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Politics, Roads, Taxes, and Scandals

C-J’s Political Writer Al Cross Addresses Louisville Libertarians

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

On July 10, Al Cross, the political writer for The Courier-Journal, spoke to the Louisville Libertarians on subjects as wide-ranging as campaign finance laws, roads, tax increases, and Kentucky political scandals.  Cross began by stating that journalism is the only profession recognized in the U.S. Constitution.  (Editor’s note:  This statement may indicate both that journalists consider themselves above the rest of society and that they do not read the Constitution.  For the sake of accuracy, just as the 1st Amendment to the Constitution mentions freedom of the press, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides for patents, so the Constitution recognizes the profession of patent attorneys at least to the same extent that it recognizes journalists.)  Cross spoke of the important role of journalists and of their obligation to be accurate, to strive to be even-handed and unbiased, and to strive not to cause harm.  He also spoke in favor of the campaign finance laws and mentioned that the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance posts the donors for Kentucky elections on line.

Much of the time was devoted to a question-and-answer session.  The first question involved campaign finance laws, which give the institutional press greater rights than average citizens.  For example, a citizen who distributes leaflets on an issue or candidate within 60 days of an election could be prosecuted, convicted and sent to prison for violating the campaign finance laws, while a newspaper is free to distribute the same materials without fear of prosecution.  Cross was asked why his newspaper has not reported on this aspect of the law. 

He had several answers.  First, he said the citizens who would distribute the flyers were biased, implying that a newspaper could be trusted to be unbiased.  He also said that the law is very complex, and his paper has limited resources and cannot report on everything.  His paper relies on the news services to decide which of these issues is worth reporting to the public, and the news services apparently did not think that issue was very newsworthy or of much interest to the public.  He did not believe that the paper failed to report on this aspect of the campaign finance law in order to hide the fact that it gives newspapers and columnists superior political power over other individuals.

Cross commented on term limits, saying that they are appropriate for executive positions but generally not for legislative positions, although California might be an exception. 

When it was pointed out to him that it is now very difficult for an outsider to successfully challenge an incumbent, he agreed and said it is usually the case that only wealthy people can put together sufficient funds to make a successful challenge.  He also believes that campaign laws always have some flaws and should be constantly evolving to solve problems as they are discovered.  He said campaign laws are important to protect the common man from large corporate interests.   (He did not mention that the reason only wealthy individuals can make a successful challenge is that campaign laws now make it illegal for a challenger to obtain money from a few wealthy, like-minded people, as George McGovern did in his Presidential bid prior to campaign finance laws.)

Cross would favor changing the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to be a nine-member body with three Democrats, three Republicans, and three independents.  He said this would prevent deadlock and would prevent the FEC from continuing to act to protect the two major parties against competition from the minor parties.  Cross also agreed that ballot access laws are oppressive to third parties.

When asked what could be done to shine a light on the process used in Kentucky for letting road contracts, so people could see which contracts were let without bids or with only one bidder, he said Ben Chandler proposes to put all that information on-line to make it available to the public.  He also thought Ernie Fletcher would be agreeable to doing the same thing.  Cross explained that it is not practical to haul asphalt more than about 40 miles, and the companies have effectively divided up the market so that most contracts have only one bidder, resulting in the roads being much more expensive than they should be.

Cross said that, if the cost of health care had been as expensive when our country was founded as it is today, the founding fathers might have put a right to health care into the Constitution.  This was challenged by a member of the audience, who said that providing a “right” to health care would be contrary to the founders’ goal of protecting property rights, since it would involve taking property from someone to provide that health care.  Another member of the audience suggested that food was much more basic than health care, and, if we created a Constitutional right to food, he’d like his to be lobster!

Cross was asked about the proposals to change the tax laws in Kentucky.  He said he thinks Kentucky’s tax laws should be changed, because taxes currently do not increase with the economy.  He said he thought that any change would be revenue neutral at first but would involve tax revenue growing with the economy. 

He was also asked about the many scandals in the news and whether he thought the newspaper had the obligation to provide some sense of perspective, since some of the “scandals” are really serious and others are not.  He said he agreed that the newspaper hypes scandals in order to sell its product.  He thinks many of the so-called “scandals” in the Patton administration were not as bad as what Patton’s predecessors had done, and he has mentioned that to his editors but could not put it in his columns. 

When asked what the Libertarian party could do in order to become more effective, he said it needed a coherent message and good candidates.  He said Libertarians are too divided on the various issues.  The Republican party is becoming the majority party in Kentucky because it has a coherent message and good candidates.

The last comment from the audience was from Loretta Walker, who said she was probably the oldest person in the room and had been buying Cross’ paper all her life.  She said she thought Cross was much more handsome than his photo in the newspaper, and he should have the paper use a better photo!

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