Show v T4A Sunday November 11998 Opinion ' Standard-Examine- r i Standard-Examine- r SERVING THE TOP OF UTAH SINCE 1888 Scott Trundle Publisher Don Porter Editorial Page Editor Ron Thornburg Managing Editor OUR VIEW Plan to change gov’t: Vote ‘no’ in Weber Co While change would be beneficial in the county’s government the current proposal is flawed and unworthy of passage County needs a tend that the taxpayers’ bill for administration in the counform of but the proty will be reduced by paying e is ballot executive one on Tuesday’s posal the wrong way to achieve that ($60700 per year excluding goal benefits) and seven part-tim- e Weber full-tim- The measure should be defeated The plan which found its way onto the ballot is one bom of antagonism It is not and the citizens of Weber County deserve better This is not to suggest that its basic premise - separating legislative and administrative duties in the government of a county experiencing significant growth - is unsound On the contrary it’s time for a change and a county council form is an attractive alternative But this specific proposal is well-consider- ed seven-memb- er Hawed The proposal on the ballot calls for seven elected council members each from an existing legislative district The onindividual elected ly would be the county executive Better representation could be achieved by seeking something more resembling a bicameral system - with say four council members elected ’from districts and the three remaining members elected at-lar- ge so-call- ed at-lar- ge Furthermore the position of county executive is clearly concentrating too much power in the hands of a single individual The executive will have extensive discretion in terms of appointments and also will wield the power of line-iteveto - which granted may be overridden by the part-tim- e council Still the very real possibility that the county could be saddled with a “bad king” just as easily as it could benefit from a “good king” ought to concern all citim zens Then there is the matter of cost It is disingenuous to pre council members ($3300 per year per person) While the total salary figures - $83800 - are significantly lower for the proposed council and executive than the current salaries of three e commissioners ($198369 total per year excluding travel expenses and benefits) these figures ignore the necessary addition of e staff members to the part-tim- e council help members It is reasonable to expect that the total cost of the new government would be at least as expensive if not more so full-tim- full-tim- Yet another item to consider is that the 2002 Winter Olympics are a few short years away That being the case this is not the best time to be changing the form of government without considerable thought beforehand Two of the candidates for commission seats have pledged they will launch a proper and detailed study of government change if the current ballot proposal fails Indeed if this bid for change is defeated the voters of Weber County should hold the new commissioners’ feet to the fire on the issue Weber County could stand a change in its form of government to be more responsive to and representative of the people But the citizens of the county deserve the best possible plan for change not something that is an antagonistic reaction to mistakes made by the current commission This proposal is not the best available and so it should be rejected ANOTHER VIEW Slavers among us that is required to end modern-da- y slavery in Sudan is a in it to victimhood to rather than wallow end hunger All Columbus Christopher But to 15th century slave trade that explorer for a nourished in the 17th and 8th centuries is like blaming fAl Capone’s “St Valentine’s Day Massacre” on St Valentine It scarcely merits what 1 Jane Austen called the compliment of rational opposition What does merit opposition is Those who t slavery itself attended a recent could do genuine bus rally " attention focused if good they the here and now According to an article last year in The Stew York Times: Asma anti-Colu- m COLUMNS Abdel Halim a Sudanese who is Africa’s director of Equality Now an international women’s rights organization said real slavery exists in the Sudan a contention supported Noby the United Nations body can change what Columbus or colonial slave traders did in the distant past But sustained pressure from those who have the moral high ground to apply it - African Americans themselves -could help set living breathing human beings free from bondage - Richmond Times-Dispat- ch A silly tantrum from They think erroneously the scandal Clinton about sex - When academics is all WASHINGTON decide to become activists they sometimes bring badly needed wisdom and perspective to raging political debates But when they plunge in heedlessly they risk looking ridiculous Both sides were on display last week at a hotel ballroom where three noted American historians - speaking for more than 400 of their profession loaded a broadside condemnation of the impeachment proceedings the House has voted to begin against President Clinton The rhetoric of their statement read oy Arthur M Schlesinger Jr of City University of New York began on a relatively calm note and built to a tantrum “Although we do not condone President Clinton's private behavior or his subsequent attempts to deceive the current charges against him depart from what the Framers saw as grounds for impeachment The vote of the House of Representatives to conduct an open-ende- d inquiry creates a novel search for any offense by which to remove a president from office" it declared The “unprecedented” steps of beginning a formal inquiry “are extremely ominous for the future of our political institutions If carried forward they will leave the presidency permanently disfigured and diminished at the mercy as never before of the caprices of any ConWe face a choice between pregress serving or undermining our Constitution Do we want to establish a precedent for the future harassment of presidents and to tie up our government with a protracted national agony of the academics search and accusation?” Schlesinger who served in the Kennedy White House struggled to maintain a dispassionate tone but wound up sounding at times like James Carville in cap and gown Accusing independent counsel Kenneth Starr of being “America’s No pomographer" he said “We all lie all the time Ronald Reagan lied repeatedly on 1 Iran-contr- a Why should this president be held more accountable than anyone else?” The one person clearly speaking as a scholar was the dean of American historians Yale professor emeritus C Vann Woodward He readily conceded that “there can be honest disagreement” about the Framers’ intent when they said impeachment should be reserved for bribery treason and other “high crimes and misdemeanors” But he said if it applied to illicit sex during White House tenure more than half our presidents would have faced removal from office What the historians seemed notably reluctant to recognize was that the charges the Judiciary Committee will consider are not the sexual misconduct which Clinton has acknowledged but the accusations which he vehemently denies that he committed perjury in his deposition before a federal judge and in his federal grand jury testimony suborned peijury by others and obstructed justice Are those - if proved - impeachable offenses? Yale Law School professor Charles L Black Jr whose 1974 book on impeachment is a good layman's guide to the issue says sex is not enough In one of his hypothetical scenarios he wrote that it was “preposterous” to imagine the impeachment threshold is low enough to catch a president for transporting a woman “so the Mann Act reads from one point to another within the District of Columbia for what is quaintly called ‘an immoral pur- pose’ ” But Black displays an intellectual modesty far removed from the historians’ assertion that they know with certainty what the Framers meant by “high crimes and misdemeanors” He says that neither English legal usage from which the words came nor American precedents provide “unequivocal validation of any very precise view of the exact boundaries of the phrase's meaning" “What the history really says is that no historical impediment exists to a sensible reasoned treatment right now of the problem of the meaning of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ ” Black writes The Founders clear'v left that determination to the members of the House and in all our history they have voted bills of impeachment against only two presidents and 14 others mainly federal judges No president has ever been convicted and removed by the Senate and there is little reason to believe at this juncture Clinton will be the first David Broiler is a frequent guest on NBC's "Meet the Press ” His column runs on Sundays and Wednesdays Send to writersgroupfa washpostcom Both sides to claim victory Nov 3 Democrats mean will it if they take California governorship WASHINGTON - Wednesday morning when the black bat night has fled professional Republicans and Democrats - almost the only people who will care - will pronounce themselves pleased as punch by the election results Neither will be truthful - why start now? - but Democrats may be most pleased Particularly if Gray Davis plucks this year’s biggest prize California’s governorship Nationally Republicans cannot really win: If they do well they will suffer dangerous delusions of adequacy The contest between Lt Gov Davis and Attorney General Dan Lungren will determine control of the state most important in presidential politics Also the next governor will influence control of the US House of Representatives from 2002 through 2012 California’s 52 congressional districts are held by 29 Democrats and 23 Republicans After the 2000 census California may have four more scats ComputCalifornia politicians er-literate (computers are today’s tools for drawing gerrymandered districts) can significantly influence the outcome in up to 10 districts The gubernatorial election will decide control of the computers and perhaps 0 seals for 0 years With 54 electoral votes now ne-fifth of the total needed to win the White House - and perhaps 58 in 2004 California is weightier in presidential politics than any stale has been since New York in the 1870s (As late as 1944 New York City alone cast 75 percent of the nation’s popular vote for president) Republican congressional majorities 1 1 -o- slouched toward Election Day having capitulations proven by to President Clinton that numerical supremacy without political purpose is pointless Voltaire said Frederick the Great seasoned his food with gunpowder What have congressional Republicans models of nonbellicosity been sprinkling on their pizza - Prozac? Harry Truman annoyed that Democrats were sounding too much like Republicans supposedly (apocrypha encrust his legend) said: Give people a choice between a Republican and a Republican and they will pick a Republican every time If Republicans gain congressional strength on Tuesday after defining themselves in October as (slightly) reluctant Democrats they will have no mandate And they are supposed to gain In the last 60 years the party not holding the White House has averaged significant gains in House and Senate seats in off-yeelections and even bigger gains in midterm elections in a president's second term Republicans will greet any gains with the complacent observation that they have had their best three consecutive elections since the 1920s And they will congratulate themselves on prospering without a program ar In 1980 Republicans gained 12 seats and control of the Senate But Democratic candidates got nearly 3 million more votes than Republican candidates (Delaware the least populous state understandably rushed to be first to ratify the Constitution with its provision for equal treatment of all states in the Senate the most populous state Virginia had times more voters than Delaware Today Wyoming's senators can cancel California’s who represent 66 times more voters) If Democrats awaken Wednesday with broad smiles produced by many slender victories they will be confirmed in their demagoguery about “saving” the “surplus” for Social Security Actually there is no surplus (subtract the $99 billion surplus of Social Security taxes from the $71 billion budget “surplus” and you find the real deficit: $28 billion) Clinton threatened to use vetoes to cause a government shutdown for which Republicans would be blamed in order to force Republicans to spend even more of the fictitious surplus than they whose conservatism is fictitious were itching to do Which is not to say that Tuesday's elections do not pose an interesting question It is: Which is worse Demo- crals pretending to believe patent non- sense about “saving” a “surplus” for So- cial Security or Republicans abandoning their pretense of believing in the agenda that ting won them the congressional control that no longer seems to matter much? Geoige Will is a regular panelist on 1 1 tax-cu- t- limited-governme- ABC’s "This Week " His column appears on Thursdays and Sundays Send to writersgroupfu washpostcom POOR U H II II II II U II II H I |