From the Atlantic: Should Citizens Have a Right to Rebel?

In both 2305 and 2306 we analyze Declarations of Independence - of the United States in 2305 and of Texas in 2306. Both have the same structure and make the same basic argument. Governments are based on an implicit contractual agreement between people to establish a system of mutual security and benefits.

Each goes on to establish how the respective governments each group of signees lives under is no longer doing so. Each lists a number of grievances that prove their point. The U.S. document makes the additional case that the King of England was attempting to establish a tyrannical systems by controlling each of the governing powers - the legislative, executive and judicial. Free people refuse to live in such systems, so there's the justification.

But though each declaration makes the point that citizens can rebel and change their governing systems, the United States Constitution does not mention this right. This right is mentioned in the Texas Constitution however, it is in the Second Section in Article One - the Texas Bill of Rights.

All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.

The Atlantic Magazine has posted article pointing out that many countries do have provisions in their Constitutions stating that people to have rights to rebel. But they find this right to be problematic. A quick read through it might help clarify some of the issues associated with the simultaneously trying to establish a government that is stable, but subject to the will of the people. As you will note (especially 2305 students) the framers of the Constitution wrestled with the fact that governments closely tied to the general population were unstable, and lacked the ability to in fact govern.

- Click here for the article.

Here are a few quotes from the Article:

Why no clause in the U.S. Constitution?

Quite often, the right appears in constitutions written in the immediate aftermath of a military revolt or popular revolution. Such “founding” texts frequently include language meant to justify the overthrow of the old order as well as provide a blueprint for the new. Our Founding Fathers, with their fondness for the idea of natural rights, might have embraced something similar in the United States had the Declaration of Independence not been separated by more than a decade from the drafting of the Constitution.

It's worth noting that the 1876 Constitution was written just after the end of reconstruction, and the ex-Confederates who could now again participate politically were animated by antipathy towards the national government which of course had just forced them to give their slaves.

The right to rebel helps create instability by making it easier to challenge the legitimacy of government officials. It facilitates military coups:

Several of today’s trouble spots, including Mali, Turkey, and Venezuela, have constitutional rights to resist. In many ways, the regimes in these countries couldn’t be more different. But they also share something else: disputed legitimacy at the time of their ascension.

Here’s how this dynamic typically plays out:

Step 1: A government with questionable democratic credentials takes administrative control following a coup or revolution, or else is democratically elected after previously failing to seize power through one of the above. Soon afterward, these rulers consolidate their power by drafting a new constitution—one which includes a “right to resist,” ostensibly meant to serve as ex-post-facto validation of their past attempts to overthrow their predecessors.

Step 2: In Faustian fashion, the proviso becomes a thorn in the side of the administrations that govern under the new constitution, as agitators and enemies wield it to foment instability. When that instability grows great enough, it produces a crisis that topples the very system it was supposed to be legitimizing. And yet, the provision—or one like it—often sticks around in the next constitutional revision, since taking it out might signal weakness or fear on the part of the country’s new rulers.

Step 3: Rinse and repeat.

The right to rebel is less about allowing the people to stage future protests than to justify previous overthrows of the government. But these provisions then provide constitutional authorizations for future moves against the government. It introduces into the constitutional order a destabilizing element, when constitutions are supposed to provide order, along with a manageable orderly way to change policies (at least ideally).

He uses Thailand, Cuba and Venezuela as examples.

Here's the concluding point:

One could argue that the Venezuelan people are better off if a right to resist helps them destabilize the likes of Chávez. And it is likewise possible that since unstable countries tend to write more constitutions than stable ones do—Thailand had 19, Venezuela 26—troubled nations simply have more opportunities to adopt the clause. But the fact remains that constitutions are nearly always written with an eye toward ensuring the survival of the system being created—and the constitutional right to resist can undermine that goal and generate greater political instability.

If politics is the “art of the possible,” a constitution is its canvas—with set parameters limiting the scope of those possibilities. Right-to-resist provisions explode these constraints, potentially providing carte blanche to those who might someday seek to upend the system, and leaving those in power with a constitutional Clause of Damocles hanging over their heads.

The right to rebel most likely fits under the heading of what the framers of the Constitution called direct democracy, which - as 2305 students will note in the section on Federalist 10 - was destabilizing. As we walk through the structure of the Constitution, we'll note the various ways it connects the electorate indirectly with the operations of government. The goal was to provide just enough responsiveness to the preferences of the population to react to it, without destabilizing the governing system.

It's why we have a republic rather than a democracy.

Some things to consider as you go through the class material.
  

 

From Strategy + Business: Airports as Engines of Economic Development: Great Airports Are Critical for a Region

Something to back up the points made below about the Houston Airport System.

- Click here for the article.

Just as in the past shipping, railway and then highway systems have played vital roles in determining a city's economic power, global air transportation systems will do so in the future for cities, regions and countries. Rome's Caesar had it relatively easy. When a new road was needed, he commanded it to be built. Modern leaders do not have that luxury. To become an international hub, a city must first have sufficient demand for air travel, the right geographic location and a highly developed infrastructure to handle passengers and freight. Yet having all three in place does not guarantee success.

Today, local or even national aviation policy decisions can make or break a city's vision of becoming an international hub, and good policy- making is not easy. It is a complex process requiring insight into more than local political, socioeconomic and environmental issues - often the overriding concerns of policy-makers. Sound policy also requires extensive understanding of global marketplace dynamics, the economics of airline operations and the long-term impact of policy decisions on local business and industry and consumer behavior - factors more complicated than policy-makers may think.

2305 and 2306 students ought to think about this in terms of federalism and the public policy process.

The Houston Airport System and the Orion Capsule

For 2306 students, and to a lesser extent 2305.

When you start on the section on local government in Texas - and on the parts that discuss cities - you'll see repeatedly stated that cities are different entities than nations, or states, or counties. Those are all defined governing districts that start out with strict borders and then get to the business of getting filled in with people and stuff like that.

Cities start out as groups of people, and if they become economically viable they get the ability to create borders and pass and implement laws, collect taxes and stuff like that. They are economic entities primarily.

- Click here for past blog posts on cities.
- Click here for past blog posts on Houston.

The health of a city ebbs and flows based on how well it makes decisions that enhance its economic viability. Houston - famously - has done pretty well on that front, It helps when the key industry in town is doing quite well. But city leaders have to stay ahead of the efforts of other cities to cut in to what works well for the town, and to re-position itself for the future.

With that in mind I stumbled on this story on the development of the Orion - NASA's latest space capsule. A variety of nearby clicks took me to efforts by the Houston Airport System to turn Ellington field into a commercial spaceport. This is next step in commercial aviation, and promises to continue to ensure that the city continues to have transportation options available to it. This is an endeavor actively sought by the city government. If it does not do so now, the city may lose the opportunity to dominate the industry - which would be a pity given NASA's prominence here:

“This is not a science fiction-type conversation where we have to imagine how this industry might operate if it did in fact exist,” Mario Diaz, HAS’s aviation director, told the crowd. “This industry exists today, these launches have already taken place.”

HAS started aggressively moving forward with its spaceport plans in July, when it secured approval from Houston City Council for a $718,000 contract for a consulting firm to study how Ellington Airport can obtain a spaceport launch site operator’s license. However, HAS has been looking into developing a spaceport in Houston since early 2011. The ideal Ellington spaceport would allow for space tourism, astronaut training and commercial space experiments, HAS said.

In addition to unveiling the spaceport renderings on Sept. 4, HAS hosted a panel of members of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. The panel, which was comprised of former astronauts who are now working at companies that are in the process of creating commercial spaceflight vehicles, such as SpaceX and Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), spoke about their progress. Click here to read more about the panel.

Most of the panelists noted how their work is directly tied with Houston — all of them were trained as astronauts in Houston, and many work with the Johnson Space Center on developing their technologies used in spaceflight.

Houston's founding was based in large measure on its location. It lied on a potential transportation stream connecting the raw materials within Texas (first lumber, then cotton, then oil, etc...) with consumers around the world.

The development of the Port of Houston, then the airport system are all part of this process. These latest efforts fit within those previous ones. That it continues to do so illustrates the city's aggressiveness when it comes to business development.

While city's are primarily economic entities, not all play the game successfully.

Is autocracy on the rise?

For 2305 students (and to a lesser extent 2306) the concept of autocracy, oligarchy and democracy are important to internalize. Each is a way of organizing a governing system. They differ by where each places sovereign authority - with the one the few or the many. The slides touch the advantages and disadvantages of each and how each is subtly incorporated into each of the different branches.

One of the advantages of autocracy is its efficiency. One of the disadvantages of democracy is its inefficiency. When people are critical of democratic governments, its often because they reveal internal differences in how to combat a nation's problems, and leads some nations to prefer more autocratic means for organizing their governments.

This has become increasingly true since the 2008 economic crisis, which affected much more then just the United States. After the fall of communism in 1989, democracy flourished as more nations adopted democratic processes for their governments, sine the economic crisis, this has not been the case. Autocratic governments - with a single dominant ruler - have expanded. Some opportunities to expand democracies have stalled, or regressed - such as in Egypt and Thailand for example.

Here are links to recent news items that have documented, studied  and commented on that trend

- The Autocracy Challenge.
- New Freedom House Report Shows Autocracies Deeply Entrenched.
- Democracy Can Still Deliver.
- The Democratic Alternative from the South.
- How Militaries Rule.

Robert Kagan, an astute foreign policy commentator, suggests that this trend - accompanied by a rise in isolationism in the United States - does not bode well for a stable world.

- click here for Superpowers Don't Get to Retire.

Many Americans and their political leaders in both parties, including President Obama, have either forgotten or rejected the assumptions that undergirded American foreign policy for the past seven decades. In particular, American foreign policy may be moving away from the sense of global responsibility that equated American interests with the interests of many others around the world and back toward the defense of narrower, more parochial national interests. This is sometimes called “isolationism,” but that is not the right word. It may be more correctly described as a search for normalcy. At the core of American unease is a desire to shed the unusual burdens of responsibility that previous generations of Americans took on in World War II and throughout the cold war and to return to being a more normal kind of nation, more attuned to its own needs and less to those of the wider world.

If this is indeed what a majority of Americans seek today, then the current period of retrenchment will not be a temporary pause before an inevitable return to global activism. It will mark a new phase in the evolution of America’s foreign policy. And because America’s role in shaping the world order has been so unusually powerful and pervasive, it will also begin a new phase in the international system, one that promises not to be marginally different but radically different from what we have known these past 70 years. Unless Americans can be led back to an understanding of their enlightened self-interest, to see again how their fate is entangled with that of the world, then the prospects for a peaceful twenty-first century in which Americans and American principles can thrive will be bleak.

In additional to clarifying the material in the section labelled "defining key terms," this material should help you with the section on foreign policy.

Links to maps

For even more help, click on these for maps of the entire state of Texas:

- State Senate Districts (map)
- State House Districts (map)
- Congressional Districts (map)

Notice how small the districts get in our area - especially in Houston. This is due to population density. In a future lecture we will talk about the court cases which mandated that each district have an equal number of people in its borders.

For a look at this requirement, click on the link below:

- State and Federal Law Governing Redistricting in Texas.

Texas Legislative Council: DistrictViewer

For both 2305 and 2306:

This link takes you to District Viewer, an interactive map of legislative districts in the state of Texas, made available by the Texas Legislative Council.

You can use this to get familiar with the nature of the various legislative districts in the state. By clicking on the map, you can zoom in on the local area. If you also look at the top of the map, you'll see a small box with the word "plans" in it. Click on it and a box will open up where you will see the maps for congressional, state board of education, state house, and state senate districts.

2305 students are to focus on the congressional districts (these are the districts where members of the US Congress are elected from - US Senators represent the entire state, so no need to draw those districts). 2306 students are to choose either a state house or state senate district (these are where members of the Texas Legislature - either House or the Senate - are drawn from).

Here's a key point - something you'll be told later in the semester in each class. The U.S. Constitution reserves to each state the ability to drawn legislative districts - including that of the U.S. House of Representatives. So the districts you see are the result of political conflict that plays out every 10 years or so in the Texas Legislature following each census.

For more detail - click here on the Texas Legislative Council's Texas Redistricting page.

I'll post a few maps relevant to the assignment soon.

Is the American public rational?

If you are my student you will have noticed that both 2305 and 2306 classes begin with set of slides titled "Why do I have to take this class?" and that the basic answer provided is that it is a rational public is expected to provide a strong foundation for a republic. Ideally that's what we'll be able to accomplish this semester: To turn you into a rational participant if the political process.

Not to be rude, but studies suggest that will be a tall order.

Click here for older stories that touch on the degree of rationality in the American public.

What you'll see are stories that touch on the level of ignorance in the American public, as well as the tendency of people to overestimate their knowledge of current events. This should give us pause when we continually criticize Congress. Maybe they are more representative than we think.

Weekly Written Assignment #1

The purpose of this assignment is to provide you the subject of your 1000 word critical assignment which will be due at the end of the semester. Both 2305 and 2306 students are to address the same question, though the former will relate to the national level and 2306 will relate to the state level. 

As you - hopefully - know, election season 2014 is well underway. In Texas, we now know who the nominees of the respective parties will be, and both sides have reorganized their election strategies to win in the general election in November. Issues are being raised, and positions on them are being taken by the candidates. Ideally these positions are ways that the candidates can tell the people who live in the relevant districts what they intend to do either in Congress or the Texas Legislature.

I want you to use the 1000 word paper as a way to critically analyze the connection between the interests of the local area with the jurisdiction of the national government (2305) and the state government (2306). I want you to do this by analyzing the race for whichever district you live in (this would be the congressional district if you are in 2305, and either the Texas House or Senate district if you are in 2306) and address what major local issues are driving the campaigns for these respective positions.

This is another way for you to get comfortable with what the functions of the state and national governments are. I know this is a bit vague, but I want you to have enough leeway to make this project your own.

For this introductory assignment, I simply want you to find out what districts you live in and who represents you ion those districts on the national level (if you are in GOVT 2305) and on the state level (if you are in GOVT 2306). Once you find out who they are, look them up and tell me a little bit about them and what they do to represent their districts. Try to find out what committees they serve on. This helps us figure out what issues they prioritize.

This first assignment is to be at least 150 words long.

Here's a link to a website that helps you figure out who represents you. Start here:

- Who Represents Me?

Welcome summer 1 and summer 11 classes

Here's the blog where you'll find your written assignments and information related to the class material, as well as current events.

I'll have the first assignment for you in a few minutes, but for now familiarize yourself with what's available here. Feel free to ask me questions - but use my acc email to do so. You'll find it on the right hand column.

Good Point

some final hints about the final

A few last minute hints to help narrow your studies:

- strict scrutiny, as well as the other standards for reviewing equal protection claims
- electoral laws and federalism
- the impact of elections on political parties
- what makes elections legitimate?
- elections and democracy
- redistricting
- primary and general elections
- changes to elections over American history
- the functions of political parties
- party eras
- the development of parties
- party identification
- the growth of free speech in the United States
- the interpretation of speech
- who turns out to vote
- who does not
- interest group formation
- the nature of interest group influence
- seditious libel
- basic facts about public opinion

I stopped at 180 questions. Most are multiple choice, a good handful are true/false. You can only take the test once. This is designed to be a "you know it or you don't" test. So be prepared for it. It's designed to be the toughest part of the class, so keep that in mind.

Good luck.

A few more hints about what's on the final

It's about 2/3rds done, and I've covered material up to the section on civil rights.

This builds on what I mentioned in a previous post - remember to review the assessment questions also.

- public policy
- think of the process and participants in the process
- the Iron Triangle
- I don't a lot about the organic development of American governing institution, but there will be a few questions about it.
- general facts about the Constitution
- what does it cover, what does it not cover?
- what is in each of the Articles?
- comparisons with the Articles of Confederation
- Anti-Federalist and Federalist attitudes towards the Constitution
- basic checks and balances
- the delegated, reserved, and etc.... powers
- the factors driving the expansion of the national government
- definitions of terms like federalism, civil liberties, etc ....
- conflicts over the interpretation of the Constitution
- freedom of religion
- the constitutional design of the three branches of government
- principle shifts in each of their powers over history
- the origins of political parties
- the content of the Bill of Rights
- war
- the equal protection of the laws
- the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Remember that this will be opened at noon tomorrow and you will have until noon Tuesday to take it.

Also be sure to get your paper in by noon Tuesday.

The left and right might converge over increasing the minimum wage

Most stories about ideology in the United States point out where the differences lie, but there are areas where the far right and the far left converge.

A Washington Post writer covers a recent conference where conservatives joined liberals in arguing that in increase in the minimum wage would benefit the economy. Whether this gains traction in Congress is unclear. One of the arguments made is that higher wages leads to less demand for social services. The government may well be subsidizing businesses, allowing them to pay low wages with these programs.

One conservative even argued that increased wages might be good for the Republican Party's competitiveness. The wealthier people are, the more likely they are to pay income taxes, and the more likely they are to adopt fiscally conservative positions, which might make them consider voting Republican.

- Click here for the article.

Democrats have made the argument that an increase is morally right and that the only thing standing in the way is corporate greed. That may be so, but it hasn’t won them enough Republican support to get the increase through Congress. But what if Democrats were to make a free-market argument that a higher minimum wage would shrink the federal government and reduce the welfare state?

That’s the argument Ron Unz made to Nader’s gathering. Unz, a wealthy businessman known for his 1994 Republican primary challenge to California Gov. Pete Wilson and his fight against bilingual education, has serious conservative credentials, most recently as publisher of the American Conservative magazine. But now he’s leading a ballot measure in California to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

“The government spends over $250 billion a year in social welfare programs aimed at the working poor,” he said, addressing the group via Skype. “If we simply made the working poor much less poor by raising their wages to a much more reasonable level, a lot of that money would be saved, probably in the range of $40 to $50 billion a year.” The $250 billion spent on welfare for the working poor, Unz said, amounts to a “massive subsidy for businesses” that are paying less than a living wage and “forcing taxpayers to make up the difference.”

But what about the Congressional Budget Office study this year predicting that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 would cost 500,000 workers their jobs? Actually, Unz argued, the study found that 98 percent of minimum-wage workers would benefit from a wage increase, while only 2 percent would lose their jobs. Further, he said, the higher minimum wage would mean a reduction in Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” — those who, Romney said, won’t consider voting Republican because they don’t pay income taxes — as these new taxpayers become “open to a traditional Republican conservative economic message.”

Texas Primary Runoff Election Wrap-Up

Some random stories about yesterday's election:

- Tea Party Conservatives Win Top GOP Runoff Contests.
- Statewide Election Results.
- Analysis: Conservative Groups Enjoy Runoff Wins.
- Ralph Hall loses Texas GOP runoff.
- Democrat David Alameel handily defeats Kesha Rogers in Senate runoff.
- The Brief: Tea Party Ascendant as Curtain Falls on Two Careers.

A few hints for the final

I'm - maybe - 25% done with the final and have gotten through the first 8 set of slides. Let that be a hint. Almost all the questions will be new to you - no repeats - unless I run out of ideas and have to.

A few things to cover:

- ideology
- the framers' attitudes about the public
- the public policy process
- the Declaration of Independence
- what drove the Federalists
- the basic principles in the Constitution
- detail about each

My goal is to have 200 questions that you have to answer in 2 hours. This makes is difficult for you to look them up. You either know them or you don't. I hope you know them

Is democracy in long-run decline?

This theme should sound familiar if you've been paying attention to the opening slides in the class - the one's that touch on the pros and cons of democracy, oligarchy and autocracy. Democracies are inefficient, slow, and prone to conflict and autocracies are efficient, but subject to arbitrary rule.

NYT commentator David Brooks thinks that many of the problems we face - especially as compared to autocratic governments he calls "the guardian state" - are because of the consequences of democracy. We might benefit from less democracy - at least at the national level.

- Click here for the article.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

The events of the past several years have exposed democracy’s structural flaws. Democracies tend to have a tough time with long-range planning. Voters tend to want more government services than they are willing to pay for. The system of checks and balances can slide into paralysis, as more interest groups acquire veto power over legislation.

. . . A new charismatic rival is gaining strength: the Guardian State. In their book, Micklethwait and Wooldridge do an outstanding job of describing Asia’s modernizing autocracies. In some ways, these governments look more progressive than the Western model; in some ways, more conservative.

In places like Singapore and China, the best students are ruthlessly culled for government service. The technocratic elites play a bigger role in designing economic life. The safety net is smaller and less forgiving. In Singapore, 90 percent of what you get out of the key pension is what you put in. Work is rewarded. People are expected to look after their own.

These Guardian States have some disadvantages compared with Western democracies. They are more corrupt. Because the systems are top-down, local government tends to be worse. But they have advantages. They are better at long-range thinking and can move fast because they limit democratic feedback and don’t face NIMBY-style impediments.

. . . So how should Western democracies respond to this competition? What’s needed is not so much a vision of the proper role for the state as a strategy to make democracy dynamic again.

The answer is to use Lee Kuan Yew means to achieve Jeffersonian ends — to become less democratic at the national level in order to become more democratic at the local level. At the national level, American politics has become neurotically democratic. Politicians are campaigning all the time and can scarcely think beyond the news cycle. Legislators are terrified of offending this or that industry lobby, activist group or donor faction. Unrepresentative groups have disproportionate power in primary elections.

The quickest way around all this is to use elite Simpson-Bowles-type commissions to push populist reforms.

The process of change would be unapologetically elitist. Gather small groups of the great and the good together to hammer out bipartisan reforms — on immigration, entitlement reform, a social mobility agenda, etc. — and then rally establishment opinion to browbeat the plans through.

Sounds like the a rehash of those age old arguments. And ironically, what he is describing is similar the systems the framers of the Constitution envisioned, where the mass public had very little input in the formation of national laws, but much more on the state and local level - at least among those that were able to participate politically.

A commentator at the Washington Post isn't buying it. Our problems are more due to rules that interfere with the proper workings of our institutions.

- Click here for the article.

Democratic self-doubt is nothing new. In the 1930s, Americans worried that, unlike fascist states that could "get things done," our government was too sclerotic to get us out of the Depression. In the 1960s, we worried that communist states that were rapidly industrializing and sending satellites into space were leaving us behind. And today, we're worried that one-party capitalism is more effective than multi-party capitalism. These authoritarian states, Brooks tells us, "are better at long-range planning and can move fast because they limit democratic feedback." You can see the future if you go to Shanghai — and it works, at least at breathtaking catch-up growth.

Well, not really. These paeans to government of, by and for the elite ignore China as it actually exists. Their air is unbreathable. Their high-speed railways are unsafe andshoddily made. And their government's credit-driven stimulus might have inflated a monster housing bubble that's now popping. Not exactly examples of superior long-range planning.

The truth, as boring as it may be, is that Winston Churchill was right: Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, James Robinson and Pascual Restrepo have a new paper that finds that countries that switch to democracy have about 20 percent higher GDP per capita 30 years later. That seems to be because greater civil liberties lead to governments that reform more economically and invest more in education and health care — in short, that are more responsive to the people.

. . . Our problem isn't too much democracy. It's too little. The filibuster means you need a Senate super-majority to get anything done. The Hastert rule — which, remember, is more of a guideline — keeps bills that have majority support from even coming up for consideration. We could get immigration reform and tax reform and every other kind of reform we need done — first among them ones that help the long-term unemployed — if we didn't have these parliamentary rules that enable obstructionism.
Now, calling for the end of the filibuster isn't as thought leader-y as calling for Simpson-Bowles forever, but it might actually, you know, work.

From the Bangkok Post: Is Thailand a failed state?

It's a question that can be asked of the governments in may countries where there seems to be no one in charge. In some of the early slides in class you'll notice content that points out that just because a nation has borders and can be spotted in a map, it does not follow that they posses the two things argued to be necessary to have a government - the ability to collect revenue and the ability to compel people to follow the law.

Here's concern that the Thai government can no longer do so, and has become what is called a failed state.

- Click here for the article.

There is no definitive consensus on what constitutes a failed state, but let’s consider this one. Washington-based NGO Fund for Peace outlined the following characteristics associated with failed states. One Loss of control of territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein. Two: Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions. Three: Inability to provide public services. Four: Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.

On the first characteristic — discounting the area surrounding the Phreah Vihear temple — the conflict in the southern provinces of Songkhla, Yala and Narathiwat makes for a good argument. It is still Thai soil and under military rule, but we don’t have much control over it either.

For a government to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders, the police and military must be in charge, as opposed to warlords, paramilitary or terrorist groups.

they can take over the streets of the capital. Not to the mention the storming of various government buildings.

Similar arguments are made about other nations.

For a systematic look at these, click here for the Failed - Fragile - State Index.

From the Observer: From autocracy to democracy, to ‘mobocracy’

Some of the terms we've come to grips with in this class are all over this recent piece of commentary.

The author analyzes the results of recent revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Ukraine and Thailand and wonders if what had been a from autocracy to democracy is now becoming a shift from democracy to "mobocracy."

The ideals of democracy - where the people rule in a manner which benefits the general public - are often thwarted by the practical realities of how people in fact behave. Groups define their well being in terms of whatever groups they identify with and do whatever is necessary to obtain those benefits.

A well constructed constitution is meant to minimize the ability of a faction to undermine a democratic republic in large measure by establishing institutions that contain their actions, but the democratic masses in these nations see little reason to uphold those institutions - assuming that they even exist.

As the factors that existed to prevent democracy from slipping into mobocracy disappear, instability increases in each nation.

. . . while these ‘mobocrats’ tear down civilisations of centuries, they have no mechanism, means or ways to manage democracy, and propel themselves into peace, unity, security and prosperity.

To that effect, Libya after Col Gaddafi is neither a democracy nor an autocracy. National oil wells are being scrambled for by tribal militias and diplomats. In neighbouring Egypt, the former ‘democratic’ masses and their governors have now been labelled ‘terrorists’, as they continue to destroy what may need a new martial plan to reconstruct.

In Ukraine, the masses started off somewhat civilized, but sooner degenerated into destructive mobs against their “commonwealth”, as they demanded to belong to their maternal Europe, while the governors preferred to remain with their paternal Russia.

In Thailand, the masses demanded the stepping down of their elected lady prime minister. When she called for elections, to give them an opportunity to elect whoever they thought was a better choice, they did not want them.

These are the mobs and masses.

He is also critical of the leadership in other nations that have seen changes in their governing systems where elites have taken charge - Iraq, Juba, and Lebanon among them. In these cases democracy cannot take hold since no institutions exist to restrain the ambitions of the leadership (Egypt fits here as well).

This supports the argument we make in class that while it is true that democracies are difficult systems to establish, they are even more difficult to maintain. It was a chief concern of the Constitution's framers, and one of the points the authors of the Federalist Papers tried to make - that the Constitutional system they were able to develop would be able to restrain both the elites and the masses.  

States are becoming more gerrymandered over time

The Washington Post has a great article illustrating the increased tendency of states to draw legislative districts in ways that enhance the power of whichever political party dominates the state.

- Click here for the article.

The concept is called gerrymandering - which you should know by now if you've been reading your notes - and will likely be covered in your final. One of the features of gerrymandered districts is their unusual shapes, these are necessary in order to contain as many partisans - reliable Democratic or Republican voters - in single districts. This is how state legislatures can guarantee that a specific district remain in Democratic or Republican hands.

The author highlights changes in the design of these two districts over the past 50 years to make his point:

Evaluating Democracy in America

I have a long series of posts that attempt to evaluate the quality of democracy in the United States, and touch on the suspicion that increased gaps between the rich and poor (and middle class) have made elected officials more responsive to the needs of the wealthy and less responsive to everyone else.

You can find many of these by clicking on this blog label: democracy.

In the Spring 2014 semester, we spent time looking through this study, and especially the following graph which points out that shifts in the opinions of the top 10% of income earners correlate with shifts in public policy, while this of the lower 90% have none:




But Andrew Sullivan flags a study that suggests that in one area of public policy, incarceration, shifts in attitudes about being "tough on crime" do correlate with the incarceration rate.

- Click here for the link.

This doesn't necessarily argue against the broader point that the opinions of the wealthy matter more for public policy, since their opinions and that of everyone else may be the same. But this does suggest that in specific areas of public policy, changes in it follow changes in public opinion - which is what democracy is supposed ot be all about.

From the Guardian: We must defend Thailand's fragile democracy – or civil war looms

As if on cue - since I've posted on the instability of democracy, and suggested students pay close attention to the framer's thoughts on the nature on democratic instability and how it ought to be contained - there's a military coup in the news.

From the Guardian:

In recent months, the F-word has been gaining currency in Thailand: observers are increasingly using "fascist" to describe the goals and methods of those determined to bring down the elected government, which is clinging to power despite a series of blows from its opponents in the courts and on the streets.

The army's declaration of martial law in the early hours of Tuesday – without consulting the government – further undermines the embattled administration and the kingdom's fragile democracy. Under the Martial Law Act of 1914, military commanders now have wide-ranging powers to detain suspects, censor the media, impose curfews and prohibit public gatherings.

Fourteen television stations have been taken off the air, and theBangkok Post reported on Wednesday that the military was "restricting comments on TV and in the print media by prohibiting remarks that could confuse society or provoke violence". There were also reports that books on Thai politics had been taken off the shelves at some shops.

This was a clearly a coup in all but name, and it was greeted with deep concern by the international community. As Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch said, "Thailand's friends in the world's capitals should make it clear that they expect this de facto coup to be reversed immediately."

The causes of the bitter conflict tearing Thailand apart are complex, and civil war remains a strong possibility. The army justified the imposition of martial law by claiming it was necessary to restore order amid heightened tensions and fears that rival groups would clash in the streets.

For the past six months, the former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban has led protests aimed at unseating the Pheu Thai government, which won a 2011 election observers said was largely free and fair.

In February, it won another election, which was boycotted by the opposition Democrat party while Suthep's thugs blocked polling stations. The inept, elitist and misnamed Democrats, led by the Eton- and Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva, appear to have given up on parliamentary democracy altogether.

Lots to unpack here - and it's worth thinking about this in terms of Kirkpatrick's essay. I'm drawn to the comment that a former official refused to accept the results of an election, which led to the instability that the military used to justify its action. I'm no expert on Thai politics, but do political participants in Thailand accept their own constitutional system? Opposition members seem to not wish to abide by electoral rules.

For background:

- Wikipedia: Coup d'eta.
- Wikipedia: Thailand.

Kirkpatrick on the gradual development of democracy

Here's another extended quote from Kirkpatrick's 1979 essay referred to in the previous post.

It reinforces a point I make in several sets of slides that try to tied in the basic design of governing institutions to British history, and the gradual development of independent legislative and judicial institutions that can limit the power of the executive. It's the gradual nature of this development that is important, and once accomplished, freedom can expand to encompass greater numbers of people. It's the result of the process, and it takes time.

That seems to be Kirkpatrick's basic complaint about Carter's foreign policy - if not of the entire ideological point of view he represented to her.

Here's the quote:

In the relatively few places where they exist, democratic governments have come into being slowly, after extended prior experience with more limited forms of participation during which leaders have reluctantly grown accustomed to tolerating dissent and opposition, opponents have accepted the notion that they may defeat but not destroy incumbents, and people have become aware of government’s effects on their lives and of their own possible effects on government. Decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits. In Britain, the road from the Magna Carta to the Act of Settlement, to the great Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, and 1885, took seven centuries to traverse. American history gives no better grounds for believing that democracy comes easily, quickly, or for the asking. A war of independence, an unsuccessful constitution, a civil war, a long process of gradual enfranchisement marked our progress toward constitutional democratic government. The French path was still more difficult. Terror, dictatorship, monarchy, instability, and incompetence followed on the revolution that was to usher in a millennium of brotherhood. Only in the 20th century did the democratic principle finally gain wide acceptance in France and not until after World War II were the principles of order and democracy, popular sovereignty and authority, finally reconciled in institutions strong enough to contain conflicting currents of public opinion.

Think about this when you look at the sections in this class on democracy, the expansion of suffrage, and the development of the three key institutions of government - the legislative, executive and judicial. It also lies in the background of the section on ideology. One of the key differences between what we now refer to as liberalism and conservatism is a dispute over whether changes in society can be achieved quickly and deliberately, or only slowly through the development of solid and stable institutions.

All this can end up on your final.

Jeane Kirkpatrick weighs in on what it takes to keep the republic.

I want to highlight some of the material in the opening set of slides.

You'll find quote this on slides 20 and 21. It comes from a 1979 article written by Jeane Kirkpatrick which was critical of the Carter Administration's foreign policy. For our purposes here, that is insignificant, but her analysis of what it takes for a constitutional government to be both established and maintained is worth noting. It fits within the broader subject raised in the introduction, what does it take to sustain a democratic republic. A constitution is not enough - though a well designed one helps - it takes a public that has the traits necessary to do so.

- Here's a link to the full article.

Here's the quote I pulled out for the slides:

In his essay on Representative Government, John Stuart Mill identified three fundamental conditions. . . . These are: "One, that the people should be willing to receive it [representative government]; two, that they should be willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation; three, that they should be willing and able to fulfill the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them. 

Fulfilling the duties and discharging the functions of representative government make heavy demands on leaders and citizens, demands for participation and restraint, for consensus and compromise. It is not necessary for all citizens to be avidly interested in politics or well-informed about public affairs–although far more widespread interest and mobilization are needed than in autocracies. What is necessary is that a substantial number of citizens think of themselves as participants in society’s decision-making and not simply as subjects bound by its laws. Moreover, leaders of all major sectors of the society must agree to pursue power only by legal means, must eschew (at least in principle) violence, theft, and fraud, and must accept defeat when necessary. They must also be skilled at finding and creating common ground among diverse points of view and interests, and correlatively willing to compromise on all but the most basic values.

Let's break this down a bit. Hopefully you've noticed that John Stuart Mill is referenced in a couple places in the class - mostly having to do with establishing the limits of what a government should be able to do. This is the harm principle - which I might ask a question about in the final exam. He also provided one of the better reasons why freedom provides tangible benefits for society, more on this later - but again, very likely things I'll ask questions about on the final exam.

Here are key points from the quote.

Three qualities are necessary in the general public for a republic (a representative government) to survive.

1 - people have to want it
2 - people have to want to work to preserve it
3 - people should be able to perform the function and duties it requires.

Part of the point of the first section was that an educated population is necessary to meet those three requirements.

Kirkpatrick goes a bit further in clarifying the last of these requirements: the demands on the public. To me this gets to the meat of the matter:

- people have to participate
- - they have to see themselves as participants in the process
- - not just subjects
- people have to practice restraint
- - legal means only must be used to achieve objectives
- - violence, fraud and theft must be avoided
- - people must be willing to accept defeat
- people have to work to achieve consensus
- - common ground among people with diverse points of views have to be found
- people have to be willing to compromise
- - unless it is a fundamental value, people have to be willing to give things up

Its a good starting point for a discussion about works and does not work in a republic, which means not just what works and does not work in the government, but since it a government based on the consent of the governed, what works and does not work in the general public, within each of us.

An example of demagoguery

Building off the post below - a newspaper item intended to get the white majority agitated and ready to move.

Moore v. Dempsey and mobocracy

Mini 3's should prepare for finals questions related to the relative pros and cons of different systems of government (principally autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy). I pull a lot of material from the opening set of slides - Why do I have to take this class? You can expect to see maybe 5 - 10 finals questions from that set of slides.

As you'll note, the biggest suspicion the framers of the Constitution had about democracies was that they tended to turn into mobocracy - the fancy term is ochlocracy. The term is obviously biased. Who wants to be ruled by a mob? It can also refer to rule by a mass of people. The framers argued that these forms of government were unstable, and could lead to tyranny of the majority. A close reading of their comments reveals that they were also worried the democracies that were developing in the states under the Articles of Confederation were undermining their power.

One of their concerns was that an uneducated population could be persuaded to become violent by a demagogue - "a political leader in a democracy who appeals to the emotions, fears, prejudices, and ignorance of the lower classes in order to gain power and promote political motives." This could create the instability that could not only spell the end of the democratic republic they sought to establish, but also allow a numeric majority the ability to dominate a numeric minority.

This points out a tension between majority rules and minority rights that I try to highlight in key section of the class - it plays a key role in the design and role of the courts as well as the nature of the Bill of Rights.

Aside from pointing your attention in this direction, I'm writing this because as I was working on the notes for the Supreme Court and stumbled across the court case of Moore v. Dempsey which involves accusations that an Arkansas mob was preventing the criminal justice system from working in the neutral fashion we expect it to.

It seems to me to be a good example of mobocracy in action

Here are links for background on the case

- Moore v. Dempsey.
- Elaine Race Riot.
- Sharecropping.
- Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America.
- Robert L. Hill.

The incident appears to have begun when a group of African American sharecroppers met in order to develop a strategy for addressing grievances they had against the landlords they worked for. The meeting was interrupted by a group of white men, shots were exchanged (it was uncertain who shot first) and one of the white men was killed.

The links can give you detail on what happened next (lots of violence), but one of the eventual results was a trial process dominated by the majority white population. The rights of the African American defendants were not recognized, which raised issues that ultimately led the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices would rule that the national government had the power to compel state courts to provide due process guarantees for criminal defendants, especially if the process was tainted by the a dominant mob.

Click here for the decision.

A few stories related to the VRA

The question I asked mini 3 students to consider is whether Congress is likely to redraw the map that outlined which are the covered jurisdictions under the Voting Rights Act. Until it is redrawn, no changes in election can be overseen - which suggests that efforts to minimize the voting rights of minorities can be put in place.

Here are a few stories related to the effort to redraw (or not) the map of covered jurisdictions:

- Voting Rights fixes should get a vote in the House and Senate.
- Push stalls to revive VRA provision in Congress.
- Republicans drag their feet on fixing the VRA.
- Last week's affirmative action setback could be a boost to voting rights.
- How Supreme Court rulings encourage racial discrimination.

Consider this a start.

GOVT 2305 3 week mini

We're one week into the 3 week mini 2305 class, meaning that it the semester is already 1/3rd over. Students who take classes like this tend to be smart and self motivated, and this looks to be the case so far. I'm not worried about most of you - most of you that is.

I gave myself a break after the end of the spring semester, but I'll start posting a items related to the class. These will fall into three categories.

1 - those related to the topic of the assigned paper - which will be due in two weeks
2 - those related to the final exam - which will be opened in two weeks
3 - current even stories that tie class material to events in the news.

Students are free to send comments, as well as email me through the address listed on the right hand column.

A last list of hints - 5/4/14

The first final will be tomorrow at 8am - so in order to be fair there will be no more hints after this one.

I mentioned in class several times - for those that come to class - that I recommend reviewing the assessment questions repeatedly, then thinking about their content broadly. Keep in mind that anything we covered in class can be on the test. This is designed to be the toughest part of the class.

You still have until Thursday at 4pm to turn in all your work on Blackboard.

The tests for online classes will be opened on Blackboard on noon Wednesday and will be closed on noon Thursday. You'll have 2 hours to answer the questions.

Some last minutes things to review - count on questions about these. These are in addition to the previous reviews.

2305:

- free speech
- the design of the branches
- opinions of the framers
- the formation of parties and interest groups
- Supreme Court cases
- Supreme Court process
- voter turnout
- strict scrutiny
- constitutional interpretation
- the growth of each branch of government
- military power / declared wars
- organizations within Congress
- original intent
- lobbying
- democracy
- poverty
- the wall of separation
- the grievances in the Declaration of Independence
- tyranny
- liberalism
- conservatism
- sub governments
- the two party system

2306:

- amendments to the Texas Constitution
- counties
- appellate courts
- the budgetary process
- the comptroller
- urbanization
- content of the Texas Constitution
- the 1869 Constitution
- primary elections
- the governor's powers
- city councils
- state board of education
- voter registration
- gerrymanderting
- single member districts
- the law making process
- the powers of the Speaker
- voting rights
- the Texas Supreme Court
- political culture in Texas
- Article 4 of the Texas Constitution
- city managers
- isd's

A few more hints for 2305 and 2306 - 5/2/14

2305:

- Review the relative powers of each of the branches of government
- Review how each check the others
- Be able to define key, basic terms
- Review the nature of public policy and the factors that bind sub-governments together.
- Delegated, reserved, implied, expressed, inherent powers . . .
- Which phrases in the Constitution are especially vague and subject to interpretation?
- What are the political institutions?
- What factors make some groups politically stronger than others?
- Be able to answer factual questions about voter turnout, party identification and campaign finance.

2306:
- Be able to answer questions about the bill making and budgeting process.
- Know facts about the plural executive - each of the offices contained in it.
- Don't worry about the nuances of the judicial system, but do know general issues about it.
- What factors strengthen and weaken each of the branches.
- How are elections conducted in the state?
- What relationships exist between the state and county governments?
- Be familiar with basic facts associated with the electoral process
- How are parties organized in the state?
- What are the different ways city governments are organized?

A few more hints for 2305 and 2306

2305:

- review the constitutional principles we covered this semester
- republicanism
- separated powers
- federalism
- individual liberty
- think about how they are incorporated into the document's design
- review the impact the 14th Amendment had on the relationship between the state and national governments
- review the equal protection clause and the various issues associated with it

2306:

- be familiar with the argument in the Texas Declaration of Independence
- know the principle differences between the various constitutions that have governed Texas
- know the basic design of the 1876 Constitution and the major changes that have been made to it
- know the differences between cities and counties - as well as single purpose governments

A few hints about how to prepare for the 2305 final

I like pulling questions out of basic documents, and you can;t get more basic than the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The latter especially is fruitful for pulling out questions - especially very basic ones.

Be sure to review each - upwards of 10 of the 100 finals questions could be directly connected to them.

Also be very familiar with the subject of the first two sets of slides - Why do I have to take this class and Defining key terms.

A few hints about how to prepare for the 2306 final

Aside from reviewing all the assessments questions, start paying special attention to the slides in the section labelled

- Texas and the States within the National Governing Landscape: Federalism

The topics covered there reappear in other parts of the class. For now pay special attention to the what parts of the U.S. Constitution affect that powers of the states, the relationship between the state and national governments as well as their obligations to each other.

More to come.

Last substantive week - next week review - then finals

This is the last week we will introduce new substantive topics in 2305 and 2306. In 2305 this will be the free speech, public opinion and polling. In 2306 this will be education policy.

The 2306 final is more or less complete, I hope to have the 2305 final finished by Friday. I'll give you hints about what to expect on each here over the course of the next two weeks. Right now my advise is to make sure you've completed all the assessments and know all the material there. Then review the slides. And monitor this blog for hints about what to focus on.

No Jury Duty Thursday

Didn't get picked for a big meaty trial, so tomorrow's classes will meet as scheduled.

Sorry

From The Dish: Convicted Of Being A Minor

More for 2306 and our recent walk through the criminal justice system. The link takes to you a story about the unique "status offenses" that apply to juveniles. A recent report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation argues that the consequences of punishing these offenses may not be worth the benefits. 

- Click here for the article.
- Click here for the report.

The Dish highlights this part of the report:

Incarcerating or otherwise removing these youth from their homes increases the likelihood that they will be converted from today’s status offenders to tomorrow’s serious offenders, instead of being shepherded toward productive lives as young adults.

Among other things, research shows that status offenders, as a result of being exposed to seriously delinquent youth in close quarters, are in jeopardy of developing the more deviant attitudes and behaviors of higher-risk youth, such as anti-social perspectives and gang affiliation. While many of the causes underlying a status offenders’ behavior and the effects of incarceration has on their futures are also common to more serious offenders, the stakes are obviously higher for status offenders who have not committed property or person offenses and may be less likely to have previously been associated with seriously delinquent peers. In addition, the confinement of status offenders is expected to increase barriers to reentry into community, home, and school settings, and increase the likelihood that they will be rearrested, re-adjudicated, and re-incarcerated.

In short, there are very compelling reasons to avoid confinement of status offenders. The punishment fails to fit the “crime” since status offenses are simply behaviors that would be legal if committed by adult; alternative approaches are more effective and far less costly; and, as described in the previous paragraph, the futures of these youth would not be jeopardized by the negative impacts of exposure to serious offenders during placement.

From Atlantic Cities: America's Most Sprawling Cities Are Also the Most Republican

Something to add to our material on ideology, partisanship and political behavior:

- Click here for the article.

With the help of my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Charlotta Mellander, I compared Smart Growth America's new rankings of sprawling and compact development to voting patterns, as well as other significant economic and demographic variables.Their Sprawl Index takes into account four key factors: density, mix of uses, presence of "activity centers," and accessibility of street network. A higher ranking on the Sprawl Index means a metro is more compact and less sprawling. Positive correlations identify a relationship to more compact development, while negative ones suggest a connection to greater sprawl. As usual, I note that our analysis points only to associations among variables and does not indicate causality.

The connection between sprawl and conservatism comes through loud and clear in our analysis of more than 200 of America's metro areas. Our correlations suggest that sprawled America is Red America, while Blue America takes on a much more compact geography. The Sprawl Index was negatively associated with the share of voters in a metro who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 (with a correlation of -.44); and it was positively associated with the percentage who voted for Barack Obama (.43). These were among the strongest correlations in our analysis.

This is in line with other research that connects sprawl or density and political affiliation. Researchers have identified a tipping point of roughly 800 people per square mile where counties shift from Red to Blue, as I noted in the weeks following Barack Obama's reelection. Princeton historian Kevin Kruse similarly explained this spatial link between a spread-out landscape and Republican political positions to the New Republic. “There are certain things in which the physical nature of a city, the fact the people are piled on top of each other, requires some notion of the public good,” he said. “Conservative ideology works beautifully in the suburbs, because it makes sense spatially.”

From Atlantic Cities: Can Houston Learn to Love Light Rail?

For 2306 - a look at transportation policy in the city of Houston, specially efforts to provide residents with additional choices in how to get around.

- Click here for the article.

Once every two weeks or so, in the six months after Houston's first light rail line opened in 2004, a car crashed into the dazzling fountain that flanks the tracks downtown. In the first year of operation, the light rail was involved in 67 collisions. Folks took to calling it the Wham-Bam-Tram. Some drivers never learned to coexist with the newcomer at all, opting instead for parallel side streets. With its lush lawns, large floor plans and sprawling footprint, Houston is a famously spacious city. But the roads never seem wide enough.

Ten years later, the city is in the midst of a second burst of light rail expansion. Five additional miles of track opened in December; two new lines are set to follow later this year. At the center of Greater Houston, a metro area the size of Massachusetts, two-dozen miles of track may not seem like much. (Even some supporters of the project refer to it as the "toy train.") Yet in America's fourth largest city, light rail remains a political and cultural flashpoint far out of proportion to its modest size.

To opponents, it is a prime example of government waste — a vanity project flawed not only in its execution but in its aim of enabling Houstonians to travel without cars. Houston's sprawling size is coupled with a year-round average high temperature of 80 degrees, which critics say make walkable design a pipe dream. Congressman John Culberson, who represents West Houston in Washington and is light rail's chief political adversary, recalls a 19th-century saying that still explains the local love for cars: A Texan will not walk if he can ride a horse. "People's attitudes haven't changed," he says. "You are dead in the water in Houston if you don't have a car."

But the people themselves have changed — no American metro has grown faster than Greater Houston over the last quarter-century, making it one of the most diverse areas in the United States — and they might be taking the city with them. Stephen Klineberg, co-director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, divides Houston's history into three periods: the sleepy streetcar town, the city structured by the freedom of the automobile, and the metropolis yearning for freedom from the automobile. "There's a vision: retail downstairs, residents upstairs, shade trees, sidewalk cafes," says Klineberg. "This is, in general, a city self-consciously reinventing itself for the 21st century."

From Pro-Publica: TurboTax Maker Linked to ‘Grassroots’ Campaign Against Free, Simple Tax Filing

Just in time for tax day, a story that points out how interests groups can try to influence public opinion.

- Click here for the full story.

Over the last year, a rabbi, a state NAACP official, a small town mayor and other community leaders wrote op-eds and letters to Congress with remarkably similar language on a remarkably obscure topic.

Each railed against a long-standing proposal that would give taxpayers the option to use pre-filled tax returns. They warned that the program would be a conflict of interest for the IRS and would especially hurt low-income people, who wouldn't have the resources to fight inaccurate returns. Rabbi Elliot Dorff wrote in a Jewish Journal op-ed that he "shudder[s] at the impact this program will have on the most vulnerable people in American society."

"It's alarming and offensive" that the IRS would target the "the most vulnerable Americans," two other letters said. The concept, known as return-free filing, is a government "experiment" that would mean higher taxes for the poor, two op-eds argued.

The letters and op-eds don't mention that, as ProPublica laid out last year, return-free filing might allow tens of millions of Americans to file their taxes for free and in minutes. Or that, under proposals authored by several federal lawmakers, it would be voluntary, using information the government already receives from banks and employers and that taxpayers could adjust. Or that the concept has been endorsed by Presidents Obama and Reagan and is already a reality in some parts of Europe.

So, where did the letters and op-eds come from? Here's one clue:

Rabbi Dorff says he was approached by a former student, Emily Pflaster, who sent him details and asked him to write an op-ed alerting the Jewish community to the threat.

What Pflaster did not tell him is that she works for a PR and lobbying firm with connections to Intuit, the maker of best-selling tax software TurboTax.

"I wish she would have told me that," Dorff told ProPublica.

The website of Pflaster's firm, JCI Worldwide, had listed Intuit among its clients, but removed it after ProPublica contacted them. Pflaster said Intuit had been listed by mistake, but added that the firm does work for the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade group of which Intuit is a member. Pflaster also said her firm has reached out to multiple groups and encouraged them to share information about the "flaws" of return-free filing.

Update on the story from Slate.

Theoretically, it should be far easier for Americans with simple finances to file their tax returns. Instead of making tax filers putz around W-2s and tax prep software, the IRS could electronically prepopulate their paperwork with the information it already receives from banks and employers, and tell filers how much they owe. If the final figure looked about right, you’d have the option to file. As Matt Yglesias wrote here last year, the whole process could be a five-minute snap.

Theoretically. But for years now, Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has fought tooth and nail to prevent automatic tax filing from becoming a reality, lobbying against bipartisan legislation to introduce it with the help of a powerful tech industry trade group and conservative anti-taxers like Grover Norquist. Intuit and its competitors in online tax prep don’t want the government cutting its market share. The tax-crusaders want to ensure that paying the government remains as much of a painful, resentment-generating slog as ever. And thus a potent alliance has been born.

Today, ProPublica, which published a great report on this subject last tax season, explains that the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which counts Intuit as a member, has been sponsoring an astroturf campaign to convince Congress that easyfiling would end up hurting the poor. A public relations firm working on the trade group’s behalf has been luring unsuspecting spokespeople to join its cause—reaching out to them without mentioning any lobbying ties.

Week #13 Assignment - A rough draft of your 1000 word essay

I'll open the place to input the assignment on blackboard later today.

Send this to me by next Monday and I'll give you feedback as soon as possible.

Try to concentrate on organization. Give me a solid intro, including a strong thesis statement, walk through the major points you are making and sum it all up in a clearly written conclusion.

The easier it will be for me to follow your argument, the better the grade.

From the Washington Post: Report: Election administration improving, in most states

The Pew Research Organization studies and ranks the states on how easy they make it to vote in 2008 and 2012.

North Dakota did best in both measures Mississippi worst.

Texas slid considerably - #39.

- Click here for the story.

The average voter who cast a ballot on Election Day in 2012 had to wait in line for three minutes less than he or she would have in 2008, while fewer people with disabilities or illnesses had problems voting, according to a new report measuring election administration procedures across the country.

The report, published Tuesday by the Pew Charitable Trust’s State and Consumer Initiatives program, found a sharp increase in the number of states that offered online voter registration, the number of states conducting post-election audits and the number of states that offer a transparent look at the data they collect.

Overall, the Pew researchers found, states that improved the most year over year embraced technological reforms that made the process function more smoothly, from evaluating absentee and provisional ballots to hurrying people through lines and judging their own effectiveness in order to spotlight areas for improvement.

“This is a bipartisan mix of states. This is not something that only Republicans or Democrats have license to,” said David Becker, Pew’s director of Election Initiatives. “It’s really a technological reform-based mindset.”

From Mother Jones: This Machine Can Tell Whether You're Liberal or Conservative

In 2305's section on ideology I briefly touch on research that suggests that ideology in innate - meaning it is part of our nature. We are born either liberal or conservative. This article focuses on the research of a political scientist - who is trying to find out if this is true.

- click here for the article.

At the center of the research are many scholars working at the intersection of psychology, biology, and politics, but one leader in the field is John Hibbing, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln whose "Political Physiology Laboratory" has been producing some pretty stunning results.

"We know that liberals and conservatives are really deeply different on a variety of things," Hibbing explains on the latest episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast (stream above). "It runs from their tastes, to their cognitive patterns—how they think about things, what they pay attention to—to their physical reactions. We can measure their sympathetic nervous systems, which is the fight-or-flight system. And liberals and conservatives tend to respond very differently."

This is not fringe science: One of Hibbing's pioneering papers on the physiology of ideology was published in none other than the top-tier journal Science in 2008. It found that political partisans on the left and the right differ significantly in their bodily responses to threatening stimuli. For example, startle reflexes after hearing a loud noise were stronger in conservatives. And after being shown a variety of threatening images ("a very large spider on the face of a frightened person, a dazed individual with a bloody face, and an open wound with maggots in it," according to the study), conservatives also exhibited greater skin conductance—a moistening of the sweat glands that indicates arousal of the sympathetic nervous system, which manages the body's fight-or-flight response.

It all adds up, according to Hibbing, to what he calls a "negativity bias" on the right. Conservatives, Hibbing's research suggests, go through the world more attentive to negative, threatening, and disgusting stimuli—and then they adopt tough, defensive, and aversive ideologies to match that perceived reality.

. . . Hibbing and his colleagues showed that a higher level of disgust sensitivity is predictive not only of political conservatism but also disapproval of gay marriage. It is important to underscore that your disgust sensitivity is involuntary; it is not something under your control. It is a primal, gut emotion.That word, "primal," helps us begin to understand what Hibbing and his colleagues now think ideology actually is. They think that humans have core preferences for how societies ought to be structured: Some of us are more hierarchical, as opposed to egalitarian; some of us prefer harsher punishments for rule breakers, whereas some of us would be more inclined to forgive; some of us find outsiders or out-groups intriguing and enticing, whereas others find them threatening. Hibbing and his team have even found that preferences on such matters appear to have a genetic basis.

Thus, the idea seems to be that our physiology, who we are in our bodies, may lead us to experience the world in such a way that basic preferences about how to run society emerge naturally from more basic dispositions and habits of perception. So, if you have a negativity bias, and you focus more on the aversive and disgusting, then the world seems more threatening to you. And thus, policies like supporting a stronger military, or being tougher on immigration, might feel very natural.

From The Dish: Prison Has Replaced Psychiatric Hospitals

For 2306 as we conclude our look at at criminal justice policy, and wind out way toward health and human service policy. This is also an example of interest group activity. The study described below is intended to spur reforms in our mental health system. Whether it does - following a previous story - might depend on whether elites support these suggestions.

Increasingly people with mental disabilities - who sometimes act out and find themselves in the criminal justice system - are treated there instead of hospitals.

- Click here for the story.

- And here for the report from the Treatment Advocacy Center that highlights the issue.

From the executive summary:

Prisons and jails have become America’s “new asylums”: The number of individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails now exceeds the number in state psychiatric hospitals tenfold. Most of the mentally ill individuals in prisons and jails would have been treated in state psychiatric hospitals in the years before the deinstitutionalization movement led to closing the hospitals, a trend that continues even today.
The treatment of mentally ill individuals in prisons and jails is critical, especially since such individuals are vulnerable and often abused while incarcerated. Untreated, their psychiatric illness often gets worse, and they leave prison or jail sicker than when they entered. Individuals in prison and jails have a right to receive medical care, and this right pertains to serious mental illness just as it pertains to tuberculosis, diabetes, or hypertension. This right to treatment has been affirmed by the US Supreme Court.

And a few items from their summary of findings:

• From 1770 to 1820 in the United States, mentally ill persons were routinely confined in prisons and jails. Because this practice was regarded as inhumane and problematic, such persons were routinely confined in hospitals until 1970. Since 1970, we have returned to the earlier practice of routinely confining such persons in prisons and jails.
• In 2012, there were estimated to be 356,268 inmates with severe mental illness in prisons and jails. There were also approximately 35,000 patients with severe mental illness in state psychiatric hospitals. Thus, the number of mentally ill persons in prisons and jails was 10 times the number remaining in state hospitals.
• In 44 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, a prison or jail in that state holds more individuals with serious mental illness than the largest remaining state psychiatric hospital. For example, in Ohio, 10 state prisons and two county jails each hold more mentally ill inmates than does the largest remaining state hospital

The Harris County Jail has been described as the largest mental health facility in the state. I can't find confirmation of that right now, but here are stores related to it:

- In Harris County, New Efforts to Treat Mental Illness In and Out of Jail.
- Harris County jail not the place to treat mental illness.
- County moving forward on jail diversion program for mentally ill.

From the National Journal: The End of Campaign Finance Reform? Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling is limited, but could lead to further rollbacks in regulations.

More fallout from McCutcheon:

- Click here for the article.

Despite the hype, the impact of the Supreme Court's decision striking down aggregate donation limits Wednesday is limited. The ruling doesn't mean that people can give unlimited amounts of money to candidates; it means a small pool of well-heeled donors can simply dole out donations to more candidates and party committees.

But campaign finance reform advocates are getting increasingly nervous over the longer-term impact of the Court's McCutcheon v. FEC decision, bolstered by other recent rulings on the subject. Experts see the possibility of a future battle over a more consequential subject: the decades-old cap on the amount an individual donor can give to a campaign.

Wednesday's 5-4 decision raised the possibility that the next step for those opposed to campaign finance regulations will be to contest the legality of individual donation limits, a bedrock principle of the current system. That such a move is even being discussed now is indicative of how much the courts have rewritten the laws governing money in politics.

Who is James Bopp Jr.?

He is one of the attorneys leading the charge to get the courts to overturn campaign finance laws - generally based on the idea that they violate free speech rights. He was mentioned in the post below on the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case challenging Iowa's campaign finance laws. He was also involved in the McCutcheon decision. In class today we considered his being an example of an interest group - or policy advocate - using the courts as their preferred way of changing public policy.

Folks like this are responsible for many changes in public policy.

- Here's the Wikipedia on him.

On campaign finance, Bopp worked as a legal advisor to Citizens United leading up to their victory in the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.[7] Another of Bopp's initiatives was bringing a lawsuit challenging what he believes to be a low limit for reporting campaign donations and the open way in which information on such donations is shared in California.

According the Campaign Legal Center, Bopp filed 21 of the 31 lawsuits it associated with challenging campaign finance regulations. All told, Bopp has spent 30 years fighting limits on campaign spending and is credited with changing the political landscape of the 2012 election. According to the Center for Responsive Politics. “It’s safe to say that groups on the left and right have Jim Bopp to thank for their new-found freedom.”In an interview with PBS' Frontline in 2012, Bopp said he was defending a "basically absolute" interpretation of the right to political free speech under the First Amendment. As such, he said he is working to eliminate or significantly loosen campaign spending limits and to eliminate donor-name-reporting requirements.

Bopp represented Phil Thalheimer and Associated Builders & Contractors PAC versus City of San Diego.[11] According to how the case was viewed in Hawaii, provided a PAC made "solely independent expenditures ...the case foreclosed the argument that the State has a justifiable interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption in regulating independent expenditures"