About
Learn More about our progressive online community for the Granite State.

Create an account today (it's free and easy) and get started!
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Search




Advanced Search


The Masthead
Managing Editors


Jennifer Daler

Contributing Writers
elwood
Mike Hoefer
 susanthe
 William Tucker
ActBlue Hampshire

The Roll, Etc.
Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch, finch, beech
Blue News Tribune (MA)
Democracy for NH
Live Free or Die
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Granite State Progress
Seacoast for Change
Susan the Bruce
Tomorrow's Progressives

Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Krauss
Landrigan
Lawson
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Primary Wire
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Welch

Campaigns, Et Alia.
Paul Hodes
Carol Shea-Porter
Ann McLane Kuster
John Lynch
Jennifer Daler

ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC

National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
The Next Hurrah
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo

50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Keene's "Vote Buying" Story

by: elwood

Mon Nov 05, 2007 at 19:22:03 PM EST
This is interesting in a "Look at it this way!" "No that way!" sense.

We have someone running for City Council in Keene who has pledged to:

  • Accept the City Council pay, which is $2000 per year for a four-year term; but
  • Distribute the 16 $500 checks to randomly selected voters.

Today's Sentinel has the story behind the subscription wall.

Somebody filed a complaint with the state Attorney General's office and the candidate - Julia Miranda - has been warned that this is felony bribery and could mean seven years in the Big House. She has changed the offer to a pledge to donate the money to non-profits.
elwood :: Keene's "Vote Buying" Story
Miranda is with the Free State Project. I'm not sure of the meaning of the take-the-pay and play Santa Claus plan. Is it:
  • $2000 per year is way to much to pay somebody for helping run the city? (If any councilors want to translate that into a likely hourly wage, be my guest); or
  • We need to have our government run by only the idle wealthy or the ideologues who are not wealthy but will work for free; or
  • Taxes are always bad. Period.

Miranda doesn't speak in the story at all. Ian Bernard, a local free state activist who is identified as her partner, does. He makes an interesting comparison: Since Ms. Miranda has no way of knowing whether someone supported her, how is the promised random gift "bribery" - any more than a campaign pledge to fix a pothole on your street would be?
Tags: , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
Keene's "Vote Buying" Story | 16 comments
If a candidate simply says, I won't take pay (0.00 / 0)
I'll send it back to the city treasury:
  • The candidate is within the law
  • Every voter can expect their own tax bill to drop by a tiny amount. Keene has a city budget of some $34 million: one council member's annual pay is one 17,000th of that. If you pay a city (exclusive of school) tax of $1700 you would save a dime.

So the guaranteed dime is okay, but the chance of $500 is not.

Oops - closer to $38 million (0.00 / 0)
So a a dime savings on a $1,900 city tax bill.
[ Parent ]
Pay for civil servants (4.00 / 1)
One of the most ugly things about the FSP is their vilification of paid civil servants. I actually saw an episode of free minds where they were saying things like how come this and this engineer gets paid $50,000 on the city budget -- I thought it was public service!

Then when bridges collapse they say look -- the government can't do anything right!

I agree -- the term "public service" for city positions annoys me too -- after all you're serving a public need driving a truck for Hannaford too -- but this idea that we should deprofessionalize government is just plain wrong.




[ Parent ]
Vilification of Teachers (0.00 / 0)
The bullies at the Monadnock School Taxpayers Association have recently posted a PDF on their website with all the salaries of the teachers in the district.

Hope > Fear




Create a free Blue Hampshire account and join the conversation.
[ Parent ]
Is it publically available data? (0.00 / 0)
If so, what's wrong with disseminating it? And how would disseminating it positively vilify teachers?
[ Parent ]
Yes. (0.00 / 0)
So are property valuations and taxes - and what everybody originally paid for their house.

That doesn't get published by these advocacy groups. Nor does the salary of the people in the county prosecutor's office.

They go after teachers.

And they present the data without the context of what the teachers could earn 15, 50, 150, or 500 miles away. And without the context of  what private school teachers- many of these activists love privatizing - make. (They may not KNOW that, since the salary of private school teachers is, well, private.)

[ Parent ]
I don't disagree (0.00 / 0)
but that doesn't answer any of the questions I posed (except the first one, of course). I don't necessarily disagree with midaho's characterization either, I just don't see the harm in the data as such. Just because it's on some taxpayer's association website doesn't make the information itself any different than if it were on the school district website, or wherever the public source for the public data is.
[ Parent ]
It's an invitation to personal attacks. (0.00 / 0)
Post the average salary of all teachers in the district, fine. Post the range, fine.

Post Mr. Higgins salary and invite his neighbors to gossip about his salary and the car he drives, and what that means Mrs. Higgins must earn at the insurance company - ugly.

Perfectly legal, but ugly.

[ Parent ]
I find this really interesting (0.00 / 0)
How/where does one find what's legal in a municipal election? Anyone know?


Well, cities and towns are creatures of the state (0.00 / 0)
so the laws applying to city elections are written in Concord.  The Secretary of State's office has a pretty good site, but it takes some navigating.

[ Parent ]
but don't forget the city charter (4.00 / 3)
You also need to look at the local municipal charters and ordinances. There typically are charter provisions and local ordinances that are applicable as well. A bit of a hodgepodge. 



"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    
[ Parent ]
My gov't profs (4.00 / 1)
used to immediately say "There's no little federalism!" on any question of local autonomy.

When I found the Home Rule Amendment to the NH Constitution, they sort of grumbled, "Well yeah, but this state is weird."

[ Parent ]
It's interesting, Miranda has also called to replace stop signs (0.00 / 0)
with yield signs, and some other stuff which is just a bit out of touch with how things work.

But of course, the real question in the election is why Beauregard won't say how much he's spending -- no one wants the race to get ugly, but it's a serious question and it's worrisome.


Decades ago when I lived in Hanover (0.00 / 0)
some residents petitioned the town council to replace the garish red STOP signs in their neighborhood with something more tasteful - I think they suggested barnboard would be nice.

Some of the councilors just looked stunned, then one of them said, "State law doesn't empower us to act on that," and they moved on.

[ Parent ]
yes (0.00 / 0)
and Beauregard has not been sufficiently called out on it-the possibility of conflicts and buying access/positions is very real as the mayor's primary power lies in appointing people to positions-
[ Parent ]
Update: Miranda lost (0.00 / 0)
629-183 to former Councilor Kendall Lane.
Keene's "Vote Buying" Story | 16 comments

Connect with BH
     
Blue Hampshire Blog on Facebook
Powered by: SoapBlox