Month: March 2021

Imagine if the Republicans passed a voting reform that did the following things:

1. Required all voting to occur on Election Day at a physical polling station, and all absentee votes to be postmarked on Election Day.
2. Made stringent requirements for absentee voting, including a signed affidavit explaining why in-person voting is not possible, accompanied by criminal penalties for perjury.
3. Made it a crime to transport a non-family member to the polling station.
4. Made signature matches a national requirement, and empowered poll workers to unilaterally reject signatures.
5. Outlawed all online voter registration, and all state government programs to facilitate or encourage voter registration.
6. Stripped all voters who don’t respond to a snail-mailed inquiry of their voter registration.
7. Disallowed college students from voting in a state other than their primary residence.
8. Required female voters to register their maiden names and any other names they may have used in the past to register to vote. Insist their registration name match the name on their state-issued ID.
9. Made a state-issued ID a requirement of both registering and voting.

Naturally, the Democrats would be outraged as these measures would clearly disadvantage them. But they also go against the spirit that voting is a fundamental right and responsibility of every citizen.

As the Washington Post reports, the Democrats’ voting reform bill cuts in the opposite direction, and also introduces campaign finance and ethics reforms.

The bill’s voting provisions would guarantee no-excuse mail voting and at least 15 days of early voting for federal elections; require states to use their existing government records to automatically register citizens to vote; restore voting rights to felons who have completed their prison sentences; and mandate the use of paper ballots.

Other provisions would create new disclosure requirements for “dark money” donations to political groups; require states to appoint independent commissions to draw congressional districts; and create new federal standards for election equipment vendors.

The bill also would require tech platforms to disclose political advertising information; establish a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices for the first time; restructure the Federal Election Commission to an odd number of members to break partisan deadlocks; and require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns.

The Republicans consider these reforms to be the equivalent of a death sentence and argue that their sole intent is to gain a permanent political advantage for the Democrats. But, notice, these reforms make it easier for Republicans to vote too. There are no voters who are singled out for harassment or disenfranchisement. No one is stripped off the voter rolls. If this hurts Republicans it’s only because currently the Republicans have an advantage that would disappear. If nearly everyone can register and voting is easy and accessible, that’s an even playing field.

By looking at what the Republicans could do to reform elections, we can see that their ideas all cut in the direction of making the playing field even more lop-sided in their favor, and it’s all done by preventing people from voting.

So, while each set of reforms would really hurt the other side politically, only one set is nakedly partisan.

I don’t write this to pick on Emily Botatch, who has written up a nice piece on the firing squad bill that is moving through the South Carolina legislature. But I do have to nitpick a little. Botatch describes the situation accurately, but not adequately.

The original bill that the [firing squad] amendment was tacked on is aimed at combating a nationwide shortage in lethal injection drugs, caused by drug manufacturers who have sought to clamp down on how their products were being used.

What Botatch fails to do is explain why drug manufactures don’t want their products used to kill people. The answer is that a lethal injection is a cocktail of drugs that are manufactured for different purposes, and the pharmaceutical companies, many of which are based overseas where the death penalty is outlawed, do not want the moral or potential legal problems that come with aiding and abetting an execution. There are also concerns about the reliability and humaneness of lethal injection.

As a result, states that use lethal injection cannot get the ingredients they need. Botatch reports that South Carolina has been unable to obtain the drugs since 2016 and this has already caused a delay in two scheduled executions, with a third likely to be delayed in the near future.

Under current South Carolina law, death row prisoners have the option of electrocution (the electric chair) or lethal injection, and their preference must be respected. The proposed change in the law would add death by firing squad as an option and also allow the state to use electrocution or firing squad if the prisoner opts for lethal injection and the drugs can’t be secured in a timely fashion.

Many Palmetto State lawmakers, including opponents of the death penalty, see getting shot to death as more humane and merciful than being burned to death by electricity, and they support this bill for that reason. But the whole debate would be unnecessary if there weren’t strong global opposition to the death penalty that makes lethal injection a nonviable option in the United States.

Rather than ponder why most of the world considers the death penalty barbaric, the South Carolina legislature is desperate to carry out executions on schedule. That’s a shame.

Jonathan Bernstein makes a general point about bipartisan in the context of the COVID-19 relief package.

Assuming that (barely) all of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s ducks are in a row, all 50 Democratic senators are ready to vote for the bill, and Vice President Kamala Harris has the tie-breaker to get the job done. Parties that have the votes rarely make concessions to get additional, unnecessary votes! Bipartisan compromise happens when it’s needed, not for its own sake.

In contrast to this, there is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s theory that even popular legislation will lose public support if it is seen as strictly partisan. This is why he urged his colleagues not to support Obamacare, and it’s why none of them are really fighting for concessions in the COVID-19 bill. Yet, if you think about it, it’s also why Bernstein overstates the case.

It actually is worth something to get votes from across the aisle on major legislation, and that’s why the Democrats should be willing to at least consider making some concessions on this $1.9 trillion bill. Yes, they can pass it on their own, but then they have to defend it. That’s easier to do if it isn’t perceived as wholly unacceptable to every elected Republican in Congress.

The problem is that it only makes sense to make a concession to a Republican senator if that senator will agree to provide their vote in return. Without their vote, you’re giving away something for nothing.

A true legislator operating in the minority who is looking to do the best job for their constituents will occasionally buck their party and support the opposition’s legislation if they can win something of value in the exchange. They’ll take heat for this from partisans, but they’ll also get some credit from folks who can see a direct benefit. McConnell’s style of leadership heavily discourages this kind of behavior.

This is a major reason why Congress can barely function, and also why there is so much pressure to eliminate the legislative filibuster. The truth is, the Democrats can’t realistically hope to win 60 votes to overcome a filibuster because that would require 10 GOP senators to cross the aisle. It’s easy to make the kind of concessions that should make that possible, but McConnell’s strategy precludes it from happening regardless of what the Democrats offer.

At this point, 12 years after President Obama was sworn in and McConnell first adopted his policy of total obstruction, the Republican media and voters expect implacable opposition. At this point, McConnell and his lieutenants don’t even need to pressure their caucus to block Biden’s agenda on every front because they get that pressure from their constituents.

A strange result of this is that it makes winning over Republican votes much more valuable than it was in the past. A crossover vote now counts for more than some marginal advantage in debates over legislation. It helps break the Republicans of a bad habit that is crippling the proper function of government. If one Republican crosses the aisle and gets away with it, more may follow. If McConnell loses his iron grip on his caucus on one issue, his grip may loosen on the next.

But one thing remains true. All meaningful concessions have to bring votes. This means that the Democrats should ask for what they want and pass what they want unless a Republican senator makes an ironclad promise to support the bill. Making preemptive concessions is a bad strategy that reward bad behavior, and it’s one mistake that the Obama administration made that should not be repeated.

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well. I’m back with some music.

King Crimson has been around forever and a day, and fans probably have their favorite era of their recorded work. Personally, I am partial to the Fripp-Belew-Levin-Bruford lineup from the first half of the 1980s. Of the LPs they released at the time, Discipline (1981) was probably the best of the lot, but the others had plenty of moments as well. I always enjoyed a track called Sheltering Sky. This video has the quartet live. Part of the fun is how Fripp and Belew trade being lead and rhythm guitarists as the song progresses.

I’m sure I’ll have a bit more for y’all. The jukebox is on. The bar is open and well-stocked. Please tip your friendly neighborhood bartender.

Take care and stay safe. Cheers!

As Shane Goldmacher and Elaina Plott of the New York Times report, the 2021 CPAC Convention in Orlando revealed that “woke mob” and “cancel culture” are the new catchphrases of the conservative movement. This is in part an expression of fear that conservative and religious values are losing currency in American culture, seen in particular through the deplatforming of ideas that give offense. This can take the form of campus boycotts, suspended social media accounts or the refusal of platform monopolies like Amazon to carry controversial books. In the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it’s also an expression of frustration that what’s good for thee is not necessarily good for me.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, one of his party’s most adroit culture warriors, summarized the annoyance and alienation felt by attendees at the right-wing gathering because of the continuing pandemic.

“You can French kiss the guy next to you yelling ‘Abolish the police’ and no one will get infected,” he mocked. “But if you go to church and say ‘Amazing grace,’ everyone is going to die.”

It doesn’t matter that church choirs have repeatedly served as superspreader events, the idea is that there’s a double standard. When Trump held political rallies during the pandemic he was called irresponsible, but there was far less criticism of people gathering in the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis policemen. Moreover, religious conservatives opposed to LGBT rights see their books pulled off the shelves when equally unpopular ideas espoused by the left go unmolested. There’s enough of a point here that we don’t really need to contest the grievance or nitpick Cruz’s logic.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, requested on Monday that chairman Jerry Nadler hold a hearing on “cancel culture.”

#BREAKING: Ranking Member @Jim_Jordan calls on @RepJerryNadler to hold first full committee hearing on “cancel culture.” pic.twitter.com/FEI20b6qio

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) March 1, 2021

Conservatives clearly think this is a winning issue for them, but I think it probably does a lot more to mobilize their base than it does to improve their chances of winning over undecided voters. There’s a segment of the population that feels stifled by “political correctness” and another overlapping one that is generally hostile to “elite” opinion. But unless the Republicans can articulate a broader message than resentment about being “cancelled,” I don’t see them getting much traction.

The best avenue for them is to focus on the power of Big Tech. This is a bipartisan concern that touches on not just censorship but privacy and anticompetitive practices. Of course, they don’t actually want this to be a bipartisan issue because they’re not interested in actually solving the problem, especially if they’d have to share the credit. They want the issue, and the issue doesn’t work unless it’s something uniquely vexing to Republicans.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who served as president of France from 2007-2012 and attempted an unsuccessful comeback in 2016, has been convicted of corruption and is facing a year in prison. Most likely, he’ll be able to serve that sentence at home in an ankle bracelet, but he has additional legal problems. He stands accused of committing campaign finance violations during his losing 2012 presidential bid and, more seriously, of financing his 2007 campaign with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s money.

Sarkozy, who is 66, isn’t running for president this time around but, as Aurelien Breeden explains in the New York Times, he’s still an important player in French politics:

Mr. Sarkozy is on good terms with President Emmanuel Macron, who has recently steered France to the right, and he still wields considerable influence on the main conservative political party in France, Les Républicains.

With the presidential election fast approaching and no clear front-runners in sight, Mr. Sarkozy’s blessing is widely sought by party officials, many of whom have disparaged the French justice system in recent years, accusing prosecutors and judges of unfairly targeting Mr. Sarkozy.

This could quite easily be what the future holds for American politics. To begin with, Donald Trump may run for president again in 2024 despite being defeated in 2020 after serving one term and despite being embroiled in all manner of legal controversies and liabilities, including ongoing investigations about foreign influence in his successful 2016 election.

For another, even if he is not a candidate in 2024, it is quite likely that his blessing will be sought by the Republicans who are seeking the presidency. The same can be said about 2028 if Trump follows Sarkozy’s exact pattern and runs and loses in 2024.

On the legal front, Trump’s legal problems might be more immediately debilitating than anything Sarkozy faces, mainly because in addition to corruption, foreign influence and campaign finance issues, Trump also faces rape and sexual harassment-related defamation cases and very serious-looking civil and criminal probes into his business practices. There are also liabilities related to the aftermath of the 2020 campaign, including election tampering in Georgia and the January 6 insurrection. And it has barely made a blip on the national radar that Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine deposed Ivanka Trump in December and Donald Trump Jr. on February 11 in a case related to potential 2017 misuse of inaugural funds.

As with Sarkozy’s example, where some credible investigations have been discontinued, it’s likely that Trump will get a pass on some things simply because there only are so many times you can indict a man. For example, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan is reportedly disinterested in prosecuting Trump (a.k.a., Individual-1) for Stormy Daniels-related crimes despite the fact that his lawyer Michael Cohen did prison time for carrying out Trump’s instructions.

But any leniency Trump receives will not prevent his supporters from disparaging the American justice system and accusing prosecutors and judges of unfairly targeting him.

Sarkozy has been out of power for nine years and yet he has only now been convicted of a crime. Nine years from now, Trump will be nearly 85 years old, and his age could give him an advantage over the former French president who was only 57 when he left office.

Either way, the news out of France demonstrates that it’s possible to hold a corrupt president to account, but also that it’s hard to curb the corroding influence of a corrupt president. Optimists will focus on the former example, while pessimists will lament the latter, but both should agree that Trump should not escape justice.