In a bad dream, I suddenly became aware that I no longer owned a stake in my own government - and I'm an American citizen in America, mind you - and in wandering from person to person, looking for answers, I found a smiling, balding and bespectacled man holding a receipt in his hand. I asked what the receipt was for. He said he'd just bought my government from me and my doe-eyed fellow Americans - at a bargain, he bragged. I asked who he was; he introduced himself as Howard Rich.
Only after spending part of today doing the most basic Google searching you can do, I have developed a keener understanding of just what a nightmare that is. Howard Rich has three things going for him: He's ultra-rich, he understands how to manipulate public policy through initiatives and ballot referenda, and he knows that you and I are largely oblivious to the machinations of the nickel-plated Napoleons who make up his inner circle.
Let's get the wealth out of the way: He's in New York real estate and is wealthier than any hundred of us combined. That's apparently how it's been since the late 1970s, when he and his wealthy friends tried - almost successfully - to take over the Libertarian Party. Rich and a rogue's gallery of wealthy pals got buddy Eric O'Keefe ensconced as national director of the party until O'Keefe's really ugly ouster at the national convention in 1981 or so, and they were set to get another of their cohorts elected party president until that plot unraveled on the convention floor in 1983. (If you're willing to kill an hour, you'll find the online archives of the Mises Institute fascinating at www.mises.org. Under "Journals," click "Libertarian Forum" and you'll find pdfs of Libertarian Party newsletters dating from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, when the party partly collapsed, partly converged with the Republican Party. They read like today's blogs, full of color and gossip and intrigue, and they chart the rising influence of Rich and his gaggle of trust-fund baby-boomers, sailing under the tutelage of Ed Crane.)
Our blogging friends at Fired Up Missouri have drawn a bead on Rich's wealth. In April, FUM's Jeff Mazur dug through some New York City permits to find that "73 Spring Street #408 address is the residence of one Howard Rich. Howard Rich's Spring Street abode sits on the eastern edge of New York City's trendy SoHo neighborhood --an urban mecca for fashion industry and art mavens. The same building also houses Laissez Faire Books, a bookstore and kooky repository of libertarian thought. The longtime president of Laissez Faire Books and its "parent organization" --the Center for Independent Thought-- is none other than Andrea Rich, wife of Howard." Catch the rest of Jeff's research at http://www.firedupmissouri.com/....
So Rich is, in a word, rich. So's Andrea, who ran "Laissez Faire Books" until she "retired" - do the wealthy actually "retire," or do they just stop checking in on the hired help? - in 2004. If you really want to look at Lady MacRich, you can catch her "hosting" an "award ceremony" in "the Rich apartment," handing over a framed picture of the Statute of Liberty to Ward Connerly and hobnobbing with Libertarian fetishist John Stossel here: http://www.szasz.com/....
Back to my thesis: he's rich, he knows what he's doing, and he knows average Americans don't pay attention to fine print.
Indeed, Rich knows what he's doing - at least, he has a working theory. See, most Americans believe, correctly, that they have the power to choose their government through electing officials to represent them in local councils, state legislatures and Congress. That's all true. Back in 1980, Rich and his cabal tried to get a Libertarian elected president, and their effort failed; America elected Ronald Reagan king instead. So Rich & Company was dejected. While the principled wing of the Libertarian Party went back to their stone towers to flagellate themselves, the Savile Row wing blended into the Reaganite woodwork and took notes. Like a lot of businessmen, Rich & Company realized that only half of moneymaking comes from wholesale - the only half comes from retail. Where they'd failed at trying to take power through the top of the ticket, they learned that there's just as much power to be taken from the bottom of it. Ta-daa: Initiatives and ballot referenda.
Don't take my word for it. Read Rich himself: "We have the ability to, in effect, bypass legislatures by going directly to the people through the initiative process," Rich told Shane Goldmacher of Capitol Weekly only three weeks ago. Proudly. "My interest is in restoring property rights, in term limits, and in capping state government spending at some reasonable limit," he said.
And he said more than that, here: http://www.capitolweekly.net/.... He was talking about some change he'd like to see made in New York, his home state, right? No, he was talking about an initiative he's pushing to get onto the ballot in California, a continent away.
"I think California often leads the nation," the scion of SoHo told Goldmacher. "It is the largest, most populous state and it is very important to us..."
Not all Californians are appreciative of Rich's bid to buy their government. Goldmacher quotes Californian Kathy Fairbanks: "The fact that this one guy from New York, an out-of-state multimillionaire, has decided, `I know what's best for the nation and I am going to tell all the states how to do things right' ... that's offensive," she said. Right on, Kathy.
Of course, Rich has a spokesman in California - don't all multi-millionaires? - who breaks it down for the little people trying too hard to understand: "This is really a grassroots, populist issue. It is one of the government, the political establishment taking advantage of power against the little guy. It is very much a California-driven issue and we are busy raising money from Californians to fund it," Kevin Spillane said with a straight face, knowing that Rich gave some pocket change to the effort -- $1.5 million - that no other contributor has come close to matching.
Hey, that's the same modus operandi that Jeff Mazur found in Missouri: Out of $295,810 raised by "Missourians in Charge" (which sounds awfully familiar), $295,000 was a single contribution from a single contributor - a committee called Fund for Democracy, located at 73 Spring Street #408, New York City. Hmmm... it's a heckuva coincidence, that Howard Rich lives in the same building as the Fund for Democracy.
I think we can go ahead and jump to a conclusion, friends. Rather than call themselves Missourians in Charge, they oughta call themselves Howard Rich in Charge. Somebody give us an Amen.
All right, back to the thesis one more time: He's got money, he's got a plan, and he's counting on voters to listen to his mouth, not watch his hands. I think we've covered the first two. Our only saving grace is that we don't have to fight 50 fires at once, since fewer than half of the United States have initiative and ballot referenda laws.
Not so fast, says our buddy Rich. He's got a solution for that too. It's called Citizens in Charge - I knew Missourians in Charge sounded familiar - and its stated goal is to change the laws in the other 26 or so states to allow initiative and ballot referenda by petition.
What does Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob says about his organization? "We believe citizen control of government is essential for peace, prosperity and freedom. And we believe the citizen initiative process is imperative for citizens to truly control their government," he says.
And how does President Paul Jacob go about giving citizens more control over their government? "Citizens in Charge works with activists, legislators, media, opinion leaders and voters to protect the initiative & referendum process where it exists in 24 states and to expand the process to the 26 states where voters currently lack the initiative," he says. "Citizens in Charge Foundation works to educate the public on the benefits of citizen initiative, referendum and recall and also litigates to protect and expand those rights."
I see. And one last thing. Who exactly is involved in Citizens in Charge, President Jacob? "Citizens in Charge is every American who believes that citizens must be in charge of government. As activists, legislators, financial supporters, and opinion leaders we come together to establish the essential process whereby citizens can, when necessary, overrule their rulers," he says. Overrule the rulers, he says, like you can also do by electing or un-electing them, but you actually can't accomplish that through legitimate means. But I'm sorry, President Jacob, you were saying? "We recognize that the citizen initiative, referendum and recall shift the balance of power away from politicians and to the voters. We believe that's the American way," he says.
I know, friends, you're thinking to yourselves, come on, sandlapper, this is a completely different organization than the ones Howard Rich controls, and Paul Jacob isn't Howard Rich himself. And you're right. Paul Jacob isn't Howard Rich, he's Howard Rich's brother-in-law. Seriously.
Take it from Jeff Mazur in Missouri: "Sadly, Howard Rich has the financial resources to fund ill-considered political and ballot schemes," Jeff writes here: http://www.firedupmissouri.com/.... "The bottom line here is that Howard Rich is not like you and me. He's not even a Missourian. Rich is a wealthy New York real estate mogul who lives in a fancy high rise in SoHo. He doesn't have any reason to care about whether our kids get educated, our roads get fixed or our sick get healthy. Yet he thinks that he knows best how we ought to run our state. And he's using his considerable Manhattan real estate fortune to amend our constitution to destroy our schools, hamstring our first responders, and generally ruin our state."
Take it from our blogging friends at Preemptive Karma, http://www.preemptivekarma.com/... "Since 1998, Rich seems to have realized that his tactics will not work with elected representatives, so he is taking his all-or-nothing approach directly to the voters instead. In many other states where Rich-written and Rich-funded ballot initiatives are being put before the voters, the groups were created specifically for this effort and are anything but grassroots. All of these initiatives are being put forward and funded by non-local Howard Rich. Signatures were all collected by non-local petitioners. It is the one means available to this extremist, heavy-handed libertarian movement to force its agenda on the country."
Take it from Californian Kathy Fairbanks, quoted here http://www.capitolweekly.net/... "The ironic thing about what he is doing is he is as guilty of the same overzealous abuses that he accuses government of. If this should pass, one of the consequences is that we are going to see lawsuit after lawsuit filed--and guess who is the loser in that? The California taxpayers, not Howard Rich."
If Citizens in Charge isn't already in your state, they're coming. They say so here: http://www.citizensincharge.org/.... They're counting on us to be polite and pleasant when they come to us in the grocery stores with their petitions, and not to ask them too many questions, and to sign their papers just so they'll leave us alone. And then they're counting on our state laws to let them get their crap like TABOR on our ballots, and then they're counting on us to be vaguely reminded of their poll-tested, focus-grouped phrases in their advertising, familiar enough that we'll vote 'okay' when we get to the ballot box in November.
In essence, they're counting on us to be distracted by the smoke and mirrors, and not to ask who is the man working the gears behind the curtain, the smiling, balding, bespectacled man with the receipt in his hand. They're counting on us not asking, Who is Howard Rich?
[Wayward, here's a little postscript for you. Nine separate maximum contributions of $3,500 each have come from individuals or businesses with ties to 73 Spring Street, New York City, to the re-election campaign of Governor Mark Sanford, but none of them were attributed to Howard Rich himself. Why would people and businesses associated with Rich's Fund for Democracy be hip-deep in helping Governor Suntan get re-elected?]