Keeping the citizenry out

In Nevada we have a law called "The Single Subject Rule". Is says that a petition to place a voter initiative onto the ballot must deal with only one subject. Ok, sounds reasonable. The problem is, the law was written so narrowly in scope that if an initiative draft is written logically, for example, citing a law and including the peanalties for breaking that law, the authors of the Single Subject Rule( and their sycophant judges) content that initiative violates the rule. The Secretary of State has weighed in on the side of keeping the citzenry out of the process by further tightening the restrictions so that, in essence, no petition will ever pass muster.

This is merely one example of an ever growing trend to seperate the lawmakers from those they effect. It is now illegal to write in your own choice of candidate for any national election, and for most statewide elections. The parties choose the candidates for you, and if, based on what happened in my state, too many delegates disagree with the party leadership, the convention is shut down before a final vote can be taken. Judges are now refusing testimony, or even the citing of statutes they disagree with. Committees are refusing to allow contrasting voices to be heard, and in some cases having citizens arrested for standing up for their rights. In one eggregious case a teacher was fired for teaching his students about the US Constitution.

If anyone remembers to old Jimmy Stewart movie, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, or the book by New York detective Frank Serpico, these stories detailed the type of pressure the forces of corruption will put onto the honest remnant in their midst. Hollywood and publishing aside, that pressure is a reality. I face it nearly every day during session, and the more I refuse to bend, the more political enemies I create. Politics hates honesty. It cannot trust an honest man or woman, and right now, the citizens of this country are playing right into the hands of the corrupt.

Consider this; every time you refuse to vote, you are giving up your right to complain. Every time you vote without at least checking on the record of your choice, you are gambling with your future. Today the average percentage of registered voters actually excercising ther right is 15%. If we could even get that percent up to one forth of voters, this country would change course dramatically, because far more people want honest government than don't. They just don't vote. If the trend continues they won't have to worry about excercising that right. It will have been taken away.

Bankruptcy

I received a call from a Review Journal reporter today, asking about an old bankruptcy.

About 15 years ago I owned a sign shop in Northern California. That shop thrived for eleven years, but when the decade of the nineties came along so did an area wide depression and with it, double-digit unemployment. I spent the last months of my shop's existence designing and painting going out of business signs.

The depression was caused because the general industries of lumber and fishing supported the general economy. When those industries were cut back due to government policy, people lost jobs and the retailers dependant upon those shoppers lost customers. A descending cycle began. For my shop and many others it meant a chapter 7 bankruptcy. To this day that area is still experiencing high unemployment and very low business growth.

It took a long time and a lot of hard work but my credit score was rebuilt and is now listed as excellent. That experience is one I wish my family and I did not have to endure, but it was an important learning experience.

As an Assemblyman, I have been given an opportunity to effect certain changes. One of those changes would be to reenergize Nevada’s economy so people who live and work here will not have to experience what I did. That would be a change for the good.

The war on painkillers

In a recent RJ article, the chairwoman of the Assembly committee on health and human services stated that she was shocked at the abuse of prescription painkillers and was working with the attorney general to craft legislation to stop that abuse. Yes...and how well did that prohibition experiment go again? The only people such legislation would inconvenience are those individuals who currently obey the law. Drug pushers would love to see such a law passed, they could raise their prices. Rather than make medication that injured and suffering people need to even function more expensive and harder to obtain, why don't we simply enforce the existing laws?
What's that, madam chairwoman? Oh, I see, if we do that you can't posture before the media and grab a few more seconds of fame.

Prescription painkillers such as oxycontin, fentanyl, lortabs and the others all have one thing in common...they reduce pain and suffering. That reduction allows human beings to funtion in society, and on the job. If we go the nanny government route and meddle in peoples' lives yet again, we will be, in essence, the dungeon master torturing these people 24 hours a day. If you have ever experienced pain that an over-the-counter painkiller couldn't deal with, you might have an inkling of what I'm talking about. The people our good chairwoman wants to harm are those people who have been injured in an auto accident and damaged discs in their spine, people suffering from the ravages of cancer, people who have been badly burned, people who have been injured in combat and now have to deal with civilian life as an invalid...these are her victims, not the drug pusher.

He's cheering her on.