Category Archives: Politics: US

For some reason, I've been thinking a lot about this story I noted yesterday that the Bush Administration is removing U.S. delegates from the Inter-American Telephone Commission (IATC) because they gave money to John Kerry in last year's election.

Let's presume that the only way the Bush administration figured out who the Kerry donors were is by looking at the public records of the Federal Election Commission. And let's recall that the Bush administration has systematically worked to remove unions and other job protections from the federal civil service. Are we moving to a system in which administrations will be able to police loyalty with heightened efficiency? Was this effect contemplated by campaign finance reform? Should we start allowing anonymous contributions, at least up to a point?

Note also that it's only a short step from firing Kerry supporters to only allowing Bush donors.

There are many Supreme Court decisions suggesting that this sort of extortion would not be legal in the civil service. (Perhaps, arguably, diplomatic jobs are slightly different in that although extortion is out, rewarding paying friends has long been traditional.) There is also a law that makes it a serious crime to promise anyone a government job in exchange for a campaign contribution. But the workaround is obvious: just let it be known in a general but visible and effective manner that we reward our friends and punish our enemies. Don't make any specific promises or threats, just act in accordance after the election.

So that's all pretty bad, another drip in the erosion of half-decent government as we knew it.

Or is it? There reasons after all why we would want an elected official to appoint like-minded assistants. At least when the official actually got a majority of the votes actually cast, promotion of the like-minded promotes democratic control of the bureaucracy. And that, political theory tells us, should be a good thing.

What bugs me is that the IATC is a technical standards body. We'd probably like our delegates there to be the engineers and business people who best understand the technologies. Reality-based, if you'll excuse the term.

Three years, 38 weeks, 3 days and a bit more, to go.

The “K Street Project” spreads to technical standard-making: Any Kerry Supporters On The Line? The Bush Administration punishes some Democrat backers. I guess electrons have party affiliations now.

All Bolton, All The Time

• When Did Lying To Congress Become Okay?
• Steve Clemons, several times over, notably Another Case for the Bolton File: Did John Bolton Ever Meet Someone He Didn't Want to Have Fired? and Dick Cheney Seems to Think “Lowest Common Denominator” Approach to Getting Bolton to U.N. is OK
• Bolton Pulled by White House from Libya Team.
• Bolton and Blair

And, just for fun, an amazing Oops! (via Ann Bartow).

I've received some email solicitations to sign on to the Law Professors' Letter on Judicial Nomination Filibusters. I hope the 'nuclear option' doesn't pass, because I think the judges being bottled up are by and large either unfit or such extremists as to have no place on the federal appellate bench. (Indeed, I think the Democrats' allowing DC Circuit nominee Thomas B. Griffith to be confirmed is very unfortunate as he's simply too slipshod to be trusted with a lifetime appointment.)

But I'm not going to sign this letter because I don't agree with how it frames the issue. For me, the bottom line is that the filibuster is a tainted institution. It is politically convenient now, and in service to what I think is a very very good cause, but its history is too intertwined with the fight against civil rights for me to try to wrap it in the flag. Furthermore, as a general matter, one of my main beefs with the Senate is that it is too counter-majoritarian due to the radical population imbalances between the states, many times greater than anything imagined by the Framers. The law professors' letter praises the counter-majoritarian role; I think it is quite suspect. Indeed, if the Senate were more representative by population, I don't think there would be a GOP majority. It would certainly be small at best. Recall that the House is a lopsided as it is only due to gerrymandering.

So the filibuster is convenient now. There is some virtue in not letting majorities trample impassioned minorities. But not always. I'm not sure if I have a fully worked out general metric for when filibusters are reasonable and when they are abusive. The size and permanence of the change are relevant. The passion of the minority is relevant. I'd say that the nature of the change matters too — things than enhance freedom should be less subject to it — but that's such a contestable term that I can't put much weight on it.

There are some complicated issues about how many votes, under the Senate's rules, really should be required to pass the 'nuclear option'. These aren't, however, constitutional issues, and I don't pretend to be expert in the Senate's rules of procedure. Ultimately, for me this is a political issue about how much pain the majority wishes to inflict on the minority, and how much the minority can inflict pain back, either by bringing the Senate to a halt, framing the issue as the destruction of a hallowed tradition of free debate, or stomping on the minority when the parties change roles.

Pragmatically, I think if the GOP does this, they'll rue the day, and so meanwhile will the rest of us. But that's not the argument in the letter.

So much one could say about the entire Schiavo mess — How can the GOP support this anti-federalist measure without any hint of shame? How can the same GOP that says federal power should be seen through he lens of a limited Commerce Clause and shrunken 14th Amendment claim that Congress has the power to act here? How can anyone care so much more about the feeding tube in a person with a liquefied cerebral cortex than about the feeding of hungry children both at home and abroad? And what about all the people who die for lack of medical care? Is the Schiavo bill a bill of attainder? Does the insertion of the Congress into an ongoing judicial matter violate separation of powers? — but other people are asking, or will ask, all these questions.

So here's my own addition to the pile: Why didn't the Senate democrats take advantage of this bill to add a rider to it? Say, a requirement that the CIA not use any methods of torture abroad that would be cruel and unusual punishment at home? Or anything else that ought, in principle, to be uncontroversial but would cause Rovian heartburn? Why just roll over without charging a price for quick action?

Billmon, Whiskey Bar: Scenes From the Cultural Revolution juxtaposes the rantings of our local version of the Red Guards with the substantially similar rantings of the originals.