CDR: RE: California bars free speech of those cutting deals on votes
Bill Stewart[SMTP:bill.stewart@pobox.com]
At 09:48 AM 11/1/00 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote:
All indications are that Carla Howell, the Libertarian challenger for Kennedy's Senate seat, will handily out-poll the Republicans this year.
I really like Carla - hope she does well. You'll probably also have a lot of Greens and liberal Democrats voting for Nader, which would be good except they're partly doing it for the campaign finance porkbarrel.
Massachusetts looks like the kind of state that has more pot smokers than registered Republicans. Somebody ought to be able to use that....
Bill
Somebody is. Prop 8 would allow drug offenders (including low level dealers) to opt for treatment over prison, and would require all fines, seized funds, and profits from the sale of stolen^H^H^H^H^H^Hforfeited property in drug cases to be used to finance treatment. I think one other state has a similar proposition this year, and another (New Mexico?) has had a similar law in place for a while, to great success. Needless to say, the police chiefs and DAs are worried that their profits will be eroded, and oppose it. Since the national and state wide candidates' races are non-issues in MA, most of the campaigning I've seen has been for and against the various ballot measures. For details, see: http://www.state.ma.us/sec/ele/elebq00/bq008.htm Peter Trei
At 1:14 PM -0500 11/1/00, Trei, Peter wrote:
Bill Stewart[SMTP:bill.stewart@pobox.com]
Massachusetts looks like the kind of state that has more pot smokers than registered Republicans. Somebody ought to be able to use that....
Bill
Somebody is. Prop 8 would allow drug offenders (including low level dealers) to opt for treatment over prison, and would require all fines, seized funds, and profits from the sale of stolen^H^H^H^H^H^Hforfeited property in drug cases to be used to finance treatment.
I think one other state has a similar proposition this year, and another (New Mexico?) has had a similar law in place for a while, to great success.
California passed the Medical Marijuana Initiative (more than once, as I recall, as the Fedgov found "technicalities" to strike it down the first time it passed). No "interstate commerce" is involved (*), for most home-grown pot, and yet the Fedgov has asserted the claim that federal dietary laws take precedence over local dietary laws. (* As we know, the interstate commerce clause was oriented toward making sure that only the Federal government could imposes tariffs on goods moving between the states. This was to head off a flurry of opportunisitc tariffs imposed by the states. It had _nothing_ to do with the notion that if a book publisher, for example, ships books across state lines that the Federal government then has some means to regulate the content. This seems to be commonly misunderstood; not by Cypherpunks, but I'm repeating this just to make sure.) If these United States were functioning as intended, this and similar cases would go to the Supreme Court and the Court would find that the states cannot be told what to by the Fedgov in matters like this. But we have not been functioning as intended for most of the past century. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim May
At 1:14 PM -0500 11/1/00, Trei, Peter wrote:
I think one other state has a similar proposition this year, and another (New Mexico?) has had a similar law in place for a while, to great success.
California passed the Medical Marijuana Initiative (more than once, as I recall, as the Fedgov found "technicalities" to strike it down the first time it passed).
No "interstate commerce" is involved (*), for most home-grown pot, and yet the Fedgov has asserted the claim that federal dietary laws take precedence over local dietary laws.
What I'd like to see is for a state, any state, to apply some sort of "100% State Income Tax for People engaged in violating the right of citizens to make and use pot [for medicinal reasons, etc]." In other words, any Fed participating in such a case would lose his yearly salary, guaranteed. I'm wondering if there are any legal impediments to this. Feds don't normally claim immunity from local and state laws, or taxes, etc. The tax isn't on the enforcement of Federal laws: It would simply be a separate income tax on people who happen to do this. Obviously, a Fed must pay state income tax on income from his (Fed) job; the only issue is how high those taxes are. Change that number from, say, 10% to 100% and that solves the problem. It would be unusual for the tax rate to be determined by source of income, but there should be plenty of precedent for things like tax credits conditional on a person's behavior. Assuming the state Constitution doesn't explicitly prohibit setting a discriminatory tax rate this should "fly" if the state had the guts to do this. Jim Bell
(* As we know, the interstate commerce clause was oriented toward making sure that only the Federal government could imposes tariffs on goods moving between the states. This was to head off a flurry of opportunisitc tariffs imposed by the states. It had _nothing_ to do with the notion that if a book publisher, for example, ships books across state lines that the Federal government then has some means to regulate the content. This seems to be commonly misunderstood; not by Cypherpunks, but I'm repeating this just to make sure.)
If these United States were functioning as intended, this and similar cases would go to the Supreme Court and the Court would find that the states cannot be told what to by the Fedgov in matters like this.
But we have not been functioning as intended for most of the past century.
--Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
At 03:29 PM 11/1/00 -0500, jim bell wrote:
What I'd like to see is for a state, any state, to apply some sort of "100% State Income Tax for People engaged in violating the right of citizens to make and use pot [for medicinal reasons, etc]."
Actually you can sue a government official (cop, clerk, etc) who violates your rights knowingly, and under 'color of authority'. The trick is convincing a jury that it was suitably malicious and obvious violation. E.g., false arrest because you look like a suspect won't cut it almost always. BTW, Calif is the 'other' state to have a proposition this year to dissolve the 'drug court' infrastructure and replace it with a medical (vs punitive) structure. Needless to say, the drug-court-workers don't like the possibility of taking their teat away. Interestingly, Tom Cambell (R from San Jose) who is running against Feinswine supports this proposition, and the Swine doesn't. Cambell also doesn't want to do Vietnam in Columbia, and the Swine does. Interesting reversal, eh?
David Honig wrote:
Actually you can sue a government official (cop, clerk, etc) who violates your rights knowingly, and under 'color of authority'. The trick is convincing a jury that it was suitably malicious and obvious violation. E.g., false arrest because you look like a suspect won't cut it almost always.
Actually, you can do better than that. There's a fed statute (don't have the # with me, but do at home if someone needs it) that makes violation of your civil rights by *any* public official a federal felony. A judge in Tenn. got 32 years in the slammer on this charge a few years ago. He took it to the Supremes and lost. -- Harmon Seaver, MLIS Systems Librarian Arrowhead Library System Virginia, MN (218) 741-3840 hseaver@arrowhead.lib.mn.us http://harmon.arrowhead.lib.mn.us
On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 06:14:56PM -0500, Harmon Seaver wrote:
Actually you can sue a government official (cop, clerk, etc) who violates your rights knowingly, and under 'color of authority'. The trick is convincing a jury that it was suitably malicious and obvious violation. E.g., false arrest because you look like a suspect won't cut it almost always.
Actually, you can do better than that. There's a fed statute (don't have the # with me, but do at home if someone needs it) that makes violation of your civil rights by *any* public official a federal felony. A judge in Tenn. got 32 years in the slammer on this charge a few years ago. He took it to the Supremes and lost.
For civil suits, see 42 USC 1983 and 1985. For criminal actions, see 18 USC 241 and 242; unfortunately, the criminal sections are only of interest to federal prosecutors. The rest of us need to use civil suits; against federal agents, it's not a 1983 action, but one under federal common law, a la _Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents_, a Supreme court case whose citation eludes me at the moment. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@netbox.com PO Box 897 Oakland CA 94604
At 11:06 AM 11/1/00 -0800, Tim May wrote:
California passed the Medical Marijuana Initiative (more than once, as I recall, as the Fedgov found "technicalities" to strike it down the first time it passed).
Actually, the state legislature passed it, twice, and State Reptile\\\\\\\Governor Pete Wilson vetoed it, twice. So we had to do an initiative, which Wilson politicked against, but it passed, so State Atty. General Dan Lundgen and the Feds tried to gut it. The new Democrat Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer's not helping any.
No "interstate commerce" is involved (*), for most home-grown pot, and yet the Fedgov has asserted the claim that federal dietary laws take precedence over local dietary laws.
If you read the Federal drug laws, they start out by bald-facedly asserting that since it's hard to tell where a particular bunch of drugs comes from, Congress presumes that they may have originated in or be destined for interstate commerce, so they have jurisdiction. (Even if it's a marijuana plant still attached to the ground....) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
participants (7)
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Bill Stewart -
David Honig -
Greg Broiles -
Harmon Seaver -
jim bell -
Tim May -
Trei, Peter