Instead of the public defender system, how about providing poor persons who are accused of a crime with a voucher that they can use to hire their own attorney to represent them in court? Comal County, Texas will give this system a try in a few months.

From the San Antonio-Express News:

“Our belief is that a system of client selection can lead to improved services. Whether in fact that’s something that will occur needs to be empirically tested,” [former Indiana University School of Law dean Norman) Lefstein said. “I certainly hope that this will not be the only experiment in the United States involving client selection of counsel.”

But it will be the first. Results of the pilot program, including the costs, case outcomes and client satisfaction levels, will be tracked by the Justice Management Institute of Virginia.

“We’ve done an initial set of interviews with folks in Comal County to document how things operate,” said Elaine Borakove, institute president. “Client choice has never been tried in the United States before, so we’re very excited.”

The initiative was sparked by a 2010 Cato Institute paper calling for the use of free-market forces to address problems with America’s indigent defense systems, whether they’re based on court appointments or salaried public defenders.

The 2010 Cato paper mentioned is titled, “Reforming Indigent Defense,” by Stephen Schulhofer and David Friedman. In this blog post, David Friedman recalls the skepticism he received onthis idea 20 years ago from Judge Richard Posner. Another post here from Radley Balko.

The run-up to Tuesday’s State of the Union seemed downright ominous for those of us opposed to rule by presidential decree. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” the president warned uncooperative legislators: “we’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need.” “You have to swerve really hard to the executive powers at a time like this,” a senior administration official told the Washington Post.

Obama would, Press Secretary Jay Carney explained, “work with Congress where he can, [but] bypass Congress where necessary,” because 2014 was going to be “A Year of Action.” (Last year’s SOTU slogan was “Let’s Get It Done,” but I guess we didn’t git ‘er done).

Yet the unilateral actions mentioned in Tuesday’s speech are mostly Clintonian smallball: new “innovation centers”; expanding SelectUSA; a Biden-led review of federal job training; jawboning CEOs about unemployment, etc. (though I am curious where the president’s supposed to get the authority to conjure new retirement savings accounts into existence…)

Obama also issued a veiled threat that “with or without Congress,” he’d move forward on gun control. But it’s not much of a threat if last year’s list of 23 executive actions on guns is any indication. Contra the excitable Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), nominating a new ATF director and “review[ing] safety standards for gun locks and gun safes” do not “an existential threat to this nation” make.

All in all, the executive action items in the 2014 SOTU weren’t nearly as menacing as the hype. ““Stroke of the pen, law of the land,” kinda… lame.

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One of the great libertarian victories of the past few decades was the tax revolt of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The inflation of the 1970s caused higher property taxes and income tax bracket creep, which led to California’s Proposition 13, the Kemp-Roth tax cut bill, the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the 1981 tax cut, the deceleration of government spending, the further lowering of marginal rates in 1986—and a long period during which economic growth exceeded government growth.

This story isn’t told often in history books and popular media. Even with the boom in histories of modern conservatism, which in many instances focuses on the reaction to socialism and the welfare state, there is rarely a sense of the important arguments that free-market advocates were making. That’s why it’s important to have historians who understand economics and appreciate the value of limited government. One such historian is Brian Domitrovic, author of Econoclasts: The Rebels Who Sparked the Supply-Side Revolution and Restored American Prosperity.

In the latest issue of Cato Policy Report, the Cato Institute’s newsletter for Sponsors and friends, Domitrovic has a lead article titled “Tax Revolt! It’s Time to Learn from Past Success,” where he tells the story outlined above. If you get discouraged about the possibility of positive change, you should read it. Or read it if you just want to know more about the history of movements for limited government.

Also in the January-February Cato Policy Report: my editorial on Pope Francis, Nelson Mandela, and the longing for Utopia; leading scholars and policymakers on a century of central banking; and reports on NSA surveillance, jury nullification, and Cato’s recent policy studies.

Note that if you were a Cato Sponsor, you would get articles like this in your mailbox every month, along with the satisfaction of supporting the work of the Cato Institute. Become a Sponsor now!