Archive for: October 19, 2006

With all the focus on Loretta Nall’s campaign for governor, someone might have forgotten that there is another Libertarian candidate running for office in Alabama. Dick Clark is running for state House District 79, which is mostly in the Auburn area. He has acheived ballot access, and was recently a participant in a debate at Lee County.

The questions below were copied from Dick Clark’s campaign website. Sometimes, Libertarians are tin-foil hat-wearing wackos, but this guy seems to have his head screwed on right. The [.MP3] links will take you to an audio recording of Dick Clark’s answers to the questions.

Introduction
[.MP3]

Q1: How would you address the perceived regressive tax system in Alabama? For example, timber property that is owned by large corporations or rich families is hardly taxed, while tax on food is very high. What can you propose to make our taxes fairer to all?
[.MP3]

Q2: What is your definition of liberal and conservative?
[.MP3]

Q3: Would you support a ban on PAC to PAC transfers? If you have accepted money from PACs, do you know the source or sources of these funds and how can voters know the source?
[.MP3]

Q4: This year the state received $133 million in one-time relief for Katrina that was used to fund Medicaid. In the future, how can stable funding be secured for services such as prisons, highway patrol, and Medicaid?
[.MP3]

Q5: If asked to vote on a bill that is supported by your political party, but not your constituents, which way would you vote and why?
[.MP3]

Q6: What should be the policy of legislators doing business with government entities * this would include public schools, universities, junior colleges, and agencies?
[.MP3]

Q7: Governor Riley is proposing a tax cut to be funded by taking monies from the Education Trust Fund. Will you support or oppose this tax cut and why?
[.MP3]

Summation
[.MP3]

• H/T to Loretta Nall for Governor
• Alabama Moderate links to this post with Tidbits from Elsewhere - 10/20/06

Gov. Riley, who was put in charge of bringing the state into compliance with HAVA by a federal judge after Secretary of State Nancy Worley was found incompetent, told his commission,

“Meet the time line the judge has set, keep the politics out of this whole procedure, and let us build a world-class voter registration system.”

I really don’t understand why the federal government requires a computerized network for elections. This doesn’t have to do with how you fill out a ballot necessarily. It’s more for having a network connected to Montgomery so that the state can collect voting information and perhaps keep a central list of registered voters.

It’s a great concept, but it’s a computer programmer’s worst nightmare. Each princinct will have voters voting for their own state House district, state Senate district, SBOE district, etc. In Lee County, for example, there are 73 different types of ballots. A network will have to be designed to accept votes for only certain districts from each precinct. But then the precinct down the road will accept all of the same votes except maybe it has a different state House district. Also, because of redistricting, they need to be able to easily and verifiably change these districts, add precincts, remove precints, etc. It’s going to be a mess, and I really hope the state spends the money to get a company that knows what they’re doing.

And please, don’t pick Diebold.

After releasing a rather sleezy attack ad, Big Luther is now saying Little Jim won’t keep his campaign promises. A spokesman for Strange said that as lieutenant governor, Jim Folsom wouldn’t have the power to build a major highway through west Alabama, one of Folsom’s campaign proposals. They also pointed to Folsom’s 1994 promise as governor to build a railway overpasss in Sheffield.

Folsom said he kept his word to pay for the overpass, but the money was removed from the next year’s budget when Republican Gov. Fob James took office.

“With a little research, Mr. Strange could have kept from further embarrassing himself today,” Folsom said in a statement.

Strange is correct when he says that a lieutenant governor can’t build a highway. But here are Luther Strange’s campaign promises. How many of them can be personally done by the lieutenant governor.

1. Mostly Ban PAC-to-PAC transfers.
2. Require daily campaign finance reports to be filed from 45 days out to the election.
3. Require unopposed candidates to file campaign disclosure reports.
4. Require lobbyists to report any amount they spend on a legislator.
5. Require legislators to track and report any amount spent on them by lobbyists.
6. Ban pass-through pork.
7. End double-dipping by lawmakers and their families.
8. End legislative immunity from speeding tickets.
9. Make the state House and Senate proceedings more available to the public.

All of those will require the same amount of legislative action that the highway will require. Folsom’s highway will also likely require federal funding, however. Lucky for Little Jim that we have Richard Shelby to give us all the federal funding we want.

I’m assuming my neighbor is an avowed Republican with some trickster friends. Last night, according to my fiance, a car pulled to their yard and posted several political signs for Democrats. Among them was this sign for Nancy Worley.

I’m thinking the ugliest campaign sign ever.

This is rather disappointing. Mark Edwin Layfield is an independent candidate for Alabama’s 3rd congressional district who is actually going to be on the ballot. It turns out he’s also a member of the National Alliance, according to the National Poverty Law Center. The National Alliance is a white supremicist organization. When Layfield was asked by the reporter about his alleged membership, he responded:

“It’s not illegal to be in the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). It’s not illegal for them to reject my membership. Why would you not ask a question about that?”

Ah, yes. He has a point. Why should he confirm or deny being a member of the National Alliance while it’s not illegal to be in the NAACP? What?!? Yeah, I don’t know either.

Layfield’s platform consists mainly of ending free trade agreements, but he’s also for gun rights and he wants to redeploy troops in Iraq to the Mexican border.