Odds and ends number 70

More and more items pique my interest as the General Assembly session wears on, so you might find these continue to pop up on a regular basis. As always, these are items to which I devote anywhere from a sentence to a few paragraphs, so here goes.

I’ll begin with this pre-emptive strike by Delegate Justin Ready I learned about a few days ago. He’s planning to introduce a bill which will prohibit the state of Maryland from enacting user fees based on mileage driven to replace or supplement the existing per-gallon gasoline tax. The state of Oregon has, for several years, been exploring ways of doing this and the latest ties into existing onboard and smart phone technologies. But the Luddites out there should take this under advisement; this comes from the Council of State Governments piece Ready links to:

Importantly, the use of GPS also will not be a requirement. For those who reject all the private sector technology options despite being able to choose between them and despite their information not being transmitted to a government entity, another option would allow drivers to pre-pay for the miles they expect to drive at a rate based on 35,000 miles minimum annually. Those drivers will pay a substantially higher flat fee than what most drivers whose mileage is more closely tracked will likely average. Instead of paying at the pump as participants in the initial pilot program did, motorists will pay at the end of the three-month demonstration. State transportation officials foresee monthly or quarterly charges if the system were to be adopted on a statewide basis. (Emphasis mine.)

So the options are, in my case, either “voluntarily” allow the government into my personal car to see that I drive roughly 20,000 miles per year or pay a significantly higher penalty to keep my freedom. Some choice. It almost makes raising the gas tax more attractive, which may be the overall aim of Annapolis liberals. They constantly harp on the fact we haven’t raised the tax in 20 years or so – well, if you would spend it on what it’s meant for instead of wasting it on mass transit no one rides, we may accomplish the road repairs and construction for which the gas tax was intended.

Another pro-freedom push to free Maryland’s roads comes from HB251, a bill introduced by Delegate Michael Smigiel to repeal Maryland’s speed camera laws – a bill which has my full support and should have yours, too. (Locally, Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio is a co-sponsor as well, and should be thanked for that support.) Meanwhile, the Maryland Liberty PAC correctly notes that these devices comprise a large portion of “O’Malley’s War On Driving”:

Speed cameras are nothing more than the privatization of our due process rights and the contracting-out of law enforcement duties.

The Maryland Liberty PAC has an ongoing petition drive to dismantle the speed cameras once and for all; they also stress that pressure should be brought to bear on Environmental Matters Committee Chair Maggie McIntosh to give the bill a hearing (none has been scheduled yet.)

If speed cameras were truly about safety, the violation wouldn’t be a civil offense but a criminal one. Yet they know that, with a criminal offense, one has to be able to face their accuser and the evidence wouldn’t be admissible (because the speed camera can’t be a witness like a patrol officer can.) So they made it a civil offense based on the much lower standard of “preponderance of the evidence.” My judgment is that speed cameras should be banned.

There are also local steps which need to be undertaken, says Sam Hale of the Maryland Society of Patriots. Among them are:

  • Asking Wicomico and Worcester counties to nullify the “Septic Bill” and refuse to draw the counties into tiers,
  • Contacting Salisbury’s City Council and asking them to withdraw their membership in ICLEI, a group promoting anti-liberty incursions on rights such as PlanMaryland and the septic bill as an extension of the United Nations,
  • Asking Worcester County to join the Maryland Rural Counties Coalition.

So the liberty movement is well-represented here, but how about Washington, D.C.? Maybe not so much.

For example, take the debt ceiling. It was panned by both Americans for Limited Government and the Coalition to Reduce Spending. Bill Wilson of ALG reacted:

This is a partial repeal of representative government. Through the elimination of the debt ceiling, even just until May 19, the American people now have no say in the amount of debt the government contracts. The only say whatsoever representatives had on the some 60 percent of the $3.7 trillion budget that operates on autopilot, which includes Social Security, Medicare, and other forms of so-called ‘mandatory’ spending, was the periodic vote on increasing the debt ceiling.

“Now that it has been suspended, the debt ceiling may never be reinstated. All the Senate needs to do now come May 19 is again threaten default should the debt ceiling suspension not be indefinitely extended. Under those circumstances, House Republican leadership is likely to fold under even the slightest pressure.

Added Jonathan Bydlak of the Coalition to Reduce Spending:

Congress today again avoided its duty to be a responsible steward of the public trust. Stalling is not a serious solution to federal debt created by habitual deficit spending.

By delaying a vote on whether and at what cost the federal government should be allowed to borrow more money, House members chose to deny accountability to the public.

This move goes against the clear wishes of American voters. As a recent Rasmussen poll showed, 73% nationwide believe the federal government should cut spending in order to deal with the nation’s current economic problems.

The Coalition to Reduce Spending recognizes that choosing to increase the public debt is ultimately one of the most important decisions a legislator can make. It’s for that reason that this decision should never be pushed into the future haphazardly.

The only thing to like about the bill is that it holds Senators’ salaries hostage until they pass a budget, although our Senator Barbara Mikulski whined and cried poverty about the prospect. Well, all you need to do is your job.

Perhaps they can act on this measure which failed to get through the last Congress, something which could give the legislative branch a little control over regulators run amok. Ryan Young of the Competitive Enterprise Institute sums things up brilliantly:

There is too much regulation without representation in this country. In an average year, Congress will pass a little over 100 bills into law, while regulatory agencies will pass more than 3,500 new regulations.

It’s easy to see why members of Congress like agencies to do their job for them. If a regulation turns out to be unpopular, or more costly than expected, they can just shift the blame to, say, the EPA or FCC. It’s well past time for Congress to take its lawmaking responsibility seriously again. REINS is the first step in that process.

In general, there are those who favor a more militant approach, even with the belief we should learn from our opponents. I look at it this way: if conservative principles are as popular as we believe them to be, we should stick out our necks for their adoption on a daily basis. If not, it proves my point from yesterday about the need to educate, although we should be doing that regardless.

This lesson isn’t lost on professional golfer Phil Mickelson, who, as my friend Jim Pettit points out, is simply doing what’s best for his personal situation by contemplating a move out of high-tax California. I don’t think he’ll be looking to move to Maryland; instead states like Florida and Texas – which combine a more temperate climate with non-existent state income taxes – may be attractive. (Thousands of professional athletes live in Florida for that very reason.)

Another angle those who love liberty are pursuing is finding the right Presidential candidate for 2016. Those who favor Judge Andrew Napolitano, a group I wrote about late last year, are still actively seeking petition signers. But they updated their totals to say they have over 10,000 signers now, and the Facebook page now boasts 3,319 fans. Napolitano may well say no, but the backing behind him is slowly growing.

Finally, this story has a little local interest as well as a tie-in to a group I’ve supported. Move America Forward is holding their “Super Bowl Rally for the Troops”:

The Ravens fans have taken an early lead, but there’s still plenty of time for Niners fans to come back! Vote for which team you think will win by sponsoring a package full of goodies for the troops!

SUPERBOWL XLVII is only ten days away so time is running out to participate in our Super Bowl challenge to all of our pro-troops supporters out there. Whether you happen to be a 49ers fan, Ravens fan, or just a football fan, the whole mission at the end of the day is to support our TROOPS serving overseas. They are the real winners in this competition and they deserve our thanks and gratitude. (Emphasis in original.)

If the Ravens win this particular competition, additional items will be included for a fortunate group of troops from Maryland.

Ironically, MAF ran a similar competition last year in which Giants fans outpaced the Patriots faithful. It’s sort of a sad commentary that fans of a team named after our colonial forefathers couldn’t win this competition, and maybe that karma got them this season.

That’s plenty for now, but it probably won’t be long until my mailbox is full of interesting items once again.

A question of nullification

Recently secession has been all the rage in the news, as all 50 states have at least began the process of petitioning on the White House website to have them address the matter. Texas is leading the way with over 100,000 signatures.

But perhaps a more realistic (and less bloody, given the last secession led to a war between the states) alternative is the concept of nullification, where states refuse to follow laws they consider unconstitutional. The principle is an extension of the Tenth Amendment, which grants “(t)he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Obviously this idea is most popularized by the lack of willingness of some states to comport with Obamacare, but the question can be asked: do counties as part of states have those same nullification rights? Thanks to a strong TEA Party and pro-liberty movement, Cecil County is the Texas of Maryland, and one group is calling on the county to toss down the gauntlet on the so-called “septic bill” SB236.

The county’s Campaign for Liberty group puts it thus, as part of an “open letter” to the Cecil County Commissioners:

As we fight in Maryland to oppose S.B. 236 and O’Malley’s Plan Maryland we can learn a lesson from the fight over Obamacare.

Much like Obamacare, S.B. 236 was a radical leftist law that was rammed through the legislature.

After Obamacare passage, many conservatives felt like the battle was over, however, a number of states are now blocking implementation and using nullification to stop Obamacare in its tracks.

Our counties in Maryland need to take a page out of the states’ playbook by blocking implementation of S.B. 236.

S.B. 236 is an equivalent to Obamacare in Maryland.  If S.B. 236 is allowed to stay on the books it will go down as the greatest taking of private property rights in Maryland history.

Cecil County Campaign for Liberty is urging you vote against submitting Tier Map 10 (or any other Tier Map for that matter) to the State of Maryland as required by S.B. 236.

County Commissioner Robert Hodge spoke at a recent Cecil County C4L meeting and asked us to support the submission of Tier Map 10.

He explained that Map 10 included no private property in the most restrictive Tier 4 designation.

While we applaud every effort to protect private property rights, after careful consideration, we believe that objective is best served by non-compliance.

Meanwhile, the concept of selling development rights is also being challenged by a Howard County farmer who wants out of his contract as well.

For many years, since the nation’s founding as a matter of fact, the concept of taxation of private property had been the main flaw in the age-old doctrine that a man’s home is his castle – after all, your property isn’t truly yours when you pay an annual rent to the government in the form of a property tax. On the flip side, zoning codes came into being and more and more restrictions were placed on what could be done with one’s property. Most of these were modest changes which made some logical sense, but in the last couple decades we’ve seen more of a naked power grab by government at all levels. The transferable development rights under debate in Howard County were one thing, but the idea that a government edict can render your property all but worthless by curtailing its development simply because no wastewater system is nearby smacks of overly dictatorial control. But that’s the aim behind Senate Bill 236: if you’re in a Tier 4 area, it will be difficult (if not impossible) to develop your land as you see fit.

Maryland has always been a trendsetter in the area of “preserving” land through several approaches: buying development rights, placing restrictive land-use policies in ever-expanding coastal areas via stormwater regulations, or simply purchasing land outright through Program Open Space. Obviously that’s a last resort because the state won’t pay property taxes on land it owns, but they collect tax revenue on most privately-owned land whether it can be developed or not.

To hear them tell it, the key reason Maryland is so restrictive is the fact Chesapeake Bay divides the state, and I’ve joked before that if you wrote a bill to legalize murder but named it the “Chesapeake Bay Murder Legalization Act of 2012” you just might get it to pass. In all states, “it’s for the children” works as a political slogan but you can add “it’s for the Bay” as a Maryland alternative. Put the wrong people in charge of government and this sloganeering bastardizing the name of a perfectly fine estuary becomes an almost inexorable power grab.

Rural development is the scapegoat for the water quality trouble in Chesapeake Bay, with the septic system considered to be public enemy number one to the Annapolis environmentalists. (Because we all know those urban sewage treatment plants always work perfectly and never, ever leak.) That’s why SB236 passed with almost unanimous support from urban areas and opposition from the parts of Maryland far away from the I-95 corridor.

Yet the environmentalists who continually blame farmers and those who wish to live far away from the city for the Bay’s filthiness seem to forget that Chesapeake Bay’s water doesn’t just magically appear in Maryland. There is a river which feeds the bay, and it’s worth noting that our allies in the Maryland Rural Counties Coalition aren’t forgetting that fact. A six-page letter from the legal firm Funk & Bolton outlines some of the study behind these assertions, contending that spending billions of dollars local governments don’t have to address only a small portion of the problem is a fool’s errand at best.

So what happens if Cecil County doesn’t send in a map for approval? The law as written basically tells them they can’t approve anything beyond a “minor” subdivision unless it is on a public sewer system. Of course, subdividing the county into tiers would place large areas off limits anyhow so in all honesty there’s not a big difference either way.

Unfortunately, it’s not likely we’ll see this law repealed anytime soon and no court in Maryland has the balls to tell Martin O’Malley and his environmentalist wacko allies to go pound sand. The only way that might happen is for an aggrieved party, such as a farmer stuck in a Tier 4 area who wants to develop his land, to take the state to court. But that farmer would need some deep pockets to fight the state and if he can’t do as he wishes with his property it’s not likely the financial wherewithal is there to fight.

As Maryland counties go, Cecil County is perhaps the closest match to Wicomico County. Yet it strikes me as odd that they have a TEA Party movement which is much farther along than ours, even though our County Council is a supermajority Republican one like theirs is. The key difference is that they just elected a Republican county executive, who will begin her new job next year. We’ll see how that affects our friends up the Shore, but I suspect they’ll be better positioned to take advantage if our state swings to the GOP in two years.

Trying to shed the tiers

Last spring environmental advocates claimed a victory with the passage of SB236. While it was dubbed the “Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act of 2012,” the reality is that for most rural areas of Maryland it will do neither.

But radical environmentalists like the 1000 Friends of Maryland characterized SB236 and other measures in this manner:

The 2012 legislative session will be remembered as one that provided critical new tools to clean up our waters and slow rural development. (Emphasis mine.)

While a number of rural counties have debated the effects of the bill, they’ve come to the realization that the state holds the trump card. That wasn’t lost on Delegate Mike McDermott, who noted shortly after the bill’s passage last spring:

(The bill) is a far cry from preserving agriculture and farming in Maryland. This is the great land grab by Maryland – hurting farmers in the name of preserving them.

It is reasonable to draw conclusions from this bill that this spells the end of rural development in Maryland. It will devalue farmland and place farmers who must borrow against their land for the next planting season to have land that is not worth anywhere near what it is in today’s market. This destructive bill is the camel’s nose under the tent.

This view is shared by a growing number of those aware of the insidious effect of government, especially in Cecil County. Their Campaign for Liberty group echoed McDermott’s remarks:

Senate Bill 236 (Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act of 2012) requires all counties to adopt a “tier map” that will severely limit future development. It is part of Governor O’Malley’s “Plan Maryland” legislation and the U.N. ‘s Agenda 21 program. SB236 will infringe on private property rights, decrease property values, and cause property taxes to go up.

Yet the state is also planning another route of attack on rural development, as a recent meeting in Wicomico County suggests. The September 2012 Growth Offset Policy Meeting was attended by several in the local TEA Party along with area planners and environmental groups, which may have been the target audience because the meeting was held during the day when most private-sector people work. It outlined a plan by the state to reduce nitrogen loads in Chesapeake Bay via a state-imposed nutrient cap. Of course, that cap is always subject to change, and the costs will be borne by the private sector but collected by a government agency which will obviously take their cut.

But we don’t know what their cut will be, nor do they. One meeting attendee related the following:

When I asked them how many additional state employees they were going to need to administer this program, they had no answer.  When I asked how they were going to regulate such an obvious moneymaking, ripe for fraud scheme, they acknowledged it was a problem, but they had no answer.  When others asked how the farmers were going to be able to finance their operations due to reduced land value to borrow against, they had no answer.  When the NGOs asked how they could make money off this by cleaning up a stream and claiming the credits, they weren’t sure, but the greed was evident in every NGO there.  When I asked how a developer could be sure that his credits that he purchased would be good from year to year (what if the farmer didn’t do a good job and they took his credits away from him?)…would the new homeowner be responsible for getting new credits???  How long did you have to buy credits for?  (they thought maybe 30 years for a house).  Everything was said with the caveat that it might change….

The sentence about how the NGOs could make money off this was telling – no one’s paying a farmer to clean a stream, but these advocacy groups look to make a mint. And the state of Maryland will only be only too happy to hand it over to them by taking it from a farmer or job creator.

Worth noting as well is that the Growth Offset Policy Meeting was organized by the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology and given “generous support” by the notoriously radical Town Creek Foundation, which is “dedicated to a sustainable environment.” “Sustainable” is a code word for controlled.

Yet the state of Maryland may not necessarily be the beneficiary. It may be but a serf to a United Nations master, according to this group which opposes the UN’s Agenda 21. They continue an evolution which has seen the doctrine of one’s home being their castle forfeited to county control through zoning, the subsequent loss of county power to the states, the states losing their grip on local issues to the federal government, and finally nations ceding sovereignty to a world government called the United Nations.

Step one of that evolution was pointed out in the Cecil County Campaign for Liberty’s critique of the bill. If rural land is devalued, it indeed reduces the landowner’s net worth at a greater rate than his property taxes went down – remember, in Maryland assessed land values are only set every three years so the farmer pays on a higher value at the higher property tax rate set when overall land valuation declines (as it will) but a county maintains constant yield. Of course, this is the secondary effect of the county doing the state’s bidding.

But rather than meekly submit to the request of Annapolis, some of Maryland’s rural counties are fighting the state. Late last year four counties formed the Maryland Rural Counties Coalition. What began in western Maryland has spread eastward, with Wicomico County tardily joining the fold a week ago and bringing the total membership to nine. Members are geographically spread across the state, with the original four in the west, Cecil County bridging the gap between shores, and four counties on the Eastern Shore (Caroline, Dorchester, Somerset, and Wicomico.)

Yet not all counties are taking their membership seriously. For example, Wicomico County Executive Rick Pollitt is quoted as wanting to “make it clear that the coalition doesn’t oppose Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley or any of the state initiatives.” Maybe he should, considering the state is trying to usurp local control which has served us well for decades. Pollitt will probably be the weakest link on a body which was spearheaded in part by Frederick County Commission head (and 2014 gubernatorial candidate) Blaine Young.

But the toothless Republicans on our County Council might just play along, warned my friend:

It seems that if each county would just designate the preserve land as Tier IV, that would be sufficient.  All the law requires is that the county designate four tiers.  Wicomico is looking at designating all agricultural land Tier IV.  We need to dissuade them.  Do the minimum and fight the state…but can we get our Republican councilmen (6 vs. 1 Dem) to do the right thing?  Plus our county executive is a Democrat and a big spending liberal.

Personally, I’d put everything in the least restrictive tiers and dare the state to stop us. Someone needs to tell those Annapolis bullies to pound sand and we’re just the county to do it – if a few people get the stones to do so.

I think those of us who live in Wicomico County are bright enough to realize that there is land which can and should be preserved as agricultural area because it’s not suited for growth. But that decision should be made locally and in such a manner that when things change – as they always do – we have the flexibility to adapt rather than be tied down because someone in Annapolis (or Washington, or at the United Nations) thought we should place thousands of acres off-limits to development because they feel it would be nice to construct a wildlife corridor down the Eastern Shore.

If an area doesn’t grow, it shrivels and dies. I like to look at old maps and ponder what happened to villages such as those I grew up around in Ohio: towns like Ai (yes, that’s the name), Lytton, Whitesville, Seward, and many other specks on the map were once prosperous enough to be considered a town but somewhere along the line something changed. Perhaps the railroad chose a different route, or the major highway passed them by. In many cases, business and industry failed or departed for greener pastures.

Essentially, the glue which holds the bulk of the Eastern Shore together comes from the products of farmers and watermen. Yet those who run our state continue to make life more and more miserable for them with the only question being whether this effort is a subconscious one, or purely intentional with the aim to conform our little slice of the world with their dream of control over our lives.

Consider that much of the problem with Chesapeake Bay – aside from the fact we’re dealing with a group which will move the goalposts if we ever approach their idea of cleanliness in order to continue their reason for being – comes from those urban areas these environmentalist do-gooders want us to emulate, and it makes me wonder why they want the rest of us to live that way.