Running for political office

I argue that any elected official seeking reelection to the same office is perfectly justified in campaigning while in office because the campaign invariably becomes a referendum on the official's policies and proposals. But when an officeholder seeks another elected office—Senator Kerry for President in 2004, Mrs. Clinton likely to run in 2008—he or she should be required to do it the way they do it in Mexico: resign to campaign; if not by law, then by public pressure. I came to this conclusion when Mayor Tom Bradley was running for Governor. I supported him as Mayor and strongly favored him becoming Governor, but I thought it fraudulent that he and his staff could claim he was being an effective city leader while campaigning all over the state for the new office.

Let me ask you this: What private employer would tolerate a full-time employee searching for a new job full time while being paid to be working at his old job? None. Why, then, I asked, should the citizenry tolerate this type of waste? It shouldn't.

If I worry about the tax system and election politics, I also worry about an individual's civic duty.

Voting and serving on juries

Some of you have heard me ask before how it makes sense in terms of the preservation of our democracy to force people to serve on juries or in the armed forces or to pay taxes under pain of fines or jail sentences or both, but voting is totally optional and generally avoided by more than 50% of the eligible voters? Why is this kind of voting behavior tolerated here when mandatory voting is required in the Netherlands, Panama, and other countries?

If you wouldn't like to be forced to vote, why do you accept being forced to serve on juries? Why should 60 people be inconvenienced for the benefit of the lawyers? As the system now works, all potential jurors are herded together in advance to wait to be called to see if some qualify to be on a jury.

In my last exposure to the system, we gathered at 8:00 and were told at 10:15 to go home, the case we had been brought in for had settled. I was infuriated and immediately suggested to the Governor that he propose a Jury Improvement Act. That would involve, as I see it, a mandatory settlement hearing of all civil matters 72 hours before a scheduled trial.

If the two sides should settle their differences or reach a plea bargain after this hearing, then both sides would still have to forfeit a sum equal to $100 for each person in the jury pool. I figure $50 should go to each person as compensation for the inconvenience each suffered in making himself or herself available and the balance to the County's general fund. As I noted in my letter to Governor Schwarzenegger: “I do not believe the lawyers and their clients should be able to game the system at the expense of the citizenry and at no cost to themselves.”