Oregonian reporter Laura Oppenheimer, who attended Howie Rich's first annual Americans for Limited Government conference in Chicago and reported watching Rich "dance away" from the table, now has Rich's number - and his email address. Her extensive new article - featuring fascinating original research - paints a picture of a dapper but ruthless orchestrator who avoids public attention - even "chafes" at it - while "scouring" the nation for activists to carry out his "cohesive, efficient national effort" to rewrite state tax policies and property rights laws. It was through that "scouring" that he apparently found Mary Adams, who this week attacked Maine's public employees and their associations as "pigs at the trough," and Laird Maxwell, the "gadfly" who's now leaving Idaho for Arizona, but will "run things" in both states, he declares. But there's a bright spot in tonight's report, constant reader. God Himself, Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent, has announced - through a spokesman, of course - that He's opposed to Rich's so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights. I wouldn't mislead you about a thing like this.
First, Ms. Oppenheimer's opus.
Howie Rich of New York City, she writes, is an orchestrator: "the guy who pulls strings, not the one who makes speeches."
"Rich insists he's not the story. He's simply helping local reformers, and he'd rather not talk about himself," she finds in email conversation with the real estate mogul who didn't want to talk with her in Chicago. From Norman Leahy, the research director of Rich's U.S. Term Limits, an organization he co-founded to eliminate the development of institutional wisdom in government, Oppenheimer learns that Rich has a cold side: "...when people crossed him, he excised them from his circle. `Just, good-bye. Very quick and cold'," Leahy tells her here http://www.oregonlive.com/....
Leahy is one of several Rich acquaintances, former or present, that Oppenheimer found in her research. Another was Dane Waters, Rich's former national field director for U.S. Term Limits, who puts the lie to ALG's canard that Rich is merely helping state-based citizen groups who seek him out. "As national field director, Waters rounded up local activists," Oppenheimer writes. "Sometimes, they had their own ideas about how to structure and promote term limits; Rich wanted to run a cohesive, efficient national effort. Rich never forced local groups to play by his rules, Waters said, and sometimes compromised. But he offered more financial support to those that cooperated."
Guess that shoots that whole "grassroots" thing out of the water.
And for those who have wondered whether there was coordination among those various quote-unquote grassroots citizens groups who all seemed to use Susan Johnson's National Voter Outreach of Ludington, Michigan, Oppenheimer answers the question. "Part of the national strategy, several former employees say, was using a fleet of trained, professional signature-gatherers to get initiatives on the ballot," she reports.
National strategy, y'all. Do "national strategy" and "grassroots organization" go together rin your minds?
At least on the topic of term limits for lawmakers, Rich doesn't mind claiming credit for all those state ballot initiatives. "Rich touted 18 states where legislative term limits" were affected by his work. `We were involved in every single one of those. We raised the money, we got the signatures, we ran the campaigns, we had opposition'," he boasts to her.
He also reveals that his TABOR initiative is really a holdover from his Libertarian Party days: "this year's spending cap and property rights measures combine the philosophical fervor of Rich's Libertarian days with the focused, state-by-state approach of his term limits work," she says.
Underscoring the lie promoted by the Rich network's state groups, Oppenheimer writes, "Several years ago, Rich and longtime colleague Eric O'Keefe decided to go after meddling bureaucrats more broadly. They founded Americans for Limited Government and chose starter issues: government spending and property rights. Term limits and judicial reform are on the radar, too. They scoured the country for activists to help, and wound up with more than 20 initiatives."
They scoured the nation, folks. That's a far cry from just answering the telephone when folks like Laird Maxwell and Mike Groene call for help, and Mary Adams and Trevis Butcher and Rick Carpenter...
"Rich and company chafe at the attention. National groups contribute to liberal measures too, they say. Plus, dozens of leaders besides Rich -- and hundreds of local volunteers -- work on the campaigns," they insist to Oppenheimer. "But Rich is the thread that binds these initiatives. He is a founder or board member of virtually every libertarian-oriented group promoting them."
They chafe at the attention, she says. Guess they've had the mad itch this summer and fall, then, with reporters exposing them in the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, U.S.A. Today, the Arizona Republic, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Portland Press Herald, the Helena Independent Record, the News and Observer, The State, the Lewiston Sun-Journal, the Lincoln Journal Star, the Omaha World Herald, the Kennebec Journal, the St. Louis Dispatch, the Forecaster, the Register-Guard, the Mountain Express, the Billings Gazette, the Boise Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, and High Country News. Not to mention a few webloggers here and there.
O, Lord.
No, literally: O, Lord.
Wasn't it Abraham Lincoln who said that "if God is fer us, who can be ag'in us?" Maybe not, but the fact remains that Maine's own Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Malone - voice of His Holiness and His Eminence the Pope, who is himself the voice of God Almighty on Terra Firma (at least to those who believe in God Almighty and are Roman Catholic) - has put forth his staff and parted Maine into one camp that is for TABOR and another camp that is for God's own inscrutable and unquestionable, holy and precious Word. And the two are not the same, so woe betides him standing in the wrong spot.
If I were the bright folks at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, I might invest in lightning rods.
His Holiness told reporter Trever Maxwell here http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/... "I personally have too many doubts and concerns about the short- and long-term effects on the people of the state of Maine, and must therefore vote no."
Ahem. Maxwell tells us too that "supporters of the proposal expressed frustration that they weren't consulted by the bishop." Mary Adams comes right out and says "she wishes Malone had spoken to her before announcing his decision," according to WCSH producer Matt Bush here http://www.wcsh6.com/....
"Consulted by the bishop," they say. As if God should've "consulted" Rameses when Egypt was troubled by the horrible asp. As if the Creator should've "consulted" Pharoah about when might be most convenient to unleash the locusts and boils. Or maybe Moses should've "consulted" the heathens and harlots building their golden tribute to Baal before he `scribed the clay tablets up the hill. Take heart: There's still time for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to "consult" those offended souls bringing TABOR to the altar before the lamb breaks the seventh seal. You know, neither a jot nor a tittle, and all that.
"Malone reviewed arguments for and against TABOR, then based his opinion on Catholic teaching, especially the commitment to the poor. He is concerned that TABOR could erode social services that act as a safety net for society's most vulnerable," Maxwell reports.
TABOR spokesman Roy Lenardson tosses the poor a bone, too, he says. Well, Maxwell put it more politely: "Roy Lenardson, spokesman for the pro-TABOR campaign, said he shares the concerns about the poor."
Hmm. Bishop Malone cares for the poor and take a principled stand in their defense. Lenardson cares for the poor but supports TABOR, and he even tells Maxwell that he and his family are Catholic. This is a toughie, to be sure. If it were me, I'd wonder if TABOR was worth gambling the eternal placement of my name in the Book of Life...
Taking that principled stand against TABOR may have put His Holiness in the line of Mary Adams's rhetorical fire. She fired at Maine's public employees at both barrels today, denouncing them as "pigs at the trough" after they withdrew members' funds from their national headquarters to fight the measure. She spared no Mainer's feelings: "We knew the unions and special interests were going to throw their weight against us. These groups are commonly referred to as 'pigs at the trough' by Maine's hard-pressed taxpayers," she told reporter Victoria Wallack here http://www.timesrecord.com/....
Funding to oppose TABOR in Maine has come from Mainers who are members of the Maine Municipal Association, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and the National Education Association. That means the "pigs at the trough" denounced by Adams includes every imaginable sort of Maine's taxpaying public employees, from law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel to teachers, school nurses and cafeteria workers to the employees of the local health department, the sanitation department, the division of motor vehicles and the food safety inspectors, to name a few.
That's a lot of folks, Ms. Adams. Did you really mean to throw mud at all those Mainers just to promote TABOR? Even Chandler Woodcock himself isn't that steadfast a supporter of your TABOR; he's said publicly that he "wouldn't tinker too much with the voting process," which is the whole backbone of your and Howie Rich's proposal.
"Pigs," Ms. Adams? "Pigs"?
How about students with exceptional needs? Are they "pigs at the trough" too?
I doubt Gene MacDonald thinks they are. He's the administrator of the Southern Penobscot Regional Program for Children with Exceptionalities on behalf of the southern Penobscot region's superintendents, special-education directors and school board members who serve as directors of the Southern Penobscot Regional Program for Children with Exceptionalities, so he knows a little bit about the needs of these kids. And he has announced his opposition to TABOR out of concern for their needs.
"Special-needs students in grades pre-kindergarten to 12 receive services through local education budgets supported by local property taxes and state funding raised primarily from income taxes," he writes here http://bangordailynews.com/.... "For every student identified as needing them, special educational services are mandated by both federal laws (PL93-122 section 504, PL94-142, and PL100-476) and state laws (Title 20-A, Part 4, Subpart 1) and therefore cannot be reduced by the expenditure caps proposed in the TABOR referendum question. Because TABOR cannot directly affect special education, the effect of TABOR expenditure limits is magnified for all other expenses including regular education, other municipal and state expenses."
Gives one pause, doesn't it, considering the explosive growth in diagnoses of autism alone in Maine and elsewhere?
"School superintendents carry the responsibility for the educational welfare of the child in need of special services. Special education does improve student achievement. The restrictions of TABOR on municipal spending are not applied with due consideration to the benefits of that spending," MacDonald says. "The voters have always had, and should retain the right to vote (with equal weight) on the balance of spending and societal value. TABOR should be rejected."
Doesn't sound like a lot of random oinking to me. Sounds like kids with special needs - and their parents - have reason to worry about TABOR.
And I bet soon-to-be former Clinton town manager Dale Morris doesn't think of himself as a "pig at the trough." In fact, Morris's job may be TABOR's first casualty. He announced his resignation this week, effective at the end of January, and told town leaders and reporter Doug Harlow here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/... that "the prospect of passage of the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights or TABOR, also factored into his decision to step down. He said TABOR, which he said the Clinton Board of Selectmen officially opposes, will add work, time and stress to the job and would take more time away from his family."
Mainer Joseph Reisert is almost seduced by the promise of TABOR, until he puts pencil to paper and works a little `rithmetic. Cut Maine's property taxes? Sure! "Unfortunately, TABOR won't make it happen," he concludes here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... "Limiting expenditures is easy in theory, but hard to do in practice. Anyone who has ever had to cut their own personal spending knows that there are only two options: buy less stuff, or spend less for the stuff you buy. Our state and local governments have exactly the same two options. They can either support fewer programs, or find ways to continue the same old programs, but manage them more efficiently. Deciding what to live without is hard, and finding ways to make government more efficient is even harder."
"There is a way to limit the growth of government expenditures, and ultimately to lower our taxes, but it is not by commanding officials to meet some arbitrary spending target," Reisert writes. "Government expenditures will be restrained, and taxes will fall only when we give our leaders the right incentives by rewarding them with our votes for spending our money prudently and voting against them when they spend too much. If we don't do that, TABOR won't help; if we do, it won't be necessary."
From Maine, let's head west tonight to Nebraska, where a whole `nother organization has formed to oppose TABOR in Nebraska, writes reporter Nancy Hicks here http://www.journalstar.com/... this one made of the Cornhusker business and agricultural community, namely the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, the Nebraska Farm Bureau and the Nebraska Realtors Association.
What do you suppose the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce knows that the Maine Chamber hasn't picked up on yet? "Members of both coalitions believe one likely result of the proposed spending lid would be increased property taxes, said Rob Robertson of Roca, a vice president with the Nebraska Farm Bureau."
Hicks tells us, "The small business and taxpayers represented by the coalition believe in spending restraint, said Barry Kennedy of Lincoln, president of the Nebraska chamber. But the spending controls should not be locked into the constitution, he said."
Do you wonder if Mary Adams would call Nebraska's small businessmen, realtors and farmers just more "pigs at the trough"? And do you wonder if Adams would be incensed about all the out-of-state money flowing into Nebraska? Hicks tells us here where it comes from: "Almost all the money raised by the two pro-lid groups has come from two groups with ties to Howard Rich, a wealthy New York real estate investor. The two groups, Americans for Limited Government and Fund for Democracy, also have helped pay for spending lid petition drives in other states."
"Nebraskans Against 423, which began work this summer, reported raising more than $672,000 from its member organizations and individuals," Hicks reports. "The biggest donors have been the League of Nebraska Municipalities (representing cities), $115,575; the Nebraska State Education Association, $119,616; and national AARP, $122,184. The coalition has spent more than $662,000, primarily on an educational campaign."
Hmm. Mayors, teachers and the elderly, just more "pigs at the trough"?
Arizonans are taking note of Howie Rich, by the way, and none too soon since Laird Maxwell is on the way to Sun Country. Pima County Columnist Jim Nintzel writes here http://www.tucsonweekly.com/... that Rich's "taking" ballot measure is "such a bad idea that even the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce came out against it last week, along with members of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, neighborhood associations and conservation groups. The opponents all argued that the prop will hamstring planning efforts and could even threaten our recently passed regional transportation plan."
"The whole effort is being funded by a New York City bazillionaire named Howard Rich, who is behind a front group called Americans for Limited Government. Rich is funding efforts like this--as well as bad ideas like initiatives that artificially limit government budget growth--across the country, but he lets his money do the talking and avoids the media. Still, some intrepid journalists have managed to dig into how his cash is buying off voters. Want to know more? Check out a whole bunch of stories compiled at www.howierichexposed.com."
And editorialist Eric de Place, writing here http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/... advises Arizonans to check out Oregon's experience. "The details differ from place to place, but they all operate on the same basic principle: If we want property owners to obey the law, then we should pay them. And if we can't afford to pay them, then we should give them a free pass from the law."
He explains, "Marching under the banner of `property rights' a group of well-funded activists - especially Americans For Limited Government, from Chicago, and Howard Rich, a New York developer - are backing the six ballot measures. They're hoping that Westerners don't get wise to their racket that would gut protections for property owners and leave communities at the mercy of government by developers - essentially without a say in their own future."
Speaking of getting wise to the racket, Laird Maxwell may be leaving Idaho after Election Day because "Idaho's gone liberal," as he told reporter Shea Andersen, but that doesn't mean Idahoans will be shed of him. "I'll still run stuff up here too," he tells Betsy Russell of Eye on Boise here http://spokesmanreview.com/.... Sounds like his new job - mentioned but specifically unidentified - in Arizona will give him plenty of time to meddle in the state he won't call home anymore. "I've already got work down there - same kind of stuff, fight for limited government," he tells Russell.
Nice of him to give Arizonans fair warning like that.
Apparently, Russell knows him well. She describes him as "the man behind everything from the last-minute anonymous phone calls smearing Boise mayoral candidate Chuck Winder, to attack ads against Supreme Court Justice Linda Copple Trout when she was seeking re-election, to a round of nasty phone calls targeting Sandpoint Sen. Shawn Keough over gay marriage."
The editors of the Mountain Express aren't as convinced of Maxwell's identity. "Will the real Laird Maxwell, political gadfly and peripatetic champion of tax cuts, please stand up? He seems confused about his missions," they write here http://www.mtexpress.com/.... "As the one-man operator of Boise-based Idahoans for Tax Reform, Maxwell would have us believe he's taken a blood oath to transform Idaho into `the lowest taxed ... state in the nation.' But then there is Laird Maxwell wearing another of his hats, as the brains of `This House is My Home,' demanding the Blaine County School District spend upwards of $70,000 in personnel time, equipment and supplies looking for and providing any e-mails for the past two years that might--repeat, might--mention two November ballot propositions."
They're disgusted with Maxwell's wild goose chase - at taxpayer expense - for imaginary emails between public employees about ballot measures. "Maxwell does not come to this issue with pure intentions," they say.
"His new group...is the Idaho front group for campaigns with various names in 12 states, funded with millions of dollars from New York real estate magnate Howard Rich, to cripple local planning and zoning powers. The Idaho device is Proposition 2, flying under false colors of merely controlling eminent domain condemnation powers. It is, in fact, a resurrected old `property takings' gambit with clever new wording to penalize public boards for property rezoning," they explain.
"The demand for the e-mails is being sent to other Idaho counties in hopes someone will buckle. The objective: to show that public officials may have conducted organized stealth campaigns to defeat his Prop 2 and support Prop 1. Maxwell's evidence? Not a shred. Hence the demand that taxpayers finance rummaging of the electronic files in hopes of finding proof to support his suspicions."
The Mountain Express editors have a solution of their own to propose: "Let Maxwell and his moneyed millionaire New York partner in the Prop 2 scheme shoulder the costs of a wild goose chase for e-mails. Frugal Blaine County schools need their limited funds for education, not pampering the ego of a gadfly."
Credit where it's due, constant reader:
ARIZONA
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/...
Columnist Jim Nintzel, "Speaking of initiatives that are the wrong answer"
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/...
Columnist Eric de Place, "Prop. 207 supporters should ask how Oregon's 37 measures up"
IDAHO
http://spokesmanreview.com/...
Reporter Betsy Russell, "Laird Maxwell -- The Man Behind Proposition 2"
http://www.mtexpress.com/...
Editors, "Gadfly's e-mail finishing just commonplace harassment"
MAINE
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Columnist Joseph R. Reisert, "TABOR doesn't create incentives for real change"
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Trevor Maxwell, "Bishop announces opposition to TABOR"
http://bangordailynews.com/...
Columnist Gene MacDonald, "Students with exceptionalities, and TABOR"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Doug Harlow, "Town manager to resign post"
http://www.timesrecord.com/...
Reporter Victoria Wallack, "TABOR advocate Mary Adams decries 'pigs at the trough' out-of-state money "
http://www.wcsh6.com/...
Producer Matt Bush, "Leader Of Maine's Roman Catholics To Vote Against TABOR"
NEBRASKA
http://www.journalstar.com/...
Reporter Nancy Hicks, "Business-ag coalition forms to oppose spending lid"
OREGON
http://www.oregonlive.com/...
Reporter Nancy Hicks, "Meet the money behind the measures: New Yorker Howard Rich hates big government and the spotlight"