Went to the Cuyahoga Board of Elections at lunch to see if I can get a bunch of voter registration forms. I did a lot of that in 2004 but I kept hearing they were going to change the rules to make it more difficult to register people so I didn’t know if there was going to be a problem.

I talked to a really nice lady who asked one suspicious sounding question which I must have answered correctly because she gave me a whole stack, some pointers about the registration deadlines and then also gave me a bunch of applications for absentee ballots. Finally she thanked me for going out of my way to do this.

So I’m heading off to a bar where a bunch of progressively minded people are gathering to watch Super Tuesday results roll in.

Maybe I’ll score a few new voters.

of the reason’s the GOP is in political jeopardy (although it should be criminal jeopardy) from a post from the daily KOS.

social moralizing, beyond-the-pale cronyism, an unhealthy dose of nativism and racism, corruption so blatant it has become institutionalized, a borrow-and-spend budgetary philosophy, and redistribution of wealth to the very rich that has appalled all but the Christianist right and some very wealthy allies

Here is the KOS entry as well as the Economist article they were discussing.

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The report has no force behind it and has no effect other than to state the view of the FTC. It recommends against legislation to ensure net neutrality preferring to let the market solve the problem.

You know, like the way the market solved problems like poverty.

I’m a huge fan of net neutrality and I’ve seen so much disinformation about a topic which I don’t think is really that complex. I should see if I can’t write something down that makes it clear what the issue is.

The head of the FTC, Deborah Platt Majoras, is a Bush appointee. Her previous career was with the law firm Jones Day protecting big business. Of course, she can do so much more to protect big business as the head of the organization whose job it to protect us against the abuses of big business.

The organization “Partnership for Job Preservation” submitted a ballot proposal and 1400 signatures to undo some of the smoking ban for private clubs, bars and restaurants. Unfortunately for them only 776 of the signatures were valid according to State Attorney General Marc Dann. 1000 were required.

I don’t know whether they can quickly get another batch of signature to make up the difference – but I hope not.

A petition may soon be circulating to get a law loosening the restrictions of the smoking ban on the ballot. The original ban was passed by a significant margin so it’s going to take some work to sell this loosening. Here are some of the things they’re pushing for.

* They want to allow smoking in bars that make less than 10% of their income from food. In other words, they want smoking in bars but not restaurants.

* They want smoking in private clubs

* They want smoking in bowling alleys after 6pm.

It’s a weird mish-mash of items. Presumably this list is the result of compromises necessary to bring together a large enough “Coalition of the willing”.

So, how will it be sold?

My guess is they will concentrate on the private club provision. It’s probably the issue for which people will have the most sympathy. People may sign feeling that, in private clubs people should be able to smoke if they want. They probably will not be told that the provision will put smoking back in bars and bowling alleys.

Another thing petition signers may not be told is what the definition of a private club is. Will it be a definition that truly applies to what we think of as a private club today? Or will it be a definition that allows any establishment to declare itself a private club and thereby exempt itself from the smoking ban? Or will it even be defined at all?

The front group for this petition effort is called the “Partnership for Job Preservation of Ohio” whose web site seems to be down as of this writing.

The group has submitted the proposed petition language to our state attorney general Marc Dann along with 1400 signatures (1000 required) to get the wheels moving. The next steps are (1) 1000 of those signatures have to be deemed valid and (2) Marc Dann has to approve of the petition language which must accurately reflect the intent of the law.

Once those two hurdles are jumped the petitioners will be hitting the streets to collect the necessary 400,000 signatures. At this time it’s not clear whether the Tobacco industry, which heavily financed issue 4, the smoking amendment, last year will be helping to bankroll this effort.

Governor Ted Strickland is getting into the act. The decision striking down the rules expanding the definition of “private club” is being appealed. The governor insists that people thought they were voting for a law which exempted private clubs – and it did, but the rules are so strict that almost no private clubs satisfy the law.

The reason the rules are so strict though is to prevent the “Utah effect”. When I was in Park City Utah once I new it was a “dry” state. Alcohol was allowed in private homes, restaurants and private clubs. That should have shut down the bars but you know what happened? The bars all became private clubs. The rules were so loose about what constituted a private club that it was easy to be a bar and still fit the definition of private club.

Besides the stated purpose of the smoking ban was to protect employees. If a private club has employees and private clubs are not covered those employees are not protected. Hence the rule that a private club is one that has no employees.

I have a question though. To what extent can our state legislature modify a law that was passed by the voters.

When the smoking ban was passed it required rules to be written to determine its implementation. One of the rules widened the definition of private clubs to include the typical FVW hall. The law said a private club was exempt from the smoking ban if, among other requirements, it had no employees. The drafted rules specified that if an employee was also a member then, for the purposes of the smoking ban, he was not an employee.

That law was struck down throwing most VFW and other private clubs back into the ban.

The next test of the smoking ban is scheduled for Nov 18th. This is a challenge of the entire ban as unconstitutional.

Link

Just to let you know, there’s a lot of email chain letter activity about this event by a lot of well meaning people who misunderstand some basic economic principles. The idea is to not buy gas on Wednesday, May 15th causing a great financial blow to the oil industry.

The key thing to realize is that, the email does not suggest driving less on the 15th. It only asks us to refrain from buying gas on the 15th. Since you will eventually fill your tank, all it means is we will pay the oil industry the same amount we were going to pay anyway. We’ll just pay it on a different day.

It’s easy to do – which is why the email is so widely circulated – so if you want to participate it will cause you very little hardship. Just realize that it will cause the oil industry even less hardship. In fact, even if everyone did this, it would cause the oil industry $0.

So, don’t buy gas on 15th if you want. But if your goal is to hurt the oil industry, the only way to do that is to not drive on the 15th.

… just died this afternoon in Hamilton County.

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The judge  reaffirmed that there is no constitutional right to smoke in public as well as no right to own a business that allows smoking.

At this point, the smoking ban goes live this Thursday. A few issues have come up recently that could confuse the issue then. There is a challenge to the law’s constitutionality. The group challenging the ban have asked that enforcement be delayed until their challenge is decided.

Another challenge, which has already been successful, challenges the recent rule change that allows private clubs to allow smoking as long as “employees” are also “members”. A judge has specified that the rule change cannot be enforced immediately until the challenge to the new rule is settled.