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Category: Politics Page 3 of 74

Our broken Constitution: Why half the country is represented by just 18 senators

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On November 26, 2023

In Politics

Public domain illustration by Frederick Juengling and Alfred Kappes

We do not live in a democracy or even a proper republic, since in a republic our delegated representatives are supposed to reflect the will of the majority. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie is always a must-read on our broken Constitution, and his latest (free link) — on what’s wrong with the Senate — is especially worthwhile. Consider this: “Roughly half of Americans, some 169 million people, live in the nine most populous states. Together, those states get 18 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate.”

And as Bouie notes, that disparity was seen by some of the key founders as a bug, not a feature, but a bug that was needed in order to get support from the small states, which were already slated to be outvoted in the House of Representatives. James Madison referred to the Senate as “the lesser evil.” During the constitutional convention, Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson said the purpose of the national government was to empower individuals, not “the imaginary beings called states.” The 14th Amendment further enshrines individuals over the power of the states. Yet anti-democratic institutions persist, including the Senate, the Electoral College and, as a consequence, the Supreme Court.

Bouie has long shown that he knows his stuff, but in this case he’s riffing on a recent Washington Post report that I’ll confess I haven’t read. I’ll try to go back and take a look at it, but in the meantime, here’s another free link for you. And here is something I wrote last year on how government by a numerical minority is one of the reasons that this country is being torn apart.

The majority is not going to put up with being disempowered forever. The only question is how, and when, it will end.

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Obama weighs in

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On October 23, 2023

In Politics

Former President Barack Obama has posted an important message at Medium. Echoing President Biden’s approach, Obama calls on us to support Israel’s right to self-defense while at the same time calling on Israel to protect the lives of civilians and work toward a decent resolution of the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He writes:

[W]hile the prospects of future peace may seem more distant than ever, we should call on all of the key actors in the region to engage with those Palestinian leaders and organizations that recognize Israel’s right to exist to begin articulating a viable pathway for Palestinians to achieve their legitimate aspirations for self-determination — because that is the best and perhaps only way to achieve the lasting peace and security most Israeli and Palestinian families yearn for.

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Profiles in cowardice

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On October 21, 2023

In Politics

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan. Photo (cc) 2016 by Gage Skidmore.

In case you missed the actual vote tally, Jim Jordan received 194 votes, all from Republicans, in the third and final round of public balloting for the House speakership. And he received just 86 in secret balloting among Republican caucus members; 112 were opposed. In other words, more than 100 gutless Republicans didn’t want him to become speaker but were too afraid to vote accordingly on the House floor.

I understand that Jordan had unleashed his goons and that some Republican House members were receiving death threats if they failed to back their extreme right-wing colleague, labeled a “legislative terrorist” by former Republican Speaker John Boehner. It’s awful. But we are at a moment when every elected official has to choose between authoritarianism and democracy. And a frightening number of Republicans are only willing to stand up to authoritarianism if they can do so in secret.

“The public intimidation worked when they had to go to the floor and before their colleagues and before the nation declare their fealty to Jordan or their fealty to someone else,” said Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart on the “PBS NewsHour” Friday evening. “But behind closed doors, they were actually able to say what they really felt.”

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Boehner is to Romney as McCarthy is to — Trump?

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On October 5, 2023

In Politics

In 2015, replacing John Boehner with Mitt Romney seemed like a good, if unlikely, idea. Photo (cc) 2011 by Gage Skidmore.

With the Republican House lunatic caucus once again bringing down a speaker with no clear alternative, I want to recycle this GBH News column I wrote back in 2015, when the crazies pushed out John Boehner. This time around, with extreme right-wingers Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan facing off, the worst of the worst are suggesting Donald Trump as an alternative. Eight years ago, with a nudge from my friend Catherine Tumber, I put forth a kinder, gentler alternative: Mitt Romney.

This column originally appeared on Oct. 16, 2015.

House Republicans appear to have reached their End of Days. David Brooks of The New York Times, a moderate conservative who at one time would have epitomized Establishment Republicanism, has analyzed the situation brilliantly. So has Gene Lyons, a liberal, at The National Memo.

The immediate crisis is that the House of Representatives appears incapable of electing a speaker to succeed John Boehner. The problem is that Republicans on the extreme right vow not to respect the choice of the Republican caucus. That means no one will get a majority once the speakership comes to a full vote in the House, since nearly all of the Democrats will vote for their party’s leader, Nancy Pelosi.

So I have an idea, and I thought I’d toss it out there. We’re already having a good discussion about it on Facebook. How about a moderate Republican who’s not currently a member of the House (yes, it’s allowed) and who would be supported by a majority of Republicans and Democrats. How about — as my friend Catherine Tumber suggested — Mitt Romney?

Please understand that by “moderate” I mean moderate by the standards of 2015. Boehner may be the most conservative House speaker of modern times, but he’s a moderate by comparison with the right-wingers who are holding the House hostage. And so is Romney, who’d finally get the big job in Washington that he’s long lusted for.

Under this scenario, the Republicans would necessarily pay a high price for their inability to govern. House rules would have to be changed to give the Democrats more of a voice and maybe even a few committee chairmanships. The idea is to form a coalition government that cuts out the extreme right wing.

The chief impediment would be that Democrats might not want to throw the Republicans a life preserver under any circumstance, especially with the presidential campaign under way. But it would be the right thing to do, and I hope people of good will consider it. Or as Norman Ornstein, who predicted this mess, so elegantly puts it in an interview with Talking Points Memo: “We’re talking about the fucking country that is at stake here.”

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It’s not the cover-up, it’s the crime

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On October 5, 2023

In Politics

Wisdom worth pondering from Josh Marshall, writing about an impenetrable maybe-scandal involving Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders:

You know that old saw about how the cover-up is worse than the crime? That’s never been true and people who say that are idiots or at least they’re not people who cover scandals. You take the risk of covering something up because the thing itself is really bad. And coverups usually work. Even when they don’t work or you get caught for the cover up you still are mostly able to keep the underlying big bad thing under wraps. People do the cover up because usually it works and even when it doesn’t it partly works.

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Why should Democrats have helped McCarthy while getting nothing in return?

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On October 3, 2023

In Politics

I’m surprised — OK, I’m not surprised — at the self-loathing liberals who are criticizing House Democrats for not helping Kevin McCarthy hold on to the speakership. That would have required negotiations, and negotiations require compromise. What would a comprise look like? Power-sharing, no more evidence-free investigations, and an end to the phony impeachment inquiry. Why would Democrats vote to save McCarthy without getting something significant in return?

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Whip Saltmarsh was a legend

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On September 25, 2023

In Politics

Whip Saltmarsh

They don’t make politicians like Whip Saltmarsh anymore. Sherman W. “Whip” Saltmarsh Jr., who represented Winchester in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1974-’89, was a throwback to a time when legislators were not especially interested in ideology and instead devoted their attention to helping their communities and constituents. He died last Thursday at 94.

I got to know Whip when I was covering Winchester for The Daily Times Chronicle in the early 1980s. He was a regular presence at selectmen’s meetings (today the select board), updating local officials about what was taking place on Beacon Hill and asking what he could do to make their jobs easier. He was an old-fashioned Yankee Republican; although he was conservative about spending and taxes, it is impossible to imagine him getting caught up in the performative extremism that passes for Republican politics these days. He had a voice like a trumpet, and several of us used to do newsroom imitations of him bellowing, “I have filed legislation!”

A tribute posted by the Lane Funeral Home puts it well:

Whip’s mantra was always “betterment of the community and giving back” and he embodied the true definition of leader, albeit a not so quiet one. Whip’s leadership ability stemmed from his ability to be an intent listener; he didn’t always agree with someone’s opinion, but he always tried to come up with the best resolution for all. Whip was the “go to” person and arguably the Town of Winchester’s patriarch. Whip had a solution for every problem, whether the issue was obtaining legislation for a revitalization project or improving the wrist shot of one of his grandchildren.

Whip’s long life was filled with accomplishments, including serving as the town’s youngest chair of the board of selectmen — and at that time the youngest in the state. He was a star hockey player at Winchester High School and Boston College, served in the Navy, was named to the Olympic hockey team (but did not play because of injury), and was a member of the auxiliary fire department. He also founded his own insurance agency, and, after he’d left the Statehouse and I’d left the Times Chronicle, he became our insurance agent, providing outstanding, caring service for what I’m guessing was 25 to 30 years. My best wishes go out to his family, his friends and his employees.

Whip was a legend, and he’ll be greatly missed.

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An excellent commentary on the MBTA crisis

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On September 25, 2023

In Politics

Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy

Excellent commentary in CommonWealth by Jim Aloisi on why it’s time to treat the miserable state of the MBTA like the crisis that it is. I especially recommend his criticism of the Federal Transit Administration for what he regards as an overemphasis on safety at the expense of actually getting anything done: “As a regular T rider, I care about safety as much as anyone, but we cannot sacrifice ridership on the altar of safety — a perfectly safe system would be one that simply stops moving.” Which it pretty much has.

Aloisi blames the crisis on every governor, legislative leader and transportation official “since 1991,” meaning everyone since Michael Dukakis, who really did take the T seriously — adding that he includes himself among those who made mistakes, since he served for a time as state transportation secretary. And though he believes that the MBTA’s general manager, Phil Eng, is off to a reasonably good start, it’s clear to Aloisi, and to all of us who depend on the T, that he doesn’t have much time to make real, lasting changes.

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As Mark Twain said of Wagner, I hope Chuck Schumer is better than he sounds

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On September 23, 2023

In Politics

A performance of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung.” 1917 photo.

What Mark Twain once said of Wagner — “I have been told that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds” — could be applied to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: I’ve heard that he’s not as bad as he seems. Right now, though, Schumer seems really bad in refusing to call for the resignation of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who’s been indicted on lurid federal bribery charges involving everything from gold bullion to a Mercedes-Benz convertible. Schumer went so far as to call Menendez a “dedicated public servant” and said, “He has a right to due process and a fair trial.”

Why do I say that Schumer isn’t as bad as he seems? Because he’s probably having private talks with Menedez right now aimed at getting him to step down, figuring that discreet persuasion will work better than public humiliation. The problem is that such thinking is the product of a bygone age, unsuited to the always-on public performance that modern politics demands. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who’s older than Schumer, figured it out. But Schumer appears to be too set in his ways to make the adjustment.

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Mitt Romney’s horrifying tale shows why the future of democracy is so uncertain

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On September 16, 2023

In Politics

Mitt Romney, right, with then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey. Photo (cc) 2018 by Gage Skidmore.

I read The Atlantic’s excerpt from McKay Coppins’ new Mitt Romney biography on the train ride home Friday. It delivers the goods. I’ve never been a Romney fan, but I appreciate his willingness to stand up to Donald Trump and Trumpism when it really mattered.

I was also struck that, after Romney became an outcast within his own party, he preferred to work with conspiracy-minded loons like Sen. Ron Johnson over the hypocrites who defended Trump in public while sidling up to Romney in private to tell him they would love to denounce Trump, too, but they just couldn’t. (“There are worse things than losing an election,” Romney would tell them. “Take it from somebody who knows.”)

What is chilling, though, is that, as Romney tells it, Republicans who once indulged Trump in order to advance their own political ambitions later had a different, more elemental reason for defending Trump in public: they were afraid they and their families would be killed by Trump’s deranged supporters, whipped up into a fury by the maximum leader himself. Coppins writes:

Some of the reluctance to hold Trump accountable was a function of the same old perverse political incentives — elected Republicans feared a political backlash from their base. But after January 6, a new, more existential brand of cowardice had emerged. One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety. The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him — why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome? Later, during the Senate trial, Romney heard the same calculation while talking with a small group of Republican colleagues. When one senator, a member of leadership, said he was leaning toward voting to convict, the others urged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children. The senator eventually decided they were right.

Romney was paying $5,000 for security, and he understood that many of his colleagues couldn’t afford that. But this is horrifying, and it shows the near-impossibility of breaking up the Trump-Republican alliance. Moreover, it’s how we move from democracy to authoritarianism to fascism. As New York Times columnist David Brooks put it Friday on the “PBS NewsHour”: “There are members who were going to vote to convict on impeachment, but were afraid that they or their families might get assassinated, and they knew their vote wouldn’t make a difference. We are way beyond the bounds of normal democratic governance, when that’s even on the minds of members of Congress.”

My fear is that Joe Biden’s presidency represents little more than an uneasy interregnum between Trump and whatever’s next. If Biden can win re-election, maybe that will give us four more years for passions on the extreme right — now a majority of the Republican Party — to cool off. From where we are standing today, though, I don’t see much chance of that happening.

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