I again ask for evidence: vote "No" on Proposition 300

Proposition 300 this year is the question of a pay raise for the legislature, referred to the voters by the Commission on Salaries for Elective State Officers. It's more modest than that proposed in 2006: a $6000 raise to $30,000 per year, as opposed to a $12,000 raise to $36,000 per year.

In the voter guide, the Arizona Advocacy Network recommends that we pass the measure so that the legislators don't have to come to rely on special interests to pay their keep. Baloney!--bribery is prosecutable and we can vote out of office those who offer legal quid pro quo. There is nevertheless something to be said for raising the salary: running for the legislature is currently unattractive to those of modest means who simply cannot abandon their jobs or businesses for a third of the year. I'd say that the low salary keeps class warriors out, but it doesn't: socialized medicine proponent Phil Lopes is an obvious example of that.

Perhaps if we raise the salary a bit, we can in the long term attract not only those of more modest means, but those of more modest attitudes. To take the financial hit being a legislator entails, one must value power more than the lost income. For "crusader" types, who see themselves as God's gift to Arizona--I'm thinking of Lopes, and Russel Pearce, too--the choice is clear. But this is mere speculation; I have no real-world reason to believe that the legislature will become less ideological at the margin were salaries to be raised.

Most arguments in favor of a "no" vote are stupid. The most common is simple disapproval of the current legislators: they don't "deserve" a raise. That's not what this question is about; the proper ballot line on which to show disapproval of a legislator is that corresponding to the legislative race. Similarly, Governor Napolitano's take, that the legislators shouldn't get raises because many other Arizonans aren't getting raises, is stupid. We don't determine wages and salaries by a toddler's concept of fairness (the "Daddy Model"), we determine it based on our guess as to what the extra money spent will get us.

I've noted that libertarians of the vulgar sort are very uncomfortable with the idea that laws can change and dead set in their flighty utopianism against mechanisms to change the law: Libertarian Party candidate for US Congress Powell Gammill gives us an example of this in his piece in the voter guide (linked above). We get a daffy anarchist credo, followed by Ernest Hancock's insightless slogan ("Freedom's the answer; what's the question?"), followed by an assertion that the legislature ought simply pass a budget and go home. Nonsense!--the way Gammill puts it, the legislature oughtn't legislate, forget what's written in the AZ Constitution and forget the good of the people of the State!

Shake the stupid out of it, and Gammill is nonetheless on to something. The Legislature doesn't go home when it should. It delays important business to spend time on nonsense. A raise might benefit us in the long run by attracting marginally better candidates, but we have no short-run evidence that a raise would do us good. As was the case with Tucson Prop 403, I want to see some signs that this is needed: the legislators prioritizing important matters and hurrying to get home to run their businesses or work their jobs and pay the bills. Say "No" to the raise again.

Yes, my ballot initiative review has started.

About a month later than I intended, I have begun my de rigueur review of each ballot question that I will see this general election. Yesterday's local Tucson question kicks things off; I will treat each in turn, in reverse numerical order.

If you can't wait, I have quietly made a few remarks about the initiatives on Associated Content. (Note that the article titles are not my own).

(Propositon 101) Arizonans to vote on Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act
(Proposition 200) In Arizona, "greedy" payday loans at issue
(Proposition 100) Arizonans may vote to pre-empt real estate transfer taxes.

No blank checks for public schools: Tucsonans, say no to Prop 403

I'll offer a modest compromise to the Tucson Unified School District: You give us merit pay for teachers, and we'll give you a budget override.

Proponents of the override would like to tell us that this is not the same district that simply lost $1.6MM in assets, that having a new superintendent and a few new board members, TUSD should be given a clean record by the public. I say, "Show us you're different!"

Why should we believe that TUSD could improve public education if we simply give it more money? (Private schools, after all, operate on less per pupil.) Have enough reforms been put into place that administrators can honestly say "our hands our tied"? I need, and you should need, convincing of the district's bona fides, signs that they're not asking us to fork over more of our wealth or income so they can worry less about the budget while doing business as usual. Standing up to the teachers' union and insisting on merit pay is the clearest signal that can be sent that TUSD is operating for the benefit of the taxpayers, not its employees. Absent that, we ought to be shown some very clear reforms before, not after, we fork over the money. Reforms--fundamental changes in the way the district educates children--not promises involving trendy buzzwords like "smaller class size". An end to social promotion costs nothing.

Until I see either concerted reforms or the breaking of the Tucson Education Association, I will not vote for any TUSD budget override. (A dollar-for-dollar private school/homeschool parent tax credit wouldn't hurt, either, but that's asking too much!) Call it the "do not feed" principle. You don't give spare change to the bum if you think he's just going to spend it on wine. The people asking are different, yes, but it's not clear that they're not bums.

Bwana Spence comes to Tucson

From last Sunday's Arizona Daily Star:

"My kids play in the yard and I worry about their safety I poison dog food and meat and throw it out. Have killed off a bunch of intruders around my place," the post says.

The person who wrote that on Craigslist has been poisoning javelina and bobcats, not critters that come to mind as a threat to children. Perhaps this is a case of some borderline mentally ill person afraid of the desert, or all that's wild. If so, why isn't he (that's the generic "he") living in Phoenix or LA or New York.

Here's hoping the investigators locate and fine the sick bastard who's depriving his neighbors of their equal right to those animals. Killing bobcats, especially, can lead to little but trouble.

For those who miss the reference in the title, Bwana Spence was the Protestant missionary in The Lonely African who ordered forest cut down out of fear of what lives among the trees.

One more remark about Fowlkes and co.

To my Republican readers:

Fowlkes and his running mate have received the endorsement of the Pachyderm Coalition and the especially hard-to-get, supermajority-requiring approval of the Arizona Republican Assembly. He may not have the editorial boards' approval, but his support extends significantly beyond classical-liberals (and members of other parties) such as Robb and myself.

He stands a reasonable chance of winning the nomination; don't consider the vote to be "wasted" in any way.

Nominate and Elect Rick Fowlkes to the Arizona Corporation Commission

To date, I haven't given any candidate for office an outright endorsement on this 'blog. This will be my first: The Republican Party should nominate Rick Fowlkes for Arizona Corporation Commissioner, and the people of the state should elect him to that office.

The possibility of "change", specifically a shift away from liberalism to "solidaristic" Europe-style social democracy (soft tyranny, a la Tocqueville's use of the term, if you ask me!) has of late captured the mass press's imagination and attention. Relatively ignored has been the slow revolution in American life, deregulations, privatizations, the substitution of markets, ownership, choice, and opportunity for democratic or quasi-democratic government control. The various school choice programs, airline and telecom deregulation, HSAs, widespread adoption of individual retirement accounts and 401(k) plans: all these reforms, which reduce demand for and dependence on government, make Obama look regressive if not reactionary, once the voter does what the popular press has not and realizes that they are part of a uniformly liberal whole.

Election of Fowlkes would bring this "quiet revolution" to Arizona to the benefit of utility consumers. Relative to what could be, public utilities in Arizona operate in horse-and-buggy fashion. A state-mandated monopoly--which, with a few adjustments to the law, wouldn't be "natural"--asks an elected board, the Corporation Commission, if rates can be increased or terms of service can be changed, and the elected board either approves or it doesn't. Consumer choice does not enter the process at all; contrast how you purchase electricity or natural gas with how you buy cellular phone service, gasoline, or pizza.

Fowlkes would replace this monopoly plus rent-seeking mechanism with one based on choice and competition: utility retail service areas would be allowed to overlap, and in areas with three or more providers, competition, not government control, would determine rates and terms of service, just as it does for cellular phone service. Sharing plans would be arranged for truly monopolistic infrastructure such as wires and pipes, much as the Palo Verde nuclear plant is shared; Fowlkes has also privately expressed approval of customer ownership of the "last mile" of infrastructure, a la Ottawa, Ontario, Canada..

Kudos goes to Robert Robb for picking up on this proposal for competition in a year when editorial boards have concerned themselves mainly with the candidates' views on the constitutionality or practical benefit of the state's renewable energy mandate and flim-flammery like "partisanship". I wholeheartedly endorse Fowlkes, but, like Robb, I have reservations about his running mates. I like the idea of having three engineers on the Corporation Commission, but these two seem at times a bit out of their league. They have also publicly denied anthropogenic global warming, showing a contemptuous disregard for science; Fowlkes has merely declared it "overstated", which, to the average Joe who isn't reading scientific papers on the subject, may be true. Their competition, however, has also done so, with Marian McClure being especially fierce in calling the prevailing theory a hoax.

Republican readers: vote Fowlkes tomorrow, and strongly consider his running mates Joe Hobbs and Keith Swapp. Arizona ratepayers should be given the benefits of utility competition.