Suchergebnisse

A whole generation goes by, and nothing changes for
Bossier Parish apparently playing fast and loose with the law when it comes to
squeezing money from the citizenry.

The Bossier
Watch transmission of Apr. 16 contained a couple of minutes of commentary
and video of a sign reading "VOTE SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024 BOSSIER PARISH
LIBRARIES" planted near a roadway. The hosts recounted they had seen some
around, although the exact location of this one was unknown. On that date is
the spring municipal runoff elections in Louisiana, where a 7.43 mils property
tax renewal to fund Bossier Parish libraries reengaging in 2026 for 10 years is
the one item that will appear on ballots parish-wide.

What follows is a reprint of a post
I made at my Louisiana-centric blog site, Between the Lines, on Dec. 30, 2010
that reviewed events of four years previous. (Keep in mind nearly 18 years ago
that the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway stopped at the southern end of the
now-Brookshire Grocery Arena). It's amazing how little things (and people
involved) change:

As 2011 approaches and observing that Bossier
Parish seems to have no difficulty, even in trying economic times, in finding
money to service road construction, as well as reviewing the past year and
digesting the renewed enthusiasm that the people have acquired courtesy of
over-reaching national government to monitor the activities of government, it
makes me think back some years ago about an object lesson concerning how
government operates. The specific example is Bossier Parish's, and the apparent
whimsy of situation might amuse save for the unsettling consequences implied
had things turned out differently.

Perhaps somebody remembers in the days leading up
to the 2006 fall elections that a sign touting an affirmative vote for Bossier
Parish raising property taxes essentially threefold, at what was then the
southern end of the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway, was moved a short distance away
only a few days before that election. Blame me for the consternation.

I first noticed the sign on Sep. 21 and became
simultaneously curious and concerned. It didn't state who sponsored it, and it
was in a spot I thought might be part of the public right-of-way, and certainly
was on public property (Bossier City's). Obviously, it was an attempt to
encourage passage of the measure which should bring pause to anyone who
believes in fairness by government: Bossier City was permitting a pro-vote
sign, supporting a Bossier Parish measure which would enrich the parish coffers
by $2 million a year, to be placed on its property, regardless of whether its
citizens supported such a measure.

According to the Unified Development Code for both
the city and parish, this is permissible under certain circumstances. Article
9 Section 10 states: "Temporary signs containing no commercial message and
related to an election or other event or matter of public interest may be
erected in any zoning district of the city or parish but not within the public
right-of-way." Note, however, that the Code does not mention placement on
government property.

After a couple of phone calls I got hold of Parish
Engineer Joe "Butch" Ford, who said a private entity had put up the
sign (and a similar one elsewhere). At least no government was using taxpayer
dollars to try to influence its citizens voting behavior. Still, apparently it
was on city property and the right-of-way question he couldn't answer, so on I
called the Bossier City engineer to find out the answer to the latter.

He took time out of his busy day to relay to me
that the public right-of-way extended to the back side of the barricade
blocking the end of the pavement (about 25 feet from the roadway). However, the
sign was located on the front side of the barricade, meaning it was in the
public right-of-way and therefore illegally placed.

I then placed another call to the Metropolitan
Planning Commission (I had placed one the day before but, like the call to
Ford, had been close to the end of the workday and, unlike the one to him, was
not answered). The employee there said they would deal with the situation, once
I informed him of it. Since this was early Friday afternoon, I didn't know
whether anything would happen before the weekend.

Early the next Monday, now five days prior to the
election, I got a call from the Bossier MPC director Sam Marsiglia, who said it
was legal to have the sign there because "it's a public sign." He alleged that
a government had put it there, and that was legal. I informed him that the
parish engineer had said otherwise and tried to explain that wouldn't look very
good if a government was using taxpayer dollars to sway their votes so a
government wouldn't do that, but he was insistent and said I should call Parish
Administrator Bill Altimus about the matter.

I had duties to attend to so it was about 20
minutes later that I dialed Altimus. He cheerfully informed me the sign would
be moved. As soon as I hung up, Marsiglia called, saying it would be moved to
the Reeves Marine property (adjacent east of the barricades) and to check back
with him if it wasn't done. (It would have been out of the right-of-way simply
by moving it behind the barricades but would have remained on city property.)

This, I might add, is simply wonderfully
neighborly behavior by the city and parish and Reeves Marine. Silly me, I
thought whenever illegal campaign signs were discovered they either were
destroyed or confiscated to a location where their owners could liberate them.
Instead, not only were the interests behind the sign being allowed to move it,
within only minutes of being informed of that necessity Reeves Marine
graciously volunteered to host the sign. What a friendly place! Future
candidates for office, now you know, if you place a sign on Bossier City
property and/or illegally, it won't be destroyed or removed, they'll let you
move it, maybe even to Reeves Marine. (If you ask nicely, maybe they'll even
move it for you!)

(Note: in a subsequent communication, even Bossier
City elected officials seemed confused over the incident. At my request, city
councilman Scott Irwin wrote to Mayor Lo Walker, whose office's reply did not
even discuss the legal issue and did not address the propriety of an
electioneering sign on city property, adding "With your concurrence I will
consider this ITEM CLOSED." Maybe not; maybe this issue of propriety is
something that ought to be addressed by the city.)

Regardless of the sign's position (or of any
others; there were several other similar ones touting the bond issue around the
parish), the proposition narrowly failed. It took one concerned citizen to make
the system work properly regarding the sign. Sep. 30, 2006, it took a majority
of concerned citizens voting to make the Bossier Parish Police Jury see the
truth that it didn't need to raise taxes to make sure the parkway was extended
expeditiously and, even with deteriorated economic conditions, then to proceed
to fulfill the other projects that had argued could be completed only with the
increased taxation.

And confirmation of this came earlier this month,
when the extension to the Parkway opened (through where the sign originally had
been) without the extra tax dollars having gone into its construction. Lesson:
watch government very closely lest it take what it does not need nor deserve
from the people.

And now to 2024 … the sign displayed on Bossier
Watch seemed awfully close to the road, meaning it's in the right-of-way, and
the Bossier UDC hasn't changed since making that placement illegal. Thus, it would
be incumbent on either the parish or whatever municipality may have such signs to
remove these.

And where are they coming from? Campaign
finance disclosure law would mandate that any political committee spending
money on electioneering at this date close to the election would had to have
filed a report about the expenditure for signs. None has, meaning either some
PAC somewhere illegally hasn't reported this or no registered PAC has done it.
That leads to a loophole in the law (R.S. 18:1501.1): any person who spends in
opposition or support of a candidate or ballot item must report that – unless
the aggregate contributions and expenses involved don't exceed $500. It is possible
that, if there are few enough of these signs, that their cost didn't exceed
that figure, and that someone or a few people got together and did that.

So, the public never may know who is doing this, and
what their potential relationship is to Bossier Parish's government and libraries.
In fact, it may be quite close, given the wording of the sign which ambiguously
doesn't advocate for or against the ballot item. It merely exhorts the viewer
to vote on that day and slips in "BOSSIER PARISH LIBRARIES." By doing this, if
discovered government employees actually were involved, the parish could claim
it wasn't electioneering but merely informing the public there was an election
on Saturday, Apr. 27.

Of course, the signs' presentation implies something
critical about libraries will appear on the ballot and, further, people should vote
in whatever manner available to support libraries. After all, who is against libraries?

If anybody in Bossier Parish government knows
about this, they need to go public. At the very least, parish government must remove
any such signs on public rights-of-way; tolerance of this denotes acceptance
not only of illegal behavior but also endorsement of a political preference.
And state lawmakers would do well to clarify statute to make it expressly
illegal for any government to spend any dollars to electioneer, even if in a
manner that doesn't explicitly advocate for or against something on the ballot.
Because when it comes to gorging themselves on taxpayer dollars, government
will try any dodge available to keep other peoples' money rolling in.

Given the Russian occupation of Georgia and other threatening behavior in the region, people overwhelmingly perceive Russia to be an existential threat.
The post IRI Georgia Poll Shows Political Threat from Russia, Concerns with the Presence of Russian Citizens, High Political Polarization appeared first on International Republican Institute.

This is a draft oped. It didn't make it as events in Israel are now consuming attention. But sooner or later we need to elect a president and live with the results. I went light on the economics, but you can see the basic game theory of the analysis. It amplifies some comments I made on Goodfellows. **** If, as it appears, the election will come down to Trump vs. Biden, the US is headed for a constitutional crisis, and the social, and political chaos that implies. Like prisoners of the economists' dilemma, there seems no easy way out. Whichever wins, the others' partisans will pronounce the president to be fundamentally illegitimate. In turn, Illegitimacy justifies and emboldens scorched-earth tactics, more norm-busting and institution-destruction.If Biden wins, Trump supporters will see an official Washington, especially its justice system, enmeshed in presidential politics. They remember Hilary Clinton's laptop, the Russia collusion hoax, and endless investigations. Now they see sprawling indictments for process and paperwork crimes, that nobody else would be charged for.  They see a Washington-media-intelligence cabal censoring news, from censorship of Covid policy dissenters — who turned out to be largely right — to the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the last election. See the scathing Missouri V. Biden. And they see the Family Business. Sure, Biden, like so many in public office who somehow end up with millions in family wealth, likely has enough lawyers and shell companies to avoid provable illegality.  But illegality is not the issue. Trump supporters will see the stench of the swamp, secret email accounts, the reins of power covering up the embarrassing facts. If Trump wins, Democrats will go ballistic. Democrats have refined de-legitimization for decades. Trump's denialism was almost comical in its incompetent emulation. Recall Bush derangement syndrome, continuing claims that the 2000 election was  stolen or decided by a corrupt court; Stacey Abrams, the #resistance, #not my president. But it's all worse now. Though Democrats express themselves in legalisms, in the end they feel that Trump's actions after the last election amount to a nearly treasonous violation of his oath of office to defend the Constitution.(Before you start yelling your side's spin, take a breath. Yes, you see things differently, but how will they see things, no matter you loud you yell? How will they act? That's what matters.)Our next election is likely to be chaos, enhancing the voices claiming illegitimacy. The election will be close. There will surely be a nationwide legal battle. Every questionable vote, every smudged postmark, every local decision to stretch a ballot deadline, every change in procedures will end up in court. Losing Democrats will cry "racist voter suppression." Losing Republicans have gotten good at even more fanciful stolen election claims. If the election is decided by courts, heaven help us. The Democrat's efforts to de-legitimize the Supreme Court are already well under way. Media now routinely refer to every federal judge by the president that appointed him or her, not, say, by the school they went to or their most famous decisions. Large swaths of the population will tell themselves that the election was stolen. With No Labels and Kennedy in the fray, it is possible that the election will come down to many ballots in the electoral college. Having tried to de-legitimize Trump for losing the popular vote in 2016, will democrats accept an electoral college result if the popular vote is 40-30-30? Will Republicans? It is possible that the electoral college fails, and the Presidency is decided by the House of Representatives, itself chaotic and under a razor-thin majority. Our Constitution brilliantly prescribes fail-safe procedures to produce a decision. But it only works only if people accept that decision. With so many already opining that the electoral college is an illegitimate anachronism, and with the House in such chaos and low esteem, will losers calmly accept the results of the Constitutional mechanism?Widely believed, and more widely spun illegitimacy justifies horrendous behavior. You can tell the Jan 6 rioters were play-acting by how unserious they were. People who really believe an election was stolen bring tanks. Widespread violent protests are easy to foresee. Widely perceived illegitimacy leads to constitutional crisis and chaos. People will simply disregard presidential actions, action by his appointees, and court orders. They will violently resist attempts to enforce government actions. How do we avoid this mess? There is a lot of hope that one or the other party will blink, and choose a vaguely sensible candidate who will then sweep the general election. But candidates are chosen by primaries, a "democratic" reform we may wish to rethink. (Old men in smoke filled rooms, desiring to win a general election, would never have picked these two.) It's not so easy. And even a reasonable candidate will only postpone the deeper question: Why is attacking the legitimacy of elections, institutions, and the courts gaining in strength? It is a scorched earth policy — ruin the institution to gain temporary advantage. The answer seems clear: The rewards of winning and the costs of losing are now too great. Narrowly, each of Trump and Biden could well end up in jail if he loses, a situation familiar in, say, Pakistan, but so far undreamt of in the US. Avoiding that is worth a lot of scorched earth. More broadly, winning an election now confers the power to rule by executive order. It confers power over administrative fiat, the power to shower billions on supporters, control of the regulatory machine that lines up corporate support, the power to censor the internet, and the power to hound your opponents and their supporters through the intelligence and judicial system. Losing graciously is a less and less viable option. Democracy isn't so much about who wins elections. Democracy requires the ability to lose elections, admit the legitimacy of the loss, but live on to regroup and win another day. Only when the power of the winners to impose immense changes with narrow majorities is constrained can losers do that.

In an interview, Marc Saad pushes back against a Diwan article that was critical of the party's political behavior.

How are young people reshaping the consumer marketplace and what should this tell us about the political marketplace? Understanding a few key elements of their marketplace behavior may help us understand something about their political behavior as well. First, younger Americans live in a world of fragmented communications This year saw the folding of not…

Introduction

Our new policy brief reports some initial results from a household survey of SF Bay residents regarding their perceptions of sea-level rise and floodrisks, as it relates to various types of political behavior such as voting for Measure AA. 

Issue

 Institut
d'Estudis Nord-americans  Blog 

Josep
M. Colomer: "The current political polarization of the United States originates
in its institutional system."

General newsPhotography: Alicia Colomer



By Marc Amat

On January 6, 2021, a mob of Donald
Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol to get Vice President Mike
Pence and Congress to reject President-elect Joe Biden. This shocking event was
the result of a crescendo of political hostility that, for decades, had eroded
the institutional system of the United States. This is how prestigious
political scientist and economist Josep M. Colomer reads the situation in his
latest book La polarización política en Estados Unidos (Debate,
2023). In its pages, Colomer points out the institutional design of this North
American country – with the separation of powers between Congress and the
Presidency and only two parties – as being responsible for the constant
emergence of bitter political and territorial rivalries.

With a comprehensive tone and rhythmic
pace, Colomer weaves a lucid essay on how the deterioration of the
effectiveness of government can end up generating growing tensions in the
political scene. To do so, he draws on his long academic and professional
career. Currently, he is a professor of political science at Georgetown
University, in Washington D.C., and an associate researcher at the l'Institut
de Ciències Polítiques i Socials in Barcelona. How should we interpret the
assault on the Capitol? What symptoms of dysfunction exist in the U.S.
institutional system? What changes could be made to improve it? To analyze
these issues, this month we interview Josep M. Colomer.

On January 6, 2021, images of the assault on the United
States Capitol swept the world. How do you explain that occurrence?

It's been repeated many times in the
media that what we experienced was an unprecedented situation. However,
throughout history, the U.S. has faced several episodes of institutional
violence. If we look beyond the recent past, between 1830 and 1860 there was a
great escalation of tension and violence, even among the congressmen
themselves. With the abolition of slavery as a core issue, this dynamic led to
a bloody civil war, with 750,000 people dead, a figure that represented 2.5% of
the population of the United States at the time. Now, for almost three decades,
we've been experiencing another continuous increase in tension in American
domestic politics. This time it will not lead to a civil war, but it is
paralyzing politics. There are problems in approving budgets; in the recent
past there have been four impeachments, when there had only been one in the
19th century; it's extremely difficult to move forward with legislature…

Can we understand Donald Trump's rhetoric and the assault
on the Capitol as a culmination of this escalation?

It is a consequence. We have to look
for the beginning of the tensions in the mid-1990s. In 1994, the Republicans
won a majority in Congress after many years without it. From day one, they
acted to create a climate of political hostility against President Clinton.
They tried to overrule him, they dug up scandals… Today, this behavior still
continues: Republicans adopt a position of boycott towards institutions they do
not control.

And this causes the institutional system to falter.

It's not that the Republicans are
worse or more combative people: the problem lies in the country's own
institutional design, which creates incentives for this to happen. That's my
thesis.

So this is a problem with a long past. In fact, it originates
in the constitution itself.

In the 18th century, when the United
States approved its Magna Carta, they were undertaking an experiment: to
establish a republic in a large country. This did not exist anywhere, and in a
way, it could be said that the U.S. has had to pay for the novelty of this
undertaking. They drew up a constitution very much intended to defend
themselves against the British, French and Spanish armies, which still had
colonies at their borders. Therefore, foreign policy was the core element. With
the creation of the United States, the newly independent states that were part
of it wanted to have a firmer government. Throughout the centuries, foreign
policy has remained the axis of the American system. We saw this, for example,
during the Second World War or the Cold War. Now, with Russia and China there
is some nostalgia to relive times like the Cold War, though the present
situation is not comparable. When there is a clear and threatening enemy,
foreign policy takes over and the whole country pulls together to face the
threat. On the other hand, when the enemy is more abstract, a lot of internal
issues surface that have never been resolved.

Such as?

There are many of them. Obama's health
care program, which didn't quite work; issues related to education; border
control and the wave of immigrants who want to enter the country; the use of
firearms; abortion; legislation on transgender people; the constant racial
tensions… These are internal issues that have never been addressed. With the American
institutional system, resolving these conflicts through two institutions ruled
by two different parties blocking each other is very complicated. The parties
being unable to solve problems has led to the appearance of social movements
such as Me Too or Black Lives Matter, but also the Tea Party or the
anti-vaccine movement.



Has political polarization translated into growing social
polarization?

In some previous conflicts, such as
the years of the Cold War, the government tried to create a certain climate of
fear among the population. They were encouraged to build atomic shelters in
their homes, there were drills in schools… Most people, however, moved away
from the hysteria and led a normal life. In fact, in the 1950s, society
progressed a lot, with the massification of automobiles, the entry of television
and appliances into the household, Coca-Cola, Hollywood… Similarly, the current
polarization is much stronger politically than socially. In fact, the
polarization is inflammatory and a spectacle, but the vast majority of people
are not polarized. Only 2% of voters go to Donald Trump's rallies, for example.
He demonizes immigrants, but there is no news of civil conflict with
immigrants.

In your book, you often remind us that America is huge.

One of the things I least expected to
find in the country when I went to live there was the great territorial
fragmentation. This is not the United States of America: it is the Disunited
States of America. I can identify at least six different countries within its
borders, such as the East Coast, the Midwest, Texas, California, the South…
There are territories with great differences and certain sentiments towards
others, but they have built the nation based on sharing a flag, a currency and
a language.



Has the size of the country also conditioned the
effectiveness of the institutional system?

When they made the Constitution, the delegates were very
inspired by Montesquieu. In fact, the French thinker is the most cited author
in the deliberations of the Americans. The author could not speak English, but
he had visited England to analyze its political system and be able to describe
it in a chapter of the book The Spirit of the Laws (1748). In
the United States, they took this as a reference. The problem was that, in
reality, the British system that the intellectual described had been out of
date for over a century. The person who instructed him during the visit was a
monarchist who had been expelled years ago from the House of Lords for
conspiring to restore the absolute monarchy, had gone into exile in France and
spoke French. He explained Britain's medieval monarchy to Montesquieu,
Montesquieu reproduced it in his book and in Philadelphia, the delegates took
inspiration from it, replacing the king with an executive president with many
powers. The result was the creation of a republic in a huge country. It was
unprecedented. The model is still unique in the world, the Americans themselves
did not even implement it in other countries, such as Germany or Japan, after
the Second World War.

What measures do you think should be incorporated into the
system to combat the malfunction you describe?

I dedicate the last chapter of the
book to this. I make suggestions for institutional reforms, but I don't propose
a new constitution. I try to identify real examples that are already moving in
the right direction, such as the reform of the electoral system that already
works at the local and state levels in some states, with elections with a
second round. Cooperation should increase between Congress and the president.
Currently, there are already some department secretaries who periodically visit
Congress to report back. Cooperation between Washington and the states still
has much room for improvement. That role should be played by the Senate, but
it's too partisan. There is a way to go, and the Constitution would not need to
be changed much to move towards a more parliamentary system. But confrontational
partisanship makes institutional reforms very difficult.

Personal website: www.josepcolomer.com




La polarización política en Estados Unidos

Orígenes
y actualidad de un conflicto permanente

Josep
M. Colomer

Saber más

Josep M.
ColomerComing soon in English:CLICK - Taylor & Francis - Routledge

 

Every year, hundreds of publications, dissertations, and scientific conference papers are written using data from the American National Election Studies (ANES). The ANES has had a profound impact on the study of American political attitudes and behavior and the work of generations of scholars who have used this national resource. In recognition of the 75th […]
The post The ANES at 75: The project's continuing impact on scholars of American politics first appeared on Center for Political Studies (CPS) Blog.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the American National Election Studies– the definitive study of American political attitudes and behavior. The ANES has run national surveys of citizens before and after every presidential election since 1948, providing a rigorous, non-partisan basis for understanding contemporary issues as well as change over time. According to the […]
The post Reflections on the American National Election Studies: An Interview with Nicholas Valentino first appeared on Center for Political Studies (CPS) Blog.

The American National Election Studies (ANES) is the definitive study of American political attitudes and behavior. The project has surveyed American citizens before and after every presidential election since 1948. With a time series of core questions asked continuously across many elections, these surveys provide a window onto the sweep and the pivot points of historic change in American public opinion. In recent studies, new questions comprise about 30 percent of each survey, allowing users to understand contemporary issues that might be driving American political dynamics. This visual history of the ANES was written on the occasion of its 75th anniversary.
The post A Visual History of the American National Election Studies first appeared on Center for Political Studies (CPS) Blog.

You've probably seen a lot of surveys recently about how many Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen, or that they support the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill, or that they don't trust the vaccine. Do these responses predict their behavior in the real world? Or are they just partisan cheerleading?

Northwestern Political Scientist Mary McGrath looks into this question in her paper "Economic Behavior and The Partisan Perceptual Screen." By combing through data about survey responses and spending patterns before and after presidential elections, she investigates whether partisans truly believe it when they say the economy is getting better when one of their own occupies the White House. If partisans do believe what they say, shouldn't their financial decisions change accordingly? And if these decisions don't change, what does that mean for how we should think about survey responses in general?

Paper Link: https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.northwestern.edu/dist/b/3288/files/2019/10/2017-McGrath-Partisan-Screen.pdf

NOTE: I re-titled the blog after watching Senator Daines' recent comments on impeachment on the Senate floor. The ignorance extends to him as well, apparently.

Senator Lamar Alexander's explanation for who should decide what to do about the president's actions in Ukraine is absurd,  and represents fundamental ignorance about the Founders.

In an interview with Chuck Todd, Senator Alexander suggests that while he found the actions by President Trump concerning the withholding of aid to Ukraine inappropriate, the were not impeachable and—furthermore—that whether they merit removal is a judgment best left to the people. Here the link to the clip: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/lamar-alexander-says-senate-should-not-substitute-its-judgment-voters-n1128286





Let's address the final point first: the people, and not the Senate, should decide in the forthcoming election whether the Ukraine allegations merit removal. Hogwash. 



First, the Founders were not democrats (small d) but republicans (small r). All kinds of checks and balances are put in place to insulate government institutions from the voice of the people because the Founders feared mob rule—particularly mob rule swayed by a demagogue. The Founders created the Electoral College, with voters casting votes for electors who—according to the scheme laid out in the Constitution—were supposed to exercise independent judgment when selecting the president. Furthermore, the founders expected (wrongly, it turns out) that it would be challenging for any candidate to achieve a majority of votes in the electoral college; thus, the House of Representatives would often decide who would serve as president. All of these factors point quite clearly to the notion that will of the people is really to be refined by several institutional checks and filters.



So, to Alexander's point: No. It's up to the Senators to decide whether the act is impeachable or not. Not the people in elections. That represents a profound ignorance of the Constitution and the situation facing the Founders.



To the second point about to what constitutes a high crime and misdemeanor, it is absolutely clear that the Founders were petrified about foreign influence in elections and the conduct of national affairs. This is why the citizenship and residency requirements exist for the presidency: To prevent a European puppet from taking the throne. I have to assume at some point Senator Alexander read President Washington's Farewell address, which cautions the nation about entangling foreign alliances. Seeking foreign involvement in an election is precisely what President Trump did (and Alexander does not contest this point), which is precisely what the Founders thought was dangerous. And, to be plain, it is exactly the Senate that should decide these issues because they are supposed to be removed from the passions of the people given their longer terms and (at least at the Founding) their indirect election. I read the Federalist papers in college. Did they?



Then, there's the stubborn fact (as John Adams would write) that the president broke the law: His withholding the aid in the first place was an illegal impounding (I cover this in my presidency and Congress class; Congress appropriates, and the Supreme Court has upheld this repeatedly) and he was accepting aid to assist in his reelection (breaking those silly campaign finance laws put into place after massive abuses by the Nixon campaign forces that had little to do with Watergate).



Finally, the issue of removal from office and the ability to run for president in the future. Yes, a grave action indeed—but again, given the fear of Kings and demagogues, again, this is precisely why the Senate must have this ability. The danger is a president who is supported by the majority of the people—that pesky majority tyranny that Madison warned against—who must be removed from the ballot because they can manipulate the popular will to retain office and work their will to oppress the minority. The Senate is a check on this! As Hamilton himself wrote (and Congressman Schiff quoted during the Senate trial):





When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'



Here's the link:https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-12-02-0184-0002





On a personal note, I worked as a field staffer for Senator Alexander fresh out of college more than twenty years ago—on his presidential campaign. To say that I am disappointed in his position and behavior is a gross understatement. America deserved better from him—and the rest of the Republican caucus in the U.S. Senate. If you are upset, you know what to do. Vote like your life depends on it--because it does.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren rose Tuesday night to
register her objections to Senator Jeff Sessions' nomination to the Attorney
Generalship. In the course of reading a letter from the late Coretta Scott King
(widow of Martin Luther King) about her objection to his appointment in 1986 to
the federal bench, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued an objection saying
that Senator Warren had violated Rule 19. That rule states, in part:




"No
Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to
another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or
unbecoming a Senator."





Senator Daines ruled Senator Warren out of order, telling her
to take her seat. Warren challenged that ruling, but Senator Daines was
sustained on 49-43 party-line vote. Senator Warren was then effectively barred
from the remainder of the debate.


Senator Daines ruling Senator Warren out of order



The video of the incident quickly spread across social
media. Democrats, liberals, and regular women were furious at a white, male senator
suppressing the free speech of a female colleague. Even more galling, they
indicated, was that Warren's male, Democratic colleagues were later allowed to
read King's letter from the floor without interruption, let alone official
reprimand.



As a professor of political science, I appreciate Senator
Daines' commitment to civil discourse. It is something that I try to model for
my students at Montana State, and it's a value which has evaporated during
these hyper-polarized times. I agree that Senator Daines' interpretation of Rule
19 falls within the letter of the rule. Senator Warren did charge Senator
Sessions with conduct unbecoming of a Senator, even if Senator Warren was
quoting someone else.



Daines was right. According to the letter of Rule 19, that
is.



But it's the spirit of the rule—and the intention behind it—that
matters. And in that respect, Senator Daines and Senate Republicans erred
greatly in ordering the honorable member from Massachusetts to take her seat.



Consider first why something like rule 19 exists: To provide
a "safe space" for the difficult and often contentious disagreements about
policy and the direction of our nation. Political debates should confine
themselves to substantive matters without devolving into attacks on personal
character. As we know from the literature on international relations, repeated
interactions in negotiations encourages cooperation and long-term thinking. By
encouraging elevated discussions whilst removing name-calling, the Senate
pushes its members to engage in a battle of ideas and not personalities (Side
note: Refusing to engage in personalities was one of President Eisenhower's
keys to successful leadership). At the same time, this encourages the
development of relationships that go beyond the disagreements of the moment—relationships
essential to the institution functioning well and the production of good policy.
In this case, Rule 19 is a good thing to have handy for officers presiding over
debate.



While Rule 19
encourages elevated discourse, its use on Tuesday evening conflicted with the
constitutional responsibility of the Senate; that is, to provide its advice and
consent in the nomination process.



It would seem that a rule of the chamber
concerning decorum should be subordinate to the pursuit of an important
constitutional check on the executive branch.


When Senator Sessions became President Trump's nominee to
head the Justice Department, he was no longer just a Senator. He had become a potential member of the executive
branch and therefore subject to the advice and consent process. It would seem,
then, that a full consideration of the previous actions and record of that
nominee—including the judgment of those who are in a good position to assess
that record—is fair game for consideration during the process of advice and
consent. Even if those allegations include remarks that might be perceived as
impugning the character of a sitting U.S. Senator.



Beyond this technical point, however, it's hard to buy that
Senator Warren's reading of the King letter impugned the character of Senator
Sessions. First, the letter was an account of his behavior not as a U.S.
Senator but in his position as a U.S. Attorney. And, perhaps more directly, the
views expressed by Mrs. King assessed the actions of an officer of the
executive branch—the same branch Sessions would serve as head of the Justice
Department.



Even if we accept the notion that Senator Warren's reading
of the letter was out of line under a strict application of Rule 19, consider if
that same letter were written about Betsy DeVos. Senator Warren could have
freely read the letter without fear of rebuke. DeVos was not a sitting senator
at the time of her confirmation, therefore, Rule 19 simply does not apply.



In 1989, the former U.S. Senator John Tower's nomination to
lead the Department of Defense was rejected after senators openly discussed
documented allegations of womanizing and alcohol abuse. Although Tower was not
an active member of the Senate at the time of his nomination by President
George H.W. Bush, the Senate did not shy away from this important and difficult
discussion about a former colleague. It defies reason, therefore, that the
Senate chose to silence one of its members rather than have a complete and full
discussion of Sessions' qualifications to serve as Attorney General—simply
because he is an active U.S. Senator. 
This is, quite simply, a dereliction of its constitutional duty.



At the end of the day, it is not a surprise that Senator
Daines upheld McConnell's objection and the Republican majority supported his
ruling. As University of Maryland Professor Frances Lee documents, senators
increasingly vote along party lines not just on issues of policy and ideology,
but on routine procedural matters. Why? Because the parties are more interested
in building a mentality of teamsmanship at the expense of cross-partisan
collegiality and cooperation.


While that
teamsmanship might yield electoral benefits in the short-term, it comes at
great expense to Madison's carefully constructed system of checks and balances.


The rise of teamsmanship along with the weaponization of congressional oversight (which Matt Dull and I have documented a few articles), leaves Congress vulnerable to the continued expansion of the executive branch accruing more and more power.  Without congressional ambition vigorously countering executive ambition, we
risk the rise of a majority tyranny running roughshod over our individual
liberties.

Summer is my favorite time of year in the Gallatin valley, perhaps because it is so fleeting (which makes it ever-so precious). I hike, bike, and run about town in the wonderful sunlight, surrounded by blue skies and hot, dry heat.  Of course, this weekend, my beloved Bozeman has been choked with smoke from a wildfire out in Three Forks. One of the costs of living in Montana, and the West more generally, is the fire season which is so essential to life and renewal here. Of course, that fire season has been getting worse and longer, which makes it harder on me when I exercise outside due to my asthma, a condition I've learned to manage throughout my life.


Over the weekend, I had time to reflect on forest fires and how sound public policy might help bring them under some control. I revisited Senator Daines' recent op-ed
in the Billings Gazette
discussing wildfire and forest reform, which I read with interest. First, Daines hits the nail on the head concerning a critical
challenge facing the US Forest Service and other federal agencies responsible
for managing healthy forests: money. The US Forest Service's budget is burdened
with ever-increasing fire-fighting costs, which drain its ability to spend on
other important activities such as trail, campground, and facility maintenance.
Daines' solution to this problem is his Wildfire Disaster Funding Act "which
ensures large forest fires are treated and funded as the true natural disasters
they are, similar to hurricanes or tornadoes." I hope the bill—which Daines is
co-sponsoring along with Senator Tester—finds a solid reception among critical
allies of both parties, particularly those senators representing East Coast
states hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. (Montanans also should hope that they don't
hold then-Congressman Steve Daines' very first roll calls against him, given
that he voted against a
bill funding Sandy relief efforts.)

But what troubled me profoundly was the blame the senator placed
for the "deteriorating conditions" that are responsible for increased wildfire
risk. Senator Daines notes that we are at risk due to beetle kill in our
forests "being left untreated"—a risk that he says is compounded by "years of
inadequate forest management practices, spurred by obstructionist litigation
from fringe groups and excessive regulations."

Really? Well, I guess it's time for me to whip out some
"fancy" social science and give a little lesson in the funnel of causality. This
is a theory developed by Campbell et al in their path-breaking work The American Voter, published in 1960.
Essentially, Campbell et al argue that while the proximate decision influencing
how someone votes is a person's issue position, those issue positions are the
product of a person's party identification, which itself (often?) is a function
of how the person was socialized into politics by his or her parents.

In other words, there's a causal chain one needs to follow
to understand the best and most powerful predictor of voting behavior, and that
predictor is partisan identification—a bundle of attitudes and beliefs that is
not immediately proximate to the voting decision. Issue positions don't really
matter—it's the partisanship behind those positions that do.

Now let's apply the funnel of causality to Daines' argument
on wildfires: According to his op-ed piece, the proximate causes for the risk
we face, which are the tired trope of "government mismanagement" and "fringe
environmentalists," are the real problem Montanans face and the ones that
require attention and redress.

But one must ask: Why is there more beetle kill in the first
place? And why has the size
of wildfires been on the rise in the United States, Canada, and
globally—both as the charts below indicate and a recent
study demonstrated? Oh, right: Because the warmer winters associated with global
warming mean fewer Pine Bark beetles are dying off, enabling them to leave behind
more dead trees strewn about waiting to burn up. All of this is well-documented
Andrew Nikiforuk's Empire of the Beetle. And, again, a recent study demonstrates that increasing temperatures lead to more wildfire
activity globally.



Total Hectares Burned by Wildfires in Canada, 1970-2013. Source: Canadian National Forestry Database




Total Acres Burned in the US (in millions of Acres), 1960-2014. Source: CRS Report, "Federal Funding for Wildfire Control and Management," July 5, 2011 and National Interagency Fire Center.



Daines is giving far too much credit to proximate
causes: lawsuits and mismanagement. The root problem
is global warming. We need to address that if we really want to get a handle on
our wildfire risk. And to address that we, as global citizens, need to come to
grips with our role in global warming via our insatiable appetite for carbon
emissions.

Unfortunately, Senator Daines voted against an amendment
earlier this year during the Keystone XL debate acknowledging the human role in
climate change and, when running for the House, indicated in an interview a few years ago that
the "jury
is still out" on the role of CO-2 emissions in our ever-warming world.


The jury is not out. Ninety-seven
percent of studies unambiguously endorse the notion that rising carbon
dioxide levels, the result of human activity, are an important and substantial
contributor to global warming. Check out the information yourself at NASA.
 

How many of you, when running a business or a household,
place your bets on the 3 percent versus the 97 percent? If Senator Daines did
this during his business career, I assure you, his career would have been much
shorter and far less successful than it was. If I said it is only a "theory" that how people vote is a product largely of their partisanship, I'd be drummed out of the profession with good cause. The problem is that it is very hard for people to accept information that conflicts with their priors. Humans don't like cognitive dissonance, so instead, we reject information when it doesn't fit our beliefs. Worse, we search for justifications to confirm why that information is wrong and why what we believe is right. It is hard to overcome cognitive dissonance, but we--and those whom we elect to serve us--must.


The senator is a bright, articulate public servant. He is a
graduate of Montana State, and has a degree in engineering. One would think
that he would, as a man of science, make public policy on science and not
advanced smoke-and-mirrors arguments about a very real threat our forests face
from wildfire. How we fund fire fighting absolutely must change: Daines is
right on that. But if we are really going to make our forests safer today and
for future generations, we need to stop blaming red herrings and, instead, face
the facts staring us straight in the face with regards to climate change.

Syria has returned to the stage of regional diplomacy with the readmission of Damascus to the Arab League after a 12-year suspension. The country's comeback is the outcome of regional diplomatic efforts that started in 2018 but reached their climax after the devastating earthquake in Syria and Turkey in February. Normalization with Syria comes without any accountability for the crimes the Syrian regime has committed against its own people nor a change in behavior that would signal the end of the suffering of Syrians. We argue that despite international and regional factors setting the stage, domestic factors are Arab states' main incentives for normalization.
Author information





Mustafa Karahamad



Mustafa Karahamad ist Doktorand im Programmbereich "Transnationale Politik" und Mitglied der Forschungsgruppe "Terrorismus" an der HSFK. Er forscht zu muslimischen religiösen Institutionen und der Legitimierung politischer Gewalt im Nahen Osten. // Mustafa Karahamad is a doctoral researcher in PRIF's research department "Transnational Politics" and member of the research group "Terrorism". His research interests are Muslim religious institutions and legitimization of political violence in the Middle East.

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Der Beitrag Arab States' Incentives Towards (not) Normalizing Relations with Syria – Islamists and Drug Trafficking? erschien zuerst auf PRIF BLOG.