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Obama would rather campaign than govern [KSL]

March 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The following is an op-ed that I wrote and KSL published on its site on March 5, 2013.

 

25055047Of all the political crises coming out of Washington, D.C., in recent years, few demonstrate the dismal state of things like the sequester. The crisis we face is not just the dramatic growth of federal spending, but the inability of Democrats and Republicans in Washington to work together to figure out how to control it.

Worse, it appears President Barack Obama has decided to use the issue to hit Republicans. Instead of working with the GOP to find a solution, Obama instead has hit the campaign trail again to help his party re-take control of Congress in 2014. If Americans don’t understand the budget and sequestration, he will manufacture a crisis and turn it against Republicans.

 Campaigning, not Governing

The president has, at best, misinformed the American public about what the automatic budget cuts, referred to as the sequester, mean. At worst, he has taken advantage of an issue the public does not understand to create a faux crisis. Look at those Republicans in Congress, he says. “What I can’t do is force Congress to do the right thing,” he said last week. “The American people may have the capacity to do that.”

And by “that,” he means restore Democratic control of Congress. So, rather than meet with Congressional leaders in the weeks leading up to the beginning of the sequester on March 1, Obama instead hit the campaign trail.

According to the The Washington Post, it matches a strategy decision made by Obama shortly after his re-election in 2012 to work to put Nancy Pelosi back as speaker of the House. If the president can’t persuade Republicans to his way of thinking, he’ll campaign to replace them.

As Ed Rogers put it in The Washington Post, “The president is most confident and fulfilled as a campaigner. He would rather travel the country and lead the permanent campaign, relying on his relative personal appeal, than take responsibility and govern.” For better or worse, the president has decided that if he cannot impose his will on Congress, he will try to persuade the American people to give him a majority in 2014.

Along with the campaigning has come a torrent of misinformation about the budget cuts that has journalists cringing.

  • In a news conference Friday, President Obama said that janitors and security guards at the Capitol would get a pay cut. On the contrary, according to the Architect for the Capitol, which employs the janitors, Obama’s remarks are “not true.” The Washington Post, fact checking the president, gave him four Pinocchios, which is akin to saying his pants are on fire. Nothing in his statement was even close to being correct, reported the Post.
  • Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went on to CBS’ “Face the Nation” Feb. 24 to scare people with images of 40,000 teachers getting pink slips and children being squished into overcrowded classrooms. Duncan repeated this claim three times. Not so fast, said The Washington Post. The Department of Education couldn’t produce the name of a single school that was sending out pink slips. Another false claim from the Obama Administration, the Post says.
  • Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius threatened in a letter that 70,000 children would lose access to Head Start. The Washington Post balked at that figure, too.

If Americans didn’t understand what sequester meant before Obama took to the campaign trail, we understood even less after.

 The Elephant in the Room

This isn’t to say that Republicans haven’t done their part to spin sequester. Republicans in Congress regularly argue that the cuts to the budget are only 2.5 percent of the federal budget. This ignores the fact that programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and food stamps are largely untouched by the sequester, making the impact on other areas of the budget much more substantial. For example, defense spending was hit hard with a 13 percent cut to its budget. (Not that the budget of the Department of Defense couldn’t use a good look. For example, why do we still have military bases in Germany and Japan? Didn’t World War II end in 1945?)

Behind all of the spin and hot air, few Republicans and almost no Democrats in Washington are willing to address the elephant in the room: the cuts from sequestration don’t touch the major causes of U.S. spending growth. Faced with growing costs of health care, as well as the expensive new benefits endowed by the Affordable Care Act, the costs of America’s entitlements will continue to grow — unchecked by the sequester.

While Republicans have pressed for “smart” cuts in lieu of slashing spending by sequestration — for example, Utah’s two senators, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, both proposed alternatives to the sequester — they have failed to organize a plan that can meet Democrats somewhere in the middle. Getting rid of the debt will require raising taxes or cutting benefits to, as Douglas Elmendorf puts it, “people who consider themselves to be in the middle class.” That, or a little of both.

The alternative is to do nothing until America can no longer ignore its spending habits. The sequester may not be the crisis that our politicians are threatening, but it foreshadows what will happen if we don’t find a way to fund the government programs we have created.

As the Bipartisan Policy Center puts it, after predicting that sequestration could cost as many as a million jobs over the next two years, “The lesson … is that we can expect much pain for little gain.” Whether its prediction that jobs will be lost is accurate remains to be seen

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Our problem isn’t the taxes, but the spending

December 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“Spending car” by Mike Lester

Is it time for Republicans trying to avert the fiscal cliff to give up on protecting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for entitlement reform?

Maybe, says former Senator Bob Bennett in an opinion piece in the Deseret News.

President Barack Obama wants to raise revenue by increasing taxes on households earning more than $250,000. The financial arguments for his position are weak — there aren’t enough such households to have a big impact on the debt — but he will prevail because all he has to do to get his way is nothing.

No deal, and taxes go up automatically on Jan. 1, giving him what he wants for the rich. Then on Jan. 2, he can propose that Congress immediately pass a law putting rates back down for the non-rich. If Republicans don’t pass it and there is a new recession, he will claim that it was their fault.

Maybe a better question would be: do Republicans still have a choice?

In many respects, the debate over taxes–raise them on the rich! Lower on the poor! Middle class! Get rid of deductions! Close loopholes! Reform the tax code!–is important, but really misses the point of what is behind the fiscal problems our country is facing. At the root of it all, the problem isn’t the tax code–though I’m all for reforming it, simplifying it, and making it more flat–the problem is that we are spending more than we are paying in taxes.

Let me repeat that with some emphasis: we are spending more than we are paying in taxes.  It’s a national problem carried and caused by each and every American. It isn’t about the rich–who are paying more and more–or the poor–who aren’t paying at all, but are more reliant on the government than ever before: it’s about all of us.

  • The Democrats: “Raise taxes on the wealthy!” comes the hue and cry from the Left, regardless of the fact that taxes cannot be raised high enough to avert future fiscal crises. In fact, they may aggravate them. No matter how many times the left side of the political spectrum tries to attack the wealthy, to say that they are not paying their fair share, the fact is that the wealthy are paying an increasingly large percentage of all taxes received by the federal government.  As I’ve noted in an earlier post, the 1950s, which saw record high tax rates on the very wealthy, also saw the wealthy supporting only 27% of the government’s budget. Today, the wealthy support 51% of the federal budget.
  • The Republicans: “No tax hikes!” is a great slogan, and indeed, Republicans are right that taxes slow the economy and hurt entrepreneurs, employers, and families. But they can’t fight tax growth with one hand, and spend more with the other.  One of the major mistakes of Republicans during the George W. Bush Administration was the passage of Medicare Part D, a massive expansion of government spending without corresponding revenues (also known as “taxes”). It didn’t help that we decided to invade and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. My point is that you can’t fight taxes and create spending at the same time and expect the books to balance at the end of the day.
  • And the rest of us Americans: Like it or not, whether you are political or not, whether you voted  or not, you too are part of the problem. Our culture’s changing priorities is a part of the problem. Think about your own spending and lifestyle habits:  do you go to the emergency room instead of the physician? Do your lifestyle choices keep you healthy and physically fit? Did you take a job–any job–during the recession, and then, when it wasn’t enough to pay the rent or put food on the table, seek help from family, church, or charity first, before seeking government aid?  Are you saving for your retirement or are you expecting that Social Security and Medicare will provide for you in your “golden” years? And to the wealthy: do you give to a lobbying group that assures your industry gets sweet-heart deals, tax carve-outs and deductions, or protection from competition? For all of us: do you make an effort to be aware of the effect local elected officials actions will have on your home, neighborhood, city, or state?

In large part, I believe that the growth of the mountain of debt our country faces in the coming decades is not merely the fault of politicians in Washington, D.C., but also the result of changes in American culture where we demand more, and more, and give less, less not to our country, but to our neighbors and to our communities. As we fail to prepare and practice self-reliance and interdependence with our neighbors, we hand government bureaucrats more responsibility for things that would have, just a generation ago, been handled by neighbors helping one another.

The costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are among the heaviest that our country will need to burden in the coming decades, but reforming them is the work of politicians, and work that they can feasibly accomplish. The long-term future of American prosperity depends on it.

On the other hand, the effects that are created by an American culture that creates people that ask “what can my country do for me?” is an effect that can be deterred only by asking “what you can do for your country.” And that question can only be answer by some serious introspection–and personal change.

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A Democratic Lovefest: Thoughts on the Senate District 2 Debate

November 28, 2012 by 3 Comments

It’s Tuesday night, the election is three weeks in the rear view mirror, and I’m already having withdrawals.

So, naturally, I found myself at the Utah Senate District 2 debate watching a bunch of bleeding heart Democrats try their best to convince the 160 Democratic delegates who will vote in the special election that each is the most liberal candidate.

It was like watching the Republican primary debates in reverse. Instead of trying to be the most conservative, they were trying to be the most liberal. I had to pinch myself to see if I was still awake. This is Utah, right?

This is Utah, and apparently there are liberals here, not just Democrats who would become moderate Republicans upon leaving the state. Real, bona fide, liberal Democrats. Granted, I think that nearly all of them were in the room there at the University of Utah’s Museum of Art and hosted by the Alliance for a Better UTAH and the ABU Education Fund. The room wasn’t full–probably only half the chairs were taken, but there was a healthy turn-out of delegates and news reporters.

Rather than do a play-by-play (you can check my twitter feed for that), here are a few impressions on the candidates who attended:

Will Carlson. If I remember right, Will was a class ahead of me in law school at the SJ Quinney. I completely disagreed with almost everything he said, but I found him to be refreshingly honest. Early in the debate, a topic turned to how Democrats, who have only five seats in the Utah Senate, will get anything done. Rather than act like he can find a way to compromise, Carlson said this:

Compromise is something you do when you have a seat at the table. Unfortunately, Utah Democrats have been on the table too long and we don’t have a place to compromise our power…when it’s time to stand for truth, compromise is not a top priority.”

I don’t think it will win him many votes, and I disagree with him on what he believes, but I do find his attitude refreshing. Carlson played the role of an outsider to Utah’s political elites throughout the night, and I think it was probably an honest self-assessment.

Robert Comstock. I found it difficult to follow Comstock’s rationale. Clearly he means well, but his reality sounded, well, a bit out there, even compared to Democrats. An ordained Christian minister and, by his own account, a community organizer, he seemed to be trying to throw out the reddest of the red meat to Democrats in the room, lambasting the legislature for intentionally trying to destroy the Great Basin through public lands policies and putting himself forward as a would-be advocate for the poor in Utah legislature (admirable, if Quixotic).

WinterPride: Selisse, Jackie, Peter Corroon

WinterPride: Selisse, Jackie, Peter Corroon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Peter Corroon. Mr. Milquetoast, but, in the words of Barack Obama, he “punches above his weight.” He’s the favorite to win, though, and  I suspect that’s because Utah Democrats see him as the candidate most able to appeal to the Utah legislature’s predominantly white, male demographic. In large part, I think they’re right. I spoke with Senator Scott Jenkins this morning, and he said that he liked Peter, having worked with him before and calling him “level headed.” Last night, Corroon seemed to fit that description, though dropping his cousin Howard Dean’s name felt gratuitous and pandering, as did his promise to fight Republicans on abortion. Corroon said he supports raising taxes (hard to question him on that since he’s trying to do it in Salt Lake County right now).  His quote of the night: “When it comes to human dignity, standing up for people, especially those in need in our community, I think that’s where we don’t compromise,  but where we stand strong as [Democrats].”  That’s bleeding heart liberalism for you.

Jim Dabakis. Ah, Dabakis…the Democrat of Democrats. In many ways, Jim is the best thing to happen to Utah Democrats in recent memory. Clearly brilliant, clearly articulate, and clearly passionate, he’s acquired and embraced a reputation as a loud, vociferous critic of Utah Republicans, something that more than one of the candidates during the debate alluded to when they said they would not be a “barking dog” in the legislature. While that’s great as a party leader, I don’t think being shrill will play well, nor does exaggerating and vilifying the GOP give him credibility as a lawmaker. He will do well on Saturday because he has delegate respect, but he doubt he’ll win first place.

Brian Doughty. Doughty already has legislation ready to go, on day one…and he reminded delegates about it several times during the night. Like every other candidate on the stage, Doughty said that he thinks it’s time for a tax hike and he supports abortion, but went the extra mile to call the Republican members of the Utah legislature “sheep.” I can’t think that attitude will help engender a lot of good will for the minority party, and I think delegates will agree (if if they think Republicans are sheep).

Jenny Wilson. Wilson billed herself as the only candidate with legislative experience.  In comparison with Mr. Milquetoast,  she came across as the most consistentwith her past positions during her tenure as a Salt Lake County Councilmember. Where Corroon tries to talk a moderate stance while consistently taking liberal positions (raising taxes, supporting abortion, increasing gay marriage rights), Wilson’s rhetoric seemed to match her actions more consistently than other candidates. At one point, she became choked up while describing her disgust of Mitt Romney and her support for abortion, and I think she meant it, which is almost more scary than if she was pandering to the delegates.

English: Utah State Capitol. Taken by me in 2002.

English: Utah State Capitol. Taken by me in 2002. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Other observations:

  • If Corroon wins, he’ll represent a decreasing percentage of Democratic Party demographics: straight, married, white men. With three of the six candidates on the stage gay and only one  a woman (a surprise to me, actually), odds are higher that  a gay man will join the Utah Senate. In many ways, I think Democrats would be well served to have Dabakis in the legislature, but I doubt it’ll happen.
  • Taxes and teachers: they’ll vote for them. With the exception of the food tax, the candidates all want to raise taxes, especially to increase teachers’ salaries. Ironically, almost none of the candidates drew a relationship to increasing teachers’ salaries and increasing student success. Very simply, and clearly, they all said that just because Utah is not paying teachers as much as other states, taxes should increase to compensate, adding that they would defend teachers.  It was bold faced pandering to UEA. I couldn’t help but wonder: what about the kids? Some, in some dark corner of the auditorium, came back an answer: kids, and their parents, don’t donate to campaigns–teachers’ unions do.
  • Jim Dabakis is smooth. It’s very hard not to like him, and he’s very good at being gracious to, well, almost everyone. He opened by complimenting just about everyone in the room, and other than caricaturing Republicans as governing from secretive, “smoke filled rooms” (he seemed to forget that most members of the Utah legislature are LDS and don’t smoke), he actually had fairly reasonable responses to most of the questions, including the gay marriage question, leaving me more interested in working with him on that issue than anyone else at the table.
  • English: Number of self-identified Democrats v...

    English: Number of self-identified Democrats vs. self-identified Republicans, per state, according to Gallup, January-June 2010 http://www.gallup.com/poll/141548/States-Competitive-Terms-Party-Identification.aspx. 18 point Democratic advantage 10-17 point Democratic advantage 3-9 point Democratic advantage 2 point Democratic advantage through 2 point Republican advantage 3-9 point Republican advantage 10-17 point Republican advantage 18+ point Republican advantage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Utah Democrats are out of step with Utah voters. If the views of these candidates are truly representative of Utah Democrats, then Utah Democrats are in complete denial about why they keep losing elections. Despite taking a beating across the state (excepting Jim Matheson, who squeeked out a win by 768 votes, and Ben McAdams, who won by pretty much rebranding himself as something other than the most liberal member of the Utah Senate, a rating multiple organizations have given him), Democrats seem not to care about why. While Republicans nationwide are having a “come to Jesus” moment about why they lost the White House to Barack Obama when economic fundamentals should have given it to them, Democrats in Utah seem to blithely believe they can go on supporting higher taxes, abortion, teachers’ unions over students,  gay marriage (versus civil unions) and entitlement expansion. These are all policies that have been pursued successfully in California, a state that is largely mired in heavy debt, while Utah, with near opposite policies, has grown at 3% or higher for over six months and has seen unemployment drop to 5.4% from 7.8% during the height of the recession.

  • A Utah first: cussing in a debate.

With only 160 delegates on the line, it’s hard to say who will win. Regardless of the winner, though, I believe the next senator from Senate District 2 is likely to be to the left of center and out of step, for better or worse, with mainstream Utahns.

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Utah Democrats refuse Republican help & continue their tantrum

August 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Jim Dabakis, Chair of the Utah Democratic Party (“I once caught a fish this big…” he might be saying. But probably not.) (Photo Credit: Salt Lake Tribune photographer Francisco Kjolseth)

Given the choice between accepting Republican help and continuing a public temper tantrum, Utah Democrat Jim Dabakis prefers a tantrum.

Democrats in Utah have learned a few salient facts over the last couple decades:

  1. Most Utahns don’t agree with the Democratic platform and policies.
  2. With that platform, Democrats aren’t going to win a majority, or even a sizable minority, of the state legislature.
  3. And, they can’t win a state-wide election, either.
  4. Also, this isn’t Burger King: you can’t have it your way. We have rules here, and we apply them equally to everyone.

_________________________

Enter Jim Dabakis. As they say in law school, if you can’t win on the facts, win with emotion. And the emotion he wants to win with is anger. Not able to get his way with the redistricting process, he is throwing a public temper tantrum.

As observed in an earlier post, Dabakis has worked hard to make gold from straw using an underfunded request for redistricting documents to smear the Utah legislature without evidence. The non-partisan Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel said Dabakis couldn’t have redistricting documents without paying for them, a cost that, under law, must be born by the requesting party.  It was a $9,000 cost that the Utah Democratic Party, sitting on a $800,000 war chest, could easily afford.

Opposing the Democratic Party was an odd hero–retiring state legislator David Litvack, a Democrat.

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/billyhesterman/status/237582259761319936"]

To make the story stranger, the Utah Republican Party offered to pay the cost of the documents for the Democrats. Then, just as the documents were about to be released, the Democratic Party turned them down, claiming that no one should have to pay for them. Not even Republicans with cash in hand.

And then they promptly sent out a fundraising email vilifying the Utah legislature:

In a horrendous vote, the Utah State Legislature and the members of the Legislative  Records Appeals Committee voted 3-1 that releasing the documents surrounding redistricting was not in the public interest and should remain hidden from the Utah State Democratic Party, numerous good government groups, the press, and the taxpayers of Utah.

Never mind that the documents could have been in the public long ago, or even this afternoon. Even when someone stepped forward to deliver the documents, the Democratic Party made it clear that they would rather politicize than progress.

This is bigger than political theater, bigger than Democrats versus Republicans.  The legislature continues to hide behind closed doors, exorbitant fees, and archaic rules to keep the public out of the process.  The work is already done.  The documents have been compiled.  We wrote the $5,000 check, we paid the fee.  And now they’re sitting there, gathering dust.  What are they hiding?  What’s in the box? Why won’t they just release the documents?

Except that the Democrats did not pay the fee. It was not a flat fee, but a payment for the estimated cost of producing the documents. And, as was promised, the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel delivered $5,000 worth of documents.

Rep. David Litvack

Dabakis doesn’t really want the documents. He knows how useless they will be. He knows that the redistricting process was conducted in full compliance with the law. And, worst of all, he knows that Utah’s demographics just won’t benefit Democrats, not unless they are slanted and distorted in their favor.

In the end, Utahns can tell the difference between grand standing and good public policy.  On one hand we have Litvack, who represents the image of a  consistent, fair public servant. On the other hand, we have Dabakis, more interested in a headline, in smearing his opponents than seeking compromise and the public interest.

We need public servants more like Litvack, willing to stand by his oath to the public over short-term interest and party loyalty.  Politicians like Dabakis are savvy with the media, and he makes for great copy, but his grandstanding does little for the public interest.

[Daily Herald][Billy Hesterman]

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Public roads to nowhere [Contributor]

July 30, 2012 by 2 Comments

  [Benjamin Lusty is a lawyer and an occasional contributor to Publius Online]

______________________________________________________________

Democrats love talking about roads when they are actually talking about something else.  Listen to Massachusetts senate candidate (and progressive heart-throb) Elizabeth Warren:  “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.  Nobody.  You built a factory out there—good for you!  But I want to be clear.  You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.”  Hear this echo from President Obama:  “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.…  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.”

The uninitiated may think that Democrats are actually talking about roads, which only they support, and without which we’re relegated to the anarchic Republican blood sport of “you’re on your own” economics.  Democrats, in their humble public spiritedness, plead for just a few more tax dollars, taken from just a few more rich people, to build just a few more miles of road so we can all share in the wealth they mysteriously generate.  Conservatives, they insinuate, cosset capitalist barbarians who loot our collective infrastructure.

This is obfuscation.  Democrats aren’t talking about roads.  They’re talking about entitlements and the taxes to fund them.  President Obama’s reelection wouldn’t herald a new age of aqueducts, Great Walls, and Hoover Dams.  It will aggrandize the welfare state.  Democrats retain power by distributing cash to special interests within their electoral coalition.  Seniors get social security and Medicare, college students get subsidized loans and Pell grants, and civil servants enjoy “Ferrari” health plans and gilded pensions.  In exchange, they vote Democrat.  It is simple entitlement politics.  Democrats’ political survival depends upon funding it all without asking sacrifices of their supporters.  Although road building grabs some votes, entitlements grab more.

Math, however, gets in the way.  Protracted recession and escalation of federal spending threaten both the treasury and Democrats’ electoral prospects.  This in turn necessitates a prolonged campaign to raise taxes to sustain current benefit spending.  But rather than honestly call for higher taxes, Democrats dress their politico-fiscal paradigm in the camouflage of “public investments” while simultaneously accusing conservatives of anti-social thuggery.  Raising taxes to pay for somebody else’s health care is a hard sale, particularly when higher taxes hurt the families that pay.  It is far easier to eulogize roads and hope that most people believe that’s the actual subject of the ploy.

Consequently, Democrats deliberately misuse the concept of public goods as a campaign strategy.  Public goods are simply those things that everybody can enjoy equally.  One person’s use of a road or a park does not necessarily limit access to the benefit it generates.  Similarly, everybody enjoys national defense, fire protection, and policing.  Government funding of public goods makes economic sense because private markets generally do not provide sufficient incentive for investment.

The same is not true, however, of entitlements which are only privately enjoyed.  One person’s Medicaid benefits cannot be consumed by another, even though the costs are shared by all taxpayers.  Further, entitlements do not lead to the creation of new goods.  Entitlement spending simply funds private consumption of things which the private market already creates.

Although the interstate freeway system may not exist without the Department of Transportation, Pennsylvania Hospital (the nation’s oldest) existed long before Medicaid selectively distributed health care benefits.  Unlike public goods, entitlements do not contribute to social wealth; instead they shift consumption from one group to another.

Democrats’ political survival, however, depends on their ability to convince voters that private consumption of public funds is actually a positive good to the rest of society that justifies elevated taxation.  This is only rhetorically possible if Democrats convince others that their spending program is simply nothing more than making everybody chip in their “fair share.”  The rhetoric used, however, is inherently deceptive and fails to convey honest information about the fundamentally differing economic qualities of public goods and entitlements.

Ironically, Democrats’ confusion of public goods and entitlements jeopardizes the ongoing vitality of public goods far more than any perfidy which they attribute to Republicans.  Entitlement funding dwarfs all other expenses and engrosses an escalating share of public revenue.  Absent comprehensive reform, entitlement politics will bankrupt the state, stalling every core public function upon which Americans rely.  Democrats are travelling a rhetorical public road to nowhere on the racecar of unreformed entitlements.

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Where there’s smoke, or an FBI investigation…

June 15, 2012 by 7 Comments

Yesterday, Democrat’s allegations that John Swallow was investigated by the FBI for corruption hit the Salt Lake Tribune, and almost immediately, I was hit by a storm of emails and a robodial telling me the allegations were false. Not one of them featured a single word from the candidate himself.

I know John Swallow has his career and his election on the line, but really: his campaign should first verify the allegations they’re making before spreading them so far and wide.

Here’s what happened:

A political ad that will hit Republican voters’ mailboxes this week makes a dramatic allegation — that GOP attorney general candidate John Swallow was the target of a federal investigation for intervening in a Salt Lake County bid process.

At first glance, I’m peeved that a Democrat is attacking Swallow. We’re in a Republican Primary, after all. As I read on, though, I’m more than a little surprised that something so serious would be alleged, even by Democrats. Attacking an Assistant AG  for being under investigation by the FBI, even one with as little experience as John Swallow, is over the top unless there is evidence to back it up.

The flier, coming two weeks before Swallow’s June 26 GOP primary against attorney Sean Reyes, raises the issue of a contract dispute involving Salt Lake County and California-based Worldwide Environmental Products, which sought to provide emissions-testing equipment to garages in the county.

Awarding the three-year, $12 million contract turned into a bitter fight. Worldwide alleged the bid was rigged, and the attorney general’s office and, eventually, the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office became involved, according to interviews and records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.

A grand jury was convened to hear testimony relating to the contract. Swallow, Assistant Attorney General Alan Bachman and Bachman’s paralegal were subpoenaed to testify. But the case was apparently scrapped at the last minute; the grand jury did not convene.

The target of the investigation is unclear. The FBI and U.S. attorney’s office would not comment.

The article goes on. After Worldwide’s lobbyist pressed for an inquiry, the AG’s office contacted Salt Lake County.  The story indicates that Bachmann and Swallow then called the Salt Lake County attorneys with responsibility for the bidding process and mentioned an investigation into the bid process if Worldwide was not given another opportunity. Both Salt Lake County attorneys claim they were threatened.

Bachman told The Tribune that there was a misunderstanding and that he made no such threat, pointing to an email after his call in which he stressed that the state may investigate, not that it would.

At this point, the Salt Lake District Attorney, Sim Gill, said enough is enough. If the bid process is bad, let’s have a real investigation, and he called the FBI.

“If there’s corruption, we want to find it. We want an objective, transparent look at this,” Gill said. “If you call here and make such accusations, then you know what? Be prepared. We’ll pick up the phone [to the FBI] and say, ‘Investigate us, investigate them, investigate everyone else, whoever is involved in this process.’ ”

At the end of the day, the only people interviewed or subpoenaed by the FBI were John Swallow (who did not comment in the story), Alan Bachman, and Bachman’s paralegal. No one in Salt Lake County was interviewed in the investigation into the bid process, which I find a little odd, since that’s the process that was supposedly, according to Bachman, in need of review.

Naturally, if the FBI had investigated Swallow for corruption, it would be a game changer. Who wants an Attorney General who is corrupt?

I get back to work, but it wasn’t the last I would hear about the story yesterday. I received, a third email at 1 PM, this time through the Utah Republican State Party and identical to the second in content, differing only in the Utah Republican Party headers and disclaimers on the bottom. At this point, it’s starting to feel like a lot of email, almost overkill.

Then, at 8:53 PM, I receive a 45 second call from 801-386-9074, the John Swallow campaign phone number. It’s a robodial of a recording of Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. He starts by saying that he took an oath when he became attorney general. I can’t recall whether he said the oath was to be honest or to uphold the law, but both are similar and amount to the same thing. Then, speaking with some animation, he says that Sean Reyes and Democrats are telling lies so they can push their liberal agenda on Utah. This is a shock to me, since it’s very clear that the mailer is not coming from Sean Reyes, but from Democrat Dimitri Moumoulidis‘s Super PAC Ute PAC.

For all the emails and robodials, I still haven’t seen the mailer itself. I’m not sure I would have noticed the story, or at least not seen it so early, but for the attention the Swallow campaign has brought to it.

_________________________

English: Photograph of Mark Shurtleff

English: Photograph of Mark Shurtleff (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Conclusions? First, I find it a little unsettling that the chief law enforcement officer of the state is using phrases like “illegal” so blithely and easily.  Utah law, which the Attorney General correctly cites in all three emails, requires a number of things, not the least is that the person publishing the mailer must know that their statement is false.

A person may not knowingly make or publish, or cause to be made or published, any false statement in relation to any candidate, proposed constitutional amendment, or other measure, that is intended or tends to affect any voting at any primary, convention, or election.

I have yet to see anything that connects Sean Reyes to the Democratic Super PAC, and so it appears that Shurtleff is accusing Reyes of lying without evidence. It is highly inappropriate, especially for an officer of the court like the Attorney General.  While I know that passions during campaign season can get intense, I think the Attorney General, considering the amount of power he holds to investigate and prosecute the law, should be careful about slinging around legal terms that accuse people of crimes.

Further, if there is any truth to the mailer (and again, I have not seen it), a public vetting of John Swallow’s actions is appropriate. In a heavily conservative state like Utah, this is the election for Utah’s attorney general. It is unlikely that in a year like this one, with Mitt Romney on the ballot, a Democratic challenger is going to have a chance , short of a scandal and then it’ll need to be dramatic.

  • Did the John Swallow use his office to pressure Salt Lake County on behalf of Worldwide?
  • Was he investigated by the FBI?
  • Why wasn’t anyone but Swallow, Bachman, and Bachman’s paralegal interviewed?
  • If it’s nothing, why not tell us what was asked?
  • What did the FBI want to know badly enough to subpoena and interview just members of the Attorney General’s office?

Last observation: why haven’t we heard Swallow comment or deny the allegations? He is the only person, outside of the FBI, that has first hand knowledge of why he was interviewed by the FBI. Looking at Robert Gehrke’s article, the emails, and the phone call, though, I can’t find any statements from John Swallow. Even his campaign consultant Jason Powers, whose modus operandi is to stay behind the scenes, is quoted.

Why nothing from Swallow himself?

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Nationwide Poll: Most know that Mormons are Christians, but especially Republicans.

December 22, 2011 by 2 Comments

Most people consider Mormons–members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints– Christians, says a new nationwide poll by the Salt Lake Tribune. That’s interesting, and it’s also probably good news to Mitt Romney, whose biggest liability is not the health care reforms he signed as Governor of Massachusetts, but his religion.

What’s more interesting, at least to me, is who questions Mormons’ Christianity. It’s not those “crazy” conservatives; rather, it may be Democrats and Independents.

Check out the screen shot of the Salt Lake Tribune’s poll below:

At #1, the red circle, you see the percentage in the poll that consider Mormons to be Christians (which, by the way, they are). It’s just over half at 52%.

However, when that percentage is broken down into smaller segments, controlling for political affiliation, it becomes clear that the lack of acceptance is stronger on the political left.

Go to #2, the blue circles. Whereas almost 63% of Republicans believe Mormons are Christians, that percentage drops 14% among Democrats. It drops even further to 44% with independents, or people claiming no political affiliation.

What’s the upshot? The difference may not matter. Democrats and Independents don’t care about religion or belief in God as much as Republicans do.

“Clearly, religion is much more important to Republicans,” said Brad Coker, of Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the Dec. 12-16 survey for The Tribune.

Further,

The partisan split is likely attributed to the larger number of secular Democrats, said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which studies public policy through a Christian viewpoint. He said while most Democrats are people of faith, the party “just has a lot more nonbelievers in it.”

English: Governor Mitt Romney of MA

Image via Wikipedia

So, controlling for “more nonbelievers” to the left of Republicans, and considering that any Republican candidate whose faith might be questioned (i.e. Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney) is facing a Republican primary, we really need only look at Republicans’ perceptions of candidates. And, according to what we see here, Republicans care about a candidate’s faith, belief in God, and Christianity.

Especially the evangelicals. Says the article

White evangelicals often are seen as one conservative group most likely to criticize the LDS faith, but the poll found that 50 percent see Mormons as Christians, though 29 percent said they were not, the largest among any of the groups polled by The Tribune.

Are evangelicals shifting? Are southern preachers like Robert Jeffress losing their bigoted war against the LDS faith?

These are signs indicating that such may be the case. I’m still waiting to see. Until the Republican Presidential race shifts from New Hampshire to South Carolina and Florida, I’ll hold my judgement on whether the nation is ready to accept as one of their own a member of the LDS faith.

[Salt Lake Tribune]

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