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Americans for Limited Government
| Americans for Limited Government | |
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| President: | Richard Manning |
| Website: | http://getliberty.org/ |
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118th • 117th • 116th • 115th • 114th • 113th • 112th • 111th • 110th |
Americans for Limited Government (ALG) is a national libertarian political advocacy organization headquartered in Virginia. The group has had high-profile involvement in a number of ballot initiative campaigns, especially in 2006. The issues the group supports are eminent domain reform, property rights, tax and spending reform, school choice, judicial reform and government accountability.
Leadership
- President: Richard Manning
2012 elections
According to OpenSecrets.org, Americans for Limited Government spent $2,588,500 in the 2012 election cycle.[1]
Endorsed candidates
In the 2012 election cycle, the Americans for Limited Government supported the following candidates:[1]
Expenditures
| Top 5 largest Americans for Limited Government expenditures in 2012[2] | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Party | State | Office | For | Against | Total | Desired Result |
| Jeff Duncan |  |
SC | House | $2,500 | $0 | $2,500 |  |
| Matt Salmon | |
AZ | House | $2,500 | $0 | $2,500 | |
| David Schweikert | |
AZ | House | $2,500 | $0 | $2,500 | |
| Scott Keadle | |
NC | House | $2,500 | $0 | $2,500 |  |
| Mitt Romney | |
N/A | President | $1,750 | $0 | $1,750 | |
Issues
Property Rights
In 2006, ALG helped fund ballot initiatives to curtail the expanded scope of eminent domain created by the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision in 2005. Some of these measures would also have required governments to either waive restrictions or compensate land owners when land use and environmental laws decreased the value of parcels of property. These initiatives were known as "Kelo-Plus" to indicate that they included a provision to reform regulatory takings policy in addition to eminent domain abuses.
Oregon Ballot Measure 37, approved by voters in Oregon in 2004, was a regulatory takings reform initiative. Encouraged by this success, and piggybacking on the public backlash from the Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo v. City of New London decision, ALG supported "Kelo-Plus" ballot initiatives in 2006 in Arizona, California, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Oklahoma.
ALG also supported I-933 in Washington, which would have required compensation when government regulation damages the use or value of private property.
The Missouri and Oklahoma petition drives did not collect sufficient signatures, and the Montana initiative was removed from the ballot by a circuit judge who found that signature collection fraud had occurred.
The Nevada Supreme Court, on single-subject grounds, removed the regulatory takings component of the ALG-sponsored Kelo-Plus initiative, leaving intact the measure's Kelo-reform provision.
Of the three states (Arizona, California, Idaho) where Kelo-Plus ballot initiatives appeared on the ballot in 2006, the measure passed only in Arizona.
Washington voters declined to pass I-933, that state's takings reform proposal.
Taxpayer Bill of Rights
ALG also supports initiatives to enact Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) laws, which put a cap on how fast a state's spending can grow. The specific cap is based on an index that is a combination of inflation and population growth, sometimes known as a "popu-flation" index. These laws provide for "rainy day" (emergency) funds as well as the ability for state voters to decide whether their representatives should spend revenue surpluses rather than have it refunded to the taxpayers. Colorado voters passed the best-known example of a TABOR law in 1992 and later voted to temporarily suspend it via the 2005 Colorado Economic Recovery Act.[3]
In 2006, ALG assisted in successful efforts to place TABOR ballot initiatives on ballots in Maine, Nebraska and Oregon. All three measures were rejected.
In 2006, ALG also assisted in ultimately unsuccessful attempts to qualify TABOR initiatives for ballots in Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Oklahoma. The Michigan and Missouri efforts were unsuccessful on the grounds that insufficient numbers of signatures were collected in the petition drives. In Montana, after the measure had been certified for the ballot by the secretary of state, a private coalition successfully sued to have it removed from the ballot on the grounds that signature collection fraud had occurred. In Nevada, after the measure was certified for the ballot, a private coalition successfully sued to have it removed when the Nevada Supreme Court decided against the measure being on the ballot on the grounds that two slightly different versions of the wording had been submitted to the secretary of state. In Oklahoma, the state supreme court refused to certify the TABOR measure for the ballot on the grounds that insufficient signatures were collected, and because the "evidence support[ed] substantial illegal participation of out-of-state circulators."[4]
Public Schools
ALG promotes a parental-choice approach to solving problems in the American public school system. It supports school vouchers and expansion of charter schools, arguing that competition among schools will increase both the quality and the economic efficiency of public education.[5] The organization argues that providing poor and middle-class parents with the economic means to choose from a variety of schools for their children will promote accountability in school administration, and permit parents a greater degree of control over the schools their children attend.
Judicial Accountability
A fourth issue of concern for ALG is accountability in the judicial system.[6] In 2006, the group was involved in efforts to pass Montana CI-98, a measure that would have allowed voters in that state to recall elected judges or justices for any reason—a change from Montana's pre-existing requirement that in order to recall a judge, incapacity, incompetence, misconduct or a felony must have occurred. The initiative, along with two others, was removed from the ballot after a hard-fought series of legal challenges from opponents.[7]
Criticism
In 2006, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a frequent critic of Americans for Limited Government, established a website called "Howie Rich Exposed." It was devoted to criticizing Howard Rich, the president of ALG at the time.[8] The most typical criticism was related to the issue of "out-of-state money."[9][10][11]
After ALG's decision in December 2006 to move its national office from Illinois to Virginia, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) reported that ALG was "forced out of Illinois in December 2006 for failing to comply with state charity laws."Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for "Americans + for + Limited + Government"
- All stories may not be relevant to this organization due to the nature of the search engine.
See also
External links
- Americans for Limited Government
- Human Events spotlight on ALG
- Takings Initiatives Accountability Project
- The Oregonian on ALG
- High Country News investigative report on ALG by Ray Ring
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Open Secrets, "Americans for Limited Government," accessed December 16, 2013
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedacs - ↑ Colorado Economic Recovery Act
- ↑ Oklahoma state court network
- ↑ ALG's position on school choice
- ↑ ALG's statement on judicial reform
- ↑ Montana de-certified ballot issues
- ↑ Howie Rich Exposed
- ↑ Oregon live
- ↑ Sun Journal
- ↑ PBS Now
