April 30, 2006

TEA Avoids Facts, Refuses Debate on Vital Issue

Kay Brooks alerted me via email that the Tennessee Education Association didn't much like this post of mine over at the Bryson for Governor blog. In that post I pointed out several factual errors and misrepresentations in a previous TEA article urging teachers to oppose state Sen. Jim Bryson's proposed amendment to reform the state constitution's existing cap on the annual growth of the state budget.

In the April 28 edition of the TEA's weekly Legislative Report, which you can access here until next week's is posted, the TEA says it "begs to disagree" with my article, but then fails to show a single instance of how I was wrong.

Instead of debating the issue, the TEA Legislative Report editor launches a personal attack on me, and attempts to cloud the issue by stating that my website "contains links to a number of arch conservative political groups including the anti-public education Home School Defense Association."

The organization the TEA referred to is actually the Home School Legal Defense Association. The HSLDA exists to defend the legal and constitutional rights of parents who chose to educate their children at home rather than in the government-run schools - it's mission does not involve opposition to public education per se. The HSLDA is dedicated to preserving the parental right to choose home-schooling. Perhaps the TEA is opposed to anyone defending those rights, I don't know. But that's a side issue.

The main issue involves Senate Joint Resolution 629, which is still pending on the agenda of the state Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee.

On that subject, the TEA said this:

In referring to TEA, Hobbs states in his "blog" that "they are not telling anything resembling the truth." We beg to disagree! The proposed resolution contains the following language, "In no fiscal year shall expenditures of state tax revenues exceed the Constitutional Spending Limitation unless the General Assembly shall enact, by a two-thirds majority of the total membership of each house, a law setting forth the dollar amount and the rate by which the limit will be exceeded during such fiscal year and containing no other subject matter."

I thought the TEA - which describes itself on its website as "an organization that advocates learning without limits," would not seek to limit what its members might learn about Senate Joint Resolution 629, and might actually favor the free and open exchange of ideas and points of view on the issue. But I was mistaken - apparently the TEA prefers merely to lecture its members with a one-sided and inaccurate message and then shut down debate.

If you are a Tennessee public school teacher and TEA member - and I suspect many will find their way here thanks to the publicity in the TEA Legislative Report - well, you deserve better than what the TEA is offering you on this issue.

So, I am republishing below the article that took issue with and identified the key factual errors and misrepresentations in the TEA's original article.

Also, if you are a TEA member who doesn't support the TEA's big-taxes/big-government/pro-state-income tax political agenda and thinks that reforming the state constitution's broken spending growth cap makes sense - and you have access to the TEA's membership email address list - please email that entire list the link to this post.

Here is the original post published April 24 that the TEA didn't like:

TEA Misrepresents Bryson's Spending Control Amendment
The Tennessee Education Association - the statewide teachers union - is attacking state Sen. Jim Bryson's proposed constitutional amendment to fix the constitution's existing cap on the annual growth of the state budget. Unfortunately, the attack, titled TABOR Resolution Could Put "Straitjacket" on Education Funds, is laced with misrepresentations and lies. First, the text of the attack, and then the facts:

A resolution is before the Senate Finance Committee which calls for a constitutional limitation on state expenditures. SJR 629 calls for amending Article II, Section 24 of the Constitution of Tennessee. A portion of the language to be added reads: "In no fiscal year shall expenditures of state tax revenues exceed the Constitutional Spending Limitation unless the General Assembly shall enact, by a two-thirds majority of the total membership of each house, a law setting forth the dollar amount and the rate by which the limit will be exceeded during such fiscal year and containing no other subject matter." It continues to state that "Constitutional Spending Limitation" and "spending limit" means total state tax revenue expenditures for the base year, as adjusted to cumulatively reflect the estimated rate of growth in per capita personal income of Tennesseans for each fiscal year following the base year.

Since Tennessee is already near the bottom of most rankings in investing in education, such a constitutional cap on spending would be severely limiting and irresponsible. SJR 629 is largely modeled after the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) which was enacted in Colorado in 1991. The 1991 provision had such a negative impact that Colorado voters last year suspended several key provisions of the amendment. SJR 629 is sponsored by Sen. Jim Bryson (R-Franklin) who recently announced that he would seek the Republican nomination to oppose Governor Phil Bredesen in this year's election. The resolution is scheduled for a vote in the Senate Finance, Ways & Means Committee on Tuesday, April 25. TEA members are urged to contact senators on the Finance Committee and ask that they vote "NO" on SJR 629. The message should be that SJR 629 would place a "straitjacket" on the funding of essential state services, including public education. It would tie the hands of future legislatures in attempting to address the changing needs of state government.

The TEA says, "SJR 629 is largely modeled after the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) which was enacted in Colorado in 1991. The 1991 provision had such a negative impact that Colorado voters last year suspended several key provisions of the amendment. "

Not true.

A side-by-side comparison of SJR 629 and Colorado's Taxpayers Bill of Rights shows that the two share almost no similarities.

Colorado's TABOR is an extensive and complex constitutional provision that affects not just the growth of the state budget but also tax increases, creation of new taxes, and increases in bond debt - at both the state and the county and city level. And Colorado's TABOR requires voter approval in referenda for any spending over the year-over-year growth cap, for any tax increase, for any new tax, and for any increase in bond debt.

By contrast, SJR 629 really only does three things:

- It changes the Tennessee constitution's existing cap on the annual growth of the state budget to allow it to be broken only if two-thirds of the legislature approves, rather than the current simple-majority vote.
- It puts unspent surplus funds in the state's rainy day fund.
- Once the rainy day fund reaches a set target, additional surpluses go to reducing the state sales tax.

In short, when the TEA says SJR 629 is "largely modeled after" Colorado's provision, they are not telling anything even resembling the truth.

The TEA compounds the deception by claiming that Colorado's TABOR had "a negative impact" on Colorado's state budget, leading voters there to "suspend" TABOR in a recent election. In a related comment,, TEA asserts SJR 629 would place a "straitjacket" on the funding of public education and "would tie the hands of future legislatures in attempting to address the changing needs of state government."

None of that is true.

A decade ago, a few years after adopting TABOR, Colorado voters approved "Amendment 23, which exempted public education from the TABOR cap, and in fact required funding for public education to grow faster than the rest of the state budget. It was that decision which made Colorado's budgetary position increasingly untenable. A few months ago, Colorado voters approved a plan to break the TABOR limits for five years, in order to "catch up" on the spending cuts caused by that state's education lobby's insatiable lust for tax dollars.

SJR 629 would not put a "straitjacket" on education funding, nor would it accelerate funding one priority over another. Nor would it "tie the hands" of future legislatures, as they could override the spending cap with a two-thirds vote.

And, unlike Colorado's TABOR, SJR 629 would not permit voters to throw a monkey wrench into the orderly budget growth formula by singling out any one program for special - and fiscally reckless - extra growth. However, under SJR 629, the legislature could choose to make public education a priority - or health care or fill-in-the-blank - and could choose to override the spending cap by a two-thirds majority vote.

With SJR 629 in place, in fact, the TEA would have a powerful new tool to encourage legislators to cut out wasteful and unnecessary spending, in order to shift more resources to education. In recent years, various state budgets have spent money building golf courses in the middle of nowhere, and funding fraternity houses at East Tennessee State University and Middle Tennessee State University, for example.

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research's recently released Tennessee Pork Report identified more than $274 million in wasteful spending by state government, including

- $7 million in arts funding, including $34,500 for the Nashville Film Festival, which screened films such as "Lipstick and Dynamite: The First
Ladies of Wrestling"
- $784,205 to provide TennCare benefits to dead people
- $700,000 to throw a party for visiting state legislators during an upcoming meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures
- $436,590 in taxpayer subsidies to state-owned golf courses
- $5,400 to rename the Tipton County armory the "Speaker Jimmy Naifeh National Guard Armory"

The TEA has helpfully listed all of the members of the Senate Finance Committee on this web page. [Editor's note - the page is not archived. For a list of Finance Committee members, click here.] Five of the committee's 11 members are co-sponsors of SJR 629. The committee chairman, state Sen. Doug Henry, isn't a co-sponsor. The Committee is scheduled to vote on SJR 629 on Wednesday April 25. You are urged to call the members of the committee, especially Sen. Henry, and urge they approve SJR 629.

16 senators are co-sponsoring SJR 629, which would need 17 votes to pass the full Senate if it survives the committee process. The co-sponsors are senators Bryson, Person, Black, Finney, Woodson, Southerland, Ketron, Tracy, McLeary, McNally, Norris, Beavers, Ramsey, Burchett, Williams and Miller. The members names in bold are members of the Finance Committee. You can find contact information for all senators here.

There's more on SJR 629 here. You can read the legislation here. And I wrote a research paper on the history of the state constitution's spending control provision, and its ineffectiveness, which you can read here.

UPDATE: SJR 629, the subject of this post, was discussed in the April 25 meeting of the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee, but no vote was taken and it was rolled to next week's committee meeting.

P.S. If you are looking for a good resource for information about home-education in Tennessee - including the laws which, if you favor them being upheld, the TEA Legislative Report editor says you're "anti-public education" - you should check out TNHomeEd.com.

UPDATE: Welcome readers from Instapundit. All 3,000 of you so far...

Sick Politics

State Rep. Stacey Campfield has an excellent commentary on the gamble legislators are being asked to take with the governor's proposed "Cover Tennessee" healthcare plan.

The governor's Cover Tennessee plan is in jeopardy. Not because of Republicans, but because of bad planning and a rush to get a new health care plan on the market before election time rolls around. If the plan is not accepted, just as well, the blame can be shifted to republicans and that will get the governor out from under his "I promise to fix TennCare" rock.

Cover Tennessee has some good in it. ... Other parts seem slapped together similar to how we got into the TennCare mess in the first place. One bad part is no firm funding for the plan after the first few years (See pre K, The football stadium and most of the other plans the gov. has implemented previous to his moving on to higher office.) Nothing is as permanent or guaranteed to grow as quickly as a government program. No firm funding equates into a tax increase down the road.

The topper to me though has got to be how the governor wants legislators to sign off on a the key part of the plan that neither we nor he has even seen!! Yes... You heard me right. No one knows what we will get if we sign off and give the gov. the money to do the plan.

Dismal

The Center for Public Integrity's latest ranking of the states on their disclosure laws governing elected officials are out and Tennessee still ranks dismally low. The Tennessean has a good editorial today on why the state legislature didn't do enough to raise the ethical bar for itself. Here's an example they didn't cite but could have of a legislator voting in his family's best economic interest instead of yours.

April 29, 2006

Cleaning Up Voting In Mempis:

Sickened by voter fraud in Memphis and the failure of the Shelby County Election Commission to do its job properly, John Harvey has started a new website, VotingInMemphis.com, to push for reform. Harvey's the guy who first found proof that voters who didn't live in state senate district 29 had voted in the special election which resulted in Democrat Ophelia Ford, sister of corrupt ex-state Sen. John Ford and aunt of current U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., winning by a 13-vote margin. Her election was recently voided by the state Senate, which declared its results "incurably uncertain." You can read Harvey's press release in the extended portion of this post.

Today I am announcing a new website and blog that I have created for the express purpose of getting citizens of Shelby County involved fixing the election process. The local election commission has failed the citizens of Shelby County.

I guess I got all this started by first identifying voters who didn't live in the district of the Special Election in Senate district 29. Then I found the felons who were voting, the vacant lots, the 1300+ voters who had two voters registrations, the 10,000 deceased voters who were still on the rolls and then the news media picked up the story and found “dead voters” in the special election and many other problems.

This investigation should never have occurred. I should not have had to undertake this project, because the election commission should have done their job and removed any possibility that these things could have happened. Since I did uncover this mess, I do plan to try to make sure it gets fixed. I don't think fixing this problem will require wasting tax dollars, and I also don't think the local politicians need to be driving the process. They have had ample time to get started, yet have failed to take action.

Today I am sending a letter to each member of the State Election Commission asking they remove all the members of our Shelby County Election Commission and the executive director for failure to perform their duties. Whether the problem is incompetence or unwillingness or some other reason, it MUST be fixed. I ask every citizen of Shelby County to visit my website at www.votinginmemphis.com to see the letter I am sending to the State Election Commission and to sign up to help solve this problem. This problem isn't a partisan problem. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and any other person who votes is effected by this system. The difference between our country and a communist country is the vote. The sanctity of the vote must be ensured!

John Harvey
www.votinginmemphis.com

April 28, 2006

Blog Britannia

Here's an interesting report from London from Reuters:

Citizen journalism climbing up the media ladder
Videos shot in smoke-filled, bombed-out London underground trains, photos of body-strewn roads -- the July 7 bombings on London's transport system brought the arrival of a new advance guard of amateur reporters. Media commentators described it as a sea-change in journalism as mobile phone photographers, text messagers and bloggers dominated initial coverage of the bombings that claimed lives of 52 commuters.

But while those momentous events raised public awareness of how eyewitness-generated content can dominate the mainstream media's initial coverage of a big story, citizen journalism is still trying to establish itself, analysts said. "It hasn't got a proper foothold here yet -- citizen journalism hasn't carved out a niche for itself like in the United States," Roy Greenslade, a professor of journalism at City University and former editor of the Daily Mirror, told Reuters.

But more and more news reports in the "old media" have taken their lead from submissions by ordinary citizens and a new wave of political bloggers is challenging media commentators. "It helps us tell the story truthfully and accurately," said BBC Interactivity Editor Vicky Taylor, referring to the BBC's use of images sent in by witnesses of the London bombings.

In the United States, the fastest-growing area of citizen journalism is the so-called "hyper-local" coverage of high-school sports or petty neighbourhood crime, usually too small even for local newspapers. That trend is also shaping up in Britain. "I expect citizen journalism to really take off at regional and local level: citizens reporting about what goes on in their area, on their street," Greenslade said.

The Press Gazette, a magazine dedicated to journalism, is leading the charge in honouring the best in citizen journalism for the first time with its Citizen Journalism Awards, to be announced on July 14. Among the entries are photographs and films of a local pub siege and of a local teenager being threatened by a knife-wielding man.

Meanwhile, back across the pond from Britain, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has a good column on blogs<.

Lance Dutson Update

Ed Cone has more on Lance Dutson, the Maine blogger who is being sued by an ad agency, with several good links. A few days ago, almost no one had ever heard of "Warren Kremer Paino Advertising." Now, they're known across the Internet as a not-very-bright ad firm that is trying to silence a critic under a barrage of lawyers, and seems not to understand that opinion is protected by the First Amendment.

Personal Interest

A reader tipped me via email to something that happened in the state legislature last Wednesday that, once again, raises ethical questions about a certain state senator and his familial ties to the cable television industry. Read on...

Senate Bill 3427, a piece of legislation that would allow municipal electric utilities expanded ability to compete with cable, thus taking away some of the cable monopoly and possibly bringing down prices, was debated on the Senate floor. The cable industry is, of course, against the legislation, for obviou$ rea$on$, and fought hard to kill it.

Despite their hard work, SB 3427 passed (although it is stalled in the House). Twenty seven senators voted for it. Only two voted against it.

One was state Sen. Kathryn Bowers, the Memphis Democrat currently under federal indictment for allegedly accepting bribes.

The other: state Sen. Curtis Person Jr., a Memphis Republican.

I have written about Sen. Person and his ties to the cable industry before. In this post from October 2005, I explored whether Sen. Person pushed legislation to benefit the cable television industry at the very same time his lobbyist son, Curtis Person III, was applying for the job of Director of State Legislative Affairs for Comcast Cable of Tennessee. And in this post from May of 2003 I explored whether Sen. Persons' son's employment as a lobbyist for another cable company might have had something to do with Sen. Person pushing hard for passage of a law that would have given the cable industry the power to control what kind of devices you hook to the cable outlet in your home so they could force you to rent their devices.

The good news: Sen. Person is retiring when his term ends at the end of this year.

The bad news: The recently passed "ethics reform" doesn't stop senators from voting on legislation in which they or their family members have a direct financial interest.

Life Goes On

I'll be speaking as part of a panel discussion at the Tennessee College Public Relations Association Spring Conference in mid-May on the topic of Blogs, Podcasting, RSS and Web Video in Higher Education PR. Also on the panel: Melanie Moran, Assistant Director of Web Communications with Vanderbilt University News Service; Kenyatta Lovett, Webmaster with Volunteer State Community College; and Steve Wilson, Web Designer with Austin Peay State University. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Sybril Bennett, executive director of the New Century Journalism program at Belmont University.

April 27, 2006

Right Then, Wrong Now

Back when Phil Bredesen was running for governor, he frequently criticized the lame-duck incumbent for having spent one-time funds to pay for recurring programs, a practice Bredesen was right to note was a fiscal mistake. Now, however, that Bredesen is proposing to spend one-time funds to pay for a new healthcare entitlement program whose costs and future long-term funding are unknown - he's not calling it a fiscal no-no. He's calling it "venture capital." But it's not venture capital...

Venture capital is money invested with the potential for reaping gains in the future. Gov. Bredesen is proposing to spend one-time money on a recurring program that may eventually cost Tennessee taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars per year. He has no long-term funding plan, and no idea of how much the program will cost.

That's no different from the stupid fiscal practices that caused the state's late-1990s budget crises and led the previous governor to propose a whopping new state income tax.

Spending one-time funds on a new recurring program surely isn't venture capital. What it is, is fiscally reckless. And that's what Gov. Bredesen would have called it four years ago when he was running for governor. He was right then, wrong now.

Citizen Journalist Hit With Lawsuit

An advertising firm that works for Maine's Office of Tourism is suing a blogger, Lance Dutson, over journalism published at the Dutson's website, Maine Web Report. The Media Bloggers Association, of which I am a board member, is fighting back. Dutson has been a big critic of the Maine Office of Tourism, and has backed his criticisms with extensive and well-reported stories published on his blog. Google News Search: Lance Dutson.

April 26, 2006

Getting It

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is launching the Knight New Media Center, a project intended to help American journalists adapt to rapid change, and to advance news values in the digital age. The Knight New Media Center will be jointly operated by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and, according to the press release, it "aims to fill two major gaps in journalism training." At UC Berkeley, the Knight New Media Center will offer customized week-long "boot camps" in multimedia reporting for traditional print and broadcast journalists. At USC, the center will offer seminars for new media journalists to learn how to better cover specialized topics.

"The Knight New Media Center will prepare journalists to succeed in the 21st Century," said Eric Newton, director of journalism initiatives for Knight Foundation, announcing the center's launch at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention in Seattle. "This initial grant is made in anticipation of great achievements and of even greater grants in the future."

I'd love to find a way to enroll in one of those week-long "boot camps" in multimedia reporting.

Reader of My Blog Named White House Press Secretary

You never know where reading BillHobbs.com might lead. Former Fox News anchor Tony Snow, a reader of this blog, has a new job: White House press secretary.

April 25, 2006

Life can be very cruel.

Terry Heaton's wife of 18 months has died, inexplicably, at age 41. By the grace of God, they will be reunited in the next life, but right now Terry needs your prayers.

Out of Control

The Bryson for Governor blog has a very good report on the spending control amendment and the lies the Tennessee Education Association is spreading about it here.

April 24, 2006

Er, No.

No, I won't be applying for this job.

April 23, 2006

Know the Score

I never have blogged much about sports, but I am a big fan of both good journalism and open records, so here's a link to an impressive database compiled by the Indianapolis Star of financial data from the athletic programs of 164 NCAA Division 1 schools. The Star gathered the data via freedom of information (FOI) requests which it sent to all 215 public universities and colleges that compete in Division 1.

That means 51 taxpayer-funded schools refused to make such financial information public. The Star also sought the same data from the 112 private colleges and universities in Division 1. Private institutions - even private universities that get federal grants and such - are not required to release such data and, not surprisingly, none did.

Of the eight NCAA Division 1 schools in Tennessee - five public and three private - only two - the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville - released the information to the Indy Star. Bloggers interested in those schools might wish to dig in to the data the Star collected.

[Thanks to Ben Cunningham for sending along the link to the database.]

Open Records Reform in Tennessee

Christian Grantham sent an email about some legislation I thought you should know about that's on tomorrow's Tennessee Senate calendar. The legislation, the "Sunshine In Government Improvement Act of 2006" (SB2471 / HB2495, affects access to public records by Tennessee citizens and media, including bloggers. Writes Grantham, "As our medium matures, Tennessee's open records laws will be a vital tool for providing bloggers access to better inform the public about the inner workings of Tennessee government."

Grantham has more info on his blog, in a post titled A Clarion Call For 'Open Records' Reform in TN Government.

Grantham, by the way, is a liberal Democrat. I'm not. We disagree on lots of things. But the need for greater openness at all levels of government is one "issue" on which bloggers on the Left, the Right or smack in the center can agree and ought to work together.

Grantham has several posts about the Sunshine In Government Improvement Act of 2006, so once you're at his blog, click the "home" button, and then read and scroll.

April 22, 2006

Q&A

Q: What is "citizen journalism"?
A: Here's a fine example of citizen journalism from Blake Wylie.

Apple v. Bloggers Update

In a case with big implications for the rights of citizen journalists, the State of California Court of Appeal "gave Apple Computer's attorney a particularly hard day in court yesterday" over its attempt to force the Internet service provider of an Apple news site to hand over the email records of bloggers it claims revealed trade secrets, reports ITWire. Apple has issued a subpoena for the records to find out who leaked the information to the bloggers.

Last year, Apple won the first round in its battle against bloggers, when it argued in the Santa Clara County Superior Court that bloggers are not real journalists and therefore should not be afforded the same rights. The judge in that case granted Apple its request to subpoena the records.

The case has created a great deal of interest from a number of aspects. One is whether online journalists, including bloggers, are real journalists and therefore should have the same rights as print journalists in protecting sources. The other is whether revealing trade secrets invalidates a journalist's right to protect sources.

April 21, 2006

The Future

This is interesting - a blogger's readers pay in advance so he can go research and write a feature story about the Trinity atomic bomb test site. [Hat tip to the Nashville City Paper's blog.] I have said before that if I could find a thousand Tennesseans who were willing to pay $10 a month for better coverage of state government then they'll ever get from their newspapers and TV, I'd be living down at Legislative Plaza...

Though I wouldn't be writing anything about bombs...

April 20, 2006

Ch...Ch...Changes

More than a year ago, I created a website, VolPols.com, to offer every member of the Tennessee legislature a free, supported, fully-functional blog site, and the requisite training to go with it. Although I made the offer repeatedly to all members of the legislature, and specifically asked several Democratic and Republican members to start blogs on the site, none did. Today, there are no more blogging Tennessee legislators than there were a year ago. State Rep. Stacey Campfield has a blog which has frequent updates. State Sen. Roy Herron has a blog which doesn't.

I will be taking VolPols.com offline but retaining the domain name while I search for another way to pursue the project, revamp it, or find a wholly different use for the domain name. Your thoughts welcomed...

I also own TennesseeVoices.com, which I intended to use for a grassroots journalism project. At this time, I won't be doing that.

As for the blog you're reading right now, BillHobbs.com, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I doubt I'll be doing much political reporting and commentary here in the near future. Right now my focus is on consulting work, specifically in the area of online public relations especially involving blogs and the blogosphere. This site may become my digital calling card on that front.

In the meantime, one link today: Randy Neal, formerly known as South Knox Bubba, has done some useful journalism about, well, the future of online journalism.

Also, I guess This explains that.

Hello

Hello. Anything happen while I have been away?

April 15, 2006

It's A Brand New Beautiful Day