Friday, January 29, 2010
The Supreme Court and Public Opinion
While the United States Supreme Court is designed to not respond to public opinion, it matters and is often taken into consideration when the court considers the timing of its decisions. This Slate article wonders whether their timing was off on Citizens United and whether their public support might suffer for it.
Congressional Budget Office Report Not Good
The Congressional Budget Office has issued a report that predicts the economy will not turn around anytime soon.
William Galston spells out the obvious.
Wikipedia: Congressional Budget Office.
William Galston spells out the obvious.
Wikipedia: Congressional Budget Office.
The State of the Union Speech Annotated
You might find James Fallows comments on the wording and imagery of this week's speech interesting.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
About Pollsters ...
This is a bit of a hit job on Frank Luntz -- the man who worked out the wording of the Contract with America -- but it touches on the dark side of polling, so it's worth a read.
Oversight: Treasury Secretary Faces Congress
From the Washington Post:
Nearly a year after Geithner was confirmed, his actions to rescue the financial system -- first as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as Obama's initial Treasury secretary -- have made him a lightning rod for discontent with the Obama administration.
Geithner will come under fire again Wednesday when he faces questions at a hearing on Capitol Hill about his role in bailing out the insurer American International Group while he was New York Fed president. The grilling comes as lawmakers from both parties are becoming more aggressive in challenging Obama over federal rescue efforts, which have helped bring huge profits to Wall Street but have failed to significantly trim the ranks of the jobless.
With populist fervor putting Democrats in electoral jeopardy, lawmakers took aim in recent days at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, another key figure behind the bailout,
This applies to our discussions of both checks and balances (in 2301) and congressional oversight authority (in 2302).
Nearly a year after Geithner was confirmed, his actions to rescue the financial system -- first as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as Obama's initial Treasury secretary -- have made him a lightning rod for discontent with the Obama administration.
Geithner will come under fire again Wednesday when he faces questions at a hearing on Capitol Hill about his role in bailing out the insurer American International Group while he was New York Fed president. The grilling comes as lawmakers from both parties are becoming more aggressive in challenging Obama over federal rescue efforts, which have helped bring huge profits to Wall Street but have failed to significantly trim the ranks of the jobless.
With populist fervor putting Democrats in electoral jeopardy, lawmakers took aim in recent days at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, another key figure behind the bailout,
This applies to our discussions of both checks and balances (in 2301) and congressional oversight authority (in 2302).
Obama Asserts Himself as Party Leader
From the NYT:
President Obama is reconstituting the team that helped him win the White House to counter Republican challenges in the midterm elections and recalibrate after political setbacks that have narrowed his legislative ambitions.
Mr. Obama has asked his former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to oversee House, Senate and governor’s races to stave off a hemorrhage of seats in the fall. The president ordered a review of the Democratic political operation — from the White House to party committees — after last week’s Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, aides said.
This is useful for 2301 since it touches on party leadership and 2302 because it addresses one of the unofficial roles president's play: party leader.
President Obama is reconstituting the team that helped him win the White House to counter Republican challenges in the midterm elections and recalibrate after political setbacks that have narrowed his legislative ambitions.
Mr. Obama has asked his former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to oversee House, Senate and governor’s races to stave off a hemorrhage of seats in the fall. The president ordered a review of the Democratic political operation — from the White House to party committees — after last week’s Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, aides said.
This is useful for 2301 since it touches on party leadership and 2302 because it addresses one of the unofficial roles president's play: party leader.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Top Political Contributors in Texas
From the Texas Tribune, a list of the top twenty political contributors in Texas this electoral cycle thus far.
WIll Republicans Become Overconfident?
Ed Kilgore counsels the party against overinterpreting the results of last week's special election.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Golden-Rule Federalism
With apologies to National Journal I've copied a subscription only article that describes recent changes in federalism driven by the recession, and the pressures placed on state revenues by diminishing tax bases, and the federal funds made available by the recent stimulus bill. The term golden rule federalism refers to the old maxim: he who has the gold makes the rules. Are poorer states falling more under federal mandates due to their need for federal money?
----
Education Secretary Arne Duncan had some harsh words for Wisconsin's education laws during a November visit to Madison. He complained that the state's policies, particularly its cap on charter schools and its refusal to use test data in evaluating teachers, were antiquated, unacceptable, and even "ridiculous."
Rather than take offense, his hosts acted quickly to appease him.
The very next day, Wisconsin's Assembly and Senate passed a package of four bills designed to bring the state in line with Duncan's vision. In so doing, Wisconsin became the 10th state in 2009 to alter its education laws to please the Education secretary.
The reason is money. Last year's economic stimulus law provided Duncan with $4.35 billion to give to states that pursue innovations in education. The so-called Race to the Top fund is competitive: All the states want a share of the money, and the Education secretary can give out the aid largely as he sees fit, without having to rely on any set formula.
But there is not enough money to go around, which is why the states are doing everything they can to satisfy Duncan. No other Education secretary has ever had that much cash at his disposal. "There's no question those of us in Wisconsin want to have as strong an application as we can to get at the $4.35 billion," said John Lehman, who chairs the state Senate Education Committee. "It is true that there is a big carrot that got people thinking."
The Obama administration has been using a lot of carrots to elicit support for its policy goals, from forcing states to accept new Medicaid recipients to cracking down on distracted drivers. With states facing their worst financial outlook in decades, they are becoming increasingly reliant on money from Washington. "It wouldn't surprise me if federal funding ends up being 40 percent of state budgets" during the current fiscal year, said Marcia Howard, executive director of Federal Funds Information for States, which on behalf of state legislators and governors tracks federal grant money. Federal dollars -- dominated by Medicaid funds -- made up just over 25 percent of state spending as recently as 2008 before jumping to 30 percent for the fiscal year that ended in most states last June.
With so much money being transferred from Washington to state capitals, the administration is practicing what might be called golden-rule federalism: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
"The fact that states are so broke offers unprecedented opportunities for the federal government to intrude into areas that were strictly the purview of states," said Sujit CanagaRetna, a senior fiscal analyst with the Council of State Governments.
President Obama thus presents a paradox when it comes to federalism. Barely five years out of the Illinois Legislature, he has expressed more genuine interest in collaborating with the lower levels of government than perhaps any other president since Jimmy Carter. Several Cabinet secretaries have been working together to craft joint programs to find a more coherent approach to matching federal efforts with local programs. Obama's Office of Management and Budget and the newly created White House Office of Urban Affairs are pushing all federal departments and agencies to do likewise.
"We've absolutely come to some sort of turning point, where the sheer amounts of money now are much more decisive.'' -- Matt Spalding, Heritage Foundation
But at the same time, Obama is clearly presiding over a greater centralization of power and policy-making in Washington. It was inevitable that states would have to cede ground that they had been able to hold for themselves in recent years, given a president determined to set his own mark in a swath of domestic policy areas, such as education and health care. But the states' growing dependence on Washington for aid has greatly accelerated the shift.
And their ability to set their own courses as independent actors is diminishing. "This is an administration that doesn't take the states and locals as it finds them -- it has an agenda," says Paul Posner, a federalism expert at George Mason University. "The agenda they have is not framed in terms of helping state and local governments with their problems, but in pushing their own goals."
Innovation On Uncle Sam's Dime
In July 2007, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared together on the cover of Time magazine under the headline "Who Needs Washington?" State and local governments were then passing dozens of laws in areas where Washington was paralyzed, including immigration, climate change, and expansion of health coverage. States had also taken the lead in regulatory areas where Washington appeared moribund, such as financial services and tobacco. There was a feeling among governors and mayors that Washington was so partisan and so distracted by the Iraq war that more and more domestic policy-making would fall on their shoulders.
"You had a period of rapid state innovation right across the board," said Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. "That's stopped mostly because of the budget impact, so the pendulum has clearly swung toward Washington."
States have collectively had to cover more than $250 billion in budget shortfalls over the past two years. In 2009, their revenue collections dropped by double digits in every quarter -- the worst performance in at least 50 years. States were able to use stimulus dollars to close approximately 40 percent of their deficits last year, but a recent Rockefeller Institute of Government study suggests that they have lost twice as much money to falling tax collections as they have gained in federal largesse.
Even as the economy begins to grow, tax collections will lag. "Our data show at that at the state level, [revenue] growth over the next five to 10 years will be roughly half what we've seen over the last 30," said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. Three percent annual revenue growth is "the new normal for states" if they're lucky.
If states during the Bush years were moving forward on issues where Washington was stuck, the reality is that they were able to push ahead on the cheap. Although some states spent a few billion dollars on stem-cell research, other policies cost them next to nothing. Twenty-nine states have adopted renewable-energy standards, putting forward such goals as requiring utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. But switching to wind and solar power is going to cost the utility companies -- not state governments -- money. And regional cap-and-trade systems, such as the Northeastern states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, bring in revenue from energy users.
In recent years, states from Vermont to Washington have undertaken ambitious expansions of health coverage, particularly for children. Although driven by individual states, these efforts were largely financed by the federal government through Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Massachusetts' much-discussed 2006 health reform law, which mandated that most individuals had to purchase insurance, was primarily spurred by a desire among state lawmakers to preserve a $385 million pot of federal health dollars. In 2008, Massachusetts received an additional federal waiver that allowed the state to spend another $1.4 billion in federal dollars annually on its health insurance plan.
In other words, state health coverage experiments -- much like the changes in welfare that were pioneered by Wisconsin and other states before becoming enshrined in federal law in 1996 -- have been conducted largely on the federal dime. That's unlikely to be the model going forward. Instead of coming up with new programs, many states are now engaged in serious debates about what core services they can afford to provide.
States also are going to be much busier trying to meet federal goals than pioneering new approaches of their own. "I don't see this administration supporting a federalism where we provide more money for governors and mayors to focus on their plans and initiatives," Posner said. "The focus will be on national goals. I can see this administration pursuing additional ways to put money down in the state and local sector but tying it to strong national goals. It's going to have to be a twofer."
Block Grants And State Sovereignty
It has always been the case that when states and local governments cut spending, they try to spare federal programs. After all, if the federal government is paying 50 percent of a program's cost, they would have to cut $2 in spending just to save $1 for their own treasury. Not surprisingly, state budgets have long been subject to federal whims, both through the creation of programs that impose new mandates and the simple expansion of the federal government.
The modern state budget was born, in fact, during the Great Depression. States expanded their budgets and operations to handle new responsibilities, including doling out federal funds to the unemployed. And because states were either in or near default during the Depression, they adopted income and sales taxes, which had originated among local authorities. "Revenue raised from state sources increased 250 percent from 1927 to 1940 because of the widespread adoption of taxes that had been insignificant or nonexistent before 1930," according to a March report from National Conference of State Legislatures.
If state spending tended to increase during federal expansions under Democratic administrations, Republican presidents took a different tack. Under the Nixon and Reagan models, block grants meant offering states less money but more flexibility. Their proposals had the dual purpose of reining in spending and giving states more authority.
It's the opposite of Obama's approach, which is more in line with Lyndon Johnson's during the Great Society -- finding innovative ways to use grants to get states and localities to pursue federal policy goals. "In the absence of reauthorization of some of the grant programs, the Obama administration is using regulations to impose their agenda," said Marcia Howard of Federal Funds Information for States, a joint project of the NCSL and the governors association. "You could call it a heavy federal hand, but it's more inducements, using more carrots than sticks to get states to do what they'd like them to do."
In response, many state officials complain that federal priorities are starting to crowd out their own. This may sound a little ungrateful. The influx of federal dollars may be edging out other parts of state budgets on a percentage basis, but it's not as if their absence would allow states to spend more in areas such as corrections or parks. As things now stand, states would simply have less to spend.
Some states have heatedly invoked the 10th Amendment in stressing supposed limits on federal policy-making. Legislative chambers in Texas and North Dakota approved resolutions last year proclaiming state sovereignty and demanding an immediate end to federal mandates not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.
But it looks increasingly as if the Republican governors who opposed the stimulus -- and appeared at the time merely to be seeking to score partisan points -- had a valid argument. South Carolina's Mark Sanford, Mississippi's Haley Barbour, and others noted that it would be a mistake to accept federal money that obligates them to continue the spending when the federal pipeline runs dry a year or two later. As that time draws nearer on such programs as unemployment insurance and energy-efficiency block grants, more of their colleagues are worried about what they'll do when the funding drops off.
And federal money, even as it continues, is far from cost-free. "We've absolutely come to some sort of turning point, where the sheer amounts of money now are much more decisive, which means political control is much more decisive," said Matt Spalding, director of American studies at the Heritage Foundation. "The default policy response more and more is toward central Washington control, because at the end of the day, what really drives policy when you have the federal government putting all the money into the pot is that the decisions are all being made by federal regulators."
Even with the influx, states are still raising the majority of their own money, and they can certainly set their own course on state-level programs such as prisons and parks. But with federal dollars making up a much larger share of state revenues, it is true that the pipers out of Washington are going to be calling the tune much more often than they have in the recent past.
The Sheriff Has His Priorities
Obama's instincts are not those of a centralizer. Nearly every state and local government lobbying group readily concedes that outreach and access are much improved on his watch. They say that his administration attempts to take a collaborative approach whenever it can, with a special interest in reshaping the interaction between the federal government and metropolitan regions. The Office of Management and Budget has sent guidance to all federal agencies instructing them to find ways to work together on joint programs affecting regions. The White House regularly convenes working groups that attract top-level agency officials to address these questions, while also looking for ways to encourage more cooperation among often-squabbling local jurisdictions within regions. For instance, the Housing and Urban Development Department has been sharing its expertise in working with local governments with departments such as Energy and Transportation, as well as agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
"You do want the federal government to say, 'These are the goals,' but not to dictate the specifics," said MarySue Barrett, president of Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council. She summarizes the White House position this way: "We're going to set the standards, and here's some help to meet those standards, but we're not going to tell you how to do it."
Obama went so far in May as to issue a memorandum directing federal agencies not to pre-empt state and local laws when they didn't have to (although he certainly didn't diminish their authority to do so). His administration has deferred to lower levels of government in areas where it was conducive to constituency politics. In October, the Justice Department announced that it would (in most cases) not prosecute suppliers of medical marijuana who were in compliance with state laws. Four months earlier, EPA signed off on a waiver long sought by California and 13 other states to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles.
"This is an administration that doesn't take the states and locals as it finds them -- it has an agenda." -- Paul Posner, George Mason University
Like every administration -- and more quickly than most -- Obama's White House may have recognized that it needs state and local governments to carry out much of its program. But despite its care in consulting with them and in seeking ways to foster regional economic growth, this administration mostly treats state and local governments in just that way -- as a means for carrying out its own agenda.
State grant proposals are receiving an unprecedented level of dollar-by-dollar scrutiny not only from the operating agencies to which they apply but also from OMB and the Office of the Vice President. (Obama called Joe Biden the "sheriff" of stimulus spending.) States and localities are now required to supply much more information about how they are spending federal dollars. The stimulus law contained $250 million for enforcement, and the Government Accountability Office has sent auditors into 16 states to watch over their stimulus spending. It's a level of accountability that the administration clearly intends to keep up long after the stimulus runs out.
"This is a secretary and a president who believe strongly in evidence-based policy-making," said Erika Poethig, a deputy assistant secretary at HUD for policy development and research. "Part of that means evaluation, but it also means coming up with clarity around what the purpose of the program is. There's a high degree of commitment to that."
This approach may be most evident when it comes to education. The administration is spending record amounts on education, and it clearly expects states to get with its program when it comes to ideas such as lifting caps on the number of charter schools and using stand-ardized test data in evaluating teachers. "States were complain-ing under [George W.] Bush because they had all these education mandates with no funding," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's. "At least with Obama they're getting the funding to match the mandates, but the mandates are increasing."
In certain ways, education-reform activists are glad that Duncan is showing states a firm hand. Recent experience, they note, suggests that the federal government can require states to do certain things -- but it can't make states do them well. Bush's 2002 No Child Left Behind law required states to use standardized tests to ensure that a rising share of their student populations were proficient in language arts and math. But the law left it up to the states to determine what "proficiency" meant, and it's clear that many of them have gamed the system to guarantee that more of their students can pass.
The question remains whether education -- a classic example of a state and local responsibility that the federal government has been involved in for only 50 years -- is best run by an agenda driven out of Washington. "It's absolutely the case that the administration is taking enormous liberties with its ability to use emergency funds, especially the stimulus, to push states into policy adoption," said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
"If one believes that there's sufficient expertise and farsightedness in Washington, that the key is to cudgel these recalcitrant states into behaving, then I'm sure this is encouraging," Hess said.
"It so happens that I actually like what they're pushing states to do, but my concern is that this model of federal leadership is problematic. The question of federalism depends on whether one actually believes there is value in the checks and balances, and the states as the laboratories of democracy."
Alan Greenblatt, a freelance writer, covered state and local government issues at Governing magazine for nine years.
----
Education Secretary Arne Duncan had some harsh words for Wisconsin's education laws during a November visit to Madison. He complained that the state's policies, particularly its cap on charter schools and its refusal to use test data in evaluating teachers, were antiquated, unacceptable, and even "ridiculous."
Rather than take offense, his hosts acted quickly to appease him.
The very next day, Wisconsin's Assembly and Senate passed a package of four bills designed to bring the state in line with Duncan's vision. In so doing, Wisconsin became the 10th state in 2009 to alter its education laws to please the Education secretary.
The reason is money. Last year's economic stimulus law provided Duncan with $4.35 billion to give to states that pursue innovations in education. The so-called Race to the Top fund is competitive: All the states want a share of the money, and the Education secretary can give out the aid largely as he sees fit, without having to rely on any set formula.
But there is not enough money to go around, which is why the states are doing everything they can to satisfy Duncan. No other Education secretary has ever had that much cash at his disposal. "There's no question those of us in Wisconsin want to have as strong an application as we can to get at the $4.35 billion," said John Lehman, who chairs the state Senate Education Committee. "It is true that there is a big carrot that got people thinking."
The Obama administration has been using a lot of carrots to elicit support for its policy goals, from forcing states to accept new Medicaid recipients to cracking down on distracted drivers. With states facing their worst financial outlook in decades, they are becoming increasingly reliant on money from Washington. "It wouldn't surprise me if federal funding ends up being 40 percent of state budgets" during the current fiscal year, said Marcia Howard, executive director of Federal Funds Information for States, which on behalf of state legislators and governors tracks federal grant money. Federal dollars -- dominated by Medicaid funds -- made up just over 25 percent of state spending as recently as 2008 before jumping to 30 percent for the fiscal year that ended in most states last June.
With so much money being transferred from Washington to state capitals, the administration is practicing what might be called golden-rule federalism: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
"The fact that states are so broke offers unprecedented opportunities for the federal government to intrude into areas that were strictly the purview of states," said Sujit CanagaRetna, a senior fiscal analyst with the Council of State Governments.
President Obama thus presents a paradox when it comes to federalism. Barely five years out of the Illinois Legislature, he has expressed more genuine interest in collaborating with the lower levels of government than perhaps any other president since Jimmy Carter. Several Cabinet secretaries have been working together to craft joint programs to find a more coherent approach to matching federal efforts with local programs. Obama's Office of Management and Budget and the newly created White House Office of Urban Affairs are pushing all federal departments and agencies to do likewise.
"We've absolutely come to some sort of turning point, where the sheer amounts of money now are much more decisive.'' -- Matt Spalding, Heritage Foundation
But at the same time, Obama is clearly presiding over a greater centralization of power and policy-making in Washington. It was inevitable that states would have to cede ground that they had been able to hold for themselves in recent years, given a president determined to set his own mark in a swath of domestic policy areas, such as education and health care. But the states' growing dependence on Washington for aid has greatly accelerated the shift.
And their ability to set their own courses as independent actors is diminishing. "This is an administration that doesn't take the states and locals as it finds them -- it has an agenda," says Paul Posner, a federalism expert at George Mason University. "The agenda they have is not framed in terms of helping state and local governments with their problems, but in pushing their own goals."
Innovation On Uncle Sam's Dime
In July 2007, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared together on the cover of Time magazine under the headline "Who Needs Washington?" State and local governments were then passing dozens of laws in areas where Washington was paralyzed, including immigration, climate change, and expansion of health coverage. States had also taken the lead in regulatory areas where Washington appeared moribund, such as financial services and tobacco. There was a feeling among governors and mayors that Washington was so partisan and so distracted by the Iraq war that more and more domestic policy-making would fall on their shoulders.
"You had a period of rapid state innovation right across the board," said Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. "That's stopped mostly because of the budget impact, so the pendulum has clearly swung toward Washington."
States have collectively had to cover more than $250 billion in budget shortfalls over the past two years. In 2009, their revenue collections dropped by double digits in every quarter -- the worst performance in at least 50 years. States were able to use stimulus dollars to close approximately 40 percent of their deficits last year, but a recent Rockefeller Institute of Government study suggests that they have lost twice as much money to falling tax collections as they have gained in federal largesse.
Even as the economy begins to grow, tax collections will lag. "Our data show at that at the state level, [revenue] growth over the next five to 10 years will be roughly half what we've seen over the last 30," said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. Three percent annual revenue growth is "the new normal for states" if they're lucky.
If states during the Bush years were moving forward on issues where Washington was stuck, the reality is that they were able to push ahead on the cheap. Although some states spent a few billion dollars on stem-cell research, other policies cost them next to nothing. Twenty-nine states have adopted renewable-energy standards, putting forward such goals as requiring utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. But switching to wind and solar power is going to cost the utility companies -- not state governments -- money. And regional cap-and-trade systems, such as the Northeastern states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, bring in revenue from energy users.
In recent years, states from Vermont to Washington have undertaken ambitious expansions of health coverage, particularly for children. Although driven by individual states, these efforts were largely financed by the federal government through Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Massachusetts' much-discussed 2006 health reform law, which mandated that most individuals had to purchase insurance, was primarily spurred by a desire among state lawmakers to preserve a $385 million pot of federal health dollars. In 2008, Massachusetts received an additional federal waiver that allowed the state to spend another $1.4 billion in federal dollars annually on its health insurance plan.
In other words, state health coverage experiments -- much like the changes in welfare that were pioneered by Wisconsin and other states before becoming enshrined in federal law in 1996 -- have been conducted largely on the federal dime. That's unlikely to be the model going forward. Instead of coming up with new programs, many states are now engaged in serious debates about what core services they can afford to provide.
States also are going to be much busier trying to meet federal goals than pioneering new approaches of their own. "I don't see this administration supporting a federalism where we provide more money for governors and mayors to focus on their plans and initiatives," Posner said. "The focus will be on national goals. I can see this administration pursuing additional ways to put money down in the state and local sector but tying it to strong national goals. It's going to have to be a twofer."
Block Grants And State Sovereignty
It has always been the case that when states and local governments cut spending, they try to spare federal programs. After all, if the federal government is paying 50 percent of a program's cost, they would have to cut $2 in spending just to save $1 for their own treasury. Not surprisingly, state budgets have long been subject to federal whims, both through the creation of programs that impose new mandates and the simple expansion of the federal government.
The modern state budget was born, in fact, during the Great Depression. States expanded their budgets and operations to handle new responsibilities, including doling out federal funds to the unemployed. And because states were either in or near default during the Depression, they adopted income and sales taxes, which had originated among local authorities. "Revenue raised from state sources increased 250 percent from 1927 to 1940 because of the widespread adoption of taxes that had been insignificant or nonexistent before 1930," according to a March report from National Conference of State Legislatures.
If state spending tended to increase during federal expansions under Democratic administrations, Republican presidents took a different tack. Under the Nixon and Reagan models, block grants meant offering states less money but more flexibility. Their proposals had the dual purpose of reining in spending and giving states more authority.
It's the opposite of Obama's approach, which is more in line with Lyndon Johnson's during the Great Society -- finding innovative ways to use grants to get states and localities to pursue federal policy goals. "In the absence of reauthorization of some of the grant programs, the Obama administration is using regulations to impose their agenda," said Marcia Howard of Federal Funds Information for States, a joint project of the NCSL and the governors association. "You could call it a heavy federal hand, but it's more inducements, using more carrots than sticks to get states to do what they'd like them to do."
In response, many state officials complain that federal priorities are starting to crowd out their own. This may sound a little ungrateful. The influx of federal dollars may be edging out other parts of state budgets on a percentage basis, but it's not as if their absence would allow states to spend more in areas such as corrections or parks. As things now stand, states would simply have less to spend.
Some states have heatedly invoked the 10th Amendment in stressing supposed limits on federal policy-making. Legislative chambers in Texas and North Dakota approved resolutions last year proclaiming state sovereignty and demanding an immediate end to federal mandates not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.
But it looks increasingly as if the Republican governors who opposed the stimulus -- and appeared at the time merely to be seeking to score partisan points -- had a valid argument. South Carolina's Mark Sanford, Mississippi's Haley Barbour, and others noted that it would be a mistake to accept federal money that obligates them to continue the spending when the federal pipeline runs dry a year or two later. As that time draws nearer on such programs as unemployment insurance and energy-efficiency block grants, more of their colleagues are worried about what they'll do when the funding drops off.
And federal money, even as it continues, is far from cost-free. "We've absolutely come to some sort of turning point, where the sheer amounts of money now are much more decisive, which means political control is much more decisive," said Matt Spalding, director of American studies at the Heritage Foundation. "The default policy response more and more is toward central Washington control, because at the end of the day, what really drives policy when you have the federal government putting all the money into the pot is that the decisions are all being made by federal regulators."
Even with the influx, states are still raising the majority of their own money, and they can certainly set their own course on state-level programs such as prisons and parks. But with federal dollars making up a much larger share of state revenues, it is true that the pipers out of Washington are going to be calling the tune much more often than they have in the recent past.
The Sheriff Has His Priorities
Obama's instincts are not those of a centralizer. Nearly every state and local government lobbying group readily concedes that outreach and access are much improved on his watch. They say that his administration attempts to take a collaborative approach whenever it can, with a special interest in reshaping the interaction between the federal government and metropolitan regions. The Office of Management and Budget has sent guidance to all federal agencies instructing them to find ways to work together on joint programs affecting regions. The White House regularly convenes working groups that attract top-level agency officials to address these questions, while also looking for ways to encourage more cooperation among often-squabbling local jurisdictions within regions. For instance, the Housing and Urban Development Department has been sharing its expertise in working with local governments with departments such as Energy and Transportation, as well as agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
"You do want the federal government to say, 'These are the goals,' but not to dictate the specifics," said MarySue Barrett, president of Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council. She summarizes the White House position this way: "We're going to set the standards, and here's some help to meet those standards, but we're not going to tell you how to do it."
Obama went so far in May as to issue a memorandum directing federal agencies not to pre-empt state and local laws when they didn't have to (although he certainly didn't diminish their authority to do so). His administration has deferred to lower levels of government in areas where it was conducive to constituency politics. In October, the Justice Department announced that it would (in most cases) not prosecute suppliers of medical marijuana who were in compliance with state laws. Four months earlier, EPA signed off on a waiver long sought by California and 13 other states to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles.
"This is an administration that doesn't take the states and locals as it finds them -- it has an agenda." -- Paul Posner, George Mason University
Like every administration -- and more quickly than most -- Obama's White House may have recognized that it needs state and local governments to carry out much of its program. But despite its care in consulting with them and in seeking ways to foster regional economic growth, this administration mostly treats state and local governments in just that way -- as a means for carrying out its own agenda.
State grant proposals are receiving an unprecedented level of dollar-by-dollar scrutiny not only from the operating agencies to which they apply but also from OMB and the Office of the Vice President. (Obama called Joe Biden the "sheriff" of stimulus spending.) States and localities are now required to supply much more information about how they are spending federal dollars. The stimulus law contained $250 million for enforcement, and the Government Accountability Office has sent auditors into 16 states to watch over their stimulus spending. It's a level of accountability that the administration clearly intends to keep up long after the stimulus runs out.
"This is a secretary and a president who believe strongly in evidence-based policy-making," said Erika Poethig, a deputy assistant secretary at HUD for policy development and research. "Part of that means evaluation, but it also means coming up with clarity around what the purpose of the program is. There's a high degree of commitment to that."
This approach may be most evident when it comes to education. The administration is spending record amounts on education, and it clearly expects states to get with its program when it comes to ideas such as lifting caps on the number of charter schools and using stand-ardized test data in evaluating teachers. "States were complain-ing under [George W.] Bush because they had all these education mandates with no funding," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's. "At least with Obama they're getting the funding to match the mandates, but the mandates are increasing."
In certain ways, education-reform activists are glad that Duncan is showing states a firm hand. Recent experience, they note, suggests that the federal government can require states to do certain things -- but it can't make states do them well. Bush's 2002 No Child Left Behind law required states to use standardized tests to ensure that a rising share of their student populations were proficient in language arts and math. But the law left it up to the states to determine what "proficiency" meant, and it's clear that many of them have gamed the system to guarantee that more of their students can pass.
The question remains whether education -- a classic example of a state and local responsibility that the federal government has been involved in for only 50 years -- is best run by an agenda driven out of Washington. "It's absolutely the case that the administration is taking enormous liberties with its ability to use emergency funds, especially the stimulus, to push states into policy adoption," said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
"If one believes that there's sufficient expertise and farsightedness in Washington, that the key is to cudgel these recalcitrant states into behaving, then I'm sure this is encouraging," Hess said.
"It so happens that I actually like what they're pushing states to do, but my concern is that this model of federal leadership is problematic. The question of federalism depends on whether one actually believes there is value in the checks and balances, and the states as the laboratories of democracy."
Alan Greenblatt, a freelance writer, covered state and local government issues at Governing magazine for nine years.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
More Evidence of Capriciousness?
First the Massachusetts election, now evidence from gubernatorial races across the country. The public wants to mad at whoever is in charge right now.
mad mad mad
mad mad mad
The Dubai Monarchy
Dubai's recent financial troubles have caused some to look critically at its monarchic structure. This is a perfect illustration of the autocratic systems we discussed in 2301 and their tendency toward arbitrary rule:
The financial crisis and now two criminal cases that have generated critical headlines in other countries have demonstrated that the emirates remain an absolute monarchy, where institutions are far less important than royalty and where the law is particularly capricious — applied differently based on social standing, religion and nationality, political experts and human rights advocates said.
“I think what we learned here the last four months is that the government, at least on a political level, is still very undeveloped,” said a financial analyst based in Dubai who asked not to be identified to avoid compromising his ability to work in the emirates. “It’s very difficult to read or interpret or understand what is going on. The institutions have not shaped up to people’s expectations.”
The most recent of the criminal cases occurred Dec. 31, when a British tourist, a Muslim, reported to the police that she was raped in a public bathroom of a luxury hotel in Dubai. Instead of being consoled, she and her fiancé, who had gone with her to report the attack, were arrested and charged with having illegal sex because they were not yet married, and with drinking alcohol in an unauthorized location.
Conservative Judicial Activism
An immediate consequence of yesterday's Citizens United decision is the accusation that conservatives are now the activists on the court. Stuart Taylor writes:
For decades conservatives have accused liberal Supreme Court majorities of judicial activism, by which I mean sweeping aside democratically adopted laws and deeply rooted societal traditions to impose their own policy preferences based on highly debatable interpretations of the Constitution's language and established meaning.On Thursday, the five more conservative justices -- and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who went well beyond anything they've said before -- forfeited whatever high ground they once held in the judicial activism debate.
Also from the National Journal, analysis of the political ramifications of the decision. Will it benefit business interests and the GOP?
- What Now For Reformers?
- GOP, Chamber Are Big Winners
- Will Corporations Rush In?
- EXPERT BLOG: In The Long Run
For decades conservatives have accused liberal Supreme Court majorities of judicial activism, by which I mean sweeping aside democratically adopted laws and deeply rooted societal traditions to impose their own policy preferences based on highly debatable interpretations of the Constitution's language and established meaning.On Thursday, the five more conservative justices -- and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who went well beyond anything they've said before -- forfeited whatever high ground they once held in the judicial activism debate.
Also from the National Journal, analysis of the political ramifications of the decision. Will it benefit business interests and the GOP?
- What Now For Reformers?
- GOP, Chamber Are Big Winners
- Will Corporations Rush In?
- EXPERT BLOG: In The Long Run
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Corporate Spending Limits Overturned
This is huge.
The Supreme Court narrowly (5-4) overturned a centuries old ban limiting spending by corporations, which presumably now have the same status as persons. Everyone expects money to flood into the political system now.
Here's text and links from from ScotusBlog: The Citizens United opinion is linkedhere. The judgment of the D.C. Circuit is reversed, in an opinion of the Court written by Justice Kennedy. Justice Stevens filed a partial dissent, which was read from the bench, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. Justice Thomas dissents in part and concurs in part.
I'm interested in whether there is any fall out from this. I also assume that this means the 5 person conservative majority sees no reason to restrain itself from overturning aggressively any law, no matter how old, which they disagree with.
The Supreme Court narrowly (5-4) overturned a centuries old ban limiting spending by corporations, which presumably now have the same status as persons. Everyone expects money to flood into the political system now.
Here's text and links from from ScotusBlog: The Citizens United opinion is linkedhere. The judgment of the D.C. Circuit is reversed, in an opinion of the Court written by Justice Kennedy. Justice Stevens filed a partial dissent, which was read from the bench, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. Justice Thomas dissents in part and concurs in part.
I'm interested in whether there is any fall out from this. I also assume that this means the 5 person conservative majority sees no reason to restrain itself from overturning aggressively any law, no matter how old, which they disagree with.
Is the American Public Rational?
So a little over a year after an angry electorate vote Democrat, they vote Republican. Is the public incoherent? Does this vindicate the indirect democracy created by the founders?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Jobs not Health Care
Charlie Cook wonders whether Obama erred in focusing on health care rather than job creation during his first year in office:
Honorable and intelligent people can disagree over the substance and details of what President Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to do on health care reform and climate change. But nearly a year after Obama's inauguration, judging by where the Democrats stand today, it's clear that they have made a colossal miscalculation.
The latest unemployment and housing numbers underscore the folly of their decision to pay so much attention to health care and climate change instead of focusing on the economy "like a laser beam," as President Clinton pledged to do during his 1992 campaign. Although no one can fairly accuse Obama and his party's leaders of ignoring the economy, they certainly haven't focused on it like a laser beam.
He continues by pointing out that economic forecasts do not look good and may impact Democrats chances in 2010, and perhaps even 2012.
Honorable and intelligent people can disagree over the substance and details of what President Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to do on health care reform and climate change. But nearly a year after Obama's inauguration, judging by where the Democrats stand today, it's clear that they have made a colossal miscalculation.
The latest unemployment and housing numbers underscore the folly of their decision to pay so much attention to health care and climate change instead of focusing on the economy "like a laser beam," as President Clinton pledged to do during his 1992 campaign. Although no one can fairly accuse Obama and his party's leaders of ignoring the economy, they certainly haven't focused on it like a laser beam.
He continues by pointing out that economic forecasts do not look good and may impact Democrats chances in 2010, and perhaps even 2012.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
How the Press Covers Politics
An important election is being held in Massachsetts today that many in the media think could spell defeat for Obama's agenda and the Democrats hope for long term dominance in Congress. A New Republic article challenges this idea, but more importantly makes some pointed comments about how the media covers politics.
The perception has formed, perhaps indelibly, that the reason Democrats will get hammered in the 2010 elections is that the party moved too far left in general and tried to reform health care in particular.
This perception owes itself, above all, to the habit that political analysts in the media and other outposts of mainstream thought have of ignoring structural factors. Any political scientist can tell you that external factors hold enormous sway over public opinion. Economic conditions tend to matter the most, but scandals, wars, personality, and other factors come into play. While the Democrats may have committed sundry mistakes, the reason for their diminished popularity that towers above all others is 10 percent unemployment.
But political analysts are more like drama critics. They follow the ins and outs of the tactical maneuverings of the players, and when the results come in, their job is to explain how the one led to the other. If you suggested to them that they should instead explain the public mood as a predictable consequence of economic conditions, rather than the outcome of one party’s strategic choices, they would look at you like you were crazy. They spend their time following every utterance and gesture of powerful politicians. Naturally, it must be those things that have the decisive effect.
This will be useful to chew over as my 2301 classes begin studying civil liberties, the First Amendment, freedom of the press and the media in general. What drives the media? And whatever that might be, is it healthy for democracy?
The perception has formed, perhaps indelibly, that the reason Democrats will get hammered in the 2010 elections is that the party moved too far left in general and tried to reform health care in particular.
This perception owes itself, above all, to the habit that political analysts in the media and other outposts of mainstream thought have of ignoring structural factors. Any political scientist can tell you that external factors hold enormous sway over public opinion. Economic conditions tend to matter the most, but scandals, wars, personality, and other factors come into play. While the Democrats may have committed sundry mistakes, the reason for their diminished popularity that towers above all others is 10 percent unemployment.
But political analysts are more like drama critics. They follow the ins and outs of the tactical maneuverings of the players, and when the results come in, their job is to explain how the one led to the other. If you suggested to them that they should instead explain the public mood as a predictable consequence of economic conditions, rather than the outcome of one party’s strategic choices, they would look at you like you were crazy. They spend their time following every utterance and gesture of powerful politicians. Naturally, it must be those things that have the decisive effect.
This will be useful to chew over as my 2301 classes begin studying civil liberties, the First Amendment, freedom of the press and the media in general. What drives the media? And whatever that might be, is it healthy for democracy?
Google v. China
As we cover types of governmental systems in 2301, the recent stories about Google's problems in China are worth considering. Google has been criticized in the past for its willingness to comply with China's need to censor the news its citizens get. Recent evidence that China has been hacking into Google's accounts has led the company to pull out of the country.
Totalitarian countries, ideally, eliminate any independent source of information their people have access to in order to control -- or attempt to control -- their thoughts. As countries prosper, as China has recently, this becomes more difficult. This is especially true when the country strikes bargains with outside companies in order to provide more creature comforts for their people. This conflict may be indicative of future internal conflicts the country faces.
For now it illustrates for us the need for repressive countries to censor information.
- Google - China Showdown may Alter Tech Game.
- China's totalitarian games - The Boston Globe.
- China Internet Censorship Explained CHINAYOUREN.
- The Golden Shield Project.
- Race to the Bottom.
- The Great Firewall of China.
Totalitarian countries, ideally, eliminate any independent source of information their people have access to in order to control -- or attempt to control -- their thoughts. As countries prosper, as China has recently, this becomes more difficult. This is especially true when the country strikes bargains with outside companies in order to provide more creature comforts for their people. This conflict may be indicative of future internal conflicts the country faces.
For now it illustrates for us the need for repressive countries to censor information.
- Google - China Showdown may Alter Tech Game.
- China's totalitarian games - The Boston Globe.
- China Internet Censorship Explained CHINAYOUREN.
- The Golden Shield Project.
- Race to the Bottom.
- The Great Firewall of China.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Forecast for 2010 National Elections
This should help my 2301 students with their second paper assignment.
The Cook Political Report's forecast of the 2010 Congressional Election.
The Cook Political Report's forecast of the 2010 Congressional Election.
The Tea Party Movement Set to Takeover the Republican Party
For 2301 mostly:
Here's a terrific story about how members of the tea party movement are working from the ground up to takeover the Republican Party, which they see as too "establishment" and "liberal" and ensure that it only promotes candidates they find acceptable.
It begins with taking over precinct chairs an works its way up from there. The only potential strategic problem is that they may, as has been observed before, pull the party so far to the right that it becomes less competitive in general elections. But perhaps the general population is more conservative than thought. It'll be interesting to watch.
Commentators often equate the tea partiers with populist movements, fueled by anger at elites (any elite). American history is peppered with such movements. A key question is going to be how long the movement can survive. All movements have life cycles. The establishment can be very patient.
Here's a terrific story about how members of the tea party movement are working from the ground up to takeover the Republican Party, which they see as too "establishment" and "liberal" and ensure that it only promotes candidates they find acceptable.
It begins with taking over precinct chairs an works its way up from there. The only potential strategic problem is that they may, as has been observed before, pull the party so far to the right that it becomes less competitive in general elections. But perhaps the general population is more conservative than thought. It'll be interesting to watch.
Commentators often equate the tea partiers with populist movements, fueled by anger at elites (any elite). American history is peppered with such movements. A key question is going to be how long the movement can survive. All movements have life cycles. The establishment can be very patient.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was established last year by Congress to investigate the causes of the financial collapse, meet yesterday and grilled the usual suspects.
- Times Topics: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
- Wikipedia: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
- Times Topics: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
- Wikipedia: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Presidential Speeches
George W. Bush's speechwriter is unimpressed with Obama's recent speeches. He calls them uninspiring.
Committee Hearings on Financial Compensation
This topic can apply to both 2301 and 2302.
The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services is scheduled to hold hearings on the level of financial compensation banks offer their employees. This has become topical since banks, large ones especially, got themselves in trouble due to risky behavior. This has been argued to be a key cause of the recent financial crisis.
For 2301, this illustrates questions about the extent of governmental power. Is this an appropriate use of governmental power? Arguments can be made for or against this.
For 2302, this applies to one of the functions of the legislature, oversight, and its delegation to a standing committee. We will hit both topics within two to three weeks.
- Website: The House Committee on Financial Services.
- Wikipedia: The House Committee on Financial Services.
The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services is scheduled to hold hearings on the level of financial compensation banks offer their employees. This has become topical since banks, large ones especially, got themselves in trouble due to risky behavior. This has been argued to be a key cause of the recent financial crisis.
For 2301, this illustrates questions about the extent of governmental power. Is this an appropriate use of governmental power? Arguments can be made for or against this.
For 2302, this applies to one of the functions of the legislature, oversight, and its delegation to a standing committee. We will hit both topics within two to three weeks.
- Website: The House Committee on Financial Services.
- Wikipedia: The House Committee on Financial Services.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
A Brewing Test Case
A federal trial in San Francisco may end up forcing the Supreme Court to rule on whether the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment makes laws against gay marriage unconstitutional.
- New Battle on California Ban
- Gay Marriage: The Case from the Left
- Oral arguments, prior convictions
- Children no requirement for marriage, trial told
- New Battle on California Ban
- Gay Marriage: The Case from the Left
- Oral arguments, prior convictions
- Children no requirement for marriage, trial told
Obama's Winning Percentage with Congress
The Congressional Quarterly finds that Obama has the best track record with Congress than any president in the past 60 years. Congress has voted with him on bills he has taken a position on about 95% of the time.
Here are some qualifiers from the Washington Post.
Here are some qualifiers from the Washington Post.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Is Politics Inherently Corrupt?
A good question by Jonathan Rauch:
On the Supreme Court's desk at the moment, ripe for a decision any day now, is a case you may have heard about. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court may decide whether to open the floodgates to unlimited political spending by business corporations. Both sides are bracing for a potential blockbuster.
Meanwhile, another case, eclipsed by Citizens United but also important, is scheduled to be heard this month by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission is not a headline-grabber, but it confronts the courts and campaign finance regulators with a critical question they would prefer to avoid. Is political gratitude a form of corruption?
read on....
On the Supreme Court's desk at the moment, ripe for a decision any day now, is a case you may have heard about. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court may decide whether to open the floodgates to unlimited political spending by business corporations. Both sides are bracing for a potential blockbuster.
Meanwhile, another case, eclipsed by Citizens United but also important, is scheduled to be heard this month by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission is not a headline-grabber, but it confronts the courts and campaign finance regulators with a critical question they would prefer to avoid. Is political gratitude a form of corruption?
read on....
Is the Filibuster Unconstitutional?
Thomas Geoghegan makes a good case that they are:
. . . the Senate, as it now operates, really has become unconstitutional: as we saw during the recent health care debacle, a 60-vote majority is required to overcome a filibuster and pass any contested bill. The founders, though, were dead set against supermajorities as a general rule, and the ever-present filibuster threat has made the Senate a more extreme check on the popular will than they ever intended.
This change to the Constitution was not the result of, say, a formal amendment, but a procedural rule adopted in 1975: a revision of Senate Rule 22, which was the old cloture rule. Before 1975, it took two-thirds of the Senate to end a filibuster, but it was the “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” filibuster: if senators wanted to stop a vote, they had to bring in the cots and the coffee and read from Grandma’s recipe for chicken soup until, unshaven, they keeled over from their own rhetorical exhaust.
For the record, nothing like Senate Rule 22 appears in the Constitution, nor was there unlimited debate until Vice President Aaron Burr presided over the Senate in the early 180os. In 1917, after a century of chaos, the Senate put in the old Rule 22 to stop unlimited filibusters. Because it was about stopping real, often distressing, floor debate, one might have been able to defend that rule under Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says, “Each house may determine the rule of its proceedings.”
As revised in 1975, Senate Rule 22 seemed to be an improvement: it required 60 senators, not 67, to stop floor debate. But there also came a significant change in de facto Senate practice: to maintain a filibuster, senators no longer had to keep talking. Nowadays, they don’t even have to start; they just say they will, and that’s enough. Senators need not be on the floor at all. They can be at home watching Jimmy Stewart on cable. Senate Rule 22 now exists to cut off what are ghost filibusters, disembodied debates.
As a result, the supermajority vote no longer deserves any protection under Article I, Section 5 — if it ever did at all. It is instead a revision of Article I itself: not used to cut off debate, but to decide in effect whether to enact a law. The filibuster votes, which once occurred perhaps seven or eight times a whole Congressional session, now happen more than 100 times a term. But this routine use of supermajority voting is, at worst, unconstitutional and, at best, at odds with the founders’ intent.
Here's more on Senate Rule 22:
- Senate.gov: Cloture.
- Wikipedia.
. . . the Senate, as it now operates, really has become unconstitutional: as we saw during the recent health care debacle, a 60-vote majority is required to overcome a filibuster and pass any contested bill. The founders, though, were dead set against supermajorities as a general rule, and the ever-present filibuster threat has made the Senate a more extreme check on the popular will than they ever intended.
This change to the Constitution was not the result of, say, a formal amendment, but a procedural rule adopted in 1975: a revision of Senate Rule 22, which was the old cloture rule. Before 1975, it took two-thirds of the Senate to end a filibuster, but it was the “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” filibuster: if senators wanted to stop a vote, they had to bring in the cots and the coffee and read from Grandma’s recipe for chicken soup until, unshaven, they keeled over from their own rhetorical exhaust.
For the record, nothing like Senate Rule 22 appears in the Constitution, nor was there unlimited debate until Vice President Aaron Burr presided over the Senate in the early 180os. In 1917, after a century of chaos, the Senate put in the old Rule 22 to stop unlimited filibusters. Because it was about stopping real, often distressing, floor debate, one might have been able to defend that rule under Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says, “Each house may determine the rule of its proceedings.”
As revised in 1975, Senate Rule 22 seemed to be an improvement: it required 60 senators, not 67, to stop floor debate. But there also came a significant change in de facto Senate practice: to maintain a filibuster, senators no longer had to keep talking. Nowadays, they don’t even have to start; they just say they will, and that’s enough. Senators need not be on the floor at all. They can be at home watching Jimmy Stewart on cable. Senate Rule 22 now exists to cut off what are ghost filibusters, disembodied debates.
As a result, the supermajority vote no longer deserves any protection under Article I, Section 5 — if it ever did at all. It is instead a revision of Article I itself: not used to cut off debate, but to decide in effect whether to enact a law. The filibuster votes, which once occurred perhaps seven or eight times a whole Congressional session, now happen more than 100 times a term. But this routine use of supermajority voting is, at worst, unconstitutional and, at best, at odds with the founders’ intent.
Here's more on Senate Rule 22:
- Senate.gov: Cloture.
- Wikipedia.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
2010 Texas Elections Are Now Officially Undeway
Last Monday -- January 4, 2010 -- was the last day to file to run in an election in Texas. This means that we know who all the candidates will be for public office. My 2301 students are to write about these elections and make rational predictions about what the likely results of the election could be.
I will be providing regular posts about these elections and link to a variety of stories that emerge about them. These should help with the paper assignment as well as answer any specific question you might have about these elections.
- Story in the Texas Tribune.
- The Elections Division in the Texas Secretary of State Office.
I will be providing regular posts about these elections and link to a variety of stories that emerge about them. These should help with the paper assignment as well as answer any specific question you might have about these elections.
- Story in the Texas Tribune.
- The Elections Division in the Texas Secretary of State Office.
Will the Health Care Bill be Constitutional
Opponents to the health care bill that is still being worked out in Congress appear to have shifted their tactics against it. It seems certain that something will be passed and signed into law, but whatever is passed seems certain to be challenged in the courts.
The following opinion piece argues that opponents are likely to argue that provisions in the bill violate the founder's intent regarding, federalism, that is the proper relationship between the national and state governments.
As we will see in 2301, it all boils down to how the Supreme Court defines the commerce clause, which has been the elastic part of the Constitution which has allowed for expansions of national power since the New Deal.
We will dig deeply into this question this semester.
The following opinion piece argues that opponents are likely to argue that provisions in the bill violate the founder's intent regarding, federalism, that is the proper relationship between the national and state governments.
As we will see in 2301, it all boils down to how the Supreme Court defines the commerce clause, which has been the elastic part of the Constitution which has allowed for expansions of national power since the New Deal.
We will dig deeply into this question this semester.
Voter Initiatives in California
A huge subject in 2301 will be the nature of the American democratic system. The founder's deliberately avoided creating a pure, or direct, democracy and opted instead for a representative system, or republic. One reason was to ensure that the anger and fluctuations common to mass public opinion would not have an immediate impact on public policy. The intent was that slow rational deliberations would win out over heated superficial ones.
Nevertheless, more direct democratic mechanisms have been instituted over American history, notably the Progressive movements' push for recall, initiative and referendum elections a century back. Perhaps no state has used them more than California, but it is commonly argued that many of the budgetary problems the state faces stem from this process. Anger from the left and right have, respectively, increased social spending and limited the ability of the state to pay for those services. In addition, the ability of legislators to effectively manage crises has been also been limited.
The following NYT story suggests that these woes will continue.
As we discuss the nature of democracy and our views about the appropriate relationship between the government and the governed, it is worth considering how close the relationship ought to be. A major lesson we will learn from discussing the constitutional structure will be how the entire constitutional system structures that relationship. Without an understanding of that relationship, the the entire purpose of the governing system is a mystery.
Nevertheless, more direct democratic mechanisms have been instituted over American history, notably the Progressive movements' push for recall, initiative and referendum elections a century back. Perhaps no state has used them more than California, but it is commonly argued that many of the budgetary problems the state faces stem from this process. Anger from the left and right have, respectively, increased social spending and limited the ability of the state to pay for those services. In addition, the ability of legislators to effectively manage crises has been also been limited.
The following NYT story suggests that these woes will continue.
As we discuss the nature of democracy and our views about the appropriate relationship between the government and the governed, it is worth considering how close the relationship ought to be. A major lesson we will learn from discussing the constitutional structure will be how the entire constitutional system structures that relationship. Without an understanding of that relationship, the the entire purpose of the governing system is a mystery.
Spring 2010
The spring semester starts tomorrow and I'll begin posting stories later today that we ought to discuss. If you are a new student, be sure to subscribe to this blog by entering you email address in the box on the right hand column. Occasionally I'll ask questions about items posted here, or give you hints about what will be on upcoming quizzes, so it'll be worth your while to peruse these items.
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