features quotes from Missouri officials about why people should participate in the Census. No one mentions the reason I find most compelling: The Constitution requires us to take a census every ten years. Still, all of the quotes are more germane than the talk about “portraits” and “stories” that we’ve heard from the Census Bureau lately. At least the article discusses how government will use the information that’s collected.

When you look at all the media coverage of the Census marketing campaign, it’s easy to forget that most people won’t receive their forms until the middle of March. With each new Census, there’s more advertising and it starts earlier — kind of like how stores try to stretch the holiday shopping season by bringing out the Christmas decorations earlier and earlier in the fall.

I hope it’s another 10 years before we encounter a vast campaign promoting the 2020 Census.

The Constitution is a product of the Founders’ wisdom, and that includes its provisions for the national Census. Taking a census is a good idea. Performing government functions and writing new laws would be all but impossible if we didn’t know how many people lived in the United States or how the population was distributed across the country.

What the Constitution does not mandate (nor should) is that the Census serve as a vehicle for personal fulfillment. It’s not about your memories, hopes, and dreams. It’s just a bunch of numbers.

So I’m dismayed by the St. Louis Beacon’s announcement that the 2010 Census “Portrait of America” Road Tour is stopping in St. Louis on Monday morning. One of the activities listed is: “Record [your] story in one of two Portrait of America video kiosks.” Hoping that the video project might be a local initiative and not affiliated with the Census, I headed over to the Census blog, where I learned that the Census Bureau really is collecting personal videos from all these events. Visitors will also “have the opportunity to share their photos and stories.” To top it all off, the Census website states that “The 2010 Census is a portrait, and it belongs to all of us.”

The Road Tour activities are obviously voluntary; most people will mail in their Census forms without sharing any family stories with the government. Still, I see two problems with the campaign. First, it encourages people to adopt the attitude that the government is a member of our families — or, at least, our personal archivist. Second, it’s easily extended to children who aren’t yet able to differentiate between what citizens have to do to participate in the Census, and optional activities that aren’t required of them. Children may get the impression that giving a personal narrative to the government is just as important as filling out the Census form.

The Census Bureau is already trying to involve students. Here is another excerpt from the Census blog:

The first graders at Gateway Elementary School stole my heart today in St. Louis. I entered their library with a set of officials and there they were, dressed in little white t-shirts promoting the census.

Dressing up little kids to promote the Census is creepy, and I don’t think it’s what the Founders had in mind when they wrote Article 1, Section 2.

Here at Show-Me Daily, we have long documented the efforts of the Missouri Municipal League to prevent this state’s citizens from voting on constitutional amendments that would severely limit abuses of eminent domain in this state. For years now, the league (its leadership is made up of elected officials from across the state) has successfully persuaded cities to use your taxpayer dollars in order to help support their effort. Part of that effort has included litigation that the filers claimed to be an attempt to get a “fair” ballot title — but, in reality, it was intended to keep the measure off the ballot entirely by so delaying the signature-gathering process that it would be impossible to collect the necessary number within the limited time available.

Up until a few weeks ago, advocates of eminent domain reform had no real proof that the Municipal League’s lawsuits had this suspected insidious purpose. On Nov. 20, however, at a meeting of the Missouri Bar Association’s Eminent Domain Committee, a managing partner in the law firm representing the Municipal League was asked to give an update on the litigation. She had this to say (audio transcript; emphasis added):

It’s not a real big update, but … um … from the standpoint of the initiative petition, uh, we did partially win, uh, in the … at the trial court level, and it’s on expedited appeal for the western district, um, which will be argued in December, with the main objective being to delay the gathering of signatures and, um, hopefully we’re … we’re accomplishing that.

Missouri Citizens for Property rights, the group spearheading the petition effort, has asked the court for permission to supplement the record with the audio evidence of the attorney’s statement, and should hear today whether the court will agree. If the court chooses to take her statement seriously, it could assign sanctions against her firm for violating the ethical rules (yes, attorneys are supposed to understand ethics) governing the legal profession.

The story has started to gain interest nationwide — as it should. It is yet another example of powerful people trying to prevent ordinary citizens from having their own say on important issues. The AP article has so far been run by media outlets in Atlanta, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Miami, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Dayton, Ohio. Here in Missouri, the story has been reported in Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia, Jefferson City, Joplin, Cape Girardeau, and St. Louis — although it is interesting to note that the Ost-Pay Ispatch-Day, for some reason, has not yet covered this story.

Among the elements of the health bill being considered by Congress is a requirement that every adult would either have to purchase a health insurance policy or face punitive fines to be collected by the Internal Revenue Service. There has been widespread debate in legal circles about whether the courts would uphold such a requirement, but lawmakers in several states are trying to do what they can to insulate their citizens from such a requirement. In Missouri, state Sen. Jane Cunningham has already persuaded half of her colleagues to cosponsor Senate Joint Resolution 25, an amendment to the state Constitution that would recognize the citizens’ right to decide for themselves whether they will participate in any health care system.

Under this amendment, the government would be denied the authority to prevent citizens from offering or accepting direct payment for health care services, and it would not be permitted to substantially limit the purchase or sale of health insurance in private health care systems. In addition to recognizing that this is a sort of common-sense freedom that ought to be enshrined in the Constitution, the proponents of SJR 25 are aware that state constitutions are permitted to afford liberties above and beyond those secured under the U.S. Constitution, and that there is a possibility the courts might find that even a federal statute cannot violate those additional rights.

This proposed amendment has sparked the interest of some in the media, including an article from the St. Louis Beacon (authored by William Freivogel, director of the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale) with a headline suggesting that, if passed, SJR 25 would itself violate the U.S. Constitution. I quickly posted a rejoinder in the comment section of that article, but I felt it would be worthwhile to restate in this forum the points I made in those comments.

There are four major constitutional issues raised by the potential federal health insurance mandate and Sen. Cunningham’s proposed amendment: 1) Does the proposed law fit within the powers that the Constitution gives to Congress? 2) Does the proposed law infringe upon powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment? 3) Does the requirement to buy health insurance unconstitutionally infringe upon the individual liberties secured to American citizens under the First, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments? And, 4) Does the Supremacy Clause allow for the enforcement of a federal statute even if that statute conflicts with individual rights protected under a state constitution? I’ll address these points in order.

As we all remember from high school, congressional authority is limited to those powers explicitly granted by the Constitution. In this case, the question would be whether the Constitution gives Congress the authority to punish citizens for refusing to purchase health insurance.

Those backing the bill suggest that this authority is part of part of Congress’ power “to regulate commerce … among the several states[.]“ It is true that courts have generally interpreted this power very broadly, resulting in the decision that a farmer named Filburn was bound by agricultural regulations even though he was not taking his grain to market, as well as the decision that Angel Raich was subject to federal drug laws even though her medical marijuana was homegrown and neither bought nor sold.

But courts have also recognized limits to congressional authority under the Commerce Clause. In U.S. v. Lopez, the Supreme Court held that the Commerce Clause did not permit Congress to create a federal law banning possession of firearms in a school zone. In U.S. v. Morrison, the court struck down a law that addressed the subject of gender-based violent crime. The primary reason that the court struck down the laws in Lopez and Morrison was that the subjects Congress sought to regulate lacked a clear impact on commerce among the states.

While much of the health insurance industry is handled within the bounds of individual states (it is very unusual to be able to purchase insurance from a company in a state other than the one in which you are domiciled), I believe that courts will be inclined to find that health insurance as a whole is an issue with a sufficient connection to interstate commerce to permit congressional regulation. But, if Congress passes a bill mandating that individuals must either buy health insurance or face financial sanctions, courts will have to answer a very specific question: Does the power to regulate interstate commerce give Congress the authority to penalize citizens who do not wish to engage in commerce? As Prof. Randy Barnett pointed out at a recent Heritage Foundation debate, the Supreme Court has never faced such a question, so we cannot be certain how it will be answered. I tend to agree with Barnett that the Court’s response will likely hinge on the solicitor general’s ability to explain which aspects of citizens’ lives (if any) would remain beyond the reach of congressional regulation if the Court permitted these mandates to be enforced.

One of the law professors cited by Freivogel argued that even without relying on the Commerce Clause, authority for the health insurance mandate could be found in Congress’ power “to lay and collect taxes … [to] provide for the … general welfare of the United States[.]” I disagree. While this provision might permit the creation of a tax-based public health insurance system like Medicare that all workers pay into, this is not what is anticipated in the insurance mandate under consideration, which is neither tax-based nor public. Nor would the alleged “tax” be collected from all workers. Furthermore, even if the fees for failing to purchase health insurance were classified as a tax, Congress is specifically denied the authority to impose capitation taxes “unless in proportion to the census,” a requirement that this proposal does not seem to meet.

Assuming the courts were to determine that Congress does have the general authority to impose a health insurance mandate, the next question would be whether the issue should be reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. While Congress has for decades been active on the subject of health care, this does not necessarily imply that Congress may remove state governments’ ability to decide whether their citizens should be punished for failing to purchase health insurance. In fact, this is an issue that several states have previously dealt with, in which at least one state (Massachusetts) has adopted such a mandate and a number of other states have considered — yet refrained from — doing the same. Federal courts have previously been very willing to permit congressional interference even in areas that were traditionally the sole province of the states, but considering the current ideological composition of the Supreme Court, it is possible (although, admittedly, unlikely) that a majority might take this opportunity to redefine (or restore) the balance of power between the federal government and the states.

Most of the arguments I’ve heard so far regarding the proposed health insurance mandate have neglected to address whether it might violate the First, Fifth, or Ninth Amendments, but I think this is an oversight. The Supreme Court has previously recognized that the Constitution protects citizens’ rights to associate with others of their choosing, to enter into contracts, to make their own decisions regarding health care, and, of course, their right to privacy. A violation of any one of these rights could be sufficient to invalidate the health insurance mandate.

While some people may not carry health insurance because it is unaffordable, many choose not to purchase health insurance. Some people’s religions may not permit the use of modern medicine, while others may not believe it to be effective. Still others are simply confident enough in their propensity for health that they are willing to risk the costs of illness or injury in order to direct their money to concerns that they believe to be more pressing. And there are some who, recognizing that most people pay far more to insurance companies than they are ever likely to need for their own treatment costs, would prefer to self-insure by creating their own health fund. For each of these people, a congressional directive to purchase a health insurance policy would mean giving up a huge amount of money — as well as a significant amount of privacy — committing themselves to a contract for goods and services that they do not want, and in some cases may be prohibited from using.

There is a principle in American law that says the government may not punish someone for exercising a constitutional right, and neither may it offer a benefit on condition of the citizen’s willingness to refrain from exercising a constitutional right. In the case of an individual health insurance mandate, the government would be telling its citizens that if they choose not to associate with an insurance company by entering into a contract under which they will be required to pay large sums of money while also disclosing private information about their health, they will be subject to very large fines. I think that this is clearly an infringement of some, if not all, of the constitutional rights listed above.

Unfortunately, establishing an infringement of rights does not end the analysis. In fact, the Supreme Court has long permitted infringement of these kinds of liberty, as long as the government could advance what the court considered to be a sufficiently important interest in doing so. In the case of the individual health insurance mandate, the goal advanced by the government would be to bring about slightly lower insurance premiums and, thus, to increase the number of people with access to health care. This is just a hunch, but I suspect that courts will not find this interest sufficiently compelling to justify forcing citizens to purchase coverage that they do not want and may have no intention of using, particularly when doing so necessarily requires an invasion of their privacy.

My final point is that if the courts find that the U.S. Constitution does not afford citizens protection from being forced to participate in a health care system, the courts will have to decide whether the Supremacy Clause permits a federal statute to be applied in such a way that it violates an individual freedom recognized by a state constitution. As I pointed out in my first comment, it is very possible — perhaps even likely — that the courts will decide that these state constitutional amendments do not bind the federal government. It is important to note, however, that this sort of holding would not strike these provisions down as “unconstitutional.” Rather, it would simply prevent their application against the federal government — perhaps foiling the hopes of the state constitutions’ drafters, but certainly not preventing the effectiveness of the provision against state governments and their subdivisions.

As our regular readers will remember, on Nov. 18, the Show-Me Institute published a study that discusses recent research on the impact that charter schools are having on students’ academic achievement. At that time, we sent the study to newspapers across the state, along with an op-ed I had written discussing its findings. As is the case with any op-ed, my ability to address nuances in the research was dramatically limited by the need to keep it short enough for newspapers to consider publishing it. Thus, I was unable to go into great detail about the various studies and instead focused on the primary goal of the piece: making people aware of this new study so they could consider it for themselves.

When the Springfield News-Leader expressed interest in running the op-ed, they asked me to trim it down by 50 words so that it would fit their publishing parameters. As I hope readers will see, an op-ed’s final form rarely allows the author to offer a comprehensive picture of all the information they would convey if space were no constraint. Perhaps as a result of this necessary brevity, some of the News-Leader’s readers have posted a few skeptical comments about my op-ed, so I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to the points they raise.

The first issue I’d like to address is that of my motives for writing on this topic. The commenter writing under the name “Ray Smith” suggested that I am part of a general effort to “undermine public education,” and that I have simply seized upon President Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative (which, in part, promotes the expansion of charter schools) as an opportunity to promote my own agenda.

I do have one comprehensive, all-encompassing agenda when it comes to the subject of education, and I don’t care who knows it. I want to make sure that all parents have the greatest possible range of options when it comes to deciding where their children will be educated. While I, myself, am a proud product of an excellent public school system, it does not matter to me in the slightest if parents prefer traditional public schools, charter schools, parochial schools, or secular private schools. All that concerns me is that children get the best available educations — and I firmly believe that the greatest likelihood of achieving that goal is to fashion education policy in such a way that parents can vote with their feet if they decide a school is not meeting their child’s needs.

As should be clear, many parents do not believe that their local traditional public schools are the best educational option for their children — and, with that being the case, it makes the most sense to help those parents find alternatives that will serve their families better. I suggested in my op-ed that, to the extent that charter schools expand the range of options available to parents, they serve as a step toward this goal. Thus, expanding charter school availability represents good policy. In my mind, it is merely a bonus that the best academic research is showing that most (though far from all) charter schools are performing as well as or better than their traditional public school counterparts when it comes to certain measures of academic achievement.

Which brings us to Mr. Smith’s suggestion that I believe charter schools to be a “magic bullet” that will solve the education problems rampant in our state — and his intimation that I was ignoring evidence that I did not like. To the contrary, when writing the op-ed, I wanted to make sure that I pointed out the evidence in our own study that calls into question whether charter schools always generate better results than traditional public schools. Mr. Smith correctly points out that the Stanford study shows that a significant number of the nation’s charter schools appear to be attracting students, even though the schools do not currently appear to measure up to their traditional school counterparts in regard to academic achievement as measured by standardized tests. The reason I addressed the Stanford study in the op-ed was because the authors of the recently released Show-Me Institute study did not have access to research that isolated Missouri’s charter schools, and I believed that it would be valuable to highlight the fact that, in spite of the Stanford study’s broader findings, the data do suggest that Missouri’s charter schools are performing better than most.

Here at Show-Me Daily, I can address the Stanford study’s findings a little more broadly. For charter opponents, of course, the suggestion that some charter schools are not improving their students’ academic achievement is a clear signal that these schools need to close. Maybe … but maybe not. I have previously stated on this very blog that I do not generally oppose the closure of especially bad charter schools. But the facts also bear out that official action is not necessarily needed to close these schools, because in cases where the situation is truly bad, parents will voluntarily move their children to a different school and that bad school will fail for lack of funding (much as any other business would).

Also,as I note in the op-ed, parents consider a wide array of factors when deciding where to send their children to be educated — and, for many parents, academic achievement may not be the most important factor. So, if a charter school lags a little bit behind its traditional charter school counterparts in academic performance, but dozens of parents still want to send their children there, maybe government officials shouldn’t force its closure. After all, we don’t allow government officials to tell wealthy parents what factors they can consider in choosing a school for their children, so why should we assume that government officials are within their rights to tell lower-income parents what factors they can consider?

And, finally, I will add that I would actually prefer that Missouri not seek “Race to the Top” funding. In my opinion, the Tenth Amendment should preclude the federal government from interfering with educational matters, because they have always been reserved to the states. While I do think it would be good policy to expand the availability of charter schools in our state, if Missouri’s legislators are not persuaded that a particular policy is the best idea for our families, they certainly shouldn’t adopt it simply because the federal government is dangling money out there as an incentive.

A few days ago, the Joplin Globe ran an editorial that discussed the micro issue of the relationship between Gov. Jay Nixon and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and the macro issue of the role of the lieutenant governor in Missouri government. It was a nice article, using a recent news issue as an opening to discuss a much larger question, which was a lot of fun to read and consider.

The Globe thinks that the political infighting between the governor and the lieutenant governor could be ended by having them elected on a ticket, as opposed to the current system in which they each run independently. Our current system has resulted in Missouri having a governor and lieutenant governor from opposite parties five times, or for 20 cumulative years, since World War II. From 1977 to 1993, we had different parties holding the two offices every year. The Globe is certainly right that changing that system might end the infighting, although the governor and lieutenant governor in Illinois were both Democrats, and they hated each other before the governor was forced to (how should I put this nicely?) step aside in preparation for a lifestyle change. But anyway …

Even though the Globe is correct that political sniping might decrease, I don’t support electing the lieutenant governor on a ticket with the governor. My antennas go up whenever anyone advocates making government run more smoothly so they can go out and get things done for the working people of this state! (The last sentence should be read aloud, like a politician giving a stump speech.) The Globe quotes former state Sen. Richard Webster:

He proposed that the candidates for the two offices appear together as a unit on the ballot, thus encouraging a spirit of cooperation and heading off the sort of political gamesmanship evident now.

I take P.J. O’Rourke’s attitude that preventing politicians from governing is like preventing a pit bull from eating your child, so needless to say I don’t give a whit about making government function more smoothly. (Streamlining government services in order to save tax dollars is a different story.)

When Missourians go to the polls on vote on the lieutenant governor, they know (at least, some of them know) that they are electing someone for two main jobs: to step in as governor during extreme circumstances (which just happened in 2000), and to serve as a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. If the people of the state want someone who belongs to a different party than the governor to serve in those roles, that should be up to them.

The fact is that Missourians chose Jay Nixon to be governor and Peter Kinder to be lieutenant governor. If they had run on a ticket, Missouri would have gotten a lieutenant governor that the majority of the state did not want to elect. I think that giving people the fullest choice possible, so they can elect the person that they wanted to elect, is the most important thing. If we have to live with a poorly functioning tourism board as a result, that is fine with me.

I’ll be a guest on Charlie Brennan’s morning show on KMOX tomorrow from around 9:30–10:00 a.m. What will I be discussing? I’m glad you asked. …

Although we haven’t yet discussed it on the blog, I hope that all of our readers are aware that the St. Louis Police arrested Gustavo Rendon, husband of the president of the North Side Community Benefits Alliance. Why? Because he was distributing fliers that opposed the NorthSide redevelopment project recently approved by the city. Even worse, he just happened to be doing so outside the church of Alderwoman April Ford-Griffin, a staunch supporter of the project. So, two police officers arrived, threatened to put his kids in foster care if he didn’t stop distributing the fliers, then arrested him.

The charge? Affixing advertisements to private property.

Fortunately, the city attorneys quickly realized that the ordinance under which they arrested him didn’t, you know, prohibit what he was doing. And even if it had prohibited distributing fliers that communicated purely political ideas, the ordinance probably would have been unconstitutional anyway. So, today they announced that they were dropping the charges.

The bigger problem, which I hope to address with Mr. Brennan, is that Mr. Rendon’s arrest is suggestive of a much larger problem: powerful people trying to stop citizens from having their say on important public issues. In this case, it was police officers arresting someone for communicating opposition to a redevelopment project. In Jim Roos’ case, a city agency is trying to destroy a sign calling for an end to eminent domain abuse. In the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District, officials tried to fine and ban from future meetings certain taxpayers who protested the district’s insane spending. And, of course, the Missouri Municipal League is using taxpayer money for a lawsuit with the primary goal of keeping off the ballot a constitutional amendment that would go a long way toward ending eminent domain abuse in the state — because they know it will pass if citizens are allowed to vote!

So, like I said, tune in tomorrow morning as Charlie Brennan and I discuss these issues. Who knows, there might even be some interesting surprises involved. And, if you can’t listen to tomorrow’s show, keep an eye on the Policy Pulse website, where Audrey Spalding is continuing to do excellent work reporting on abuses of taxpayer money and government authority.

As we have written previously, one of the great evils of tax increment financing (TIF) is that it offers special advantages to the beneficiaries selected by elected officials, forcing everyone else in the market to compete at a disadvantage. Sadly, there’s a new example of how destructive this sort of policy can be.

Months ago, the city of Rock Port, Mo., decided to approve a TIF project worth $175,000 in order to bring a new grocery store to town. The long-time owners of Rock Port Market (up to that time the only local grocery store serving the town’s residents) said they didn’t mind fair competition from a new store, but objected that the TIF would give the new store a gigantic financial advantage not offered to the existing business. Sadly, just six months later, the family that has operated Rock Port Market for nearly 80 years has decided to close the market’s doors.

True economic development happens best when governments allow businesses to compete on a field that offers no special advantages to any of the players. The government does a grave disservice to its citizens when it assumes the responsibility for picking winners and losers in the market, rather than letting businesses succeed or fail on their own merit.

This week, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to spend two consecutive afternoons being interviewed on St. Louis’ WGNU, a radio station with programming directed to the city’s African-American population. On Monday afternoon, I spent an hour as part of a panel conversation (with Sheila Rendon and Romona Williams of the North Side Community Benefits Alliance) discussing eminent domain and the proposed NorthSide Regeneration Project on Kuumba Nia’s radio show. (Audio available here.)

The conversation went so well that I was invited back the following afternoon to spend another hour discussing the same topic with co-hosts state Sen. Robin Wright-Jones and John Bowman on her show, “The Wright Side of Politics.” (Audio available here.) My conversation partners the second day were Barbara Manzara and Keith Marquard, also of the North Side Community Benefits Alliance. If you’re interested in hearing from those on the front lines of the upcoming battle over the proposed redevelopment effort, give these two shows a listen!

I think I have a new candidate for Missouri’s worst law: RSMo 94.270. What makes this law so awful is that it combines two of the things I loathe: government licensure and special laws written in blatant violation of our state Constitution that are somehow allowed anyway, probably because hardly anyone ever challenges them.

The first section of the law lists all the types of businesses cities are allowed to license and tax. A very revealing part of the law adds another word (emphasis added):

and to license, tax, regulate and suppress ordinaries, money brokers, money changers [...]

The law then proceeds to get even worse, where it specifically forbids three cities from applying hotel taxes larger than a certain (very small) amount. Now, far be it for me to argue in favor of letting cities tax more, but it is still ridiculous that the legislature allows some cities to enact hotel taxes and forbids others from doing so. This law limits the taxation options of only three cities: St. Peters, Woodson Terrace, and Edmundson. The mayor of St. Peters has recently asked for an investigation, but that is not the point of my post.

Missouri has way too many “special laws” that apply only to certain areas or municipalities. Many of those laws allow for higher taxes or increased government authority. Just because this one limits taxes is not a good reason for it to apply so selectively, although I guess that makes it very slightly better than the others. I hope the cities targeted by the law challenge this and win, and I hope that it leads to fewer specially targeted laws all around. More to come on this from the Show-Me Institute in the future.

The Show-Me Institute was pleased to be able to host Jeff Benedict, author of Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage, for speaking engagements in both Kansas City and St. Louis earlier this month. The first of those events, held in conjunction with the Kansas City Public Library, is now available for your viewing pleasure on our website. Hear how Susette Kelo’s heroic fight to save her New London, Conn., home turned into the landmark Supreme Court case that outraged homeowners and sparked a legislative backlash across the nation. Kicking off the event is R. Crosby Kemper III, executive director of the Kansas City Public Library and chairman of the board of directors for the Show-Me Institute.

I’ve also posted it below, for your convenience. This playlist consists of seven separate parts. After each individual part has finished playing, the playlist should automatically load the subsequent part until the sequence has finished. You may also choose to view any individual part on its own:

Part 1 (10:00) | Part 2 (10:03) | Part 3 (9:47) | Part 4 (10:01) | Part 5 (9:59) | Part 6 (10:00) | Part 7 (5:58)

A couple of weeks ago, the Show-Me Institute hosted events in Kansas City and St. Louis at which Jeff Benedict discussed his book Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage, the story of Susette Kelo’s fight to save her home in New London, Conn. As most will know, Susette lost her fight when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution permits cities to take private property on behalf of new private owners, so long as those owners are considered more likely to generate more tax revenue for the city.

Many people at these events asked whatever became of the planned development once the city won the case. Did they ever build the luxury hotels and condominiums, or the high-end retail shopping establishments that were promised? New London’s local newspaper, The Day, has produced a video that lets you see for yourself how the development is faring, four years after Mrs. Kelo’s neighborhood was leveled. I hope the city is satisfied with the Fort Trumbull neighborhood’s new residents.

Combest has a number of links to articles today about Sen. Claire McCaskill’s repeated targeting of the earmark process in Congress.

Defenders of earmarks, which include Rep. Ron Paul and his fans (of which I am one, although I didn’t support him in the GOP primary in ‘08), like to state that earmarking gives elected officials the power to distribute money instead of bureaucrats. For example, if Congress appropriated $10 million for widgets, it can either trust bureaucrats to determine who gets which widget, or the elected officials can decide themselves how to spend the $10 million on widget-related projects. Either way, $10 million is spent on widgets. With earmarks, they argue, voters can more easily render judgments upon the choices that were made.

That argument is valid, but only in a short-term sense: It holds true for the market day of whatever bill is being voted on. In the long run, however, the power to earmark a bill — which involves taking appropriated money and directing its use in a manner that does not get specifically debated or voted on — is a big part of the continuing pressure to spend more and more money every year. If members of Congress did not have the power to direct money quickly and easily back to their constituents, some of them would undeniably have more of an incentive to reduce expenditures. If they could not earmark, they would have to go through the longer and more transparent process of getting individual approval for each of their pet projects, with up and down votes for all of the various amendments and proposals. No doubt much of the spending would remain. At some point, though, when it becomes more difficult to get projects approved, there would be less spending. If the process became more open and obvious, some members of Congress might think twice about how self-serving their projects appear.

Earmarking is one of the central issues in the problem of targeted benefits and dispersed costs that is central to the phenomenon of pork barrel spending.

Once again, I commend Sen. McCaskill for her efforts in this regard.

Last night, Jenifer Roland (that is not a typo, she really just uses one “n”) and I were honored to be invited to address a meeting of the Meramec Township Republican Club in Southwest St. Louis County. (Think of the area around Fenton and Eureka if you are wondering where Meramec Township is.) It was a great opportunity to talk to a very large crowd about the Show-Me Institute and some of our studies. Jen gave an excellent talk about our recent health care study and touched on cap ‘n crunch trade.

I provided background about the Show-Me Institute and spoke briefly about property taxes and assessments. There were a number of Republican local elected officials there, and representatives of federal officeholders like Rep. Todd Akin and Sen. Kit Bond.

This was a township forum, not a tea party protest, but it quickly became clear that a number of tea party protesters also attended this event in order to have an opportunity to talk to some of their representatives. Here, though, the elected officials predominantly agreed with them, and the term “preaching to the choir” was used several times.

I love the tea party movement. I love that people are getting involved in their democracy. I appreciate that many tea party activists used to participate in real-world civics only through voting once — maybe twice — every four years, and now they are becoming more fully involved in the process. I would personally like to have heard a little less lecturing and condescension in some of the comments by the tea party activists last night, but you never get everything you want in life.

All in all, it was a terrific meeting and we thank Meramec Township for inviting us. Remember, Show-Me Institute staff and scholars are always available to speak about public policy to your political or civic group, of any party or affiliation.

On Tuesday, Sept. 15, the Show-Me Institute released a new study: “Gradual and Silent Erosions: How the Missouri Supreme Court Expanded the Power of Eminent Domain.” It discusses last year’s Missouri Supreme Court decision in City of Arnold v. Tourkakis, and was written by Timothy Sandefur, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation and a nationally recognized expert in constitutional protection of property rights who represented Homer and Julie Tourkakis in their fight to save their dentist’s office from being taken from them by Arnold, Mo., on behalf of a private developer.

Sandefur points out several areas in which the Tourkakis court’s analysis veered away from earlier holdings about how laws should be interpreted and applied, before concluding that the court’s refusal to protect Dr. Tourkakis’ office from the wrecking ball represents only the latest in a series of steps that Missouri courts have taken away from the powerful protections for property ownership that are enshrined in the state’s Constitution.

Today, colleges around the country are hosting speakers and events to celebrate Constitution Day. Yesterday, the Show-Me Institute hosted Jeff Benedict to talk about an abuse of constitutional rights and eminent domain in the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court case.

While Susette Kelo’s case is well-known nationally, a new Show-Me Institute policy study also brings to light eminent domain abuses in Missouri. “Gradual and Silent Encroachments: How the Missouri Supreme Court Expanded the Power of Eminent Domain,” by Timothy Sandefur, a senior staff attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, tackles recent cases that have set back the constitutional rights of Missourians. Though this state once had one of the strongest constitutional provisions to protect home and business owners against eminent domain, new precedents by the Supreme Court have eroded that protection.

As Policy Pulse and Show-Me Daily continue to report, eminent domain is still a very pertinent issue in Missouri.

Constitution Day serves as a great reminder that some of the founding ideals of the country, like the respect of one’s own private property, still need to be protected.

As the Springfield News-Leader reports, Judge Michael Cordonnier of the Greene County Circuit Court handed down a very important decision yesterday. Several months ago, the Springfield School District announced a new collective bargaining policy in which teachers would get to choose: (1) whether they wanted to have official bargaining representation provided by just one teachers’ union, multiple teachers’ unions, or no teachers’ unions at all; and, (2) which union(s), if any, would be chosen as representatives.

The Springfield chapter of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, filed a lawsuit arguing (among other things) that the Missouri Constitution should be read to require employee groups to choose only one exclusive bargaining agent, selected by the majority. The SNEA (which claims to have more than half of the district’s teachers on its membership rolls) wanted to prevent teachers from even voting on the possibility of multiple representation, and instead to have a winner-takes-all election in which it would likely be chosen to represent even those teachers who did not want their services.

Fortunately, Judge Cordonnier recognized that the Missouri Constitution requires nothing of the kind. In a very well-reasoned decision, he pointed out that the section of the Missouri Constitution that protects employees’ rights to bargain collectively specifies that they must be permitted to have “representatives” of their own choosing. As the judge noted, that word “is unambiguous, plural, and must be read to include the possibility of more than one representative.” In other words, nothing in the language of the Constitution supported the SNEA’s argument that employees must choose a single exclusive bargaining representative. The court further pointed out that the Missouri Supreme Court has previously held that “employees who choose not to be represented by the majority union continue to have a constitutional right to present their issues to [their] employer,” and they may do so as a group, with an “informally elected representative.”

I am thrilled that the judge made these points. What the SNEA misconstrued about the constitutional right to bargain collectively is that the right itself belongs to individual employees. The SNEA’s reasoning suggested that no individual had a particular right to a representative of their own choosing; to the contrary, the union argued that if a majority of any ill-defined group of employees wanted a particular representative, then all other employees in that group must be bound by the majority’s preference. Judge Cordonnier’s option saw through that argument, however, and he reaffirmed what the Missouri Supreme Court has previously stated — that employees must be free to choose their own bargaining agents, and neither the government nor a union can deny them that right.

Anyone interested in these issues needs to know that they’ll be hearing more about this in the future. The head of the SNEA would not commit to an appeal of this case to the Missouri Supreme Court, but it is a very safe bet that they’ll ask the high court to reverse Judge Cordonnier’s ruling. Additionally, at about the same time that the SNEA launched this lawsuit, another local chapter sued the Bayless School District in the St. Louis area, making almost precisely the same arguments. Even if the SNEA does not pursue its case further, the union will be pushing for success in the Bayless lawsuit.

Recently, several of my colleagues from Vanderbilt Divinity School sat in on President Barack Obama’s conference call, in which he tried to persuade faith leaders that the nation has “a core ethical and moral obligation” to make sure that everyone in America has access to health care. The Show-Me Institute tries to remain focused on issues that uniquely impact Missouri, so I decided to withhold comment on this point. But, over the past couple of weeks, there has been a string of stories about Missouri religious leaders calling for the government to pursue health care reforms. I think it’s time I offered my own perspective.

I’ll start by saying that I agree that there exists a moral and ethical obligation to see to the well-being of our neighbors. As I noted in a speech I delivered a couple of months ago, this was also an opinion shared by most of our nation’s founders, and it bears no small significance for the approach they took in shaping our Constitution. As they were debating how the American republic should be structured, one of their major influences was Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, in which the French philosopher described the attributes that must be cultivated for different types of government to be successful. In regard to a republic, virtue was deemed to be the most important quality that citizens could possess.

Virtue, as the founders understood it, was displayed when individuals willingly set aside their own personal interest and, fully understanding the risks and possibility of mistakes, voluntarily acted for the improvement of those around them. The virtuous person understood that they had a responsibility to assist their neighbors and community when the circumstances called for it, and they would not shrink from this duty. A major reason that the founders insisted on high levels of individual liberty was because they recognized that virtue could not exist without liberty. People may be compelled to take action that has a positive outcome, but if they do so unwillingly it is merely obedience, with no moral value. In the eyes of the founders, only a people free to make choices for themselves can truly be virtuous.

From a policy standpoint, this sort of virtue is the ideal way to try to address society’s challenges, for a couple of reasons. The first is efficiency. Private organizations, like private businesses, are more immediately accountable to the people giving them money than are government agencies. If a private organization is doing a poor job, people will simply quit funding that group and either identify or create another organization that will use their money more wisely. A government agency, on the other hand, does not face the same pressure because its funding is not usually dependent on its effectiveness. People are required to fund government projects regardless of whether they agree with them and regardless of whether they prove to be beneficial. Thus, private voluntary organizations have a much stronger incentive to become as efficient as possible.

The second reason that private virtue is favorable to government-driven charity is that government funding does not grow on trees. Every dollar that government spends is a dollar that will ultimately come from one of its citizens. And the consequence of that dollar going to the government is that the citizen cannot spend it on a good or service that will improve his own life — or, as the case may be, the lives of those around them.

This leads directly to the third reason that private virtue is favorable: It gives individuals a sense of personal investment in the causes to which their charitable dollars are flowing. When the government forces citizens to pay taxes, those citizens may have no clear idea as to how that money will be spent, and therefore they are unlikely to take any pride in or ownership of the programs they are funding. On the other hand, when people contribute to private charity — especially local charities — they are far more likely to take a personal interest in helping them to succeed.

For much of our nation’s history, virtue as expressed through private charity was a very important aspect of the American way of life. Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America offered the definitive outside assessment of society in the early United States, was stunned to find the prevalence of voluntary associations dedicated to assisting the needy and accomplishing public goods. Indeed, this sort of voluntary philanthropic association remained the status quo through the 19th century and into the early 20th century.

Every once in a while, however, a disaster would arise that inspired Congress to dedicate taxpayer dollars toward recovery efforts. Especially early on, these efforts did meet with considerable opposition. My favorite example comes from when Davy Crockett (a native East Tennessean like myself) served in the House of Representatives. A bill arose that would have appropriated $20,000 to help citizens in Georgetown recover from a devastating fire, and Crockett voted in favor of the bill. At a later date, a similar bill was proposed. This time, Crockett opposed the measure — but he also offered to contribute a week’s worth of his own pay to the recovery effort. Asked about his reasoning, Crockett explained that after the first vote, one of his constituents had confronted him, reminding him that even if there was great cause for charity, it was the responsibility of the private citizens to provide it. As the constituent put it to the congressman, elected officials must remember that unless an expenditure was being made for the common good of all citizens, rather than the targeted subset of citizens toward which charity is directed, the tax money was not within the elected officials’ purview to give.

Precisely 100 years after Davy Crockett explained his opposition to federally funded charity efforts, Congress confronted with a much larger concern. In 1927, the Mississippi River overflowed its banks, killing hundreds, rendering thousands homeless, and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of property throughout the Midwest and South. Concern quickly mounted that private charity alone would not be able to address the needs of those suffering, and many in Congress believed that if any situation ever justified the application of tax dollars, this one did. President Calvin Coolidge expressed major reservations about allowing the federal government to intervene in the matter, but he ultimately acquiesced to the political pressure and signed the bill.

From that point forward, most lawmakers (and, increasingly, private citizens) took it for granted that the federal government should be able to require taxpayers to foot the bill for charitable programs of various stripes. This led to Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” which arguably prolonged the Great Depression, and later Lyndon Johnson’s catastrophic “War on Poverty.” Even though the American impulse toward private charity has remained present, private voluntary organizations have ceded more and more ground to government-driven charitable efforts.

And so this all comes back around to the current health care debate and the role being played by some religious leaders. Churches and other religiously affiliated organizations used to dominate the charitable scene in the United States. If someone was hungry, homeless, or otherwise in need of help, they would look to a religiously affiliated organization for help — which was good, because it allowed those organizations and the private individuals who supported them to live out the virtue that our founders believed was so important, and it kept individual citizens personally invested in their neighbors’ well-being.

Eighty years later, we should be very concerned that we now have religious leaders and people of faith — for whom acts of virtue should have an even higher spiritual significance — calling upon the government to do their charitable work for them. I understand — and share! — these leaders’ desires to see an alleviation of suffering in the world, but where charity, virtue, and morality are involved the means are every bit as important as the ends. A work that would have been good if accomplished as a result of funds and labor willingly given can itself become evil if accomplished with stolen resources and slave labor.

I hope that these faith leaders will realize that abdicating the charitable roles to which they have been called to a government that will accomplish its goals by compulsion is directly destructive of the virtue and moral development that should be their objective.

As Sarah has already noted, the Missouri Supreme Court yesterday brought an end to the lawsuit in which half of the state’s school districts claimed that the Constitution required taxpayers to give them as much as $1.3 billion extra dollars every school year. The court ruled against the districts, including several important holdings.

First, the court unanimously agreed that the state government is meeting its two major constitutional obligations where educational funding is concerned, providing a system of free public schools and allocating at least 25 percent of state revenue to their upkeep. Second, the court unanimously agreed that “equitable education spending” is not a fundamental right secured by either the state or federal constitutions, and so the state’s funding formula must be upheld because the districts failed to prove that it was irrational. Third, the court ruled that insofar as the Missouri Constitution forbids the state government to create unfunded mandates for local authorities, the proper remedy is to relieve the local authorities of the responsibility to fulfill those mandates — not to order the state to pony up the money for them. And, finally, the judges ruled that the legislature did not act arbitrarily in relying on information provided to them by the State Tax Commission when fashioning the education funding formula that was at issue in this case.

Judge Michael Wolff’s voice was the only one raised in partial dissent, communicated through a fascinating, heartfelt separate opinion that is lengthier than the majority opinion. If you have an interest in either law or education, I think it is well worth reading. The judge agrees with the majority opinion on most (if not all) of the above points, but believes that the funding formula is unconstitutional because it permits counties to adopt different standards for the assessment for taxable property. In Judge Wolff’s opinion, the result is that “counties where property assessments fall well below market value are rewarded with increased state funding for schools.” He remains studiously agnostic as to which parts of the state might be said to be benefiting from this arrangement. That question, he suggests, should be answered by the legislature — but he maintains that regardless of the beneficiaries, the unevenness of assessments should trigger the state’s constitutional obligation to see that assessments are equalized across the state.

To be sure, the majority opinion did not disagree with Judge Wolff’s legal reasoning regarding the equalization of assessments. Rather, they (correctly) noted that the plaintiffs in this case had not brought that claim before them and, thus, resolution of that issue must wait until it has been presented and argued fully.

I think that Judge Wolff may have a valid point about inconsistencies in assessments across the state, but the broader thrust of his opinion is that the legislature has earned little of his respect because it has failed to adopt fundamental reforms that might greatly improve education in this state, and that the fact that some school districts are given far less funding per student than others remains tremendously unfair.

Judge Wolff apparently accepts the research presented by our own Dr. Michael Podgursky in his acknowledgment that “there is not a direct relationship between a school district’s money and its performance,” although he goes on to suggest that “money is not irrelevant … money is needed to buy the academic leadership, the teaching staff, the time on task for mastery of basic subjects and other resources needed for educational enrichment that can produce optimal outcomes.” This might or might not be true, given that a number of useful reforms might save money, thus allowing the excess to be reallocated into longer school days or higher pay for teachers that go above and beyond the current call of duty. But, ultimately, I share Judge Wolff’s desire to see a true sea change in the way education is undertaken in this state. Perhaps he’ll be open to some of the reforms that we have suggested!

Below is the full text of a comment from a blog post over at the Post-Dispatch’s Political Fix blog. It demands a response from anyone who is not content with living in servitude to the government. My comments follow each quoted portion.

I assume this piece was not original to the Post, but it may have been. I remember about 15 years ago when a state rep from south Saint Louis County wrote a similarly themed article for the Post, and then got in a lot of (political) trouble when it turned out she had just copied it from somewhere else. I remember her name, but don’t feel like printing it. She did lose her next election, if I recall correctly. (All that stuff predated the web by a few years, so no free links are available.)

Not everything he (or she) writes here is crazy or wrong, so feel free to take my lack of comment on certain areas as being along the lines of agreement in those instances:

Dear Tea Party Members:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly, Ameren UE, regulated by the US Department of Energy.

All true, as it goes, but are you really that dependent on the government to get you out of bed in the morning? And didn’t the alarm clock get built in the first place by the mechanics of the free market?

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility, Missouri American Water.

This is the first flat-out error: Missouri-American is a regulated, private company, not a municipal water utility.

The water was heated by the public natural gas monopoly, Laclede Gas,

Laclede Gas is a private company.

and disposed of by the the municipal sewer utility, Metropolitian Sewer District of St. Louis.

A government entity — ask Tom Sullivan about them.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the Federal Communication Commission regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

This totally ignores the role that private companies and people played in all of this, and ignores the fundamental question of whether this regulation is necessary. I can guarantee you the television needs of Americans would be met just fine without government regulation.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

This is all true, and a legitimate role for various levels of government, but let’s not pretend that nobody in America was able to feed their families before the government got involved. A nation of farmers fed itself just fine.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory,

Does the author really think people could not tell time before the government got involved?

I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation,

The private provision of highways is very common in other countries.

possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service.

The Post Office versus FedEx and UPS? Enough said.

If I had kids, I would probably drop them off at the nearby public school funded by the state and federal Department of Education.

Many Americans choose private education for their children for a number of reasons, the failure of certain public school systems among them. Clearly, there are many excellent public school systems as well.

At lunch time, I pick up a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant that has been inspected by the local department of health which enforces state and federal guidelines for food safety and workplace safety. I then return to my cubical where I listen to the local FCC regulated radio station

As with television, I will guarantee you that, beyond distributing the channel spectrum as a common good, government involvement is not necessary for radio to operate, at all.

as I work on a computer that has been certified by the Consumer Products Safety Comission to be safe and compliant with FCC Part 15B regulations.

The computer industry has grown as it has during the past 40 years because of private markets, not government involvement.

Sometimes instead of work, I go on a business trip and use an airplane inspected by the Nation Transportation Safety Bureau to travel. But first I have to take off my shoes and anything metal as a walk through the the inspection station set up by the Transportation Safety Adminstration.

Watching grandpa get a body cavity inspection because he shares a nickname with a terrorist is not an argument for government success.

After checking the weather with the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Adminstration gives the all clear for the airplane taxi off the tarmac and to take off.

Then, after spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the US Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes

People CAN build things on their own, you know.

and the fire marshall’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

It’s a sad view of society that assumes we would all descend into chaos without government force — perhaps a true view, but still a sad one. I tend to think people cooperate in many more ways without government coercion than the author does.

At home, I can call up my grandparents on a cellular telephone that is FCC Part 15B complaint and designated on a frequency regulated by the National Telecomunication and Information Administration.

As with computers, the telecommunications revolution is attributable far more to private initiative than to government control and regulation.

I then log onto the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, an agency of the Department of Defense which is the parent agency of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps who are defending our country so that I can enjoy my freedom to post on Freerepublic and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

End of letter. Many of the points the writer makes are valid to varying degrees, but he discounts or ignores the role individuals and private actors played in many of the advancements he credits to government. What is also missing is any even remote debate over whether or not these things are the proper role of government as set by our Constitution. As it stands, the letter makes Americans sound like a nation of people who could not blow their nose (the closest to a clean scatological reference I could think of) without government involvement and approval.

Seriously, you thank the government for helping you get out of bed in the morning? That is not the type of life I want to live and not the type of country I want the United States to become.

This brief report on the new Spanish-language version of the state attorney general’s website mentions the English-language amendment. Although, as the article correctly points out, the amendment deals with official debates and meetings, and doesn’t affect websites, I’m sure some people will oppose the Spanish website for the same reasons they supported the amendment.

One possible objection to translating state websites is that it compels taxpayers to pay for an unnecessary translation that most of them will never use. This argument has some merit, especially if the translation is repeated in multiple languages that few people speak. However, a translation into one or two major languages may be worth the cost. The up-front expense of translation could prevent costs that would be incurred later because of misunderstandings or ignorance. Some will say, “People should just have to learn English,” but they should consider that learning a language takes time. Do we want foreign-language speakers to remain ignorant of state laws and government for the months or years it takes them to learn English? Furthermore, government publications often contain jargon that would be confusing for non-native speakers, even if they have learned English well enough to get along in daily life.

Translating a website doesn’t get the government involved in new spheres of activity. It doesn’t impose new restrictions on the market. It just makes the English website understandable to more people.

Talk about having your cake and eating it, too. School districts loved it when property values skyrocketed throughout this decade along with their budgets. But now that values of fallen, KCTV reports that several school districts around Kansas City have filed suit to prevent the county assessor from lowering property values. These people are living in an alternate universe. The state Constitution already protects the taxing districts by allowing them to roll up their tax rates to a revenue-neutral level in the rare years like this when property values decline. Is that good enough for them?

Of course not. Yesterday’s Post-Dispatch documented how teachers throughout St. Louis are getting their standard pay raises despite the economy, and the districts just assume that taxpayers will pick up the slack even as many of them have seen declines in their own income. At least the schools in St. Louis have, so far, followed the law and not filed a lawsuit.

When you base a tax system on property values, as we do in Missouri, you have to take the good with the bad. Sometimes, but not often, values will go down. For the school districts to sue in order to force the use of last year’s assessments — which everybody knows are no longer accurate — is the absolute height of bureaucratic arrogance.

How about this for an example of a typical made-up PR claim, from the KCTV story, in which the people filing the lawsuit to make taxpayers pay more actually claim to be protecting homeowners:

The source [from one of the public school districts] said the problem for homeowners is if they go to sell their home, most buyers will not go over the county’s assessed value, so sellers could get much less then what their home is worth.

I think many home purchasers don’t even know the assessed value of a home when they buy it. Most of them certainly don’t care. The idea that they won’t go over the assessed value is ridiculous. People generally know just the market value of a home, and that the current market values are lower than they were in the past.

Last night at the Cardinals game, a friend of mine and I discussed the bottle deposit law. It came up because we discussed how they have gotten rid of beer cans entirely at Busch this year. You can only buy your $27 dollar beers on tap or in plastic bottles. This is regrettable, because aluminum is so easy to recycle, although plastic can obviously be recycled, too. Also, I had just returned from a trip to Michigan, with its famous 10-cent deposit.

So, should Missouri institute a deposit law of either a nickel or dime? I think it should. It would be one way to encourage positive social behavior (recycling bottles) through incentives rather than directives. You don’t have to recycle if you don’t want to, it will just cost you $1.20 extra per case of beer. This is not a tax you have to pay, it is one you choose to pay, and the behavior encouraged is so simple to do it can hardly be considered onerous or burdensome. So, I say bring on a 5- or 10-cent deposit law in Missouri. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Almost precisely one year ago, I wrote about how some Missouri cities were dedicating your taxpayer dollars to preserve the government’s ability to take property from one private owner and give it to another private owner. As you may remember, the Missouri Municipal League engaged in litigation intended to prevent Missouri’s citizens from voting on the question — using a combination of funds from city governments and contributions from the same commercial developers who are eager to see eminent domain used to their advantage.

Folks, they’re at it again.

Almost as soon as Missouri Citizens for Property Rights got a ballot title from the Secretary of State, the Missouri Municipal League sued in an attempt to make the ballot title recite a parade of imaginary horrors that they claim would follow the end of eminent domain abuse. A couple of weeks ago, Judge Richard Callahan ruled that the Secretary of State’s ballot title could go forward with only one insubstantial adjustment.

The Missouri Municipal League has appealed that ruling, continuing to insist that the restoration of property rights should be described as nothing less than the death knell for America. And, again, they’re calling on your elected officials to pony up your money in order to prevent you from having a say in the matter.

As a “Red Alert” sent out by the Municipal League states:

[A]lthough cities cannot directly contribute to support or oppose any ballot measure, cities may fund public informational campaigns. The City of Springfield has already committed $5,000 to this effort. Other cities are following suit. City contributions should generally reflect the size and financial capacity of the participating city. The League will also continue to coordinate these efforts with private sector “partner organizations” such as the Missouri Chamber of Commerce.

Of course, other cities have a more direct means of trying to prevent your participation in the political process. The city government of Slater, Mo., passed a resolution last week that “urges the citizens of [that] community to refrain from signing a CPR constitutional initiative petition because doing so would be contrary to the best interest of most property owners within the State of Missouri.”

When I used the Sunshine Law to compel the city to produce all documents its officials considered before adopting this resolution, all they could provide was a PowerPoint presentation created by the Missouri Municipal League — meaning, apparently, that city officials did not even consider the actual text of the proposed amendment, much less seek out any alternative interpretations. Instead, they resorted to the Orwellian suggestion that a constitutional amendment designed to protect the property rights of all Missourians would somehow be bad for property owners.

This should not be tolerated. Fortunately, it seems that some people have recognized this and are taking action. The Post-Dispatch reported just the other day that some citizens in Pacific, Mo., have demanded that their city withdraw from the Missouri Municipal League.

If enough people put pressure on their city governments to do the same, the Municipal League may have no other choice but to start respecting property rights instead of continuing their defense of eminent domain abuse.

This weekend, the Columbia Business Journal ran a tremendous article (part one of what looks to be a series) discussing how that city used eminent domain to demolish a thriving part of its black community. I’ve discussed previously how, particularly in the mid–20th century, cities would frequently use eminent domain to accomplish “Negro removal.” I had not previously been aware of Columbia’s own experiment with this racist enterprise, and I’m thankful to the Business Journal for bringing it to light.

The urbanites that run MSNBC are apparently shocked that young people in America are allowed to hunt all by themselves. Can you believe this? Kids are actually allowed to use guns and hunt animals without a parent or guardian around in many states. (In Missouri, which is covered in the story, you only have to be 11 years old to be able to hunt on your own.) How terrible.

Of course, they found a tragedy that they’ve used as the basis for an argument that kids should hit a certain age before they are allowed to do something that kids in America’s rural areas have been doing for hundreds of years. From the story:

On the national level, Guzzo’s comments won support from Jim Kessler, policy director and co-founder of the progressive think-tank Third Way who previously spent four years at Americans for Gun Safety. Both groups seek tighter gun laws but are not opposed to hunting.

“I find it shocking actually that there aren’t laws that prohibit unsupervised hunting by minors,” said Kessler. “For a lot of families, hunting is passing on values from fathers to sons and it’s about responsibility and there are a lot of good lessons there, but it is far too much responsibility to give to a child or a minor teen, far too much responsibility. You need an adult there.”

There are tragic accidents in every aspect of life. The young man who committed the manslaughter prompting the article will pay a price for it. It seems most people see a tragedy and try to make laws to restrict the rights of others in order to prevent another tragedy, no matter how small the odds may be that the law will actually prevent a similar future tragedy. Maybe I am a jerk, but I get offended when people try to use a tragedy to limit the freedoms of others.

And I don’t mean to make fun of MSNBC. The story is interesting and the survey informative. I just don’t see a need for Missouri to increase its age limit because of one terrible incident.

Policy Pulse has posted a new article about the Employee Free Choice Act by staff reporter Audrey Spalding. Instead of directly combating the act in Congress, a group of Missouri politicians and business leaders rallied in favor of an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that aims to preserve the secret ballot for union representation. Read Audrey’s article for more information on the topic!