Civilisation Amricaine

LEA 1 - semester 1

UPV Montpellier 3
.

Coordinateur : Mathilde ARRIV

mathilde.arrive@univmontp3.fr

2011-2012

E12ANY1 - TP US Political Institutions and Society

Recueil de textes
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TABLE DES MATIRES

CONSTITUTION(S) & GOVERNMENT(S) ........................................................... 5

FOUND(ER)ING FATHERS ..........................................................................................................................5 MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DISTRUST THE GOVERNMENT.................................................................................7

FEDERALISM................................................................................................... 8
STATES RIGHTS IS RALLYING CRY FOR LAWMAKERS ......................................................................................8 GUN CONTROL .....................................................................................................................................10 OBAMA OUTLINES PLAN FOR EDUCATION OVERHAUL..................................................................................11

CONGRESS.....................................................................................................13
THE 'INCUMBENCY EFFECT' ISN'T SO EFFECTIVE THIS YEAR ...........................................................................13 WILL GRIDLOCK DOMINATE U.S. POLITICS AFTER MID-TERM ELECTIONS? .........................................................15 THE 112TH CONGRESS CONVENES - IN DISCORD ASSEMBLED .........................................................................17 IS HEALTH-CARE REFORM CONSTITUTIONAL? ..............................................................................................19 CALIFORNIA COURT TO WEIGH GAY MARRIAGE BAN...................................................................................21

THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH ...............................................................................23

OUR PRESIDENTIAL ERA: WHO CAN CHECK THE PRESIDENT? ........................................................................23 OBAMA ORDER COULD MAKE CORPORATE POLITICAL SPENDING PUBLIC ...........................................................26 HOUSE ADOPTS RESOLUTION SCOLDING OBAMA ON LIBYA............................................................................27

THE JUDICIAL POWER ....................................................................................29

THE COURT: IGNORING THE REALITY OF GUNS ...........................................................................................29 OBAMA PICKS KAGAN AS JUSTICE NOMINEE ..............................................................................................31 CHIEF JUSTICE URGES END TO PARTISAN STALLING .......................................................................................33

POLITICAL PARTIES ........................................................................................34

FLORIDA PASSES BILL TO LIMIT 3RD-PARTY VOTER REGISTRATION .................................................................34 WHO IS THE TEA PARTY? REPUBLICANS BY ANOTHER NAME ........................................................................35 THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION - THE SILENCE OF THE RIGHT .........................................................................36 SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES AND THE TEA-PARTY MOVEMENT ARE STILL WAITING FOR THEIR CANDIDATE IN THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION RACE..............................................................................................................36

ELECTIONS.....................................................................................................38
WHEN THE ELECTORAL VOTE AND THE POPULAR VOTE DIFFER ......................................................................38 REDISTRICTING ROWS - NOT SO EASY........................................................................................................39 'ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE' STILL AN UNSETTLED QUESTION FOR STATES ............................................................41 LATINO AND ASIAN VOTERS MOSTLY SAT OUT 2010 ELECTION, REPORT SAYS ...................................................42 HOUSE PASSES BILL TO END PUBLIC FUNDING OF CAMPAIGNS ........................................................................43

INTEREST GROUPS.........................................................................................44
A G.O.P. LEADER TIGHTLY BOUND TO LOBBYISTS.......................................................................................44

ORGANISATION DE LENSEIGNEMENT DE CIVILISATION EN PREMIRE ANNE

PROGRAMME Institutions politiques et socit des tats-Unis dAmrique. DESCRIPTIF - Deux heures hebdomadaires de travaux dirigs en groupes (TD). - Une heure hebdomadaire de travaux pratiques avec lecteur (TP). Comprhension crite de documents contemporains en relation directe avec le programme des travaux dirigs. NB : Lassiduit au TD et au TP est obligatoire. BIBLIOGRAPHIE 1) Ouvrage de rfrence Edward Ashbee, US Politics Today, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004, [1999].

2) Ressources lectroniques http://www.thisnation.com/index.html, en particulier Online Textbook 3) Une brochure (cours, documents) NB : Le choix dune brochure et/ou dun ouvrage dpendra de lenseignant du groupe. MODALITS DE CONTRLE 1) Premire valuation Contrle continu TD : 80% Exercices : questions portant sur le cours (coefficient 2) 1 partiel : question de cours (coefficient 3). Dure de lpreuve : 2 heures

Lenseignant pourra introduire une pondration de + /- 2 points pour lassiduit et la participation (mais lassiduit seule ne donnera pas lieu une bonification). TP : 20% 3 quizzes (coefficient 4 80%) Assiduit, participation, homework (coefficient 1 10%)

Your class participation consists in carefully reading the article(s) assigned for each class, and looking up all unfamiliar words. Every week, students will have to write a one-paragraph summary of the article as well as a one-paragraph response to the reading. Homework will be regularly picked up and/or checked for completion. Dispenss dassiduit Question de cours portant sur lun des thmes du programme. Dure de lpreuve : 2 heures Les tudiants inscrits en DA doivent contacter le responsable de lECUE (mathilde.arrive@univ-montp3.fr) pour de plus amples informations au dbut du semestre. 2) Seconde valuation (Contrle continu et Dispenss dassiduit) : Question de cours portant sur lintgralit du programme. Dure : 2 heures.

CONSTITUTION(s) & GOVERNMENT(s) Found(er)ing Fathers

Californians will discover that voting for a new constitution is easier than drafting one
Nov 13th 2009 | from The World In 2010 print edition, The Economist
In November 2010 Californians will vote in a pair of ballot measures to call a constitutional convention. If polls are right, their approval of these measures is all but assured. Californians are fed up with the dysfunctional governance that periodically turns their state into a laughing stock. They want a new constitution. Their disdain for the existing one is well deserved. It is among the most convoluted such texts in the world, ranking with Alabamas and Indias as one of the longest. It contrasts starkly with the minimalist elegance of Americas constitution, adopted in 1787, or Alaskas, ratified in 1956. Californias first constitutional convention took place in 1849, before California was even admitted to the Union. A second convention in 1879 tried to right every possible wrong and produced a tome. To this was added, during the Progressive era of the early 20th century, direct democracywith referendums, recalls and voter initiatives. Such initiatives have since produced more than 500 constitutional amendments. Americas constitution, a century older, has been amended 27 times. Among the quirks in Californias current document are: 1) a requirement, from 1933, for twothirds majorities in both houses of the legislature to pass a budget; and 2) the same twothirds requirement, added by voters in the infamous Proposition 13 of 1978, to increase any tax. Two other states (Rhode Island and Arkansas) have this requirement for budgets and several others have it for raising taxes, but only California has it for both. If Californias legislature contained moderates, normal fiscal management might still be imaginable. But the moderates have left. Californian elections, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has frequently complained, are won or lost in the party primaries of gerrymandered districts that encourage extremism. Democrats may be in the majority, but nay-saying Republicans can block any budget and habitually do. The element of direct democracy exacerbates the situation by ensuring that the inmatesie, the votersrun much of the asylum. Voters pass, for example, tough on crime sentencing laws with nary a thought about paying for more prisons. When their elected representatives subsequently cannot muster two-thirds to raise taxes or cut another part of the budget, voters then profess shock at their incompetence. The appeal of starting afresh, with a clean constitution, is obvious. The idea immediately brings to mind Philadelphia in 1787, where 55 of the most august minds ever assembled shuttled between Independence Hall and the City Tavern for four muggy months of secret deliberations. Despite daunting conflictswho today owns slaves?

they produced the most robust constitution in history. Surely, air-conditioned California can have a go. Missing Madisons And yet, who would be Californias Founding Fathers? Thomas Jefferson, absent from Philadelphia as minister to France, called the 55 delegates chosen by the states demi-gods. These were men such as James Madison, deeply versed in Aristotle, Cicero, Locke and Montesquieu, who preferred the word republic to democracy for fear that the latter might evoke the chaos of ancient Athens. If California has intellects of this stature, it certainly has none with Madisons nonpartisan credibility. Instead, there is a fear that the states entrenched interests, from the prisonguards union to party bureaucracies or Prop 13 fanatics, will take over the process and make it a microcosm of the states dystopia. Hoping to meet these concerns, the organisation behind the ballot measures, Repair California, proposes a random, jury-like draft of ordinary citizens as delegates. Average Californians are the only ones who can lead our state out of the quagmire of special interests and partisanship, argues one adviser. But can lay people be expected to assume the responsibilities of a Madison? As jurors, citizens deliberate on binary questions of guilt after hearing evidence under the guidance of a judge. In a constitutional convention, the questions will be complex and large. Who would present the evidence, if not the same loonies who cannot agree in the legislature? The irony that California is preparing to reinforce its populist instincts with yet more direct democracy would surely be too much to bear for Madison, the republican founding father.
Source: http://www.economist.com/node/14742280

Majority of Americans distrust the government

A Rally to Bear Arms
Reuters, WASHINGTON | Mon Apr 19, 2010 7:19pm EDT

A protestor holds a picture of President George Washington crying as several groups hold a ''Kill the Bill'' rally against health care legislation on Capitol Hill, March 20, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they do not trust the government to do what is right, expressing the highest level of distrust in Washington in half a century, according to a public opinion survey. Only 22 percent of Americans say they trust the government "just about always" or "most of the time," according to the Pew Research Center survey released on Sunday. Americans' trust in the federal government has been on a steady decline from a high of 73 percent during the Eisenhower administration in 1958, when the "trust" question was first posed in a national survey, the research center said. Economic uncertainty, a highly partisan environment and overwhelming discontent with Congress and elected officials were all factors contributing to the current wave of public distrust, the report said. The long, bitter debate over the healthcare law that President Barack Obama signed last month made negative feeling about government, particularly Congress, even worse, according to the report based on a series of surveys of some 5,000 people. About 25 percent had a favorable opinion of Congress, the lowest in 25 years of surveying, and less than half (40 percent) said the Obama administration was doing an excellent or good job, Pew said. Americans were found to be more frustrated than angry, with 56 percent expressing frustration with the federal government, compared with 21 percent who said they were angry. Forty-three percent of Republicans, 50 percent of independents who lean Republican and 57 percent of those who agree with the Tea Party movement said the government presents a major threat to their personal freedom.

That compares with 18 percent of Democrats, 21 percent of independents who lean Democratic and 9 percent of those who disagree with the Tea Party movement. The main survey of 2,505 adults was conducted March 11-21. Three other surveys of about 1,000 adults each were conducted March 18-21, April 1-5 and April 8-11. The margin of sampling error for the surveys is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/19/us-americans-government-pollidUSTRE63I0FB20100419

FEDERALISM
States Rights Is Rallying Cry for Lawmakers
From The New York Times By KIRK JOHNSON Published: March 16, 2010

Whether its correctly called a movement, a backlash or political theater, state declarations of their rights or in some cases denunciations of federal authority, amounting to the same thing are on a roll. Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican, signed a bill into law on Friday declaring that the federal regulation of firearms is invalid if a weapon is made and used in South Dakota. On Thursday, Wyomings governor, Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, signed a similar bill for that state. The same day, Oklahomas House of Representatives approved a resolution that Oklahomans should be able to vote on a state constitutional amendment allowing them to opt out of the federal health care overhaul. In Utah, lawmakers embraced states rights with a vengeance in the final days of the legislative session last week. One measure said Congress and the federal government could not carry out health care reform, not in Utah anyway, without approval of the Legislature. () A resolution asserted the inviolable sovereignty of the State of Utah under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. Some legal scholars say the new states rights drive has more smoke than fire, but for lawmakers, just taking a stand can be important enough. Who is the sovereign, the state or the federal government? said State Representative Chris N. Herrod, a Republican from Provo, Utah, and leader of the 30-member Patrick Henry Caucus, which formed last year and led the assault on federal legal barricades in the session that ended Thursday.

Alabama, Tennessee and Washington are considering bills or constitutional amendments that would assert local police powers to be supreme over the federal authority, according to the Tenth Amendment Center, a research and advocacy group based in Los Angeles. And Utah, again not to be outdone, passed a bill last week that says federal law enforcement authority, even on federal lands, can be limited by the state. Theres a tsunami of interest in states rights and resistance to an overbearing federal government; thats what all these measures indicate, said Gary Marbut, the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, which led the drive last year for one of the first firearms freedoms, laws like the ones signed last week in South Dakota and Wyoming. In most cases, conservative anxiety over federal authority is fueling the impulse, with the Tea Party movement or its members in the backdrop or forefront. Mr. Herrod in Utah said that he had spoken at Tea Party rallies, for example, but that his efforts, and those of the Patrick Henry Caucus, were not directly connected to the Tea Partiers. And in some cases, according to the Tenth Amendment Center, the politics of states rights are veering left. Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, for example none of them known as conservative bastions are considering bills that would authorize, or require, governors to recall or take control of National Guard troops, asserting that federal calls to active duty have exceeded federal authority. [] Mr. Woods, who has a Ph.D. in history, and has written widely on states rights and nullification the argument that says states can sometimes trump or disregard federal law said he was not sure where the dots between states rights and politics connected. But he and others say that whatever it is, something politically powerful is brewing under the statehouse domes. Other scholars say the state efforts, if pursued in the courts, would face formidable roadblocks. Article 6 of the Constitution says federal authority outranks state authority, and on that bedrock of federalist principle rests centuries of back and forth that states have mostly lost, notably the desegregation of schools in the 1950s and 60s. Article 6 says that that federal law is supreme and that if theres a conflict, federal law prevails, said Prof. Ruthann Robson, who teaches constitutional law at the City University of New York School of Law. Its pretty difficult to imagine a way in which a state could prevail on many of these. And while some efforts do seem headed for a direct conflict with federal laws or the Constitution, others are premised on the idea that federal courts have misinterpreted the Constitution in the federal governments favor. A lawsuit filed last year by the Montana Shooting Sports Association after the states firearms freedom law took effect, for example, does not say that the federal government has no authority to regulate guns, but that courts have misconstrued interstate commerce regulations. National monuments and medical marijuana, of all things, play a role as well. Mr. Herrod in Utah said that after an internal memorandum from the United States Department of the Interior was made public last month, discussing sites around the country potentially suitable for federal protection as national monuments including two sites in Utah support for all kinds of statements against federal authority gained steam. And at the Tenth Amendment Center, the groups founder, Michael Boldin, said he thought states that had bucked federal authority over the last decade by legalizing medical marijuana, even as federal law held all marijuana use and possession to be illegal, had set the template in some ways for the effort now. And those states, Mr. Boldin

said, were essentially validated in their efforts last fall when the Justice Department said it would no longer make medical marijuana a priority in the states were it was legal. Nullification, he said, was shown to work. []

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/17states.html

Gun Control
Updated: Jan. 14, 2011

For three decades, the story of gun control was one of notorious crimes and laws passed in response, beginning with the federal law that followed the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. But after a Democratic-controlled Congress in 1994 passed bills proposed by President Clinton to restrict certain kinds of assault weapons and to create a national system of background checks for gun purchases, the political pendulum began to swing the other way. President Bush's defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election was attributed in part to the perception among gun owners that Mr. Gore was "anti-gun." [] Recent battles have taken place in the courts, revolving around fundamentally differing interpretations of the oddly punctuated, often-debated Second Amendment, which reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The Supreme Court in 2008 embraced the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for personal use, ruling 5 to 4 that there is a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense. But the landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller addressed only federal laws; it left open the question of whether Second Amendment rights protect gun owners from overreaching by state and local governments. On June 28, 2010, the court ruled in another 5-4 decision that the Second Amendment restrains government's ability to significantly limit "the right to keep and bear arms." The case involved a challenge to Chicago's gun control law, regarded as among the strictest in the nation. Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said that the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states." The McDonald v. Chicago ruling is an enormous symbolic victory for supporters of gun rights, but its short-term practical impact is unclear. As in the Heller decision, the justices left for another day the question of just what kinds of gun control laws can be reconciled with Second Amendment protection. A 1939 decision by the Supreme Court suggested, without explicitly deciding, that the Second Amendment right should be understood in connection with service in a militia. The "collective rights'' interpretation of the amendment became the dominant one, and formed the basis for the many laws restricting firearm ownership passed in the decades since. But many conservatives, and in recent years even some liberal legal scholars, have argued in favor of an "individual rights'' interpretation that would severely limit government's ability to regulate gun ownership.

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In May 2009, President Obama signed into law a provision allowing visitors to national parks and refuges to carry loaded and concealed weapons. The amendment was added to a consumer-friendly credit card measure that the president has said is important. The provision represents a Congressional victory that eluded gun rights advocates under a Republican president. But in July 2009, the Senate turned aside the latest attempt by gun advocates to expand the rights of gun owners, narrowly voting down a provision that would have allowed gun owners with valid permits from one state to carry concealed weapons in other states. When President Obama took office, gun rights advocates sounded the alarm, warning that he intended to strip them of their arms and ammunition. But Mr. Obama has been largely silent on the issue while states are engaged in a new and largely successful push for expanded gun rights, even passing measures that have been rejected in the past.

Source : http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/gun_control/index.html

Obama Outlines Plan for Education Overhaul

By DAVID STOUT, From The New York Times Published: March 10, 2009

WASHINGTON President Obama called for sweeping changes in American education on Tuesday, urging states to lift limits on charter schools and improve the quality of early childhood education while also signaling that he intends to make good on his campaign promise of linking teacher pay to performance. Having secured tens of billions of dollars in additional financing for education in the economic stimulus package and made clear his intent to seek more in his budget, Mr. Obama used a speech here to flesh out how he would use federal money and programs to influence policy at the state and local level. His proposals reflected his partys belief that education at all levels was underfinanced in the Bush years and that reform should encompass more than demands that schools show improved test scores. But they also showed a willingness to challenge teachers unions and public school systems, and to continue to demand more accountability. The president said it was time to erase limits on the number of charter schools, which his administration calls laboratories of innovation, while closing those that are not working. He said 26 states and the District of Columbia now had caps. Teachers unions have opposed charter schools in some places, saying they take away financing for public schools, while supporting them in others. Putting limits on charter schools, even in places where they are performing well, isnt good for our children, our economy or our country, Mr. Obama said.

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In his recent budget message, he said that he hoped to double financing for charter schools eventually, another campaign promise, and that the Department of Education would help create new, high-quality charter schools while supporting the closing of those guilty of chronic underperformance. He called on states to impose tougher curriculum standards, and in an echo of language often used by President George W. Bush, he chided states that he said were low-balling expectations for our kids. Saying he would cultivate a new culture of accountability in Americas schools, Mr. Obama said states and school districts should weed out bad teachers. But he also pledged to pursue programs that would provide more incentives and support for teachers and indicated he would back a program in up to 150 school districts that would reward teachers with more money for improved student achievement. The teacher-pay provision and his support for more charter schools could complicate Mr. Obamas ability to win support for his plan in Congress and in state legislatures, where teacher unions hold considerable sway with Democrats. Mr. Obama acknowledged the partisan divisions about how to proceed, even as he appealed to all sides to compromise. For decades, Washington has been trapped in the same stale debates that have paralyzed progress and perpetuated our educational decline, Mr. Obama said, in a speech here to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom. Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early childhood education, despite compelling evidence of its importance. Union leaders reacted cautiously to the speech. Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, said his unions 3.2 million members welcome the vision laid out by the president. Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.4-million-member American Federation of Teachers, said her union embraced the goals and aspirations outlined by Mr. Obama. As with any public policy, Ms. Weingarten said, the devil is in the details, and it is important that teachers voices are heard as we implement the presidents vision. While unions generally dislike linking pay to specific measures of performance like rising test scores, there have been some successful experiments around the country with plans that take account of performance, especially in districts where unions are deeply involved. The address on Tuesday was the first step in laying out the presidents agenda to improve schools, officials said, with more specifics to be outlined to Congress soon. Mr. Obama noted that the recently enacted stimulus package called for spending some $5 billion on the Early Head Start and Head Start programs an investment that he said would be rewarded by lower welfare rolls, fewer health care costs and less crime, as well

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as better classroom performance. He said he would ask Congress to finance a program that would provide grants to states that improve their early childhood programs. His speech elated advocates of charter schools. With 365,000 students on charter waiting lists, there is no excuse for state laws that stifle the growth of these schools, Nelson Smith, the president and chief executive of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a statement. Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting. Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/politics/11web-educ.html?fta=y

CONGRESS
The 'Incumbency Effect' Isn't So Effective This Year
by Linton Weeks, October 25, 2010
The conventional take on national elections is: The candidate already in office nearly always wins. Political scientists call this "the Incumbency Effect." It's especially true in elections for the House of Representatives, which occur every two years. In the past 17 congressional elections since 1976 more than 90 percent of representatives in office have won reelection. But this year is looking different. And, for many Democratic incumbents, difficult. In fact, political observers are questioning whether the incumbency seawall can hold against the so-called Republican Tsunami forecast to sweep across the country in the midterm contests on Nov. 2 next Tuesday. At present, there are 255 Democrats and 178 Republicans in the House. Gary C. Jacobson, a political science professor at the University of California, has been specializing in congressional elections for more than 30 years. The 2010 elections, he says, "will be a severe test of the incumbency advantage, because it is the only thing standing between Democrats and the Tsunami." Aside from the troubled economy, Jacobson says, the main bugaboo for the incumbent Democrats "is that they hold so many seats in Republican-leaning districts." () When all of the votes are counted, 2010 may prove to be a complete reversal of 2006 and 2008, when Democrats, especially in the South and in conservative districts, won GOP seats because of dissatisfaction with Republicans. As The Washington Post has noted, 49 Democrats hold seats in districts that were carried by John McCain in 2008. The upshot is that, especially for Democrats in the House, incumbency may be cumbersome. A Bent Toward Incumbents

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The Incumbency Effect is a truism. In 1994, for instance, when the "Republican revolution" swept through the land during President Bill Clinton's first term and the GOP took 52 seats, the turnover rate in the House was only 20 percent. As Stephen C. Erickson showed in his essay "The Entrenching of Incumbency: Re-elections in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1790-1994": "91.3 percent of all incumbents who ran in 1994 defeated their challengers." The term "Incumbency Effect" is often traced back to an influential article in 1975 titled: "Name Familiarity, Reputation, and the Incumbency Effect in a Congressional Election" by Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University. "The electoral advantage of incumbency is perhaps one of the best known and least understood facts of American political life," Abramowitz wrote. "Nowhere is the advantage of incumbency more clear than in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives." From NPR's 'Election Scorecard' In his study, Abramowitz pointed out the advantages that incumbents have over challengers. It's easier for incumbents to martial campaign resources, such as money, volunteers, group endorsements and party support. Incumbents get more frequent publicity than challengers. Incumbents enjoy "free" mail and communications with their constituents. Voters more often know the names and faces of people in office. () But Abramowitz agrees that the Democrats are liable to lose a lot of seats because of a combination of normal midterm voting patterns that favor the opposition party, the Democrats' need to defend a large number of seats in Republican-leaning or marginal districts and a high level of discontent among the electorate. ()

Lining Up Early To Vote In late September, a Pew Research Center/National Journal poll showed that while only 13 percent of Americans surveyed gave Congress (the institution) positive grades, 28 percent gave their individual representatives good or excellent marks, and 43 percent felt that their representatives were "in touch" with their constituents. The same number, 43 percent, believed that the incumbent House member "can help bring about change in Washington," while only 32 percent said their representative "has been in Washington too long." And 42 percent of those surveyed said their incumbent representative "does a good job of bringing projects" to the home district. () Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University, says the Incumbency Effect is almost always weakened in midterm years under unified government. One exception, she says, was 2002, when George W. Bush was president and Republicans gained four House seats. This year, with a Democratic president and Democratic control of the Senate and House, Schiller says, "the Republicans have done a good job of persuading voters that they can register their anger and make a change, so voters feel engaged and empowered. When voters believe that their votes will change the course of policy and even control of government, they line up early in the morning to vote."

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Reflecting the findings of the Pew poll, Schiller says the Incumbency Effect is grounded in local constituency service. "In a year where national issues reign supreme," she says, "even the most diligent incumbent will be in danger of losing their seat." Some incumbents use a more graceful exit strategy than losing. They retire. But "retirements are not unusually high" in the House this year, Gary Jacobson says. In fact, only 20 Democrats and 23 Republicans will ride off into the sunset perhaps just ahead of a coming tsunami.
Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130722090

Will gridlock dominate U.S. politics after mid-term elections?

English.news.cn 2010-11-01 11:16:34

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 -- With Republicans predicted to pick up substantial amount of Democratic seats in the Nov. 2 U.S. mid-term elections, both parties are planning for the post election landscape. But experts warn that gridlock may dominate Washington in the coming year. "One thing we can be sure is Republicans will pick up a lot of seats in the House, in the Senate and the governorship, and the state legislature. It is almost certain," said Thomas Mann, a political expert of the Brookings Institution, to Xinhua in a recent interview. As a result of this changing dynamics on Capitol Hill, the U.S. political climate in the coming year may become much more precarious. "With or without enough (gains by Republicans to) change to majority, it means that President Obama, who had quite successful record to overcome difficulties in the face of filibuster in the Senate, is going to face a much more difficult Congress to work with," noted Mann. Republicans have already made it crystal clear. In the Pledge to America, a list of proposed legislative items the Republican Party promised to pursue should they gain majority in the House, the party vowed to put a hold on all unspent funds authorized as part of the 2009 stimulus bill or the 2008 financial sector rescue legislation, repeal the 2010 health-care reform bill, and other signature Democratic policy agenda. "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority leader, told the National Journal in a recent interview.

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Democrats have no illusion as what the post-election landscape would be. David Axelrod, a senior Obama aide, told the MSNBC that after the election, in Congress, "there will be more Republicans. We are ready to work together. The question is, are they ready to work with us?" Obama "will have even harder time at advancing his agenda and issues he would be able to find success in the first two years, such as immigration, climate change" after the election, said Mann. But even if Republicans take over majority in the House, should they abandon their strategy of absolute opposition, the next two years could also mean something different. McDonnell, in his interview with the National Journal, cautioned against the danger of "just say no." He reminded Republicans of their sweeping mid-term elections victory in 1994, which didn't translate into a one-term presidency for Bill Clinton. "After 1994, the public had the impression we Republicans overpromised and underdelivered. We suffered from some degree of hubris and acted as if the president was irrelevant and we would roll over him," he said, noting that is a mistake the party won't want to make again, and "if President Obama does a Clintonian backflip, if he's willing to meet us halfway on some of the biggest issues, it's not inappropriate for us to do business with him." In his last radio address before the election, Obama called for Republicans to put aside partisan politics and focus on the economy."Whatever the outcome on Tuesday, we need to come together to help put people who are still looking for jobs back to work. And there are some practical steps we can take right away to promote growth and encourage businesses to hire and expand. These are steps we all should be able to agree on -- not Democratic or Republican ideas, but proposals that have traditionally been supported by both parties." He said on issues such as tax relief for middle class families, education, infrastructure and innovation, "it's the fundamental responsibility of all who hold elective office to seek out common ground." The first issue the two parties are likely to argue about after the election is the Bush era tax cut. Republicans want to extend all of them, but Democrats are not willing to continue cutting taxes for the very rich, and that may very well put the Capitol Hill to a standstill. Furthermore, the House operates with different rules with the Senate, and it is a more partisan chamber. Even if McConnell is willing to "meet Obama halfway," the House Republicans may not. "This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles," Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner said in an interview with a conservative radio host recently, noting any deal would be on Republican terms.

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"This Republican Party is more conservative, more extreme and more united, and it is absolute opposition to the president. Their Tea Party supporters are going to be demanding no deal with Democrats. That could mean a period of gridlock and irresolution on major problems confronting the country," said Mann.
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-11/01/c_13585222.htm

The 112th Congress convenes - In discord assembled

Bickering and stalemate loom for Americas new Congress
Jan 6th 2011 | WASHINGTON, DC | from the print edition
THE first act of the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives, which took control of the chamber this week after four years of Democratic rule, was to order the constitution to be read aloud on the House floor. This crash course in civics was intended chiefly as a gesture of fealty to the tea-party activists, or constitutional conservatives, who helped propel the Republicans to power in Novembers election. But the reading also serves as a stark reminder of the many celebrated checks and balances built into Americas political system, and thus how hard it will be for the new regime to get anything done. Take another of the Republicans first acts: the scheduling of a vote on January 12th to repeal the health-care reforms passed by the previous, Democrat-controlled Congress. The measure is all but certain to pass, given the Republicans healthy majority of 242-193, and may even attract the votes of a few Democrats. But it is also all but certain to run aground in the Senate, which remains tilted 53-47 in the Democrats favour. A further obstacle to the ambitions of the House Republicans is the presidents power to veto any bill he dislikes. As their recent primer on the constitution will have reminded them, it takes a two-thirds vote of both chamberssomething far beyond the Republicans reachto overturn a presidential veto. Thus most of the measures with which the Republicans are marking their ascendancy are symbolic. In another sop to the tea-partiers, they have drawn up new rules requiring every bill to specify the precise passage of the constitution that empowers Congress to act on the matter at hand. In a jab at the unions, they have changed the name of what used to be the Committee on Education and Labour to the Committee on Education and the Workforce. And to embarrass the president, Darrell Issa, the new chairman of the Committee on Oversight, has announced no fewer than six investigations he plans to conduct, into suspected incompetence at various government agencies and the like. In a show of their determination to cut spending, the Republicans plan to vote in their first week to trim the Houses own budget by 5%. They have also changed House rules to ensure that all increases in spending are offset by commensurate cuts, rather than increases in tax. In fact, it is in fiscal matters that the Republicans will have the most leverage. Their support will be needed in the coming months both to pass a budget and to raise the legal limit on Americas debt. The stakes are high: failure to agree on the former would prompt the

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government to suspend all but its most basic functions; neglecting the latter would entail defaulting on Americas debts. Republican leaders say they want to avoid any such cataclysms, but are also insisting on cuts. Paul Ryan, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, maintains that he will pare back non-security spending in what remains of the current fiscal year to the level of 2008. That would mean a cut of roughly 20% or about $50 billion, a drop in the ocean. That is broadly consistent with the Republicans pre-election promises, but is considered far too severe by the Democrats in the Senate, the president and milder Republicans. By the same token, many of the Republicans fiercest deficit hawks say they will not allow the debt ceiling to be raised unless they secure swingeing budget cuts. The Republican leadership appear worried that an unseemly zeal to slash spending and precipitate a melodramatic showdown with the Democrats would alienate moderate voters at the general election next year. But they also tend to bow to the zealots in the party who agitate feverishlyand often successfullyto unseat in the primaries anyone without a similar gleam in their eyes. Just how these impasses will be resolved, and with what amount of brinkmanship, is anyones guess. Barack Obama, for one, seems to assume that the Republicans will indulge in a spell of futile pandering to their base before compromising on the budget and perhaps a few other matters. Thats what happens in Washington, he said breezily this week, on his way back from a holiday in Hawaii. Some observers see scope for bipartisanship on trade deals or an overhaul of immigration laws, although that would depend, presumably, on how poisonous the negotiations over the budget become. A good indicator of Congresss likely descent into bickering and stalemate is the sudden interest in both chambers in the rules of procedure. John Boehner, the new speaker of the House, has resorted to a procedural gimmick to try to impose spending cuts until a new budget is passed. He has also instituted new rules intended to rein in the deficit, but has exempted from them some of the Republicans most cherished but expensive goals, such as further extending the temporary tax cuts agreed with the Democrats last month. In the Senate, meanwhile, Democrats are threatening to make it harder for the Republican minority to obstruct the will of the majority. As soon as the chamber convened on January 5th, Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, put forward a motion to change the rules of the filibuster, whereby 41 of the 100 senators can stymie almost any measure. Normally, such a change would require the approval of two-thirds of senators. But on one interpretation of procedure the rules can be changed by a simple majority of senators at the beginning of a new Congress. Republican senators complain that the Democrats, having lost the election, are now trying to subvert its result. Somewhat contradictorily, they are decrying the attack on the Senates traditions even as they threaten similar acts of vengeance should they win control of the chamber at the next election. Resorting to yet another procedural ruse, Harry Reid, the leader of the Democratic majority, has deferred the matter for a few weeks in the hope of striking some sort of deal with the Republicans. Even if the Democrats in the Senate get their way, however, they will be just as constrained by Americas newly divided government as the Republicans.

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/17851521

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Is health-care reform constitutional?

From The Washington Post By Randy E. Barnett Sunday, March 21, 2010

With the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on the issue seems to be nearing its conclusion. But if the bill does become law, the battle over federal control of health care will inevitably shift to the courts. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, has said he will file a legal challenge to the bill, arguing in a column this month that reform legislation "violate[s] the plain text of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." On Friday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that they will file a federal lawsuit if health-care reform legislation passes. Will these cases get anywhere? Here is a guide to the possible legal challenges to a comprehensive health-care bill. The individual mandate. Can Congress really require that every person purchase health insurance from a private company or face a penalty? The answer lies in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states." Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That's why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states. But the Supreme Court has long allowed Congress to regulate and prohibit all sorts of "economic" activities that are not, strictly speaking, commerce. The key is that those activities substantially affect interstate commerce, and that's how the court would probably view the regulation of health insurance. But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause's power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company. Regulating the auto industry or paying "cash for clunkers" is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. Even during World War II, the federal government did not mandate that individual citizens purchase war bonds. If you choose to drive a car, then maybe you can be made to buy insurance against the possibility of inflicting harm on others. But making you buy insurance merely because you are alive is a claim of power from which many Americans instinctively shrink. Senate Republicans made this objection, and it was defeated on a party-line vote, but it will return. The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid and other deals. Some states are threatening lawsuits to block the special deals brokered by individual senators in exchange for their votes. Unless the reconciliation bill passes the Senate, such deals could remain in place. Article I of the Constitution allows Congress to tax and spend to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Normally, this is no barrier to legislation benefiting a particular state or city. Congress can always argue that, say, an Air Force base in Nebraska benefits the United States as a whole. But the deals in the Senate bill are different. It is really hard to identify a benefit to all the states from exempting one state from an increase in Medicare costs or allowing only the citizens of Florida to get Medicare Advantage. The Slaughter House rule. A far graver threat to the bill would have been to declare it unconstitutional because it was never formally voted on by the House and therefore never became law. Article I requires that every bill "shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate" to become law, and that "the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of

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the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered in the journal of each House respectively." The whole purpose of the "deem and pass" procedure -- which was advocated by Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter -- was to avoid a separate vote on the Senate bill, which many House members find objectionable, and instead vote on the reconciliation bill and simultaneously "deem" the Senate measure passed. Although Democrats cited prior examples of deem and pass, "the Republicans did it" is not a recognized constitutional argument -- especially if the public and the justices have never heard of such a thing. This constitutional objection seems to have succeeded, as House leaders decided on Saturday to take a separate vote on the Senate version, rather than "deeming" it passed. State sovereignty provisions. Several states are considering measures attempting to exempt their residents from an individual health insurance mandate. While such provisions may have a political impact, none is likely to have any effect on the legislation's constitutionality. Under the 10th Amendment, if Congress enacts a law pursuant to one of the "powers . . . delegated to the United States by the Constitution," then that law is supreme, and nothing a state can do changes this. Any state power to "nullify" unconstitutional federal laws has long been rejected. Constitutional amendments. Of course, there is one additional way for states to win a fight about the constitutionality of health-care legislation: Make it unconstitutional. Article V of the Constitution gives state legislatures the power to require Congress to convene a convention to propose an amendment to the Constitution. If three-fourths of the state legislatures demand an amendment barring the federal regulation of health insurance or an individual mandate, Congress would be constitutionally bound to hold a convention. Something like this happened in 1933 when Congress proposed and three-quarters of the states ratified the 21st Amendment, removing from the Constitution the federal power to prohibit the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol. But the very threat of an amendment convention would probably induce Congress to repeal the bill. Ultimately, there are three ways to think about whether a law is constitutional: Does it conflict with what the Constitution says? Does it conflict with what the Supreme Court has said? Will five justices accept a particular argument?

Randy E. Barnett teaches constitutional law at Georgetown University. He is the author of "Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty."
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031901470.html

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THE INITIATIVE PROCESS

California Court to Weigh Gay Marriage Ban

By JESSE McKINLEY and JOHN SCHWARTZ, From The New York Times Published: March 4, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO Under intense pressure from both sides in the debate over same-sex marriage, the California Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on the ballot initiative passed by voters last November that outlawed such unions. For opponents of the measure, Proposition 8, the three-hour hearing is a critical legal test. But it is also, they say, a prime moment to rally their forces and demonstrate resilience after a stinging election loss that many among them believe could have been avoided. [] While the fall campaign was heated and expensive, with each side spending more than $40 million the hearing is bound to seem somewhat anticlimactic to many. The court will only hear oral arguments on Thursday, and has 90 days to come to a decision. And for all the passion surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage, the question before the court is one that may seem technical, even dry: Does the initiative approved by Californians merely amend the State Constitution or, as gay rights groups hope the court will rule, revise it? Under California law, an amendment is a matter that the states longstanding initiative process deals with routinely. A revision, however, entails a fundamental change to the Constitution, and requires approval of either two-thirds of each house in the Legislature or a constitutional convention. That could be much harder to achieve than passage in a referendum. What elevates the ban on same-sex marriage to the level of a fundamental rewriting of the Constitution, opponents of Proposition 8 argue, is that it denies a right the ability to marry that the California Supreme Court earlier last year called inalienable. To take away that right now, they argue, would violate federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal treatment. That court decision, in May, identified gay men and lesbians as a group that had historically suffered discrimination, and opened the door for some 18,000 same-sex couples to marry before Proposition 8 passed in November. The justices are also expected to rule on the validity of those marriages when they now decide the fate of the proposition. Kenneth W. Starr, dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law and a former federal appeals judge and United States solicitor general, will argue before the justices on behalf of the measures backers. In a brief, Mr. Starr said efforts to overturn Proposition 8 ignored the will of the people expressed in an open, fair election. But Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said that if a measure limiting what he described as the fundamental rights of gay people could be adopted by voter-approved amendment, then any right can be taken away from any group through a ballot measure. Mr. Minter will be Mr. Starrs opponent at the hearing.

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Andrew P. Pugno, a lawyer working with Mr. Starr on the case, disagreed with the notion that Proposition 8 altered some solidly entrenched right. He also said the case could put to the test the states entire initiative process, which has been used in the past to legislate matters as varied as property tax rates and a ban on affirmative action. If the court strikes down Proposition 8, Mr. Pugno said, the initiative process itself is put into doubt. The case has also taken on some curious political ramifications. After initially saying his office would protect the measure, Californias attorney general, Jerry Brown, a potential candidate for governor in 2010, declared that he would be unable to argue in favor of it. Instead, Mr. Brown filed a brief last year arguing against it. To rule in favor of the measure, the brief maintained, would be to say that the California Constitutions foundational guarantee of individual rights is no guarantee at all.

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/us/05marriage.html

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THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH

Our Presidential Era: Who Can Check the President?
From The New York Times Published: January 8, 2006

By NOAH FELDMAN Noah Feldman, a contributing writer for the magazine and a law professor at New York University, is the author most recently of "Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem - and What We Should Do About It."

Illustration by Lanny Sommes

OUR PRESIDENTIAL ERA Not since Watergate has the question of presidential power been as salient as it is today. The recent revelation that President George W. Bush ordered secret wiretaps in the United States without judicial approval has set off the latest round of arguments over what the president can and cannot do in the name of his office. Over the past few years, the war on terror has led to the use of executive orders to authorize renditions and the detention of enemy combatants without trial - for which the Bush administration has been called to account by our European allies. The treatment of detainees has also given rise to concerns in Congress about the prerogatives of the chief executive: both houses recently voted to limit the president's authority to employ C.I.A. or other executive agents to engage in cruel and inhumane interrogations. The limits of presidential power will almost surely be a major topic of discussion during Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which are scheduled to begin this week. The stakes of the debate could hardly be higher: nothing is more basic to the operation of a constitutional government than the way it allocates power. Yet in an important sense, the debate is already long over. By historical standards, even the Bush administration's critics subscribe to the idea of a pre-eminent president. Administrative agencies at the president's command are widely understood to be responsible for everything from disaster relief to drug approval to imposing clean-air standards; and the president can unleash shock and awe on his own initiative. Such "presidentialism" seems completely normal to most Americans, since it is the only arrangement most of us have ever known. For better or worse, though, this is not the system envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. The framers meant for the legislative branch to be the most important actor in the federal government: Congress was to make the laws and the president was empowered only to execute them. The very essence of a republic was that it would be governed through a deliberative legislature, composed carefully to reflect both popular will and elite limits on that will. The framers would no sooner have been governed by a democratically elected president than by a king who got his job through royal succession.

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The transformation of the United States from a traditional republic to a democratic nation run in large measure by a single executive took a couple of hundred years. Constitutional evolution, like its counterpart in the natural world, has occurred sometimes gradually and sometimes in catastrophic jolts, like those brought about by war or economic crisis. The process has not been entirely linear: presidential power grabs have often been followed by a Congressional backlash, as in the wake of Richard Nixon's presidency. But the overall winner has unquestionably been the president, who has reached heights of power that the framers would scarcely have imagined. The modern presidency, as expressed in the policies of the administration of George W. Bush, provides the strongest piece of evidence that we are governed by a fundamentally different Constitution from that of the framers. While any constitution must evolve over time to meet new circumstances and challenges, there is reason to think that, when it comes to presidential power over national security, the latest developments have gone too far. The rise of the presidency began with the Louisiana Purchase, which in 1803 doubled the landmass of the United States. History taught the framers that, just as Rome changed from republic to empire with conquest of new lands, territorial acquisition would lead to the centralization of political power. Sure enough, Thomas Jefferson's decision to buy the territory without seeking a constitutional amendment or advance Congressional approval amounted to a huge expansion of presidential authority. Jefferson entered office as a skeptic of the national government's power and even privately suggested that the purchase was unconstitutional. In overcoming his own republican instincts and arranging the purchase secretly, he demonstrated how the office of the presidency would come to serve its own interests, swaying the men holding it to strengthen not simply their own authority but also that of the institution itself. Three decades later, Andrew Jackson's presidency marked another leap forward in presidential power. His contribution was his claim to represent the country, in its entirety, more directly and democratically than the congeries of local politicians who made up Congress. This rhetorical stance, coupled with the expansion of voting rights to white men without property, gave him the political muscle to veto the national bank and stand up to Congress in the name of the common men who had voted for him. By the middle of the 19th century, with the admission to the Union of Florida, Texas and California, the United States became a continental empire. Such an empire called for an "imperial presidency," as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. suggested in his classic 1973 book of the same name. With the onset of the Civil War, the threat to the nascent empire led Abraham Lincoln to govern without Congress and to suspend access to the courts. When in 1898 William McKinley conquered the Philippines and chose to rule it, the imperial metaphor became still more apt: the United States had become, for the first time, the proprietor of whole nations whose peoples would never vote in its elections and whose governors reported directly to the president. In the 20th century, the Great Depression helped propel the presidency to its current level of dominance. The administrative agencies that were created during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal were a response to the tremendous complexity and growth of the national economy. An overwhelmingly Democratic Congress went along with the Roosevelt administration, giving the agencies broad discretion in regulating the economy and addressing workers' welfare. Over time, as the agencies expanded to administer health and safety regulations, Congress realized that it was more convenient to pass the buck to agencies than to deal with hard policy questions on its own. A congressman could take credit for an agency's action when it was convenient and blame the agencies when they adopted policies that his constituents disliked. It is now taken for granted that the president is in charge of the vast administrative apparatus that makes most of the important domestic-policy decisions in the country.

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Today, of course, the main arena for the extension of presidential power is the realm of national security. The president's power to use force has grown enormously since the founding. The framers worried that a standing army at the president's beck and call would encourage him to subvert legislative independence by force, and so the Second Amendment gave Americans a right to bear arms in order to form well-ordered militias that would protect "a free state" - not only from the incursions of foreign powers but also from an overweening central government. Until the 20th century, a president who called the military into action did not have much to work with. But as America emerged as a world power, Congress began to ignore the framers' concern, enhancing the size and might of the regular army until presidents could enter even major conflicts on their own. Presidents from both parties used the ongoing hostilities of the cold war to strengthen their military prerogatives during the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Despite the passage of the War Powers Act of 1973, which tried to reassert Congress's role in going to war, the presidency ended up more powerful than it had been before; no president has acknowledged the act's constitutionality. Even Bill Clinton was able to bomb Kosovo without asking Congress for permission. The administration of George W. Bush, emboldened by the Sept. 11 attacks and the backing of a Republican Congress, has sought to further extend presidential power over national security. [] Administration lawyers have gone so far as to claim that the president as commander in chief is not bound by laws that ban torture because he is empowered by the Constitution to fight the nation's wars however he sees fit. [] For the last four years, a Republican Congress has done almost nothing to rein in the expansion of presidential power. This abdication of responsibility has been even more remarkable than the president's assumption of new powers. In recent months, though, Bush's relative unpopularity, as reflected in opinion polls, has emboldened Congress to take some steps toward reasserting its oversight role. In addition to the new anti-torture legislation, there is talk of requiring regular reports on secret detentions; and last month Congress nearly allowed the U.S.A. Patriot Act to lapse, granting only a five-week extension instead of the full renewal sought by the administration. Still, political logic dictates that, as long as Republicans control Congress, its oversight will be cautiously managed so as not to harm the party or the party's next presidential candidate. And even accounting for a legislative backlash, history suggests that the presidency ultimately emerges stronger after a president makes new claims of his constitutional authority. So what, if anything, should be done? If presidential power has been taken too far, who, if anyone, can impose limits on it? [] The allocation of power within the government is not determined simply by reading the Constitution and figuring out what it says. To the contrary, the balance of powers is established through a game of give and take, a struggle in which each branch fends for itself. [] It is customary, when making a plea on behalf of Congress, to give the legislature special consideration because it is the branch originally designed to represent the people. But this is not wholly justified: after all, nowadays the people directly elect the president, and the politicization of Supreme Court nominations ensures a fair amount of popular input into the composition of the court. It is also not certain that a rejuvenated Congress would be more effective in supervising the president than the Supreme Court. The real reason, then, to hope that Congress will resurrect its lost powers is that the balance of powers remains, as the framers thought, the best guarantor of liberty in a constitutional government. []

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/magazine/08court.html QUESTIONS: 1. Sum up the different stages leading to todays presidential era. 2. Do you agree with Noah Feldman that presidential power may jeopardize the balance of
powers in the U.S.?

3. Look for two possible answers to Feldmans question: who can impose limits on the
president?.

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Obama order could make corporate political spending public

By Matea Gold and Tom Hamburger, Washington Bureau May 8, 2011, 7:16 p.m. Reporting from Washington

An executive order being considered by President Obama would require companies bidding for federal contracts to disclose political spending they may now keep secret. A lobbying battle is raging largely behind the scenes over a seemingly obscure executive order that could if signed by President Obama make public the political spending that many corporations can now keep secret. Under the proposed order, all companies bidding for federal contracts would be required to disclose money spent on political campaign efforts, including dollars forwarded through associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other private groups. Election spending by such organizations soared to new heights in 2010, thanks in part to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case, which allowed corporations and unions to make direct political expenditures. The majority opinion endorsed disclosure of the new political spending, but many groups have formed as nonprofits, which do not have to reveal their funding sources. Since then, campaign finance reform advocates and their Democratic allies have sought to unmask the secret contributions fueling the groups, arguing that such spending allows wealthy individuals, corporations and other special interests to have an outsized influence on elections without voters knowing who is behind the effort. At stake are tens of millions of dollars in donations provided by corporations to trade associations and other not-for-profit groups that use the money for independent campaign expenditures. In the last election cycle, most of the money spent by the groups benefited GOP candidates. Democrats, worried about that advantage, sought to restrict this kind of undisclosed independent spending. When that effort failed, some prominent party members began forming their own not-for-profit organizations to compete with the GOP. If Obama issued the draft executive order, he would effectively discourage previously undisclosed donations to groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which with some exceptions have been generally helping Republican candidates. It would also give the president a chance to quiet critics who want him to be more outspoken in demanding disclosure of large contributors. But business interests are trying to quash the measure. The chamber is pressing top White House officials, including Chief of Staff William Daley, who worked closely with the group when he was an executive at JPMorgan Chase, to push Obama to drop the executive order. The chamber also has corralled its allies on Capitol Hill. More than two dozen Republican senators, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and chairmen of 19 House committees signed letters to the president arguing that the order would inject political favoritism into the contracting process. Two House committees will hold a joint hearing Thursday to push administration officials on the matter. "The way the order is drafted, it hijacks the very powerful engine of the federal procurement system and it takes it and tries to achieve political and electoral ends," said Lily Fu Claffee, the chamber's general counsel, who charged that the measure would "chill the free-speech rights of corporations."

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Backers of the disclosure measure say that it is intended not to reward political donors with federal contracts but to shed light on corporate influence over elections. They argue the business opposition is driven by self-interest. () The executive order would require any company seeking a federal contract to disclose all of its federal political spending over $5,000 for the previous two years including contributions to third-party groups. Some of this information is already available: Government contractors, like all companies, have to disclose contributions to their political action committees, as well as their independent political expenditures. But the proposed order would create one central database on the website data.gov listing the political activities of government contractors and their affiliates and officers. More than 138,000 companies are prime federal contractors and could fall under the measure, according to government data. That includes Fortune 500 companies such as Apple, Southwest Airlines, Coca-Cola and FedEx. It would also affect some unions that have federal contracts to provide services, such as worker training. As of now, the 2012 campaign is poised to see an even greater influx of undisclosed political spending than the last election, in part because of the Democratic rush to set up the same nonprofit political vehicles that Republicans exploited in 2010. But if Obama signs the executive order, some corporations wary of being dragged into partisan politics could shy away from funding efforts on behalf of either side. () The fate of the executive order, which remains under review at the Office of Management and Budget, is unclear. Daley, the chief of staff hired in part to smooth administration relations with business, called it "just a proposed rule" that the White House was considering.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0509-donor-disclose20110508,0,7517040,full.story

House adopts resolution scolding Obama on Libya

June 3, 2011 2:57 PM , From CBS
WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled House on Friday adopted a resolution rebuking President Barack Obama for dispatching U.S. military forces against Libya without congressional approval. The vote was 268-145, over White House objections. The resolution by Speaker John Boehner said the president has failed to provide a "compelling rationale" for the nearly 3-month old operation to aid rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi's forces. During Friday's debate, Democrats and Republicans complained that Obama ignored Congress' constitutional authority to declare war. The nonbinding measure insists that Obama provide Congress with details on the scope of the mission and its costs within 14 days. It also bars U.S. ground forces except to rescue an American service member. Shortly after adopting the resolution, the House rejected a considerably tougher measure advanced by Rep. Dennis Kucinch that demanded an end to U.S. involvement in the NATO-led operation in Libya. The vote was 265-148. The GOP leadership hastily pulled together the Boehner resolution amid concerns in both parties that the Kucinich measure was gaining ground.

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The Senate had no plans to consider the measure, which would allow the U.S. to continue to remain engaged in the mission and would have no impact on the logistical and intelligence support the Americans have been providing. Boehner assailed the administration for failing to answer several questions about the operation. "Today's debate on Libya is the first step and clearly there's information that we want from the administration that we asked for in this resolution and it's information that we expect to get," the Ohio Republican told reporters. "But there isn't any question in my mind that Congress is going to take further action in the weeks to come." The White House pushed back against both resolutions, with spokesman Josh Earnest calling them "unnecessary and unhelpful." Earnest insisted that the administration has been consulting with Congress since before Obama ordered air strikes. "It is the view of this administration that we've acted in accordance with the war powers act because of these regular consultations," Earnest said aboard Air Force One en route to Toledo, Ohio. But lawmakers faulted the commander in chief for ignoring both Congress' constitutional authority to declare war and the 1973 War Powers Resolution that requires congressional authorization within 60 days of military action. That deadline expired last month. "Shall the president, like the King of England, be a dictator on foreign policy?" asked Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. "The authors of the Constitution said we don't trust kings." Republicans and Democrats have been frustrated with Obama's treatment of Congress, particularly the level of consultation and details on the scope of the Libyan mission and its costs. "What did he do, send a tweet to the chairman of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees?" Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., asked mockingly. Obama ordered air strikes in March to back Libyan rebels battling Gadhafi's regime after limited consultation with Congress. More recently, the United States has operated in a support role as the standoff continues between Gadhafi's forces and the rebels. The president has argued that he acted to prevent a massacre in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, and he had the backing of several lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee. Initially, the military operation was largely constituted of U.S., British and French naval and air attacks, with the United States taking the lead. NATO took charge at the end of March and U.S. forces now play a support role that includes aerial refueling of NATO warplanes and intelligence, and surveillance and reconnaissance work. The U.S. also flies unmanned drones over Libya. Obama said when he ordered U.S. forces to support the mission that there would be no American ground troops. Although no U.S. military forces are present, The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that the CIA has paramilitary officers operating alongside rebel forces in the North African nation. Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/03/politics/main20068733.shtml

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THE JUDICIAL POWER

The Court: Ignoring the Reality of Guns
Published: June 28, 2010

The New York Times [Reminder - Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.]

About 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence, according to federal statistics, in the four months that the Supreme Court debated which clause of the Constitution it would use to subvert Chicagos entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership. The arguments that led to Mondays decision undermining Chicagos law were infuriatingly abstract, but the results will be all too real and bloody. How should cities and states alter their gun control policies in light of the Supreme Court decision. This began two years ago, when the Supreme Court disregarded the plain words of the Second Amendment and overturned the District of Columbias handgun ban, deciding that the amendment gave individuals in the district, not just militias, the right to bear arms. Proceeding from that flawed logic, the court has now said the amendment applies to all states and cities, rendering Chicagos ban on handgun ownership unenforceable. Once again, the courts conservative majority imposed its selective reading of American history, citing the countrys violent separation from Britain and the battles over slavery as proof that the authors of the Constitution and its later amendments considered gun ownership a fundamental right. The courts members ignored the present-day reality of Chicago, where 258 public school students were shot last school year 32 fatally. Rather than acknowledging Chicagos and the nations need to end an epidemic of gun violence, the justices spent scores of pages in the decision analyzing which legal theory should bind the Second Amendment to the states. Should it be the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, or the amendments immunities clause? The argument was not completely settled because there was not a five-vote majority for either path. The issue is not trivial; had the court backed the immunity-clause path championed by Justice Clarence Thomas, it might have had the beneficial effect of applying more aspects of the Bill of Rights to the states. That could make it easier to require that states, like the federal government, have unanimous jury verdicts in criminal trials, for example, or ban excessive fines. While the court has now twice attacked complete bans on handgun ownership, the decision left plenty of room for restrictions on who can buy and sell arms. The court acknowledged, as it did in the District of Columbia case, that the amendment did not confer a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. It cited a few examples of what it considered acceptable: limits on gun ownership by felons or the mentally ill, bans on carrying firearms in sensitive places like schools or government buildings and conditions on gun sales. Mayors and state lawmakers will have to use all of that room and keep adopting the most restrictive possible gun laws to protect the lives of Americans and aid the work of law enforcement officials. They should continue to impose background checks, limit bulk gun purchases, regulate dealers,

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close gun-show loopholes. They should not be intimidated by the theoretical debate that has now concluded at the court or the relentless stream of lawsuits sure to follow from the gun lobby that will undoubtedly keep pressing to overturn any and all restrictions. Officials will have to press back even harder. Too many lives are at stake. Readers comments: CG: Elkridge, Maryland If a person shoots a burglar in his or her house, or God forbid, a trick-or-treater whom he/she believes to be a burglar, that person is not ensuring the security of a free state. That person is engaging in vigilante justice, plain and simple. The Second Amendment was for a time when there was the imminent threat of redcoats taking away colonial rights and seems particularly quaint and outdated today. Besides, a militia is a body that rises out of the civilian population in order to aid the armed forces in an emergency. Were we under attack from some foreign nation, Id understand, but this is just ludicrous. Tatiana Covington: Tucson AZ USA I have the absolute and unlimited right of self-defense. If that requires the use of armed force, so be it. Sometimes guns are the only means of survival one has, especially when facing some violent, useless, vicious thug. Then it is him or it is you. Spencer: san diego Regardless of whether you think cities should be able to restrict guns, the greatest threat here is the suggestion posed by the NY times. Governmental power was wisely separated by our founders into three branches. The supreme courts job is to interpret the law which they did. If you dont like the law (or the bill of rights) it is the legislatures job to amend it. The supreme court made the easy, simple, interpretation that a city cannot restrict rights granted to the citizens of the country by the bill of rights. If you dont like those rights, change them. But dont tempt the supreme court to take powers it doesnt and shouldnt have. Aj: fort lauderdale, fl This conservative-leaning Supreme Court is very detached from the reality of gun violence in our cities. The shootings are out of control and have become an epidemic in the major cities. I live in South Florida and every other day there are shootings between gangs and young thugs in the recesses of the inner city. Some of it has to do with drugs, but a lot of it is just a wanton disrespect for life and inability to understand the consequences of using a gun to kill someone, even when it is an innocent. Not too long ago, we had a young child killed in her own home as result of stray bullets in a gun battle between two groups of youths. The perpetrators were eventually apprehended and the legal process recently found both individuals who actually pulled the trigger guilty of murder. However, the little child is gone forever and the family that lost her will never be whole again. Sources : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/opinion/29tue1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print QUESTIONS: 1. 2. 3. Summarize the main points of this article. Summarize each of the 4 readers opinions. How are they different/similar? Which one(s) do you agree/disagree with? Why? Write your own reader opinion on this topic.

[1] Demand; encourage the passage of [2] need-based financial aid provided by the Federal government for university students [3] to make a pitch: to speak in favor of [4] Paying for

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[5] operating or functioning [6] notice of dismissal from employment

Obama Picks Kagan as Justice Nominee

From The New York Times May 09, 2010 By Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny
WASHINGTON President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan as the nations 112th justice, choosing his own chief advocate before the Supreme Court to join it in ruling on cases critical to his view of the countrys future. What Kagan Will Bring to the Court After a monthlong search, Mr. Obama informed Ms. Kagan and his advisers on Sunday of his choice to succeed the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, but the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience. [] Replacing Justice Stevens with Ms. Kagan presumably would not alter the broad ideological balance on the court, but her relative youth means that she could have an influence on the court for decades to come, underscoring the stakes involved. In making his second nomination in as many years, Mr. Obama was not looking for a liberal firebrand as much as a persuasive leader who could attract the swing vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and counter what the president sees as the rightward direction of the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Particularly since the Citizens United decision invalidating on free speech grounds the restrictions on corporate spending in elections, Mr. Obama has publicly criticized the court, even during his State of the Union address with justices in the audience. As he presses an ambitious agenda expanding the reach of government, Mr. Obama has come to worry that a conservative Supreme Court could become an obstacle down the road, aides said. It is conceivable that the Roberts court could eventually hear challenges to aspects of Mr. Obamas health care program or to other policies like restrictions on carbon emissions and counterterrorism practices. [] Ms. Kagan defended her experience during confirmation hearings as solicitor general last year. I bring up a lifetime of learning and study of the law, and particularly of the constitutional and administrative law issues that form the core of the courts docket, she testified. I think I bring up some of the communications skills that has made me Im just going to say it a famously excellent teacher. Ms. Kagan was one of Mr. Obamas runners-up last year when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the court, and she was always considered the front-runner this year. [] Ms. Kagan had several advantages from the beginning that made her the most obvious choice. For one, she works for Mr. Obama, who has been impressed with her intelligence and legal capacity, aides said, and she worked for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. when he was a senator. For another, she is the youngest of the four finalists, meaning she would most likely have the longest tenure as a justice.

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Ms. Kagan was also confirmed by the Senate just last year, albeit with 31 no votes, making it harder for Republicans who voted for her in 2009 to vote against her in 2010. The president can also say he reached beyond the so-called judicial monastery, although picking a solicitor general and former Harvard law dean hardly reaches outside the Ivy League, East Coast legal elite. And her confirmation would allow Mr. Obama to build on his appointment of Justice Sotomayor by bringing the number of women on the court to its highest ever (three, with Justice Sotomayor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Moreover, in his selection of finalists, Mr. Obama effectively framed the choice so that he could seemingly take the middle road by picking Ms. Kagan, who correctly or not was viewed as ideologically between Judge Wood on the left and Judge Garland in the center. Judge Garland was widely seen as the most likely alternative to Ms. Kagan and the one most likely to win easy confirmation. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, he had a number of conservatives publicly calling him the best they could hope for from a Democratic president. [] But Mr. Obama ultimately opted to save Judge Garland for when he faces a more hostile Senate and needs a nominee with more Republican support. Democrats expect to lose seats in this falls election, so if another Supreme Court seat comes open next year and Mr. Obama has a substantially thinner margin in the Senate than he has today, Judge Garland would be an obvious choice. [] A New Yorker who grew up in Manhattan, Ms. Kagan earned degrees from Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law School, worked briefly in private practice, clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, served as a Senate staff member and worked as a White House lawyer and domestic policy aide under President Bill Clinton. She was nominated for an appeals court judgeship in 1999, but the Senate never voted on her nomination. She has been a trailblazer along the way, not only as the first woman to run Harvard Law School but also as the first woman to serve as solicitor general. Her inexperience as a judge makes her a rarity in modern times, but until the 1970s many Supreme Court justices came from outside the judiciary, including senators, governors, cabinet secretaries and even a former president. If the Senate confirms Ms. Kagan, who is Jewish, the Supreme Court for the first time will have no Protestant members. In that case, the court would be composed of six justices who are Catholic and three who are Jewish. It also would mean that every member of the court had studied law at Harvard or Yale. []

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/us/politics/10court.html

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Chief justice urges end to partisan stalling

Los Angeles Times, January 01, 2011|By David Savage, Washington Bureau

In his year-end report on the federal courts, John G. Roberts Jr. calls on both parties in Congress to more swiftly approve federal judicial nominees. Without naming names or casting blame, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called on Republicans and Democrats on Friday to put aside their differences and move more quickly to approve qualified nominees to be federal judges. About 110 judgeships about one in eight in the federal judiciary are vacant, and the Senate approved only 60 of President Obama's court nominees in the last two years. That was the lowest total for a new president in four decades. In Roberts' year-end report on the federal courts, he said that this "persistent problem has developed over many years," and that both parties had played a role. "Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes," he said. "This has created acute difficulties for some judicial districts." Although the Senate confirmed 19 judicial nominees in December's lame-duck session, it let another 19 nominations die, even though most of them had been approved overwhelmingly by the Senate Judiciary Committee. A decade ago, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist drew wide attention when he faulted Senate Republicans for blocking President Clinton's court nominees. Roberts, however, made no mention of President Obama and did not blame Republicans for the recent delays. "The judiciary relies on the president's nominations and the Senate's confirmation process to fill judicial vacancies; we do not comment on the merits of individual nominees. That is as it should be," Roberts wrote. "There remains, however, an urgent need for the political branches to find a long-term solution to this recurring problem." Roberts himself has some familiarity with partisan stalling over court nominees. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush nominated him to be a judge on the U.S. court of appeals in Washington, but his nomination went nowhere and died when Clinton took office. In 2001, President George W. Bush again nominated Roberts to the U.S. court of appeals, and although he faced little opposition, he was not confirmed until 2003. Two years later, Bush chose him for the Supreme Court. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, issued a statement taking note of Roberts' comments, but pointedly blamed the GOP for the high vacancy rate on the federal bench. Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/01/nation/la-na-roberts-report-20110101

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POLITICAL PARTIES
Florida Passes Bill to Limit 3rd-Party Voter Registration
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ Published: May 5, 2011

MIAMI With an eye on next years presidential election, the Florida Legislature passed a bill on Thursday that would tighten the rules on third-party voter registration and limit the number of days early voting can take place, an effort that Democrats portrayed as blatant voter suppression. The legislation, which Republican leaders said was needed to curb fraud, save money and ensure a more orderly process, will now go to Gov. Rick Scott for his signature. We have come a long way since the 2000 elections, said Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a Miami Republican who sponsored the bill, referring to Floridas central role in the disputed presidential tally. This bill makes the process better, clearer, more transparent, more accessible. It enfranchises voters. But Democrats accused Republicans of trying to make it more difficult for voters particularly Democrats to cast their ballots and said the bill was unnecessary because reforms put in place after 2000 have largely been successful. Fraud, they said, is minimal: the Florida Department of State referred 31 cases of alleged voter fraud to the Department of Law Enforcement in the past three years. United States Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who opposes the bill, said Thursday in a letter to Mr. Scott that he planned to seek a Justice Department inquiry because major changes in election law in several counties require federal approval. By requiring third-party groups to submit voter registration forms to the state within just 48 hours or risk fines, the bill would dampen the enthusiasm of volunteers, voter advocacy groups said. On Thursday, the president of the Florida League of Women Voters said her organization would most likely stop registering voters because she could not ask volunteers to assume that risk. Its a huge step backward for the state of Florida, said Deirdre Macnab, the leagues president. If these series of ideas become law it will be a vast new way to suppress voter registration and turnout just in time for the 2012 election. The legislation would also shorten the early voting period to 8 days from 14. Early voting would shut down three days before an election. In Florida, early voting has a decidedly Democratic tilt. People who move from county to county like college students would also face greater difficulty voting. Today, registered voters can change their address at a polling station. The bill would disallow on-the-spot address changes, which are routinely checked through a database. We should be making it more convenient for people to vote and not more problematic, said Robert Brandon, the president of the Fair Elections Legal Network. But State Senator Don Gaetz, a Republican from North Florida, said, There is a desire to make sure we dont have fraud and the kinds of mistakes that lead to embarrassment to our state.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/us/politics/06voting.html

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Who Is The Tea Party? Republicans By Another Name

NPR September 15, 2010

Steve Yeater/Associated Press

Tea Party activists arrive for a rally at the former McClellan Air Force Base site, Sept. 12, 2010. So who are exactly are these Tea Party people and what do they want? It's a question not only Republican Party leaders have been asking themselves and each other for a number of months; students of American politics have been seeking answers as well. One of the best outsider guides to the Tea Party movement is Jonathan Rauch, a contributing editor at National Journal and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. Rauch, who has done a lot of deep reporting on the Tea Party, explained that a member of the movement is essentially someone who would've earlier identified as a Republican but now calls himself an independent despite being a conservative and voting pretty much exclusively for Republicans. In other words, they are the opposite of the Republicans In Name Only or the RINOs many Tea Partiers revile. They are Republicans Under Another Name (RUAN doesn't really work as well as RINO, but it's the best I could do for the time being.) Here is an excerpt from Rauch's comments: Tea Partiers are white, bright and right on average. The minority presence is relatively small. I dont think thats because theyre racist. I dont think they are. I think its because theyre conservative and conservatives tend to attract more white voters than minority voters. They are bright. They are well educated. Finally, they are, many of them debranded Republicans. That is to say they look and talk and sound like Republicans. They often vote like republicans. But many of them think of themselves as independents. Thats one reason theyre so unafraid to vote for Republican candidates in primaries who might lose to Democrats. They say its not about party and in their minds it really isnt. Rauch has talked with Tea Party movement people and scholars of political movements and reported his findings in a National Journal piece that fills in a lot of details, such as they are. The big political challenge for the Tea Party, as Rauch points out, is how does the Tea Party change the policies of government, especially if its preferred candidates don't get elected in general elections in large numbers, or it doesn't have leaders who can speak authoritatively on the Tea Party's issues? As Rauch pointed out, enacting legislation takes compromise and having someone at the negotiating table. But many in the Tea Party apparently see this as the kind of impure, old-style

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politics that, to their minds, has gotten the country in so much fiscal trouble, with big deficits and debt. So the question remains, how does the Tea Party as it's currently organized (or disorganized as the case may be) become more than just a spoiler for the candidacies of establishment Republican Party candidates? Rauch says the Tea Party doesn't care as much about political gains as it does for cultural change. It wants to change the "hearts and minds" of Americans so they become more skeptical of government and more self-reliant, Rauch says. That seems like a tall order, especially with Baby Boomers entering the years when they will become more dependent on the federal government than ever because of Social Security and Medicare.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/09/15/129876488/who-is-the-tea-party-republicans-byanother-name

The Republican nomination - The silence of the right

Social conservatives and the tea-party movement are still waiting for their candidate in the Republican nomination race
May 19th 2011 | WASHINGTON, DC | from the print edition of The Economist
THE court ruling that made abortion legal in America is an abomination, Rick Santorum, a former senator now running for the Republican nomination for president, assured anti-abortion activists in Pennsylvania this week. Meanwhile, in Minnesota Newt Gingrich, a newly-declared candidate, was trying to convince sceptical Christians that it was possible to believe in God and science at the same time. Both he and Michele Bachmann, a congresswoman and potential candidate, spoke at the annual dinner of the Minnesota Family Council, whose mission is to strengthen the families of Minnesota by advancing biblical principles in the public arena. Running for president will not be easy, Mrs Bachmann admits, but If this is something the Lord has called us to, he will make a way where there is no way. Early appeals to values voters are a normal part of the campaign for the Republican nomination. Evangelical Christians dominate the Republican electorate in several states with early primaries or caucuses, including Iowa and South Carolina. Populist religious candidates, such as Pat Buchanan and Mike Huckabee, have put in strong showings in the past. Yet Mr Huckabee, despite a secondor third-place finish in 2008 (depending on how you count) and a lead in some early polls this time around, declared he would not join the race on May 14th (see picture). That leaves no clear standard-bearer for the religious right. (The most godless candidate, Donald Trump, a former casino mogul, also ducked out of the race this week.) One theory holds that the religious right was always likely to have less influence over this election, thanks to the prominence of fiscal concerns since the birth of the tea-party movement three years ago. But the tea party, too, has no anointed candidate. All the leading contenders have gone against conservative orthodoxy on taxes, deficits, health care, global warming or some other cherished cause at some point. Even as the government reached the authorised limit on its debt this week, setting the scene for an almighty partisan dust-up over the budget, few in the presidential field

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were advocating the sort of radical cuts urged by the Republicans in Congress. In fact, the tea-party activists and the religious right have something in common: for all their denunciations in recent years of RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), the party seems likely to plump as usual for an establishment candidate with a spotty record on their most heart-felt causes. Take Mr Gingrich. Although a partisan Republican by any standard, he has in the past endorsed the idea of a universal requirement to buy health insuranceanathema to Republican activists since its enactment in Barack Obamas health-care reforms last year. He once sat on a loveseat with Nancy Pelosi, a left-wing demon to many Republicans, in an advertisement backed by Al Gore, an even more fork-tongued figure, to call for action against global warming. His infidelities and divorces call his morals into question, too. And since declaring his candidacy he has made himself look still more suspect by repudiating the health-care reforms put forward by the Republicans in the House of Representatives as right-wing social engineering. Tim Pawlenty, a former governor of Minnesota now competing for the nomination, embraced caps on emissions of greenhouse gases to stem global warming, a policy most Republicans now deride as a tax on everything (he recently recanted). Jon Huntsman, a likely contender, has supported carbon caps and civil unions for gay couples and (horrors!) worked for Mr Obama as ambassador to China. Mitch Daniels, another possible candidate, presided over a ballooning national debt as George Bushs budget man, and has called for a truce on contentious social issues. The most obvious misfit is Mitt Romney, the other runner-up in 2008 and the current leader in most polls. He has flip-flopped like a sea-lion on abortion and gay rights. As governor of Massachusetts he signed into law reforms to health care that served as a model for Mr Obamas. He, too, was for curbs on greenhouse-gas emissions before he was against them. On top of all that, he is a Mormon, a faith many Christians view with suspicion. It is still possible that a candidate with a less chequered record on all these issues will come to the fore. Mr Santorum, for one, has long campaigned against abortion and gay marriage, and can also stake a claim to fiscal purity thanks to the part he played in the welfare reforms of the 1990s. Mr Pawlenty attends a big evangelical church and is loudly advertising his religious convictions. Mrs Bachmann, a darling of tea-party activists, seems likely to enter the race. So too may Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate in 2008. She sent a fund-raising appeal to supporters this week saying 2012 cant come soon enough. But as Charlie Cook, a political analyst, points out, winning the nomination requires prodigious fundraising and some measure of backing from the partys powerbrokers. Unlike the Democrats, he argues, the Republicans have never nominated an outsider. It is easier to raise money from the businessmen and suburbanites that populate the partys moderate wing than from the poorer, rural voters who tend to back more populist candidates. Mr Huckabee, for instance, only managed to raise $16m during his 2008 campaign, whereas Mr Cook suspects that the winning candidate will end up spending $100m-150m in the primaries. Only Mrs Bachmann and Mrs Palin have the fundraising prowess to make a strong run, but they are probably still too fire-breathing to prevail. There are not enough votes on the religious right to secure the nomination, so the successful candidate will have to appeal to less doctrinaire voters too. Mr Cook says the tea partys influence seems to have peaked. Most of the establishment Republicans it helped to upset in primaries in 2010 were the victims of low turnouts and peculiar circumstances unlikely to be repeated in the presidential campaign. Claims of the Republican establishments demise have been exaggerated. Source: http://www.economist.com/node/18712321

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ELECTIONS
When the Electoral Vote and the Popular Vote Differ
From By Thomas H. Neale1 05 September 2008

Four times in U.S. history, the Electoral College system resulted in election of a candidate for president who had received fewer popular votes nationwide than another candidate. Since the first U.S. presidential election in 1788, the Electoral College system has delivered the peoples choice in 51 of 55 contests, but on four occasions the Electoral College gave controversial results. Three of these elections, 1876, 1888, and 2000, produced a president and vice president who won a majority of the electoral vote but fewer popular votes than their principal opponents. [] 2000: The Supreme Court Steps In Few U.S. presidential contests have ended as acrimoniously as the election of 2000. Even now, after nearly a decade, emotions run high among committed partisans of Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore when discussion turns to the subjects of dimples, under-votes, hanging chads, or the Supreme Courts ruling that ended the recount process in Florida. The general election campaign, though hard fought, gave little indication of the controversy to come. According to most polls, Governor Bush of Texas held a narrow lead, but Vice President Gore appeared to be closing the gap. Two minor party candidates presented a complicating factor: Consumer advocate Ralph Naders Green Party was perceived as drawing support from Gore voters, while Patrick Buchanan, nominee of the Reform Party, was expected to cut into Bushs popular vote. More than 105 million Americans cast votes for president on November 7; by early evening it was clear that the election would be close. Gore held a slight popular vote lead nationwide, and the electoral vote was also tight, standing at 246 electoral votes for Bush and 255 for Gore, with 37 undecided in three states. New Mexico and Oregon, with 12 votes, were eventually declared for Gore, but Florida, with 25 decisive electoral votes and where Bush held a tiny lead, remained in contention. Reports of confusing ballots and other irregularities led to demands for statewide and county recounts in Florida. The national Democratic and Republican parties dispatched teams of lawyers and political operatives to make their case in the courts and media. Acrimonious and widely publicized disputes over the recounts dominated the news for weeks, and both parties filed suit in Florida state and federal courts. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking: Federal law required Florida to declare its electoral vote by December 12. After a series of starts and stops and conflicting lower court decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled five to four that Floridas recount procedures violated the 14th Amendments equal protection clause and that, since there was no time to devise and implement a different plan, the vote would stand. The courts decision was assailed by Gore supporters as politically biased in favor of the Republican Party, but the recounts ended and George Bush was declared the winner in Florida with
1

Thomas H. Neale is a specialist in American national government who produces reports for Congress at the Congressional Research Service.

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a margin of 537 votes. Nationwide, Bush won 271 electoral votes to Al Gores 266, but Gore had received about 540,000 more popular votes. Although bitterly disappointed, Vice President Gore accepted the results and urged his supporters to respect the Supreme Court's decision in the best interests of the nation. A number of representatives contested the results when Congress met to count the electoral vote on January 6, 2001, but they lacked Senate co-sponsors and were disallowed by Gore, who as vice president presided over the session. Bush was inaugurated on January 20, the first U.S. president in more than a century who failed to win a plurality of the popular vote. Source: http://www.america.gov/st/elections08english/2008/September/20080905143744ebyessedo0.8026239.html

Redistricting rows - Not so easy

May 5th 2011 | AUSTIN, TEXAS | The Economist

Republican hopes of snagging extra seats following last years census look doomed to disappointment.
REDISTRICTING, so the old saying goes, is when politicians get to choose their voters. Every ten years, following the national census, each state must redraw the constituency boundaries for both its members of Congress and its state legislators. In most states, the party in power controls both those processes, either directly through the state legislature or indirectly through the appointment of members to commissions charged with the job. The whole business has been riven with conflicts of interest for at least two centuries. This time around, though, Republicans are in charge in far more states than Democrats, so should be able to weight the political odds in their favour for the next decade. But that is proving trickier than normal, for a variety of reasons. Take Texas. Republicans control the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature, so can draw new maps without interference from Democrats. That power is all the more coveted since Texas will receive four new seats in the House of Representatives at the next election, thanks to the rapid growth of its population over the past decade. Partisan Republicans would like all four districts drawn with Republican majorities. But as Sherri Greenberg of the University of Texas at Austin points out, even in Texas, there are not enough Republicans to create four secure new Republican districts. That is partly because Republicans won almost every marginal seat in the state at the last election, leaving themselves already thinly spread. Democrats now hold just nine of Texass 32 House seats. The elections accomplished what we were afraid they were going to try to accomplish by gerrymandering, says Mike Villarreal, the most senior Democrat on the redistricting committee in the state House of Representatives. That outcome, in turn, was underpinned by a previous Republican gerrymander. In 2003, shortly after taking control of the state legislature for the first time in over a century, Republicans redrew the congressional map in a way that cost the Democrats six seats at the subsequent election, and more since. That leaves Republicans with few plausible targets in the Democratic congressional delegation. To make matters trickier for the Republicans, some 90% of the growth in the states population over the past decade has come from minorities, who tend to vote Democratic. Indeed, minorities

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are now in the majority in Texas, with Hispanics alone accounting for about 38% of the populationalthough their share of legal residents of voting age is smaller. The racial divide in Texas politics is quite stark: there are only two state House seats with a white majority represented by Democrats, a legislator points out, and only three minority seats represented by Republicans.

A latter-day Governor Gerry might respond by distributing Hispanic voters across all seats to minimise their influence. But that is a risky tactic in two respects. First, the states demographics are changing fast enough that an overly ambitious partisan gerrymander is likely to come unstuck during its ten-year lifespan. The last map the Republicans drew secured them a comfortable majority of 88 of the 150 seats in the state House in 2002, but only 76 in 2008. Republicans involved in redistricting this time around say they cannot be too aggressive if their handiwork is to have any hope of surviving. Moreover, the Voting Rights Act, originally intended to prevent the disenfranchisement of black voters in the South, makes it difficult to marginalise minority voters. It enjoins states to create districts dominated by minorities where feasible, and bars them from reducing minorities overall electoral clout. Trey Martinez Fischer, who heads the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in the Texas House, says his group will sue if the Republicans produce a congressional map with fewer than two new Hispanic districts. The fact that Republicans just pushed through a redistricting plan for the Texas House of Representatives that fell far short of the five new Hispanic seats he was demanding will also probably spark lawsuits. Redistricting in Texas is a two-step, he says, first in the legislature, then in the courthouse. Democrats are especially enthusiastic about legal challenges to redistricting plans this year, since the federal government, which has considerable leeway to interpret and enforce the Voting Rights Act, is in Democratic hands. (Republican administrations, as it happens, have presided over all previous redistricting cycles since the act was passed in 1965, with a Republican in the White House in 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001.) Some Texan Republicans are already musing about bypassing the Department of Justice, and obtaining the necessary approval of their electoral maps from a federal court instead. But most seem to think the best defence against a legal assault is to produce a relatively timid redistricting plan in the first place. That suits most incumbents just fine. While they would be happy in principle to see their partys ranks swell, they are seldom willing to help by allowing their own seats to become less secure. Instead, Republican congressmen and state representatives in Texas seem eager to shore up their own districts by jettisoning minority neighbourhoods, university towns and other left-leaning voters. That is understandable: given the scale of the Republican landslide in Texas last year, simply retaining all the existing Republican seats in next years elections will be a struggle, however the maps are drawn. All across the country, Republicans are afflicted by similar problems. There are some bright spots for them, such as North Carolina, where the newly Republican legislature is likely to be able to flip a few Democratic seats in Congress by rejigging the boundaries. But there are also trickier prospects, such as Illinois, where Democrats will probably succeed in undermining several freshmen Republicans. In Florida, perhaps the most glaring Republican gerrymander of the previous cycle, a new law on redistricting is likely to crimp the state legislators most partisan impulses.

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All told, both Democrats and Republicans agree, redistricting for Congress is unlikely to alter the balance much, with Republicans focusing for the most part on consolidating the gains they made at the last election. Despite the Republicans notional domination of the process, there will be few direct Democratic casualties. That will only be scant consolation to the Democrats, however, who will still face the daunting task of dislodging a mighty Republican majority of 49 in the House of Representatives.

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/18651320

'One person, one vote' still an unsettled question for states

Friday, February 11, 2011 By Josh Goodman From Stateline

Legislatures will begin tying themselves in knots in a matter of weeks as they redraw the boundaries of their own districts. The difficult, costly, contentious once-a-decade process occurs for one reason: Population has shifted over the past ten years, giving some districts too many people and some too few. To abide by the principle of "one-person, one-vote," district populations must be made equal more or less. But just how equal is equal enough? For state legislative districts, thats a key legal issue that remains unresolved. The muddle comes from two relatively obscure court cases originating in the last redistricting cycle. A decade ago, Democratic dominance in Georgia was waning. The party still controlled the state Legislature, though, and as a result had the power to draw state House and Senate lines to try to perpetuate its hold on power a little bit longer. Thats just what the Democrats did. One of their tactics was to create suburban Republican-tilting districts that were over-populated they had more people than the statewide average while under-populating Democratic seats in cities and rural areas. The most populous districts had almost 10 percent more people than the smallest ones. The end result was more Democratic districts and fewer Republican ones. Predictably, Republicans cried foul. A federal district court agreed with them, throwing the map out on one-person, one-vote grounds in a case called Larios v. Cox. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision. In New York, the Republicans who controlled the state Senate also were clinging to power in a state Democrats increasingly dominated. Their redistricting plan looked a lot like the one in Georgia. They stretched their power by underpopulating Republican-leaning upstate districts, while overpopulating Democratic seats in New York City. Once again, the population deviations were just under 10 percent. This time, though, in the case of Rodriguez v. Pataki, a U.S. district court said the plan was constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that decision, too. Given the conflicting Supreme Court judgments, which occurred just five months apart, courts are nearly certain to revisit the issue this cycle. Whats at stake is how much power legislators have to draw maps for partisan ends. If the courts follow Larios, and limits variations even in the 10 percent range, political gerrymandering will be harder. If they follow Rodriguez, it will be easier. Population deviations, though, arent all about partisan politics. States often draw legislative districts with unequal populations in order to keep communities intact or make life more convenient for election administrators. State lawmakers hope theyll be able to keep that power. Source: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=549681

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Latino and Asian voters mostly sat out 2010 election, report says
By Shankar Vedantam, Published: April 26 2011 A record 14.7 million Latino voters sat out the 2010 midterm elections, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center that shows the nations fastest-growing minorities are largely failing to exercise their right to vote. Along with Asian voters, who appear similarly disengaged, the absence of so many Latino voters at the polls means the political influence of these minority groups will fall short of their demographic strength by years, if not decades. About 31 percent of eligible Latino and Asian voters cast ballots in the 2010 congressional elections, compared with 49 percent of eligible white voters and 44 percent of eligible blacks, according to the Pew report. Asians comprise a much smaller portion of the electorate than Latinos, though both groups are exploding in size. Although the number of Latino voters increased from 5.6 million in the 2006 election to 6.6 million last year, the number of Latinos eligible to vote grew much faster, from 17.3 million to 21.3 million, said Mark Lopez, associate director of the Pew Center and author of the report. As a result, the gap between potential and actual Latino voters grew by 3.1 million in 2010. The snapshot of minority voting comes on the heels of a poll showing that support for President Obama among Latinos is down by more than 25 percentage points compared with the start of his administration cause for serious concern among Democrats. Obama needs Latinos to show up in force for him in 2012, as they did in 2008, political analysts say. But the administration has disappointed many Latinos by failing to win immigration reforms while increasing deportations among the countrys 11 million undocumented immigrants. () The administration is on track to deport more undocumented immigrants than any previous administration Republican or Democrat in history. Obama says that he supports an immigration overhaul and has called on Congress to act. In the meantime, he has said, he is obliged to enforce the immigration laws on the books. But Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided, and reform is unlikely in the remaining two years of Obamas term. The closest that Congress came to addressing the issue was in December, when Democrats failed to win passage of the Dream Act, a measure that would have created a path to citizenship for some immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. Recognizing that legislative action was unlikely anytime soon, 22 senators wrote to Obama this month asking him to use his executive powers to stop deportations of undocumented students. Several Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) were reelected last year with strong Latino support, but on the whole, GOP candidates fared better than expected among Latino voters. That was especially true of Latino GOP candidates. During the November 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party had historic levels of Hispanic support, said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. In fact, exit polls showed that 38 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots for House Republican candidates. This is more than in 2008 and 2006. . . . All five Hispanics elected to Congress in 2010 were Republicans. Smith said that calls for strong border protection and enforcement had played well in Florida, Mexico and Nevada, including with Latino voters. This is a good trend for the GOP, he said. The Pew report on minority voting, which was released Tuesday, did not examine the political factors that affect turnout, but it says the youthfulness of the Latino electorate might partly explain

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the phenomenon. Voters younger than 29 typically do not show up to vote as reliably as older voters. Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration and national campaigns at the National Council of La Raza, a pro-immigration group, said political candidates were not investing enough effort in reaching out to and mobilizing Latino voters. She blamed Democratic candidates for taking Latino voters for granted and blamed Republicans for writing Latinos off. Martinez credited Obama for articulating an immigration enforcement policy that focuses on undocumented immigrants with criminal backgrounds and prioritizes them for deportation. That should be the policy, she said. Instead, what we are seeing is that [they] are picking up moms and dishwashers and workers. The policies have been articulated they need to be adhered to.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/latino-and-asian-voters-mostly-sat-out-2010election-report-says/2011/04/26/AFr6X6qE_story.html

House passes bill to end public funding of campaigns

By Catalina Camia, published: January 26, 2011, from USA TODAY

The U.S. House passed a bill today to end public financing of presidential campaigns, but the bid to kill a system considered outdated by some Republicans could end there. The vote was 239-160. Ten Democrats supported the measure and one Republican voted no. The Obama administration is "strongly opposed" to the bill and wants to see public financing for presidential campaigns "fixed rather than dismantled." Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., sponsor of the measure says the Watergate-era program of taxpayers helping to pay for presidential campaigns is "obsolete." Instead, the bill seeks to have presidential candidates rely on private funds for their campaigns and transfer the remaining balance in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund to the Treasury to help pay off debt. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said Republicans are trying "to further erode whatever protections our government has left against a state of democracy for the highest bidder." Republicans won the House majority on promises to chop federal spending. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the campaign bill would save $617 million over 10 years -- a fraction of the $1.5 trillion budget deficit now projected for this year. The Obama administration said the measure would deal another blow to the campaign financing system, on the heels of last year's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case that opened the door to more election spending by corporations and unions. "This is not the time to further empower the special interests or to obstruct the work of reform," said the official Statement of Administration Policy, issued earlier this week by the White House budget office. The public-financing system was created in the 1970s, as a way to end the abuses highlighted during the Watergate scandal. USA TODAY's Fredreka Schouten reported earlier this week that taxpayer support has waned, with only 7.3% of taxpayers choosing in 2009 to check off a box on their federal income tax forms to donate $3 toward the public-financing fund. Shortly after the House passed its bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a companion measure in the Senate. "The American people have spoken and the verdict is clear," said McConnell, R-Ky. "They'd rather reduce the deficit than pay for attack ads and robo-calls."

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President Obama set a record for fundraising in his 2008 campaign, relying on private donors, and bypassed the public financing system. Republican John McCain, however, did not forgo public funds and received more than $84 million in taxpayer money to help pay for his general election bid against Obama.

Source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/01/house-presidential-campaignfinancing-/1

INTEREST GROUPS
A G.O.P. Leader Tightly Bound to Lobbyists
By ERIC LIPTON, from The New York Times Published: September 11, 2010

WASHINGTON House Democrats were preparing late last year for the first floor vote on the financial regulatory overhaul when Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders summoned more than 100 industry lobbyists and conservative political activists to Capitol Hill for a private strategy session. The bills passage in the House already seemed inevitable. But Mr. Boehner and his deputies told the Wall Street lobbyists and trade association leaders that by teaming up, they could still perhaps block its final passage or at least water it down. We need you to get out there and speak up against this, Mr. Boehner said that December afternoon, according to three people familiar with his remarks, while also warning against cutting side deals with Democrats. That sort of alliance they won a few skirmishes, though they lost the war on the regulatory bill is business as usual for Mr. Boehner, the House minority leader and would-be speaker if Republicans win the House in November. He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nations biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS. They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and waterfront bashes and are now leading fund-raising efforts for his Boehner for Speaker campaign, which is soliciting checks of up to $37,800 each, the maximum allowed. Some of the lobbyists readily acknowledge routinely seeking his offices help calling the congressman and his aides as often as several times a week to advance their agenda in Washington. And in many cases, Mr. Boehner has helped them out. As Democrats increasingly try to cast the Ohio congressman as the face of the Republican Party President Obama mentioned his name eight times in a speech last week and as Mr. Boehner becomes more visible, his ties to lobbyists, cultivated since he arrived here in 1991, are coming under attack. The woman he hopes to replace, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, derided him on Friday as having met countless times with special-interest lobbyists in an effort to stop tough legislation that would regulate corporations and protect consumers. And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, through a spokeswoman, charged that he epitomizes the smoked-filled, backroom, special-interest deal making that turns off voters about Washington.

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Mr. Boehner, who declined to be interviewed for this article, and his lobbyist allies ridicule such criticism as politically motivated by desperate Democrats. His actions, they say, simply reflect the pro-business, antiregulatory philosophy that he has espoused for more than three decades, dating back to when Mr. Boehner, the son of a tavern owner, ran a small plastics company in Ohio. And fielding requests from lobbyists is nothing unusual, he says. I get lobbied every day by somebody, he said last month after a speech in Cleveland. It could be by my wife. It could be the bellman. It goes on all day, every day, every place. () If elected as his partys leader in the House, Mr. Boehner will certainly lean on his industry allies for help as he builds coalitions necessary to push legislation through Congress, his office acknowledges. Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said the industry ties only help make Mr. Boehner a better Republican leader. Like the American people, Boehner a former small-business man is most concerned right now about the issue of jobs, he said. So he often speaks with employers, rather than, for example, labor unions or environmentalists who support job-killing policies. His lobbyist friends also defended the close ties. Does he have a lot of relationships in this city? Yes, absolutely, said Mark Isakowitz, a friend whose Republican firm represents more than three dozen financial, telecommunications, energy and consumer products companies as diverse as Coca-Cola and Zurich Financial Services. But I think all the good lawmakers do. Mr. Boehner won some of his first national headlines in 1996 after he was caught handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists to fellow Republicans on the House floor. Then the fourthranking House Republican, he said he had broken no rules and was simply assisting his lobbyist friends, who were contributing to other Republicans campaigns. () While many lawmakers in each party have networks of donors, lobbyists and former aides who now represent corporate interests, Mr. Boehners ties seem especially deep. His clique of friends and current and former staff members even has a nickname on Capitol Hill, Boehner Land. The members of this inner circle said their association with Mr. Boehner translates into open access to him and his staff. He likes to bring similarly minded people together to try to advance legislation or oppose it, said Drew Maloney, a lobbyist at Ogilvy Government Relations. That is how you get things done. ()

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/us/politics/12boehner.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&src=ISMR_HP_ LO_MST_FB&adxnnlx=1284292956-bjCrPgCm2NMlaRu0Dsj3aQ&pagewanted=all

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