Online Crackerbarrel: Ask Your Legislators about the Budget!

Update 2010.03.24:
Legislator Responses
here and here!

The Madville Times is hosting an online crackerbarrel to give residents of District 8 an opportunity to ask their legislators important questions before they return to Pierre for Budget/Veto Day on March 29. Usually there's not much to discuss before Veto Day, but our legislators have yet to decide on budget cuts and pass the most important piece of legislation they consider, the state budget. They need our input, and you need to hear from them where they stand on budget priorities.

After two months in Pierre, our legislators may be too busy catching up at their day jobs to hold many public meetings, so I offer this crackerbarrel as a convenience for legislators and citizens alike. Here's how it will work:

1. First, citizens, submit your questions here in the comment section. I'll take questions here through Thursday, March 18, at 5 p.m.
2. My main focus is to get questions for our District 8 legislators: Senator Russell Olson, Representative Mitch Fargen, and Representative Gerry Lange. However, if you live in another district and want to submit a public question for your legislator, fire away.
3. On Thursday around suppertime, I will e-mail Russ, Mitch, and Gerry the questions submitted here. I'll also send an e-mail notice to any other legislator to whom questions are directed.
   
4. Legislators will have until Tuesday night, March 23, to send me their responses by e-mail. (Legislators can reply directly in the comment section if they want; I offer the e-mail route simply as a way to verify identity.)
   
5. I will compile the legislators' e-mail responses and post them in full, verbatim, here on the Madville Times by the end of the day Wednesday, March 24.
6. If further discussion ensues in the comment sections, that's great!
   

Big decisions remain for the South Dakota Legislature: make your voice heard! Submit your questions here, and let's see what our elected officials have to say about our budget and our shared future.

Government Is Not a Dirty Word

Professor Schaaf makes a welcome visit to the blogosphere with some reasonable comments about the value of local government as the incubators of citizenship.

Is it any wonder that as our government and economy have succumbed to ever increasing centralization, that the feelings of inefficacy and the inevitable apathy that follows have risen? The notion that our lives are governed by impersonal forces beyond our control has taken hold in many minds, and has done so with considerable justification. It is in these "inefficient" local governments, city councils, county boards, school boards, etc., that the habits of citizenship are cultivated. To eliminate them is to be penny wise and citizenship foolish [Jon Schaaf, "Brokaw, Consolidation, and the Decline of Citizenship," South Dakota Politics, 2009.04.21].

There might be a little chicken-and-egg here, or at least a feedback loop: centralization of power may indeed make folks feel disenfranchised and apathetic... but disenfranchisement and apathy also lead to weaker local governments and leave the door open for the few remaining passionate citizens to consolidate their power at the higher levels.

We do need more citizens to aspire to service in government, to see political participation as a noble and patriotic endeavor. But might the standard Republican line that government is the problem, not the solution, be part of the lack of enthusiasm for local politics?

I recall going door-to-door during last year's school board election and having one citizen respond to my pitch with one sentence: "I hate politicians." With an attitude like that, how do you get people to run for the school board or come to city commission meetings? If politics and government are made into dirty words, how can we even start the conversation necessary to find political solutions and make government work better?

I agree with Dr. Schaaf that local government is vital. Some problems are too big for one town or school board or sanitary district to solve, but when we can keep decisions local, we get results better tuned to unique local conditions. Local government is homemade government: not as fancy, but more meaningful, something we can take more pride in.

But to encourage that sense of local civic pride, we should challenge the notion that government is some evil, foreign entity and recognize that the government is what we make it... or what we let it be in our apathy. Like it or not, the government is us.

-----------------
A new Gallup poll finds 55% of Americans see "big government" as the biggest threat to the country. 32% say "big business"; 10% say "big labor". Looks like I still have some work to do....

Virginia Gov. Kaine Calls for Citizen Input on Stimulus

Some good ideas do come from Virginia....

Here's a great synthesis of tech and government: National Journal's Tech Daily Dose reports that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has launched Stimulus.Virginia.Gov, a portal where Virginians (and anyone else interested) can submit ideas for how Virginia ought to use its chunk of the stimulus package (which may arrive on President Obama's desk by the weekend, just as the Dems planned...or maybe not!).

Gov. Kaine opened the site yesterday. As of 16:08 EST today, I find 763 proposals for all sorts of projects:

• #710: Replace the town of Chilhowie's water tanks ($1,500,000).
  
• #725: Keep Aubrey Temple's hardware store open ($50,000).
  
• #753: Every penny to direct tax relief ($TBD).
  
• #759: Subsidize medication for old folks and fix up hospitals ($100,000,000).
  
• #760: resurface roads in Rocky Run ($100,000).
  
• #762: replace an organization's furnace with new green equipment ($3,000).

Three cheers for citizen participation!

The proposal report page also offers a nice little "Export to Excel" button that would allow me to download the whole list of proposals and sort them by dollar amount, proposer, etc. Bless you, Virginia.

At this rate, Governor Kaine and the Virginia General Assembly may have a general outline for how to put the stimulus money to work before Governor Rounds can even find a pen and paper to write out an order for a special session. (Legislature, my spreadsheets remain at your disposal. Give me a call!)

[cross-posted from my e-government research blog]

Candidate Knuppe: Democracy About Participation

Even with hat and handlebar 'stache, newly declared South Dakota gubernatorial candidate Ken Knuppe (pronounced /k-NOO-pee/ on SDPB this morning) won't get me to trade in my Dems membership and campaign for him. The Buffalo Gap rancher and fellow SDSU grad does, however, have down the talking points that make bloggers smile. At his campaign kick-off in Rapid City yesterday, Knuppe spoke of increasing citizen involvement in government:

Our government is not just for the wealthy or for those families who have been in politics for generations. Our government is for all people. It should be run so that we can all understand it and so that we can all participate in it as well.

Our society has slowly gotten into a mindset that the people in office are the ones with power. This simply isn't true. The most powerful person in a democracy is the voter. I want to empower South Dakotans to take advantage of that [Ken Knuppe, quoted in "Rancher Announces for GOP Gubernatorial Nomination," AP via Mitchell Daily Republic, 2009.01.29].

In other words, the government is us. Knuppe sounds the right note in challenging the established powers. Of course, just like my favorite presidential candidate, he has a long climb ahead to turn that populist ideology into a practical and effective campaign against those established powers who've been fundraising. Keep it interesting, Ken!

p.s.: If one can judge from the first things out of a candidate's mouth, Knuppe's Issues page is encouraging: economy, small business, agriculture, education... and not a word about abortion, gay marriage, or even guns. Can we keep it that way?

Verbatim: James Orbinski on Engaged Citizenship and Debate

Yesterday, Minnesota Public Radio's Midday broadcast a speech by Dr. James Orbinski, former president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Orbinski spoke to the City Club of Cleveland on World AIDS Day last week. He discussed MSF's violation of world trade regulations to bring affordable AIDS drugs into South Africa. (Their efforts brought the cost of AIDS treatments from $15,000 per patient down to $200 per patient... because they defied bans on importing generic drugs.)

Dr. Orbinski closed with some valuable words on citizenship and the importance of engaging in politics by speaking out:

I have never ever doubted the power of humanitarianism and the power of an engaged citizenship. And I have never doubted the central importance of a legitimate politics.

To act as a citizen in this is to implicitly or explicitly ask, what is the purpose of this political project? What is our responsibility one to another?

In my view, Citizenship is not defined simply as a set of legal rights and entitlements, but by the exercise of liberty based on those rights that at some level must as an exercise of liberty engage public debate through voice and that must implicitly and explicitly demand good government.

[Dr. James Orbinski, address to City Club of Cleveland, 2008.12.05, broadcast on MPR Midday, 2008.12.09]

You can listen to the full speech and following Q & A here (above comments come around 29:15):

Horowitz to Obama Citizenship Deniers: Knock It Off

The Supreme Court today deemed Leo Donofrio's suit challenging Barack Obama's citizenship status not even worthy of comment, let alone a hearing on appeal.

Questioning Obama's citizenship (not to mention his patriotism) was part and parcel of the right-wing propaganda machine's efforts to win easily fooled voters. Several such right-wingers have kept up the noise ("story of the century"? Please.) since Obama's November 4 victory. Now they can paint Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and Thomas as co-conspirators in the Marxist revolution.

Or maybe they can just listen to arch-conservative David Horowitz and get over it:

The continuing efforts of a fringe group of conservatives to deny President-elect Barack Obama his victory and to lay the basis for the claim that he is not a legitimate president is embarrassing and destructive. The fact that these efforts are being led by Alan Keyes, an unhinged demagogue on the political fringe who in 2004 lost an Illinois Senate election to Obama by 42 points should be a warning in itself.

...It is not conservatism; it is sore loserism and quite radical in its intent. Respect for election results is one of the most durable bulwarks of our unity as a nation. Conservatives need to accept the fact that we lost the election, and get over it; and get on with the important business of reviving our country's economy and defending its citizens, and – by the way – its Constitution [David Horowitz, "Get Over Obama Derangement Syndrome," National Review Online, 2008.12.08].

Michelle Malkin also finds the Obama conspiracy theories a waste of time. As John McLaughlin says, next issue!

Citizen Activism Wins Amendment to Madison Fence Ordinance

Cross-posted from RealMadison.org!

Citizen activism doesn't mean you have to hug trees, join the ACLU, or wear Birks and dreads. Sometimes activism is just calling your city commissioner or going to the meeting with some neighbors to make sure government does the right thing.

Monday night, a little citizen activism got that job done. MDL's Elisa Sand reports that about 20 people showed up at the Madison City Commission meeting to keep an eye on the final reading and passage of the now infamous Ordinance #1468, the fence ordinance. Evidently the watchful eyes of folks at the meeting, as well as some concerns expressed to commissioners since the first reading a couple weeks ago, encouraged Commissioner Dan Bohl to propose amending the ordinance to remove one word: maintain. The commission was o.k. with that, so now, you cannot construct or erect a fence that encloses your city electric meter, but if you already have a fence that encloses your meter, the city won't make you rip it out. (Now, if the city could explain to me the difference between construct and erect....)

See? Citizens can get government to listen. Be the squeaky wheel, show up at the meeting, and you just might get the grease.

Now, about that Mundt Tournament....

Father Gallagher Can Stay -- People Power Works!

KJAM's Matt Hendrickson called yesterday (and sends an e-mail update this morning) to announce that Father Cathal Gallagher got his green card yesterday. What a relief for all involved!

One can say much about the bureaucracy, the snafus, the grief of the folks in Father Gallagher's old parish in Kingsbury County, who still had to give up their priest for a replacement.

This morning, I simply take note of one heartening comment from the very grateful Mr. Hendrickson:

Thanks to everyone for your notes, prayers, blog postings, and other things. Yesterday was not only a happy day for Father G, but for a couple of thousand people (try the 3,000 who signed petitions, wrote letters, and generally came together to fight against this injustice).

If anything, this has shown me that the power of the people can be much greater than the stodgy bureaucracy.

I've said all along, the government is us. Government can do lots of things wrong, but it's up to us to fix them. And if we make the effort, we can win.

Congratulations, Father Gallagher, and best wishes in whatever you are called to do next.