issue: Politics

Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, Resigns

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It would be easy to draw a straight line between the alleged “intelligence failures” of the last six months and Dennis Blair’s resignation. Let in the Underwear Bomber and the Times Square bomber, and heads should roll, right?

Well, not so fast my friend.

Any alleged failing on Blair’s part is a minor reason for his departure. If Faisal Shahzad was the reason, we’d have expected Mark Leiter — head of the National Counter Terrorism Center, NCTC, which falls under the DNI’s purview — to go first.

Blair left because of power, authority and personality conflicts with the White House. More specifically, the DNI position has little power or authority, and Blair got outmaneuvered personally by savvy bureaucratic operators like CIA Director Leon Panetta and White House counter terrorism advisor John Brennan.

Politico reported on Blair’s struggles back in January:

“One reality is Blair is really not political; he is really not good on the Hill,” said one former counterterrorism official. “He doesn’t know how to build coalitions on the Hill. He is really just out there swimming on his own, and he is not doing a very good job for the people who might have pushed expanding the DNI’s power to get behind him on this.”

On the one issue where Blair really chose to take a stand — appointing Chiefs of Station at CIA offices abroad — the White House sided with Panetta. And then there’s the big elephant in the room — budget authority.

Despite being the nominal Director of all 16 US intelligence agencies, the DNI doesn’t control their individual budgets or personnel, except for those under NCTC. That’s a big problem, causing the “boss” to be subject to the machinations of his de facto subordinates. Sure, the DNI has the authority to facilitate collaboration between those individual agencies, but if those agencies’ heads retain enough authority to run their own little fiefdoms, that creates uncomfortable tensions. And Blair didn’t seem politically savvy enough to navigate that mine field.

So, on the personality front, Blair, though a highly respected professional, seems to have been a bit of a fish out of water in this job. Then again, is the DNI job too small a fish in a big ocean?

Defining the DNI’s role from a budgetary point of view should be the next intelligence community reform.

Photo credit: Robert Huffstutter / CC BY-NC 2.0

Rand Paul and the Constitution Party

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I don’t know how long it’s going to take before the past views and associations of new Republican superstar Rand Paul all come to light, but he’s currently on track to serve as the living link between all sorts of older forms of radical conservatism and the contemporary Tea Party movement. Indeed, it appears that his Lester Maddox-ish instincts about the supremacy of private property rights could be the least of his problems. Now it transpires that just last year he was guest speaker at an event held by the Constitution Party.

Now this is hardly a surprise, since his old man has long been friends with CP founder Howard Phillips, and endorsed that party’s presidential candidate in 2008. But most people don’t know much about the CP, which combines limited-government conservatism with the peculiar doctrines of Christian Reconstructionists, for which a simpler term is Theocrats. And no, I’m not using “Theocrats” as an insult, but as a technical description of what they support.

Here, right off the Constitution Party’s web page, are the opening words of its party platform:

The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.

What the Constitution Party means by “Constitutional boundaries” is made clearer in the later sections of its platform, particularly this section:

Social Security is a form of individual welfare not authorized in the Constitution.The Constitution grants no authority to the federal government to administrate a Social Security system. The Constitution Party advocates phasing out the entire Social Security program, while continuing to meet the obligations already incurred under the system.

Do you suppose Rand Paul would like to go on Rachel Maddow’s show and discuss the constitutionality of Social Security or the Dominion of Jesus Christ and His Believers over the United States? Probably not. Theocracy and abolishing Social Security don’t poll well. And maybe he doesn’t actually believe this stuff, but simply enjoys the company of extremists.

But Paul does not have some sort of inherent right to pose as a victim when he own words and his own associations come back to haunt him. And I suspect we are just at the tip of that particular iceberg.

This item is cross-posted from The Democratic Strategist.

Whitman Fade Is For Real

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Last week I did a post asking if it was actually possible that California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who’s on course to break every national record for spending in a state political race, could actually lose her primary. Now one of the more respected California polling outfits has weighed in, and yes, Whitman’s in some trouble, though still ahead.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, Whitman’s 61-11 lead over Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in March has dropped to 38-29, with the undecided vote actually going up to 31%. With less than three weeks left to go until the June 8 primary, Whitman’s spending total for the cycle is now up to $68 million (!), and Poizner’s dropped $24 million himself in a much shorter period of time. It is very, very difficult to watch television in California right now without heavy exposure to constant back-and-forth attack ads from these two candidates.

I’ve written the contest up over at FiveThirtyEight for anyone who’s interested. The bottom line is that the Whitman-Poizner battle is good news for Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, and if Poizner’s immigrant-bashing message prevails or forces Whitman to emulate it, it could have long-term repercussions for party politics in the Golden State.

This item is cross-posted from The Democratic Strategist.

How Does Kerry-Lieberman Stack Up Under the Cheat Sheet

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Factory Pollution Over the past few weeks, we’ve written a series of posts here detailing the issues that make up climate policy. The result is a climate policy cheat sheet of sorts: a list of these issues, divided into categories based on our view of their importance. Now that the Kerry-Lieberman draft bill has been released, we can use the list of issues to analyze it. Other summaries of the bill are out there, but we hope this one is simple and accessible enough to be useful to non-experts (this is the same goal we had for the cheat sheet itself). While we clearly have a policy preference—the greatest emissions reduction at the lowest cost—we don’t want to analyze or criticize the bill here; we just want to describe it. Other than the preferences and opinions implicit in our issue categories, we’re just giving you the facts here. We hope that sparks debate (even if it’s unlikely to convince you to tackle reading the 1000-page bill itself).

The Kerry-Lieberman Cheat Sheet

Category I Issues: What’s Essential for a Good Climate Bill

1. Does it create a price on carbon?
In short, yes. Kerry-Lieberman creates a cap-and-trade system that effectively sets a price on carbon emissions — but not all emissions are subject to the price, and those that are may not be included immediately.

2. How much of US emissions are covered by that price?

Initially, in 2013, the bill includes only the electricity and refining sectors within the cap-and-trade system. Transportation is included under the cap as well, but allowances must be bought by producers and importers — they aren’t auctioned. Large industrial facilities are included after 2016. Agricultural emissions aren’t included, but some reductions there can qualify as offsets.

In total, around 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are capped, but different sectors are treated differently. Not all sectors are part of the same market.

3. What is the path of emissions reduction set by the cap?

The emissions cap in the bill would decline over time, and would result in emissions reductions of 4.75 percent by 2013, 17 percent by 2020, 42 percent by 2030, and 83 percent by 2050.

Category II Issues:  What’s Important for a Good Climate Bill

1. How are emissions allowances allocated?

Allowances are allocated by a mixture of gratis allocation and auctions. In the first years of the program, the majority of allocations are given away to industries and various research efforts, while some allowances are auctioned and the revenue generated is used to compensate consumers. By 2030, auctions are used to distribute 75 percent of allowances. A full breakdown of the allowance allocations is available here.

2. How are the public revenues from climate policy spent?

Revenues from auctions will be spent to benefit the public in a number of ways. Kerry-Lieberman directs the majority of auction revenues towards assisting low-income consumers, supporting the Highway Trust Fund, and rebating all consumers, though those provisions do not kick in until later years of the program. In the short term, allowances are given away to local electric and gas utilities with the requirement that the revenues generated be used to reduce the impact of the carbon price on consumers.

3. Are banking and borrowing allowed?

The bill allows for both banking and borrowing. Firms can bank an unlimited amount of allowances. There is also no limit when borrowing allowances from the next calendar year’s allocations. If firms want to borrow from future years, they may do so up to five years ahead, but they can only borrow up to 15 percent of their total allocation for the year in which they are borrowing. Additionally, any borrowed allowances accrue 8 percent interest.

Category III Issues: What’s Negotiable for a Good Climate Bill

1. Is there a price collar?

Yes. The price floor is set at $12 and increases annually at 3 percent above inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index. The price ceiling is initially set at $25 and increases annually at 5 percent above inflation.

2. Are offsets allowed?

Offset are allowed. Similar to Waxman-Markey, regulated parties may use up to 2 billion offset credits to be in compliance. At the outset of the program, 75 percent of offset credits must come from domestic sources and up to 25 percent can come from international sources. If regulators determine the supply of domestic offsets is not enough to meet initial proportions, then international offsets may increase up to 50 percent of the total supply. After 2018, 1.25 actual international offset credits are equal to 1 emission allowance. The US Department of Agriculture has primary oversight of domestic offsets.

3. What are the effects on international negotiations and trade-vulnerable industries?

The bill maintains the United States’ previously stated commitment to reduce its emissions by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. It includes some funding provisions in the form of allowance allocations for international adaptation efforts. Trade-vulnerable industries’ entry under the cap is delayed until 2016 and they are given rebates in the form of 15 percent of all allowances from 2016 to 2025. The bill also expands current clean energy manufacturing tax credit programs by $5 billion and it establishes a WTO-compatible border adjustment to be instituted sometime after 2020, dependent on presidential and congressional findings.

Category IV Issues: What’s Not Important for a Good Climate Bill

1. Is a renewable portfolio standard set?

No. There is no federal standard, though states are permitted to keep or implement them.

2. Is existing EPA authority to regulate GHGs preempted?

Generally, yes. The Clean Air Act authority that the EPA currently has to regulate stationary sources is preempted. The EPA would keep its authority to regulate vehicles, the only part of its authority it has used to date for greenhouse gases. The EPA could still set performance standards for industrial sources not included under the cap, but to date the EPA has shown no interest in regulating these smaller sources.

3. Are state GHG regulations preempted?

State cap-and-trade programs would be preempted by the bill, though states with such programs and emitters subject to them would receive credit. Other state-level regulations are not preempted. In principle, states could implement renewable portfolio standards, performance standards, or even a carbon tax.

4. Are allowance markets closed to Wall Street?

The allowance trading market would be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the regulatory restrictions in the bill are extensive. Markets are, however, open in principle to parties other than emitters themselves if they are “necessary for a liquid and well-functioning market”. Carbon derivatives are allowed but tightly regulated. Short-selling of allowances is prohibited.

5. Does the bill promote energy security?

The bill would increase investment in new nuclear power plants with loan guarantees and an expedited regulatory review process.

The bill would also create incentives to expand offshore oil and gas drilling, with 37.5 percent of royalty revenues directed to states that permit drilling. States would, however, retain veto rights over drilling within 75 miles of their coast and in other circumstances where they can show they would be significantly affected.

Photo credit: Uwe Hermann / CC BY-NC 2.0

A Few Post-Primary Thoughts

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I don’t have too much to add to J.P. Green‘s analysis of the May 18 primaries. But here are a few thoughts:

  1. Blanche Lincoln failed to win without a runoff because she didn’t do nearly well enough in her old House district (the 1st, which is NE Arkansas) to offset a virtual drubbing in the 4th CD (southern Arkansas). She actually won Pulaski County (Little Rock), Bill Halter’s home town, very comfortably, and won throughout NW Arkansas. Since my own pre-primary analysis suggested that a large undecided African-American vote might be the key, it’s worth noting that the 4th and 1st districts have, respectively, the highest, 24 percent, and next highest, 19 percent, African-American population percentages. Without exit polls or precinct level data, it’s hard to say this is why Lincoln failed to win, but it looks like that might be the case, particularly since the black vote was tilting towards Halter in pre-primary polls. If so, this could be a danger sign for Halter in the runoff, since African-Americans traditionally don’t participate in southern runoff elections in anything like a proportionate manner. Otherwise, the runoff dynamics definitely favor the challenger, particularly if labor’s financial involvement on Halter’s behalf continues.
  2. The CW is that in Jack Conway KY Democrats nominated the stronger candidate against Rand Paul. That could well be true, though Dan Mongiardo’s regional strength in Eastern Kentucky, a traditionally Republican area where hard-core conservatives often struggle, might have posed some special problems for Paul.
  3. In retrospect, Arlen Specter’s long Senate career has been a continuing minor miracle. This is a guy who has managed over the course of decades to deeply alienate both liberals and conservatives, and he’s also known as one of the least attractive personalities in Washington, which is saying a lot. To survive after a party-switch would have been truly incredible.

This item is cross-posted from The Democratic Strategist.

Boehner Still Struggling with National Security

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

John Boehner at Press ConferenceHow’s this for nerve? At a press conference on May 6, Republican Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio accused the Obama administration of relying on “luck” to keep America safe. But Boehner’s own recipe for national security is based on even less. Rather than engage the White House in a constructive dialogue on how best to protect the nation, Boehner chose to throw political rotten tomatoes. His gamesmanship is a disturbing reminder that the House minority leader cares more about winning elections than keeping the country safe.

Amazingly, Boehner chose to lob his rhetorical garbage in the wake of the successful manhunt for would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. Ignoring the incredibly efficient work of America’s defense, security, and law enforcement agencies, Boehner charged the administration with operating “without a real, comprehensive plan to confront and defeat the terrorist threat.”

But clearly Boehner doesn’t have a clue of just how hard the administration has been working. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense issued its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). And in a few weeks, the White House will release its National Security Strategy. This may come as a shock to Boehner, but the QDR — led by Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, a Republican himself — and the National Security Strategy actually are the administration’s “comprehensive plans”.

Maybe Boehner missed it because he was too busy coming up with his own “plan.” Boehner actually did convene something called the National Security Solutions Group, a caucus of 18 Republicans that was supposed “to develop solutions to the current and future threats.” But to date, Boehner’s clique looks more like political theater than substantive intellect — it hasn’t issued a single new idea. And the QDR makes Boehner’s group look out-of-date, insufficient, and redundant anyway.

Perhaps Boehner failed to offer security ideas at his press conference because he lacked the confidence that any of his own might actually work. With a national security track record like Boehner’s, he probably calculated that it would be best to insult and run, rather that defend the policies he has supported in the past.

Exhibit A of Boehner’s policy stinkers? Invading Iraq.

Since that one didn’t turn out to be the cakewalk that Boehner, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush originally planned, it’s understandable why he might be gun shy about forwarding new ideas. Indeed, Boehner remains so obsessed by Iraq that his website — as of this writing — continues to insist that Iraq, not Osama Bin Laden’s home in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, is “the central front of a global war [on terror].” Never mind that al Qaeda only came to Iraq after America did.

Then there’s Boehner’s odd belief that the administration’s decision to reorient missile defense — a policy supported by Secretary Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — comes at the expense of America’s allies. So how do those allies actually feel? Just fine, it turns out. Take it from Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s Foreign Minister, who said in the first week of May that “Polish-American relations are solid” and that Poland “rather like[s] the new version better than the previous one” of missile defense.

Boehner also sided with Dick Cheney in endorsing torture. General David Petraeus had a different view, saying torture was “neither useful nor necessary” and calling on America to “occupy the moral high ground.”

The fact is that John Boehner has been consistently wrong about which policies keep America safe. He’s reckless and out-of-touch with the national security landscape of the 21st century and more concerned with winning elections than stopping terrorism. His catcalls at the Obama administration only distract attention from the serious national security challenges America continues to face.

John Boehner is right that we need more than luck to defeat terrorism. We need national leaders to rise above empty rhetoric to protect the country in a bi-partisan manner. Unfortunately, Boehner is not acting like one of those leaders.

Photo credit: republicanconference / CC BY-NC 2.0

In Oregon, Signs of the Clean Energy Future

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A fascinating experiment is unfolding in the nation’s Northwest, where a candidate for governor of Oregon is campaigning against politics itself. In a recent visit to Washington, D.C., John Kitzhaber, a medical doctor by training who served two terms as governor of Oregon from 1995 to 2003, discussed his approach to his third campaign. Wearing a blazer, his trademark sunrise tie and boots, Kitzhaber described his desire to run a wonky campaign that would be mostly about policy — especially clean energy, the subject of PPI’s E3 Initiative.

“I’m in a position in my life where I don’t need to do this,” the 63-year old Kitzhaber said. “I’m not running a typical slash-and-burn campaign.” Kitzhaber has followed through so far, in a few short months churning out some thoughtful policy papers on job creation, energy and health care.

Of particular interest is his focus on energy. In Oregon — a state that already places a great emphasis on clean energy — Kitzhaber said he sees an opportunity to “recreate the political center.” Oregon has been leading on mining “negawatts” for over three decades. As Kitzhaber’s energy plan notes, “The economic and environmental returns on these investments have been even greater: ‘new’ energy supplies from efficiency savings cost one-half to one-third that of new power plants, emit no carbon or other pollution, and don’t jeopardize fish runs. Energy efficiency has been the single largest new resource for the region since 1980.”

Oregon’s existing targets are already ambitious: 25 percent renewables by 2025, and reducing greenhouse gases to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 75 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. However, Oregon currently lacks a comprehensive strategic plan for all these goals.

At the D.C. meeting, Kitzhaber observed that Oregon spends $12 billion a year on energy, but 85 percent leaves the state. As governor, he promised to begin with large-scale energy retrofits, including public buildings, where he thought 25 percent of energy could be quickly reduced, freeing up capital and creating good jobs in the process. “We need to view a KWh saved just the same we view one created,” he said.

This approach would put Kitzhaber squarely in line with the Obama administration, which in a series of largely unheralded victories, has used stimulus funds to turn the ocean liner of America’s domestic energy practices toward a sunnier horizon.

Whether or not Kitzhaber wins, it seems clear that there’s a trend here among certain states to push the green envelope. In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick and Secretary of Energy and Environment Ian Bowles have paved the way in pushing an integrated, regional approach to clean energy and demonstrating clear results, as PPI recently highlighted with an event in Boston with local economic leaders.

In these partisan times, and with the recently released Kerry-Lieberman bill, these are all promising signs that clean energy really can be about policy, not politics.

Mollohan Defeated

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

So, just three days after Utah’s long-time Republican Sen. Bob Bennett was denied re-nomination, long-time Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia suffered the same fate, though in his case it was in a primary where he received only 44 percent of the vote against 56 percent for state senator Mike Oliverio. Mollohan had been in office for 28 years after succeeding his father, who held the seat for 14 years before that. Now that’s some serious incumbency!

While it’s natural to link the Bennett and Mollohan defeats to a similar anti-incumbency trend, that’s a bit misleading. Bennett’s problems were clearly ideological in nature. Mollohan’s biggest problem was ethics; he’s been the subject of multiple investigations of conflict-of-interest allegations in his role as an Appropriations subcommittee chairman, and Oliverio’s campaign called him “one of the most corrupt members of Congress.”

With Republicans considering Mollohan an especially ripe target, it’s possible that Oliverio’s win will make the seat an slightly easier hold for Democrats.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Could Meg Whitman Lose Her Primary?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

After spending upwards of $60 million, much of it lately on attack ads against her Republican primary rival, Steve Poizner, California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman appears to have lost most of a large lead over Poizner and is heading towards the June 8 balloting in an astonishingly vulnerable position.

A new Survey USA poll out this week shows eMeg leading Poizner 39 percent/37 percent, a 20-point net swing in Poizner’s favor since the previous SUSA survey in April. Even if you are skeptical about the accuracy of SUSA’s robo-polls, California political cognoscenti all seem to agree that Poizner is closing fast.

This is significant beyond the borders of California for at least four reasons. The first and most obvious is that Whitman’s epic spending on early television ads doesn’t seem to be doing her a lot of good. If she winds up becoming the new Al Checchi — the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial candidate who broke all previous spending records on heavily negative ads and then got drubbed in his primary — it will be an object lesson to self-funders everywhere.

The second reason a Whitman defeat or near-defeat would resonate broadly is that it would confirm the rightward mood of Republicans even in a state where they are reputedly more moderate. At this point, both Poizner and Whitman are constantly calling each other “liberals,” with Poizner, who’s running ads featuring conservative GOP avatar Tom McClintock, getting the better of that particular argument. Whitman would have undoubtedly preferred to have kept closer to the political center in preparation for a tough general election campaign against Jerry Brown. But Poizner is forcing her to compete for the True Conservative mantle in a very conspicuous way.

Third, there are signs that Poizner is also forcing Whitman — and by implication, the entire California Republican Party — to risk a repetition of the 1990s-era GOP alienation of Latino voters by endorsing harsh immigration measures. This has been a signature issue for Poizner from the beginning; he supports bringing back Proposition 187 — the 1994 ballot measure pushed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson that is widely interpreted as having destroyed California’s Republican majority by making the state’s huge Latino population a reliable and overwhelming Democratic constituency. Poizner has also lavishly praised the new Arizona immigration law. Having tried to ignore the issue initially, Whitman is now running radio ads in which Pete Wilson (her campaign chairman) touts her determination to fight illegal immigration. If those ads migrate to broadcast TV, it’s a sure bet that Whitman is panicking, and that monolithic Latino support for Brown in the general election is a real possibility. And if that can happen in California, where immigrant-bashing is so obviously perilous, it can certainly happen in other parts of the country.

Finally, it’s worth noting that aside from immigration, the issue on which Poizner seems to be gaining traction is the attention he’s devoted to Whitman’s involvement with Goldman Sachs. She was on the firm’s board for a number of years, and earned a very large amount of money from an insider practice — then legal, now illegal — called “spinning,” which she nows says she “regrets.” Poizner’s having a lot of fun with this issue, and the California Democratic Party is chipping in with an ad ostensibly promoting financial reform in Washington that is mainly aimed at Whitman. Lesson to would-be-business-executive-candidates: some kinds of private-sector experience are not helpful to your candidacy in the current climate.

It’s worth noting that there’s another major statewide GOP primary going on in California, involving another female former-business-executive who gained national attention through involvement in the McCain presidential campaign. That would be Carly Fiorina, who is running for the Senate nomination to oppose Barbara Boxer, but is struggling to catch up with an opponent, Tom Campbell, who really does have a moderate repuation, at least on abortion and same-sex marriage. And one of Fiorina’s main problems is a third candidate, Chuck DeVore, who’s running hard as the True Conservative in the race. Fiorina has recently wheeled out endorsements from Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum. All three major GOP Senate candidates have endorsed the Arizona immigration law. The outcome of this race, and where the competition positions the winner, could also have a fateful impact on the general election and on the future of California politics.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/farber/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Cheat Sheet for Climate Policy: A PPI Series

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

How to tell a good climate bill from a bad one?

This PPI series will guide you through the main issues that are likely to arise in the coming weeks as the Senate takes on climate change. Some of the issues that come up will be essential to a good climate bill. Others might get a lot of play but are in fact trivial for climate policy. The “cheat sheets” below will help you make sense of the climate bill that eventually emerges from Congress:

 

 

 

Elena Kagan Gets the Nod

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Even before the president’s announcement of Elena Kagan as his second nominee for the Supreme Court, progressives were beginning to rethink their position of skepticism (often assumed in the cause of encouraging a different nominee, typically Judge Diane Wood), and conservatives were beginning to gird up their loins for a confirmation fight.

There will be some progressives (probably Glenn Greenwald, but perhaps others) who may never reconcile themselves to support for a Justice with Kagan’s record as Solicitor General on civil liberties issues related to executive power and treatment of terrorism suspects.

But as SCOTUSblog’s Tom Goldstein suggested at The New Republic this weekend, the confirmation debate in the Senate is very likely to fall into familiar partisan/ideological patterns, with the final vote representing a mirror image of the Alito confirmation.

One major argument for her nomination all along has been her recent confirmation as solicitor general with significant Republican support. But some GOP senators will quickly argue that a different standard altogether will be used for a lifetime appointment to the High Court, and find reasons to vote against her (one senator, Arlen Specter, is in a particularly embarrassing situation, having voted against Kagan for solicitor general back when he was struggling to placate conservatives; he must now support her for the Court in the midst of a tough Democratic primary battle).

A summary of immediate conservative reaction to Kagan’s nomination by CBS’ Jan Crawford indicates that her enforcement of Harvard Law School’s ban on military recruitment on campus on grounds that DADT violated the university’s non-discrimination policies will be the lightning rod for the campaign against her. That makes sense, because the issue simultaneously strikes chords with cultural conservatives spoiling for a Court fight, and with conservative “populists” generally who will depict Kagan as an New York/Ivy League elitist out of touch with mainstream patriotical values.

But as I’ve argued earlier, the real question is whether the newly radicalized conservative/Tea Party faction of the GOP will insist on making the confirmation fight a showcase for their own distinctive views on the Constitution, which would make any Obama nominee, and most Republican nominees, categorically unacceptable. Kagan’s notoriously short public record of pronouncements on constitutional issues may, in fact, feed conspiracy theories that she represents a carefully planned leftist plot to move the Court in a totalitarian direction.

So even as Republicans search (almost certainly in vain, given the scrutiny she’s already received as a likely Court nominee) for some smoking gun in Kagan’s background, keep an eye on the tone of conservative rhetoric about this nomination. If it gets as shrill as I suspect it will, then progressives need to be prepared for a counter-offensive that exposes the radicalism of the increasingly dominant faction of the GOP.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

The Brits Un-Decide

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It wasn’t a big shock, but still, citizens of the United Kingdom woke up today to a very unsettled political situation, having rebuffed Labour and the Liberal Democrats in yesterday’s election, but without giving the Tories the majority necessary to immediately govern.

With votes still out from two seats, the Conservatives have 305 seats, Labour has 258, the Lib Dems 57, and other parties 28. The popular vote split 36 percent Tory, 29 percent Labour, and 23 percent Lib Dem. The major surprise was that the “Cleggmania” that seemed to grip the electorate during the campaign did not translate into a much better showing for the Lib Dems, who actually lost seats. But they certainly retained some influence as the party holding the balance of power, and today Nick Clegg is entertaining semi-public overtures from both the big parties to form a coalition government, while hoping to secure some sort of agreement to move the electoral system away from the first-past-the-post method that has so long frustrated the Lib Dems (most notably yesterday).

The most likely outcome is a minority Tory government under David Cameron with a short-term mandate to deal with the country’s immediate economic and financial problems and then hold another election, possibly even this year. Given the brevity of British campaigns, that’s not quite the nightmare scenario it sounds like to American ears.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Party of One

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

When you read as much stuff on politics as I do, there’s an odd sort of exultation when you spot something so very poorly reasoned that you can spend many pleasurable hours tearing it apart. It helps when the author of such a “pinata” (i.e., it can be hit from just about any direction) is arrogantly or angrily wrong, stamping his or her feet at the very necessity of having to explain obvious truths that are anything but obvious or true. That’s why, on doctor’s orders, I only allow myself to read Peggy Noonan’s columns, so predictably full of rich manure, now and then.

Today the famous pollster and sometimes-Democratic, sometimes-strategist, Mark Penn, has published an op-ed in the Washington Post that is Noonan-esque in its strongly held folly. You can read the whole thing, but basically, Penn is saying that the vast uptick in independent voter sentiment in this country is creating a good environment for a centrist third party that’s socially liberal and economically conservative, and Penn points to the rise of the UK’s Liberal Democrats as an example of what could happen here.

As Jon Chait notes in his own demolition of Penn’s column, the first contention is demonstrably wrong, though it appears it will take wooden stakes to kill it:

In fact, pollsters and public opinion experts — a group that apparently excludes Penn — understand that independent self-identification largely reflects a desire not to be seen as a closed-minded, automatic vote. It does not, however, reflect actual voting independence. Most self-identified independents are at least as partisan in their voting behavior as self-identified Democrats or Republicans. It’s largely a class phenomenon, with wealthier and more educated voters being more likely to call themselves independent, but not more likely to go astray in the voting both. The rise of independent self-identification has little to do with voters moving toward the center or the parties moving toward the extremes. Plenty of those self-identified Democrats in the 1950s voted for Ike.

In other words, actual as opposed to professed independent political behavior — i.e., ticket-splitting — has regularly declined now for decades, as has the percentage of the electorate made up of “true” independents. So there is no ripe uncaptured constituency out there, and to the extent that it even exists, it’s ideologically polyglot, not a “centrist” coalition ready for the taking. Many self-professed “independents,” as we’ve seen once again in the Tea Party Movement and in elements of the Left disgruntled with Obama and before him with Bill Clinton, are more ideological than self-professed partisans. Maybe they’ll vote, and maybe they won’t, but they are not combinable in some sort of third-party impulse.

More importantly, as Penn does acknowledge, there are powerful institutional barriers to the rise of third parties. But in noting the failure of the last two major efforts (John Anderson’s in 1980, and Ross Perot’s in 1992 and 1996), Penn simply says they failed because neither leader was “dynamic” enough. Perhaps, as some observers will undoubtedly conclude, Penn’s column is really a public valentine to some very rich person (e.g., Michael Bloomberg) who might look in the mirror and see the leader “dynamic” enough to succeed where so many others, including reasonably dynamic people like Teddy Roosevelt, have failed. But in any event, Penn’s case for the viability of a third party totally depends on his analysis of the “centrist” and “independent” electorate, which is bogus to begin with.

Perhaps sensing the weakness of his case, Penn then hauls in the Liberal Democrats in an effort to divine some sort of transatlantic movement. You wouldn’t know if from his account, but far from being a “new” phenomenon, the LibDems represent a centuries-old political tradition (technically, the party represents a merger of the ancient Liberals with the Social Democrats, a splinter party that left Labour for many of the same reasons that Tony Blair and his associates found for reforming it a few years later). And it’s not exactly easy to match the Lib Dems to Penn’s template of “socially liberal and fiscally conservative” voters. Aside from “change,” they are for tax increases to reduce public debt, legalized same-sex marriages, major reductions in defense spending, liberalized immigration laws and more aggressive participation in Europe. Their opposition to British entry in the Iraq War is probably the recent position with which they were most identified. Does this agenda sound “nonpartisan centrist” in any context that is transferable to America, or to Penn’s own agenda? Or more like the left wing of the Democratic Party, which Penn despises?

Moreover, “Cleggmania” aside, it’s very unlikely that the LibDems will make gains in their parliamentary representation that are in any way comparable to the share of the popular vote they receive today. And that’s in a country where the barriers to third parties are considerably lower than in the U.S.

I am not, as it happens, among the vast ranks of Penn-haters in the progressive blogosphere. I gave his last book one of its more favorable reviews. But the reality is that Mark Penn is largely frozen out of today’s Democratic Party elites thanks to years of intra-party combat and particularly his abrasive role in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Yes, he’s very wealthy and still has the juice, it appears, to command the op-ed pages of the Washington Post when he feels like it. The third party he describes as just over the horizon, however, is pretty much a party of one.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

The CW Delivers

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Results from yesterday’s primaries in Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio showed that on occasion the conventional wisdom is right.

Dan Coats did indeed win a Senate nomination in Indiana with an unimpressive (39 percent) percentage because the hard-core conservative vote was divided between Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) favorite, Marlin Stutzman (who finished second), and paleoconservative John Hostettler.

Lee Fisher did indeed parlay superior money, name recognition and endorsements into a fairly comfortable (56/44) win over Jennifer Brunner in Ohio’s Democratic Senate primary.

And in the North Carolina Democratic Senate primary, Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham are indeed headed for a runoff on June 22, with Marshall leading the first round a few percentage points short of the 40 percent threshold for outright victory. As expected, Ken Lewis ran third, though with a relatively strong 17 percent.

A PPP survey over the weekend showed Marshall leading a hypothetical runoff contest 43/32 with a quarter of the vote undecided. I guess we will see just how much money Cunningham’s friends in the DSCC are willing and able to raise to help him overcome that lead.

In House races, the closest thing to a real upset was in Indiana, where endangered incumbent Republican congressmen Mark Souder and Dan Burton narrowly survived. This disappointed journalists who had prepared “anti-incumbent mood” pieces in advance.

Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) won his primary pretty easily in North Carolina, and self-funded conservative Tim D’Annuzio will be in a runoff in his effort to take on Kissell.

Next up on the calendar is Utah’s Republican State Convention on Saturday, which will determine the fate of endangered Sen. Bob Bennett, who may have fatally displeased conservatives by co-sponsoring bipartisan health reform legislation. One of Bennett’s chief tormenters, Red State’s Erick Erickson, is already moving on to an effort to demonize the guy who appears to be running second ahead of Bennett in delegates, so it must not look good for the incumbent.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Here We Go(P) Again…Why do Republicans Instantly Politicize Terrorism?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Fifty-three hours — that is how long it took our law enforcement agencies to apprehend Faisal Shahzad, the main suspect in Saturday’s attempted Times Square bombing. The only thing faster has been Republican efforts to once again politicize a failed attack. Just like they did after the apprehension of the failed Christmas Day bomber, Republican leaders wasted no time yesterday trying to spin up mass hysteria by reminding us that we need to be living in a heightened state of perpetual fear, that Constitutional rights are meaningless, and that, oh yes, this is all Democrats’ fault.

Take Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). At a speech he gave yesterday at the Heritage Foundation, the House minority whip made it abundantly clear that he believes the entire country should be living in a permanent state of nationwide panic:

[Yet] with each close encounter, my fear is that the country goes on heightened alert only as long as the media tend to cover it. All too often that means hours and days rather than permanently.

Does he not realize there are hundreds of thousands of American service members at war right now and have been for going on nine years? Cantor went on to say:

Many of the same critics who groused about how we failed to connect the dots prior to 9-11 are today repeating the same pattern. As a result, America is at risk of slipping into the type of false sense of security which prevailed before that September morning.

Rudy Giuliani could not have said it better — noun, verb, 9-11.

Equally disappointing was the predictable line of attack dragged out by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Peter King (R-NY). The two pounced on the administration and the Department of Justice for reading Shahzad his Miranda rights after he was taken into custody — even though the suspect was interrogated (and apparently sang like a bird) before those rights were read. McCain said it would be a “serious mistake” to read the suspect his Miranda rights, while King was quoted as saying, “I know he’s an American citizen, but still.”

Republicans are blatantly suggesting that we ignore what our Constitution requires and our Supreme Court has mandated. They proudly embrace the argument that this suspected criminal — who is, whether you like it or not, an American citizen accused of committing crimes on American soil — has no protection under American laws. This is a very slippery slope.

Even Glenn Beck (yes, Glenn Beck!) disagrees with this, stating yesterday that this is no time to “shred the Constitution.”

This “strategy” of fear-mongering coupled with the casual application of due process and the rule of law is pathetic, predictable and dangerous. Republicans continue to insist that every act or attempted act of terrorism on American soil must be met with a militarized response straight from an episode of “24.” They ignore, at our peril, the long and successful track record our criminal justice system has in convicting these terrorists.

I fundamentally believe that there is only one way the terrorists “win,” and that is when we ourselves destroy the very ideals that are the foundation upon which our nation stands. Republicans seem to have no issue tearing down those pillars by themselves.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/republicanconference/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Charting the GOP Shift on Immigration

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Like observers from all over the partisan and ideological spectrum, I’ve been following the fallout from Arizona’s new immigration law (compounded by conflicting reports that the Obama administration and/or congressional Democratic leaders might be moving up federal immigration legislation in the queue) very closely, given the implications this issue has for both 2010 and (particularly) beyond.

But in his weekly column for National Journal over the weekend, Ron Brownstein has done us all the great service of carefully documenting how far and how fast Republican members of Congress have moved on this subject since the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2006:

Just four years ago, 62 U.S. senators, including 23 Republicans, voted for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. That bill was co-authored by Arizona Republican John McCain and Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy. President Bush strongly supported it. The Republican supporters also included such conservative senators as Sam Brownback of Kansas and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky….The measure almost certainly could have attracted the necessary 218 votes to pass the House. But it died when House GOP leaders refused to bring it to a vote because they concluded that it lacked majority support among House Republicans.

Since 2006, Republican support for comprehensive action has unraveled. In 2007, Senate negotiators tilted the bill further to the right on issues such as border enforcement and guest workers. And yet, amid a rebellion from grassroots conservatives against anything approaching “amnesty,” just 12 Senate Republicans supported the measure as it fell victim to a filibuster. By 2008, McCain declared in a GOP presidential debate that he would no longer support his own bill: Tougher border enforcement, he insisted, should precede discussion of any new pathway to citizenship.

So the GOP position was moving rightwards at warp speed even with a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, George W. Bush, still in the White House, being advised by Karl Rove, who viewed such legislation as critical to maintaining a competitive position for Republicans among Hispanic voters. But it’s shifted even more since then, even though levels of immigration have significantly dropped.

For months, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., have been negotiating an enforcement-legalization plan that largely tracks the 2006 model with some innovative updates, including a “biometric” Social Security card to certify legal status for employment. On balance, their proposal appears more conservative than the 2006 bill.Yet it has been stalled for weeks because Graham had demanded that a second Republican sign on as a co-sponsor before the legislation is released, and none stepped forward. Even Graham angrily backed away this week, after Senate Democratic leaders briefly suggested they would move immigration reform ahead of climate-change legislation he is also negotiating. Reform advocates suspect that Graham is withdrawing from the immigration effort partly to avoid embarrassing his close ally McCain, who faces a stiff primary challenge from conservative former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.

So it appears that Senate Republican support for comprehensive immigration reform (or to be exact, a more conservative version of it) has dropped from 23 to 1 and perhaps soon to nada.

Underneath this shift, notes Brownstein, is the self-replicating demographic isolation of the GOP, which, as Rove forsaw, could make the construction of a Republican majority much harder in the medium-to-long-range future:

[T]he hardening GOP position also shows how the party is being tugged toward nativism as its coalition grows more monochromatic: In a nation that is more than one-third minority, nearly 90 percent of McCain’s votes in the 2008 presidential election came from whites. That exclusionary posture could expose the GOP to long-term political danger. Although Hispanics are now one-sixth of the U.S. population, they constitute one-fifth of all 10-year-olds and one-fourth of 1-year-olds.

This may not matter to Republican candidates in tough primaries this year, who aren’t looking beyond their noses and figure they can’t afford to get outflanked by opponents who are “getting tough” on immigration. But they are in danger of taking an existing demographic problem facing the GOP and making it immeasurably worse, and more immediate.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/takomabibelot/ / CC BY 2.0