Monthly Archives: September 2010

Five Points Episode 3 – Nominations Politics

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In this episode, I discuss the congressional politics of the court vacancy. Here are the relevant links from each point.

Point #1- There’s no chance a Justice won’t be confirmed if there are 50 votes for the justice. You almost certainly can’t stop this procedurally if you are the Democrats.

James Wallner discussing the procedures for confirming a judicial nomination.

My tweetstorm on the Senate rules regarding the requirement of holding an impeachment trial.

My tweetstorm on the problems with denying a quorum.

My tweetstorm on shaping understandings rather than preventing actions.

Point #2 – And there’s almost certainly going to be 50 votes. Electorally vulnerable Senators just aren’t going to break with the party here.

My old post on how opinion polls about policy don’t translate to votes.

Point #3 – Parties don’t simply have a goal of maximizing their seats in Congress.

Anthony Downs’ theory of party competition.

Point #4 – Hardball politics is both new and not new.

Josh Chafetz’s on unprecedented things in judicial nominations.

Me on hardball politics and what’s new and not new.

Mark Tushnet on Constitutional hardball.

Francis Lee on insecure majorities and party competition.

Matt Green on hardball politics in Congress, then and now.

The Washington Post Op-ed from seven freshmen Democrats.

Point #5 – Democratic hardball retaliation is not a certainty.

Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias recent podcast on the changing Senate.

Joseph Fishkin and David Pozen on asymmetric constitutional hardball.

Me on constitutional hardball and statehood.

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Five Points About Impeachment

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In this episode, I discuss the politics of impeachment. Here are the relevant links from each point.

Point #1- The Constitution is clear about impeachment, but not specific.

My review of Josh Chafetz’s book, Congress’s Constitution.

James Wallner discussing conflict on Ezra Klein’s podcast.

CRS report on impeachment and removal.

Bob Bauer on whether there need be a Senate trial.

Henry Olson on McConnell controlling a trial.

Point #2 – Impeachment is thoroughly political, and takes place in the public sphere of opinion, which is both an input and output.

Ariel Edwards-Levy is the person to follow for polling info on impeachment.

Dubious polls about hypothetical scenarios?

Me on why Congress doesn’t always “do the right thing.”

Dave Hopkins on the impact of impeachments on public opinion.

Point #3 – The groups to watch are the moderate House Dems, moderate House Republicans, and Senate Republicans.

Sarah Binder’s great charts of House Dems.

Some GOP Senators are very quiet.

Jonathan Bernstein sees a slight shift in GOP Senate opinion.

Point #4 – Elite political opinion, especially among elected officials moves in cascades.

Lee Drutman’s Vox article on cascades.

The Washington Post Op-ed from seven freshmen Democrats.

Point #5 – We don’t know where any of this is going.

Too much certainty, like this David Brooks column.

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Mother 93

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There have been many surreal moments in popular music during my (and your) lifetime, moments in which you could consciously feel that something bigger than usual was happening. The most obvious (for me) was the release of the Smells Like Teen Spirit video, and then the ascendency of Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Piolots, and Smashing Pumpkins, and then the floodgates opening after that. But there were other moments. Two that stand out in my mind are the MC Hammer release of “2 Legit 2 quit,” which basically buried party rap and it’s excesses of ridiculousness (bragging about how much a video cost to make is probably not a sustainable model), and the related moment of first seeing the “Nothin’ but a G Thang” video, and the onset of gangsta rap. Another one was the summer of ’94 and the meteoric rise of Green Day, culminating with them overshadowing everything at Woodstock ’94.

But perhaps my favorite single musical “event” of my lifetime is the incredible moment that was Danzig’s Mother 93 in late winter and early spring 1994… Continue reading →

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Fahrenheit 451

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I give up. I thought for sure American politics had hits its local maxima for ridiculousness at several points this past year, but now we’re having a national debate over book burning. I know. The President has dispatched some shuttle diplomacy down to the Confederacy in order to negotiate a pre-emptive cease-burning with an itinerant preacher and his congregation of 50. Read that last sentence again.

Honestly, my feelings on book burning are similar to Carl Shurz’s thinking about slavery: this is a practice so obviously and utterly beneath a liberal democracy that trying to oppose it through logic or reason serves only to legitimate the ridiculous and make you a fool. Anyone participating in the practice is, almost by definition, not going to listen. So either gather the votes, or get the guns. If you don’t have the former and you can’t stomach the latter, then leave them to their pathetic selves until you do. But whatever the case, don’t engage these idiots.

Still — and not to go all Who IS IOZ? on you, but — there’s something surreal about President Obama lecturing everyone on how burning a Koran in Florida is going to ignite hostility in the Muslim world towards American and American troops while he himself is presiding over the dropping of explosives onto the heads of Muslims every day. If you don’t want Muslims to think America is at war with Islam, stop bombing, invading, and occupying their countries. I’m talking to you, Mr. President.

And yet, I have a few practical thoughts about book burning: Continue reading →

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On The Idea of Repealing the 17th Amendment

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It sure looks like the summer of 2010 is destined to be remembered as the time when everyone seemed to want to get themselves some Constitutional amending. And I’m not talking about your garden-variety balanced-budget amendment or flag-burning amendment or school prayer amendment or line-item veto amendment or any of the other 75 or so amendments that have been proposed in the 111th Congress. I’m talking about stuff like repealing the 14th amendment. Can’t say I saw that coming!

Still, repealing the 14th amendment makes for a boring discussion, because it quickly devolves either into an immigration debate — in which the probability of someone saying something new or interesting (minimal) is only slightly greater than the probability of anyone revising their opinion (infinitesimal) — or, even worse, a debate about race, in which both probabilities are highly likely to be exactly zero.

The same cannot be said for the idea of repealing the 17th amendment, which provides for the direct election of United States Senators. Unlike the 14th amendment, it makes for a rather interesting topic of conversation: it’s not exactly well-worn territory, so there are a lot of fresh thoughts. It doesn’t inherently evoke any partisan or ideological emotions, so people are often willing to think about it at face value.  And since the 17th amendment is a purely structural amendment —  a decision about how the basic framework of the national government should be constructed —  it’s right in the wheelhouse of anyone who spends their free time thinking about the institutional design of the United States Senate (ahem).

Without further ado… Continue reading →

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