| I'm sorry for calling you a traitor the other day.
Well, actually, I'm not sorry, but it seemed polite to say that I was since I'm about to ask you to do something. A really big something.
See, I'm thinking you're pretty much responsible for getting us into this mess. And I think the only way we're going to get out of it is if it becomes bigger. A whole lot bigger. And I think you're the right guy to take a big mess and make it huge. |
| Here's how my thinking went: I called you a traitor because you left the state rather than pay what the duly elected government decided your fair share of the taxes should be. That, and you came back to meddle in the state government in a way that-- I think we would all agree-- has taken an extraordinarily dysfunctional legislature and removed whatever remaining semblance of sanity it still retained.
Here's what really gets me about your reluctance to pay what, again, decided by the elected government, was your share of the state's tax income: if you don't pay it, the rest of us have to. You seem to conveniently forget to mention that when you whine about how much you are taxed.
See, we're all feeling we're over taxed. But most of us just suck it up and rationalize that it's part of being in a state that has one of the better (at least in the non-urban areas) school systems in the country.
But you're right about a bunch of things: our state government is inefficient and most of us think it spends more than it should; our state legislature is just this side of useless; and our taxes are too high.
I made a bunch of suggestions in my post earlier this week. It seems to me that the most important of them are: initiative/recall/referendum (to allow the voters a say when the legislature goes off on a crazy jaunt, like they have this week); clean money, clean elections and nonpartisan redistricting (so that the rest of the time, we have legislators who are closer to the voters); and electing a whole new bunch of them as soon as possible (because I think it's safe to say that the state is fed up with the current crew).
I'll also add that the "reform proposals" need to be enacted, and more, and bigger, and with teeth. We need to liberate the rank and file members of the legislature from their "leadership" by opening up the legislative process; we need to eliminate earmarks/member items; and we need to equalize how legislators are treated.
Do you want to help? I mean, do you really want to help fix the state and make things better? Or do you want to complain and strut around like the big man on campus who is capable of completely disrupting the government?
We need a special election and we need a constitutional convention. And we need them now. I don't mean in November (although the election may have to wait for November for logistical reasons) and I don't mean the end of the summer. I mean within the next couple of weeks.
To get that, though, the legislature will presumably need to take action. And the only way to spur them into that is by rising enough of a vox populus that they feel they have to.
Here's what I would like you to do:
- Fund a special commission to look at how the state government needs to be restructured and how the constitution needs to be rewritten in order to "fix" the state. And, by the way, "fix" does not mean "better for Tom", but rather "better for the people who live in the state". It does not mean "destroy the state's educational system", it does not mean "impoverish people who receive unemployment assistance and medicaid", and it does not mean "shoot the unions". It can involve modifying all of the above, but not to the breaking point. Have them report to you within, say, three weeks. Make all of their deliberations public. Allow us to have our say on them.
- Demand a state constitutional convention. Add initiative/recall/referendum and begin changing the structure of the state government along the lines of how your commission has recommended. Reform the functioning of the legislature.
- Begin funding an advertisement campaign-- plan on spending $1M per week-- until the legislature agrees to hold the convention.
- Threaten any legislator who stands in the way of these reforms that you will see to it that each of their opponents gets at least $1M in the next election.
Do this, do it right, help fix the state, and you'll be a hero.
It won't be cheap, it won't be easy, but going from traitor to patriot never is. Better to be a hero than a zero-- and I have to tell you, that's how most people in the state view you right now.
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