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07
Dec 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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Cartoon courtesy of Reason’s Friday Funnies.

National

As we head into voting season, interesting news out of New York:

It wasn’t voter fraud that caused 60,000 ballots to be tossed from the 2010 election in New York – it was poorly designed voting machines.

According to a study from the New York University’s Brennan School for Justice, the new optical voting system confused voters so much that they ended up casting their votes for two candidates, or “overvoting.”

The study indicates that most of the problems “occurred far more frequently in areas with higher populations of low-income residents, people of color and immigrants.”

More here. Speaking of voting, another prominent conservative comes out against Newt:

Before Republicans put Newt Gingrich at the top of their party, they should consider what happened the last time he led it.

In the mid-1990s, Gingrich was the de facto head of the Republican Party. He helped lead it to victory in the congressional elections of 1994, which brought about real accomplishments such as welfare reform. But once he attained power, both his popularity and that of his party started to plummet. In the aftermath of his leadership, a Republican was able to take the presidency only by pointedly distancing himself from Gingrich.

Conservatives who dislike George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism have Gingrich to thank for it. After Gingrich lost the budget battles with President Bill Clinton, it took 15 years for any politician to take up the cause of limited-government conservatism that he had discredited.

Although Gingrich isn’t solely responsible for the Republican policy defeats of those years, his erratic behavior, lack of discipline and self-absorption had a lot to do with them. He explained that one reason the federal government shut down in 1995 was that he was angry that Clinton had snubbed him during an international flight. The Clinton White House then released pictures of the two men gabbing on the plane. Later negotiations didn’t go well, with Gingrich saying, “I melt when I’m around him.”

Read Ramesh Ponnuru’s full indictment of Gingrich here. And what of the presumed Democratic nominee? David Harsani’s latest column is, as usual, great:

In Teddy Roosevelt’s era, President Barack Obama explained to the nation this week, “some people thought massive inequality and exploitation was just the price of progress….But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can.”

And he’s right. Even today there are people who believe they should have free license to take whatever they want from whomever they can. They’re called Democrats.

Yet the president, uniter of a fractured nation, the mighty slayer of infinite straw men, claims that some Americans “rightly” suppose that the economy is rigged against their best interests in a nation awash in breathtaking greed, massive inequality and exploitation. Or I should say, he’s trying to convince us that it’s the case.

The middle-class struggle to find a decent life is the “defining issue of our time,” the president went on. And nothing says middle-class triumph like more regulation, unionism, cronyism and endless spending. Hey, Dwight Eisenhower (a Republican!) built the interstate highway system, for goodness’ sake. Ergo, we must support a bailout package for public-sector unions—you know, for the middle class.

Read the full column here. More on Obama’s most recent nonsense from Peter Suderman:

During yesterday’s big-hug-to-Teddy-Roosevelt speech on the economy, President Obama declared that “Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent—1 percent. That is the height of unfairness.” Billionaires who pay just a single percent of their ginormous incomes in taxes? Can you believe it?!?!

Better question: Should you?

Glenn Kessler, who writes The Washington Post‘s Fact Checker column,decided to look into the source of the data point about billionaire tax rates. Turns out there isn’t one. Here’s Kessler:

This is a striking statistic. But the only evidence that the White House could offer for it was a TV clip of a conversation on Bloomberg TV, in which correspondent Gigi Stone made this assertion during a discussion about the tax strategies that the very wealthy use to avoid paying taxes.  The TV clip was promoted by the left-leaning website Think Progress.

Stone quoted from a Bloomberg News article last month that reported on such tax strategies, which mostly involve complicated ways to defer paying capital gains taxes. But the article never made the one-percent claim. It also noted that the IRS had gotten more hostile to such transactions in recent years.

An administration official conceded the White House had no actual data to back up the president’s assertion, but argued that other reports showed that some of the wealthy pay little in taxes. [bold added]

To put it in terms Obama might use: There are some who say that that billionaires pay tax rates as low as 1 percent, but they are just making shit up don’t have have any evidence for the claim.

Today’s Political Diary also looked at Obama’s love for TR:

So the White House has decided that President Obama’s re-election model is Teddy Roosevelt, Bull Moose version, circa 1910. In his opening salvo yesterday, Mr. Obama blew into Osawatomie, Kan., where TR delivered his famous anti-bank “New Nationalism” speech, and gave it a 2012 gloss. This Progressive Era retread has liberal pundits doing cartwheels, but the speech was remarkable for its lack of substance to match the severe tone.

According to Mr. Obama’s larger economic narrative, “the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded,” in particular “an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried.” The speech leaned heavily on growing income inequality, stagnant middle-class wages and the supposed GOP philosophy of “a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can.” He didn’t precisely date when this decline began but repeatedly mentioned that it had been building “over the last few decades.” Mr. Obama said that one root of the problem is that the economy has grown more efficient and productive. Two culprits he mentioned were “ATMs and the Internet.”

Given these structural and irreversible changes, and that the other political party only supports “a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens,” Mr. Obama might have mentioned solutions commensurate to the moment. Instead he offered this: Making education “a national mission”; more federal “investments” in infrastructure, scientific research and high-tech manufacturing; “pushing” Wall Street to delay home foreclosures; and raising top marginal tax rates so “the wealthiest Americans go to the same tax rate they were paying when Bill Clinton was president.” Mr. Obama concluded, “That’s what will transform our economy.”

In other words, the Osawatomie address was just another reworking of Mr. Obama’s familiar plea to preserve the government we have, without any major reforms. Federal and state spending on public schools remains at historic highs, while budgets for core government responsibilities like roads and bridges are being crowded out by the rapid growth of transfers and entitlements. What the government calls “payments to individuals” have climbed to 66% of the fisc, up from 28% in 1965. And how does returning to the Clinton tax rates fix the inequality that in Mr. Obama’s own telling has been building for decades?

Mr. Obama’s closing peroration saluted a company called Marvin Windows and Doors in Warroad, Minn., that has declined to lay off workers or close plants while its competitors did. This may be laudable, and it might be a good business strategy, or not, but is Marvin Windows and Doors a useful or realistic economic case study in the 21st century? Mr. Obama thinks it is. “That’s how America was built. That’s why we’re the greatest nation on earth.”

Jacob Sullum has a related column chronicling Obama’s reliance on the straw man, check it out here.

Political Diary also noted Obama’s most recent difficulties in getting judges confirmed:

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the Obama administration on judicial nominations. First they faced off with the American Bar Association over the unusually high number of nominees that were judged unqualified even by the liberal-leaning group. And yesterday, the president’s D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee, Caitlin Halligan, failed to get cloture in the Senate, 54-45.

The event drew an indignant response from President Obama, who said the nomination “fell victim to the Republican pattern of obstruction” and that the vote “dramatically lowers the bar” used to justify a filibuster, which had required “extraordinary circumstances.”

That’s a bit rich coming from Mr. Obama, who, as Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Ed Whelan noted, voted against cloture for Bush Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito as well as appellate court nominees Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and Priscilla Owen. In 2007, Sen. Obama was one of 35 Democrats who voted against the nomination of Leslie Southwick, and when Judge Southwick was confirmed he pledged to “fight any other Bush nominations that threaten the very basis of our freedom and democracy.”

Starting with Miguel Estrada in 2003, Senate Democrats made sport of filibustering President Bush’s judicial nominees, a tactic that had never been used as a first-line tool against a president.

The seat to which Ms. Halligan is nominated was previously benchmarked for Peter Keisler, the impeccably credentialed Bush nominee whose nomination stalled in committee for three years and never got a vote. In his statement yesterday, President Obama said Republicans were blocking nominees for seats deemed “judicial emergencies.” Except, oh yeah, the D.C. Circuit isn’t one of them. In 2006, Sen. Pat Leahy, who was the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, was sanguine. “Republicans used to argue that its workload did not justify an 11th or 12th judge,” he said. “Well, its workload is lower than it was and Mr. Keisler is nominated to fill the 11th seat.”

Republicans take issue with Ms. Halligan’s views on abortion, affirmative action and gun rights, as well as her position on the detention of enemy combatants. A 2004 report by Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Committee on Federal Courts that was signed by Ms. Halligan and other members challenged the Bush administration’s position on the detention of enemy combatants and argued for their trial in civilian courts. Ms. Halligan distanced herself from the report during her confirmation hearing.

Ms. Halligan is only the second Obama nominee to get shot down, following Goodwin Liu’s 52-43 no-cloture defeat in May. We’re no great fans of filibusters around here, but what did Democrats expect?

For those who don’t know, today is the anniversary of the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, which leads to today’s video. From the description of the video, an interview with author Craig Shirley:

The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941 killed over 2,400 Americans and led directly to the entry of the United States into World War II.

In his powerful, thickly researched new book, December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World, Craig Shirley chronicles the day-by-day shifts in American culture, politics, and national identity through that horrible month. Before December, Shirley tells Reason’s Nick Gillespie, a solid majority opposed entry into World War II and the “eminently respectable” America First movement was poised to help select the next president of the United States. Non-interventionism was so universal that Franklin Roosevelt himself had campaigned for his third term as president on a promise to keep “American boys” out of European wars.

By the start of 1942, says Shirley, the long tradition of isolationism was over, never to be seen again. The nation that had rejected the League of Nations after World War I helped create the United Nations and America quickly became not simply a global economic, political, and military power but the dominant player on the globe.

(click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

If you haven’t yet, check out Francisco d’Anconia’s latest post noting Gary King’s Latest Embarrassment.

For those who think questioning the methods used in the war on drugs is inappropriate, take a look at this local story:

Norman Davis was sitting on the couch in his Taos County home, feeling a bit under the weather, on a summer day five years ago when he “heard this helicopter overhead.”

“It was loud. Very loud,” Davis, 76, said in a recent interview. “And I looked out the window and I see these guys hovering over me.”

It was a drug raid by New Mexico State Police, with the assistance of the National Guard.

At least six armed officers, some with semiautomatic weapons, took part in the bust. Five or more vehicles from different law enforcement agencies converged on Davis’ property as the chopper hovered overhead.

A judge refused to throw out evidence in the drug possession case but did find “merit to the claim that police swooped in as if they were in a state of war, searching for weapons or terrorist activity,” according to a recent New Mexico Court of Appeals opinion.

And what did the raid yield?

“I had 14 marijuana plants,” Davis said. “For personal use. It just seems like an enormous waste of resources for a plant that poses no harm or threat.”

Davis was 72 at the time. He said he smokes marijuana to help him with ailments that include osteoarthritis and is in the process of applying for entry into the state’s Medical Cannabis Program.

Davis grudgingly gave his consent for officers to search his property during the 2006 raid, figuring he didn’t have a choice, he said. After the plants were found inside his greenhouse, Davis was charged with possession.

But Davis now appears to have the law on his side.

The Court of Appeals recently overturned a District Court ruling that denied Davis’ motion to throw out evidence police found that day, agreeing that his consent to the search was “the product of duress and coercion or acquiescence.”

When police asked permission to search his place, Davis “was surrounded by numerous uniformed, armed law enforcement officers and several law enforcement vehicles while a helicopter hovered overhead,” the appellate court stated in its October opinion.

District Judge John Paternoster of Taos had found the search “just barely permissible,” according to the Court of Appeals.

The state Attorney General’s Office has taken the case to state Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear it.

That’s OK with Davis.

“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “My lawyer thought this was an important constitutional question of what police can and can’t do.”

Hunt for ‘plantations’

State Police were conducting “an operation to identify marijuana ‘plantations’ in Taos County.” The operation included two National Guard choppers and two ground teams of officers.

Davis, in his interview with the Journal, said such high-profile searches are nothing new around Carson, the small community where he lives. “They’ve been making a habit out of doing it for 20 years,” he said. “It’s been random.”

A spotter in one of the helicopters observed ” ‘vegetation’ in the greenhouse and ‘plants at the back of (Davis’) house,’ ” according to the appeals court narrative. Armed officers then formed a perimeter around the property.

One approached Davis and told him “the helicopter (was) looking for marijuana plants and they believe they’ve located some at your residence.”

The officer asked for permission to search. According to a police recording, when Davis asked what would happen if he said no, the officer replied, ” ‘Well, then we’ll secure the residence. That’s up to you.’ ” Davis gave permission.

He subsequently said he wasn’t thrilled with the idea and said, “I don’t know if I should do this; I don’t know if it is in my best interest.”

Davis again asked the officer what would happen if he refused and the officer said the police “would go forth and try to execute a warrant through the District Attorney’s Office.” Davis “ultimately signed the consent form.”

‘Swarmed’ by police

Davis’ public defender lawyers argued “that the helicopter surveillance of his property violated federal and state constitutions and that his consent was not voluntarily given.”

The appeals court noted the “obtrusive” presence of officers, vehicles and a helicopter and that the officers were “heavily armed, carrying both their service handguns as well as AR-15 semiautomatic weapons.”

The appeals court ruling said that when the officer told Davis it would take only about 30 minutes to get a search warrant, Davis had reason to believe that “his refusal to consent was futile.”

The Attorney General’s Office said it won’t comment on a pending case, and State Police Chief Robert Shilling said in an email, “I’d rather not comment on operational issues and the justification of resources on any given case.”

“The case centers on the issue of consent and Fourth Amendment issue(s),” Shilling said.

But Davis believes the case also is about where police chose to focus their efforts.

“It’s like a big, stupid, mistake,” he said. “Hundreds and billions of dollars are being spent to put people in jail for growing a harmless weed.”

Asked whether he still grows pot, Davis said, “I don’t know if I should answer that.”

[— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal]

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Categories: 2012 Election, Drug War, Economy, NM Politics
01
Dec 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

John Stossel has another great column out noting ways the government is Blocking the Paths Out of Poverty:

Have you noticed how often government takes sides against the little guy?

Street vending has been a path out of poverty for Americans. And like other such paths (say, driving a taxi), this one is increasingly difficult to navigate. Why? Because entrenched interests don’t like competition. So they lobby their powerful friends to erect high hurdles to upstarts. It’s an old story.

Now, growing local governments are crushing street vendors.

The city of Atlanta, for example, has turned all street vending over to a monopoly contractor. In feudalist fashion, all existing vendors were told they must work for the monopoly or not vend at all.

For more on the issue, check out the Institute for Justice’s lawsuit pending against Atlanta.

Speaking of the economy, Reason.tv has an interesting collection of videos related to the Occupy Wall Street movement, most interesting are the Peter Schiff videos. Check them all out here.

The 2012 GOP race continues to fascinate, check out this Talking Points Memo graphic of how things have progressed in Iowa (visit TPM for additional graphics from New Hampshire and the national race):

H/T Peter Suderman. According to Business Insider, as we get closer to the election there are 50 pundits–and only these 50–that we should pay attention to between now and next November:

Back in the days of the cigar smoke-filled backroom journalists like Walter Lippmann told you what to think while you drank your morning coffee. And then Edward R. Murrow told you what to think while you ate a T.V. dinner.

Those days are no longer.

These days the backroom has moved to Twitter and the front page is the viral video.

Nowadays things are a lot messier and a whole lot more fun. And for better or worse very few of the old standards and definitions apply.

In that spirit we’ve put together a list of the 50 essential pundits in no particular order you should be reading between now and election day.  These are the true influencers.

Check out the full list here, it’s an interesting one. In terms of the candidates themselves, it seems Newt Gingrich is the most on the move toward positive gains, as noted in yesterday’s Political Diary:

At a campaign event in Naples, Fla., last week, Newt Gingrich announced, “I’m not the comeback kid. I’m the comeback grandparent.” And the latest polling seems to confirm the former House speaker’s claim.

The latest average of national polls from Real Clear Politics gives Mr. Gingrich a slight 2.5-point advantage over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. But that advantage is extended in several early primary states. An Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion Research survey released Tuesday found that 28% of registered GOP voters in Iowa support Mr. Gingrich — a 15-point advantage over number two Mr. Romney. The same poll found that Mr. Gingrich garners 38% of the vote among Republicans in South Carolina — a staggering 23-point lead over Mr. Romney.

Mr. Gingrich is also gaining ground in New Hampshire, where the most recent Rasmussen poll shows him just 10 points behind Mr. Romney. That’s by far the closest a candidate has come to the former governor in any Granite State Rasmussen survey. It was also the first poll taken after Mr. Gingrich picked up a key endorsement from the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper. The same endorsement gave John McCain’s struggling campaign a boost in the 2008 primary.

“I don’t claim to be the perfect candidate. I just claim to be a lot more conservative than Mitt Romney and a lot more electable than anybody else,” Mr. Gingrich told WSC-AM radio in South Carolina Monday. Mr. Romney fired back in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, saying Mr. Gingrich was “a lifelong politician.” He also contrasted their records. “He [Gingrich] spent his last 30 or 40 years in Washington. I spent my career in the private sector. I think that’s what the country needs right now.”

It will be interesting to see if today’s featured video has any impact on Gingrich’s surge. The Ron Paul campaign uploaded this to YouTube yesterday and more than 170,000 people have already viewed it, many sharing on social media sites like Facebook (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

The biggest local news is, of course, the latest in the grand jury probes of former Gov. Bill Richardson’s conduct:

A federal grand jury is investigating an accusation that former Gov. Bill Richardson had supporters pay off a woman during his 2008 presidential campaign to keep quiet about their alleged extramarital affair, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Richardson’s political allies allegedly “gave $250,000 to placate a woman who was considering suing the governor in 2007, exposing their alleged extramarital affair, according to people familiar with the federal probe,” the Journal is reporting.

The Journal quoted the sources as saying the woman, who isn’t named in the article, “was a state employee at the time that she allegedly became romantically involved with Mr. Richardson around 2004.”

Richardson didn’t return calls and e-mails from the Journal seeking comment, and his office “declined to provide the names of his lawyers,” the article states.

More here.

Several good posts up at Errors of Enchantment, don’t forget to visit for more local info and commentary.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Constitutional Rights, NM Politics Tags: ,
28
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Big news of the morning is Barney Frank’s retirement:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he is not seeking re-election, ending a 32-year career in the House.

Frank, 71, is the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee and the architect, with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of the sweeping Wall Street regulatory reform law enacted in 2010.

He is scheduled to hold a press conference at 1 p.m. in his district, according to a spokesman, who said the congressman would announce at that time the reason for his decision. His retirement will deprive the House of one of its most colorful characters, a man known for his quick and often caustic wit.

Elected in 1980, Frank survived scandal early in his career and rose to become the nation’s most powerful openly-gay elected official. After coming out publicly, he became a champion for gay rights and helped campaign for an end to the military’s ban on gays serving openly, which ended this year.

More from The Hill here. Also keep up with the breaking story on Townhall.com, which is currently noting:

(1) With Frank out, the Democrat next in line to become the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee is Rep. Maxine Waters of California.  In other words, another ethically pristine,meek personality.

(2) With Frank out, both authors of the controversial 2010 Wall Street “reform” bill (which enshrined “too big to fail” and left Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac unscathed) will be out of Congress — each with anethical cloud hanging over his head.

(3) With Frank out, a scramble is already underway to replace him.  Several Democrats are moving to run in Franks recently re-drawn district, and Republican Elizabeth Childs had already announced plans to challenge Frank in 2012.  Massachusetts lost one Congressional seat in reapportionment; two sitting members from the state’s 100 percent Democratic House delegation have now announced they won’t return in 2013.

PubliusNM friend John Dendahl has recently posted about the implications of Ohio’s recent election for Big Labor. On November 16, Dendahl noted:

Two ballot issues in Ohio produced the most talked-about results, at least in part on account of the appearance of voter Schizophrenia.  By a margin of 61-39 percent, about 3.5 million Ohioans voting on Issue 2 “vetoed” Senate Bill 5 enacted last March. That law placed limits on public employee unions’ bargaining rights and stepped-up employees’ financial responsibility for their health insurance and retirement contributions. (Arguments pro and con can be seen here.)

The Issue 2 vote is seen as a big victory for organized labor and for the national leader who has advocated for union interests in Ohio and Wisconsin elections, Pres. Obama.

Not so fast, though. By an even larger margin, 66-34 percent, the same voters approved Issue 3, a constitutional amendment barring that state’s citizens from being required to purchase the health insurance that is the lynchpin of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, ObamaCare in shorthand. Since ObamaCare looms as a major issue in the 2012 presidential election, this is seen as a huge loss for Obama. Hence the appearance of voter Schizophrenia.
The union side on Issue 2 spent some $30 million, perhaps three times the opposition’s spending. For perspective, John Kasich’s campaign spent under $19 million last year getting him elected governor. Remaining to be seen is whether in fact this turns out to be the win for organized labor that is superficially apparent. Gov. Kasich had said repeatedly that the changes in law are mandatory for the state and political subdivisions to finance operations without severe layoffs.
Webinar guest speaker John Fund, until recently a respected political analyst and reporter for The Wall Street Journal and now writing a book, called the union win “a Pyrrhic Victory,” suggesting that unions will now pay the price of job losses.
In a follow up post on Nov. 23, Dendahl explained further:

After I blogged the other day about who really won in the Ohio ballot fight over public employee unions, over at News21, my kids who live there sent a related piece published in Columbus by the mayor of a nearby small town, entitled “A few tweaks could improve collective bargaining.”  They commended it to me as “thoughtful.”

My reaction was that (a) the mayor had indeed written a thoughtful piece, but that (b) I still can’t share his faith in binding arbitration. A city’s elected leadership should not be barred from deciding to take a strike or instituting a lock-out. So, in that view, one might argue that the mayor is nibbling around the edges. I do understand, though, that he was writing from a position materially weakened by the election (Issue 2 on the Ohio ballot on November 8) and, perhaps, attempting to get some cheese out of the trap.

If a business executive and/or board of directors agrees to a labor contract that is economically ruinous, sooner or later the executive, the board or the entire company is gone.

John J. Pitney has an interesting piece up at the Washington Post discussing five myths about Newt Gingrich:

1.Gingrich is an academic.

He earned a PhD in history and taught college before winning a seat in Congress. He has often spoken of himself as a historian. In 1995, he told CNN’s Bob Franken: “I am the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson.”

But whereas Wilson spent years publishing scholarly works, Gingrich was more like the professor who wins popularity awards from undergraduates but doesn’t get tenure because he doesn’t publish anything significant. He even told a college newspaper in 1977 that “I made the decision two or three years ago that I’d rather run for Congress than publish the papers or academic books necessary to get promoted.”

Since then, he has given countless lectures and written more than 20 books, but has never produced truly serious scholarship. A typical Gingrich work is full of aphorisms and historical references — and devoid of the hallmarks of academic research: rigor, nuance and consideration of alternative views. Conservative political scientist James Q. Wilson once assessed materials for a televised history course that Gingrich was teaching as a “mishmash of undefined terms .?.?. misleading claims .?.?. and unclear distinctions.”

Yet Gingrich has been quick to cite his credentials as a source of authority. In a letter to Reagan budget director David Stockman, he once wrote: “From my perspective as a historian, you don’t deal in the objective requirements of history.” And recently, he suggested that mortgage giant Freddie Mac had paid him for his historical expertise, not his Capitol Hill connections.

Read the other four myths here. Speaking of the 2012 primary, Gary Johnson is now contemplating an LP run:

Former two-term Gov. Gary Johnson (R-N.M.) tells the Santa Fe New Mexican that he feels “abandoned” by a Republican Party that shut him out of all but two of GOP presidential debates so far. As a result, he’s mulling over the idea of running for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination.

“If I’d have been included in 16 of the last debates we wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” Johnson said.

Johnson said there have been “overtures made” by the Libertarian Party. While there’s no guarantee he’d win the nomination, Johnson believes he’d have a fair chance….

* * *

There’s little doubt that Johnson – who unambiguously supports an end to the drug war, a non-interventionist foreign policy, reproductive rights, liberalized immigration policy, free trade, and many other libertarian position – would be the highest-profile LP candidate at least since Ron Paul hit the hustings back in 1988. As a pol who won election twice in a Democratic-heavy state and governed to bipartisan acclaim, he’d also be the first one who could point to administrative experience and success, which would surely help with publicity for the LP’s existence and positions.

Since we’ve got some interest in voter fraud (discussed more below), here’s  a lengthy but relevant video for today. On November 11, at the Federalist Society’s annual convention, the Free Speech & Election Law group hosted a panel discussion on the issue featuring, among others, John Fund former WSJ columnist (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico
Heath Haussamen’s latest opinion piece decries Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s recent report on possible electoral fraud as “snarky” and untrustworthy:

There should be no doubt that electoral fraud can and does happen, at least occasionally, in New Mexico.

Two of the most recent examples come from Doña Ana County, where a former Sunland Park judge wassentenced to 18 months on probation in 2009 for fraudulently voting and registering as a candidate for judge, and where someone involved in the county GOP allegedly altered seven voter registration forms to change new voters’ party affiliation from “declined to state” to Republican.

There should also be no doubt that there are problems with New Mexico’s voter rolls. Secretary of StateDianna Duran knows it. County clerks from both parties know it.

There should be a bipartisan way to address these issues. Voters essentially charged Duran with leading such an effort when they elected her last year, making her the first Republican secretary of state in eight decades. Duran had the support of many Democrats, including some county clerks.

In electing Duran, voters sent a strong message that they’re tired of shenanigans in the Secretary of State’s Office and want integrity in their elections.

But instead of leading a bipartisan effort to address problems with the voter file, Duran has created division with a months-long investigation that lacked transparency and integrity. As a result, the likelihood of county clerks and legislators from both parties coming together to address issues with the voter rolls is lessened.

Read his full piece here and get back to us in the comments: is Haussamen correct? Is Duran’s report snarky and untrustworthy?

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Categories: 2012 Election, Gary Johnson, Health Care, NM Politics
23
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Interesting development from the notoriously liberal (see first item) ABA:

The American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships — and nearly all of the prospects given poor ratings were women or members of a minority group, according to interviews.

The White House has chosen not to nominate any person the bar association deemed unqualified, so their identities and negative ratings have not been made public. But the association’s judicial vetting committee has opposed 14 of the roughly 185 potential nominees the administration asked it to evaluate, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The number of Obama prospects deemed “not qualified” already exceeds the total number opposed by the group during the eight-year administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; the rejection rate is more than three and a half times as high as it was under either of the previous two presidencies, documents and interviews show.

Full story from the New York Times here, and related story from WSJ Law Blog here.

On the campaign front, Newt now heads up the GOP pack according to Quinnipiac:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich more than doubles his share of the Republican presidential vote to lead the presidential pack with 26 percent and in a head-to-head matchup tops former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 49 – 39 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. But Romney is tied with President Barack Obama.

Former pizza magnate Herman Cain drops from the top spot with 30 percent in a November 2 national survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University to third place with 14 percent today. Romney goes from 23 percent November 2 to 22 percent.

Gingrich, who topped out at 10 percent 20 days ago, zooms to the top as he convinces 48 percent of GOP voters that among all GOP contenders he has the knowledge and experience necessary to be president, compared to Romney’s 22 percent. Gingrich leads Romney 34 – 24 percent when GOP voters are asked who is a strong leader, a key quality Americans historically seek in a president. On foreign policy, he is seen as better by GOP voters 46 – 16 percent. But Gingrich trails Romney 32 – 9 percent when voters are asked who has “a strong moral character.”

More here. If you haven’t yet, maybe now is the time to take Reason’s matchmaker quiz to find your perfect GOP presidential candidate.

David Harsanyi takes on the supercommittee today:

Our government has the time to worry about school lunch menus in Boise, Idaho, but the Senate hasn’t found the time to pass a budget in Washington, D.C., in nearly three years. H.L. Mencken famously wrote that every decent man is ashamed of his government. This one gives you little choice.

Gridlock is ordinarily the most constructive and moral form of government, but with entitlement programs on autopilot self-destruct, we’re in trouble. So Americans turned their weary eyes toward a dream team, a supercommittee, a 12-member panel of our brightest lights, charged with identifying a measly $1.2 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years. Save us.

Alas, for Democrats, it boiled down to the most important issue facing the nation—maybe ever: “revenue enhancement.”

Politico reported that during the supercommittee hearing, both sides agreed to produce “wish lists” to offer some notion of where negotiations might go. Republicans—believe them or not—claimed to want to save $700 billion by block granting Medicaid, another $400 billion in spending cuts, $1.4 trillion in cuts to some mandatory health care programs, and about $150 billion in cuts to the federal workforce.

Democrats, on the other hand, reportedly wanted to pass a new $447 billion spending bill (perhaps forgetting that this was a wish list for a deficit reduction committee) and $1 trillion in tax hikes on those 1-percenters. Since Washington spent $1 trillion more than it took in just last year, this would provide nearly no purpose over 10 years—well, other than a political one.

Read the full column here.

Judge Andrew Napolitano is a great tv host and fascinating speaker. Today’s video is his interview with Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

A couple of good stories up at NMPolitics.net. First, NM ranks low yet again:

In 2010, Attorney General Gary King’s office recovered 53 cents for every $1 it spent to fight Medicaid fraud, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting.

Only Alaska had a worse record than New Mexico, according to the newspaper. Leading the pack was Missouri, which recovered more than $31 for each $1 spent. The national average was a recovery of $10 for every $1 spent.

Full story here. In other news, apparently 19 folks who have voted in NM may be foreign nationals:

A report the secretary of state sent to lawmakers Thursday claims that her office has found 105 registered voters who may not be U.S. citizens, and 19 of them have cast ballots in New Mexico elections.

That is on top of the two foreign nationals who recently came into Duran’s office to self-report that they were illegally registered to vote.

That’s fewer than the 117 potential non-citizen registrants – including 37 voters – that Secretary of State Dianna Duran claimed during a legislative hearing in March to have identified. Duran’s office is referring information about the 105 registrants who may be foreign nationals to the attorney general.

You can read the secretary of state’s report here.

Full story here.

As always, don’t forget to check out Errors of Enchantment regularly for some good updates.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Economy, National Politics, NM Politics
21
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Interesting column by Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen in today’s WSJ about The Hillary Moment:

When Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election to the White House, both men took the moral high ground and decided against running for a new term as president. President Obama is facing a similar reality—and he must reach the same conclusion.

He should abandon his candidacy for re-election in favor of a clear alternative, one capable not only of saving the Democratic Party, but more important, of governing effectively and in a way that preserves the most important of the president’s accomplishments. He should step aside for the one candidate who would become, by acclamation, the nominee of the Democratic Party: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Never before has there been such an obvious potential successor—one who has been a loyal and effective member of the president’s administration, who has the stature to take on the office, and who is the only leader capable of uniting the country around a bipartisan economic and foreign policy.

Certainly, Mr. Obama could still win re-election in 2012. Even with his all-time low job approval ratings (and even worse ratings on handling the economy) the president could eke out a victory in November. But the kind of campaign required for the president’s political survival would make it almost impossible for him to govern—not only during the campaign, but throughout a second term.

More polling suggests the inevitability of a Romney nomination, according to today’s Political Diary:

Republicans might not particularly like Mitt Romney, but they may have to learn to live with him if they want to take the White House next year. So suggests a poll released today by Purple Strategies, which surveys voters in 12 swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

President Obama’s approval rating in the swing states is in peril — just 41% overall and 37% among independents — but his saving grace seems to be that voters there are even more sour on the Republican candidates. This critical block of voters gave all of the top GOP contenders lower marks than the president, which may be due in part to the barrage of negative media that Republicans have been facing as the race heats up. The scrutiny, however, will only intensify after the party settles on a nominee, so Republicans may want to choose a candidate who can withstand criticism.

Mr. Romney has the lowest negatives of the field, with 45% of voters giving him the thumbs down. Those numbers aren’t great, but compare them to Herman Cain’s. Fifty-two percent rate Herman Cain negatively and 22% say they definitely wouldn’t vote for him. Just 10% say the same of Mitt Romney. Mr. Romney also fares the best of all the candidates in a head-to-head match-up against the president, running even with him at 45.

“Based on traditional metrics, Obama remains in perilous position,” conclude the pollsters. “He is overperforming his approval rating by 4 points (he gets 45% of the vote against Romney, while 41% offer him a positive job rating), and still remains well below 50%. In recent re-election campaigns, no president has out-performed his job ratings by more than a couple of points.”

The survey also found that Newt Gingrich doesn’t poll much worse than Mr. Romney. The former House speaker trails the president by just two points and has been ruled out by 16% of voters. However, the poll was taken early last week, just before he came under fire for his ties to Freddie Mac and his prior support for cap and trade and the individual mandate for health insurance. Such issues are likely to be more important in the primary contests than in the general election, but whether he can deflect or sidestep the attacks as adroitly as Mr. Romney will determine the strength of his candidacy.

Meanwhile, Steve Chapman asks, Why Not Huntsman?

He’s a responsible, well-spoken adult with a good record in office, a soothing style, bipartisan appeal, and ample knowledge of the world beyond our shores. But Jon Huntsman, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, somehow imagines he can overcome those handicaps.

He’s running at 2 percent in the polls, but working in his favor is that his rivals have defined themselves mostly by their lapses, failures, and gaffes. At the moment, Republicans seem doomed to choose between the fraudulent (Mitt Romney) and the incompetent (almost everyone else). One contender after another has risen to challenge Romney, only to self-destruct in the most mortifying possible way.

That leaves an opportunity for someone who can avoid the exploding cigar, as Huntsman has. Besides being a telegenic master of the complete sentence, he was the highly popular governor of the most Republican state in the country, Utah.

And Peter Suderman discusses the “inevitable” rise of Newt:

The inevitability of Newt Gingrich’s moment in the sun was itself inevitable. Like finicky department store shoppers trying on an endless series of not-quite-right outfits, Republican voters have been indecisively trying out candidates looking for someone, anyone who is both a perfect fit—or at least a decent Not Mitt. And if the GOP base had not stopped to browse Newt’s offerings, enterprising members of the campaign media, always desperate for a newer, more interesting story, would have dropped the Newtron bomb anyway—if only to keep themselves interested.

But the risen Newt is neither as interesting nor as compelling a candidate as he clearly wants people to think he is. The new Newt thing is the same as the old one—frivolous, flighty, flip-flopping, mildly corrupt, and tremendously self-important.

Speaking of Newt, does anyone remember Newt’s commercial with Pelosi back in 2008? We do (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

Paul Gessing’s latest post at Errors of Enchantment takes on the “Supercommittee”:

The so-called “Supercommittee” is done. Failed, kaput. The gulf between Democrats and Republicans was simply too great. Let the finger-pointing ensue. But who is to blame?

The left would point to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and his “no new taxes” pledge for preventing Republicans from going along with Democratic demands to raise taxes. I agree that Grover has been very effective in fighting tax hikes and for this he should be celebrated, not derided.

After all, the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts that was supposed to be the target of the Supercommittee was less than this year’s deficit! And, as I’ve noted before, the size of the federal government has doubled (from $1.9 trillion to $3.7 trillion) since Clinton left office. Clearly, the “Supercommittee” needed to focus on spending cuts and, if Congress was allowed to further increase spending (absent Grover’s pledge) it would have done so.

So, thanks Grover for keeping tax hikes at bay. Now, we need to force Congress to allow the supposedly “automatic” cuts to happen.

Our friend at The Westerner notes that the Land of Enchantment has now been connected to the Fast & Furious operation by the Department of Justice:

The congressional report showed a major link between Fast and Furious and the arms trafficking ring in Columbus[, NM]. According to the congressional report, New Mexico border patrol agents pulled over Blas Gutierrez, a village trustee and the mastermind behind the Columbus gun-running ring in January of last year. Inside the car, agents said they found a stash of weapons, including AK-47s and pistols known as “cop killers.” According to the report, a number of the guns had been purchased by the main suspects in Operation Fast and Furious just days before. But instead of running the serial numbers while the guns were in their hands, border patrol agents said they handed the weapons back and let Gutierrez go. The guns were then smuggled across the border, and police said one wound up at a murder scene in Mexico.

More here.

Michael Swickard has an interesting column up at NMPolitics.net arguing that Now is the Best Time Ever for Young Workers:

At a fast food style restaurant, I had a nodding relationship with the young fellow behind the counter. We would each say, “Howdy.” Last week he ventured an observation, “You sure were lucky to be young when it was still possible to become wealthy.”

He said it like, “Nice weather… how about those Aggies… whatcha want?” I was startled by the notion that I grew up in a better time. Truth is, I only went to school because I was physically placed on a school bus with instructions to not hit anyone. For the record, I only hit back, but the second kid is usually the one caught, so I was typecast. I was also typecast as a kid who could not wait to get away from school. This they got right.

I was born in 1950, and this fellow behind the counter was born in 1990. Without a doubt they were different societies. In school I practiced the “Atomic bomb attack drill,” while he has to worry about getting a bad case of “Texting thumb.”

Growing up, there were no seat belts in our cars. Also, my father smoked all the time and we did not think about second-hand smoke. We kids did not wear bicycle helmets, and my school lunch was usually a potted meat sandwich I brought from home wrapped in waxed paper.

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Categories: 2012 Election, NM Politics
17
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Steve Chapman today makes The Case Against Newt Gingrich:

Republican voters’ esteem for Newt Gingrich has been rising fast. At this rate it might someday equal, though not surpass, his regard for himself. Gingrich is not a person with an ego. He’s an ego with a person.

Just listen to his explanation of why it took him a while to catch on with voters: “Because I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, I’m such an unconventional political figure that you really need to design a unique campaign that fits the way I operate and what I’m trying to do.”

Other GOP candidates sound like they are merely campaigning for office. Gingrich, however, hurls verbal thunderbolts like Zeus, as the lights flicker and the earth shakes. Hopelessly in love with the sound of his own voice, he exhibits a stern, overbearing self-assurance that gives his pronouncements weight even when he is uttering nonsense.

See also Shikha Dalmia’s op-ed: Keep Newt undercover. Meanwhile, Ann Coulter makes the case FOR Mitt Romney:

There may be better ways to stop Obamacare than Romney, but, unfortunately, they’re not available right now. (And, by the way, where were you conservative purists when Republicans were nominating Waterboarding-Is-Torture-Jerry-Falwell-Is-an-Agent-of-Intolerance-My-Good-Friend-Teddy-Kennedy-Amnesty-for-Illegals John McCain-Feingold for president?)

Among Romney’s positives is the fact that he has a demonstrated ability to trick liberals into voting for him. He was elected governor of Massachusetts — one of the most liberal states in the union — by appealing to Democrats, independents and suburban women.

* * *

Instead of sitting on our thumbs, wishing Ronald Reagan were around, or chasing the latest mechanical rabbit flashed by the media, conservatives ought to start rallying around Romney as the only Republican who has a shot at beating Obama. We’ll attack him when he’s president.

It’s fun to be a purist, but let’s put that on hold until Obama and his abominable health care plan are gone, please.

Read her full column here.

Former Supreme Court Justice weighed in on “conservative” Judge Sutton’s decision upholding the constitutionality of ObamaCare:

When Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the first Republican-appointed judge to uphold President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens took note. The opinion, Justice Stevens says, may be good on the law, but not so good for Judge Sutton’s own career.

* * *

[T]oday, with every Republican presidential candidate opposed to the health law, Judge Sutton’s June opinion may have killed his chances of elevation to the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens said. The irony, he added, is that Judge Sutton probably believes the health law is bad policy, even if it isn’t unconstitutional.

More here.

So, in case you were still wondering, the Congressional Budget Office director made it clear in testimony earlier this week that the so-called stimulus spending is indeed bad for long term growth:

Testifying before the Senate Budget Committee today, Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf reiterated his initial assessment of President Obama’s $800 billion “stimulus” package — that while it may boost the country’s GDP in the short-term, in the long-term, the effect of such spending is a net negative on GDP growth.

Needless to say, Elmendorf’s assessment would also apply to the president’s most recent jobsstimulus package, which would spend $450 billion over the next year, making it larger — in annual terms — than the first stimulus package, which spent $800 billion over two years.

Go here for the video of testimony. Speaking of economics, John Mackey had a great op-ed yesterday about economic freedom:

Is the United States exceptional? Of course we are! Two hundred years ago we were one of the poorest countries in the world. We accounted for less than 1% of the world’s total GDP. Today our GDP is 23% of the world’s total and more than twice as large as the No. 2 country’s, China.

America became the wealthiest country because for most of our history we have followed the basic principles of economic freedom: property rights, freedom to trade internationally, minimal governmental regulation of business, sound money, relatively low taxes, the rule of law, entrepreneurship, freedom to fail, and voluntary exchange.

The success of economic freedom in increasing human prosperity, extending our life spans and improving the quality of our lives in countless ways is the most extraordinary global story of the past 200 years. Gross domestic product per capita has increased by a factor of 1,000% across the world and almost 2,000% in the U.S. during these last two centuries. In 1800, 85% of everyone alive lived on less than $1 per day (in 2000 dollars). Today only 17% do. If current long-term trend lines of economic growth continue, we will see abject poverty almost completely eradicated in the 21st century. Business is not a zero-sum game struggling over a fixed pie. Instead it grows and makes the total pie larger, creating value for all of its major stakeholders—customers, employees, suppliers, investors and communities.

So why is our economy barely growing and unemployment stuck at over 9%? I believe the answer is very simple: Economic freedom is declining in the U.S.

Check out Mackey’s interview with Reason on health care here. Which leads to our video of the day, involving Mackey’s long interview with Reason (click here to view the long version at Reason and here for the excerpt at YouTube):

New Mexico

If you haven’t yet, go check out Francisco d’Anconia’s latest post on Heinrich and Udall. Speaking of NM politicians that are a disgrace, check out the latest on Bill Richardson:

A federal grand jury is investigating potential “financial irregularities” related to former Gov. Bill Richardson’sunsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting.

From today’s Journal article:

“The grand jury has been hearing testimony in secret since at least September, and a number of witnesses have been granted immunity, according to defense attorneys familiar with the general outlines of the investigation.

“… the Journal has learned that one area under scrutiny is whether money from campaign supporters was used to settle a threatened lawsuit against Richardson in the fall of 2007 by a woman who formerly worked in state government.

“Several people familiar with some aspects of the investigation have mentioned similarities to pending criminal charges against former presidential candidate John Edwards on allegations that his campaign supporters paid to shield the candidate from a public scandal.

“The legal issue is whether the money constituted a de facto campaign contribution made in furtherance of the candidate’s bid for federal office.”

According to the Journal, the investigation “involves several other matters tied together by potential election law violations, including possible coordination between so-called ‘soft money’ from political action committees and the campaign.”

More from Heath Haussamen here.

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15
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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Courtesy of Reason’s Friday Funnies.

National

ObamaCare at SCOTUS continues to draw the most headlines. In today’s WSJ, David Rivkin and Lee Casey note:

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether ObamaCare is constitutional, granting certiorari in a case brought by 26 states shortly after that law was enacted in March of last year. In so doing, it will be ruling upon the very nature of our federal union.

The Constitution limits federal power by granting Congress authority in certain defined areas, such as the regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. Those powers not specifically vested in the federal government by the Constitution or, as stated in the 10th Amendment, “prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The court will now determine whether those words still have meaning.

Read their entire column here and the WSJ Editorial on point here. For more, SCOTUSBlog has a good roundup post here with links to the extensive coverage around the web.

Yesterday’s Political Diary by WSJ notes some interesting updates in the GOP Presidential Primary race:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich continues to surge in the polls. Last week a CBS poll had Herman Cain at 18%, with Mitt Romney and Mr. Gingrich tied at 15%. Even more impressive was the latest McClatchy-Marist poll, which had Mr. Romney at 23%, Mr. Gingrich at 19% and Mr. Cain at 17%. A little over a month ago, Mr. Gingrich was barely above 5% in any poll.

Is the former Georgia congressman simply the latest flavor of the month in the wake of the Herman Cain sexual-harassment allegations, or can he actually win? In an interview with me this weekend, he notes that “after every debate I keep rising in the polls.” He sees at least 70% of voters looking for an alternative to Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee. Mr. Gingrich says conservative voters “know I am the one who would be best to debate President Obama.”

One Gingrich strategy that seems to be paying off is to remind voters of his record as speaker. He says he was the one who was able to persuade then-President Clinton “to sign a balanced budget, welfare reform and tax cuts.” He says he inherited a 10-year forecast of $2.7 trillion in deficits, but that when he left Congress the forecast was “more than $2 trillion in surpluses” and “voters would love to see that happen again.”

Mr. Gingrich has clearly appeared presidential in the GOP debates, and he says focus groups almost always “pick me as the debate winner.” Mr. Gingrich’s campaign suffered some major setbacks earlier this year after he attacked the Paul Ryan’s budget plan and his staffers began to resign. Now Mr. Gingrich is where Michele Bachmann was in late summer and where Rick Perry sat four weeks ago. Whether he has staying power is another matter, but for now Mr. Gingrich is positioning himself to be Mitt Romney’s greatest rival. “I’m the anti-Washington-establishment candidate. That’s why so few in Washington are for me.”

* * *

Mitt Romney recorded yet another strong debate performance Saturday night in South Carolina, where the focus was on foreign policy. Nevertheless, two recent Republican presidential polls must have the former Massachusetts governor scratching his head.

A CBS News survey of likely Republican voters released Friday showed that support for Mr. Romney has slipped to 15%, which puts him even with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and behind businessman Herman Cain, who was at 18%. A McClatchy-Marist poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents released the same day showed Mr. Romney at 23%, Mr. Gingrich at 19% and Mr. Cain at 17%.

Mr. Romney has typically garnered about 25% of Republican voters but was likely expecting a bump given the recent troubles of two top rivals. Mr. Cain has been fending off sexual harassment claims from four different women over the past two weeks. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry stumbled badly in a debate last week when he couldn’t remember one of the three cabinet agencies he’s vowed to eliminate should he win the presidency.

“Mitt Romney’s support fluctuates wildly between 23 and 25 [percent],” quipped George Will Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Mr. Will’s point is that alternatives to Mr. Romney — Michele Bachman, Mr. Perry, Mr. Cain — come and go, yet he seems to have a ceiling of support that he can’t penetrate. Polls have shown that Mr. Romney struggles especially among tea party supporters and evangelicals. Both groups continue to search for an alternative.

Mr. Gingrich looks to be the latest beneficiary of Romney dissatisfaction, and the former speaker may not have peaked. Mr. Cain’s lead in Iowa has shrunk and his overall numbers will likely drop going forward. The CBS poll showed that Mr. Cain’s support among Republican women has fallen to 15% from 28% since late October.

The good news for Mr. Romney is that 17% of voters are still undecided. The bad news is that the Iowa caucuses are just six weeks away.

In other candidate news, the latest on Herman Cain is his apparent total meltdown in a video-taped interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Go here for Guy Benson’s review of the experience, which includes a painful five-minute video of Cain’s answer on Libya. Benson’s conclusion sums the situation up nicely:

At Saturday’s debate, Cain frequently said he’d defer to the judgment of his top advisors and generals on foreign policy and national security matters.  Given his disastrous conversation today, it’s increasingly clear that Cain is using his stock, “ask the generals” response as a dodge to mask huge knowledge gaps.  Even if one remains a committed Cain loyalist, will average voters watch videos like these and conclude that Cain is prepared to be President of the United States?

Today’s video is a lengthy one, but worth your lunch or dinner break if you’re interested in the ObamaCare constitutionality debate. At the Federalist Society’s annual convention last weekend, former Solicitor General Paul Clement debated Professor Lawrence Tribe on this question (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

Paul Gessing’s latest column at NMPolitics.net takes a good look at education proposals:

Very rarely do the left wingers who continuously criticize any attempt to reform New Mexico’s foundering education system say anything that surprises me. Conspiracies abound and the term “privatization” is thrown about like a slur.

But Emanuele Corso, in his recent attack piece “Skandera takes steps to undermine public education,” argued that Hanna Skandera and the Rio Grande Foundation are teaming up (along with a host of nefarious right-wingers nationwide) to “industrialize” education.

Corso has actually flipped reality upside down with this particular accusation. The reality is that America’s educational system has been based on an outdated “industrial” model for more than a century. And, while that worked just fine when large numbers of Americans went from “industrial” schools to working in factories, the current system is not designed to spur critical thought and independence.

For a history of the industrialization of American education, I highly recommend the works of John Taylor Gatto. A long-time educator, he has written extensively on the ways government-run school systems dumb our children down.

Check out the full column here. Also of note, the Rio Grande Foundation now has live county payroll information for all 33 counties in New Mexico on this page.

Stephan Helgesen, a retired foreign service officer and the current “honorary consul” for Germany in New Mexico authored a suggested re-write for the qualifications we should seek in our Commander in Chief:

We’ve had 26 lawyers, 12 generals, four small businessmen and one haberdasher who have served as president of these United States. Most were college graduates. One was unmarried. Twelve of them owned slaves during their lives and eight had slaves while they were president. Four presidents were killed while in office. Two were impeached.

Judging by the numbers, it might seem to the casual observer that America’s top job has been a bit top-heavy with lawyers and military men. That said, maybe we ought to re-write the qualifications for the job, especially in light of the precarious financial and geopolitical situation in which we find ourselves today.

Read the entire job description here.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Health Care, NM Politics
14
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Big news of the day: ObamaCare is now officially headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. From WSJ Law Blog:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday did what it had long been expected to do, and agreed to hear arguably the most high-profile challenge to the law. Click here for Brent Kendall’s article in the WSJ; here for coverage from Scotusblog.

In a short written order, the high court agreed to hear a challenge that originated in Florida, brought by a group of Republican governors and attorneys general from 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business and two individual plaintiffs.

The case raises several issues, but chief among them is this: Did Congress exceed its constitutional powers when it required most individuals to carry health insurance or pay a penalty?

The court is expected to hear oral arguments in March, with a decision expected by the end of June. That timeline means the court will rule on President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement during the thick of the 2012 presidential campaign.

The SCOTUSBlog link above is also worth checking out by those interested in more details of the anticipated argument schedule given the unprecedented (in modern times) setting for 5 1/2 hours of argument. Tim Cavanaugh has an interesting related post up looking at Obama’s 2008 stance against a health care mandate:

Here’s something President Obama might have forgotten: In 2008, when then-Sen. Obama was fighting then-Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, he got the inside track by opposing a federal mandate requiring you and every other American to purchase health insurance.

The individual mandate, which is so totalitarian and unconstitutional that even the thoroughly unlibertarian voters of Ohio rejected it last week, went on to become the unpopular centerpiece of Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the putative reform of the health care system widely known as “Obamacare.”

Definitely check out the full piece.

National Public Radio has an interesting three-part series on influential individual that started today with a look at Ayn Rand, as noted by David Boaz of Cato Institute:

They looked at Ayn Rand this morning, and there are reports that they will cover F. A. Hayek tomorrow and John Maynard Keynes Wednesday. The segment quotes Rand from a televised interview with Mike Wallace (which you can view at the link) and then comments on the prevalence of her ideas today:

“Both parties today are for socialism, in effect — for controls. And there is no party, there are no voices, to offer an actual pro-capitalist, laissez-faire, economic freedom and individualism,” she said. “That is what this country needs today.”

If Rand were alive today, she might be pleased to see that, more and more, Americans do have that choice. And her ideas are alive and well-represented in the U.S. Capitol.

If by “well-represented,” you mean “often heard in protest as Congress passes Wall Street bailouts, corporate takeovers, health care takeovers, and trillion-dollar spending bills,” then yes.

NPR’s commenters weren’t very happy to hear Ayn Rand discussed. I especially appreciated this one:

The “objectivity” of ruthless plunderers from a displaced Russian bourgoise who refused to acknowledge the punishment of her class was brought on by its crimes against the people. Objective thinking people accept responsibility for their actions and the consequences that follow.

Marxism may be dead in Russia, but not in the NPR listener community! No doubt this commenter is knitting the names of American bourgeoisie who will one day be sent to gulags.

For anyone interested in Nixon’s post-Presidency 1975 grand jury testimony about Watergate, good news:

A heads up to our legal history buffs: The government’s Nixon Presidential Library just  published online – as in five minutes ago – his 1975 grand jury testimony about Watergate.

“This is Nixon unplugged,” historian Stanley Kutler, a principal figure in the lawsuit that pried open the records,told the Associated Press.

Still, he said, “I have no illusions. Richard Nixon knew how to dodge questions with the best of them. I am sure that he danced, skipped, around a number of things.”

The interview took place near Nixon’s California home over two days. It was the first time an ex-president had testified before a grand jury.

A very interesting infographic is now available online, allowing us to “visualize[] the words used in the 2011-2012 Republican Primary debates.” Here’s one example screen shot:

Which brings us to the video of the day. While he’s not a presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio is one of those frequently mentioned as a potential Vice President to bolster the GOP ticket. He spoke last week at the annual Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

Interesting column last week by Michael Swickard calling for an end to Daylight Savings Time:

It is time we change the way time is changed twice a year in most of the country. Specifically, it is time to throw out Daylight Savings Time (DST) and throw it out for good. I wonder if we can get someone to sponsor a congressional bill to make this change. Most Americans would get along fine with year-round regular time.

While government does not give up power over the people willingly, we can make a case that we should change what government is doing now. The government nannies and minders say they have our best interests in mind with DST. They say that during the summer months there is more time in the evening to recreate with DST, so we should use that time rather than lose it. Still, when DST starts it is mid March, and it is November when the time changes back. There is a lot of time that is not summer.

Read the entire piece here. Also interesting is Heath Haussamen’s column calling for lawmakers to receive paychecks:

I authored a commentary in September arguing that we need to pay our state legislators; newspaper articles published this weekend may indicate that such an idea is gaining momentum.

Steven Robert Allen, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, and State Rep. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, were quoted as saying they support paying lawmakers in an article published by the Las Cruces Sun-News.

In addition, the Albuquerque Journal published an editorial saying voters should “be given the opportunity to decide if they want a professional, paid Legislature.”

In my September commentary, I argued that our unpaid legislators “can’t keep up with the governor or the pace of life in the 21st Century no matter how hard they work.”

Suggesting that our lawmakers are currently “unpaid” is pretty disengenuous, but it is true that they do not actually receive a salary (just massive per diem allotments that are often abused and a pension system that should not be ignored).

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Categories: 2012 Election, Constitutional Rights, Economy, Health Care, NM Politics
09
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

A lot to discuss today, so we’ll try to hit the highlights and hopefully whet your appetites for tomorrow’s lunch meeting. First up, the latest ObamaCare decision. The WSJ reviews Judge Silberman’s Strange Opinion:

In the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’s decision upholding the Obama health-care plan yesterday, Judge Laurence Silberman writes that it is merely a “sparing” opinion, since the Supreme Court will almost certainly have the final say on the law’s constitutionality. And perhaps that’s for the best, given that Judge Silberman’s reasoning for the 2-1 majority is, well, peculiar for so distinguished a jurist.

At issue in Susan Seven-Sky as everywhere is the individual mandate, the requirement that everyone purchase health insurance or else pay a penalty. The Obama Administration argues that such federal coercion is justified by the Commerce Clause. Yet expanding the longstanding authority to regulate interstate commerce to compel individuals to participate in commerce would vitiate the government of limited and enumerated powers that the framers envisioned.

Judge Silberman and concurring Judge Harry Edwards concede that such powers are without precedent. During oral arguments, he writes, the Justice Department could not cite “any doctrinal limiting principles” to this reading of the Commence Clause, and the Obama lawyers even admitted that they could extend beyond fines to criminal prosecution and imprisonment for refusing to buy a private product.

As Judge Brett Kavanaugh explains in his dissent, the next logical stops for this theory are “mandatory purchases of retirement accounts, housing accounts, college savings accounts, disaster insurance, disability insurance, and life insurance” too. Given modern political appetites, he may be right.

But the majority opinion then endorses this brave new world on the basis of what Judge Silberman calls “the closest Supreme Court precedent to our case,” Wickard v. Filburn. That’s the 1942 ruling in which the High Court held that Congress could limit wheat growing for personal consumption because in the aggregate it could affect interstate markets, presumably like health-insurance decisions.

Randy Barnett has a good post at Volokh Conspiracy looking toward the future of ObamaCare litigation:

Well, we now have the last Circuit Court of Appeals decision to digest before hearing later this week or next whether the Supreme Court will take up the challenge and what question will be presented to the Court.  Assuming it does, there will then be merits briefs and oral argument.   But first, some brief and and very preliminary reactions to today’s decision.

(1) It is another divided decision, which is now the pattern.  Whether upholding or striking down the individual mandate, the Court of Appeals judges are all over the map.  This is not indicative of a case dictated by previous decisions that has a predetermined outcome.

(2)  The decision tracked oral argument as I described it here.  Judge Kavanaugh clearly telegraphed his enchantment with the Antitax Injunction Act.  Judge Edwards clearly telegraphed his view that little needed to be said to find that the ACA is constitutional (as he said very little art argument or in his concurrence).  And, although I hoped against hope that Judge Silberman was not telegraphing his position when he strongly asserted that the “logic” of Wickard v. Filburn authorized economic mandates, sure enough he stuck to that position.  (I have already blogged here about why I think Judge Silberman is misreading the actual opinion in Wickard.)

(3) With respect, I beg to differ with my co-blogger Stuart’s post below.  Should the Affordable Care be upheld, Judge Silberman’s opinion in no way will provide a template for a majority opinion by any justice, but especially not one by Justice Scalia.  Like Judge Sutton’s concurrence in the Sixth Circuit, this opinion has all the hallmarks of a decision its author knows full well is  not the last word in the case.  Like Judge Sutton, Judge Silberman is punting to the Supreme Court.  I am not claiming that he does not believe in the correctness of his decision.  I believe that he believes.  I am merely claiming that he would never be content with this being the final word on the subject of the scope of Congress’s power.  And he knows it won’t be.

Yesterday was also election day in some places, with some interesting results. Thankfully, as Ilya Somin explains, Measure 31 dealing with eminent domain passed in Mississippi. Guy Benson at Townhall has a good roundup of all the election night results. Here are some excerpts, but I recommend checking out the whole thing:

Ohio: As expected — and lamentably — Gov. John Kasich’s landmark collective bargaining reform law has gone down in flames, thanks to a well-funded and relentless program of demagoguery by Buckeye State Democrats and public sector unions.  The margin isn’t close; as of this writing, it stands at 61-39 to overturn the law.  This is a satisfying, but unsustainable, victory for the Left.  They may have beaten back an evil conservative law, but a fiscal reckoning still awaits.  The math doesn’t go away, even if the law does.  What liberals won’t mention is that there was another significant item on the ballot today: A referendum on Obamacare’s tent-pole individual mandate.  Ohioans’ rebuke of Obamacare is shaping up to be even more overwhelming than the Issue 2 tally.  Right now the margin in favor of the anti-Obamacare measure is 66-34.  This is the second major swing-state repudiation of Obamacare since it was enacted last March.

* * *

Virginia: What a bloodbath in the House of Delegates.  Republicans will emerge from tonight with at least a 2/3 majority, having picked up a minimum of 6 seats, if not 7 or 8.  To add insult to injury, they also knocked off the Democratic Minority Leader in District 9.  The Senate is razor thin, and may come down to a recount.  Republicans held both redistricted seats (in 13 and 22), and are narrowly leading a pair of Democratic incumbents in Districts 17 and 20.  If both of those microscopic margins — we’re talking hundreds of votes — hold up, the upper chamber will be split evenly, which would be a de facto Republican majority.  A very solid night for Bob McDonnell’s muscular Republican Machine in Virginia.  This is going to be a tough state for President Obama to win again.

* * *

Arizona: Powerful State Senate leader Russell Pearce, who authored the controversial SB-1070 immigration bill, was ousted in a recall election.  He had also been dogged by a number of ethics complaints.  Pearce was replaced by a fellow Republican.

Overall Verdict: An uneven night for conservatives, across the board.  Clearly not a continuation of 2010′s wave, but not an especially good evening for Democrats, either.  Ohio’s Issue Two result is by far the biggest disappointment (leavened slightly by the Issue Three romp), and Virginia is the brightest spot.  Onward!

On the GOP 2012 race, some interesting developments. Of note, it seems more and more folks are vocally opposing Romney as the nominee.  Some highlights of a great piece by Ali Akbar, John Hawkins, and Matt Mackowiak:

After three years of European-style, social democratic, big government efforts here at home, the solutions that our nation requires are conservative in nature. Accordingly, our nominee must also be a committed fiscal conservative – that we can trust.

Say what you will about Mitt Romney, but he is not a consistent conservative.

As RedState’s Erick Erickson has pointed out, it’s “not that conservatives do not like Mitt Romney. It’s that they do not trust him.” And this is for good reason.

Consider:

• Mitt Romney pledged in 1994 to be stronger on gay rights than his opponent for U.S. Senate, Ted Kennedy. He now supports a Constitutional amendment protecting marriage as between one man and one woman.

• Mitt Romney was pro-abortion from 1957-2003. Running statewide twice in Massachusetts, opposing the pro life position had significant political benefits.

• Mitt Romney supported both the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady Bill in 1994. In 2007, after claiming he enjoyed hunting and joining the National Rifle Association, he claimed he owned a gun, but did not. He is now a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment Rights.

• Mitt Romney in 2006 said illegal immigrants should have a path to citizenship, supported the McCain-Kennedy plan, which he denied was amnesty, and now attacks other candidates for their records on immigration.

• Mitt Romney refused to support the 2004 Bush tax cuts, but it 2007 he claimed that he had always supported them.

• Mitt Romney said on NBC’s Meet the Press that his Massachusetts health care plan was a model for the nation, but now says it is not right for the other states.

• Mitt Romney says he will issue an executive order on his first day issuing a waiver to all 50 states of ObamaCare. If he believes Obamacare must be repealed, why does he not believe Romneycare should?

• Mitt Romney resisted every attempt by opponent Sen. Ted Kennedy connecting him to Ronald Reagan in the 1994 campaign for U.S. Senate and has insisted that he was an independent during the Reagan years. In 2005, Romney said that Reagan was his political hero.

Read the full piece here, and check out Jacob Sullum’s column pointing out that Romney’s proposed spending “cuts” would actually expand the federal budget:

Presenting his fiscal plan in USA Today last week, Mitt Romney said he wants to “eliminate every government program that is not absolutely essential.” That sounds good until you realize that Romney’s goal of cutting $500 billion fromprojected federal outlays in 2016 would, at best, leave the budget about 8 percent higher than it is now and only 11 percent lower than it would be without any attempt to restrain spending.

The implication: Mitt Romney thinks 89 percent of what the federal government does is “absolutely essential.” And that’s what he says when he is trying to appeal to the fiscally conservative Republicans whose votes he will need to win his party’s presidential nomination. Who knows what he really thinks, assuming he has any firm convictions at all on this crucial question.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, on the other hand, touts Gingrich’s chances in today’s WSJ:

Newt Gingrich’s rise in the polls—from near zero to the third slot in several polls—should come as no surprise to people who have been watching the Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world apart from the usual that the political season brings.

* * *

No one else’s remarks would ignite the huge response his talk did.

He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012, Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and bureaucracies.

He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected, something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every turn. The difference was, as always, in the details—in the informed, scathing descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likely—even imminent.

Mike Riggs has a good look at the Occupy Movement’s Penchant for Inflicting Collateral Damage:

Last night, San Diego residents held a fundraiser for two street vendors whose carts were burglarized and vandalized, with blood and piss, by Occupy protesters. The protesters were angry that the vendors would not “donate” their wares to the movement. CBS Los Angeles reports that the vendors, one who sold hot dogs, and one who sold coffee, also received death threats for refusing to give away their goods.

At the Port of Oakland earlier this month, workers and observers could only enter—and more horrifying, leave—the port after the mob “voted” their permission. When one trucker tried to break through the blockade, his vehicle was attacked. The protester who did the attacking had this to say: “These people tried to kill us. I can’t believe they are being that aggressive over a paycheck, over your own people fighting for you.” (Savor the irony.) While people waited into the early morning hours for permission to see their families and do their jobs, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who gave the OK for Oakland Police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of Occupy Protesters, sat safely in a government building.

* * *

Show me an Occupy demand that can be met by destroying the livelihoods of people who are on the cusp of poverty (due to government regulations on food vendors), smashing the windows of a Men’s Warehouse and a coffee shop, trashing the bathroom of a Manhattan restaurant, pushing an old lady down a flight of D.C. stairs after imprisoning her and her fellow conservative conference attendees using a human chain, or “clobber[ing] a store manager with a credit-card reader.” You can’t. That’s because the government holds the strings here, not the people who Occupy is hurting. The government gives away corporate welfare, controls cops, sends perverse signals to the market, drops bombs, exposes itself to regulatory capture, deals out special favors to big interests, operates drones, prohibits drugs, and destroys immigrant families through deportation. Hot dog vendors sell hot dogs, restaurants sell food, store managers manage stores, truck drivers drive trucks.

Today’s video is a bit of a retrospective, check out Milton Friedman and Phil Donahue in 1979 discussing greed (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

Heath Haussamen looks at last night’s elections in Las Cruces, concluding residents are happy with the city’s direction:

It wasn’t even close. In a resounding manner, voters in Las Cruces endorsed the work of incumbents who were up for re-election on Tuesday.

This year’s contest was a test of what voters think about the work of progressive-backed candidates whotook over city government between 2007 and 2009. Mayor Ken Miyagishima said the large margins by which he and other incumbents won are easy to interpret.

You can check out his election night liveblog archive here. Readers: what say you? Is Haussamen’s interpretation of election results accurate?

 

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Categories: 2012 Election, Constitutional Rights, Health Care, NM Politics
07
Nov 2011

Publius Daily Digest

By Leave a Comment

National

For those wondering just how partisan a little group called the American Bar Association is, you need look no further than the ABA’s latest “lawyer of the year” award recipient:

Lawyers at the American Bar Association have given their “lawyer of the year” award to the top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board.

The board is led by President Barack Obama’s appointees, and has tried to derail Boeing’s plan to open a new aircraft factory in South Carolina. It has also changed several rules to help unions draft workers.

These controversial decisions have been adopted amid strong opposition from companies, investors and GOP legislators.

The bar association’s long-standing skew toward the Democrats is so pronounced that it prompted libertarian and conservative lawyers to create their own group, the Federalist Society.

The bar association’s award was granted to Lafe Solomon, the board’s acting general counsel.

More from the Daily Caller here.

In other bad news, local disgrace, um, excuse me, local Senator Tom Udall has now proposed that we amend the U.S. Constitution to make it clear political speech is not protected speech:

In the history of the United States, more than 11,000 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed, and only 27 have passed.

With those odds in mind, we bring you this story from HuffPo on a proposed constitutional amendment by Sen. Tom Udall (D., N.M.) that would blow up the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling in Citizens United.

The ruling last year unleashed a flood of campaign contributions from corporations and super PACs, which can spend as much money as they want and do so nearly anonymously.

The proposal put forth by Udall would add language to the Constitution that says Congress and the states can regulate campaign contributions and expenditures. Click here for more on the proposal in The New Mexican.

The proposed amendment would also reverse the 1976 decision Buckley v Valeo, which held that spending money is a form of speech in elections.

The WSJ Law Blog’s full post is here. For more on the Senator Who Opposes Free Speech, see d’Anconia’s most recent post here. For some perspective on the Citizens United case, review Steve Simpson’s 2010 column here.

A couple of Occupy Wall Street columns worth reading. First, from Steve Chapman, a look at What Occupy Wall Street Gets Wrong:

If you want to know what motivates the people involved in Occupy Wall Street, you can get a good idea from Think Progress, a left-leaning website. It offers a map of the continental United States labeled, “If U.S. land were divided like U.S. wealth.”

In this representation, 1 percent of the people hold title to most of the West and Great Plains area. Nine percent have a swath about the same size stretching from Minnesota south to Oklahoma and east to Maine. The other 90 percent of the population get only a narrow slice along the southern rim.

It’s a stark, dramatic representation of the problem as OWS sees it. It’s also a perfect illustration of the movement’s economic misunderstandings.

Second, from A. Barton Hinkle, The Disturbing Agenda of Occupy Wall Street:

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, obsessed with fairness, has benefitted from the lack of it. The protesters don’t think so—but that is because many of them have not thought enough.

The demonstrators resent disparity. So consider the disparity in coverage of OWS and the Tea Party. A single (still unsubstantiated) allegation that someone in the crowd at a 2010 Tea Party rally in Washington hurled a racial slur at Rep. John Lewis sufficed to prove the entire movement a kissin’ cousin of the KKK. But that “Google Wall Street Jews” guy? A lone nut. As for the signs calling for the “death of capitalism” and telling Wall Street bankers to “Jump, you [expletives]” and declaring “capitalism can’t be fixed—we need revolution”? Unrepresentative, surely. Ditto the 5:30 Oakland seminar on Marxism 101, and the dude in the Lenin T-shirt, and. . . .

Don’t feel bad if you missed such tidbits on the nightly news. Every movement has its whack jobs, but those on the left get politely overlooked.

Both of those are worth a read.

The Obama Justice Department and it’s brilliant Fast and Furious operation continues to receive scrutiny, as noted in today’s WSJ:

Top Justice Department officials have settled on a strategy for explaining a botched gun-trafficking probe that includes blaming the now-ousted U.S. attorney in Phoenix.

The department has spent much of the year dealing with questions about federal agents’ use of investigative tactics that resulted in the smuggling of firearms into Mexico. The issue is coming to a head Tuesday, when Attorney General Eric Holder is set to answer questions at a Senate hearing.

A hostile reception likely awaits from Republican lawmakers, who have pushed to make Mr. Holder accountable. More than 30 have called for him to resign.

The full article is here, and check here if you’re interested in following the hearing itself Tuesday.

Finally, Tim Cavanaugh asks What’s So Hard About Complying With Solyndra Subpoena:

If you want to see why “executive privilege” – the non-constitutional and vaguely defined notion that the president is entitled to conduct public affairs in secret – is a fake idea, take a look at the letter President Obama’s lawyer sent out on Friday.

“A significant intrusion on Executive Branch interests” is how counsel to the president Kathryn H. Ruemmler describes the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subpoena for documents related to the half-billion-dollar loan guarantee to a company whose largest investors were Obama campaign donors.

Ruemmler’s refusal to comply [pdf] with the House subpoena is heavy on “good faith offers” and “more focused requests” and efforts to “work with the Committee” about “legitimate interests” and so forth. But her explanation for why the White House can’t come up with a full Solyndra document dump – ten months after the House began its investigation – is straightup bullshit[.]

Today’s video is from the ObamaCare realm, and provides a look at Ohioans’ efforts to protect against the law (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

A lot of the NM posts in the past months have dealt with the state judiciary and its, um, various problems. Mike Gallagher has a good related column in the Albuquerque Journal over the weekend, but it requires a subscription. So here’s a somewhat extensive excerpt:

 Developments swirling around bribery and witness intimidation charges against a Las Cruces judge have thrust the state’s Judicial Standards Commission into the spotlight.

But when it comes to how the commission does its work, there isn’t much to see until the final act — if there is one.

Charged with investigating complaints of judicial miscon duct and recommending discipline, the commission is among the most secretive agencies of its kind in the nation.

And its activities have become even more hidden from public view under the current state Supreme Court’s interpretation of the state constitutional provision that established the commission back in the 1960s.

As it now stands, the only time the commission’s work is sure to come into public view is when it makes a final recommendation for disciplinary action to the Supreme Court.

Most judges operate under the belief they cannot even confirm they are the target of a complaint or are under investigation — much less respond to an allegation publicly — without potentially getting into trouble for violating the secrecy provisions in the Constitution.

The case of District Judge Mike Murphy of Las Cruces, who faces felony bribery charges for allegedly telling a lawyer she should make contributions to a local politico if she wanted to be appointed to the bench, illustrates how opaque the process is.

Other than two Judicial S t a nd a r d s C om m i s s ion requests asking the Supreme Court for Murphy’s temporary suspension, the public is in the dark about what, if anything, the commission is doing or what it is investigating.

The commission’s f irst request to suspend Murphy came in April before he was indicted. It was denied by the Supreme Court and remains sealed, so the grounds for the request are not known.

That is pursuant to a Supreme Court rule approved in 2009 sealing temporary disciplinary requests.

But the public did know the suspension had been requested because the Supreme Court’s public docket sheet included the case number, a brief description of the case and parties.

The court unsealed its order denying the request — but not the request and grounds for it — with all justices participating.

This summer, the high court approved another rule sealing even the docket in such matters.

The net effect is that in a similar case now, the judge could continue to preside in court and the public would never know a complaint had been filed, the general nature of the complaint or the fact that the Judicial Standards Commission had recommended an emergency suspension.

The second request to suspend Murphy temporarily without pay was filed in May and was based on the indictment. Because the Supreme Court granted it, the request and grounds for it became public.

* * *

In 1996, the American Judicature Society Executive Committee adopted a policy stating that the confidentiality of judicial discipline proceedings, while vital during the investigation of a complaint, should cease when the judicial conduct organization files formal charges against a judge.

Only 13 states have secrecy provisions similar to New Mexico’s.

In more open commissions, the process generally becomes open when the commission files a formal complaint. In some states, the process becomes public when the judge responds to a formal complaint.

At either of those points, the records involved are public.

In New Mexico, complaints become open much later — or they may never become public if the commission’s secret investigation or hearings don’t lead to a formal request for discipline.

* * *

The Judicial Standards Commission is a small, secretive agency established by a state constitutional amendment in 1967. It is an appendage of the state judicial system but is not part of the judiciary.

The commission consists of 11 members and hires an executive director, who then hires a staff of five.

The governor appoints six of the 11 members. The Supreme Court appoints two judges and one magistrate judge, and the State Bar appoints two attorneys.

The annual budget is less than $1 million a year, and it is separate from the judicial branch.

The Constitution says, “All papers filed with the commission or its masters, and proceedings before the commission or its masters are confidential.”

In the past, however, requests such as the one for a temporary suspension of Murphy have been public.

The 2009 Supreme Court ruling sealing commission requests for temporary action, according to the court, was required to protect the confidential nature of the commission’s proceedings — although the court has the discretion to make certain records public earlier, and at times has done so.

Investigations can last for months and lead to formal confidential hearings before commission members.

For more local issues news, check out NMPolitics.net and Errors of Enchantment.

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