What does Robert's Rules of Order and the Galveston Seawall have in common?

Apparently the same person - an engineer - was responsible for both.

Henry Martin Robert was the subject of today's Engines of our Ingenuity.

- Click here for it.

For more from Wikipedia:

- Henry Martin Robert.
- Robert's Rules of Order.
- Galveston Seawall.

Catching up - Congressional process on the Iran Nuclear Deal

Some odds and ends for 2305 - we'll make sense of these in class.

- Democrats Block Iran Deal Disapproval.
- Why House Republicans Are Excited About New Iran Strategy.
- House Takes Symbolic Stand Against Iran Deal.
- House Republicans Say Obama Failed to Comply on Iran Deal.

The Waco Mammoth National Monument

This five acre site in Texas was one of three declared a national monuments last week by the president, and it appears to have been not only uncontroversial, but sought after by the city, along with a bi-partisan group of members of the Texas congressional delegation.

For background on the site - which I'd like to visit now - here you go:

- Obama signs Waco Mammoth National Monument declaration.
- Wikipedia: Waco Mammoth National Monument.
- President Obama to officially declare Waco Mammoth Site as national monument.

The last link takes you to a timeline that point out how the city of Waco was able to slowly get monument status for the park, which allows for additional funds for the park. The development of it of course adds to the reasons someone might want to visit Waco - and spend the night and eat at its restaurants and otherwise pump money in the local economy.

Some highlights from the timeline:

1978 - 1982 : Discovery.

I'm unclear who owned the land that the mammoths were found on. It was on the bed of the Bosque River.

2001 - 2004: Congress gets involved.

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards authored a bill in May 2001, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, that directed the National Park Service to conduct a "special resource study" to determine the feasibility of including the Waco Mammoth Site in the National Park System. Language inserted in a December 2004 appropriations bill by Edwards specifically directed the Department of the Interior to move ahead with the study. "Without the directive language in this bill, the Waco mammoth study might not have begun for three to five years, because of the backlog of park studies," Edwards said then. He also secured a $200,000 earmark the next year to assist in the ongoing preservation efforts.

2006: 'Most important step! 

In March 2006, the city and Baylor both pledged $100,000 toward the $1 million fundraising goal for the site following an $200,000 federal earmark for the project from Chet Edwards. "This is probably the most important step we've taken," said Ellie Caston, director of Baylor's Mayborn Museum Complex. She estimated that it might take up to a decade to get a National Park Service designation for the site. In September 2006, Texas' U.S. Senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, urged the Department of the Interior to make the site part of the park service.

2009 - 2010: Legislative logjam

In 2009, bills were introduced in the House and Senate by U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards and U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn to make the Waco site a national monument in the National Park System. The senators visited Waco to promote the project in April and Waco City Manager Larry Grothtestified in Washington to support the bill. But in 2010, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn held up the bill as the nation engaged in a national debate about government spending and the national debt. Although not a funding bill itself, Coburn objected to opening the door to any future spending that wasn't offset by cuts. The park service had estimated the federal cost of running the site at $345,000 a year. Some suggested forgoing any future federal funding in exchange for the designation. An eleventh-hour compromise bill by Cornyn led to Coburn dropping his hold, but the measure never came up for a vote before the session adjourned.

2011 — 2013: Legislative logjam II

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Bill Flores and U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn filed a new bill to make the mammoth site a national monument without any federal funding. “The thing that impressed me most is the way the city of Waco, Baylor University and local leaders got together to make this site what it is today,” said Flores in 2011. But National Park Service staff objected to the bill, arguing that separate provisions in the bill “contradict each other” by calling for the site to be in the national park system while also prohibiting federal funds to carry out its administration. After passing the House, a divided Senate never took up the bill, with the Interior Department making it clear that a federal funding ban would be a deal-killer. A grass-roots petition to the White House was scuttled by the 2013 federal government shutdown after garnering about 700 signatures.

2014 — 2015: Executive decision?

Attempting to bypass Congress, in 2014 the Waco City Council asked that the mammoth site be added to the National Park System by presidential order. With the nonprofit advocate National Park Conservation Association, the city lobbied the Interior Department to recommend the site be made a national monument under the Antiquities Act, designed to preserve cultural and scientific treasures. Waco leaders visited Washington and spoke directly with Interior and the park service, who were impressed with the proposed management model involving the city, Baylor and NPS. In April 2015, parks director Jon Jarvis called the mammoth site "a fantastic park" after coming away impressed from a Waco visit that featured a standing-room only crowd. Praising work done by the city, Baylor and the nonprofit Waco Mammoth Foundation, he said “The infrastructure looks like the National Park Service designed it ... When you drive in, the only thing missing is the arrowhead.”

April 21, 2015: Waco cedes mammoth site to park service

Following the visit by national parks chief Jon Jarvis, the Waco City Councilunanimously agreed to relinquish the core of the Waco Mammoth Site to the federal government on April 21, 2015, contingent on President Barack Obama making it a national monument. The resolution granted the five-acre dig site and all excavated bones to the National Park Service and allows an adjacent 108 acres to be part of the national park system while remaining under city ownership.

July 10, 2015: Finally! Waco Mammoth National Monument

With a stroke of President Barack Obama’s pen on Friday, July 11, 2015, the Waco Mammoth Site became the Waco Mammoth National Monument. “It was pretty special. He said it was so rewarding to see a group take this long to be able to come together for an effort like this," said mayor Malcom Duncan Jr. Now that the order has been signed, the city of Waco will work with the National Park Service, Baylor and the Waco Mammoth Foundation to form a partnership controlling the monument. The federal government will pay for a park ranger, who will begin in October, and will provide signs and research money. The city will continue to pay to maintain the park and retain the current staff. And most importantly: Duncan says he'll be contacting the proper officials to get signs placed on Interstate 35.

What Drives Public Opinion on the ACA?

Some great and relevant commentary. Why do people think the way they do on Obamacare? Does it come down to self-interest, or perhaps thr cues they receive from the political elites they identify with?

These are based on a recently published article: Playing Fair: Fairness Beliefs and Health Policy Preferences in the United States


From John Sides: I’ve heard commentators opine on whether people’s attitudes toward the ACA will grow more favorable with time, once they see that it helps them in various ways. This presupposes that people’s attitudes about health care reform are predicated on self-interest. I’ve been dubious, and Lynch and Gollusk provide some confirmation. Health care opinions are really based on things that don’t change very much: partisanship, ideology, values.
Perhaps though people are just turned off by the process, not the law itself.

Filibuster Reform Proposal

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley would like to see us return to the old fashioned filibusters of yesterday, the one's that actually involved an endless floor debate.

- The Plum Line.
- The Senator's Memo.
- Congress 101.
- Kevin Drum.

The Gerrymandered Texas Senate and the Threats to the Senate's 2/3rds Rule

Rick Casey comments on what he calls the most stable job in Texas politics: Texas State Senator.

There is one Texas elected body that is so stable that it offered a safe harbor for Democrats even in the political monsoon that blew on Tuesday.

Is this good news for the Democrats? Not hardly, as we shall see. The body is the state Senate.

Consider this: While Democrats lost 21 seats in the 150-member Texas House of Representatives and most likely three veteran congressmen, the 31-member Texas Senate had 12 Democrats and 19 Republicans before the election and will have exactly the same margin after the new Legislature is sworn in next January. And only two are newcomers, one Democrat and one Republican having stepped down voluntarily.
But while Democrats are safe in body, its districts have been designed so that they underrepresent Democrats in the state -- as is the case with most other offices in the state. Republicans, who control the districting process, accomplish this feat by packing Democrats into fewer seats than they might otherwise occupy, but Democratic incumbents are hardly likely to complain because this makes their seats more secure.

Even with this small number of seats, Democrats -- and the minority party in general -- has been able to leverage this small number of seats into a type of veto power since as long as they are at least one-third of the Senate, they can block legislation from going through the floor. From the Legislative Refrence Library:

For almost half a century, blocker bills have routinely been placed at the top of the Senate's Daily Calendar, which in effect forces a suspension of the regular order of business on every bill. Blocker bills are bills that are introduced and passed out of committee as early as possible in a legislative session in order that they may occupy the first positions on the calendar. They are not intended to be worthy of serious consideration or passage. The sole purpose of a blocker bill is to ensure that at least two-thirds of the membership have an interest in debating a measure before it can come to the floor. Bills that do not enjoy substantial support cannot make it past the blocker bill.

Though it has been set aside on rare occasions, this practice -- known as the "two-thirds rule" -- has been an honored tradition in the Senate. Among other things, it is generally acknowledged that the Senate's two-thirds rule fosters civility, a willingness to compromise, and a spirit of bipartisanship.

Republican Senators have argued that this rule undermines democracy -- and certainly their agenda -- and have made efforts to remove it in the past. Similar efforts are underway currently.

- In Defense of the Two Thirds Rule.
- Bill Hobby comments on the rule.

Is the Senate Broken? Part 1

One Senator is placing a hold on all Obama appointees until he is granted two earmarks for his state. Is it possible that the Senate will be unable to conduct any business this year? Will Republicans overplay the hand they have been dealt?

On Reconciliation

A primer on the reconciliation process.

Health Care and the Blue Dog Coalition

One of the factors which makes the Democratic Party in Congress less cohesive than the Republican Party is a strong division between the liberal wing and the Blue Dog Coalition.

According to this CQ story, the Blue Dogs seems to be in a position to determine the direction that any health plan will go. They lie somewhere between the liberal Democrats who prefer a "public plan" and conservative Republicans who do not.

Democratic Party leaders must make the Blue Dogs happy if they are to pass anything:

It is not clear whether Republicans would support a public plan even with a host of restrictions — or if liberals would support a bill with the kind of restrictions demanded by the Blue Dogs.

Among their requirements: The public plan must negotiate payment rates with providers; participation in the plan must be voluntary for both providers and patients; premiums and copayments under the plan must pay for its operations; and the plan must follow the same actuarial standards and regulations required of private insurers.

The Blue Dogs claim to have 51 members, as opposed to 78 liberals.

- The official web site of the Blue Dog Coalition.
- Wikipedia: Blue Dog Coalition.
- Bluedogdems.com.

Polygamists Lobby in Utah

...and why not?

On Politics

What matters more when it comes to politics? Reasoned debate -- as I've suggested in class -- or combat?

From Slate:

The Washington Post has a long front-page account of Barack Obama's days in the Illinois state Senate where, the paper says, he was converted from an idealistic do-gooder into a tough politician. "Barack had this misconception that you could change votes with thoughtful questions and good debate," one of his former colleagues told the paper. "That was a little idealistic, if you ask me. It's not necessarily about smarts and logic down there. Votes are made with a lot of horse trading, compromise, coercion, working with the other side. Those are things that Barack can do—can do very well, actually. But it took him a little while to figure it out."

Filling the Tree

Legislative assemblies have developed a variety of arcane procedures often meant to stifle dissent and smooth things for the majority. In the House, no big deal because it was designed to be contentious and subject to majoritarian whims, but in the Senate these processes have been argued to negate the intent that the assembly allow minority interests to influence the process.

Over the past two decades Senate majority leaders have developed a process called "filling the tree" which prevents the minority party from adding amendments to a bill by filling up available amendment slots before the minority has the chance to offer any.

Robert Novak is critical of the current majority leader's use of the procedure and calls it a new low in Senate history. The Senate is no longer the world's greatest deliberative body as it has come to call itself. It is worth speculating about whether this has in fact ever been the case. Here's a good read along these lines from a man calling himself The Decembrist.

TAx Rebate Proposal Passes House

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 385-35 to approve a tax rebate for over 110 million Americans. The Senate is considering its own plan which must be reconciled with the House plan before being sent to the president for a signature. The overwhelming vote suggests that the bill is not likely to be vetoed.

The official name of the bill is the Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act of 2008, and the number is H.R. 5140.

This link takes you to the roll call vote, notice that Ron Paul voted against it. You can read his justification here. You can get full information about the bill from the Thomas, at the Library of Congress.

I'll post more info about the bill as it continues its march through the legislative process.