Tea Party Bill Hopper
by Potomac Tea Party
October 12, 2018



Potomac Tea Party is participating in a project led by Louisa Tea Party in Virginia to select a single legislative idea for Tea Parties across the country to push in Congress.  Here are the ideas we collected from our members for the project:

Voter Fraud

• Proof of Citizenship - Amend the National Voting Rights Act to require the federal Election Assistance Commission to accept any state qualification regarding proof of citizenship. States should be free to require proof of citizenship in any manner they see fit (self-attestation, birth certificate, whatever).  Do this either on the federal voter registration form or allow states to impose it separately.  Explanation – states are supposed to have the Constitutional authority to set voter qualifications but, through a convoluted history including Supreme Court precedent, the federal government now has the power to effectively prevent states from requiring citizenship in order to vote.   It’s not supposed to be this way.
• Now that all states are offering "Real-ID", and that this is required for everyday things like entering federal offices and boarding commercial airlines, let's require Real-ID to vote (and to register) for all federal elections. 
  
  

Qualified Immunity

• Qualified immunity is a judge-made legal doctrine that shields police and other public officials from liability for civil rights violations.  A federal statute states that public officials can be held liable for violating “any rights”.  Judicial interpretation has negated this, giving bad actors a free pass.  The judicial standard is now ‘clearly established’ rights and plaintiffs must show a similar case in the same locality in the past before they can sue.  More on this in Cato’s Letter (Fall 2018 – Cato Institute, p. 6)
  
  

Fight Left-Wing Indoctrination on Campus

• A David Horowitz idea: require universities to add “ideological and political diversity” to their diversity statements and to achieve such diversity among professors, administrators, and staff.  Perform audits to determine whether such diversity is being maintained and deny federal funding if it is not.
  
  

Refugee Resettlement Reform
From activist Ann Corcoran (Refugee Resettlement Watch) except the last item

• Declare a moratorium on the entire program until Congress debates every aspect of it.
• Remove the secrecy from the decision-making process.
• Remove the UN from being effectively in charge of how many and which refugees we take and where they will be settled.
• Require advance warning to towns chosen for refugee resettlement. Require consent from local governments for proposed resettlement and for the contracts let to the big contractors (VOLAGs).  No unfunded mandates to states or localities.
• Re-define ‘refugee’ tightly (e.g., no victims of domestic abuse). 
• Have Congress cap the total number of refugees to be accepted and change the funding formula from a capitated rate to a global budget.
• Disallow subterfuge in the application (e.g., Somalis who route through and therefore are considered refugees from Malta)
• Stop the revolving door where government officials (e.g., from the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement) take cushy jobs with the VOLAGs
  
  

Patent Reform

• Tea Party Patriots 2018 documentary ‘Invalidated’ does a very good job of describing a patent system gone awry and the deleterious consequences for American innovation.  This is becoming a serious problem and innovation is starting to slip away to other countries, including China.  Inventors won’t have any incentive to invent, and investors won’t invest, unless we do something to strengthen our patent system.
• Eliminate the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) – this is an administrative monster like IPAB under Obamacare. PTAB has the power to wipe out duly awarded patents, and does so in 76% of cases – even after such awards have been upheld in court!  Rep. Thomas Massie has a bill to kill PTAB (Restoring America’s Leadership in Innovation Act).
• Market manipulation - Prevent short-selling of stock followed by filing a claim with PTAB to wipe out a patent.
• Short of outright elimination, change the rules to make the process more fair (e.g., shift the burden of proof, stop the use of the ‘broadest possible interpretation’ standard).  Also, there should be strict conflict of interest rules to prevent another situation like the one where an Apple employee got appointed to PTAB, ruled in favor of Apple on a case before him, then returned to Apple. 
• As things stand, the Supreme Court treats patents as second-class property rights (like taxi medallions), even though they are mentioned in the Constitution.  They should be elevated to full status and protection.
• There are various other bills – Stronger Patents Act (dealing with injunctions), Rohrabacher bill on inventors, Invention Protection Act (addressing enforcement).  Inventors say that the patent approval process eats up 10 or 14 years of their 20-year protection period, so one idea is to make the period run from the grant of the patent, not the application date.
• This issue – protecting small patent holders – could draw support from across the political spectrum. 
• Hearings should be held where inventors can tell their horror stories.
  
  

Fiscal Responsibility

• In 2011, Alexandria Tea Party (now Potomac Tea Party) put together a package of proposals to rein in federal spending and the national debt.  Many of the ideas still apply today - 
  • cap entitlement spending
  • audit federal agencies
  • incentivize employees and consultants to capture savings
  • end baseline budgeting
  • more
    

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