New Website is Running

The new RepealMachine.com website is up and running.

Go check it out.

Website is Emerging

The new RepealMachine.com website is taking shape. Most of the layout is complete, and the links are being built day by day. If you'd like to take a peek, visit the temporary website address:

KiloVoltaire.com.

Math for Bikers

To be a successful activist, it helps to do it by the numbers. If "time is money," there is an easy way to get the most bang for your buck.

Here is a short video that explains how it works: http://youtu.be/iD3d5DKkmFE

Nobody likes to waste their time. Bikers are no different, which explains why so many have thrown in the towel when it comes to repealing the helmet law. After decades of trying, something's not working.

It's not for lack of trying, and it is maddening. But something's been missing for all these years, and that's a proven method of getting out of it what you put into it. Here's an easy example:

Let's say you and some riding buddies get together for an hour almost every month. Using round numbers, that's 10 bikers, meeting 10 times per year, for a total of 100 man hours. Let's also say there are 10 identical meetings going on around the state. That gives us a grand total of 1,000 man hours.

What did that 1,000 hours produce, strictly in terms of getting results on the helmet law? Pretty hard to say, and that's because it's pretty hard to find a connection between the investment and the return it was supposed to produce.

In the political world, a campaign volunteer can produce about 1 vote per hour. Doesn't sound like much, I admit. But it adds up quickly.

There are always a few close races in every election cycle. And if you add in special elections (where voter turnout is small), the margin of victory is usually in the hundreds of votes.

Now if those same 100 bikers put that much effort into one or two key districts, 1,000 votes (the product of 1,000 man hours) makes a difference. The same amount of investment produces a solid return. After all, it takes a legislative majority to win any issue, whether it's helmets or not. And that's the power of campaign volunteers.

How you spend your time is entirely up to you. Are you ready to get something back on your investment? If you are, the Repeal Machine has got your number.

See you on the campaign trail!

Almost There!

The new website is almost ready for prime time. The data connection is solid, and the layout is a whole lot better. No dead links, either.

Not much, but it's a start. To take the new Repeal Machine for a test ride, visit KiloVoltaire.com.

Here's what works so far:

The home page loads an election calendar for all 50 states plus DC. Most states are right in the midst of their campaign filing deadlines, with primary elections right around the corner. If your state's deadline has already passed, it's time to find out who your candidates are.

The Tutorial page is just a link to a simple "Welcome" video. As time permits, more will be added, including more videos as well as an "owner's handbook" for using the Repeal Machine.

The Alerts and Races pages are just place holders. Both of them have a simple work-around, which is to send an email to RepealMachine@Gmail.com. Be sure to always include your ZIP Code in your email.

The News page takes you right here, to the Repeal Machine blog. As before, I'll try to post timely election information as well as articles on how to be a more effective activist.

The best part is yet to come, of course. Thanks to everyone for their patience and support.

See you on the campaign trail!

Bikers vs Politics

Motorcycles have nothing to do with politics. And I mean nothing. If they did, you'd see every politician riding one.

For bikers to become relevant in the political world, bikers have to become a part of the the political world. When we create a biker version of how we think politics ought to work, we fail to accomplish anything meaningful or lasting.

I totally understand how hard it is for bikers to "let go of the handlebars." For many of us, it's all they have to hold on to.

For any biker's rights organization to be successful, it has to have a few essential qualities: Thinking outside the box, learning and adapting, and doing what gets tangible results. If those qualities were part of biker culture, restoring our rights would be a snap.

The Repeal Machine is where I invest my time and effort, of course. I'm in the process of re-engineering the website, so our blog been very quiet for the past few months. But the new website is pretty amazing, and I can't wait to formally announce its return.

Just imagine a website that seamlessly connects the activists with the issues, the laws, the bills, the bill votes, the politicians, the elections, and the district demographics.

I've already tested each component of the new website, and it all works. Now it's just a matter of assembling the parts, and the Repeal Machine will be ready to ride.

The key to political power is campaign work for good candidates in swing districts. It's a pretty easy concept to grasp. Fortunately a lot of bikers do understand the connection, and they are ready to hit the campaign trail.

Pardon Our Dust

The new website is currently being loaded, brick by brick. I'm not kidding.

Right now it's "hiding" at the following address: www.KiloVoltaire.com

In fact, if you refresh your screen it will probably look different from moment to moment. The good news is that it took a lot to get to this point (where you can actually see something going on).

Where's the Website?

The new RepealMachine.com website isn't quite ready yet. I was hoping to have it up and running by the end of February. But despite very long hours and clearing a few major hurdles, it's not ready yet.

I'm currently working with our new web hosting service to configure the files. Once that's done, I can start rolling out the new features. But in the mean time, here's a little news you can use.

The major milestones in an election year are the candidate filing deadline, the primary election, and general election dates. The first two vary considerably from state to state, but all states holding 2012 elections will have their general elections on November 6.

Regarding the filing deadlines and primaries, here are the dates for states with mandatory helmet laws (sorted in order of filing date):

ST FILING   PRIMARY  GENERAL
-- -------- -------- --------
NC 02/29/12 05/08/12 11/06/12
-- -------- -------- --------
NE 03/01/12 05/15/12 11/06/12
OR 03/06/12 05/15/12 11/06/12
CA 03/14/12 06/05/12 11/06/12
NV 03/16/12 06/12/12 11/06/12
MO 03/27/12 08/07/12 11/06/12
-- -------- -------- --------
TN 04/05/12 08/02/12 11/06/12
-- -------- -------- --------
MI 05/15/12 08/07/12 11/06/12
WA 05/18/12 08/07/12 11/06/12
GA 05/25/12 07/31/12 11/06/12
-- -------- -------- --------
MA 06/05/12 09/06/12 11/06/12
VT 06/14/12 08/28/12 11/06/12
-- -------- -------- --------
WV ??/??/12 05/08/12 11/06/12
NY ??/??/12 09/11/12 11/06/12
MD ??/??/12 09/11/12 11/06/12
DC ??/??/12 05/15/12 11/06/12
AL ??/??/12 06/05/12 11/06/12

Website Update

The database project is coming along well. I've entered the results from the last whole election cycle for California and Oregon elections. That means each legislative seat shows the results from both Primary and General elections. The election history goes deeper for seats that have been filled through special elections.

I've also added all the helmet law repeal bills I could find, as well as any other important motorcycle bills. I skipped the fluff stuff, like motorcycle awareness proclamations, since voting Yea or Nay doesn't really prove whether a politician is a nanny-crat.

What's really important is that the two are now linked up in the database. That means we'll be able to see who sponsored which bills, as well as how they voted on the bills. Unfortunately some bills never got voted on, so there will be some blank spots.

Despite the progress, the self-imposed deadline is fast approaching. With that in mind, I'm prioritizing the order in which states get loaded into the database. The earlier the primary, the sooner they get completed. Oregon is first up on the primary schedule, so that's why they got completed first.

What's a Vote Weigh?

There is no better measure of how a legislator will vote on a helmet law repeal bill than what their voting record is. But not all repeal bills are the same.

A tiny minority call for outright repeal of the helmet law. Most are partial repeal, with some type of age, training, or insurance requirements. Once in a while, they have other conditions, such as medical or religious exemptions, riding within local jurisdictions or on certain roads, or at low speeds during public parades.

Very few repeal bills make it out of committee. And more likely than not, they never make it to a committee vote. Sometimes there simply is no voting record at all, committee or otherwise.

There are other ways to find out how legislators stand on the mandatory helmet law, though. Any bill that separates the nanny-crats from the rest may be worth looking at.

One obvious example is a bill that somehow relates to the wearing of helmets. It could be about the penalty for violating the helmet law, or mandating helmets for snow skiers.

It's also a good idea to check on laws that relate specifically to motorcycles. Forget about fluff bills like motorcycle awareness proclamations. Instead, look at the traditional set of dead-red, exhaust pipe, or motorcycle checkpoint bills.

But aside from repeal bills, the rest provide only a partial picture of how a legislator might vote. As an example, any legislator who opposes a penalty reduction is probably anti-motorcyclist. But support for such a bill is certainly no guarantee of support for repeal.

With this in mind, we can assign a certain weight to how they vote on bills. As an example, a vote on repeal is either +10 or -10. For a penalty reduction bill, it could be +1 for Yea, and -5 for Nay. That's because a Yea doesn't prove much, but a Nay is a good indicator.

I'm compiling as much historical bill information as I can find. In the mean time, I welcome your comments on what a bill is worth, and how much a vote weighs.

Natural Term Limits

Fifteen states have passed laws limiting the terms of state legislators: AZ, AR, CA, CO, FL, LA, ME, MI, MO, MT, NE, NV, OH, OK, and SD.

All the other states also have term limits, too ... though not in the legal sense. These states are term limited by nature, and nature's term limit is a person's life span.

So what's that got to do with the Repeal Machine?

Let's put it this way. One of the things we do is finding the closest races, and that includes open seats. So if a state legislator is getting pretty old, the odds of them leaving office is pretty high.

With that in mind, one of our new website features will be finding out who the oldest legislators are in states without legal term limits.

Just one more piece of the puzzle to help you find the races that matter most.

Baby on Board

Lately I've read a fair amount of opinions about what's wrong with ABATE (pick your reasons) and Motorcycle Rights Organizations (MRO) in general.

Most of it, I really can't argue with. The laundry list runs from one end to the other, with the common theme being that they've lost their way.

I do have one concern, however, and that is throwing away the baby with the bath water. Specifically, it's the complaint that our rights can't be restored legislatively.

Here's the point: Just because MRO's have had little to no success on the legislative front doesn't mean it can't be done. It simply means that the right approach has yet to be taken.

If the bulk of the effort is spent on lobbying, the results speak for themselves. This approach is using a weak weapon against our opponent's strongest position. In other words, we're just talking and they simply aren't listening. And why should they?

But turn the tables around, where we have a powerful weapon, and when our opponents are the most vulnerable. That's what happens when we become campaign activists, and we direct our efforts against our weakest opponents.

So the next time you diss ABATE, keep in mind that MRO's don't necessarily own the legislative effort.

Campaign volunteers do.

Website Updates

We'll be using a new format for sending updates to the RepealMachine webste.

The old way has been to fill out a form, and click to submit. This will continue, since it's good for recording the helmet law positions of individual candidates.

But the new website (due for release in late February) will be fueled by a database. So rather than having to hand-type updates, the database will do all the work. So with this in mind, another input method will be useful.

For inputting large amounts of data, an Excel spreadsheet should do just fine. This will allow leading activists in each state to send in larger amounts of data, all at once. Examples include updates to all the new redistricting maps, or the results of legislator surveys after a trip to the Capitol.

It can work in both directions, too. I can create a spreadsheet from the existing database, containing all the legislative info we have to-date. Then I'll send it to the leading activists for updates or to fill in the blanks.

Want to find out more? Just pop me an email at RepealMachine@gmail.com.

Primary Election Dates

Here's some useful information that comes from our new RepealMachine database.

This list shows when the primary elections will be held, state by state, in date order (soonest first):

03/06/2012 OH
03/20/2012 IL
-- -- ---- --
04/03/2012 TX
04/24/2012 PA
-- -- ---- --
05/08/2012 WV
05/08/2012 IN
05/08/2012 NC
05/15/2012 OR
05/15/2012 ID
05/15/2012 NE
05/15/2012 DC
05/22/2012 KY
05/22/2012 AR
-- -- ---- --
06/05/2012 MT
06/05/2012 IA
06/05/2012 CA
06/05/2012 NM
06/05/2012 AL
06/05/2012 SD
06/12/2012 NV
06/12/2012 SC
06/12/2012 ND
06/12/2012 ME
06/26/2012 CO
06/26/2012 OK
06/26/2012 UT
-- -- ---- --
07/31/2012 GA
-- -- ---- --
08/02/2012 TN
08/07/2012 WA
08/07/2012 MO
08/07/2012 KS
08/07/2012 MI
08/11/2012 HI
08/14/2012 WI
08/14/2012 CT
08/14/2012 FL
08/14/2012 MN
08/21/2012 WY
08/28/2012 VT
08/28/2012 AZ
08/28/2012 AK
-- -- ---- --
09/06/2012 MA
09/11/2012 RI
09/11/2012 NH
09/11/2012 MD
09/11/2012 DE
09/11/2012 NY

(States with odd-year elections)
06/04/2013 NJ
08/26/2013 MS
08/27/2013 VA
10/26/2013 LA

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone. It will be an exciting new year as well. As many activists already know, this is an election year for many state legislatures. The primary elections are just around the corner, with the general elections to follow in November.

We will also have a new website soon. How soon? My target date is the end of February, hopefully just in time for the primary elections. We'll do a better job of giving you the information you need to get busy on the campaign trail.

In the mean time, I strongly urge you to get connected to our Campaign Action Alerts. These will alert you to nearby races that will affect your right to decide. To subscribe, just email your ZIP Code to RepealMachine@gmail.com. And if you have any previous experience on the campaign trail, let us know.