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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   19859 thread views

USA Election Day 2022 Megathread

Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.

...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).

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I want to note that I'm against things like RCID before they happen, I've opposed them locally and will continue to. But breaking the deal after it happens is another thing entirely. A bargain was made, if the government won't stand behind it then investment can't be done on solid ground.

The basics of these kind of deals are that a corporation lobbies the state for special treatment, which will enable the corporation to invest serious money in the community in a profitable way. Disney held up their end of the bargain, modern Orlando exists because of Disney world. Disney brings in billions in tourist dollars every year, habituates the entire East coast to vacationing in Florida, it's the crown jewel of Florida's tourist industry. And it's immovable, Disney cannot remove its investment at this stage.

I can't really parse the "Disney is a political appointee" thing. Is your theory that one loses the right to speak after accepting economic benefits from the government, else those deals may be revoked? That would vastly impact property developers across the country. And also make RCID type deals even more dystopian, with governments blatantly handing out favors to those who will back them and revoking them if they don't stick by the government line. That is not a box we want to open.

No they are literally a government entity in Florida. And as such have been insubordinate. While I agree that deals should be kept - Disney seems to be the party that broke the deal by meddling in Florida politics not related to their business. At which point their just insubordinate.

This is as if Desantis fired a political appointee who worked against him. A football coach firing his Offensive Coordinator for not doing his job.

The problem is that if you argue that governments are NOT allowed to rescind these special districts, even through proper legislative action, for virtually any reason whatsoever, you're forced to accept that these corporations have some legal entitlement to said districts.

Which is also to cede the state's authority over political entities created by said state.

Which is just silly.

Not really, any more than signing a contract ever limits your rights. Saying that a sovereign state can't sign a contract limiting its own sovereignty gets too into "Could an omnipotent God create weed so dank he could not smoke it?" territory for me; but suffice it to say that whatever the proper procedure for unwinding an RCID type special district is, it isn't by legislative fiat motivated by momentary political spats.

The powers in question are based in the Florida Constitution.

If the Constitution doesn't limit the Government from dissolving the districts, what contract, specifically, would do so?

but suffice it to say that whatever the proper procedure for unwinding an RCID type special district is, it isn't by legislative fiat motivated by momentary political spats.

Who, specifically, is authorized to set that procedure, do you think?

I'll do half the work for you. Here's the actual body of law involved:

https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2015/Chapter189

There's a general principle that a legislature cannot bind a future legislature. Otherwise, any time a party got control of a legislature, it would pass as many laws as possible that limit the scope of action of future legislatures. As such, voiding a contract made by a previous legislature would require compensation as per the Takings Clause, but is a wholly permissible use of legislative power.

As such, voiding a contract made by a previous legislature would require compensation as per the Takings Clause, but is a wholly permissible use of legislative power.

Is that happening here and I missed it? I'm not as familiar with the current state of play as I should be given how much shit I'm talking in this thread. Genuinely, I'm not saying that the RCID can never be revoked, or even that it oughtn't to be, merely that my understanding is that it is not a "win" for Florida at the end of the day, it is likely to end up costing Florida money to no obvious benefit.

I'm not opposed to things like RCIDs as a general principle and support some actual ones; government can create significant benefits by setting them up. But if you think they are on net bad, isn't it good when a government creates substantial uncertainty for future ones and makes them much less enticing? There will now be fewer of them than there otherwise would have been.

But if you think they are on net bad, isn't it good when a government creates substantial uncertainty for future ones and makes them much less enticing?

Loyalty and paying one's debts are higher on my list of virtues than the principle that the government should not interfere in private markets. I'd place it higher than almost all other virtues. One stands by a deal, even a bad deal, even one in which one was tricked. Jacob served Laban, even though he was tricked into marrying the wrong daughter to double his time; Yudhishthira and the rest of the Pandavas stay in exile for 12 years despite the dice game being crooked. From Plutarch, quoting others:

And truly Antigonus, it would seem, was not solitary in saying, he loved betrayers, but hated those who had betrayed; nor Caesar, who told Rhymitalces the Thracian, that he loved the treason, but hated the traitor; but it is the general feeling of all who have occasion for wicked men's service, as people have for the poison of venomous beasts; they are glad of them while they are of use, and abhor their baseness when it is over. And so then did Tatius behave towards Tarpeia, for he commanded the Sabines, in regard to their contract, not to refuse her the least part of what they wore on their left arms; and he himself first took his bracelet of his arm, and threw that, together with his buckler, at her; and all the rest following, she, being borne down and quite buried with the multitude of gold and their shields, died under the weight and pressure of them;

The fact that I dislike RCID type deals doesn't excuse a government failing to stand by its predecessors statements. A government that doesn't stand by its deals makes business impossible, you can be most of the way through a huge project only to be told your approvals are revoked. The worst recent example being how the Keystone XL pipeline was jerked around for years by multiple administrations.

The fact that I dislike RCID type deals doesn't excuse a government failing to stand by its predecessors statements. A government that doesn't stand by its deals makes business impossible, you can be most of the way through a huge project only to be told your approvals are revoked.

"This pipeline, created under these conditions, is environmentally safe" is a factual determination. It is or it isn't. Of course, governments routinely fudge this and make "factual" decisions that are really political. But just because the government does that, I wouldn't give the government the same slack that I'd give them on decisions that are supposed to be political in the first place.

So I see no contradiction in saying that it's okay to take back deals like Disney's (if process is followed), yet it's not okay to take back a pipeline approval. The pipeline approval wasn't political, it's a factual thing that doesn't change. If you made it political anyway, well, tough luck, you weren't supposed to, so you don't get the benefit of being political.

A special economic district is created under equally factual determinations: that bending these laws will produce more benefit (in investment and jobs and economic development) than it will cost in bent laws. Its no different from a zoning approval, or an environmental approval, just bigger and moreso. It's no more political than the Keystone XL decision.

A special economic district is created under equally factual determinations: that bending these laws will produce more benefit (in investment and jobs and economic development) than it will cost in bent laws.

In some trivial sense, every decision is a factual decision. But what you describe is a tradeoff, which is inherently subjective unless you're trading off exact dollar amounts.

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