Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

In the US, state governments are responsible for overseeing how much freedom local governments have in deciding their budgets. But do states need to put limits on local governments to stop them from spending in ways that are detrimental to their constituents? In new research which looks across all US cities, Mikhail Ivonchyk finds no relationship between autonomy and inflated city budgets. Cities, he writes, can largely manage their own resources without their states government looking over their shoulder.

The American Constitution does not mention local governments, which leaves their fate in the hands of the states. Throughout history states have overseen the degree of local autonomy they allow and today no two states in the country treat their local units identically. At the same time, the debates over the appropriate level of local freedom from state restraints and interference have continued since the adoption of the Constitution itself.

On one side, some argue that greater local autonomy is a necessary democratic principle enabling local policymakers to better meet the needs of diverse local communities. A lack of autonomy can make it difficult for local officials to react to political, social, environmental, and economic changes, it may stifle local creativity and policy innovation. Local democratic processes will keep local policymakers in check and prevent power abuses, excessive spending, and taxation by voting them out office.

Others are skeptical about voters ability to control the government. They are convinced that in the absence state-imposed restraints local officials will abuse their taxing and spending authority and use public resources to distribute rewards to their political allies and ensure re-election. Government in this model is akin to an uncontrollable Leviathan with expansionary tendencies that over time produce grossly inflated budgets and taxes at the level above and beyond of what is preferred by the voters.

If the first argument is correct and local officials remain accountable to their constituents even when state-imposed restraints are absent, greater autonomy is unlikely to be linked to the level of taxation and spending that is higher than what voters are happy with. In an econometric model that would mean that once socio-demographic community characteristics are taken into account, autonomy will be insignificant. In fact, more autonomy may allow localities to find innovative ways to generate cost savings, which could translate into lower spending, holding other relevant factors constant. If, on the other hand, the supporters of the Leviathan model are correct, more autonomy will be associated with higher levels of spending and taxation holding all else constant.

Empirical evidence from academic research that would test these predictions has been inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. This can be attributed to two major challenges; one is with conceptualization and measurement of local autonomy and the other with the availability of data. There is no one commonly accepted concept of autonomy, and the results may vary depending on what aspect of autonomy is studied. Those who study the topic note that autonomy includes structural (incorporation, annexation, and extraterritorial jurisdiction), fiscal (tax, revenue, spending and debt limitations), functional (services localities can perform), legal (predominant judicial interpretation of pertinent laws) and personnel-related dimensions. Moreover, autonomy is a multidimensional, continuous concept without bright-line boundaries, and it is impossible to use several ordered categories to accurately measure it in all states.

To fully understand the effect of autonomy, all dimensions must be considered together. We know about the influence of fiscal dimensions of autonomy, but other dimensions have been largely ignored and no study have considered them together using individual governments as the unit of analysis. The other shortcoming of existing empirical evidence is that most of it comes from non-random samples of larger cities, so their applicability to most American cities is unclear.

My research seeks to close some of these gaps and uses a dataset on all cities in the United States to test the relationship between municipal autonomy and the level of expenditures, taxes, and debt. The autonomy index is constructed using a rare study of all state constitutions allowing more granular measurement of the dimensions of autonomy such as local discretion (includes unconstrained revenue, fiscal limits and state legal imposition on local structure and functions), local capacity (includes personnel capacity and diversity of local revenue sources) and local importance (significance of local spending and employment to Gross State Product).

I find no evidence that cities in the states with more autonomy inflate their budgets, increase taxes or issue more debt. If we pick two cities with similar socio-demographic profiles, wealth, and intergovernmental support, the one with more autonomy will likely have the same or lower levels of spending, taxation, and debt. This expectation, however, is not uniform for all city sizes.

Figures 1, 2, 3 illustrate how autonomy effect changes from the smallest (on the left) to the largest (on the right) cities. The dashed line shows the average effect across the entire sample, the dotted lines are 95 % confidence intervals, whereas the solid line represents the autonomy effect at different levels of total expenditures, taxes and debt and the shaded area is its 95% confidence interval.

Figure 1 Autonomy effect on the level of City Expenditures

Figure 2 Autonomy effect on the level of City Debt

Figure 3 Autonomy effect on the level of City Taxes

Figure 1 indicates that in the smallest cities expenditures are unlikely to change with autonomy, but the effect becomes negative and more pronounced as we move to larger cities. The relationship is similar with the level of debt shown in Figure 2, where no difference is found for the smallest cities, but significant declines are likely in larger cities with more autonomy. The reverse is true for taxes, however, where smaller cities tend to lower their taxes if given more autonomy, but no significant changes are found in larger cities (Figure 3).

My analysis of all cities in the United States finds no trace of the Leviathan model predicting that more autonomy will lead to inflated budgets. As far as spending, taxes and debt are concerned, more autonomous cities are unlikely to run amok. In fact, more autonomy may be associated with lower spending, taxation and debt holding other relevant factors constant. It is possible that local policymakers with more discretion can find more efficient ways to meet voters demands.

Taken together, my results cast doubts on the notion that state restraints are necessary for proper functioning local units. It is quite likely that local politics keeps local officials in check, which, along with the greater responsibility for public services that comes with autonomy, are sufficient to minimize waste and misuse of public resources. This does not mean to say that states should have no role in local affairs. State governments have greater policy expertise and managerial capacities and may need to step in limited circumstances, but it looks like an average city can manage its resources without a state looking over its shoulder.

Please read our comments policy before commenting

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.

Shortened URL for this post:https://bit.ly/3sH9of9

About the author

Mikhail Ivonchyk State University of New York at AlbanyMikhail Ivonchyk is an assistant professor of Public Administration & Policy at the State University of New York at Albany. He holds LL.M. with a concentration in Public Institutions and the Law, and Ph.D. in Public Administration with a concentration in Public Budgeting and Finance from the University of Georgia. His primary research interests are in the areas of public budgeting, financial management and capital finance.

Read the rest here:

Giving cities more autonomy over how they tax and spend does not lead to inflated budgets. - USAPP American Politics and Policy (blog)

The freedom convoy, which began in January 2022 to challenge vaccination requirements for truckers crossing the Canada-US border, is a fascinating specimen for the sociology of law enforcement. At a time of growing fatigue over social distancing and other COVID-19 measures, the protests soon began to evolve. Some protesters have been observed bearing Nazi symbols. Reports of harassment of residents and violence against passersby, Trump 2024 signage, and hate crimes have emerged. These concerns fit into the criminal activities of right-wing groups identified in a report submitted to Public Safety Canada and have led to questions about whose freedoms the protesters are fighting for.

Law enforcement or lack thereof has been the epicenter of public discourses on the freedom convoy. At issue is the juxtaposition of the freedom convoy and how protests by Indigenous groups were handled in the recent past. While downtown Ottawa has been ground zero of the protests, the Coutts, Alberta crossing has seen its share of the blockade. A statement by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation argues If the blockade in Coutts consisted of Indigenous people, there would have been arrests and charges laid; instead, the Coutts blockade is being allowed to continue, even though it has at times become violent It is important to recognize the disparity between how Indigenous and non-Indigenous protests are approached by our government. It is shocking to see this blatant disparity

Indeed, the differential law enforcement intervention stares us all in the face. However, it is a mistake to consider this primarily or exclusively a law enforcement problem. The superficial law enforcement paralysis more than a week into the protests speaks to broader issues in our society.

More than a policing matter

The response to the freedom convoy offers a glimpse into the underbelly of the criminal justice system. The law is not like the weather and its enforcement involves significant degrees of discretion. Earlier in my career, I occasionally asked second-year introductory criminology students to indicate by raising their hands if they had ever encountered situations in which the police caught them with contrabands (e.g. drugs), seized such items, and asked them to go home. Some hands would usually go up with their peers shocked. I would explain to the students that they went back home peacefully to their parents for the same acts over which their peers might have been arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison. The aim was to help students think about inequality in the criminal justice system and their own social positionality. The dispensation of favourable or unfavourable discretionary use of power goes beyond policing. The judiciary is not immune. The prosecution of participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has been fraught with professional lenience that questions the notion of equality before the law.

For example, Judge Beryl A. Howell was unsparing in her critique of the disconnect between the gravity of the actions of the offenders and the tepid charges filed by the US Department of Justice. She described the situation as muddled and almost schizophrenic asking: Is it the governments view that the members of the mob that engaged in the Capitol attack on January 6 were simply trespassers? The Republican-Democrat divide on the attack was irrelevant. My point? The criminal justice system works in ways that dovetail with the contours of inequality in society.

Political capital

The freedom convoy protesters have been able to draw on a level of political capital that most people who take to the streets to fight for their rights rarely have. Conservative party leader, Erin OToole, met with some of the protesting truckers before being ousted. The CTV reports that his interim successor, Candice Bergen, pushed OToole to show support for the Freedom Convoy protest, arguing there are good people on both sides. It was an unoriginal statement, of course, but emblematic of the thinking at the highest echelons of the Conservative Party. The report also states that Bergen informed MPs that I dont think we should be asking them to go home; rather the issue should be turned into a problem for the prime minister. That is how you win elections through polarization. The truckers are a rich mine for votes and their anger is a catalyst for electoral mobilization. Therefore, their protest is being approached with greater circumspection than is accorded most street protesters. Bergen and other MPs and MLAs who have voiced their support for the protest are aware of the social and political value of the protesters. The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is right to be wary of inviting the military to intervene as that rarely ends well.

Financial capital

The freedom convoy is also well resourced. Organizers garnered approximately $10 million within days on Go Fund Me before their account was frozen. The Toronto Star reports that despite being blocked by GoFundMe, the freedom convoy was still raising thousands of dollars per minute on GiveSendGo. The continuing influx of cash suggests the freedom convoy goes beyond some fringe elements of society. Support for the freedom convoy is organic within conservative to right-wing sections of the population. The kinds of funds being generated are not restricted to $10 to $30 from average members of society. For perspective, consider that the NDP in Alberta raised $6.2 million in 2021, its highest fundraising ever, while the United Conservatives generated $3.8 million in the same fiscal year. Therefore, the freedom convoy is a piece of money-generating machinery that rivals several established political parties with well-manicured fundraising architecture in Canada. Its supporters are not mainly or primarily from the margins of society. Such serious cash means organizers can mobilize effectively and provide supplies to prolong the protest. This wears out law enforcement capacity.

Ideological symmetry: Freedom Convoy and Mounties for Freedom

On 21 October 2021, a group of RCMP officers known as the Mounties for Freedom wrote an open letter to Commissioner Brenda Lucki on their opposition to vaccination mandates. The officers noted that they were not against vaccinations, but as law enforcement officers, we cannot in good conscience willingly participate in enforcing mandates that we believe go against the best interests of the people we protect. They also noted that they have concerns about the science we are being coerced to follow and argued that our constitutionally-protected freedoms precede the government. Does that sound familiar? There is ideological symmetry between participants in the freedom convoy and a section of law enforcement. In other words, some officers would presumably participate in the freedom convoy but for the uniform. Consider that the US Capitol attack involved almost 30 off-duty police officers from 12 police departments. ABC News reports that some defendants charged in the attacks are adopting a defense that they thought they were free to enter the Capitol because law enforcement authorities either didnt stop them from coming in or never told them they were not allowed to be there. This has added to broader concerns over right-wing extremist infiltration of law enforcement and the military in the US and Canada. A declassified 2020 report of Canadas Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre notes that far-right groups such as the Proud Boys are actively recruiting serving and retired members of the police and military. Such ideological sympathies may weaken law enforcement.

Political economy of protest risk

Scholarly engagement with protest policing has a long history. How police respond to protesters is indicative of a combination of subjective and objective calculus as regards risk to law and order and bearers of risks. For example, in Alberta, the Wetsuweten First Nations protests against the Coastal GasLink Pipeline in 2020 attracted legislative action and several arrests. Bill 1 The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act was passed at impressive legislative speed. That is not a critique. Governments must respond proportionally to threats. However, the reluctance to enforce the same law on the freedom convoys takeover of the Coutts crossing in Alberta subjects law enforcement and the entire criminal justice system to unnecessary public ridicule. The same applies to the ostensible helplessness of Ottawa police.

Making political choices regarding protests

The freedom convoy provides a lesson in the politics of law enforcement. Right-wing groups increasingly pose serious threats to society and need to be recognized and treated as such. Some political leaders have declared that they do not direct the police. That is not a lie but it is not entirely true. The police take cues from political leaders. The spread of the freedom convoy and the disruption it increasingly represents embody a political choice (via inertia) by some elected leaders and chiefs of police. Canadian police are some of the most effective and highly regarded in the world. The officers on the streets would have acted swiftly and decisively if they had been properly directed long before the trucks arrived.

Finally, it matters who is protesting and the social and political position they occupy. Although the freedom convoy has been treated lightly to date, other groups contemplating street demonstrations in the near future should be warned: Dont try this at home.

Oriola is professor of criminology at the University of Alberta, Canada. The Conversation first published a version of this article under a creative commons licence. Follow Oriola on Twitter: @topeoriola

Go here to see the original:

Canada's freedom convoy protests: Politics, policing and the law - TheCable

The Hutchinson News| The Hutchinson News

The First Amendment prohibits government from abridging the freedom of speech. Yet for decades far right extremists have pressed lawmakers to censor public school education and books that some perceive as disturbing. Some have convinced Republicans that Critical Race Theory is brainwashing schoolkids.

In Goddard, Kansas, education officials removed 29 books from circulation after a parent complained about language in one of them. Among the titles pulled were several novels, including Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Fences, an award-winning play by August Wilson was also pulled, as was They Called Themselves the K.K.K.," a nonfiction history of the racist hate group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.

Looking at the targeted works, one can't help but note that many deal with America's troubled racist history and sexuality. Some people, it seems, would rather their children be taught comforting lies rather than uncomfortable truths. But just as creationists can't rewrite the science curriculum because they reject evolution, we can't let historical revisionists attack young people's freedom to learn. Books for young adults that discuss issues of human sexuality are often controversial, but curbing access is unacceptable. LGBTQ teens need to see themselves reflected in literatureor find nonfiction resources for factual information.

Parental involvement in public schools is always welcome, but that doesn't mean parents will gain veto power over all aspects of the curriculum. It's essential that informed parents stand up strongly against ignorance and censorship. The censors won't win if enough people stand up to them.

Janean Lanier, Hutchinson

City's new website reveals "transparency" to be a meaningless term.

Transparency is often touted as the hallmark of government agencies operating with utmost honesty and integrity. The need to be transparent was expressed by our current mayor as recently as the Feb. 2 City Council meeting. Unfortunately, the City's new website does little to advance this concept.

The most glaring example of the shift towards opacity can be seen in the removal of City Council agendas, minutes and supportingmaterials prior to January of 2020. Any citizen interested in current issues, such as those revolving around the Woody Seat or the Atrium are at a loss when it comes to exploring actions taken by the Council and Administration in previous years. Anyone asking, "how did we get here?" will not find any relevant information through the City's new website. Another more subtle obfuscation, is the removal of any information pertaining to the numerous grants our City relies on for its functioning. RFPsand other contractual information have also been quietly removed.

This shift towards opacity should alarm every citizen of our community. The problems we as a community face have been decades in the making. Any hope of rectifying our current circumstance must be met with a clear understanding of what has brought us to this point. To see our current Administration move so dramatically in the direction of opacity, in the direction of less available information, raises more questions without providing any answers.

Scott Brown, Hutchinson

Dave Trabert of the Kansas Policy Institute stated the topic of his Jan. 31 column was the proposed legislative bill to make computer science a required course for graduation, but he delivered they-are-so-wrong-and-so-bad messaging instead.

To discuss his stated topic, Trabert would have had to say that making computer science a graduation requirement would be a resource draining hardship for the many rural districts already struggling to hire qualified teachers. He would have also had to say that is why the bill sponsor has already agreed to delete the graduation requirementbut retain the new funding to train teachers in computer science. He would have also had to retract his statement about the need for universal school choice (his code word phrase for funding private schools with tax dollars). Private schools are not required to provide a computer science course.

Instead, Trabert tells us that Kansans of the last 55 years, who set graduation requirements through their elected state and local board of education members, were wrong. As a professional lobbyist who has spent 13 years running a dark-money funded, political propaganda platform, he tells us teachers who have dedicated their lives to educating our students care more about themselves than our kids because they do not agree with him. He also looks unfavorably on the majority of Kansans electing our current governor over his preferred candidate who promised to largely reinstate the Brownback income tax cut fiscal train wreck. For Trabert, most of us are wrong and bad.

Sincerely,

John Sturn, Ellinwood, KS

View post:

Letters to the editor - The Hutchinson News

The other shoe has dropped for Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ).

His campaign committee has agreed to pay a $125,000 federal fine for misusing donor money and associated reporting violations, according to new Federal Election Commission disclosures.

The investigation, which found reason to believe that the violations were knowing and willful, was the FEC twin of a separate congressional ethics probe that fined the Arizona Republican $50,000 in 2020 for nearly a dozen violations. The inquiries centered around Schweikerts dealings with his former chief of staff, political consultant Oliver Schwab, specifically payments to Schwabs personal credit card and firm.

The agreement was signed on Jan. 12, and the FEC released the documents almost a month later on Friday. As part of the agreement, the Schweikert campaign admitted to breaking three federal lawsall related to expenses.

The violations occurred sporadically between 2014 and 2018. In that time, the campaign misreported about $50,000 worth of expenses as going straight to Schwab, without disclosing the sub-vendors Schwab then paid.

Those reports also did not correctly describe another approximately $78,000 in payments, applying generic consulting labels instead of the true categories, which included web services, food and beverage, and gifts.

Finally, the campaign converted about $1,500 to personal use, including by reimbursing staffers who covered Schweikerts personal costs out of pocketincluding dry cleaning and flight upgrades.

As part of the agreement, the campaign has also filed a series of corrected reports from the time of the violations, clarifying the expenses. The reports came in on Thursday night and acknowledge that the campaign has directly repaid the vendors, which include the Capitol Hill Club, an art store, and the Scottsdale Plaza Resort.

Schweikert, who touts his commitment to defending fiscal responsibility, first entered Congress on the initial Tea Party wave in 2010. He belongs to the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, serves on the Ways and Means and Joint Economic Committees, and was among the 138 House Republicans who objected to Donald Trumps defeat in the 2020 electionhowever, he only objected to ballots from Pennsylvania, not his own state, where he had won re-election with about 55 percent of the vote.

The $125,000 FEC fine for the 2020 Fiscal Hero is more than double the penalty he incurred from the House ethics probe, which, in addition to the financial wrongdoing, also found that Schweikert impeded congressional investigators.

But those fines pale in comparison to Schweikerts legal costs associated with the investigation. Since 2018, the firm handling the matter, Holtzman Vogel Josefiak & Torchinsky PLLC, has collected more than $1 million in legal fees from the Schweikert campaign, according to FEC data.

Still, the investigations differ in two other key ways.

First, the congressional investigation was public knowledge at the time, but the FEC investigation has been a secret for three and a half yearsuntil today.

The congressional probe stemmed from a 2017 Washington Examiner report detailing large payments to Schwab, in an apparent violation of rules limiting outside income for senior congressional staff. Following the report, the Office of Congressional Ethics opened an inquiry, which led them to recommend the House open a full-blown ethics investigation. The Ethics Committee announced that investigation on June 28, 2018.

At the time, Schweikert downplayed the allegations, describing them to reporters as purely clerical.

We buy coffee, its on [Schwabs] credit card and we reimburse him. And when they did the reimbursements, they marked it as income instead of reimbursements. So now we have to unwind all of those, Schweikert said.

Its annoying, he added, but its just the way it works. I think everyone is going to be happy with how weve unwound the clerical mistakes.

The other key difference is how the investigations started.

The OCE opened its inquiry after the Washington Examiner report, but the FEC did not. It was actually the Schweikert campaign who asked the FEC to open the investigation, filing a sua sponte complaint with the commissionof his own accord in Latinand identifying its own violations of campaign finance law.

The campaign filed the secret complaint on June 29, 2018, the day after Schweikert shrugged off the House ethics probe. Ten days later, Schwab was out of work.

See the original post here:

GOP Congressman David Schweikert Fined $125,000 For Financial Violations - The Daily Beast