From the Washington Post: The quiet technocrat who steered Biden’s effort to tighten the border

We touch on power in this class and try to figure out where it is located. 

One possibility is that it is embedded within the decisions made by the members of the bureaucracy - that part of the executive branch that actually makes the law.

Relevant Terms: 
 - technocracy.

- Click here for the article.

The lead architect of President Joe Biden’s border strategy is not Vice President Kamala Harris, despite persistent Republican claims to the contrary. That role belongs to a bookish, little-known policy adviser named Blas Nuñez-Neto.

A data-driven technocrat, Nuñez-Neto has helped engineer Biden’s pivot toward tougher border enforcement and sweeping restrictions on asylum — moves that contributed to a nearly 80 percent drop in illegal crossings since December.

The transformation is shoring up one of Democrats’ biggest vulnerabilities ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election and potentially defusing a top-polling issue for Republican nominee Donald Trump. After three years of record crossings, the U.S.-Mexico border is quieter and more controlled today than at any point since late 2020, before Trump left office.

Nuñez-Neto pulled that off by steering the administration back to a border policy framework Democrats used to embrace more easily, according to current and former administration officials. The formula: Be generous and welcoming to immigrants seeking to come lawfully, but stingy and firm with those who don’t.

The White House declined to make Nuñez-Neto available for an interview. Biden officials said the administration’s border policy moves have been shaped by senior White House officials and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom Nuñez-Neto worked for before being promoted to the White House in June.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said Biden “believes it is a false choice to say we have to walk away from being an America that embraces immigration in order to secure our border.”

From FP: Citing Paris Attack, CIA Director Criticizes Surveillance Reform Efforts

The Paris attacks will almost certainly have an impact on surveillance policy. The revelation that massive amounts of private data were collected, stored and analyzed led to backlash against it, but the fact that they are designed - primarily - to determine whether attacks are being planned might lead to a backlash against the backlash.

Consider this part of the agenda setting part of the public policy process, or policy evaluation, or some connection between the two.

- Click here for the article.

CIA Director John Brennan said Monday he suspects the Islamic State is currently working on more terrorist plots against the West following Friday’s attack in Paris that killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds more. He also criticized new privacy protections enacted after Edward Snowden’s disclosures about U.S. government surveillance practices.

“I would anticipate that this is not the only operation ISIL has in the pipeline,” Brennan told a crowd at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s not going to content itself with violence inside of the Syrian and Iraqi borders.”

Brennan’s remarks come on the heels of a new Islamic State video released Monday proclaiming all countries playing a role in air strikes against the group in Iraq and Syria would be a target. The video specifically pinpointed Washington as in its crosshairs.

“We swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington,” says a man in the video, which surfaced on a site the Islamic State uses to post its messages. The authenticity of the video could not be immediately verified.

In his remarks, Brennan said the attacks should serve as a “wake-up call” for those misrepresenting what intelligence services do to protect innocent civilians. He cited “a number of unauthorized disclosures, and a lot of handwringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists.”

He added that “policy” and “legal” actions that have since been taken now “make our ability collectively, internationally, to find these terrorists much more challenging.” In June, President Barack Obama signed into law legislation reforming a government surveillance program that vacuumed up millions of Americans’ telephone records. Passage of the USA Freedom Act was the result of a compromise between privacy advocates and the intelligence community.

Brennan’s remarks immediately sparked criticisms from civil liberties advocates who have fought for greater privacy protections from government surveillance and now fear the Paris attacks could roll them back.

The Legislative History of Helms-Burton Act

Let's kill a few birds with one stone with this Cuba story.

Here's the wikipedia entry on the Helms-Burton Act - also known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996.

Might as well also link to the entry on the United States embargo against Cuba.

The embargo started in 1960 and has been gradually increased since then. This includes the Helms - Burton Act which:

. . . extended the territorial application of the initial embargo to apply to foreign companies trading with Cuba, and penalized foreign companies allegedly "trafficking" in property formerly owned by U.S. citizens but confiscated by Cuba after the Cuban revolution. The act also covers property formerly owned by Cubans who have since become U.S. citizens.

In the section on public policy we describe the public policy process how certain acts can help place an item on the public agenda and accelerate its passage into law. The bill had actually bogged down in the conference committee, but then the Cuban Air Force shot down two planes belonging to members of Brothers to the Rescue in late February 1996. This revived attention to the bill and it became law within a month.

Most laws - at least as far as I can tell - are precipitated by some event that spurs consideration.

Here's a look at the major actions involved in how the bill became a law. Click here for all actions.

2/14/1995 - Introduced in House
7/24/1995 - Reported (Amended) by the Committee on International Relations. H. Rept. 104-202, Part I.
8/4/1995 - Committee on Banking and Financial Services discharged.
8/4/1995 - Committee on Judiciary discharged.
8/4/1995 - Committee on Ways and Means discharged.
9/21/1995 - Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed by recorded vote: 294 - 130 (Roll no. 683).
10/19/1995 - Passed/agreed to in Senate: Passed Senate with an amendment by Yea-Nay Vote. 74-24. Record Vote No: 494.

 Planes shot down

3/1/1996 - Conference report H. Rept. 104-468 filed.
3/5/1996 - Conference report agreed to in Senate: Senate agreed to conference report by Yea-Nay Vote. 74-22. Record Vote No: 22.
3/6/1996 - Conference report agreed to in House: On agreeing to the conference report Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 336 - 86, 1 Present (Roll no. 47).
3/6/1996 - Cleared for White House.
3/11/1996 - Presented to President.
3/12/1996 - Signed by President.
3/12/1996 - Became Public Law No: 104-114 [Text, PDF]

 

Will marijuana be legalized in Texas?

If there's money to be made by doing so, I wouldn't bet against it. Political forces seem to be slowly lining up - including conservative ones - that could make a push to at least decriminalize it. File this under public policy, in addition to interest groups.

- Click here for the article.

Former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, who took the reins of Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign just as it was going into a nosedive, has jumped into a potentially more stable and long-term endeavor: legal marijuana.

Allbaugh is an investor in and board director of Colorado-based CannLabs, which calls itself “a leader in cannabis innovation” and specializes in the testing of pot potency and quality.

The company already has a major presence in Colorado, recently expanded into Connecticut and is positioning itself to take advantage of what could be exponential growth in the legal weed business across the country.

Allbaugh is a conservative Republican who served as chief of staff to then-Gov. George W. Bush and then managed his 2000 presidential campaign. He heads up Allbaugh International Group, a consulting firm with offices in Washington, D.C., and Austin.

Several laws passed by the 83rd Legislature took effect September 1st

From ABC13, a list of laws adopted last year which are now in being adopted:

- Click here for the story:

Texas state legislators meet every other year, but some laws passed more than 12 months ago are finally effective today, September 1, 2014.

"These are the more complicated laws," says State Representative Garnet Coleman, a Democrat from Houston. "We're talking about legislation that we pass and then give to the regulatory agencies. They have to figure out the best way to implement the laws and that can take time."

That's certainly the case with House Bill 5, the sweeping legislation changing the course load requirements for graduating high school seniors. Now, there are multiple tracks a student can choose his or her freshman year. The non-binding track guides a student through classes which offer preparation for college or a job in the workforce.

Also effective today is a new law which makes it easier to go through the inspection/registration process for businesses with fleets of vehicles running on natural gas. The streamlined process is intended to encourage businesses to purchase and run the cleaner burning cars and buses.

Juveniles charged with crimes are now getting a fairer shake in the state's legal system. A law effective today provides indigent juveniles with appointed counsel immediately after arrest. Previously, juveniles who couldn't afford attorneys would get much farther into the legal process before being appointed an attorney.

The state's new abortion law, House Bill 2, will not go into effect as intended today. A federal judge ruled against key parts of that law which would have shuttered abortion clinics not meeting certain enhanced medical standards.

What is ISIS anyway?

GOVT 2305 students won't be getting into foreign policy for some time, but the conflict with ISIS will be with us a while - almost certainly throughout this semester - so here are a few readings which will let us get up to date on what it is exactly, and what threats it does and does not pose to the United States.


These also touch on the range of options that exist for how to handle the group, which is an example of the policy formulation stage of the public policy process - part of the subject matter of week 2. Before that can be done successfully its good to have a firm grasp of what led to the rise of the group - as well as others.

Peruse through these at your leisure:

- ISIS Annual Report 2013.
- ISIS as Start-Up: Explosive Growth, Highly Disruptive, Super-Evil.
- The Sickness that gave birth to ISIS.
- ISIS Isn’t the Real Enemy. The “Game of Thrones” Medieval Mindset That Birthed It Is.
- You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia.

An article titled Fathers of ISIS lists these six factors giving rise to this and other similar groups:

1 - Decades of despotism in Iraq and Syria
2 - The American invasion of Iraq in 2003
3 - Iranian regional meddling
4 - The growth of Salafist networks
5 - A belief that seventh-century religious ideas can solve modern problems
6 - An environment of violence

I don't know nearly enough to challenge these. They sound like a good place to start.

From the Gallup Poll: In U.S., 67% Dissatisfied With Income, Wealth Distribution

Majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents agree, which suggests - but does not guarantee - that this will be on the agenda of Congress.

The only issue will be how this topic is addressed. What is the root cause of inequality? There will be disputes over this with liberal-ish Democrats more likely to blame outside factors and conservative-ish Republicans saying that a lack of individual initiative - probably exacerbated by misguided government programs - are the root cause.

Their relative solutions to the problem are bound to differ - and this difference will very likely (in my opinion) negate the passage/adoption of any actual policy proposals. But I could be wrong.

Poll numbers suggest that issue has legs

The partisan breakdown:



Numbers over recent history:


The bottom line according to the Gallup Poll:

Obama will almost certainly touch on inequality in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28. This will certainly resonate in a general sense with the majority of Americans who are dissatisfied with income and wealth distribution in the U.S. today. Members of the president's party agree most strongly with the president that this is an issue, but majorities of Republicans and independents are at least somewhat dissatisfied as well.

Although Americans are more likely to be satisfied with the opportunity for people to get ahead through hard work, their satisfaction is well below where it was before the economic downturn. Accordingly, improvement in the U.S. economy could bring Americans' views back to pre-recession levels.

Agenda Setting: Income Inequality

Since Republicans have joined Democrats in saying that income inequality is a problem that needs addressing, its safe to say that the issue is now on the public agenda. That's step one in the public policy process. Each party will formulate the problem differently, the conservative approach will differ from the liberal approach. That's step two.

We'll monitor this as the issue proceeds.

Click here for background.

The NAACP, the Supreme Court, and the modern civil rights movement

A section within the article mentioned in the previous post - The Decay of American Political Institutions - deserves a separate mention.

It has to do with the forces driving the decision the Supreme Court made in Brown v Board of Education. The authors argues that this marked a turning point where an interest group could use the courts to change policy - something that no other liberal democracy allows. Changes in public policy that interest groups are able to achieve by going around the legislature, straight to the court:

One of the great turning points in 20th-century American history was the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which overturned on constitutional grounds the 19th-century Plessy v. Ferguson case that had upheld legal segregation. This decision was the starting point for the civil rights movement, which, over the following decade, succeeded in dismantling the formal barriers to racial equality and guaranteed the rights of African Americans and other minorities. The courts had cut their teeth earlier over union organizing rights; new social rules based on those rights provided a model for subsequent social movements in the late 20thcentury, from environmental protection to women’s rights to consumer safety to gay marriage.

So familiar is this heroic narrative to Americans that they seldom realize how peculiar it is. The primary mover in the Brown case was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a private voluntary association. The initiative had to come from private groups, of course, because state governments in the South were controlled by pro-segregation forces. The NAACP pressed the case on appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. What was arguably one of the most important changes in American public policy thus came about not because Congress, as the representative of the American people, voted for it but because private individuals litigated through the court system to change the rules. Later developments, like the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, were the result of congressional action, but even in these cases enforcement was carried out by courts at the behest of private parties.

No other liberal democracy proceeds in this fashion. All European countries have gone through similar changes to the legal status of racial and ethnic minorities, and women and gays in the second half of the 20th century. But in Britain, France or Germany, the same results have been achieved through a national justice ministry acting on behalf of a parliamentary majority. The legislative rule changes might well have been driven by public pressure, but they would have been carried out by the government itself, not by private parties acting in conjunction with the judiciary.

This something to file away and think about more when we cover both civil rights and interest groups later this 3 week term.