According to a recent scorecard, the GOP-dominated Mississippi legislature isn’t as conservative as members would like their constituents to believe.
The American Conservative Union Foundation released its annual ratings of the Mississippi legislature Thursday. Most Magnolia State lawmakers scored poorly on their votes on several bills selected by the ACU for their importance to the cause of limited government and economic freedom.
The average score for the legislature was 50.35 percent, up slightly from last year’s score of 50.31 percent.
Only six out of 122 House members won awards with ratings of 80 percent on their votes on the bills. The average Republican rating in the House was only 61 percent, with Democrats at 46 percent.
The Senate was even worse, as the average score was 46 percent with no senators winning awards. Democrats in the upper house averaged only one point less on average than their Republican comrades.
“In the 2018 session, lawmakers of the Mississippi legislature voted to continue hiking harsh requirements for people seeking to enter the workforce,” ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp said in a news release. “They also voted to fund crony government agencies that exclusively benefit select industries, including The Egg Marketing Board, whose mission is to persuade taxpayers to consume more eggs. We urge Mississippi lawmakers to reverse course and listen to the handful of conservatives in the legislature who are fighting for policy solutions that will create job opportunities and protect taxpayers from government waste.”
The bills that the ACU used to tabulate their ratings included ones that provided funding for the state’s Cosmetology Board, Mississippi Public Television, Mississippi Arts Commission and the Egg Marketing Board.
There were also bills that concerned alcohol policy (such as transportation of unopened alcoholic beverages through dry counties and ‘to-go cups’), occupational licensing, burdensome insurance mandates and limiting local government overreach on agricultural policies and the Second Amendment.
State representatives Joel Bomgar (R-Madison), Dana Criswell (R-Olive Branch) and Steve Hopkins (R-Southaven) were the only lawmakers to win the Award for Conservative Excellence, which went to lawmakers who scored 90 to 100 percent.
Three other state representatives — Chris Brown (R-Amory), Ashley Henley (R-Southaven) and Robert Foster (R-Hernando) — earned the Award for Conservative Achievement by scoring at least 80 percent.
In the House, the lowest scoring Republican member was state Rep. Donnie Bell (R-Fulton) with a score of 42 percent, while the highest-scoring Democrat in that chamber was state Rep. Kevin Horan (D-Grenada) with a 65 percent.
The lowest scoring Republican in the Senate was state Sen. Dean Kirby (R-Pearl) with a rating of 20 percent. The highest scoring Democrat in the upper chamber was state Sen. Juan Barnett (D-Heidelberg) with a 57 percent score.
The ACU is a non-profit organization that advocates for conservative policies such as economic and religious liberty, limits on the scope and size of government, pro-life policies and personal freedom at both the state and national levels.
Update: ACUF issued the following statement on a minor change to the scorecard:
In the originally published version, changes made by the Senate to HB 1083 were overlooked, and the ACUF description and position statement reflected the original version of the bill as passed by the House. Therefore, we have removed the bill from the Senate portion of our scorecard and retained the bill in the House. As a result, some members may find that their scores have slightly changed.
ACUF continues to fulfill our unique mission to reflect the voting records of every one of the nation’s over 8,000 elected officials, and we strive to provide our members and the general public with accurate scorecards to evaluate their elected officials. We sincerely apologize for our error and any confusion it may have caused.
This year’s session of the Mississippi legislature likely won’t feature many major reforms with an election year looming, but lawmakers will still be busy.
Here are some of the issues that are being discussed for the session that begins Tuesday.
Cigarette tax increase
There will likely be a proposal to increase the state’s per-pack tax on cigarettes from 68 cents to $2.18, a $1.50 increase.
There is a groundswell of support for the proposal, as evidenced by a survey commissioned by a group that includes the Mississippi State Medical Association, the American Heart Association and 30 other organizations.
The survey found 73 percent of Mississippians surveyed would approve of an increase, proceeds of which would go to fund smoking cessation and prevention programs. The national average, according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, is $1.78 per pack though it is significantly lower in surrounding states.
An analysis by the Tax Foundation found that if a $1.50 tax increase passed, tax revenue would spike, then fall as it did each time the legislature increased the tax in the past. An increase would also make Mississippi’s cigarette tax higher than surrounding states and revenue would likely shrink even further as smokers in border counties crossed state lines to buy cigarettes.
Last year, a placeholder bill that included code sections that would’ve allowed an increase didn’t make it out of the Ways and Means Committee in the House.
Gasoline tax increase
Dick Hall, the Transportation Commissioner who represents the central part of the state, says that his agency needs a gasoline tax increase.
Hall told WJTV that the revenues coming in from the 18.4 cent per gallon gasoline tax aren’t enough to cover maintaining the state’s highways as the cost of labor and construction materials have increased 600 percent in the 31 years since the tax was last hiked.
Hall told WJTVthe backlog of 691 projects for the Mississippi Department of Transportation adds up to nearly $1 billion, far short of the money provided by the infrastructure package passed this September by the legislature in a two-week special session.
The bill that was signed into law by Gov. Phil Bryant includes $250 million in borrowing for MDOT projects and redirected 35 percent of use tax revenues to cities and counties.
Criminal justice reform
Bryant said in an op-ed on December 13 that he wants further reforms that build on the ones passed in 2014. Those reforms ended 300 percent growth in the inmate population between 1983 and 2013 by focusing prison space on violent and career criminals. The state's inmate population was down from 22,497 inmates in 2012 to 21,082 as of December 2018, showing the 2014 reforms are within predicted benefits.
What specific shape reforms could take could be anyone's guess, but the governor has let it be known that he's in favor of any reforms that decrease recidivism and enable one-time, non-violent offenders a second chance at becoming law-abiding citizens.
But at the same time, there is an expectation that some will push to re-instate the administrative forfeiture provision in the law that the legislature let lapse last session. Administrative forfeiture allows agents of the state to take property valued under $20,000 and forfeit it by merely providing the individual with a notice. An individual would then have to file a petition in court to appeal.
Rural broadband
There is a push to allow non-profit electric cooperatives to provide high speed broadband service to rural communities. Mississippi Public Service Commission Chairman Brandon Presley, who represents the Northern District, says that broadband is the electricity of the 21st century and is a vital need for rural communities to join in the economy of the future.
Right now, the co-ops aren't allowed by state law to provide anything more to customers other than electricity. Presley cites Alabama, which allows co-ops to provide broadband service to its customers, as an example to be emulated.
PERS
Lawmakers likely won’t commission any big reforms to the state’s defined benefit pension system for most state, county and municipal employees, but they will have to appropriate more money to fill an increase in the employer (taxpayer) contribution.
Gov. Phil Bryant’s proposed budget asks for $75 million in additional contributions for PERS, while the legislature’s budget proposal has $790 million in unallocated general fund revenue that can be used for several purposes including teacher and state employee pay hikes in addition to the PERS contribution increase.
The board that governs the Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi voted in July to increase the employer contribution from 15.75 percent of payroll to 17.4 percent.
Analyses by both the Legislature’s Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) and PERS itself show that PERS, which is now 62.5 percent fully funded, according to its own calculation methods and assumptions, wouldn’t reach its goal of 80 percent fully funded by 2042. PEER recommended that PERS increase the contribution rate to fill the financial gap caused by an increasing number of retirees and a decreasing number of contributing employees.
Any increase in employee contribution would have to be done by the legislature and that’s unlikely in an election year.
Campus free speech
The issue of free speech on state-funded community colleges and universities will likely be addressed by the legislature this session. Many colleges and universities nationwide are implementing speech codes regulating student speech.
Since these codes are based on the nebulous concept of physical or emotional distress, they’d likely run afoul of a constitutional challenge. The legislature could address present issues with campus free speech and prevent future administrators from compromising free expression.
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education or FIRE, Jackson State University is the only one of the state’s universities to earn their worst stop rating, red, for a problematic free speech policy that clearly infringes upon protected expression.
Alcorn State University, Delta State University and the University of Southern Mississippi were assessed with yellow ratings by FIRE, which means they restrict a more limited amount of free expression. Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi received green ratings from FIRE. However, a group of students at Ole Miss recently presented the administration with a set of demands, which included the adoption of some form of a “hate speech” policy.
Delta State University’s problematic regulations were recently changed to put the university more in line with state and federal law.
Education Savings Accounts
Last year, a bill that would’ve expanded the state’s education savings account program for children with special needs to most children in the state died on the calendar after clearing the Senate Education committee. While such a sweeping reform might not be doable in an election year, there are some changes to the ESA program that, if enacted, could be extremely beneficial.
The PEER Committee released a report in December that criticized the lottery system that determines which eligible parents receive the ESA, which can be used for private school tuition, therapies, tutoring, textbooks, and other education expenses. They recommended that priority be given to those eligible parents on the waiting list. PEER also recommended that unused ESA funds, which added up to $1,700,529, could be re-appropriated for use in the next fiscal year.
The same PEER report found the program, with roughly 200 families on the waiting list, to be overwhelmingly popular among participants.
The battle to preserve our natural rights of life, liberty and property is as arduous today as it was 242 years ago, when George Washington and his men made a daring defense.
Though we don’t fight our would-be rulers with muskets and bayonets today, we remain in a war to defend our constitutional rights from those who would continue to challenge them.
Our weapons today are different but our commitment to win must be no less earnest.
Our founders understood the high purpose and necessity of such a defense. They knew the opportunity of a constitutional republic was won by their generation but that it would also require an ever-vigilant citizenry to defend it from well-meaning but power-seeking governments, generation after generation.
As active and engaged citizens, we have a role as defenders of the blessings of liberty for all Mississippians. Whether a lawyer representing an entrepreneur who is prevented from starting a business by unnecessary and burdensome regulations, a policy advocate working with members of the legislature to push for limited government, a community activist working to ensure equality under the law, or an ordinary citizen writing an Op-Ed for the local newspaper, we’re all defending our shared blessings of liberty.
These blessings were not granted to us by government; they are natural to each of us as individuals. And none of us can be denied these blessings or given any modifier that makes our blessings preferable or subordinate to any others’.
As we celebrate the eternal blessings of the Christmas Season with family and friends, let’s take the time to think about that incredible crossing on Christmas night, 1776. When the hopes of independence lay in the balance, our country’s first president planned and executed the bold attack on the British.
George Washington led famished, cold, tired men across the Delaware in the darkness as rain turned to sleet and then to snow, and the winds blew without relief. The American colonists prevailed in that fight at Trenton and eventually, thanks to a spirit that would not be subdued, our independence was won.
With that enduring spirit in mind this Christmas season, we should take the time to recognize how rich our blessings are and how worthy of a robust defense is liberty.
Occupational licensing laws force Mississippians to spend time and money to receive permission from the government before they can earn a living.
This is a relatively new phenomenon. In the 1950s, just five percent of the workforce needed a license to legally work. At the time, occupational licensing was largely limited to medical professionals, lawyers, and teachers. However, as we often see when government is involved, license requirements have expanded dramatically.
Today, approximately 19 percent of Mississippians need a license to work. This includes everything from a shampooer, who must receive 1,500 clock hours of education, to a fire alarm installer, who must pay over $1,000 in fees. All totaled, there are 66 low-to-middle income occupations that are licensed in Mississippi.
As new licenses have been added to the books in Mississippi, it is safe to assume that each proponent, usually an occupational licensing board, made the same central argument. We must do this in the name of consumer safety to protect individual citizens. But the reality is often something less altruistic. Mainly, these occupational associations are more interested in building a moat around their industry with the help of government. The harder it is for someone to enter an industry, the less competition and consumer choice the industry incumbents face.
This may artificially raise the wages of industry practitioners by raising the prices of goods and services that require such licenses, but it does so by limiting options and increasing consumer costs. This will often have an outsized impact on low-income Mississippians, who then have to make otherwise unnecessary decisions on what they will or will not purchase.
Just this past year, the Mississippi legislature, with little discussion and few dissenting votes, passed a bill to make it more difficult to become a real estate broker. The proposed law sought to increase the time it would take to become a broker, going from the current one year to three years. Fortunately, Gov. Phil Bryant vetoed the legislation.
Who were the individuals supporting such legislation? Was it the Coalition of Mississippians Against Inexperienced Brokers? A group of citizens negatively impacted by brokers who had just one year of experience? No, it was, naturally, the Realtors Association.
But the bigger problem isn’t just one specific association pushing the legislature to limit competition, it is the cost of all unnecessary and burdensome regulations on Mississippi’s economy.
According to a new report from the Institute for Justice, Mississippi has lost 13,000 jobs because of occupational licensing and the state has suffered an economic value loss of $37 million. To put that into perspective, just by legislative action to rollback unnecessary licenses, we can create two Nissan plants…without spending a dime of taxpayer dollars.
Instead of relying on government, these are the actions that will encourage and promote economic growth in Mississippi. If that is our goal, we need to trust in the benefits of the free market and a “lighter touch” from government and occupational licensing regimes and we need to return to a belief in individual responsibility.
This can be achieved in a number of ways. For example, voluntary certification offers an avenue for reform. This already occurs in many industries and allows private third-parties to set standards for individuals to voluntary subscribe as one level of quality assurance.
One of the more widely recognized private certifications is the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification for mechanics. You can open a garage tomorrow with – or without – the ASE certification and customers may or may not care.
But that decision is left to the entrepreneur and the customer, not to the government or the industry lobbyist or the board of licensure. We can do this with any number of professions currently licensed by the state. If we really want more jobs and fewer people dependent on government, it starts by creating an environment that encourages work; not one that encourages the creation of hurdles and obstacles.
This column appeared in the Madison County Journal on December 6, 2018.
Mississippi did not join most states in holding statewide elections on Tuesday. That will be next year when every statewide, legislative, and county office will be on the ballot.
But that doesn't mean we didn't have action in the Magnolia State.
Mississippi was in the unique position of holding two United States Senate elections, with the regularly scheduled election for the seat currently held by Sen. Roger Wicker and the special election following former Sen. Thad Cochran’s retirement earlier this year.
Wicker won going away, picking up 59 percent of the vote. In the special election, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant, will be in a runoff with Mike Espy, a former Democratic Congressman and secretary in the Clinton administration.
Under Mississippi election law, special elections are essentially a jungle primary. There is no party identification, and everyone who qualifies is on the ballot. If no candidate receives a majority, as was the case on Tuesday, a runoff is held three week later. Hyde-Smith received 42 percent of the vote, Espy was at 41 percent, and Chris McDaniel, who almost defeated Cochran four years ago, was at 16 percent.
What McDaniel’s poor showing may mean will be a question that is being asked today, and will be discussed over the next year.
Essentially, the Republican vote was the same in both Senate races. It was just slightly split in the special election. If Hyde-Smith is successful, she will join a larger Republican majority in the Senate. Pending final counts in Arizona, Republicans may be up to a 54-46 majority in the Senate when all is said and done. This has one major political implication – judicial confirmations.
Conservatives will no longer have to hold their breath on Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (or Jeff Flake). Perhaps now the many constitutional conservatives and federalist society members will have an opportunity to fill the vacancies and counter balance the President Obama era judges. And there will plenty of energy to use the new strength in the Senate to confirm President Trump’s judicial nominations.
What else might happen in Washington? That is to be determined with Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives. Their immediate priorities seem to be a furthering of “the resistance” with investigations and potential impeachment proceedings, but they will likely also attempt to push through a progressive agenda. Expect a lot of gridlock for at least the next two years, but for those of us who favor limited government that isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world.
The divided government will likely be good for trade, which is a good thing for the market. Criminal justice reform should continue to receive attention. We expect to see more regulatory reform from the White House and his Cabinet, something that will benefit us all. We expect immigration and healthcare policy to continue to be lightning rods. However, we may also see bipartisan agreement on areas like infrastructure spending. Unfortunately, that probably portends an increasing debt load for the American people.
One thing we can predict with relative certainty – Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump will be a great spectacle. While that may not be a great compliment to the current state of affairs in our Republic, it should make for very entertaining content for television… and Twitter is guaranteed to survive for at least a few more years.
After a great deal of debate and discussion over the past year, the new food truck regulations in Tupelo do not include the controversial, and potentially illegal, restrictions that some on the council had floated.
According to the Daily Journal, the final draft looks similar to the draft that was released last month. It did not include a blanket restriction on streets that food trucks could be located, nor did it have a provision requiring food trucks to be a certain distance from brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Protection for brick-and-mortar restaurants is what originally propelled this discussion.
Earlier this year, Councilman Willie Jennings said, in proposing the regulations, “I just want to make sure the established businesses are protected.” Another councilman, Markel Whittington, said brick-and-mortar restaurants have requested food truck regulations. While he didn’t feel food trucks posed a ‘threat’ to those restaurants, he believed it was appropriate for government to act ‘on behalf of select business interests.’
“I think we have to protect some of our taxpayers and high employers,” he said.
And after the first draft of the ordinance was released, Councilman Mike Bryan began to lobby for those brick-and-mortar restaurant protections, such as a ban on major roads. He continued that push until the end still calling for a Main Street parking ban.
“I feel like it is not fair to brick-and-mortar businesses to allow food trucks to park in front of their business,” Bryan said earlier.
But in the end, the controversial provisions were not included. And while there has been some support on the council, Mayor Jason Shelton has long opposed the protectionist measures.
When Tupelo leaders began discussing food truck regulations, Mississippi Justice Institute, the legal arm of Mississippi Center for Public Policy, sent a letter to the city warning of litigation if these regulations passed.
“The very regulation Tupelo is discussing—a regulation about how close a food truck should be to a restaurant—was found to be unenforceable just this past December in Baltimore. Food truck regulations around the country have been challenged over and over in court, from Louisville, to San Antonio, to Chicago, and many places in between. Cities ultimately realize that these kinds of cases are very hard to defend,” the letter said.
Having the food truck option is good for consumers and it is good for the economic interests of a city, whether that is Tupelo or any other city in Mississippi. A glance of the growing cities throughout America shows a thriving food truck market. Food trucks or brick-and-mortar restaurants is not an “either-or” proposition. They can both survive next to each other, and competition will only make each better.
And more choice for consumers is always a good thing. Because it will be the consumers who decide if food trucks are a benefit for Tupelo, not government regulators.
Popular homesharing site Airbnb announced that they recently remitted $1 million in taxes to the state of Mississippi.
Since September 2017, Airbnb has been automatically collecting the 7 percent state sales tax and local tourism taxes on behalf of hosts and remitting the revenue directly to the state. At the time of the announcement, Airbnb anticipated collecting $245,000 during the past year.
Airbnb was able to quadruple expectations due to a 92 percent year-over-year growth for the platform in Mississippi. Over 69,000 guests utilized the service in the state during that time.
The fact that Airbnb collected and paid $1 million in taxes last year should be considered a good thing. The fact that consumers now have more choices if they want an option besides a traditional hotel is a good thing. And the fact that new competition has been inserted into the lodging industry is a good thing.
Of course, the industry that once enjoyed this monopoly doesn’t see things that way.
Linda Hornsby, executive director of the Mississippi Hotel and Lodging Association, calls it a “definite concern as it (homesharing) continues to grow.” She added, “We are monitoring the negative economic impact of that not just here in Mississippi...As it continues to grow, it exacerbates the problem.”
The so-called negative impact may be to one specific industry, but it is not to the guests who are gladly choosing this option. And it is certainly not a negative to the hosts who are earning a new income stream.
It is understandable that a group or organization that spent decades pursuing regulations to limit competition would be upset when new innovations threaten their monopoly. But the answer isn’t to impose outdated regulations on the new economy, but to deregulate existing industries.
And for government to rely on the free market and trust their citizens to be able to make the best decisions for themselves.
Mississippi’s freedom ranking moved up a couple spots from the previous year while our overall score actually declined slightly.
Fraser Institute’s “Economic Freedom of North America 2018” again paints a relatively bleak picture for economic freedom in Mississippi. Mississippi has been included among the “Least Free” states, those in the bottom quartile, for all but two years going back to 1998.
“The freest economies operate with minimal government interference, relying upon personal choice and markets to answer basic economic questions such as what is to be produced, how it is to be produced, how much is produced, and for whom production is intended. As government imposes restrictions on these choices, there is less economic freedom,” the report writes.
The data is reviewed among three categories: government spending, taxes, and regulations.
What are these categories important? As the size of government expands, the private sector becomes smaller and is slowly pushed out with government choosing to undertake activities beyond the traditional function of a limited government. As our tax burden and regulations grow, restrictions on private choice increase and economic freedom declines. Mississippi continues to have serious issues in both categories.
And we know what the analysis shows: The freer the state, the more prosperous it is. And the more it is growing in terms of in-migration. The least free, the more people are likely to be leaving in searching of better prospects.
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Though Mississippi saw a slight improvement this year in overall rankings, the state has been on the wrong path over the life of the report. When it began in 1981, Mississippi was ranked 32nd. There have been some ups-and-downs along the way, including a peak at 24th in 1995. But overall, the numbers aren’t positive. The ranking of 45th that was released last year was the lowest the state has ever been.
Going back to 1981 and for many years after that, Mississippi did much better in the government spending and taxes categories than the numbers show today. That year, Mississippi had a government spending score of 7.01 and a taxes score of 6.75. This year those scores are 4.25 and 5.85, respectively. Regulations have shown the most positive movement, from 2.27 to 5.23, though still lower than all but seven states.
In 1981, Mississippi earned a score of 5.34. This year it’s 5.11. Only two other states, Kentucky and New Mexico, have experienced decreases from 1981.
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Mississippi performed poorly compared to all neighboring states, and much of the Southeast. Alabama had an overall score of 6.22 (25th), Arkansas had a score of 6.09 (29th), Louisiana had a score of 6.26 (24th), and Tennessee had a score of 7.43 (4th). Those numbers put Tennessee among the most free, placed Alabama and Louisiana in the second quartile, with Arkansas in the third quartile.
When it comes to promoting policies that restrict freedom, Mississippi is sitting on an island. And, unfortunately, paying the price.
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Overall, this data isn’t far off from a recent report from Cato Institute. Their report, “Freedom in the Fifty States,” put Mississippi 40th overall. A five-spot jump from 2014, but still in the bottom 20 percent.
Some positive trends, but still a long way to go.
As children in Mississippi and around the country prepare for a night of trick-or-treating, they may unknowingly run afoul with local laws.
These aren’t laws restricting criminal actions often associated with Halloween mischief, such as egging a house or smashing pumpkins that belong to someone else. Rather, these are restrictions on who can trick-or-treat, how late they can be out, and what they can or can’t wear.
A story on Roanoke, Virginia’s trick-or-treating laws went viral earlier this month. In Roanoke, no one over 12 is allowed to trick-or-treat. Not only is it illegal, it is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.
While the potential jail time might not apply, the city of Meridian also prohibits those over 12 from asking for candy. “It shall be unlawful for any person to appear on the streets, highways, public homes, private homes, or public places in the city to make trick or treat visitations; except, that this section shall not apply to children 12 years old and under on Halloween night,” the ordinance reads. And you have to be inside by 8 p.m.
Throughout the country, towns like Belville, Illinois, Bishopville, South Carolina, and Boonsboro, Maryland have similar age limits.
Meridian also restricts anyone over 12 from wearing a mask or any other disguise, unless they get a permission slip from the mayor or chief of police. Dublin, Georgia and Walnut Creek, California have similar mask restrictions.
The rest of your costume may also be illegal in some locales. In Alabama, it’s illegal to dress up as a minister, priest, nun, or any other member of clergy. Violators can be slapped with a $500 fine and a year in jail.
In a recent move that received national attention, the Kemper County Board of Supervisors approved a measure in 2016 that made it illegal for anyone to appear in public in a clown costume or clown makeup for Halloween that year. The ordinance expired the day after Halloween. That ordinance carried a fine of $150 for outlaws who wore clown costumes.
The conventional wisdom is that these ordinances aren’t enforced. Police aren’t asking boys who are starting to show signs of facial hair for identification to check their age. Chances are no one is spending 365 days in a county jail in Alabama for impersonating a priest or rabbi.
Which, of course, leads to the next question: Why have such laws? We already have laws on the books to restrict actual criminal activity. We don’t need additional laws that are confusing and do little but potentially ruin a fun night for millions of children.
We simply have too many laws in this country. It should not be government’s responsibility to regulate the behavior of children on a Halloween night running through the neighborhood in pursuit of treats. That responsibility belongs to the parents, just like it should on every other night of the year.