Political Parties: Are they factions, pt III

Political parties try to balance different interests. We see in chapter one that conservativism in the social realm is not the same as conservativism in the economis realm. social conservatives and economic conservatives tend to vote Republican, but all parties have to work to keep their groups united.

Sunday's (2.6.06) Washington Postcarried an article The Greening of Evangelicals, which indicates the balancing act that Republicans must work on to keep winning elections. the article reports about the adoption of an

"Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility" that, for the first time, emphasized every Christian's duty to care for the planet and the role of government in safeguarding a sustainable environment.

"We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part," said the statement, which has been distributed to 50,000 member churches. "Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."

Signatories included highly visible, opinion-swaying evangelical leaders such as Haggard, James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Some of the signatories are to meet in March in Washington to develop a position on global warming, which could place them at odds with the policies of the Bush administration, according to Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for governmental affairs

We'll do more with this in chapters 7 and 8, on interest groups and parties.

Political Parties: Are they Factions, or Are they Rife with Faction, Pt II

As we discussed, in Federalist 51 Madison argued that in addition to separating powers we need the additional checks and balances:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.

Congress has the necessary means to check the president -- hold hearings, pass legislation -- but its been questionable whether a Republican Congress has the necessary motives. And the Wite House is trying to reduce the motivation of Congress to Check: The conservative Insight Magazine reports how

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said.

Based on that article we might expect a few House Members to get a call from Rove, too. According to Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry in the 2.8.06 New York Times,

[Representative Heather] Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

The congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over the program's legal basis and political liabilities. Many Republicans have strongly backed President Bush's power to use every tool at his disposal to fight terrorism, but 4 of the 10 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced concerns about the program at a hearing where Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified on Monday.

The article continues:

A growing number of Republicans have called in recent days for Congress to consider amending federal wiretap law to address the constitutional issues raised by the N.S.A. operation.

"Addressing the constitutional issues raised" could mean several things of course, such as autorizing all past and future presidential actions. Certainly that would be the White House preference, if any action is taken.

Update II for Friday's exam

Questions 4 and 5 need some clarification.

4. In answering the question, ‘Why did we split with England and form the Government that we did?,’ we identified two main factors.

Actually, in class and in the text the issue is more accurately asked: what are the two major influences on the colonists when the arrived in Philadelphia in 1787?

The rest of question 2 is fine.

5. Were the Articles of Confederation an aberration, or are they consistent with the other founding documents written between 1776 and 1791? (To answer this, consider my claim, “Four Documents, one theme”) What were major problems under the Articles of Confederation? How were these concerns addressed in the Constitution? What do I mean by the claim, “Four Documents, one theme”? (what documents? what is the theme? how do the documents illustrate the theme?)

Clearly a mistake here, and also a question we did not cover: so replace 5 as written with this:

5. Were the Articles of Confederation an aberration, or are they consistent with the other founding documents? What were major problems under the Articles of Confederation? How were these concerns addressed in the Constitution?

This is more in line with what we discussed, and what we have read about.

Update, heading into the exam

1. The exam format will include multiple choice and short answer questions. The short answer questions are often drawn directly from the reading questions (emailed, or under "Course documents" on BB6.

2. Question 9 is "back in" -- to the extent we covered it in class on Wednesday.
and to the extent the last part of it is answered in Chapter 2 in the text.

3. We are giving relatively short shrift to the substance of chapter 4, Civil Liberties (and none this secton to Civil Rights, chapter five). So, how to study this material? Let me suggest two approaches.

First, all civil liberties and civil rights issues involve federalism. So in chapter four and n chapter five, notice how the national government became involved in issued of liberties and rights only in the 20th century. (To answer 'Why not before?' it would be helpful to know the three main time periods of federalism discussed in chapter 3)

Thus, see nationalization of the bill of rights (pp113-14) as an issue of federalism.

Second, our discussion of Federalism, Civil Liberties (and in the future, Civil Rights) all demonstrate how interpretation of the Constitution is political -- it will affect who wins and who loses. I made that point Friday 2.3 in class, and I will make it again on Monday and Wednesday.

Questions 14-18 (dropping 19) serve as additional guides, reinforcing this post, and also sheeding some light on what I care about substantively in chapter 4.

Update: Remove Civil Rights from this Exam: no chapter 5.

Political Parties: are they Factions, or are they rife with Factions?

In Federalist 10, we saw James Madison address the threat of tyranny of faction. Madison claimed that in a large commercial republic, there would be no single group large enough to get its way -- that there would always be divisions so smaller groups would have to compromise in order to get things done.

Madison's definition of a faction, "A group of people united and actuated by some common impulse," invites us to think of political interest groups or parties. (keep in mind, parties and groups may not like this, since Madison does continue to say, "adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the aggregate interests of the community."

One of the great goals of politics is to unite enough people to get your way. A couple recent articles point to the challenges of this.

1. 'St. Jack' and the Bullies in the Pulpit

Jack Danforth wishes the Republican right would step down from its pulpit. Instead, he sees a constant flow of religion into national politics. And not just any religion, either, but the us-versus-them, my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God, velvet-fist variety of Christian evangelism.

As a mainline Episcopal priest, retired U.S. senator and diplomat, Danforth worships a humbler God and considers the right's certainty a sin. Legislating against gay marriage, for instance? "It's just cussedness." As he sees it, many Republican leaders have lost their bearings and, if they don't change, will lose their grip on power. Not to mention make the United States a meaner place.

Danforth is no squalling liberal. He is a lifelong Republican. And his own political history shows he is no milquetoast.

2. In congress, it is the leadership in the parties that work to keep the memberhip together. So politicos have been following with great interest the succession of Tom DeLay as House Republican Majority Leader. That race was won today by Rep. John Boehner of Ohio

Boehner campaigned as a candidate of reform, and said his experience as chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee had demonstrated his ability to pass major legislation.

Blunt had been a temporary stand-in for DeLay, who is charged with campaign finance violations in Texas.

DeLay and Blunt have been instrumental in raising funds that help to keep the Republicans in the majority. DeLay's indictment is for engaging in money laundering in his campaign finance efforts. Last May an article in the Washington Post (excerpted below) documented how Blunt has also been a heckuva fundraiser. That got him second place.

House Majority Whip Exerts Influence by Way of K Street

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 17, 2005; A19

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the man one step behind Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in the Republican leadership, has built a political machine of his own that extends from Missouri deep into Washington's K Street lobbying community.

Blunt, who entered politics as a protege of former senator John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), has assembled an organization of whips and lobbyist vote counters that has delivered more than 50 consecutive victories for the GOP leadership on tough fights over issues including tax and trade bills, District of Columbia school choice and tort reform -- without a single defeat.

Working outside the glare of public attention, Blunt has maximized the organization's influence by delegating authority to Washington business and trade association lobbyists to help negotiate deals with individual House members to produce majorities on important issues.

State of the Union Follow Up

President Bush received much attention for statements during the state of the union.

1. Breaking our addiction to foreign oil

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.

But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are.

The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction."

Other articles explore how feasible a goal is:
The February 3, 2006 Australian runs an article with the following analysis:

As a simple comparison of prices at the pump will reveal, by far the most effective way to begin the weaning would be for the US to tax oil more heavily. Last weekend, according to official figures, the average price of petrol across the US was $US2.34 per gallon - about 82 Australian cents per litre.

But this is an administration that has not so far seen a problem that it couldn't cure with a tax cut, and so taxing oil more heavily is out of the question.

Instead, Bush is advocating additional funding for development and commercialisation of alternative fuels such as ethanol produced from plant waste, and alternative types of engine, such as hybrids.

The additional funding of $US300 million is relatively modest compared to the substantial sums the administration has already carved out for energy research (much of which is channelled towards the oil firms).
...
The sort of approach discussed by the President sounds like it will rapidly turn into the usual round of large handouts for large companies seen on numerous occasions over the past five years, ...

And a Third, from the New York Times: Bush's Goals on Energy Quickly Find Obstacles

Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to ask Mr. Bush's office "what he exactly meant by that."

Politically, both parties on Capitol Hill displayed a lack of enthusiasm. Democrats said Mr. Bush had opposed foreign oil reduction targets in last year's energy bill, and Republicans questioned the practicality of relying on ethanol and other alternatives.

Scientifically, researchers said ethanol and other alternative fuels were still years away from widespread commercial use.

Economically, energy analysts said Mr. Bush's goal of reducing Mideast oil imports would have little practical benefit because oil was traded in world markets and its price was determined by global supply and demand, rather than bought from one country by another.

2. Health Care: The President offered several ideas regarding health care.

According to The Chicago Tribune A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 76 percent of Americans call health-care reforms "an absolute priority."

Naturally, then, people were happy to hear Mr. Bush speak to health care. Of course to fix a problem, we have to figure out what the problem is. Here, the Tribune's article suggests two very different views:

Conservatives argue that consumers will become more cost-conscious about medical care when they spend their own money, and they say health savings accounts are a way to make that happen.

So for Conservatives, we are not responsible enough: we need to be made to carry more of the burden. That should not surprise people who have many (GM) many (Ford) business section articles discussing the burden of healthcare on profitability.

But Democrats charged the president's proposed policies would do little, if anything, to reduce families' medical expenses or expand access to care.

Companies want to cut back their coverage, and Conservatives want people to pay more in order to be responsible. Is that "Health care reform" that the people will welcome?

3. Human Cloning: President Bush said,

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.

I was a bit confused on what this meant, but I was directed to Pharyngula, the blog of a "god-less liberal" who says,

Down syndrome is a very common genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21. That kind of genetic insult causes a constellation of problems: mild to moderate mental retardation, heart defects, and weakened immune systems, and various superficial abnormalities. It's also a viable defect, and produces walking, talking, interacting human beings who are loved by their friends and families, who would really like to be able to do something about those lifespan-reducing health problems. We would love to have an animal model of Down syndrome, so that, for example, we could figure out exactly what gene overdose is causing the immune system problems or the heart defects, and develop better treatments for them.

So what scientists have been doing is inserting human genes into mice, to produce similar genetic overdoses in their development. As I reported before, there have been partial insertions, but now a team of researchers has inserted a complete human chromosome 21 into mouse embryonic stem cells, and from those generated a line of aneuploid mice that have many of the symptoms of Down syndrome, including the heart defects. They also have problems in spatial learning and memory that have been traced back to defects in long-term potentiation in the central nervous system.

These mice are a tool to help us understand a debilitating human problem.

George W. Bush would like to make them illegal.

So a statement that is lost on most of us is important both to the scientists that are engaged in the research, and the religious conservatives who desire the science not continue.

this is remniscent of President Bush's identification of the Dred Scott case as a poorly decided case in the 2004 debates. While most audience members were puzzled, President Bush was speaking to a narrower group who associate Dred Scott with Roe v. Wade. He did not want to say Roe and alienate some potential voters, so in sayin g Dred Scott, he hit the target audience. Google Dred Scot and Abortion