Libertarian Party of Montgomery County
Promoting liberty throughout the Greater Dayton area and the Miami Valley
Government officials should not be allowed to escape liability for constitutional violations by relying on the bogus, judicially invented doctrine of qualified immunity.
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/28/qualified-immunity-meets-the-takings-clause/
I think there can be good faith arguments on either side. My issue is less with the 60% and moreso against increasing signature requirements and eliminating the 10 day cure period. This will just ensure that only mega special interests will be able to put anything on the ballot in the first place.
Dustin Nanna, Libertarian Party of Ohio Executive Committee Chair
The requirement to get 5% of electors to sign petitions in all 88 counties and eliminating the 10 day period where additional signatures could be turned in, is going to make it far more expensive and difficult to get something ON the ballot. Not to mention this whole “protect the Ohio Constitution from ‘outside influence’” is a joke as the push for this issue to be put on the ballot and the YES campaign is being funded by an Illinois MAGA Pro-Life billionaire; and the legislature is violating the Ohio law by holding a special election outside of the requirements they passed into law in 2021. The ONLY reason this is coming up is because of a possible abortion ballot measure slated to be on the Nov ballot.
They’re moving the goal posts with out of state money to preemptively thwart that. Don’t like abortion, vote no on THAT issue; not yes to change the rules that will prevent Ohioans from initiating something the legislature won’t do, or overturning something the legislature did. This bill gives the legislature more power.
The purpose of having a citizen ballot initiative is to let the people do something the legislature can’t or won’t do (ineffective or overbearing government). Making it harder to get something on the ballot by increasing the signature requirement from 3% to 5%, and eliminating the 10 day “soak period” is adding barriers to citizens ability to do this. It will insure that only well funded special interest groups can do it. The Ohio GOP has gerrymandered themselves into power in the state house and senate. Now they want to protect their policies or inaction by them by making it harder for the people to act. No thanks.
Derek Strelow, Libertarian Party of Ohio Executive Committee Vice Chair
I don’t have much of a problem with the 60% threshold to change the constitution. I do have a big problem with the 5% signature threshold. That is impossible to hit without paid signature gatherers, and it is roughly $4 million in cost to gather that many valid signatures. Also, passing it through on a special election is kinda a scummy move as well.
Drake Lundstrum, Libertarian Party of Ohio Executive Committee Member & Field Development Director
Why are we voting on this now after having this constitutional right for over 100 years? Why are we voting on it in a special August election that will have low turnout and cost taxpayers over $20 million? To just forget how the Ohio GOP changed the rules for our ballot access in 2013 and fail to see how now they’re changing the rules again for ALL citizens to amend our constitution, shows an unfortunate lack of understanding about what has been happening in our Statehouse for the last 10 years.
Travis Irvine, 2018 Libertarian Party Candidate for Governor & Communications Director
It’s such bullshit. I am extremely on board with the idea of making the voting threshhold to change the constitution harder, but why on Earth would anyone think it’s reasonable to make it harder to see those issues reach the ballot?
Issue 1 is probably gonna make a ballot initiative cost about $700,000+. It’s literally ripping democracy out of the hands of anyone who isn’t corporate interest.
AJ Olding, Libertarian Party of Ohio Member
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles sand organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Neither tyrants nor apologists act with integrity. Developing our character by respecting the autonomy of others is a pathway to liberty.
As Adam Smith explained so brilliantly, if the goal of economic policy is – as it should be – the achievement of prosperity as great as possible for ordinary people, mercantilism fails. It impoverishes ordinary people rather than enriches them.
Norwegian lawmakers forgot this simple lesson, and now they can do little but watch as the wealth creators in their country depart, taking with them their capital, ingenuity, and taxable income.
If you agree that local politics should be about protecting others’ liberty to become the people they want to become rather than giving you the tools to turn them into the people you want them to become, what should your city do? Here are four suggestions.
Policy makers would do better to look for ways to expand housing supply through deregulation of construction and mortgage finance than passing laws restricting who’s allowed to buy a house.
https://reason.com/2023/06/17/how-the-dutch-became-capitalists/
When a policy originally intended to compensate blacks for a long history of oppression has gradually morphed into efforts to cap the number of Asian students at selective universities, something has gone badly wrong.
San Francisco and neighboring counties were the first to impose sweeping stay‐at‐home orders at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in the US. More importantly, San Francisco and its neighbors were slower than most other population centers to relax COVID-19 restrictions.