A new attempt to limit the influence of money in Vermont politics cleared a House committee on Friday, but two years after the last bid to do so lost in the U.S. Supreme Court, opponents were saying the new legislation could land the state back in court.

(Campaign finance bill gets House committee’s approval, Times Argus, 02/09/08)

Apparently part of the issue is around how much financial support political parties can give to those applying for political office on a party’s ticket.

But they rebuffed the governor on another key provision: He had sought to have stripped from the bill limits on contributions by political parties – which the bill sets at $30,000 for governor down to $500 for House candidates. The House panel kept those limits in the bill.

(ibid)

In my opinion as long as public tax dollars are directly funding the activities of political parties (through primaries for example), these associations are public entities and thus subject to governmental oversight. If a given political organization doesn’t like this, they are free to not be a legally recognized political party.

If I were arguing this case in court that is the direct line I would use.

But, as I’ve written elsewhere, I would rather get the government out of partisan party politics and simply get out of the primary business entirely.

(Cross posted from VermontIRV.)

In 2006 Burlington voters elected current Mayor Bob Kiss after a two round (truly) instant runoff. After the first round the ballots were recounted and tallied for the two remaining candidates, and Burlington ended up with a majority consensus.

Vermont’s current instant runoff proposal, S.108, envisions pretty much the same outcome where more than two strong political office applicants are vying for the same position.

Here is a look back at Burlington in ’06 to see what our future in ’08 might very well look like.

Because I got the idea for this post from this Wikipedia entry, I’ll give that version first (correction of totals figure from City of Burlington):

The above is a false representation of the voting process however. The only “majority” that counts in elections is that of all the valid ballots cast. As about 10% of the ballots were exhausted after the first round (meaning no selections other than first choice were made) an accurate reflection of Burlington’s IRV runoff would look like this:

Counting the exhausted ballots in round two and onwards is equivalent to counting all the folks who didn’t participate in any other runoff after voting in the primary election. In short it simply is not relevant to elections.

What is relevant to our elections regarding the exhausted ballots, however, is this: 89.5% of those who voted in the first round actively participated in the runoff! Compare that to the runoffs you may be familiar with (I usually see runoff turnout or second voting at 10% to 20% of the original turnout).

What you see above is what we can expect from S.108. This IRV proposal will use batch elimination in the case of no majority winner in the first round to reduce the field of office applicants to the two top vote getters. The ballots will then be recounted with your vote going to the remaining political office applicant who is ranked highest on your ballot.

Simple and elegant.

Cross posted on BureaucracyBlog.com.

Can the Age of Transparency finally be dawning?  Welcome the Super-Delegate Transparency Project.

   From Jennifer Nix: A Little Sunlight Please: The Super-Delegate Transparency Project – Politics on The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Super-delegates should vote according to the will of the people-the popular vote – whether Clinton won that district or state, or whether they fall into the Obama column. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just scrap the current super-deg count and say “Do-Over!!” Members of Congress should vote according to who won their districts. Senators and governors should vote how their states go, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice if they all planned to act like John Knutson, Maine’s Democratic Party Chairman? Not sure what you do about super-delegates who are just sort of free-floating party power-brokers. Anyway. Sadly, it ain’t gonna happen.

   But, at the very, very least, it should be a completely transparent process. Which is why the Super-Delegate Transparency Project is striking a chord with folks. It’s a joint effort of my blog, Literary Outpost, Open Left, numerous other blogs and volunteers, and we’re drawing off the fine work being done at DemConWatch.

Imagine, a transparent process at a presidential nominating convention.  What a concept.

And with any luck and a lot of good grassroots organizing, a concept whose time has come.  In this particular Democratic Party process, some people think, and it seems reasonable to think, that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have reason to be uncomfortable with the immense amount of power that super-delegates have.  

I’ll disagree with our former governor, Howard Dean, chair of the DNC, that the party needs to avoid a big fight at the convention.  It depends on what kind of fight (and I think a close contest would be healthy), and for now, it appears the very closeness of the contest between Clinton and Obama is sparking this movement toward greater transparency.  That’s a good thing.

And this is exactly how these things come to pass.  When people are threatened or injured by secretive, impervious machinations, that’s when they want to throw open the doors and windows, if not tear down the building completely, to let in the light of reason and accountability.   I think it simply impossible that any super-delegate’s behavior would not be changed with the knowledge that the whole country can look in on how they do what they do.  Even the most ethical of super-delegates is likely to monitor himself or herself more closely if the process is made transparent.

And that would be a very, very good thing, in lieu of there being no super-delegates at all.

Cross posted on BureaucracyBlog.com.

“We have brought to Iraq the worst of America – our bureaucrats…” So says veteran Republican operative Manuel Miranda, as reported by ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…

In what ABC News terms a “confidential memo,” Miranda also says that the there are “scores” of his counterparts in Iraq who share the same opinions, “each from the vantage point of their own expertise and particular experience in the Embassy,” and whose names he said he was willing to share with Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

In the ten page memo Miranda first carefully enumerates all the people and efforts whom he does not fault, then proceeds to lay a range of faults squarely on the State Department and Foreign Service.

After characterizing the work of State and Foreign Service personnel as “an embarrassment,” “incomprehensible,” “willfully negligent if not criminal,” and showing “complete lack of strategic forethought,” he goes on to say, “The waste of taxpayer funds resulting from such mismanagement is something that only a deeply entrenched bureaucracy with a unionized attitude, like the Foreign Service and Main State, could find acceptable.”

One can take his use of “unionized attitude” as proof of his Republican bona fides, which we can only hope serve to enhance the credibility with which his superiors regard his assessment.

The litany of criticism continues: “misguided,” “inflexibility and the inability to understand alternative management principles,” “inclination to make excuses and…blame others,” “a bureaucratic imitation of the Keystone cops,” “gripping culture of excused inaction,” “ham-fisted,” and “I was ashamed for my country.”

The full ten page memo is located here: http://tinyurl.com/2owm2p.

Back story:

There seems also to be a backstory that hasn’t fully emerged about this “confidential memo” having found its way to public view. The ABC News story ends:

While on Capitol Hill, Miranda was embroiled in a controversy when he obtained a confidential memorandum written by Senate Democrats and leaked it the press. Democrats accused Miranda of hacking into their computer systems. Miranda said the Democratic staffers had left the memo on a computer server accessable [sic] to all Senate staffers.

It would seem that someone may have exacted payback in making this memo of Miranda’s public. That, or perhaps he arranged for it to become public himself.

Come, transparency.