Attorney Jack Swift -- The Changing of the Guard?

THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD?

By Attorney Jack Swift, JD
April 28, 2014
NewsWithViews.com

Josephine County, Oregon -- The second Tuesday of May in 2014 stands to be a milestone in the evolution of the GOP. Across the land, upstart Tea Party candidates are challenging the Old Guard Establishment in the party. Tea Partiers will try to fundamentally change the character of the party or be forced out forever.

We see this playing out locally. For the Congressional seat held forever by Greg Walden, there is a primary challenge by the constitution-oriented Dennis
Linthicum. For State offices, there is a challenge in House District 23, where the incumbent in the strongly Republican district is facing a primary challenge to the seat he has held for 6 years. Locally, I am squaring off against Carl Wilson, a popular one-time GOP representative in the legislature. I, of course, am a Tea Party activist of the first order and the issue is the same. Tea Party versus Old Guard Establishment.

The question is, of course, “What is the ‘Old Guard Establishment?’” These are the folks, like Boehner, who when challenged politically respond with “I’ve always been conservative.” This generally leads to a suggestion that the Tea Party challenger is somewhere radically to the right of the ‘establishment.” This is a faulty analysis. It is based on a horizontal perspective viewing the different politicians as left or right in inclination. Folks who think like this are missing entirely what the Tea Party is all about.

Tea Partiers have a vertical perspective. They are in rebellion from the grass roots up against a ruling aristocracy of those established in power. Those elites claim to know best what is best for the rest of us - their ‘subjects,’ if you will. Their claim to elitism is always founded upon their experience, their expertise, their learning, their ability to make things happen by their ability to get along. In their view, political action is driven from the top down and developed by those who know best.

Tea Partiers, by contrast, have had enough of the failed expertise of the elite
establishment - the aristocracy. And Tea Partiers are in rebellion. And that is why I am running for the position of Representative in House District 3.

I personally have no interest in a political career. I am at a stage in my life where I want no career at all. I would prefer to remain retired. But, at the same time, I am fed up with what the establishment has given us and I want the same opportunity I enjoyed to be available to my posterity. That opportunity has been stolen from us and I want to do my part to get it back.

The GOP establishment has demonstrated one glaring and consistent defect. It has never unwound any government program or bureaucracy. If it has repealed a law, it has always been for the purpose of replacing it with a worse. To their credit, when the GOP has control of the legislature, they do not create additional bureaucracy but that is only to say that at such a time the establishment-building conveyor belt is set on idle. Nothing evil in the bureaucratic octopus is ever dismantled. As soon as control falls to the Democrats, the belt cranks right on. It needs to be put in reverse.

The history of legislative control in Oregon has been an up and down thing. But, if one goes back 20 years to the 1990s, one sees no worthwhile results. That was the era of implementation of Senate Bill 100 by compliance order. Did anyone in the legislature help Josephine County in its fight against state wide land use regulation? Did the legislature help us when we were confronted by a compliance order? Do we need that crew again?

Poverty is the problem in Josephine County, as it is in all of rural Oregon. This is the direct result of Senate Bill 100. Even without timber revenues, JoCo has
always been a nice place to live. Retirees from out of state would sell their properties, buy land in JoCo, and build a nice rural retirement home. When they did so, they brought their own money with them, enriching the local economy and sustaining a healthy construction industry. Senate Bill 100 killed that and we are paying the price today.

There is absolutely no reason for someone to give up a suburban tract home in Orange County, California to exchange it for another tract home in the urban growth area of Grants Pass. Josephine County and all of rural Oregon need rural residential development. Senate Bill 100 and its Land Conservation and Development Commission need to go away.

Subscribe to NWV Southern Oregon Edition Alerts!

Finally, there is the issue of public safety funding. Jo-Co sends off $9.6 million in net lottery earnings to Salem. Of that 15% is devoted to enviros and 15% is dedicated to schools. The remaining 70% is allocated by the establishment legislature which with the lobbyists grant it to schools. I would work for 55% to be returned to the generating counties for use in funding public safety. We can have public safety, with or without the Feds and not raise any taxes.

For these key reasons I am running as a Tea Party challenger to the venerable GOP establishment candidate. I urge you to support me on May 13. I ask you to put up my yard signs and share my handbills. Contact me at jhswft@earthlink.net and I will provide whatever you need. - - Jack Swift

Share This Article

Click Here For Mass E-mailing

Jack Swift is an retired attorney. Actively involved in the Republican Party and local politics, Jack would love to see honest Constitution following representatives in local Josephine County government. Jack believes if we are to save America from the grip of evil, people must get involved on the local level and expose wrongdoers at every opportunity. He is putting that belief in practice.

E-Mail: jhswft@earthlink.net

Home