Iowa Irony

Caucuses don't work the same for Democrats and Republicans in Iowa. The Republicans count the votes of each person at their caucus meeting and those votes get aggregated state-wide. Very democratic: one person, one vote.

The Democrats give each precinct a number of delegates, no matter how many people actually show up to caucus. This is a representative system: many people, one vote.

I thought it was funny that the party names seemed exactly opposite for the Iowa caucuses.

I learned this from David Freddoso on the Corner where he summarized it this way:

Republicans around the state are meeting tonight to have a large, statewide straw poll, just like a primary. You could think of it as one big caucus. The importance of each precinct, as in normal elections, will be determined by how many people turn out overall. Although the Republican vote on candidates is totally non-binding, it is the result we'll all be talking about tonight — for practical purposes, it is all that matters (unless we go to a brokered convention, and then it's hopelessly complicated anyway).

On the Democratic side, it is different. Each precinct awards a preset number of candidate delegates proportionally. It doesn't matter whether 100 or 1,000 people show up from your precinct — all that matters is the proportional vote in each individual precinct. The party reports the estimated delegate count to the media — not the number of votes. Each Democratic precinct, then, is a separate battle tonight, with no real relation to the others. If six people show up to a precinct that selects ten delegates, then those six voters have the same power as 600 voters who show up in a precinct of similar population.

Automated Candidate Selection

I tried two different automated candidate selectors for the '08 presidential race. First was one from USA Today that they put together a while ago. Here are my results from that one:

1. Mitt Romney
2. Rudy Giuliani
3. Mike Huckabee

Not surprising results.

I then took the quiz from American Public Media hosted at KCPW. I didn't like that quiz as much since I had a hard time finding answers I liked, or several answers were very similar, but I think a candidate only got points if you chose their exact answer. Here are those results:

1. Duncan Hunter
2. John McCain
3. Fred Thompson

Thank goodness for automated candidate selection! At least it let me know that I'm a Republican.

My wife took the tests too. In USA Today she should be for Romney, Hunter, Thompson. In the KCPW survey she should be for Tancredo, Huckabee, Hunter.

To take the USA Today poll and compare your answers against mine, click here. For the KCPW poll, click here.

Morley's Worker's Comp Bill

The Trib is reporting on a bill that Mike Morley is going to put forward in the upcoming session. The bill will cut off worker's comp payments for people who go to jail or who are illegal immigrants. (Anybody got a link to the actual proposed bill?)

I'm awfully torn on this issue and I'd be interested to hear some other perspectives on this. Let me try to sum up the arguments on both sides of the debate. First, in favor of the bill: If you are hurt and getting compensation payments to make up for the fact that you can't work, and then you get thrown in jail, why would you still receive compensation payments? You can't work in jail either! The bill stops people from getting paid while they are in jail.

Likewise, if you were illegally working in the country, got hurt, got on worker's comp, and then got deported, you aren't able to work in the US anymore. Even if you don't get deported, you shouldn't be working here anyway. Since you are unable to work because of your own choices and actions (rather than merely those of your employer), we're not going to give you worker's comp.

I find the arguments in favor of the legislation quite compelling. The arguments against it also have a lot of bite. If we pass a bill like this, we give employers with higher incidences of worker's comp claims an incentive to hire illegal immigrants since they will likely be able to weasel out of making the payments. This backwards incentive encourages exploitation of the most vulnerable people in our society.

The argument against the bill continues: If I get hurt on the job, you're going to pay workers comp not just to replace the income I'll lose because I can't work, but also as a sort of punitive measure against employers who don't have sufficiently safe work environments. This is a very capitalist motivator for employers to make their workplaces as safe as reasonably possible to minimize comp claims. Just because I'm in jail doesn't mean the employer should be spared the punitive effect of the comp claim.

Does that sound like a fair summary of the pro and con positions? Do you find it hard to pick a side here? I'd say we ought to end the payments to guys who end up in jail. I'm less convinced that we ought to end the payments for illegal immigrants.

I should note that a couple of arguments were mentioned in the article that I found to be totally bogus. One person noted that "the people who would be hurt by the bill would be family members of a worker who gets arrested for drunken driving or drug use." Let's be clear: the person penalizing the wife and children was the jerk who chose to drive drunk. Injured or not, you're responsible for your own actions. Naturally, I don't want to see innocent women and children being hurt, but they were going to be hurt just the same by the person getting thrown in jail if there was no comp claim involved.

The other bogus argument was "that the measure discriminates against injured workers who don't speak English, primarily Latinos and Asians." C'mon! We're not cutting off a comp claim because you don't speak English. We're cutting off the claim because of something you DID not something you ARE. Pulling the race card or the language card is just silly in this instance.

COL Takashi on Global Warming

COL Takashi has an interesting post up about global warming. I don't think he's saying anything new, but he sure makes an articulate argument and pulls together current information in a compelling way.

Some of the more interesting or amusing points:

Sea level rise? Only 10 inches by 2100, versus the same rise during the 20th Century. If your beachfront house can't cope with one inch a decade, how do you cope with the storm surges of 10, 15 and 20 feet that are normal? Indeed, wouldn't it be simpler to put your beach house on stilts than make the rest of us go without heating and air conditioning and cars and beef?

The most important point is this: The US could shut down its economy, and CO2 buildup would continue, because China is determined to become the world's superpower, it is building a new major coal-fired power plant like the ones in central Utah EVERY WEEK, and it has told the Europeans that it is not going to worry about warming. China's output is going to overwhelm anything the US does. All we will accomplish by following Al Gore is send all industry to China, and impoverish the US.

Additionally, the CO2 in the atmosphere already, according to the UN IPCC, is enough to keep warming going indefinitely, so we won't even see warming slow down until 50 years in the future! Basically, Al Gore wants us to kill our economy and make us all poor and hungry so that summer air conditioning bills will be 5% lower in 2050 (although our winter heating bills will be higher).

Bloghive Board Announced

The results are in! A new Bloghive Advisory Board has been elected. It was interesting to watch the results shift as the week of voting went on. If I didn't want people to learn how the voting system worked, I would have hidden the results until the end of the election to keep people from gaming the results. Having said that, I do trust that the results of this election are a good representation of the opinion of the users of the utahbloghive.org site.

The winners, in order of election:

Rob Miller (Utah Amicus)
JM Bell (JM Bell)
Tom Grover (KVNU's For the People)
Jesse Harris (Coolest Family Ever)
pramahaphil (Green Jello)

If you want to review how the ballots were distributed, view the detailed results page.

Congratulations to the winners! I'm looking forward to working with you on this project. Will each of you please send an email to bloghive@lavalane.org with the email address you want to use for our communications as a board. Perhaps the thing I'm most excited about is being able to finally figure out how to pronounce pramahaphil--or figure out what it means. :)

Explaining the Vote

There have been a few questions about how a preference choice election works. As you know, we are using a preference choice voting system for our Bloghive Advisory Board election that closes tonight. I'm such a fan of the voting system that I was glad to have an opportunity to let others try it out firsthand.

I created a video clip to explain how the voting system works. The biggest mistake people have made in interpreting the results of the election was to only look at the "first round" and assume the top five vote getters were the five winners. You've got to scroll all the way to the last round of the results page to see who the winners are.

Here are the current results for the election. Starting tomorrow, you'll be able to cast ballots in the poll without affecting the outcome, just to see how your vote would be counted. It is a really fun exercise. The video is below. Click this to see a slightly larger version.

Advisory Board Election

It is time to cast your votes (one ballot per person please!) for the Utah Bloghive Advisory Board. Five of the following candidates will be elected to serve on the board. Anyone is welcome to vote. (After all, how could I stop them?) My hope is that the board will represent a diversity of opinions. Toward that end, I've put together a poll that allows you to rank these candidates in the order of your preference. It is an example of "Instant Runoff Voting" or "Preference Voting". I'm a big fan of the principle.

To vote, visit the following link and rank the candidates. I really encourage you to check out the link at the bottom of the poll to understand how it works.

http://www.demochoice.org/dcballot.php?poll=BAB2007

Here is a recap of the final candidates you're voting on and their blogs. Their names are in alphabetical order below and in randomized order on the ballot. (The poll doesn't have links to the blogs, so I provide them here for convenience.)

• Bob Aagard (The World According To Me)
• Craig Limesand (KVNU's For the People)
• David Miller (Pursuit of Liberty)
• Ethan Millard (SLC Spin)
• Frank Staheli (Simple Utah Mormon Politics)
• Jesse Harris (Coolest Family Ever)
• JM Bell (um... JM Bell)
• pramahaphil (Green Jello)
• Ric Cantrell (The Senate Site)
• Rob Miller (Utah Amicus)
• Scott Hinrichs (Reach Upward)
• Steve Urquhart (Steve Urquhart)
• Tom Grover (KVNU's For the People)

The polls are open through Monday, December 3, 2007. I'll announce the winners on Tuesday.

Bloghive Advisory Board

If there is sufficient interest, I'd like to form a Bloghive Advisory Board. Here is the vision. We'll form a five member board that votes on administrative issues for the bloghive site. When new sites are recommended for the bloghive, the board will vote to decide on inclusion. The board will also decide the categorization of each new blog.

Being on the board won't be very time consuming; it is mostly just an email list. I'd like the board to be composed of bloggers currently on the site from across the spectrum. The site should continue to aggregate political content from the broad diversity of opinions represented in our state. I want to continue to have the site focus on political commentary rather than on personal or entertainment commentary.

If you would like to nominate a blogger to serve on the board, send an email to bab-nomination@utahbloghive.org. I'll collect nominations for one week and then I'll put up an online poll for one week to allow people to vote. You're welcome to nominate yourself or other bloggers you like to read. I'll get permission from the blogger before I include them in the election. Assuming I can contact all the candidates, we'll post the poll the Monday after Thanksgiving.

What are you waiting for? Send your nominations!

CURRENT NOMINATIONS (Final)
Comment below or send me an email to accept your nomination, or else I'll try to track you down later. Names with a * have accepted the nomination.

* Bob Aagard (The World According To Me)
* Craig Limesand (KVNU's For the People)
* David Miller (Pursuit of Liberty)
* Ethan Millard (SLC Spin)
* Frank Staheli (Simple Utah Mormon Politics)
* Jesse Harris (Coolest Family Ever)
* JM Bell (um... JM Bell)
* pramahaphil (Green Jello)
* Ric Cantrell (The Senate Site)
* Rob Miller (Utah Amicus)
* Scott Hinrichs (Reach Upward)
* Steve Urquhart (Steve Urquhart)
* Tom Grover (KVNU's For the People)

Voucher Redux, Or What a Waste

Well, the Utah school voucher referendum has likely failed. Now we can all settle down and get back to loving our neighbors and eating green Jello with carrot shavings (or orange Jello with celery bits). Next time we bring this issue up, can we all play nice and respect others' opinions? Perhaps try to tell the truth, not mislead, and not paint our opponents as the devil (after all, we know he's at the convention)?

And maybe not spend so much money next time, too. According to the New York Sun, more than $8 million have been spent in Utah on the voucher issue (more than spent in the last gubernatorial race). I understand the need to saturate the "market" with billboards, signs, print, television, and radio ads, mass mailings, and telephone calls, but the deluge reached Biblical proportions at our house this week. In one week's time, we received at least eight glossy, full-color, unique pamphlets in the mail (addressed to various combinations of our names, plus the ubiquitous "Resident"). And the telephone calls! Yesterday I received four automated calls, each extorting me to vote "Yes" on Referendum 1. Today I received four more--one was automated, three were real live people, somewhere in the world, asking me to go to the polls and vote for the voucher program. All of these calls were paid for by "Parents for Choice in Education".

I understand the need to "get out the vote". I support the voucher program (sometimes in spite of Parents for Choice in Education). And here's the weird thing--Parents for Choice in Education should have known this. They called me two weeks ago and asked if I was willing to put a sign in my yard. I told them yes, but they never got back to me, so my yard is, sadly, signless. So somewhere in their many lists of numbers, they should have known that I was already converted. And perhaps--just perhaps, they could have saved a little money and limited the telephone calls to my home, at least, to maybe one or two a day.

Why I Support Vouchers for Rich People

I posted earlier about the lame mailer from Utahns for Public Schools. I want to expand a bit on why that seemed so lame, and why I think vouchers for rich people are a great thing and why I think they'll help everyone--even especially the public schools.

It's all about Oreo cookies. :) According to Steve U., if we have a switch rate over 1%, we'll save money with the voucher system. Money saved means more money available to allocate to public schools. But suppose that we DON'T see a greater than 1% switch rate. In this case the voucher program will "lose money." I have to put that in quotes, because I don't think paying for education is losing money.

You see, ANY switch rate, no matter how small, will mean fewer children in public schools and more resources available per student. (That's true even if we end up spending more money from the general fund on this voucher experiment.) It is in our best interest to encourage people to take children out of the public schools if they are able to bear that burden. It really can benefit all the children who remain. Anybody chanting the chorus of "smaller class size" should concur with this argument.

It may be true that vouchers won't help poor kids get into private schools. Many budgets are just too tight to spend extra money for things that could be had for free in the public system. But suppose the voucher is the needed incentive to get 1% of rich people currently in public schools to switch to private schools. Voila! We will then reach the point where the vouchers are a net financial gain for the public school system. At that point, we're actually helping ALL the public school kids, poor or rich.

We do lots of things with taxes to create incentives for businesses. We do this not because we want to subsidize the business, but because we want to incentivize behaviors we like. We want businesses to server people in poor areas. We want businesses to build in struggling parts of the city. None of these incentives are inappropriate for a local government in my view.

The argument that we shouldn't give vouchers to rich kids--even when doing so will help poor kids--is to cut off our nose to spite our face. I'll be voting in favor of referendum 1.

Spiteful: Utahns for Public Schools Ad

I received an incredibly petty ad in the mail from Utahns for Public Schools. Perhaps you did too. Since it illustrates a point that been bugging me about the voucher debate for a while, I decided to address it--not because I believe anyone reading this is available to be swayed in the voucher debate (we've become pretty well informed here in the bloghive), but because I want to make a broader economic point.

In summary, the ad says, "Since every kid can't make use of a voucher, nobody should get a voucher." This is spiteful.

Should we insist that because every adult can't get a Pell Grant (they are only for people below a certain income), nobody should get one? Should we say that because every company can't compete for government aerospace contracts (you have to be a big enough company--and in the aerospace business--to get one), that no company should get government aerospace contracts? Would we insist that no one can use cell phones at home because some people live too far from a cell phone tower to get reception?

If I'm not harmed because you get a benefit, I should rejoice in your opportunity. Utahns for Public Schools does the opposite. This is spite. The ad preys on this worst base emotion that is truly counter-productive. It is the emotion that says, "If I can't finish first, no one else can finish."

[Note: I tried to find a link to this ad on the UTPS website, but I only saw their video ads linked there. If you've got a link, I'd love to add it.]

Chief Justice John Roberts at BYU

I got the opportunity to attend the forum lecture by Chief Justice John Roberts at Brigham Young University today. The forum was well-attended; from my vantage point it looked as if almost all the regular seats were taken, with very little spill-over to the bleacher seats. When the Chief Justice entered, everyone stood--not an honor given to most forum speakers, at least in my memory. During the preliminary business, one thing stood out to me--Justice Roberts sang along with the opening hymn "Praise to the Lord". I thought that was a nice touch.

Justice Roberts began his talk by referencing President and Sister Samuelson's beginning-of-the-year devotional talks. In his address, President Samuelson asked BYU students to read a book about the Constitution of the United States. Justice Roberts "assigned" more reading--the Constitution itself. The bulk of his address focused on the Constitution and the intent of the founders in mandating the separation of powers. The founders knew it would inefficient to have federal powers held in three separate groupings (the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary), but they preferred it that way, anyway, seeing the separation as a check against the kind of tyranny they had rebelled against.

Even for all that, the judiciary does not have the type of power the other two branches of the government have (neither "the power of the purse nor the power of the sword" he quoted during the Q&A following the forum). Justice Roberts told a humorous story about how the first federal building built in Washington DC, was the White House (executive). Then the Capitol Building was completed (legislature). And the third building...was the Patent Office. The Supreme Court didn't get their own building until 1935--before that, they met in the basement of the Capitol.

Justice Roberts spoke about the United States Constitution has endured for 220 years. Although it has grand words and lofty ideals, that alone does not make it important. Without an independent judiciary to enforce those grand words, Roberts said (he may have been quoting), they are nothing but a cruel joke. The court case of Marbury v Madison established that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and that the Supreme Court interprets that law. This power underscores the need for an judiciary that is unafraid to make unpopular decisions, without fear or favor.

According to Justice Roberts, our country is unusual in that we only have ONE Supreme Court. Other countries may have a Constitutional Court in addition to other courts which settle tax, civil, and other types of cases. Justice Roberts sees that as a definite advantage, in that the justices don't spend all their time contemplating lofty notions and esoteric ideals. Many of the cases they decide have real-time consequences, and this keeps them grounded.

He finished his address by encouraging the audience to read unbiased histories of our country. Praising James Madison, fourth president of the United States and key framer of the Constitution, Justice Roberts recommended the Federalist Papers as a good place to start reading up on the Constitution.

As an example of a modern counterpoint to James Madison, Justice Roberts praised Rex Lee, Supreme Court litigator and past president of BYU. Rex Lee "balanced family, church, and private and public service". Justice Roberts told a story about a case he argued before the Supreme Court against President Lee. When he told his client that the ruling was unanimously against them, the client asked "Why did we lose 9-0?". Justice Roberts replied, "Because there are only nine justices."

Justice Roberts' remarks were interesting, informative, and amusing. He mentioned Utah, BYU, or Mormon pioneer history several times, giving his address a local flavor that was enjoyable. The audience gave him a standing ovation, and the applause lasted several minutes (the Chief Justice seemed a little embarrassed by this, but it was well-deserved.) This was one of the best forums I've attended.

Hiram Bertoch: Utah Voucher Flyer In My Mail

A blogger who doesn't normally comment on politics has put up a reaction to a flyer he received in the mail from Parents for Choice in Education.

Utah Voucher Flyer In My Mail

It doesn't appear that Hiram allows comments on his blog (which looks bad in Firefox, BTW), so you're welcome to comment here if you like.

Feeling Like a Mormon Democrat: Yet Another Voucher Post

I'm not a Democrat, but being a voucher supporter in Utah may be the closest I'm going to get to feeling like a Mormon Democrat. You're embarrassed to be on the same team with certain other people on your side of the issues, but you stay because that's where your convictions lie.

Honestly, I haven't read many positive things about Parents for Choice in Education. They don't seem to be running a clean campaign. Yet they are on the right side of the issue. I'll pull the lever for vouchers because they are a good idea, not because I'm pleased with the way they've been marketed.

Even if vouchers end up costing the state more money, that would be more money spent towards educating kids and I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. (Aren't people always saying we should be spending more on education?) However, I suspect that vouchers will save money for the state and that that savings can be used to increase per-pupil spending in the public schools.

To be honest, I don't understand why public school teachers don't like the idea. Surely, the student population in Utah will continue to grow, meaning that the vouchers will only slow the growth. I don't think there is even a remote possibility that vouchers will cause a public school to close or shrink due to lack of enrollment.

After having looked carefully at the issue (as a non-lawyer), I have absolutely no worries about the constitutionality of the voucher measure. It is clearly legal under the Utah constitution. A reading of the Utah constitution that would prohibit vouchers would also prohibit payment of salaries to government workers who would pay tithing on that money. COL Takashi put a terrific analysis of the issue in a comment on a blog and now I can't find it. But I was thoroughly persuaded.

Anti-voucher arguments about government subsidies are also totally bogus. We've made a decision as a society to entirely subsidize the education of children. That ship has sailed. With vouchers, we're letting some people volunteer to chip in some extra money toward the education of their own children rather than having the state pay the whole bill. I support vouchers because they addresses the unfairness in our current system that some parents pay for the education of their children twice. Rich or not, that isn't fair. Let's fix it with vouchers.

Harry Reid at BYU

I just returned from watching Harry Reid present a forum address at BYU. I really liked his presentation. In the introduction by President Samuelson, we got the usual rundown on life history and previous church callings. I was surprised to hear that Senator Reid's church callings included only High Priest Group Instructor and Home Teacher. Either lots of callings were left unmentioned, or Senator Reid's public service has limited his opportunities for church service. I don't mention that by way of laud or jeer, but only to say it was interesting.

Gerrit Gong, an official at the university, spoke in a devotional a while back and related the following story that I was reminded of today.

We have all had experiences where we tried to be helpful and weren’t. I once arrived early for priesthood meeting. Thinking I could help ready our classroom, I erased the blackboard dense with writing. As he began our lesson, our dedicated instructor said, with surprise but without criticism, “I came early and put our lesson on the board, but somehow it’s been erased.” The class turned out fine, but I remember the forbearance of our priesthood teacher who, incidentally, is today’s U.S. Senate majority leader.

Harry Reid had taken a lot of heat among conservatives for his comments about losing the Iraq war at the time that Brother Gong made his remarks. It served as a reminder then that even when we disagree with someone, they rarely wear a hat that is all black. Today's address by Senator Reid served as a similar reminder.

Brother Reid talked about the challenging moral conditions that surrounded him as he grew up and the near reverence that his non-religious family had for FDR. After relating some touching stories from his life, including how he eloped with his wife and gained the love of his Jewish parents-in-law, he turned to the "Mormon Democrat" question. He provided a simple and familiar list of reasons he believes the ideals of the Democratic party are in line with Mormon beliefs. His first applause line came when he referred to the Iraq war as a foreign policy blunder. He received his second applause line when he acknowledged that some people view it differently.

The crowd was very respectful as I had hoped. He enjoyed a hearty welcoming applause when he stood up, and a small percentage of the audience gave him a standing ovation as he finished. Thanks to Brother Reid for spending some time with us. If you would like to view the address, you can catch it on BYU-TV for the next two weeks or so. (You have to skip in about five minutes on that link to get to the actual forum assembly.)