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The Naked Neocon
This morning the Guv did a striptease at the capitol, revealing his true colors, not that they were all that hard to discern in the past. Somewhere I'm sure Richard Haass and his CFR goons are applauding the gaudy display.
Cloaked within a proposed state constitutional amendment to limit state general fund growth, the Governor Pawlenty has proposed two things - 1) That the upcoming state budgets be limited to the prior biennium's revenue intake. Sounds good on the surface, but the hidden red flag is this: this will insure that the vast majority of the time there is a surplus to be distributed somehow. 2) That the only acceptable govt functions that may receive those adt'l funds are the categories of public safety/judiciary, and health & human services.
A previous blog post here detailed exactly which categories of state general fund spending have seen the greatest increases, and the competition wasn't even marginally close. Public Safety / Judiciary, hands down the winner in the bloat sweepstakes, by more than a two-to-one margin.
Minnesota presently supports almost twice the active and practicing attorneys per capita as any neighboring state. 6th in the nation in this regard. This amendment as proposed is essentially a Holiday gift proposal to Tim and Mary's colleagues and the justice industry's customer delivery services. This constitutional amendment as proposed represents the perfect vehicle to further increase the revenue proportions diverted in this direction, for the purpose of advancing state authoritarianism, ramping upward the hidden taxation and fees that goes hand in hand with that. It should insure that we are #1 in this very telling atty/capita stat in reasonably short order. Simultaneously it is a death knell for all of the good and positive things we used to accomplish as a state at a much lower inflation/population adjusted tax revenue per capita, and those things are already pretty much crippled and on minimum life support maintenance.
Counterproposal: Already put forward in that earlier blogpost, return MN's GF priorities to some previous historical benchmark relative proportions. Put MN back on positive footing. Save 6-7 B biennially in the process if we choose to setback to the beginning of the Carlson admin, without either bloating or diminishing any spending category, indeed granting full allowance for inflation and population growth in all areas.
No liberty-minded Minnesotan should fail to be aware of the hidden agenda behind the curtain on this proposal, and it falls so very much inline with the Guv's track record in regard to increases in authoritarian govt scope as well as scale. This measure as proposed deserves no less than the utmost scorn from both political parties.
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A very good question.
Since when can't Minnesotans 21 years of age and over run for positions as Judge, County Attorney, & County Sheriff? Our state constitution requires for the first two of those positions that candidates be “learned in the law” and you may be surprised to learn that the answer to the title is 1997. Before that date the voters were left to judge whether the candidate was learned to their satisfaction; no Minnesotan could be kept off the ballot for lack of govt licensure. Twelve years ago that all changed.
The requirement to be sheriff, for most of the last century, looked like this:
Bond and oath—Every person elected or appointed to the office of sheriff, before entering upon his duties, shall give bond to the state in a sum not less than twenty-five thousand dollars in counties whose population exceeds one hundred and fifty thousand, and not less- than five thousand dollars in all other counties, to be approved by the county board, conditioned that he will well and faithfully in all things perform and execute the duties of his office, without fraud, deceit, or oppression, which bond, with his oath of office, shall be filed for record with the register of deeds.
If you could put together the bond & swear out the oath (and win the election), you were sheriff. Then in 1973 came the first encroachment, the requirement to get a certificate, though that could be done after the fact of taking office, so anybody 21+ could still run:
387.01 SHERIFFS; QUALIFICATIONS; BOND; OATH. Every person elected or appointed to the office of sheriff; after August 1. 1973, and not holding a certificate of satisfactory completion of the basic course in training issued by the executive director of the Minnesota peace officers training board, shall, within one year after assuming office obtain such certificate, except that sheriffs in office on August 1. 1973. shall be considered to be qualified and eligible to continue in office as sheriff and to be reelected to that office. A sheriff who without good cause does not obtain a certificate of satisfactory completion as required by this section shall thereafter forfeit all privileges and compensation the office of sheriff shall be deemed vacant, and the county board may fill said office at a special election called for that purpose, but shall fill said office no later than at the next general election. Before entering upon his duties; every sheriff shall give bond to the state in a sum not less than $25,000 in counties whose population exceeds 150,000, and not less than $5,000 in all other counties, to be approved by the county board, conditioned that he will well and faithfully in all things perform and execute the duties of his office, without fraud, deceit, or oppression, which bond, with his oath of office, shall be filed for record with the register of deeds.
Approved May 24, 1973.
Changes or additions indicated by underline, deletions by strikeout.
387.01 stood as above with just a few minor changes until 1997, those minor changes were directed towards changing the name of the register of deeds to county recorder, and to replace gender-specific language with gender-neutral language.
Then in a completely separate statute who's subject is the election process, 203B.19 Sec. 26, a Subd. 8 was added in 1997 to read:
Subd. 8. [PROOF OF ELIGIBILITY.] A candidate for judicial office or for the office of county attorney shall submit with the affidavit of candidacy proof that the
candidate is licensed to practice law in this state. A candidate for county sheriff shall submit with the affidavit of candidacy proof of licensure as a peace officer
in this state.
Changes or additions indicated by underline, deletions by strikeout.
The resultant revision to 387.01 looked like this:
387.01 [QUALIFICATIONS; BOND; OATH.] Every person who files as a candidate for county sheriff must be licensed as a peace officer
in this state. Every person elected or appointed to the office of sheriff after August 1, 1973, and not holding a certificate of
satisfactory completion of the basic course in training issued by the executive director of the Minnesota peace officers training
board, shall, within one year after assuming office obtain such certificate, except that sheriffs in office on August 1, 1973, shall
be considered to be qualified and eligible to continue in office as sheriff and to be reelected to that office. A sheriff who without
good cause does not obtain a certificate of satisfactory completion as required by this section shall thereafter forfeit all privileges
and compensation, the office of sheriff shall be deemed vacant, and the county board may fill said office at a special election
called for that purpose, but shall fill said office no later than at the next general election must become licensed as a peace officer
before entering upon the duties of the office. Before entering upon duties every sheriff shall give bond to the state in a sum not
less than $25,000 in counties whose population exceeds 150,000, and not less than $5,000 in all other counties, to be approved
by the county board, conditioned that the sheriff will well and faithfully in all things perform and execute the duties of office,
without fraud, deceit, or oppression, which bond, with an oath of office, shall be filed for record with the county recorder.
Changes or additions indicated by underline, deletions by strikeout.
It takes a minimum of 2 years to get that peace officer license, and you must get hired by an agency as well, otherwise you are simply 'eligible to
be licensed.' But not yet licensed.
And the statute covering the office of county attorney was changed to:
388.01 [ELECTION; QUALIFICATIONS; TERM.] There shall be elected in each county a county attorney who shall be learned in the
licensed to practice law in this state, and whose term of office shall be four years and until a successor qualifies. Before
entering upon duties the county attorney shall take an oath. The oath must be filed for record with the county recorder.
Signed by the governor May 13, 1997, 10:25 a.m. (Way to go, Arne?)
Changes or additions indicated by underline, deletions by strikeout.
The final change to date was fairly insignificant in that the phrase 'filed for record' in the closing sentence of both 367.01 & 388.01 was modified
to read 'recorded' in 2005.
So we quietly evolved from a state in which any engaged and 'learned' Minnesotan, in the eyes of the constituency, could hold these offices, into
a state in which these authoritarian structures were fully cemented as in-house managed, outside the direct control of citizens by denying them the
option to run against the established in-house management personnel.
And so we have increasingly paramilitary LE agencies more about controlling the populace than about protecting the individual liberties of citizens;
ever-more prosecution of victimless matters – social engineering masquerading as criminal prosecution; and judges instructing juries they must not
presume to judge the laws themselves, despite that constitutional right and responsibility.
I would strongly recommend to all liberty-minded Minnesotans that they begin demanding, through their elected reps and through newspaper
editorials, a constitutional modification to restore these offices to the people; essentially declaring that no process of licensure may impede any
desiring candidate from qualifying for and holding such office.
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It's not news to any observant Minnesotan that we are experiencing a period of revenue retraction; forecasts for the 2012-2013 biennium presently assume no massive Federal stimulus injection and we're hearing of future shortfall compared to present spending levels, to the tune of 5 or 6 billion dollars biennially. I think we all agree that in the name of fiscal sanity on the Federal level another massive stimulus must not occur, and that the states must learn to make do with less. All of this will come to fruition with a new Governor at the helm in the spring of 2011, and hopefully a more balanced legislature; it's difficult to imagine either chamber growing more politically imbalanced than presently, in these difficult economic times. The Big Govt camp is calling for more revenue intake by one means or another; it is my opinion that the best way to do ourselves and our fellow MN'ans the service of fending that off is to present this in historical perspective, and if possible be united with one message, one plan- rather than a thousand different schemes for reducing govt size. Many MN'ans fear general talk of greatly reduced spending, and I think will take comfort in a more detailed plan that doesn't differ much from the levels and priorities we assigned not all that long ago, rather than a spending reduction plan that carries us even further into previously uncharted territory, as much of the reshifting in priorities of the past decade or so have done.
For starters, MN General Fund Expenditures, 1960-2008, figures adjusted for both inflation & population growth (the actual 1960 GF expenditure was only 1/4 billion for example, and the actual 2008 GF expenditure was just a shade over 17 billion, everything on the graph is expressed in '00 dollars per ~5 million people, the pop. that year):
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1c2673ff39cadca061d4646c62b381cbe04e75f6e8ebb
871
What should be clear is that there was a period of steady govt growth through most of the sixties during the Freeman(D)/Andersen(R)/Rolvaag(D) administrations; this led into the 1967 implementation of a state sales tax that produced roughly a decade of the most wild growth in state govt in this time period from the 68-69 biennium through the 76-77 biennium, with LeVander(R) at the helm for those first two biennial budgets and Anderson(D) for the final three in that period. Across those 5 biennia state GF spending increased to 2.5 times its '67 level even after allowing for pop. growth and inflation. From there we entered an extended period of very slight growth in govt beginning with the '78-79 biennium all the way through the '92-93 budget; Perpich(D) was the governor for the first of those 8 biennial budgets, then Quie(R) for the next two, Perpich back in office for the next four, and finally Carlson(R) for the last. For the remainder of the nineties and just into this century govt again experienced a very significant growth spurt through 3 more Carlson budgets and one Ventura budget, '00-01, which was set in '99 before the big tech crash. The '01 and the '03 spending set on Ventura's watch represent the two peak years in state expenditure in our history when the aforementioned adjustments are in place.
Tim Pawlenty was elected in '02 and oversaw the '04-05 budgeting process (in spring '03) and all of those since. As you can see from the chart, he did put an end to that growth period and settled things back down more or less to the level Arne Carlson had left office at. While I don't believe Governor Pawlenty is overwhelmingly popular among liberty-minded citizens of any political stripe, it should nevertheless be said that to his credit he did put a lid on state govt growth in general. Where the liberty-minded, limited govt folks would and should take issue, on the other hand, is in the directions and priorities assigned; where he cut and where he allowed further growth to continue. But I'm going to save that for a follow-up post soon, below this blog entry, where the breakdown in GF spending (since '92, I can't find the details in the GF picture from earlier budgets) gets a more detailed examination, and for the moment I'd simply submit in general terms that the upcoming cuts necessary to avoid revenue increases more or less involve stepping back further in time to Carlson's first budget, '92 spending levels. My position is that we had good, workable state govt then, if anything too big- historically huge compared to a couple decades earlier- we weren't exactly suffering from too-small govt in 1992, they weren't the dark ages, we were most certainly not immersed in anarchy by any means. Therefore I would recommend we sell something very similar to those budgets, as opposed to furthering some of the more negative shifts we've implemented since. But more on that in a day or two. In the meantime, comments very welcome, I'd love to hear input whether in agreement or otherwise.
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Posted 08/03/09
KenAnderson
Big Lake, MN | As stated above in the opening post, a ~6 billion biennial shortfall in state revenues is not really that daunting a budget-cutting problem, particularly when viewed through the historical lens, in light of the fact that such a cut in spending would still leave us spending every bit as much from the general fund as we did in the early nineties, with full allowance for both population growth and inflation.
A Pawlenty approach, based on the history of his administration, would likely be 'no cuts for essential services' while the more positive things the state does again takes large, disproportionate hits. No surprise that the Public Safety/Judiciary would be spared, after all Tim is a former prosecutor and Mary is a former Judge. That particular category of state general fund spending has proportionately far and away the largest growth rate from the early nineties forward. No other category comes remotely, proportionately close.
Another simplistic approach might suggest that we simply cut all budgeting toward the general fund expenditure categories evenly. The dept. of Management & Budget anticipates GF expenditures to run a bit over 39 billion for the 2012-13 biennium if revenues are available, but the revenue forecasts at this point in time suggest something more like 33 billion available. 33 billion is roughly 85% of 39 billion, so such a proportional cutting would leave each category with that 85 percent of what it would take to maintain business as usual by today's standards. The Liberty, Limited Gov't stance on this should be, must be - that this fails to correct all of mis-prioritization and shifting of expenditures of the past couple decades; that the time for unraveling the dense authoritarian tapestry that has been woven and draped over the state is now, while everybody (of sound mind and sound fiscal instincts) understands that deep spending cuts are vital.
Here's a link to another chart- this chart opens at left with the six largest GF spending categories calibrated to the horizontal zero line for '92-'93 spending; from there each category line rises or falls according to whether that category saw an increase or decrease in expenditures in the subsequent budgets, not in actual dollars but again with full allowance for population growth and inflation. Percentage increase or decrease after those growth allowances is what is being charted here. If each spending category got exactly those growth allowances from '92 forward, no more and no less, the chart would simply consist of one flat horizontal line along the zero line that represented all of those spending categories' growth line superimposed atop one another. But of course that was not the case:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1c2673ff39cadca061d4646c62b381cbe04e75 f6e8ebb871
Notice that there is a seventh line plotted, and that 7th line is a subtotal line, and shows increase over the time frame between 15 and 20 percent, indicating that 15% reduction overall is available while still maintaining the original spending levels with full allowance for inflation and population growth. There are other GF spending categories, but they are, taken together, a very small percentage of the total. The six categories charted comprise over 95% of GF spending, and adjustments to the others will not amount to a hill of beans in any endeavor to make up a 6 billion dollar shortfall. It so happens that the six categories charted are those six that are projected to consume a billion or more in the '12-13 projected biennial spending picture. The rest are all considerably less than a billion biennially.
Another posting in a day or two will provide more detail on each of these spending categories in terms of actual dollars rather than just percentage growth; for the moment consider this option for a 15% cut- we stand together in offering our support to would-be liberty candidates for statewide and legislative office according to how closely their budget cut plans mesh with the notion of imediately returning all the lines on this chart to the zero line, essentially acknowledging that there is no need to reinvent the budget priority wheel, that the blueprint already exists in the mgmt & budget archives, in the form of a good and workable '92-93 GF budget, with full allowance for justifiable inflation and population growth in all spending categories. With one final qualification: Back then we distributed the property tax intake quite differently and that must also be returned to '92 priorities at the same time, otherwise we would be doing the wrong things with two categories in particular; K-12 Ed and local govt (property tax) Aids & Credits.
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Posted 08/06/09
KenAnderson
Big Lake, MN | A third file, General Fund Spending table, has been added to the mediafire file host at:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1c2673ff39cadca061d4646c62b381cbe04e75 f6e8ebb871
The table details the amounts we spent on the above-mentioned Gen. Fund categories in the '92-93 biennium, applies growth for population and inflation which just a bit more than doubles those dollar amounts, and then details the budget cuts or increases to be applied if we were doing this in '07 for the '08-09 biennium. Those inflation/population factors haven't yet been ironed out for the next budget to be set in spring '11 for the '12-13 biennium, but the budget forecast has, though it will get regular updates between now and then. So if you imagine that the 5.6 Billion savings may not be enough, you may very well be right. We'll have a better handle on that 20 months from now. Keep in mind that '11-12 budget forecast calls for about a 16% increase in spending for that biennium compared to the one the table examines, '08-09. So expect all figures in the far right column to grow accordingly by then, and that 5.6B figure increased that 16% will then look more like 6.5 billion savings/cuts.
A discussion of the details within the first two categories-
K-12 experiences a massive cut in the table while the next category below, commonly called local govt aids, would get a sizable increase, to make up for the paltry treatment it has gotten. This is where realigning the property tax revenue pie to traditional levels and priorities helps these massive proposed shifts make more sense. We made very significant changes to property tax revenue distribution in the early part of this century; the net result of those changes was to pass a big chunk of the K-12 burden to the state; that freed up large funding increases for county govt in particular, and cities and townships realized significant gains as well, thereby. Within county govt, which gain the most, the lions share of those funds went into the general govt pot and the public safety pot. Gen. Govt on that county level includes the district courts, court services and admin, the county atty & public defender budgets, and the jails. Between 1970 and 2002 statewide county spending increased to 9.2 times its 1970 spending levels, well above what infl. & pop. Growth would dictate- they would dictate an increase to 6.2 times the 1970 levels, so you can figure with that growth allowance, that total county govt spending still grew into something 1.5 times as large in that period. County general govt, on the other hand, spent 16.6 times as much in '02 vs '70, almost tripling its spending beyond what the growth allowance would justify, and county public safety spending was 33.2 times greater in '02 than '70. It more than quintupled its size after the justifiable growth allowances.
We also began sending about 12% of the property tax revenues to the state gen. fund with those 2001 property tax revenue realignments. Realigning the 08-09 property tax pie, two years worth of revenues to match the '08-09 state biennial budget, would look something like this (keep in mind they will get some relief from the proposed increase in LG aids):
'08 + '09 property tax revenue combined should come in around 11.8 billion dollars.
The counties are getting about 4.9 billion of that, about 41% of the pie. Traditionally (1970-2000) they got 25.4%; return them to that slice of the pie and they get cut 1.9 billion in the two-year period.
The cities got about 3.2 billion of that, about 27.4% of the pie. Traditionally they got 19%; return them to that slice of the pie and they get cut 1 billion in the two-year period.
Townships got about 400 million of that, about 3.3% of the pie. Traditionally they got 1.8%; return them to that slice of the pie and they get cut 185 million in the two-year period.
The state general fund got about 1.4 billion of that, about 12% of the pie. Traditionally they got zero, return them to that slice of the local revenue pie.
There's a whole host of special taxing districts in the state, and they have local levies built into the property tax, and have grown to take about 8.5% of the pie, around 1 billion in '08-'09 biennium. Traditionally they averaged more like 5.3%, they'd get cut about 375 million in the two-year period.
Lastly the school districts, they no longer get the general ed monies from the property tax, as the burden got shifted to the state gen. fund. Traditionally they received about 44% of the pie, on average. That's 5.2 billion dollars restored to them for the two year period, less the special referendum levies they presently get. Comes close to a balance of the similar amount they lose from the general fund.
Now all of these local entities, having to stand on their own local-revenue feet to a greater extent, should be instructed that in the event of a shortfall, mandates from afar should be taken as suggestions instead of mandates, as they need room to prioritize the monies they have available. Except that county govt must get off the authoritarian craze and trim that spending drastically, accentuating the positive instead.
That covers the top two categories in the linked table, far and away the most complex change to undo. One more final post to follow covering the other four.
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Posted 08/06/09
KenAnderson
Big Lake, MN | The third item from the top on the General fund spending proposal is Health & Human Services; I would count this as one of the more positive things we do, but care must be exercised and applied to insure this doesn't swallow our other priorities completely. It has grown in this period beyond infl./pop. growth, and gets a sizable cut which can be tempered somewhat with application of the local govt aid spending increase. H&HS is one category of county spending as well, one which did not grow in that 1970-2002 period I have data for. It increased by a factor of 5.4 across those years, where the justifiable growth allowance is 6.2, it got starved to a degree at that county level despite the huge increase in county spending levels in that time frame, took a back seat to all of the increased authoritarian expenses.
Next up is higher ed; providing that opportunity for motivated young folks at reasonable cost is something MN has stood for since prior to statehood. But it became the #1 whipping boy of the Pawlenty admin in order to maximize the number of Tim & Mary's colleagues feeding at the public trough as members of the bar. MN has nearly twice the per capita numbers of active and practicing attorneys as any surrounding state, and the Pawlenty's have earned some sort of achievement award undoubtedly from this association of the socially counterproductive by trade. Both the state college system and the University system have become much less affordable to the middle class as a result of this loss of 20% of their traditional funding, and its time to return that positive investment to its proper priority.
Fifth category is Public Safety/Judiciary, as previously mentioned the MN general fund blue ribbon holder for excessive bloat, proportionately. Add to that the even greater bloat at the county level, and you don't have to wonder why our govt has degenerated into authoritarian structures. Its because we tolerate it, and that must end. The founders of this country most certainly never envisioned or intended for a plea bargain wholesale-house masquerading as a justice system, with few jury trials, nor a judiciary bent on keeping juries ignorant, even forbidden them of their constitutional duties to hold that in check by simply saying no to the application of statute regarding petty and/or victimless offense. Rule of Law must trump rule of law, or there is no Rule of Law and govt of any nature then exists to impose dictates on the citizenry. We could spend the next 50 years attempting to undo all of the garbage that has been enacted into law in the past 50 years, and not saying that's an unworthy endeavor- but cutting the funding for the application of this more than in half to more traditional levels fixes a whole lot, and does so immediately.
Finally the bottom category in the table is Debt Service; I was tempted to keep this out of the discussion because it is the smallest of the six in size and hasn't grown all that much. But the fact is that there has been a troubling recent growth spurt due to the Pawlenty admin's greater reliance on bonding into future debt, and the '10-11 omnibus budget legislation has over a Billion slated for here, the growth rate didn't slow. This is one category we can't simply cut when we feel like it, by decree- the obligation must be met or our bond rating drops and interest rates rise. But should it occur that we cut deeper than shortfalls require, and find ourselves with some surplus, the size of our state debt should be bought down immediately. There is no possible justification for feeding any more of our revenue intake to the debt service beast than is absolutely necessary, in tough economic times. |
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Who's to blame:
The Senate threw the issue into the late-hour omnibus dungheap, making voting responsibility immensely more diffused; however your senate authors before that happened were Murphy (D) Red Wing; Foley (D) Coon Rapids; & Dille (R) Dassel.
In the house however, the single measure vote was taken, roll call:
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/votes/votes.asp?ls_year=86&session_number=0
&year=2009&id=2224
Democrats to be commended for their nays:
Anzelc (Balsam TWP, northeast of Grand Rapids), Atkins (Inver Grove Heights), Champion (Mpls), Clark (Mpls), Davnie (Mpls), Dill (Crane Lake), Doty (Royalton), Eken (Twin Valley), Falk (Murdock), Hayden (Mpls), Hilstrom (Brooklyn Center), Koenen (Clara City), Lesch (St. Paul), Mariani (St. Paul), Masin (Eagan), Mullery (Mpls), Nelson (Brooklyn Park), Otremba (Long Prairie), Pelowski (Winona), Persell (Bemidji), Rukavina (Virginia), Scalze (Little Canada), Sertich (Chisholm), Solberg (Grand Rapids), & Thao (St. Paul).
This vote could have gone against, 72-62, but for the GOP defectors. Republicans to be castigated for their yeas:
Jim Abeler (Anoka), Tony Cornish (Good Thunder), Keith Downey (Edina), Pat Garofalo (Farmington), Steve Gottwalt (St. Cloud), Bob Gunther (Fairmont), Tim Kelly (Red Wing), Mary Kiffmeyer (Big Lake), Jenifer Loon (Eden Prairie), Denny McNamara (Hastings), & Mark Murdock (Ottertail).
Last but certainly not least among GOP’ers to fail individual liberty here was Gov. Pawlenty for failing to line the thing out, but no surprise, he’s always stood consistently for authoritarianism over individual liberty.
Now that I find myself in HD16B I’ll pull no stops to insure that Ms. Kiffmeyer is denied the endorsement should she be seeking re-election; much better choices are available (Mark Olson for starters). Should she choose to run against the freshman senator, Ms. Fobbe, I’d consider that a no-gain proposition all the way, Fobbe’s solidly conservative in many respects, and Kiffmeyer falls short of that standard all too often. Not to mention that she's very difficult to nail down on any position, has a nasty habit of answering questions with questions.
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(below is an opinion piece as submitted to the 3 Sherburne County newspapers today; feel free to pass it on to any of your local publications if you so desire, in original form or with any modifications you care to make, and put your name on it)
As this country's founders mulled and debated how to best create a Constitutional Republic that protected the rights of its citizens to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, property- the consensus of their opinion was that despite separation of powers, despite checks and balances, despite the constitution itself, government could and therefore would tend to grow over time into an entity that became increasingly opposed to its originally stated mission, in the interests of controlling and ruling the populace rather than allowing individual liberty and self-determination. Thomas Jefferson relied heavily upon citizen jurors to frustrate such a negative change, as he stated in a 1789 letter to Thomas Paine: "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
The founders placed great faith in their fellow citizens' full awareness of their right and duty to deliberate according to their own consciences, even in direct opposition to law if that law ran counter to our principles. "It is not only his right, but his duty ... to find the best verdict according to his own understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." - John Adams, 1771. Our first Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay (co-author of the Federalist Papers that formed our Constitutional principles and are still frequently cited today in judicial decisions), in 1794 instructed jurors as to their right "to determine the law as well as the facts in controversy."
Fast forward one hundred years- to a time when great wealth and power had been amassed thanks to the industrial revolution. Those big-business interests were frustrated quite frequently by juries who refused to apply law that those interests had spent much to get passed, particularly law that made it a crime for workers to organize and strike. But they gained a majority influence in the Supreme Court, and that court decided to grant judges the allowance to attempt to deny or keep juries ignorant of their power to nullify law in their verdicts.
Such an attempt at usurpation of the citizen's prerogative to apply law or not as jurors, while very dangerous in principle, did not make a huge impact overall, socially, until the early seventies and Nixon's 'war on crime,' simply because our judicial system was still quite modest in size. At that time it became the legislative fad to add law, ramp penalty upward, and make a whole host of statute intended to cage citizens for socio-political purposes. Despite the fact that many of these newly-defined perps had no identifiable victimization associated with their illegal behavior- and the trend continues today and runs 180 degrees counter to our founding principles, essentially creating a large population of political prisoners. In 1972 we incarcerated 140 per 100,000 citizens. By 2005 that rate was up to 738 per 100,000. Nearly 25% of the world's incarcerated are caged in US prisons and jails. Close to half of those are nonviolent offenders- we are in this important measure the least free country in the world.
Here in MN this problem goes beyond jails and prisons. We target a number of victimless misdemeanors for reporting to employers and potential employers in criminal background checks,making many otherwise productive neighbors unemployable. We confiscate personal property prior to conviction, and allow the law enforcement jurisdictions to keep the proceeds of such forfeiture sales, casting a shadow on integrity and a wet blanket on the application of sound discretion. We violate due process with other civil penalties imposed prior to conviction, turning defense into a more expensive 2-pronged affair into both the criminal and civil systems. Approximately three quarter million MN's have been convicted of these victimless targeted misdemeanors, about 1 in 5 adults. Many of them are already felons or on the path to becoming such due to increasing penalty steps and decreasing discretion applied.
None of these trends would be possible on the scale they occur today if our justice system still relied primarily on trial by jury as originally intended. In order to make such a bloated system workable, the system must force the vast majority of cases into plea bargain agreements, often coerced and strong-armed upon accused who'd really rather present their case to a jury, using a variety of means applied including absolutely unconstitutional procedural rulings preventing defense from presenting their case to a jury in its entirety, knowing defendants will not appeal minor cases due to cost and the fact they will already have served their time prior to appeal hearings.
For all these reasons we strongly encourage all liberty-minded citizens to take their cases to jury when accused, particularly those victimless misdemeanors. Give your neighbors the chance to step up and nullify; an added plus is that a sharp rise in caseloads going to trial in an already overburdened justice system will surely force, on its own, the more liberal application of discretion, and a rethinking of priorities in enforcement. Similarly we strongly encourage all citizens to ask of themselves when serving on a jury- Is this good law? Is it being justly applied? Is the state trampling my neighbor's rights? Will the punishment fit the crime? Has the state produced a victim that has actually suffered injury due to actions of the accused, or is this a socio-political prosecution?
For more on jury nullification, its history, how to survive voir dire despite being fully aware of your rights and duties as a jurer, please read:
http://www.fija.org/docs/perfect_primer_version_august_2008.pdf
and browse the rest of the information available on that fija.org website.
Alaska, by the way, is considering legislation that declares mistrial if defense is prevented from discussing the jury's right to consider nullification, and it also prevents a potential juror from being dismissed for cause because they stated their right to consider nullification. Minnesota needs the same statutory protection of its citizens' liberty, better yet it should be embedded in our state constitution.
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/PDF/26/Bills/HB0140A.PDF
Christine Marshall
Ken Anderson
Big Lake Mn
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Showing comments 1—5 of 5
Posted 05/26/09
Ishpeck
Orem, UT | Haha. I was just now thinking to myself "Somebody needs to write a blog entry about Lysander Spooner's 'Trial by Jury' essay." Now I guess I don't have to since this pretty much covers it. |
Posted 05/29/09
roserty
Orem, UT | Great article; thanks for posting.
I couldn't get the link on jury nullification to work. Perhaps you could check it out? |
Posted 05/29/09
KenAnderson
Big Lake, MN | Thanks for pointing that out, roserty, I just visited fija.org and lo & behold their website has been redesigned and has a whole new look. Here's the new link address to the jury nullification 'q & a primer' brochure that I had linked:
http://fija.org/download/37/
... a lot of good info there, and I've found our MN state fija guy, Bill Dixon, to be very upbeat, active, and helpful. Hopefully you org there in UT is the same.
A literature distribution event near a local courthouse is a very worthwhile event for our liberty people to consider doing once or twice a summer (or more), we're doing one in July here. But they must be done right if you don't want to expose your people to charges that could range from littering to jury tampering, so its a good idea to work with the fija rep and not simply print out their material and start handing it out at the jury meeting room in your local courthouse or something. |
Posted 05/30/09
KenAnderson
Big Lake, MN | Ron Paul produced a video series called 'At Issue' awhile back; the 'Power to the Jury' in three parts is viewable on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1F6AF0DE8AF2AF75&playnex t=1&playnext_from=PL&v=pA4GKG__B-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRd se8zBzyI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbw8rF_hA9I |
Posted 05/30/09
KenAnderson
Big Lake, MN | Try this address to get the first part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA4GKG__B-s&feature=PlayList&p=1 F6AF0DE8AF2AF75&index=6 |
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