Miscellaneous

The Aubrey-Maturin series of novels was the best literature of the 20th century.  Co-hero Jack Aubrey engaged in a lot of naval battles, and he was always trying to get the weather gauge, to have the wind at his back.  It gave him the freedom of maneuver, and was often the key to his victory.  It’s like having the high ground in a land battle.  You want to fight on the field you choose, not your enemy.

So I want to have a fight over wedding cakes, and homosexual marriage, and Christianity, and the overweening state.  This is good ground for our side.  Ideal, really.  Our opponents claim to be fighting for tolerance, but they’re anti-Christian bigots and bullies.  The people of this country get it.  I read on Drudge that some couple back east are losing their pizza parlor because of these fascistic bastards.  And people from all over the country have ponied up over half a million dollars to help them out.  Politically, who’s side do you want to be on in this fight?  I think I’ve got that figured out.

Sometimes I think I’m a little old to be doing what I’m doing.  But then I of think of Patrick Ross, who wrote those books I love so much, and have read repeatedly.  His father was German, but he was raised an Englishman, and changed not just his name, but his identity to his own invention, Patrick O’Brian.  He started writing these books when he was 56.  He wound up writing twenty of them, right up until he was 85.

So maybe I’ve got some time left.

The guys on the Task Force told me calling the supply side BBA the Reagan Amendment was confusing people.  So it’s now the Reagan Initiative. They told me to lay low, and I agreed to that as well.

I’m a reasonable guy.  I have a good attitude.  Bill Fruth told me I’m the nicest, most congenial, affable person he’s ever met.  He must hang around some real assholes.

The part of the Reagan Initiative I haven’t really thought through is regulatory reform.  We’ve got to do it so we don’t scare the horses.  But real regulatory reform would be its abolition.  When Congress creates an agency, like the EPA, it gives it a regulatory agenda.  The agency implements that agenda by rule making, adjudication, and enforcement.  It’s almost as though they’ve set up a separate branch of the government, with legislative, judicial, and executive functions.

It’s all thoroughly unconstitutional.  Philip Hamburger of the Columbia School of Law gets credit for making that case in his important book, “Is Administrative Law Unconstitutional?”  Hamburger is no whack job.  He’s a very well respected legal scholar, and his work is taken seriously.  I have to read his book, and see what his solution is, if he has one.  Whatever it is, I’ll see if it can be worked into the Reagan Initiative.

Fruth says our economy is so over regulated that we’ll probably never see 4% annual GDP growth again.  We need 4%, or better, to get out of the mess we’re in.  You want to balance the budget?  Long haul, you do it with growth.  And the modern American regulatory state won’t allow that growth to happen.

A lot of people in business, and government, understand this.   They just don’t know what to do about it.  The Reagan Initiative may be the answer.

The Federal Land Commission would set off an economic expansion.  Cutting the regulatory state down to size would do even more.  We’d have an economic boom, bigger than the 80’s even.

We just have to figure out a way to do it that the gal who works down at the 7-11 will support.  She’s the key.  A lot of deep thinkers come up with brilliant ideas to save the world.  But you’ve got to find a way to get her behind it, or you’ve got nothing.  That’s politics.  That’s what I’ve spent my life watching, studying, and practicing.

First I’ve got to find out how it would work, in practice.  Can you just declare administrative law is unconstitutional in one fell swoop, and end it?  Would that prove too disruptive to the economy, to society?  How, exactly, are we going to do this?

This is an important question that I’m not qualified to answer.  I’ve asked Dave Guldenschuh to think about it.  Monday I’ll call Rob Natelson and see what he thinks.  He may know Hamburger, who I would love to talk to.  Mike Stern might have some ideas, or know someone who would.  I’m definitely going to look in to this.  I haven’t been this jacked up since I came up with the Federal Land Commission.

To tell you the truth I’m not much of a lawyer, just like I wasn’t much of a law student.  I figured out after about a month that it was all bullshit.  Law is just a form of politics. But I was about to get married, and needed a way to make a living.  My degree in political science wasn’t exactly a ticket into the fast lane.  I figured if I became a lawyer I’d find a way to make some money at it.

After my encounter with my Speech Professor when I was a freshman, I pulled in my horns a bit, and never really had any more problems in college.  My grades were mediocre because I wasn’t particularly interested in a lot of these classes.  And I was a little lazy.

I didn’t know what to expect in law school.  I don’t think I ever personally met a lawyer, or even a law student.  In my first quarter we all had to take “Law, Lawyers and Social Change”.  Complete, total, 100% bullshit.  The teacher was Henry McGee, a former assistant U. S. Attorney from Chicago.  He was a black guy who supposedly had a fair amount of trial experience.  Nixon appointed Harold Carswell to the Supreme Court, and this guy comes into class and has a meltdown.  He goes berserk, stomping around and waving his arms. Finally he said “Nixon has no right to do this!”  I’d had enough, and I yelled out at him, “What do you mean he has no right?  He’s the President of the  United States, he can appoint anyone he wants!”  That slowed him up a bit, and he started calming down.

I got a “D” in that one too.

Drought might change the politics of California in the next few years.  10% of our water is urban use, 40% agricultural, and 50% “environmental”  — used to support our ecosystem.  If this is the mega-drought that some serious scientists say it is, all will have to be reduced.  The enviros run this state.  They’ve got a lock on it.  They will hold their breath, roll around on the floor and turn purple before they let one God damn bait fish be discomfited.  Crops will die, orchards will be destroyed, and fields lay fallow  — that’s all fine.  The already depressed economy of the Central Valley will be ruined, for a long time to come.  Tough.

This is serious business, but the media in this state won’t want to talk about it.  It’s off limits.  But at some point the wall of silence will be breached.  There’s almost 40 million people in this state, and some of them will step up.  Millions of acre feet are fed into the delta, and then out to sea, to save the habitat of the delta smelt.  That fish (it looks like a good sized minnow) will be the symbolic center of a hugely consequential political battle.

I don’t know this state well enough to predict the outcome, except to say the Latino population is the key.  Their political elites are in lock step with the crazy wing of the Democratic Party.  Some Mexican-American needs to be a leader here.  His or her people are the ones who will suffer.  I’m keeping my eye out for one.

If I find one, I’m going to help.

It’s the big new thing in politics.  Loren Enns is our IT guy, and that’s what he’s doing in South Carolina and, especially, Oklahoma.  We need both, along with Wisconsin, to get to our 2015 goal of 30.  When you’re trying to get to 34, 30 sounds a lot better than 29, or, God forbid, 28.

The South Carolina House is in recess until the 14th, and the goal is to encourage them to take up our bill upon their return.  Those on the ground are fairly confident of having the votes, but the Birchers and others are doing all they can to stop us.  This legislature operates under some truly bizarre rules. They seem designed to thwart the will of the majority.  Or something.  They’re weird.  It’s almost like the old Polish Senate, where unanimity was required to do anything.  Naturally, very little got done, and Poland disappeared for a while.  Apparently back in the 20th century some guy ran the Senate for 30 years and came up with these things.  Now 85 year old Sen. Hugh Leatherman is carrying on the tradition.  As an outsider, I really don’t know what the hell is going on.  We should get South Carolina.  It’s the only deep south state we don’t have.  Dave Guldenschuh is helping out, Lou Marin is working the grass roots, Loren is micro targeting, Biddulph’s polling, and John Steinberger is working hand in glove with sponsor Sen. Larry Grooms.  We’re giving it all we’ve got.  That’s all you can do.

We’re up in Senate Rules in Oklahoma next Wednesday.  I’m 1500 miles away, but the disturbing news of Dr. Boren’s hospitalization for his cancer may have an incidental side effect.  He apparently laid it out to these guys on Article V.  Told them the truth, and asked them to act.  Attacks on him by the Birchers backfired badly.  Maybe a few of these guys can work up the courage to face down the Birchers as a testament to him.  I’d like to believe that.  Dr. Coburn is one of a very rare breed — a man of courage, intelligence, and tenacity.  He delivered thousands of Oklahoma babies.  He’s like a legend.  Maybe they’ll do it for him.

Or, maybe, oil.  The oil companies will soon get wind of the Reagan Amendment.  Whether you like it or not, they’re going to make a ton of money if it’s approved.  These people are notorious for the relentlessness with which they pursue their self interest.  Having been an Alaska legislator, I can assure you of that.  I was never one of their fair haired boys.  They’d contribute to my campaign, just like they did to every Republican, but I was never tight with them.  In fact, after the Valdez oil spill in ’89, I took them on.  They wanted drilling rights in Bristol Bay, home of the world’s greatest run of sockeye, and I made a speech telling them to forget about it.  It wasn’t going anywhere anyway, but they didn’t appreciate my attitude.  They don’t like independence in their legislators.

Right now Conoco-Phillips is the biggest oil producer in Alaska, and would have a major participation in the development of the oil in ANWR.  They’re very big in Oklahoma.  The oil and gas industry is, I believe, a major player in Oklahoma Republican politics.

Am I missing something?

I now think the Wyoming Liberty Group sunk us in Wyoming.  I learned about them last summer, and tried for months to get them to help.  I’d been told that they had real influence with as many as twenty House members.  The founder, Susan Gore of the Gore-Tex clan, finally told me they had limited resources and declined to be involved.  That didn’t smell right, but we saw neither hide nor hair of them in Cheyenne, and I figured they were staying out of it.  I was wrong, according to a conversation I just had with Senate President Phil Nicholas.  He said in the end they were just overwhelmed with negative emails generated by WLG, and others.

This was an important conversation.  We have to have Wyoming, and he’s the key.   The whole idea of the Reagan Amendment came from his stated desire to amend the Wyoming Statehood Act.  And Phil Nicholas is a very bright guy.  If there’s something wrong with this idea, he’d see it, and he’d tell me about it.

He is, he said, intrigued.  I told you he was smart.  He wasn’t planning on going to NCSL in August, but now he thinks he might.  He’s got a lot of family in Portland and he could turn the trip into a bit of a vacation.  I hope he comes.  I want this guy as a partner.  He’s got a lot of balls in the air, but if he could devote a little time to this he could really be helpful.

And he should.  He cares as much about Wyoming as anyone, and the Reagan Amendment would be very, very good for Wyoming.  And, since he is a politician, who is believed to be interested in running for Governor, it makes sense for him, personally.  If Wyoming gets its land they’d put up a statue of him.  Well, a plaque, anyway.

This puts me in an extra fine mood.  It is final confirmation of the Reagan Amendment’s political viability, and its necessity.  Without the Reagan Amendment we won’t get Wyoming.  And we won’t get Idaho, or Montana, or Arizona either, for that matter.  Without the Reagan Amendment, this whole thing dies.

I knew Phil Nicholas was the key the last time I went to Cheyenne.  I watched him preside over the Senate, just to see how he handled himself.  If you’re experienced you can see things.  I liked the way he conducted business.  When I testified before Senate Rules, which he chairs, I tried my damnedest to read him, get inside his head a little.  He keeps his cards close to the vest, and doesn’t give anything away.  He’d be good at poker.  At the last hearing of Senate Rules I thought Eli Bebout had gotten to him, and we were O.K.  He killed the Compact, and passed our bill out.  Then, over the weekend, he changed his mind.  The opposition was too intense.  And I suspect the opposition of Susan Gore may have played a role as well.

That’s all behind us now.  We’ll be back in Cheyenne in January, and with Phil on our side it will be in the bag.  I won’t even have to go back, personally.  I might though, for the hell of it.  It would be fun to see Tyler and Dan and Bill McIlvain.  I only had a few minutes with Eli Bebout, and I’d like to get to know him better.  He seemed like the kind of guy you’d like to get to know.  I might even wind up making a friend of Phil Nicholas.

The world turns.