Shocker: Distracted Driver Laws Fail

Sorry about the sarcasm, but to no real surprise, all of these laws that ban hand-held use of mobile phones do not have the intended legal effect. An insurance group, the Highway Loss Data Institute, examined data from states like Connecticut, California and New York to examine accident frequency before and after these states enacted laws banning hand-held use of mobile phones while operating a vehicle.

Why do these statutes fail? Because mobile phones are one of many ways drivers are distracted, with such ancient distractions such as the radio, the instruments and passengers outside of the imagination of legislators in deciding what to ban while driving an automobile. The states that have passed these laws find that people start using hands-free devices to talk, leaving them just as distracted before, but apparently with one more crucial free hand.

The study authors are apparently perplexed by this, saying the study "raises as many questions as it answers." However, it is not perplexing at all. While everyone has driven along a road next to someone texting/typing and erratically driving as a result. However, this is not a new occurrence with the mobile phone. Before mobile phones, there were women applying makeup, people in heated arguments, attempting to adjust the analog dial on an AM radio... the list goes on and on. When I was 16, I was rear-ended by a distracted woman who was rifling through her purse at 45 mph. Should they ban purses and other bags from the passenger compartment of autos because women were distracted? Obviously, that argument would be viewed as absurd.

Why then ban mobile phones when 99.9% of drivers are able to maturely use a phone while driving? Is there a mighty Jupiter Jack lobby, or is Motorola secretly conspiring with the government to enact these laws to pump up sales of Bluetooth headsets?

Distracted driver laws are simply the only way governments know how to handle things: in a reactionary and misguided way.

Even Progressives Hope Coakley Loses - And They Should

Martha Coakley, the mediocre Attorney General turned US Senate candidate, has caused quite an impression on the political world. She has made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, claiming Curt Schilling is a Yankee fan and that shaking hands of voters at Fenway Park for the Winter Classic is pointless.

Progressives are now starting to make the argument that even the most ardent left wing Democrats should not be voting for her, in an attempt to purify the party and force them to nominate candidates that appeal to the left wing.

For liberals and Democrats, abstaining or voting against Coakley is an interesting option. If Martha Coakley wins on Tuesday, she will likely never face a primary challenger again for as long as she chooses to serve in the Senate. This conceivably means that Coakley could be scot-free for 30 or 40 years (See Kennedy, E. and Byrd, R.), never facing a challenge from another Democrat and potentially never seeing a strong Republican challenger.

But Coakley is a disaster of a candidate. By all standards of measurement, Coakley has been an absolute disaster, so much so that even if Coakley wins, she will be seen as a failure of a politician. If Democrats abstain or vote for Scott Brown, they can think to themselves that the Democratic Party can nominate a stronger challenger to then Senator Brown in 2012. In other words, the Democrats would be able to trade 2+ years of Scott Brown in the Senate for the ability to nominate a non-disaster of a Senate candidate.

The Democrats could have solved all of this by not just voting for the token woman in the December primary. However, they are Democrats, and are more than happy to vote for labels above other things, such as ideas and qualifications. The best way for Democrats to fix their mistake is to vote for Scott Brown on Tuesday and hope they do not nominate another loser in 2012.

By then, Coakley will safely be sent off to be the dog catcher in North Adams, or another similarly useless position fitting of the worst Democratic candidate for US Senate in quite a long time.

Scott Brown Gets It

The "Teddy Kennedy" seat in the Senate is wrong, as wrong as most voters in Massachusetts are, the seat still belongs to the people of Massachusetts, not Coakley or Kennedy.

This is not the Deep South in the early 20th Century, where the real election was the Democratic primary.

Scott Brown can conceivably win this race. Massachusetts can stand for America.

Scott Brown Day

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, has had quite a day today.

First off, he raised over a million dollars today. As of 11:30PM, he has raised $1,117,747 today. Outside of Mitt Romney, can you imagine a Republican from Massachusetts raising anywhere near that much money in a week, nevermind a day? The money may be mainly coming from outside of Massachusetts, but it will pay for numerous commercials until the election next Tuesday.

Secondly, he took Martha Coakley to the cleaners tonight. Not just my opinion as well. Commentators like Andy Hiller from Channel 7 and Joe Battenfeld of Channel 25 say he ran away from the debate. Coakley is a horrible debater, lacking when she needs to move off the script her handlers give her. Scott Brown showed enthusiasm, knowledge and spark, and also showed that he was not a typical GOP guy, which clearly helps in Massachusetts.

There might be a real race in the next week or so. Ignoring the predictable Globe poll on Sunday that showed Coakley up 15% (despite the fact that the day it went to press it was 4 days old, and the sample size was too small collected over a too long period of time.... but polling issues are for another day), there is another poll that shows Brown ahead, within the margin of error, 48%-47%. Coakley has turned out to be a horrible candidate for the Dems, and even if she wins, she is damaged goods.

Go Scott Brown!

Could Massachusetts Elect a Republican Senator?

A recent poll for the special U.S. Senate election on January 19 has Scott Brown down 50-41 among "likely voters" and Brown only down 2 percent among respondents who stated they would definitely vote.

Considering that in Massachusetts the Democrats have always won every statewide position (except Governor until 2006), usually by large margins, this poll must be a gut punch to the Democrats. For Senate races, the Democrat usually wins by approximately 65-70% to 30-35% (even a well-funded Mitt Romney only got 41% as a Senate candidate).

Why is Scott Brown doing so well? Well, a sinister idea is furthered by Ben Smith of Politico, that the Democrats nationally are rooting and hoping for a close race so that the Democrats can win and state that the Republican momentum is a myth. It is an idea with some supporting evidence behind it. The Boston Globe, normally the mouthpiece of the Democratic party in Massachusetts, has published articles critical of Coakley, stating that she went easy on a defendant in a 2005 case and was a poor performer before the US Supreme Court in a case Coakley lost that has made prosecution crime labs overburdened. Could the Globe be purposely trying to put the race closer on the idea that there is no way Massachusetts will elect a GOP man?

Here's hoping, if the Democrats are purposely trying to make the race closer, they overdo it and cause Coakley to lose. Coakley is a horrible candidate, and only won the primary because she was the only female. She is an awful speaker, unable to expand on anything beyond force-fed talking points, and clearly will be nothing more than an empty Democratic vote. Massachusetts could make Scott Brown a very dependable independent Senator, toning down his more right-wing views for the purpose of reelection.

Win or lose, at least the campaign commercials have gone way down since the primary ended.

Alan Grayson: Douchebag

Congressman Alan Grayson, of Florida's 8th District, wrote the US Attorney General to investigate the website www.MyCongressmanIsNuts.com, because of supposed fraud by the website author.

Apparently Grayson's beef with the website is that the author claims to live in Grayson's district but does not. Grayson thinks this horrible sin is fraud and that the website author is violating the election laws. It surely cannot be that Grayson would be trying to intimidate someone who is critical of him with the weight of the Department of Justice. I mean, surely that's an appropriate punishment for a local critic of a nobody Congressman. Has anyone ever heard of this guy? I didn't think so.

Democrats don't hate free speech at all! They hate people who have the nerve to speak different viewpoints than their own. Alan Grayson, get a pair of balls. You are in politics, and are unnerved by someone challenging you. If anyone should be investigated for breaking the law, it is Grayson, for abuse of process or some false accusation statute that the US Code almost certainly has (yes, lawyers don't know every law).

Employment Follies

Since I have taken and passed the Massachusetts bar exam, I have sent out more resumes than I can count. The result of my sending out so many resumes and cover letters makes the effort seem almost wasted: one interview. One freaking interview for a law firm associate job that the firm wanted to pay $42,000/year for. $42,000/year for an employee likely with $150,000 of debt that costs $1400/month to service and that the employer charges $150/hour for their services. In other words, practically indentured servitude (Yes, I'm sure many people would love to make $42,000/year nowadays, but those people don't have the debt new lawyers do).

While I have landed sporadic, part time work for an attorney in Boston, it hasn't changed that resume sending is one of the most perplexing activities in the world. While it is clear that more and more positions are seeing attorneys who last year would have been uninterested in them, there is a lot to wonder when sending out a resume. While cover letters may or may not matter, what should the resume look like? What does the resume reader like/dislike about my resume? If they do not interview me (and they almost always do not), why do they not? Of course, being an attorney now, I am the very reason hiring attorneys will not answer these questions, as they fear litigious applicants.

What makes this all the more perplexing are these two circumstances:

1) My part time work was secured based on an attorney's recommendation to another, and I was given the work before my resume was ever seen by my employer, and;

2) This one temporary job. I applied online for a temporary research position, and after realizing I would be out of town for 1/3 of the position's duration, gave up on it. However, within 45 minutes of applying, I got an email and a phone call. The next day, after responding to neither communication, I got another phone call. The day after this, despite not responding to any communication from the company yet, I get another phone call, and an email telling me I am hired, the policies and the time to arrive on Monday. This morning I receive a call wondering where I am, despite the fact that I did nothing more than send my resume through their website and realize I could not work when they needed. Also I have received an email requesting my availability for when I can work, despite the fact that I treated them differently than most job applicants, ignoring their every request.

The problem is trying to rectify the two odd situations above with sending out tons of resumes. If people are willing to give me opportunities based on the above, what does my resume do wrong that I'm only employed based on a cursory or no look of my resume?

Or if nothing is wrong with my resume, when will my resume get me a job? I'm tired of being one of the 18% or so unemployed or underemployed.

Out of Control IRS

The IRS seems to think it should vary the population that it audits. Certain commentators, including some from Forbes who think taxpayers should be paid for an audit to make it more appealing, think the IRS should audit many more taxpayers than it currently does. The theory is that most under-report their taxes, so the more audits the IRS does, the more revenue the IRS receives. In fact, the Forbes article says that on average the underpayment in each audit is $19,000, so that is what an audit is worth to the IRS.

Here's Exhibit A for why this is a bad idea. Meet Rachael Porcaro, a 32 year old single mother of two who makes $19K at Supercuts and lives with her parents for $400/month. Her dealings with the IRS were detailed in the Seattle Times.

She was audited over the course of two years for claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for her two children. Why would the IRS audit someone who makes so little money? According to Porcaro, the IRS thought that because she made so little money, she must be hiding income somewhere. Nevermind the fact that there are lots of people living below the poverty line in Seattle, she must be the one person hiding money. According to the IRS, if you are a family of three making less than $36K a year in Seattle, you're stealing or hiding money somewhere. Of course in Porcaro's case, even if she was hiding money, it likely wasn't taxable. She was living with her parents paying rent, but she could still receive $12,500 from each parent each year as a tax-free gift, and the IRS could not do anything about it.

The IRS originally said she could not claim the EITC for 2006 and 2007 nor her children as dependants for those years and assessed her $16,000 in back taxes. Nevermind she only makes $19,000 a year, has no house or car and no real way to pay that assessment. Porcaro's father had to spend $10,000 to hire an accountant to defend Porcaro's tax returns.

The IRS demanded copies of the blueprints of the house Porcaro lives in with her parents, bank statements, and had to prove her children were hers! The IRS decided eventually that she could claim the EITC, but made too little money to claim her children as dependants. So Porcaro had to pay $1500 to the IRS. For someone making $19,000, that probably is not the easiest thing to do, but it likely is easier than having to pay $16,000, or almost a year's salary for her.

What a disaster this situation is. This whole investigation probably cost $25K. The IRS will likely have to pay Porcaro's accountant $8K for his fees because the IRS was wrong to assess Porcaro for the EITC in the first place. So the US government is out about $20K or so to collect $1500. But for those in favor of greating IRS auditing, this is going to happen more and more.

The IRS cannot just audit wealthy people, and the IRS needs to ensure that it does not lose money on these audits, so the IRS will start picking on more and more people who can't afford to defend themselves. Porcaro was lucky in the sense that her parents would pay for an accountant to defend her, but many poor parents of young children do not have families with the income to do such a thing. Those people will have to go before the IRS alone, and the IRS will place liens on everything they have, essentially giving them no hope to ever get out of poverty, and giving poor people another reason to feel the government has it out for them.

The first thing I would do as Porcaro is to tell her parents to claim their grandchildren as a deduction. If the IRS doesn't think Porcaro provides more than half of her children's needs, it almost certainly can't state that her parents don't provide for their grandchildren. Porcaro's parents should file amended returns for all those years claiming their grandchildren as dependants, and dare the IRS to audit them again. Given that Porcaro's parents make more money than Porcaro, the dependent deduction will probably be valuable to them.

If the IRS is going to audit more people, standards need to be in place so that the IRS doesn't use poor people as a piggy bank to make audits worthwhile. Whether you agree or disagree with the EITC, many poor people rely on it, and taking it away years later would be financially crippling to these people. Wealthy people hire armies of attorneys to deal with the IRS because they are ruthless. Poor people don't have that ability, and I'm not saying attorneys should be appointed for them; but the IRS should not be able to increasingly look to poorer people to make audit successes look better.

Esquire, Officially

Having been sworn in to the Massachusetts Bar and a bona fide attorney, I added the disclaimer at the top just to be on the safe side.

Not that anyone reads these to begin with (except the UMass posts, which seem to really bother SNESL people for some reason), but it is better to be extremely safe than sorry, as one of those SNESL people might try to report me for some reason.

For the foreseeable future, I am a Brookline solo practitioner in general practice, so if by some reason you need legal advice or a referral to someone who can give you better legal advice, I can be reached at sam @ samuel-miller.com. I've already successfully assisted one client, and I can probably do the same for you.

One more disclaimer: This post may be considered advertising as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court defines it for attorneys.

Bad Idea Continued: UMass Law School Passes Hurdle

The proposed transformation of unaccredited mess of a law school Southern New England Law into a supposedly new and improved UMass Law School passed another hurdle today.

The UMass "Board of Trustees' Committee on Administration and Finance", whatever that is, passed a resolution to take over SNESL by a 12-4 vote. Now the proposal goes to the Finance Committee, the UMass Board of Trustees, and finally the Mass Board of Education. The first time SNESL tried to sucker UMass into assuming control of it, it went all the way to the Board of Education, so this is not necessarily a sign that UMass will take the school over. However, Gov. Deval Patrick, of Harvard Law, is in favor of the law school, so the Board of Education may be more supportive.

Of course, the press release states that UMass is this much closer to providing a "low cost" $24K/year law school education, and offering half tuition off for four years of public employment after that. Of course, if this were such a good idea, SNESL, with its tuition of about $22K, would have public interest hopeful lawyers lining up. However, that is not the case.

While law schools are a prestige item and a cash cow for universities, the costs of running a law school are high. Professors, who would make mid six figure and higher salaries in the private sector, are very expensive and very fickle. The SNESL professors are what you would expect from a school with a lower cost, not as impressive. If SNESL is to get accredited, it needs to wildly expand its library, physical plant and professors, and raising tuition and student class size is not going to make it happen without a bailout from Massachusetts, despite that SNESL and UMass say that is not necessary.

The strategy by SNESL and UMass is to keep repeating the no-cost line ad naseum until the Board finally breaks down and approves the SNESL bailout. Of course, once the law school is approved and UMass takes it over, magically these "unexpected costs" of complying with the ABA accreditation standard are "found", and one of two things will need to be done: either raise tuition or get state aid. Of course, since the supposed purpose of the law school is to get lawyers "interested" in public service, UMass will seek its bailout then, hoping the state economic situation and tax revenues are better situated than currently.

It is a total sham, represented perfectly by this fact: If SNESL could get accredited by raising tuition and adding students, why have they not done it already? Why would they forfeit their assets to UMass in return for ZERO? Because they cannot do it. SNESL could sell its buildings, assets and cash for something, but the law school is worthless. No one creates a private law school in the hope the state will take it over some day. If SNESL could be accredited on the terms UMass says they could be accredited on, there would be absolutely no need for this takeover.

Why does UMass want a law school? Prestige. Plain and simple. It also, coincidentally of course, gives them another school to stock full of patronage hires who are unqualified to teach at any current law school. Another layer of bureaucracy at a university full of bureaucracy, for the next generation of political hacks.

A very bad idea, the UMass Law School.