Saturday, February 28, 2009

About Those Judges

Are they too powerful? Do they need to be taken down a notch or two?

Yes Those are Earmarks

President Obama touched a nerve with some by claiming in his state of the union message that the stimulus bill does not contain earmarks. Unless one wished to parse the definition endlessly, it does. But earmarks have become a necessary way to gain the votes for legislation to pass Congress, and congressmen claim that this enables them to determine which projects get funded in their districts, rather than an executive official who lacks knowledge of the district.

The following story points out how this need makes it difficult for overall economic planning (the type the national government was set up to provide) difficult. While the executive is in a position to make plans nation wide, the local needs of the 435 members of the House of Representatives make this difficult:

You do not need an economics degree to see, for instance, how tens of millions of dollars of unconnected train station projects scattered around the nation might derail a focused program to concentrate high-speed rail where it is most needed. A college or Girl Scouts initiative might not have the same effect as a federal effort to support after-school programs. Is a $22 million addition to the Kennedy library more important than propping up our struggling public libraries?

Potential Split in the Democratic Party

Though unified for now, the Democratic Party is generally fraught with internal divisions.

Joel Kotkin wonders if Obama's focus on environmental issues will drive a wedge between the "gentry" and the "populists."

Broadly speaking, there is a long-standing conflict inside the Democratic Party between gentry liberals and populists. This division is not the same as in the 1960s, when the major conflicts revolved around culture and race as well as on foreign policy. Today the emerging fault-lines follow mostly regional, geographical and, most importantly, class differences.

Gentry liberals cluster largely in cities, wealthy suburbs and college towns. They include disproportionately those with graduate educations and people living on the coasts. Populists tend to be located more in middle- and working-class suburbs, the Great Plains and industrial Midwest. They include a wider spectrum of Americans, including many whose political views are somewhat changeable and less subject to ideological rigor.

...

Gentry politicians tend to favor developing only alternative fuels and oppose expanding coal, oil or nuclear energy. Populists represent areas, such as the Great Lakes region, where manufacturing still plays a critical role and remains heavily dependent on coal-based electricity. They also tend to have ties to economies, such as in the Great Plains, Appalachia and the Intermountain West, where smacking down all new fossil-fuel production threatens lots of jobs -- and where a single-minded focus on alternative fuels may drive up total energy costs on the farm, make life miserable again for truckers, and put American industrial firms at even greater disadvantage against foreign competitors.

In the coming years, Mr. Obama's "green agenda" may be a key fault line.

Friday, February 27, 2009

The Proposed Budget

Here's a link.

We will wade into this soon enough.

Twitter is not Longer Cool...

...now that Joe Barton, and everyone else in Congress, is on it.

I admit, I tried to be Twitter hip. I even wrote a blog about how Twitter could be a useful political tool under the notion that hearing voters twitter a debate could provide unique, real-time insights into their behavior and thinking.

But I’m giving it up. I know I’ll get roasted for being anti-tech. But, what I really am is pro meaningful communication. And somewhere along the Internet highway we fell under the spell that more communication is better communication. Sometimes more communication is just noise
.

Awesome quote.

Stake in Citigroup Increased

The Treasury Department purchased additional shares of Citigroup today:

After two multibillion-dollar lifelines failed to shore up Citigroup, the government will increase its stake to 36 percent, from 8 percent.

The chief executive,
Vikram S. Pandit, will remain, but Citigroup will shake up its board so that it has a majority of new independent directors, a move that federal regulators had been pursuing. The announcement comes as the bank said its 2008 loss had spiraled to $27.7 billion, among the largest in corporate history. Under the deal, the Treasury Department agreed to convert up to $25 billion of its preferred stock investment in Citigroup into common stock, giving taxpayers more risk, but more potential for profit if the company recovers.

The door is open to additional purchases if necessary. Once the investment passes 50%, government has a controlling interest in the company. Apparently the Treasure Department wants to avoid that outcome.

Rocky Mountain News RIP

There may be more of these soon.

Expect future posts on whether this is a healthy trend.

6.2%

That's the annualized rate that the economy declined in the last quarter of 2008. It's just another of the huge numbers that been tossed around recently.

And this may be a long, sustained recession.

A Sharp Turn to the Left

That's the obvious consensus regarding Obama's proposed budget.

Here's a few paragraphs from Slate's Today's Papers:

President Obama presented his budget and left no doubt that he was being serious when he promised change. The $3.55 trillion spending plan included broad goals and few details but outlined how Obama plans to finance more spending in health care, energy, and education while increasing taxes on the top 5 percent of taxpayers, the oil and gas industry, and hedge-fund managers, among others. In short: Bye-bye, Reaganomics. The 134-page budget "is unprecedented in size, breathtaking in scope and sure to have a major impact on millions of Americans," declares USA Today. The Wall Street Journal notes that the spending plan "marks a significant change in nearly 30 years of governing philosophy."

The Washington Post declares that "Obama's agenda seeks to foster a redistribution of wealth, with the government working to narrow the growing gap between rich and poor." In order to achieve this, though, Obama "laid down controversial markers on almost every major issue facing the country," notes the Los Angeles Times. The WSJ predicts that the spending plan "is likely to herald one of the fiercest political fights Washington has seen in years." Republicans were quick to raise their objections yesterday, and in what was clearly a "worrisome sign for the president," as the New York Times puts it, Sen. Olympia Snow of Maine, one of the few Republicans who voted for the stimulus package, declared that while the president's goals are "worthy" she lamented that the budget "falls woefully short" on fiscal restraint and reducing the deficit.

The budget made it clear that changing the way Washington works doesn't come cheap. This year's deficit would reach $1.75 trillion, which amounts to more than 12 percent of the economy and is the highest level since 1945. The administration says it will begin to trim the deficit, partly by reducing the costs of fighting the Iraq war but also "by assuming a rate of economic growth by 2010 that private forecasters and even some White House advisers consider overly rosy," points out the NYT. The White House was quick to counter criticism saying that it plans to raise taxes during a recession by pointing out that none of the increases would take effect until 2011. Still, some economists think that might be too early and could hurt the economy. And while the administration insists it plans to halve the deficit by the end of Obama's first term, analysts said the budget doesn't contain a plan to keep bringing it down in the long run.

Congressional Quarterly reports that Republicans will attack the proposal by calling it European styled socialism:

GOP congressional leaders Friday vowed to oppose President Obama’s budget priorities, comparing them to those of socialist governments in Europe.

Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio — speaking to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington — targeted their barbs at Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget blueprint, including his proposal for a new cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions allowances.

The charge of socialism was used against Obama during his presidential campaign. The lawmakers also abandoned rhetorical references to bipartisanship — often heard during debates in the House and Senate — in their remarks.

The lawmakers said they also opposed Obama’s vision for broadening government health care programs and attacked the pending fiscal 2009 omnibus spending measure (HR 1105) and the newly enacted economic stimulus measure (PL 111-5). They criticized a number of Democratic domestic priorities aimed at the party’s liberal base, such as a proposal to allow unions to organize without a secret ballot, a process known as “card check.”


It'll be a useful debate. A clearldistinction between the parties will allow for a clear evaluation of the startegy come 2012, if not 2010. In my opinion, this is how the process is supposed to run.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

$1.75 Trillion

Thats the deficit contained in the budget for 2010 submitted by Obama today.

The Obama Code

An interesting read from George Lakoff.

Critter Related Bills

The Chron has a story today about the bills in the Texas leg concerned with animals in some way.

Here are three:

- HB 926: Relating to the handling of or caring for a pit bull breed of dog by certain minors; providing penalties

- HB 1320: Relating to the creation of offenses relating to cockfighting and to the forfeiture of cockfighting equipment.

- HB 836: Relating to sport hunting of feral hogs by helicopter.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

HCR 50

Here's an interesting proposed amendment to the Texas Constitution:

Affirming that the State of Texas claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution, serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates, and providing that certain federal legislation be prohibited or repealed.

Very very Texas.

Bills in the Texas Leg: Casino Gambling

I'll begin a series of posts on the bills being considered in the Texas Legislature.

Here's a Chron story on proposals for casinos in Texas.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Republicans and the Welfare State

Jonathan Rauch argues that we have witnessed a likely step increase in the size of the national government (from 21% to 25% of GDP) and that it is time that Republicans accept this fact and accept a value added tax that will increase revenues (from 18% to something higher) so that we can have a sustainable budget.

He picks this up from a recent article written by Bruce Bartlett claiming that Republicans must adapt to the welfare state. This will be difficult to do, tax cutting and welfare bashing has becomes a standard feature of Republican politics. But Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan all made their peace with welfare, and the current party must also.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Stress Testing the Banks

When the second part of the TARP payment process was revealed, it was announced that ailing banks would be subjected to "stress tests" and banks that failed these tests would be subject to governmental intervention that some have dubbed "nationalization."

This week the stress tests begin, and it seems like CitiGroup and Bank of America may fail the tests. Now the question turns to Wall Street's reaction to this possibility.

Hints for this Week's 2301 Quiz

For my 2301's concentrate on the following subjects for our weekly quiz:

- the definition of federalism
- the constitutional powers and limitations of the national government.
- the nature of reserved (or police) powers
- the limitations placed on the states in the Constitution
- the definition of judicial review
- the decision in Barron v. Baltimore
- the consequence, for federalism, of the 14th Amendment
- the decision in NLRB v. Jones
- the decision in U.S. v Lopez

Remember, 2302s are to do the written assignments given to my internet students.

GOP Split in Stimulus?

I posed on this below, but GOP unity on the national level, may only be on the national level.

Here's a key chunk of the story:

The Republican governors’ divide reflects their party’s erosion to a mostly regional party that is based in the conservative South, after heavy election losses in the Northeast, Midwest and West. And with the party leaderless after losing control of both the White House and Congress in the past two election cycles, the split is colored by early maneuvering for conservatives’ support among potential aspirants for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.

Several governors, nearly all of them Southerners known to have national ambitions, have been withering in their criticism of Mr. Obama’s stimulus plan, which received only 3 of 219 Republicans’ votes in Congress. The harshest critics include Mr. Sanford and Govs.
Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the national chairman of the party in the 1990s, Rick Perry of Texas, and Sarah Palin of Alaska, the party’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Do Checks and Balances Still Exist?

Has Congress delegated so much power to the executive that it has effective delegated itself into a secondary status.

So is it now naive to think that you can learn about government by reading the Constitution?

Federalism and Senate Elections

George Will, from time to time, offers provocative comments criticizing proposals that offend his vision of the original intent of the Constitution's authors. Perhaps due to the short format of the op-ed piece, they tend to be superficial and unsatisfactory in my view -- he has a habit of setting up and plowing over straw men -- but they raise important questions and stimulate thought.

Here's his appraisal of a current effort to ensure the vacancies that occur in the Senate always be filled by an election. He is opposed to an amendment offered by Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.

In his critique he hits a point we will cover this week in 2301 when we discuss the Constitution's impact on federalism, the relationship between national and state power. Aside from the specific powers and limitations placed in the document, the Great Compromise also had an impact by allowing the states to have control over the Senate. Will's real beef is with the 17th Amendment, which swapped state control for popular elections:

The Framers established election of senators by state legislators, under which system the nation got the Great Triumvirate (Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun) and thrived. In 1913, progressives, believing that more, and more direct, democracy is always wonderful, got the 17th Amendment ratified. It stipulates popular election of senators, under which system Wisconsin has elected, among others, Joe McCarthy, as well as Feingold. The 17th Amendment says that when Senate vacancies occur, “the executive authority” of the affected state “shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.” Feingold’s amendment says:

“No person shall be a Senator from a State unless such person has been elected by the people thereof. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.”


It's not hard to detect the hostile attitude towards direct democracy. Certainly the shift had an impact on national power. Nevertheless it's interesting to speculate how the New Deal would have been affected by a Senate composed of members appointed by the states:

Furthermore, grounding the Senate in state legislatures served the structure of federalism. Giving the states an important role in determining the composition of the federal government gave the states power to resist what has happened since 1913 — the progressive (in two senses) reduction of the states to administrative extensions of the federal government. Severing senators from state legislatures, which could monitor and even instruct them, made them more susceptible to influence by nationally organized interest groups based in Washington.

Many of those groups, who preferred one-stop shopping in Washington to currying favors in all the state capitals, campaigned for the 17th Amendment. So did urban political machines, which were then organizing an uninformed electorate swollen by immigrants. Alliances between such interests and senators led to a lengthening of the senators’ tenures. The Framers gave the three political components of the federal government (the House, Senate and presidency) different electors (the people, the state legislatures and the Electoral College as originally intended) to reinforce the principle of separation of powers.


Of course Mr. Will forgets that Madison and other founders wanted a Senate removed from state influence altogether. A balanced federal system was forced on the larger states by smaller states whose influence far exceeded their numbers and who could have killed the entire process if they didn't get what they wanted. Influential founders like Hamilton wanted to get rid of the states as political entities completely -- many wanted to reduce the states to administrative extensions of the federal government.

Whether that would have been a good or bad idea is besides the point, there was debate among the founders regarding the proper degree of control of the national government over the states. This was not a simple creature of the progressive movement.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Slashing the Deficit Anyway.

Despite the stimulus bill, Obama plans to address the deficit reduction this week:

On Monday Mr. Obama will hold a “fiscal responsibility summit” at the White House with members of Congress from both parties, economists, union leaders and business representatives. On Tuesday he will make a televised address to a joint session of Congress — the equivalent of a State of the Union speech for a new president — that advisers said would focus on the economy.

Despite the reduction, he plans on continuing to spend on three areas central to his agenda:

“The president believes there are essentially three areas that have to move forward even as we pare back elsewhere — health care, energy and education,” said David Axelrod, his senior adviser. “These are the bulwark of a strong economy moving forward.”

While some people have predicted that Mr. Obama would have to shelve his priorities given rising deficits, his determination to proceed, especially on health care, reflects his economic advisers’ conviction that the government cannot control its finances without reforming health care. The ballooning cost of health care, and thus Medicare and
Medicaid, is the biggest factor behind projections of unsustainable deficits in coming decades.

Stimulating Education

One of the consequences of the stimulus bill -- good or bad depending on your politics -- is that money is now made available for goals that would otherwise have been difficult to obtain.

One of these areas is education, which is now suddenly flush with federal cash.

Helping the Banks Banks

The NYT clarifies why credit is still difficult to find:

Credit cards, home equity lines, student loans, car financing: none come cheaply or easily in these credit-tight times. The banks, the refrain goes, just will not lend money.

But it is not simply the banks that are the problem. It is also what lies behind them.
Largely hidden from view is a vast financial system that serves as the banker to the banks. And, like many lenders, this system is in deep trouble. The question is how to fix it.

Most banks no longer hold the loans they make, content to collect interest until the debt comes due. Instead, the loans are bundled into securities that are sold to investors, a process known as securitization.

But the securitization markets broke down last summer after investors suffered steep losses on these investments. So banks and other finance companies can no longer shift loans off their books easily, throttling their ability to lend.

The result has been a drastic contraction of the amount of credit available throughout the economy. By one estimate, as much as $1.9 trillion of lending capacity — the rough equivalent of half of all the money borrowed by businesses and consumers in 2007, before the recession struck — has been sucked out of the system.

Obama's Fixer

I love these stories.

There's an entire category of behind the scenes players who know how the political game is played and are hired to play it. Here's the latest. Meet Jim Messina (not the guy in Loggins and Messina):

Messina, 39, has one of the lowest profiles of any key player in the top tiers of the Obama administration. But he has already become known as a key "fixer" in the operation -- both because of his extensive ties to political operatives and lawmakers, especially in the Senate, and because of his relentless focus of purpose that mirrors that of his immediate superior, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Messina's most renowned feat on Capitol Hill was straight out of Emanuel's no-holds-barred playbook, and it came shortly after President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004. With Democrats still in the minority and frustrated by their inability to block the Republican president or his congressional allies, Senate Minority Leader
Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) tapped Messina's boss, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), to run a strategic effort to defeat a top legislative priority of Bush's second term, the partial privatization of Social Security.

As Baucus's chief of staff, Messina helped craft a message that was simple and straightforward, arguing that the Bush plan was risky and would cut benefits. His critics in the opposition party saw it as misleading at best, but it worked. The plan stalled quickly, and its defeat was credited by some for setting the Republicans on the path to losing control of Congress in the next midterm elections.

"Messina stepped in and delivered a beat-down sandwich, and in my view, it was the beginning of the end of Bush's approval ratings," said Barrett Kaiser, Baucus's communications director and a close friend of Messina.

If you want to know how politics is really played, here you go.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Everyone Gets a Trophy

And an A.

Hoover's FBI

A peek inside Hoover's abuse of power.

Obama's Housing Bailout Proposal

Here's background from the New York Times.

- A positive appraisal from Salon.com.
- The Wall Street Journal is cautious.

Judd Gregg and the Census

Commentators have suggested that Senator Gregg's decision to not be Commerce Secretary resulted from the White House's decision to conduct the upcoming census within the White House rather than in the Commerce Department as has been customary. Here's the root of the dispute:

The constitutionally mandated “enumeration” determines how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives, and helps to determine where the district lines are drawn within each state. It will also shift billions upon billions of federal dollars over the next decade from some parts of the country to others because of population-driven financing formulas.

The parties have been at loggerheads for years over how to conduct the census. Most everyone agrees that the traditional method — mail-back surveys and door-knocking follow-ups — fails to count millions of Americans. Democrats argue that the solution is to use statistical sampling models to extrapolate figures for the uncounted people. If minorities, immigrants, the poor and the homeless are the most likely to be undercounted, then such sampling would presumably benefit the Democrats.

Republicans, for their part, argue that statistical sampling is unreliable and that the Constitution mandates an actual count. In 1999, the
Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that under current law, sampling techniques could not be used to reapportion House seats from one state to another. But some experts still believe that it could be used in drawing district lines within the states, and to determine money flows.

About Laissez-Faire

It has failed -- so says Nouriel Roubin:

To paraphrase Churchill, capitalist market economies open to trade and financial flows may be the worst economic regime--apart from the alternatives. However, while this crisis does not imply the end of market-economy capitalism, it has shown the failure of a particular model of capitalism. Namely, the laissez-faire, unregulated (or aggressively deregulated), Wild West model of free market capitalism with lack of prudential regulation, supervision of financial markets and proper provision of public goods by governments.

There is the failure of ideas--such as the "efficient market hypothesis," which deluded its believers about the absence of market failures such as asset bubbles; the "rational expectations" paradigm that clashes with the insights of behavioral economics and finance; and the "self-regulation of markets and institutions" that clashes with the classical agency problems in corporate governance--that are themselves exacerbated in financial companies by the greater degree of asymmetric information. For example, how can a chief executive or a board monitor the risk taking of thousands of separate profit and loss accounts? Then there are the distortions of compensation paid to bankers and traders.

This crisis also shows the failure of ideas such as the one that securitization will reduce systemic risk rather than actually increase it. That risk can be properly priced when the opacity and lack of transparency of financial firms and new instruments leads to unpriceable uncertainty rather than priceable risk.

It is clear that the Anglo-Saxon model of supervision and regulation of the financial system has failed. It relied on several factors: self-regulation that, in effect, meant no regulation; market discipline that does not exist when there is euphoria and irrational exuberance; and internal risk-management models that fail because, as a former chief executive of Citigroup (nyse:
C - news - people ) put it, when the music is playing, you've got to stand up and dance.

Furthermore, the self-regulation approach created rating agencies that had massive conflicts of interest and a supervisory system dependent on principles rather than rules. In effect, this light-touch regulation became regulation of the softest touch.

Thus, all the pillars of the 2004 Basel II banking accord have already failed even before being implemented. Since the pendulum had swung too much in the direction of self-regulation and the principles-based approach, we now need more binding rules on liquidity, capital, leverage, transparency, compensation and so on.

An Elected Dictatorship

That's what the Anti-Federalists wanted to avoid by opposing the Constitution, and what Venezuela has due to a recent national referendum.

This raises an uncomfortable point about democracy. Though we tend to believe that democracy allows the people to protect themselves from government, it often becomes a tool for would be tyrants. By frightening the population--sometimes focusing animosity towards competing elites--executives can persuade the public to support a reduction in their rights by promising stability and security.

It happens here too of course. Consider FDR's rhetoric, as well as W. Bush's support for expanded war times powers and the current debate about the economy.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

How do We Know When we are in a Depression?

We don't really.

Nonsense

The man who brought you the Laffer Curve, and very possibly our $10 trillion debt, slams the stimulus package.

Don't be Frugal

Apparently if you have the money, you should be spending it.

Housing Bailout

Homeowners in trouble are apparently going to be eligible for bailout money soon. An announcement will be forthcoming.

TARP Money is Not Being Spent on Banks

Instead it is being spent on bank holding companies who have no incentive to pass them down to banks. This explains why the TARP spending has not had the anticipated impact on lending.

On the Libby Pardon -- Or Lack of it

Maybe the most surprising outcome of the Bush presidency was the lack of pardons toward the end of his term. Conspiracy theorists and critics were ready for inevitable pardons of various Bush officials, including Cheney and Rumsfeld for any real or potential legal problems that might ensue in the coming years.

Not that there weren't advocates for pardons. The NYT reports that Cheney tried repeatedly to get Bush to pardon Scooter Libby to no avail.

Stimulus Sausage

The speed with which the stimulus bill was written, rewritten and driven through Congress has led to expected glitches. The LAT has a story on one peculiar product of the compromise, health benefits are only made available to those who lost jobs since September 2008, even though the current recession started before then. People who lost jobs prior to September are shut out, they were part of the original bill, but were sacrificed to gain the necessary votes to pass the bill through both houses of Congress.

Many commentators have pointed out that the large number of health provisions in the bill make it a health bill, though it does not make the comprehensive changes some health care advocates have hoped for , including the passage of a single payer system.

Monday, February 16, 2009

A Little Economic Cheer

Will the United States face a decades long slump, or a prolonged period of stagnation?

Robert Samuelson and Paul Krugman think its possible.

Krugman provides evidence that there has been no substantive growth at all since 2000. What appears to have been growth was simply a rise in the value in stocks and housing that has since evaporated.

2302 Test Preview

In order to reduce the pressure on the upcoming quiz on Wednesday, here are the general topics:

- the roots of the current economic crisis
- the economic impact of the ratification of the Constitution
- the nature of Hamilton's proposals to Congress
- the concept of laissez faire
- the nature of fiscal and monetary policy (how each is argued to impact the economy)
- the current level of gdp, public debt, and tax revenue
- the level of mandatory and discretionary spending
- the amount of money spent servicing the debt
- the purpose and design of the TARP
- the purpose and design of the ARRA

Subprime Mortgage Timeline

As with most things on wikipedia, this must be taken with a grain of salt, but its a neat look at the factors which led to the subprime mortgage crisis. Since we discuss the current economy in light of Congress' legislative powers, it would be worth looking at what actions may have allowed the crisis to occur.

No word here about inactions, so the story is incomplete, but provocative nevertheless.

81st Session Committee Assignments

Vince Liebowitz at Capitol Annex analyzes the committee assignments and notes that the "Gang of 11," the eleven Republicans who voted with Straus and against Craddick, were rewarded with plum committee assignments and committee chairmanships.

The Democrats who voted with him received far less.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Nationalize the Banks?

An influential Republican Senator is warm to the idea:

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, said he wouldn’t reject the idea of nationalizing U.S. banks.

“I’m very much afraid that any program to salvage the banks is going to require the government,” the South Carolina senator said today in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program. “I would not take off the idea of the nationalizing the banks.”


Some of the country's major banks are in such trouble that this may be the only way they can survive. Given the amount of money that has already been injected into the economy, it may be that these banks have already been effectively nationalized.

On The Republican Strategy

While Republicans in Congress seem highly cohesive, there are questions whether this cohesion includes Republicans on the state and local level. Republican governors and mayors were among the supporters of the original stimulus bill -- the one that included aid to state and local governments.

The two major parties work on many levels. Coordination among each level can be difficult since their needs' goals and objectives can vary.

There are also questions about the future effectiveness of the mechanisms the current party leadership used to force a party line vote. Apparently some Republicans were willing to vote for the bill. If party leaders continue to pull members away from the preferences of their constituents they may make the representative vulnerable to defeat. But only of the stimulus either does not work, or can be argued to have not worked.

Republicans run a tight ship. I would not be surprised if they are able to stick together. That doesn't guarantee electoral success however. If the stimulus bill seems to work, and Democrats paint the opposition as playing pure politics, they could win big in 2010.

Who's to Blame for the Financial Crisis?

Time Magazine highlights these 25 people.

Attention 2302s

We will devote this week to the subprime mortgage crisis and the various responses to the crisis, especially those stemming from Congress. We will focus heavily on the two pieces of legislation that have been passed to address the crisis, The Troubled Assets Relief Program and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

But there is really nothing unique about the current crisis. We are effectively cleaning up after a speculative bubble, these happen from time to time in a dynamic economy. They may even be necessary because they encourage investments in areas of society that might not otherwise receive it. The dot.com bubble, for example, may be responsible for the development of the internet as we know it. The current real estate bubble may be responsible for the expansion of home ownership beyond what would been possible normally (perhaps beyond what was prudent, but let's hold that thought for a moment). Since bubbles eventually pop, the purpose of government is to be able to provide solidity to society while the economy gets back on its feet.

I want to put the current crisis in historical context, so I want to talk about constitutional history, so that we understand the role that the creation of a national executive was supposed to play in facilitating the rise of the American Economy, and the controversies that went along with it. This will involve an understanding of not only the roles written for Congress in the Constitution, but those suggested in the document if one adopts a broad reading of its terminology--as did Alexander Hamilton.

We also need to come to terms with significant shifts that occurred in the role that the national government began to play in the economy beginning in the New Deal, and expanded in the Great Society. Each stage marked a significant increase in the size and role of the national government and also changes in the expectations that citizens had about what the national government is supposed to do.

We will note at least two shifts, one in sheer size (the establishment of non-discretionary programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and the other in the regulatory functions of government (the Security and Exchange Commission and the Food and Drug Administration among many others).

Economists also began to develop theories about how government should act in order to manage the booms and busts that tend to plague a free market system. We will discuss fiscal policy, which involves the manipulation of tax rates and the level of spending and the strategic running of budget surpluses and deficits. We will also discuss monetary policy where interest rates and other tools are used to affect the money supply. Each technique is in use today to handle the current crisis.

We will pay special attention to the backlash against the expansion of the size and role of government which came to fruition in the Reagan Administration. After a decade of sluggishness, the economy was seen to come to life. Though no substantive decreases were made in the size of government taxes were cut, and credit was loosened. While the economy expanded, so did the level of public and private credit. Some argue that this sets the stage for where we are today.

The subprime mortgage crisis may be the culmination of efforts to encourage people to spend (especially on homes), and to reward industries for facilitating that spending. If so, what does this suggest the proper response to the crisis might be? What's worse, considering that this crisis is relatively new, might other more serious crises be ignored and made worse because we can't may attention to them? These crises include the explosion of entitlement spending expected to occur as a result of an aging population that qualifies for Social Security and will place large pressures on Medicare.

There's a lot of ground to cover and I will post later today on what questions I want you to be prepared to answer Wednesday.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

How the Economic Crisis will Impact Cities

Richard Florida, who years back developed the concept of the "creative class" and argued that the successful cities will be those who can attract and retain this group, now argues that the current economic crisis will have disparate effects on cities.

Those committed to industries that are on the decline, and lack the knowledge base to attract or develop new technologies, will lose. Big losers include cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas. Areas with a concentration of people with skills in a growth industry -- finance, communications, entertainment, or energy (that means Houston) -- will become even more dominant. Central to this dynamic is the idea that these places create environments that make an area attractive to people who could live anywhere they choose. If you wonder why Houston spends so much effort sprucing itself up, there's why.

There's a political consequence as well. An interactive map, which includes data showing how many patents are issued in each city in the country, suggests that future growth will happen in areas where Democrats have an advantage. There aren't that many ideas generated in the South and Upper Midwest.

Still Polarized

Congress is as polarized now as it has been in recent years according to the NYT.

We covered this in class already of course. We've yet to see a major vote this session that was not party line. We may not.

In 2301, we will explore the causes of this which some suggest is due to excessive, and increasingly successful, gerrymandering which packs liberals and conservatives into districts where they can then force representatives to the extreme, and away from the center, of political debate.

On one hand, increased polarization gives voters a clear choice between the parties, on the other it makes compromise -- perhaps -- impossible.

Friday, February 13, 2009

And it Passes

As expected.

- From the New York Times.
- From the Los Angeles Times.
- Analysis from NewsWeek.

According to CNN, here's how the spending breaks down:

The package devotes $308.3 billion -- or 39% -- to appropriations spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That includes $120 billion on infrastructure and science and more than $30 billion on energy-related infrastructure projects, according to key congressional committees.

It devotes another $267 billion -- or 34% -- on direct spending, including increased unemployment benefits and food stamps, CBO said.

And it provides $212 billion -- or 27% -- for tax breaks for individuals and businesses, although the biggest piece of that is for individuals.
(Here's a quick breakdown of those breaks.)

Depending on how tax measures are categorized, the percentage of the bill devoted to tax relief is 35%, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.


For my 2302's we will spend next week discussing the pros and cons of each type of spending.

The Stimulus Bill is Expected to Pass Soon

Sherrod Brown of Ohio is on his way to Washington and will provide the 60th vote.

Here's a link listing how the spending breaks down.

Texas House Committee Assignments Announced

From the Chron, complete with winners and loser. Losers include Craddick and Warren Chisum (the Austin paper weighs in on winners and losers here).

Here's the official list from Straus' office.

The Brazosport Facts discusses Bonnen and Weber's appointments here.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Historic Birthday

Interesting coincidence. This day 200 years ago, what might be the two most consequential people of the 19th Century were born: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.

So who else was born the day you were born?

I was born on June 21, 1961.

So was:
- Kip Winger, member of the rock group Winger
- Manu Chao, another musician

That's about it.

Polygamists Lobby in Utah

...and why not?

Republicans Smell Blood

The National Republican Congressional Committee has targeted Democrats they consider vulnerable with radio advertising accusing them of wasteful spending.

Things to consider in class:
- Will it work?
- How should Democrats attack back?

No word yet on who the Democrats are, but its safe to say that they hold seats that have voted Republican in the past.

Interest Groups and the Texas Education Agency

The Texas Freedom Network, a pro-science education group that is working to prevent states requiring science teachers to question evolution in the classroom, has sent out a newsletter pointing out the efforts of pro-intelligent design groups to work against them:

The far right -- always well-funded -- is already regrouping and looking to reverse our gains. We’ve heard from SBOE members that they are being bombarded with thousands of e-mails from far-right groups like Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and the Texas affiliate of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.

Both sides demonstrate that interest group activity can focus on executive agencies as much as legislative agencies. In fact, executive work may be more important because it has an immediate effect on how law is implemented.

New Link: Networked Governance

I'm increasingly convinced that the most important service I can offer my students (even more than instructing them in the basic principles of democratic government) is to introduce and connect them to the political networks that control the bulk of what government does. I am still determining how best to do this in fits and starts, but here's a website that I am now linking to that shows how seriously academia is taking the subject:

The Program on Networked Governance.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Aubrey v. Kippers

Two guys go head to head on ning over whether we make it too easy to vote.

We need your input. Jump into the conversation.

The Bailout

I have no idea what to say about this thing, except that it's huge--bigger than the stimulus. Again, we will pick this apart in class, but here's some text from Slate's Today's Paper to get us going:

The much-anticipated announcement turned out to be a big letdown. The New York Times highlights that the administration's plan to rescue the nation's financial system that was unveiled by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "is far bigger than anyone predicted and envisions a far greater government role in markets and banks than at any time since the 1930s." The administration said it's committed to spending as much as $2.5 trillion in the effort. But Wall Street quickly gave the plan "a resounding thumbs down," as USA Today puts it, because it was short on some very key details that made clear the plan is very much a work in progress. The Wall Street Journal points out that the markets experienced the worst sell-off since President Obama moved into the White House as stocks plunged nearly 5 percent sending the market "to its lowest level since Nov. 20."

Investors weren't alone in their unhappiness with the plan. Lawmakers were also quick to criticize Geithner for failing to provide more details on how the administration plans to deal with the ongoing mess. "What they did is over-promise and under-deliver," the head of a
private investment firm tells the Washington Post. "They said there was going to be a plan, so everybody expected a plan. And there was nothing." The Los Angeles Times says that the lack of details in the announcement "reflects a double bind for the Obama administration." It's become clear that the problems in the financial system are bigger than expected and could require more money to fix, but at the same time Congress has grown even angrier at Wall Street, which makes it highly unlikely that lawmakers would approve more funding for the effort.

That Didn't Take Long

I don't know how long it usually takes conference committees to do their work, but this seems fast.

An agreement has been reached which further whittles down the cost of the package.

The members of the conference committee were:

Inouye, Baucus, Reid, Cochran, and Grassley from the Senate and Obey, Rangel, Waxman, Lewis (CA), and Camp from the House.

We will start to pick apart the specific provisions soon. This link from the NYT should be helpful.

Are we in a Depression?

How would we know?

A New Widget: The Change-o-Meter

I added a (rather large) widget to the site, Slate's change-o-meter, which purports to track Obama's success in actually changing the tone in Washington.

Especially for my 2302s, the addition should help us come to a fuller understanding of how the three branches actually work (if work is the appropriate verb).

My 2301s might benefit from the discussion of politics implicit in its content.

One two-fold question we may want to ask is whether Obama can in fact change the tone in Washington (are its behaviors sown in its nature-as Madison might say?) of if we really want the tone changed. We tend to criticize how Washington acts without really determining whether another way is truly better, and if so how?

This could be a good discussion question for ning.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A New Toy: Ning

I started a social network on ning sometime ago, but haven't advertised it since I don't want you to get confused with too many online options.

The site promises to provide an interesting way to communicate with each other and I'd like to invite you to join up and see what we can do with it. I might be convinced to give some extra credit to any of you who help me figure out the best way to use the site in class.

Check it out: http://theweakerparty.ning.com/

A Special Request

Anonymous wonders where my post on Obama's press conference is. Here goes.

Since I like to tailor comments to class subject matter, I'll consider it in terms of checks and balances. We just witnessed the executive going public. If successful, it gives him leverage against Congress.

Going public is an extra constitutional strategy where the executive effectively attempts to go over the heads of Congress and take his case directly to the American people. This may include a plea for the public to contact members of Congress and ask them to go back the president's agenda. If the president is more popular than Congress, this can be an effective strategy since a comparatively less popular member of Congress will not want to be seen as not supporting a more popular president.

Its a strategy made more effective by modern communication techniques which give the single headed -- and voiced -- executive a rhetorical advantage over the multi headed legislature, to say nothing of the silent judiciary.

Reagan is considered the master of this strategy. He often used unusual techniques like granting interviews to local news stations in order to focus pressure on congressmen from that area. A similar strategy is the permanent campaign, a term meaning that after the campaign for the office was over, campaigning continued but focused on the passage of legislation.

At this moment, Obama's numbers are better than the Republicans. He may be able to successfully rally public opinion behind him -- he's more than halfway there of course. But that remains to be seen.

Stimulus Bill Passes the Senate

As expected once the cloture vote passed, the Senate passed the stimulus bill. The vote mirrored the cloture vote.

The most interesting part of the story for me is this:

In debate before today's Senate vote, Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) sought to distance the legislation from Obama, who is riding a wave of post-inauguration popularity. He said Republicans had expected Obama to be the author of the stimulus plan. Instead, "it ended up being written by some of the longest-serving Democrats in the House of Representatives, and it showed," McConnell said.

He charged that "Senate Democrats produced a bill that fell so far short" that an eventual compromise "wasn't much better than the original House or Senate bills." Even more worrisome to Republicans than the bill's spending provisions, he said, was "the permanent expansion of government programs" it entails.

"The president was right to call for a stimulus, but this bill misses the mark," McConnell said. "It's full of waste. We have no assurance it will create jobs or revive the economy. The only thing we know for sure is that it increases our debt and locks in bigger and bigger interest payments every single year. In short, we're taking an enormous risk -- an enormous risk -- with other people's money. On behalf of taxpayers, I won't take that risk."


The bill was already in process before Obama was inaugurated, so it isn't his. Republicans know that, at least for now, Obama's honeymoon continues--his approval ratings are in the mid 70s. This isn't case for Democrats in Congress, so they are better off taking them on.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Grand Jury Reform in Harris County

An opinion piece in the Chron argues for reform, but against the reform now being proposed.

Harris County stands out as one of the only major metropolitan areas in the country and one of the few counties in Texas that still uses a "key-man" system for selecting grand jurors. Under this system, a judge selects a "commissioner" who then seeks volunteers for grand jury service. Not surprisingly, the grand juries that emerge from this process tend to reflect the race, gender and political leanings of the commissioners who seat them.

Grand juries serve an incredibly important role in our system of justice. They are responsible for screening the prosecution's facts and deciding whether to issue felony indictments. Grand jurors must meet certain minimum qualifications and must be willing to serve for a term of up to two days a week for three months for $40 per day. In the past, commissioners were typically acquaintances of judges, court personnel or even law enforcement officers. One court, for example, appointed the court bailiff to nominate jurors; another asked the court reporter to handle the task; and a third court used county probation officers to drum up "volunteers."

Once selected by a system that was predominantly white and conservative, commissioners tended to surprise! gravitate toward other white conservatives. Grand jurors were culled from meetings of civic organizations or the pews of churches attended by the commissioners. As a result, the racial makeup of Harris County grand juries simply did not reflect the community at large.


The authors call for a selection process that mirrors the process for selecting people for petit juries.

The Employee Free Choice Act

A recently introduced bill worth watching.

Texas Democrats to Influence Choice of Federal Judges in the State

From Capitol Annex:

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Texas’ Democrats in Congress are making noise about the selection of judicial nominees from Texas, given that the state’s two senators are both Republicans and likely wouldn’t have too many decent suggestions to make to President Barack Obama.

This coupled with Democratic success in recent judicial racs in the state suggest that things might be different in the state.

The story includes a potential controversy since the Senate is given the power to advise and consent. This should be interesting to 2302 students

John Cornyn: NRSC Chair

Our own Senator Cornyn is the Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and is determining how best to orient his party for the 2010 elections.

Who Are the Senate Centrists?

Conventional wisdom holds that Senate centrists (like the group of 20 senators who engineered the changes in the Senate stimulus package) hold the balance of power in this Senate, but I've yet to find out exactly who these people are.

Still Looking.

Here's criticism about their influence:

...centrist Senators exist to take politics as usual - whether it's tax cuts in Republican eras, or spending splurges in Democratic ones - and make it ever so slightly more fiscally responsible. So if the GOP wants, say, $500 billion in tax cuts, the country clearly needs $400 billion in tax cuts - but not a penny more! And if the Democrats want $900 billion in stimulus, then the best possible policy outcome must be ... $800 billion in stimulus! To read this Arlen Specter op-ed, justifying both the stimulus package and the cuts the "gang of moderates" have attempted to impose, is to encounter a mind incapable of thinking about policy in any terms save these: Take what the party in power wants, subtract as much money as you can without infuriating them, vote yes, and declare victory.

In short, centrists resist the fundamental changes in how government works that Obama campaigned on.

Are Party Line Votes a Good Thing?

Critics are blasting Republicans in Congress for not being bipartisan, and voting almost unanimously against the stimulus bill. They suggest that the party is voting against the bill for purely partisan reasons. They believe, maybe even hope, that the stimulus will fail and they will be able to use this as a campaign item against Democrats in 2010.

But it is just as easy to say that they should stake a position against the bill, and even further that the health of American democracy depends on their taking a position against the bill.

Its the argument made by supporters of responsible parties. Very simply it holds that democracy in the United States ultimately comes down to a choice between two parties, and these two parties must take clear and distinct positions on issues if voters are to be able to make an intelligent choice in the ballot box. If there is no distinction between the parties, there is no real choice for the voter to make.

By taking a position against the stimulus bill, the Republicans will give voters an option in 2010 if the bill does not work as advertised. Of course they stand to lose if the bill does have a positive impact on the economy, but them's the breaks.

Stimulus Survives Filibuster Attempt in the Senate

I was wrong in class today when I predicted that Republicans would not filibuster the stimulus bill. A cloture vote was passed this evening in order to stop, or prevent a filibuster. This should guarantee passage of the bill, which will then lead to a conference committee where changes in the Senate bill will be reconciled with the bill that passed the House.

Three Republican Senators voted for the bill:
- Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. (up for reelection in 2010)
- Susan Collins of Maine. (up for reelection in 2014)
- Olympia Snowe of Maine. (up for reelection in 2012)

I mention when each is up for reelection since I suggested that senators who voted for the bill would likely be those who did not have to face the voters in 2010. Not the case obviously. As in the House, the Republican caucus seems to have held together.

The two key changes involved cuts to funds for state and local government to help them make up shortfalls due to diminished revenues caused by the recession, and funds to assist with school construction projects. Now we should expect a battle between the Democrats in each chamber over the projects taken out in the Senate. If they are placed back into the bill, will the three Republicans continue to support the bill?

Manvel Town Center

Despite the bad economy, long awaited development on the corner of highways 6 and 288 may be set to begin. From Mayor Martin's Blog:

Jerry Argovitz and his Manvel Town Center at the Northwest corner of SH288 and SH6 have received the City of Manvel’s consent for their MUD and are proceeding with drainage approval, development agreements and possibly a TIRZ or a 380 agreement. They want to have everything in place when the time is right to begin.

See Manvel Town Center.

Free Days Wednesday and Thursday

In order to catch up on grading and give you (my lecture students) a break from the heavy load you've had from me, Wednesday and Thursday (Feb 11 and 12) will be free days. I'll be here if you have questions for me, but take a break otherwise. I'll wrap any material we would normally cover in this week's quiz, with next weeks.

Texas House Committee Assignments About to be Made

The Chron says its the first test of Straus' leadership:

Rookie House Speaker Joe Straus, a popular Republican from San Antonio, faces his first big test this week as he considers who to pick for plum committee assignments — and who he'll have to disappoint.

Straus says he hopes to announce House committee choices this week, and despite his nice-guy persona, it will be impossible to make everyone happy.

"This requires you to basically tell all the House members how you rank them," said Ross Ramsey, editor of the political Web site Texas Weekly. "The people who get the really great committee assignments ... are kind of the leaders in the House."

All representatives in the 150-member House are assigned to committees — Appropriations and Public Education, for example — and that's where much of the work of the Legislature is done. It's where bills get their start and are crafted. Many of them die there, too. Being named chairman, or getting on a top panel like Appropriations, can be a great source of influence.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

2302; This Week we Focus on the Stimulus Bill

This week, in 2302, we will be discussing the organizations that makes Congress and the Texas Legislature tick: political parties, committees, supporting organizations and caucuses.

The stimulus bill gives us a great framework to hang this discussion on. Tomorrow we will start by reviewing where the bill is right now and the arguments on either side and then look at the bill making process as it stands.

We will look at where party leaders stand and, to the degree we can, determine how they are mobilizing the troops on either side. We will also look at the committees that the bill passed through on the way to the floor of each chamber. These are:

- House Appropriations.
- House Budget.
- Committee of the Whole.

The Committee of the Whole is a new one for me. I know what it is, but I can't remember it being used before. This is probably an indication of the importance of the bill to everyone in Congress. The Senate does not seem to have considered sending it to a committee and sent it straight to the floor.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Has pancreatic cancer, which leads to speculation about a possible replacement should the need arise.

If Justice Ginsburg is forced from the court for health reasons, it would increase the possibility of a second vacancy from among her aging colleagues, like Justice John Paul Stevens, who will turn 89 in April.

In preparation for a vacancy, senior Obama advisers have already discussed possible candidates. Many lawyers and court scholars believe that Mr. Obama would be obliged to choose a woman as his first court selection. If Justice Ginsburg were to leave the court, the political imperative to choose a woman would only increase.

Among women on the list of possible candidates are
Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge in New York; Diane P. Wood, a federal appeals court judge in Chicago; and Elena Kagan, who was the dean at Harvard Law School and was recently nominated to be solicitor general.

Other possible candidates, say court watchers, academics and lawyers, is
Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, a friend of Mr. Obama and a former Justice Department official; Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale Law School; and Merrick B. Garland, a federal appeals court judge in Washington.

The list also includes
Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard and former colleague of Mr. Obama at the University of Chicago Law School who has been named administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

This is the closet we get to the death watch monarchies and totalitarian regimes suffer through.

Procedural Justice ...

... is not necessarily substantive justice.

Lisa Falkenberg reports on an apparent shift in Texas' attitudes about whether innocent people, who received trials with no procedural irregularities, should be executed if they were found guilty of capital murder.

A few years back, it was no big deal:

The State of Texas argued before the nation’s highest court that it was OK to execute an innocent person, as long as he got a fair trial.

The most chilling exchange came when a justice asked the assistant attorney general arguing for Texas, Margaret Griffey, whether the state would maintain that same position if video evidence conclusively proved the person didn’t commit the crime. The justice wanted to know: Is there a violation of that person’s constitutional rights if he were executed anyway because no court would hear the video evidence?

“No, Your Honor, there is not,” Griffey replied.

The justices continued to probe, as if needing clarification of what they were hearing.
If everyone agrees that the evidence establishes innocence, another justice inquired, but the jury just made a mistake, “is there a constitutional right under the Eighth Amendment (which bars cruel and unusual punishment) not to be executed when you’re innocent? That’s the issue. And you’re saying no, there’s no such right.”

“That is what I’m saying, Your Honor,” said Griffey.

The argument was in Herrera v. Collins. She reports that the Attorney General's office has had a change of heart on this. Nice to know.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

An Old Issue Resurfaces

Karl Rove is subpoenaed again to testify before Congress, and again is claiming executive privilege.

Party Line Vote: SCHIP Re-authorization

We also see a party line vote on the recently passed legislation reauthorizing the Childrens' Health Insurance Program.

- Bill info from Thomas.
- The House Vote.
- The Senate Vote.

For background:

- The Heritage Foundation: Children's Health Care/SCHIP
- Analysis from the CBO.

Party Line Vote: Lilly Ledbetter

We will be discussing parties in Congress, including the tendency of recent Congress' to divide cleanly parties when they vote (party line voting).

The recent votes on the Lilly Ledbetter Act almost perfectly divided along party lines. The civil rights conscious Democrats on one side, the pro-business Republicans on the other.

The House Vote.
The Senate Vote.

Tax Breaks for Homeowners Added to Senate Version of the Stimulus Bill

From Yahoo News:

The Senate voted Wednesday night to give a tax break of up to $15,000 to homebuyers in hopes of revitalizing the housing industry, a victory for Republicans eager to leave their mark on a mammoth economic stimulus bill at the heart of President Barack Obama's recovery plan.

The tax break was adopted without dissent, and came on a day in which Obama pushed back pointedly against Republican critics of the legislation even as he reached across party lines to consider scaling back spending.

Republicans have been prioritizing tax breaks and appear to be gaining concessions.

Voter ID Showdown

I'll go out on a limb and predict that SB 362 will be the most controversial bill this legislative session.

That's an easy call.

Unreasonable Searches?

Are searches of HISD employees constitutional?

I smell a potential Supreme Court case.

But given the status of the exclusionary, all bets are off.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Compromise on the Stimulus Bill

James Madison tells us that the purpose of the constitutional design of the U.S. (the separation of powers and indirect democracy) is to ensure that diverse interests will develop and force compromise.

The current debate over the stimulus bill, forced by constitutional design, might be an example of this compromise in action.

Making it Easier for Independents to get on the Ballot in Texas

States are responsible for laws governing their own elections. The national government places some limits on state discretion (like in the Voting Rights Act) and the Supreme Court weighs in on certain issues when salient (like the controversy over Voter ID) but mostly leaves them alone.

Texas' elections are over seen by the Elections Division of the Texas Secretary of State's office, and detailed in periodic updates to the Texas Election Laws. The nature of these laws, of course, are determined by the Texas Legislature.

Capitol Annex reports on the introduction of a bill that would make it easier for independent candidates to get on the ballot:

Under current law, independent candidates for public office in Texas are required to gather signatures to accompany their petitions to gain ballot access. The number of signatures varies. It is one percent of the total vote received by all candidates for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election for a statewide office, and the lesser of 500 or five percent of the total vote for all candidates for governor in the general election within the confines of the district, (with exceptions in districts with low voter turnout) or 500 for district, county, or precinct positions.

Ortiz’s bill would reduce the number to 500 signatures for a statewide office, and the lesser of 100 or two percent of the total gubernatorial vote within the district for district, county, or precinct positions. To give one some idea of how much difference there is between the current standards and those proposed by Ortiz’s bill, independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman were each required to gather a minimum of 45,540 signatures to gain ballot access as independents in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Both Strayhorn and Friedman each turned in hundreds of thousands of signatures, with each having well more than 100,000 signatures on their petitions declared valid.

Dewhurst Makes Committee Assignments for the Texas Senate

Capitol Annex says they cater to the Republican Party's right wing.

Is Limbaugh Being Played?

The Obama / Limbaugh continues to intrigue commentators, and some wonder who is getting the best of it. One of the arguments being made is that Limbaugh is being played by the White House. Obama deliberately provoked Limbaugh with the expectation that he would not only respond disproportionately, but would use his base of listeners to rally against Republicans who seemed warm to Obama's proposals. Frank Rich argues that this seems in fact to have occurred:

While most Americans are fearing fear itself, G.O.P. politicians are tripping over themselves in morbid terror of Rush.

These pratfalls commenced after
Obama casually told some Republican congressmen (correctly) that they won’t “get things done” if they take their orders from Limbaugh. That’s all the stimulus the big man needed to go on a new bender of self-aggrandizement. He boasted that Obama is “more frightened” of him than he is of the Republican leaders in the House or Senate. He said of the new president, “I hope he fails.”

Obama no doubt finds Limbaugh’s grandiosity more amusing than frightening, but G.O.P. politicians are shaking like Jell-O. When asked by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News on Wednesday if he shared Limbaugh’s hope that Obama fails, Eric Cantor
spun like a top before running off, as it happened, to appear on Limbaugh’s radio show. Mike Pence of Indiana, No. 3 in the Republican House leadership, similarly squirmed when asked if he agreed with Limbaugh. Though the Republicans’ official, poll-driven line is that they want Obama to succeed, they’d rather abandon that disingenuous nicety than cross Rush.

Most pathetic of all was Phil Gingrey, a right-wing Republican congressman from Georgia, who
mildly criticized both Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to Politico because they “stand back and throw bricks” while lawmakers labor in the trenches. So many called Gingrey’s office to complain that the poor congressman begged Limbaugh to bring him on air to publicly recant on Wednesday. As Gingrey abjectly apologized to talk radio’s commandant for his “stupid comments” and “foot-in-mouth disease,” he sounded like the inmate in a B-prison-movie cowering before the warden after a failed jailbreak.

Why is this important? Ben Smith, writing in Politico.com, has a hunch. One of the advantages that the Republicans now enjoy is not being saddled under an unpopular president. They can distance themselves from W. Bush, and no longer be identified by him. So what Democrats need, is a person almost as unpopular as Bush to associate with the Republicans, and guess who that might be?

A poll from past November showed that 59% of likely voters were "cold" towards President Bush, the worst showing for a Republican. Coming in second, at 51%, was Rush Limbaugh. If he becomes regarded as the leader of the party, that marginalizes the party already, but it gets worse. Limbaugh fans are very passionate about him and seemingly will do his business, like call Republican members of Congress to criticize them for not towing Rush's line. 23% of the public feels "warm" towards Limbaugh, so that suggests tells us that a minority in the general population is pulling the Republican Party further to the right, and away from the moderate voters who tend to select winners in elections.

The caveat is that the next election is a congressional election in 2010, and turnout among moderates tends to be low during these elections. 23% may be enough to cause sufficient damage.