More about town courts

The State Comptroller's website has a page that allows you to review revenue for all the town and village courts in New York State. Interesting how courts with major highways running through them have dramatically higher revenue, even when the town may have much lower population. The system creates a windfall for those towns and results in an unjust disparity for those left out.

Stop Wasting Money with Alan Chartock on WAMC

I was honored to be interviewed by Dr. Alan Chartock, who heads up Northeast Public Radio and radio station WAMC. The interview apparently aired on 9/21, 9/22, and 9/25. I'm uploading the file as an attachment (though I'm not sure Blogger will allow a 20 megabyte file), and I'm also including the link to the page on WAMC where you can download the interview. It's composed of three 8-minute segments.

The interview is on this page: WAMC Congressional Corner

Your candidates. Your health.

An organization called "Your Candidates. Your Health." did a survey of candidates. I responded, as did the incumbent in this race. Our reponses are completely opposite of each other. Short comparison: He wants to spend our money. I want to stop wasting our money.

It's easy to look at medical research in isolation, but consider the whole panoply of issues. McNulty has consistently voted to spend more of our money on everything. I have consistently opposed having the government decide how our money should be spent.

This survey is one example of the way elections are tilted toward spending money. I don't think I've ever gotten a survey from a group that wanted anything other than to have government spend money on their pet cause, whether it's Social Security and Medicare for old people, or student loans and college grants for young people. The voices for less spending are few and far between.

They all talk about lowering taxes too, but how can you claim to support lower taxes when your main thing is to ask for more spending. It's baloney and it's time the voters stood up and said something about it.

Criminal "Justice" - New York Times series on local courts in New York

The New York Times did a series recently on local courts in New York State: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/nyregion/25courts.html

As a lawyer in New York State, I visit many local criminal courts on speeding tickets as well as for criminal defense. As a side business my brother and I are developing a directory of local traffic and criminal courts. I also practice in "higher" courts, such as County Court.

There are serious flaws in the system. I have seen many cases where judges, especially non-lawyer judges, disregarded their responsibility in ways that were detrimental to innocent defendants. The problem with the NY Times piece is that it assumes that lawyer judges in local courts, and judges in the higher courts are so much better.

There are certain realities. First, most judges do a very good job in most cases regardless of whether the judge is a lawyer or not. Second, while non-lawyer judges may sometimes know less about the law than lawyer judges, there are plenty of excellent non-lawyer judges and more than a few terrible judges who are lawyers.

In my opinion, anti-defendant bias is typical. This does not necessarily mean the judge is biased against the defendant directly. Often judges are biased in favor of the police or the prosecution, and this has an adverse impact against the defendant.

One of my favorite examples of this bias is the location of most local courts. More often than not they are housed in the same building as the police. The local police generally provide security for the local courts that have security. The prosecutor has an assigned room. The judges see the same police and the same prosecutor all the time. The defendant and often the defense attorney are both new to the Court and the judge is likely to have an inherent bias in favor of those he/she knows, and thus an effective bias against the defendant.

Many local judges are not affected by this bias, but for me it certainly bends toward an appearance of impropriety.

This problem is also not limited to the local town and village courts. Take Albany County. The DA's office is in the same building as the County Court, where felonies are heard. The public defender's office is in another building, perhaps a mile away. Private defense lawyers are not provided with an office. ADAs get a special ID tag that allows them to go through secure doors. I believe public defenders can get them, but I was told I couldn't get one.

Albany City Court is another good example -- and by the way I know all the judges in that court and have never felt that the judges allowed themselves to be affected by any such bias. The main courtroom has a big glass wall separating the area with the judge from everyone else. This appears to be for security purposes. Inside the wall is the judge, court clerks, one or two ADAs, a few police officers, and maybe someone from the public defender's office who does the paperwork to see if someone is eligible for the public defender. Defendants and private attorneys sit outside the wall. I remember in one case I had a dispute about something with an ADA and he went inside the wall and talked to the judge where I couldn't hear the conversation - but I did hear him mention the name of my client. I stood up to protest and was ordered to sit down and be quiet by the officer.

You also often see the prosecutors controlling the agenda (usually called the calendar) in the courtroom. They review the cases and then give the file to the court clerk who gives it to the judge to be called. I can't understand why a court would allow one side to control the agenda like that. Most ADAs do not abuse this power, but why should they have that power anyway?

Fundamentally, what it all comes down to is that the so-called criminal justice system stinks. That is somewhat inevitable considering the problems that it addresses. And the solution is to remove as many things as possible from that system. Marijuana is a good example. There are nearly 2 million arrests a year for marijuana in the US. That places a tremendous burden on the system. Stop arresting people on marijuana charges and you remove a lot of pressure, making it easier for the courts to do better work on the cases that remain. Speeding tickets are mostly an unnecessary burden. It would be a huge relief to the system if a lot fewer tickets were written.

The criminal justice system should return to its focus on dealing with real criminals. Every time you hear a politician talk about how the system should be tougher on crime, what they're really saying is they want to waste more of your money pursuing regular people who get dragged into an overwhelmed system.

Incumbency Advantage and The Matrix

I'm going a bit over the top with this, but I just watched part of The Matrix: Reloaded, so it's in my head a bit.

Political Science is full of papers discussing the incumbency advantage. In the midst of my second run for Congress I have become well aware of many aspects of that advantage. It is a matrix of factors, each of which helps incumbents and/or impedes challengers. This matrix is not an evil computer program running society. It is not a malevolent conspiracy of evil geniuses a la the fantasies of the John Birch Society. Rather, to paraphrase the first President Bush (I call the current one Bush Lite), I see a thousand conspiracies of idiots. Chomsky is a much better source to understand the failings of our democracy.

Gerrymandering is the most well-understood aspect of this problem, though it doesn't help incumbents much in primaries. The biggest problem in my eyes is media bias against covering challengers, as I discussed in a previous post about media bias in elections. Parties are also a major factor in the matrix. Parties nearly always support incumbents -- the Republican Party consistently has supported its most liberal incumbents against conservative challengers. Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island is the latest example, but Arlen Specter and Sherwood Boehlert also fit. In 1996 in this district the Democratic Party supported McNulty even though he was Newt Gingrich's favorite Democrat.

There are many other factors that support incumbents and inhibit challengers. It's a long list. Underlying all of these is the fundamental difficulty facing challengers - voters don't know who the challengers are. This has become so extreme, as incumbency reelection rates near 100%, that we do not really live in a democracy. If voters in a particular race only know who one of the candidates is, then they are not really making a choice.

Theoretical models of "social choice" (I'm referring here to such concepts as the voting paradox of the Marquis de Condorcet as well as Downs, and to Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem) look at democracy as a system of aggregating individual preferences. That's pretty thick. A simple example is to think of a majority vote between A and B. If 51% of the voters prefer A to B, then A is chosen over B by the system.

But what if the voters don't really prefer A to B? What if they've never even heard of B? That is the reality of most modern elections. You, the reader, right now probably cannot name the challenger running for state legislature in your district. If you can you are the rare exception. I confess that at this moment I don't know who's running as challenger in my district (I suspect there is no challenger since I was just at a Republican county meeting and no challenger in that race spoke). I do know who the incumbent is (Jack McEneny - he's a good guy -- but see below about good guys).

Sophisticated campaign teams routinely poll voters to determine how much name recognition each candidate has. They also poll to see whether voters have a positive or negative impression of each candidate. Often those polled know little or nothing about the candidates, but they have formed an impression one way or another -- usually through biased media. If the voter thinks A is a good guy (remember McEneny), and the voter doesn't have an opinion one way or another about B, the voter is likely to choose A.

One simple solution to this problem is to make voting in each race a two-step process. First the voter would have to choose the names of the two candidates from a list of four or five in a multiple choice test (or three out of seven if there are three candidates, etc.). Then the voter would be presented with a choice between the two (or three) candidates he chose. If the voter chose the correct two candidates, then his vote counts. If not, his vote doesn't count.

Okay, we all know that's never going to happen. But it is an interesting idea.

So what can we do about this matrix? I'll offer my opinion (it is my blog after all): Whoever you are, whatever the issues are that motivate you, if you are dissatisfied with the current state of our government, you should commit yourself to destroying this matrix. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, for or against the Iraq war, pro-union or anti-union, etc., nothing of significance will happen with your issues until the anti-challenger matrix is destroyed.

Before your substantive issues can be addressed, you must first focus on this problem. The first step is to stop supporting incumbents. You must never do anything to support an incumbent, ever, until the matrix is broken. Incumbents are inherently biased against reforms that would help challengers.

You should support free postage for candidates, even if you are a libertarian who opposes there being a government post office. Free postage for candidates means that libertarian candidates will have a voice. Once voters recognize the wisdom of libertarianism and we obtain the libertarian utopia you seek, then you can end the free postage. But it is necessary now.

You should oppose limits on campaign finance, even though the process corrupts elected officials. This corruption is trivial compared to corruption that arises from having a safe seat. Without having to worry about challengers, incumbents can disregard the will of the voters and that corruption is far more dangerous. When your ideas win over the voters and we reach your liberal utopia, campaign finance will no longer be necessary since all of the voters will be well informed thanks to your enlightened education policies.

On a more practical level, you should pester media at every opportunity to report on challenger campaigns. At the least you should do so for challengers whose positions you support against incumbents whose positions you detest. And you should help challenger campaigns as well.

As for me, I have recognized my new purpose in politics. Getting back to the parallel with the movie The Matrix, I just might be The One. Okay, probably not, but maybe I'm Morpheus or just some bit player helping them. And no, I'm not Trinity.

To carry out my new purpose, I realize that I must destroy my current political self. I will close this campaign with my own immolation. Stay tuned. The fireball will explode in late October.

Letter to Editor from an RPI student

In response to my request for letters to editors, an RPI student submitted a letter, which follows. Please note that many newspapers will not print something this long. Ideally letters should be less than 300 words, and should be submitted along with a phone number where they can call you to confirm you wrote it. Thanks to Matt Newman for writing the letter.

----------------

Ignoring McNulty

I'm a graduate student at RPI and have been living in this area all my life. I keep myself as aware if not more than the average person on the local political scene and yet until recently I did not know that there was anyone challenging Mike McNulty. I finally found the campaign site of Warren Redlich from a political webpage I frequent; until that point, I thought McNulty was going unchallenged this season and, frankly, I didn't have a clue as to why.

Since first elected in 1988, McNulty's Congressional seat has been relatively safe. He has been primaried twice, in 1996 and this year from a candidate who received no press coverage. Why is McNulty's seat so safe and why does the press tend to ignore his opposition? Looking at McNulty's record, it's hard to find a real reason to strongly support him. He has not written much in the way of legislation since the early 90s and certainly none that has passed through Congress. Much of his recent legislation are direct copies of bills that were previously sitting in the Senate. In the past year, the few new bills written by McNulty include a bill to tell people how to display a flag properly on a one-way street (HR2897); a resolution to have Congress discuss who they feel is the appropriate author of Yankee Doodle (H.CON.RES.51); an expired bill with no cosponsors discussing hydroelectric power (HR4375); and a bill to force certain arsenals to start work on projects before payment of the money they may very well need (HR570). McNulty claims to have brought a great deal of money into the district. I pose one question for you – the last time federal money was brought into the Capital District, who was the person who all over the news discussing the groundbreaking new legislation which they wrote bringing money to the area? Was it McNulty? It wasn't for me, because more often than not I see Senators Clinton and Schumer standing alongside Congressman John Sweeney; interesting considering that Sweeney's district barely covers any of the Capital District. Now after thinking about all of this, one question remains -- has McNulty, once referred to by Congressional Quarterly as the “Chair of the Obscurity Caucus,” done anything to help or represent our region? I think the answer to that is fairly simple.

This brings me back to my original point – Mike McNulty has a challenger. This challenger comes from a man named Warren Redlich. In late September I was able to meet Redlich when he stopped by a College Republican meeting at RPI. He impressed the room filled with undergraduate students discussing issues we really cared about, from the economy to as simply as how much money our government wastes yearly. He participated in our meeting, Redlich honestly cared enough about us as potential voters and as his constituents to take time out of his schedule to sit, talk about the issues, and just listen to the banter of college students. That's something you don't see everyday – that's something I've never seen from Mike McNulty.

So, McNulty has a challenger; a real challenger who is ready to get out there and talk to the people of this district. What's the problem? No one is talking about him. I have yet to see any of the local newspapers discuss Warren Redlich. Where's the coverage in the Times Union or the Troy Record? Where's the coverage on our local ABC, Fox, and NBC affiliates? Where's the coverage in any of the local news outlets? You can't turn on the television without hearing about how Sweeney's district is competitive and how Gillibrand is closing in on him. That race is all across the news, despite the fact that every poll coming out of that district show Gillibrand losing to Sweeney with anywhere from a 7 to 20 point margin. Why does she get all the press? Does he need to be a Democrat? That can't be the case since Thomas Raleigh, the Democrat who primaried McNulty, received less press than Redlich. Does Redlich need to get MoveOn.org to begin funding his campaign in order for the press to honestly take a look at his candidacy?

All I know is this – I want to see fair and adequate coverage for all campaigns in the area. I want the press to begin discussing the exciting Comptroller's race. I want the press to discuss all of the Statewide races and not merely describe them as a crowning of the Democratic ticket. I want my local media to discuss my local race for Congress. It's disappointing to see how dismissive media has been to the campaigns of the honest men and women looking to serve their community.
-Matt Newman

A simple request

So far the media will not cover this campaign. There appears to be a deliberate policy of not covering challengers except in rare circumstances. What kind of a democracy do we have if the voters don't know who the choices are?

If you think newspapers and other media should cover challengers, please contact the appropriate people at the media outlet of your choice.

For the Albany Times Union: http://www.timesunion.com/forms/emaileditor.asp

For the Daily Gazette (Schenectady): opinion@dailygazette.com
or
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
c/o The Daily Gazette
P.O. Box 1090
Schenectady, N.Y. 12301-1090

For the Troy Record: newsroom@troyrecord.com

For the Leader Herald (Fulton County): http://208.15.24.251/vnr/add_submission.asp?categoryID=625&publicationID=47

For the Recorder (Amsterdam): news@recordernews.com

Thanks,
Warren

Campaign update

As I've mentioned before, I'm taking a non-traditional route to the campaign. Rather than "running" for Congress, I'm blogging for Congress.

I monitor traffic to the campaign website. The largest source is regular searches on Google (i.e. ones I don't pay for). Another big source is politics1.com. The two biggest paid sources are Google ads and ads that I'm running on the Times Union's website, through a company called adsonar.com.

An interesting question about the paid ads is whether the "impressions" are worth anything. If someone clicks on the ad and comes to the website, you'd hope that means they know more about me and my campaign. But the paid sources also measure impressions, meaning how many times my ads have been displayed to people. The mere fact that the ad shows up on the page doesn't mean a whole lot.

Anyway, I've had over 300,000 impressions on my main Google ad campaign, and over a million on the Times Union. These have led to a few hundred clicks to the website.

If we get over 2 million impressions by election day (which looks pretty likely), and only 2% stick, that's still 40,000 people. Maybe that's not a bad approach.

All of this for well under $1000. We'll see if that means anything in November.

Farm subsidies: pork for pork

The Economist has a great article on US farm subsidies in the 9/9/06 issue. The federal government gave $20 billion last year to our poor starving farmers. Correction: to our rather wealthy farmers. 72% of the money is concentrated on 10% of the farmers, generally large commercial farms. These are sophisticated businesses that have huge tracts of land (note the Monty Python reference).

I'm all for ending corporate welfare. Getting rid of subsidies for large agribusinesses is a good step in that direction.

And for those who want their congressman to bring home the bacon to the district, you should recognize that this money is not coming to our district. Mike McNulty consistently votes to give our money to wealthy landowners in the midwest who happen to have farms on their land.

Wasting money: Defending South Korea

Great material on the whole money wasting topic in the media. In this post I'll talk about defending South Korea. Next post: farm subsidies.

There was an opinion piece in yesterday's (9/14/06) Wall Street Journal from a South Korean politician, opposing any reduction in the US presence there. The article was more specifically about the status of command over the Korean troops.

In a previous post I talked about the US defending rich countries. We've maintained troops in South Korea since the 1950s, i.e. for roughly 50 years.

Let's compare South Korea with North Korea. South Korea has a GDP of about $900 billion. North Korea: $30 billion. South Korea has a population of 48 million, while North Korea has 22 million. South Korea has twice as many people and 30 times as much money. Why does South Korea need us?

The WSJ article argues a few points:
1. The security situation is more fragile than ever, because "North Korea poses a variety of threats to regional and global stability" and "North Korea is still trying to develop ICBM missiles and nuclear weapons."

--I don't see where the "more fragile than ever" comes from, except paranoia. The North may pose threats to stability on the peninsula, but it doesn't threaten the stability of China and Japan as these countries are both quite stable and N. Korea is a hiccup to these relative giants. The threat to global stability is a joke. I doubt people in South America and Africa are spending much time worrying about Kim Jong Il. The "still trying to ..." reference might make the situation "as fragile as ever" but not "more fragile than ever."

2. A "transfer might encourage North Korea to step up its rogue tactics." The "transfer" refers to transferring control of South Korean troops to South Korean command.

--North Korea might "step up" its tactics? Let's see, for some time now they've been developing nuclear weapons and missiles, kidnapping Japanese and South Korean citizens, etc. What on earth would they do if they stepped things up?

Reality check -- South Korea can stomp North Korea anytime. Double the population and 30 times the economy. They don't need our help. It's long past time we brought our troops home and stopped wasting our money there.

Our interventionist policy and its effect on how others perceive us

In a recent post on September 11th, I criticized our interventionist foreign policy. My main criticism has always been that we waste far too much money on aspects of this, such as defending rich countries.

There's an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal. It's an opinion piece by James McGregor. In it he talks about how the Chinese government-run media paints the US as engaging in "a cynical plot to destabilize the country (China)." He says this is effective, noting that 59% of Chinese city-dwellers believe the US seeks to contain China.

Now I was not able to see McGregor's face when he wrote that, but I have to assume he was serious. But this is utterly stupid. Of course it is US policy to contain China. That's why we were flying our spy plane near Hainan Island, and why we support Taiwan, and why we maintain substantial forces in South Korea and Japan. I'm wondering what the other 41% of Chinese city-dwellers are smoking.

McGregor's comment demonstrates the tremendous lack of self-awareness among US policymakers who simply cannot see what they are doing and how it is perceived by others.

Earlier in the article he mentions the US criticism of China's growing military spending, while acknowledging that US military spending is dramatically larger, accounting for roughly 50% of all military spending in the world. Our policymakers cannot see that a huge military spender appears hypocritical when it suggests another country is spending too much.

The result of our behavior is a worldwide perception of us as boorish bullies - the Ugly American. As a nation we're so self-righteous that we just can't see this. Teddy Roosevelt suggested we speak softly and carry a big stick. We've got the second part down, but as for the first part, we're not even close.

This reminds me of a joke. Foreigners love this joke. Most Americans don't get it.

What do you call someone who speaks two languages?

Bilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks only one language?

American.

As long as I'm a candidate, I should use this opportunity to brag about something. I'm illiterate in four languages - referring to cultural literacy since I'm pretty boorish myself. But seriously, I speak four languages (Japanese, Spanish, French (un peu) and English).

Now, put together McNulty, Sweeney, Gillibrand, and while you're at it, throw in Hillary, Schumer and George W. Bush. Between the six of them I wouldn't be surprised if none of them speaks another language, but maybe together they get to two or three.

I know, I know, Bush supposedly speaks Spanish. But he ain't too good at English. :-)

Primary update

I checked the primary results from the county boards of election for Albany, Saratoga and Rensselaer. The other counties do not seem to have online results. Preliminary results do not look good for Tom Raleigh. Looks like he's getting about 13% of the vote. I was guessing he'd get 20%. He was hoping for 30%. Lee Wasserman got 39% back in 1996.

To me, Raleigh never figured out a clear and simple message to communicate to the voters. I think this was a key problem with his campaign.

I like to think I've settled on a simple, clear message. See the title of this blog if you don't know what it is yet. Okay ... if you're too lazy to look up, it's "Stop Wasting Money".

Now we'll have to see if that makes any difference in November.

I think I was just harassed

I allow comments on my blogs. You'll see many blogs that do not allow them. Mine is set up to allow me to moderate comments so if they're spam or otherwise inappropriate I can reject them.

I got this weird one today on my Albany Lawyer blog. The anonymous comment, on a post that had nothing to do with anything campaign-related, said the following:

"test post to see how much you like to debate"

Since this comes right after I proposed a debate in the newspaper, it seems like rather odd timing. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but sometimes they really are out to get you. :-)

Of course I used my power as moderator to reject the comment.

A different kind of money hassle

I've written on my Albany lawyer blog about debt collectors before. This is really a national policy issue, and it's come up again in my home, so I figured it would make a good post.

Some time ago Congress passed the "Fair Debt Collection Practices Act". This goes along with a number of other related laws such as the "Truth in Lending Act" (TILA) and the "Fair Credit Reporting Act" (FCRA). The names are all misleading, as nothing is fair or truthful about the system.

These came about with the good idea that the process of making loans, collecting on unpaid loans, and reporting those who do not pay their debts is important. If it's done right it makes the economy work better and also makes sure people are treated fairly.

It hasn't worked out that way. Once this good idea got into Congress, the special interests (especially banks, large corporations, and the credit reporting agencies in this case) used their influence, along with the lack of offsetting pressure from consumer groups, led to some very bad laws.

The titles of all these laws should mention their real purpose of protecting the aforementioned special interests from the consequences of their misconduct. First, in many cases the laws preempt state law so that individuals harmed by misconduct cannot sue the bank or credit agency under the laws of the state they live in. They're stuck with the federal laws. The federal laws have minimal penalties for misconduct (typically $1000 per incident). Since few consumers go forward with complaints, they rarely have to pay, and when they do, they don't have to pay much. No attorney is going to represent a consumer when there's only $1000 at stake.

My personal story involves Verizon Information Services. They're the ones that make the Yellow Pages. A few years ago I bought an ad in the Amsterdam Yellow Pages. They misspelled my name. Well, they spelled it correctly once, and incorrectly another time so potential clients would think I don't know how to spell my own name. They also printed my cell phone number instead of my toll-free number.

I wasn't happy with this so I refused to pay - and not just for the Amsterdam book, but for all the books I was in. I sent letters. I tried making phone calls. I never was able to get to a person who knew anything, and they never responded to a single letter. Eventually they just gave up and I never had to pay.

You would think that would end it, but no ... they actually ran the same ad again. Idiots! And now they're billing me for it again. Strangely they are not running the ads in the other books, but just the one in the Amsterdam book (the one where the problem was based).

So now they want me to pay for an ad I never agreed to, and that I had actually disputed once before. They've farmed out the "debt" to a debt collection company, CreditWatch Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. Now, they could call me on the number they listed in my ad (the cell). They could call my toll-free number. No. They keep calling my home number. They harass my wife and my mother-in-law. My family keeps giving them my toll-free number and they keep calling home. I called today and told them I'm not paying and instructed them to stop calling. Mrs. Mims (866-390-6630 ext 3322 if you want to chat with her) told me the calls will keep coming.

In New York this kind of conduct constitutes aggravated harassment in the second degree. I called the Fort Worth DA's office (Tarrant County) and left a message with someone there. I have some vague hope someone there will decide to get involved and stop this kind of behavior. Maybe there's a class action lawsuit in here somewhere?

Will the TU run a print debate?

I got some response to my suggestion to the Times Union. Editor Joann Crupi indicated that they'll be talking about how to cover the campaigns in late September. I'm not thrilled with them waiting that long but it is their paper after all.

Here's what she wrote:
"Dear Mr. Redlich:
Thanks for your e-mail and your follow-up phone call. I'll be out of the office until Monday, Sept. 25. At that time, the editorial board will assess the many contested November races and decide how we want to handle them on the editorial and op-ed pages. We will then notify candidates of how we plan to proceed.
We work independently of the news desk, which reports to Rex Smith and will make its own
coverage plans separately from us.
Joann Crupi
Editor/Opinion Pages
Times Union"

I did get a response from the John Sweeney campaign as well:

"Dear Mr. Redlich,
Please do not contact me anymore - either directly or by copying me on e-mails such as this.
Thank You,
Chris Nedwick"

Well I guess I won't be working closely with the Sweeney campaign in the election this fall. Oh, wait, now I remember. Sweeney's the guy whose office never returned a single phone call in the 2004 race. At least this time they're not leaving me hanging. A clear message from John Sweeney.

Is it me or was the tone of his message a little chilly?

It's funny. I don't like McNulty's voting record, but at least the guy has some class. He's a decent guy. His father's quite a fellow -- makes great brownies. McNulty's staffer - Charlie Diamond - also a class act. Apparently not much of that in Camp Sweeney. I do hear good things about one person in Sweeney's office, but I don't want to say a name for fear of getting that person into trouble.

I'm a little surprised Gillibrand hasn't jumped on the Times Union debate idea. She has complained that Sweeney's dodging a debate. Here I am suggesting a debate format and inviting them to join in, and she's not running with it. I suspect she's afraid of stepping on McNulty's toes. Then again, since McNulty doesn't seem to consider me a serious challenge, you'd think he wouldn't mind.

September 11th and the Causes of Terrorism

There's been quite a bit of press about September 11th since today is the 5th anniversary. It seems to be mainly press, as I haven't noticed anyone chatting about it outside the media, but I'll take a swipe at it anyway.

I'm focused on the causes of terrorism, or more particularly, the reasons why terrorists would attack the United States. One popular notion, often espoused by President Bush, is that they hate us because we love freedom and democracy. I tried to find a nice way to say it but the best I can do is this: that's a load of crap.

We are hated by many because of our decades-long policy of intervening in the affairs of other countries. We have troops all over the world. We have supported unsavory insurgents in some countries (especially South America but also Afghanistan and Iraq) and unsavory governments in others (such as Pakistan). There's always some kind of rationale for our involvement. Sometimes we act for the right reasons and on occasion we even do good things. But on balance our interventions across the world have led to little progress for our own interests, and even less for all these places we're mucking around. Meanwhile our presence and interventions lead many people to dislike us.

Imagine if you and your wife were having a fight, and your neighbor came over and kept saying your wife was right and you were wrong. You might get a bit annoyed at your neighbor. If your wife has any sense she'd be annoyed at him too.

Nowhere in the discussion about 9-11 do we see anyone advocating a less interventionist foreign policy. I'll say it. We should stop wasting money maintaining troops all over the world and stop wasting money intervening in the domestic affairs of other countries. Instead we should defend our own borders and take care of our own problems.

Keep in mind that our interventionist foreign policy costs over 10% of the federal budget (and maybe 20%). Add to that the costs of phony efforts to defend ourselves from terrorists who only want to attack us because we're wasting money messing around in their countries, and you're probably to 25% of the budget. So we're spending about $500 billion a year (or nearly $2000 per person - including children) to make ourselves less safe while accomplishing little of substance anywhere.

Proposal to the Times Union

I sent the following e-mail to the Times Union editorial staff. We'll see if anyone really wants to talk about and cover issues in the 2006 congressional campaigns. Please e-mail jcrupi@timesunion.com telling her you want them to do this.

-----
Dear Mr. Smith, Ms. Crupi and Mr. Healy:

I write with a suggestion for covering the 2006 congressional campaigns here in the Capital Region. Your paper previously published an editorial suggesting that candidates should talk more about issues and sling less mud.

My proposal is that each candidate in the 20th and 21st congressional district submit two questions about issues. Each candidate would submit answers to the Times Union. The TU would then print the question and the answers of each candidate. Since there are roughly 8 weeks between now and the election, this could be done once a week (i.e. one of the questions and its answers would be printed each week, starting with 9/17). This seems appropriate for Sunday's "Perspective" section, but that is of course the TU's call.

There are some finer points of implementation I would leave to your judgment (i.e. what if two candidates submit essentially the same question? I'd prefer the TU substitute its own question, but that would be up to you; or how long can the questions/answers be? - given Mr. Smith's published concerns about using the paper's space wisely, that obviously should be the paper's decision).

By copy of this e-mail I am advising the Sweeney, Gilibrand, McNulty and Raleigh campaigns of this proposal. I've also cc'd Ms. Benjamin, Ms. Woodruff and Mr. O'Brien since they're covering the races.

I hope the other campaigns will reply to the paper to indicate their willingness to participate in such a "print debate". Raleigh, McNulty and I did a print debate a few weeks ago in the Informed Constituent, and that seemed to go well.

Please reply by e-mail or call me at 888-733-5299 with any questions or concerns.

Thank you for your ongoing coverage of the campaigns and for your attention to this proposal.

Very truly yours,
Warren Redlich

NRA Wasting Time and Money

I sometimes mention the difficulties of being a challenger in this blog. In the last couple of days I've received a substantial stack of nearly identical postcards from NRA supporters. This is apparently part of a campaign by the NRA-ILA. The postcards indicate that they expect me to respond in writing, by mail, answering four questions about the Second Amendment and other issues related to the rights of gun owners.

So now I'm supposed to bang out 50 letters to people. When I'm I supposed to find time to do this? Unlike incumbents and other political insiders, I don't have a staff of people to perform this task. So here's my solution. I'm going to assemble all these postcards and send them back to NRA-ILA, with a cover letter asking them to contact all of these people to let them know what the NRA already knows about my views on these issues.

For those who don't already know, I was rated an A- by the NRA in the 2004 election, while the incumbent has a lifetime F. So why is the NRA burdening me with all of this extra work? If I don't respond, according to the postcards they're likely to vote against me because I didn't respond. If I take the time to respond to 50+ postcards, then that's less time I have for campaigning (and for living the rest of my life). Meanwhile an anti-gun candidate can just ignore the postcards. Or a less scrupulous one might send responses indicating that they do agree with the NRA, even though they really don't.

What a great way for the NRA to reward people who support their views.

Campaign tactics for underfunded candidates

I saw Tom Raleigh standing out in the rain on Route 20 yesterday, and stopped to chat with him. We had a very pleasant conversation. He's a great guy.

He does now seem to be discovering how difficult it is to get your message out. I had hoped we could do something together on the theory that the media might find that more interesting, but he didn't want to go that way before (or yesterday) and it's too late now.

He commented on my web ads that he's seen in the Times Union. That has been a very inexpensive approach, but I'm afraid it doesn't reach that many people. I just checked my web stats and there have only been about 1400 unique visitors. My ads linking to my website have appeared a total of roughly one million times on local websites including the Times Union and Capital News 9. Those are called impressions and I don't think they count for much. I guess we'll see about that.

Now I face the dilemma - should I pay for TV ads? I'm leaning towards no. It's a lot of money. I spent $17,000 for TV airtime in 2004. I think that helped, but it certainly wasn't enough to win the election. It was mostly my own money last time and would be all my own money this time.

Few voters realize that it's difficult for candidates to communicate a message to them. Unfortunately, few voters go out and try to find out more about candidates. And they have conflicting expectations - on the one hand they expect us to actively reach them (which gets expensive) and on the other hand they dislike the idea of us accepting campaign contributions.

Any suggestions on tactics would be appreciated.

More on McNulty and campaign reform

Metroland has an article in the current issue about Raleigh and McNulty. [The link will probably go bad but if you Google "raleigh mcnulty citizen action metroland" without the quote marks, you'll probably find it.] There's a big discussion of "Clean Money - Clean Elections" (CMCE) campaign finance reform. I posted before about McNulty's hypocrisy on this issue, but the article provokes further comment.

In the article, Raleigh criticizes McNulty and Citizen Action (a far-left group that advocates CMCE among other things) over the fact that McNulty gave Citizen Action $1650 this year and Citizen Action then endorsed him.

McNulty is quoted as saying there's nothing wrong with him giving money to Citizen Action and also mentions that he contributes to the League of Women Voters, closing with: "Does he [Raleigh] think I should stop doing that?"

I can't speak for Raleigh, but my answer is a qualified yes. McNulty should not make contributions to groups like that from his campaign funds. I don't see anything wrong with him doing it from his own personal funds, but giving campaign funds to groups that purport to be neutral is an inappropriate use of such funds. In the same vein, Citizen Action and the LWV should refuse to accept contributions from campaign accounts. Campaign funds are used to improve your chances at election. That's their purpose. Citizen Action and LWV should have higher ethical standards.

I don't really have a beef with LWV because their actions clearly demonstrate the money does not affect how they do their business. I don't believe they endorse candidates anyway.

What's really ironic is Citizen Action taking money from someone who accepts contributions in a manner they dislike, and then turning around and endorsing that guy. This is the same group that complains about the appearance of money corrupting politics and they go ahead and accept money in a manner that calls their own ethics into question.

Just to be clear on the CMCE legislation in Congress, it would further solidify incumbents and make life even harder than it already is for challengers. Incumbents would be all the more entrenched and have even less reason to be responsive to their constitutents. The sensible approach to election and campaign reform is to give free postage to all candidates. Someone please tell me why this isn't a part of CMCE. Why doesn't Citizen Action support free postage for candidates?

Summary of 21st district by Union College student

I recently met a Union College student who's creating a website about elections. She interviewed myself, McNulty, and Raleigh.

Global Warming, gas taxes, mass transit and the environuts

Here's an inconvenient truth about global warming - it's a lot of hot air. A lot of gasbags like Al Gore blowing smoke about something no one really understands.

Now please don't mistake this criticism. I support a number of steps to improve our environment, and including some (but not all) policies supported by the frenzied environuts who blab about global warming.

So let's get down to it. There are plenty of reasons to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, many of which are more important than global warming. Fossil fuels cause all kinds of pollution, not just carbon dioxide. Our heavy use of fossil fuels enriches terrorists in the Middle East. And heavy consumption combined with growing difficulties with extraction, refining and distribution may cause substantial further price increases leading to radical changes in our economy and society. If you think $3/gallon is bad, get ready because it might go to $10/gallon pretty quick.

What policies make sense?

1. Higher gas taxes. Yes, I want to raise gas taxes. Sounds like political suicide, but then I don't really have much of a political life so there's not much to kill (my regular life, by contrast, is going quite well thank you).

Why higher gas taxes? Because raising gas taxes will discourage consumption of gasoline. It will lower our use of gasoline. We know higher gas taxes work. Europe and Japan have much higher gas taxes than we do, and -- shocking news -- they use less gas than we do.

The environuts all scream and shout for higher "CAFE" (corporate average fuel economy) standards. This is premised on the idiot notion that the car companies can just go "poof" and all of a sudden cars will get better mileage, with no compromise in comfort, performance, etc. I can't tell you how many idiots have said this to me with straight faces. Unfortunately the laws of our State do not allow me to reach out and slap them when they say such nonsense.

Strangely, Europe and Japan do not have CAFE standards, yet their cars on average do get better gas mileage. That's because consumers in Europe want cars that are more fuel-efficient because gas costs $5/gallon there -- because they have higher gas taxes. We can even see this here in the US. Gas prices have gone to $3/gallon, and all of a sudden demand for large SUVs has dropped, while there is a burgeoning market for more efficient cars. Stunning! As a side-note, my mom bought a Honda Civic and it's quite a car.

Another side-note -- manual transmissions are much more common in Japan and Europe. I drive one as well (2002 Audi A4 Avant 1.8tqm). It gets 2 mpg better than the automatic, and drives like it has 50 more horsepower (0-60 time is the same as the V6 with an automatic). I've averaged 26 mpg over the life of the car, and I'm not known for driving in a fuel-efficient manner. You might wonder why the environuts don't want the government to ban automatic transmissions. The answer is that most environuts don't know how to drive a stickshift and don't want to learn. It's so much easier to blame corporations than to do something yourself.

Now, before anyone thinks my call for higher gas taxes means I'm not a fiscal conservative, let's deal with how we do this. The higher gas tax has to be part of a package that lowers income tax at the same time, so the average Joe (or Jane - have to be political correct) breaks even on the deal. But now our intrepid Joe and Jane can reduce their taxes fair and square. All they have to do is use less gas. They can buy a more fuel-efficient car, drive less, or even just drive in a more fuel-efficient manner (going 65 instead of 75 saves a couple miles per gallon, if not more).

I've heard people complain that gas taxes are "regressive" - meaning that they're unfair to the poor because the tax is not proportionate to income. The same liberals do not complain about tobacco taxes, which are far more regressive. But anyway, the gas tax is progressive. As you raise the price of gasoline, poorer people are more sensitive to the price increase and are more likely to change their behavior (use less gas -- that's the idea, remember?). As they change their behavior, they will reduce their taxes. Meanwhile, wealthy people will be less sensitive to the price increase and will decrease their consumption less, so they will end up paying more gas taxes than poorer people.

This leads into the next policy step I support that would lower our consumption of gasoline ...

2. Mass Transit

Mass transit has many benefits. Heavy use of mass transit dramatically reduces our consumption of gasoline. Japan and Europe are, again, great examples of this. It's one thing to discourage consumption by raising taxes or otherwise making life more difficult for drivers, but it also helps a lot to give them an alternative.

I do not propose that we get mass transit by creating more government bureaucracy. That is the path we have often seen in the US, leading to very limited systems that few people ride.

I support a private sector approach. I will use the Capital Region (including much of congressional districts 20 and 21) as an example. Create right-of-way on the interstate highways (starting with I-87 and I-90), set up a project for a high-speed (~80-100 mph) monorail, and invite private sector bids. The requirements would be simple in terms of where the monorail goes (almost entirely along the highways, with not too many stations so you don't slow it down), and with one very important requirement - it has to be free to ride. That doesn't mean the winning company loses money, if you include the right sweeteners. But it's very important because if it's free to ride then people will actually ride it. Mass transit will only work if it's faster and cheaper than driving.

How can we do this? First, the winning bidder gets not only the right to build the rail, but also control over land around the stations with permissive zoning. Now they can make money off of what they can build at and near the stations. Might be a mall around one station or high-density housing around another. At the same time we work out deals with existing businesses that might have a station. Crossgates is a great example. If Crossgates wants to have a station, they have to agree to a 2% sales tax on all transactions within the mall, with that 2% going to the rail. Ditto for Colonie Center and any other malls that might have stations. If 2% of Crossgates transactions goes into the rail line, that's an awful lot of revenue for the train. And of course, with permissive zoning around the stations, Crossgates would be able to grow a lot more if they want to - further increasing revenue for the rail.

What happens if we do this? In the short run, ridership will start small but the free thing will still draw a lot of riders. It would be especially good for long-distance commuters who now drive from places like Amsterdam and Saratoga into Albany, and those are the people who use the most gas so they're the most important ones to get on the rail. Poor people from the inner city would find it far easier to commute to jobs in the suburbs.

Over time, we would see sprawl following the rail instead of the roads. It would rejuvenate places like Amsterdam as places where people can live and still have a reasonable commute. Gradually we would see business and housing move closer to the rail because that's what people will want.

At the same time we could dramatically reduce drunk driving by having one or more stations serve as "nightlife districts", where bars would be concentrated. This would give drunks a solid alternative to driving.

Most important, as more and more people choose the rail over driving, we will use less gasoline. And whether you worry about global warming or you're just generally concerned about fossil fuels, that's a good thing.

The Sundwall Petitions

My old friend Eric Sundwall (he's not that old) is running for Congress in NY's 20th district. That's where the supposedly hot race is going on between Sweeney and Gillibrand.

His petitions were filed and now some "objections" have been filed to his petitions. Eric called me and I offered to represent him for free, hopefully to keep him on the ballot. He's worked awfully hard for this.

So we started looking into the "objections". Three people filed them: Fay V. Johnson, Jr., of Hudson; Olivia Paulsen of (ostensibly) Clifton Park) and Christine Brownson, also of Clifton Park.

Then we checked at the Board of Elections to see who had inspected the petitions. Only one person requested a viewing -- Thomas Spargo of East Berne. I believe this is the same Tom Spargo who is a well-known Republican election lawyer, and a former judge in Albany County Supreme Court.

Before I go forward with the story, I have to say that I am quite fond of Tom. I think his "defrocking" was a witch hunt. He's a fine lawyer, a gentleman, and he was a great judge. I will say some things below that could be seen as critical of him. That would be misreading what I say. He's doing his job. I disagree with the way he's doing it, but he's been doing election law a lot longer than I have.

Moving on, Tom signed an "application" to view Sundwall's petitions on August 25th. His application indicated he was viewing them on his "own behalf." Since no one else viewed the petitions, it's quite odd that Mr. Johnson, Ms. Paulsen and Mrs. Brownson objected. How could they know enough to make any kind of objection? Objections have to be backed by "specific objections." We understand these have been filed, but the Board of Elections wouldn't show them to us today. But how could they know enough to make specific objections if they haven't read the petitions?

I did some research on our three mysterious friends. Mr. Johnson is registered to vote in both Greene and Columbia counties. He registered in Catskill (Greene) in June of 2003 and in Hudson (Columbia) in October of 2004. His Catskill registration even lists his mailing address as the Hudson address. Mr. Johnson was born in 1978, making him about 28 years old. I can't find any other voter registration for him before 2003, so he didn't register to vote until age 25. Odd for such a person to be motivated enough to object to petitions he hasn't seen.

Turning to Christine Brownson and Olivia Paulsen, both live in Clifton Park. Brownson and her husband own a Mobil gas station in New Baltimore (Greene County) through their corporation, Brownson Enterprises. I'd guess they own other things or do other things, but I'm not sure. Her husband was, at least in 1998, the president of the Gasoline Retailers Association of New York. Looks like he is or was a longtime board member of that group.

Paulsen appears to be a student (and a good one - on the dean's list) at Siena College. Siena, you'll note, is in Albany County and is not in the 20th district. Paulsen is registered to vote in Clifton Park (in the 20th district) at what is apparently her parents' home, but one wonders if she actually lives in Clifton Park or at Siena. That last one's not a big deal, but still curious. Anyway, her father apparently owns Eagle Crest Golf Course in Clifton Park.

With both Brownson and Paulsen, I still wonder what motivated them to object to Sundwall's petitions. I can't see that either of them has ever done anything political. Paulsen is barely old enough to vote.

Doing a little more research, I wanted to check up on why Tom Spargo is checking out Sundwall's petitions. I had my suspicions, and they were confirmed when I checked Rep. John Sweeney's campaign finance filings. In July and August his campaign spent over $16,000 on legal fees to none other than Thomas Spargo of East Berne. Hmm. Now it's all starting to come together.

Another interesting tidbit - all three objections were filed at exactly the same time on August 28th (4:12 pm, I think). So they must have all three come in together at the same time.

Let's see. Tom Spargo is working for John Sweeney. Tom Spargo is the only person to have reviewed Sundwall's petitions. But wait. Spargo in applying to review Sundwall's petitions, checked off that he was doing so on his "own behalf". Unless that statement was inaccurate (I can't call it a lie, can I?), he couldn't have been reviewing the petitions for Sweeney or for the objectors.

Quite a mystery.

So I faxed a letter to the Board of Elections today (9/1/06) advising them that I represent Eric and that we want the Board to inquire into whether these objections are genuinely from the persons alleged to have signed them. We'll see where that goes.

In the end, you have to wonder why Sweeney is going to such lengths to hide the fact that he's the one trying to knock Sundwall off the ballot. It's the kind of dishonest behavior that's common among political insiders like Sweeney, McNulty and Gillibrand. Remember that both McNulty and Sweeney were caught funneling campaign contributions to their family members. All three of them receive huge contributions from PACs and other special interests.

Universal Health Care: A Looming Catastrophe

People frequently ask about my position on health care. The incumbent in my race, Mike McNulty, advocates "universal health care." This is a popular idea. It's also dangerously wrong.

When I'm asked about this idea, I often respond by asking: "Why not universal free food, or universal free housing, or universal free clothes?" Why is medical care so special that we need the government to provide it for us?

Universal health care would be the final nail in the coffin of capitalism in health care. The Left probably cheers at this metaphor. They'd like to end capitalism in every area. A conservative friend of mine mocks the liberal position as: "The government should give everyone a million dollars, make everything free, and then we can all go dancing in the fields." You're supposed to flap your arms up and down when you get to the dancing part. He's a really funny guy, perhaps the funniest in Fulton County (and that's saying a lot).

Universal health care is socialized medicine. Period. That's what it is. If you support universal health care, then you do support socialism. You reject capitalism. Fine. If that's your position, then say it proudly. Don't hide behind phony taglines like "universal health care." Call it what it is -- socialist health care.

So this is really the battle between capitalism and socialism, but conducted with proxy metaphors. I'd like to say this is a war between Democrats (for socialism) and Republicans (for capitalism) but the Republican Party and its leaders have been caving in to socialists for so long that it's just a question of where they want government in charge. The Medicare Prescription Drug program was Bush's plan, and it's just socialism. It's actually quite a good example since it's highly bureaucratic and the rules are so complicated no one can figure them out. That's what socialism does for you. If you think big corporations will screw you, imagine how much worse it will be when the government's in charge and has no competition.

As a personal injury attorney, I've had a few Canadian clients and I see what they go through. One guy had a head injury and was having symptoms that seemed consistent with a possible brain injury. I kept telling him to get a CT Scan or MRI of his head. I figured the Canadian system might make him wait a while, and encouraged him to drive into NY and pay for it himself. He hasn't done that yet, and so far Canada is refusing to let him get a scan there. Another client got cut off from physical therapy after three weeks. I don't have that many Canadian clients and I have two solid stories like this.

One of the fundamental underlying problems is a misconception of the word "insurance." We hear about so many people not having health insurance. Universal health care is touted as a solution to the problem of the uninsured.

But what we call "health insurance" is far more than that. It's really a medical payment system masquerading as insurance. We buy insurance to protect ourselves from sudden, unexpected losses. Consider car insurance. It covers accidents. Usually we use car insurance when our car is damaged and it'll cost a lot to fix it. We don't buy car insurance to cover routine oil changes.

So why should health insurance cover your annual physical? Health insurance should be for the rare events, like when you need heart surgery for $50K. If it covers routine things, it's not insurance anymore.

If you go to your primary care doctor once a year, that would only cost you about $100/year. If you had a few visits a year, maybe you'd spend $1000/year. But health "insurance" costs a lot more than that. My family of four spends about $13,000/year on coverage through COBRA from my wife's previous employer. We have some unusually high medical expenses, but I doubt our visits cost more than $5000/year.

There is an approach growing out there now called "consumer-directed care", commonly meaning a high deductible along with a "Health Savings Account" where you can pay for the routine stuff with pre-tax dollars. along the lines of how I started this riff, I wonder when we'll get tax-advantaged accounts for food, housing and clothing. How about a "Fitness Savings Account" so we can join a gym with pre-tax dollars? But i digress. The HSA approach is a lot more like what insurance really is. My family will be moving to that kind of policy next year, if not sooner.

I can imagine the criticism: "But Warren, you're rich. What about those poor working families who can't afford to spend $4000/year on routine health care?"

My response is simple. How much do they spend on food, housing and clothing? That's gotta add up to more than $4000/year for a working family of four. Why don't we give them that stuff for free too? Aw heck, let's just give them all a million dollars, make everything free (start flapping your arms) and we can all go dancing in the fields ...