From TSHA: Congressional Reconstruction ends as Texas readmitted to Union

This is a day late, but yesterday's day in history was a good one. 2306 students should note it.

March 30,1870

On this day in 1870, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act that ended Congressional Reconstruction and readmitted Texas to the Union. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Texas had been in turmoil, first under Presidential Reconstruction and then, beginning in 1867 with the passage of the First Reconstruction Act, under Congressional Reconstruction. The latter required that Texas have a constitutional convention, with delegates elected by all male citizens over the age of twenty-one, regardless of race, color, or "previous condition of servitude." The convention was to write a new state constitution that would provide for universal adult male suffrage. When the constitution had been written and the state had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, Congress would consider the case for readmission to the Union. The convention met at Austin in June 1868 and did not adjourn until February 1869. The constitution it produced differed significantly from previous constitutions by authorizing a more centralized and bureaucratized system of government, with greater power in the hands of the governor. In February 1870 the Twelfth Legislature assembled at Austin to adopt the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments and select United States senators in preparation for readmission to the Union. They quickly approved the amendments and selected Morgan C. Hamilton for a six-year term and James W. Flanagan for a four-year term. This completed the requirements set by Congress for readmission.

- Click here for the link.

From th Washington Post: Today is the first Republican primary of the 2016 presidential election

Something called the "Adelson Primary" is underway. Its an internal competition among potential Republican presidential candidates to see who will get Sheldon Adelson's support. The wrote about such efforts previously here.  And here.

- Click here for the article.
- Click here for Wikipedia's page on Adelson.

The 2016 presidential primaries are still years away, but an unofficial one held this weekend in Las Vegas could prove incredibly lucky for at least one GOP contender's coffers. It's the spring meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which is held at the Venetian casino, owned by Sheldon Adelson. Yes, the same Sheldon Adelson who donated $15 million to Newt Gingrich's super PAC and $30 million to Mitt Romney's super PAC.

Four potential presidential candidates are hoping they can cajole Adelson, who is also on the Republican Jewish Coalition's board, into giving them a leg-up in the already crowded Republican field after four days of scotching and cigaring. Welcome to the "Adelson Primary."

The Adelson Primary presumably replaces the money primary, once the kick-off event for each presidential race.

From the Eagle: State legislators meet on Texas A&M campus to discuss pressing issues

A look at what the 84th Legislative Session might focus on:

Local state representatives in the Texas House and Senate gathered on the Texas A&M campus Thursday afternoon to reflect on the last legislative session and what the future holds for hot-button issues facing Texans.

State Sen. Dr. Charles Schwertner and State Reps. John Raney and Kyle Kacal were joined by Evan Smith, the Texas Tribune's CEO and editor-in-chief, for a discussion covering everything from public education to immigration to deregulating tuition for higher education.

The conversation began with spending on public education. Texas ranks 46th in the nation in spending per pupil, spending about $2,500 less than the national average per student. Schwertner said the issue of public education is the highest priority for the state, and Raney said the state should focus more on outcome than money.

Kacal lauded House Bill 5, which lowered the number of state standardized tests for high school students before graduation and changes the courses needed for a diploma, pointing to the opportunities for increased exploration of vocational education.

The budgetary constraints on public education led to water and transportation, for which lawmakers turned to the Rainy Day Fund in the last legislative session. Smith pushed the representatives and senators to answer whether there's enough money in the state budget to tackle those issues, since the projects couldn't be paid with general revenue.

Kacal said he thinks the state is in a "good spot," since the most recent session was able to balance the budget and the state continues to experience economic growth. Schwertner said he's not for raising taxes and stated that the state's economic success can be attributed to its tax policy and tort reform.

As spending for public education and health care continues to rise, Raney said higher education is losing the battle for the limited funding available. Schwertner said he'd look into re-regulating tuition, which would require the state to be more willing to help with costs like tuition revenue bonds, which fell through in the last session. Raney said he doesn't know how the state would do that currently, and Kacal said he would have to look into the tuition deregulation issue.

Texas has the highest number of uninsured people in the nation and health care costs continue to rise. Texas turned down the federal Medicaid expansion, and Kacal said he thinks there's a "Texas Solution" to permanently attack the problem of rising health care costs. As for what a "Texas Solution" is, he turned to Schwertner, who said it's a public health system that is free-market based, affordable and sustainable and increases awareness of the costs of health care.

From the Texas Tribune: A Big Idea, With a Big Price Tag

In 2306 we just finished looking at tax policy in Texas. Here's a story that foreshadows a looming fight between those who see property taxes and those who see sales taxes as the best way to collect revenue. The forces opposing property taxes have been gaining steam in the state:

- Click here for the story.

Property taxes are easy to hate, and Texas property taxes are high enough to turn this civic irritation into a full-blown political issue.

So it makes news when a candidate for comptroller of public accounts — the state’s tax collector, treasurer and all-around ace of finance — is running around saying he would like to get rid of property taxes.Glenn Hegar, a state senator who won the Republican nomination for comptroller in this month’s primary, was unequivocal in his remarks about the fairness of those taxes at a Tea Party forum in February, as reported by the Killeen Daily Herald: “As long as we pay taxes we have to ask, do we really own our property?”

His opponent, Mike Collier, a Democrat, is trying to turn a 26-second video snippet of Hegar suggesting an end to property taxes into a fundraising and vote-getting machine. He contends that the Republican is proposing a sharp increase in sales taxes to offset the elimination of property taxes.

Hegar, who has been in the Legislature since 2003, is not running away, other than to say he might phase out the tax instead of ditching it all at once. “I have said since I first ran that I preferred a consumption tax,” he said this week. “I have not backtracked in any way from any statement.”

The idea of eliminating property taxes falls nicely in line with some of the original leanings of the Tea Party, which began with concerns about government spending, debt and taxation. It rolls easily from a political tongue: Kill property taxes and rely instead on consumption taxes, which taxpayers control by simply controlling their spending.

And it is not a fringe idea, unless you consider the Republican Party of Texas part of the fringe. “Abolishing property taxes” and “shifting the state tax burden to a consumption-based tax” are the first two items listed under the “State Tax Reform” heading in the party’s current platform. There’s a line at the bottom of that list to prevent the state’s real estate agents from jumping out of their seats, proclaiming the party’s opposition to “all professional licensing fees and real estate and similar transaction fees or taxes.” The party is also against the creation of a state property tax (current property taxes are local) or a state income tax.

The most and least valuable degrees and schools

Something to ponder as you make a decision.

- Which College—and Which Major—Will Make You Richest?



- These U.S. Colleges and Majors Are the Biggest Waste of Money.

Regarding the Hobby Lobby oral arguments

We foreshadowed this opinion earlier this semester in 2305 when we covered religious liberty and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. We discussed the factors that can and cannot be used to limit religious liberty and mentioned that generally applicable laws were judged to trump religious liberty, but RFRA may have changed that by stating a law cannot impose a substantive burden on religious liberty.

Here's the issue presented to the court in the Hobby Lobby case:

Whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb et seq., which provides that the government “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless that burden is the least restrictive means to further a compelling governmental interest, allows a for-profit corporation to deny its employees the health coverage of contraceptives to which the employees are otherwise entitled by federal law, based on the religious objections of the corporation’s owners.

Here's the one presented in the Conestoga case:

Whether the religious owners of a family business, or their closely held, for-profit corporation, have free exercise rights that are violated by the application of the contraceptive-coverage mandate of the Affordable Care Act.

Some of the questions posed included asking whether coverage of contraception is a compelling governmental interest and whether a for-profit corporation possess religious liberty.

- Click here for the transcript of the oral argument.

ScotusBlog details various aspects of the case and the oral argument.
- Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
- Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius.
- Argument recap: One hearing, two dramas.
- Birth control, business, and religious beliefs: In Plain English.

The Dish has two collections of posts related to the argument:
- What To Expect From Hobby Lobby
- What To Expect From Hobby Lobby, Ctd

From the Atlantic: The Most and Least Healthy Counties in America

The good news is that Brazoria County is among the most healthy counties.

- Click here for the article.



Brazoria County is actually the 24th most health county in Texas.

- Click here for the study that details the factors used to evaluate each county.

Classes cancelled this Wednesday and Thursday

That's 3/26 and 3/27

I made the announcement in class also. See you next week.

Federal judge rules that bans on same sex marriage do not address a legitimate state interest

Just in time - well a slight bit late - for 2305's review of civil rights comes a decision by a federal judge in Michigan against the states ban on same sex marriage.

- Click here for the decision.

Starting on page 16, the judge offers a review of the various standards that can be used to strike differences between groups (strict scrutiny etc...) and concludes that the law has no rational purpose. This means a higher standard must be used to strike differences between same and heterosexual couples for purposes of marriage.

Its a great take on a subject I may or may not have covered clearly in class - but students should read though it so they can see how the topic is applied currently to deal with this ongoing issue.

Here's an important part of the decision from page 20 - here the judge denies that the reasons offered fro banning same sex marriage met a legitimate state interest - which is the low bar a law has to clear in order to meet the requirements of rational basis review - the same requirements age restrictions on drinking have to clear:

Largely in keeping with the justifications offered in their summary judgment motion, at trial, the state defendants asserted that the MMA serves the following legitimate state interests: (1) providing an optimal environment for child rearing; (2) proceeding with caution before altering the traditional definition of marriage; and (3) upholding tradition and morality. Additionally, the state defendants consistently asserted that defining marriage is within the exclusive purview of the state’s police power. None of these proffered reasons provides a rational basis for adopting the amendment.

Continue with the decision to unpack his reasoning.

From the TSHA: Mexican law invites Anglo colonists

On this day in 1825:

. . . the Mexican legislature, meeting in Saltillo, passed the State Colonization Law of March 24, 1825. The legislation was designed to bring about the peopling of Coahuila and Texas. It encouraged farming, ranching, and commerce. For a nominal fee, the law granted settlers as much as a square league (4,428.4 acres) of pastureland and a labor (177.1 acres) of farmland. Immigrants were temporarily free of every kind of tax. Newcomers had to take an oath promising to abide by the federal and state constitutions, to worship according to the Christian (i.e., Catholic) religion, and to display sound moral principles and good conduct. After accepting these terms and settling in Texas, immigrants earned the standing of naturalized Mexicans. Empresarios Stephen F. Austin and Green DeWitt, among others, started their colonies under this law.

From the Gallup Poll: Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents

Subtitle: Republican identification lowest in at least 25 years

- Click here for the post.

This builds off the post below - something to think about as we start talking about political parties and party id.

Forty-two percent of Americans, on average, identified as political independents in 2013, the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago. Meanwhile, Republican identification fell to 25%, the lowest over that time span. At 31%, Democratic identification is unchanged from the last four years but down from 36% in 2008.

. . .Americans' increasing shift to independent status has come more at the expense of the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Republican identification peaked at 34% in 2004, the year George W. Bush won a second term in office. Since then, it has fallen nine percentage points, with most of that decline coming during Bush's troubled second term. When he left office, Republican identification was down to 28%. It has declined or stagnated since then, improving only slightly to 29% in 2010, the year Republicans "shellacked" Democrats in the midterm elections.

Not since 1983, when Gallup was still conducting interviews face to face, has a lower percentage of Americans, 24%, identified as Republicans than is the case now. That year, President Ronald Reagan remained unpopular as the economy struggled to emerge from recession. By the following year, amid an improving economy and re-election for the increasingly popular incumbent president, Republican identification jumped to 30%, a level generally maintained until 2007.

From the Gallup Poll: U.S. Whites More Solidly Republican in Recent Years

Subtitle: Party preferences more polarized by race and ethnicity under Obama

- Click here for the post.

Another factor leading to polarized parties:

Whites and nonwhites have long shown differing political party preferences, with nonwhites widely favoring the Democratic Party and whites typically favoring the Republican Party by at least a small margin. In recent years, however, the margins in favor of the Republican Party among whites have been some of the largest.
. . . The trend lines in white and nonwhite party preferences often move in the same direction, but with a sizable gap maintained between them. For example, both racial groups drifted in a more Republican direction from 2001-2003, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Whites and nonwhites became increasingly Democratic in the last years of the Bush presidency, with whites as likely to favor the Democratic Party as the Republican Party from 2006-2008. Since 2009, whites and nonwhites have trended more Republican.

In recent years, party preferences have been more polarized than was the case in the 1990s and most of the 2000s. For example, in 2010, nonwhites' net party identification and leanings showed a 49-point Democratic advantage, and whites were 12 percentage points more Republican than Democratic. The resulting 61-point racial and ethnic gap in party preferences is the largest Gallup has measured in the last 20 years. Since 2008, the racial gaps in party preferences have been 55 points or higher each year; prior to 2008, the gaps reached as high as 55 points only in 1997 and 2000.

Written Assignment #9 and #10 - 16 week classes only

I posted week #9's assignment on Blackboard - I wanted you to send me updates on your 1000 essay.

This week's assignment - #10 - also serves as the social responsibility assessment.

Here it is:

Social Responsibility

Operational Definition: Student will understand the importance of making a personal investment in the well-being of others, the community and/or the planet while showing respect for the ideas and beliefs of others.

What is Your Responsibility to Keeping the Republic

One of the themes of this class – at least one that was introduced early in the semester – was that you are a citizen (or at least a resident) in a democratic republic, and one of your responsibilities is to sustain it. Remember Franklin’s alleged response to the woman who asked him what they had produced in the constitutional convention.

Based on what we have covered this semester so far, what does this mean?

Keep in mind that while you have certain rights and liberties, so do others. What do you have to do to comply with your responsibility to help keep the republic? What are your responsibilities? You might want to take on Franklin however. Perhaps you don’t think this is your responsibility. If so, make a persuasive case.

Again - write at least 150 words.

From WonkBlog: Five reasons why the long-term jobless don’t matter to the economy

A bit of depressing news. This throws cold water on the idea that long term unemployment has an easy solution.

Reason #3:

Long-term unemployed who leave the labor force are unlikely to come back

Roughly one in 10 of the long-term jobless left the workforce altogether within a few months of the survey, and most of them stayed out of the labor market after a year. The paper notes that the most common reason for leaving is that they no longer wanted a job, suggesting the decision is permanent.

From the NYT: School Data Finds Pattern of Inequality Along Racial Lines

To add to last week's look - in 2305 - at civil rights policy.

The story adds to the concept of disparate treatment - the idea that illegal discrimination can occur not due to laws which mandate it, but in how policies are carried out. This also refers to the Education Department's office of Civil Rights - which we touched on last week.

Here's a recent example.

- Click here for the story.

Racial minorities are more likely than white students to be suspended from school, to have less access to rigorous math and science classes, and to be taught by lower-paid teachers with less experience, according to comprehensive data released Friday by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

In the first analysis in nearly 15 years of information from all of the country’s 97,000 public schools, the Education Department found a pattern of inequality on a number of fronts, with race as the dividing factor.

Black students are suspended and expelled at three times the rate of white students. A quarter of high schools with the highest percentage of black and Latino students do not offer any Algebra II courses, while a third of those schools do not have any chemistry classes. Black students are more than four times as likely as white students — and Latino students are twice as likely — to attend schools where one out of every five teachers does not meet all state teaching requirements.

“Here we are, 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the data altogether still show a picture of gross inequity in educational opportunity,” said Daniel J. Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California at Los Angeles’s Civil Rights Project.

From the Huffington Post: This Chart Shows How Little We Really Know About Where Political Money Comes From

The amount of money flowing into politics from undisclosed sources is increased. Most of these are from "social welfare organizations."

- Click here for the article.



As seems typical, the culprit is the changing legal landscape following the Citizens United decision of a few years back:

The initial spike in dark money spending took place in 2008, after the Supreme Court’s 2007 Wisconsin Right to Life ruling. That ruling freed nonprofit 501(c) organizations to make “issue ads” mentioning candidates -- as long as they didn’t directly call for the election or defeat of a candidate.

Another dark money spike took place after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling freed corporations, labor unions and nonprofit 501(c) organizations to spend political money directly calling for the election or defeat of a candidate. Both the Citizens United and the Wisconsin Right to Life allowed for unlimited spending.

“After Citizens United, voters are left more and more in the dark about who's funding campaigns,” said Robert Maguire, investigator for CRP. “It’s not a matter of free speech – it’s a matter of knowing who’s speaking.”

Dark money continued to flow freely in 2013, gearing up for the 2014 midterm elections. Conservative groups have already spent at least $15.8 million on issue ads to promote Republican candidates, according to an earlier HuffPost analysis. Americans for Prosperity, the nonprofit founded and funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, led all groups that year with at least $12.4 million spent on candidate-specific ads attacking Obamacare. Liberal dark money groups, meanwhile, spent at least $3.3 million on issue advocacy, mostly coming from the League of Conservation Voters.

From the National Journal: Here's How NASA Thinks Society Will Collapse Too much inequality and too few natural resources could leave the West vulnerable to a Roman Empire-style fall.

For both 2305 and 2306, a story that hits themes we began the semester with.

The framers of the Constitution designed a governing system that would build off the lessons learned from the fall of Rome. NASA isn't so sure that we learned the right lessons.

- Click here for the article.

Few think Western civilization is on the brink of collapse—but it's also doubtful the Romans and Mesopotamians saw their own demise coming either.

If we're to avoid their fate, we'll need policies to reduce economic inequality and preserve natural resources, according to a NASA-funded study that looked at the collapses of previous societies.

"Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed," reads the study. "The stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity and the economic stratification of society into Elites and Masses."

In unequal societies, researchers said, "collapse is difficult to avoid.... Elites grow and consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society."

As limited resources plague the working class, the wealthy, insulated from the problem, "continue consuming unequally" and exacerbate the issue, the study said.

Meanwhile, resources continue to be used up, even by the technologies designed to preserve them. For instance, "an increase in vehicle fuel efficiency technology tends to enable increased per capita vehicle miles driven, heavier cars, and higher average speeds, which then negate the gains from the increased fuel-efficiency," the study said.

. . . For those who think modern society is immune from the problems that brought down ancient civilizations, a "brief overview of collapses demonstrates not only the ubiquity of the phenomenon, but also the extent to which advanced, complex and powerful societies are susceptible to collapse," the study said.

So how do we save ourselves? "Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at the maximum carrying capacity, if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed equitably," reads the report.

Diversity as a Compelling State Interest in Public Education

I just stumbled across this law review article that outlines the issue involved in the argument that racial diversity is a compelling state interest that justifies affirmative action, which we've been discussing in 2305 this week.

- Click here for the article.

It was written in 1999, so I'll look for more recent articles - but the background it provides is still useful for us.

From the Volock Conspiracy: Asian-American state senators block proposal to reintroduce race preferences in California

An interesting twist to our discussion of civil rights and affirmative action. A repeal of affirmative action in public education in California has lead to over representation of Asian-Americans in public universities. This has lead to the obvious conflict - based on self-interest for one's racial group - on whether an effort to repeal the repeal should be presented to the voters.

- Click here for the article.

It hits on a question we're discussing in 2305 about whether diversity on a campus is a compelling public purpose that allows for the consideration of race in public education. The article's author is opposed - though I don't he draws the argument out that well here.

Here's a useful bit from the commentary:

. . . if one is looking for proportional representation, or a “University that looks like California,” then one would want to reduce the number of Asians at the most selective University of California campuses, since Asians are sharply overrepresented there. Even if one is looking for things such as “diversity,” the fact remains that, so long as a disproportionately high number of seats is taken by Asians, a disproportionately low number of seats will be taken by members of other racial groups. That’s true not just for blacks and Hispanics but also for non-Hispanic whites at many campuses. For instance, in 2013 non-Hispanic whites made up only 30 percent of non-international UC Berkeley freshmen — or 34 percent if you assume that all the “decline to state” students were white — while East and South Asians made up 48 percent. Non-Hispanic whites make up 39 percent of the California population, while Asians make up 14 percent. Indeed, some backers of race preferences argued during the Prop. 209 debate that having too many Asian students is one of the problems that race preferences are supposed to fix.

. . . If it somehow ends up that Asians make up 80 percent of the students that have the non-race-based predictors UCLA Law School uses for admission, and my own racial group is thus vastly underrepresented, I would have no complaints whatsoever, and wouldn’t think there is any basis to use racial preferences to either reduce the number of Asians or increase the number of whites, blacks, or Hispanics.

I'm curious about the political consequences though. If more middle class and poor whites see the repeal of affirmative action programs as hurting them by expanding opportunities for Asian Americans, might this lead to a backlash? Affirmative action might - ironically and problematically - become favored by whites, and this might be driven to some degree by animosity towards Asian Americans. Racial identity has always played a role in politics. It is unreasonable to assume it will not continue to do so.

From the Brennan Center for Justice: VOTING LAWS ROUNDUP 2014

The center released a recent look at changes in voting laws in states across the country.

- Click here for the report.

They point out that bills both expanding and restricting access to the polls have been introduced. The report includes a list of which bills they argue expands access and which ones restrict it.

From Texas Redistricting: Texas’ civic engagement crisis in one chart

A supplement to the information contained in the previous post. The sees little to cheer for over this.

- Click here for the post.



Especially worrisome is the low number of people who vote in primary elections. They are the ones who determine who is on the ballot each November. The future of state politics is set by a very small group of people.

From the Texas Observer: Texas’ Undemocratic Party Primary System

Turnout in Texas primary elections continues to be abysmally low. The author points out that the highest turnout in Texas Primaries was in 1926.

- Click here for the article.

Here's a telling graphic. It contributes to the idea that democracy is not practiced much in the state.

The blue and red lines represent the number of votes in the Democratic and Republican primaries, respectively. The green line is Texas’ population, and black is the number of registered voters.

One reason people might be less inclined to vote in primary elections these days is that the general election would seem to matter more than it used to in the state. The Republican Party barely existed in 1926—that was year the GOP held its first statewide primary—and the general election was a rubber stamp that confirmed the results of the Democratic primary.

But for all practical purposes, Republicans have the same level of dominance in statewide offices that Democrats had in their period of one-party control. For the better part of two decades, the Republican primary has been the only election that really matters. Yet even within the GOP, primary turnout is remarkably low.

. . . Much of what’s happened to the state Republican Party in recent years is down to the simple fact that the average Texan has become less likely to vote in the GOP primary. It’s a fundamentally undemocratic situation that gives power brokers and small interest groups enormous leverage on the whole state government. And it seems unlikely to change any time soon.

From The Dish: The Rise Of The Robo-Journalists

The previous post asked whether constitutional protections existed for newspaper articles written by an algorithm.

This post describes the algorithm in question.

Here's a link to the story:

A shallow magnitude 2.7 earthquake aftershock was reported Monday morning four miles from Westwood, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 7:23 a.m. Pacific time at a depth of 4.3 miles.
A magnitude 4.4 earthquake was reported at 6.25 a.m. and was felt over a large swath of Southern California.

According to the USGS, the epicenter of the aftershock was five miles from Beverly Hills, six miles from Santa Monica and six miles from West Hollywood.

In the last 10 days, there has been one earthquake of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.

This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written by the author.

The program used to generate it was called Quakebot.

Ken Schwencke, a journalist and programmer for the Los Angeles Times, was jolted awake at 6:25 a.m. on Monday by an earthquake. He rolled out of bed and went straight to his computer, where he found a brief story about the quake already written and waiting in the system. He glanced over the text and hit “publish.” And that’s how the LAT became the first media outlet to report on this morning’s temblor. “I think we had it up within three minutes,” Schwencke told me.
If that sounds faster than humanly possible, it probably is. While the post appeared under Schwencke’s byline, the real author was an algorithm called Quakebot that he developed a little over two years ago. Whenever an alert comes in from the U.S. Geological Survey about an earthquake above a certain size threshold, Quakebot is programmed to extract the relevant data from the USGS report and plug it into a pre-written template. The story goes into the LAT’s content management system, where it awaits review and publication by a human editor.

Computer programming is now a useful skill for journalists apparently.

From the Volokh Conspiracy: If an algorithm generated this post, is it First Amendment speech?

Good question:

Slate reports that the first news report on yesterday’s L.A. earthquake was generated by an algorithm called Quakebot. A reporter named Ken Schwencke developed the algorithm to extract key data from US Geological Survey reports and plug them into a template he created. He can then just hit “publish.”

Given the seemingly meager amount of human involvement, does this constitute “speech” under the First Amendment? I think that the answer is yes under the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, so long as humans are making substantive editorial decisions in producing the text (as they clearly are in this case). I wrote an article addressing this question that I won’t try to summarize here (and Tim Wu wrote an article disagreeing with me). I will simply note here that many writers use boilerplate, macros, templates, etc. We could try to draw a line between utilization of such templates and reliance on them, or between using a template for most of the article and using it for all of the article, but any of these lines seem pretty arbitrary. Algorithms move the human decisionmaking to the front end (creating the template and the ways to fill it in), but there are still substantive editorial choices — and under the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, that is the key.

So, yes, even if I created an algorithm to generate this post, the post would still be speech under the prevailing jurisprudence. Or so our computer overlords would have us believe.

Was the Crimea referendum legitimate

We will be discussing elections this week in 2305 and start off with a talk about the role of elections in different governing systems. In legitimate democracies they are intended to help connect the actions of government with the preferences of the general population - or at least the electorate.

In authoritarian systems they generally serve to provide a veneer of legitimacy to decisions made by governing authorities. There are suggestions that that might be what occurred a few days back in Crimea when an overwhelming majority of voters decided to break with the Ukraine and join the Russian federation.

Here's a skeptical take on the results:

To the surprise of absolutely no one, yesterday’s Crimean referendum on secession from Crimea and joining Russia resulted in a “yes” vote. What is, perhaps, somewhat striking is that the official results state that an incredible 96.7% of the voters voted yes. A 96.7% is almost never seen on anything at all controversial outside of places like North Korea – or, of course, the old Soviet Union, which Russian President Vladimir Putin served as a high-ranking KGB officer.

It is highly improbable that 96.7% would have voted yes in a genuinely free vote, since the Crimean population includes large Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar minorities that are overwhelmingly opposed to a return to Russian rule. Crimean officials are also reporting a high 83% turnout. If that figure is correct, it makes it unlikely that the 96.7% result is explicable by selective turnout. If, on the other hand, officials are lying about the turnout, they could be engaging in deception about the vote margin as well.

Thus, it is likely that the referendum result was “achieved” by fraud and/or intimidation – tactics which the Putin regime had previously resorted to in Russia itself. The likelihood of fraud is also suggested by the fact that even some Russian journalists were forcibly prevented from observing the vote count and had their camera smashed by officials.

Given Putin’s repression of opposition in Russia itself, Crimean residents inclined to vote “no” might have been scared into voting “yes” or just staying home. Even if Putin was not actually planning to punish those who voted against annexation, prudent Crimeans had no way of knowing that, and might understandably not be willing to accept even a small risk of punishment or official harrassment once Russian rule officially returns.

And here's a suggestion that the entire election was rigged to get a positive outcome. People may have only had the option to vote to join Russia:

For a start, no real choice was offered on the ballots, as many in the Western media took pains to note. At least, there was no choice to vote in favor of keeping the Crimean region as a semi-autonomous part of Ukraine, as it has been for many decades. Rather, the voters' choice was to either join Russia or allow the Russian-leaning Crimean legislature to decide for themselves who they would like to align with.

"Residents of Crimea, up to 60% percent of whom are Russian, were given a choice of either joining Russia or opting for more autonomy from Ukraine under the 1992 constitution. The status quo, in which Crimea is a semi-autonomous region of Ukraine, was not an option," reported USA Today.

Reuters offered more details, explaining that "there is no room on the ballot paper for voting 'Nyet' to control by Russia."

So, for a start, while the ballot offered two different questions, only one of which voters were allowed to check (or their ballots were to be considered "spoiled"), a Yes/No paradigm seemed to be offered, but wasn't really. The ballot question(s) themselves were rigged in favor of Russia.

Still, if the first option on the ballot, asking about reunification of Crimea with Russia as a part of the Russian Federation is considered "Da", and the second option, calling for "restoring the 1992 Constitution" was considered "Nyet", that still leaves a lot of voters who are said to have voted to join Russia, according to the officially reported results. The lack of an option to keep the status quo as is certainly tipped the entire affair towards Russia, but it doesn't tell us whether or not the "Da" option actually received 97.6% approval from voters.

More on the Fair Housing Act and discrimination based on physical ability

The previous post includes a story that mentions the Fair Housing Act and discrimination based on physical disabilities, so here's background since it's related to civil rights policy. We don't much time - if any really - on housing discrimination since this is a survey class, but here's an opportunity to learn a bit about it since its topical. This is a bit of a loose timeline - but hopefully its instructive.

- Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 is the Fair Housing Act which was the law that made discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing based on a variety of factors including race and gender. It is intended to protect buyers and renters from discriminatory practices by landlords, sellers and financiers. As with previous civil rights legislation, it was driven into law by the Johnson Administration and was passed soon after Martin Luther King's assassination.

- The law is implemented primarily by allowing people to sue those they allege are discriminating against them. Which allows the Supreme Court to weigh in on the merit of these suits. An unsympathetic court can throw them out.

- These lawsuits are assisted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and specifically the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Click here for how to file a housing discrimination complaint. And click here for a statement of your rights to fair housing.

- This was expanded in 1988 to include discrimination against people with disabilities as well as families with children.

- The law was weakened in the late 1980s by making it more difficult to prove discrimination. The Supreme Court has also narrowed the definition of disability in several key Supreme Court cases. Click here for a review of these cases.

- Discrimination against the disabled was expanded substantively in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

- This lead to a question: What is the legal definition of a disability? "...A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity." What does "substantially limits" mean?

- In Sutton v. United Airlines, the court ruled that it was acceptable for the airline to not hire pilots with poor eyesight even if glasses made their vision acceptable. Since the vision could be corrected, it did not "substantially limit" their life activity. They could be discriminated against. One does not a have a disability if there can be a corrective device - like a prosthesis - that allows for some degree of compensation.

- This was based on the courts interpretation of the original language of the ADA, so the language was altered in amendments passed in 2008:

In 2008, effective January 1, 2009, the ADAAA broadened the interpretations and added to the ADA examples of "major life activities" including, but not limited to, "caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working" as well as the operation of several specified major bodily functions. The Act overturns a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case that held that an employee was not disabled if the impairment could be corrected by mitigating measures; it specifically provides that such impairment must be determined without considering such ameliorative measures. Another court restriction overturned is the interpretation that an impairment that substantially limits one major life activity must also limit others to be considered a disability

- The Fair Housing Act has not been expanded to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

If you are interested:
- The Disability Rights Movement.
- Timeline of disability rights in the United States.

Civil rights in the news

For the 16 week 2305 students. Some random stories related to this week's topic:

- Suit Alleges Developer Violated Civil Rights.

Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor filed a civil rights lawsuit Monday against Related Companies, one of New York City’s most prolific builders, charging that the developer had violated the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against disabled tenants in the design of two 23-year-old apartment buildings.

. . . The lawsuit claims that Related’s TriBeCa Green building, at 325 North End Avenue, and One Carnegie Hill, on East 96th Street, are inaccessible to disabled tenants because kitchens, closets and bathrooms are not big enough for someone in a wheelchair to maneuver within, mailboxes are mounted too high, and room identification signs lack raised-letter Braille for persons with visual impairments.

. . . New York developers insist that they have complied for the past 25 years with a city law requiring them to ensure that all apartments they build are accessible to disabled people. The local law, developers and city officials say, essentially meets the requirements of the federal Fair Housing Act. But the federal law was toughened three years after the city law passed, and developers, city officials and federal authorities have not agreed on whether the city requirements meet the standards of the current federal act.

- California chief justice warns of civil rights crisis from court cuts.

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye told the Legislature on Monday that the closure of budget-strapped courts has deprived more than 2 million residents of accessible justice and left the state on the verge of a "civil rights crisis."

"A one-way, three-hour trip to a courthouse can't be fair in anyone's book," Cantil-Sakauye said in her annual address to state lawmakers.

California court budgets in the last several years have been cut by about $1 billion, and Cantil-Sakauye has been pleading with legislators to restore more funding next year. Her address stressed collaboration among the branches, and she asked lawmakers to help the courts recover from the losses.

She told lawmakers that court employees have not had a cost-of-living pay hike in seven years, and some courts, including the California Supreme Court, continue to furlough employees.

The budget cutbacks also have triggered long waits for trials in civil cases, including family law.

"As long as the branch is underfunded, we will continue to see harmful and astonishing delays," she said, citing civil disputes involving business, discrimination, employment, family matters, foster care and personal injury.

- Texas Ranger who spoke with Warren Jeffs testifies in civil rights case.

There’s a Texas Ranger named Nick Hanna, and he’s spent time chatting with Warren Jeffs.

Hanna is one of the many witnesses who has testified in the Cooke civil rights trial, which has been taking place in Phoenix. In case you’re just tuning in now, the case boils down to whether or not the mostly-polygamous towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., discriminated against the Cooke family because they aren’t members of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

. . .The most relevant parts of Hanna’s testimony to the Cooke trial had to do with information he discovered allegedly indicating church control of the city governments. During examination by the Cooke’s attorneys, Hanna said he found letters between Jeffs and church leaders. The letters discussed finances, a sewer system in the community and many other things. At one point, Jeffs appears to rebuke a town mayor, saying that "if you are cut off from connecting with me you’ll be cut off from the presence of God."

In another letter read during Hanna’s testimony, it appeared that church leaders were trying to block a former member from setting up new businesses in the community.

The information fits into the narrative, woven by the Cooke’s lawyers, of a city controlled by insular religious leaders. The Cookes’ complaint specifically says they were denied water and other utilities at their home because they were outsiders.

- Ticket for dog on Folly Beach sand prompts civil rights suit by Summerville owner.

It started with a warm holiday in Folly Beach and a poodle named Lillie.

It became controversial with a police ticket from a city that limits when dogs can frolic on the sand.

And it has now resulted in a lawsuit with allegations of civil rights violations and demands for a change in how city authorities view certain dogs on the beach.

That's because Lillie, according to her owner, is a service dog trained to comfort Summerville resident Christin Barnhart during episodes of anxiety.

Critics of Barnhart's suit, though, have raised questions about whether her dog was being used for its intended service and about how much freedom such dog owners should have.

The federal Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to stop people with service dogs from doing the things that more able-bodied folks routinely do. It defines such dogs as ones trained to perform tasks for owners who suffer mental or physical disabilities.

These three magic words will almost guarantee you a C on a paper:

"in my opinion"

What level of scrutiny will be applied to sexual orientation?

For this week's look at the equal protection clause.

The answer appears to be "heightened scrutiny," but I can't tell if this refers to intermediate review or strict scrutiny. Maybe that has yet to be determined.

- click here for the article.

When the U.S. Supreme Court made history in June by striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, the substantive holding was immediately clear: the discriminatory federal law “demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects, and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify.” What was not exactly clear was what, if any, sort of legal standards the justices set for future courts. A federal appeals court ruling issued Tuesday finds the justices set a new, heightened standard for justifying discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

In a ruling holding that lawyers cannot discriminate against gay people when selecting juries, a unanimous panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that courts must apply what is known as “heightened scrutiny” when assessing laws or policies that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Though the Ninth Circuit does not state precisely how much skepticism it will apply to laws that discriminate against gay litigants in the future, the phrase “heightened scrutiny” is a powerful one — often, laws subject to this scrutiny are treated as preemptively unconstitutional. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion could potentially put sexual orientation discrimination claims on similar footing with race or gender discrimination claims, and require the government to meet a very high burden to justify a discriminatory law.

Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has deemed certain classifications as “suspect” or “quasi-suspect” under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The words “heightened scrutiny” are frequently used to describe the high level of skepticism applied to laws that rely on such classifications. Laws that discriminate by race are subject to the most rigorous, “strict scrutiny,” while laws that discriminate by gender are subject to “intermediate scrutiny.” Because it wasn’t clear whether the U.S. Supreme Court applied heightened scrutiny in United States v. Windsor, the federal appeals courts who have since struck down their same-sex marriage laws citing that decision have continued to use the lowest standard of review, rational basis.

How to frame environmentalism so centrists and conservatives support it

2305's sections on public policy, public opinion and campaigning discuss the importance of framing. This is simply the attempt to influence how people think about a specific issue by condition the frames of reference that people use to think about that issue.

Public policy issues can be complex, meaning that aspects of it can be positive or negative and one's view point towards the policy can be tweaked by presenting it in a specific way.

An author in the American Prospect wonders if environmentalists - whose ends are primarily supported by the left - can entice centrists and conservatives to rethink opposition to environmental programs by rethinking the frames of reference they use to present the issue.

- Click here for the article.

The author suggest using terms like sustainability - which has been used to frame the debt issue:

Dr. John Roemer, a professor of political science and economics at Yale, wrote in a 2005 paper with Woojin Lee and Karine van der Straeten that “the Left might attempt to exploit global warming the way the Right has exploited racism.” He says that the issue is even more salient today, although the right is currently in a state of “cognitive dissonance” because of their anti-government ideology. His own upcoming book, Sustainability for a Warming Planet, uses terms like “intergenerational equity” and “sustainability” that are commonly used by centrists like David Brooks and Joe Scarborough, who worry that the federal debt is unfair to future generations and on an unsustainable course. Such leaders thrive on issues like the federal debt and sustainability, a leftist concept that is intellectually harmonious with stewardship, a right-wing one. By using the language of responsibility and intergenerational equity, as well as homespun wisdom about “living within our means,” the left could create a broad umbrella coalition encompassing concerned centrists.

And point out how candidates have framed the issue to make it more enticing to conservative voters. Hit their sweet spot:

In America, some left-wing candidates have won in heavily right-wing parts of the country by using conservationist rhetoric. Bernie Sanders won his Senate seat in Vermont—a rural, white state that holds the record for longest-consecutive streak voting Republican in presidential elections—by, according to David Sirota, “visiting hunting lodges to talk about protecting natural resources for hunting and fishing and establishing a connection with [hunters].” In Montana, a state that has voted Republican in all but one of the last ten presidential elections, Governor Brian Schweitzer won twice (the second time in a landslide) partially by wooing hunters and fisherman with land and stream access. In Wyoming, the most conservative state in the country, Governor David Freudenthal’s administration focused on a long-term strategy for resource extraction that included, among other things, preserving the state’s forests and regulating hydraulic fracking. The result: a re-election margin of 20 percent and a reputation as one of the most popular governors in the country with 66 percent approval among Republicans.

The message could be tied into religion and other conservative values as well:

In hindsight, the potency of the environmentalist message should not be surprising. Religious traditions have always stressed the importance of living in harmony with the environment, and the very idea behind conservatism is not radically re-inventing the world in which one lives, lest unintended consequences ensue.

The trick will be figuring out who sends this message out. Studies suggest that who relays a message is at least as important as the content of the message. It creates a frame of reference that tells the listeners whether the content of the message should be believed.

The Donor Class

The article referred to in the previous post refers to what it calls the "donor class." These are the wealthy contributors who fund the elections of members of Congress and are - presumably - able to influence what they focus on once in office. Otherwise they might lose those supporters.

I typed "donor class" in a search engine and here's what popped up:

- In America; The Donor Class.
- Ambassador Appointment Draws Ire Inside Democratic Donor Class.
- The Rise of the Political Donor Class.
- The Minimum Wage: Popular With the Public, But Not the Donor Class.
- Head of the Donor Class.
- The Rise of the Donor Class.

Bill Moyers on Plutocracy

Is the increased amount of money spent by a smaller and smaller segment of the electorate compromising democracy?

Bill Moyers thinks so. He hits themes important to our discussion of democracy, the nature of representation and the role public opinion play in our democracy. He also ties the theme into a discussion of the fate of the Roman Republic. Increased disparities of income helped drive it.

- Click here for this article.

The historian Plutarch warned us long ago of what happens when there is no brake on the power of great wealth to subvert the electorate. “The abuse of buying and selling votes,” he wrote of Rome, “crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread in the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of emperors.”

We don’t have emperors yet, but we do have the Roberts Court that consistently privileges the donor class.

We don’t have emperors yet, but we do have a Senate in which, as a study by the political scientist Larry Bartels reveals, “Senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent constituents than to the opinions of middle-class constituents, while the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent statistical effect on their senators’ roll call votes.”

The last part is a reference to Bartel's Unequal Democracy which looks at the policy changes that have led to the growing gap between the rich and poor in the US.

- Click here for a review of the book.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: A Kink in the Democrats' Chain

One of the weaknesses of political parties in general - and the Texas Democratic Party specifically - is the inability to control who runs on their ticket. Each individual candidate determines if they want to run and on which ticket. If you get enough votes you win - even if the party prefer that you didn't.

The list of embarrassing candidates for each major party is pretty long.

I'd hardly consider Kinky Friedman to be an embarrassment - but the Democratic Party does not want him running as a Democrat for Agriculture Commissioner. Problem is - he could win the general. This creates the obvious dilemma.

- Click here for the article.

On the other side of the field, Republicans are trying to decide between two former state representatives who are in a runoff for agriculture commissioner and were each tossed out of office by the voters in their home districts.

Either Sid Miller of Stephenville or Tommy Merritt of Longview would arguably be the weakest link in the GOP’s chain of statewide candidates — the best place for the Democrats to strike. 

And the most famous name on the Democratic ballot, at the moment, belongs to the mustachioed, black-hatted singer and comedian from Medina, Texas.

The odds are against Friedman, but they were were also against Rick Perry in 1990, when he won the same job against Jim Hightower.

For any Democrat in Texas to win a statewide race this year, something out of the ordinary will have to happen. The ordinary result for the last 20 years has been a Republican victory. The closer races, for the most part, have been toward the bottom of the list of statewide races on the ballot. Democrats nearer the top came close in 1998, but since then, Republican candidates do better at the top than at the bottom.

Even there, a finish above 45 percent is rare. And the money is at the top of the ballot.
The governor’s race will probably dominate the state’s political news between now and November. It’s where the money will be, too, which means it is where the noisiest ad campaigns will originate.

The race for agriculture commissioner is far down the list, both in terms of voter interest and the interest of people who write checks to political campaigns. It is the backwater of state politics, which makes it a great place for a candidate who is well known and doesn’t need the help of the financial people to get the attention of voters.

From the Dish: The Marriage Equality End Game

I just touched up slides for 2305's discussion later this semester of public opinion - which includes a look at the impact of peer groups like generational cohorts. Changes in public policy quite often are driven by changes in the opinions that each generation holds.

This helps explain shifts in attitudes about gay marriage (also - and more positively - called marriage equality). Grandma and grandpa do not change their opinions on the matter - they just grow old and die and their opinion die with them. These are replaced by their kids and grand kids - who will have the same fate.

There's an underlying cruelty to this.

Andrew Sullivan comments on this and offers this graphic that details the different attitudes within each generation, and why the shifts in attitudes are likely to be long lasting. Note the shifts among Republicans - that's the kicker.

- Click here for the post.

Joan of Arc, Noah's wife

I'm working on the slides for public opinion and touching on political ignorance.

I ran across the following fun fact:

Many high school seniors believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, while a majority of Americans cannot name one of the four Gospels. Jay Leno asked his Tonight Show audience one night to name one of Jesus’ twelve apostles; they came up empty. One in ten Americans believes that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and only one-third knows that Jesus (not Billy Graham) preached the Sermon on the Mount. One of the most frequently quoted passages from the Bible—“God helps those who help themselves”—actually appears nowhere in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.

Many allusions in debates over government during the formative years of the republic - and every since - are couched in biblical language. Tough to follow these is basic facts contained in the document are unknown.

NYT: Obama’s New Approach Takes a Humorous Turn

A key part of a president's White House Staff is the communication office. Strategies for using the media effectively have been part of presidential administrations since Washington's day. Jefferson and Hamilton has newspapermen on their respective payroll's.

As media technology changes, so do the strategies.

The New York Times reports on President Obama's recent appearance on Funny or Die's Between Two Ferns.

The pop-culture appearance is the latest public relations gamble that Mr. Obama and his aides have taken in their pursuit of new ways to deliver their message to the connected-but-distracted generation. “Between Two Ferns,” which satirizes the low-budget look of public access television, much as “Wayne’s World” did, has had episodes that have been viewed as many as 30 million times, often because of their outrageous content.

“We have to find ways to break through,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s senior adviser and chief communications strategist. “This is essentially an extension of the code we have been trying to crack for seven years now.”

Aides said Mr. Obama’s immediate reason for subjecting himself to Mr. Galifianakis is to urge young people to sign up for health insurance on the government’s website, healthcare.gov. As a March 31 deadline for enrolling for 2014 approaches, the White House is making one final push to try to increase the numbers.

Although Mr. Obama has hardly abandoned traditional set pieces like interviews with network anchors, he has been more willing than his predecessors to ditch the oh-so-serious playbook that dominated White House communications strategy for decades.

The president has appeared on several late-night comedy shows, including once “slow-jamming” the news with Jimmy Fallon. He has held Google Hangouts and Facebook town halls, and did an interview about housing onZillow.com, a real estate listings website. He has sat on the sofa with the ladies of “The View” and done an interview with the basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley. His televised town halls have appeared on MTV, Black Entertainment Television, the Country Music Channel and Univision, the Spanish-language network.

- Click here for the article, and here for a second.

From the Dish: The CIA Forces A Constitutional Crisis

Andrew Sullivan comments on the recent revelations that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee when it was investigating allegations that the CIA used torture during the Iraq War during the Bush Administration.

He spends a good deal of time on the address made by the current chair Dianne Feinstein on the floor of the Senate as well as on whether this rises to the level of a constitutional crisis. By investigating Congress, the executive branch has used its power - in a manner not authorized by the Constitution - to check the legislature. Surveillance seems close to violating constitutional limits on the ability of the executive to arrest members of Congress while its in session.

Here are some posts worth walking through:

- Yes, The CIA Spied On Congress.
- The CIA Forces A Constitutional Crisis.
- The CIA Forces A Constitutional Crisis, Ctd
- Dissents Of The Day 

From the NYT: How a Court Secretly Evolved, Extending U.S. Spies’ Reach

In 2305 - when we discuss the judiciary - we talk about the growth of judicial independence and how this was established at least party by minimizing the ability of the executive to establish secret courts, like the Star Chamber - which they could then control.

Apparently secret courts are still in use. The New York Times details how one such court developed after the 9/11 attacks.

- Click here for the article:

Ten months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation’s surveillance court delivered a ruling that intelligence officials consider a milestone in the secret history of American spying and privacy law. Called the “Raw Take” order — classified docket No. 02-431 — it weakened restrictions on sharing private information about Americans, according to documents and interviews.

. . . Previously, with narrow exceptions, an intelligence agency was permitted to disseminate information gathered from court-approved wiretaps only after deleting irrelevant private details and masking the names of innocent Americans who came into contact with a terrorism suspect. The Raw Take order significantly changed that system, documents show, allowing counterterrorism analysts at the N.S.A., the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. to share unfiltered personal information.

The leaked documents that refer to the rulings, including one called the “Large Content FISA” order and several more recent expansions of powers on sharing information, add new details to the emerging public understanding of a secret body of law that the court has developed since 2001. The files help explain how the court evolved from its original task — approving wiretap requests — to engaging in complex analysis of the law to justify activities like the bulk collection of data about Americans’ emails and phone calls.

“These latest disclosures are important,” said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. “They indicate how the contours of the law secretly changed, and they represent the transformation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court into an interpreter of law and not simply an adjudicator of surveillance applications.”

If I'm following this correctly, the FISA court has assumed the power to be able to - secretly - expand the power of the executive branch. This raises the obvious constitutional, separation of powers questions.

Some random posts on the 2015 U.S. Budget

A few things for M2 2305 students to chew on as you consider paper topics.

- Federal Budget Deficit Falls to Smallest Level Since 2008.
- Factbox: Details of U.S. President Obama's fiscal year 2015 budget.
- Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level.
- Obama budget sets up election-year clash with Republicans.
- The president’s budget: Sliding away.

From the NYT: Can Writing Be Assessed?

Interesting topic, especially since I'll be doing lot's of this - attempting to anyway - as will all your fellow instructors here at ACC.

- Click here for the article.

From the Dish: The Texas GOP Has Two Right Feet

Andrew Sullivan hits some of the same material discussed below - but adds some links 2306 students might want to check out.

- Click here for his post.

The basic theme seems to be that the gap between the "establishment" and Tea Party wings of the Texas Republican party is very small - if there is a gap at all. M2 students might consider focusing on that issue as a potential paper topic.

Catching up with the 2016 election

Here are links to some recent stories related to the race to be the next president. Click here for past stories on the 2016 election.

Some of these focus on what potential Republican Party candidates positioning themselves so they can do well in the Iowa Caucus, specifically the Iowa straw poll - the first official electoral event for the 2016 cycle.

The money primary has been well underway for some time, as has jockeying for top consultants and operatives.

- The Iowa Caucuses Have started.
- Ryan to Iowa as he keeps 2016 'options open'.
- Rand Paul, gearing up for 2016, poaches Iowa’s GOP chairman.
- Republicans question Iowa's key role in presidential balloting.
- GROVER NORQUIST: Here Are The Only 6 Republicans Who Can Win In 2016.
- Texas candidates could be top contenders in GOP straw poll for 2016 Presidential nomination.

Will Tea Party success move the Republican Party so far to the right that Texas Democrats can become competitive statewide?

Normally the answer would be yes, but the following has doubts about whether this is the case - at least in the near term.

- Click here for the article.

In both 2305 and 2306 we discuss the electoral process and the impact that primary elections have on the nature of the candidates that end up on the general election ballot. Primary voters tend to be more ideologically extreme, and they ensure that the candidates that face the general electorate tilt either to the left or right.

Sometimes a party's primary voters tilt so far to one side that they become unacceptable to the general electorate. The other party - with a presumably less extreme candidate - becomes more attractive to the moderate voters who dominate general elections. They vote for the candidate of the other party. This assumes that what drives the electorate in the primary is not the same as what drives the electorate in the general election. While Tea Party candidates have proven too extreme for the general election in some states - Delaware, Missouri, Nevada among them - this isn't necessarily the case in Texas. At least we will be finding out this November.

Political consultants don't the increasingly rightward tilt of the Republican Party will make the Democratic Party more attractive to moderates in the state now - but it might in the future:

The rhetoric that appeals to the tea party movement — including “closing down” the border, barring abortion for rape victims, the open carrying of guns and impeaching President Barack Obama — is polarizing to many moderate and Hispanic voters.

But experts largely agree it’s still not enough to entice middle-ground voters to window-shop at the Democratic Party. At least not yet.

“The more Republicans wander further and further away from the concerns of most Texans — not talking about education or the places they live — the faster they will hasten the return of the Democrats,” said Harold Cook, a Democratic consultant.
Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said that’s not going to happen in 2014. He agreed that if “the party moves so far right that it creates problems and voters don’t like the direction, yes, in two or four or six years, that will be reflected in how people vote,” Mackowiak said. “But I don’t see a short-term problem.”

In a traditionally competitive campaign, candidates move toward the left or right flank for the primary but tack toward the middle to win the general election. But for nearly two decades, Texas Republicans have had to worry only about the first round.

“All a candidate had to do to be elected to statewide office is avoid being the Democratic nominee,” Cook said.

Democrats haven’t won a statewide contest in 20 years. But last week’s primary brought out a type of conservatism that has given some moderate Republicans pause and given all Democrats hope, he said.

“The more right-wing folks Texas ends up electing, the faster the day will come when people will regret those elections,” Cook said.

But for now, the Democratic base is small in the state, Hispanic Texans don’t yet vote in proportion to their booming population numbers, and the Democrats lack the money and star power to pull enough voters to their side.

From the Dish: Obama’s Election-Year Budget

2305 M2 students ought to click here to get background for the written assignment.

- Click here for the link.

Andrew Sullivan links to a variety of opinions about the recently submitted 2015 budget. Consider adopting one of these into your paper topic. I'll have separate posts associated with them later. Overall the budget has been considered to be a "political budget" - which some argue all budgets really are, what matters for spending is the appropriations process - because House Republicans are unlikely to work with him on compromises in an election year. They didn't last year.

Sullivan includes the graphic which helps us comprehend the size of the different spending items in the document.

From the Monkey Cage: Why most conservatives are secretly liberals

A provocative piece. GOVT 2305 students ought to dig into this in order to provide context for the class material on both ideology and public opinion.

- Click here for the article.

The authors call attention to a recently published book that suggests that though a plurality of people tell pollsters that they are conservative - many more than call themselves liberal - similar pluralities show support for liberal policies.

They conclude this suggests that while "liberal may be a dirty word, but liberalism is alive and well — even among people who call themselves 'conservative.'"

For decades now there has been a consistent discrepancy between what Ellis and Stimson call symbolic ideology (how we label ourselves) and operational ideology (what we really think about the size of government).

Looked at this way, almost 30 percent of Americans are “consistent liberals” — people who call themselves liberals and have liberal politics. Only 15 percent are “consistent conservatives” — people who call themselves conservative and have conservative politics. Nearly 30 percent are people who identify as conservative but actually express liberal views. The United States appears to be a center-right nation in name only.
This raises the question: why are so many people identifying as conservative while simultaneously preferring more government? For some conservatives, it is because they associate the label with religion, culture or lifestyle. In essence, when they identify as “conservative,” they are thinking about conservatism in terms of family structure, raising children, or interpreting the Bible. Conservatism is about their personal lives, not their politics.

But other self-identified conservatives, though, are conservative in terms of neither religion and culture nor the size of government. These are the truly “conflicted conservatives,” say Ellis and Stimson, who locate their origins in a different factor: how conservatives and liberals have traditionally talked about politics. Conservatives, they argue, talk about politics in terms of symbols and the general value of “conservatism” — and news coverage, they find, usually frames the label “conservative” in positive terms. Liberals talk about policy in terms of the goals it will serve — a cleaner environment, a stronger safety net, and so on — which are also good things for many people. As a result, some people internalize both messages and end up calling themselves conservative but having liberal views on policy.

Ideology has two faces: the labels people choose and the actual content of their beliefs. For liberals, these are mostly aligned. For conservatives, they are not. American conservatism means different things to different people. For many, what it doesn’t mean is less government.

How did the Tea Party do in last week's primary?

Better than expected, though some observers have pointed out that Tea Party ideals have been a staple of Texas politics for some time. Even candidates that are argued to be centrist establishment types are very conservative and trumpet the same positions Tea Party backed candidates do.

A few items to run through:

From the NYT: Texas G.O.P. Beats Back Challengers From Right. The story suggests that any losses the Tea Party suffered happened because "establishment" candidates tacked far to the right to survive the challenge:

The success of several Republican incumbents Tuesday suggested to some that the influence of the Tea Party here had waned. But to others, it merely showed that the incumbents had managed to appease Tea Party conservatives by steering farther to the right. Still others said the Tea Party-supported candidates who were successful in ousting incumbents in the state Legislature, or forcing them into runoffs, were a sign of the movement’s continued strength in Texas.

From Slate: A Good Night for Texas Conservatives; a Bad Night for Grifters. The author points out that despite the fact that John Cornyn - our incumbent Senator beat back Tea Party opposition - others weren't so lucky.

From The American Prospect: Why Does the National Media Get Texas So Wrong? This repeats some points made in the previous article and points out the difficulty of determining what "the establishment" refers to in Texas. While the Tea Party may lack a unifying leader, and it does not have the force it had 4 years ago. It's still pretty strong.

From the BBC: Texas: Reports of Tea Party death have been exaggerated. The authors points out that Tea Party candidates did especially well at the local level, and that candidates have learned what it takes to appeal to Tea Party voters. The story also contains the following text that points out how primary elections encourage party polarization by allowing the more extreme primary voters to determine the candidates that appear on the general election ballot:

All of this has the Dallas Morning News's Tod Robberson, a self-proclaimed centrist, lamenting the state's primary system: 

In several races, we are going to wind up with an arch-conservative tea party type who wins the primary and will represent the GOP in the general election. And he or she will wind up vying against a hard-left Democrat. It'll be the worst choice to put before voters. But that will be the choice because those two candidates will have done the best job of appealing to the extremists and die-hards within their respective parties. The winner will go to Austin or Washington and probably will do an abysmal job. And then we'll repeat this same process in another two years, adding yet another batch of abysmal, extremist performers to the mix.

Here's a look at the state of the national Tea Party movement. Success in Texas does not lead to success nation-wide necessarily since Texas' political culture is very different from the national political culture.

From the Hill: Tea Party at five: Dawning or dimming? The national movement has not had the same impact that the movement in Texas has had. The recent vote on the debt ceiling is an example:

GOP leadership and establishment business groups have begun pushing back more forcefully against the movement. The fact that both McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) were willing to break with most of their party to help increase the debt ceiling without conditions shows their frustration with the base might have surpassed their fear of it. While there are dozens of Tea Party challengers to incumbent Republicans, only Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) appear to be facing a real threat.