In the wake of Representative Frank’s decision to retire, there has already been some speculation about who will be the top Democrat on the House Committee on Financial Services next Congress. But wait, you say, isn’t that simply a matter of looking at the seniority list of the committee democrats, and seeing that Rep. Waters is the most senior Democrat after Rep. Frank?

Nope. And that means this is as good a time as any to discuss the party rules and party infrastructures on the Hill. I’ll do it Q&A style.

Q. Wait, the parties have rules?

A. Yes. Both the Democratic Caucus and the Republican Conference have written rules. The GOP rules are available online. These rules are different than the Rules of the House of Representatives, which are chamber rules approved by a majority of Representatives. The party rules are approved by the caucus/conference, and deal with internal party issues, although as we will see, in some ways they end up structuring the House of Representatives much like the Rules of the House.

Q. What exactly is a caucus/conference?

A. In the loosest sense, it’s simply the collection of all the Representatives who belong to that party. Like when you hear a description of a floor vote. The entire caucus voted against the bill, with no defectors. In the more formal sense, it’s the institutional organization those Members use to promote their common goals. The caucus elects the party leadership, develops legislation and policy positions, and coordinates party messages on those topics. In any case, it’s the institutional substance of the party in the House.

Q. So is the organization just all the Members getting together in a room?

A. No, although that would certainly qualify. In practice, the party organizations are much more robust. They receive annual appropriations in the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act (in FY2011, each party organization got just under $3,000,000), and this money is use to pay for staff and other expenses related to their missions. Each party organization employs about 25 staffers.

Q. Wait, the parties get taxpayer money? That seems odd.

A. It isn’t really. Remember, the caucus/conference are not involved in campaigning or fundraising. Party organizations that engage in those activities — such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) or the Democratic National Committee — are not funded by legislative branch appropriations. They are private entities, and only connected to the caucus/conference in that the caucus elects their leadership. The caucus/conference organizations serve in direct support of the party policy operations in the House, no different in substance than the staff of individual Members or committees.

Q. So how is the caucus/conference structured?

A. Just like any organization, really. There are a set of rules adopted by the caucus/conference that structure internal decision-making. In both parties, the rules provide for election of chamber and caucus leaders, selection of committee chairs, selection of committee and subcommittee assignments, party procedures on floor action, and Member conduct and discipline.

Q. When are the rules adopted?

A. Both parties usually convene in the weeks after the November congressional elections to hold the initial caucus meeting, at which they usually adopt rules and select leaders. The rules, of course, provide for their own amendment, so in theory the caucus can change its rules at any time.

Q. Ok. So back to the committee chair thing. How come Rep. Waters won’t just become the top Democrat on Financial Services next Congress?

A. Because the caucus nominates the chair/ranking of the committee, and seniority is only one factor taken into consideration. There are a bunch of other factors written into the rules, and of course there are politics involved as well.

Q. What do you mean “nominates”?

A. Under House Rule X, clause 5, most committee assignments are actually made by various House resolutions at the beginning of each Congress (for example, H.Res. 31 from the 112th Congress), based on nominations submitted by the caucus. This is pro forma, but illustrates the way the formal actions of the floor are intertwined with the off-floor actions of the caucus/conference.

Q. So how are the committee chairs nominated in the caucus?

A. In the Democratic Caucus, all standing committee chairmen except Rules, Budget, and House Administration are nominated by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee (DSPC) from among the Members of the Standing Committee, and the nomination is submitted to the caucus for a vote. The DSPC is instructed by the rules to consider merit, length of service on the committee, commitment to the Democratic agenda, and the diversity of the caucus in making its nomination. If they nominate the Member of the standing committee with the most seniority, then by rule the caucus votes only on approval or disapproval of the nomination. If the DSPC nominates someone other than the most senior Member of the standing committee, then alternative nominations can be made within the caucus, and following debate a secret-ballot election is held within the caucus for the nomination.

Q. Who’s on the DSPC?

A. The party leader (Speaker/minority leader) and other leadership Members, caucus leadership Members, and a number of others set by rule: a freshmen Member, 12 regional, the Chair/Ranking of several committees, and up to 15 at-large Members chosen by the party leader.

Q. You mentioned that a standing committee Chair/Ranking was nominated by the DSPC from among the Members of the standing committee. How are they chosen?

A. Much the same way. The DSPC recommends Members for committees, and the nominated slates are ratified by the caucus. There are specific rules that guarantee all Members at least one assignment, and that prohibit Members from holding multiple high-value committee slots.

Q. Are there often contested elections in the caucus, for committee chair or for party leader?

A. Not regularly. Most elections are uncontested and approved by acclaim. Even races that might start out contested — such as the race between Rep. Hoyer and Rep. Clyburn for Whip in 2010 — are settled by negotiations prior to any actual vote. Two recent races that did come to a vote were the 2006 race between Rep. Murtha and Rep. Hoyer for Majority Leader, and the 2008 race between Rep. Dingell and Rep. Waxman for chair of the Energy committee. In 2010, Rep. Shuler ran a “protest” race against Rep. Pelosi for party leader.

Q. Can you ever find out how people voted in the secret ballot?

A. Not unless they say. Often, however, candidates in a party election will try to accumulate public endorsements, which in turn reveal a sizable percentage of the positions within the caucus. Matthew Green has an excellent short article on the 2006 race between Rep. Hoyer and Rep. Murtha that covers a lot of the dymanics of these party elections.

Q. Are these procedures the same in the Republican conference?

A. Not exactly. But in general structure, yes. If you’d like to see the details, the GOP conference rules are online.

Q. So how does the caucus develop policy?

A. Well, for one they talk about it! Each caucus/conference has regular closed meetings of the membership, at which the party leadership as well as rank-and-file Members can candidly discuss both short-term and long-term policy. As mentioned above, the party organizations also employ staff who work on policy development. And finally, the caucus is integrated into the network of leadership, committee, and personal Member offices, with whom it has regular contact and conversations.

Q. You mentioned that the caucus rules interact with the House rules on the floor. What did you mean?

A. Both caucuses have rules that bind the leadership to certain uses of House rules. For example, under House rules the Speaker has wide latitude to entertain motions to suspend the rules. GOP party rules, however, put further limitations on what kinds of suspensions may be entertained when the party controls the Speakership. Similarly, Democratic Caucus rules prohibit Democratic Members of the Rules Committee from supporting any closed rule when in the minority, subject to certain waivers.

Q. Can the caucus/conference bind Member voting decisions like that?

A. Technically, no. Members are only beholden to the caucus to the degree they find it a beneficial arrangements. Of course, most Members do find it beneficial to be part of a party. Both caucus/conferences rules have provisions for disciplining Members, including expulsion.

Q. How else does the caucus supplement House rules?

A. One example would be term limits for committee chairs. In some Congresses, such limits have been placed directly into House rules. In others, however, they have not. In such cases, a caucus rule that included term limits would effectively achieve the same goal (for any party that had that rule), if the Members of the caucus sought to enforce it.

Q. What else does the caucus expect of Members?

A. Typically, that they remain members of the political party, that they don’t campaign for members of other parties, that they support the caucus-ratified candidates on the floor for committee assignments and Speaker, that they work toward the goals of the caucus when doing things like offering motions to recommit, and that they adhere to code of ethics.

Q. Are the caucus rules ever controversial?

A. They can be, especially when a caucus has factions that are divided over policy issues. One significant aspect of caucus rules is that they structure how much power the leadership has within the party. For example, imagine a hypothetical caucus rule that allowed the party leader to unilaterally make all committee assignments, including chairmen. That would be a powerful leader indeed! Now imagine the opposite: a caucus rule structure that did not allow the party leader to even nominate any committee Members, even to the Rules committee, and instead used a caucus committee to make all nominations. That would be a much weaker institutional leadership position. As currently structured, both party organizations use a mix of these systems, allowing the leadership direct nomination in some cases and using a committee in other cases.

Q. So what’s the outlook for the Financial Services Committee Chair/Ranking for the Dems?

A. Hard to say. There’s a lot of intervening events between now and the first caucus meeting in November 2012. There’s the election, which could shake up the membership of the committee either by current Members being defeated, or by the Democrats winning control of the House and gaining more committee seats. Then there’s the caucus rules, which could always be amended. We don’t know for sure who the Democratic leaders will be after the election. And we don’t know who wants the committee post. So there’s a lot left to be determined. Much of it could be sorted out in the next week on an informal basis, but the die will not be cast until the caucus meets a year from now, and then when the House elects the committee membership in January 2013.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) announced today that he will not seek reelection in 2012, after 16 terms in the House. Massachusetts will also be losing Rep. John Olver (1st district), who announced his retirement last month after 10 terms in the House.

Representative Frank is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Services. Representative Olver is the Ranking Member on the House Appropriations subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, as well as the only Member from Massachusetts on the Appropriations Committee. While we don’t know who will replace Rep. Frank and Rep. Olver in the House next Congress, we do know that it is highly unlikely they will be chair/ranking on a committee or an appropriations subcommittee.

This suggests one under-appreciated aspect of retirements — the effect that the loss of individual Member seniority has upon a state. Although Representatives are elected from districts, there are distinct state (and regional) interests that benefit from the seniority of both individuals as well as state delegations. Both formal and informal factors produce the seniority advantage. On the formal side, the institutions of the Hill (the committee system, the party caucuses, etc.) use seniority to assign priority; on the informal side, the experience and relationships developed by Members give them marginal advantages over less-senior Members.

One reason this is particularly interesting today is because the Massachusetts delegation has the highest average years of House service of any state, except Rep. Don Young’s 37+ years in at-large Alaska. A the beginning of the 112th Congress, the ten Massachusetts Members had an average of 15.8 years of experience in the House (including freshman Representative Keating), compared to an overall House average of 9.8 years of experience.

The chart below reports the average years of service of Representatives from all states, as of the beginning of the 112th Congress.* The numbers in parenthesis next to the state name are the number of Representatives from that state with 10 or more years of House experience and the total delegation size.

As shown in the chart, there’s large variation in delegation experience.  You can see the start difference by comparing MA, CA, FL, and PA — four of the biggest states. Not only do MA and CA have much higher average experience among Members, but more than 2/3 of their delegation has been in the House for 10 or more years. On the other end, FL and PA have average tenures half  the size, plus less than 1/3 of their delegation with 10 or more years of service.

A few other  institutional notes:

1. All else equal, there’s an obvious advantage to having low turnover in your state delegation: within the context of the seniority system, you simply cannot put Representatives from your state into the highest positions of institutional power unless they gain the seniority over time to get there. Conversely, once they are there, it becomes a powerful disincentive to remove them from office, given that the alternative (as Massachusetts will see in 2013) is a newcomer with no accumulated seniority or place in the committee system. This raises the historical example of the South during the civil rights era: the non-competitive elections in much of the South during the mid-20th century created a disproportionate number of southern Members with long experience, which in turn placed them in the most senior positions in much of the committee system. It also points toward partisan gerrymanders being beneficial from the state perspective; if there are no competitive seats, a state will likely produce many senior Members.

2. In some ways, the average or median is less important than the sheer number of Representatives with a lot of seniority. There are a limited number of positions in the House that are very powerful (such as chair of a committee), and from a state perspective, you might rather have five of those with a lower delegation median than 3 of those with a higher median. This also points to a potential small state disadvantage within the system; if you only have 3 Representatives, your state simply can’t acquire a lot of powerful positions in the House, regardless of how long those Members have been serving.

———-

*The use of averages (vs. medians) is a tradeoff; while you get the visual skew of some states with a few very senior Members (such as Michigan with Rep. Dingell and Conyers, whose average is nearly double the median), you lose some bias in other places (such as South Carolina, which has a median of zero, but an average of 4.5 because of  Rep. Clyburn’s 18 years).

Blog posts will be light for the rest of the week — I’m in upstate New York with the family. But as a libertarian, I feel compelled by my own conscience to spread the word about what took place at the GOP convention last night.

As regular readers know, I’m not a huge fan of the Patriot Act. Now, I don’t think it was inherently unreasonable as a temporary response to an unknown acute crisis. But ten years later it has been both normalized  into the culture and validated by both political parties, no different than any of the hideous “emergency laws” in place throughout the non-democratic world. The Patriot Act — and the “war on terror” seem here to say, like so many of those emergency laws.

As a practical matter, there are two possible realities: either the Patriot Act has been an utterly smashing success as a law enforcement tool, or the danger of international terrorism was not quite as great as we thought in Fall 2001. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But that’s an argument to swing the pendulum back the other way a bit, and I don’t see that happening any time soon. If anything, it appears to be plowing forward.

I know all this. And yet I was still unnerved watching the GOP debate last night. Let’s go to the transcript. In increasing order of ridiculousness:

Newt Gingrich thinks “innocent until proven guilty” — i.e. the foundation of western civil liberty — shouldn’t apply if the suspect is involved in a “national security” issue:

Again, very sharp division. Criminal law, the government should be frankly on defense and you’re innocent until proven guilty. National security, the government should have many more tools in order to save our lives.

Let me guess: the President will decide what constitutes “national security.”

Mitt Romney is even more stark. Treason — a crime under the Constitution that requires multiple witnesses and conviction in an open court , should be governed by the laws of war, even when committed on America soil:

And that means, yes, we’ll use the Constitution and criminal law for those people who commit crimes, but those who commit war and attack the United States and pursue treason of various kinds, we will use instead a very different form of law, which is the law afforded to those who are fighting America.

Rick Santorum is convinced we are dealing with something called a “present domestic threat.” Presumably, that means American citizens shouldn’t be guaranteed their, well, constitutionally-guaranteed rights:

But the issue of the Patriot Act is — is a little different. We are at war. The last time we had a — we had a threat at home like this — obviously, it was much more of a threat at home — was during the Civil War … and, of course, Abraham Lincoln ran right over civil rights. Why? Because we had a present domestic threat. In the previous wars that we’ve had, we haven’t had this type of threat that we have here in the homeland. And we have to deal with it differently.

That is an argument fit for a banana republic dictator. I’ll make you a deal, Rick: when there’s an enemy army stationed and moving 20 miles from DC and Congress is not in session, I’ll give you some latitude to suspend Habeus Corpus and raise an army and navy and blockade the south until Congress convenes. Until then, cool it with the Lincoln comparisons.

Michelle Bachmann thinks those suspected of terrorism do not have any rights:

When the bomber — or the attempted bomber over Detroit, the underwear bomber was intercepted, he was given Miranda warnings within 45 minutes. He was not an American citizen. We don’t give Miranda warnings to terrorists, and we don’t read them their rights. They don’t have any.

That’s right: non-citizens accused of terrorism have no rights. None.

Rick Perry evidently didn’t have any specific piece of the Constitution he wanted to abridge, so he just went with this:

I agree with most of my colleagues here on the stage when we talk about the Patriot Act.

Herman Cain strikes what at first seems like a moderate tone, but on second look seems more like a call to martial law:

Now, relative to the Patriot Act, if there are some areas of the Patriot Act that we need to refine, I’m all for that. But I do not believe we ought to throw out the baby with the bathwater for the following reason. The terrorists have one objective that some people don’t seem to get. They want to kill all of us.

So we should use every mean possible to kill them first or identify them first — first.

What a depressing evening. This stuff should not be taken lightly. Especially since the current occupant of the White House doesn’t exactly have a sterling record on civil liberties. An interesting question is why this is happening now? As an old high school friend of mine noted today on Facebook, it’s amazing how fast some of these liberties are being culturally discarded, given that almost all of them survived the Cold War intact, when a much more existential threat was pointed openly and directly at the nation.

Thank god for Ron Paul. Given that Romney is highly-likely to win the nomination, I would urge any eligible GOP voters in the early primary states to vote for Paul, and let be know that it’s over these issues. And let’s hope Paul runs as an independent candidate and garners enough support to be invited to the debates. These issues need to be aired with everyone watching. Paul has no chance at the presidency, and that’s a good thing; he’s too radical on too many issues. But he’s right on this one. Say what you want about his positions on economics and whatnot, he brings the truth about civil liberties:

I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty … today it seems too easy that our government and our congresses are so willing to give up our liberties for our security. I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights … I think we’re using too much carelessness in the use of words that we’re at war. I don’t remember voting on — on a declared — declaration of war. Oh, we’re against terrorism. And terrorism is a tactic. It isn’t a person. It isn’t a people. So this is a very careless use of words. What about this? Sacrifice liberties because there are terrorists? You’re the judge and the jury? No, they’re suspects. And they have changed the — in the — in DOD budget they have changed the wording on the definition of al-Qaeda and Taliban. It’s anybody associated with organizations, which means almost anybody can be loosely associated so that makes all Americans vulnerable … And now we know that American citizens are vulnerable to assassination.

So I would be very cautious about protecting the rule of law. It will be a sacrifice that you’ll be sorry for.

Right on, Ron. Right on.

For part II, click here.

For part I, click here.

For part I, click here.

For part III, click here.

For part II, click here.

For part III, click here.

This post is named after the second album by my all-time favorite indie band, The Figgs. I always thought it was a wonderful title for a record. It’s also the first phrase that popped into my head when I read this op-ed, which you will be hearing a whole lot about on Monday, despite the fact that its premise is that President Obama should step aside so that Hilary Clinton can win the 2012 election and “unite the country around a bipartisan economic and foreign policy.”

Read that last sentence again. Yes, indeed. Ready Steady Stoned.

Tomorrow, a whole lot of people will shred the op-ed, Westen-style. I mean, Brendan Nyhan is already tweeting up a storm. I’m not going to go line by line through the thing, but I do want to make a few historical points:

1. The proposition that LBJ “decided against running” in 1968 because he “accepted the reality that [he] could not effectively govern the nation if [he] sought re-election” is complete nonsense. LBJ didn’t “not run.” He dropped out of the race after Eugene McCarthy and a bunch of college kids landed what amounted to a knock-out blow in New Hampshire, which convinced RFK to get in to the race four days later. LBJ didn’t step aside; he was a candidate who dropped out when it became clear he couldn’t win. In other words, he sought the nomination, and he lost the nomination.

2. It’s certainly theoretically true that a party might benefit from not renominating an unpopular president. But the problem is that there’s a huge correlation between presidential popularity and party popularity, and historically it has been the case that whatever positive marginal effect there is from replacement, it hasn’t been enough to get the party over the top. As John Tabin noted on Twitter, Truman and LBJ “stepping aside” didn’t exactly result in President Stevenson and President Humphrey (and don’t start in on how RFK would have beat Nixon; it’s far, far from obvious).

In fact, even if you go back to the 19th century strong-party era, when replacing the president on the ticket was easier and more common, only twice did a party win back to back elections with two different non-incumbents — Pierce/Buchanan, ’52 and ’56, and Hayes/Garfield, ’76 and ’80. And neither Pierce nor Hayes were unelectable candidates who stepped aside for the good of the party. The Pierce administration had indeed been destroyed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its aftermath, but he stood for nomination at the 1856 Democratic convention, and lost a four-way race in which he got 40% of the vote on the first ballot. The Hayes example I don’t even count as relevant — he certainly didn’t seek renomination in ’80, but he had pledged not to do so back in ’76 and was not particularly unpopular when he left office.

3. Finally, there’s this:

Never before has there been such an obvious potential successor—one who has been a loyal and effective member of the president’s administration, who has the stature to take on the office, and who is the only leader capable of uniting the country around a bipartisan economic and foreign policy.

Say what? Obviously, as mentioned above, the last clause of that sentence is just absurd. A Clinton presidency right now might be effective or might not be, but in any case it wouldn’t be bipartisan and it wouldn’t unite the country, even if those ridiculous things were somehow the goals. But the first clause is my real favorite. Never has there been such an obvious potential successor? What about Seward in 1864? What about Webster in 1852? Have the authors even heard of the 19th century? On the flip side, it’s not always going to work out when you stick the most obvious potential successor of all-time onto the ticket — see Henry Clay, 1844. It just drives me nuts when people make historical claims, but limit them to a history that starts about the time their parents were born.

Ok, enough. I’ll just leave you with a funny thought an old college buddy emailed me, writing “the only upside to Gingrich winning the nomination and then taking on HRC for the presidency would be that Kurt Cobain would probably come out of hiding with like 5 full albums worth of great new material.” Amen to that.

Two things I have enjoyed reading and thinking about in the last few days, with a quick take on each:

• Baseball is changing in the post-season. Ben Morris had what I thought was the most interesting take on the new system. See also Jon Bernstein on what the system won’t fix, and Christina Kahrl and Jayson Stark from espn for some other insta-reactions.

I think the baseball playoffs are both amazing and stupid. Amazing because there is simply nothing in all of sports like high-tension baseball. It’s incredible to watch. But stupid in that they aren’t really a legitimate mechanism of determining the best team; it’s more or less a crapshoot, just a fun bonus add-on at the end of the season. Baseball as a spectator sport is about two things: the thrill of really getting to know a team over the course of a spring and summer through the monotonous grind of seemingly meaningless game after meaningless game; and the live-or-die excitement of a September pennant race. I know MLB has money it needs to make, but the long-term viability of baseball is not in trying to structurally duplicate the product that the NFL and NBA and NCAA basketball produce. It’s about playing to the strengths of baseball. Every step that expands the importance of the post-season, in my opinion, takes baseball one step in the wrong direction.

• The dust-up over election forecasting and the relative importance of campaigns vs. fundamentals continues unabated. John Sides post was excellent and provides a good set of references to the whole conversation. The reads and reactions section of Nate Silver’s blog also has a nice digest.

I don’t have much to add to this debate, except to say that I think a lot of people get clouded by their normative desires for democracy when they think about this issue. People want to believe in the importance of ideas and the importance of leadership and the ability of impassioned advocates swaying votes through powerful speeches that change voters hearts and minds. They don’t want to believe that voters will toss honest men with good ideas out of office and replace them with crooked hacks simply because time are tough. And so I think many people tend to overestimate and romanticize the electoral/campaign system. Obviously, campaigns have some marginal effect on outcomes. But in my view, assuming you get candidates who are of a minimal-threshold of competency, the cake is baked more often than not well before the campaign starts.

Later today, the House of Representatives will vote on House Joint Resolution 2, a proposal to amend the Constitution. Here is the text:

Section 1. Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year, unless three-fifths of the whole number of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a rollcall vote.

Section 2. The limit on the debt of the United States held by the public shall not be increased, unless three-fifths of the whole number of each House shall provide by law for such an increase by a rollcall vote.

Section 3. Prior to each fiscal year, the President shall transmit to the Congress a proposed budget for the United States Government for that fiscal year in which total outlays do not exceed total receipts.

Section 4. No bill to increase revenue shall become law unless approved by a majority of the whole number of each House by a rollcall vote.

Section 5. The Congress may waive the provisions of this article for any fiscal year in which a declaration of war is in effect. The provisions of this article may be waived for any fiscal year in which the United States is engaged in military conflict which causes an imminent and serious military threat to national security and is so declared by a joint resolution, adopted by a majority of the whole number of each House, which becomes law.

Section 6. The Congress shall enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation, which may rely on estimates of outlays and receipts.

Section 7. Total receipts shall include all receipts of the United States Government except those derived from borrowing. Total outlays shall include all outlays of the United States Government except for those for repayment of debt principal.

Section 8. This article shall take effect beginning with the later of the second fiscal year beginning after its ratification or the first fiscal year beginning after December 31, 2016.

This is a big deal. Not because it looks like it will pass Congress; based on the reported tea leaves, it will probably not pass the House (the Democratic leadership is whipping against the resolution), the Senate is probably an even bigger hurdle, and who knows what would happen in the states. No, it’s a big deal because the elected representatives of the United States may plausibly propose that we change the constitutional structure of our government and our nation. Setting all the politics aside, we are watching a centuries-old mechanism of self-government being put to use. And that’s fundamentally important.

Anyway, let’s get to the numbers!

0: The number of Constitutional amendments that have been passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification since August 22, 1978, when the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment was passed by Congress.

2/3: The fraction of votes necessary in the House (and the Senate if the resolution passes the House) necessary to pass the resolution and send it to the states as required under the Constitution. Many news outlets are reporting that the resolution needs 290 votes (2/3 of the 435 Members of the House) to pass. That’s not true. Under past court rulings, it has been decided that “2/3” as written in Article V refers to two-thirds of the Members present, assuming a quorum, not two-thirds of the total membership. With Oregon’s 1st district currently vacant and Rep. Giffords unlikely to return to Washington for the vote, the maximum number of Members present should not exceed 433, two-thirds of which is only 289.

3/4: The constitutional fraction of states need to ratify an amendment. Currently, this is 38. If states are added to the union while an amendment is open for ratification, the threshold can go up; it is not fixed to the number of states existing at the time of passage.

1: The number of Amendments added to the Constitution since August 22, 1978, when the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment was passed by Congress. No, it wasn’t the DC voting rights amendment. It was the 27th amendment, which prevents Member pay increases from going into effect prior to the following election and was passed by Congress on September 25, 1789, but not ratified by 3/4 of the states until 1992. Under a 1939 Supreme Court decision, any proposed amendment that does not specify an expiration date may be ratified at any time in the future.

5: The number of hours of debate there will be in the House on the proposed amendment. This is under a special rule, H.Res.466, which was agreed to yesterday. Here is the text:

Resolved, That it shall be in order at any time through the legislative day of November 18, 2011, for the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend the rules, as though under clause 1 of rule XV, relating to the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 2) proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Debate on such a motion shall be extended to five hours.

Sec. 2. The Chair may postpone further consideration of a motion considered pursuant to this resolution to such time as may be designated by the Speaker.

Why will the House be considering the joint resolution under the suspension procedure, which requires a 2/3 vote for passage and usually is reserved for non-controversial legislation? And why are they using a special rule to get there? Three points: first, the resolution needs a 2/3 vote anyway, so it doesn’t matter if they do it by suspension or by rule; there’s no handicap to using the suspension process. Second, they needed to pass the special rule to extend the debate time, which is limited to 40 minutes under the suspension procedures. Finally — and this is just speculation — they might have gone with a suspension in order to avoid the motion to recommit, which would have allowed the Democrats to propose an amendment to the resolution. A strategic amendment (a so-called ‘poison pill’) — such as a more conservative version of the resolution — might have been able to get the bare majority needed to amend the resolution, but also guarantee that the amended resolution could not capture the 2/3 for passage.

6: The number of proposed Constitutional Amendments that have been passed by Congress but failed to be ratified. These include two early proposed amendments (one to adjust the size of the House in 1789, another to strip citizenship of anyone who accepts a foreign title in 1810); the Corwin Amendment, passed in March 1861 by a secession-shrunk Republican Congress, which was an attempt to end the secession crisis by offering guarantees to the South that slavery could not be attacked in states where it already existed; an anti-child-labor amendment, passed in 1926, which would have empowered Congress to regulate child labor; the well-known ERA amendment; and, of course, the DC Voting Rights Amendment. Both the ERA amendment and the DC voting rights amendment were time-limited and have since expired. The other four are still eligible for ratification, although the Corwin amendment is now moot. The anti-foreign title amendment has been ratified by 12 states so far, but none since 1812. The child labor amendment is functionally moot, but has been ratified by 28 states, the last in 1937. The House size amendment is also functionally moot, and has been ratified by 10 states, the last in 1791.

7: The number of proposed Constitutional Amendments that have been passed by the House since the DC Voting Rights Amendment went to the states in 1978. Six have been amendments to empower the states and federal government to ban flag burning. The other was the Balanced Budget Amendment of 1995. None of the flag burning amendments received a vote in the Senate. The balanced budget amendment in 1995 fell two votes short (64-35) of passage on June 6, 1996.

7: The number of years that today’s proposed amendment will be open for ratification by the states if passed by Congress.

28: The number of proposed Constitutional Amendments that have seen floor action in the House since the DC Voting Rights Amendment went to the states in 1978. In addition to the 7 described above that have passed the house, these have included balanced budget amendments, an anti-busing amendment, an amendment to alter the system of filling vacant House seats, an equal rights amendment, a term limits amendment, an amendment to require a 2/3 vote to raise taxes, other tax limitation amendments, an amendment to limit campaign spending, and a definition of marriage amendment.

59: The number of proposed Constitutional Amendments that have been introduced in the House so far this Congress.

268: My guess for the number of votes the resolution gets in the House today. Not enough to pass.

Update: The vote was 261-165, with 8 not voting. 4 Republicans vote against it; 25 Democrats votes for it.

Three weeks ago, I asserted that Drew Westen had achieved anti-perfection with a New York Times piece. But he may have outdone himself last night. Last time, people were joking on Twitter that his article had been so completely shredded that the only thing left to go after was the grammar and punctuation. Mr. Westen may have been following that conversation, because not only did he bring all the nonsense we’ve become accustomed to in his latest piece, but he has also decided to start using unnecessary quotation marks, like “pre-existing conditions” and “adult in the room” and “grand bargain,” the last one selectively.

So there’s once again plenty of room for take-down commentary.

But you have to get up pretty early in the morning to have first crack at Mr. Westen: Brendan Nyhan was on the case via Twitter shortly after publication last night, and Jonathan Bernstein did an excellent full-length takedown before 7:30am. More are surely to follow; it’s just preposterously poor quality for a college daily. Or the global paper of record. If you think I’m exaggerating for effect, I urge you to go read the article. It’s a stunning achievement for something that’s not even 1400 words long.

Here’s one thing that bothered me that hasn’t been covered yet: Westen seems to have no sense of the role and power of the President within the political system. (This makes him two for two, since I’ve already covered his misunderstanding of the legislature; maybe next week he can write about the health care lawsuit!)  Brendan Nyhan pointed out the most egregious example of this — Westen’s claim that the President was crazy for leaving decisions about legislation to Congress — but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Five times, Westen suggests presidential ownership of things that are unambiguously shared responsibilities with Congress:

• “When [Obama] made his ‘grand bargain’ over the summer”
• “He created the Congressional committee”
• “After his grand bargain on the debt”
• “he has empowered a ‘supercommittee’ to make just the kinds of decisions”
• “a decision to override a plan produced by his own Environmental Protection Agency

Maybe I’m just being a cranky Whig because of Rick Perry’s assault on Congress this week, but this stuff really bothers me. Too many people already think the president is an all-powerful political actor. I hate seeing respectable media sources allowing it to be repeated as if it’s not up for debate. I know all the presidential candidates say things like “under my plan” and “when you compare my tax plan with his plan,” but the assertion that the President has unilateral control over policymaking or policy implementation simply does not reflect either the constitutional arrangements of the federal government or the practice of contemporary federal politics.

The President cannot create congressional committees. The President cannot empower congressional committees. The President does not declare “grand bargains” by fiat. The President cannot raise or lower taxes. The President cannot increase or cut spending. And the executive branch is not exclusively owned by the President. The job of the EPA is to implement and enforce laws passed by Congress. Arrggghhh! And lest you think this is just a style and usage issue for Westen, in other places in the article he says “the White House and the Democrats” when referring to the legislative process. Just kill me.

/venting.

I’m still digesting Rick Perry’s plan to uproot and overhaul Washington. There’s just a lot to take in.

There’s been some good writing around the blogsphere already on the congressional side of things — Jamelle Bouie and Jonathan Bernstein and Matt Yglesias addressed many of  the fundamental problems with populist downsizing and amatuerization of legislatures; Kevin Collins pointed out that de-professionalization would probably reduce congressional responsiveness to voters and cited some political science on the topic; and I made a small empirical point about congressional salary.

One thing that  hasn’t been voiced so far is the whiggish response to Perry’s plan, and I just can’t let this pass. If you look at the document from a holistic point of view and strip away all the policy-side stuff, it boils down to a pretty strong attack on the legislative and judicial branches, while leaving the Presidency largely intact, or in some cases enhancing its power.

Start with the judiciary: Perry’s plan it to pass a constitutional amendment ending life tenure for federal judges, replacing it with fixed terms.  But unless judges are not allowed to be reappointed — and that would be insane in the lower federal courts — the obvious results would be a politicization of the courts and significant political leverage for the president (and, to a lesser degree, Congress) over the judiciary. You think the court decisions are political now? Just wait!

But the courts aren’t the most egregious issue; the real problem is that Perry’s plan would strip Congress of its political resources but do nothing to reduce the resources of the President. Yesterday, many of the commentators focused on how reducing the staff and deprofessionalizing the legislature would empower interest groups: Members need to get information about legislation and oversight from somewhere, and if they do not have the resource capacity to gather it themselves, they will turn to other places, like leadership and interest groups. If congressional staff are cut, interest groups (and leadership) would gain an informational advantage, and thus increase their power over legislation.

But the President would also gain a massive informational advantage. Right now, the president gets just north of $800 million annually to fund the Executive Office of the President, which employs over 1800 people and exists to provide the president with a myriad of staff support: it includes OMB, the National Security Council, the Council of Economic Advisers, the direct White House staff, and other offices. There’s not a word in Perry’s plan about cutting the EOP.

And the end result of cutting congressional staff but not EOP staff would be to politically advantage the president in any legislative dispute that required research, analysis, or public persuasion. Which is, to say, all of them. This isn’t fantasy: one of the reasons the Congressional Budget Office was created in the 70’s was because Congress did not have their own independent source of budgeting and economic numbers; they had to rely on OMB, which was perceived to have a bias toward the president’s positions. Not only can you not make informed decisions without resources, you also can’t effectively take part in a public debate.

This is not to say that my solution would be to cut the EOP. Far from it. And this raises the main blindspot of Perry’s plan: part of the reason the number of staffers in Washington has grown is because the complexity of issues facing the nation has grown. It’s not 1915 — the president cannot survive on a dozen or so White House staffers, and individual Members of Congress cannot make optimally-informed decisions without significant staff research and analysis. Maybe Perry has read the Brownlow Commission report from 1937 but is taking its core message — The President needs help — a little too literally. Everyone needs help in the modern environment.

And look, I’m a libertarian. My personal preference would probably be for a somewhat smaller federal government. But even a small federal government — which is clearly what Perry wants — needs informed policymakers. But that’s really besides the point, because the fundamental issue is how all the Washington staff affect the government. This is another blind spot of Perry’s; he seems to think that because the growth of Washington followed the growth of government, you can somehow shrink the government by shrinking the Washington establishment. I don’t buy it. Shrinking the political apparatus in Washington will certainly produce a different government, but I doubt it would be a smaller one, and I’m quite certain it won’t be a better one.

But let’s move on. Perry does propose some  reforms for the executive branch, none of which seem to affect the power of the president very much. He wants a freeze on federal regulations, followed by an OMB review of existing regulations promulgated since 2008. This could mostly be done by executive order (I think) and, of course, he notes that “common-sense exceptions” would be made by the President. He proposes that FOIA be applied to both the legislative branch as well as the White House, but my impression is that  the president could always fall back on some variation of the constitutional executive privilege doctrine or a national-security FOIA exemption to avoid application.

Next, Perry proposes that the annual congressional budget resolution become statutory, which could in theory create stronger spending caps, but definitely brings the president into the equation. This is odd given that (a) the President already submits his own complete budget as Congress requires under law, and  (b) he can already veto appropriations bills. But leave that aside. Suggesting that Congress should modify a process that is designed to regulate the inner-workings of the legislative appropriations process so that the president can become a veto player is, well, it’s just out of line. It’s like Congress asking the President to submit to Senate approval for presidential pardons.

Finally, I want to say a word about oversight. Perry seems to take the view that congressional staff serve two main functions: helping constituents and getting in the way of Members’ direct control over legislation. Not surprisingly, he leaves out one of the most important functions of congressional committee staff: oversight of the executive branch. Whether you think Congress is doing a good job or a terrible job of oversight in the modern era, it’s pretty obvious that reducing the number of staff will not help improve it. And the crazy thing is that congressional oversight of the executive branch is a core conservative concern; if Congress does not have the tools to properly evaluate bureaucratic effectiveness and uncover problems, then popular control over government is reduced. And, more importantly, political power is further concentrated into the presidency.

I don’t want to make too big a deal about all of this stuff; it’s unlikely Perry is going to be President, and even if he was, it’s unlikely many of these reforms would be put into place. But I also believe that ideas matter, and anyone who believes in the power of Congress and worries about the expansion of the power of the president should not sit by and watch when presidential candidates propose things that, whether intended or not, are quite obviously consequential power plays in favor of the executive over the legislature.

In his plan to overhaul Washington, Rick Perry states that:

When the first Congress convened in 1789 following the ratification of the Constitution, federal lawmakers were paid $6 a day, and an annual salary of $1,500 was not authorized until 1815. Had Congressional salaries merely risen with inflation, a member of Congress today would make less than $20,000 each year. Instead, annual Congressional salaries have risen almost 10 times faster than inflation and now total $174,000 – more than 3.5 times higher than the country’s median household income of $49,445 in 2010.

He then follows them with this chart, showing congressional salaries, 1933-present:

I haven’t checked if his statements about inflation are true (I have no reason to doubt them technically), but if they are true then almost all the real increase in congressional salaries took place in the 19th century.* According to the inflation figures Perry used, real prices fell by almost 50% between 1815 and 1907, while Members’ salaries went from $1500 to $7500. There’s the entirety of the 10-fold increase he cites.

Contemporary Members make little more in real dollars than Members did in the early 20th century. Below is a graph that charts inflation-adjusted (CPI) salaries for Members, 1913-2010, in constant 1913 dollars.** (For the short period of time in 1990-1991 during which pay differed for Representatives and Senators, Representatives salaries are used).

As the chart shows — and this is the same data that Perry uses — Members make approximately 1.7% more in real dollars than they did 100 years ago. So if the salaries of the legislative branch ran wild because something changed in Washington, that something took place in the 19th century, not the 20th.

Some details for people interested in the spikes on the chart: prior to 1967, pay raises were accomplished by specific pieces of legislation, and were sporadic. They occurred in 1925, 1934, 1935, 1947, 1955, 1965, and are reflected in the chart by the various spikes, which are then eroded/augmented over time by inflation/deflation (pay was also reduced in 1932 and 1933).

While Congress may still adjust pay by stand-alone legislation, since 1967 there have been a few other statutory mechanisms: first a commission to recommend increases (which occurred in 1969, 1977, and 1987), followed by a system begun in 1975 in which Congress needed to accept or reject raises based on formula (accepted in 1975, 1979, 1984, 1985, and 1987; rejected all other years 1976-1989), and finally, under the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, a system of automatic raises that go into effect unless Congress rejects them (rejected in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2007, 2010, 2011). Under the automatic system, Members will also not get a raise in 2012, because the law bars Members from getting a larger increase than federal workers, who are currently under a COLA freeze.

Because the automatic adjustment (1) has occurred more often; and (2) is calculated from a formula based on variables that reflect inflation, real pay is somewhat more stable in recent decades than it was for much of the 20th century, as shown in the chart. It is also the case, however, that real wages for Members are likely to slowly decline, because in any given year, the most likely outcome is either (a) an automatic raise that keeps pace with inflation; or (b) a rejection of the automatic raise, which results in real pay erosion. The action necessary to reverse inflation-erosion from the rejected years would be stand-alone legislation that authorized a greater-than-inflation increase in pay, and that is politically unlikely to pass in most climates. at least until real pay has eroded significantly over many years.

——–

* One slightly misleading statement Perry makes is that “an annual salary of $1,500 was not authorized until 1815.” That’s true, but it implies an annual salary was then used going forward. In fact, the annual salary was only used from 1815-1817, after which Congress returned to a per diem system until 1855, when the salary was set at $3,000.

**1913 was used instead of 1907 so that the consistent CPI metric could be used; the estimated CPI from 1907 to 1913 shows virtually no aggregate inflation, and using 1907 would not alter the findings.

Each Congress, quite a few pieces of legislation are introduced to amend the Constitution. If you look through the House Joint Resolutions introduced this Congress, you will find the following:

proposals for a balanced budget amendment; proposals for term limits on Members of Congress; a proposal for a parents’ rights amendment; proposals to cap total federal spending; proposals to empower Congress to regulate campaign finance; a proposal to bar out-of-district campaign contributions; a proposal to empower the regulation of flag burning; a proposal for a presidential line-item veto; a proposal to repeal the 16th amendment (graduated income tax); a proposal to repeal the 22nd amendment (presidential term limit); a proposal to prohibit the United States from owning stock; a proposal to require a super-majority vote to raise taxes; a proposal to allow residents of territories to vote for president and vice-president; a proposal to restructure congressional succession with an “alternate Member” system; a proposal to establish a right to public prayer; a proposal to alter voting rights; a proposal to establish a constitutional right to an education; a proposal to establish a constitutional equal right for men and women, and reproductive rights; a proposal to establish a constitutional right to affordable housing; a proposal to establish a constitutional mandate for progressive taxation; a proposal to establish a constitutional worker’s rights; a proposal to establish a constitutional right to a clean environment; a proposal to bar all income, estate, and gift taxes, and prevent the government from competing with private business; a proposal to repeal the deadline for the ERA amendment; a proposal for a new ERA amendment; a proposal to restrict the authority of executive orders, treaties, and international agreements; a proposal to abolish the electoral college; a proposal to require a super-majority to increase the debt limit; two proposals to allow repeal of federal laws by the vote of 2/3 of state legislatures; and a proposal to bar the use of foreign law as authority in federal courts.

What you will not find, best I can tell, is a Right to Life or other anti-abortion amendment. This surprised me greatly. Hundreds of  RTL amendments have been introduced since the Supreme Court decision in Roe. v. Wade, and at least one was proposed in the House each Congress for decades. Then, in 2005, they just stop. The last one that I can find is H.J.Res 4 from the 109th Congress, introduced on January 4, 2005.

Perhaps there’s a back story here about the changing strategy of the pro-life movement, but it’s not one I’m familiar with. Or maybe I’m missing something. But I don’t think so.

Last Tuesday, former president Clinton gave his support to altering the 22nd amendment so that it only limited the number of consecutive terms a person could serve as president, allowing people to leave office and serve again later:

I’ve always thought that should be the rule … I think as a practical matter, you couldn’t apply this to anyone who has already served, but going forward, I personally believe that should be the rule.

How should we think about presidential term limits? Five points.

1) The presidency is different than other offices. I’m totally against any term limits for Representatives or Senators or other officeholders. For all the usual reasons.

But the presidency is far more politically powerful and, more importantly, more ripe for highly-consequential abuse. As Jonathan Bernstein noted while thinking about this a while back, presidents are in a unique position of influence across all policy areas, with lasting effects on the systemic power structure. Someone who could build even a modest House-like incumbency advantage would gain a whole lot of discretion without much of a check from popular elections. And that could have long-term consequences, for both the presidency and for the relative power of the presidency within the system. It’s not clear what kind of incumbency advantage first-term presidents gain — for what it’s worth, David Mayhew thinks it’s pretty significant, and Larry Sabato’s shop has hilariously calculated it at 4.4% — but it’s hard to imagine it’s nothing.

But the thing that scares me about a four-term president isn’t that he might be winning the elections due to an artificial incumbency advantage. It’s that the lack of rotation in the most powerful office might have a seriously corrosive effect on the democratic character of the system itself. The American system does not differentiate between the head of state and head of government, and the fusion of those two roles creates a presidency that not only embodies the nation, but also comes to define it. Ever been in the same general vicinity of a president who you didn’t vote for and really don’t care for? It’s not uncommon for people to just start spontaneously clapping. That sort of gut-patriotism alone is enough to creep me out when I think about undoing the 22nd amendment; then I imagine someone turning 18 who can’t ever remember anyone else being president.

2) The 22nd amendment has some negative consequences. Despite everything said above, there’s little doubt that the 22nd amendment (or the norm that preceded it) has a few serious negative consequences, which can be broadly placed into three different buckets. First, second- term presidents have no electoral incentives to constrain their actions. Sure, public opinion polling matters and presidents certainly prefer to be in good standing over bad. And people like to talk about “legacy” as the constraint. But the observable actions of 2nd term presidents —like  proposing politically-risky policies (like Bush re: SS privatization) or making inexcusable pardons — point toward these alleged constraints being quite different than the electoral connection. You might, of course, think these are good things, and it’s true that they would be available to any president who knew he wasn’t running again, but my instinct is that a higher percentage of presidents would leave office due to electoral defeat absent the 22nd, and so there would be an overall aggregate mitigation of these concerns.

The second issue is that the lame-duck status of the president tends to  hamper his political effectiveness during his second term. Especially by the second Congress of his second term, the president begins to lose public attention and standing as the competitors for the nomination in both parties — as well as their policy prescriptions — arise. Similarly, the various tools of political leverage — patronage appointments, campaign assistance, greasing the skids for specific legislation — become less valuable and less effective, because presidents can’t make future guarantees about anything that happens after the are out of office, and because they tend to run out of chits before then anyway. This point (as well as the first) is not a specific function of the 22nd amendment — it would be true of any last term president who made his intentions known prior to nomination season — but the amendment guarantees that half of any re-elected presidency will function under this cloud.

Finally, there’s the crisis issue. It’s a silly political saying, but there’s a lot of merit to the don’t-change-horses-midstream logic.  I think FDR’s decision to run in 1944 was quite justifiable. Much more so than in 1940. Roosevelt was managing a global war and had personal relationships with the leadership of our allies. It was a tough enough transition when he abruptly died; to crate 2+ months of lame-duckness followed by a change in command might have seriously impacted our global strategy and prospects. The point is that I think it would be a tough situation to be trapped in a long war or crisis situation and be constitutionally required to change leadership. This was one of the key minority arguments against the amendment in the committee report that came to the House floor with it.

3) We never really got to see the post-two-term world. When you stop and think about it, there was a very strange dynamic at play when the amendment was ratified in 1951. In effect, a constitutional amendment was passed to enforce a norm. But that raises the question: if the norm was so widely believed, what need was the amendment? And if the amendment was popular enough to pass, why wasn’t the norm good enough? The answer, of course, is somehow related to FDR and/or the depression and the war. But it’s an open question as to whether 3rd terms — or even presidents seeking 3rd terms — would have become commonplace.

It’s true that the approval ratings of Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton were high enough during their last Congresses to plausibly have made reelection possible (Bush 43’s were not). But there’s too much endogeneity to know for sure, and 2nd term presidents might benefit from good feeling once they are out of the electoral game. But even though the norm had been crumbling for the better part of a century — Grant sought a non-consecutive nomination in 1880, TR ran for what would have more or less been a non-consecutive 3rd term in 1912 — it would still have had an impact, judging from the fact that the amendment was ratified. So it’s far from clear that FDR would have opened the floodgates to 2nd term presidents automatically standing for re-election the way 1st term presidents do.

In effect, we’ve had four historical phases regarding the terms. First, in the patrician era there was strong elite opinion against the 3rd term, stemming from some combination of political theory, Founding thought, and Washington’s example. Following Jackson’s presidency and the onset of the powerful mass political parties, there was an institutional constraint on the 3rd term — the parties were loathe to nominate candidates even a second time, out of fear that the president could build his own patronage system and come to dominate the party, rather than be beholden to it. Later, in the later 19th and early 20th century, there existed a popular norm against the 3rd term, even as the parties warmed to the idea of multi-term candidates. Finally, beginning with the Eisenhower presidency, there is the constitutional rule.

4) Clinton’s plan does not strike me as an improvement. There are two distinct ides in the 22nd amendment. The first is that no one should be president for more than 8 consecutive years (or 10 in the case of inheriting the office). The second is that no one should be president for more than 8 years (or 10) during their lifetime. Clinton’s proposal is to scrap the second idea, and allow former presidents to stand for the office. There’s an intuitive appeal to this; it certainly mitigates the incumbency-advantage issue. But it doesn’t do anything to address the problems of the 2nd term president or the changing-horses-midstream problem.

And I think it comes with it’s own problems. Former presidents in the modern age are not, by and large, political animals. They are around as statesmen and such, but they don’t hang huge shadows over the political parties. If they were allowed to run again, but not run for a 3rd term, you might end up in a situation where they very much were shadows. That might not be a bad thing, it’s pretty fuzzy. But my intuition is that presidents are quite influential in shaping the party ideology these days, and when combined with the open possibility of running again but having to sit on the sidelines, might create a mess. Could it work out well? Sure, I think Clinton in 2004 might have been a good and winning candidate. But we don’t really know what a Clinton shadow over the party would have meant from 2001-2004.

5) On balance, I think it’s a very close call on repeal. I’d probably end up opposing a straight repeal of the 22nd amendment, because I’m both risk-averse and very much an opponent of expanded presidential power. And that’s what really worries me, the worst-case scenario: someone developing a personal cult, serving for seven terms, and then having his son elected to the office upon his death. It’s farfetched, but in the age of the runaway executive I think any move that expands the power of the presidency has to be approached with an eye toward the worst-case scenarios. It’s naive to think that a contemporary four-term president wouldn’t develop a personal power that went beyond anything we’ve ever seen. And that’s very troubling.

Still, I would be pretty torn about it. The problems with the unlimited system are, like the above hypothetical, almost completely theoretical, whereas the problems with the limited system are well-known and consistently evidenced in two-term presidencies. On this I agree with Bernstein; the best world would be the post-Jacksonian and pre-FDR world, where the norm was either culturally strong among voters or institutionally enforced by political parties jealous of the power multi-term presidents might acquire at their expense. And while the latter is unlikely to ever be coming back, the cultural/electoral norm could theoretically be resurrected.

Still, the ship has sailed on a two-term system held together by norms. Not because I don’t think the norm exists in the modern mindset, but because the only plausible situation in which  the 22nd amendment could be undone is one in which  there is a groundswell against both the amendment and the norm. Nor do I think there are other workable solutions. I don’t like Clinton’s plan. I think a three-term limit would be completely counterproductive, embodying the worst of both an unlimited system and the 22nd amendment system.  And you don’t have to live in Virginia to know that all the proposals for a single 6-year term are insane.

Our church was holding elections this morning for the pastoral council. So much to talk about, but just a few quick points here.

1) I’m a huge fan of democratically-structured institutions of civil society. At my wife’s request, we go to a Catholic church, which I have always rated low the self-democracy scale. It’s an international institutions with a pretty strong hierarchy preaching a pretty strong organizational authoritarianism and providing little congregation control over decision-making at the local or regional level. So I was pleased to see the ballot boxes out today, even if the organizational structure doesn’t allow for a whole lot of democratic decision-making and the elections were for what is, more or less, an advisory council..

I grew up in a liberal Protestant church that was pretty much exactly the opposite — close to total self-reliance on donated funds from the small congregation to run the church, with corresponding democratic control over pretty much the whole ball of wax — pastor salary, worship logistics and contents, youth curriculum, building improvements — with minimal to no input from the larger national church structure. As with any organization, there were large variations among the congregation regarding interest in decision-making, and practical political control of the church fell to a small cadre of highly-interested people. But the basic sense of the community was self-governance, and it was a pervasive cultural attitude of the church. People talked about the church budget, and the sunday school curriculum, and the proposed additions to the building.  And when decisions were made, it felt like the community was making them.

Honestly, to me this is the single best thing about the American-born churches, as well as one reason I am more fond of American protestantism than I am of Catholicism. Strip away all of the salvation theology and the ethics system and what you have at the foundations of American protestantism is the essence of democratic civil society. We voted on everything in my church growing up. Yes, it could be bitter, and yes there were political factions. But it gave people a chance to participate in self-government in a way that I think reinforced both the clear advantages of the democratic system over all possible governing structures as well as the limitations and shortcomings of the same. Democracy is far from perfect, but you can’t help but believe in its magic after you observe how well it serves a 300-person church that doesn’t even have the power to tax. The spillover effects of democracy, both from public life to our church, and from our church to public life, were unmistakable.

2) I was unimpressed with the election structure today. Nine candidates for four seats, voters allowed to mark four candidates on a ballot, top four plurality winners elected, voting open after mass yesterday, today, and next Saturday and Sunday. This looks to me like a structure that could likely result in factional candidates — ones with lots of support but also lots of opposition — winning seats over consensus candidates. That’s never a great outcome, but it’s especially bad in a private non-profit organization, I think. One remedy would be to go to some form of Borda voting, but that would never happen in a church. Nor would a runoff. Luckily, this election did not seem at all divisive.

Another problem in a massive Catholic parish is that not everyone knows each other. With four different masses on a given weekend and people tending to always go to the same one, it can kind of feel like four different churches. And thus you get a situation where the candidates are unknown to a good many of the voters.  Obviously, you can’t do anything about this; but it does speak to how the usually-smaller protestant churches, with their single services and tighter communities, are perhaps better structured for democracy. To combat this today, there was a candidate brochure available, which had pictures of each of the nine candidates and a brief (150 word) statement from each of them. Perusing the brochure, not a single candidate spoke to policy; the appeals were either made to gyroscopic representation (I’ve been a member here for 20 years; my kids are in the youth program, etc.) or to experience (I’ve been on the board for 3 terms, etc.).

The lack of policy positions revealed what was actually the most problematic aspect of the election — I don’t think most voters have any more than a vague sense of what the job actually entails. Well, I don’t at any rate. And maybe that’s because I’m not Catholic, but my wife didn’t know either. I assume it’s some sort of advisory group to the parish priests on various church matters, but I really don’t know. It can’t be like a stand-alone protestant church trustees situation, because there’s not that much congregation control in a Catholic church. But on the other hand, it might have actual administrative powers of some sort. I guess the point is that it would probably serve the church well to put up a description of the powers/duties of the job in the front of the candidate brochure.

3) On the good side, the voter eligibility was wide. According to the candidate brochure, any “registered parishoner” was eligible to vote. I assume this means any confirmed member of the church, which means that most high school students would qualify. That’s good for both the teenagers and the church. The teenagers benefit because there’s something very powerful about participatory democracy and self-government, and there’s no way to build a lifetime understanding of that then by getting started at it early. Teenagers live in a world dominated by authority: at home, at school, on the sports teams. To hand them even the smallest token of equality in a private institution is an eye-opener. I know it was for me. And this is to say nothing of the spill-over effects it may have on public society in their community or the nation.

But I think the big winner is the church. There’s no real reason to restrict the franchise in a situation like this; I’m almost certain that any of the nine candidates would be minimally-competent at the job. But the gains an organization can make by including their children and young adults in a process like this are potentially huge. First, you give them a sense of ownership over the church; it may be a trivial election to the adults, but any child who feels like they helped put a winning candidate over the top will find themselves looking at the institution in a new way, and they will bring a new sense of care to it. Second, churches constantly struggle to maintain memberships. In a country with a protestant/capitalist mentality, even the Catholic church cannot rely on its theology to bind parishoners; it surely competes less on the open-market than the protestant churches, but it still competes. Allowing teenagers to participate in the church administrative structure aids this retention, through both participatory effects and (in theory) policy outcomes.

4) I observed turnout for a while after church. It was abysmal.This doesn’t surprise me, because as I noted above, I don’t think a lot of people understand what the job does, nor do I think that the council has a lot of actual administrative powers. Still, it irks me that they don’t do a better job with it on the institutional side. The election was reasonably publicized, but the voting table was out of the way and not particularly visible. The in-mass message from the priest reminding people to vote was also pretty lukewarm. For a church that has no problem issuing dead-serious prescriptions for salvation and ethics, I would think that something along the lines of “it’s your duty to vote” could have been proffered without a lot of trouble and to some definite effect. I doubt they get 10% turnout across all of the voting days.

A few months ago, I put up a post with a long list of Hill jargon in response to a short-but- good published article (subscription required). Since my original post was pretty well received, here’s an updated version with another three dozen terms. As with the first installment, this isn’t formal terminology related to floor procedure, that can be found in quite a few places. This is the language that staffers use. Like any profession, the Hill is chock-full of wonderful phrases and sayings. But unlike a lot of other professions, politics tends garner a lot of interest from non-practitioners. So enjoy. These are off the top of my head. So feel free to add on in the comments.

BTU (or BTU’d): When backbench majority House Members cast a tough vote to support the leadership, but then the policy never even materializes because the Senate doesn’t take up the bill. Named after a vote in 1993, in which House Democrats cast a painful vote to raise taxes on home heating oil and other energy, measured in BTU’s, only to see the Senate never even take up the bill. Usage: I hope to god we don’t get BTU’d on this health care vote. It was bad enough on the climate change bill.

Rolled: When a faction of a party or group gets end-run or otherwise outmaneuvered politically. Usage: I can already see what’s going to happen here: the liberals are going to get rolled again by a conservative coalition.

Apoplectic: When a Member or staff gets enraged by new information or news. Usage: When he found out the minority was going to move 30 amendments, the Chairman was apoplectic.

Recommend: Polite language staffers often use to tell their bosses what they should do. Usage: On the tax amendment, I recommend you vote no.

Ping-pong: Reconciling the differences between a House-passed bill and a Senate-passed bill by amendments between the chambers, rather than forming a conference committee. More common now than in the past. Usage: I don’t think they have the time or inclination to put a conference together on the omnibus, we’ll probably just ping-pong it.

Mr./Ms.: The title staffers use for Members other than “their boss.” Usage: Is everyone in the hearing room? No, we’re still waiting on Mr. Obey and Mr. Skelton.

Camel’s nose: The principle that once funding starts — no matter how little — for a project, it will be difficult to cut and probably grow larger. Usage: But they only want $250,000 for it. Yeah, but that’s just the camel’s nose.

Justifications: Short for budget justifications, documents submitted by agencies to the appropriations committee outlining their budget requests for the following fiscal year. Usage: What the hell is this $2 million for “additional overages”? I don’t know, check the justifications.

Push-back: When a stakeholder objects to draft or proposed legislation coming out of a Member’s office or a committee. Usage: We thought it would work to structure it that way too, but we got a lot of push-back from the auto industry.

Stakeholder: An interest group or other entity that has a position on a piece of legislation. Usage: This bill is a nightmare. There are a million stakeholders,and they all want something different!

Pen and Pad: A type of press availability held by Members on the Hill at which video/photography is not allowed, usually associated with leadership Members who often hold them on a weekly basis at a scheduled time. Named as such because the reporters all used to gather around the Member with their pads of paper and pens. Now many just put a tape recorder on the table. Usage: Are you going to Hoyer’s pen and pad tomorrow?

Build a public record: The main reason for holding a hearing, which is to get the committee majority’s position and rationale for a bill down on paper. Usage: The boss wants it to move by Christmas. So we need to build a public record on this thing. I guess we should schedule a hearing.

MRA: Short for Members Representational Allowance. The money that each House office is given to fund staff salaries, travel, office expenses and franked mail. Senate equivalent is the SOPOEA (Senator’s Official Personnel and Office Expense Account). Usage: Can drinks at Bullfeather’s be charged to the MRA if we talk about politics?

Face Time: One-on-one interactions between a staffer and the Member he/she works for. Usage: How’s your new job on the Hill? It’s great, but my boss is so busy that I’m lucky to get 30 minutes of face time a week.

D.O.: District Office. Virtually all Members employ staffers to work in their home districts, usually to handle casework and constituent outreach. Usage: What the intake procedure for these constituent passport questions? I have no idea, call the DO.

Move: To advance legislative action on a bill, either in committee or on the floor. Usage: Any word on when the defense reauthorization is going to move? Nope. But they’re moving the minibus on Thursday, so I think it might happen next week.

D-Trip: Short for D-Triple-C, which is slang for DCCC, which is the acronym for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is the primary campaign arm of the House Democrats. Republican equivalent is the NRCC; Senate equivalents are the DSCC and NRSC. Usage: Did Chris get that job with Smith? No, but he landed a sweet position at the D-Trip.

Christmas Tree / too many ornaments: Refers to the process of too many amendments/ideas being added to a bill, causing opposition to grow. Interchangeable with “collapsed under its own weight.” Usage: I thought the omnibus had a chance, but now there are too many ornaments weighing down the Christmas tree.

Subcommittee print: A document produced by subcommittee staff for Members and other staff, often related to a bill. Usually never made public, but often a great source of information. Usage: How much money did that agency get in FY08? I have no idea, check the subcommittee print.

FTE: Acronym for “full-time equivalent,” which is the standard metric for number of employees in an executive branch agency. Usage:Did you see the budget justifications the agency sent over? They’re asking for 45 new FTEs!

Report language: Instructions, observations, and expectations found in the committee report that accompanies a bill to the floor. Does not have the force of law (as “bill language” does), but agencies ignore it at their own risk. Usage: Call them back and tell them we’re serious about the unauthorized travel. And if they don’t want to listen, tell them we’ll add some stern report language to the reauthorization. And if they still don’t want to listen, we’ll just put it in bill language.

Budget drills: In the early stages of appropriations season, prior to the passage of a budget resolution and 302(b) suballocations, appropriations staffers will often produce hypothetical appropriation bill estimates at various percentages of the previous year’s allocation. Usage: What have you been up to? Just some light budget drills — we look good at 2% over FY11, but anything less is going to be tough.

Test vote: A procedural or other non-final vote, almost always in the Senate, that gives a signal as to where different Members stand on the underlying issue, and thus a roadmap as to how a bill might or might not have to change to win support. Usage: I don’t know where we stand on the debt deal, but they’ve lined up a couple test votes this afternoon, so we’ll know then.

Marker: A piece of legislation intended not to make law, but to lay down a position, for either political or negotiation purposes, or both. Often the introduction of a bill or a proposed amendment. Usage: The details of the legislative language don’t have to be perfect, we’re just laying down a marker.

Byrd bath: A review of legislative language prior to floor action under the reconciliation process to make sure that it conforms to the Byrd Rule, which bars certain extraneous legislation in reconciliation bills. Usage: When do you think they are going to move the reconciliation package? I know that they are doing the Byrd bath on Tuesday night, so probably by the end of the week.

Take down / bring down: When the majority is defeated on the floor in the House, which by definition involves Members of the majority voting against the leadership. Usage: The blue dogs are pretty upset right now, but I don’t think they’ll try to take down the rule on the Labor/H bill.

Lovefest: A committee hearing or markup in which the majority and minority are almost entirely in agreement, featuring little opposition and perhaps no amendments offered. Usage: I thought we’d see some fireworks at the Interior markup, but it turned out to be a lovefest.

Case: A constituent request for help from their Member’s office. Usage: I’m absolutely swamped here in the DO, we’ve got over 1500 open cases, and half of them are passport requests because of the State Department backup.

Floor: The actual House and Senate chambers, the only places where legislation can actually pass. Usage:When do you think the Defense bill will be on the floor? No idea, but if they can’t get a UC on the Patriot Act reauthorization, that could take the rest of the week.

Eat: When an agency is given a new responsibility but not increased appropriations to pay for it. Usage: We’re not going to be able to get an appropriations for this. Well, they’ll just have to eat it out of the Administrator’s funds.

Stack: Votes in the House can be postponed, and then taken one after another. Usage: What time do we have to be back in DC on Tuesday? Not till late. It’s just a pile of suspension votes, and they’re going to stack all the votes around 5pm.

Over a barrel: Having people in a political bind, such that they have to do what you want. Usage: It really looked like Stupak had the leadership over a barrel during the health care fight, but they managed to break his support.

Cardinal: An appropriations subcommittee chairman/chairwoman. Usage: I can’t believe Mr. Smith is already a cardinal. I feel like he was just a freshman on the committee yesterday.

UC: unanimous consent, or unanimous consent agreement. Perhaps the most important phrase in the Senate. If no one objects, the time-consuming process for moving anything on the Senate floor can be reduced to mere seconds. Usage: We need to line everyone up on this, if we can’t get a UC then it’s not going to move.

Run the traps: The process of vetting an idea by making sure all key players sign-off on it. Usage: I think this language will work, but you need to run the traps on it. Start by calling Ben in the Speaker’s office.

Member-level:  In bill or report language negotiations, an issue that can’t be handled by staff and will require Member-to-Member communication. Usage: Q: Can you delete the language on the park issue? A: No. That’s going to have to be a Member-level decision.

Mark: The version of a bill used by a committee when the committee formally acts to amend legislation. Usage: Have you seen the mark for the Defense bill yet?

Rattle the cage: To surprise a hearing witness with unexpected or unwanted questions. Usage: When the secretary comes down here next week, I think the chairman is going to rattle the cage a little.

Embargo: A ban on the disclosure of information of any sort until a certain time. Usage: Here’s the report language for the bill. There’s an embargo on it until 3pm tomorrow.

D’s/R’s: Democrats and Republicans. Usage: If we put that on the floor this week, the D’s are going to be might upset.

Scores: When a provision in a bill costs money, but especially when the provision does not appropriate money, it scores. The Congressional Budget Office evaluates the cost of all bills that come out of committee, and appropriations bills are subject to caps on their budget authority and outlays. So it’s not good when something scores. Usage: I don’t think we can include those riders. They’re both going to score, and we don’t have room under the cap.

Book(s): Short for briefing book(s). The large binders that staff put together for Members and themselves prior to committee and other events, filled with things like statement texts, markup notes, bill language, data, etc. Usage: We’ve got to get moving on this draft. It’s already 9pm and we haven’t even started putting the books together.

Go down: Send bill or report language to GPO for overnight printing. Usage: I’m hoping we can finish this afternoon and go down tonight. That way we can read a bit tomorrow.

Sit and read/ turn pages: Collectively walking through a bill (especially an appropriations bill) out loud with multiple people, to check new drafts against old ones and confirm that language is exactly correct. A slow process. Usage: I’d like to turn pages on Thursday, so adjust your schedule accordingly.

Optics: how a bill or report language or policy will look from a constituent point of view. Usage: I agree with you, John, but the optics of this thing are terrible.

Drop: to introduce a bill. Usage: We need that language ASAP, because we want to drop this bill tomorrow.

Take a haircut: have your appropriation cut by some percentage. Usage: I know you have a lot of needs, but in this climate everyone is going to have to take a haircut.

Plus up: An appropriations increase, especially in contrast. Usage: the overall bill is flat but we gave a plus up to agency XYZ.

Four corners discussion: staff or Member meeting (often prior to formal conference) that includes majority and minority staff or Members of both House and Senate. Usage: Let’s try to put together a four corners discussion for Tuesday. See if they’ll come over here.

CR: continuing resolution. If all 12 appropriations bills are not signed into law by October 1, the government will have at least a partial shutdown, unless a continuing resolution is passed to temporarily fund things until the regular bills can be passed. Usage: The CR expires on November 3rd. Do you think they’ll have it all done by then, or do you think there will be another CR?

IQ: the most popular correspondence management system on the Hill. Used by Member offices to track and respond to constituent communications. Usage: Our new staff assistant is terrible. Five weeks and he can’t figure out IQ.

SA/LC/LA/LD: Four common positions in a Member office: Staff Assistant, Legislative Correspondent, Legislative Assistant, and Legislative Director. The basic chain of command beneath the chief of staff. Usage: We need to hire two new LAs this month and it looks like our LD might be leaving.

Clerk: lead staffer on a committee or subcommittee, particularly on Appropriations. Largely interchangeable with Staff Director. Calls the roll for committee votes. Usage: I think that’s right, but you better check with the Clerk.

CRS/CBO/GPO/GAO/LOC/AOC: Some of the legislative branch agencies. Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office, Government Printing Office, Government Accountability Office, Library of Congress, Architect of the Capitol. Usage: I can’t believe the roof is leaking again. Get the AOC down here stat.

Give away: to have no floor votes on a day when there were initially going to be votes. Thus, Members are free to return to their districts early, and the Hill quiets down. Usage: I heard they are going to give away Friday this week.

The smell of jet fuel: an allusion to the impatience that sets in when Members are imminently leaving town for the weekend. Such situations can be used to quickly get through mark ups or floor action that might have otherwise taken time. Usage: It’s great we’re going last today. The smell of jet fuel is in the air, so there’s little chance we’ll face many hostile amendments.

Cats and dogs: Small details in a bill. Usage: we’ve pretty much ironed out all the outstanding issues. Just a few cats and dogs left, but nothing major.

CODEL/STAFDEL: Acronym for congressional delegation and staff delegation, the groups that might go on an official trip overseas. Usage: Did we get the money for the CODEL to South Africa yet? No, but I hear its coming.

Hotline: any number of uses related to moving a bill through the Senate by unanimous consent. Formally the decentralized phone system used to clear bills with all Members prior to bringing them to the floor. As a verb, the practice of moving bills in this manner. Usage: When are they going to do the land use bill? They’re going to try to hotline it tomorrow afternoon.

Ramseyers: refers to the Ramseyer’s Rule, which requires committee reports for House bills to include a section that describes how the proposed legislation would alter current law. Usage: I’m so glad we can farm out the Ramseyers to legislative counsel, those are a pain to write.

Side-by-side: A document that places the text of two similar bills (perhaps a House version and a Senate version) next to each, line by line. Allows easier comparison of the exact language difference between the bills. Usage: We’re almost ready for the staff-level conference negotiations, but we need to finish the side-by-side.

Markup notes: a document produced by committee staff for Members to use as a companion to a bill at markup. Most common in appropriations bills. Usage: If you’re having trouble understanding section 5, refer to the markup notes, which have more details.

HR/SR: House recedes or Senate recedes. Notation used in conference negotiations to indicate one chamber or the other giving in on bill language that differs between the chamber-passed versions. Usage: On page 12, section 3, 4, and 5 are all HR’s.

Suspension: Any bill going through the House of Representatives under suspension of the rules, which can move a bill quickly, but requires a 2/3 vote. Usually used with non-controversial legislation. Usage: How many suspensions are we doing today?

Two quick items and then a bunch of recommendations for excellent blog reads from this week:

1. I haven’t said anything about Penn State, mostly because I don’t have the heart to really get into it. I tried to read the grand jury presentment, but I had to stop because it I couldn’t take it; it was (literally) making me physically ill. I don’t see how any parent could read that whole thing. Sandusky is obviously a monster. Paterno, McQueary, and the Penn State administration are clearly morally bankrupt. The riot on Wednesday night might have been the dumbest protest/riot in U.S. history, and that’s saying something. And big-money college sports are perhaps beyond saving at this point.

The last point makes me sad because my one of my first sporting loves as a child was watching college basketball with my father. My parents’ house is spitting distance from Siena College, a tiny Catholic school with a cult following for its high mid-major basketball team. One thing you learn when you go to a lot of Catholic school college basketball games is that priests love college basketball. I can remember asking my father once why that was the case. And he said, “This — watching college sports — is pretty much the most wholesome and innocent entertainment available on a Saturday night in America.” That’s a fantasy I’ve always enjoyed, even as it has gradually crumbled for me. I won’t be able to stop watching Siena basketball, but I never really liked college football anyway. And so I’m done with it.

2. It’s Veteran’s Day. I have very mixed feelings about it as a holiday. I don’t believe in violence for either individuals or nations, except in the most direct cases of self defense. And I don’t believe that any modern war can be conducted in even a remotely just manner, certainly not by the classic Roman or Christian standards. Both of my grandfathers were in the Navy in WW2 — one as a radio operator on a boat in the Pacific, the other stateside as a chaplain counseling returning sailors — and while both of them always made the war seem like McHale’s Navy, it was pretty obvious that what they saw/heard scarred them for life.

On the other hand, I accept the imperfections of the world and I have an admiration for people who are willing to set their own lives aside for national service. I don’t hate the military; in fact, in an age of decreasing social mobility in America, it’s still one of the best ways for someone born into poverty to lift themselves and their family into the middle class. But I see a lot of people lament the muted celebrations of today compared to Veterans’ Days past — there’s no parade in my town today and the schools aren’t even closed — and I couldn’t disagree with them with more. Less celebration on Veteran’s Day indicates there are fewer veterans, which means fewer or less intense recent wars. And that is unambiguously a good thing.

Here’s a bunch of reads from this week that I highly recommend:

1. Brendan Nyhan and Jacob Montgomery have an excellent post on presidential election forecasting.

2. Definitely read John Sides’ response to Michael Tomasky’s piece regarding Obama’s election chances.

3. William Galston’s piece on mandatory voting provoked solid responses from Sides and from Jon Bernstein and also see this from Josh Huder. I also really liked Bernstein’s post on involving yourself in politics this electoral season.

4. And speaking of the Rule 22 bloggers, they are running a great political science series on institutions. Anyone interested in Congress should read it.

5. Buzz Bizzinger’s take on Penn State is a must-read.

6.. Bret Victor’s article on the future of technology is awesome.

7. I have no idea if he’s correct but Ken Anderson’s cold calculus about higher education is scary if you have kids.

Question: How many times was the word “Obamacare” said during the debate last night?

Answer: Based on this transcript, it was said 11 times.

Question: Who said it?

Answer: Bachmann said it four times. Romney said it three times. Perry and Santorum said it once each. Gingrich, Huntsman, Paul, and Cain never said it.

Question: But that only adds to 9? I thought the answer was 11?

Answer: That’s because moderator Maria Bartiromo said it twice. First, when introducing the topic of what would replace the ACA, she said:

“You have all said that — that you will repeal the president’s health care legislation. We will get into that, because we want to know, then what? What is the plan once you repeal Obamacare?”

Later, she reintroduced the issue:

You have all said that you will repeal President Obama’s health care legislation. Down the line, 30 seconds, if you repeal Obamacare, what’s the answer?

Question: What do you make of this?

Answer: I didn’t like it, for two reasons. First, I think it’s a pejorative term for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or at least a loaded one, and I don’t think debate moderators should be using politically loaded terms when they ask questions. My hunch is that the vast majority of people who use the term are negatively describing the law, and my guess is that a lot of liberals and supporters of the bill find ‘Obamacare’ to be partisan slang.

Now, it may be the case that ‘ObamaCare’ has just simply entered the lexicon as popular slang. I still don’t think journalists should be using it. It assumes a certain political orientation. I’m pretty skeptical about the health care plan — I don’t think it’s going to accomplish the bulk of what it sets out to do — but I would still never refer to it as ‘Obamacare’ if I was asking politicians questions.

Second, I don’t like the president-centric aspect of the name. Maybe I’m too much of a Whig, but President Obama didn’t pass the law, Congress did. Hell, President Obama didn’t even propose the bill; as we all know so well, it came straight through the committee system without the White House ever offering up their own public version of health care reform in legislative language.

I don’t mean to take this too far. There’s obviously a line to be drawn. For example, I don’t think ‘Bush tax cuts’ is out of bounds; that’s what everyone calls them, both opponents and supporters. But to me, ‘Obamacare’ is more like saying ‘death tax’ than it is like saying ‘Bush tax cuts.’ If moderators want to say ‘the President’s health care legislation’ as Maria did, I’m ok with it (although I would still think it less than perfect given my second objection). But I think ‘Obamacare’ crosses a line.

Some people might say who really cares? Maybe that’s a fair point. But I think language matters significantly in politics, and the words we choose to represent different ideas and policies have consequences. Like I said, I’m skeptical of the law and think it’s not ultimately going to be the final national health care policy, even if it’s not repealed. So it’s not like my blood is boiling over this. But if I were a liberal Democrat, I’d be at least a little ticked off about it.

Question: Is Maria the first moderator to use the term in a debate?

Answer: Actually, no. I went back and checked the transcripts. The word ‘Obamacare’ had been said 124 times by candidates in the eight debates going into last night. It had been said 5 times by moderators, but 4 of those instances were somewhat special circumstances.

Here are the number of times a candidate said ‘ObamaCare’ and the number of times a moderator said “ObamaCare” in each of the debates:

• FOX NEWS / SC Republican Party Debate (5/5, transcript here): 0 candidates /0 moderator
• CNN / NH Union Leader (6/13. transcript here): 24/0
• FOX NEWS /Iowa GOP Debate (8/11, transcript here): 14 / 0
• NBC NEWS / Politico Debate (9/7, transcript here): 15 / 0
• CNN / Tea Party Express Debate (9/12, transcript here): 16 / 0
• FOX NEWS / FL GOP Debate (9/22, transcript here): 18/2 (both in reference to a word cloud graphic)
• BLOOMBERG / WaPo Debate (10/11, transcript here): 17/2 (both clarifying what a candidate meant)
• CNN/Western Republican Debate (10/18, transcript here): 18/1 (Anderson Cooper question)

“Speaker Gingrich, you’ve also been very critical of Mitt Romney’s plan, not only on “Obamacare” but his plan to lower the capital gains tax only on those earning under $200,000.”

Reported below are voter turnout and roll-off figures for last night’s elections in Fairfax County, Virginia. Data was assembled from election returns available here. Turnout is calculated from the reported 696,083 eligible voters.  Races allowing a voter to pick multiple candidates from a field are denoted with an M (and total votes divided by appropriate number). An asterisk denotes uncontested races or partially uncontested races.  Roll-off is calculated as the percentage of votes cast in the top race but not cast in a lower race; since there was no gubernatorial election, the aggregate votes cast in the state Senate races is used as the top race.

A few comments:

1) Low turnout is no surprise here. You don’t have to read the endless political science studies to know that state and local elections held in an off-year are going to feature lower turnout than presidential elections. Last night, 201,044 votes were cast in Fairfax County for State Senate, the most in any race. In 2010, 303,379 voters cast votes in the U.S. House elections in Fairfax County, and 516,254 votes were cast for President in Fairfax County in 2008. There is simply less voter interest in state and local politics, and as I’ve written before, that’s a fact that I find highly lamentable. Still, it could be a lot worse: 25% of all possible voters were cast, and that’s many multiples of what some localities in other parts of the country received last night, I’m sure.

2) Um, what’s roll-off? It’s the tendency of voters to only cast a vote for the top races on a ballot, such as President, and to decline to cast a vote in lower-profile races that appear on the same ballot. The standard metric is the percentage of voters who vote in the top race but do not vote in a lower race. Roll-off tends to increase as you head down a ballot, such that in a Presidential election year you might get a 2 to 5% roll-off in a given House race, but 15% or more roll-off for a local election. For example, in Fairfax County in 2008, 516,254 voters were cast for President, but only 509,473 for U.S. Senate (1.3% rolloff), only 504,243 for U.S House (2.3%) , and only 493,642 for the lone bond issue (4.4%). The roll-off in Fairfax County last night was massive in some cases. A full one-third of votes for the soil and water conservation board were left on the table. As were 15% of the votes for School Board At-Large.

Roll-off raises a number of issue for a democracy: is it an indication of voter indifference for local government? A crowding out of local politics by state and federal issue coverage? A reason to not have concurrent federal,state, and local elections? Roll-off figures also provide us with clues as to the health of local democracy: if the number of voters who are already at the polling place but who cannot be compelled to choose a local official increases over time, that might be cause for concern.

3) What caused the roll-off last night? The political science literature regarding roll-off suggests three causes: voter fatigue from long ballots, the structure of the ballot itself, and rational voter abstention. Voter fatigue is unlikely to have had a large effect last night in Fairfax County; not only was the ballot a short three pages, but the school bond referendum, which received the third-most total votes cast, was on the last page. Therefore, a maximum of 5.1% of all roll-off can be attributed to fatigued voters not completing their ballots. But wait! The Board of Supervisor Chair was on the first page, meaning it’s highly unlikely that any of the 4.7% of that roll-off was fatigue. Which suggests that voter fatigue was no more than 0.4% of the roll-off.

The structure of the ballot may have contributed to the roll-off last night. Fairfax county uses a “pure office block” arrangement of the ballot, in which the offices are listed sequentially with the candidates listed under each office. This structure has been shown to produce more roll-off than the main alternative, the “party column” ballot, in which the offices are listed down the side of the ballot and each party has a column running across the top of the ballot, allowing voters to easily vote a straight party line, and sometimes even including an automated mechanism to do so. Another potential factor is multi-candidate races; last night in Fairfax the ballot for both the School Board At-Large race and the Soil and Water Conservation Board race asked voters to elect three candidates from a list. Some voters may have been confused and only selected one candidate, although voters who used the touch-screens would have been reminded at least once that they had not made all possible choices. And this, of course, raises the final structural issue: there is some evidence that the electronic voting machines reduce roll-off, in part because they can do things like remind you that you didn’t fill out all races.

The most likely culprit for the roll-off last night, however, is rational voter abstention, which includes several things. The most obvious is uncontested elections; voters have little incentive to vote in a race that only features one candidate. The only completely uncontested race last night in Fairfax was for Commonwealth Attorney, and it featured a 25% roll-off. Three other races featured were partially uncontested: the school board  (3 of 9 districts uncontested), the Board of Supervisors (3 of 9 districts uncontested), and the state House of Delegates (6 of 17 districts uncontested). The second reason for a voter to abstain is if they have no information about an election; if they have not been exposed to any candidate information and/or have no knowledge of the responsibilities of an office, it’s not hard to see why they might leave a voting choice blank. And information about local races is almost always less available than information about state races, which in turn is less available than information about federal races. But the most frustrating problem is that…

4) Non-partisan elections are bad democracy. I cannot emphasize this enough. The ballots in Fairfax County do not list the partisan affiliations of the candidates for local offices. The candidates for state offices have party affiliation listed right next to their name, as required by state law. But not local candidates. I can’t determine whether state law proscribes it for local elections or if it is county discretion – the state law seems to imply no party labels (“for elections for federal, statewide, and General Assembly offices only“), but it’s not clear. The crazy thing in Fairfax County is that most of the local officials are running as partisans, in that they are nominated in partisan primary elections. Only the school board elections and the soil and water board elections are deemed “non-partisan” and the candidates all run as independents. In any case, there is no excuse for this; in my mind, it’s a basic injustice against democracy.

As I’ve written before and others routinely blog about, party cues are not only the best available quick information for low-information voters, but they are damn good pieces of information as well. If voters could just see a D or R next to the names of local office candidates, not only would roll-off go down due to otherwise ignorant voters having all the information they need to make an informed choice, but many voters who did not roll-off would be given more information. The political parties do an admirable job of trying to hand out sample ballots to voters at the precincts that list their nominees and their endorsements for non-partisan races, but that can only accomplish so much. Putting the affiliations on the ballot would be a simple way to improve the quality of the voter signal in our elections.

5) Why are we even electing the soil and water conservation board? Not 1 in 10 people in the county even know what they do, I would bet, and no one has any clue how to judge the candidates, because they’ve never heard of them and don’t have any party cues to go on. It would be a lot easier to just have the Board of Supervisors appoint the whole board.

References

Bullock and Dunn. 1996. “Election Roll-Off: A Test of Three Explanations.” Urban Affairs Review, 32(1): 71-86.

Matthew J. Streb, Brian Frederick, and Casey LaFrance. “Voter Roll-off in a Low-Information Context: Evidence from Intermediate Appellate Court Elections,” American Politics Research, vol. 37,  no. 49 (2009).

Nichols, Stephen M. and Gregory A. Strizek. 1995. “Electronic Voting Machines and Ballot Roll-Off.” American Politics Quarterly 23(3): 300-318.

5:55am: I close the door to my car and pull out onto the street. It’s chilly and dark. I don’t turn on the radio, because it’s only a two-minute drive. I always go to the polls in the early morning. To beat the crowds, I would say. But also because I like going alone. Sure, it’s fun to take kids into a voting booth and all that jazz. But it’s not the same. Ever sit in a pew in an empty church and stare at the stained glass? Or stand on a deserted football field after dark and look up at the posts?

5:56am: I pull up at the one four-way stop on the trip. I don’t know why and I guess it’s kind of awkward to admit this, but I always get mild butterflies in my stomach when I’m on my way to vote. Not like climbing the lift-hill on a roller coaster butterflies or 10 seconds before the whistle blows to start a rugby game butterflies; there’s nothing unknown about to happen. I think it’s more the connection to the process, the idea that I’m about to do something real and consequential. Something that will tie me to the past and tie me to the future.

5:57am: I pull into the parking lot and park the car. I live in the Nottaway precinct of the Providence District of Fairfax County in the state of Virginia in the United States of America.  Impassioned revolutions overthrow monarchs and tyrants, both then and now. But the alternative system, the democratic system, is held together by solving a logistical nightmare. And so this is where I vote: an old house on a couple acres of cleared land in a park. There are about a dozen cars in the parking lot.

5:58am: I walk past the party people. Virginia law does not allow any electioneering within 40 feet of the polling place, but 40 feet is not very far, and both parties are already stationed at their usual spots, at the edge of the parking lot in front of the sidewalk up to the front door of the house. Each side offers me a ballot, pre-marked with the party-endorsed candidates to serve as a guide in the booth. It brings to mind what I’ve read of 19th century elections, prior to the Australian ballot, when you voted with your own ticket and often got it from a party representative outside the polling place. I take one of each.

5:59am: I get in line. This is not like the 19th century. It’s dead quiet. No bands, no liquor, no fights. As Richard Bensel conveys in his majestic survey of voting in the 1800s, it’s safer and less corrupt now, but it’s also a lot less exciting and a lot less fun. There are four people ahead of me. No one says a word. Inside the house, we can see poll workers scrambling with final preparations. This is either the most exciting dullness or the most dull excitement in the world. At any rate, it’s some combination of those two words.

6:00am: A woman opens the doors. “Alright everyone, the polls are open!” And we shuffle into the house. Just past the vestibule I enter a small room, probably once a study, and proceed to the table labled “A – K.” Two older women are sitting at the table, one holding a thick book of names, the other a piece of paper covered in numbers and a stack of green cards. They will repeat their tasks 500 times or more today. But for now it’s fresh and exciting. Both of them are eating donuts and drinking coffee, the universal poll-worker compensation.

6:01am: I tell them my name. They look it up in the thick book, and then verify my address with me verbally. I can see my wife’s name just below mine. With both kids in tow for a mid-day vote, she will not have the same experience as me. The second woman calls out “Voter number 3” and crosses off the three on her piece of paper. Looks up at me and smiles. Then she hands me a green card. It’s says “Fairfax County Voter Card — Do Not Remove From Polling Place.” On the back are some instructions. Unlike most of the signage in the polling place, it is written in English only. By the end of the day it will be worn and wrinkled. But right now it’s pristine.

6:02am: I walk down the hall to the polling room. It’s not like the polling setups of my childhood in upstate New York, with the heavy metal stand-up voting machines and metal levers and huge handle that closes the curtain behind you. It’s both more old and more new than that. The actual voting “booths” are just tall desks, each with a small table-top touch-screen voting machine, almost like the old pictures you see of people dropping slips of paper into actual boxes. Not much privacy. But high-tech to the max. There’s an optical-scan option, but no one is taking it.

6:03am: I hand my green card to a poll worker. She directs me to a touch-screen, follows me over, and puts a keycard in the machine. I look around the polling room and at the three other touch-screen booths set up. At one is an older African-American man, holding a sample ballot from one of the parties and dutifully marking his choices. At another is a younger woman being assisted by a poll worker, her computer evidently malfunctioning. The third is empty, one voter having left and another yet to arrive.

6:04am: I mark each of my votes. The touch-screen is silent. No mechanical click like the lever supstate. No sound of graphite rubbing like the paper ballots. I take my time. Board of Supervisors. State Senate. County Sheriff.  At the end, the final screen includes a large flashing box that says “Click here to cast your VOTE.” I click and I cast. I walk away from the touch-screen. A poll worker hands me a sticker featuring an American flag and the words “I voted.” I put it on.

6:05am: I walk out of the voting room. There’s a door that leads through a screened-porch and out to the front yard. The line of voters has grown longer, but it’s still silent. A small garbage can stands ready to collect party sample ballot. I drop both of mine in.  I walk past the party tables, but they don’t even see me; all their attention is focused on those still-yet to vote.

6:06am: I climb in my car and look back up at the house.It’s still dark outside. All the lights are on in the house, and I can see people through the illuminated windows: reporting their names, being handed green cards, standing in the voting room. I turn the ignition, pull out of the parking lot and turn onto the access road. A long line of headlights streams my way. More voters. More citizens.