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From: rbowman <bowman@montana.com>
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Subject: Re: The joy of Democracy
Date: 4 Oct 2024 23:14:50 GMT
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On Fri, 4 Oct 2024 20:30:18 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:


> Here in NZ, there is a lot of scrutiny of the perks that politicians
> get. (One of the benefits of having a free press.) We just managed to
> shame our own Prime Minister out of collecting a sizeable accommodation
> allowance for living in a property in the capital that he owns.

The US is notorious for perks. They come up in the discussion when they're 
trying to get rid of someone like Thomas but business as usual is not to 
talk about your colleagues income from books nobody would read if not by a 
pol, speaking engagements, and the ever popular revolving door.

> And we had strict controls on campaign finance spending right from the
> early days. And there have been occasional prosecutions, just to keep
> everyone in line.

One of the worst decisions by the Supreme Court was 'Citizens United'

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-
explained

Kennedy was a wild card but chose to go with the conservatives that time. 

The Senate race has attracted a lot of attention in this state. Normally 
most people couldn't find Montana on a map and couldn't care less but with 
a 50/50 split in the Senate it becomes nationally important. The incumbent 
Democrat is running on a good, old, country boy campaign and has even more 
out of state funding than the challenger. Millions are being spent. The 
radio carries political ads and my mailbox is stuffed with political 
flyers so I guess somebody is making money no matter who wins.

> As for term limits, that doesn’t seem to be a common thing in
> Parliamentary systems. Look at Germany, where past Chancellors like
> Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel served (nearly) four terms, and nobody
> felt that a special law needed to be passed to bring them to heel: the
> democratic system managed that itself.

After FDR the president is term limited but it's not general. In this 
state the governor is term limited and in the past has shown a potential 
problem. Schweitzer was a Democrat but was well liked by both sides but 
limited out. He'd gotten 65% of the vote for his second term and probably 
would have done as well could he run for a third term.