Sunday, April 16, 2006

putting caps on election spending

Have you ever wondered why politicians will spend 20 to 30 times more money then the job actually pays?
Does it make sense for a person to spend 1 million dollars to get elected to a job that pays $35,000 annually?
Should there be spending caps placed on spending for an elected seat?

I believe there should!!!!

How else do the individuals get political power back from the politicians?
Imagine if you would a person running for office only being allowed to spend the equivalent of a years salary at that political job on their campaign?
Would other people be willing to or at least afford to be able to run a political campaign?

I would muster a guess at yes. The average person knows it cost at least 20 times more money to be elected then what they will make in a full term of their elected position.

Does the thirst for this POWER drive one to lose sanity of the obvious. In order to get this type of money into your political campaign coffers, YOU will OWE many favors to many people.
I won't be spending myself into oblivion just to get elected into the state HoR, but I can and will do my duty to state and individual just as well as the HIGH dollar candidates.
I don't believe money in campaigns does anything but make a candidate beholden to those that have filled the campaign coffers.

NFL, NBA, NHL, just about every major sporting series has spending caps in place to make the playing field more competitive. I disagree with this thought process for individual sports but it seems to work and the owners of each team have agreed to these demands and therefore it wasn't demanded of them to be compliant. Even NASCAR is limited teams to ownership of 4 cars and they are actually going to tell the teams what type of car body will be used. I'm a huge NASCAR fan and I can see how NASCAR, the sanctioning body, is starting to mirror the federal government. Be compliant or else, imagine the NFL telling teams how many of each individual position they must carry on the roster.

Sorry for the off track. I believe spending caps on campaigns would be a good idea and it would allow the individual to have more control over the elected official. An elected official can raise as much money as they want, however there would be strict guidelines on how much could be spent on a campaign depending on the position the individual is seeking.

I don't have the hardcore numbers for this idea yet but it is gathering steam inside my head.

Granted I firmly realize that the 1st amendment and the SCOTUS has ruled that spending money is the equivalent to free speech. I've also come to realize that term limits aren't defined in the Constitution and then should therefore be ruled unconstitutional.
The people of the United States need to rise up and make there voices heard.

only you can change the politics of normalcy VOTE

tom martz

Congratulations Tulsa

It appears that the city of Tulsa,OK can now go into the record books along side Washington D.C.
Yes the citizenry of the District of Criminals placed Marion Berry back into power after he had served time for cocaine possession.
The citizenry of Tulsa has elected a person that it has been proven, she voted twice during the presidential campaign of 2000. Yes my friends the Bush/Gore fiasco. Kathy Taylor, newly elected mayor of Tulsa, voted absentee for Mr. Gore in her residency state of Fl. Then she turns around and votes for Mr. Bush in her home state of OK. Could say she was making sure she had her bases covered. It is clearly against the law to cast two ballots during one election, but if you are a member of the highly maligned then these simple rules don't apply to you. Ms. Taylor won by 51% to 47%. A third party candidate came in third with 2% of the votes cast.
One could say that a Bush operative voted for Mr. Bush and then signed on the line of Ms. Taylor. Highly unlikely since Ms. Taylor lives in a rather well to do area and these types of mistakes don't happen. Being a democrat though she has certain priviledges that others of us don't have.

Most people of any decency would've recussed themselves in this matter, but one shouldn't expect this of anyone in the major two political parties, because after all they are the ruling class of American.

Mayor's Race: Voting Complaints: Taylor's eligibility being challenged
By P.J. LASSEK World Staff Writer
3/3/2006

A top campaign staffer for mayoral candidate Don McCorkell helped a Tulsa woman draft voting complaints filed Thursday at the Tulsa County Election Board against McCorkell's Democratic opponent, Kathy Taylor.

The complaints come only four days ahead of Tuesday's primary election as a Oklahoma Poll indicates McCorkell is trailing Taylor by a sizeable 22 percent margin.

Taylor's eligibility to hold the mayor's seat is being challenged because she allegedly wasn't a "qualified elector" in Tulsa at the time she filed for office because she was registered to vote in two states.

Taylor is accused of giving false information on her Tulsa County voter registration. A probe also is being sought into whether she voted twice in the 2000 presidential election.

Veretta Carter said she was told by McCorkell's campaign manager, Marvin Branham, how to write the complaints and what state laws to cite.

Branham said Carter was having trouble drafting a complaint and sought help from the McCorkell office.

"Here he goes again," Taylor said about McCorkell.

"This is just another campaign attack orchestrated by a desperate politician," she said. "My opponent seems intent on engaging in the politics of personal destruction, and I simply will not play at that level."

Tulsa County Assistant District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said any complaint must go through an investigative agency before being presented to the District Attorney's Office.

Carter said she filed the complaints because of comments that Taylor made earlier this week that "really ticked me off."

On Tuesday, McCorkell held a news conference in which he revealed records that indicated Taylor voted twice in the 2000 presidential election.

Taylor not only vehemently denied that charge, but questioned why she would jeopardize her legal career to cast a second presidential vote in Oklahoma that would not have changed the outcome of the race.

Taylor said she voted by absentee ballot in Florida and can't explain a 2000 voting-history record that indicates she voted in person in Tulsa.

Polling books that could clear up the discrepancy have been destroyed.

Tulsa County Election Board Secretary Gene Pace said that errors do occur on voter histories because of the "human factor," but he figures it is a less than 5 percent margin of error.

Oklahoma State Election Secretary Michael Clingman said there are three possibilities for how Taylor got credited for voting -- a mistake in the data transfer, another person inadvertently signed the wrong line in the polling book or Taylor voted.

Carter said she got angry when Taylor questioned why a person like herself would try to vote twice.

"I'm trying to figure out what that means, a person like her," Carter said. "Just because she has money does it make you above the law?"

Carter, a black woman, said to say that one vote wouldn't make a difference "was disrespectful. Our people have had to fight and struggle to vote."

Carter is the executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services. In 2005, the city was ordered to use taxpayer money to pay back $496,811 in Community Development Block Grant program funds that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development determined were owed by Neighborhood Housing Services.

Carter's complaint questions why Taylor didn't list Florida as her last place of residency when she registered to vote in Tulsa in January 2004. The complaint claims Taylor instead listed a former Tulsa home.

Taylor moved back to Tulsa from Florida in late 2002.

Although the three-year statute of limitations has expired on investigating whether she voted twice in 2000, the complaint seeks to have that extended to seven years because Taylor allegedly voted in Oklahoma while still being registered in Florida.

You can make a difference by Voting your conscience and not a political party.

I am the only candidate in the 139th district that will FIGHT for smaller government, spending caps, and the freedoms and liberties of the people of the state of Missouri.

to make a political contribution please make checks payable to "Vote4Tom" and send them to 334 East Kearney St. Suite #135 Springfield, MO 65803