News from the liberterrain…
DownsizeDC, the libertarian nonprofit that facilitates thousands of people in bombarding their politicians with email demands, is celebrating a recent string of successes.
Friday they announced that their attempt to introduce their "One Subject at a Time Act" (OSTA) in Congress had picked up its second sponsor in the person of Florida Rep Bill Posey.
This came just 17 days after DownsizeDC's "major victory" when its only sponsor, Pennsylvania's Rep Tom Marino, introduced the bill as HR 3806.
Finding that first sponsor took years, DownsizeDC President Jim Babka remarked.
"OSTA would require each bill Congress passes to be about one subject only," an earlier PR Newswire press release explained. That would end the practice of packing multiple unrelated measures into one huge package. "Congressional leaders have long used this trick to pass unpopular laws on the strength of the popular proposals with which they're unnaturally joined. OSTA would end this fraud forever."
"Could this be the start of a trend?" Babka wonders. "That may depend on how much fuel you pour on this fire."
"This fire" refers to Babka's call to DownsizeDC's nearly 32,000 subscribers to flood Posey's Facebook with accolades, call his office and suggest he send "dear colleague letters" in search of other House sponsors, and then help fund the cost of sending out another news release.
This all comes on the heels of a triumphant email sent on February 2 titled, "YOU Won in the Supreme Court."
Babka claims that the unanimous ruling in "Antoine Jones v U.S." that police must have a valid warrant before attaching a GPS tracking device to a person's vehicle was "an historic decision and DC Downsizers merit much of the credit" for helping fund "two different briefs at two different stages of the case."
Not only did DownsizeDC "file the only brief asking the court to hear the case," Babka explains, but then filed a petition brief successfully urging the court to take the case and re-examine it on a Fourth Amendment property rights basis.
"For the past 43 years," Babka explains, "the Court's Fourth Amendment decisions have been based on a right to privacy, not property. But the privacy protection is a much weaker standard. Our briefs, and only our briefs, specifically aimed to restore the property right protection."
That's a lot of success in a short month like February. Even in a leap year.
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