Categories
State

Too Little Too Late

I was not sure whether to gag or chuckle when I heard the news that Senator Bennett wants to prevent the use of TARP money for the auto industry. To me that just sounds like he’s shutting the barn doors after the cows have escaped while insisting that there’s nothing wrong with leaving the stalls open.

Bennett said he also adding wording that would ban using Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout money to help bankrupt car makers.

“The TARP money was sold to the Congress as acquiring assets, not as acquiring stock positions in various companies, particularly not in acquiring stock position in a bankrupt manufacturing company,” Bennett said.

“When we approved TARP the first time around, we did it with the understanding that it was dealing with the credit crisis,” he said. “Instead, the TARP money has gone into these bankrupt companies.”

It’s clear to see that Bennett is doing everything he can to show his opposition to federal overspending and government overreaching in the economy while maintaining his position that the original bailout was necessary. I don’t see any reason to even begin to pay attention until he has come out and directly stated that his vote on TARP was absolutely wrong from the beginning. Even if he does, he is wrong if he things that his TARP vote is the only thing dragging on his chances for re-election.

Categories
culture National

Our Broken Debate

The big question in the debate over torture right now is “who knew what and when did they know it?” That question is being used by Republicans right now to implicate Speaker Nancy Pelosi as having done nothing with what she knew and thus being complicit in any torture committed under the previous administration. The question and implications are very important questions that are worthy of debate in this country. The reason that I consider the debate to be broken is that the debate is avoiding the real substantive issue and just taking political potshots at the opposing party.

The fact is that speaker Pelosi is not in any way the only hypocrite in this debate – she is not the only one who knew and did nothing until it was politically advantageous. Democratic officeholders have been muttering under their breath (or less) about what the Bush administration was doing until Obama was elected and released the torture memos. In response the CIA is trying to defend themselves from these vocal attacks by revealing that Pelosi knew about this activity years ago.

If the Democrats were more interested in standing against torture in principle than they were in scoring political points and retaining personal power they would have been much more vocal about this issue. Speaker Pelosi would have been saying things like, “based on briefings I have had I am completely uncomfortable with what the administration is doing and willing to do to detainees through the CIA.” (Note that while that statement would open the door for discussion nothing in there would raise any national security concerns.) She would not have been alone either – other Democrats who had been briefed would also have stood up and echoed that sentiment if they had any backbone and cared about the issue. Senator Diane Feinstein would have been one of those who had also been briefed. I don’t know who else had been briefed, but all of them are guilty of doing nothing if they were uncomfortable with what they heard.

On the other hand, if the Republicans were interested in anything other than scoring points against their political opponents they would be naming the Republicans who had been briefed who were equally complicit with Speaker Pelosi. Republican officeholders have proven that they are perfectly content to have spineless and complicit representatives in office so long as they support the party line. They show that as a body they have no problem with institutionalized secrecy rather than open representation for their constituents and the other voters of the United States.

The voters need to demand that their representatives, whether of their own party or another party, quit playing politics in Washington and stick to the very serious business of leading our nation on to increased greatness – we should again be a shining city on a hill that the world can look to as an example of goodness. That can only happen if we quite trying to score political points and start having real debates about what is right and what constitutes greatness.

Categories
State technology

Pre-Announcement

Looks like Mark Shurtleff just made an accidental pre-announcement about running against Senator Bennett:

Mark Tweets

Of course what his choice is should be a surprise to nobody. I thought it interesting that he’s talking up how much he will be raising. My first thought was that he must be trying to scare off any competitors. Of course that was before I saw the later tweets:

. . . I’m announcing I’m running at 12 …

No, I just realized that I was responding to a text from u. I’m going to pull it off immediately

Categories
General

Federalist Nos. 76 – 77

Federalist Nos 76 and 77 discuss the power of the president to nominate people for high government offices. I notice that these papers use some of the very same arguments in defending these powers of the president as were used to defend other powers that were to be vested in the proposed executive. I also noticed another instance of an assumption which has since been completely reversed:

A change of the Chief Magistrate, therefore, would not occasion so violent or so general a revolution in the officers of the government as might be expected, if he were the sole disposer of offices. Where a man in any station had given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new President would be restrained from attempting a change in favor of a person more agreeable to him.

Contrary to what Hamilton expected, it is now the exception when one president retains the services of someone appointed by a previous president unless the previous president came from the same party as the current president.

I also took note of the pattern by which the government was laid out. Those powers which had the greatest need for expedience (such as nominating and the making of treaties) were placed in the executive branch with the power to negate being given to the Senate where necessary. Those powers which had the greater need for deliberation (such as the making of laws) were granted to the legislative branch with the conditional power to negate (meaning that the veto was not absolute) given to the President. The setup realy is a very well constructed balance with the judicial branch present to independently arbit between parties when there were doubts regarding conflicting opinions

Categories
State

Hoping History Holds

Nobody with a political pulse in Utah could be surprised at the news that Sens. Bennett and Hatch plan to run again, especially considering that they both have their campaign websites up and running already (yes, even Hatch for 2012). I have often been discouraged by the assertions of a trusted friend that Hatch is unbeatable for as long as he chooses to run after being in the Senate for over 30 years. My hope that he is wrong got a boost from that Deseret News article.

Holly provides a good rundown against the "seniority is everything" argument of our two senators and we have the next  3 years to disprove Hatch’s assertion that "Sen. Bennett and I work as hard every day for Utahns as the first day we set foot in the U.S. Senate." (They undoubtedly work hard, but the more I look at their records the less I am convinced that either of them work for Utahns anymore like they did the first day they set foot in the Senate.) I would like to provide a proactive argument for why both of our senators should be replaced now even if you believe the seniority argument.

First of all, neither of our Senators is getting any younger so they will have to be replaced sooner than they would like to admit. While they would both like to be compared to the LDS apostles since few people among their voters would care to think of the apostles in a negative light, the fact is that there is a vast difference between the temporary election of a political officeholder and the permanent appointment of an ecclesiastical leader. We know going in that the apostles are there for life, not so with the senators.

Secondly, the Republican party is out of power right now (especially with Arlen Specter switching parties so that the Democrats will have the 60 vote margin to end any attempted filibuster) which diminishes the value of any seniority they have amassed in their decades in office. The Democrats may maintain the 60 seat majority in 2010, but even if they don’t they are virtually assured of maintaining control of the senate. That means that now is the time to elect some new senators so that they can start building their seniority in advance of 2014 (the earliest that Republicans have any real shot at regaining control) rather than waiting until 2016, 2018, or whenever one of our senators fails his immortality test.

Categories
General

Federalist Nos. 74 – 75

Federalist No. 74 discusses the power of the president to command the military and grant pardons. Federalist No. 75 discusses the power of the president related to the making of treaties. Neither of the papers is particularly remarkable unless you have concerns related to those issues (I don’t) but it was interesting to read Hamilton’s remarks discussing the way that the making of treaties did not comfortably fit entirely within the powers of the legislative branch, nor completely within the powers of the executive branch – thus necessitating the mixture of presidential and senatorial influence on the process.

Categories
State

How Very Ironic

When I attended the breakfast meeting with Senator Bennett, he mentioned Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter – the three Republicans to support the Obama bailout bill – as "the three predictable crossover voters." I found it very ironic to read the results of a poll of Democratic Senators:

In fact, Hatch ranks No. 3 among Republicans whom Democrats say are the least partisan and most enjoyable to work with — behind only Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine (liberal Republicans who were among the few GOP members who supported Obama’s stimulus package), that newspaper reported.

Apparently Senator Bennett didn’t want to remind attendees that our conservative state is represented by some not-so-conservative senators. He got Collins and Snowe right, but Specter is not #3 on the list. While Bennett was not among the easiest Republicans to work with according to the overall poll results, he was listed as being among the easiest to work with by four of his Democratic colleagues – I’m sure another term or two can finish softening him up.

The results also confirmed what I had concluded – that Hatch was once conservative:

That is a big change from Hatch’s early career, when he was seen as one of the most conservative and pugnacious Senate Republicans. Now, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told The Hill, for example, that Hatch is among those who "want to get something done, and they’re not necessarily driven by ideology."

I have come to appreciate the fact that Hatch was conservative in the early part of his career and I am not opposed to having a politician who knows when to compromise. I do have serious issues with elected officials who just "want to get something done." They do the nation and their constituents no end of disservice when they take action for no reason other than to appear active. I also have serious issues with any politician who does not seem to know when to hold their ground and stand on principle – a skill that Hatch has lost if he ever really understood the proper line.

Categories
General National

Federalist Nos. 64 – 65

In discussing the powers of the senate related to the making of treaties John Jay outlines a truth that undercuts one of the major arguments against term limits. In Federalist No. 64 he states:

providing for the frequent elections of senators in such a way as to obviate the inconvenience of periodically transferring those great affairs entirely to new men; for by leaving a considerable residue of the old ones in place, uniformity and order, as well as a constant succession of official information will be preserved.

The argument that term limits would place institutional knowledge quarely in the hands of lobbyists is a strong one until we consider that the very form of senate elections was to preserve institutional knowledge across elections. Even if we were to go to the extreme of enforcing a single term limit on every elected member of the federal government each state would always have at least one member of their congressional delegation that had at least two years worth of experience in Washington. Overall, each new election would leave at least 66 out of 536 elected officials returning to Washington to pass on their institutional experience. Considering how poorly 90 – 95% transfer of institutional experience has served this country recently I don’t see that we could be much worse off by having a 13% transfer of institutional experience.

I cannot imagine suggesting such an extreme term limit policy, and I don’t pretend that this answers all the critiques of the idea of term limits, but I will never give any weight to the argument that essential institutional experience would be left to unelected bureaucrats and lobbyists in the future.

In Federalist No. 65 Hamilton discusses the responsibility of the Senate to try cases of impeachment. Despite, or possibly because of, the cases and threats of impeachment within my own lifetime which have been driven more by political considerations than by rational thought my respect is fixed for the method of impeachment and trials of impeachment designed by our founders and unaltered over two centuries.

Categories
National

Revolving Doors

This year the state legislature tried to close a revolving door. In 2007 Congress tried to close their version of that door. I’m not sure how well either of them will work over time, but if it’s important to close revolving doors, maybe we should try closing another revolving door – the one from one federal elective office to the Presidency.

Admittedly, few sitting legislators have been elected as President, but you have to go back to 1900 to find a presidential election where a Senator did not seek the presidency (there were generally members of the house seeking it as well). Maybe if we placed a two year restriction after leaving a federal legislative office before a person could seek the presidency we might have fewer members of Congress trying to use their offices as stepping stones to the Oval Office.

Of course that would simply guarantee two year presidential campaigns, but at least those campaigns would not include a guaranteed fallback of a seat in the Senate for sitting senators.

Categories
culture General National

Federalist Nos. 62 – 63

Federalist Papers 62 and 63 begin examining the Senate, just as the House has been examined in recent papers. I was quickly surprised to find this gem:

So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic. (emphasis added)

The notion that the larger states might dislike equal representation has become reality among some citizens of larger states.

I also found proof of how different our political system is now than it was in 1888:

The mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, however qualified they may be, points out, in the strongest manner, the necessity of some stable institution in the government. Every new election in the States is found to change one half of the representatives. (emphasis added)

I would challenge anyone to show me an example of any of our states that regularly replaces one third of its representatives – let alone one half – either at the state level or in their federal delegation each election cycle. Sadly, our increased stability has not decreased the downside of the instability is was to replace:

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood{or} if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated . . .

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY. (emphasis added)

Federalist 63 suggests:

the jealous adversary of the Constitution will probably content himself with repeating, that a senate appointed not immediately by the people, and for the term of six years, must gradually acquire a dangerous pre-eminence in the government, and finally transform it into a tyrannical aristocracy.

It is interesting to note that the Senate has come closer to being "a tyrannical aristocracy" since it began to be elected by the people directly than it ever was under the indirect model. Additionally, the change to direct elections of senators leads us to change the following statement:

Before such a revolution can be effected, the Senate, it is to be observed, must in the first place corrupt itself; must next corrupt the State legislatures; must then corrupt the House of Representatives; and must finally corrupt the people at large.

That statement would now read:

Before such a revolution can be effected, the Senate, it is to be observed, must in the first place corrupt itself; must next corrupt the State legislatures; must then corrupt the House of Representatives; and must finally corrupt the people at large.

Sadly we appear to be in the advances stages of the corruption of the people. (Although I admit that the Senate does not appear to be the cause of the corruption, nor was it necessarily propagated in that order.) Nor does the prescribed remedy appear very promising right now:

if such a revolution should ever happen from causes which the foresight of man cannot guard against, the House of Representatives, with the people on their side, will at all times be able to bring back the Constitution to its primitive form and principles.

Federalist 62 also included this statement (which should probably be engraved on the office wall of every national elected official):

It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.