Jesse Ventura on Government Reform Former Independent MN Governor; possible Presidential Challenger

Sub-sections under Government Reform:
• Secrecy
• Voting Record
• Other issues under Government Reform

I believe there should be term limits

Require paper ballots & hand-counting

Would you use an ATM machine that didn't give you a receipt? These electric voting machines don't do that. There's no way to keep a record of whom you voted for, so there can't be a valid recount. When computers can be used to change votes, it challenges the legality of our system. The only way to change that is to go back and make it as primitive as you can, one person one vote.

Electronic voting machines are a GOP conflict of interest

CIA operatives in every state government

I wasn't sworn to secrecy about this, but only my chief of staff and I were allowed to know his identity. I still have no idea what they're doing there. Are they spying? Checking out the state government and reporting back to someone at headquarters? But who and for what purpose? I mean, are they trying to ferret out traitors in the various states? (Or maybe just dissidents--like me!)

Anyhow, I wasn't told the reason and was simply left to ponder how come our Constitution is being violated. And that's another reason why I am writing this book, because I believe it's vital to our democracy to see the hidden pattern that's been undermining this country.

Get rid of the antiquated Electoral College

But 2004, it turned out, was even more blatant election theft than in 2000. The exit polls were predicting a huge victory for Kerry. But somehow Bush had taken a decisive lead and Kerry conceded on the day after. There is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale, the NY Times "informed" us. The Washington Post called any talk of vote fraud "conspiracy theories."

Term limits in Congress would limit lobbyist power

Bingo Saga: allow Bingo from somewhere in 1,000 law volumes

My solution? I wanted to change the system so that every 3rd year, the legislature couldn't make new laws. They could only come back and repeal old ones. Trim down the size of those bookshelves in the secretary of state's office a little. But in order to do that, I'd have to revise the state constitution.

However, I'm pleased to report my success in repealing one law. MN had it on the books that elderly people living together in nursing homes were only allowed to play bingo twice a week. The law even dictated what the prizes should be.

States should not be in business of building sports stadiums

Playing dumb, I said, "Well, Red, build one. What do you need to see me for?"

Red said, "Well, I can't do that without some participation of state money." Maybe he was just used to getting what he wanted, with his holdings in oil and TV stations.

I said, "If you raise your ticket prices $10 a seat and you keep selling out, that's $640,000. Do that over 10 games, it's $6.4 million. I don't think $10 a seat, or even $20, would upset the apple cart that bad."

Red replied, "I can't simply just put this on the backs of our most loyal fans."

I responded back, "Red, my wife couldn't care less about football. My wife pays taxes to the state of MN. So do a lot of people who think just like her. And I have to represent all of these people."

Term limits for politicians AND for political press

Even more important than placing term limits on politicians, I believe they should have term limits on Capitol reporters. It would be a good policy, on the part of newspapers, to do a rotation. In the end, they, they don't take an objective point of view. They start feeding into their own stories what they want to see happen. They get overrun, I think, with the feeling of power--just like career politicians do.

Get rid of elitist, bankrupt Electoral College

What I wanted to see happen in 2004 was the exact opposite result of 2000. I wanted Bush to win the popular election and John Kerry to have the most votes in the Electoral College. Then maybe these two groups of elitists would get together and say, it's time to get rid of the Electoral College. If I ever became president, that would be one of my top priorities.

Limit campaign money to one publicly-funded source

I cringe when I hear how many millions the 2008 presidential candidates have raised in campaign contributions.

I'm not big on socialism, but maybe it's time we limited the campaign money to one publicly funded source so that every candidate's share is equal. If that's unconstitutional, then why not remove all limits and go to full disclosure? At least that way, you know who is buying the influence.

Get presidential debates out of the hands of the two parties

Now whether or not someone can participate in debates is based upon an arbitrary polling figure. You have to be polling nationally at 15%. If that criteria had been applied in MN, I would not have become the governor. Because at the time of the primary, I was only polling at 10%. But I was allowed to debate, and I proved that you could be at 10% and still end up winning.

1996: Dole & Clinton conspired to limit presidential debates

Well, that wasn't allowed. That year, it was Bill Clinton running for reelection against Bob Dole. Dole did not want Perot in the debates, because he felt it would erode his conservative base. Clinton did not want debates at all because he was so far ahead. So, the two of them made a backroom deal. They would eliminate Perot if Clinton was allowed to say how many debates there would be, and when. They took this to the Federal Debate Commission and, of course, it was rubber-stamped. That's how we were denied seeing Perot take part in a spirited 3-person debate. That year, the only two debates were held--by design--at the same time as the World Series.

Credits win to public financing & same-day registration

Get money out of politics, could be better spent elsewhere

VENTURA: I think that it touches on the subject but it doesn't go nearly as far as it ought to go. We're trying to pass that type of legislation here to try to get the money out of politics. This last election, it was like 3 or 4 billion dollars were spent across the nation to elect candidates. Now imagine what we could do with that money if it wasn't being spent for that.

We need to upgrade our voting process

Will not actively fund-raise for re-election: “No strings”

I get criticized for making money on weekends. I’m an entertainer and have been all my life and so occasionally I will make a few dollars entertaining on the weekends. But I wonder what my critics would say if I was traveling around every weekend raising money for my campaign chest? That would be okay, I’m sure. No thanks. I don’t take bribes. In fact I recommend it to all politicians. You sleep well. And you don’t have to go to those God-awful fundraisers, and pretend you are aware of some lobbyist’s problem that you’ve never heard of.

And you know what? Having no strings attached is so great that if I run for re-election I will promise the people of Minnesota that I will not actively raise a dime. The people of Minnesota will know my record. If they approve, they will re-elect me. If not, they won’t. Win or lose, my conscience will be clear.

Close soft money loophole, give candidates public money

• Closing the soft money loophole.
• Giving candidates the public money when they need it.
• Providing better citizen access to campaign finance information on the web.
• I believe that political parties & party caucuses should agree to limit their independent
• expenditures as a condition of receiving public money, and I encourage the Minnesota
• Legislature to pass a bill that will close this gaping loophole in Minnesota's law.

Open up, simplify, & demystify government

We’ll bring reform to state departments and agencies, reigning in excessive rule making, clarifying overlapping roles, and bringing greater cooperation between departments to benefit all Minnesotans. We’ll introduce a variety of government systems and services reforms, including a simplified tax system and more one-stop government shopping via technology improvements. And we’ll support any effort to demystify government to make it a friend, not a foe.

In addition, existing laws pertaining to campaigns and elections need to be reviewed and amended to allow for full participation by credible third parties.

Single House Legislature returns power to people

Constitution is designed to be interpreted

You’ll often hear politicians & lawyers talking about interpreting the Constitution in terms of “getting back to the Founding Fathers’ original intent.” But you know what? We can’t. The Constitution is such an open-ended framework that even in their time it had to be interpreted. Maybe that’s why they wrote it that way: because even back then, there was a lot of argument over the meaning of lofty principles like “free speech” and “due process.”

The Constitution is constantly being interpreted, mostly by the Supreme Court. We’re always looking to it for answers. But the truth is, it can’t answer all of our questions, it can only inform our decisions. That’s what it was really meant to do.

Feds leach away states’ rights

Ban campaigning while earning a public paycheck

The taxpayers essentially funded their campaign. They didn’t fund mine. Why shouldn’t they have had to take a leave of absence if they weren’t performing the duties of their office?

I want to try and pass a law that says if you’re in public office, you’re not allowed to campaign from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. If you want to campaign, you can campaign at nights and on the weekends. This would keep incumbents from forcing taxpayers to pay them salaries for work they’re not doing.

Ban PAC funding; limit soft money; limit free air time

We also need to fix the loopholes in the campaign funding system. There’s already a cap on donations to an individual candidate, but no limit to the amount you can donate to a party. This so-called soft money is then funneled to individual candidates in the form of “issue ads.” We ought to cap the amount that each candidate is allowed to spend on a given campaign.

Some people have tossed around the idea of providing all candidates with equal chunks of free air time, free print space, and free Internet access, which they could use to state their positions, hold debates, and conduct question-and-answer sessions. We just have to be careful with the term FREE. In some circumstances, FREE may not mean what it appears to. Who exactly will pay for the free air time?

Avoiding candidate debates cheats the American public

JESSE VENTURA: I think it's despicable. Here in Minnesota when I ran, at the point of the primary, I was only polling 10%, which means that if you went by their criteria, I would not have been allowed to debate and subsequently would have not won the election. It shows great fear on their part in the fact that a candidate like me can be at 10% and can turn around in a mere six weeks and win. It's obviously clear to me that they don't want that to happen again. I think it's cheating the American public.

DONALD TRUMP: It's disgraceful. It's amazing that they can get away with it. I think they're very concerned. I think they're extremely nervous about it. I also think that probably the law will be changed in this case, or the rule may be changed in this case, because it's just inconceivable to me that they can allow this to happen.

Give every new program a sunset clause to force evaluation

• We must start evaluating programs for results.
• We can't ever hesitate to reform or eliminate programs if they aren't producing results.
• Every new program should automatically have a "sunset" clause that forces proper evaluation.
• We must move decisions to the level closest to the people.no unfunded mandates from one unit of government to the next.

Government should get out of the way and let people live

The government is not a parent. We can’t expect the government to always be there, ready to bail us out. When we make decisions in life, we have to be willing to live with the consequences. We can’t expect the government to help us get back on our feet every time we make a bad decision.

We’ve gotten into the bad habit of overlegislating. I believe in the America people’s ability to govern themselves. If government would just get out of the way and allow them to lead their lives as they choose, they will succeed. Government only needs to be there to support them in their efforts.

Remember that government doesn’t earn one single dollar it spends. In order for you to get money from the government, that money must first be taken from somebody else.

Government service should be temporary; not a career

On the other hand, when somebody who isn’t a career politician takes office, everybody understands that it’s temporary. They’ll serve one or two terms, then they’ll be out. They have a life and a career somewhere else. Odds are, they themselves will be affected by the legislation they pass or the programs they implement during their term. They probably sought office because they felt strongly enough about one issue or several issues to want to do something about them. That is the mind-set we want in our public servants.

Fought and lost on removing stupid milk regulations

Spend every 4th year removing obsolete laws

Put political process on TV; exposure beats incumbency

I put all the city council meetings on public TV, over the good old boys’ objections. Exposure creates an educated, involved public, which isn’t in the interests of the old-boy network. The smaller the number of people involved, the more power the incumbents have.

To change system, private citizens must get involved

Government protects itself from the top down--state government is reluctant to get involved in local government, and so forth. And since the good old boys are ensconced from the top down, we have to be willing to whittle away at their network from the bottom up. That’s the only way it’s possible: in tiny local victories that eventually lead to bigger victories. The only way the system will ever change is if enough well-meaning private-sector people get involved in their local government for the right reasons.

CIA's job is often to cover up the truth

A great deal of the CIA's job seems to be to "spin" whatever happens. And for the most part, spinning is done to cover up the truth: If we've done it, then it has to be right.

Kennedy assassination involved CIA, Pentagon, & 2nd gunman

Government cites "national security" for too many secrets

We've got to have a more open government. Why can't those 10,000 documents on Able Danger be released? The old excuse of "national security"? Shouldn't there be some elected board that would say, "Okay, tell us why this falls under national security and we'll make the determination whether it truly does, or is this simply a political cover-up?" When the government starts keeping too many secrets for us, that's a big step on the road to losing more of our liberties.

Release 10,000 documents held under "national security"

Do you ever think that maybe our country needs a Truth Commission, to understand the crimes that were committed "in our name" over these recent decades? My hope is that some of you will stand with me in calling for accountability. The only way we can truly move forward is to come to grips with a recent past that's brought us to the brink of losing it all.

Democracy cannot survive while hiding secrets

Oswald did not act alone in JFK assassination

2004 class: Warren Commission was wrong on JFK

I noticed there were people in my class that day whom I'd never seen before. They were too old to be students. Their sole purpose in being there was apparently to debunk any conspiracy theories. They didn't completely disrupt the class, but they would speak out of turn and insinuate that is was un-American and undermining our great country to bring up the past and question the integrity of all those great men on the Warren Commission. Never question your government, was the message. (Kind of like what the former president George H. W. Bush said at President Ford's funeral: We know the Warren Commission is accurate because Gerald Ford said it was.) So where did these people come from? I suspect they were plants, sent in by someone in the government.

CIA plants operatives in state government positions

The CIA person informed my chief of staff and me that only we would know of the operative's identity, nobody else in state government. No one ever made me swear that I wouldn't talk about this. I could only speculate about other states, but I'm fairly certain that the same situation exists all across the country. It would seem odd that only MN would have CIA operatives.

Are they put there to spy? To see the direction that state government is going, what's happening, and report back--to whom? And for what purpose? Do they think there are traitors in certain states? I don't know. That part, I wasn't told.

Unicameral state legislature would be more democratic

The only state to have a unicameral legislative is Nebraska, and for 80 years, they have never been forced into a special session to reach a budget conclusion. That speaks volumes. In a unicameral set-up, you don't have two separate houses holding each other up! Unlike MN, where the last several years of legislative sessions haven't finished on time because of a budget deadlock. At the federal level, yes, we need the check-and-balance of different make-ups in a House and a Senate. But [not] at a state level.

I wanted at least to get this on the ballot, so Minnesotans could vote one way or the other. Well, I couldn't even get the legislature to bring this to a floor vote. I called them "gutless cowards," and I meant it.

ATMs offer receipts and so should electronic voting machines

The results of our first two presidential elections in this century have been, to say the least, questionable. I laugh when I hear the US accuse other countries of voter fraud. Shouldn't we clean up our backyard before we point fingers at anyone else?

Supports a Unicameral Legislature

Reforms must respect state's rights to select electors.

The Issue

NGA’s Position