You Are Viewing Politics

Sunlight Foundation is at it again.

By ‘it,’ of course, I mean completely rethinking out our government interacts with its citizens. it’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the Sunlight’s work, and this project is no different. Read The Bill is a campaign asking Congress to post bills online at least 72 hours prior to floor debate. Sounds pretty commonsense to me. Whatever political persuasion you subscribe to, it’s a pretty universal belief that lawmakers should read the bill that they are signing into law. And since we’re part of the Digital Age, why can’t us regular folk get a chance to look the legislation over, too?

In an email I received yesterday, Sunlight’s Executive Director explains why this campaign is so important:

Dear Sunlighter,

Here’s something terrifying: Congress passed the $787 billion Stimulus Bill and we’re pretty sure the people who voted on that legislation didn’t actually read it. And for sure you didn’t have a chance to look at it, either. That’s not the first time important legislation has rushed through Congress in a matter of hours. By hurrying to vote on these bills, members of Congress might miss an earmark or tax break that could have a lasting impact on you and your community.

Congress just passed the largest piece of spending legislation in history and no one Read The Bill. Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen again. Demand that they Read The Bill and sign our petition now:

http://www.ReadTheBill.org/petition

Read The Bill is a commonsense solution — we want Congress to post all bills online for 72 hours before they are debated. That gives members of Congress – and you – three days to read legislation and consider how it could potentially affect each of us in our daily lives. A 72-hour rule would also give you a chance to let your representative in Congress know what you like, or don’t like, about a bill before he or she votes.

Here are some examples of bills that were passed when members of Congress only had a few hours to read each one.

-TARP bailout bill (2008): rushed through Congress with few provisions for accountability

-Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008: Congress’ Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout

-PATRIOT Act (2001): rushed through Congress and, consequently, expanded the federal government’s ability to gather intelligence, engage in domestic surveillance and secret searches and detain immigrants with little restraint

Just yesterday, the House of Representatives approved a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. Unlike the Stimulus Bill, it was posted online for two days, which allowed members of Congress – and citizens, alike – to read and discuss the bill for a short period of time before it was considered in Congress. But even that is not enough. Let’s remove the disparity and uncertainty that makes some bills available while others are cloaked in secrecy. Let’s continue to allow everyone to Read The Bill for at least 72 hours before it is considered in Congress.

Help us urge Congress to take some time to Read the Bill– sign our petition today.

Thank you for your time on this important matter.

Sincerely,
Ellen Miller
Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation

P.S. For real time news and updates, you can follow Read The Bill on Twitter.

This issue has a simple solution. The Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader traditionally set the voting schedule, so all Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Reid have to do is delay floor introduction 72 hours after the bill passes committee. Pretty easy, right? Pelosi could even make the call from her private jet (ZING!).

Please join me by signing the petition to post bills online 72 hours in advance of debate.

Cheers,
Sam
“The who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”
Mark Twain

Cheers,
Sam
“Everyone can be great, because anyone can serve.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Puzzle Master Will Shortz could have a field day with the Arizona political scene.

“Take the first syllable of the current Governor’s first name and add three letters describing the frozen state of compound H2O, and you’ll get the name of Arizona’s next Governor.”

For those of you playing at home, the answer is Secretary of State Janice Brewer. That’s right, Janet is headed Washington way and per our State Constitution, the SOS plays second fiddle in the succession dance. And as with any political shift, people are going out of their minds trying to guess what is going to happen next. This is where my part of the story comes in.

“Ice” might be the frozen state of water, but it also describes the frozen state of reception that Brewer is currently enjoying from liberals and progressives in the State (not to mention the nation). And even though I count myself as a progressive, I am doing my best to warm up to our next Governor.

For instance, I am following her Transition Team on Twitter and Facebook. They even have a nifty page on the website where Jan asks for “Your Vision of Arizona.” Gosh, all this interactive, Web 2.0 stuff. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? And if it’s good enough for Barry, why can’t Jan embrace it?

Yes, Jan Brewer is about as Republican as they come. And with a Republican majority in the State Legislature, things could get interesting. But it seems as though the Brewer Transition Team is working hard to make this transfer of power as peaceful – and productive – as possible. For that, she has my support.

Finals are creeping up on me. So I’m not writing, just watching hilarious videos on Funny Or Die and passing them on to you. Enjoy:

Cheers,
Sam
“The Bible says a lot of interesting things.”
Jesus /Jack Black

Over the weekend, Kim and I purchased plane tickets to Washington D.C. to experience the festivities of the Inaugural Address, Parade, and (fingers crossed) Ball of our 44th President. To sum it up; I am pretty stoked.

And sure, January 20th will probably be a day that I remember forever, and I’ll probably talk to my kids about (don’t worry, Mom – no plans for those yet). But, like many coming down from the highs of textbook rhetoric and passionate anticipation, I’m expecting some real and concrete things to start happening on January 21st. Yes, I was a proud passenger on the bandwagon of Hope and Change, but I also resonate with Benny Franklin, who said “He who lives upon hope alone will die fasting.”

Lucky for me (and America), it looks as though President-elect Obama has some good policy cooking in the transition oven. Yeah, I stretched that one…

In any case, the proposed policies that (obviously) interest me most concern the Nonprofit Sector. And I can say with a decent amount of certainty that real action will be taken in this area. How? Well, when I was in DC this summer with the rest of the Nonprofit Congress gang we went up to the Hill for a day to pitch an idea called the Nonprofit Capacity Building Initiative (NCBI). Basically, the NCBI would create an equivalent of the Small Business Administration for the Nonprofit Sector. There is a great need for this because over 80% of nonprofit organizations operate with a budget of less than a million dollars, greatly reducing the chances that organizations can afford costly capacity building programs.

Long story short; we lobbied as one voice for the improved infrastructure of the Sector as a whole that day, and that exact policy is in the oven that I was talking about earlier. Check this out, from Obama’s website:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create an agency within the Corporation for National & Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.

Pretty cool, huh? And that’s not all the new Executive Branch has in store for us. Increased size and scope of federally funded service programs such as AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, encouraging young people to enlist in these programs as part of a service-learning experience, and leveraging public and private investment to “incorporate higher levels of competition, innovation, and accountability” in the Sector.

So, I guess I can be fairly confident that January 21st will bring about some real change. Until then, I’ll be figuring out where the heck to sleep in a city not built for 1.5 million extra people…

Cheers,
Sam
“Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
Don Quixote

Cheers,
Sam
“If there is anyone out there that still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, that still wonders if the dream of our Founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy; tonight is your answer.”
Barack Obama

Cheers,
Sam
“I can’t rap anymore, I just murdered the alphabet.”
Eminem

“If by a ‘liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people–their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties–someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘liberal,’ then I’m proud to say I’m a ‘liberal’.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Cheers,
Sam
“Do you realize the responsibility that I carry? I’m the only person standing between Nixon and the White House.”
John F. Kennedy

If you live in Arizona, but aren’t registered to vote – do it today. Seriously. You can do it online, so you have no excuse.

Cheers,
Sam
“Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.”
Gore Vidal

I have written before on what it means to me to be part of the nonprofit community and how excited I am to one day be a nonprofit professional, so I’ll get straight to the punch:

Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani made comments last week about community organizing that offended me.

Before I go on, there’s a few things you need to know:

1) In full disclosure, I am a supporter of Barack Obama. However, it is important to note that my frustration stemming from the above comments has very little to do with politics, and everything to do with the complete misrepresentation of the nonprofit sector and the work my colleagues and I engage in on a daily basis.

2) I do not think that Barack Obama is the Messiah.

3) I have no ill will towards the office of mayor. The work they do is very important and I strongly believe that local elected officials have more impact on our daily lives than those good ol’ boys in the District.

4) I hold firmly to the belief that the foundations of democracy are disagreement, dissent, and discourse. Please consider this post a living and breathing dialog, not a manifesto.

Alright, down to business. In the days following Palin’s comment, I posted a Facebook status that read something like, “Sam has a thought for the day: Jesus was a community organizer, Pilate was a governor.” It wasn’t original, but it struck a deep enough chord with me to repeat it. The status also garnered some attention – not all positive. A quick sample:

I changed my status after a few hours, knowing I needed to clarify my thoughts on the subject. The next day it became obvious that this clarification needed to happen quickly. Greg Patterson over at Espresso Pundit posted his thoughts on the debacle. “Those of us who consider Jesus to be the Messiah aren’t pleased to see him belittled as a mere ‘community organizer.’” A mere community organizer? I sent him an email as soon as I read the post. Greg said he would be stopping by to read my thoughts. Hi, Greg.

In any case, after a few days of thinking through things and a few more conversations, I decided that two main things need clarification:

1) By reprinting the statement, I was in no way trying to making a comparison of Obama and Jesus. Instead, I felt it (effectively) highlighted the importance of the work that organizers do. I, like Greg, consider Jesus (read: not Obama) to be the Messiah, and arguably the most important man in history. Where we differ, though, is that I believe that the work that Jesus and the Dozen engaged in was community organizing. I mean, JC and the Big Twelve basically wrote the book (too good to pass up) on organizing a group of people around a cause…

2) Community organizing and voluntary action are central to our nation’s history. As a voter, and as a (future) nonprofit professional, I don’t want someone living at 1600 Penn who doesn’t get that. If you have an issue with the whole Jesus thing, fine. But what about Susan B. Anthony, MLK, Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, or those guys who organized a group of passionate people and started our country a couple hundred years ago? Fire departments, hospitals, and financial institutions all have historically deep roots of voluntary action. The PTA, of which Governor Palin is a proud member, is a perfect example of voluntary organization. The Boy Scouts of America, one of the most tenured and respected nonprofit organizations in our country, trained and tested Senator McCain until he was worthy of the title “Eagle Scout.” Both McCain and Palin are proud card-carrying members of the NRA. Wait, “members?” Like members of an organization? Weird.

The Nonprofit Quarterly printed an editoral this week highlighting their take on the whole thing, saying that Giuliani might have less than cheery thoughts on organizing because he, “[Had] plenty of opportunity to become personally acquainted with the work of the New York Immigration Coalition, Jobs With Justice, the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development… and dozens, perhaps hundreds more [organizations].”

It’s disappointing that Governor Palin doesn’t realize the importance of community organizing, and that if she does add another crack to the 18 million, she’s only able to touch the cieling by standing on the shoulders of giants. And last time I checked, political campaigns are run purely on voluntary action and community organizers.

When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America in the mid-nineteenth century he noted that, “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens.” If I were to modernize his sentiment, it would read, “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens and the ability of its civic leaders to recognize and respect that work.”