Checks and Balances

Part 1 - U.S. Congress vs. the Executive branch
Score 1 - EPA vs. Congress (right to regulate greenhouse gasses)
This week, the "second stimulus" was being debated in Congress (not yet at Day 56, as has been pointed out, so just shy of the time spent in Gulf-spill-land, but coming very close). Close to complete deadlock in the Senate. But the Republicans took a shot at a slimmed-down-fully-paid-for Stimulus, which had some interesting provisions.

Things like - cut federal agency budgets by 5%, across the board (except DOD and VA). Also (with apparent hatred in their eyes for those fat-happy federal employees) cap federal pay, collect the $3B in back taxes owed by those federal employees.

So - does Congress have the power to regulate the executive branch? Didn't Obama already ask his agencies to draw up plans for 5% cuts (for the FY 2011 budget)? Is this some sort of power grab?

OK Congress does have oversight authority. OK Congress does appropriate the funds by which federal agencies are run. OK you could tie these things together. But wait - aren't these the same Republicans who want less government control over things? Is that only when someone else is in control? And now *they* want more control over things?

The 5% cap, when sought by Congress, sounds a bit like TABOR (taxpayer bill of rights, like what they enacted in Colorado - it sliced arms and legs off of local governments and school districts). Well, ok the Oregon constitution does have some very fundamental constraints - the size of local government can only grow by x%, where the percent is limited by population growth.

Yet, I fail to see how a slash and burn approach is really a legislative function.


Part 2 - Is the initiative system out of control - in Oregon - in California?
California's budget is broken, even schoolchildren will tell you that. The reasons cited are various. Some would say the initiative system has run amok and is responsible. Think back to Proposition 13, which limited property taxes in California (1978), then Measure 5 in Oregon (1980), followed by Measure 50 (1990s), which likewise limited property taxes.

With citizen initiatives, voted on by the public, each one is seen separately. So, unlike the state budget process where the legislature in its wisdom (or with initiatives, the citizenry in its wisdom) does not have the ability to see all the spending pieces of the pie at once. It is this initiative - yes or no - every voter gets a chance to decide.

Yet each initiative does have an impact on the state budget. In the Oregon voters' pamphlet, the cost of each initiative is stated (as formulated by the "price tag" committee).

Back to checks and balances. Citizen initiatives are the fourth dimension of politics in Oregon.

There are now new rules in Oregon which constrain the initiative process. Are they fair and balanced? Or are they too constraining? Have I heard them called anti-Sizemore constraints, and are they an attempt to derail the father of many of Oregon's initiatives? Perhaps they are laying a trap to get him out of this business altogether:
a) Convicted felons (of fraud) are no longer allowed to be chief petitioner.
b) Bill Sizemore has been a chief petitioner for dozens of initiatives. Which have garnered hundreds of thousands of votes, so this isn't a lone voice.
c) Lets make him a convicted felon. He is currently up on criminal charges of tax evasion, which is still to be determined in court - something about comingling of funds across a PAC and an educational 501(c)(3) prevented him from filing taxes (and we know how those funds hate to be comingled). As a result, he and his wife failed to file three years of state income taxes. This is the criminal charge.

Is it fair to derail the fourth dimension of Oregon politics? If they take him out, will others rise up? And why do they want to take him out in any case? Shouldn't the citizens of the state get a chance to decide whether they want these initiatives (like Measure 50)? Where will we be as a state without this additional check on our government?