Ernest For District 2 HQ

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Welcome to my campaign HQ.  I have fresh ideas, and more importantly, fresh bills to offer.  If elected, I will be able to introduce at least 10 different bills from the get go that have nothing to do with free trade, but do have to deal with either streamlining government and/or enhancing the general welfare of the people.  Bills that will gove something different for our Senate to consider and thus deliver Atlasia from the rut of same old / same old.  Some of these bills are minor, some are major.  Some address issues peculliar to Atlasia, while others address issues that affect the United States.

While I am reluctant to speak to the details, because I hope to have the privledge of introducing these measures myself as a Senator, here are the titles of the bills that I have prepared and are ready to be introduced.

1. Don't Cry For Me Atlasia Act
2. Don't Feed the Birds Act
3. Federal Vending Facilities Reform Act
4. Guayule Privatization Act
5. Imitation Butter and Cheese Regulation Act
6. Long-Term Care Insurance of the Relatives of Federal Employees Reform Act
7. Metrification of Grain Standards Act
8. Modern Motherhood Act
9. Modern Weather Warning Act
10. Postal Access Act
11. The Naval Stores Repeal Act
12. Time Clock Flexibility Act

I am also working on, but do not have in a finished form a Campaign Financing Reform Act and a Federal Wage Act.  The former deals with real-world, rather than Atlasian elections while the latter tries to remedy the effects of the unconstitutionality of existing minimum wage legislation under the Atlasian Constitution. Both are proving fairly lengthy as I try to seal up potential loopholes and other problems rather than leaving them for another day.

I am a practical moderate.  I'm more interested in measures that work, and eliminating those that don't than strict adherence to ideology.  I believe that we've spent too much time looking at the forest of broad policy goals and passing simplistic bills to achieve them than taking a look at smaller issues that are also worthy of our attention and passing bills that consider how they tie in with existing legislation, both American and Atlasian, rather than assuming a blank slate.

If you have any questions about me or my legislative philosophy, please go ahead and ask me either by PM or here in this thread.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's the official campaign banners for this campaign.





Feel free to use either one.

[Virginian87]

As your opponent, I'd like to welcome to the race.

[Josh/Devilman88]

Good luck to the both of you.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

As your opponent, I'd like to welcome to the race.

I appreciate the welcome.  I thought it likely you'd be running again, but I wasn't certain since you haven't yet officially declared.

[Virginian87]

I was planning on declaring this weekend, however I have been out of the house for a while.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Charleston, South Carolina
Just outside the South Carolina Ports Authority Wando Welch terminal

I'd like to begin my campaign by addressing the issue of Free Trade.  I have been a long time advocate of free trade.  I have never believed that trade is a zero-sum game in which we must beggar our trading partners in order to prosper ourselves.  Indeed, helping our friends to improve their economies by providing access to our market can help to establish new markets for ouwn goods,  However, I have serious reservations about the series of free trade bills that are currently coursing their way through the Senate.

The primary reservation I have is the lack of any degree of reciprocity requirements in these bills, not even the simplistic requirement that we will only lower our tariffs to match what the other nation sets on our goods.  Free trade can only work when the conditions do indeed provide for trade and not of the sort that causes us to import goods and export jobs.  If elected, I shall seek to amend the bills that have passed so as to contain at a minimum basic requirements for reciprocity and will vote against any free trade bill that does not contain such measures.  As I've already said, my support for free trade is based in part on the prospect of developing new markets for our goods by helping other nations to prosper.  However, when other nations maintain barriers against our goods while we lower our barriers to their goods, then we gain no new markets from the development of foreign economies. My strong support for free trade does not extend to the unilateral dismantling of our economic defenses against the unfree trade practices of other countries.

[TomC]

Good luck, Ernest!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Branchville, South Carolina
Just outside the Branchville Railroad Station

I'm here today to continue my talks about bills on the Senate's agenda and about the issues facing our great nation today.  Since I am speaking here today at the first railroad junction in the world, no topic would be more appropriate than transportation policy in general and the Amtrak Privatization Bill in particular. ₁

I concur with those portions of the bill that call for the privatization of Amtrak and to allow for the non-profitable portions thereof to be shutdown, though I do have some quibbles about the timing.  I think it would be better if we were to trim the uneconomic relics of our railroad history that are sustained to the detriment of Amtrak before Amtrak is sold rather than after it is sold so as to enable a fairer, and hopefully larger price to be obtained from its sale.

However, I must demur against the total elimination of railroad subsidies as called for in the bill.  The rails are no less a part of our transportation infrastructure than our highways, airports, inland waterways, and seaports, all of which receive subsidies to one degree or another.  The Senate has the power, indeed it has the moral obligation, under our great Constitution "to build or regulate the infrastructure needed for communication and transportation." ₂

While passenger rail traffic is no longer a significant part of our national transportation infrastructure, the use of railroads to transport cargo is, and it would be a shameful abbrogation of the Senate's responsibilities to fail to ensure that we maintain a safe, useful, flexible, and efficient system of rail transportation, especially given the vague and undefined nature of what constitutes a "rail subsidy" under this bill.

Notes
  ¹ Amtrak Privatization Bill as introduced on June 27. Debate in the Senate has not yet begun.
  ² Article I Section 5 Clause 10 of the Second Constitution

[minionofmidas]

Oh, I thought you were declaring your support for a Headquarters for District 2.

[jerusalemcar5]

Oh, I thought you were declaring your support for a Headquarters for District 2.

Haha!

Btw, LEWIS TRONDHEIM FOR DISTRICT 5 (SW District)!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Oh, I thought you were declaring your support for a Headquarters for District 2.

We already have one.  It's called Nyman.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Raleigh, North Carolina
In fornt of the RBC Center, home of the Hartford Whalers Carolina Hurricanes

This seemed to be the best place in this district for me to speak on the Whaling Bill.  Frankly, I fail to see the merits of this bill.  Traditional coastal hunting of whales was not a factor in the decline of whale populations, and indeed the population of Bowhead Whales hunted by Alaskan natives today is actually increasing.  About the only thing of value in the bill is the increase of the penalty for illegal whaling from the maximum of a $10,000 fine and a year in jail set in 1950 (Act of Aug. 9, 1950, ch. 653, Sec. 8, 64 Stat. 423 [16 U.S.C. 916f]) to something more substantial, tho I would favor only an increase in the maximum fine to $100,000, so as ameliorate the effects of over 50 years of inlation on the fine.

I'd also like to point out that in my list of prepared bills in the first post of this topic, that I've added another propared bill, the Don't Feed the Birds Act which strangely enough, given its name, touches upon agricultural subsidies.  That makes a total of 12 bills I'm ready to introduce in the Senate once elected, with more to come!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Baltimore, Maryland
On the grounds of Johns Hopkins University


  Let me begin by thanking the College Independent Liberals for inviting me to speak here today.

  I'm here today to express my opinion on the Human Cloning Bill that is shortly to come before the Senate.  There are several flaws in the proposed legislation which I wish to address.  The first is that it fails to distinguish between theraputic cloning and reproductive cloning.  Given the existence of New Age religious groups such as the Raelians that include the desireablity of reproductive in their beliefs, I am hard pressed to see where a ban on reproductive cloning could survive constitutional muster unless specific reasons beyond because we don't care for it that explain why doing so should be criminalized are given in the bill.
 
  As to theraputic cloning, given the ethical questions it raises, it does not strike me as being in the least bit unreasonable to ban research into human theraputic cloning until at the very least, some evidence that theraputic cloning actually works can be demonstrated by animal studies.  What does trike me as unreasonable is the other flaw in the bill, it's unproportionality.  The penalties imposed are significantly harsher than those imposed for a prohibited abortion under the Abortion Restriction in Federal Territories Act and there is no penalty for the destruction of excess embryos from in vitro fertilization under current law.

  In short, the present bill is fundamentally flawed, and any attempt to modify it to be acceptable would create a bill so different as to essentially be a different bill.

Note:
Human Cloning Bill as introduced on June 27. Debate in the Senate has not yet begun.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Newport News, Virginia
At the gates of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company

  My topic today is the hodgepodge of unrelated programs slated for removal by the so-called Corporate Welfare Elimination Bill.  I say so-called, because it hardly eliminates all corporate welfare, and what it does target is not only corporate welfare.  At least it is a bill, so let's hope the author plays baseball where one out of three ain't bad. (Crowd laughs.)

  I have no problems with section 4 of the proposed bill.  The Department of Agriculture's Market Access Program is without a doubt one of the most blatant and unabashed examples of corporate welfare that exists in our government.  Subsidizing advertising costs for the agricultural industry is pork, plain and simple, and should be elininated.

  Sections 1 and 2 of this bill are more problematic.  While the programs they target do fall under a broad definition of corporate welfare, they do help to provide our defense industry with a steadier and more reliable source of income and thus help to keep our defense capability strong. Perhaps there are better ways to arrange that strengthening than those programs, but a simple abolition without providing for a replacement is not a prudent course of action.

  And then there is Section 3 which eliminates the International Trade Administration.  The ITA is charged with ensuring that our trade laws are administered and that the agreements that are in place between ourselves and other countries are enforced.  The only reason I can see why this got cemented into this pudding stone of a bill is that the anti-dumping duties administered by the ITA are paid to the companies that are harmed by the dumping.  The anti-dumping provisions are but a small part of what the ITA does and if one does not care for what where the duties are going, I say move to have them paid into the Treasury rather than yet again lowering our economic defenses unilaterally.  Bad enough that we have been doing so, but to discard a provision of law that keeps other nations from being able to launch economic warfare without any response on our part is irrational.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Wilmington, Delaware
Outside the corporate offices of RegionCorp



  I am glad to see my opponent begin his campaign, and wish to extend an offer to debate him on the issues assuming we can find someone to moderate the debate.  The voters will be helped the more they have available for them to determine who they want in the Senate.  We certainly have different perceptions and styles.  My opponent finds fault with my perception that the Senate is spending too much of its time engaging in a consideration of trade.  When half the bills pending in the Legislative Introduction Thread, half the bills considered so far by the current Senate to date, and two-thirds of those considered by the last Senate dealt with trade issues, what else can a reasonable person conclude?

  As for my opponent's charge that my proposals for legislation lack a sense of grandeur, my proposals deal with specific details rather than the generic handwaving that far too much Senate legislation consists of.   In any case, I would certainly be at least as well qualified as my opponent to deal with the big issues he favors tackling.  Despite his belittling of my proposals, to date, Virginian87 has introduced no bills or resolutions for consideration by the Senate, and as far as I can determine has offered but two admendments to items before the Senate.  In the Thirteenth Senate, I was able to find but one bill he offered an opinion on beyond a simple aye or nay.  I am glad to note that in the Fourteenth Senate, he appears to have at last found his voice, but not saying enough is not something I have been accused of.  If anything, I have been faulted by some for being too verbose for my own good.  (Crowd laughs.)

   Finally, let me spend some time tonight speaking on two more bills that are on the Senate agenda, the Alcohol Reform Bill, and the Wage Enforcement Bill.  Both are efforts to micromanage the governance of the Territories.  Save in extreme circumstances, or where Territorial law has diverged sharply from that of the Regions, I feel we should trust the inhabitants of the Territories to manage their own affairs.  Let the Regional governments deal with these regional type issues so that the Senate can focus its concern on issues of national importance.

[Jake]

You certainly have my support Ernest.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Atlantic City, New Jersey
In a conference room at the Borgata



  It's all too appropriate that I make my first speech after my opponent has laid out his transport policy here in Atlantic City.  He apparently hasn't learned when to stop making the same bet.  An extension of the Acela line from Nyman to Atlanta is one such bet that he makes, and one that I believe will prove useful, given the population that is located along that route.  However, the same cannot be said of his doubling down the bet with his proposed extension from Raleigh-Durham to Jacksonville.  The population densities there are not sufficient in my opinion to make that line anything more than a ever-oozing sore of excessive subsidy payments for as long as it is in operation.  If that line was truly attractive to local rail passenger service, one would think even Amtrak would have something more than only the Silver Star travelling it in the dead of night.
   As for improving the commutes of the Greater Nyman Metropolitan Area, I ask the Senator, how does he intend to do it?  Does he intend to bulldoze the neighborhoods beside the existing routes to widen them? Does he intend to bulldoze new neighborhoods for new routes? Does he intend to build a lengthy new bypass for I-95 to divert some traffic away from Nyman and Baltimore?  Not that any of those schemes will provide much long term relief.  Commuting times show an amazing degree of inelasticity over time.  Making commuting quicker tends to cause people to seek lengthier commutes.  Infrastructure alone cannot solve commuting problems.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

College Park, Maryland
On the steps of the Mideast Region House

  My opponent made some points in his last speech that I wish to address.  He focussed on the differences between us but he left out one crucial one.  I have been and continue to be a forceful advocate for the principle of federalism, of leaving decisions and power at as local a level as is practical.  That I have spent little time addressing the issues of commuting and education is due to the fact that I see such issues as primarilya Regional responsibility.  Given my opponent's focus on such issues, I urge him to consider running for Governor next month.
  He has also misinterpreted my desire for office as a goal in itself.  Rather I have a number of bills to propose in the Senate. While my opponent has generously offerred by PM to introduce them in the Senate, I doubt if he would be as forceful or effective an advocate for them as myself who can best explain why such bills should be passed.
  My opponent claims that I have not dealt sufficently with the needs of District 2.  That is a strange charge to make against the progenitor of the Intracoastal and Other Waterways Act which provided one hundred million dollars in extra funding to revitalize the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway which serves all the States of District 2 and incidentally helps keep freight traffic off of the highways of our District.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Nyman, District of Columbia
at the Capitol Reflecting Pool

Just a few words of encouragement for the voters as the voting booth is about to open.  I think that between us, Virginian87 and I have made clear the differences between us in our campaign threads.  I sincerely hope that you will find my vision of what Atlasia and its Senate can be to be the more compelling one.  I also wish to encourage the voters of Districts 1 and 5 to vote for my fellow ILP-ers, Bullmoose and Brandon W.  Together we can bring some common sense back to the Senate.

Once you've voted, I encourage you to join me over at the Mayflower Hotel while I await the returns.  ILP members will get two free drinks at the open bar.

[TomC]

Go Ernest!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Nyman, District of Columbia
Mayflower Hotel ballroom

It's been a hard fought campaign with a worthy opponent, and I offer my congratulations to Virginian87 on his relection.  It does appear I will have at least two more months to add to the 15 bills I have prepared for when I do get into the Senate.  I intend on spending the next week reflecting on possibilities before deciding what will be next for me.  All I can safely say is that I will not be running an active campaign next month for my current post of Northeast Lt. Governor.

[Dr. Cynic]

Well Ernest, you may not have supported my run for Senate, but what the heck. You ran a good campaign against the incumbant, and I hope for one that you try again sometime.

[Virginian87]

You ran a good campaign, Ernest.  I look forward to seeing you elected as the next senator for the Northeast in October.  J-Car has some of the lowest approval ratings in the Senate, so you have a good shot of knocking him out.