Group Research Assignment

I have divided the class into four work groups of four or five students each.  Every group will assign each of its research questions to one of its members. Within each group, every student will ask another to review her or his paper. The reviewer’s name should appear on the paper, along with that of the author.

• Essays should be double‑spaced and no more than six pages long. (Use twelve-point type.)  I will not read past the sixth page.
• Use secondary sources to establish context. Use primary sources for the bulk of your research.  Seek information in scholarly journals and government publications.  Wherever possible, rely on hard data such as election returns and polling results. Do not just rely on news media accounts, which may be inaccurate.
• Cite your sources, using proper format, such as Turabian.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Submit essays to the Sakai dropbox by 5 PM on Friday, 15 November. (Yes, you have two extra days.)  Papers will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a letter grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

Arneson, Bare, Bell, Donyo

• Why did the Senate reject the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?  Does it have a chance at a comeback?
• Why did President Obama delay the ACA employer mandate?  Did he have the legal authority to do so?  Explain the controversy.
• Explain the fate of President Obama’s effort to expand Medicaid.  Consider state action and the Supreme Court decision in NFIB v. Sebelius.
• How did the presidential candidates use Twitter in 2012?

Gissinger, Lee, Lemmons, Rooney, Huesing

• Who supports and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative?  Is it gaining or losing ground?  Explain.
• Who is supporting the ABLE Act (HR 647/ S 313) and why?  What are its prospects for passage?
• In 2012, former governors lost Senate races in Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.  Why?  Consider the differences between senatorial and gubernatorial elections.
• Tell why disability advocates disagree with Teach for America on the issue of “highly qualified teachers.”  Explain what has happened in Congress, and describe prospects for future legislative action.
• Explain the fate of statewide marijuana ballot measures in 2012.

Cameron, Hidalgo-Wohlleben, McCracken, Hyatt, Miele

• Since the 1960s, some states have gone from being mostly Democratic to mostly Republican.  (Examples include Texas and Georgia.)  Others have gone the other way.  (Examples include Vermont and New Hampshire.)  Pick one state that has switched party allegiance and explain why. In your answer, pay careful attention to demographic and economic change.
• Why did the Kyoto Protocol never win Senate approval?
• What is likely to happen in McCutcheon v. FEC?
• Why did the Benghazi attack have so little impact on the 2012 election?  Might it affect Hillary Clinton if she runs for president?
• Explain the conflict between Louisiana and the federal government over the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Huang, Krey, Finn, Plummer, Straus

• Some say that Simpson-Mazzoli represented a failure of immigration reform.  How well did it work?
• On May 18, 2008, Barack Obama said, “We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.” How does his performance measure against that pledge?
• Tell how CMC alum Steve Bullock became governor of Montana.
• Explain the impact of Shelby County v. Holder.
• Explain allegations of vote suppression in the 2012 campaign.  Was there intentional vote suppression?  What was the impact on the election?

Parties, Continued

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

Open Secrets on Outside Groups

Polarization and Parties

• 2012 Pew Survey
• 2013 ABC Poll

Polarization and PIG

• Trendlines
• Distribution (see Figure 4)

Intel

On Monday, Joshua asked how much the president may have known about spying on allies.  The New York Times reports:

The nation’s top spymaster said on Tuesday that the White House had long been aware in general terms of the National Security Agency’s overseas eavesdropping, stoutly defending the agency’s intelligence-gathering methods and suggesting possible divisions within the Obama administration.

The official, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that the N.S.A. had kept senior officials in the National Security Council informed of surveillance it was conducting in foreign countries. He did not specifically say whether President Obama was told of these spying efforts, but he appeared to challenge assertions in recent days that the White House had been in the dark about some of the agency’s practices.
...

Several current and former American officials said that presidents and their senior national security advisers have long known about which foreign leaders the United States spied on.
“It would be unusual for the White House senior staff not to know the exact source and method of collection,” said Michael Allen, a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration and a former staff director for the House Intelligence Committee. “That information helps a policy maker assess the reliability of the intelligence.”

Mr. Allen, the author of a book about intelligence reform called “Blinking Red,” said this information often comes to the president during preparation for phone calls or meetings with the foreign leaders.

The intelligence community is pretty complicated




S.H.I.E.L.D. is not on the list but Agent Phil Coulson had an insight during a recent episode: ""It's amazing. Every year this part of our job gets easier. Between Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr, people are surveilling themselves."

Better representation in Congress

From the Maryland Public Policy Institute:

The Framers, in contrast, were wise and crafted American government so that a segment of the public would find it difficult to run political roughshod over another. Hence today’s stalemates and shutdowns, filibusters and partisan animosity, and Tea Parties and Occupy movements. Politicians and commentators lament this 'gridlock,' but in a diverse country, gridlock is good.

While gridlock is not ideal, it could be a reflection of a better representation of districts by their elected officials. Let us not be too quick to condemn Congress. It is possible that the current political gridlock is a sign of a more effective representation of constituents' needs and issues. More legislation is not necessarily a sign of progress. Congress members should be willing to fight for what their constituents want rather than follow every word of the party leaders. Gridlock can persist, considering that Congressmen have to fight for different districts, and Americans want different issues represented. We cannot rush to a conclusion that Congress in stalemate is a less able Congress. However, there is undeniable polarization of congressional districts due to repeated gerrymandering. This may be the real problem.

Constituents are changing. Unnatural geometric shapes are created to define congressional districts resulting in more polarized representations in Washington. California's redistricting is now controlled by an independent commission to prevent or minimize gerrymandering. However, in many other states, redistricting still remains a political opportunity to favor one or the other party. The practice of gerrymandering persists.

Should all states require redistricting to be controlled by nonpartisan, independent commission? What else may explain the increased polarization of elected officials and their constituents?

GOP primaries, from 2012 to 2016

After Hope and Change discusses in detail the Republican nomination process for the 2012 election. As in most primaries, each candidate ran to the far end of the spectrum. As Democratic candidates lean farther to the left, Republican candidates learn farther to the right. A clear frontrunner did not appear as quickly as Romney probably would have liked, with Santorum carrying enough states to prolong the process. The 2012 election primary season showed something deeper about the changing dynamics of the Republican party. For instance, one can argue that Santorum appealed to a different, if not separate, base than Romney did in the primary. Overgeneralizing and oversimplifying, we could say that the individual who values conservative social issues most in a selecting a candidates tended to prefer Santorum, while the individual focused on conservative fiscal policies tended to prefer Romney. While both of these ideas are fundamental to the GOP, the 2012 primary displayed a distancing between the two.

A recent article in the New York Times addresses how various prominent Republicans used the government shutdown to potentially position themselves in the 2016 primaries. It will be indeed interesting to see which aspect of the Republican platform will dominate the race. This very well could decide who will seize the nomination. Cruz? Rubio? Ryan? Paul? Christie? Bush? Only time can tell.

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Parties and Elections

• Party in the Electorate (PIE)
• Party Identification
• Party Registration
• Cinematic Map of Presidential Election Results
• Party in Government (PIG)
• Party Divisions in the House
• Party Divisions in the Senate
• State Government Control
• Party Organization (PO)
• DCCC
• NRCC
• DSCC
• NRSC
• DNC,
•  RNC
• Party Outside Organization (You figure out the acronym.)

Tocqueville on Elections of Members of Congress

Tocqueville discusses the House of Representatives in the early 1800s to be "obscure people whose names form no picture in one's minds. They are mostly village lawyers, tradesmen, or even men of the lowest classes. In a country where education is spread almost universally, it is said that the people's representatives do not always know how to write correctly." He goes on to contrast the House with the Senate whose members are "eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and noted statement."

It can be shocking to imagine this difference between the two houses of Congress. Tocqueville attributes this contrast to Senators being elected by state legislatures, an indirect form of universal suffrage.

This passage from Tocqueville poses some questions:

1. Would there be a wide contrast between senators and representatives today if the election of senators remained the way it was in the 1800s?
2. How great of a role does campaign finance play in preventing "obscure people" to have seats in Congress?
3. Tocqueville writes, "It is easy to see a time coming when the American republics will be bound to make more frequent use of election in two stages, unless they are to be miserably lost among the shoals of democracy." Why did American government go against what Tocqueville predicted?

Campaign Finance

This past Wednesday, we discussed campaign funding a little bit in our discussion of interest groups. Professor Pitney mentioned that as we move forward, we will talk more about campaign finance and its relation to elections in the United States. The New York Times focused on the topic in a Room for Debate discussion earlier this month when the Supreme Court heard arguments in the McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission case. The debate articles can be found here and a synopsis of the case can be found here. 

The debate brings up the questions: 

• Why have limits on contributions to candidates? 
• Do contribution limits violate the 1st Amendment right to free speech? 
• Do contribution limits help prevent corruption in elections? 

Jim DeMint, Shadow Speaker

About a month ago, before the government shut down and we approached default, Businessweek ran a cover article titled Jim DeMint, Congressional Republicans Shadow Speaker. The article discusses the influence Jim DeMint, a former Republican senator, who left the Senate in January to run the Heritage Foundation. Heritage is one of the partisan think tanks we were discussing the other day.

This summer he proposed a radical idea:

These days he’s selling the idea that it’s not too late to kill the health-care law. In each city, hundreds and sometimes thousands of true believers crammed into hotel ballrooms to hear him explain how, with enough pressure on legislators, Congress could be persuaded to withhold funding for the law and thereby halt it before public enrollment begins on Oct. 1. “The House holds the purse strings,” DeMint told his crowds. If Republicans keep them cinched, he promised, the law would fail.

DeMint got Sen. Cruz to support the idea, and it took off from there:

DeMint assumes that Republicans have leverage because funding for the federal government will run out on Sept. 30, and if Congress doesn’t pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open, it will shut down the next day. That’s an outcome neither party wants, but one DeMint calculates Obama would do almost anything to avoid—including making concessions on his signature law. So in August, as the defund tour wended its way through the country, DeMint was pitching the idea of a continuing resolution that funds everything except Obamacare. Scores of Republican congressmen and senators signed on, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who joined DeMint onstage in Dallas to endorse the idea. 

While we now know the outcome of the whole debacle, it is worth noting that the idea came not from a member of Congress, but from DeMint. This is yet another example of the influence think tanks, interest groups, and lobbyists have over our representatives.

Links Galore Concerning Lobbying, PACs, and Interest Groups.

The mass amounts off lobbyists in DC uphold Toqueville's beloved idea of the people's ability to hold an active role in the running and legislation of their government. In the article seen here Robert Kuttner argues that although the lobbyists are using their rights to check the government,  the lobbyists do not exactly represent the whole of society. He discusses the issues surrounding political disengagement, as well as the shift from personal involvement in government to a system in which one expects elected officials to do all of the work. 

AND...

Video Clips 

 

Stephen Colbert: 'I am a Super PAC and So Can You'

Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook

Are voters choosing candidates -- or special interest groups?

Look at the Top 50 Interest Groups here 

Find the statistics regarding lobbying from 1998 to today that we looked at in class here

And if you're really bored, look at these wonderfully misspelled Tea Party signs, labeled "Teabonics"

 

Twelve Reflections on Interest Groups and Thirteen Rules about Tactics

1. Even registered sex offenders have a group.
2. So do frats.
3. Lobbyists have their own lobby.  Seriously.
4. Foreign and domestic governments engage in lobbying.
5. Teach for America is an interest group.
6. Advocacy organizations take several forms.
7. Spending on federal lobbying is equal to or greater than spending on federal elections.
8. And not all advocacy work counts as lobbying.
9. The revolving door keeps revolving.
10. Philanthropy is a form of interest group influence.
11. Once an interest group buys a friend, it can leverage that friendship.
12. Soda manufacturers buy friends, too.

NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin speaks frankly about power:

Alinsky's 13 Rules:

• RULE 1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
• RULE 2: Never go outside the experience of your people
• RULE 3: Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. 
• RULE 4: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. 
• RULE 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. 
• RULE 6: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
• RULE 7: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
• RULE 8: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
• RULE 9: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
• RULE 10: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. 
• RULE 11: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside. 
• RULE 12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. 
• RULE 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. 

Better Call Saul

In an interview, Alinsky discussed his early life and his relationship to the Al Capone gang.

Geography and Inequality

At The Orange County Register, Joel Kotkin writes about the topic with which we shall conclude the course:

Inequality is on the rise throughout the country, while there are significant differences in its depth by geography and region. California is producing ever more billionaires, three times as many as in regularly faster-growing Texas, but the middle class is in secular decline, according to a recent Public Policy Institute Study, and now constitutes less than half California's population. The state also suffers the highest rate of poverty in the country and is now home to roughly one-third of the nation's welfare recipients, equal to almost three times its proportion of the nation's population.

Longtime Seattle demographer Richard Morrill tried to map out the emerging geography of inequality by regions and metropolitan areas. His conclusions are both complex and compelling.

The places that did best in terms of income equality tended to be in the northern Plains, parts of the upper Midwest and northern New England. Much of the greatest inequality was found in the nation's megastates – California, New York, Florida and, yes, Texas. At the metropolitan level, generally the worst income gaps were found in some of our biggest metros, such as first New York, followed by Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco, as well as New Orleans.

Interest Groups Join Spending Fights

The New York Times has this article on the front page this morning. While the level of lobbying has decreased over the last 2 years as the pace of legislation has slowed, lobbying companies are expecting an increase in business as Congress looks toward another round of cuts in the coming months. Some of the more interesting aspects of the article:

Lawmakers are looking forward to being able to raise money again:

All these appeals will make it easier for lawmakers to get the fund-raising machines revved up again. Many events were canceled during the shutdown, as it seemed in bad form to take checks from lobbyists with thousands of federal employees out of work

There will be some conflict between special interests:

The lobbying factions will not, in most cases, be attacking one another. But with Republicans insisting that they will not back down from spending limits set by the 2011 sequestration legislation and rejecting calls by Democrats for new tax revenue, the cuts will almost certainly have to hit some interests, creating unavoidable conflict.

It should be fascinating to watch all of this unfold over the next few months. Do you guys have any thoughts on the interaction of special interests and legislation?

"The Least Dangerous Branch"

Federalist 78:

Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

Reasons for increasing judicial power (Amar, pp. 216-218):

• Increase in SCOTUS size and creation of new courts
• Increasing number of statutes and regulations to interpret
• Improved reporting practices and professional standards for bench and bar
• Discretion over docket
• Additional constitutional amendments

Here is a concise guide to federal statutes.

• Statutes at Large
• US Code

After Congress passes law, the bureaucracy drafts rules:

• Federal Register
• Code of Federal Regulations

Then the courts may act

• The Structure
• Guide to Supreme Court decisions

See "The Lecture" around 20:00

Edwards v. Aguillard

Same-Sex Marriage and Tocqueville

At American Review, Jonathan Rauch explains the shift in attitudes on same-sex marriage:

Begin with the obvious: demographics. It is very important, but perhaps not as important as you think. Support for gay marriage is correlated with age; three in four Americans under 30 favour it. Gay marriage opponents are dying off and being replaced with proponents. More is going on than generational replacement, however. We know this because support has increased impressively among every generational cohort. Tellingly, support almost doubled over the past ten years, Pew finds, among “silent generation” members born between 1928 and 1945 — people in their late 60s and older. A lot of Americans, not excluding older Americas, have changed their minds.

One reason is what I think of as the Tocqueville effect. Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman whose observations of America in the 1830s remain shrewdly relevant, famously remarked on Americans’ deference to majority opinion: “As long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety.” Although he exaggerates, the broad point remains true: the legitimising effect of public opinion is such that, other things being equal, majority support tends to amplify itself. Even if I have doubts about gay marriage, the fact that most of my countrymen are on the other side weakens my resolve and impels me to acknowledge the legitimacy of their view. The difference between support at, say, 55 per cent versus 45 per cent — that is, the different between majority and minority standing — is one of kind, not merely of degree. That is not to say that opposition evaporates or crawls under a rock when it loses majority standing. But its power and relevance are greatly reduced.

Law I

Law school and other postgraduate options

News about law schools

Here is a concise guide to federal statutes.

• Statutes at Large
• US Code

After Congress passes law, the bureaucracy drafts rules:

• Federal Register
• Code of Federal Regulations

Then the courts may act

• The Structure
• Guide to Supreme Court decisions

Juries: Another Amar weighs in

"The Lecture" from Anatomy of a Murder (start at 20:00). They show this scene in law schools.

Scalia Interview with NYMag

Considering we will be discussing the Judiciary this week, I thought this interview with Justice Scalia was relevant and thought-provoking.

Here's the link: http://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/

Justice Scalia answers questions on a wide variety of topics including his originalist philosophy, Catholicism (and the Devil), television, hunting and more.

One part that I found particularly interesting was his discussion of clerks.

If nothing else, you learn that Scalia considers himself to be a "damn good poker player," even though he doesn't know what a tell is...

Overall, if you have the time, the interview is really interesting, and serves as a reminder that those who make such significant decisions are people too.

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Activism on the Supreme Court

From today's New York Times:

Professor Halpern "Our Government is Broken" 2012-11-06

In her speech titled "Our Government is Broken," Professor of Pyschology Diane Halpern poses the following question: "how broken is it?" She goes on to argue the "hyper-partisanship" of Congress has led to a lack of productivity, that the toxic nature of the government's political atmosphere has created a need for corrective action. Congress's tendency towards extremists of both parties has established an us versus them mentality which inhibits capacity for change while fostering a culture of stagnancy. The incapability of each side to acknowledge the views of the other with respect has resulted in a "broken Congress." Professor Halpern argues that there is a way to try and fix this; her plan includes heightening social involvement in government in hopes of holding officials accountable for making an effort to work with one another. In the current arena, if one political party finds success, the other party is inherently "a big loser." This encourages a competitive, rather than cooperative, system of government in which each side aims to meet its own ends instead of benefiting the American people as a whole. She also champions the idea of open mindedness in regards to exposing oneself to perspectives other than those of one's political party, getting away from the concept of group think, and expecting politicians to show the public who is "paying the bills" in a similar fashion as race car drivers: openly, publicly, and without shame. Professor Halpern closes with the discussion of thinking critically. She explores the idea of "question[ing] the thinking of those that came before us," in order to initiate changes, while acknowledging the merit of realizing that not all people think the same way. Her viewpoint asserts that it is exactly this difference of opinion and disagreement of policy which allows society and government to progress through compromise, cooperation, and action.




The arguments she presents, although given almost a year ago, still address the problems we have within the government today. Even more so in light of the recent government shutdown and Congressional stalemate. 

Presidential legislative power

Tocqueville discusses how Presidential power does not change depending on which party controls Congress. As they are two separate entities, the President's ability to make legislation is not contingent on his party holding power in both houses (as he has none) and his duty to execute the laws remains as strong.

As we discussed in class, Presidential power strengthens in war time. American Presidents now exercise far greater power than Presidents during and before Tocqueville's time. This unofficially extends into the Congress realm, with a Presidential legislation often pushed through by members of their party. This happened with the Affordable Care Act, which of course now is causing many of the problems (like the government shutdown and what not). As this shows, passing legislation (or getting anything done) is much more difficult when the government is split (Executive v Congress/within Congress). Congress is now having a hard time in coming to an agreement about the debt ceiling because of the same ideological differences 

I found an article that discusses ways that Obama could attempt to go around COngress in raising the debt ceiling if they fail to do so. Whether or not any of the ways would practically work, I still find it interesting as it reflects the growth in power of the President in promoting legislation.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115034/debt-ceiling-3-ways-obama-could-circumvent-congress

Presidency and the Executive, II

Tocqueville (p. 692) on "The Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear"

It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principle concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and divides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?…It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd.

DHS organization chart

Government employment and government contractors/grantees

Regulation

The Citizen's Perspective

• Form 1040 and instructions
• A spaghetti chart
• Charts for Parents of ASD kids

Presidency I

Article II

Kenyan Birth Certificate Generator. (The real birth certificate.)

LBJ takes the oath: look carefully, as it is a missal instead of a Bible.

The oath (sort of):


Lincoln's letter to Hodges on his oath.

• Federalist 70
• Federalist 71
• Federalist 73

LBJ orders some pants.

Just Blame the Constitution

This article, which blames the shutdown on structural issues originating in the Constitution, is certainly one that raises a few questions:

• Does the foundational structure of the federal government need to be revisited? The author keeps discussing various examples of unicameral parliaments, all of which occur in homogenous societies, where the PM is elected by the parliament. Would such a system work in the US where there is a significantly more diverse population? What about the idea of having one branch clearly superior to the others? While it could settle tie-breakers, it also risks one branch growing too strong in the long run.

• Has the American presidency become too powerful for the system to work? My guess is that the system operates best when Congress is clearly superior to the presidency. However, the current perception (though not actual power structure) seems to feed an idea of parity between the executive and legislative branches. Does some sort of structural rebalancing need to occur or is the problem temporary?

• How dangerous are polarized political parties? Do they present a long-term threat, or will one party become superior to the other and dominate the government for a time? Will voters eventually decide to send broad majorities to Congress for a sustained period of time instead of only two years?

House of Cards

The Ideal Version:

 

The Netflix Version:



The Real Version:

From National Journal