Miscellaneous

I’ll be in a 10:30 meeting with Kasich on Wednesday, representing the Task Force.  Probably Rep. Lori Klein, Sen. John Kavanagh, Farrell Quinlan of NFIB, Kasich, his staff, and me.  He’ll have a presser at noon, and fly back to Columbus.

In and out, bang bang.  Kasich had a show on Fox, and I’ll bet he has maintained good contacts there.  This whole thing is set up for him to get a couple minute’s coverage on Fox News Wednesday night.

Like I said, Kasich’s smart.  This whole thing is set up to make him look good.  And if he gets the play he wants, he’ll want to do it again, and again.

I’ll get his attention if I think of something that makes him look good.

I’ve got a couple of ideas.

https://reaganproject.wordpress.com/2013/12/29/presidential-stuff/      (a blast from the past)

Bill Fruth had a good meeting in Columbus with Kasich’s Chief of Staff.  All systems go.  My post of a few days ago, Setting the Table, may have sounded farfetched.  If it was then, it’s not now.  Getting to 34 next year could happen  — with all of the consequences which will naturally flow from it.  And that’s a lot of consequences.

Bill and Dave have been at this for five years.  They were visionaries.  Five years ago this scheme needed support from Democratic state legislators.  So it was a real long shot.   The wave of 2010 brought it within reach.  But it was still a stretch.  The wave of 2014 made it realistic.  Bill’s meeting in Columbus means it’s probably going to happen.  If not 2015, in 2016.

This isn’t the time to get into details.  A lot of things will be worked out in the next week.

I’ve been at this blog for a year.  It hasn’t been wasted.

Freedom took off in the world a few thousand years ago in Germany, when women took control over their own bodies.  Elsewhere in the world a woman’s body was the property of her father, who decided who she would marry, and thus who would control her.

Back in the mists of time young Heidi decided she’d had enough of that.  She wasn’t going to marry Siegfried  — he was ugly and he stank.  She wanted Hans, who was cute and nice.  When she got her way, it changed everything.  The family structure that evolved is called the Absolute Nuclear Family.  This family structure migrated north to Denmark, lower Scandinavia, Brittany, and England.  It was transplanted to America.  It died off in Germany.

A woman was free, and so was her family.  Once she married she was the responsibility of her husband.  Her family, and his, had no control over, and no obligation to, the new family.  They lived apart, and were expected to make their own way in the world.

Because women had been liberated, relatively speaking, and families were on their own, society as a whole became free.  You were on your own.  Everybody was on their own.  This is called Liberty.  It turned out that a free society is a productive, dynamic, and creative society.  First the Dutch, then the English, then the Americans have pioneered freedom around the world.

Because Islam is anti-feminist, it is also anti-freedom, and anti-modern.  It produces nothing, creates nothing.

The Islamic Jihad against the West is a war on women.

Freshman Senator Jeff Wasserburger has agreed to sponsor if we can’t get Sens. Bebout or Scott.  Jeff served several terms in the House a while back, so he knows the ropes.  We want to start in the Senate.  Freshmen Reps. Dan Laursen and Tyler Lindholm are on board.  Rep. Dave Miller will give us a vote, but doesn’t want to take the lead.  We’re having an NFIB cc on Tuesday evening.

It’s a start.  The bill will be introduced.  Jeff is on Appropriations, so that will take the bulk of his time.  I have doubts we win in 2015 without the active support of senior Senate leadership.  We’ll bring in Natelson.  Hell, for him it’s a two hour drive north on Interstate 25 to Cheyenne.  He told me he’d look forward to talking to Wyoming legislators  — a lot like his native Montana.  I would go as well.  We’ll try to gin up some grass roots support.

It’s a damn short session.  I think, on a bill like ours, we need to have our ducks in a row right from the get go.  Tough to do, but we’ll try.

In 2016, on non-budget items, you need 2/3.  If we get a majority, but not 2/3, we could ask Gov. Matt Mead to call a quickie special session.  It would take place immediately upon adjournment of the regular session .  Mead seems like a reasonable guy.  I bet Kasich could talk him into it.

The last time I was in Cheyenne I was romancing my bride to be.  She flew in to Rapid City to meet me.  I was working on the Pettyjohn family ranch south of Kadoka.  We drove to Cheyenne for the Frontier Days rodeo, and couldn’t find a place to stay.  So I drove a few miles out of town and we slept in a cow pasture.  A bunch of cows were looking at us when we woke up.

She can’t say she didn’t know what she was getting into.

Since we ‘ve got Senate President Niederhauser (a Task Force co-founder) presiding, and Sen. Curt Bramble carrying our bill, all we’ll need to work on is the House (in the State Senate of Utah, if Curt Bramble carries your bill, it passes the Senate).

We need 38, and start out ten shy.  There are eleven new R’s, and two that didn’t vote earlier this year.  So we win if we get 10 of 13 targets.  We don’t need to turn one nay to a yea.  Though we’ll try that, of course.  The NFIB and the Utah Libertas Institute will try and generate calls of support from constituents of targets.  We’ll try to bring Natelson in for Jan. 12-13.  I would probably go too.  Meanwhile Reps. Powell and Greene will work the freshmen.

When we lost back in April I wondered if my visit to Salt Lake had done any good.  There was one guy on the Committee I testified before that I thought I connected with.  We had a little back and forth.  It was fun.  A guy named Mike Noel.  Earlier he’d heard me give my pitch to the Conservative Caucus.  I was sitting outside the chamber later that day and he walked by, and we exchanged nods.  We thought he was kind of on the fence, and the way he looked at me I thought we’d lost him.  He looked kind of apologetic.

Kraig tells me today that he gave an impassioned floor speech on behalf of our bill.  And, even better, he’s the new Rules Chair.  We’ll get the committee we want, Revenue and Taxation.  And, mucho better, he’s best buddies with the new Speaker, who voted against us last year.  Kraig thought we had a good shot at turning the new Speaker, Greg Hughes.  With his best buddy helping out, it’ll be a lot easier.

I remember kind of liking Mike Noel.