Capitol Ideas is reporting on items in the state budget, namely about 30 million dollars of state funds going to create libraries for Arlen Specter, and a Center for Public Policy named after John Murtha. Yeah, maybe I’m crazy, but I tend to think education and parks ought to be a higher spending priority than Specter and Murtha’s legacy. Though, given what porkers they both were, perhaps this is fitting.
Category: Politics
Castle Doctrine Dead
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is noting H.B. 40’s lack of movement. It still has to get through the appropriations committee before hitting the House Floor, where it clearly has enough votes to pass. The head of appropriations is Dwight Evans. Given that I’d say it’s probably safe to say it’s not getting a floor vote. This is one area I’ll be partisan with. We have to kick the Democrats out in November if we want to move any pro-gun bills through the Pennsylvania legislature. The cost of Castle Doctrine seems to have been all those anti-gun bills, but also the Lentz bill, which seems to be a high price for a bill that isn’t going to clear appropriations, in all likelihood.
Clinton’s Legacy
Dennis Henigan’s love letter to Elena Kagan got me thinking about just how much Bill Clinton well and truly fscked us all eight years of his tenure in the White House. Now, eight years after his presidency ended, we’re still dealing with fallout from Clinton’s anti-gun legacy, which Kagan is arguably part of. If we had elected a pro-gun Democrat in the 1992 election, Obama would likely have had no choice but to surround himself with a lot of Second Amendment supporting Democrats.
DC is one of those places, once you’ve been there a while it seems you never leave. Look at how long you’ve been hearing the names Rumsfeld and Cheney? How long have we been dealing with the Bush family in one incarnation or the other? Or hearing the name Kennedy? Jack Valenti was still in Washington D.C., and a presence on the Hill when he died in 2007, after serving in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. I’ve known the name Wayne LaPierre since I was in high school. Turnover happens a lot at the lower levels, but D.C. has a habit of keeping people for years.
The Courts are the same way. Take a look at the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Of the justices sitting, one was appointed by Carter, four by Ronald Reagan, two by George H.W. Bush, three by Clinton and three by George W. Bush. That’s a full half the court nominated by Presidents who’ve been out of office for nearly twenty years.
When I speak of elections having consequences, these kinds of things are largely what I mean. There’s a certain inevitability to things if you bring a highly left-wing administration into Washington D.C.
New Jersey Reactions to McDonald
Reciprocity Under Attack Again
For those of you in Pennsylvania, today the anti-gunners are coming after concealed carry reciprocity once again. They have put off the vote over and over again since they can’t quite scrape together enough. If this really comes up, it likely means they have the votes or they are close enough that they think they can swing it.
You know what to do. Contact information is here.
A Reminder
This has been a big news day.
As Sebastian mentioned, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s husband died yesterday. In the Senate, Robert Byrd died this morning. Certainly, these two events have added an obvious weight to today’s proceedings. Sen. Orrin Hatch’s words about the Ginsburg family were very sweet, and Sen. Jeff Sessions had a pretty funny story about Byrd doing a Friday morning floor speech lamenting how textbooks weren’t teaching the difference between a republic and a democracy.
Elena Kagan’s hearings started at 12:30, and I’m tuning in to cover them while Sebastian sticks with McDonald. Sen. Sessions has already brought up that Kagan’s previous work put her on the wrong side of history today. Regardless of what any gun groups do, I think the strength of the opinions issued today will make this a red meat issue for the Republicans. That’s actually a good thing. We don’t have to use any political capital, yet it remains a big issue. It really help drives home that the Second Amendment is becoming an 80% issue. That means we can use our political capital on other fights – specific policies, defeating candidates, and winning reforms legislatively.
Canvassing
Bitter and I went to walk two neighborhoods today on behalf of Tom Corbett, Pat Toomey, and Dee Adcock for the the Montgomery County GOP, who are running NRA endorsed candidates for all the major offices. At this point the GOP is just trying to get the candidates out in front of voters, and survey them to find out what their hot button issues are. Of all the volunteer work we do, walking neighborhoods has to be my least favorite activity, especially then the temperature is above 90 degrees. But it’s necessary work. We reached about 80 voters today in our walk.
The campaigns are starting with soft Republicans. Soft being defined as either people who haven’t voted in every election, or new voters who don’t have much of a record. The idea is to try to influence their vote while they haven’t heard much about the candidates. It’s much easier to help bring them around to a candidate now, than to try to change their minds later.
So what do we know from our work so far? Suburban Philadelphia soft Republicans are not a fan of the health care reform. I only had one guy say he was in favor of it, and one guy who said “There are some things I like, and some things I don’t like.” Everyone else was against Obamacare, even the young people we spoke to.
There’s no love for Allyson Schwarz among soft Republicans in the neighborhood we walked in Montgomery Township, even in households that had an open mind about Sestak and Onorato. One split household, where the husband was a Republican and the wife was a Democrat, the Democrat wife said she would never vote for Schwartz because she was against an issue important to her. That’s not to say Dee Adcock doesn’t have an uphill battle, but there’s a base of discontent there with Schwartz even among marginal GOP voters. That’s not good for Schwartz. This is going to be a very interesting election year.
Another Chicago Civil Rights Case Brewing?
Chicago is already facing a Second Amendment suit. Now, via Thirdpower, it would seem they have grounds for a First Amendment suit as well. If Daley is behind the cancellation, they can file a federal civil rights lawsuit against him as well. We have such a thing as law in this country, and Dick Daley is not above it, no matter what he may think.
Overcharging for Licenses
One problem with LTC’s in Pennsylvania is that how much they cost depends on what county you’re in, despite the fact that the fees for licenses are supposed to be set by law. Such is the problem now cropping up in Lehigh County:
Lehigh County officials are scrambling to figure out if Sheriff Ron Rossi’s office has been illegally overcharging gun owners for licenses to carry concealed firearms.
The sheriff’s office sent legislation to the county commissioners this week asking for the fee to be increased from $25 — the amount set by state law — to $38. While other counties also charge more than $25 for such licenses, Rossi’s staff began charging the higher fee years ago without legislative approval, spurring a slew of questions and criticism at this week’s commissioners’ meeting.
Commissioner Andy Roman said the county may have “a serious issue here” and called for an audit of the program as well as a legal review to see if people who’ve paid $38 for the licenses are entitled to $13 refunds.
Many sheriffs charge extra for a credit card style license that goes beyond what the state requires. I have no problem with this and hope sheriffs keep doing it, because the result of not pursuing this issue properly is going to be all of us having to carry paper licenses that just aren’t going to last for five years, or fit conveniently in a wallet. I do think the sheriffs need to inform applicants that the paper options is available at the state mandated price, however, and many are negligent with that.
But a lot of the fee variance isn’t because of issuing credit card style LTCs, it’s due to varying interpretations of the Sheriff Fee Act. The UFA does not allow for any fee to be charged “other than that provided by this subsection or the Sheriff Fee Act may be assessed by the sheriff for the performance of any background check made pursuant to this act.” While in the previous section, the 5 dollar fee allowed by the Sheriff Fee Act is stipulated, the Act also allows for the following:
In addition to fees provided for in this act, the sheriff shall be paid costs, charges and expenses incident to the performance of an act required by court, order, statute, rule or regulation including, but not limited to, printing costs, publication costs, services of experts, watchmen, postage and mileage, which shall be costs to be paid by the plaintiff, petitioner or person requiring them to be incurred.
That’s pretty broad, and open to interpretation by the Sheriffs, depending on what they want to charge for things. Really, until we get a legislative fix clarifying the intent, the truth us the Sheriffs can legally charge more for a permit than 25 dollars, provided there can be some kind of reasonable relation to the fee and a service (they probably couldn’t, for instance, drive your LTC application around to rack up mileage charges under the Act). I have little doubt that the legislature intended this to be a specific price, but until they reference that specific section of the SFA, this is the situation. The fix for this is likely going to need to come from the legislature.
Legal Name Change
SayUncle has a story about a gay woman who tried to get a license with her, err — husband’s? — last name on it after getting gay married in another state. If you look on the department’s web site, it notes the documents they accept for this purpose. I suspect she presented a marriage certificate from another state for her gay wedding, which is not legally valid in the State of Tennessee. What’s kind of funny, or tragic, I’m not sure which, is that they didn’t seem to notice until after the fact, I’m guessing when a supervisor noticed two female names on the marriage certificate. I guess the lesson here is if you’re going to get gay married to someone, but move to a state that doesn’t recognize it, you should marry someone with a androgynous first name. You know, like Pat, Kris, Jamie, or Toni. Either way, the cause is not lost. You can legally change your name in most states, and with a court order to that effect in hand, the DMV will give you a license with the last name you want.