Changes in Texas' presidential voting patterns by county

- 2000.
- 2004.
- 2008.
- 2012.
- 2016.

- 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.

From the Texas Tribune: Collin County is the center of a political storm as the Texas suburbs become more competitive for Democrats

More on an ongoing theme. Cities in Texas have largely shifted to the Democratic party, the suburbs surrounding those cities seem to be next.

- Click here for it. 

Six years ago, Collin County was so solidly Republican that many of its representatives in Austin and Washington didn’t even draw Democratic opponents. Now three of them find themselves in their most competitive November races yet.

It is one sign of how quickly the political environment has shifted in the suburban county north of Dallas, which is now an emerging battleground important to understanding Texas in 2020. Unlike some suburban counties in 2018, Collin did not flip in statewide results — but a once-overwhelming GOP advantage continued to narrow and next week’s election could be the tipping point.

“It’s just changed,” said Sharon Hirsch, the Democrat challenging state Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano. “It’s no surprise — it’s growing, it’s becoming more diverse, we have a highly educated population. They’re focused on basic issues like great schools and safe communities and health care. They’re not focused on the fringe-right issues, and that’s where our representation is right now, and I think it’s fixin’ to change.”

From Wikipedia: Statues affecting the size of the Supreme Court

 Remember that the Constitution says nothing about  this

- Judiciary Act of 1789

- Judiciary Act of 1801

- Judiciary Act of 1802

- Seventh Circuit Act of 1807

- Eighth and Ninth Circuits Act of 1837

- Tenth Circuit Act of 1863

- Judicial Circuits Act of 1866

- Judiciary Act of 1869

Some relevant Supreme Court cases in the October 2020 term

From Oyez:

- Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. A case in which the Court will decide (1) whether Arizona’s policy of not counting provisional ballots cast in person on Election Day outside of the voter’s designated precinct violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and (2) whether Arizona’s law permitting only certain persons to handle another person’s completed early ballot violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or the Fifteenth Amendment.

- Collins v Mnuchin. A case in which the Court will decide whether the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) structure violates the separation of powers; and (2) whether the courts must set aside a final agency action that FHFA took when it was unconstitutionally structured and strike down the statutory provisions that make FHFA independent.

- Department of Justice v. House Committee on the Judiciary A case in which the Court will decide whether an impeachment trial before a legislative body is a “judicial proceeding” under Rule 6(e)(3)(E)(i) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

- Lange v. California. A case in which the Court will decide whether the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement applies when police are pursuing a suspect whom they believe committed a misdemeanor.

- Trump v. Sierra Club. A case in which the Court will decide whether Section 8005 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act authorizes President Trump to divert $2.5 billion in military funds to pay for the border wall.

- Wolf v. Innovation Law Lab. A case in which the Court will rule on the legality of the Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy.

From ScotusBlog: Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

 Supreme Court hears a case regarding discrimination on religious grounds and free speech.

- Click here for it.

Whether free exercise plaintiffs can only succeed by proving a particular type of discrimination claim — namely that the government would allow the same conduct by someone who held different religious views — as two circuits have held, or whether courts must consider other evidence that a law is not neutral and generally applicable, as six circuits have held; (2) whether Employment Division v. Smith should be revisited; and (3) whether the government violates the First Amendment by conditioning a religious agency’s ability to participate in the foster care system on taking actions and making statements that directly contradict the agency’s religious beliefs.

From APNews: Supreme Court issues flurry of last-minute election orders

The chapter on the judiciary meets the chapter on elections.

- Click here for it.

North Carolina, yes. Pennsylvania, yes. Wisconsin, no. That’s how the Supreme Court has answered questions in recent days about an extended timeline for receiving and counting ballots in those states.

In each case, Democrats backed the extensions and Republicans opposed them. All three states have Democratic governors and legislatures controlled by the GOP.

At first blush, the difference in the outcomes at the Supreme Court seems odd because the high court typically takes up issues to harmonize the rules across the country. But elections are largely governed by states, and the rules differ from one state to the next.

There also is a difference in how the justices act based on whether they are ruling on a lawsuit that began in state or federal court.

Conservative justices who hold a majority on the Supreme Court object to what they see as intrusions by federal judges who order last-minute changes to state election rules, even in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The power to alter absentee ballot deadlines and other voting issues rests with state legislatures, not federal courts, according to the conservative justices.

The court also is divided, but so far has been willing to allow state courts interpreting their own state constitutions to play more of a role than their federal counterparts.

Last week, four conservative justices would have put on hold a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling allowing three additional days to receive and count mailed ballots. Three justices in Wednesday’s order about North Carolina’s absentee ballots would have blocked a six-day extension.

The justices did not finally resolve the legal issues involved, but they could do so after the election. A more thorough examination could come either in a post-election challenge that could determine the presidential winner if, for example, Pennsylvania proves critical to the national outcome, or in a less tense setting that might not affect the 2020 vote, but would apply in the future.

From Oyez: 4 Key Segregation Cases

We'll use these to walk through terminology in the chapter on the judiciary. It'll help us prep for the upcoming chapter on civil rights.

- Plessy v Ferguson.

- Sweatt v Painter.

- Brown v Board 1.

- Brown v Board 2.

From Oyez: Baker v Carr

 - Click here for it.

12 of the Boldest Executive Orders in U.S. History to Kick Off Your Presidents Day

 - Click here for the list.

U. S. Department of Homeland Security Public Org Chart

 - Click here for it.

For the agencies within the department: 

- Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
- U.S. Customs & Border Protection
- U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services
- U.S. Coast Guard
- U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- U.S. Secret Service
- Transportation Security Administration 

For background on the Department click here. 

Tom Pendergast and Harry Truman

The president responsible for the creation of the Defense Department and the person responsible for starting his career.

- Click here for it

The Organizational Development of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

 - Click here for it.

From Wikipedia: United States Department of Defense

Created after the National Security Act.

- Click here for the article.

After the end of World War II, President Harry Truman proposed the creation of a unified department of national defense. In a special message to Congress on 19 December 1945, the president cited both wasteful military spending and inter-departmental conflicts. Deliberations in Congress went on for months focusing heavily on the role of the military in society and the threat of granting too much military power to the executive.

On 26 July 1947, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which set up a unified military command known as the "National Military Establishment", as well as creating the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, National Security Resources Board, United States Air Force (formerly the Army Air Forces) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act placed the National Military Establishment under the control of a single secretary of defense. The National Military Establishment formally began operations on 18 September, the day after the Senate confirmed James V. Forrestal as the first secretary of defense. The National Military Establishment was renamed the "Department of Defense" on 10 August 1949 and absorbed the three cabinet-level military departments, in an amendment to the original 1947 law.

From US Courts.gov: Court Role and Structure

 A good inside look at the design of the national courts.

- Click here for it.

And for good measure: 

Wikipedia: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.  

Ideology on the Supreme Court

 A few items: 

Wikipedia: Ideological leanings of United States Supreme Court justices.

Scotusblog: Empirical SCOTUS: A comprehensive look at Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

The Congressional Budget Office

 For our perusal.

- Click here.

From Wikipedia: The United States Intelligence Community

Created by an executive order by Ronald Reagan.

- Click here for the entry.

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a group of separate United States government intelligence agencies and subordinate organizations, that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities to support the foreign policy and national security of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agencies, military intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments. The IC is overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which itself is headed by the director of national intelligence (DNI), who reports to the president of the United States.

Among their varied responsibilities, the members of the community collect and produce foreign and domestic intelligence, contribute to military planning, and perform espionage. The IC was established by Executive Order 12333, signed on December 4, 1981, by U.S. president Ronald Reagan.

The Washington Post reported in 2010 that there were 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies in 10,000 locations in the United States that were working on counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence, and that the intelligence community as a whole includes 854,000 people holding top-secret clearances. According to a 2008 study by the ODNI, private contractors make up 29% of the workforce in the U.S. intelligence community and account for 49% of their personnel budgets.

From Wikipedia: National Security Act of 1947

The start of the modern era of the military in the US.

- Click here for the entry. 

The National Security Act of 1947 was a law enacting major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense.

The Act merged the Department of War (renamed as the Department of the Army) and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (NME), headed by the Secretary of Defense. It also created the Department of the Air Force and the United States Air Force, which separated the Army Air Forces into its own service. It also protected the Marine Corps as an independent service, under the Department of the Navy.

Aside from the military reorganization, the act established the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S.'s first peacetime non-military intelligence agency.

From Lawfare: The Danger of Overstating the Impact of Information Operations

Just because foreign efforts exist to impact an election doesn't mean they're working.

- Click here for the article.

But if Russians are in fact mounting any information operations, shouldn’t the public be vigilant and raise the alarm anyway? Even if they are not the main game in town, they are still doing something that is illegal and against which we should defend, no?

The question has to be answered based on the objective of the disinformation campaign. If the objective is to get discrete false facts or frames communicated to target audiences, then yes, researchers and people in government should focus on it and there is no harm in emphasizing the threats of Russian disinformation. There have been excellent discrete studies of Russian propaganda aimed to achieve specific beliefs, such as the campaign to besmirch the White Helmets in Syria. These studies suggest that researchers certainly need to maintain an effort to monitor and identify, contain, and counter Russian information operations.

But most Russian information operations aren’t aimed at pushing concrete facts. It’s widely known that internally, in Russia itself and in its near periphery, the broad strategic thrust that Russian propaganda has focused mostly on is achieving disorientation, a state of “nothing is true and everything is possible,” as Peter Pomerantsev put it so well. It is that general disorientation, rather than a specific belief in a specific false fact or frame, that renders an opponent ungovernable. Beating the drums about disinformation campaigns aimed at this kind of disorientation is harmful, rather than helpful. If the objective of the campaign is to sow doubt and confusion, to make Americans believe that we have been infiltrated and that Russia is an all-powerful actor messing with our democracy, then overstating the importance of the campaign simply reinforces and executes the Russian plan.

To appear powerful and dangerous, all Russian actors need to do is make sure they are described as powerful and dangerous by credible sources in the United States. And for now, it seems that they are succeeding in doing just that. They have made a show of mounting information operations. And although there is no publicly available evidence that these operations have had any meaningful impact on voting or other behaviors and beliefs at a mass population level, their observed efforts have triggered extensive news reporting, published research and government readiness responses. Having triggered an autoimmune response, Russian actors can sit back to enjoy seeing well-intentioned and unwitting instruments report their campaigns widely and give them much more weight than they deserve.

From 538: Why Many Americans Don't Vote

For this week's written assignment.

- Click here for it.

In any given election, between 35 and 60 percent of eligible voters don’t cast a ballot. It’s not that hard to understand why. Our system doesn’t make it particularly easy to vote, and the decision to carve out a few hours to cast a ballot requires a sense of motivation that’s hard for some Americans to muster every two or four years — enthusiasm about the candidates, belief in the importance of voting itself, a sense that anything can change as the result of a single vote. “I guess I just don’t think that one person’s vote can swing an election,” said Jon Anderson, who won’t be voting for president this year because of moral objections to both candidates.

But who does — and doesn’t — vote is complex. Most Americans don’t fall neatly into any one category. Instead, as we found in our new poll with Ipsos, most are like Brown. They vote inconsistently, or at moments when they feel like their vote has a chance to make a difference, or when the stakes of not voting are just too high, which is how many Americans describe this upcoming election.

Of the 8,000-plus people we polled, we were able to match nearly 6,000 to their voting history. We analyzed the views of the respondents in that slightly smaller group, and found that they fell into three broad groups: 1) people who almost always vote; 2) people who sometimes vote; and 3) people who rarely or never vote. People who sometimes vote were a plurality of the group (44 percent), while 31 percent nearly always cast a ballot and just 25 percent almost never vote. And as the chart below shows, there weren’t huge differences between people who vote almost all the time and those who vote less consistently. Yes, those who voted more regularly were higher income, more educated, more likely to be white and more likely to identify with one of the two political parties, but those who only vote some of the time were also fairly highly educated and white, and not overwhelmingly young. There were much bigger differences between people who sometimes vote and those who almost never vote.

From the United States Election Project: Voter Turnout National Turnout Rates, 1787-2018

 - Click here for it.

From the U.S. Senate: The Filibuster and Cloture

- Filibuster.

- Cloture.

From Roll Call: Senate cuts off debate on Barrett nomination, moves to final vote on Monday

For our look at Congress in 2305.

- Click here for the article.

A sharply divided Senate dispensed with a key procedural hurdle Sunday on the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, as Republicans raced to a final confirmation vote Monday that will solidify the high court’s conservative tilt.

In a rare weekend floor vote mostly along party lines, 51-48, Republicans backed President Donald Trump’s pick of the reliably conservative federal appeals court judge to fill the vacancy left by the death last month of the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The only Republicans voting against the cloture motion were Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. On Saturday, Murkowski said she would vote Sunday against cutting off debate on the motion, but would vote to confirm Barrett on Monday.

At the same time, Democratic senators decried a plan to have Vice President Mike Pence preside over Monday night’s vote for the Supreme Court nominee from his state, even though his chief of staff and other staffers in his office tested positive for COVID-19.

How hard is it to vote in your state?

The Cost-of-voting index

- Click here for it.

Oregon takes top honors for making it easy on voters in 2020—followed by Washington, Utah, Illinois and Maryland. Factors that help make voting convenient include online voter registration, early voting, mail-in voting, being able to register as late as Election Day and automatic voter registration of citizens who are eligible to vote.

“Notably, among the top states, Oregon, Utah and Washington all have permanent vote-by-mail processes,” Schraufnagel says. “Illinois is among the group of states that make absentee voting very easy, although it’s not the same as mail-in voting.”

On the flipside, Texas is the state with the most restrictive voting processes, followed by Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee. Texas maintains an in-person voter registration deadline 30 days prior to Election Day, has reduced the number of polling stations in some parts of the state by more than 50 percent and has the most restrictive pre-registration law in the country, according to the analysis.

Other factors that make voters jump through more hoops in some states include strict voter ID laws, cumbersome absentee voting processes and a lack of early voting options.

- Cost of Voting in the American States: 2020.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: It's harder to vote in Texas than in any other state

Commentary: 

- Click here for the article.

Here’s how the researchers wrote up our state’s position on the list: “Texas maintains an in-person voter registration deadline 30 days prior to Election Day, has reduced the number of polling stations in some parts of the state by more than 50% and has the most restrictive pre-registration law in the country, according to the analysis.”

States at the top of the list — where it’s easiest to vote — have voting conveniences that aren’t available here, like online voter registration, automatic voter registration and allowing voters to register as late as Election Day. (The Texas deadline was Oct. 5.)

Some have universal mail-in voting, which the study considers a hallmark of a state where it’s easy to vote. In Texas, voting by mail is only available to people ages 65 and older, to eligible voters confined to jail, for voters who are out of their county of residence during voting, and for voters who cite a disability that prevents them from safely going to the polls.

And higher-rated states require only a signature for in-person voting, instead of tight voter photo identification laws like the one in Texas.

From the Texas Tribune: Order allowing Texas counties to have multiple mail-in ballot drop off sites is upheld, but appeal halts openings

More on the checks and balances.

- Click here for the article.

A state appeals court on Friday upheld a Travis County State district court order allowing Texas counties to have multiple drop-off locations for hand delivery of absentee ballots, undercutting Gov. Greg Abbott's recent directive limiting counties to one drop-off site.

But the intermediate court's decision will not yet lead to the reopening of ballot drop-off locations that were shut down in Harris and Travis counties after Abbott's order. Abbott and Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs immediately appealed the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court, which at least temporarily blocked the order from taking effect Saturday morning.

The lawsuit, filed in Travis County, is one of several state and federal court challenges to Abbott’s Oct. 1 order, which shut down three ballot drop-off locations in Travis County and 11 in Harris County and halted plans for more drop-offs in other counties. Last week, a federal appeals court upheld the Republican governor’s order under federal law, overturning a lower court’s ruling.

From the 1876 Texas Constitution

From the original version:

- Article 3.
- Article 4.
- Article 5.

From the current version:

- Article 3.
- Article 4.
- Article 5.

 

U.S. Code. Title 18: CHAPTER 84

 - Click here - from August 1965.

From Wikipedia: Crimes Act of 1790

The first bill outlining crimes against the national government. These were to be prosecuted in the national courts.

- Click here for the entry. 

- Click here to see the current national penal code.

The Judiciary Act and the Jay Court

The Act that established the original federal court: click here.

The first court, under the first Chief Justice: click here.

From Square Up: The US Financial System and Alexander Hamilton

 A look at Hamilton's influence on the development of the American economy.

- Click here for it.

From the TSHA: Boss Rule

It was never prevalent in the state, but it did exist

- Click here for the entry

During the second half of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, boss rule became a prevalent pattern of political organization in the big cities of the United States. Typically, a clique of politicians dominated the political life of a city by manipulating the votes of large numbers of immigrants. The bosses resorted to bribery and coercion, but they also won the support of the hard-pressed newcomers by providing informal welfare services and limited opportunities for upward mobility. Businessmen as well often embraced the systems to secure special favors from city government. Some historians have even argued that the centralization of authority resulting from boss rule was an essential step in solving social problems growing out of rapid urban growth.

The concentration of political power in the hands of a few has not been uncommon in Texas cities during the twentieth century. In cities like Dallas and Houston, powerful business interests have prevailed. For example, the Citizens' Council and its sister organization, the Citizens' Charter Association, not only promoted the economic growth of Dallas but also, beginning in the mid-1930s, determined the character of city government. Corporate executives participating in these Dallas organizations recruited candidates for public office, arranged newspaper support, and provided generous financial backing. Their candidates usually carried the city elections. The corporate leaders also directly decided such basic social issues as the pace of racial integration in Dallas.

Despite the concentration of power and the limits on the political choices open to the public, however, this form of business government did not conform to the basic features of Texas boss rule. The truest and most notorious application of machine politics took root in South Texas during the closing decades of the nineteenth century and was still visible in some counties ninety years later. Stephen Powers and James B. Wells, Jr., oversaw the establishment of a Democratic political machine in Cameron County during the 1870s and 1880s. The ring retained control of Cameron County politics until 1920 and contributed to the formation of similar organizations in Hidalgo, Starr, and Duval counties.

From ACC: NOTICE ABOUT 2020 TAX RATES

For our look at the tax policies of local governments.

- Click here for it.

From Roll Call: Five more states voting this fall on legalizing marijuana

Policy diffusion, and state as laboratories of democracy: 

- Click here for the article.

Marijuana legalization advocates, afraid that efforts to win ballot initiatives would go up in smoke given the challenges of a pandemic, are fired up about chances in five states this fall.

The difficulty of safely getting signatures in person helped doom marijuana legalization efforts in some states, like Idaho and Missouri. But voters will decide next month whether to legalize recreational marijuana in four states, only one of which is reliably Democratic: Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota. Mississippi will also consider a pair of ballot initiatives to legalize medical marijuana.

Despite COVID-19 risks, advocates managed to collect more than 661,000 signatures in four of those states in the 2020 election cycle to put the questions on the ballot. Some began before the pandemic hit, while advocates with later deadlines added protective steps like using individual plastic-wrapped pens.

In recent years, 11 states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 years old or older, while 33 states plus the District have legalized medical marijuana for some patients.

If successful, as is likely in all the states this year except possibly Mississippi, the new legalization efforts could altogether bring in hundreds of millions in tax revenue, which could help blunt the impact of states’ plummeting revenue due to the economic collapse.

From the Texas Tribune: “They are hurting them”: Advocacy groups ask feds to investigate sexual assaults, gang violence in Texas youth lockups

 This story combines federalism, interest groups, executive agencies, and the public policy process.

- Click here for it.

Children in Texas’ youth lockups are suffering from widespread sexual assault and other constitutional violations, reform advocates wrote Wednesday in a complaint urging a federal investigation into the state’s five youth lockups.

Texas Appleseed and Disability Rights Texas, two justice and legal organizations, filed the complaint with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, citing “grievous violations of children’s constitutional rights” from the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.

The complaint is the latest criticism lodged by several people and entities — from reform advocates and the state legislature to Gov. Greg Abbott— in what’s been more than a decade of chronic understaffing, abuse and scandal within TJJD.

“The state facilities are not just failing the youth in them, they are hurting them,” said Brett Merfish, director of youth justice at Texas Appleseed. “Ongoing understaffing leads to an overall lack of safety.”

Still, the agency has undergone some major reforms in recent years. In 2007, after media reports highlighted physical and sexual abuse at state-run facilities, concerned judges stopped committing as many juveniles to state custody and the Legislature implemented several reforms to shift money from the state’s lockups and into local probation departments. As TJJD has encouraged more reliance on county facilities and reduced the number of state youth lockups from 12 in 2007 to five today, there has been a sustained drop in juveniles detained in state lockups.

The five youth lockups, which are in mostly rural areas far away from urban centers, had an average of 800 youths per day in 2019 — an average of 160 per facility — down from the 909 they had in 2018. Reform advocates and the TJJD have noted the need to further reduce the youth lockup population to under 100 per day.

“Efforts to reform the remaining facilities have never taken root,” the complaint says. TJJD did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the complaint Wednesday morning.

From the Texas Tribune: In Texas House fight, Democrats bet big on health care, while Republicans emphasize police support

 A look at campaign strategies.

- Click here for the article.

When Democrat Brandy Chambers read in The Dallas Morning News last month that her opponent, state Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, now supports Medicaid expansion, Chambers could not believe it.

“Shocked would be a good word,” Chambers recalled in an interview.

Button and other Texas Republicans have long resisted expanding Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program, even though Texas has the country’s highest uninsured rate. But Button said she now sees the need for expanding the program due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left many Texans jobless — and without health insurance.

Button is not the only Republican lawmaker raising eyebrows about seemingly new policy positions now that the party’s majority in the Texas House is on the line. Another endangered incumbent, Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, recently expressed regret for supporting the divisive “bathroom bill” that sought to limit public restroom access for transgender people and headlined the 2017 legislative year without ever becoming law.

That legislation, along with Medicaid expansion, is among a litany of issues that are cropping up in the final weeks of the Nov. 3 election that will decide the balance of power in the Legislature’s lower chamber. The stakes are high, with the battle unfolding ahead of the 2021 redistricting process during which lawmakers will draw new political boundaries for the state.

Two Key Budgeting Institutions

- The Office of Management and Budget.
- The Congressional Budget Office.

A look at the last two Congresses

 Both from Wikipedia.

- 115th Congress.
- 116th Congress.

From the U.S. House: The Legislative Process

 - Click here for it.

What is Section 230?

 It is a section in the Communications Decency Act, which is part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which 2305 students should remember from the chapter on the media.

- Click here for the Wikipedia on Section 230.

Section 230 generally provides immunity for website publishers from third-party content.

At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

The statute in Section 230(c)(2) further provides "Good Samaritan" protection from civil liability for operators of interactive computer services in the removal or moderation of third-party material they deem obscene or offensive, even of constitutionally protected speech, as long as it is done in good faith.

From the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation: Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?

 An example of a congressional hearing. This on is set for 10/21

- Click here for the link.

From the Texas Tribune: Here's how many Texans have voted early in the 2020 general election in the state's biggest counties

Just keeping up to date: 

- Click here.

From ScotusBlog: Argument analysis: Justices spar over stare decisis, originalism, text and what counts as a Fourth Amendment “seizure”

This combines this week's subject matter with material we covered in Chapters 2 and 4: Constitutional interpretation and probable cause.

- Click here for the article.

In the oral argument of Torres v. Madrid on Wednesday, the justices tried out all the tools of constitutional interpretation as they worked through the meaning of the critical Fourth Amendment term, “seizure.” How they rule will answer one of the last remaining questions in this context: Is there a Fourth Amendment “seizure” when the police shoot a fleeing suspect who is injured by the bullets but does not stop?

Kelsi Corkran argued on behalf of Roxanne Torres, a New Mexico woman who was shot twice by state police before driving away from the scene. She had support from Rebecca Taibleson, who appeared as a “friend of the court” on behalf of the United States. Mark Standridge argued for the police officers, Janice Madrid and Richard Williamson. Torres claims in a civil rights lawsuit that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment right by committing an unreasonable seizure when they shot her. The officers’ defense is that the shooting did not constitute a seizure at all.

From ScotusBlog: Trump v. New York

 The case referred to in the previous post.

- Click here for the page.

Issues: (1) Whether a group of states and local governments have standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge a July 21, 2020, memorandum by President Donald Trump instructing the secretary of commerce to include in his report on the 2020 census information enabling the president to exclude noncitizens from the base population number for purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives; and (2) whether the memorandum is a permissible exercise of the president’s discretion under the provisions of law governing congressional apportionment.

From the Texas Tribune: Supreme Court will review Trump plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from calculations for congressional seats

For our look at checks and balances: 

- Click here for the article.

The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will review President Donald Trump’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants when calculating how congressional seats are apportioned among the states.

The unprecedented proposal could have the effect of shifting both political power and billions of dollars in federal funds away from urban states with large immigrant populations and toward rural and more Republican interests.

A three-judge panel in New York said Trump’s July 21 memorandum on the matter was “an unlawful exercise of the authority granted to” him by Congress. It blocked the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau from including information about the number of undocumented immigrants — it is unclear how those numbers would be generated — in their reports to the president after this year’s census is completed.

The justices put the case on a fast track and said they will hold a hearing Nov. 30. By then, it probably will be a nine-member court again, if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed, giving the court a 6-to-3 conservative majority. The administration says timing matters because it must present the plan to Congress in January.

It is unclear whether the matter would divide the court along ideological lines, but the issue is another mark of how the once-­a-decade census has been transformed from a largely bureaucratic exercise into the centerpiece of a partisan battle.

From Roll Call: Murkowski says she’ll use appropriations to block Alaskan mine

The appropriations process provides an alternative way to impact public policy. Here is an example: 

- Click here for the article.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski issued her strongest objection to date against the Pebble Mine project, a proposed mining site of copper, gold and molybdenum near the ecologically sensitive Bristol Bay, pledging to use the federal appropriations process to protect the region.

Speaking virtually at a convention of the Alaska Federation of Natives on Thursday, Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwoman of the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, said she would use spending legislation to protect Bristol Bay, home to the world's biggest salmon run and one of its largest commercial fisheries. She is also chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"I simply think that this is the wrong mine in the wrong place," Murkowski said. "We need longer-term protections for the region that can also provide enduring value for Alaskans."

Murkowski submitted language in the fiscal 2020 Interior-Environment spending bill that directed the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a more rigorous environmental assessment of the project's risks. "I plan to build on my appropriations language from last year to make sure that the Bristol bay region remains protected," she said Thursday.

Pebble Mine has stalled since 2014, when the Environmental Protection Agency blocked the project, citing risks to fish in the region. The project has come under scrutiny and political pressure in recent weeks.

From Roll Call: US deficit hit a record $3.1 trillion last year

For our look at budgeting.

- Click here for the story.

The coronavirus relief spending blowout and recession pushed the federal deficit to a record-busting $3.1 trillion in fiscal 2020, three times the previous year’s budget shortfall, the Trump administration said Friday.

The previous year's deficit was $984 billion, by comparison. The administration projected a $1.1 trillion deficit for fiscal 2020 in February.

In a joint statement, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said government tax receipts totaled $3.42 trillion, $42 billion or 1 percent less than the previous year.

Meanwhile, spending catapulted to $6.55 trillion, $2.1 trillion or a 47 percent increase above fiscal 2019. The report attributed the surge in spending to four laws passed to provide pandemic relief and increased use of federal programs such as unemployment insurance.

Despite the surge of red ink, the officials said the economy “has begun an incredible comeback,” with 52 percent of the jobs lost during the pandemic recovered over the past five months. They pointed to the unemployment rate declining each month since its peak in April, falling to 7.9 percent in September.

From the Brennan Center: A Win Against Dark Money Eight Years in the Making

The fight over disclosure requirements continues.

- Click here for the article.

Good news is infrequent when you’re on the anticorruption beat. Notable recent incidents, for example, have included the sentencing of a former U.S. congressman’s wife for misuse of campaign funds and the resignation of a North Carolina state legislator who had pled guilty to tax evasion charges. However, in a rare positive development, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled last month that the Federal Elections Commission (FEC)’s disclosure rules on dark money were too weak.

In the case at hand, CREW v. FEC (which should not be confused with other cases, including a 2018 case of the same name), the plaintiffs were led by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose mission is to hold government officials accountable to ethics rules, campaign finance laws, and the Constitution. Meanwhile, the defendant was the FEC, the agency responsible for administering federal campaign finance laws, including transparency rules. CREW sues the FEC often because the agency is known for failing to achieve its main objective — the enforcement of campaign finance laws. While many critics scream at the FEC, “you had one job!”, CREW actually does the hard work of litigation in order to prompt the agency toward action.

The case started eight years ago when CREW filed a complaint at the FEC against Crossroads GPS, a dark money group that had engaged in secret spending during the 2012 election cycle. When the FEC failed to take action, CREW then sued the FEC — and won their case in a federal district court in August 2018. The 2020 case involves an appeal of that lower court opinion.

From SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: DARK MONEY AND U.S. COURTS: THE PROBLEM AND SOLUTIONS

 Published in the Harvard Journal of Legislation.

- Click here for it.

From the Introduction: 

The Founding Fathers had many threats in mind when they crafted a constitution for our young and fragile nation. Locke, Montesquieu, and other Enlightenment thinkers offered helpful political theory, but theory went only so far. Our Founders knew that patriotism could be overborne by selfish impulses and personal passions; that foreign governments and rapacious elites could exploit weak institutions; and that sharp differences divided the thirteen colonies. They planned for a lot of threats and dangers—but they did not plan for the corrupting power of corporations.

Today, corporations wield commanding power in our democracy. They do so directly, and through a network of trade associations, think tanks, front groups, and political organizations. That power too often is directed by corporate forces to dodge accountability for harms to the public; to subvert the free market to their advantage; and to protect their own political power by undermining democratic institutions.

This Article explores the expansion of that corporate power in our government, and its extension into a branch of government customarily viewed as insulated from special interest influence: the federal judiciary. I begin with a brief historical overview of corporate influence in America and a discussion of how that influence grew after the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. 1 I then turn to the fifty-year-long project of the corporate right to reshape both federal law and the federal bench; to the scheme’s tools, particularly anonymous “dark money” and the network of front groups behind which these interests hide; and to the long-fought scheme’s ultimate successes, culminating in the massive power grabs achieved in the Trump administration. The Article concludes with recommendations for legislation that would increase transparency at the Court. We must address the crisis of legitimacy the courts now face before captured courts become a national scandal.

More from Senator Whitehouse: 

- With Supreme Court Mired in Dark Money, Time for Large Dose of Transparency

What is Dark Money?

Recently topical due to the confirmation hearings.

- Here is the Wikipedia entry on it.

In the politics of the United States, dark money refers to political spending by nonprofit organizations — for example, 501(c)(4) (social welfare) 501(c)(5) (unions) and 501(c)(6) (trade association) groups — that are not required to disclose their donors. Such organizations can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions. In this way, their donors can spend funds to influence elections, without voters knowing where the money came from. Dark money first entered politics with Buckley v. Valeo (1976) when the United States Supreme Court laid out Eight Magic Words that define the difference between electioneering and issue advocacy.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), spending by organizations that do not disclose their donors has increased from less than $5.2 million in 2006 to well over $300 million in the 2012 presidential cycle and more than $174 million in the 2014 midterms." The New York Times editorial board has opined that the 2014 midterm elections were influenced by "the greatest wave of secret, special-interest money ever raised in a congressional election." CRP also noted that the 2010 landmark case, Citizens United v. FEC, marked the turning point when dark money contributions surged, stating "there are other groups now free to spend unrestricted funds advocating the election or defeat of candidates. These groups contend that they are not required to register with the FEC as any sort of PAC because their primary purpose is something other than electoral politics. This spending itself isn’t new. But the use of funds from a virtually unrestricted range of sources, including corporations, began with the most recent court rulings."

From Wikipedia: Janus v. AFSCME

 A case involving unions mentions in a previous post about business interests in the U.S. Supreme Court.

- Click here for the entry.

Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, No. 16-1466, 585 U.S. ___ (2018)—abbreviated Janus v. AFSCME—was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on US labor law, concerning the power of labor unions to collect fees from non-union members. Under the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which applies to the private sector, union security agreements can be allowed by state law. The Supreme Court ruled that such union fees in the public sector violate the First Amendment right to free speech, overturning the 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that had previously allowed such fees.

On June 27, 2018, the Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that the application of public sector union fees to non-members is a violation of the First Amendment, ruling against AFSCME. Justice Alito wrote for the Court, joined by Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Gorsuch. Alito wrote that agency-shop agreements violate "the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern."[15] Alito recognized that losing these fees would put a financial burden on the public sector unions, who would continue to have to represent nonmembers even without their agency fees, but stated that "we must weigh these disadvantages against the considerable windfall that unions have received."[15] In the decision, the Court held that the conclusion reached by Abood was inconsistent with the First Amendment and thus overruled that decision.

The Supreme Corp.: How Corporate and Right-Wing Interests Captured the U...

From the ACS: The Supreme Corp.: How Corporate and Right-Wing Interests Captured the U.S. Supreme Court

We normally think of agency capture. Supposedly we should broaden our use of the word.

- Click here for the article.

On May 8, 2019, ACS hosted a discussion about Supreme Court capture, featuring keynote remarks by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, author of the recently published ACS Issue Brief A Right-Wing Rout: What the “Roberts Five” Decisions Tell Us About the Integrity of Today’s Supreme Court.

In the era of Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed justices have delivered landmark victories for corporate and right-wing interests in dozens of cases, like Citizens United v. FEC, Shelby County v. Holder, and Janus v. AFSCME. Have the conservative justices on the Court been effectively “captured” by these corporate and right-wing interests? If so, what role has the nominations process played and what can be done to reverse this trend and ensure the Court serves only the interest of impartiality, objectivity, and the rule of law?

From Congress.gov: H.R.8337 - Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act

A look at the process the continuing appropriations act took on its way to become law.

It's why we don't have a government shutdown at the moment.

- Click here for it.

From Roll Call: House Democrats set leadership elections for Nov. 18-19

Between the general election and the beginning of the 117th term of Congress each party in each chamber selects their leaders. Here is one of them.

- Click here for the article.

House Democrats will hold their caucus leadership elections Nov. 18 and 19 and contested committee chairmanship elections the week of Nov. 30, Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries announced in a “Dear Colleague” letter Thursday.

The caucus leadership elections will occur just a few days after members return to Washington Nov. 16 for the first time after Election Day, leaving just a few days for any last-minute, in-person pleas for votes.

Every leadership position gets voted on, regardless of whether there is a contested race. The top three Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, are running uncontested for another term.

The highest-ranking contested race is for the No. 4 slot for assistant speaker. Current Democratic Caucus Vice Chairwoman Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, Democratic Policy and Communications Committee Chairman David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Congressional Hispanic Caucus BOLD PAC Chairman Tony Cárdenas of California are all running.

Related: [House Democrats’ leadership races reflect coming generational change]

From the National Constitution Center: On Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation

Topical considering Barrett's nomination.

- Click here for the article.

Originalism is a theory of the interpretation of legal texts, including the text of the Constitution. Originalists believe that the constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law. The original meaning of constitutional texts can be discerned from dictionaries, grammar books, and from other legal documents from which the text might be borrowed. It can also be inferred from the background legal events and public debate that gave rise to a constitutional provision. The original meaning of a constitutional text is an objective legal construct like the reasonable man standard in tort law, which judges a person’s actions based on whether an ordinary person would consider them reasonable, given the situation. It exists independently of the subjective “intentions” of those who wrote the text or of the “original expected applications” that the Framers of a constitutional text thought that it would have.

From Vox: 5.2 million people can’t vote due to their felony record, according to a new report

 States still have leverage regarding who can vote.

- Click here for the article.

Nearly 5.2 million Americans won’t be able to vote in this year’s election due to their felony record, according to a new report from the Sentencing Project.

It’s an improvement from 2016, when 6.1 million couldn’t vote due to a felony record. But it means 2.3 percent of Americans old enough to vote, including 6.3 percent of Black people otherwise eligible to vote, still don’t have a say in the country’s democracy.

The vast majority of people prohibited from voting aren’t in prison. Only 25 percent of people disenfranchised are in prison or jail, while 10 percent are on parole and 22 percent are on felony probation. The rest — 43 percent — have completed their sentences but still can’t vote.

There’s a lot of state variation. In Maine and Vermont, where people can vote from prison, 0 percent of the voting-age population is disenfranchised by a felony record. In Massachusetts, it’s 0.2 percent. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, at least 8 percent of the voting-age population is prohibited from voting due to a felony record.

That reflects differences in state laws. Only Maine and Vermont let everyone vote, even while they’re in prison. The rest impose some restrictions on voting rights — in prison, on parole, on probation, some or all of the above, or after people complete these sentences.

From Roll Call: States seek more federal funds as Medicaid enrollment grows

 A look at Congress, and back at cooperative federalism, and interest groups.

- Click here for the article.

The number of Americans on Medicaid continues to rise as people lose their insurance during the economic downturn, but policy experts disagree on how much additional funding states facing higher costs may need. 

National enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program jumped by 4 million between February and June, an increase of almost 6 percent, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data released recently.

Record unemployment levels have shifted individuals from employer-sponsored or other coverage to Medicaid, the nation’s program for low-income individuals.

States that accepted a boost in federal funds earlier this year in the first COVID-19 relief package are forbidden from disenrolling individuals from Medicaid during the public health emergency, which Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar recently renewed for 90 days starting Oct. 23.

While this ensures that more individuals have medical coverage during a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 210,000 Americans, it also further strains states that have struggled this year.

From Wikipedia: Ideological leanings of United States Supreme Court justices

For discussion, the court will swing further to the right as a result of President Trump's nominees.

- Click here for the entry.

Here is a look at what makes a justice liberal or conservative according to one measure: 

Criminal procedure – a higher number means pro-defendant votes in cases involving the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners.

Civil rights – a higher number means more votes permitting intervention on First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including Native Americans), age, indigence, voting, residence, military, or handicapped status, sex, or alienage.

First Amendment – a higher number reflects votes that advocate individual freedoms with regard to speech.

Union – a higher number means pro-union votes in cases involving labor activity.

Economic – a higher number means more votes against commercial business activity, plus litigation involving injured persons or things, employee actions concerning employers, zoning regulations, and governmental regulation of corruption other than that involving campaign spending.

Federalism – a higher number means votes for a larger, more empowered government in conflicts between the federal and state governments, excluding those between state and federal courts, and those involving the priority of federal fiscal claims.

Federal taxes – a higher number means more votes widening the government's ability to define and enforce tax concepts and policies in cases involving the Internal Revenue Code and related statues.

From the Texas Tribune: New Texas rule lets social workers turn away clients who are LGBTQ or have a disability

 Could be challenged in the Supreme Court.

- Click here for the article.

Texas social workers are criticizing a state regulatory board’s decision this week to remove protections for LGBTQ clients and clients with disabilities who seek social work services.

The Texas State Board of Social Work Examiners voted unanimously Monday to change a section of its code of conduct that establishes when a social worker may refuse to serve someone. The code will no longer prohibit social workers from turning away clients on the basis of disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office recommended the change, board members said, because the code’s nondiscrimination protections went beyond protections laid out in the state law that governs how and when the state may discipline social workers.

“It’s not surprising that a board would align its rules with statutes passed by the Legislature,” said Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze. A state law passed last year gave the governor’s office more control over rules governing state-licensed professions.

The nondiscrimination policy change drew immediate criticism from a professional association. Will Francis, executive director of the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, called it “incredibly disheartening.”

He also criticized board members for removing the nondiscrimination protections without input from the social workers they license and oversee.

Steven Parks, a social worker in private practice in Houston who works with child trauma victims, told The Texas Tribune the rule change was “both a professional and a personal gut punch.”

From the Texas Tribune: Early voting begins in Texas’ boisterous and competitive 2020 election

 It begins . . . 

- Click here for the story.

Early voting kicks off Tuesday for a high-stakes Texas election that has Republicans battling to maintain their dominance statewide and in a raft of down-ballot races centered on the suburbs — all amid a pandemic that has upended political normalcy.

Democrats enter the early voting period brimming with optimism. Statewide, they believe their presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has a real shot at winning Texas, and that their U.S. Senate candidate, MJ Hegar, is gaining momentum at the right time. The confidence increases farther down the ballot, where they are targeting 10 GOP-held U.S. House seats and driving to reclaim the Texas House majority they lost in the 2002 election.

While Republicans may not be as openly concerned with President Donald Trump or U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, they concede they are in for a battle down-ballot.

“The fight in Texas without a doubt is on the local level, it’s your down-ballot races where you see most of the spending and most of the political activity,” said Matt Langston, a Texas Republican consultant. “The big question: Are these campaigns gonna be able to execute in the final three weeks of the election? … This is a very strong turnout operation. Republicans have always done extremely well. 2020 is gonna put it to a test.”

From Texas Tribune: Texas counties can offer only one drop-off ballot location, federal appeals court rules, upholding Gov. Greg Abbott’s order

 I'm on record saying this would be overturned - I was wrong.

- Click here for the article.

Texas counties may collect mail-in ballots at only one location, a federal appeals court ruled late Monday, once again upholding an order from Gov. Greg Abbott that restricts voting options.

Abbott in July acted to lengthen the early voting period and allow voters to deliver completed absentee ballots in person for longer than the normal period. But after large Democratic counties including Harris and Travis established several sites where voters could deliver their ballots, Abbott ordered Oct. 1 that they would be limited to one.

A number of civil rights groups sued in at least four lawsuits, calling the order an act of voter suppression that would disproportionately impact low-income voters, voters with disabilities, older voters and voters of color in Democratic counties. A federal judge on Friday sided with those groups, blocking Texas from enforcing the ruling.

But a three-judge panel on the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily halted that ruling on Saturday and on Monday gave a more formal word on the matter in a written opinion.

- Click here for the opinion.

 

Links to Congress

The US House of Representatives.

The Senate.

Congress.Gov.

From ABCNews: A 'Twitterized Bush v Gore 2.0'? It's possible, election experts say

This touches on the impact the courts have had, and will continue to have on the election.

- Click here for the article.

The 2020 presidential election is already one of the most litigious in American history with the looming potential of a conclusion even more chaotic than the Bush v. Gore battle of 20 years ago.

Even before any ballots have been counted, there have been more than 300 active election-related lawsuits about changes to voting rules during the pandemic filed across 44 states -- an unprecedented number -- according to the Stanford-MIT Project on a Healthy Election.

Officials expect another tidal wave of legal challenges to hit once vote counting begins on Nov. 3, contesting ballot deadlines and processing rules, voting machine glitches and allegations of voter intimidation at the polls.

A record surge of mail ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to delay tabulation of results in many states, potentially for days after in-person voting ends.

“You know there’s going to be some issue. You don’t necessarily know what that is,” said New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver during a recent Georgetown University forum on election integrity.

“It’s been very hard, complicated, challenging,” Oliver added. “We’re all going to be really happy and proud when we get through the final days.”

. . . Judiciary cautious about election intervention

Chief Justice John Roberts has tried to steer the court away from political matters close to an election, in part to preserve the court’s reputation as above the partisan fray. That reputation took a hit after the divisive ruling in Bush v. Gore in 2000.

State election laws “should not be subject to second-guessing by an unelected federal judiciary,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Roberts ally, in a statement explaining the court's action on South Carolina witness signature requirement. “Federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election rules in the period close to an election.”

“The Chief sees the Court as an institution and has an institutional prerogative, but I think the entire Court would be skeptical” of intervention in the election, said Erin Hawley, a senior legal fellow at the Independent Women’s Law Center. “From time immemorial, judges have been cautious of weighing into intensely political matters.”

From Roll Call: House Democrats back antitrust overhaul of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple

For this week's written assignment.

- Click here for the article

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that Congress should consider forcing Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook, some of the country’s largest and most successful technology companies, to separate key sections of their business empires to reduce alleged market dominance.

A staff report and recommendations released by the committee’s majority — led by Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who chairs the antitrust subcommittee — said all four companies maintain monopolies in their unique markets: Amazon in its third-party seller market, Google in online search and advertising, Apple in software distribution on mobile devices and Facebook in social networking.

“By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy,” Nadler wrote in a foreword to the report. “They not only wield tremendous power, but they also abuse it by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them.

“Companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons,” Nadler wrote.

In addition to the prospect of forcing the companies to separate their businesses to prohibit them from exerting their market dominance in competition with “firms dependent on [their] infrastructure,” the report said Congress should limit the markets in which the companies could do business.

From Federalist 10 - Interests and the Legislative Power

For our transition to covering the governing institutions

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.

From Avalon: Federalist 51

To transition into next module's look at governing institutions.

The basic structure of the checks and balances.

- Click here for it.

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

An example of the Revolving Door

The career of Ajit Pai - chair of the FCC.

- Click here for it.

Following law school, Pai clerked for Judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana from 1997 to 1998. Pai then worked for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice as an Honors Program trial attorney on the Telecommunications Task Force. There, he worked on proposed mergers and acquisitions and on novel requests for regulatory relief following the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Pai left his Department of Justice post in February 2001 to serve as Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications Inc., where he handled competition matters, regulatory issues, and counseling of business units on broadband initiatives. Pai left Verizon in April 2003 and was hired as Deputy Chief Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. He returned to the Department of Justice to serve as Senior Counsel in the Office of Legal Policy in May 2004. He held that position until February 2005, when he was hired as Chief Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights.

Between 2007 and 2011, Pai held several positions in the FCC's Office of General Counsel, serving most prominently as Deputy General Counsel. In this role, he had supervisory responsibility over several dozen lawyers in the Administrative Law Division and worked on a wide variety of regulatory and transactional matters involving the wireless, wireline, cable, Internet, media, and satellite industries. In 2010, Pai was one of 55 individuals nationwide chosen for the 2011 Marshall Memorial Fellowship, a leadership development initiative of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Pai returned to the private sector in April 2011, working in the Washington, D.C., office of law firm Jenner & Block where he was a partner in the Communications Practice.

In 2011, Pai was then nominated for a Republican Party position on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama at the recommendation of Minority leader Mitch McConnell. He was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May 7, 2012, and was sworn in on May 14, 2012, for a term that concluded on June 30, 2016. Then Pai was designated chairman of the FCC by President Donald Trump in January 2017 for a five-year term. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate for the additional five-year term on October 2, 2017.

From ScotusBlog: Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project

Soon to argued before the court.

- Click here for the page.

Issue: 

Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit erred in vacating as arbitrary and capricious the Federal Communications Commission orders under review, which, among other things, relaxed the agency’s cross-ownership restrictions to accommodate changed market conditions.

The Case (From Ballotpedia):

The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") issued modifications and orders following its 2016 quadrennial review of rules governing ownership of broadcast media under the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A group of petitioners challenged several of the FCC's rule changes with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which retains judicial review of the FCC's orders. The 3rd Circuit held that the petitioners had standing, that the FCC's retention of the top-four component of its local television ownership rule was not arbitrary and capricious, that the Incubator Order’s definition of comparable markets was not arbitrary and capricious and was sufficiently noticed, and held that the FCC was not unreasonable in its delayed action related to a proposal to adopt procurement rules for the broadcasting industry. It also held that the FCC had not sufficiently considered the rule changes' effect on women- and minority-owned media. The court vacated and remanded the FCC's orders and its definition of "eligible entities", and denied the petitioners' request to appoint a special master to ensure timely compliance by the FCC with the court's rulings.

From Ballotpedia: Supreme Court cases, October term 2020-2021

A look at the cases the United States Supreme Court is ready to hear this term. We will look through a few.

- Click here for it.

These are being appealed from the 5th Circuit - which includes Texas.

- Salinas v. United States Railroad Retirement Board

- California v. Texas (Consolidated with Texas v. California)

- Edwards v. Vannoy

- Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc.

- Collins v. Mnuchin (Consolidated with Mnuchin v. Collins)

From Wikipedia: Rainbow Coalition and Fred Hampton

More background on the impact that increased diversity had on the New Deal Coalition. It continues to have an impact. 

It got a bit too radical for the taste of many.

- Click here for it.

The Rainbow Coalition soon included various radical socialist community groups like the Lincoln Park Poor People's Coalition,[2] Later, the coalition was joined nationwide by the Students for a Democratic Society ("SDS"), the Brown Berets, the American Indian Movement and the Red Guard Party. In April 1969, Hampton called several press conferences to announce that this "Rainbow Coalition" had formed.

The coalition later included many other local groups like Rising Up Angry, and Mothers and Others. The Coalition also brokered treaties to end crime and gang violence. Hampton, Jimenez and their colleagues believed that the Richard J. Daley Democratic Party machine in Chicago used gang wars to consolidate their own political positions by gaining funding for law enforcement and dramatizing crime rather than underlying social issues[citation needed].

The phrase "rainbow coalition" was co-opted over the years by Reverend Jesse Jackson, who eventually appropriated the name in forming his own, more moderate coalition, Rainbow/PUSH. Some scholars, including Peniel Joseph, assert that the original rainbow coalition concept was a prerequisite for the multicultural coalition that Barack Obama built his political career upon.

The group's organizer sounds fascinating

- Fred Hampton.

Fredrick Allen Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist and revolutionary socialist. He came to prominence in Chicago as chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and deputy chairman of the national BPP. In this capacity, he founded the Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots and the Young Lords, and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change.

In 1967, Hampton was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a radical threat. The FBI tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black progressive groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers. In December 1969, Hampton was shot and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; during the raid, Panther Mark Clark was also killed and several others were seriously wounded. In January 1970, a coroner's jury held an inquest and ruled the deaths of Hampton and Clark to be justifiable homicide.

A civil lawsuit was later filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark. It was resolved in 1982 by a settlement of $1.85 million; the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government each paid one-third to a group of nine plaintiffs. Given revelations about the illegal COINTELPRO program and documents associated with the killings, scholars now widely consider Hampton's death an assassination under the FBI's initiative.