Category Archives: Election ’12

Last Minute Senate Rewrite Jeopardizes Colorado Death Penalty Repeal

Only 2 weeks ago the Colorado House passed H.B. 1274, a bill which would repeal the death penalty and use the savings to solve homicide cold cases, by a single vote. Foes of the bill in the Senate stripped out the death penalty repeal provisions and added an alternative source of funding to satisfy those who support additional cold case spending: a $2.50 surcharge on individuals convicted of a crime. According to The Denver Post, the rewrite happened a full 15 minutes before the Senate was scheduled to vote and with only a few days left in the current legislative session.

The Denver Post article goes on to explain how the rewrite puts the death penalty repeal in doubt:

Sponsor Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, blamed the amendment on some colleagues’ anxieties over the controversial topic of repealing the death penalty and said the maneuver leaves little time to work out compromises and no time for public hearings or fiscal analysis of the new draft.

“Some people are looking for ways to avoid voting on the core issue,” Carroll said. “This is a totally different bill that’s not had a public hearing. It’s gamesmanship that makes a mess of public policy.”

Carroll had the backing of a broad coalition of groups — including the families of victims of unsolved murders, whose painful stories helped push the idea that ending the death penalty could be used as a funding source for cold-case investigations.

With their needs potentially met, however, the remaining death-penalty foes in the coalition could lose one of their most poignant and persuasive voices.

I think Sen. Carroll is mostly right. Her colleagues in the Senate are probably thinking more about the 2010 election than any principle regarding the death penalty. With the rewritten provisions to fund the cold case unit and taking the death penalty off the table, her friends in the Senate can avoid making a controversial vote and not have to worry about angering voters.

I’m sure that Gov. Bill Ritter (D) who is also up for re-election in 2010 is most relieved of all about these developments. So far, Gov. Ritter has managed to remain on the fence on the issue with his finger firmly in the air to determine which way the political winds are blowing. Perhaps the only clue as to where he stands – when Ritter was the Denver D.A. he unsuccessfully pursued the death penalty in 7 cases.

Perhaps the “limited resources” and economic arguments was not the best strategy to pursue after all. While these are, in my view, persuasive arguments they should be secondary considerations to the real moral and legal question: should the state have the right to kill? This is the question that far too many politicians do not have the courage to answer.

The article continues:

Carroll said there is too great a risk of wrongful conviction to chance an irreversible penalty such as death.

“How many colleagues do we have in the Senate who believe the state or the government is infallible?” she asked.

As I have written on many occasions, infallible the government is not. This is especially true for our broken criminal justice system.

Name That Socialist

Today, a news story came out where a company planned on purchasing chicken processing plants and the government was going to match the private company’s bid dollar for dollar. This plan is proposed under the guise of saving jobs. Now let me give you a hint who this socialist leader is; he’s a national leader.

Is it Barack Obama’s latest “stimulus” plan? Is it Harry Reid? Is this Ed Rendell or some other big state Democratic governor? Could it be even Charlie Crist or Arnold Schwarzenegger?

If you guessed any of the above, you’re wrong. The person proposing to give the government 50% ownership of certain chicken processing plants is none other the guy who came in second in the CPAC straw poll, Louisiana Governor and Republican Party savior, Bobby Jindal.

From the Monroe News Star

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief of staff said the state has found a buyer for Pilgrim’s Pride’s northeastern Louisiana operations and that an offer was expected to be made to the bankrupt company Tuesday night.

Timmy Teepell said the buyer will put up $20 million and the state will match it for a $40 million offer.

“(Jindal) has agreed to match it dollar for dollar with the stipulation that the company must keep the work force intact for five years,” Teepell said.

Pilgrim’s chief executive Don Jackson said at 7 p.m. Tuesday that he had not yet received an offer.

“I stated from the beginning that we would be receptive to any meaningful offer,” Jackson said.

The company announced Feb. 27 that it will close the Farmerville processing plants and the support infrastructure in April because of a glut of chicken on the market.

So the man who railed in a boring, self-centered speech against Barack Obama’s big government agenda plans to have the State of Louisiana own 50% of chicken processing plants. At least Obama in his takeover of Citigroup is only buying 36% of it. Maybe Rush Limbaugh can see if this is what Reagan would’ve done.

One other disturbing aspect of this proposal:

Teepell would not identify the company that made the offer to Pilgrim’s Pride, but he did say the company’s chief executive contacted Jackson before deciding to make the offer.

Bobby Jindal likes to talk about he cleaned up the most corrupt state in the country and how he reformed Louisiana’s ethics laws and improved transparency. Well, he passed some unenforceable new ethics laws while at the same time fought any attempts to bring transparency to the governor’s office. This secretive way of conducting business is the norm for the Jindal regime.

America, if you elect Bobby Jindal president in 2012, you can expect more socialism and more of the shadow government. If this is what the Republican Party has to offer, they won’t be returning to power anytime soon.

UPDATE:Pilgrim’s Pride rejected the offer from the State of Louisiana to buy the plant.

“Gov. Jindal and (Pilgrim’s chief executive Don) Jackson spoke by phone (on Tuesday night),” Pilgrim’s spokesman Ray Atkinson said in a written statement. “Dr. Jackson explained to the governor that the offer for the Farmerville complex was below our requirements.

“It would essentially put Foster (Farms) in business at a cost of entry of $20 million, well below the real cost and at a level with which neither Pilgrim’s Pride nor the rest of the industry could effectively compete.

“Dr. Jackson did not rule out a possible sale, but noted that it would have to be at a price well beyond $40 million. He also reiterated that selling the facility would not address the fundamental problem facing our industry: an oversupply of low-value commodity chicken.”

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.

Two Potential Libertarian-Leaning GOP Presidential Candidates for 2012?

That Mitt Romney came in first in the CPAC presidential straw poll isn’t all that surprising.  That Ron Paul tied with Sarah Palin for third place certainly is.

Now, The American Conservative is asking whether South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford will run for president.  In a rather flattering-to-Sanford profile, Michael Brendan Dougherty outlines why the former congressman and current governor is certainly the fiscal conservative’s conservative while describing some distinctly libertarian traits about the man.

After eight years of Bush and presumably four or more of Obama, we could certainly do much worse.  The AmCon article is located here and is well worth the read.

UPDATE: Over at The American Spectator, James Antle seems to agree with my general sentiment on the topic.

Quick Thought — Bobby Jindal Will Never Be President

Again, this is why I hate politics. Now, I know little about Jindal personally, and not being from Louisiana, don’t know how good of a president he’ll make. I’ve really only seen him on TV for a very short time, in response to Obama’s non-SOTU speech.

But I was immediately struck with the same sort of vibe I get from watching a Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, or to a lesser extent, Ron Paul type. It didn’t take long. I didn’t watch for more than a few minutes, but it was as clear as watching one of Pelosi’s responses to Bush’s SOTU speeches. It was a forgotten address before Jindal even stopped speaking.

There is a level to which candidates need charisma to succeed. Reagan, Clinton, and Obama have it in spades. Both Bushes 41 and 43 had a little bit of it, but by far had more than Dukakis, Gore, or Kerry. Bobby Jindal doesn’t have any of it.

It’s a sad statement on politics, but even if he had the best and most impressive ideological beliefs of any person in the country, he simply won’t be President, because he can’t own the stage.

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