Senate committee hearing on SAFE Banking Act

SAFE Act Passage Would Mean Safe Cannabis Banking For All:

August 1, 2019 - "Last week, cannabis banking was once again discussed on Capitol Hill. The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing to review a leading bill that would allow federally overseen financial institutions to serve cannabis-related businesses. If passed, the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act would protect banks from federal prosecution as long as the cannabis businesses they work with comply with the laws in the states where they operate....

"Despite bipartisan support in the House and except for committee chairman Sen. Michael Crapo (R-Idaho), no Republican members attended. Interestingly, Sen. Crapo’s state has yet to even legalize medical cannabis. He will, however, be influential in determining whether this bill ever reaches the President’s desk.

"Sen. Crapo’s attendance and comments Tuesday surprised many SAFE Banking Act watchers, indicating he may be more willing to see cannabis banking progress than previously thought. Just a few months ago, he expressed reservations about cannabis banking legislation.... On Tuesday, however, he seemed receptive to arguments in favor of the bill.

"For example, the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), explained that conducting business solely on cash transactions widens the chances of money laundering and other crimes. Other speakers noted the extreme obstacles small businesses face, including that many are unable to even break into the industry because of the lack of access to financial services and insurance. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), another co-sponsor, pointed to the bill’s unprecedented bipartisan support, which is rare in today’s political climate.

"Many of the arguments made during the hearing harken back to a letter banking associations from all fifty states and Puerto Rico sent to Sen. Crapo and the committee in May. The letter argued that an urgent need exists for banks to serve the cannabis industry, which can only be solved with federal action like the SAFE Banking Act. It was yet another sign of unity on this issue and growing support for the bill....

"At the close of Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Crapo agreed that the problem of cannabis banking should be resolved. While it is unclear whether this means he will advance the SAFE Banking Act, the comment alone provided another small glimmer of hope that we’re taking a step in the right direction."

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bencurren/2019/08/01/safe-act-passage-would-mean-safe-cannabis-banking-for-all/#3fdd706d4010

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Iowa Libertarians challenge early filing deadline

Iowa Libertarians sue for equal access to state ballot | Cedar Rapids Gazette:

August 5, 2019 — "Iowa Libertarians are challenging an Iowa law they claim puts them at a disadvantage because their candidates must file months earlier than Democrats and Republicans seeking office. The lawsuit filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa in Des Moines claims state law violates Libertarians’ rights of association and voting under the First Amendment, and denies them the equal protections guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

"The lawsuit names 'Paul D. Tate' as the plaintiff, an apparent reference to Iowa Secretary of State Paul D. Pate, the state commissioner of elections. Pate’s office had no comment regarding the suit other than to say the law change did not originate in the Secretary’s office.

"The Iowa Libertarian Party and Jake Porter of Council Bluffs, who plans to run for the U.S. Senate, also ask for an injunction barring enforcement of the law and for the state to pay their attorney fees.

"The law stems from a change the GOP-controlled Legislature made earlier this year to require candidates nominated by a non-party political organization — often referred to as an NPPO — must file with the state in mid-March of an election year while political party candidates don’t have to file until August.

"Under Iowa law, NPPOs are organizations that sponsor candidates, but their candidates did not receive at least 2 percent of the votes cast for president or governor in the previous election. Iowa Libertarians have been recognized as a political party in the past, but their current status is as an NPPO.

“'A filing deadline in mid-March imposes heavy burdens on NPPOs,' according to the lawsuit.... There is no legitimate state interest in the earlier filing deadline, Libertarians argue, or in treating NPPOs differently from political parties."

Read more: https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/government/iowa-libertarian-party-lawsuit-nppo-20190805
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British trade secretary plans to create 'free ports'

Liz Truss's plan for tax-free zones condemned by Labour - Rowena Mason, The Guardian - Yahoo News:

August 1, 2019 - "Liz Truss, the new trade secretary, will promise to create up to 10 new tax-free zones at ports and airports in a move condemned by Labour as setting up tax havens and money-laundering opportunities along Britain’s coasts. The cabinet minister, a free marketeer whose political hero is former chancellor Nigel Lawson, said the plan for so-called 'free ports' could revitalise transport and trade hubs like Margaret Thatcher did for the London Docklands in the 1980s.

"Boris Johnson championed free ports when he took office last week, but the Singapore-style tax-free zones are controversial and have been identified by the EU as a money-laundering risk.

"Under the plans, ports including Teesport, Milford Haven, Port of Tyne and London Gateway could become standalone economic zones, considered independent for customs purposes, that charge no taxes or tariffs on imports....

"Those advising Truss on a new free port panel will include Eamonn Butler, the director of the rightwing, libertarian Adam Smith Institute, and Tom Clougherty, the head of tax at the Thatcherite thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). Emma Jones, who runs a small business network, and Daniel Korski, a former adviser to David Cameron will also be on the panel....

"Speaking on a visit to Teesside, Truss will say: 'Freedoms transformed London’s Docklands in the 1980s, and free ports will do the same for towns and cities across the UK. They will onshore enterprise and manufacturing as the gateway to our future prosperity, creating thousands of jobs..... We will have a truly independent trade policy after we leave the EU on 31 October. I look forward to working with the free ports advisory panel to create the world’s most advanced free port model and launch the new ports as soon as possible.'

"The Department for International Trade described free ports as hubs for business and enterprise that 'could be free of unnecessary checks and paperwork, and include customs and tax benefits'.... The department pointed to 250 free trade zones in the US where 420,000 people are employed."

Read more: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/liz-truss-apos-plan-tax-213003792.html
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Immigration and individualism

by George J. Dance

Immigration is one area in which libertarians have a hard time communicating meaningfully with otherwise libertarianish conservatives and centrists. One reason is that  we look at the topic from two different perspectives (or two different "paradigms" as Thomas Kuhn called them), a difference which, if noted at all, is not discussed.

Libertarians are methodological individualists. They look at social interactions in terms of the individual actors involved, and how their actions harm or benefit other individuals. They would look at why a person comes to this country - to make a better life for himself and his family - which means to work and profit from it. They ask if his coming here and working betters or worsens other individuals' lives.

If an immigrant does and achieves what he wants - if he contributes and earns a good living - then he is purely a benefit. Maybe he gets a job that a native-born Canadian could have held, but he does not stop the latter from working. Maybe the immigrant collects too much tax money, which counts as a harm to some taxpayers, but that makes him no different from the Canadian-born guy - that is how the Canadian tax system is designed, to subsidize some at the expense of others - and if we tolerate the one being subsidized, we  should tolerate the other.

The anti-immigration guy, on the other hand, looks at the problem collectively. He is not looking at Manuel or Mohammed coming here and working, but at "Mexicans" or "Moslems" as a group. He worries about the society's racial and cultural composition - which the libertarian, even if he understands the concern, does not see as something to be addressed by the criminal law.

But the idea of cultural composition is very hard for a libertarian to understand by itself. Libertarians do not deny (as anti-libertarian turncoat Murray Rothbard once claimed we did) that there are no group differences. Given their individualist perspective, though, they believe those differences to be insignificant, vastly overshadowed by differences among individuals within a group. The idea of groups is based on the abstract idea of "group identities," which the libertarian's observations lead him to reject: Group identities are simply averages, which say nothing about any actual group members.

When I look at immigration, I do not see an undifferentiated mass of Mexicans or Central Americans; I see Manuel and Manuel, guys whom I worked with at different companies for years. I do not see a homogeneous crowd of Moslems; I see Mohammed and Mohammed, Pakistani and Syrian-born neighbors in my apartment building. And so on: I think of these people and I ask myself: should what those men have done, and are continuing to do, be outlawed? And I have to say no.

In contrast, the anti-immigration guy sees only masses and crowds. He notices more colored faces in the city, for example, or he reads about their numbers and connects that with other numbers (like the fall in Canadian birth rates) to come up with trends that worry him. He focus is on the total social impact, which he thinks only the government has the power to do something about.

The individualist libertarian sees none of that. Like groups, social trends for him are only generalizations about what really goes on in a societry: real people trying to get on with their lives. And he believes that the latter (provided that those people are peaceful) is not something that the government should be trying to "do something" about.

Until we recognize those two different perspectives, and devise a language that reconciles them, there will be no real dialogue, no mutual understanding, and no possibility of agreement between individualist libertarians and their adversaries on this issue.

U.S. cities turn to fines to raise revenue

Excessive fines? Florida city hits homeowners with massive penalties - Kristine Philips, USA Today:

June 19, 2019 - "'Fines are a reliable source of revenue for cash-starved cities, and they have become a big – and rapidly growing – business for local governments. States, cities and counties collected $15.3 billion in fines and forfeitures in 2016, according to the most recent financial records collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s a 44% jump from a decade earlier....

"The ways in which cities levy fines have been under scrutiny since at least 2015, when Ferguson, Missouri’s law enforcement became a national symbol of racial bias in policing after the shooting death of a young black man, Michael Brown, at the hands of a white police officer. The Justice Department cleared the officer of wrongdoing but published a scathing report describing the city’s municipal court system as a moneymaking enterprise that trapped poor and predominantly black residents in an endless spiral of debt and incarceration.

"Hard-to-pay fines spring up seemingly everywhere as cities look for ways to ... collect money without raising taxes. In Miami, traffic violations usually add up to hundreds of dollars. Collection agencies also add a 40% surcharge, meaning someone with several tickets can owe fines of $3,000 to $7,000.

"Doraville, Georgia, fined one homeowner $1,000 for stacking firewood in his backyard, according to a lawsuit that accuses the city of aggressive ticketing practices. A government newsletter said in 2015 that Doraville’s court system, which collects the fines, brings in 'over $3 million annually' and 'contributes heavily to the city’s bottom line.'....

"Last year, the chief justice of Ohio’s Supreme Court condemned governments’ reliance on fines to make money. 'Courts are centers of justice, not automatic teller machines whose purpose is to generate revenue for governments,' Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor wrote in a letter to her fellow judges urging them not to succumb to pressure to generate revenue through the court system.

"In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ... ruled unanimously that the Eighth Amendment, which forbids 'excessive fines,' restricts the fees state and local governments can impose. 'Protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield through Anglo-American history for good reason,' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court. 'Such fines undermine other liberties.'

"The Supreme Court's decision alone will not stop municipalities' aggressive practices, said Vanita Gupta, former head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division who oversaw the Ferguson investigation. Instead, she said, it will take more lawsuits to flesh out the limit for what constitutes an excessive fine."

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/florida-city-hits-homeowners-massive-penalties-supreme-court-excessive-fines/1691703001/

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Russian LP leader jailed after unpermitted rally

Russian Libertarian Party Leader Sentenced For Unsanctioned Rally - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty:

July 30, 2019 - "A court in Moscow has sentenced Mikhail Svetov, the leader of the Libertarian Party of Russia, to 30 days in jail after finding him guilty of violating laws on holding public events. The court said on July 31 that Svetov broke the law on July 16 when he participated in an unsanctioned rally held by opposition and independent city-council candidates who are challenging the refusal of the Moscow election commission to register them for the September 8 election to the Russian capital's assembly.

"Moscow election officials barred some opposition candidates from the September poll for what they said was insufficient signatures on nominating petitions. The decision has sparked an outcry and several demonstrations this month, including one on July 20 in Moscow that drew an estimated crowd of 20,000 people.

'The latest such rally was held near the Moscow mayor's office on July 27, where security officials launched a violent crackdown on participants, using what human-rights groups and Western government have called 'disproportionate force' to break up the demonstration. Police said 1,074 arrests were made, while the independent OVD-Info organization reported 1,373 detentions....

"Svetov has characterized his sentence as 'retaliation' by Moscow officials for his refusal to accept their conditions regarding the site of a new rally on August 3 against the exclusion of the candidates from the ballot. Svetov, his party, and other activists and politicians want to hold the rally on the Lubyanka Square in front of the headquarters of the Federal Security Service.

"On July 30, Russia opened a criminal investigation into the July 27 protest. The potential charges include organizing or participating in 'mass unrest,' which could carry a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. After the launching of the investigation, police on July 31 began visiting people who took part in the protest, asking that they sign a document which threatens criminal prosecution if they ever again participate in a demonstration, according to Pavel Chikov of the rights group Agora."

Read more: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-libertarian-party-leader-sentenced-for-unsanctioned-rally/30085341.html

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FL woman fined $100K for home she left in 2011

Excessive fines? Florida city hits homeowners with massive penalties - Kristine Philips, USA Today:

June 19, 2019 - "Kristi Allen read the letter and thought it had to be a scam. It said she owed $92,600 in fines for overgrown vegetation and a stagnant swimming pool at a house she no longer owned. She must pay in two weeks, the letter said, and it hinted that she could be sued if she didn't. Including interest charges and other fees, her debt swelled to $103,559, about twice her yearly income.

'Three months later, in late 2018, the city of Dunedin sued to collect, setting off another legal fight over how local governments use their power to impose heavy fines on citizens....

"Dunedin, a small seaside city outside Tampa, cracks down on code violations, saddling homeowners with massive fines while its revenue grows. In 5½ years, the city has collected nearly $3.6 million in fines – sometimes tens of thousands at a time – for violating laws that prohibit grasses taller than 10 inches, recreational vehicles parked on streets at certain hours or sidings and bricks that don't match.... The city fined a man nearly $30,000 because of a 'chronic' overgrown yard. It fined a couple $31,000 for fixing their roof without a permit after a tree fell on it during a hurricane....

"Allen moved to Dunedin in 2005 to be with her boyfriend, Keith, who later became her husband. She bought a bungalow-style house on the same street where he was raised.... Then the financial crisis hit. Allen ... took a pay cut and lost her house in the wave of foreclosures that washed over Florida. She signed an agreement with U.S. Bank National Association allowing the foreclosure and moved out. She thought Dunedin was behind her.

"In early 2014, three years after Allen moved out, a code inspector came to the house, which had been vacant. Brown palm fronds littered the overgrown backyard. A neighbor told the inspector that something dead may have been rotting there. The swimming pool had turned into a bright green, mosquito-infested cesspool.

"City officials sent notices of the problems to Allen, who was still listed as the homeowner in county property records. Then they started fining her $100 a day. The letters mailed to Allen were returned undeliverable with no forwarding address. The city kept fining her anyway.... Her name stayed in property records because the foreclosure was not finalized until late 2014. By then, the city had been fining Allen for several months.... The daily fines continued for the next two years until a code inspector visited the house again and saw it had been cleaned and renovated....

"In Florida and elsewhere, unpaid fines can be attached to someone’s property through liens. That allows cities to foreclose and take the property to collect what they’re owed.... Dunedin expects to make a little more than $1 million this year from fines and forfeitures. That’s about five times as much as the city made a decade ago."

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/florida-city-hits-homeowners-massive-penalties-supreme-court-excessive-fines/1691703001/

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