Important headlines for April 24th – Scott's Term limits & The deadly school walkouts
Bottom Line: Stories you shouldn't miss and my takes on them
Rick Scott's Term limits idea Hugely popular and highly unrealistic – Tampa Bay Times
Excerpt: Gov. Rick Scott’s first policy idea as a U.S. Senate candidate won’t happen and most of his fellow Republicans don’t support it.
But it’s a surefire applause line at political rallies.
Scott wants term limits for members of Congress: 12 years and no more in an entrenched system where power is determined almost entirely by longevity.
"In Washington, they say this can’t be done. That’s nonsense," a relaxed-looking Scott says in his first campaign TV ad, standing before an outline of the U.S. with a red felt tip pen in his hand. "We don’t work for them. They work for us."
It sounds good, but it’s almost impossible.
Scott, 65, has seized on a popular issue in a race in which his opponent, Democrat Bill Nelson, 75, is a veteran of three terms in the Senate who was first elected to the Florida Legislature in 1972, the year that President Richard Nixon won re-election.
There’s a reason why term limits don’t exist for Congress.
It requires an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an enormous political undertaking that would require the support of two-thirds of members of Congress followed by three-fourths of the states.
Hot Take: Now, I'll be the first to admit that when Govenor Scott mentioned this piece of his platform in his declaration speech – I thought exactly what this story suggests. But just because it's highly unlikely – does that mean that it's not worth pursuing? What percentage of chance did the Tampa Bay Times assign to Rick Scott becoming Florida's next governor in 2009? What about Donald Trump becoming President? Btw, think Trump would sign term limits into law? I do. Here's what I do know. To the story's point –an overwhelming majority of Americans want it to happen. Accredited polling on the topic over the past two years has shown that between 75% to 82% of Americans want to see term limits happen. How many issues do eight in ten Americans agree on? And given that they work for us, not the other way around, why is it that we can't will this to happen? If the folks at the Tampa Bay Times were in charge during the Revolution I guarantee you this country doesn't exist. What were those odds?
Excerpt: No charges have been filed in the death of an 11-year-old boy struck by a pickup truck in El Paso during a school-organized walkout to protest gun violence.
El Paso police spokesman Darrel Petry said Sunday that the investigation into Jonathan Benko’s death continues. But no charges have been filed against Jesus Diaz, the 61-year-old driver who struck Benko as he attempted to walk across a highway on Friday with several other students. Authorities say the sixth-grader and other students had left the designated walkout area to go to a park across the highway from Parkland Middle School.
Police spokesman Sgt. Robert Gomez said at a news conference: “It is illegal to walk on a highway. It’s next to impossible for motorists to move out of the way of pedestrians on the roadway and that’s why it’s a restricted passage.”
Hot Take: Prior to the planned walkouts on Friday I warned of just this type of thing occurring. Teachers, school faculty generally, are tasked with keeping our kids safe in addition to educating them. Letting kids break the rules, isn't just a violation of their responsibility to educate our kids – it's dangerous. It's outrageous that educators have allowed this type of lawlessness play out across the country and now it's responsible for killing and eleven-year-old boy. Those responsible in this school in El Paso need to be held accountable. In fact, an example needs to be made to send a message that it's never acceptable to deliberately allow rules and the public's trust to be violated endangering our children. For far too long the politics of teacher's unions have been spilling into our classrooms. Now the politics of them are spilling into dereliction of duty of duty that's now literally killed a student.
Until tomorrow...