American Politics MDCLXVIII - Warning! May contain non SB1070 posts

[Lord Mord]

FLoW,

That's exactly right. Disagreement on the merits of the decision is one thing, but disagreement on the timing makes no sense. The decision held that this was an unconstitutional funding scheme that infringed on a a fundamental constituional right.

What constitutional right?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Well, it's not that cut and dry, is it? Health insurance reform nearly died - to the delight of conservatives - when Scott Brown deprived the Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority, and only a Herculean effort by Nancy Pelosi saved it. Fact is that the filibuster enables the Republican minority to shut down any piece of legislation indefinitely, and there is nothing Barack Obama can do about it. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

You might have a point if he'd even tried to pass additional legislation and was thwarted, but that's not what happened. He not only did nothing, but he didn't even attempt to do anything.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

FLoW,

What constitutional right?

Apparently, freedom of speech.

[Lord Mord]

FLoW,

Apparently, freedom of speech.

Whose freedom of speech was being curtailed, and in what way did the matching funds cause that to be?

[Shryke]

No. If an appeal is not timely filed, the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case at a later date. The court could have denied the injunction and just granted certiorari, but that screws over candidates who are privately funded if the 9th circuit's opinion is overruled (which it likely will be).

It doesn't screw them over, they were planning on being privately funded anyway. They were prepared for it.

The people who get screwed over are the publically funded candidates who now are suddenly left without election funds they had fully expected to receive, due to SCOTUS interference.

What constitutional right are you talking about?

The whole "Right to elect your government" thing. Kinda important.

The right to receive government subsidies if a rich person uses his fortune to run for office?

No, it's about the judicial branch not blatantly interfering in a state election. They might as well have said "The SCOTUS endorses candidate X".

Their decision has massive effects on an ongoing election. That's some crazy interference by another branch of the wrong level of government.

[TrackerNeil]

You might have a point if he'd even tried to pass additional legislation and was thwarted, but that's not what happened. He not only did nothing, but he didn't even attempt to do anything.

Wait...are you arguing that Barack Obama has done nothing to advance any legislation? What about ARRA?

You can always point out something Obama wanted that he didn't get as evidence he's done nothing, but then you're really saying, "Except for historic health insurance reform and an enormous economic stimulus bill, Obama hasn't been able to push anything through Congress."

[AndyP]

Wait...are you arguing that Barack Obama has done nothing to advance any legislation? What about ARRA?

You can always point out something Obama wanted that he didn't get as evidence he's done nothing, but then you're really saying, "Except for historic health insurance reform and an enormous economic stimulus bill, Obama hasn't been able to push anything through Congress."

TrackerNeil

I think it is pretty clear that FLoW is talking about the Administration passing any legislation regarding drilling. Rolling Stone for example has a rather long article on this subject detailing a lot of actions Obama's team didn't take.

Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings – yet the administration had ignored them. Instead of cracking down on MMS, as he had vowed to do even before taking office, Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency's culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP – a firm with the worst safety record of any oil company – with virtually no environmental safeguards, using industry-friendly regulations drafted during the Bush years. He calibrated his response to the Gulf spill based on flawed and misleading estimates from BP – and then deployed his top aides to lowball the flow rate at a laughable 5,000 barrels a day, long after the best science made clear this catastrophe would eclipse the Exxon Valdez.

...

Salazar himself has worked hard to foster the impression that the "prior administration" is to blame for the catastrophe. In reality, though, the Obama administration was fully aware from the outset of the need to correct the lapses at MMS that led directly to the disaster in the Gulf. In fact, Obama specifically nominated Salazar – his "great" and "dear" friend – to force the department to "clean up its act." For too long, Obama declared, Interior has been "seen as an appendage of commercial interests" rather than serving the people. "That's going to change under Ken Salazar."

Salazar took over Interior in January 2009, vowing to restore the department's "respect for scientific integrity." He immediately traveled to MMS headquarters outside Denver and delivered a beat-down to staffers for their "blatant and criminal conflicts of interest and self-dealing" that had "set one of the worst examples of corruption and abuse in government." Promising to "set the standard for reform," Salazar declared, "The American people will know the Minerals Management Service as a defender of the taxpayer. You are the ones who will make special interests play by the rules." Dressed in his trademark Stetson and bolo tie, Salazar boldly proclaimed, "There's a new sheriff in town."

Salazar's early moves certainly created the impression that he meant what he said. Within days of taking office, he jettisoned the Bush administration's plan to open 300 million acres – in Alaska, the Gulf, and up and down both coasts – to offshore drilling. The proposal had been published in the Federal Register literally at midnight on the day that Bush left the White House. Salazar denounced the plan as "a headlong rush of the worst kind," saying it would have put in place "a process rigged to force hurried decisions based on bad information." Speaking to Rolling Stone in March 2009, the secretary underscored his commitment to reform. "We have embarked on an ambitious agenda to clean up the mess," he insisted. "We have the inspector general involved with us in a preventive mode so that the department doesn't commit the same mistakes of the past." The crackdown, he added, "goes beyond just codes of ethics."

Except that it didn't. Salazar did little to tamp down on the lawlessness at MMS, beyond referring a few employees for criminal prosecution and ending a Bush-era program that allowed oil companies to make their "royalty" payments – the amount they owe taxpayers for extracting a scarce public resource – not in cash but in crude. And instead of putting the brakes on new offshore drilling, Salazar immediately throttled it up to record levels. Even though he had scrapped the Bush plan, Salazar put 53 million offshore acres up for lease in the Gulf in his first year alone – an all-time high. The aggressive leasing came as no surprise, given Salazar's track record. "This guy has a long, long history of promoting offshore oil drilling – that's his thing," says Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "He's got a highly specific soft spot for offshore oil drilling." As a senator, Salazar not only steered passage of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, which opened 8 million acres in the Gulf to drilling, he even criticized President Bush for not forcing oil companies to develop existing leases faster.

Salazar was far less aggressive, however, when it came to making good on his promise to fix MMS. Though he criticized the actions of "a few rotten apples" at the agency, he left long-serving lackeys of the oil industry in charge. "The people that are ethically challenged are the career managers, the people who come up through the ranks," says a marine biologist who left the agency over the way science was tampered with by top officials. "In order to get promoted at MMS, you better get invested in this pro-development oil culture." One of the Bush-era managers whom Salazar left in place was John Goll, the agency's director for Alaska. Shortly after, the Interior secretary announced a reorganization of MMS in the wake of the Gulf disaster, Goll called a staff meeting and served cake decorated with the words "Drill, baby, drill."

Salazar also failed to remove Chris Oynes, a top MMS official who had been a central figure in a multibillion-dollar scandal that Interior's inspector general called "a jaw-dropping example of bureaucratic bungling." In the 1990s, industry lobbyists secured a sweetheart subsidy from Congress: Drillers would pay no royalties on oil extracted in deep water until prices rose above $28 a barrel. But this tripwire was conveniently omitted in Gulf leases overseen by Oynes – a mistake that will let the oil giants pocket as much as $53 billion. Instead of being fired for this fuckup, however, Oynes was promoted by Bush to become associate director for offshore drilling – a position he kept under Salazar until the Gulf disaster hit.

"Employees describe being in Interior – not just MMS, but the other agencies – as the third Bush term," says Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which represents federal whistle-blowers. "They're working for the same managers who are implementing the same policies. Why would you expect a different result?"

So they talked a good game but did next to nothing.

[Shryke]

Arizone preparing to be even more racist then before:

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona - and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution - to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100611/us_time/08599199606400

[TrueMetis]

Arizone preparing to be even more racist then before:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100611/us_time/08599199606400

Isn't that unconstitutional? Isn't there some part that says if you born in America you an American?

[Shryke]

Isn't that unconstitutional? Isn't there some part that says if you born in America you an American?

The 14th amendment I believe.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

FLoW,

Whose freedom of speech was being curtailed, and in what way did the matching funds cause that to be?

I don't have any desire to argue the merits of the case. My point was that criticizing the timing of the decision makes no sense when you consider the nature of the ruling on the merits.

[Shryke]

As to the Rolling Stone article, I think it suggests that we should be electing people much more liberal than Obama, not anyone to the right of him. But I do agree that it's not really fair to blame this one all on the prior administration. For many of their problems, it is fair to blame the Bushies, but probably not this one. It's still BP's fault far and away before anyone else's though.

Yeah, basically it reads that Obama isn't doing enough fast enough to clean up all the shit Bush fucked up, nor doing enough to curtail some of his inplace policies (which is certainly a position I'd agree with).

And seriously, if anything that basically proves, as you say, you need MORE liberal Presidents, not more Republican ones.

[Shryke]

I don't have any desire to argue the merits of the case. My point was that criticizing the timing of the decision makes no sense when you consider the nature of the ruling on the merits.

You might want to actually support that then.

Cause "the nature of the ruling on the merits" better be pretty fucking important to justify hamstringing half of the candidates mid-election.

That's a pretty serious case of fucking around with a state election.

[Tempra]

It doesn't screw them over, they were planning on being privately funded anyway. They were prepared for it.

The people who get screwed over are the publically funded candidates who now are suddenly left without election funds they had fully expected to receive, due to SCOTUS interference.

No, it affects privately-funded individuals in two ways: 1) they are under pressure to not spend above the cap so as not to trigger the matching funds cap, and 2) if they do spend enough to trigger the matching funds, they must then campaign against a individuals who have money that they are not constitutionally entitled to.

Anyways, I don't really care to discuss the merits of the case.

The whole "Right to elect your government" thing. Kinda important.

This cuts both ways.

No, it's about the judicial branch not blatantly interfering in a state election. They might as well have said "The SCOTUS endorses candidate X".

Their decision has massive effects on an ongoing election. That's some crazy interference by another branch of the wrong level of government.

So when the 9th circuit overruled the injunction, were they saying "9th Circuit endorses Candidate Y?"

Supreme Court decisions often have far reaching implications. Whether the Supreme Court denied or granted the injunction, it would have massive effects on the ongoing election. Because the statute is likely going to be considered unconstitutional, the Supreme Court granted the injunction so that the 'massive effects on the ongoing election' are the appropriate ones: i.e. candidates do not get matching funds.

To quote Judge Bea's dissent:

Yes, enforcement of the preliminary injunction would have a substantial

effect on the Arizona 2010 election. However, change is always uncomfortable for

the vested interests—here, that of “participating” candidates who look forward to

state subsidies for their campaigns. But where First Amendment free speech

interests are involved, the comfort level of those causing the “chilling effect” on

speech is irrelevant.

“Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold

officials accountable to the people . . . For these reasons, political speech must

prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or

inadvertence. . . . Quite apart from the purpose or effect of regulating content,

moreover, the Government may commit a constitutional wrong when by law it

identifies certain preferred speakers.” Citizens United v. Fed. Elec. Com’n, ___

U.S. ___, 2010 WL 183856 at *18–19 (January 10, 2010).

Here, the participating candidates are “preferred” by the State of Arizona

because Arizona matches the Plaintiffs’ expenditures for speech with public

monies which the preferred candidate can spend on speech.

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2010/02/03/10-15165.pdf

Whatever you or I may think about the law, granting the injunction is not activism. If there is any activism involved in this whole case, it is the 9th circuit for ignoring binding precedent. Expect the Supreme Court to rebuff the 9th circuit appropriately (as usual).

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

No, it affects privately-funded individuals in two ways: 1) they are under pressure to not spend above the cap so as not to trigger the matching funds cap, and 2) if they do spend enough to trigger the matching funds, they must then campaign against a individuals who have money that they are not constitutionally entitled to.

Anyways, I don't really care to discuss the merits of the case.

This cuts both ways.

So when the 9th circuit overruled the injunction, were they saying "9th Circuit endorses Candidate Y?"

Supreme Court decisions often have far reaching implications. Whether the Supreme Court denied or granted the injunction, it would have massive effects on the ongoing election. Because the statute is likely going to be considered unconstitutional, the Supreme Court granted the injunction so that the 'massive effects on the ongoing election' are the appropriate ones: i.e. candidates do not get matching funds.

To quote Judge Bea's dissent:

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2010/02/03/10-15165.pdf

Whatever you or I may think about the law, granting the injunction is not activism. If there is any activism involved in this whole case, it is the 9th circuit for ignoring binding precedent. Expect the Supreme Court to rebuff the 9th circuit appropriately (as usual).

The idea that this decision was a shocker that changes the rules at the last minutes is just false. The district court decision that tossed that funding scheme came down in January. From January until May 21, that was the law under which all candidates were proceeding.

The, in late May, the 9th Circuit reversed all that and overruled the district court. THAT was the mid-stream change. The Supreme Court stayed that decision less than 3 weeks later, which reinstituted the rules that had been in effect since January.

In other words, the rules that the Supreme Court changed had been in effect less than 3 weeks, which makes the whole "unfair surprise" argument ridiculous on its face.

[TrackerNeil]

TrackerNeil

I think it is pretty clear that FLoW is talking about the Administration passing any legislation regarding drilling. Rolling Stone for example has a rather long article on this subject detailing a lot of actions Obama's team didn't take.

Well, one thing I know this administration has done, or tried to do, is to promote alternative energy programs, which would eventually get us out of the oil business altogether. Unfortunately, when happy-time folks like Lindsey Graham stand against bills they themselves helped write, those efforts don't get very far.

However, I'll concede that the Obama administration has not exactly shown the kind of leadership that's needed in terms of this. Then again, Obama inherited two screwed-up wars and an enormous amount of debt, so I don't imagine that drilling was concern #1.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

To me it's kinda like this: The Obama team very much wanted to move towards alternative energy, but they thought (perhaps rightly) that this would be a difficult transition and that staying on oil in the short term would be a necessity. So they wanted to initiate moves towards green energy without doing anything to cut off the oil supply. So they are still a dramatic improvement over the Bushies because they at least want to get away from oil. The Bushies instead put an oil guy at the head of the EPA (well, that may not be the best criticism given some of the Obama appointments).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Obama Administration not only made no effort to more tightly regulate drilling, but actually proposed increased drilling shortly before this spill.

[TrackerNeil]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Obama Administration not only made no effort to more tightly regulate drilling, but actually proposed increased drilling shortly before this spill.

Some would call that kind of move bipartisan.

[AndyP]

Some would call that kind of move bipartisan.

Some would call it looking after one of your largest donors.

[Mad Monkey]

But it's a pretty cheap political point when the other side has taken more and absolutely no one thinks that the GOP would ever have done anything less to appease big oil.

Really? Allow me to point out that, under 8 years of President Bush, there was not a single oil spill in the Gulf region. Not one single one.