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litigation tax policy

Humbled in Humboldt County

Humboldt County, property rights, Institute for Justice

For years, the county clobbered property owners with fines of “$10,000 or more per day for offenses they did not commit,” reports the Institute for Justice, which has represented several of the harassed residents.

More than 1,200 property owners in Humboldt County, California, were hit with such fines for growing pot despite only one form of evidence: old satellite images of their property. Followed by, often, no further investigation.

Among the victims: Corrine and Doug Thomas, whom the county charged more than a million dollars. They were also supposed to pay $200,000 to demolish a barn near their home because a prior owner had grown marijuana there. Another owner, Blu Graham, tried in 2018 to get a hearing to show that his greenhouses contained vegetables, not marijuana. As he waited year after year, the fines piled up.

Finally, in 2022, these and others targeted by the county sued in federal court with IJ’s help.

After some ups and downs, a court of appeals affirmed the plausibility of the plaintiffs’ claims, and the prospect of a trial motivated county officials to settle.

The county has withdrawn the fines, retracted the arbitrary allegations, and agreed to give owners 30 days warning in which to counter an accusation before the county acts further. No fines are to be levied until a case is decided. New owners cannot be punished for what previous owners did. Etc. 

And the county must pay the plaintiffs’ litigation costs.

This is Common Sense. Let’s hope it sticks.

I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Cassirer

Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging.

Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (1944), Ch. 1, p. 31.
Categories
Today

San Marino

On September 3, A.D. 301, San Marino, one of the smallest sovereign political organizations in the world and the world’s oldest still-existing republic, was founded by Saint Marinus.

San Marino is bounded on all sides by northeastern Italy.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall litigation partisanship

Maddened in Michigan

Michigan, petition, initiative, deadlock, democracy, voting

“It’s not every day that Michigan’s bureaucracy violates state and federal law while disenfranchising more than 700,000 Michigan voters,” opens the legal brief filed in the Michigan Supreme Court last Thursday by Americans for Citizen Voting – Michigan. “But that’s exactly what happened [last] week.”

The group (which I chair) has worked for the last year to place the Citizen Only Voting Amendment on Michigan’s November ballot. It makes two basic reforms: requires the Secretary of State to check the voter rolls, identifying and removing noncitizens in a fair process, and requires photo identification to cast a ballot.

Last week, the Board of State Canvassers, two appointed Democrats and two appointed Republicans, deadlocked repeatedly, 2-2, on counting petition signatures even when they agreed that the signer was a registered Michigan voter, and then, on whether to certify the issue for the ballot. 

“The initiative’s sample was left just three signatures short of certification for the ballot,” Sen. Ruth Johnson explained in The Detroit News, “after Democrats on the board refused to count the signatures of nine Michigan voters whose identities had been verified by a notary public, and who signed affidavits under penalty of perjury that the signatures on the petitions in question were theirs.”

“These are real affidavits from real people who are real voters who signed these petitions,” Republican Board Chair Richard Housekamp implored his two Democratic colleagues. 

“The signature matches,” acknowledged Democratic Vice-Chair Mary Ellen Gurewitz, “but whether it should be counted . . . um . . . I think we should decide later.”

“So, you’re going to hold the voter hostage is what I hear you saying,” Housekamp replied.

“You should not have to stop to check the count,” wrote Johnson, a former Secretary of State, “before giving credit for a signature you have already acknowledged is valid. . . .

“Two unelected members of an obscure state board,” she concluded, “cannot be allowed to strip away the constitutional rights of nearly one in 10 adults in our state who signed a petition to place this issue before voters.”

That’s why we and the 700,000 Michiganders who signed our petition want our day in court. Left without any response at all from Michigan’s Democrat-dominated Supreme Court, on Monday we filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Yesterday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh ordered the Michigan Secretary of State, Bureau of Elections and Board of State Canvassers to respond to our appeal by noon today. Our day is coming.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Francis Bacon

Ne mireris, si vulgus verius loquatur quam
honoratiores; quia etiam tutius loquitur.

Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.

Francis Bacon, Exempla Antithetorum, IX. Laus, Existimatio (Pro.), Book I, v, 8.

Categories
Today

Roman Republic Ends

On September 2, 44 B.C., Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declared her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. On the same day of the same year, Cicero launched the first of his 14 Philippicae (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. Just a few years later on the same day, in 31 B.C., the Battle of Actium ended off the western coast of Greece, where forces of Octavian defeating troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Thus ended the Roman Republic, with the consolidation of power by Gaius Octavius (Octavian; Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus), though he was not renamed “First Citizen” Imperator Caesar divi filius Augustus until January 16, 27.

Categories
ideological culture too much government

Shirkers of the World, Unite

socialism, freedom, control, democracy

“Now it is our turn,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told the crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, last Friday, celebrating the 63rd anniversary of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington speech. 

Socialist Sanders was followed by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

“We the people demand guaranteed healthcare for every American as a right and not a privilege,” insisted AOC.

“We the people of the United States of America demand that one job with no need for overtime,” she declared, “should be enough for our most basic needs.”

Then Ocasio-Cortez added, “Which also include rest.”

“Exactly,” remarked Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, “We became number one in the world by resting and not working overtime.

“Right behind her is an army of socialist foot soldiers,” Kilmeade continued, “ready to work 30 hours and then take a break.”

That army is the Democratic Socialists of America — to which AOC had just re-upped her membership.

“Imagine taking a day off from work,” reads their program’s very first message, “in a future without capitalism.” You see, in that socialist utopia just around the corner, “You enjoy your work; it’s interesting to you” and “you would control your own labor” and it would never be “just a job to pay the bills.” 

The promise of socialism fulfilled at last.

“Speaking of bills,” the DSA assures you won’t “really have them anymore.” And there will be “no debt”! Why, you won’t even “pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right.” Simple as that, plus, “Your retirement is publicly funded.” 

Sure sounds like they’re going to take care of us real nice. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Thought

Marx

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1845; 1846), Volume I, Part 1.
Categories
Today

Constitution Day

Slovakia celebrates a Constitution Day on September 1, for the Constitution passed by the Slovak National Council on September 1, 1992.

The Slovaks place their rights provision early in their document, like most American states, and not as amendments, as in the Constitution of the United States of America.

Categories
election law Voting

Noncitizen Pawns in the Voting Wars

voting, democracy, citizenship, elections, non citizen, immigration

“The next time [Michigan Secretary of State] Jocelyn Benson tells you there are no non-citizens on our voter rolls,” Allegan County Clerk Bob Genetski posted last Tuesday on Facebook, “please tell her I spent the bulk of my morning trying to help a man who was within days of his ceremony to become a U.S. citizen, when he got a letter from Homeland Security suspending his application because they found he was registered to vote — a shock [to] him!”

How could this happen?

“State records show he was registered by the Secretary of State’s Office (most likely while getting a driver’s license),” explains Genetski. 

The State of Michigan automatically registers everyone at the DMV — U.S. citizen or not — without bothering to inform them. 

Especially of the consequences. 

“My heart breaks for this guy,” the county clerk confided, “trying to do the right thing while some yahoo registered him to vote against his will.”

“Secretary of State’s office does this automatically,” said one commenter. “My sister-in-law, a Canadian Citizen with a Green Card came to live with us for a short time while looking for a new place to live. She had been living in Florida and had a Florida Driver’s License. She went to SOS to get a Michigan License. Without her knowledge or consent, they registered her to vote. We found out when her voter ID card arrived in the mail.”

If Secretary Benson and other politicians truly cared about and respected immigrants, they wouldn’t slap them onto voting rolls without their express permission.

Potentially scuttling their chance to become citizens. And be able to vote.

Legally. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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