Yet another victimless crime…

The prohibition of Salvia passed by a 44-0 vote. One thing our legislators all seem to agree on is that we need to be told what we can and cannot ingest. Being a Jeffersonian I subscribe to the idea, as expressed in our Declaration of Independence, that government exists to guarantee our rights. Somehow I don’t think our state legislators had our rights in mind when they passed this… http://unicameralupdate.blogspot.com/2009/02/salvia-ban-passes.html

Redundancy Department

I’m a firm believer that our ancestors already passed most of the laws we need a long time ago and that most new legislation is redundant or unnecessary. Once you’ve covered coercion and fraud you’re basically just repeating yourself to keep on passing new laws against them in their various forms. Three bills scheduled to be heard by the Judiciary Committee this Friday seem to fit this bill. They are LB35, LB63, and LB508 – “gang” laws that, as far as I can tell, outlaw things that are already illegal and create some more bureaucracy to study the gang problem and recommend solutions.

Take LB508, for example. This bill is to outlaw gang initiation activities. Section 2 states “It shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly endanger the physical or mental health or safety of another person for the purpose of initiation into, admission into, affiliation with, promotion within, or continued membership with any criminal gang…” Isn’t endangering someone already illegal? What does specifying the purpose for committing the act add to the law? Does specifying the gang element add any deterrence here? Is a gang member going to read a law like this and say “Gee, I guess they’re really serious about this gang stuff, I better give it up”?

The list of “new” crimes in these bills goes on an on. LB63 contains this prohibition of grafitti: “Any person who knowingly and intentionally applies graffiti of any type on any building, public or private, or any other tangible property owned by any person, firm, or corporation or any public entity or instrumentality, without the express permission of the owner or operator of the property, commits the offense of unauthorized application of graffiti”. Isn’t making graffiti on someone else’s property already illegal in any jurisdiction where it’s a problem? Doesn’t vandalism cover it in places where “grafitti” isn’t specifically banned? Why do we need to (further?) codify this in state law?

I’m no lawyer but I’m pretty sure many of the things that these gangs are doing are already illegal, so what’s the point of cluttering up the legal code with these redundant laws?

LB260 – Nebraska Claims for Wrongful Conviction and Imprisonment Act

This bill provides for compensation and aid to people who have been wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for a crime. Some highlights are $50,000 per year incarcerated plus $50,000 per year on death row, compensation for lost wages and costs associated with criminal defense, compensation for medical expenses, five years of health insurance, and tuition reimbursement.

Given that wrongful convictions do occurr, I believe that the government does have a duty to try and make restitution to those it has victimized, however “honest” the mistake may have been. While lost years are impossible to replace, this bill goes a long way towards making things right again for someone who was wronged.

This bill is scheduled for a hearing before the Judiciary Committee in room 1113 on Thursday Feb. 19th at 1:30pm.

LB503 Nebraska Shooting Range Protection Act

This bill is to protect Nebraska shooting ranges from harrassment and closing by local zoning and other ordinances. It also prohibits their being seized by eminent domain for use as government shooting facilities. It was introduced by Sen. Chris Langemeier of District 23 (Schuyler) and is worthy of support by all who value liberty. It will be considered at a hearing before the Government, Military, and Veterans Affairs Comittee in room 1507 on Friday, Feb 20 at 1:30pm.

LB106 – Another reason to pull you over

Currently, not wearing your seatbelt (or requiring your passengers to do likewise)  is a “secondary enforcement”  violation.  You must be cited for a primary violation before you can also be cited for a secondary violation. So you would have to be pulled over and cited for something else first.

LB106, introduced by Sen. John Harms of District 48 (Scottsbluff) , would change the seatbelt requirement  to a primary offense, meaning that you could be pulled over and cited just for not wearing a seatbelt.

Personally, I think law enforcement officers (when did we stop calling them peace officers?)  already have enough excuses to pull people over. Not to mention the fact that seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws are just nanny-state interference with personal liberties to begin with.

There is a committee hearing for this bill in the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee, Room 1113, on Tuesday, Feb 17th at 1:30pm.

LB418 – Tax Fairness in the “Learning Community”

Introduced by Scott Price from District 3 (Bellevue) , this is a bill to establish property valuation fairness in the newly created Learning Community that covers Douglas and Sarpy counties. This new political subdivision has the power to levy taxes on property owners in the two counties on behalf of the school districts.

Currently, Douglas and Sarpy counties vary widely in their property tax assessments methods. While Sarpy County adjusts property values county-wide every year, Douglas only adjusts property values for a section of the county each year, meaning that the average property owner sees a change in their valuation once every four or five years. This produces a wide disparity between the two counties that results in Sarpy County residents paying taxes on higher property valuations in any given year than most  Doulgas county residents in homes of the same market value.

Since the Learning Community will be levying taxes on the properties in the two counties, it’s only fair that everyone’s property is assessed in the same way and this bill is an attempt to achieve that.

I don’t see this bill on the hearing schedule yet, but I am informed that it is slated to be heard by the Revenue Committee on March 26th.

Quick Note

We are still trying to keep an eye on legislation, but could use some help–if you’re liberty-minded and want to give us a hand, e-mail nebraskaliberty@gmail.com

“Weak Gun Laws”

I kind of think this is a good thing.

LB 123 Watch

I’m pretty indifferent, personally, where question of drug use are concerned.  However, I’m not so indifferent where liberty is concerned, and anything that limits the exercise of liberty for others–even to be unwise–is automatically suspect where I’m concerned.  The standard, in my view, for limits on the behavior of others ought to be: is there a HIGH likelihood that the potentially unwise behavior will result in danger to the general public?

LB 123, introduced by Sen. Russ Karpisek (32), seeks to categorize the herb Salvia as a Schedule I Controlled Substance.  Schedule I drugs must fit into these categories:

1. The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
2. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
3. There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

In my reading on Salvia, I find little indication that it is exceedingly dangerous, or that the use of it poses a major threat to the general public.

One of the great ironies of this bill is that Sen. Karpisek has previously indicated that he opposes an outright ban on smoking in public locations (like restaurants and bars), preferring to leave the decision of whether or not to allow smoking to the owners of the establishment on “property rights” grounds.  And yet the potential danger to others from second hand smoke would seem to be more profound than the potential danger to others from the use of Salvia.

The bill is now on Select File, which means that it can be advanced to Final Reading.  Time may be limited to muster up opposition to the bill, but I would encourage those who love liberty to consider dropping their senator an e-mail, and question this bill on liberty grounds.

LB377 will allow higher taxes

All readers should be aware of LB 377 introduced by Senator Pankonin (2).  This bill will allow any government entity including airport authorities, schools, cities, villages, counties, etc to get in a contractual relationship with the federal government. The federal government could possibly guarantee bonds issued by the government entity. The second questionable activity is the language that would allow bonds to be paid back by any tax (with no limits). This would also allow a way to go around other tax laws on the books.

This to me is a very dangerous bill. First because we would allow each entity to contract with the government.  What if the entity defaults on the bond. Would the fed take over the running of the locality? This probably would not happen. The language in the bill states that the bond will be paid back and that the local government entity can come up with what ever taxing mechanism they want to do it all while going around other tax laws such as the sales tax, and property tax.

This bill would allow a school who is already belt tightening to take on a massive capital project knowing that they will not have the funds in the future to pay for it through traditional taxing. The school under this bill could impose a sales tax or increase property taxes ABOVE the legal lid to pay the bond. This one bill could and will allow taxes to run up quickly.

The statement of intent of this bill says that this would allow government entities the ability to obtain lower rates and overall a better deal on the bonds, however they have to be in contract with the federal government. While the statement of intent says the bill is for housing and it’s intent would be for a guarantee of loans on housing, the bill is written in such a vague way that it will be misused.

Other language in the bill states that this bill is an emergency bill which I believe means it would take effect the day after the Governor passes it. This bill is scheduled for hearing on Feb 2, 2009 and is assigned to the banking committee.