Voting "Modernization" A Ruse to Change the Rules

Here's my latest column in the Courier-Journal, reprinted with permission;

The surest way to win a contest is to change the rules to suit one’s side. To that end, Democrats seek to guarantee victory through election “modernization.” Step one would implement automatic universal voter registration; step two would make voting compulsory.

Democrat-controlled Oregon (the first state to legalize assisted suicide) is also the first state to enact universal automatic registration, quickly followed by fellow blue state California. According to the Brennan Center, five states have approved it, and 29 states have considered it, thankfully not Kentucky. It’s been introduced at the federal level.

Automatic voter registration replaces an opt-in system with an opt-out. When a citizen goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles or other government agency, he is automatically registered to vote — unless he opts out. This is the opposite of our current system, at least in Kentucky.

There are some unintended consequences. Voter rolls will become more inaccurate. Many states allow illegal aliens to get driver’s licenses and other benefits. Inevitably, automatic voter registration will dump some percentage of ineligible voters on the rolls, either through bureaucratic negligence or an irresistible opportunity to cheat.

Inaccurate voter rolls invite vote fraud. Names cannot be fraudulently voted unless they are on the rolls.

In addition, automatic voter registration can actually disenfranchise primary voters, the opposite of the policy’s intent. The default party status for automatically registered voters is independent. Some Oregon voters who were automatically registered did not know they had to contact the state to designate registration with a political party. So they lost the opportunity to vote in Oregon’s closed primary.

At least Oregon Democrats haven’t made the default party registration Democrat, with an “opt-out” for Republicans.

To be sure, voting registration should be easy and convenient. Approximately one-fourth to one-third of Americans are unregistered. Voter registration drives that target high school students, like Inspire Kentucky, are to be commended for improving those numbers.

But automatic registration paternalistically assumes that non-registered citizens are too stupid to figure out how to register or too lazy to bother; therefore, the state must step in and do it for them. That’s insulting. Yet apparently it’s how some Democrats view their potential electorate.

In any event, automatic registration only increases voting slightly, by 3 percent,according to MIT and Wittenberg University. That’s why Democrats like President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who favor automatic registration, also support its evil twin, mandatory voting.

Compulsory voting is modeled after countries like Australia that impose fines on citizens who fail to vote. We don’t want to be outclassed by North Korea: 100 percentvoter turnout!

After Democrats lost the 2014 mid-term elections, Obama called for compulsory voting to transform the country.  And indeed it would, but not in a good way.

Voting is speech. Compelling a citizen to vote is compelling that citizen to speak even if he wants to stay silent. Our government’s legitimacy rests upon the just consent of the governed. If those governed are forced to vote against their will, there is no true consent.

Compulsory voting is an authoritarian encroachment on our most fundamental liberties. Any time the government forces us to do something, it diminishes our freedom. (Hello, Obamacare.) How sad to do so in the context of voting, which should celebrate and reflect our freedom from tyranny.

Proponents of compulsory voting justify its coercion by pointing to low voter turnout, as if that is necessarily a bad thing. People who have no interest in voting likely haven’t educated themselves on the issues or the candidates. Is a forced vote, cast randomly, really better than a vote not cast?

This issue comes up with judicial elections. Many non-lawyer friends tell me that they do not vote in the judicial elections because they don’t know enough about the candidates to make an informed choice and there are too many races to remember endorsements. So they leave blank the section of the ballot on judicial candidates.

Such voters are not derelict in their civic duty. To the contrary, they have the humility to know what they don’t know and therefore defer to voters who are more engaged in those races.

Sometimes the decision not to vote is a protest vote — speech that says, in effect, “my choices stink.” Imagine what our choices will look like if we have no choice but to pick one. Worse yet, the winner will claim a “mandate.” A mandated mandate.

I never miss voting in an election. When I vote, I give thanks for those who sacrificed their lives in service to our country. I view voting as a right and a privilege, paid for with blood. To legislate it into an obligation subject to a fine for non-compliance — like paying taxes — seems un-American.

So Much For Left-Wing Tolerance

I just learned that my last C-J column (opposing a HUD affirmative housing rule) prompted one of my haters to call me the "c-word."

When it comes to the Left, it's "tolerance for me, but not for thee."

Maybe I should report his hate crime!

Don't Let The Door "HIT" American Taxpayers On Obama's Way Out

As surely as the credit card bills that arrive after Christmas, the Health Insurance Tax is coming to town. Only instead of the charges having to be paid by those people who freely gave, HIT makes those who had no part in doling out the Obamacare goodies get stuck with the bills.


One of the dirty secrets of that law House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi didn't want anyone to read -- ironically titled the "Affordable Care Act" -- is that, rather than making health care more affordable, it is a vehicle to raise taxes on hardworking Americans. And, surprise, surprise, the taxes -- (not) affectionately known as "HIT" -- do not land their full blow until President Obama is well out the door of the White House.


Intended as a way to pay for Obamacare, HIT falls squarely on small business. That leads, in turn, to higher costs for hardworking families -- particularly those seriously struggling to get by. More than half of the entire tax is paid by those with incomes between $10,000 and $50,000. And estimates show the tax will cost small businesses and families $5,000 in higher premiums over a decade.


Last December Congress suspended the tax until 2018. But merely postponing the tax is hardly a fair way to treat American workers. Like all taxes do, HIT discourages the market from producing the thing targeted by the tax. As a recent study by the Employee Benefits Research Institute ("EBRI") found, that during the first seven years of Obamacare (2008-2015):


*  Health care insurance coverage dropped by 36% among small businesses with fewer than 10 employees,


*  There was a 26% decrease in coverage for small businesses with 10 to 24 employees, and


*  Coverage reduced 10% for employers with 25 to 99 employees.


The evidence is in that Obamacare, with all of its "affordable" regulations and taxes, isn't a good value at all. It needs to be repealed and replaced in the new Congress under the leadership of the new President. Permanently blocking President Obama's parting punch of the American taxpayer will be an important first step.

Please note: The postings of "G. Morris", written by John K. Bush and which end in 2016, stated his views as of the dates of posting and should not be understood as current assertions of his views. The postings, which have not been altered since they came to an end, remain on this blog to preserve the historical record. In 2017, Mr. Bush took a position that precludes further public political comments or endorsements. He will no longer be contributing to this blog.

Judge Amul Thapar Makes Trump SCOTUS List!

Judge Amul Thapar, federal district court judge for the Eastern District of Kentucky, has made Donald Trump's expanded list of judges whom he'd consider for nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Judge Thapar, a former federal prosecutor, is smart and conservative, and a really good guy. He's very proactive at moving his cases along.

Interesting that he is on Trump's radar. 

KY House Quest Gets National Attention

The Hill has an important piece today on the role Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has played in turning Kentucky red, and the final piece:  flipping the KY House.

ICMYI -- ABA Rule a Threat to Free Speech

I forgot to post my C-J column for last month, and reprint it below with permission of the Courier-Journal.  Although the topic that prompted it as an American Bar Association, anyone who works in a job requiring a license should be alarmed at this attempt to censor free speech. And as I've written about previously, more and more people are required to obtain licenses for their jobs -- even sod growers!

Those speech codes that have made free expression on college campuses so perilous for conservatives are no longer limited to the Academy. Thanks to the American Bar Association, licensed professionals appear to be the next to encounter censorship posing as “tolerance.”

Long a bastion of liberalism, the ABA has outdone itself with vague new restrictions to eradicate “bias.” The ABA recently amended Rule 8.4 in its Model Rules of Professional Conduct to compel lawyers toadhere to a speech code or face disciplinary action — like suspension or disbarment.

Rule 8.4 prohibits “harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice toward others.”

Much of the impetus of this rule, according to the New York Times, is that we lady lawyers must be shielded from misogynists who call us “honey,” lest we’re forced to take to our fainting couches in the middle of a deposition.

Individual states determine whether to adopt the rule, but most state bar ethics rules track the ABA Model Rules, often verbatim.

The ABA also accredits law schools, which it forces to teach legal ethics classes that no doubt study the ABA Model Rules. So in addition to creating a new vehicle to punish lawyers who deviate from liberal orthodoxy, Rule 8.4 will lead to more left-wing indoctrination of law students. As if they need it.

The rule is much broader than typical discrimination laws. It applies to comments that can be perceived as “harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.” “Harassment” means “derogatory verbal or physical conduct.”

Thankfully, those Founding Fathers who were lawyers were not subject to this speech code. They could never have criticized King George III — it would have manifested “bias” against his “national origin” (British), and his “socioeconomic status” (King).

Ostensibly, the rule will improve the reputation of the legal profession by protecting people from being offended. In reality, it punishes lawyers who speak about controversial topics and hold a politically incorrect viewpoint that supposedly “manifests bias.”

Affirmative action gets an exception from the rule; lawyers may show “bias” so long as it helps a favored group.The rule does not apply to “legitimate” advice or advocacy,” whatever that means.

Nonetheless, the rule’s breadth is potentially quite staggering; it extends far beyond the courtroom.

“Verbal… conduct” that occurs at a “bar association, business or social activities in connection with the practice of law” is subject to discipline. That could encompass a conversation about current events at a law firm dinner or bar association cocktail party or maybe a Rotary luncheon. It could apply to a lawyer giving a speech, or writing a column.

And if the Federalist Society, for example, hosted a debate on transgender bathrooms, or immigration reform, a lawyer who takes the wrong position on those topics risks discipline for professional misconduct. Because this rule was amended to promote leftist ideology, only one lawyer in a debate need worry.

In one sense, Rule 8.4 is not surprising.  As the Federalist Society pointed out, Justice Samuel Alito’s prediction in his dissent from the gay marriage case,Obergefell v. Hodges, is coming true — sooner than anyone expected:  “I assume that those who cling to the old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employees, and schools.”

The ABA rule does more than label someone a bigot: at its most draconian, disciplinary action can prevent a lawyer from practicing law — providing for one’s family — for holding a political or religious viewpoint that the authorities deem “biased.”

Even bar disciplinary action that is less severe than disbarment, like a reprimand, is still deeply embarrassing. Consequently, the possibility of a bar complaint terrifies lawyers. That chills free expression and open debate, which is exactly the point — to replace freedom of speech with freedom from speech that is offensive to some.

The profession most responsible for protecting the First Amendment would eat its own for exercising their First Amendment rights. The Framers would be appalled.

Disciplinary action should be imposed if a lawyer steals from a client or bribes a judge or commits any number of ethical breaches. It should not apply to expressing an opinion, even an unpopular opinion.

Former Reagan administration Attorney General Ed Meese complained to the ABA about the rule’s “clear and extraordinary threat to free speech and religious liberty.” The ABA rule, Meese said, “resembles the laws and tactics of oppressive regimes around the globe that America unapologetically opposes. It is not an overstatement to say that this proposed rule borders on fascism."

Poverty is Not a Place

My Courtier-Journal column opposes a recent federal regulation on affirmative action for housing. Reprinted with permission:

President Barack Obama has fundamentally transformed the concept of “neighborhood watch.” Instead of combatting crime, he seeks to use federal regulations to police our right to live in the neighborhoods of our choice. Hillary Clinton, if elected, would take this terrible idea and run with it, to the extent she can still run.

It’s called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH), and it’s essentially affirmative action for housing, to force American neighborhoods to become more diverse and “inclusive.”

Fact: housing discrimination has been illegal since the 1960s. It has been against the law to discriminate in the rental or sale of housing based on race or ethnicity for more than half a century. As it should be.

Discrimination includes “steering,” whereby a minority buyer or renter is prodded to live elsewhere. Yet the new regulation, AFFH, steers minorities into communities that HUD wants to diversify.

AFFH goes much further than just punishing discrimination. It would force municipalities that accept federal grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to submit detailed information about the race, ethnicity, income, disability, and familial status of its citizens for comparison to regional demographics.

If the federal government deems the town too homogenous, HUD would require a plan to bring in new residents to diversify the population. That could include changing the zoning laws to allow high-density housing and paying to build hundreds of units of low-income housing.

The rule’s vagueness gives broad discretion to unelected bureaucrats (“community planners”). Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing “means taking meaningful actions” to “address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns.”  A federally-mandated utopia!

THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Bridget Bush | New ABA rule chills free speech

If a neighborhood is composed of people of similar backgrounds, HUD presumes that the commonality must stem from insidious discrimination.

So much for New York’s Chinatown, Boston’s Little Italy, and Chicago’s Greek Town, or any of the many wonderful ethnic neighborhoods across the country. Under HUD’s reasoning, these neighborhoods are “segregated” and must be “diversified" — even if the clustering of the ethnicity occurred as an exercise of free choice.

Some people prefer to live near their family and church. But the elitists at HUD assume everyone wants — or should want — to live in the ‘burbs, not the ‘hood.

To be sure, the composition of many neighborhoods reflect the cost of real estate. Poor people tend not to move to Martha’s Vineyard; they cannot afford it. We shouldn’t pay bureaucrats to quantify this reality. Or give federal grants to increase inclusiveness there. (Yes, Martha’s Vineyard gets HUD grants.)

Moving to a good neighborhood is and should be aspirational — to motivate parents to work hard to provide a better life for their children. A home in a safe neighborhood epitomizes the American Dream. As anti-discrimination laws were enforced from 1968 on, this dream became a reality for a broader cross-section of Americans.

In the 1975 sitcom, The Jeffersons, George and Louise Jefferson were African-Americans who moved from Archie Bunker’s neighborhood in Queens to the Upper East Side. George Jefferson made it to his “deluxe apartment in the sky” not due to a HUD relocation plan but by working hard and taking entrepreneurial risks.

THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Bridget Bush | Reform could cut prison population

Obama is right that a child’s zip code should not dictate his destiny. But we cannot all fit into the same zip codes. So let’s address the problems in the zip codes from which HUD wants to import people to achieve diversity. Let’s empower people who so desire to “move up.”

Poverty is not a place. Escaping poverty requires more than moving people to a new neighborhood. A poor person whom HUD relocates to a ritzy zip code is still poor.

To some extent, escape from poverty requires certain behaviors — completing high school, not doing drugs, obeying the law, and waiting to have children until married. This is true regardless of where one lives. Even if one abides by the rules, however, failing schools and a stagnant economy impede social mobility.

Far better to equip Americans to climb the economic ladder, beginning with education. Instead of importing minorities into affluent neighborhoods with good schools, let’s give students in all neighborhoods access to good schools, starting with vouchers and charter schools.

Rather than address the underlying causes of poverty, however, AFFH focuses on the symptom. In a sense, AFFH appears to abandon the possibility of upward mobility. That’s terrifying, and sad, but also revelatory of the liberal mindset: let’s just give stuff to poor people.

The full force of AFFH will not be felt until after the election. Municipalities that want to keep local control should resist the temptation to accept HUD grants. Otherwise, prepare to accept centralized planning, federal overreach and social engineering. Those HUD grants include strings that will strangle freedom of association.

RIP, Phyllis Schlafly

I met Phyllis Schlafly about 10 years ago at the Federalist Society National Convention.  I told her I'd long admired her, and had written a column for the Voice-Tribune about her contribution to conservatism.

She asked if I had seen her speech earlier that day. I was mortified; I apologized that, no, we had our sons with us and I had taken them to the Air & Space Museum because they were too young to go alone. I told her how sorry I was to miss it,

She informed me that her speech had been videotaped, and I could watch that.

It was not a warm and fuzzy exchange. Mrs. Schlafly was an intimidating lady with an imposing demeanor.

All those feminists and politicians and journalists she'd wrestled with over the decades must have been shocked upon first meeting her. The Mainstream Media and late night comedians portrayed her as a crazy house wife, some sort of throw-back. That belied her intellect (she had a Master's from Harvard and earned a law degree). She had an intellectual toughness. And she was fearless.

There are lots of smart people who are willing to put in the hours to work hard. Certainly those attributes contributed to Mrs. Schlafly's success. But what really stood out about her was her force of will and tenacity for fighting for her beliefs.

I have always been grateful to her, not just advancing conservative principles, but for the dignity she gave to the role of mother and wife.

She provided a counter-example to the notion that all women (and certainly all women lawyers) must be liberal feminists. She showed that women are not some ideological monolith -- that we can and should think for ourselves, even if that means challenging feminist orthodoxy. Even if it meant being mocked and ridiculed.

Conservatism has lost a lioness.