Kim Atkins at the Herald noticed that Christy Mihos has rolled out a whole slew of his positions on various hot-button issues (with little or no elaboration on his reasons for taking those positions). Here are a couple of highlights:
- Mihos favors rolling the income tax back to 5% – but his “top priority” is increasing local aid. So, does that mean he will roll back the income tax, or that he won’t?
- “Christy favors charter schools, but he would not raise the cap that limits the number of them.” Ah. So, is he for charter schools (ordinarily, being “for” something implies a belief that that thing should be encouraged), or is he against them?
- Mihos is opposed to MBTA fare increases, but favors extending the commuter rail to Fall River and New Bedford, extending the Blue Line, and replacing Silver Line buses with light rail. Mihos does not give us any hint of how the MBTA will be able to afford these expansions under the current fare structure.
- “Christy favors renewable energy research and implementation,” but “is not in favor of the current proposals to build wind farms in Nantucket Sound and Buzzards Bay.” Makes sense, because obviously those proposals don’t constitute renewable energy “implementation.” Oh, wait….
- Mihos says he supports “clarifying” the state’s gun laws, and believes in the Second Amendment. What on earth is that supposed to mean? Personally, I think all laws should be as clear as possible, so I support “clarifying” the gun laws too. And the Second Amendment, regardless of whether Christy Mihos “believes” in it, is part of the US Constitution, so his “beliefs” about it don’t much matter. Mihos also says he supports the “Castle Doctrine,” under which, he says, “if one is attacked in his or her own home, he or she may stand ground against an assailant without fear of reprisal.” Well, Christy, here is what current Massachusetts law says:
In the prosecution of a person who is an occupant of a dwelling charged with killing or injuring one who was unlawfully in said dwelling, it shall be a defense that the occupant was in his dwelling at the time of the offense and that he acted in the reasonable belief that the person unlawfully in said dwelling was about to inflict great bodily injury or death upon said occupant or upon another person lawfully in said dwelling, and that said occupant used reasonable means to defend himself or such other person lawfully in said dwelling. There shall be no duty on said occupant to retreat from such person unlawfully in said dwelling.
There’s a corresponding provision protecting the shooter from civil lawsuits. Now, I trust Bruce will correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like we’ve already got a pretty decent “Castle Doctrine” here. So, is Christy saying he supports existing law, or that we need more? And if we need more, what more do we need?
To be fair to Mihos, not all of his policy statements are self-contradictory, and some are interesting. He supports public financing of elections; he opposes motorcycle helmet laws and primary seatbelt laws; he supports the recently-vetoed bill to allow the sale of syringes without a prescription; he supports same-sex marriage but thinks it should appear on the ballot (some would see that position as self-contradictory, but I don’t, though I don’t agree with it); he supports indexing the minimum wage for inflation; and he opposes illegal immigration. But the self-contradictory ones are really easy targets. If Mihos wants to be taken more seriously as a candidate than he’s been taken so far, he might want to rethink a few of those.
. . . but I want to limit his opportunity to become governor by encouraging everyone I know to vote against him.
of the issues…pretty pathetic for an “independent.”
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Regarding same-sex marriage, either you favor letting it stand under the SJC finding that it is a fundamental right, or you you favor allowing the voters to repeal it (which means you do not consider it a fundamental right). The stand you describe is simply trying to have it both ways.
In Goodridge, the SJC specifically did not decide whether the “strict scrutiny” required for laws impinging on “fundamental rights” was required – it concluded that the ban on same-sex marriage did not satisfy the more deferential standard of “rational basis” review. This may sound like a technical legal distinction, but it’s actually quite important.
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Also, what is so illogical about being personally in favor of a position, but also thinking that it’s appropriate for resolution by popular vote? You may not agree with that view, but that doesn’t make it incoherent.
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Finally, while on balance I hope that this question doesn’t make it to the ballot, there is potentially a huge upside for pro-marriage forces if it does. If this question gets to the ballot, and it is defeated, that will end, once and for all, the arguments that gay marriage was foisted upon the unwilling citizens of Massachusetts by unelected judges. If the people vote for it, there can be no questioning its legitimacy. What a PR victory that would be.
Too bad David minimizes the importance of putting the gay marriage issue before the voters. Isn’t the majority of MA opinion in favor of doing this? Am I wrong?
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The beef is, first, that the legislature maneuvered around putting the question before the voters (thanks Tom Birmingham,) and second, that the SJC, or any court for that matter, can run wild and “find” fundemental rights wherever they looked…polygamy, bestiality, child pornography, NAMBLA, etc. These are explosive social issues best decided over time by society.
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The people, not the courts, need to decide this issue “once and for all,” as David aptly notes.
of deleting what appeared to be a double comment. On the merits, I was perhaps a bit flip in describing a win for marriage at the ballot as “PR” – I actually think it would be a good deal more than that. In addition to giving a “democratic” validation of what the SJC did, it would demolish what has so far proved a reasonably effective Republican talking point (not here so much, but certainly elsewhere).
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So to be clear: I don’t favor the use of parliamentary tactics to block a vote in the ConCon next week. I do hope that less than 50 legislators vote for the amendment, and if I were among them, I’d vote “no.” But, like I said, there’s a potential upside if it gets to the ballot.
Maybe from where you sit, but when the millions of dollars start flowing into Massachusetts to back up the newly emboldened Republican/Religious Right, the hate advertising starts, the anti-gay rhetoric heats up, and the violence and discrimination against LGBT folks goes through the roof (as it does in every state where this happens), will you still feel that there is a potential upside?
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Look, if they have the votes to kill it with the up or down vote, great. If not, they should kill it anyway they can.
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If it actually makes it to the ballot, it’s going to be ugly. And if we were to lose, no equal marriage rights for our lifetimes.
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Or we can set the precedent that these matters SHOULD be decided by the courts and NOT by popular vote. I think there is a potential upside to that!
That kind of thing is fine when someone else’s ox is being gored, but what if it were a proposed constitutional amendment that you actually favored? What goes around comes around, especially in politics. No one has forgotten Tom Birmingham’s parliamentary shenanigans a few years ago, and if Trav tries it again with the stakes so much higher, things will get really nasty really fast. Talk about ugly.
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As for the campaign itself being ugly, no doubt it will be if it comes to that. I hope and trust that, if this thing get to the ballot, the pro-marriage forces will be just as strong and spend just as much money as the anti-marriage crowd. Like it or not, our state Constitution (unlike the federal Constitution) gives “the people” a direct role in its contents. Don’t like it? Change the document, or get 151 votes for your side in the legislature. Until then, it’s the system we’ve got.
The system we have also allows for procedural maneuvers so that the vote never comes up. So I’m saying use ’em. If you don’t like that, YOU change the system.
there are democratic ways of solving problems, and there are anti-democratic ways. I prefer the former, as I’ve argued at length in other settings (notably ballot access). Your advocacy for the latter is, as I’ve said, a high-risk strategy.
Do you REALLY want unelected and unrecallable judges (yes, I know about the Bill of Attainder thing, and there’s a better chance of a second coming next week than of any passage) making LEGISLATIVE decisions? For good? Hey, we can just get rid of the legislature entirely, and have a Star Chamber decide our daily lives!
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What happens when conservative judges are appointed, whose ideas you don’t agree with? Like suicide, you are suggesting a permanant solution to a temporary problem.
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If you read Goodrich, it says that the Legislature IS the appropriate body to make these laws, but the Court was issuing its decision since they have decided not to do so. Since we have the Right of Petition in Mass., the electorate has decided to introduce legislation itself.
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I personally and think the ballot question will fail at the polls. But DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE the rage of the electorate in this matter. IMHO, the question had a better chance of being defeated two years ago before the weaselly Finneran compromise. As Phil Travis said, NOBODY had signed a petition to create civil unons!
I read Goodrich when it was first issued and don’t remember what it said about the legislature being the appropriate body… though I do remember the DISSENT saying that.
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And, yes, I do think that the courts should have the say in defining equal rights. That’s pretty much how it’s happened in recent history and for good reason.
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Marriage was already a right; the court just said that you can’t exclude some people from doing it because of the gender of the spouse. I think that’s exactly what I want the courts doing, and NOT the whims of the public. Yes, I’m fine with that.
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And I’m glad it’s very difficult to amend the Constitution to allow for discrimination.
You are misreading Goodridge.
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The whole point of the case was not to say “well, the legislature hasn’t acted on gay marriage, so we’ll introduce legislation!”. It was rather to point out that as far as denying the fundamental right of marriage to its citizens, the state “has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples”.
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And this is exactly right. I have yet to hear ONE (yes, even ONE) argument in favor of banning gay marriage that makes any sort of rational sense at all.
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That said, I don’t think he’s that self-contradictory, just about par for Republicans in general maybe. The local aid being 40% of the budget would have to include some drastic restructuring of the state, I think. That and the Cape Wind positions are about equivilant to Tom Reilly’s (same with equal marriage), and equally ridiculous, so I guess it turns out you are right đŸ™‚
It does sound a bit too easy to take potshots at these positions, but of course I’m relying on David’s recap, not having read them (nor do I have the desire to do so, so thanks, David).
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I’m just wondering if the presence of a more serious campaign (I mean, wow, policy positions and everything!) will impact the Dem Primary in any way. I think it’s easy to argue that in a 3-way race with Reilly/Mihos/Healey that Mihos would draw votes away from both of the other two. I’ve heard Reilly brag “I do very well with independents!” and I wonder if some of his supporters might not bother to vote in the Primary when they can just wait for the General and vote for Mihos.
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It seems highly unlikely to me that the same argument could be made re Patrick or maybe even Gabrieli.
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But, maybe everyone will just see Mihos for the loose cannon he is…
To Mihos’ credit, there are many ways to fund MBTA expansion without a fare increase, which will have the biggest impact on those without cars who can least afford it. changing the ridiculous “forward funding” system would be a good start.
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But mwith his calls for a tax rollback, I’m not sure if he has any plan for doing that.