I’m not exactly sure, but it seems like this could help Allan Ryan avoid living a life of crime.

This morning my mother in law sent me a political email that’s been making the rounds; it’s titled, “The Haircut,” but amazingly enough it’s not about John Edwards. I’ve copied it below the fold, followed by another great Joe Citizens video on the same general topic. Both fit in nicely with my earlier post about Rep. Curry Todd and his free lunch plan. (more…)

A letter to the CA:

I am 52, have five college degrees and two professional designations. Tonight at midnight, according to the state of Tennessee, when I drive I will become a criminal. If I can’t drive, then I also can’t work — my only choice will be to break the law.

I have spent about a third of my adult life in the United States. My wife is American-born, and I have three children who are all American citizens. In the past I have held a green card (which I surrendered when I went back to Canada to work), have worked on an H1-B visa as a university professor, and for the last two years have worked on a temporary employment authorization based on my application for a new green card. I am now in the limbo of “Adjustment of Status” whereby I am legally entitled to remain in the U.S., can apply for one-year renewals of employment authorization but cannot travel outside the country without permission and cannot receive a “real” driver’s license in Tennessee. Now I am not even able to receive a “certificate for driving” that is stamped “For driving purposes only, not valid for identification.”

In the infinite wisdom of the Tennessee legislature, I and hundreds like me, whose proof of legal status must be renewed on a regular basis, are often caught in the Catch-22 of not having documents that show an expiration date more than 365 days distant. Since my employment authorization is renewed on a yearly basis, and I don’t receive my card until after the date it becomes effective, I will never be able to receive a driver’s license on this basis until my immigration status is finalized.

In the past, as a law-abiding, legitimate spouse of a citizen I would have received my green card or permanent residence status within months. Today, however, I am one of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of aspiring American citizens who are playing by all the rules but who may never be on a “path to citizenship.”

Over a year ago I became one of the many immigration applicants whose paperwork gets placed on a pile of applications for completion of an FBI name check. Apparently, if on a computer search you are so unlucky that your name, or one like it, is identified as appearing in one of the millions of paper records maintained by the FBI you will not be cleared until some FBI agent somewhere takes the time to check the pertinent file by hand.

In today’s climate you clearly don’t have to be an illegal immigrant to be made to feel like an unwelcome immigrant. Bureaucratic inaction, inane lawmaking and political posturing and pandering won’t make America safer, but it will make many future Americans very uncomfortable, and may even threaten our ability to support ourselves and our families.

Allan Ryan
Collierville

First, I was not aware of the 365 day rule. I would say that any immigrant with a legal status should be able to get a driver’s license valid for as long as the visa or temporary status is valid. That would seem like a fairly simple fix to the situation, and one that rewards law-abiding residents rather than encouraging illegal activity.

Second, I think we need to focus on speeding up the legal immigration process for that same reason — so that legal visitors and immigrant workers won’t continue to be burdened and hassled by an inept bureaucracy while illegal immigrants basically get a free pass. We need to reduce and remove the application backlogs without sacrificing safety measures.

I would say, however, that while I sympathize with Mr. Ryan’s situation, he is presenting something of a false dichotomy. Unless he has absolutely no other means of transportation, no friends, family members or coworkers who can give him a lift, no access to cabs or buses, or no ability to travel without operating a personal vehicle, he doesn’t actually need to “become a criminal.”

Being in an unfortunate situation is not license to break the law, no matter how compassionate we might feel by looking the other way. That’s true of undocumented driving, just as it’s true of undocumented working and illegal immigration in general. Instead of temporary compassion, lawlessness and half-measures, we need smart reform, pragmatic policy and respect for both the law and the people it serves and protects.

I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with my state representative, Curry Todd (R - Collierville). In 2006, Rep. Todd ran unopposed, and I voted for him. But since that time, however, he has charged full speed in the wrong direction; he has raised taxes, limited our freedoms, inflated government spending and failed to advance our Second Amendment rights. Now he wants to peel away the ethics laws passed just two years ago, in the wake of Operation Tenn. Waltz.

More on all these issues below, but first let’s discuss his proposed changes to the ethics law.

Bloggers who have already written about this issue include Ben Cunningham (who also posted this video), Adam Groves and Jim Grinstead.

The first hints that some legislators wanted to weaken the new ethics law came in October, when a confused Rep. Todd was quoted saying, “No one knows what they can do.”

Funny that, how our representatives in Nashville could vote to pass a bill they didn’t understand in the first place.

But comprehension doesn’t appear to be the real issue. Our lawmakers seem all-too aware of just how much they can get, and from whom.

As the Commercial Appeal reports in an editorial today, “the state’s ethics law generally prevents lobbyists from buying meals for lawmakers…, limits groups or individuals who employ lobbyists from spending more than $50 per legislator per meal…, and doesn’t apply to individual constituents or groups that don’t employ lobbyists.”

“If the law really needs to be clarified, that’s fine. But clarity shouldn’t come at the expense of perpetuating the perception that Tennessee state government is for sale.”

It’s not clarity that Rep. Todd is seeking, but rather $75 meals, totaling up to $1,000 per lobbyist, per year.

So if there are at least 600-700 lobbying clients in Tennessee, a busy legislator could receive over half a million dollars in food and beverages each year.

The Tennessean reports that, “many legislators say the ban is too restrictive, cutting them off from constituents and one another,” and some are “annoyed by the notion that [they] could be bought for a biscuit.”

All this prompts a number of questions:

• Are lobbyists now considered “constituents” by our legislators?
• Are our legislators unable to meet with constituents without receiving free food?
• What are our legislators doing with their per diem money?
• Do biscuits cost $75 in Nashville these days?
• If $75 is the proper limit, does that imply their votes can be bought for $76?

Also, if our lawmakers are not paying for their own meals, how exactly would they be collecting all the receipts, in order to turn them into the Ethics Commission?

What happens if the lobbyists’ paperwork doesn’t match the legislators’ paperwork? How many more bureaucrats will need to be hired in order to tabulate the numbers and investigate any discrepancies?

But perhaps the most important question is this: if Curry Todd is simply a representative serving his constituents, in a democracy where the voters in his district hold the power, and drawing his salary from their tax dollars, why should he be the one getting the free lunches? (more…)

The Commercial Appeal comes out against a bill recently passed by the Tennessee Senate affirming the right of lawful handgun owners to carry their firearms into establishments that serve alcohol (they are still banned from drinking while carrying).

I find the contrast between these two parts humorous:

The self-defense issue certainly underpins the argument to let people go armed. Maybe that’s just a fear hyped up by those who have tirelessly pushed for strict interpretation of the Second Amendment, which says the government shall not infringe upon the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.

Yes, it must be the fear talking, not prudence and sober reverence of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the CA continues:

Having more guns in public, in our minds, doesn’t make citizens more secure and it can be a potential hazard if someone with a carry permit overreacts to a situation and fires rounds in a crowded public place.

To me, that kind of talk sounds like… (what do you call that emotion?)… oh, yeah… fear.

There are LOTS of responses to the editorial, and the commenters are not happy.

ELSEWHERE: Glenn Reynolds and others in Knoxville react similarly

UPDATE: The CA gets more negative feedback.

Here’s some video I shot at the East Shelby Republican Club last week. In it, State Rep. Curry Todd explains that Tennessee is “flush with cash,” and that with the surplus, everyone wanted a “piece of the pie.” Rep. Todd signed on to a plan for each of the legislators to take a piece of this pie and feed it to his constituents, thus currying favor (pun intended) with the electorate, a process The Commercial Appeal labeled an “incumbent protection scheme.”

Rep. Todd’s pork request is here, made available online by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. His particular slice of the pie was designated for the Shelby County Schools PTA and Education Foundation. Of course, there’s certainly nothing wrong with state money going to schools. The problem is how the money gets there. First, these expenditures need to be part of the overall budget process, so that the money is distributed fairly and appropriately among all programs and areas, in accordance with our priorities. If the budget for schools was too low, that’s a problem Rep. Todd and friends should have fixed on the front end. Second, individual legislators must not be allowed to sprinkle tax dollars wherever they please, effectively buying votes in the process. After all, how do you think the beneficiaries will vote next time around?

And if Rep. Todd can’t find $50,000 in the regular budget for the Shelby County PTA, and that money is needed, perhaps he should donate the $50,000+ he raised to run unopposed in the last election (see FAQ 19, F for proof that it can be done).

Meanwhile, although the state is “flush with cash,” Rep. Todd says “maybe that’s alright” that we have “one of the highest sales taxes in the nation,” and that he is “in favor of the tax” increase on cigarettes. That just doesn’t add up. If the state is flush with cash, then we don’t need to be raising taxes. Instead, we should be cutting taxes.

If, on the other hand, the state government needs all this extra cash, it ought to be budgeted in a responsible way. It was more than exasperating to see the state scramble to double-check our bridges after the one in Minnesota collapsed, and now to hear them call for putting in tolls. It’s time for our legislators to stop passing out animal crackers and start putting together real budgets that address real needs, and make a plan for how they will prevent and prepare for emergencies.

While we’re on the subject, let me note my displeasure with Rep. Todd on some other matters.

The first of these is the smoking ban he voted for. Like with the money for schools, there’s nothing wrong with protecting people from the dangers of second-hand smoke. But there is a problem with second-hand government taking away our liberties. Not only is the smoking ban an assault on our freedom, it’s also wholly unnecessary, for at least two reasons: 1. if you want to protect yourself from cigarette smoke, all you need to do is simply stop visiting establishments that allow smoking; 2. several businesses had already declared themselves smoke-free just prior to the smoking ban vote. Of course we need to protect ourselves from things that will harm our health, but we don’t need government to do that for us. What’s more dangerous than second-hand smoke is a government that continues to take away more and more of our freedoms. And the next wave is going to be food, with the government telling us what we can and can’t eat. Thanks, but I think we can take care of ourselves.

Now for the ironic grace note: while Rep. Todd was out taking away freedoms from business owners and their customers, he was also sponsoring a bill that would lift the mandatory motorcycle helmet law. So it’s ok for the government to stamp out our cigarettes, but the state can’t keep us from splattering our brains on the street?

Is it too much to ask for a little consistency?

And, finally, there’s the issue of guns, and our Second Amendment rights, which has been perceived to be one of Rep. Todd’s greatest strengths among conservative Republicans in his district. Rep. Todd sponsored H 411, which allows permit holders to take their firearms into restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages. But when he was “approached by another legislator about a push to allow handguns on college campuses,” he said, “I don’t know if this is the proper time to do that,” following the Virginia Tech shootings.

If it’s not a proper time to affirm the right of students to defend themselves in the aftermath of a psychopath’s rampage (who by the way murdered his victims in a “gun free zone”), when is there a proper time?

I don’t think [Commercial Appeal reporter] Jon [Sparks] did it on purpose, but what I was saying to him was “I was not judging whether it was right or not, I wanted to be sure Bartlett had it shot at the money if it became available”.

- Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald, responding to a question about his recent comments in the CA: “If it’s the right way or not… we want our shot at it.”

“It” would be the slush money allotted to each member of the Tennessee Congress under a proposed way to manage Tennessee’s budget surplus.

Rep. Brian Kelsey is getting criticism from all sides for his stance on the plan, which he considers to be an ethically dangerous pork process. Republicans Jim Coley and Curry Todd have been particularly abrasive.

Rep. Todd, who happens to represent my district, would be well advised to avoid the ad hominem arguments from here on out.

Notes and commentary: Bill Hobbs, Rep. Susan Lynn, Frank Cagle, Ben Cunningham.

AND: Commercial Appeal: [Rep. Kelsey] is correct to expose the lack of accountability in the plan and the government waste that it is likely to produce. In the wake of the Tennessee Waltz corruption investigation, legislators should be moving toward more transparency, not less.