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Show HERALD DAILY Sunday, February 10, 2008 Editorials AS EDITORIAL Daitu&ftrralfi BOARD Craig Dennis, President & Publisher Randy Wright, Executive Editor Jim Tynen, Editorial Page Editor IN OUR VIEW '01 V Voting hassles shouldn't happen can remember in Utah, which is Tuesday, Utah a bigger role usually written off. ever before in Thompson deserves some credit race for for admitting his mistakes. But nominations, the issue now is how to prepare Utah County for future balloting. It seems basic voters faced mass confusion. to us that polling places should remain constant, regardless of the Examining this fiasco is imsize of an election. Predictabiliity portant not because the officials involved deserve special blame, helps protect the right of everybut because it should never be alone to vote. As for convenience, lowed to happen again. government serves the people, Many voters had an experience not the other way around. like that of Lorna Alder, a Most Utah County residents Provo resident. She went are not obsessed with politics, and to her regular polling place at shouldn't have to spend a lot of Centennial Middle School to vote, time hunting for the polling place only to find that she needed to go for each election. to another location. Reportedly, only about $50,000 "We had always voted at Cenwas saved by consolidating polltennial, and not know- ing places, which is a bit more than a dime per ing any different, that's where we went," she Examining county resident. The said. saved clearly was this fiasco money But things got worse. not worth the hassles the Voters who located the is important moves created. If fundpolls often encountered ing cuts are ever needed, not because they should never come long lines. Some were informed they were at from the essential functhe officials tion of obtaining citizens' the wrong place and sent off to another, but votes but from some involved not always the right other part of the budget. deserve one. Josh Dettinger said Also, if there are unhe went to his usual avoidable changes in votspecial polling place, Farrer Eing places or procedures, they need to be publilementary School, where he was redirected to cized more thoroughly. because The county should mail Provost Elementary, then to the historic any affected voters a it should notice of changes. courthouse and back to Provost before he could never be Ordinary people lead .'.: vote. busy lives, and election allowed The county problems are an unnecprecincts last year, and essary added hurdle. For to happen polling places were example, county voter consolidated from 107 Eliza Tanner Hawkins again. found out too late that to 59 for the presidential the location of her pollprimaries. Many voters "". said they hadn't heard a ing place had changed. word about that. By the time she got there the wait Bryan Thompson, Utah County was almost 45 minutes. Hawkins said she had two young sons with clerkauditor, expressed regret in a statement. "I want to express fevers and she could not stay to my apologies to the voters of Utah vote. We would not be, surprised if County for the inconveniences others found themselves similarly they experienced today; I take disenfranchised by the problems. personal responsibility for the Some argue that voting by mail problems that occurred today, and will make sure that we make would make the process easier for the necessary changes to our elec- all concerned, including election tion procedures." officials and their volunteers, and He said a poor turnout for the that it would broaden participa 2000 primary prompted the coun- - tion in elections. They may be ty to cut back on polling stations, right, though others argue that The goal was to save money a the political process is dynamic, motive that might hold water if and events right up to Election there's a lot of money to be saved. Day can sway voters. There may be practical value in maintaining But there isn't. It's peanuts. tradition. Moreover, it should have been ' obvious to anyone following the The merits of voting by mail may be argued. But so long as primaries that this wasn't going to be a normal Super Tuesday. the system includes traditional Interest was particularly heightpolling places, government ened by the Mormon on the ballot, should do everything possible to Mitt Romney. And Democrats make voting orderly and predictable. If it costs a little more, it's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton staged the first real fight we worth it. On blamebut MEDIA VOICES Archives should remain nonpartisan From the Washington Post, Friday, Feb. 8, 2008: got to the top of the queue, it took one archivist (there are only six at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum) about six months to clear the 10,000 pages for Lindsey's review. He now has up to 45 days, with the possibility of an indefinite extension, to do his review. The papers will then go to the White House, which will conduct its own review before notifying the Archives whether it can open the papers to the public. Deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel told us that the counsel's office will do so "in an expeditious Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen.first touts her experience lady, particularly her leadership of the health care task force in the early years of the Clinton administration, as the foundation of her run for the Democratic Party nomination for president. So it's only natural that there would be a clamor for the release of White House records that would give a fuller accounting of her performance and judgment before the November .... manner." election, assuming she succeeds in snaring the nomination. But there's a process that must be observed, and it should not be altered by the whims of politics. The issue arises because of two actions taken last month by the National Archives. There was the clearance of 10,000 pages of Clinton's daily schedule as first lady for review by former president Bill Clinton's representative, Bruce Lindsey. And then there was the Archives' request that a judge throw out a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a Washington-base- d conservative legal group, which is demanding that an estimated 3 million pages of documents related to the health care task force be released immediately. Let's tackle the schedules first. The Archives honors Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests d basis. on a Many entities, including Judicial Watch, requested Clinton's schedule and were grouped; once they first-com- ( e, first-serve- , While the schedules might be released before the November election, the same cannot be said for the health care task force records. The multiple reviews by the Archives, Lindsey and the White House could take months, if not years. Judicial Watch filed its FOIA request in April 2006. Last November, the group filed suit in federal court to force the Archives to move its FOIA request to the front of the line. We understand the frustration. ' Papers generated by a president's administration belong to the people of the United States and should be made available as quickly as possible. But the Archives was right to ask the court to toss the case. Siding with Judicial Watch would set an untenable precedent of forcing the Archives to decide which FOIA request deserves attention over another and would open the decidedly nonpartisan agency to charges of playing politics with its work. That mustn't happen. "President Bush is way too unpopular for you to invoke his name. Just push his policies and hope no one notices." LETTERS Compare McCain to Romney I am joining with Darrel Wood of Price, who is calling for our legislature to start upholding the Rule of Law. Our legislators need to stop rewarding . illegal behavior and stop the flow of illegal immigrants to our state. They need to stop employers from hiring legal aliens, stop giving driver permits, and stop giving tuition. Stop making our state a sanctuary for legal aliens! There are those who say these poor illegal immigrants are just trying to better themselves and their families, so we should excuse them for breaking our laws by entering our country illegally. If we go on that premise, then we need to excuse the fellow who robs a bank, because he is just trying to better ' himself. Last year America watched as millions of illegal aliens and their supporters protested in the streets. They waved Mexican flags, they went on strike, and they demanded that America bend over backwards to appease them. These people are not like immigrants in the past. They don't want to assimi It is shocking that Governor Jon Huntsman is supporting John McCain. Jon is stabbing Mitt Romney in the back. Mitt saved Utah from scandal and financial disaster. When he arrived on the scene of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games in February 1999, the and situation was a management disaster. It was a scandal that had become a crisis. Mitt Romney did not have to take the job as chairman of the 2002 Winter Games, but he did. Mitt not only turned a near impossible task around, but he did it in spectacular il- fashion. Let us look at John McCain's voting record: I Voted with Ted Kennedy to give amnesty to illegal aliens and reward illegal behavior. I Voted against even holding a vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. (Traditional Marriage.) I Voted against the Bush tax cuts. Teamed up with Feingold on a campaign-finance- 1 reform bill that was blatantly unconstitutional. Was part of the "Gang of 14." John McCain did more to help Democrats than Republicans in the Senate. That argument was helped by former President Bill Clinton, who said that his wife and McCain are "very close" and added that they "always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history, and they're afraid they'd put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other." A vote for McCain is a vote for Hillary. Mitt Romney has a proven track record as a businessman, with the Olympics and as governor of Massachusetts. He has the experience, vision and values to make a difference in Washington. S. . Ruth Stewart, Orem il- public-relatio- I Shirley late peacefully into American society. They don't want to be American and learn English. They want to turn America into Mexico. And our politicians are fiddling while American society is collapsing from a slow breakdown of the Rule of Law. Biggest liar G. W. Bush is the biggest liar on the planet! He not only lied about WMD to get us into War in Iraq, but recently in a speech in Abu Dhabi aimed directly at the people of Iran, he said, among other things, "(your government) threatens " the peace and stability of your neigh-bors.- ; Well, George, you seem to have forgotten one thing. The U.S., led by you, has gone halfway around the world and now occupies Muslim countries in Asia. So how can you accuse Iran of stirring up trouble with its neighbors? I Michael R. Kelsey, Provo . Robins Orem Uphold the law GEORGE WILL projects mark GOP road to failure Pork-barr- el Coconut Road near Fort Myers Fla.) looks like any ribbon near hous- ing developments, golf courses and shopping malls in this state's booming southwest. But like another fragrant slab of recent pork, the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, Coconut Road leads to somewhere darkly fascinating. It runs straight into earmark culture of waste, Wash-ington'- corruption and deviousness. Today the road ends at a chain-linfence, beyond which flows the river of traffic on Interstate 75. The earmark that would have built an interchange to connect Coconut Road to was, like the bridge, smudged with the fingerprints of Alaska's Republican Rep. Don Young, who in 2005 was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. But this story involves more than one political vulgarian's wretched excesses. It also illustrates how Republicans earned their most recent and coming drubbings. On July 29, 2005, the House and Senate passed legislation granting Lee County's request for $10 million for "widening and improvements for to facilitate evacuations during hurricanes. But on Feb. 19, 2005, Young had been in Bonita Springs near Fort Myers, collecting $40,000 in campaign funds. The contributors included developer Daniel Aronoff, a prolific supporter of Republicans and owner of about 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The value of that land would be enhanced if Coconut Road were connected to by an interchange that would be adjacent to 1,200 of Aronoff 's acres. When the legislation reached the k s president on Aug. 10, 2005, the lanhad been guage about widening mysteriously deleted and replaced by Lee "Coconut Rd. interchange County." So $ 10 million was to be spent for a project neither the House nor the Senate voted for, that Lee County did not want, and that someone unknown wrote into the legislation. But the Constitution says: "Every bill ... shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate" before it becomes law. Young at first said the local congressman, Connie Mack, asked for the change. Mack denied that. In January 2006, Young, who subsequently changed his tune, warned Lee County that it could not spend the $10 million for the widening project it requested. Young says local residents requested the interchange project instead. But many residents, not including the developers who are Young's benefactors, oppose it for environmental and traffic reasons. There are two mysteries: Who surreptitiously perverted the will of Congress? And why is Congress not angry and eager to identify the culprit? It seems reasonable to suspect this answer to the first question: Young, or an agent of his. The probable answer, or answers, to the second question: Because Young is powerful and perhaps also because such violations of legislative due process have been committed on behalf of other members. Fortunately, Senate rules enable an obdurate individual to force fhe institu-.tio- n to sit up and take notice. One such mechanism is a "hold," by which a senator can halt a bill. Freshman Sen. Tom Coburn is an Oklahoma Republican who happily has not learned the Senate ethic of playing nicely with others. He has put a hold on the bill that corrects technical problems in the 2005 highway bill. On Dec. 18, he announced that he will block that bill and its slew of earmarks (that will get members' attention) if the bill "does not require a full and open investigation of the events leading up to the unauthorized revision of congressionally passed legislation." Coburn demands "a select committee, comprised of members of both the House and Senate," because "secret, improper and unauthorized changes to congressionally passed legislation call into question the integrity of our entire constitutional and legislative process." Seven weeks have passed, and nothing has happened. Young, 74, one of whose former aides pleaded guilty to bribery charges involving the jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is the subject of an FBI investigation concerning another matter, and faces strong opposition to a 19th term. Recently, two more House Republicans the total is announced their retirements, now 28 evidence that Republicans do not expect soon to end their minority status that began 17 months after the Coconut Road earmark alteration. In his State of the Union address, the president vowed to veto any appropriation bill "that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half." Coburn tartly notes that although Congress half of hardly needs 5,500 earmarks last year's total the president's goal would be met if Republicans themselves quit earmarking. That fact goes far to explain the Republicans' current and future minority status. George Will writes for the Washington Post. |