A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION 1

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Spending and TaxesWhen a reform government was elected in 1984, it iden-tifi ed three problems: too much spending, too much tax-ing and too much government. The question was how to cut spending and taxes and diminish government’s role in the economy. Well, the fi rst thing you have to do in this situation is to fi gure out what you’re getting for dollars spent. Towards this end, we implemented a new policy whereby money wouldn’t simply be allocated to government agencies; instead, there would be a pur-chase contract with the senior executives of those agen-cies that clearly delineated what was expected in return for the money. Those who headed up government agen-cies were now chosen on the basis of a worldwide search and received term contracts—fi ve years with a possible extension of another three years. The only ground for their removal was non-performance, so a newly-elected government couldn’t simply throw them out as had hap-pened with civil servants under the old system. And of course, with those kinds of incentives, agency heads—like CEOs in the private sector—made certain that the next tier of people had very clear objectives that they were expected to achieve as well.

As we started to work through this process, we asked some fundamental questions of agencies. The fi rst ques-tion was, “What are you doing?” The second ques-

tion was, “What should you be doing?” Based on the answers, we then said, “Eliminate what you shouldn’t be doing.” If you are doing something that clearly is not a responsibility of the government, stop doing it. Then we asked the fi nal question: “Who should be paying—the taxpayer, the user, the consumer, or the industry?” We asked this because, in many instances, the taxpay-ers were subsidizing things that did not benefi t them. And if you take the cost of services away from actual consumers and users, you promote overuse and devalue whatever it is that you’re doing.

When we started this process with the Department of Transportation, it had 5,600 employees. When we fi n-ished, it had 53. When we started with the Forest Ser-vice, it had 17,000 employees. When we fi nished, it had 17. When we applied it to the Ministry of Works, it had 28,000 employees. I used to be Minister of Works, and ended up being the only employee. In the latter case, most of what the department did was construction and engineering, and there are plenty of people who can do that without government involvement.

And if you say to me, “But you killed all those jobs,” well, that’s just not true. The government stopped employing people in those jobs, but the need for the jobs

hat is accountability? The old idea of account-ability simply held that government should spend

money in accordance with appropriations. But the new accountability is based on asking, “What did we get in public benefi ts as a result of the expenditure of money?” This is a question that has always been asked in busi-ness, but has not been the norm for governments. And those governments today that are struggling valiantly with this question are showing quite extraordinary results. This was certainly the basis of the successful reforms in my own country of New Zealand.

New Zealand’s per capita income in the period prior to the late 1950s was right around number three in the world, behind the United States and Canada. But by 1984, its per capita income had sunk to 27th in the world, alongside Portugal and Turkey. Not only that, but our unemployment rate was 11.6 percent, we’d had 23 successive years of defi cits (sometimes ranging as high as 40 percent of GDP), our debt had grown to 65 per-cent of GDP, and our credit ratings were continually being downgraded. Government spending was a full 44 percent of GDP, investment capital was exiting in huge quantities, and government controls and micromanage-ment were pervasive at every level of the economy.

We had foreign exchange controls that meant I couldn’t buy a subscription to The Economist magazine without the permission of the Minister of Finance. I couldn’t buy shares in a foreign company with-out surrendering my citizenship. There were price controls on all goods and services, on all shops and on all service industries. There were wage controls and wage freezes. I couldn’t pay my employees more if I wanted to. There were import controls on the goods that I could bring into the country. There were massive levels of subsidies on industries in order to keep them viable. Young people were leaving in droves.

2 LIVING LIBERTY

“The Frias brothers share a remarkable story that has shaped our country. Born of Mexican immigrants, the brothers were raised in the pursuit of the American dream.”

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Marsha Michaelis

“Quote”

Evergreen Freedom Foundation PO Box 552

Olympia, WA 98507(360) 956-3482

Fax (360) 352-1874 info@effwa.org • www.effwa.org

VOLUME 16, Issue 6

EFF’s mission is to advance

individual liberty, free enterprise and

limited, accountable government.

This Issue

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 LETTER FROM LYNN FROM PAST TO PRESENT FRIEND OF LIBERTY AWARD

4 UNION CORRUPTION REVEALED INCREASED VIGILANCE HIGHLIGHTS UNION CORRUPTION DISCLOSURE RULES EXPOSE LAVISH UNION SPENDING 5 JUDGE REJECTS A.G.’S CLAIM THAT I-601 IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL BREAKING WASHINGTON’S SPENDING ADDICTION 6 I STILL WANT TO TEACH MEMORIAL DAY 7 PUBLIC SCHOOLS EVADE REAL ACCOUNTABILITY LYNN HARSH SPEAKS TO NATIONAL AUDIENCE OF POLICY-MAKERS

8 ONE BILLION REASONS WHY AUDIT OVERSIGHT MATTERS ROMNEY’S PLAN: GOOD, BAD, OR UGLY?

10 THE FRIAS BROTHERS A MEMORIAL DAY TRIBUTE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REFORM MAIL BALLOT SECURITY 12 POLICY CONFERENCE AND 15TH ANNIVERSARY GALA SIGN UP TODAY!

Waste Watchers: by Drew Gaut

WA few gallons on the state's dime

Pg. 10

“Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed

by force that is not a violation of property. If you cannot reconcile these contradictions, then you must conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.”

– Claude Frédéric Bastiat

ith gas prices so high, access to a company gas card can tempt

employees to get a few gallons for them-selves. Most companies would be careful to check gas mileage, fuel type, and dates cards are used. Our state’s Department of General Administration (GA), would apparently rather not bother.

The State Auditor’s Offi ce found numer-ous examples of problems. Fuel mileage calculations showed several vehicles get-ting dramatically different gas mileage

than they were supposed to get. At least one example of a gas purchase exceeded the vehicle’s capacity. Premium gas was purchased contrary to GA policy, and there were a few examples of diesel being purchased for non-diesel vehicles.

The GA motor pool relies on credit lim-its to keep problems in check. If employ-ees use the cards for personal use, the credit limit will keep them from going too far, says Sam Schofi eld, an internal audi-tor for the department. Apparently the

GA believes a few gallons worth of stolen gas each month isn’t a big deal.

The department claims its lack of con-trols cost taxpayers $10,000 at most.This number is supposed to seem insignifi cant because it is part of a much larger budget, but waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars is never acceptable.

The department also claims some of the problems were caused by gas station

attendants manually entering the wrong information when charging the depart-ment credit cards. Investigation by the State Auditor’s offi ce refutes this claim.

The Department of General Admin-istration says its employees should be granted a “great deal of trust.” But trust only goes so far.

The Frias BrothersA MEMORIAL DAY TRIBUTE

A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION 3

t was the smell of the place that fi rst anchored me to the fl oor and spread a broad smile across my face.

Sun streamed through the many windows high above the street and warmed the old wood panels covering the walls. This wasn’t pretend wood. It was the real stuff. You could smell it. And I knew as I ventured forth that the fl oor boards would creak a little under my feet.

I could hear people on the fl oor below me, and I knew a bustling street was right outside. Still, for that moment in time, I was in a magical place. It wasn’t just the warmth, the vista and smell of the wood. I was surrounded on every side by entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors, and explorers. Their faces stared out from large photos on the walls. They looked like a serious lot, but this was, after all, the place where man and machine met to change the world.

Wandering the room and looking into their faces, I tried to read any shred of wisdom they might share. In the quietness of my heart, I asked these men and women of a bygone era: “What gave you the courage to spend your life living your dreams, when you didn’t know in advance how it would turn out? What did you sacrifi ce to allow your vision to become reality? Was it worth it?”

I guess I already knew the answer to that question.Large tables fi lled one side of the room, and it was

here draftsmen melded vision with scientifi c know-how. No doubt some of their family and friends thought they were nuts—earning their living off someone’s wild imaginations, instead of punching a predictable clock at an establishment store. What did these men and women see and feel that was different? When it came right down to it, I guess knew that answer, too.

Wonder fi lled me in the virtual presence of these intellectual and creative warriors of the previous century. It was in this building—the Big Red Barn—where Bill Boeing and his colleagues created the airships that propels so much of our commerce and pleasure today. Their work laid the foundation for travel far beyond the

Letter from LynnLETTER FROM LYNNby Lynn Harsh

From past to presentI earth’s atmosphere, and I wondered if it were possible

that the draftsmen had an inkling of how profoundly they would color the future.

Still, a dark cloud threatened to chill that sunny room. Would the current political and educational environment in America allow the same opportunities? Have we regulated, taxed and hounded risk-takers into the corner? Will our decades of mediocre educational offerings sap the creative and intellectual capacity necessary for American-made life-changing inventions?

Yesterday, individuals ran this country and their own lives. Today, it feels like the rule-makers and tax collectors run the place.

When my younger son rounded the corner of the top fl oor to see where I had escaped, he stopped, looked at

me deeply, and realized something more was going on inside of me than a general appreciation for history.

“Son, do you think this is still possible today? Do you think your generation can change the world like this one did?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We’re short on character and education,” he opined. But then he reminded me of an important reality: the spirit that resides inside healthy human beings that propels us to be free, to create and to live a life with meaning.

It’s so true. Many people who have gone before us sacrifi ced their lives and fortunes for the opportunities

“...have the courage to spend your days living the vision that is larger than your own time, even though you don’t know in advance how all things will turn out.”

we have today. They embarked on diffi cult journeys without knowing the fi nal destination, or even if they would arrive safely. I think of the early settlers, our nation’s Founders, men like Wilberforce, missionaries and pioneers. Their spirits were agitated until they put one foot in front of another and began their journey into a future whose outcome was far from guaranteed.

My son and I were the only living faces in the room, but surrounded by the memories of those who had gone before us, I stared intently into his face and said in my heart: “Son, have the courage to spend your days living the vision that is larger than your own time, even though you don’t know in advance how all things will turn out. Do not ask for the answer before you begin. Sacrifi ce temporal things when necessary. It will be worth it. And many of my friends and I will live our lives endeavoring to restore the freedom you need to allow it to happen.”

I said this in my heart, because he’s not ready to hear it out loud yet. But he’s an entrepreneur and evangelist, so the day will come.

Besides, at that moment, he was hungry, and philosophizing with a hungry man is like spitting into the wind. That much I know.

As we walked out of the Big Red Barn together, a smile from somewhere deep inside me spread across my face. Without knowing names and seeing faces, I knew thousands of other people in this country were having similar experiences—reminders to put our resources toward more important things in life than where we will take our next vacation; to take risks when necessary; and to restore and create for the next generation.

My part of the next generation had his arm around my shoulders steering me purposefully toward the car and food. This boy who is now a man is the future. The battle we wage for freedom and opportunity—the discomfort and uncertainty we face along the way—that is for him, and his brother, and your children and grandchildren. They are worth it.

FF President Bob Williams and Chairman Bill Conner presented the “Friend of Lib-erty” award to Raymond Hanson at a May 4 event in Spokane. Mr. Hanson received

the award in recognition of his lifetime comittment to the advancement of freedom. Mr. Hanson is the founder of R.A. Hanson Company, Inc. (RAHCO). He started

the company in 1946 with the patent of an automatic leveling device for hillside combine harvesters. Since then, RAHCO has developed into a world leader in the design fi eld and production of custom commercial machinery systems.

Mr. Hanson was joined at the event by his wife, Lois, and several proud members of his family. In order to pass the torch of liberty on to the next generation, Mr. Hanson provides each of his grandchildren with a subscription to Living Liberty.

The Friend of Liberty award is presented to honor those who work to advance free market principles and preserve individual liberty—practicing ideals similar to EFF’s mission.

Mr. Hanson is only the second recipient of the award in EFF’s 15 year history.

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4 LIVING LIBERTY

New York spent $52,879 on a new Cadillac for a retiring president.

The rank-and-fi le not only pays for these exorbitant amusements, they also fund generous salaries and benefi ts for union employees. While the nation’s teachers perennially protest low salaries, National Education Association (NEA) president Reg Weaver makes $272,170, with another $98,258 for benefi ts and expenses. Nearly half of the NEA’s 650 employees make over $100,000 a year. The AFL-CIO has an offi cial chauffeur who makes $70,951.

n 1959, the U.S. Congress enacted the Labor-Management Reporting and Dis-

closure Act (LMRDA) to combat the cor-ruption and election abuses so prevalent in American labor unions. The LMRDA estab-lished a regimen for tracking union fi nances, protecting the rights of union members, and encouraging both fi nancial accountability and union democracy. Unfortunately, the well-intentioned LMRDA was not vigor-ously enforced by a series of Department of Labor (DOL) offi cials seemingly more con-cerned with improving relations with union bosses than protecting union members from corruption and abuse.

For a brief time under the fi rst Bush admin-istration, the DOL stepped up enforcement of important accountability measures like the LMRDA and the Supreme Court’s 1988 Beck decision (the landmark court case that upheld the right of private-sector union mem-bers to refrain from subsidizing non-collective bargain-ing related activities). The limited progress was, unfor-tunately, short lived.

During his two terms in the White House, President Clinton severely curtailed LMRDA and Beck enforce-ment. By gutting Beck and ignoring LMRDA compli-ance (as well as stacking the National Labor Relations Board with union apologists,) gave union bosses free reign to violate the rights of many dues-paying union members, especially those in federal employee unions. During most of the 1990’s, union members’ rights were trampled and the political power of union offi cials steadily grew. Tragically, so did union corruption scan-dals that had been allowed to fester over decades of lax enforcement.

Enter the current Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao. Appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001, Chao has steadily reasserted policies that increase union accountability and worker freedom. She has used her executive powers to appoint principled conservatives to DOL posts (extremely important) and had the temerity to enforce union reporting requirements that had previ-ously been ignored by numerous administrations. She also proposed tougher reporting requirements, in the form of both LM-2 and LM-30 reports, that disclose how unions spend their members’ dues and where union offi cials get their money.

Union C ion Revealed

hat does Tiger Woods have in common with union offi cials? Answer: they both play a lot of

golf. The only difference is union offi cials get to play on their members’ dime. A lot of dimes, actually. Orga-nized labor spent $1.3 million on golf in 2005.

This and other enlightening facts about union spending are now public because of new disclosure regulations championed by U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. The Evergreen Freedom Foundation assisted the Department of Labor in drafting these regulations in 2003.

Unions with annual receipts of $250,000 or more are required to fi le detailed fi nancial reports disclosing union salaries, benefi ts, income and expenditures. As a result, union members now have unprecedented insight into how their unions spend their dues.

In 28 states around the country, including Washington, workers can be required to pay for union representation as a condition of employment. Their mandatory payments have underwritten lavish spending that often has nothing to do with workplace representation. The Center for Union Facts in Washington, D.C., uncovered many of these expenditures by compiling the Department of Labor’s reports into a searchable database available at www.unionfacts.com.

For example, in 2005 labor unions spent $7.3 million on plush resorts, nearly $1.3 million for amusement park events, $148,000 for liquor, and $641,000 for sporting events. SEIU Local 660 in Los Angeles spent $153,000 on movie tickets. Ironworkers Local 40 in

Continued on next page

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by S. Alex Bohler, J.D.

Increased vigilance highlights union corruption

I The DOL’s Offi ce of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) is the branch primarily responsible for inves-tigating embezzlement and other criminal violations of federal labor law. The OLMS recently released its 2005 Annual Report detailing corruption and the numbers are shocking.

Over three hundred embezzlement cases were processed in 2005, with some $23 million in court-ordered restitution. If history is any judge, that $23 million probably represents the tip of the iceberg of money stolen or misappropriated by union offi cials.

Some of the theft is staggering in scope and scale. Offi cials of Local 1740/International Longshoremen’s Association in San Juan Puerto Rico were recently indicted for misappropriating over $8 million in mem-ber dues for their own personal use and enrichment. They also underreported general dues by $1.5 million. Practically the entire union leadership was involved in this theft.

Another high profi le case involved offi cials from the Washington (D.C.) Teachers Union, James Baxter and Gwendolyn Hemphill. Baxter and Hemphill were found guilty of conspiracy, embezzlement, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, false statements on LM reports, and false union records. Ultimately, it was determined that Baxter and Hemphill (and six union coworkers) had stolen $4.6 million from the WTU!

In Illinois, James M. Duff and William Stratton of Chicago’s Allied Workers Union Local 3 were involved in a massive scheme that involved $100 million in con-tracts it obtained through federal business assistance programs designed to help women and minority-owned businesses. The two were also convicted of not paying over $3 million in unemployment insurance premiums. Duff was ordered to forfeit over $10 million and sen-tenced to 118 months in prison. Stratton was sentenced to 70 months in prison and fi ned over half a million dol-lars.

On the fi nancial reporting front, nearly 3,000 unions failed to fi le their LM-2 and LM-30 reports on time. (This despite substantial training/compliance outreach effort by OLMS and a convenient new on-line reporting mechanism.)

Union democracy is another important topic for union members. Often, little notice is given to union members before elections are held or contracts are ratifi ed (The Washington Federation of State Employees, forced-dues collective bargaining agreement is a perfect example of “information obstruction”). This is a common tac-

tic from union bosses who want to keep their members in the dark about their fi nancial practices and political activities.

A prime example of union offi cial-sanctioned election abuses occurred in September 2004 by election offi -cials of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 951 in Michigan. Local 951 is the largest local in the state of Michigan with some 33,000 mem-bers.

The complaint, which was largely substantiated by a subsequent OLMS investigation, accused union offi cials of “distributing and collecting ballots at worksites; use of union and employer resources to promote the incum-bent slate; members voting in the presence of union offi cials and other members; and discrimination against certain candidates with respect to the use of a union membership list. In addition, the union failed to provide adequate safeguards for the distribution of replacement ballots, and failed to preserve election records required by the LMRDA….”

While the OLMS is still fi ghting in court to void that specifi c election, the UFCW tactics are common place in modern day American labor unions.

According to the OLMS, the Department of Labor conducted 127 election investigations and 35 super-vised elections. Supervised elections are ordered when a union has such a poor compliance record that DOL offi cials have to manage the elections themselves. This process is extremely costly to the taxpayers and a drain on DOL staff resources.

While these numbers might not seem extraordi-nary, keep in mind that enforcement of many union accountability laws was practically non-existent in past decades.

The DOL’s increased vigilance, as represented by expanded reporting requirements, fi nancial audits, elec-tion investigations, and corruption probes is a signifi cant and long overdue step toward protecting the rights of union members. Unfortunately, the OLMS regulations focus only on federal unions, so most state unions are unaffected. State legislatures can themselves improve accountability and union democracy by considering sim-ilar state regulations to cover those local private and pub-lic sector unions not covered by the federal laws. When union offi cials know that they face yearly disclosure requirements, available on-line to the public, they are far less likely to abuse their considerable forced-dues power.

by Michael Reitz, J.D.Disclosure rules expose lavish union spending

A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION 5

n May 1, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge James Allendoerfer signed an order say-

ing the state violated I-601 during the 2005 Legislative Session. The move came after the Judge heard a motion from the Attorney General to reconsider his ruling. The AG’s motion argued, among other things, that I-601 was unconstitutional.

You may recall that during the 2005 Legislative Ses-sion, Democratic lawmakers artifi cially increased the I-601 spending limit by engaging in a $250 million “merry-go-round” fund transfer between three state accounts. The state contended this budget gimmickry

by Jason Mercier

O

Judge rejects Attorney General’s claim that I-601 is unconstitutional

increased the limit—enabling legislators to enact almost one billion in new taxes and spending measures without triggering a vote of the people as required by I-601.

Ruling against the state on March 17, Judge Allendo-erfer said, “Here, the legislature exploited a loophole in I-601 for the express purpose of artifi cially increas-ing the expenditure limit so as to avoid a vote by the people on the new taxes included in the biennium bud-

get. The loophole, designated ‘triangulation’ by the plaintiffs, and referred to by legislative staff as a ‘huge loophole,’ and the ‘magic three-for-one provision,’ has the potential of trumping the intent and spirit of I-601 altogether.”

Rather than simply appeal its loss in the case, the state wanted the judge to admit he made a mistake in ruling that I-601 had been violated. The AG’s offi ce asked him to reverse his decision. While the state has every right to try to convince Judge Allendoerfer to change his mind, the Attorney General’s Offi ce went one outrageous step further. If the judge refused to overturn his own ruling,

“Along with rejecting the constitutional challenge to I-601, Judge Allendoerfer

said it was the state that erred, not him...”

“...we all should encourage the Attorney General to drop the inappropriate constitutional challenge to the will of the people.”

ing exactly what the AG claimed, the Attorney General’s Offi ce would be required to defend I-601.

Second, as a voting member of the I-601 Expenditure Limit Committee, the Attorney General should be work-ing to ensure state offi cials are follow-ing the law instead of defending their attempts to circumvent it, or worse, trying to have the law invalidated.

Essentially the Attorney General’s argument was this: The state didn’t violate the law, but even if it did the law is unconstitutional.

Thankfully Judge Allendoerfer wasn’t swayed by this argument. He rejected the AG’s claim that I-601 is uncon-stitutional, saying it was not an issue properly brought before the court.

Along with rejecting the constitutional challenge to I-601, Judge Allendoerfer said it was the state that erred, not him, and ordered the spending limit adopted in November 2005 be reduced by $250 million. He also invalidated a majority of the taxes raised in HB 2314, with the exception of the cigarette tax. As was the case with the death tax, the legislature was able to circum-vent I-601 by dedicating a majority of the cigarette tax “off-budget.”

Immediately following the May 1 reaffi rmation of the March 17 ruling, the state fi led an appeal. As the case moves forward on appeal, we all should encourage the Attorney General to drop the inappropriate constitu-tional challenge to the will of the people. The AG is, after all, the people’s attorney.

the AG wanted him to rule on the constitutionality of I-601’s voter approval requirements.

This development concerns us on a couple of levels. First, the Attorney General’s Offi ce is charged with

defending the state’s statutes, of which I-601 is one (RCW 43.135). This is why it is shocking that the AG would attempt to argue that our thirteen-year-old, voter-approved taxpayer protection law is unconstitutional. In fact, had someone fi lled a lawsuit against the state argu-

t’s always sad when you see a friend living a destruc-tive lifestyle, especially when, despite your best

efforts, he doesn’t change his ways. When it comes time for him to face the consequences of his poor decisions, there is no joy in saying, “I told you so.”

Likewise, with the “breaking news” that Washington is facing a $718 million defi cit heading into the next biennial budget, there is no consolation in the fact that legislators were well warned that their irresponsible supplemental budget would lead to future defi cits.

Throughout the 2006 Legislative Session, we pleaded with lawmakers and the governor to forgo the tempta-tion to go on a spending spree in the supplemental bud-get, which is supposed to be reserved for unforeseen emergency needs. Instead, state offi cials enacted $1.3 billion in new “spending.”

At the time the budget was adopted, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown had this to say: “When we get back to town next January, we’ll be in good fi scal shape.”

With all due respect to the Senator, unsustainable spending is not a recipe for “good fi scal shape.” Real fi s-

cal accountability would be budgeting within the state’s revenue forecast and spending limit, while using perfor-mance-based budgeting.

With the damage already done to the state’s fi scal health, the key is for both parties to commit to the fol-lowing budget blueprint (thankfully it’s a four-step, not a twelve-step process to break the tax-and-spend habit):

1) Limit state appropriations to the offi cial revenue forecast (stop using budget gimmicks and fund shifts to balance the budget on paper).

2) Dedicate staff time to reviewing the performance of current appropriations and prioritizing potential expenditures within the revenue forecast and spend-ing limit (instead of spending time to fi gure out ways to raid other accounts and circumvent the spending limit). This is Priorities of Government (POG) 101.

3) Use the budget as the legislature’s opportunity to set performance indicators for each tax dollar spent by

by Jason Mercier

I

Breaking Washington’s spending addiction

listing performance expectations in the budget next to the appropriations amount. The 2006 Supple-mental Budget is a laundry list of ways to spend our money. Instead, it should be a blueprint detailing the performance expectations for each dollar spent.

4) Withhold budget votes until 72 hours after the bud-get’s public introduction. Lawmakers and taxpayers need time to adequately review and comment on the details.

For Washington to get on the path toward real fi scal prudence, voters must demand their elected offi cials stop buying votes with tax dollars and start learning to “just say no” to unsustainable spending.

Conversely, if Washingtonians want elected offi cials to stop working to bring home the bacon at other tax-payers’ expense, we have to get off our pork-fi lled diet and instead be content to feast on the fruits of a truly balanced performance-based budget.

Find out more at www.unionfacts.com.

Additionally, unions seem far more interested in amassing political power than representing employees. The AFL-CIO reported spending $49 million on politics and lobbying in its 2005 fi scal year—$20 million more than it spent on workplace representation.

Although 50 percent of NEA teachers self-identify as political conservatives, the union gave money to numerous liberal groups last year, including Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Fund to Protect Social Security. These outlays

prompted the Wall Street Journal editorial board to call the NEA a “honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students.”

These revelations show that fi nancial transparency is essential to good stewardship. As a matter of public policy, government requires candidates and campaign committees to disclose campaign fi nance reports to voters. Shareholders of corporations receive regular fi nancial reports. Requiring unions to disclose fi nancial details to members improves accountability and reduces the potential for corruption.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s new reporting requirements only apply to labor unions that represent private-sector members. Public-sector unions, such

as the Washington Education Association and the Washington Federation of State Employees, have no such obligation. State employees and teachers are required to pay dues as a condition of employment, yet are given little information about how dues are spent.

The Washington legislature could adopt regulations to protect state and municipal employees by requiring their unions to annually fi le fi nancial reports with the Public Employment Relations Commission.

Then employees can decide whether their hard-earned money should be used to improve the golf handicaps of union offi cials.

Disclosure rules continued from page 4 . . .

6 LIVING LIBERTY

I guess they didn’t want me to look at a normal public school.

But this is the school the UFT picked, and I was up for the challenge. Who knows what I might have learned by teaching?

My producers went to a meeting at the school to choose a class for me to teach. The union representative didn’t come, so we were told no decisions could be made. Lots of people came to a second meeting at the school: four people from the union, one person from the city Department of Educa-tion, and administrators and teachers from Beacon. They decided I might teach his-tory classes and “media studies,” but they would have to talk to more people.

You would think my teaching had been my crazy idea. I was only trying to accept the union’s offer.

I prepped for my history classes. We had more meetings. The school principal had me sit in on a class with a “superstar”

ast month, 500 angry schoolteach-ers assembled outside my offi ce.

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) was furious that “Stupid in Amer-ica,” a “20/20” show I did on education, suggested that some union teachers were lazy. They shouted that I didn’t under-stand how diffi cult teaching was, and chanted, “Shame on you!”

Randi Weingarten, head of New York City’s union, took the microphone and hollered, “Just teach for a week!” She said I could select from many schools. “We got high schools, we got elementary schools, we got junior high schools!”

I accepted. I even said I’d let the union pick the school. I thought I’d learn more about how diffi cult teaching is. Above all, it was a chance to get our cameras into schools—something the N.Y. bureau-cracy had forbidden—so we could show you what was really going on.

But it won’t happen.

“You would think my teaching had been my crazy idea. I was only trying to accept the

union’s offer.”

I still want to teachby John Stossel

For more information on John Stossel's Special, Supid in America log on to:www.abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/

Like most of our dealings with the union, nothing was easy. It took weeks of phone calls to make any sort of progress. I suspect this will not surprise public-school parents.

Finally, the union picked a school: Bea-con High. Unfortunately, it’s not a typi-cal public school—it’s “special.” Beacon doesn’t have the full incentives or fl ex-ibility of a private school: It can’t go out of business, and it is burdened by bureau-cratic rules and a union contract. But Beacon offers a limited form of what the union opposes: school choice. As with a private school, you don’t have to go there, and they don’t have to take you. Appli-cants must submit portfolios, and if too few chose Beacon, it wouldn’t be able to remain special. To remain what it is, it must compete.

Recently classes of Beacon students took fi eld trips to France, South Africa, and tellingly, Venezuela and Cuba. Bea-con has rooms fi lled with computers, students learn to do PowerPoint dem-onstrations, and a class I watched had two teachers (one a student-teacher) for 24 students. Ninety percent of Beacon’s students graduate, while the average graduation rate for New York City public schools is only 53 percent.

teacher. It was supposed to be a history class, but he seemed to teach “victim-hood in racist America.” On the class door he posted a New York Times col-umn denouncing the president for spend-ing too much money on war. Can we say “left-wing”?

Then there were more meetings. Finally, four days before what was supposed to be my fi rst day of class, they canceled. Offi cially, “they” were the public school administrators who said it might be “dis-ruptive” and that it might “set a prec-edent” that would open their doors to other reporters.

Too bad. Letting cameras into schools would be a good thing. Taxpayers might fi nally get to see how more than $200,000 per classroom of their money was being spent.

I wonder why the union even made the challenge. I suspect the UFT didn’t expect me to say yes. When I turned out not to be easily intimidated, the teachers’ union and the government school monopoly folded. Perhaps there’s a lesson there.

But I wasn’t trying to call a bluff. I wanted to accept an invitation. I’d like 20/20’s cameras to see me struggle to be a good teacher.

I wonder what else our cameras might see.

L

Memorial Day

“It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who

died in defense of our country, in defense of

us, in wars far away. The imagination plays a

trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old

and wise. We see them as something like the

Founding Fathers, grave and gray

haired. But most of them were boys when they

died, and they gave up two lives—the one they

were living and the one they would have lived.

When they died, they gave up their chance to

be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They

gave up their chance to be revered old men.

They gave up everything for our country, for us.

And all we can do is remember.”

– Ronald Reagan

JOHN STOSSELis a bestselling author, award-winning news correspondent and co-anchor of ABC’s 20/20 program.

A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION 7

Lynn Harsh speaks to national audience of policy-makers

FF Senior Vice President Lynn Harsh recently shared her

knowledge with fellow free-market leaders from across the country at the Heritage Foundation’s Annual Resource Bank Meeting in Colorado Springs. The series of workshops and panels “featured more than 500 think tank executives, public interest lawyers, policy experts, elected offi -cials, and activists from around the world to discuss issues, strategies, and methods for advancing free market, limited government public policies.” Heritage also partners

with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and State Policy Network to further enhance the breadth of top-ics covered and networking opportu-nities.

In addition to hosting a labor policy brainstorming session, Lynn moder-ated a session on “Understanding the Tools of a Free Society: Trans-parency” and participated in panel discussions—one on “Developing Grassroots Networks for Change” and another on “Political Tactics and State Think Tanks.”

by John StosselPUBLIC SCHOOLS EVADE REAL

hope the teachers in America’s public schools are more candid than their union offi cials and some of the pub-

lic-education advocates and leftist smear groups who are criticizing my TV special “Stupid in America.” They are promoting myths:

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) accused me of making a “sweeping generalization” about poor American student performance from test results from a few American and Belgian students. Nope. I reported the results from the actual International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. The little test ABC gave matched the PISA results.

MediaMatters, a liberal media watchdog group, claimed we fudged per-pupil spending numbers when we said per-pupil spending, adjusting for infl ation, has doubled to “more than $10,000 per pupil per year.” They point to the “most recent” 2003 U.S. Census fi gure of $8,019 per pupil as a “gotcha.” In fact, the estimates for 2004-05 from the U.S. Department of Education are well over $10,000 per pupil. Even using MediaMatters’ own number, it is irrefutable that per-pupil spending has doubled during the last 30 years.

The NSBA claims “America’s public schools outperform private schools when variables ... are controlled.” This must refer to the recent study done at the University of Illinois, comparing fourth- and eighth-grade math scores.

That study actually showed that public school students performed worse, but after the researchers used regression analysis to “control” for race/ethnicity, gender, disability, limited English profi ciency, and school location, they manage to conclude that public school students outperform private and charter school students.

When studying education performance, it is far more accurate to compare schools using random assignment—using kids assigned schools by lottery so that those attending public and private schools come from the same population. Eight such random-assignment studies have been done. All eight fi nd that private school students did better.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) objects that I “conveniently” failed to note that an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study found that “the six countries that spend the most on education as a percentage of GDP ... all score well above the international mean on the PISA.”

OK, some countries spend a lot of money and do well. But that very same OECD study said that no fewer than 20 countries that spend less money than we do achieve better scores, and that “spending alone is not suffi cient to achieve high levels of outcomes.” The United States spends $83,910 per student from ages 6 to 15. The Slovak Republic, which outperforms the United States in this study, spends $17,612 per student.

The NEA also claimed I’m not objective because I make speeches for money. I do, but I donate the money to charities. For example, I give money to Student Sponsor Partners, an organization that pays for poor kids to go to private school. You might say I put my money where my mouth is—unlike the teachers’ organizations, which often put their mouths where the money is.

Perhaps the most fundamentally fl awed idea is this all-too-common one: “Public schools were created to provide

a ‘public good’: education for all, regardless of a family’s ability to pay ... By contrast, under a voucher system that gives public dollars to completely unmonitored private schools, there is no such right to expect or demand accountability for student performance or how tax dollars are spent.”

They don’t get it. Competition brings accountability.

Private schools may be “unmonitored” by bureaucrats, but they face the most demanding

kind of supervision our society provides: a market full of freely choosing individuals.

Parents’ desire for a good education for their children is a much more powerful check on schools than any politician’s law or union rule. The people who want to control every young American’s education like to talk about accountability, but what they want is to make schools accountable to anointed bureaucrats who think they know what’s best for all of us. They evade real accountability —the kind of accountability where if a student or parent realizes a school isn’t doing its job, he can fi nd another one.

I could go on; there are plenty of myths. But the most important point to remember is quite simple: If public schools are good, they have nothing to fear from school choice. Students and parents will choose them.

I

Award-winning news correspondent John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News “20/20” and author of “Give Me a Break.” This article originally appeared on townhall.com. It is reprinted with permission.

“They don’t get it. Competition brings accountability.

Private schools may be ‘unmonitored’ by bureaucrats,

but they face the most demanding kind of supervision

our society provides: a market full of freely choosing

individuals.”

E

Come hear John Stossel speak at our 15th anniversary gala on June 1st. See back page for details.

8 LIVING LIBERTY

ast month State Auditor Brian Sonntag released the 2005 audit of Washington’s $6.2 billion Med-

icaid program. The news was not good. Of the record 28 violations identifi ed in the state’s administration of the Medicaid program, eighteen were repeat fi ndings from the previous year.

Why should you care? How about the fact that these 28 audit fi ndings potentially resulted in the waste of a billion dollars?

Sonntag said his offi ce can’t tell whether nearly $1 bil-lion of the $6.2 billion in Medicaid expenditures were appropriate. This is sixteen percent of all Medicaid dol-lars spent!

It also appears some managers at the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) do not understand the severity of the problem. Consider the following comments from the state auditor:

While executive management appears to be gen-erally receptive to our recommendations, we found some managers are not always receptive to recom-mendations that could correct issues. Additionally, we have found some managers do not communicate the results of our audit work to their supervisors. This causes issues to go unresolved. We believe if corrective actions were initiated sooner, repeat fi ndings could be reduced. More than $200 mil-lion of questioned costs reported in our audit can be attributed to this lack of communication.

by Jason Mercier

L

One billion reasons why audit oversight matters

This failure to communicate should be unacceptable to our elected offi cials. Governor Gregoire should make it clear that anyone failing to be part of the solution to correct these audit problems has no place working for the state as a steward of taxpayer dollars.

Among the problems identifi ed in the Medicaid audit:

• The state continues to provide Medicaid services to illegal aliens. This led the state auditor to note: “Washington State is providing services to thousands of ineligible clients using federal Medicaid money . . . This is causing the nation’s taxpayers to subsi-dize Washington State’s noncompliance. Our testing showed that the state made $83,199,933 in question-able expenditures . . . Lack of compliance with federal regulations could jeopardize future federal funding.”

• Medicaid payments are being made to individuals who are using the Social Security numbers of dead people: “Failing to verify Social Security numbers can lead to the enrollment of individuals ineligible for Medicaid. Such practices may cause the Department to violate federal regulations and state law. The Med-icaid program is unnecessarily susceptible to loss or misappropriation because of the Department’s inabil-ity to identify deceased clients in a timely manner.”

• Social Security numbers are not effectively being verifi ed prior to granting Medicaid services. In some

cases, alerts from the federal government about invalid Social Security numbers being used are ignored by DSHS staff. “[DSHS} has not made progress in one area we see as critical: obtaining valid Social Security numbers for persons applying for Medicaid. The use of invalid Social Security numbers, those belonging to deceased persons or by multiple persons, is com-mon in the Department’s records.”

It is important to remember that taxpayers aren’t the only losers when state offi cials fail to follow the law. Since dollars are limited, individuals actually eligible for assistance pay the price when state offi cials refuse to enforce eligibility requirements. This is why, both for those the state is trying to serve and for the protection of the taxpayers’ investment in the Medicaid program, the legislature and governor must ensure that strict conse-quences exist for state agencies violating the law.

When combined with the fact that so many of the prob-lems identifi ed in the audit are repeat violations of law, it is clear necessary oversight is not occurring. Unless state offi cials start providing essential program over-sight, we will be subject to year after year of the same audit problems and the countless waste of taxpayer dol-lars. It is up to us to let state offi cials know we demand adequate oversight and corrective action. We have at least $1 billion reasons to do so.

he term “universal health care coverage” is typi-cally aligned with a single-payer, government-run

plan similar to Hillary Clinton’s proposal in the early ‘90s. Mitt Romney, the Republican governor of Mas-sachusetts, however, seeks to achieve universal cover-age through connotations of personal responsibility and the private market. Few state-level proposals, in recent times, have so thoroughly split the national conservative policy community.

The cornerstone of the new plan is the insurance exchange or “Connector.” Described by Heritage Foun-dation as “an innovative mechanism to promote real consumer choice,” the Connector acts a virtual stock exchange of competing health insurance policies, where employees of small fi rms (50 employees and under) can shop for health coverage.

The policies available in the Connector are expected to be substantially more affordable than current small-group and individual offerings because of the merging of individual and small-group markets, an expanded risk pool and intensifi ed competition between companies.

In all, over $1 billion dollars from the uncompensated care pool is being allocated toward subsidies for the unin-sured, and the state anticipates no additional taxes will be necessary to fund the reform effort. Romney defends this massive subsidy to the uninsured with a suggestion that, “making the individual responsible for his own health coverage is a lot more conservative than a perma-nent program of government handouts to hospitals.”

John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Anal-ysis recently wrote, “To avert the perverse incentives the current system creates, people who rely on the free care system should be able to apply those dollars instead to the purchase of private insurance and the accompanying private health care that private insurance makes possi-ble.” Goodman has called the Massachusetts reform the fi rst serious proposal at the state or national level that builds on this idea.

July of 2007, Massachusetts residents must carry health insurance of some kind, or face economic repercussions through the state income tax code. The mandate rests on the ability of the new system to facilitate affordable cov-erage and will be enforced when that apex is realized.

Governor Romney has often touted the individual mandate as his centerpiece for creating personal respon-sibility in health care, saying, “It’s the ultimate conser-vative idea, which is that people have responsibility for their own care, and they don’t look to government to take care of them if they can afford to take care of them-selves.”

The CATO Institute takes a different view: “… an individual mandate crosses an important line: accept-ing the principle that it is the government’s responsibil-ity to ensure that every American has health insurance. In doing so, it opens the door to widespread regulation of the health care industry and political interference in personal health care decisions. The result will be a slow but steady spiral downward toward a government-run national health care system.”

A third element of the health care reform bill is the provision for an employer mandate. As codifi ed in the law, employers with a work force of 11 or more would be required to either purchase insurance or pay a maxi-mum fee of $295 per employee, per year.

Tacked on to the fl at assessment is a free-rider provi-sion which requires an employer (with 11+ employees) to reimburse the state for any uncompensated health care costs accrued by its employees of more than $50,000 on the aggregate. This mandate was line vetoed by Gover-nor Romney, but the legislature is likely to override that and several other less prominent vetoes the governor has made.

by Nathan Johnson

T

Romney’s plan: good, bad, or ugly? It depends on who you ask.

“Governor Romney has often touted the individual mandate as his centerpiece for creating personal responsibility in health care, saying, ‘It’s the ultimate conservative idea, which is that people have responsibility for their own care, and they don’t look to government to take care of them if they can afford to take care of themselves.”’

Robert E. Moffi t and Nina Owcharenko of the Heritage Foundation discuss ways of avoiding the assessment: “This new fee can easily be avoided: fi rms subject to it need only offer their employees a Section 125 Cafete-ria Plan and give them the opportunity to buy coverage through the new health insurance Connector on a pre-tax basis to escape the levy at little expense. Further, the actual assessment is likely to be less than the statutory maximum of $295 because the other legislative provi-sions in the plan are designed to reduce the demand on the uncompensated care pool.”

Upon hearing specifi cs of Romney’s plan, Professors Steffi e Woolhandler and David Himmelstein of Harvard University commented: “This week’s proposals merely repeat one from 20 years ago when Governor Dukakis was celebrating passage of his universal healthcare bill. That plan imploded within two years, and Massachu-setts’ new health reform legislation looks set to repeat that disaster.”

The Economist offers this observation: “If the scheme works, other states will copy it. But that will depend

on how much it ends up costing. No one wants to use the word “rationing”, but this is what happens in every country with universal health coverage. That said, Mr Romney’s plan has more chance of success than Hillary-care ever did—which could help Mr Romney in 2008, when he will be seeking the Republican presidential nomination and then, perhaps, facing Senator Clinton.”

A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION 9

To view a video of the complete McTigue speech, please visit: www.effwa.org

“NZ Miracle” continued from page 1 . . .

didn’t disappear. I visited some of the forestry workers some months after they’d lost their government jobs, and they were quite happy. They told me that they were now earning about three times what they used to earn—on top of which, they were surprised to learn that they could do about 60 percent more than they used to! The same lesson applies to the other jobs I mentioned.

Some of the things that government was doing simply didn’t belong in the government. So we sold off tele-communications, airlines, irrigation schemes, comput-ing services, government printing offi ces, insurance companies, banks, securities, mortgages, railways, bus services, hotels, shipping lines, agricultural advisory services, etc. In the main, when we sold those things off, their productivity went up and the cost of their ser-vices went down, translating into major gains for the economy.

Furthermore, we decided that other agencies should be run as profi t-making and tax-paying enterprises by gov-ernment. For instance, the air traffi c control system was made into a stand-alone company, given instructions that it had to make an acceptable rate of return and pay taxes, and told that it couldn’t get any investment capital from its owner (the government). We did that with about 35 agencies. Together, these used to cost us about one billion dollars per year; now they produced about one billion dollars per year in revenues and taxes.

We achieved an overall reduction of 66 percent in the size of government, measured by the number of employ-ees. The government’s share of GDP dropped from 44 to 27 percent. We were now running surpluses, and we established a policy never to leave dollars on the table: We knew that if we didn’t get rid of this money, some clown would spend it. So we used most of the surplus to pay off debt, and debt went from 63 percent down to 17 percent of GDP. We used the remainder of the surplus each year for tax relief. We reduced income tax rates by half and eliminated incidental taxes. As a result of these policies, revenue increased by 20 percent. Yes, Ronald Reagan was right: lower tax rates do produce more revenue.

Thinking Differently About GovernmentOur country had no large indigenous animals until the English imported deer for hunting. These deer pro-ceeded to escape into the wild and become obnoxious pests. We then spent 120 years trying to eliminate them, until one day someone suggested that we just let people farm them. So we told the farming community that they could catch and farm the deer, as long as they would keep them inside eight-foot high fences. And we haven’t spent a dollar on deer eradication from that day onwards. Not one. And New Zealand now supplies 40 percent of the world market in venison. By applying simple com-mon sense, we turned a liability into an asset.

Another example: Representatives of the Department of Transportation came to us one day and said they needed to increase the fees for driver’s licenses. When we asked why, they said that the cost of re-licensing wasn’t being fully recovered at the current fee levels. Then we asked why we should be doing this sort of thing at all. The transportation people clearly thought that was a very stupid question: Everybody needs a driver’s license, they said. I then pointed out that I received mine when I was fi fteen and asked them: “What is it about re-licensing that in any way tests driver competency?” We gave them ten days to think this over. At one point they suggested to us that the police need driver’s licenses for identifi cation purposes. We responded that this was the purpose of an identity card, not a driver’s license. Finally they admitted that they could think of no good reason for what they were doing—so we abolished the whole process! Now a driver’s license is good until a person is 74 years old, after which he must get an annual medical test to ensure he is still competent to drive. So not only did we not need new fees, we abolished a whole depart-ment. That’s what I mean by thinking differently.

ConclusionThere is an old Irish proverb that says: “If you don’t know where you are going then any road will take you there” this is not an acceptable philosophy for modern government.

oping to encourage Washington’s elected offi cials that performance-based budgeting is an achiev-

able reform, EFF was proud to host lunch and dinner events in Seattle and Spokane on May 4, with guest speaker Maurice McTigue. As a former member of New Zealand’s Parliament, cabinet minister and ambassador, McTigue was able to speak from direct experience about the benefi ts of requiring government to base spending decisions on performance outcomes.

Attending the McTigue event in Seattle were former state Attorney General and U.S. Senator Slade Gorton, State Auditor Brian Sonntag, state Representatives Toby Nixon and Fred Jarrett, King County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, City of Duvall Councilman Jason Gardiner, and many EFF members and donors.

In Spokane, attendance included State Senator Brad Benson, Representatives John Ahern and Bob Sump, Spokane County Commissioners Phillip Harris and Mark Richard, Airway Heights Mayor Matthew Pederson, Liberty Lake Mayor Steve Peterson, Spokane City Councilman Bob Apple, and many EFF members and donors.

McTigue commended EFF’s work, beginning his speech by saying: “I see much of the work that the Freedom Foundation does...and I appreciate the quality of that work.”

Against the backdrop of Washington’s projected $718 million budget defi cit and the recent release of a Medicaid audit questioning $1 billion in expenditures, McTigue spoke about his role in what is known as the “New Zealand Miracle,” sharing how Washington can accomplish the same results.

Facing ongoing budget defi cits and rampant public debt, New Zealand got serious about meaningful government reform in 1984. Budget writers asked government agencies and programs a simple question: “What did we get in public benefi ts as a result of the expenditure of money?” By answering this question, McTigue explained how New Zealand was able to:

• reduce employees at the Department of Transporta-tion from 5,600 to 53;

• reduce employees at the Forest Service from 17,000 to 17;

• reduce employees at the Ministry of Works from 28,000 to 1;

• reduce the size of government as measured by num-ber of employees by 66%;

Maurice McTigue shares the “New Zealand Miracle” with EFF members and Washington policy-makersby Jason Mercier

H • reduce the size of government as measured by share of GDP from 44% to 27%; and

• reduce the size of government as measured by share of debt from 65% of GDP to 10%.

Describing why government must focus on performance, McTigue identifi ed fi ve questions every government offi cial must answer before starting or continuing a program:

1. Where is the evidence that the problem exists?2. Who is already doing something about this prob-

lem?3. Where is the evidence that this proposal/program

will fi x the problem?4. How much will it cost and is this the best use of this

money at this time?5. When will the problem be eliminated?

McTigue concluded his speech by saying, “There is an old Irish proverb that says: ‘If you don’t know where you are going then any road will take you there.’ This is not an acceptable philosophy for modern government.”

We wholeheartedly agree. Thanks to the trailblazing of New Zealand, performance-based budgeting is not simply a good idea, it’s a tried and true reform with tangible results. Hopefully next time Maurice McTigue visits the state, it will be to talk about the “Washington Miracle.”

10 LIVING LIBERTY

1

Continued on next page

model election system securely and accurately distributes, collects and counts ballots, while also

ensuring that all eligible voters are given an opportunity to cast a ballot. In the past two issues of Living Liberty we have included questions and answers explaining two of our top recommendations for producing this kind of model system: a voter registration update and a require-ment for photo ID. We are continuing the fi ve-part series by focusing on our recommendations for improv-ing mail ballot security. This issue has special relevance for Washington as the state moves toward a complete vote-by-mail system.

1. Counties should not switch to vote-by-mail

Question: What opportunities for fraud exist in a vote-by-mail system?

Answer: Mail theft, ballot buying, voter intimida-tion and illegal voting are just some of the opportu-nities for fraud. Once the trays of ballots are dropped off at the Post Offi ce, they are outside the control of the elections offi ce until they arrive back in the mail. In the interim, many opportunities exist for ballots to be sto-len, altered, or sold.

Ballot secrecy is jeopardized by mail ballots, as voters fi lling out ballots at home are vulnerable to intimidation by family members, employers, union offi cials, and others. Also, the elderly become a special target for vote fraud. Someone “helps” them fi ll out a voter registration card, then “helps” them fi ll out a ballot in every subsequent election.

Mail ballot fraud isn’t theoretical. It has been documented in elections all over the world.

Question: Is vote-by-mail balloting more secure than poll voting?

Answer: No. The nation’s top election experts agree that election fraud occurs most often with mail bal-lots. Major reports by the 2001 National Commission on Federal Election Reform, the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, an expert panel assembled by the Century Foundation and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement all concluded that mail ballots present the best opportunity for election fraud.

Question: If vote-by-mail is so open to fraud, why haven’t I heard about vote fraud in Oregon?

onbyof 2

Mail Ballot SecurityRECOMMENDATIONS FOR REFORM3

Recommendation #3: EFF has a three-part recommendation on mail ballot security. First, counties should not change to a complete vote-by-mail system, due to an inherent lack of security. Second, because many counties have already taken this step, EFF recommends the legislature immediately increase mail ballot security by requiring voters to provide a signature plus an additional form of identifi cation. Third, counties should cease the practice of forwarding mail ballots.

A

Answer: A complete vote-by-mail system (like Ore-gon’s) makes it more diffi cult to uncover fraud. Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Justice has conducted over 180 investigations of election crimes, many of which concerned mail ballots. During just the past two years, state and local law enforcement have proven or are investigating mail ballot fraud in Alabama, Dela-ware, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Virginia. Many of these fraud investigations started after suspicions were aroused by unusual differences between poll and absentee ballot totals. Unfortunately, this kind of comparison doesn’t exist in Oregon’s all vote-by-mail system.

All of the states listed above limit the use of absentee ballots, requiring voters to have a valid reason in order to obtain one. If so much fraud has occurred with such limitations, it appears highly unlikely that such actions have not also occurred in Oregon.

Question: Does a vote-by-mail system make it less likely for votes to be counted accurately?

Answer: Yes. Mail ballots reduce the ability of voters to correct mistakes. In a poll voting system that uses optical scan ballots (like much of Washington), ballots incorrectly fi lled out are immediately rejected, giving the voter the chance to correct an error on the spot.

Under a vote-by-mail system, any voter errors that make a ballot unreadable to the scanning machine must be corrected by election staff or completely rejected. Due to an improper interpretation of vague state law, many election staff corrections are subjective, and may not refl ect a voter’s actual intentions. In Washington’s off-year general election in 2005, over 100,000 ballots statewide were corrected by election offi cials.

2. Two forms of ID should be required for mail ballots

Question: Aren’t signatures good enough for a secu-rity measure?

Answer: No, signature checks are unreliable. While most county election offi cials do their best to perform

A Memorial Day TributeTHE FRIAS BROTHERS

by Matthew Cole

M uch of the American landscape has been painted in broad strokes, shaped by great events in his-

tory and displayed in a legacy of memories. Yet, it is the details—the often unnoticed events—that have truly defi ned our strength as one of history’s great civiliza-tions.

Recently, another great American passed away. Joseph Frias was one of seven brothers who served in World War II simultaneously. His story, along with those of his other six soldier-brothers, is one that truly defi nes Americanism.

Joseph was the only one of his brothers to serve in the Navy. The other brothers, Lee, Ben, John, Fred, Phil and Henry all served in the Army.

It is rare that a family of siblings serve in the Armed Forces at the same time, let alone seven of them. It is even rarer that each would be deployed to the warfront

at the same time. Remember the fi lm Saving Private Ryan? The crux of the fi lm is that all but one of three brothers are killed in action, and a small squad is sent out the retrieve the surviving son to bring him home to his family. The movie itself is based on the real-life Niland family in which three of four brothers were killed.

The Frias brothers, like the Nilands, share a remark-able story that has shaped our country. Born of Mexi-can immigrants, the brothers were raised to the pursue the American dream. When war broke out and America was inevitably committed, all seven brothers signed up to go.

Joseph, who would later retire from the Navy as a Chief Boatswains Mate, served in the Pacifi c Theatre—as would Fred and Phil.

John worked at a U.S.-run POW camp for German captives.

Lee fought in Europe, fi rst in Italy; and then in France after the Normandy invasion.

Ben also fought in France.Henry was sent to the Pacifi c shortly after the U.S.

dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. With Joseph’s passing, Henry and Lee are now the

only surviving brothers. Their commitment to the American ideal was not even

a generation strong when they answered the call to arms and left their homeland to preserve the freedom of oth-ers on the other side of the world.

But the story does not end with the war. Each of the brothers survived, returned home to America, and resumed their lives. They married, had children, worked hard, and left a legacy of freedom.

What’s most intriguing about this story is how com-mon to the American narrative it is. They each fought for the freedom they understood fi rst-hand. They served their country, and when they were fi nished, they spent their lives multiplying that legacy for future genera-tions.

This Memorial Day, stop and look around. Look beyond the wreaths and ceremonies found in every small town and large monument in America. The mag-nifi cent truth of our democracy is the sheer number of stories like that of the Frias brothers.

We have a great history and a great destiny because of all the Joes, Lees, Johns, Bens, Henrys, Freds and Phils who devote their lives to the cause of freedom, painting the American tapestry in subtle strokes.

As a people, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Frias brothers and to the many like them who have given their lives in the name of freedom. It behooves us to make that same contribution: Work hard, love our families, and serve our country. Live your life with an apprecia-tion for the Republic many have died to save. Only then will freedom’s legacy be passed on.

A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION 11

3

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Electronic-giving (“e-Giving”) allows you to automatically donate electronically to EFF from your bank account or credit card. No more remembering to send checks or buying envelopes and stamps. It saves time! It saves work! It’s easy to use! For more information on scheduling an e-Giving donation, please contact Juliana McMahan at 360-956-3482 or visit us online atwww.effwa.org/contribution.php.

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Mail ballot security continued from page 10 . . .

accurate signature checks, the changing nature of signa-tures, the sheer volume of ballots, and the lack of expert handwriting analysts makes it an exercise in futility.

Photographic evidence exists of multiple ballots with obviously mismatched signatures from the 2004 Washington general election—ballots that were counted. Signature matching can be useful as one aspect of identity verifi cation, but is completely inadequate by itself.

Question: What other forms of identity verifi cation should be required on mail ballots?

Answer: Many different forms can be used, as long as they are a unique identifi er that is diffi cult for some-one other than the voter to obtain. The most readily available is a voter registration number, drivers’ license number or social security number. Requiring one of these numbers plus the voter’s signature would greatly decrease the likelihood of large-scale fraud. Such num-bers are already required to be given on a registration form; the legislature would simply need to set up a secure process by which voters could obtain a reminder of their number if they lost their registration card.

Other possibilities exist as well. Arizona is considering legislation that would require a copy of a photo ID to be mailed with the absentee ballot. Election experts have discussed the idea of biometric identifi ers, like a thumbprint pad on the ballot. Any of these ideas would be a vast improvement over the current signature-only check.

3. Mail ballots should not be forwarded

Question: What is the problem with forwarding mail ballots?

Answer: Forwarding mail ballots is a major cause of illegal voting. Washington state law allows counties to forward mail ballots if they print warnings about vote fraud on the ballot envelope. Despite this protection, forwarding ballots often leads to votes cast by ineli-gible voters—people who have moved out of state, or even just out of the precinct. Also, allowing ballots to be forwarded means the counties may not fi nd out a voter has moved. In the 2005 primary, King County sent out 600,000 mail ballots, but received no reports on which ballots were forwarded due to incorrect instructions to postal workers.

12 LIVING LIBERTY

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Thursday,

June 1

Ted AbramFormer Oregon Superior Court JusticeSen. John AndrewsFormer Colorado Senate Majority LeaderChris AtkinsBudget analyst and attorney for the national Tax FoundationDr. Vern CherewatenkoPhysician and president of SimpleCareDr. Bill ConerlyEconomist, Conerly Consulting LLCAndrew CoulsonDirector of Cato’s Center for Educational FreedomMark F. (Thor) HearneAmerican Center for Voting RightsJustice Jim JohnsonWA State Supreme CourtJoseph LehmanEconomist, Exec. V.P., Mackinac Center for Public PolicyDr. John D. Merrifi eldProfessor of Economics and author of The School Choice WarsSteve MosesPresident of the Center for Long-Term Care ReformDavid PrestonInsurance Resource Inc., specialist in Health Savings AccountsMichael ReitzDirector, EFF Labor Policy CenterJustice Richard B. SandersWA State Supreme CourtLisa SnellReason Foundation, Director of Education and Child Welfare

With Special Guest:John StosselAward-winning news correspondent John Stos-sel is co-anchor of ABC News “20/20” and author of “Give Me a Break.”

With Lunch Speaker:Peter BrookesAuthor, national colum-nist and television com-mentator, Senior Fellow Heritage Foundation, National Security Affairs

Conference Host:Bob WilliamsFormer Republican nominee for Wash-ington Governor and President of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation

Gala Emcee:Kirby WilburHost of the Kirby Wil-bur Show on 570 KVI in Seattle