Candidates brought forward by the GOP and the Democratic parties represent their parties and the special interests that fund them, not you and me. These candidates must conform to one of the two, usually diametrically opposed, political platforms. This candidate-selection process gives us fiction-based polarizing campaigns, a failed education system, trillions in public debt, and a tax system for special interests.

Candidates should represent the people who elect them. That's how the U.S. House of Representatives is supposed to work - members represent the voters from geographic districts within each state. We should be voting for individual candidates, not a political party.

There is a process that does allow citizen representatives to be selected by the people in their local district. These candidates are not associated with any political party and will limit themselves to two terms. Go to GOOOH.com to learn more.

Serving in Congress should be an honor, not a career.

Billy D. Clifford
Austin, Texas

Uncertainty surrounding a newly created $60-million tax-relief fund and few safeguards on how the state taxpayer dollars will be used opens up the potential for misuse, state lawmakers say.

House Ways & Means Chair Tom Sands (R-Wapello) told IowaPolitics.com last month that among 100 Iowa House members, 50 Iowa Senate members and the governor, there are probably 151 different ideas on how to use the $60 million that will go into the Taxpayers Trust Fund this year.

There is a widely held view that Congress has virtually unlimited power to legislate, especially concerning economic matters. Consider, for example, the passage of the controversial Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act two years ago. While Congress' power to regulate the economy is not completely unbounded, it is very far-reaching indeed. However, it was not always so.

I've been pretty rough on Secretary of State Jesse White lately. I have no regrets about it, and I believe I had good reason to put the onus on him to correct his mistake of appointing state Representative Derrick Smith to the Illinois House last year. Smith, of course, was arrested in March on federal bribery charges.

White requested a sit-down last week, and I was more than happy to meet with him. I've always respected the guy, but I told him in no uncertain terms that I stood by everything I wrote and will continue to hold him responsible for resolving this mess.

White initially blamed his alderman and protégé Walter Burnett for Smith's appointment. Burnett, White said, didn't fully inform him about Smith's background problems. (Smith was fired from his city job, and the Sun-Times reported a few years ago that he'd been accused of malfeasance.) That's no excuse, however. White is the top dog, and the blame rests with him. He agreed.

Scott County Republicans have every reason to hang their heads in shame after the sham of a county convention that broke its own rules to deliberately exclude at least 30 percent of the duly elected precinct delegates from being nominated as delegates to the district, state, and national conventions. At a minimum, members should be demanding that Scott County GOP Central Committee Chair Judy Davidson resign. Davidson was not elected convention chair at the March 10 meeting, yet she disallowed nominations for district and state delegates, then railroaded through her own predetermined slate of names to be delegates - without a motion from the delegation - and then conducted a secret ballot to conclude the charade. There were dozens of delegates present who were elected in their precincts and, by the party's own rules, should have been included first on any list or slate of delegates moving forward.

It's hard to avoid contemplating how Secretary of State Jesse White has screwed up lately on so many fronts.

White has managed to mostly avoid scandals throughout his life and as a result has become one of the most popular Democratic politicians of the past half-century - one year winning all 102 Illinois counties, and then still taking about 70 percent of the vote during the the national Republican landslide of 2010. (Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan won with 65 percent, and Governor Pat Quinn won with less than 47 percent that same year.)

But White's engineering of the appointment of Derrick Smith to his old House seat was no doubt the biggest mistake the secretary has ever made in his decades-long political career.

Lawmakers are struggling with how to transform Iowa's 99-county system for providing mental-health services into a more uniform, statewide network. The underfunded system presently leaves thousands waiting for services.

"Those are the people probably suffering the most right now," said Margaret Stout, who for 25 years was executive director of Iowa's chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a not-for-profit that provides mental-health education, advocacy, and support.

Iowa's adult-mental-health system provided services to 52,059 people last fiscal year, according to the Iowa State Association of Counties. Underfunding leaves thousands more without needed services. The system has an anticipated $51.4-million shortfall in Fiscal Year 2013, according to the state's Legislative Services Agency.

The chair of one of Iowa's powerful tax-writing committees said March 19 that allowing certain local projects to keep their own sales-tax revenue - rather than sending the money to the state - is a slippery slope.

"I think it's a very dangerous road to go down," Iowa House Ways & Means Chair Tom Sands (R-Wapello), told IowaPolitics.com. "The state started down that road just a little bit with the racetrack, and now, here are two other proposals that are coming off of that. So the next question is: Where will this end?"

In 2005, lawmakers and the governor first used this economic-development tool to bring NASCAR to Iowa. Then-Governor Tom Vilsack signed a law that paved the way for construction of the Iowa Speedway in Newton by allowing the racetrack to keep $12.5 million of its own future sales-tax revenue.

An Iowa policy group warned then that the Newton project would encourage other cities to seek similar subsidies from state funds. The group, it appears, was right.

The Iowa Supreme Court on March 16 said Iowa Governor Terry Branstad's item-veto of a bill intended to keep Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) field offices open was unconstitutional.

"Simply stated, the legislature appropriated funds to IWD with strings attached, and our constitution does not permit the governor to cut the strings and spend the money differently," said the opinion authored by Justice Thomas Waterman, who was appointed by Branstad in February 2011.

However, it does not appear that the ruling would lead to the re-opening of the 36 field offices, which helped unemployed Iowans find jobs, write résumés, and prepare for interviews.

Appointed state Representative Derrick Smith (D-Chicago) hasn't been in the House very long, but few would've ever picked him as a future legislative star. He stumbles badly during debates, isn't well informed on the issues, and has obviously had a lot of trouble getting his arms around his new job.

In other words, he probably won't be missed.

Smith was arrested last week on federal bribery charges. The feds say a campaign worker told them that Smith was anxious about fundraising problems and was willing to trade favors for checks. After being told a day-care-center owner was willing to pony up big bucks in exchange for an official letter requesting a $50,000 state grant, Smith allegedly pounced on the opportunity.

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