Wisconsin Governor Survives recall election

Story in NYT.

What is a recall election again?

Is this an example of a excess of democracy or was this a legitimate action on the part of the sovereign to exert pressure on an elected official between regularly scheduled elections. Remember that this is direct democracy at work.

Pay Equity Act Blocked in the Senate

Some fodder for 2302 as we get ready to plunge into the legislature. Story in the NYT, here's the vote, largely party line. The name of the bill is the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The bill would have amended a key piece of New Deal legislation: the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The FLSA established the minimum wage and overtime pay, and prohibited child labor. It applied to individual who were engaged in commerce or the production of good for commerce (note the constitutional justification). The act has been amended heavily, but the most important amendment was added in 1963 when the Equal Pay Act was amended to the original bill. It made it illegal to pay workers lower wages due to gender.

The purpose of the bill was to make it easier for women to investigate whether they are being paid unequally, which allows them to pursue a claim of discrimination. It also made it easier for women to take cases to court. From the NYT story:

Tuesday’s bill sought to bar companies from retaliating against workers who inquire about pay disparities and open pathways for female employees to sue for punitive damages in cases of paycheck discrimination.
We can use this story to discuss a variety of matters related to the class.

- the ideological differences between conservatives - who do not like restrictions on business and tend to be suspicious about claims of discrimination - especially when they involve lawsuits - and liberals - who prioritze equality among all other values and often seek to increase access to the courts as ways of redressing claims of discrimination.

- it allows us a peek at the bill making process (click here for detail on the bill - from Thomas).

- we can see the filibuster in action - or at least what passes for filibusters today. Senate procedures, as they exist today, require 60 votes for bills to be considered on the floor of the chamber. This is a supermajority and empowers a minority. They can't get things passed, but they can make it impossible for anyone else do either. The bill only received 52 votes, just a mere simple majority. There have been many such votes recently, which leads to questions about the viability of the current Senate.

- the vote was almost party line. All Republicans votes against bringing it to the floor. All but one Democrats voted in favor of it. This helps bolster the case that parties are increasingly polarized.

- and since its an election year there is speculation that Democrats only brought this up - knowing that it would be filibustered - to put Republicans on the record as being opposed to equal pay. Perhaps this becomes an election issue.

From the Pew Research Center: Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years

Consider this a required read - and this might help some students with their paper topics.

For 25 years the Pew Research Center has studied American values and published the results. 25 years gives you a good trend line and their most recent study shows that partisan differences have never been greater - despite the fact that differences along other measures (race, education, gender, etc. . . ) haven;t changed much.

This is worth a review, at least in 2301.

Vote Purging in Texas

From the Houston Chronicle, a warning on efforts underway to purge voter rolls - which has to be done from time to time, but can lead to legitimate voters being removed from the polls. Not that this is deliberate.

1 - Written Assignment for all GOVT students - 2301 / 2302 / 2305 / 2306

I want all my government students to look at the 1000 word written assignment (you'll find it on the syllabus) and send me a specific topic. Do it in at least 150 words. The topics are a bit vague, and I'll post a few items that should help clarify the subject, but these are to be done well and the best way to ensure that happens is to start now. This is especially necessary for my 5 week students. July will be here very soon.

Welcome Summer One and Summer Eleven Week Classes

Nice to have you aboard.

This is the site where you'll find the written material for the class as well as posts on current topics that reflect on the subject matter we will cover daily or weekly - depending on what you've signed up for. You may wish to subscribe to this page so you'll notices in your inbox regularly.

I want to call you attention to the various web links I have compiled on the right hand column. From time to to time I will ask you to do a small bit of research on some topical matter, and those are good places to find material to write on. Send me whatever questions you have. I'll try to keep this interesting and informative. You try to stay engaged.

Deal? Deal. 

Thanks 3 Week Mini

I thought we had a good little bunch of students for the three week mini and I'm glad some of you will signing up for round two this summer. Thanks for the good work.

From NPR: Why Do People Choose Political Loyalties Over Facts?

This a great question, and it highlights a commonly noted - if problematic - reality. People who identify with different political parties look at the world in substantively different ways, and these viewpoints tend to be conditioned by the cues they receive from party leaders. This goes beyond party identification. Ideology and group identification, among other many other criteria that people use to identify themselves can distort how people look at the world.

The following story is the latest in a long line of stories on this subject. The author begins by noting that Democrats and Republicans have shifted their opinions recently on whether presidents have any direct impact on gas prices:


When pollsters ask Republicans and Democrats whether the president can do anything about high gas prices, the answers reflect the usual partisan divisions in the country. About two-thirds of Republicans say the president can do something about high gas prices, and about two-thirds of Democrats say he can't.

But six years ago, with a Republican president in the White House, the numbers were reversed: Three-fourths of Democrats said President Bush could do something about high gas prices, while the majority of Republicans said gas prices were clearly outside the president's control.

The flipped perceptions on gas prices isn't an aberration, said Dartmouth College political scientist Brendan Nyhan. On a range of issues, partisans seem partial to their political loyalties over the facts. When those loyalties demand changing their views of the facts, he said, partisans seem willing to throw even consistency overboard.

What is consistent is that identifiers of one party will believe anything that will put the member of the other party in a negative light. If facts get in the way so be it. Andrew Sullivan argues that it might be best to think of loyalty to a party like loyalty to a sports team. Have you ever changed your opinion of a player you once despised because he gets traded to your team? What's with that - he's still the same person, just wears a different uniform.

Now while we may be critical - justly - of this tendency, its instructive to note that this is fact how people behave politically. One of the point hit repeatedly in class is that the framers of the Constitution assumed that the negative aspects of human nature - of which this is an example - could not be readily cured. The constitutional order had to compensate for it. So a good question for us to raise in class is whether the Constitution does so.
 

Can Ron and Rand Paul take over the Republican Party?

They're trying.

The author suggests they are building a "libertarian machine."

Kuffner comments on state primary results

His post on the Democrats is here, and on the Republicans is here.

County Results for 2012 Texas Primary

Below you'll find links to the Elections Divisions of area County Clerks offices. They are responsible for running state and national elections, including primaries. They also run elections in single purpose governments like Independent School Districts. Cities are responsible for conducting their own elections, though sometimes they contract with the county to have them carry it out.  

For Brazoria County:
- Democratic Primary (3,331 votes cast)
- Republican Primary (22,834 votes cast)
- Total Turnout - 26,830 - 7.88%

For Fort Bend County:
- Democratic Primary (9,871 votes cast)
- Republican Primary (36,749 votes cast)
- Total Turnout - 47,627 - ?%

For Galveston County:
- Democratic Primary
- Republican Primary
- Total Turnout -
(website down as of this posting)

For Harris County:
- Democratic Primary (71,360 votes cast)
- Republican Primary (160,752 votes cast)
- Total Turnout - 238,545 - 12.54%

For further information on the specific job descriptions of the Elections Division in each county click on Travis County's website here. The Texas Secretary of State's website also has information about how elections are to be conducted in the state, including this comprehensive page detailing the laws and procedures pertaining to County Clerks. Enjoy.

From Slate: The Death of the Hunch

Here's a look into the current state of campaigning, at least on Obama's side. It involves randomized tests, data, and empirical analysis:

The Obama campaign’s “experiment-informed programs”—known as EIP in the lefty tactical circles where they’ve become the vogue in recent years—are designed to track the impact of campaign messages as voters process them in the real world, instead of relying solely on artificial environments like focus groups and surveys. The method combines the two most exciting developments in electioneering practice over the last decade: the use of randomized, controlled experiments able to isolate cause and effect in political activity and the microtargeting statistical models that can calculate the probability a voter will hold a particular view based on hundreds of variables.

Obama’s campaign has already begun rolling out messages to small test audiences. Analysts then rely on an extensive, ongoing microtargeting operation to discern which slivers of the electorate are most responsive, and to which messages. This cycle of trial and error offers empirically minded electioneers an upgrade over the current régime of approaching voters based on hunches.
Here's a related story - regarding the habits of shoppers and how to influence them.

The Latest on differences between Democrats and Republicans

Charles Blow highlights two recent polls. One from MSNBC and one from Gallup.

5 - Written Assignment GOVT 2301 Mini 3 Week Spring 2012

In the interest of time management (yours), this is the last short written assignment. Like the other's its tied into the paper. I want you to give me an introductory sentence and a first draft - of your work. This will let me make suggestions for how to improve it. Remember that grammar and organization counts as much as content. Get this to me by the 29th so you I can make corrections before you turn the last one in. Earlier is better.

Politicizing civil rights enforcement

I ran across a couple stories that illustrate something we covered in class - presidents can impact civil rights policies by the choices they make about who runs executive agencies charged with implementing civil rights policy.

These touch on efforts of the Bush Administration to minimize the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department by staffing it with lawyers opposed to its mission.

- Report Examines Civil Rights During Bush Years
- The Battle for Voting Rights.

The Voting Rights Act challenged; upheld in the DC court

Here is a topic that straddles our recent discussion of both Civil Rights and our upcoming one on elections: The DC appellate court upheld the Voting Rights Act, meaning that for the second time in a handful of years the Supreme Court will be hearing challenges to the Voting Rights Act - a piece of legislation that impacts both elections and civil rights policies. The intent of the act was take tactics used by the majorities in certain areas of the country - notably the South - illegal. It also defined ways to determine which jurisdictions were engaging in discriminatory activities and established that any changes to election laws in those districts had to be pre-cleared by a panel of federal judges in order to ensure that they did not further discriminate against minorities.

The Justice Department is using this authority to challenge Texas' voter ID and Texas is fighting back by leading the charge against pre-clearance. Conservatives on the court were skeptical of the requirement in a case from Austin a few years ago, and signalled they may be willing to overturn the requirement.

A ScotusBlog writer outlines the issues in the case. One of the arguments made is that the formula used to determine which districts should be pre-cleared and almost 40 years old and may no longer accurately reflect which districts are engaging in discriminatory behavior.

A related stories:

- Do we still need the Voting Rights Act?

4 - Written Assignment GOVT 2301 Mini 3 Week Spring 2012

Today we discussed factions and the inevitability of diverse interests in a civilized society. This can apply to Texas - more or less. I want you to consider this in terms use this apply this topic to your paper. As best as you can determine, what interests are being represented by the different candidates in the race? What different interest groups are backing the various candidates? Can you detect major conflicts between competing interests based on which interests support each candidate? Try to determine why this conflict exists.

Is it time to end "fee for service?"

The director of health policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center says it is, and that government payments for health care should be based on quality not quantity. She focuses on the fee for service model specifically.

Though Medicare became law almost half a century ago, its payment system is still essentially intact: a "fee-for-service" (FFS) reimbursement system that pays providers for each intervention they perform, without regard to whether the treatment improves patient health. Health spending has soared since then: National health expenditures were $27.1 billion in 1960; today they are over $2.6 trillion.

The FFS system cemented the practice of largely focusing on treating disease instead of on preventing patients from getting sick in the first place.

Around the turn of the 20th century, this treatment model was appropriate. Acute, infectious illness, such as tuberculosis or influenza, were major causes of death at this time. But today, chronic disease -- long-term conditions requiring careful management -- are far more prevalent and costly.
The difficulty will be political. She outlines various existing laws that make it difficult to transition out of this model. She might also add that among the groups that will oppose this transition are those that benefit financially from it. If health care costs are cut, those cuts will affect someone's pocketbook.

A classic mobilization election

From the National Journal, an argument that the upcoming general election will be won or lost based on which side can turnout the vote. The undecided middle - the folks on the center of the electorate who can vote either way - is very small:

. . . the numbers suggest there are far fewer undecided voters now. While more Americans are registering as independents, fewer are actually open to voting for either party. Analysis of recent Pew Research Center data by Brookings Institution scholar William Galston shows just 23 percent of Americans fall into the swing-voter category; by contrast, 31 percent of voters met that criteria in May 1992. State polls tell the same story. Quinnipiac University, which polls in several key swing states, hasn’t found either Obama or presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney ahead by more than the mid-single digits in Florida, Ohio, or Pennsylvania over the last year. In most battleground states, there are few examples of either leading by more than the margin of error in any public polling.

“Like George W. Bush, Barack Obama has turned out to be a polarizing president who has induced many voters to choose sides very early in the process,” Galston wrote recently. “So the enthusiasm of core supporters—their motivation to translate their preference into actual votes—will make a big difference.”

3 - Written Assignment GOVT 2301 Mini 3 Week Spring 2012

This will be the last short written assignment for this week, I'll cancel the fourth in order to free up some of your time. Again, this is related to your 1000 word assignment.

Now that you've selected a competitive primary and analyzed the district, I want you to look at the candidates for the race and explain their similarities and differences? How is a voter to make a distinction between them?

On Establishment Conservatives and Movement Conservative.

Robert Miller's blog today - he's a public law guy at Locke Lord - has a post pointing out that many many Republican Texas Legislature races feature competition between an establishment conservative and a movement conservative. There are no moderates in the Republican Party anymore. They have been pushed to the side by the Tea Party.

What's the difference between the two?

The former is a fiscal conservative willing to recognize a role for government to play in educating the workforce, building roads, providing water and the various other items necessary for civilized life.

The latter "believes that government, by definition, is inherently wasteful and inefficient and that we can continuously cut government spending and still provide necessary services."

Movement conservatives tend to be more passionate about their positions and are in a better position to win primary elections. If voter turnout is low in the Republican Primary on election day, expect them to do well. This can have one of two outcomes, either the state drifts further to the right, or the general population - assuming they are more moderate than the movement conservatives - finds them too extreme and votes for Democrats in November.

From the NYT: Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S.

White births accounted for less than half of all births over the past 12 months.

“This is an important tipping point,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, describing the shift as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.”


So what now? How will white folks deal with being just another minority?

Also taken: HD 11, SD 11, and HD 12 or 14

Take note.

I still haven't received proposals from some of you.

SD 25 has been claimed

now you know

Various stories related Texas House and Senate Races

Expect a handful of these in the next few days.

This may be a bit dated, but Burnt Orange Report (which tilts a bit left) has two separate pages previewing the Texas House and Texas Senate Races. It has a third section on the Democratic Primaries.

2012 Texas Public Higher Education Almanac

Just released by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (the gubernatorially appointed board that makes policy recommondations for higher education in the state), an almanac with data relating to institutional performance.

Enjoy.

District analyses

I mentioned in class that you can get analyses of the Texas House and Senate districts by going to their respective websites - specifically the pages with lists of each member. Here are direct links to them:

- Texas House Members.
- Texas Senate Members.

Look for "district analyses." It should be sufficient to help you address the second written assignment.

Click here to find competitive races

The Texas Business Roundtables website contains a handy chart that makes it easy to find them.

The Constitution in Exile Movement

Jeffrey Rosen of the New Republic thinks that a recent opinion written by Janice Rogers Brown indicates that the Constitution in Exile Movement - the group of conservative legal scholars and judges who are intent on rolling back New Deal policies - is about to make waves and take a more active role in making decision on economic regulation.

He predicts that we will soon be seeing more conservative judicial activism. I strongly suggest a read.

2 - Written Assignment GOVT 2301 Mini 3 Week Spring Class

I'm going to keep asking you questions designed to get going on the 1000 word paper. This one ties the topic into something we discussed in class yesterday - ideology.

We defined it as a set of issue positions based on some underlying value.

Different districts throughout the state are populated by people who have particular ideological viewpoints. Obviously there is diversity in all districts throughout the state, but some opinions dominate others. I want you to look at the nature of the district you are analyzing and describe its ideological leanings, including any conflicts that exist within it.

Is it mostly conservative? If so why? Is it mostly liberal? If so why? What are the dominant concerns within the districts?

Races claimed so far

Students have claimed the following races, so you'll have to find something else to write up.

- HD 75 - two democrats are running against each other
- The Democratic contest for the US Senate Seat.

My preference is that you look at a Texas House or Senate seat - but since its a short semester you can look at any race as long as it is in the state of Texas.

Houston Mayor Introduces Budget

Total city spending is $4.5 billion.

Another wrongful execution?

Again from the HC, a story that raises questions about eyewitness procedures in cases that could lead to the death penalty and whether Texas executed the wrong person.

Of four people who saw events connected to the crime, only one, car salesman Kevan Baker, saw Lopez struggle with her assailant, the journal article says. Baker initially described a man who did not resemble DeLuna but changed his story after police brought DeLuna to the store.

Baker later told researchers he was only 70 percent sure of his identification, the journal says. Had police not told him DeLuna had been apprehended nearby, he would have been only 50 percent certain, he said.
The eyewitness process - line ups etc - has been subjected to increased scrutiny over the years. The story outlines one proposal:

Provisions of a suggested reform package prepared by Sam Houston State University criminologists require that the officer conducting a lineup not know who the suspect is. "Show ups," in which police present a suspect to witnesses shortly after arrest, are discouraged, and photo or live lineups must contain innocent people who resemble the suspect.

Law enforcement agencies must implement the model plan or comparable reforms of their own devising by September.
Just out of curiosity, how many of these before public opinion about the death penalty shifts?

Bungled Galveston Elections

From today's HC, a story that helps us walk through the personnel that manage - or mismanage - elections.

1 - Written Assignment GOVT 2301 Mini 3 Week Spring Class

For the first daily written assignment I want you to refer to the syllabus and tell me what race you plan on writing about for your 1000 word assignment. I want you to outline one of the more disputed races to be the Democratic or Republican nominee for the general election to the Texas House or Senate later this year. Which one will it be? Refer to the syllabus for a few helpful links, but you should be able to find some on your own.

I want everyone in class to look at a different race, so let me know which one you want to write about asap. First come first served. Describe what it is about this race that interests you.

150 words. Turn it into Blackboard.  

Welcome spring 2012 GOVT 2301 - IM3

Now comes the 3 week mini.

Welcome brave souls. We are going to try to cover 16 weeks worth of material in 15 calendar days. Notice the syllabus posted on the right hand column. We will run through it in class tomorrow. Everything you need to do well in the class can be found on this site. I suggest looking through it. You'll notice a large number of links toward the bottom of the page in different categories. They are designed to give you quick access to the information that will let you succeed at the level you intend to.

Send questions asap - I'll send responses right back.

Farewell Spring 2301 and 2302

As things pile up toward the end of the semester I tend to stop posting items relevant to the class. I don't intend to, but I get overwhelmed. My apologies because a handful of topics related to the class have come and gone, but I'll hit these as appropriate in future semesters.

You are welcomed to continue following the material presented online and I hope you send a shout out from time to time. Introductory classes by their nature are somewhat superficial, but I hope enough has been conveyed to give you an understanding of the governing process on the national and state level; something that gives you some context for figuring out the various events that occur daily.

Thanks, K

Facebook is a clever CIA operation

From the Onion: 

Missed Dealine

For 2301s and 2302s, The deadline for written work was today at noon - about ten minutes ago.

I've already heard of problems with blackboard, so I'll extend the deadline for the final report (and only the final report) soon.

Michael Lind on the federal government's ongoing involvement in the economy

A great extended interview in Salon. The author blows away some assumptions about what factors led to the development of the American economy.

Does Houston - or Texas - have business leaders anymore?

Paul Burka's surprising answer is no. He responds to a Houston Chronicle article wondering why Houston's business leaders don't stand up to Governor Perry's refusal to address the state's crumbling infrastructure by stating:

there are no business leaders in this state. Ken Lay was the last one (as painful as it is for me to write that), and his business turned out to be a house of cards. The reason that today’s business leaders aren’t leaders is that Houston and Dallas have become outposts of Wall Street. The local banks are run by people who are sent to Texas, stay for five years, and recycle themselves somewhere else. They have no long-term stake in the success of their temporary place of residence, much less Texas; they only care about what they can contribute to their institution’s bottom line while they are here. The Greater Houston Partnership is a shell of what it used to be. George R. Brown would weep at its lack of influence. Bob Lanier must be appalled. It is just another Perry echo chamber. It is inconceivable that CEO Jeff Moseley would challenge Perry’s budget plans. If he dared to try, I suspect he would be out of a job.

The Greater Houston Partnership - once very powerful - is now just a shell, a rubber stamp for the governor.

Some thoughts on compromise

A worthwhile review of two books on the subject. It would be useful to consider, every step in take in this class, about why compromise is so difficult, and the degree to which this is - and possibly isn't - an obstacel to good government. 

Trust in institutions at all time low

The National Journal has a lengthy piece that points out that trust in all institutions in society - not just government - is at a low point. Perhaps this is a natural consequence of having undergone very nasty recession, but its worth considering how this impacts that ability of the nation to rule itself. As the spring semester winds down, this allows us to circle back to one of our original questions: How viable is the American Experiment? Can we keep the republic?

Some related stories:
- Gallup Poll: Trust in Government.
- Pew Research Center: Public Trust in Government: 1958 - 2010.
- Related NPR story.
- Polling Report: Trust in Major Institutions 

The Causes and Consequences of Distrust in the Media

Two posts from the Monkey Cage.

First: The cause of increased distrust - which is not related to distrust in other institutions - are related to increased polarization between the parties on policy positions and technological changes - the rise of cable and the internet - which has led to a fragmented media environment which allows people to select the news they want to hear.

Second: The consequence of increased distrust is the fact that partisan identifiers live in two completely different worlds. their evaluation of whether they think things are good are bad are not only related to whether they trust or distrust the media, but on which party holds the presidency. 

Bad News

According to the Onion, every potential 2040 presidential candidate is already ineligible because of something they posted on Facebook. This is very slightly inappropriate.

Why are states reluctant to allow convicted prisoners to use DNA to prove their innocence?

Good question. Apparently many convicts in Virginia have been proven innocent, but the state is not in a hurry to let them know about it.

Initially, Virginia’s state authorities had no plans to notify the convicts that their DNA was being tested. Then, in 2008, the state legislature ordered them to notify those same convicts that their samples had been found and might be examined. If a convict failed to return the paperwork, the sample was tested nonetheless. Despite Marone’s claim that the Department of Forensic Science only conducts lab work, it alone is responsible for informing state prosecutors and police that former convicts have been cleared by DNA tests.

The department put out a call to pro bono lawyers around the state, who were asked to hand-deliver notifications that the accused might now be subject to DNA retesting. But there was a condition: Those lawyers were required to sign confidentiality agreements indicating that they were barred from explaining the content of the letters to the accused or from representing them in court.

In a related story, do we have to accept the execution of innocent people if we are to have a death penalty?

Some help reviewing for the final

This ought to help 2301 and 2302 students get ready for the upcoming finals - I'll add a few things so don't limit your studying just to this info.

- 2301
- 2302

McJustice

Slate has an interesting story on the problem of obtaining justice in cases involving misdemeanors.

The misdemeanor machine has inspired a slew of epithets: “meet ‘em and plead ‘em lawyering,” “assembly line justice,” “cattle herding,” and “McJustice.” They reflect the reality that once people charged with misdemeanors get to court, they are pressured by judges, prosecutors, and their own lawyers into pleading guilty, often without knowledge of their rights or the nature of the charges against them. Bail makes it worse. Around 80 percent of defendants who have bail set cannot afford to pay it. Innocent defendants commonly plead guilty just to get out of jail. In this way, millions of Americans are punished without due process and learn the cynical lesson that, at least when it comes to minor offenses, law and evidence aren’t all that important.

From the Fiscal Times: How Sugar Daddy Lobbyists Killed the War on Obesity

A depressing story I suppose, but it shows how legislation aimed at the public good is easily undermined when doing so cuts into profits:

After aggressive lobbying, Congress declared pizza a vegetable to protect it from a nutritional overhaul of the school lunch program this year. The White House kept silent last year as Congress killed a plan by four federal agencies to reduce sugar, salt and fat in food marketed to children. And during the past two years, each of the 24 states and five cities that considered "soda taxes" to discourage consumption of sugary drinks has seen the efforts dropped or defeated.

At every level of government, the food and beverage industries won fight after fight in the last decade. They've never lost a significant political battle in the U.S. despite mounting scientific evidence of the role of unhealthy food and children's marketing in obesity. Lobbying records analyzed by Reuters reveal that the industries more than doubled their spending in Washington during the past three years. In the process, they largely dominated policymaking: pledging voluntary action while defeating government proposals aimed at changing the nation's diet, dozens of interviews show.

In contrast, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, widely regarded as the lead lobbying force for healthier food, spent about $70,000 lobbying last year, roughly what those opposing the stricter guidelines spent every 13 hours, the Reuters analysis showed.

From the Atlantic: The Postal Service Is a Civic Institution, Not a Business

2301 students wrote about the Post Office, and its recent problems, a few months back.

Here's a take on why it ought to be preserved. Congress is debating how to address its financial health.

What if cities can't afford the November elections?

Interesting question:

The U.S. economy looms large over November's general election in a basic way for strapped cities and counties: can they afford it?

In Detroit, the city clerk warned last week that the Rust Belt city would have trouble holding the Nov. 6 presidential election under a slimmed-down budget the mayor proposed to address years of deep financial problems.

In Jefferson County, Alabama, the local government was so short of cash for elections that it used road repair crews to staff the state's Republican presidential primary last month.

And in South Carolina, a $500,000 shortfall after the state's Republican primary in January led elections officials to consider a sponsorship deal with comedian Stephen Colbert, who plays a mock conservative pundit on his late-night TV show.

With cities and counties across the United States in dire financial straits, many local officials are struggling to come up with the millions of dollars they will need to hold the Nov. 6 elections. That is likely to mean fewer election workers and long lines for voters, which could reduce turnout.

Rubio helps GOP tack to the center

The Washington post reports on the Senator's proposal for an alternative Dream Act - which would offer chances for the children of illegal immigrants to become citizens. This is another example of the pivoting the party has to do in order to win the presidency, but its interesting that Romney is not doing it. He can embrace or reject it based on how it plays. Rubio is rumored to be on Romney's VP list.

Two questions:

1 - Will it be accepted by the party's base? Meaning, can Romney embrace the proposal and not lose the support of the party's right wing?

2 - Will it be accepted by the Latino population? Rubio's Cuban roots does not put him in the mainstream of the Latino community.

Why is jaywalking a crime?

Cars didn't always rule the roads. pedestrians did. Cars were always at fault when there was an accident. Pedestrians could use streets as they chose.

The auto lobby made sure that changed. They invented the concept of jaywalking.

A highlighted 1913 film: The Costs of Carelessness.

Trials in the news

For future reference when covering the judiciary, and especially trials:

- The HC's coverage of the Roger Clemens trial.
- The Huffington's Posts on the John Edwards trial.
- An entire website devoted to the trial (and now conviction) of Charles Taylor.

Texas Legislators oversee juvenile justice reforms

This AAS story hits multiple points made in both 2301 and 2302.

Members of the Texas Senate's Criminal Justice Committee and the House's Corrections Committee are reviewing reports on the effectiveness of reform measures designed to address sex abuse in the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Its seems they haven't been effective at all.

The former superintended in the Giddings State School (Wikipedia) blew the whistle on continued abuses and was fired. He is now suing the agency for retaliation and wrongful termination.

- Texas Juvenile Justice Department.
- Wikipedia: Texas Youth Commission.

Democrats moving to the left?

We've spent time discussing how the Republican base has been pulling the party to the right, but here's evidence that the same dynamic is occurring with Democrats - only in the opposite direction of course.

The NYT reports on two primary election results where a relatively unknown liberal Democrats defeated two centrists (one a member of the Blue Dog Coalition) that had opposed Obamacare. Commentary in the story echoes much of what we've discussed in class:

The ouster of the Democratic incumbents — and the tough primaries being waged against some House Republicans — suggest that redistricting ultimately is going to send more liberal Democrats and more conservative Republicans to the House.

The parties have become more polarized in recent decades, several academic studies have found. The demise of the conservative “Dixiecrats” in the 1960s and ’70s made the Democratic Party more liberal, and Republicans have moved even further to the right than Democrats have moved to the left, the studies show. Elections like Tuesday’s suggest Democrats may be taking the Republicans’ cue, driven by the same activist forces that pushed them rightward.

The story also suggests the same consequence we've wondered about - a more polarized Congress even less able to deal with the nation's problems. Centrism does not get you elected in the primaries. What does this tell us about whose voice really matters"

I'm Back

I didn't intend to take a break - but I got bogged down in class work so it happened anyway.

If you are not all aware - the last assessment for 16 week students has been cancelled so I want you all to concentrate on getting written work done. Next week we begin reviewing for the final, hard.

I'll have a separate post for mini 8 week students, but you already know that the weekly written assignments have been trimmed back by one, and you'll get further info through BlackBoard about what you are and are not expected to do to finish out the semester.

Two things: be sure to have all of your written work in by the due date - this is a firm date. And get ready for the final, which will be comprehensive and difficult.  

Romney's pivot to the center

A useful description of the job ahead of him and the problems it poses:


Romney, after all, managed to secure the nomination only by strenuously avoiding friction with the base. On every major issue, he aligned himself with the party’s Obama-era orthodoxy, and when he attacked his GOP opponents, he made sure to do it from their right. This, of course, was in response to conservatives’ built-in suspicions about whether he really is one of them. So far, he’s given them what they want, at least in terms of policy positions. But they’re watching him closely, looking to see if he sells them out to appeal to the middle of the electorate against Obama – and ready to raise hell if he does.

This is producing some awkwardness already, like when Romney said that he wouldn’t go out of his way to get rid of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (what general election voters like to hear) but refused to say whether he would have signed it as president (thus avoiding a position that would put him directly at odds with the base). The overall effect was to reinforce the image of Romney as spineless. Expect to see more of this straddling in the months ahead. Romney faces more pressure than previous GOP nominees to keep his party’s base happy, but he also seems to recognize that fully embracing its agenda will be suicide in the fall.

Are criminal justice fees creating de facto debtor's prisons?

Perhaps:

Debtor’s prisons are supposed to be illegal in the United States but today poor people who fail to pay even small criminal justice fees are routinely being imprisoned. The problem has gotten worse recently because strapped states have dramatically increased the number of criminal justice fees. In Pennsylvania, for example, the criminal court charges for police transport, sheriff costs, state court costs, postage, and “judgment.” Many of these charges are not for any direct costs imposed by the criminal but have been added as revenue enhancers. A $5 fee, for example, supports the County Probation Officers’ Firearms Training Fund, an $8 fee supports the Judicial Computer Project, a $250 fee goes to the DNA Detection Fund. Convicted criminals may face dozens of fees (not including fines and restitution) totaling a substantial burden for people of limited means. Fees do not end outside the courtroom. Jailed criminals can be charged for room and board and for telephone use, haircuts, drug tests, transportation, booking, and medical co-pays. In Arizona, visitors to a prison are now charged a $25 maintenance fee. In PA in order to get parole there is a mandatory charge of $60. While on parole, defendants may be further assessed counseling, testing and other fees. Interest builds unpaid fees larger and larger. In Washington state unpaid legal debt accrues at an interest rate of 12%. As a result, the median person convicted in WA sees their criminal justice debt grow larger over time.

Romney and the Republican Brand

Here's a suggestion that one problem Romney might face with independents is that the Republican brand has suffered in recent years in the general public. In addition, House Republicans have let it be known that they intend on defining the party's agenda: 

The Republican Party’s standing with the public plunged in the wake of last summer’s debt ceiling standoff and has yet to recover. Just 35 percent of voters, according to a recent poll, have a favorable view of the GOP, while 58 percent have an unfavorable one. By contrast, nearly 50 percent of voters view the Democratic Party favorably.

The poisoning of the GOP brand can probably be linked to a few factors, but the compromise-resistant ideological absolutism of the House seems to be the biggest single driver. Thus, the prevailing assumption is that Mitt Romney will at some point stage a dramatic break with House Republicans on some defining issue, a reassuring gesture to swing voters who want to get rid of Barack Obama but who are queasy with the Obama-era GOP’s radicalism.

But, as Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Steinhauer report in the New York Times today, Republicans in the House are on guard for such a moment and are already making it clear to Romney that “they are driving the policy agenda for the party now.”
In 2301 we wondered who is in charge of each party - here's evidence that a battle is raging within the Republican Party over control. How might this impact the party's chances in the general election? 

Romney, Obama and the gender gap

While Romney has problems with Latinos and Women, Obama has problems with men, and a couple articles suggest that Romney's advantage with men may overshadow Obama's advantage with the other two.

Are reporters taking Twitter too seriously?

Brendan Nyhan takes campaign reporters to task for giving too much - or any - attention to superficial news events like the etch a sketch comment about Romney or the recent claim that his wife has never worked a day in her life. He is especially concerned that reporters pick up rumors sent via Twitter as being true without fact checking.

He says we are the silly season.

Perhaps all of this is fostered by technology that allows for messages to get out quickly and business models that depend on this speed - regardless of whether it is accurate.

Study finds that the current crop of congressional Republicans are the most conservative in a century

There is empirical proof that the Republican Party has veered far to the right.

Keith Poole of the University of Georgia, with his collaborator Howard Rosenthal of New York University, has spent decades charting the ideological shifts and polarization of the political parties in Congress from the 18th century until now to get the view of how the political landscape has changed from 30,000 feet up. What they have found is that the Republican Party is the most conservative it has been a century.

Moderates have left Congress - or been replaced more accurately.

. . . this loss of moderates and further rightward movement by congressional Republicans would have been a challenge to navigate for even the biggest conservative hero of modern times, President Ronald Reagan. Poole said:

"Ronald Reagan was so successful because he made all these deals with these huge blocks of moderate legislators. That's why he had overwhelming majorities for the 81 tax cut, the 82 tax increase, where they had to go back and adjust the tax bill in 82 and the Social Security fix in 83. Then in 86 you had Simpson Mazzoli, which included amnesty and tax simplification. All that stuff passed with very large majorities. You cannot imagine anything like that happening now. Which is why the country is really in the tank.
"There's a lot of blame to go around. It doesn't look like there's any resolution of this anytime soon."

That said, Poole says the data are hard to deny; the polarization is largely due to how far and relatively quickly Republicans have shifted to the right end of the ideological spectrum.

And he blames poor leadership for the current inability to solve problems:

And he faults leaders of both parties for allowing the nation to get into a fiscal morass in which government spending on health care is unsustainable:

"It is true that the Republicans have moved further to the right than the Democrats have moved to the left. That's absolutely true.
"On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much impetus on the part of the leadership of either political party to really do something serious about our budget crisis. I doubt very seriously we'll see much improvement.
"People forget how utterly irresponsible our political leadership has been for the last 30 years. ... The current political class of the U.S. just isn't in the same league as Truman and Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. You just don't have that kind of leadership now, just when we need it.

This isn't meant as a knock on Obama, Poole said. But he's not very optimistic about what an Obama second term would bring:

"The likely outcome of the election is that it's a very close victory by President Obama, the Republicans hold the House and may come within an eyelash of taking the Senate. I could see a 50-50 Senate. So good luck. After $2 billion gets spent on federal elections at all levels, how bitter will the atmosphere will be in January 2013? We're really up the creek."

From the WP: DOJ review of flawed FBI forensics processes lacked transparency

An appropriate story since 2302s are covering the criminal justice system in Texas, even though it deals with national government.

The FBI's crime lab is accused of suppressing information that did not support the prosecution's theories of terrorist bombing plots. An investigation followed which detailed the close connections between the crime labs, the FBI and the Justice Department.

Is Zimmerman's indictment based on evidence or politics?

Here's an exhaustive post - embedded with comments from various law types - that probable cause was likely not sufficient to justify the indictment.

And now his lawyers want a new judge.

Seminole Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler disclosed late last week that her husband works with CNN legal analyst Mark NeJame, who was approached by Zimmerman earlier in the week about representing him after his original lawyers quit. NeJame declined, but said he gave Zimmerman a short list of alternatives, including Mark O'Mara, who Zimmerman ultimately chose as his legal counsel shortly before his arrest.

O'Mara told CNN late Monday night after filing his request that he expected Recksiedler to grant it and recuse herself.

From CPJ: Getting Away With Murder

The Committee to Protect Journalists details the number of journalists around the world who have been killed, and the countries that are uninterested in investigating the cases and punishing the killers.

It releases the numbers in its Impunity Index, with Iraq leading the list.

The killings have a purpose:

CPJ research shows that deadly, unpunished violence against journalists often leads to vast self-censorship in the rest of the press corps. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Mexico, where unsolved journalist murders grew for the third consecutive year. Fear of retaliation has driven some journalists to report crime news under pseudonyms on social media websites. But even those sites do not provide refuge: In September 2011, the decapitated body of Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro, a Mexican journalist who used social media to report crime news, was found alongside a computer keyboard and a note from a crime group claiming responsibility.

Was Trayvon Martin killed by a stereotype?

We discussed stereotypes and schemas in last week's 2301. Public opinion tends to form around them, and they also influence how we each use the media - usually to confirm these stereotypes.

This opinion piece fits that mold:

Over the last three decades, a growing body of research has shown that racial stereotypes play a powerful role in judgments made by ostensibly fair-minded people. Killers of whites, for example, are more likely to receive the death penalty than killers of blacks — and, according to the psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, juries tend to see darker defendants as more “deathworthy” in capital cases involving white victims.

As Vesla Weaver, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, has written, “virtually every aspect of life and material well-being is influenced by skin color, in addition to race.” Studies have shown, for example, that darker-skinned blacks are punished more severely than others for the same types of crimes; deemed less worthy of help during disasters like Hurricane Katrina; disfavored in some hiring decisions; and more likely to be unemployed.

. . .The power of stereotypes has always been easily illustrated in studies. But media accounts of the 911 calls made over the last several years by George Zimmerman, now charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin, offer a glimpse of a man who seemed gripped by fears that he began to associate almost exclusively with black children and teenagers.

The 911 calls began at least eight years ago, with Mr. Zimmerman reporting on a range of non-emergencies, including the existence of potholes or someone driving slowly through the neighborhood. By late 2011, his calls were often about black youths and men, with complaints about suspicious activity or just loitering.

By the time he went on neighborhood watch patrol with his 9-millimeter pistol and spied Trayvon Martin, Mr. Zimmerman saw not a teenager with candy, but a collection of preconceptions: the black as burglar, the black as drug addict, the black “up to no good.” And he was determined not to let this one get away.

The Tupac Hologram

I promise this isn't just gratuitous, but this pretty impressive hologram of Tupac Shakur is likely to go on tour soon, Over a decade after he was killed. What other things might follow from this technology?

It (he?) has a twitter account.

Before Obamacare there was controversy over child labor legislation

A law professor sees a parallel between the arguments against Obamacare and against child labor laws in the early 20th Century:

. . . then and now, challengers to the statutes had to propose that the Supreme Court invent new constitutional rules in order to strike them down. At the time it considered the issue in 1918, there was nothing in the Supreme Court’s case law that suggested any limit on Congress’s authority over what crossed state lines. On the contrary, the Court had upheld bans on interstate transportation of lottery tickets, contaminated food and drugs, prostitutes, and alcoholic beverages.

That’s why the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the law in 1918 astounded even those who had most strenuously opposed enactment. Hammer v. Dagenhart declared—in tones reminiscent of the Broccoli Objection to Obamacare—that if it upheld the law “all freedom of commerce will be at an end, and the power of the States over local matters may be eliminated, and, thus, our system of government be practically destroyed.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting, wondered how it could make sense for congressional regulation to be “permissible as against strong drink but not as against the product of ruined lives.” The Court responded that unlike all the contraband that it had permitted Congress to block, the products of child labor “are of themselves harmless.” This meant a completely novel constitutional doctrine: The Court took unto itself the power to decide which harms Congress was permitted to consider when it regulated commerce.

- Wikipedia: Hammer v. Dagenhart

A Great Question: Watergate 4.0: How Would the Story Unfold in the Digital Age?

Several newspapers have written up a recent talk made by the reporters who broke the Watergate story - Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward - that included a discussion about whether reporters in the age of the internet would have been able to break the Watergate scandal as they did years back.

They note that students today seem to over-estimate what is on the internet:

The truth of what goes on is not on the Internet. [The Internet] can supplement. It can help advance. But the truth resides with people. Human sources.”

And that the resources they had available that allowed for the investigation do not exist any more:

Woodward and Bernstein’s main point was evocative of a previous, plentiful era: Editors gave them the time and encouragement to pursue an intricate, elusive story, they said, and then the rest of the American system (Congress, the judiciary) took over and worked. It was a shining act of democratic teamwork that neither man believes is wholly replicable today — either because news outlets are strapped or gutted, or because the American people have a reduced appetite for ponderous coverage of a not-yet-scandal, or because the current Congress would never act as decisively to investigate a president.

And they mention the negative impact of the 24 hour news cycle and the use of news sources to confirm deeply held opinions rather than obtain objective analysis:

“We had a readership that was much more open to real fact than today,” Bernstein said. “Today there’s a huge audience, partly whipped into shape by the 24-hour cycle, that is looking for information to confirm their already-held political-cultural-religious beliefs/ideologies, and that is the cauldron into which all information is put. . . . I have no doubt there are dozens of great reporters out there today — and news organizations — that could do this story. What I don’t think is that it would withstand this cultural reception. It might get ground up in the process.”

Of course they might just be a couple of grumpy old guys.

No Free Press in Africa

Mohamed Keita, the Africa advocacy coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, argues that China's increased influence in Africa is making the news media less able to report on problems across the continent and more likely to "focus on collective achievements and mobilize public support for the state."

Speaking of Ethiopia he states:

. . . today, journalists are denied independent access to sensitive areas and risk up to 20 years in prison if they report about opposition groups designated by the government as terrorists. “We are not supposed to take pictures of obviously malnourished kids,” an Ethiopia-based reporter recently told me. “We are effectively prevented from going to areas and health facilities where severely malnourished kids are, or are being treated.”

This silencing in turn frustrates the ability of aid groups to quickly mobilize funds when help is needed. And with civil society, the political opposition and the press severely restricted, there is hardly any domestic scrutiny over how the government uses billions of dollars of international assistance from Western governments.

Rwanda is another worrisome case. The volume of trade between Rwanda and China increased fivefold between 2005 and 2009. During the same period, the government has eviscerated virtually all critical press and opposition and has begun filtering Rwandan dissident news Web sites based abroad.

He tells us that following China's ascension as Africa's biggest trading partner, its news agency has infiltrated the continent and ensured that China's vision of the role of the press in society trumps that of the West:

Then there’s the influence of China, which surpassed the West as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009. Ever since, China has been deepening technical and media ties with African governments to counter the kind of critical press coverage that both parties demonize as neocolonialist.

In January, Beijing issued a white paper calling for accelerated expansion of China’s news media abroad and the deployment of a press corps of 100,000 around the world, particularly in priority regions like Africa. In the last few months alone, China established its first TV news hub in Kenya and a print publication in South Africa. The state-run Xinhua news agency already operates more than 20 bureaus in Africa. More than 200 African government press officers received Chinese training between 2004 and 2011 in order to produce what the Communist Party propaganda chief, Li Changchun, called “truthful” coverage of development fueled by China’s activities.

In 2301 this week we are covering the freedom of the press and the role a free press plays in fostering and maintaining individual freedom. This may help make that point. Limits on the press enable government to keep certain stories out of the public eye and retain an authoritarian character.

From an intrepid student: Pentagon Study Finds Beards Directly Related To Combat Effectiveness

Read all about it here.

Jonathon Burns was the lead researcher in the study.

“We took 100 soldiers. 25 were Special Forces qualified and had beards, 25 were Special Forces qualified without beards, 25 were regular Army allowed to grow beards for the study, and the last 25 were regular Army without beards. All 100 of these subjects were in direct combat in Afghanistan during the study.”

He continued, “Xegis Solutions had several teams of researchers embedded with these troops to make observations on their combat effectiveness. The results were overwhelming, out of the 50 soldiers with beards, zero were wounded or killed and they had a significantly higher accuracy of fire than the soldiers without beards. The soldiers lacking beards had a higher rate of weapons malfunctions and basically, shit went wrong most of the time.”
Since WWI, the military has banned beards, but troops in Afghanistan woudl like to see that changed. Beards - being manly and all - allows one to blend in with the locals.

One soldier in the violent border area of Kunar province estimates that his combat outpost gets attacked almost daily. But when the base received a visit recently from a commanding officer, the soldier recalls, "the main thing" he told the soldiers is that they needed to shave more frequently. They did shave, but they felt they gathered better intelligence with locals when they were unshaven, as locals felt more comfortable talking to bearded men.

Where troops come down on beards is often the difference between the junior and senior officer ranks.

While junior officers are quickly becoming used to a counterinsurgency approach to combat that tends to be nonlinear and more focused on influencing perceptions, says a senior military official here, some are less willing to be nontraditional or to do away with disciplinary checklists that include having a short haircut and a close shave. Sometimes with reason, he adds. "You could argue that we're not here to be liked; we're here to be respected."

But occasionally junior and senior officers are on the same page. One junior soldier was given special dispensation by his commander to wear a beard since he works in close proximity with Afghan security forces. That has been invaluable, the junior officer adds, in helping to build trust and garner the respect of his Afghan coworkers.
Comments from veterans are especially welcomed.

Can you film the police?

Interesting topic raised in yesterday's 8am 2302. We were discussing how easy it is now to record things through cell phones and a student remarked that an officer who pulled her and a friend over got touchy when it occurred to him that they could be recording him.

Did they have the right to do so?

I mentioned that - as best I know - this is an unresolved issue. If I recall, yes they can be recorded, but no court has yet to defend that right. Police tend to consider recordings as interferences, and make arrests on that basis. It would be a great test case.

Any takers?

I have a standing policy that any student who starts a dispute that ends up in the Supreme Court gets an A for the class.

Here's a thought though. If you are indeed arrested for recording the police and taken to jail, the Supreme Court has ruled that you can be stripped searched even though what you did in no way demonstrates probable cause that you are a violent person. So might you be reluctant to do so now?

Here are more thoughtful comments on the issue:

- Reversing Big Brother: Videotaping and Recording On-Duty Police Officers.
- Your right to record

- Rochester Woman Arrested After Videotaping Police From Her Own Front Yard
- First Circuit Court of Appeals Rules that Citizens Can Videotape Police

- Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police
- But for (Deleted) Video

No More Weekly Written Assignments

In order to free you up to finish the 1000 word essay and get ready for the final, there will be no more weekly written assignments. 8 week 2301 and 2302 students need only turn in a total of 7 rather than the 8 originally assigned. 16 week students will be expected to have turned in a total of 12.

You're welcome.

From Philly.com: Obama, Romney camps ready for digital warfare

The full range of social media will apparently be used in the campaigns of Romney and Obama, as well as in other races. This is new territory.

Now that Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign and the race is on between President Obama and Mitt Romney, an unprecedented media war has begun.

We've seen big media battles before. But in money, in woman- and man-hours, and in technical and strategic sophistication, this will be the biggest ever. Especially in Pennsylvania and other swing states, you'll see television ads from both camps, and from the semianonymous political action committees that have become the coin of the 2012 realm.

But that's just the visible war.

Underneath and at the edges, simmering around and through that loud clash of money and images, the digital campaigns will lock horns.

They'll come to you in e-mails, text messages, classic mail . . . and in real live human beings knocking on your door.

In a close election, as this promises to be, digital could be decisive. Just ask Ann Romney. Better yet, tweet her: @AnnDRomney. (More on that later.)

Or ask Andrew Rasiej, social-media campaign strategist, founder of Personal Democracy Media, cofounder of TechPresident. He says 2008 was "the beginning of social media on the political scene. But as of 2012, the digital campaign is on steroids."

From the AAS: Lower-level judges receive big share of sanctions from judicial commission

Justice of the Peace and Municipal Court judges come under fire for inesperience:

Last year, complaints against justices of the peace represented 19 percent of the total complaints filed about equal to their numbers among state judges. Yet justices of the peace received 55 percent of the sanctions issued by the Commission on Judicial Conduct. Municipal court judges accounted for 9 percent of the complaints filed in 2011 but earned 24 percent all disciplinary measures. District and appellate judges, by comparison, are rarely sanctioned by the agency, even though they generate nearly half the total complaints.

One reason lower-court judges are sanctioned more often, judges and attorneys say, is that many aren't lawyers — which is often a point of pride.

"I'm not an attorney; I'm a citizen," said George Boyett, a Brazos County justice of the peace who has appeared in front of the commission three times.

Known as "people's courts," justice of the peace dockets are busy and proceedings can be informal. "The judge conducted court proceedings in an undignified manner when he heard the case while barefooted and wearing a T-shirt and shorts," said a 2003 private admonishment of an unnamed justice of the peace.

Another unidentified justice of the peace received the same sanction in 2001 after "the judge confiscated a defendant's shotgun as surety for payment of a $300 fine," according to commission records. "The judge's action was without legal authority."

From the HC: Mystery email tries to divide Houston's blacks, gays

Patricia Kilday Hart reports on an effort to divide the Democratic Party in Harris Count. We've noted similar efforts elsewhere around the country.

A political whodunit, in the most unlikely of races, is creating chaos and divisiveness in the Harris County Democratic Party. Or perhaps I should say it is creating more than the usual chaos and divisiveness that exists like a constant low-grade fever (on a good day) throughout Democratic Party operations every­where in Texas these days.

Monday afternoon, a mysterious electronic message blew up in Houston political circles, purportedly sent by a Rev. Willie Howard on behalf of attorney Keryl Douglas' campaign for chairperson of the Harris County Democratic Party.

Douglas, who is African-American, is challenging interim chairman Lane Lewis, who is openly gay - a fact that the probably fictitious Rev. Howard finds disturbing.

The purported pastor claims to be organizing African-American ministers to support Douglas because "her opponent is openly Gay and has already told supporters behind closed doors that the Democratic Party will endorse a Gay Marriage agenda in November … If the gays take over we are poised to lose everything we have worked for during President Obama's historic win. The Republicans will rally their troops behind a united front of making sure this push for same sex marriage is defeated."

Travis County District Judge Ruling Could Cost Texas Billions

From State Impact:

A new ruling this week from Travis County District Judge John Dietz this week could cost the state of Texas billions in tax revenue. Ruling in favor of the drilling company Southwest Royalties, the court found that oil and gas equipment used for exploring and completing wells should not be subject to sales tax because it qualifies for an manufacturing exemption.

The ruling was first reported by the Texas Energy Report, but Dale Craymer of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association says we’ll have to wait and see.

“The judge has indicated he’s going to rule with the plaintiffs, but we know the state is going to appeal,” he says. “We’ve had instances where plaintiffs have won big judgments in trial court, only to see it be reversed on appeal and vice-versa. This is still very early in what will be a long legal process.”

Craymer says it also depends on how the final ruling is written. It could be broad enough to include billions in tax funds or narrow enough to only affect a smaller amount. Southwest Royalties is owned by Clayton Williams, a Midland oilman known for his failed campaign against Ann Richards for Texas Governor in 1990.

The Wartime Bonus

In 2302 we discussed how crisis management - especially in a time of war - is good for a president's reputation. Historians tend to give high marks to presidents who held office during war, or led America into battle.

Here's a study that provides empirical proof of that allegation, and here's commentary:

American war casualties, as a fraction of the population, positively correlate with how historians rate U.S. presidents. More death = better presidents. . . . Greatness rankings by historians may prompt presidents to start more wars. The historians may have more blood on their hands than we care to admit.
And more commentary:

Henderson and Gouchenour investigated "the connection between presidents' greatness rankings and the intensity of the wars that those presidents carried on. Using multiple regression analysis, we compare the effect of war intensity with other explanations offered by previous researchers," such as intellectual prowess, GDP growth and involvement in major scandal. They found "a strong positive correlation between the number of Americans killed during a president's time in office and the president's rating."

Presidents have long recognized the "wartime bonus" doled out by historians. Henderson and Gouchenour quote Teddy Roosevelt: "if Lincoln had lived in times of peace, no one would know his name now." (TR would later come to envy Woodrow Wilson because Wilson got to fight the European war TR himself had pushed for.)
Along with the following wish:

Let's hope that the lure of "presidential greatness" doesn't tempt Barack Obama into rash action with Iran.

Some of the above commentators wonder if Congress makes it too easy to go to war. Rachel Maddow's recent book on this theme has stirred things up. 

Also worth a look: War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.

Independent voters are not necessarily swing voters.

Ruy Teixeira argues that it is more appropriate to think of swing voters as those who are persuadable, not necessarily just independent:

For an individual voter to qualify as a swing voter, the relevant criterion that needs to be fulfilled is persuadability. And that’s not a quality that’s exclusive only to those who are completely undecided, or who are only weakly committed to a candidate. Even those who are moderately committed can be persuaded to deepen their commitment. And the deepening of an existing affiliation with a candidate can be just as significant, both statistically and electorally speaking, as attracting mild commitment from someone who had previously been mildly committed to another candidate.

The important factor is not where voters’ inclinations started out, but the fact that their inclinations were changed at all. The act of persuading a swing voter has traditionally been thought of as moving a given voter from more likely to vote against a given candidate to more likely to vote for him—say from 55 percent likely to vote against to 55 percent likely to vote for. But it could also mean moving that voter from somewhat likely to vote for a candidate to very likely to support that candidate (say from 55 percent likelihood to 65 percent)—or, for that matter, from very likely to almost certain (65 percent to 75 percent). All three of these examples are mathematically equivalent—and it makes sense to think of them all as swing voters.
He recommends the following book if you want more info.

Final Exam Schedule

In case you need it.

A new rule by the FDA

From the NYT:

Farmers and ranchers will for the first time need a prescription from a veterinarian before using antibiotics in farm animals, in hopes that more judicious use of the drugs will reduce the tens of thousands of human deaths that result each year from the drugs’ overuse.

The Food and Drug Administration announced the new rule Wednesday after trying for more than 35 years to stop farmers and ranchers from feeding antibiotics to cattle, pigs, chickens and other animals simply to help the animals grow larger. Using small amounts of antibiotics over long periods of time leads to the growth of bacteria that are resistant to the drugs’ effects, endangering humans who become infected but cannot be treated with routine antibiotic therapy.

At least two million people are sickened and an estimated 99,000 die every year from hospital-acquired infections, the majority of which result from such resistant strains. It is unknown how many of these illnesses and deaths result from agricultural uses of antibiotics, but about 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are used in animals.

The Muzzle Awards

Every year the Thomas Jefferson Center highlights egregious examples of stifling free speech by giving them their own award: The Muzzle.

- Here's a story on the latest winners.

From the August 1966 Atlantic: Houston's Shackled Press

A great article from way back about how the Houston Chronicle - back when newspapers really mattered - was controlled by the city's elite. They could define what was and was not talked about. Very difficult to do in today's digital environment.

It also details the tension brewing in the city between the conservatives that controlled the city and the increasingly liberal Johnson Administration.

Strongly recommended for 2301s especially.

Is art covered by the First Amendment?

As 2301s look at freedom of speech and what it does and does not cover, what is it about art that makes it covered? A law article and a briefer discussion here touch on this question.

Just in case you don't have enough to read already.

Are online publishers guilty of violating anti trust laws?

The Justice Department is set to find out. It is suing publishers (in the United States District Court for the Southern District in New York) for price fixing.

Anti trust laws - which have been a staple of national power since passed of the Sherman and Clayton anti-trust acts - allow the national government to break apart real or budding monopolies, or any activity which leads to uncompetitive practices.

The Justice Department is investigating whether this has happened in the e-book market. Did Apple secretly force- or persuade - other publishers to not under price its books? But this effort might allow Amazon, which controls 60% of the market, to expand its influence over it by reducing its prices far below what other publishers can command.

From the NYT: Does Romney Still Need to Court Conservatives?

Now that Romney seems to have the nomination in hand, commentary has focused on his expected pivot to the middle and whether he can do this without losing his base. This is what 2301s wrote about last week, so you are all ahead of the game.

Here are a variety of opinions about whether Romney still needs to bend far for conservative support.

Zimmerman arrested and charged - What roles will each participant in the case play?

A good story for 2302 as we continue looking at the judiciary, and the criminal justice process in general. 2301s shoudl consider this case also as it opens a handful of issues related to the rights of criminal defendants, as well as those related to stand your ground laws.

The NYT details the decision to charge George Zimmerman with Trayvon Martin's shooting, and attempts to outline the events leading to the shooting (the facts of the case as best they can be discerned).

The Atlantic discusses what will be required of the prosecutor, the defendant, and the judge in the case. Given the amount of publicity the case has had - how likely will he get a fair trial?

From the NYT: N.T.S.B. Suggests Safety Steps After Deadly Crash at Reno Air Show

This is a follow up to previous post and it explains where regulatory rules come from:

Air race pilots should take their modified aircraft on dry runs before participating in certain types of competitions, and should possibly wear flight suits to help them withstand high gravitational forces, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The recommendations were among seven the board offered Tuesday during a news conference in Reno in the wake of a Sept. 16 crash at the Reno National Championship Air Races that killed 11 people and seriously injured more than 70 spectators.

“We are not here to put a stop to air racing,” said Deborah Hersman, the N.T.S.B. chairman. “We are here to make it safer.

The Two Economies and the Two Parties

David Brooks points to an article written by Tyler Cowen which predicts that the export sectors will drive the American economy forward, but do so by creating two fundamentally different economies.

Brooks argues that these two economies have partisan characteristics - which might be worth pondering as we consider the differences between the two parties:

His work leaves the impression that there are two interrelated American economies. On the one hand, there is the globalized tradable sector — companies that have to compete with everybody everywhere. These companies, with the sword of foreign competition hanging over them, have become relentlessly dynamic and very (sometimes brutally) efficient.

On the other hand, there is a large sector of the economy that does not face this global competition — health care, education and government. Leaders in this economy try to improve productivity and use new technologies, but they are not compelled by do-or-die pressure, and their pace of change is slower.

A rift is opening up. The first, globalized sector is producing a lot of the productivity gains, but it is not producing a lot of the jobs. The second more protected sector is producing more jobs, but not as many productivity gains. The hypercompetitive globalized economy generates enormous profits, while the second, less tradable economy is where more Americans actually live.

In politics, we are beginning to see conflicts between those who live in Economy I and those who live in Economy II. Republicans often live in and love the efficient globalized sector and believe it should be a model for the entire society. They want to use private health care markets and choice-oriented education reforms to make society as dynamic, creative and efficient as Economy I.

Democrats are more likely to live in and respect the values of the second sector. They emphasize the destructive side of Economy I streamlining — the huge profits at the top and the stagnant wages at the middle. They want to tamp down some of the streamlining in the global economy sector and protect health care, education and government from its remorseless logic.

Republicans believe the globalized sector is racing far out in front of government, adapting in ways inevitable and proper. If given enough freedom, Economy I entrepreneurs will create the future jobs we need. Government should prepare people to enter that sector but get out of its way as much as possible.

Democrats are more optimistic that government can enhance the productivity of the global sectors of the economy while redirecting their benefits. They want to use Economy I to subsidize Economy II.

I don’t know which coalition will gain the upper hand. But I do think today’s arguments are rooted in growing structural rifts. There’s an urgent need to understand the interplay between the two different sectors. I’d also add that it’s not always easy to be in one of those pockets — including the media and higher education — that are making the bumpy transition from Economy II to Economy I.

Obama struggles with the base and the center

I asked 2301 students to speculate on how well Romney might pivot to the center once he - or now that he - has the nomination wrapped up, and how he can do so without losing his party's base. Obama has the same problem.

This story describes how he has to make the environmentalist portion of the party's base happy while also satisfying the center's desire for more fossil fuels. He is also trying to rally the base by pushing the Buffett Rule, but how do you do that without alienating those in the center who might be nervous about tax increases - even if it doesn't directly affect them.