Steve Benen has written a book with the title "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics. The book is excerpted on a talkingpointsmemo at How The GOP Gave Up On Governing In Order To Keep Winning Elections.
The excerpt explains, "The GOP's push to win elections at all costs opened the door to a new leader who would cement its status as a post-policy party."
The following passage is the heart of Benen's argument:
"Many voters have grown accustomed to the idea of a national competition pitting two governing parties against each other. One has a more progressive vision, the other a more conservative one, but for most Americans, Democrats and Republicans are basically mirror images of one other, each with an internal range of opinions. The electorate has long had reason to assume that both major parties were mature and responsible policymaking entities, their philosophical differences notwithstanding.
The actions of the Republican Party over the last decade have made it abundantly clear that it’s time to reevaluate that assumption.
The current iteration of the GOP is indifferent to the substance of governing. It is disdainful of expertise and analysis. It is hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized, or implemented.
The modern Republican Party has become a post-policy party."
When this blog was started on February 14, 2016 with the post "Scalia Successor" , the blog name "When Tactics Become Policy" was chosen as the best description of the phenomenon that Benen describes.What he calls a "post-policy party" is one in which actions to advance a policy are completely replaced by actions with the sole purpose of winning, and such actions are tactical in nature, not designed to advance policy, but to ensure victories, either by election or by judicial nominations.
But this blog has also been dedicated to the proposition that the traditional view of political parties that are mirror images of each other, equal and opposite, is also a protected viewpoint, however flawed. That is because the traditional view of fairness and objectivity taken by the NYT and others commands that any objective view of the political parties must eschew assymetry - assymetry could result in one party being "bad" when the other party is being "good", assumed be a biased conclusion.
This tension between entities like the NY Times clinging to an outmoded definition of good political journalism and the clear logical argument against that NY Times position has persisted in recent years despite its flaws. And so, Benen emerges as only the latest example of someone yet again making an argument to the public as if it is new, trying different angles to convince people who refuse to be convinced by compelling arguments because they made their minds up long ago. Or maybe because they only care about winning and using any tactics that will get them there.
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2020
Friday, September 7, 2018
NYT Opinion as News
The NYT frequently inverts news articles and opinion pieces these days. The recent story "Some of the Democrats grilling Judge Kavanaugh have their eye on the White House" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg (also running under "Democrats Grilling Kavanaugh Have Their Eyes on 2020").
The alternate headlines frame the piece quite nicely. The times has been running articles calling the Kavanaugh nomination approval by the Senate basically a done deal. So the Times logic goes something like this:
Republicans have control of the Senate and will approve Kavanaugh without question. (This despite the narrow 51-49 margin by party.)
Since Kavanaugh is a done deal, any visible attempts to derail the nomination are a sham.
As for Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, they can not stop Kavanaugh, so they are just showboating.
If Senators just give up, their failure is a certainty. If there is any hope at all, don't they need to do everything they can to stop Kavanaugh. And doesn't it make more sense to frame their effort as a big victory if they succeed, but if they fail, then they have highlighted the concerns about Republican Supreme Court (and lower courts) nominees effectively for the 2018 Congressional elections?
But at the Times, where forced balance is established doctrine, politicians can always be presumed looking out for themselves. Besides, presidential races are exciting! All of these other races are so boring. I really don't care, do u?
The Times story which they present at a news item, rather than opinion is actually an opinion piece pretending to be a news story. It stems from a bias at the Times to see the world through a self imposed prism which is almost as bad in some ways at the Fox worldview.
A very different story could have been written. For me, the big news was the Cory Booker found a way to deflect the best efforts of John Cornyn, chair of the committee, to read him the "riot act" about Senate expulsion for his release of a handful of Kavanaugh documents. Cornyn's threat was actually an empty threat, but a framing tactic to label Booker as almost criminally out-of-order, in fact, so terrible that he could be punished and expelled from the Senate. Booker's open and immediate defiance was likely unexpected because team Cornyn's empty threat was shown to be a charade. So Cornyn was left to apparently falsely deny that the documents were still confidential and therefore there was no basis to expell Booker. But of course he had openly stated that Booker's actions could lead to expulsion, which had Cornyn simultaneously holding contradictory positions.
And so we continue to see Republicans threaten and attack democratic institutions as Democrats and some Republicans who do not hold elective office fight back. Republican officeholders continue to act in bad faith, often with lies and obfuscation, as they consolidate their hold on power with Trump at the center of the Party.
Not surprisingly, Paul Waldman provides his rebuttal in a WaPo opinion column, from a slightly different perspective, to wit:
"But thinking about politics — including how Democratic presidential primary voters might respond to the Kavanaugh nomination and the Supreme Court, in general — is exactly what these politicians ought to be doing. Politics is how we settle the most vital questions that confront us as a nation. And if the process of choosing and confirming Supreme Court justices was ever removed from politics, it certainly isn’t now. What’s wrong with Democrats, or Republicans for that matter, raising the issues they think their constituents care about?"
The main point here is that the Times sorting of articles into news and opinion categories is not working any more and has not worked for a long time. This Stolberg alleged news piece is clearly an opinion piece by any objective measure, but it is labeled news solely because the opinions of the author are forced into the newsy frame that "both sides" really only care about running for president in 2020.
The alternate headlines frame the piece quite nicely. The times has been running articles calling the Kavanaugh nomination approval by the Senate basically a done deal. So the Times logic goes something like this:
Republicans have control of the Senate and will approve Kavanaugh without question. (This despite the narrow 51-49 margin by party.)
Since Kavanaugh is a done deal, any visible attempts to derail the nomination are a sham.
As for Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, they can not stop Kavanaugh, so they are just showboating.
If Senators just give up, their failure is a certainty. If there is any hope at all, don't they need to do everything they can to stop Kavanaugh. And doesn't it make more sense to frame their effort as a big victory if they succeed, but if they fail, then they have highlighted the concerns about Republican Supreme Court (and lower courts) nominees effectively for the 2018 Congressional elections?
But at the Times, where forced balance is established doctrine, politicians can always be presumed looking out for themselves. Besides, presidential races are exciting! All of these other races are so boring. I really don't care, do u?
The Times story which they present at a news item, rather than opinion is actually an opinion piece pretending to be a news story. It stems from a bias at the Times to see the world through a self imposed prism which is almost as bad in some ways at the Fox worldview.
A very different story could have been written. For me, the big news was the Cory Booker found a way to deflect the best efforts of John Cornyn, chair of the committee, to read him the "riot act" about Senate expulsion for his release of a handful of Kavanaugh documents. Cornyn's threat was actually an empty threat, but a framing tactic to label Booker as almost criminally out-of-order, in fact, so terrible that he could be punished and expelled from the Senate. Booker's open and immediate defiance was likely unexpected because team Cornyn's empty threat was shown to be a charade. So Cornyn was left to apparently falsely deny that the documents were still confidential and therefore there was no basis to expell Booker. But of course he had openly stated that Booker's actions could lead to expulsion, which had Cornyn simultaneously holding contradictory positions.
And so we continue to see Republicans threaten and attack democratic institutions as Democrats and some Republicans who do not hold elective office fight back. Republican officeholders continue to act in bad faith, often with lies and obfuscation, as they consolidate their hold on power with Trump at the center of the Party.
Not surprisingly, Paul Waldman provides his rebuttal in a WaPo opinion column, from a slightly different perspective, to wit:
"But thinking about politics — including how Democratic presidential primary voters might respond to the Kavanaugh nomination and the Supreme Court, in general — is exactly what these politicians ought to be doing. Politics is how we settle the most vital questions that confront us as a nation. And if the process of choosing and confirming Supreme Court justices was ever removed from politics, it certainly isn’t now. What’s wrong with Democrats, or Republicans for that matter, raising the issues they think their constituents care about?"
The main point here is that the Times sorting of articles into news and opinion categories is not working any more and has not worked for a long time. This Stolberg alleged news piece is clearly an opinion piece by any objective measure, but it is labeled news solely because the opinions of the author are forced into the newsy frame that "both sides" really only care about running for president in 2020.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Nuclear Option
Today we are seeing the ability to filibuster Supreme Court justices in the Senate disappear, the so-called "nuclear option". That was easy. Actually, the decision by Mitch McConnell last February not to allow the Senate to consider any nominee of President Obama, no matter how moderate, was the real nuclear option, in terms of momentousness, but the name was already taken.
Given the continued erosion of the comity of the Senate over recent decades, we are better off dispensing with the supermajority requirement and possibly other Senate prerogatives (judicial holds) which only function well within a spirit of cooperation. The sooner the system falls under its own weight, the sooner we may be able to achieve comprehensive reform of the federal government, including electoral reform. That can only happen if Democrats gain substantial power at the national level, which only happens if there is strong negative reaction to Trump and the Republicans because for Republicans, the current system is working just fine, thank you.
Given the continued erosion of the comity of the Senate over recent decades, we are better off dispensing with the supermajority requirement and possibly other Senate prerogatives (judicial holds) which only function well within a spirit of cooperation. The sooner the system falls under its own weight, the sooner we may be able to achieve comprehensive reform of the federal government, including electoral reform. That can only happen if Democrats gain substantial power at the national level, which only happens if there is strong negative reaction to Trump and the Republicans because for Republicans, the current system is working just fine, thank you.
It's Not Me, It's You
With the ascendance of Donald Trump and Republicans in power in Congress, we are nevertheless experiencing a rash of tactics denying personal responsibility, which is fascinating given the party's emphasis of personal responsibility as a talking point on government policy.
Trump famously denies responsibility and deflects attention with a lie. A lie can more powerfully distract from reasonable discourse than a true statement. True statements lead to meaningful discussion, which is a place Trump shuns. Blaming Obama is his favorite sport.
McConnell blames Democrats for the his failure to permit the Senate to consider any Obama Supreme Court appointee in 2016, saying, to paraphrase - "Does anyone believe he Democrats would have done anything differently if the roles had been reversed?". Actually, yes, I believe they would have held hearings on the appointee of a Republican president, but there is no way to prove what would have happened in that alternate universe. McConnell's tactic distracts from meaningful discussion. No one in the press seems to ask him whether he is concerned about the destructive effect of his actions. His claim amounts to - "The Democrats are bad and I am just as bad.". Seems to merit more discussion of where that leads for a society. And for some reason, what the Democrats would have done in the imaginary world is ripe for discussion, but just before the November 8th election which HRC was expected to win, Republican leaders -Cruz and McCain - were talking about maintaining a Supreme Court of eight justices, or even fewer, if Hillary Clinton became president.
Finally we have Devin Nunes recusing himself from the House Intelligence Committee investigation following a series of shenanigans, but is he responsible for his own bizarre and compromising actions? No, he bears no accountability and blames anyone but himself:
“Several leftwing activist groups have filed accusations against me with the Office of Congressional Ethics. The charges are entirely false and politically motivated, and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of U.S. citizens and other abuses of power."
Nunes scores a double, or maybe a triple or quadruple there - (1) blaming 'leftwing activist groups', not his own suspicious activities AND (2) deflecting attention to the "unmasking" issue, which (3) is itself a concocted distraction from the Trump tweet on 'wiretapping' which (4) is itself a distraction from the Trump team's extensive ties to the country formerly known as the Soviet Union.
Trump famously denies responsibility and deflects attention with a lie. A lie can more powerfully distract from reasonable discourse than a true statement. True statements lead to meaningful discussion, which is a place Trump shuns. Blaming Obama is his favorite sport.
McConnell blames Democrats for the his failure to permit the Senate to consider any Obama Supreme Court appointee in 2016, saying, to paraphrase - "Does anyone believe he Democrats would have done anything differently if the roles had been reversed?". Actually, yes, I believe they would have held hearings on the appointee of a Republican president, but there is no way to prove what would have happened in that alternate universe. McConnell's tactic distracts from meaningful discussion. No one in the press seems to ask him whether he is concerned about the destructive effect of his actions. His claim amounts to - "The Democrats are bad and I am just as bad.". Seems to merit more discussion of where that leads for a society. And for some reason, what the Democrats would have done in the imaginary world is ripe for discussion, but just before the November 8th election which HRC was expected to win, Republican leaders -Cruz and McCain - were talking about maintaining a Supreme Court of eight justices, or even fewer, if Hillary Clinton became president.
Finally we have Devin Nunes recusing himself from the House Intelligence Committee investigation following a series of shenanigans, but is he responsible for his own bizarre and compromising actions? No, he bears no accountability and blames anyone but himself:
“Several leftwing activist groups have filed accusations against me with the Office of Congressional Ethics. The charges are entirely false and politically motivated, and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of U.S. citizens and other abuses of power."
Nunes scores a double, or maybe a triple or quadruple there - (1) blaming 'leftwing activist groups', not his own suspicious activities AND (2) deflecting attention to the "unmasking" issue, which (3) is itself a concocted distraction from the Trump tweet on 'wiretapping' which (4) is itself a distraction from the Trump team's extensive ties to the country formerly known as the Soviet Union.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Full Court Press
In "Democrats 'Strategic Choice: How Aggressive to be on Gorsuch?" the headline is off the mark. This is about a stolen seat, not the particular nominee. McConnell, ever the tactician, understood how to manage the narrative. Hold no hearings. When you employ the stall on the Supreme Court nomination, people get tired of trying to focus on the same issue over long periods of time and back down. People get tired of feeling anger and resentment. Just as the McConnell stall on legislation throughout Obama's two terms worked. The only major exception was the Affordable Care Act - effectively demonized as "Obamacare", itself a middle-of-the-road compromise between alternatives.
Republicans will now deflect attention away from principle to the nominee - Gorsuch. Republicans deflected attention away from the nominee - Garland to their fabricated and specious principle - "let's let the American people decide the next nominee."
Deflecting the narrative is a favorite tactic of Republican legislators - "'Senator Schumer is about to tell Americans that Judge Gorsuch kicks puppies and heckles piano recitals,' Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said in a statement Tuesday evening. “That’s hogwash.”'
Excuse me Senator, but that misses the point...intentionally, I might add.
Supreme Court Nominations and Scalia Successor highlight the importance of viewing this issue in game theory terms.
Republicans will now deflect attention away from principle to the nominee - Gorsuch. Republicans deflected attention away from the nominee - Garland to their fabricated and specious principle - "let's let the American people decide the next nominee."
Deflecting the narrative is a favorite tactic of Republican legislators - "'Senator Schumer is about to tell Americans that Judge Gorsuch kicks puppies and heckles piano recitals,' Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said in a statement Tuesday evening. “That’s hogwash.”'
Excuse me Senator, but that misses the point...intentionally, I might add.
Supreme Court Nominations and Scalia Successor highlight the importance of viewing this issue in game theory terms.
Monday, November 7, 2016
The Day After Tomorrow - Where Will You Be
Republican strategy began over twenty years ago to be a multi-pronged approach to
(1) preach smaller government, meaning minimal Federal government, while
(2) fomenting anger and resentment using right wing media to garner and maintain political support,
(3) avoiding serious consideration of legitimate political issues.
Today, with the logical result being Trumpism, the new strategy becomes trying to contain the caged animal they created, while fostering development of an effectively Confederation form of government within a nominally Federal republic, almost a shadow government. The Supreme Court will be diminished because no justices will be confirmed while Clinton is president, if the Senate is Republican. Congress will be tied up in meaningless investigations in the House and endless confirmation hearings with no intention to approve SC justices or other Federal judges. No federal laws. No treaties. The weakening of the Presidency and Supreme Court will make the Congress preeminent, with democracy weakened by voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the poisoning of political discourse with constant fact denial. The goal is de facto confederation, just as confederation in the form of the Confederacy was the goal in 1861. The difference being in 1861 the Union was not along for the ride.
Republican officeholders will predictably deny the obstructionist strategy, but the goal could not be clearer from their actions. They will accuse the president of acting illegally and, yes, they will search for excuses to impeach the president in the House. The biggest surprise would be no impeachment of Hillary Clinton. Most likely the next two years will be consumed by the building of a case against her (actual case yet to be determined), with the goal of impeachment and trial in the lame duck session following the 2018 midterm elections.
In theory, as the NYT editorializes "Senate Democrats would have an obligation to consider and vote on his [Trump's] nominees" sounds proper, but is that realistic? Republicans long ago reduced the functioning of the federal government to an exercise in game theory. McConnell's announcement that the Senate would never consider the president's Supreme Court nominee means in the iterative game, Democrats are expected to cooperate in the interest of preserving democracy, (because that is what dos Dems do) while Republicans continue to refuse to cooperate because that achieves the government they want. Watch for the Republican strategy to escalate as they seek "facts" to support disqualification of nominees - judges, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, in order to draw out the process indefinitely.
Suppose
(1) Clinton wins and is able to assume the presidency without obstruction January 20, 2017,
(2) the House is controlled by Republicans, and
(3) the Senate is 50-50 or so.
What to expect:
December 9, one month away, is a critical date for Congress to approve a budget to extend funding through the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2017, or for a shorter period of time. The most likely outcome will be approval of a continuing resolution to fund the government for three months or so. Republicans will then have the opportunity to stall out the federal government early in Clinton's first months in office.
Merrick Garland will not be approved by the Senate in the current 2016 term, even though he is at least as moderate as any likely Clinton appointee and some Senate Republicans favor approving his nomination now because he is older than the typical nominee. However, due to the Republican need to effect policy on contentious social issues and voting strategy in the courts rather than through legislation, the Supreme Court nomination approval process will become more of a scorched earth strategy than ever. Stalling on nominations also ties up the Senate, taking positive energy away from legislating, thus achieving that goal.
Whether or not the House will continue to hold the purely symbolic votes repeal the Affordable Act is difficult to predict. House leaders may hold a small number of such votes, but may try to keep the total spanning multiple Congresses below 100 times (unless it is already over 100).
Ruth Bader Ginsburg will resign from the Supreme Court, but will try to wait for completion of the approval process for the current open seat. If no justice is approved due to obstruction by Republicans in the Senate, she will face a tough choice, but may resign anyway at a critical moment in the approval process, hoping to apply political pressure on the Republicans. So she may resign effective with the end of the term on June 30, 2017. Alternatively, she or another justice may pass away unexpectedly.
The Republican Party will continue to be torn by internal dissension, but Republican leaders will do whatever it takes to hold together their coalition without compromising with Democrats except in the most extreme cases. If Ryan remains as Speaker, he is likely to suffer the same fate as Boehner, but that may take a year or two to play out.
Some analysts predict that House Democrats could reach a consensus with a small group of moderate Republicans to make the House a functioning body and offset the power of the most extreme Republican members. Unfortunately, the House will likely have a smaller, more conservative Republican majority, making accommodation with Democrats less likely.
If Trump loses, as expected, we may see severe resistance to the will of the people. No predictions on where that goes. Simultaneously, several Senate races could be so close that a recount is automatic or requested by the candidate with fewer votes. This scenario could leave the control of the Senate in doubt for weeks after the election.
We will hear concerns about "legitimacy" frequently over the next four years in discussions about the functioning of the presidency and the courts.
No predictions if Trump wins.
Why no predictions if Trump wins?
(1) Trump is so extreme. He might act consisten with the conduct of his campaign, but he may not.
(2) Based on accuracy in the past, we lean toward the Sam Wang forecast model:
As of November 7, 2:07PM EST:Snapshot (221 state polls): Clinton 313, Trump 225 Electoral Votes Meta-margin: Clinton +2.7%
Clinton Nov. win probability: random drift >99%, Bayesian >99%
Senate snapshot (48 polls): Dem+Ind: 50, GOP: 50, Meta-margin: D +0.7%, Nov. control probability: Dem. 79%
These result do not consider potential impact of voter suppression efforts in states like North Carolina and Arizona. We shall see...
(1) preach smaller government, meaning minimal Federal government, while
(2) fomenting anger and resentment using right wing media to garner and maintain political support,
(3) avoiding serious consideration of legitimate political issues.
Today, with the logical result being Trumpism, the new strategy becomes trying to contain the caged animal they created, while fostering development of an effectively Confederation form of government within a nominally Federal republic, almost a shadow government. The Supreme Court will be diminished because no justices will be confirmed while Clinton is president, if the Senate is Republican. Congress will be tied up in meaningless investigations in the House and endless confirmation hearings with no intention to approve SC justices or other Federal judges. No federal laws. No treaties. The weakening of the Presidency and Supreme Court will make the Congress preeminent, with democracy weakened by voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the poisoning of political discourse with constant fact denial. The goal is de facto confederation, just as confederation in the form of the Confederacy was the goal in 1861. The difference being in 1861 the Union was not along for the ride.
Republican officeholders will predictably deny the obstructionist strategy, but the goal could not be clearer from their actions. They will accuse the president of acting illegally and, yes, they will search for excuses to impeach the president in the House. The biggest surprise would be no impeachment of Hillary Clinton. Most likely the next two years will be consumed by the building of a case against her (actual case yet to be determined), with the goal of impeachment and trial in the lame duck session following the 2018 midterm elections.
In theory, as the NYT editorializes "Senate Democrats would have an obligation to consider and vote on his [Trump's] nominees" sounds proper, but is that realistic? Republicans long ago reduced the functioning of the federal government to an exercise in game theory. McConnell's announcement that the Senate would never consider the president's Supreme Court nominee means in the iterative game, Democrats are expected to cooperate in the interest of preserving democracy, (because that is what dos Dems do) while Republicans continue to refuse to cooperate because that achieves the government they want. Watch for the Republican strategy to escalate as they seek "facts" to support disqualification of nominees - judges, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, in order to draw out the process indefinitely.
Suppose
(1) Clinton wins and is able to assume the presidency without obstruction January 20, 2017,
(2) the House is controlled by Republicans, and
(3) the Senate is 50-50 or so.
What to expect:
December 9, one month away, is a critical date for Congress to approve a budget to extend funding through the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2017, or for a shorter period of time. The most likely outcome will be approval of a continuing resolution to fund the government for three months or so. Republicans will then have the opportunity to stall out the federal government early in Clinton's first months in office.
Merrick Garland will not be approved by the Senate in the current 2016 term, even though he is at least as moderate as any likely Clinton appointee and some Senate Republicans favor approving his nomination now because he is older than the typical nominee. However, due to the Republican need to effect policy on contentious social issues and voting strategy in the courts rather than through legislation, the Supreme Court nomination approval process will become more of a scorched earth strategy than ever. Stalling on nominations also ties up the Senate, taking positive energy away from legislating, thus achieving that goal.
Whether or not the House will continue to hold the purely symbolic votes repeal the Affordable Act is difficult to predict. House leaders may hold a small number of such votes, but may try to keep the total spanning multiple Congresses below 100 times (unless it is already over 100).
Ruth Bader Ginsburg will resign from the Supreme Court, but will try to wait for completion of the approval process for the current open seat. If no justice is approved due to obstruction by Republicans in the Senate, she will face a tough choice, but may resign anyway at a critical moment in the approval process, hoping to apply political pressure on the Republicans. So she may resign effective with the end of the term on June 30, 2017. Alternatively, she or another justice may pass away unexpectedly.
The Republican Party will continue to be torn by internal dissension, but Republican leaders will do whatever it takes to hold together their coalition without compromising with Democrats except in the most extreme cases. If Ryan remains as Speaker, he is likely to suffer the same fate as Boehner, but that may take a year or two to play out.
Some analysts predict that House Democrats could reach a consensus with a small group of moderate Republicans to make the House a functioning body and offset the power of the most extreme Republican members. Unfortunately, the House will likely have a smaller, more conservative Republican majority, making accommodation with Democrats less likely.
If Trump loses, as expected, we may see severe resistance to the will of the people. No predictions on where that goes. Simultaneously, several Senate races could be so close that a recount is automatic or requested by the candidate with fewer votes. This scenario could leave the control of the Senate in doubt for weeks after the election.
We will hear concerns about "legitimacy" frequently over the next four years in discussions about the functioning of the presidency and the courts.
No predictions if Trump wins.
Why no predictions if Trump wins?
(1) Trump is so extreme. He might act consisten with the conduct of his campaign, but he may not.
(2) Based on accuracy in the past, we lean toward the Sam Wang forecast model:
As of November 7, 2:07PM EST:Snapshot (221 state polls): Clinton 313, Trump 225 Electoral Votes Meta-margin: Clinton +2.7%
Clinton Nov. win probability: random drift >99%, Bayesian >99%
Senate snapshot (48 polls): Dem+Ind: 50, GOP: 50, Meta-margin: D +0.7%, Nov. control probability: Dem. 79%
These result do not consider potential impact of voter suppression efforts in states like North Carolina and Arizona. We shall see...
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
The Cascade
As I recall events that followed the elimination of travel restrictions between East Germany and the West in November, 1989, the pundits' immediate reaction was that the reunification of Germany was inevitable, but it would take a long time with many details to be worked out, likely 10 years. Ten years sounded too long, but what did I know. Was that the expected time frame to merge their antiquated human resources systems? If the merger of two companies in the West requires one year or more, maybe the pundits know what they are talking about. But the merger proceeded faster than expected. Closer to 10 months than 10 years.
Equilibrium is an odd thing. A system in an unstable state can be so out of balance that it can not return to an old equilibrium and must establish a new equilibrium with a radically different look. In the U.S. , we still take for granted the stability of the political system. This is despite the many warnings from political observers.
The process of change itself becomes rapid. In 2016, we witnessed the US Senate refuse to even hold hearings on the president's nominee to the Supreme Court. Only months later, we now find the Director of the FBI playing a major role in the presidential election. This in a year with a candidate for a major party who is a nontraditional politician for the first time. This is not just a series of coincidences. Each of these examples is a sign that events are moving rapidly. The central tenet of this blog is that at some point tactics become policy. From a policy standpoint, we mean that government stasis or decline becomes inevitable. Pleas by Democrats for two sides to work together fall on deaf ears. Solutions based on compromise become impossible - immigration reform, fixes to the health care system, trade agreements, peace agreements, and so on. Employing pure tactics for short term gain repeatedly means that the short term moves become themselves the long term result. Earlier this week we wrote, either the Republican Party splits into two parties, or the democratic underpinning of our system collapses , but to refine that point, we expect the Republican Party to split at least effectively into two parties in a way that is wrenching for the country. The Comey letter this past week so close to Election Day garners a lot of attention, but is only the latest event in a series of unprecedented events that lead to this downward cascade. In Winning is the Only Thing we note Paul Waldman's argument in WaPo that Republicans have become willing to ignore norms of behavior, the unwritten rules. But that is a different way of saying that Republican strategy, whether in the Congress, presidential campaigns, or journalistic practice has taken advantage of weaknesses in the systems and processes in a way that threatens the integrity of those systems--the very stability and structure of our government.
All tactics all the time has led to the recent arguments that hey, look ma, no Supreme Court and that may not be bad at all. Suddenly we hear the argument that a smaller Supreme Court would represent an improvement. Funny, I do not recall hearing that argument when Roberts and Alito were nominated. John McCain, Ted Cruz, and some guy at The Federalist all agree. So you start with the conclusion - we do not want to confirm any Hillary Clinton appointee to the Supreme Court---and look for justifications for that belief. Hmm. That sounds a lot like starting with the belief that Hillary Clinton must not be president, and then looking for any justifications for that belief that can be concocted.
With such tensions in the system, we need to take lessons from history about the danger that the escalation of political tensions often leads to destructive violence. The recent proliferation of "poll watchers" who are more likely to intimidate voters than to ensure a fair election is another indication of a disintegration in our political processes.
So what is the timing of all this? When does the house come crashing down? Is it 10 years, 10 months, or 10 weeks? No one knows for sure. But it could all be well under way within 10 days.
Equilibrium is an odd thing. A system in an unstable state can be so out of balance that it can not return to an old equilibrium and must establish a new equilibrium with a radically different look. In the U.S. , we still take for granted the stability of the political system. This is despite the many warnings from political observers.
The process of change itself becomes rapid. In 2016, we witnessed the US Senate refuse to even hold hearings on the president's nominee to the Supreme Court. Only months later, we now find the Director of the FBI playing a major role in the presidential election. This in a year with a candidate for a major party who is a nontraditional politician for the first time. This is not just a series of coincidences. Each of these examples is a sign that events are moving rapidly. The central tenet of this blog is that at some point tactics become policy. From a policy standpoint, we mean that government stasis or decline becomes inevitable. Pleas by Democrats for two sides to work together fall on deaf ears. Solutions based on compromise become impossible - immigration reform, fixes to the health care system, trade agreements, peace agreements, and so on. Employing pure tactics for short term gain repeatedly means that the short term moves become themselves the long term result. Earlier this week we wrote, either the Republican Party splits into two parties, or the democratic underpinning of our system collapses , but to refine that point, we expect the Republican Party to split at least effectively into two parties in a way that is wrenching for the country. The Comey letter this past week so close to Election Day garners a lot of attention, but is only the latest event in a series of unprecedented events that lead to this downward cascade. In Winning is the Only Thing we note Paul Waldman's argument in WaPo that Republicans have become willing to ignore norms of behavior, the unwritten rules. But that is a different way of saying that Republican strategy, whether in the Congress, presidential campaigns, or journalistic practice has taken advantage of weaknesses in the systems and processes in a way that threatens the integrity of those systems--the very stability and structure of our government.
All tactics all the time has led to the recent arguments that hey, look ma, no Supreme Court and that may not be bad at all. Suddenly we hear the argument that a smaller Supreme Court would represent an improvement. Funny, I do not recall hearing that argument when Roberts and Alito were nominated. John McCain, Ted Cruz, and some guy at The Federalist all agree. So you start with the conclusion - we do not want to confirm any Hillary Clinton appointee to the Supreme Court---and look for justifications for that belief. Hmm. That sounds a lot like starting with the belief that Hillary Clinton must not be president, and then looking for any justifications for that belief that can be concocted.
With such tensions in the system, we need to take lessons from history about the danger that the escalation of political tensions often leads to destructive violence. The recent proliferation of "poll watchers" who are more likely to intimidate voters than to ensure a fair election is another indication of a disintegration in our political processes.
So what is the timing of all this? When does the house come crashing down? Is it 10 years, 10 months, or 10 weeks? No one knows for sure. But it could all be well under way within 10 days.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Day 216 America Held Hostage
This is day 216 of the U.S. Senate refusing to hold hearings on the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
On day 215, as widely reported, Sen. John McCain said, "I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up." Although his spokesperson walked back that line, McCain is stating the obvious. In this heads we win, tails you lose world, Republicans in the Congress hold all the cards and are more than willing to continue to act in bad faith to stretch the process beyond its limits. Three elderly justices could resign or die in the next president's term, but there is no requirement for the Senate to confirm or hold hearings on any nomination put forward by the president. Under our system, which includes the 60 vote supermajority in the Senate to accomplish anything, there is no legal recourse if the Senate refuses to hold hearings on the Supreme Court nominees. In fact, the Senate could refuse to meet. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Senate can be considered to be in session even when they are not meeting.
As previously noted, the Senate Majority Leader could send the president a short list of acceptable Supreme Court nominees - as short as one person- effectively being the person who actually nominates the justice, instead of the other way around.
On day 215, as widely reported, Sen. John McCain said, "I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up." Although his spokesperson walked back that line, McCain is stating the obvious. In this heads we win, tails you lose world, Republicans in the Congress hold all the cards and are more than willing to continue to act in bad faith to stretch the process beyond its limits. Three elderly justices could resign or die in the next president's term, but there is no requirement for the Senate to confirm or hold hearings on any nomination put forward by the president. Under our system, which includes the 60 vote supermajority in the Senate to accomplish anything, there is no legal recourse if the Senate refuses to hold hearings on the Supreme Court nominees. In fact, the Senate could refuse to meet. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Senate can be considered to be in session even when they are not meeting.
As previously noted, the Senate Majority Leader could send the president a short list of acceptable Supreme Court nominees - as short as one person- effectively being the person who actually nominates the justice, instead of the other way around.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
No, We Are Not Entertained
Due to the personality driven press coverage of politics in the U.S., nothing commands attention like the battle between the two leading party candidates for president. But the fight over party control in Congress will shape much of policy over the next four years. If Clinton becomes president despite the ferocity of opposition drummed by Trump in his public statements, what can we expect? (The following analysis assumes no severe dislocations occur, such as by violent action by self-styled "patriotic" militias.)
Intraparty squabbles have been evident in the presidential primary season and have only intensified with Trump's emergence as the nominee. Key Republican leaders and moderate candidates like Kelly Ayotte here in New England have not been able to balance holding their party together and being true to basic principles of human decency. Based on the strong commitment of these players to party unity above policy considerations, if Hillary Clinton wins election, we should expect the following:
-The question of holding hearings on the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court will resurface. Senate majority leader McConnell has flatly stated that the Senate will not consider the nomination. We can expect some Republican Senators to suggest holding hearings on the nomination because Garland is such a moderate jurist and Hillary Clinton might nominate someone more liberal and much younger than Garland. Any decision will be based on whether the Republicans or Democrats control the Senate. Right now an approximately 50/50 Senate appears most likely. These considerations will be weighed against the advantage to Republican strategists of tying up Clinton's first year in office with a contentious nomination fight. Whoever is nominated will be made subject to an intense investigation primarily as a tactic to prolong the confirmation battle as long as possible. However, if Barack Obama is nominated, which would in some ways be fitting since his nominee was denied, the transparency of opposition for sake of obstruction may be too obvious for Republicans to pursue.
Bottom line: If Democrats win the Senate, Republican Senators will likely pressure McConnell to permit consideration of Garland and he may yield. If Republicans win the Senate, consideration of Garland in the lame duck session seems unlikely.
-If Republicans hold the House majority, we can expect intensive investigations of President Clinton. Committee chairs like Rep. Chaffetz will argue that their investigations are so important to the country, but the result will be that other pressing matters of policy take a back seat. We should expect impeachment hearings, possibly in the lame duck House after the 2018 election, if not sooner.
-Government shutdowns will be revived as a tactic to extract concessions from Democrats. With the Republican Party in some disarray due to the Trump candidacy, there will be little appetitite even among extremists to allow a shutdown in the lame duck Congress (the continuing resolution is only good until about December 9th). But after January 20th, expect new energy devoted to shutting down the government because it is so important. We can expect the same type of gamesmanship whereby Ted Cruz and the like-minded threaten to shut down the federal government if they do not get their way in negotiations - at the same time that they argue that shutting down the government or even defaulting on the debt are not such a big deal. Congress Models Itself on the Cuban Missile Crisis by Scott C. Monje provides a clear explanation of the Republican Party tactics in game theoretical terms.
-Speaker Ryan will struggle to hold together the Republican Party coalition.
-McConnell will likely continue the strategy of scorched earth opposition to any legislation that could make the new President Clinton look successful. If this was the strategy in 2008 against Obama and the U.S., it can be expected to work even better due to natural resistance of the American public to four consecutive terms of the same party in the White House.
-Democrats will continue to struggle to defeat Republicans in the hearts and minds of Americans on the issues. Republicans will frame the issues in easily understood concrete terms, whether or not accurate, with catchphrases that resonate more than the long sentences crafted by Democrats.
Intraparty squabbles have been evident in the presidential primary season and have only intensified with Trump's emergence as the nominee. Key Republican leaders and moderate candidates like Kelly Ayotte here in New England have not been able to balance holding their party together and being true to basic principles of human decency. Based on the strong commitment of these players to party unity above policy considerations, if Hillary Clinton wins election, we should expect the following:
 |
| source:wikipedia |
Bottom line: If Democrats win the Senate, Republican Senators will likely pressure McConnell to permit consideration of Garland and he may yield. If Republicans win the Senate, consideration of Garland in the lame duck session seems unlikely.
-If Republicans hold the House majority, we can expect intensive investigations of President Clinton. Committee chairs like Rep. Chaffetz will argue that their investigations are so important to the country, but the result will be that other pressing matters of policy take a back seat. We should expect impeachment hearings, possibly in the lame duck House after the 2018 election, if not sooner.
-Government shutdowns will be revived as a tactic to extract concessions from Democrats. With the Republican Party in some disarray due to the Trump candidacy, there will be little appetitite even among extremists to allow a shutdown in the lame duck Congress (the continuing resolution is only good until about December 9th). But after January 20th, expect new energy devoted to shutting down the government because it is so important. We can expect the same type of gamesmanship whereby Ted Cruz and the like-minded threaten to shut down the federal government if they do not get their way in negotiations - at the same time that they argue that shutting down the government or even defaulting on the debt are not such a big deal. Congress Models Itself on the Cuban Missile Crisis by Scott C. Monje provides a clear explanation of the Republican Party tactics in game theoretical terms.
-Speaker Ryan will struggle to hold together the Republican Party coalition.
-McConnell will likely continue the strategy of scorched earth opposition to any legislation that could make the new President Clinton look successful. If this was the strategy in 2008 against Obama and the U.S., it can be expected to work even better due to natural resistance of the American public to four consecutive terms of the same party in the White House.
-Democrats will continue to struggle to defeat Republicans in the hearts and minds of Americans on the issues. Republicans will frame the issues in easily understood concrete terms, whether or not accurate, with catchphrases that resonate more than the long sentences crafted by Democrats.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Now What? Whatever Works
Now that the FBI has today recommended no prosecution
of Hillary Clinton, what can we expect from Republicans as the next
tactical move in the presidential campaign. Never mind the back and
forth of accusations and denials, but what will be the next tactical
maneuver?
After all, the tiebreaker Justice of the Supreme Court is at stake with the Senate Republican majority refusal to hold hearings on President Obama's March 16 nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
Imagine a world where, instead of Breaking News emblazoned in a red banner across the home page, one of the major news outlets blared "America Held Hostage - Day 111 of the Supreme Court Impasse". There was a time that reporters built their careers on such stuff.
OK, not going to happen. Breaking News has to be new and people do not get excited about stalemates until the system collapses.
We can learn from similar history what comes next. The Republican campaigns against Bill Clinton while he was President, Hillary Clinton ever since she was First Lady, and Barack Obama since he first ran for President have been all about destroying trust in these leaders. In the ideal case, democracy depends upon differing philosophies competing in the marketplace of ideas for acceptance based on the merits of the arguments and policy is crafted through compromise by those who agree on some issues of substance and disagree on others. Instead, Clinton, Obama, and Clinton were each well positioned to garner too much popularity based on personal qualities of leadership and demographic advantage among supporters.
If we look back to the President Clinton era, we see that when the Lewinsky scandal emerged, all resources of the Independent Counsel which had been conducting many different investigations was shifted to that single investigation. The treatment of candidate and later President Obama was less in the legal and investigative realm and more a matter of deeply offensive innuendo and stark bigotry - "pal-ing" with terrorists, "he's a Muslim", and the "birther" allegations. Now with Hillary Clinton, what began with allegations of scandalously firing travel office personnel and even murder of Vince Foster in the early 1990s morphed further in this decade. The strategy of her detractors continues to be to throw everything possible at her and see if any of it sticks. Just as the Office of Independent Counsel by all appearances in the late 1990s was looking for anything they could make stick to President Clinton, so the Benghazi investigators in the House subpoenaed emails and as much information as possible to see what they could find. Sure enough, it turned out the maintenance of those very emails on personal servers became the next opportunity for investigation and much hoped for prosecution.
The reward for the endless investigations of Hillary Clinton with nothing to show for it in a sane world might be sympathy for a leader who has devoted most of her adult life to public service. Instead, surveys show HRC right up there with Trump in the level of mistrust among voters. There is a natural human tendency to infer that a target of multiple accusations and investigations must be guilty of something. Unfortunately, we can expect the Republican tactic of investigating the most successful and popular Democratic presidents and presidential hopefuls to continue unabated due to this ability to engender mistrust.
Our democratic system can only survive if differing philosophies compete on the merits. Ours has devolved into a system where the differences of opinion on policy are downplayed in the election cycle into a tactical battle of Republican attacks on the character of the Democratic candidate. In the case of Obama, the attackers were unable to gain much traction on the character issue, but had some success on their manufactured legitimacy issue. The occasional success of scurrilous attacks causes continued deterioration of our system of government which otherwise depends upon a certain amount of good will and good faith of political players.
After all, the tiebreaker Justice of the Supreme Court is at stake with the Senate Republican majority refusal to hold hearings on President Obama's March 16 nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
Imagine a world where, instead of Breaking News emblazoned in a red banner across the home page, one of the major news outlets blared "America Held Hostage - Day 111 of the Supreme Court Impasse". There was a time that reporters built their careers on such stuff.
 |
| Source: adweek.com |
OK, not going to happen. Breaking News has to be new and people do not get excited about stalemates until the system collapses.
We can learn from similar history what comes next. The Republican campaigns against Bill Clinton while he was President, Hillary Clinton ever since she was First Lady, and Barack Obama since he first ran for President have been all about destroying trust in these leaders. In the ideal case, democracy depends upon differing philosophies competing in the marketplace of ideas for acceptance based on the merits of the arguments and policy is crafted through compromise by those who agree on some issues of substance and disagree on others. Instead, Clinton, Obama, and Clinton were each well positioned to garner too much popularity based on personal qualities of leadership and demographic advantage among supporters.
If we look back to the President Clinton era, we see that when the Lewinsky scandal emerged, all resources of the Independent Counsel which had been conducting many different investigations was shifted to that single investigation. The treatment of candidate and later President Obama was less in the legal and investigative realm and more a matter of deeply offensive innuendo and stark bigotry - "pal-ing" with terrorists, "he's a Muslim", and the "birther" allegations. Now with Hillary Clinton, what began with allegations of scandalously firing travel office personnel and even murder of Vince Foster in the early 1990s morphed further in this decade. The strategy of her detractors continues to be to throw everything possible at her and see if any of it sticks. Just as the Office of Independent Counsel by all appearances in the late 1990s was looking for anything they could make stick to President Clinton, so the Benghazi investigators in the House subpoenaed emails and as much information as possible to see what they could find. Sure enough, it turned out the maintenance of those very emails on personal servers became the next opportunity for investigation and much hoped for prosecution.
The reward for the endless investigations of Hillary Clinton with nothing to show for it in a sane world might be sympathy for a leader who has devoted most of her adult life to public service. Instead, surveys show HRC right up there with Trump in the level of mistrust among voters. There is a natural human tendency to infer that a target of multiple accusations and investigations must be guilty of something. Unfortunately, we can expect the Republican tactic of investigating the most successful and popular Democratic presidents and presidential hopefuls to continue unabated due to this ability to engender mistrust.
Our democratic system can only survive if differing philosophies compete on the merits. Ours has devolved into a system where the differences of opinion on policy are downplayed in the election cycle into a tactical battle of Republican attacks on the character of the Democratic candidate. In the case of Obama, the attackers were unable to gain much traction on the character issue, but had some success on their manufactured legitimacy issue. The occasional success of scurrilous attacks causes continued deterioration of our system of government which otherwise depends upon a certain amount of good will and good faith of political players.
Friday, June 24, 2016
The British are leaving! The British are leaving!
The era of nation states is all that most of us have known, with the era of democratic republics even more recent. No surprise that there is an in or out tension for British membership in the European Community. After all, Britain kept one foot out by retaining their own currency. From a historical perspective, many of us remember the 1960s drumbeat of news around British membership, or not, in the "Common Market".
News reports have focused on parallels with the populist strain of the U.S. political environment, but there is also a parallel with the tension around political structure, with important differences.
As part of the European Union, the U.K. is something of a confederation within a confederation. The vote to strengthen independence of the U.K. weakens the EU, but could weaken the U.K. based on the voting patterns within the U.K.
The vote in Britain calls back into question the vote for Scotland as a separate entity to remain with Europe, followed by less urgent and less likely possibilities for exit - Northern Ireland from the U.K. and Greece or others from the European community. The vote for Brexit is a vote to maintain and strengthen British sovereignty instead of submitting to an economic confederation of nations of Europe and associated institutions like the International Monetary Fund that collectively operate more and more like a political entity as those institutions evolve.
In the U.S. financial markets have been roiled by the Brexit vote, but the amount of disruption to the U.K. or even to Europe is a faint echo of the emerging instability of the political structure in the U.S. The American political breakdown is a more organic process which has not yet resulted in a severe political dislocation, but the signs are all there.
The Supreme Court is on edge with one vacant seat.
If the Republican presidential candidate wins the presidential election and appoints a justice to the court who is approved by a Republican-controlled Senate, that individual will be viewed as illegitimate by Democrats for that person's entire term. If, instead, the Democrats control the Senate, how do they consent to a nominee who is not to their liking now that the Republican's have set the precedent of complete obstruction of a nominee. The logical response would be to block any nominee who is not Merritt Garland.
If the Democratic presidential candidate wins the presidential election and the Democrats retake the Senate, the Republican-controlled Senate could end up approving Judge Garland in the lame duck term. Mitch McConnell has said this would not happen, but Garland is relatively conservative and old for a Supreme Court nominee. McConnell could argue that his caucus demanded this action and he bent to the will of his caucus. Still, if this happens, even though the action exposes the cynical ploy of refusing to hold hearings for Garland in the first place, it would have the effect of retroactively restoring a modicum of functionality to the three branches of government in distress - the President, to honor his original appointment, the Senate to hold hearings on that nominee after all, and the Court, to fill the vacant seat.
If Mitch McConnell and the Republicans stick to not having confirmation hearings in the lame duck session, with a Democratic president, this would afford them the opportunity to stall the program of the next president, either as the minority party, or as the majority in the Senate, depending upon the outcome. As stated in earlier posts, there is no reason to believe that with a President Clinton a Republican Senate majority would approve any candidate who is on the moderate to liberal spectrum. The argument would be that it is just so important to the country, which was the argument to shut down the government and even go into default -- it was so important to the country.
Any of the above Supreme Court scenarios could result in serious political tension that would lead to further instability in the U.S. and a serious dislocation.
The Candidacy of Donald Trump
The significance of the candidacy of Trump is that there has never been any major party candidate quite like this. That is clear, but there have been different viewpoints on how much this matters. If Trump wins the Presidency, that win becomes more dramatic than the Brexit referendum because Republican Party politics on the national level can never be quite the same again and Democratic Party politics will also require serious adjustments. If Trump loses, Republican Party strategists will go back and try to diagnose the problem and find solutions, but there will continue to be pressure on the tried and true campaign formulas that were wildly unsuccessful for establishment Republicans in 2016.
The Turmoil in Congress
Any semblance of institutional order in the House and Senate can be expected to continue its breakdown as noted here.
Ironically, on this day that Brexit is the big news, the NYT has an article that walks through the dysfunction within all three branches of government without quite pointing the finger as directly at the Republican controlled Congress, with the executive and judicial branches the victims, as we would find justified. Three Separate, Equal, and Dysfunctional Branches of Government.
 |
| Source: wikiart.org |
News reports have focused on parallels with the populist strain of the U.S. political environment, but there is also a parallel with the tension around political structure, with important differences.
As part of the European Union, the U.K. is something of a confederation within a confederation. The vote to strengthen independence of the U.K. weakens the EU, but could weaken the U.K. based on the voting patterns within the U.K.
The vote in Britain calls back into question the vote for Scotland as a separate entity to remain with Europe, followed by less urgent and less likely possibilities for exit - Northern Ireland from the U.K. and Greece or others from the European community. The vote for Brexit is a vote to maintain and strengthen British sovereignty instead of submitting to an economic confederation of nations of Europe and associated institutions like the International Monetary Fund that collectively operate more and more like a political entity as those institutions evolve.
In the U.S. financial markets have been roiled by the Brexit vote, but the amount of disruption to the U.K. or even to Europe is a faint echo of the emerging instability of the political structure in the U.S. The American political breakdown is a more organic process which has not yet resulted in a severe political dislocation, but the signs are all there.
The Supreme Court is on edge with one vacant seat.
If the Republican presidential candidate wins the presidential election and appoints a justice to the court who is approved by a Republican-controlled Senate, that individual will be viewed as illegitimate by Democrats for that person's entire term. If, instead, the Democrats control the Senate, how do they consent to a nominee who is not to their liking now that the Republican's have set the precedent of complete obstruction of a nominee. The logical response would be to block any nominee who is not Merritt Garland.
If the Democratic presidential candidate wins the presidential election and the Democrats retake the Senate, the Republican-controlled Senate could end up approving Judge Garland in the lame duck term. Mitch McConnell has said this would not happen, but Garland is relatively conservative and old for a Supreme Court nominee. McConnell could argue that his caucus demanded this action and he bent to the will of his caucus. Still, if this happens, even though the action exposes the cynical ploy of refusing to hold hearings for Garland in the first place, it would have the effect of retroactively restoring a modicum of functionality to the three branches of government in distress - the President, to honor his original appointment, the Senate to hold hearings on that nominee after all, and the Court, to fill the vacant seat.
If Mitch McConnell and the Republicans stick to not having confirmation hearings in the lame duck session, with a Democratic president, this would afford them the opportunity to stall the program of the next president, either as the minority party, or as the majority in the Senate, depending upon the outcome. As stated in earlier posts, there is no reason to believe that with a President Clinton a Republican Senate majority would approve any candidate who is on the moderate to liberal spectrum. The argument would be that it is just so important to the country, which was the argument to shut down the government and even go into default -- it was so important to the country.
Any of the above Supreme Court scenarios could result in serious political tension that would lead to further instability in the U.S. and a serious dislocation.
The Candidacy of Donald Trump
The significance of the candidacy of Trump is that there has never been any major party candidate quite like this. That is clear, but there have been different viewpoints on how much this matters. If Trump wins the Presidency, that win becomes more dramatic than the Brexit referendum because Republican Party politics on the national level can never be quite the same again and Democratic Party politics will also require serious adjustments. If Trump loses, Republican Party strategists will go back and try to diagnose the problem and find solutions, but there will continue to be pressure on the tried and true campaign formulas that were wildly unsuccessful for establishment Republicans in 2016.
The Turmoil in Congress
Any semblance of institutional order in the House and Senate can be expected to continue its breakdown as noted here.
Ironically, on this day that Brexit is the big news, the NYT has an article that walks through the dysfunction within all three branches of government without quite pointing the finger as directly at the Republican controlled Congress, with the executive and judicial branches the victims, as we would find justified. Three Separate, Equal, and Dysfunctional Branches of Government.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Chief Justice Roberts to the Rescue?
Suppose you were the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The
President has nominated a justice to the Court who you would like to see
on the court, and potentially close to 100 members of the U.S. Senate
would vote to confirm the nominee under normal circumstances. However,
in today's tactical politics, the Senate Majority Leader refused to hold
hearings on any nomination, sight unseen. That leaves you in the short
term concerned with forging agreement case by case to avoid the
unsatisfying 4-4 split decisions. Suppose you regard the President's
choice as someone who would add value to the discussion and help forge
agreement in difficult cases, so the Senate has left your court hobbled.
Not only that, but you even made a recent speech indicating that the
nomination process "is not functioning very well" and that "We [on the
Court] don't work as Democrats or Republicans", but it is getting harder
and harder to maintain that perception among the general public. Is
there any feeling of being used by that other branch? Sure, Judge
Garland was called a political pawn by some, but isn't the Court being
used as a political pawn. Is there anything a Chief Justice can do?
Well...one countertactic would be to rule on any case on which the four liberal justices agree, automatically with those justices to forge a majority of five so long as the Garland nomination languishes without consideration. Even signaling that intent could prompt the Senate to move quickly to consider the nomination. Of course, any of the four conservative justices could take this approach, but the Chief Justice bears the greatest responsibility to protect the institution. Obviously, this is outside of normal judicial temperament and so unlikely, but when one considers that an 8-justice court split 4-4 could persist for years, one wonders if the Chief Justice is at all tempted. Sure, the House could threaten to begin impeachment proceedings, but that is even more unlikely.
Well...one countertactic would be to rule on any case on which the four liberal justices agree, automatically with those justices to forge a majority of five so long as the Garland nomination languishes without consideration. Even signaling that intent could prompt the Senate to move quickly to consider the nomination. Of course, any of the four conservative justices could take this approach, but the Chief Justice bears the greatest responsibility to protect the institution. Obviously, this is outside of normal judicial temperament and so unlikely, but when one considers that an 8-justice court split 4-4 could persist for years, one wonders if the Chief Justice is at all tempted. Sure, the House could threaten to begin impeachment proceedings, but that is even more unlikely.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Judge Garland Visits the Senate
Mitch McConnell moved quickly to suspend the Constitution moments after Justice Scalia died. Republican strategists are much better than Democrats at framing issues for public discussion as well as the terms of engagement. The Republican strategists devise the tactics they will employ and then come up with arguments in their favor. Somehow the normal functioning of our federal government -the President nominates a Supreme Court Justice who is considered for confirmation by the Senate - becomes debatable.
We see the tactical advantages of McConnell's first move strategy playing out now in moderate GOP Senators granting interview meetings to the President's nominee. Think of how extraordinary this is. These meetings accomplish absolutely nothing, but the optics of being willing to meet affords Senators Ayotte, Kirk, and the few others whose terms in office may be threatened the appearance of being "bipartisan". If, on the other hand, the Senate had considered the Garland nomination in the usual manner, these so-called moderates would have necessarily joined the majority in approving the nomination. We have come to accept obstruction in the Congress as something that somehow just happens due to a few stubborn leaders rather than as a key element of an ongoing strategy that succeeds because the moderates with the power to oppose that strategy are unwilling to stand up to their leader as a voting bloc. Due to the 60 votes required to break a filibuster, the half dozen moderate Senators would need to break with their own party control of Congress, which is just not going to happen.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Down the Road
In response to Douthat's Trumpism after Trump:
The best case scenario to end Republican obstructionism in the Congress is a split in the Republican party between those willing to compromise and those not.The most stable outcome for the country that could emerge following a Republican party split into two parties would be a Democratic party split of the current Sanders supporters following four years of the Hillary Clinton administration. Without a counterbalance of a leftist 4th party, we will continue to experience the debilitating instability of the various Republican party coalitions jockeying for position. Those coalitions will continue to seek to exert more power by morphing into two separate groups such as Tea Party/Establishment, but third parties are doomed to failure in our system without a counterbalancing effect of a fourth party on the other side. If this 4-party system does not evolve, we will continue to experience a stalemated Congress, and possibly a Democratic President stymied by a do-nothing Congress. We could have an 8 member Supreme Court or even a 7 member Supreme Court down the road with appointees blocked indefinitely, along with substantially Republican control of governorships and state legislatures for years to come.
The best case scenario to end Republican obstructionism in the Congress is a split in the Republican party between those willing to compromise and those not.The most stable outcome for the country that could emerge following a Republican party split into two parties would be a Democratic party split of the current Sanders supporters following four years of the Hillary Clinton administration. Without a counterbalance of a leftist 4th party, we will continue to experience the debilitating instability of the various Republican party coalitions jockeying for position. Those coalitions will continue to seek to exert more power by morphing into two separate groups such as Tea Party/Establishment, but third parties are doomed to failure in our system without a counterbalancing effect of a fourth party on the other side. If this 4-party system does not evolve, we will continue to experience a stalemated Congress, and possibly a Democratic President stymied by a do-nothing Congress. We could have an 8 member Supreme Court or even a 7 member Supreme Court down the road with appointees blocked indefinitely, along with substantially Republican control of governorships and state legislatures for years to come.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Who's on First?
Who is on first? The next step in the escalating tit-for-tat on judicial nominations will occur in 2017 when the Senate Majority leader will announce his pick for Supreme Court justice after conferring on possible candidates with his caucus. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on the candidate. Each Republican on the committee will ask friendly questions and each Democrat at the hearing will complain vociferously about the process that excluded the President. Once approved by the Senate Majority leader, the name will be forwarded to the President for him to nominate and the Senate to rubber stamp. The Senate majority leader will inform the President that the Senate will not consider any other names that she puts forward.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Supreme Court Nominations
The Six Points model needs to be adapted to explain the contentiousness of Supreme Court nominations and battles between Senate Democrats and Republicans and therefore the fact that "both sides do it." The SP model works well to explain efforts to pass, block or repeal legislation, but needs to be adapted for the fights over nominees. For nominees, the two trigger points appear to have been (1) Roe v. Wade and (2) Robert Bork nomination battle.
(1) Roe v. Wade appears to be the decision that triggered a belief among many conservatives, especially religious conservatives, that the Supreme Court had gone too far and drastic actions were necessary.
(2) The 1987 Bork nomination battle was unusual at the time in that a nominee who was eminently qualified based on experience and intellect went down to defeat in the Senate after a contentious battle based in large part on the fear of extremely conservative rulings if Judge Bork were elevated to a lifetime term on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In tactical terms, actions in items (1) and (2) can be considered in terms of noncooperative game theory. The nomination of Judge Bork was interpreted by liberals at the time as an extreme reaction by President Reagan to item (1) along with other legislative and judicial progress made during the 1960s. The fact of lifetime terms for Supreme Court justices made approval of the Bork nomination by the Senate seem dire. So the nomination by the President of an "extreme conservative" became a trigger to Democrats and the denial of approval by Democrats became a trigger to Republicans. Even though 2 Democrats voted for approval and 6 Republicans voted against, the stage was set for more contentious battles over judicial nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals which evolved into more frequent use of the filibuster in the Senate along with other measures including Senate privilege to block nominations. This history has put us on a course for Supreme Court nominations of tit-for-tat responses by Democrats and Republicans to each other in a sort of repeated prisoners' dilemma game with grim trigger. The exact contours of the game are not important here. What matters for the theory is that in the case of judicial nominations, there is more to the idea that "both sides do it", as adjusted by either side to the specific situation , than there is when it comes to legislative efforts. We should not confuse the two and use the case of judicial nominees to argue that "both sides do it" in every situation.
(1) Roe v. Wade appears to be the decision that triggered a belief among many conservatives, especially religious conservatives, that the Supreme Court had gone too far and drastic actions were necessary.
(2) The 1987 Bork nomination battle was unusual at the time in that a nominee who was eminently qualified based on experience and intellect went down to defeat in the Senate after a contentious battle based in large part on the fear of extremely conservative rulings if Judge Bork were elevated to a lifetime term on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In tactical terms, actions in items (1) and (2) can be considered in terms of noncooperative game theory. The nomination of Judge Bork was interpreted by liberals at the time as an extreme reaction by President Reagan to item (1) along with other legislative and judicial progress made during the 1960s. The fact of lifetime terms for Supreme Court justices made approval of the Bork nomination by the Senate seem dire. So the nomination by the President of an "extreme conservative" became a trigger to Democrats and the denial of approval by Democrats became a trigger to Republicans. Even though 2 Democrats voted for approval and 6 Republicans voted against, the stage was set for more contentious battles over judicial nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals which evolved into more frequent use of the filibuster in the Senate along with other measures including Senate privilege to block nominations. This history has put us on a course for Supreme Court nominations of tit-for-tat responses by Democrats and Republicans to each other in a sort of repeated prisoners' dilemma game with grim trigger. The exact contours of the game are not important here. What matters for the theory is that in the case of judicial nominations, there is more to the idea that "both sides do it", as adjusted by either side to the specific situation , than there is when it comes to legislative efforts. We should not confuse the two and use the case of judicial nominees to argue that "both sides do it" in every situation.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Clinton Redux
February 15, 2016
Down Memory Lane - After the 1998 mid-term elections, Republicans who had already controlled both houses of Congress suddenly insisted on impeaching President Clinton rather than wait for the new Congress to be sworn in come January of 1999. So a truly lame duck Congress impeached a president, but an elected president is now to be denied the Constitutional responsibility to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court?
Down Memory Lane - After the 1998 mid-term elections, Republicans who had already controlled both houses of Congress suddenly insisted on impeaching President Clinton rather than wait for the new Congress to be sworn in come January of 1999. So a truly lame duck Congress impeached a president, but an elected president is now to be denied the Constitutional responsibility to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court?
Monday, February 15, 2016
Scalia Successor
February 14, 2016
Mitch McConnell's immediate response to the death of Justice Scalia can be explained by The Six Points on The Only Winning Strategy.
The Red Flag - for the Senate Majority Leader to discuss particulars of the succession within hours of Justice Scalia's passing would normally be considered in terribly bad taste. However, Senator McConnell needed to make the first strike in order to reframe the issue (see Lakoff). The Senate will review any President Obama nominee. Defying the Constitution, it's like black stealing the first move in chess away from white, never mind the rules. This tells Republican's the battle plan. Otherwise, some Senators or other prominent Republicans might assume that the plan would only be to oppose any nominee by the President, but of course the President will send a nomination to the Senate for approval. The normal expected debate regarding Senate approval of the nominee is pushed further by McConnell's action to an unexpected and manufactured controversy - whether or not the President has a right to appoint a nominee to the Supreme Court with almost one year left in office, as if that means anything. This new debate has prompted a lot of discussion about the history of prior nominations and whether or not the details of those nominations are comparable, all of which is irrelevant. That discussion distracts from the consideration of current Court cases, which could suffer much longer than a year if there is a protracted nomination battle for the new President and Senate after January 20, 2017.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)