Gerrymandering

A quick post with a link before the results of the mid-terms about Gerrymandering; which is when a politician re-draws electoral boundaries to ensure that they are voted in by favourable voters. The Economist's Democracy in America blog draws attention to the forthcoming documentary:



It's a very important issue in American politics for some; arguably is it a key reason why American politics is so partisan.

President Obama's interview with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" mentions it too. In the interview he does also highlight a whole load of issues which G&P students can mention (Gerrymandering, Filibustering, partisanship etc) in any critique of the US political system. Entertaining stuff too:

Part one is here:


Part two is here:



The Mid-terms take place tonight, so there is bound to be plenty to chew over. In the meantime, there is this chatty post from The Economist's Democracy in America Blog, and another from the same blog about the inability of the American left to cope with the ideology of the right (the Tea Party-ers can evoke feelings about American history that left-leaning Democrats have failed to do)

Labour leadership race

I haven't posted about the Labour leadership race since it will be resolved and a new leader installed by the time AS students take their exams in summer 2011. However, I though it was worth noting an article by The Economist's Bagehot.

Essentially, the race is between the two brothers MiliE and MiliD who have been portrayed as miles apart in political terms (David as a Blairite, Ed as a Brownite). Bagehot commented:

The press is full of commentary about British politics that would have you believe that the political landscape echoes to the metallic din of ideological combat. Yet when you look carefully at what the politicians from the largest parties are saying, none of it seems so very far from the centre-ground.

Take the Labour leadership race, which by common consent revolves around the two Miliband brothers. According to the newspaper narrative, Ed Miliband, the younger brother and former cabinet minister in charge of climate change, is significantly to the left of David Miliband, the elder brother and former foreign secretary. I have seen the word Bennite bandied around, in homage to Tony Benn, the former Labour cabinet minister who really was a proper lefty in his day, advocating capital controls and the wholesale nationalisation of British industry. It is true that the pair have been sending little hints and signals since the contest became a two horse race, indicating that MiliE is to the left of MiliD (as some call them) and is more tempted than MiliD by some form of core vote strategy to woo back disaffected Labour voters and former Liberal Democrat voters who are disgruntled by the Con-Lib coalition. But Bennite? Come off it.

Quite who the eventual leader will be should prove interesting, especially as Labour and the leadership contenders have a large problem: The credit crunch and the resulting recession was undoubtedly caused by a failure of the banking system ("market forces"), but there is an argument to be had that there was also a failure of government regulation.

The same government which was lead by Blair and Brown and had Milibands E. and D. as well as Balls E. in major positions in the Cabinet. It is therefore in their interests as prospective leaders of the opposition, as well as potential Prime Ministers if the coalition doesn't last the full term, to say that "it wasn't anything to do with us guv". This also ties neatly into the anti-big-business instincts of the average Labour Party member.

The argument about why the credit crunch happened will run and run, and is also outside the remit of this blog. However, a brief taste of some very technical arguments can be found here and here in the Democracy in America blog. Admittedly these are about the US-side, but the credit crunch was a global event closely linked to the American situation and these postings have some pertinent things to say about the UK.

All useful stuff for anyone contemplating the direction of the Labour Party and that classic exam question "Has the Labour party abandoned socialism?"

As a side note, Robert Peston has some interesting things to say about party funding; essentially Labour is heavily reliant on a small number of very wealthy individuals and Trades Unions, and the Conservatives still rely on the City of London's firms for their party funds. This obviously brings up the question of how much these funds determine the direction of party activity and policy formation.

Tony Blair's memoirs are analysed in many places, including here in the Guardian and here and here in the Economist, which has a comment about the nature of politicians who chase voters:

...At best, progressive politicians can hope to define themselves by fixed values, such as concern for the poorest at home and abroad, rather than by policies with fixed party labels.

This is quite a comforting analysis, of course, if you happen to be a former party leader who bet big that likeability trumped traditional party boundaries. But it is possible to find Mr Blair self-serving yet his description of how real voters think and act convincing. In pursuit of governments which speak to their instincts, lots of people may switch from party to party, while feeling they are being perfectly consistent.

There is a pointed lesson here for Labour members as they choose a new leader this month. They need to decide whether they are choosing a new boss for their party, or one who could plausibly belong to the country as a whole, as a future prime minister. Mr Blair has not endorsed a candidate (probably to the relief of all concerned). But then again he barely needs to. Like customers, voters are always right in his world: that is who he is.

To close, that picture of David Miliband which will follow him to his grave:

Obama and the Demoncrats; Glenn Beck and Republicanism

The Economist's Lexington has an interesting post here about President Obama's campaigning message in the run-up to the mid-terms. Essentially the Democrats are ignoring their extraordinary reform of Health Care in favour of talking about job creation in these post-credit crunch times. The President is soft-peddling his success in getting this major reform of America:

The White House has presumably decided that its signature legislation is going to be a negative in a campaign dominated by jobs and the economy. Barnes points out that by steering clear of the health issue local candidates will find it easier to separate their fortunes from Mr Obama's, whose numbers have tanked. The trouble with that way of thinking is that it leaves the Republicans free to paint health reform in the most negative possible light. Worse, it suggests that Mr Obama and his party lack the courage of their rather expensive convictions. If the Democrats are too nervous to defend the bill, perhaps they shouldn't have passed it.

This is of interest to G&P students contemplating any essay about Presidential power, or the direction of the Democratic party.

Healthcare reform may well prove to be a big success in the future, but the costs seem to be very high and benefits are not being felt sufficiently to outweigh the effect of high unemployment and falling house prices.

Elsewhere Glenn Beck, a talk-radio and TV pundit on Fox news who is, um, fairly extravagant in his love for America and hatred of liberals has been campaigning to "get America back". He even has founded a University of his own (latin motto: "Revolution against tyrants, submission to God").

There is not the space to analyse the merits or otherwise of Glenn Beck's views here. However, his views are interesting to G&P students because he is beloved by the Tea Party strand of the Republican party; the core voters who are mad that Obama has got in and is passing laws to reform America. Some call him a communist and a socialist and a dictator and a fascist (I don't think he can be all four). There is a good article from Newsweek about Beck and his impact on the Tea Party and on liberals too here. A brief couple of quotes will help:

Tea partiers are driven by the belief that the America that elected Barack Obama isn't their America, and Beck comforts them by telling them they're right: that the America they love, the America they now feel so distant from, the America of faith and the Founders and some sort of idyllic Leave It to Beaver past, is still there, waiting to be awakened from Obama's evil spell.

For liberals, Beck serves a similar purpose. In an era of massive problems and extreme change—the Great Recession, the health-care overhaul, etc.—liberals can avoid the difficult question of whether Obama is leading America in the right direction by simply telling themselves that the only alternative would be someone like Glenn Beck: hyperbolic, demagogic, irrational, and slightly unhinged—"just like all conservatives." This is comforting. And by choosing to argue against Beck's patently absurd insinuations instead of, say, the legitimate policy proposals of someone like Rep. Paul Ryan... liberals can flatter themselves into believing they're smarter and better informed than anyone who happens to disagree with them.

However, he and Sarah Palin are making the weather in the Republican party and its likely success in November. The BBC's Mark Mardell, one of the resident OEs and US correspondent, thinks it likely Palin will run for the Republican nomination for the 2012 race.

I think its worth while taking a look at some of Beck's statements. On calling Obama a racist white-hater in an extract from a long interview by CBS' Katie Couric (the full interview is here):



The Washington Post describes Beck as trying to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights marchers for tax-hating conservatives:

Finally, Beck updated the meaning of the civil rights movement so that it is no longer about black people; it is about protecting anti-tax conservatives from liberals.

And from the man himself in a transcript of an interview on his own web-site he compared the US government increasing taxes to Nazis persecuting Jews in 1930s Germany:

Big business, big labor and big government. This is, this is fascism. This is what happens when you merge special interests, corporations and the government. And you know what, guys? If people like you don't take a stand and I'm not suggesting that you, you know, don't sign or do sign. That's up to you. You've got a lot riding on it. But at some point you know what poem keeps going through my mind is, you know, first they came for the Jews. People, all of us are like, well, this news doesn't really affect me; well, I'm not a bondholder; well, I'm not in banking industry; well, I'm not a big CEO; I'm not on Wall Street; I'm not a car dealer; I'm not an autoworker. Gang, at some point they are going to come for you.

Overall, while Beck may be a little extreme, there are a significant number of Republicans who accept some of his argument and this feeds into the Tea Part and into the Republican Party itself. It is likely that the core Republicans will turn out for the mid-terms and former Obama-supporting voters may stay away.

An interesting article here on Slate.com by Christopher Hitchens which analyses the Tea Party-Beck phenomenon:

...nobody with any feeling for the zeitgeist can avoid noticing the symptoms of white unease and the additionally uneasy forms that its expression is beginning to take.

There is a strand of thought that there is a crisis of confidence in the US which includes (according to Hitchens):

This summer, then, has been the perfect register of the new anxiety, beginning with the fracas over Arizona's immigration law, gaining in intensity with the proposal by some Republicans to amend the 14th Amendment so as to de-naturalize "anchor babies," cresting with the continuing row over the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque, and culminating, at least symbolically, with a quasi-educated Mormon broadcaster calling for a Christian religious revival from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

The Democracy in America blog has an article along similar lines here.

The Tea Party and Republicanism 2010

According to this piece on the political blog The Hill, the primary voting season has shown the power of Sarah Palin, the Tea-Party's first lady and former governor of Alaska, on the political scene. Specifically candidates who she has supported in the run-up to the November mid-terms have been successful, and notably more right-wing than the candidates they beat.

The ins-and-outs of this won't be especially useful for G&P students, except that it'll be interesting to note what happens in November, especially if Obama supporters stay away from the polls.

Of note for anyone contemplating the direction of the Republican party is the news that former political renegade and maverick John McCain kept his seat in Alaska because he supported positions more right-wing, especially on immigration, than he has previously.

Another interesting development is that because of the generally anti-politician feeling in the states, there are politicians attempting to be different. Marco Rubio, a Republican Senate seat nominee is doing this by avoiding the Tea Party and having an actual set of policies he would like to put into practice when in office. The comment by the Economist's Democracy in America blog is pretty scathing about his policies for which the numbers don't add up:

It's true that advancing policy proposals is more courageous than running on facile outrage: having an agenda courts the risk that people will take your agenda apart. Nonetheless, I don't find it convincing to praise Mr Rubio simply for having put forward an agenda. The problem remains that Mr Rubio suffers from a fundamental malady that afflicts the entire tea-party movement. Tea-partiers who believe that the federal government must dramatically cut its budget deficit remain resolutely unwilling to draw the inevitable conclusion: either taxes must go dramatically up, or major, popular federal programmes (defence, Social Security, Medicare) must be dramatically cut. One thing we should have learned from the 2000 elections, and the budgetary debacles that have followed, is that an unwillingness to make the numbers in your proposals add up is a character flaw of the first order.

The other way is being the non-politician's politician and telling anyone who'd listen that you will not doing negative campaigning (i.e. attacking the character and policies of your opponent). For an example of the genre, take a look at the ad by Colorado Democratic-governor candidate John Hickenlooper:



As a rejoinder to that, here is a piece by CBS news about negative campaigning from John McCain in the 2008 presidential race:



All of which is useful stuff for anyone contemplating the impact of pressure groups on parties (or even of factions within parties), elections, and the policies of the Republican party.

The limits of Presidential power; Gay marriage and the New York Mosque

Some interesting articles about the limits of presidential power, and why they should (or shouldn't depending on your point of view) get involved in complex domestic issues which polarise opinion.

There are two current news stories which relate to this; the first being Gay marriage and Proposition 8 which I have posted about before, and the second being the proposal to build a mosque in New York near the site of the September 11 attacks, Ground Zero.

Essentially there are two arguments about whether Presidents should get involved and show their support one way or the other. President Obama has repeatedly said that he was against gay marriage, but that the way to prevent it should be done through the states and not in an amendment to the constitution. This position has caused an outcry in certain circles, notably this piece on the CBS News web-site:

Obama argues that he is against gay marriage while also opposing efforts like Prop 8 that would ban it. He justifies this by saying that state constitutions should not be used to reduce rights. (His exact words: "I am not in favor of gay marriage, but when you’re playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that that is not what America is about.")

.

The Economist's Democracy in America blog, predictably, has a more cautious message; that for a president to come out and support an issue makes that issue instantly politicised and polarised:

But that, of course, is the point: presidents are expected to operate within existing political conditions, not engage in theoretical speculation. What would have been the actual political consequences of a decision by Barack Obama to come out in favour of gay marriage in the past year and a half? I don't think there can be any doubt that such a move would have re-politicised an issue that, remarkably, has become steadily less partisan in recent years.

The second issue which has become a political hot-potato recently is the outrage which has followed the announcement that a mosque was to be built in New York near Ground Zero. Strangely, for a multi-racial and multi-cultural society Americans and their politicians have overwhelmingly come out against the plan. This is, obviously, despite the fact that the attacks on Sept 11th were against thousands of people of all faiths, including Muslims.

President Obama at first seemed to come out in favour of the mosque-building plan, but then seemed to change tack and say that he was not discussing the wisdom of building it, but rather that the Islamic organisation in question had the right to do so. Arguably, this is another case where Obama is being cautious and is trying to avoid making the issue any more partisan than it is already.

I find it interesting, that according to this piece here, New York City has over 100 mosques already, for the 8.4 million inhabitants. According to this poll by the right-leaning Fox News, there is support for the right to build, but not the wisdom (commentary by politics web-site Five-Thirty-eight):

A group of Muslims plans to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center a few blocks from the site of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Do you think it is appropriate to build a mosque and Islamic center near ground zero, or do you think it would be wrong to do so?
Only 30 percent of respondents said "appropriate", while 64 percent said "wrong" -- consistent with the apparent unpopularity of the mosque in other polls.

But Fox also followed up with this question:
Regardless of whether you think it is appropriate to build a mosque near ground zero, do you think the Muslim group has the right to build a mosque there, or don’t they have that right?

Here, the numbers were nearly reversed: 61 percent of respondents, including 69 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans, said the developers had the right to build the mosque; 34 percent said they did not.

New York Times columnist Stephen Budiansky has a great graphic on his blog which summarises the absurdity of the furore in the run-up to the mid-terms very neatly:

Essentially both of the stories above are grounded in the rights of Americans to act as enshrined in the constitution, attempts to curtail those rights, and whether or not presidents should get involved in these key issues.

Interesting stuff for G&P students contemplating the limitations of presidential power.

Tea Party and God

An interesting post here by the BBC's Mark Mardell about the Tea Party Movement and religion; interesting analysis about the movement's relationship with the Christian right. Also, he highlights the problem that the Tea Party doesn't have a centre or much cohesiveness.

Useful stuff for G&P students contemplating the impact of pressure groups or popular movements on political parties.

Marriage and the 14th Amendment

In a previous post I wrote about the overturning of California's Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, by the US District Court. I thought it was interesting to note Schwarzenegger's position in this given that he is socially quite liberal; his name is on the case because he is California's Governor and while he opposes the ban he felt it was an important constitutional issue which needed to be decided in court.

The Democracy in America blog from the Economist has linked to a couple of video clips which show two of the lawyers involved in the overturning of the ban defending their position against the best that the Republican Party can throw at them: Essentially the right to marriage is a fundamental right under the constitution as decided in a number of previous Supreme Court judgements. The 14th Amendment which ensures equal treatment under the law includes the right of all Americans to get married to the person of their choice, irrespective of race or sexual orientation. Fundamental rights are ones which cannot be taken away by the states through laws or through public vote (as happened with Proposition 8):





Interestingly, the Republicans' argument in favour of a ban on gay marriage are shown in both clips to be very weak indeed. The second clip was initially found here.

Prime Ministerial power

An interesting story here about the decision-making process in government; Universities minister David "Two-brains" Willetts was on-air discussing budget cutting in the education sector and said that scrapping free milk for the under-5s was an option being considered. During the interview, Downing St contacted the BBC to say that David Cameron didn't like the idea and that it wasn't happening.

Various newspapers have their own take on the story, the Daily Mail here, the Independent here and the Mirror here. It is interesting for G&P students because it can be used in discussions about coalition policy, and also about Prime Ministerial power and the process of policy-making (before the PM moved in, it was a policy that had been discussed at length in government, and was worth £50m a year).

As pointed out here by Bagehot in the Economist, the PM disliked the milk policy because it was an echo of Margaret Thatcher's policy of ending school milk to the over 7s in 1971. There are issues about whether it is wise for the PM to have the power to arbitrarily decide on policy (further echoes, this time of Tony Blair's sofa government) rather than it being a cabinet decision, which can be discussed at length in any relevant essay.

Supreme court and gun control

In my mammoth posting yesterday I forgot to mention another key decision which will have a significant impact on US society; the decision of McDonald v Chicago (2010) which essentially has thrown out various pieces of gun-control legislation and underlined the 2nd Amendment which discusses a "well-armed militia". Ultimately the Supreme Court has said that Americans have the right to bear arms and to keep them. An earlier case, DC v Heller (2008) also supported the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms, but the most recent decision clarified some areas, specifically which parts of America the case referred to. Both decisions were voted on 5-4.

This CS Monitor article is useful, as is this post from Reason. The Economist reports on developments here too.

The right to bear arms is not without its limitations (i.e. not having a gun near a school for example), but the ability of states and the federal government to restrict gun-ownership has been curtailed. Various court cases will follow, and this will determine exactly how much power the states and local government has to limit gun ownership. Pressure Groups the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation will doubtless get involved.

For now, G&P students could make a clear argument that these two cases represent another move in a conservative direction in the history of the Supreme Court and its judgements (the only previous court case which referred to the Second Amendment occurred in 1939, with US v Miller). The legal arguments in the cases are probably not terribly useful in an essay, although Justice Alito did write the majority opinion in the McDonald case.

Another, possibly very charitable, interpretation is that the Second Amendment has always been seen as a guarantor in favour of gun ownership, and the Supreme Court was merely recognising that. The decision does not stop states from bringing in gun-control legislation in the future as this piece about Chicago's plans shows.

I'll finish by quoting the Economist piece above which explains the second interpretation well:

And yet campaigners for gun control have not been cast into utter gloom. They are consoled by the fact that in this week’s ruling Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, made a point of repeating something else the court said in Heller: the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose”. The court emphasised two years ago that it was not questioning longstanding regulations such as preventing felons and the mentally ill from owning guns, or keeping guns out of sensitive places such as schools or government buildings. “We repeat those assurances here,” wrote Mr Alito in the new opinion.

Labour leadership race and the coalition

An interesting piece here from Bagehot in the Economist, discussing the Labour leadership race (we're in for a Miliband), and the direction of the coalition and conservatism under David Cameron (he's not merely a Thatcherite, but something more interesting).

Congress, the opposite of progress

Interesting stuff here about procedures in the Senate from the New Yorker magazine (I found it from this post on the Economist's Democracy in America blog).

Essentially, the Senate is there to slow down the passage of legislation, and on the whole that is not necessarily a good thing:

The two lasting achievements of this Senate, financial regulation and health care, required a year and a half of legislative warfare that nearly destroyed the body. They depended on a set of circumstances—a large majority of Democrats, a charismatic President with an electoral mandate, and a national crisis—that will not last long or be repeated anytime soon. Two days after financial reform became law, Harry Reid announced that the Senate would not take up comprehensive energy-reform legislation for the rest of the year. And so climate change joined immigration, job creation, food safety, pilot training, veterans’ care, campaign finance, transportation security, labor law, mine safety, wildfire management, and scores of executive and judicial appointments on the list of matters that the world’s greatest deliberative body is incapable of addressing.

Arizona and race, California and sex

A quick post to round off my evening, to mention the anti-illegal immigration law that Arizona has passed which it highly contentious.

The Democracy in America blog discusses it here, and the BBC's Mark Mardell does here. Suffice to say, there are complex issues here, including race and racism, complicated by the mid-terms coming up in November when everyone in politics is desperate to get their supporters out.

California's Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, was overturned in the US District Court in Perry v Schwarzenegger. Interesting, because Proposition was a direct piece of legislation voted on by Californians rather than politicians and because the fight about marriage in law is likely to go all the way to the Supreme Court. It is also interesting because it is a highly polarising measure (Democrats against, Republicans for). It also illustrates neatly the legislative process in America and also the ballot proposition measure in California, in which the two sides in the debate raised almost $85 million between them. The Democracy in America blog discusses it here.

I'll leave the final word to Judge Walker who decided the case:

PROPOSITION 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples.

Republicans and the Tea Party 2

More about Republicans and the Tea Party movement from the Blog / independent news outfit "Mother Jones". Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis was a conservative "firebrand" in the 1990s, was given a 93% rating by the American Conservative Union and became more moderate since re-election in 2004. What is interesting for G&P students is the impact of the Tea Party on his race for re-election and what it means for the Republicans in general.

In short, Inglis lost in the primary election to a Tea-Party approved candidate. His crime was not being prepared to call President Obama a "socialist" and to support some of the more interesting ideas from the Tea Party, and even to propose working with the president:

When he returned to the House in 2005, Inglis, though still a conservative, was more focused on policy solutions than ideological battle. After Obama entered the White House, Inglis worked up a piece of campaign literature—in the form of a cardboard coaster that flipped open—that noted that Republicans should collaborate (not compromise) with Democrats to produce workable policies. "America's looking for solutions, not wedges," it read. He met with almost every member of the House Republican caucus to make his pitch: "What we needed to be is the adults who say absolutely we will work with [the new president]."

Instead, he remarks, his party turned toward demagoguery. Inglis lists the examples: falsely claiming Obama's health care overhaul included "death panels," raising questions about Obama's birthplace, calling the president a socialist, and maintaining that the Community Reinvestment Act was a major factor of the financial meltdown. "CRA," Inglis says, "has been around for decades. How could it suddenly create this problem? You see how that has other things worked into it?" Racism? "Yes," Inglis says.

What happens in the future?

Inglis is a casualty of the tea party-ization of the Republican Party. Given the decisive vote against him in June, it's clear he was wiped out by a political wave that he could do little to thwart. "Emotionally, I should be all right with this," he says. And when he thinks about what lies ahead for his party and GOP House leaders, he can't help but chuckle. With Boehner and others chasing after the tea party, he says, "that's going to be the dog that catches the car." He quickly adds: "And the Democrats, if they go into the minority, are going to have an enjoyable couple of years watching that dog deal with the car it's caught."

Useful stuff for anyone contemplating what the Republican party stands for, and possibly the impact of pressure groups on parties. Also, you can use it to discuss primary elections.

Supreme Court - conservative or liberal?

One of the possible questions which can be asked about the Supreme Court is whether the court is conservative or liberal. I'm not going to go into the theoretical part in too much depth here (afterall, that is what the lessons are for), except to say that any good answer needs to have a thorough understanding of the position of the court in relation to the other branches of the US government, to the Constitution, and to public opinion.

I've come across a great article in the NY Times about the conservatism of the Supreme Court which explains why the Roberts court is more conservative than its predecessors. Political scientists who study such things allocate a label of either "conservative" or "liberal" to the court decisions, and then add up how many of either there are iver the lifetime of the court. There are obvious problems with this methodology, which the article touches on, but nevertheless it is still useful stuff for any essay.

In short, the Roberts court has become more conservative than its predecessors, although not by very much. It has overturned fewer precedents (i.e. previous decisions by the SC), and struck down fewer laws passed by Congress. As I love a graph, look at these two:

The original graphs can be found here and the article here.

The switch was caused by the retirement of Justice O'Connor, who had been the "swing" justice in cased where there was a split 5-4. She was seen as a liberal and was more on the centre-left in her final years. She was replaced by Justice Alito who is one of the highly conservative justices (he is one of the six most conservative justices since 1937, three of the others are all currently on the bench).

The swing justice today is Kennedy, who is less liberal than O'Connor was. Overall the court has moved to the right. The Alito case is interesting (as the NYT shows); he was President GW Bush's second choice as the Republicans rebelled against a more moderate and less conservative Harriet Miers.

The article cites certain key cases, such as the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010) which overturned the earlier decision McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003). Essentially the earlier case upheld the constitutionality of restrictions on organisations to spend money and advertise during election campaigns (the McCain-Feingold Act).

The right to abortion enshrined in Roe v Wade (1973) was challenged by Steinberg v Carhart (2000) which wanted to ban Intact dilation and extraction (aka "partial-birth" abortions). The court overturned the law, but in 2007 it allowed the banning of partial-birth abortions through the case Gonzales v Carhart. Although the cases are different, arguably the court's conservative shift is clearly shown here.

The court had not gone as far as overturning Roe v Wade, but certain rights and procedures had been removed.

Another clear area in which the court changed its mind recalls aspects of Brown v Board of Education (1954), which banned race from being a factor in deciding education provision ("separate but equal"). Twice since 2000 the court has decided that race could be a factor when determining education provision, but only in the form of "affirmative action". In general terms this is a policy supported by liberals and Democrats (it was started by Democratic President Kennedy).

Grutter v Bollinger (2003) said that race could be a factor when determining admissions to the University of Mitchigan Law School, and this was upheld by the SC. In Parents v Seattle School District No. 1 (2007) (i.e. after O'Connor's departure) the court decided that race could not be a determining factor when deciding on admissions to high schools, reversing its own decision.

Abortion and race are probably the most obvious and most contentious areas of US political debate, so the cases described above care probably the ones which would be easiest to use (and remember) in an essay. Examiners would be very keen to hear about other areas of political debate too, and if explained fully this might help demonstrate "thorough" understanding and gain more marks.

A health warning must be issued; these cases are highly complex, so it is worth bearing in mind this:

“Supreme Court justices do not acknowledge that any of their decisions are influenced by ideology rather than by neutral legal analysis,” William M. Landes, an economist at the University of Chicago, and Richard A. Posner, a federal appeals court judge, wrote last year in The Journal of Legal Analysis.

Also - while the court is not required to listen to public opinion, largely the public have supported their decisions on race and abortion:

“Solid majorities want the court to uphold Roe v. Wade and are in favor of abortion rights in the abstract,” one of the studies concluded. “However, equally substantial majorities favor procedural and other restrictions, including waiting periods, parental consent, spousal notification and bans on ‘partial birth’ abortion.”

However:

The Roberts court has not yet decided a major religion case, but the public has not always approved of earlier rulings in this area. For instance, another study in the 2008 book found that “public opinion has remained solidly against the court’s landmark decisions declaring school prayer unconstitutional.”

Few! Lots here to mull over, including the fact that overall Supreme Court justices reflect the political persuasion of the President in office when they first joined; Stevens and Souter being the Republican-appointed-and-liberal-voting exceptions. Trouble is, they've gone. The confirmation of Elena Kagan while interesting because she is only the fourth female SC justice in history, doesn't change the court's political direction.

First entry to Downing St

Just because one can, here are videos of recent PMs entering Downing St for the first time. First up, Mrs Thatcher from 1979:



A clip about Tony Blair's entry into Downing St in 1997 (sadly, I haven't yet found a clip of Blair's triumphalist entry into Downing St with a large flag-waving crowd):



David Cameron enters Downing St on 11th May 2010:



And, just because it shows the relationship between Nick Clegg and David Cameron, this short clip from the PM and the DPM's first joint news conference together:

Coalition policies - progressive or conservative in disguise?

The new Lib-Con coalition government has produced some thought-provoking new policies. Overall, they seem progressive and more liberal in a classical sense than conservative, and are going ahead with these policies at a time of major government spending cuts. Labour claims that the cuts are the "same old Tory" cuts which are what they would have done anyway because that is what Tories have always done.

The key problems for Labour are:

1. They are in the middle of a leadership election, in which the candidates are trying to appeal to Labour party members who, um, support Labour and like having increased government spending which is geared towards helping the poor.
2. They have just been kicked out of office after having caused a big structural defict of around 8% of GDP in 2009 (i.e. excluding the effects of the recession, government spending massively outstrips government income in the shape of taxes). This should be put in the context of the overall £90bn deficit reported in 2009.
3. It's more or less what they would have done if they had been in power. Further analysis of the parties' budget plans can be found in this presentation from the IFS from April 2010. Page 29 shows the overall cut in spending and increase in taxes planned per year being £15.8bn by Labour, £10.1bn by the Conservatives, and £19.7bn by the Lib Dems.

Further analysis of the budget deficit can be found elsewhere, including this 2008 PDF from the Institute For Fiscal Studies. The graph below (from the BBC) says it all I think:

It'll be interesting to see how the leadership election turns out and what the effect will be on Labour policy, especially given that it is very likely the coalition will not survive its full five year term, and Labour will have to have a credible set of policies in preparation for a quick return to government. It is, of course, possible the coalition will survive the 5-year term.

Some coalition policies of note are: a referendum on the AV-voting system, instead of FPTP next May (seen by Nick Robinson as a date which may make or break the coalition), Justice Secretary Ken Clarke on reform of prisons and sending fewer people to prison (aka "prisons don't work"), Education Secretary Michael Gove setting up new types of school independent of central control ("Free Schools", and a reform of the NHS which gives GPs more power, and a fixed-term parliament.

I'll explore some of these policies further in the future as they develop. All useful stuff for any essay about political parties and their policies, although there is plenty of time between now and the exam in May/June 2011, so much may change.

A final note about former new Labour spin doctor Peter Mandelson. What I've read of his book, serialised in the Times this week, has been interesting but it has not exactly said anything we didn't know already; that new Labour and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown really didn't trust eachother, and spent time arguing about power when they should have spent all their energy running the country. It is an interesting contrast to the coalition government and the trust which civil service chief Sir Gus O'Donnell said was key in cementing the agreement between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives, and between Nick Clegg and David Cameron in particular.

Just watch the coalition's first joint news conference:

Obama, the mid-terms and the 2012 Republican race

I've just come across a couple of articles on the web-site of centrist (liberal) US magazine the New Republic, which help to expand on a couple of things on my previous post about Obama and the mid-terms.

Here is one discussing Republican former Presidential candidate, and candidate for the 2012 race. Specifically it focuses on his somewhat bizarre take on the non-controversial nuclear-weapons-reducing treaty New START. Essentially, according to the article, the Republicans are becoming increasingly "hawkish" about anything which smacks of reducing spending on defense. They also hate President Obama and everything he stands for, so won't give him any sort of political victory even if it's in US and World interests. Obama's policy of reducing nuclear weapons in the US and Russia seems like a good strategy and helps to encourage co-operation on thorny issues like Iran's dash for the nuke (to borrow a UK phrase: "tough on nuclear holocausts, tough on the causes on nuclear holocausts"). Mitt Romney wants to stick it to those pesky Ruskies because that plays well with the Republican base in these uncertain Tea-Party influenced times.

This article here reflects on the problem Obama has with getting anyone to listen to his message about jobs and the recovery, which has an impact on the Democratic result in the mid-terms.

This one delves into some of the races which are a source of worry for Democrats in the mid-terms. One to watch is the battle for Nevada with Senate Majority Leader (Democrat) Harry Reid, which he looks likely to lose, and this in turn could be devastating for the Democrats and Obama.

All of which should be useful examples if one is thinking about policy in the Republican party, the power of the Presidency, and elections in general.

US tax & the Tea Party

Interesting stuff about America's attitude to its own exceptionalism and greatness here in The Economist's Lexington column. Interesting stuff, especially about the role of government and spending which has a connection to the problems faced by President Obama.

The Onion has a funnier and clearer take on all of this here in an article titled "Nation demands tax dollars only be wasted on stuff which is awesome".

Another Lexington blog has an interesting take on US politics and it's style here (summary: the different sides really DO hate eachother). Yet another Lexington column makes a good point about the Tea Party (vilified by its enemies as a bunch of racists):

Though I don't share their politics, tea-partiers are mostly decent folk legitimately alarmed by what is happening to the economy and therefore to their own lives. Here in Arizona that includes a sudden collapse in the value of their homes in a state that has gone through a grotesque property-fuelled boom and bust.

Again, we'll see what happens to the Republicans and Democrats and the Tea-Partyers at the mid-terms. If it's any guide, former liberal Republican John McCain has tacked hard to the right to save his seat from a Republican opponent in his Arizona primary, as discussed here and here

Obama's popularity, Immigration and the Supreme Court

Surprising for casual observers of US politics is the news that President Obama's approval has fallen to a very low level, which is surely worrying for his administration as they come closer to the mid-terms in November (rating graph courtesy of Gallop):

It is in stark contrast to Obama's success at getting health-care reform bills through Congress earlier in the year, and his success at passing reform of the US banking system.

I think another graph from Gallop is instructive here:

While support from Republicans has remained low, his support among independents has fallen, as has his support among Democrat supporters. Information from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in June unemployment was 9.5% at 14.6m. Further discussion of the US economic situation cane be found here and here. A graph which summarises the key problem is here:

Ultimately Obama is paying the price for a sluggish recovery in the US after a very nasty recession despite all the money which has been spent by his government and others in preventing a depression. Useful stuff for anyone contemplating Presidential power and its limits; people are worried about the price which future generations will have to pay for health-care refom, banking reform and the credit crunch.

Immigration reform is on the agenda; good stuff here from the Economist's Lexington column. Essentially while there should be reform along the lines President Obama proposed in a recent speech, he is playing to the gallery hoping to pick up support in time for the mid-terms.

And on another note, while Supreme Court justice nominee Elena Kagan is being probed by Congress, this piece in the Guardian discusses the hearings process. Very useful for anyone contemplating the Supreme Court and it's hearings process in an essay. To quote the final paragraph of the article:

... Kagan's criticism of the process will yet remain. It was vapid, pointless and did little to illuminate anything about the nominee, while doing a lot to illuminate the already well-known political biases of the Senators doing the questioning.

While I am thinking about it...

Various things I want to write about, but don't have time right now:

Progressive coalition? Various policies which are of interest are the "Free Schools" initiative, the new FSA, the higher income tax threshold, the movement on the 28-day detention, school building cuts, NHS structural reform, prison reform, and university fees reform. These could be seen (and are portrayed by Labour) as typical Tory cuts dressed up. There is also the referendum on voting reform next May which could prove explosive for the coalition.

New labour is dead - various revelations from the new Labour camp about the failure of the Blair government to achieve in the face of opposition from within. Of interest to wonks, and those considering new-old labour questions (increased spending, some limited reform of public services, civil partnerships, minumum wage).


Phew! I'll try and flesh these out asap.

Tea Party and Social Conservatives

The Democracy in America blog highlights some controversy about social conservatism in the US, with particular reference to libertarian Ron Paul, and to the Tea Party movement.

Essentially like all political groups there are differences of opinion, and abortion in the US is a key area of controvery. Social conservatives are not simply identifiable by their support for pro-life policies, but acceptance of this idea is an important test of whether they will get the following they need. "[While] I wouldn't use the terms interchangeably, I think a staunch pro-life stance makes a candidate eligible for the social conservative vote."

The tea-party movement is pretty fractious, and many of them are pro-life and all the rest of it, but the core principles of the movement are: fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets. Not exactly the Moral Majority.

Further information about the Tea Party movement can be found here at their web-site.

George Osbourne's emergency budget

I'm a bit wary about posting too much about the emergency budget, especially given that for G&P students taking AS, the autumn spending review will have happened by the time the exam season rolls around in 2011. I think the graph below (from the BBC) summarises the problem for the Government quite nicely, in that it shows the scale of the spending-cut and tax rises needed in the coming parliamentary session to reduce the budget deficit:

In short, as indicated here in a BBC article, the cuts announced by the coalition government are huge, but aim to balance the government books by 2016 (i.e. after the next projected election). There is much uncertainty, especially given that the coalition will face extraordinary pressure, and there is the possibility the government won't survive the next 5 years intact. More thorough business analysis here from Robert Peston and an economic view here from Stephanie Flanders, and here from the Economist magazine. The Think-Tank the Institute for Fiscal studies has a page here of useful links.

The interesting stuff for G&P students is contained here in an article by Bagehot in the Economist: that this budget challenges the dominant political orthodoxy of the past 12 years, that government spending has to increase:

Mr Osborne’s statement shattered and reversed the orthodoxy, which took hold in the last decade, that public spending must grow eternally. It has revised the relationship between the state and its employees, and signalled a reconfiguring of welfare support, which is set to be more generous to some of the very poor and stingier for many others. It was the start of a bid to create a new balance in the British economy: between the public and private sectors, and among industries and regions. This was the most painful budget in living memory, and one of the riskiest.

In short, the government deficit has encouraged the Coalition to think radically about certain areas of public policy, like removing income-tax for the less well-off, and public pension reform which previous governments have been wary of tackling. Nick Robinson highlights some of the impact the Lib Dems on the budget here. Don't forget, that Lib Dem Danny Alexander is the Chancellor's right-hand man as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Labour has not yet found a way of attacking the government policy except to decry it as a return to Thatcherist cutting of public spending; Polly Toynbee in the Guardian puts it this way:

There was nothing "unavoidable" about adding £40bn to Labour's already eye-watering pledge to halve the deficit in four years. There was no necessity to create a surplus in six years, returning to depression economics with mortal risk of sinking the country into second recession or slump. This was the budget to fulfil old Tory yearnings: it promises to shrink the state below 40%, which Mrs Thatcher never achieved.

There are, and will continue to be, complex arguments about the economics of all this which are not within the scope of this blog. We'll all see soon enough what the effects of these policies are; growth, or a disastrous double-dip recession.

Progressive Conservatism

Interesting political movements afoot in the coalition goverment with Ken Clarke, former Home Secretary and Chancellor in the previous Conservative administration of the 1990s, coming up with a policy on prisons which sounds more like a LIb Dem policy and is likely to give grassroot blue-rinse Conservative supporters the vapours (as indicated here in a Daily Mail article).

In sum, the credit and fiscal crunch has led government to look for cutbacks in most government depts of 25%, more of which will become evident in the spending review due to happen in the autumn. Clarke's argument is that increasing the cost of prisons by banging up people for longer is more expensive in the long-run than rehabilitating those prisoners who can be persuaded not to offend again.

It is a startling contrast to a previous Conservative policy promoted by former Conservativve leader Michael Howard in the 2005 election and in the 1990s: "Prison works"

The new Labour policy in this area was to lock-up increasing numbers of prisoners until serious overcrowding occurred and then prisoners had to be released early, as described here in this BBC article from 2009. Former Labour Justice Secretary Jack Straw even defends his record in this piece in the Daily Mail in reaction to Clarke's new policy.

Useful stuff for G&P students contemplating the policy differences of new Labour with old, Conservative Thatcherism vs Cameronism and the impact of Lib Dems on the coalition government policy.

I haven't taken a look at George Osbourne's emergency budget yet; I'll do a separate post about it.

Gerrymandering and elections

While I am in the mode, this has just cropped up - I've mentioned primary elections already, and the tendency for parties to get out their base, and for successful candidates to have to pander to the most blue-or-red-blooded members of their party to get nomination. This is especially noticeable with Republicans and the Tea Party movement.

Lost of graphs to gawp at in this article, but the main point is that the primaries are the real contest in the vast majority of safe seats in both the House and the Senate; the actual public "general" election merely rubber-stamps the choice by the party in the safe seat.

Without the party primaries, rational choice among voters, even in gerrymandered districts, would produce more centrist winners. But in the vast majority of utterly safe districts, only one party's primary winner matters in the general. The primary is thus the real election, and a contest only to see who can turn out more of their red- or blue-faced partisan faithful.

The Senate produces figures who are not only closer to the centre but who have the security of a six-year term. Thus many of us can name senators known for crossing party lines, and thus name bills with sponsors from both sides of the aisle: McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, Kerry-Graham-Lieberman... Few of us can name comparable independent House members or truly bipartisan bills. Strict party-line votes have always been rarer in the Senate than in the House.

The re-election rates, especially in the House, are extraordinary and make politicians risk-averse. Useful for G&P students contemplating any question asking about the effectiveness of Congress

Sarah Palin on the oil leak

As is Obama doesn't have enough problems Sarah Palin, the Tea Party Movement's favourite, is attacking him for not trying hard enough to stop the leak.

Good analysis from Andrew Sullivan here. It's from Fox news and generally they give her an easy ride. She looks all at sea, especially at around 3:00:



Not as funny though as this classic from 2008:

Obama and climate change legislation

President Obama has just spoken to the nation in his first address from the Oval office on the perils of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and has, according to this article in the Washington Independentdisappointed many (including one of the writers of the "Democracy in America" blog in their the live-streamed comments about the speech) by not calling for the passing of radical legislation to tackle climate change and polluting big-business in one fell swoop.

One can see the attraction of claiming the moral high ground in this area, but there is a significant problem as noted in this interesting article by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post - Presidents' involvement in policy polarises opinion (there's even a graph!):

To test this, Lee looked at "nonideological" issues -- that is to say, issues where the two sides didn't have clear positions. In the Senate, only 39 percent of those issues ended in party-line votes. But if the president took a position on the issue, that jumped to 56 percent. In other words, if the president proposed the "More Puppies Act," the minority is likely to suddenly discover it holds fervently pro-cat beliefs.

In other words for a climate bill to be passed by the Senate (the House passed one in June of last year) it has to have Republican support to get over the 60-seat filibuster-proof majority. That support from a few Republicans would be unlikely to happen if Obama decides to actively call for a bill to be passed. The Tea Party movement would probably consider any Senator a RINO.

Republicans and the Tea Party

As noted in a previous post, the Tea Party movement is having an effect on Republican nominees and their policies; they are lurching to the right. Specifically Meg Whitman the billionaire former boss of eBay has become the GOP nominee for the governor's race in California, and the multi-millionaire former boss of HP Carly Fiorina has become the GOP nominee for the California Senate seat.

In addition, the Nevada Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, is the Tea Party movement's favourite, and defeated the moderate candidate to be the challenger for the seat belonging to Harry Reid, the incumbent Democrat and Senate majority leader. As noted in this article here (one which also briefly covers a successful Democrat in Arkansas) the Sharron Angle is the Obama team's favoured Republican candidate too as it will make Harry Reid's chance of keeping his seat higher:

Ms Angle’s controversial policies include privatising Social Security (pensions) and closing the federal departments of energy and education, among others.

.

The key problem, as noted here in the "Democracy in America" blog is that they have moved to the right to avoid being outflanked by other candidates in the race and to get the support from the Tea Party movement types of the Republican party. California is generally a "Blue" state, and is more liberal than most places in the US. It'll be interesting to see how they fare in this year's mid-terms, and particularly whether they can move back to the middle to get the independent voters and at the same time avoid being called a "Republican in Name Only" or RINO.

In other US-related news, Congress is likely yet again not to be able to pass a bill to take action on climate change. Scathing stuff from another post from Democracy in America, especially since over two-thirds of US citizens support action (although they don't want to increase taxes, just spending). In other analysis here, Senator Graham who originally helped write the bill he is now objecting to is now saying that there is not enough provision for further off-shore drilling (of the kind which is spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico).

More significantly for G&P students is the analysis of the Grist article linked to above which says that the Republican party has moved away from anything which smacks of limiting big-business (actually they say it much less kindly than that). In their analysis and in the this article here Senator Graham has been trying to find a way out of supporting the bill, and has finally found it.

Whether the Republican party and the actions of politicians will continue to be driven by the Tea Party movement away from anything resembling the centre ground will be interesting to see, especially in the impact on the mid-terms in November.

It is also a useful illustration of how Congress does (or doesn't) work as a key part of the legislative process. A bi-partisan approach to some of the key issues in American politics today (health-care reform, climate change) is just not possible it would seem.

UK - Labour and Conservative healthcare contrast

The new government has been unveiling some of its policies, but largely remained coy about revealing information about spending plans, as Nick Robinson says here. An interesting revelation about health-care policy from Andrew Lansley the new Health Secretary of State in a recent speech; essentially the new government will be scrapping some of the new Labour targets (specifically the 4-hour waiting-time target at A&E, which is supposed to have some severe negative impacts).

Useful for anyone contemplating some of the key differences between new Labour and the Lib-Con government.

When there is something more concrete about the measures to cut the deficit, I'll post, but suffice to say this piece by Robert Peston about the international lessons for the UK, and this one by Stephanie Flanders about how bad news on the economy has played into the government's hands have much for us to ponder upon. Whether any party has done enough in the run up to the election to spell out how severe the cuts will have to be, is anybody's guess. Does the coalition government have enough of a mandate to pursue its policy in this area? We'll see. Check out my previous post about the deficit-mandate-manifesto issue and George Osborne here.

In addition to the above, the Labour Party leadership battle rumbles on. I'm not convinced that there has been enough debate to enable the Labour party to move on after the Blair-Brown years, or that enough profound lessons have been learned. Is the next leader of the Labour party the next William Hague or Michael Foot? Let's watch out for those debates.

Obama, banks and Republicans

Fascinating stuff related to President Obama's reform of the banking system; a long but very worthwhile article by New York Magazine about the relationship between Obama, the banks and the Republican party. Paul Krugman in the New York Times has a very much shorter article about the same subject here. The Democracy in America column in the Economist covers both articles here.

In essence, the Obama administration prevented the collapse of the global banking system in 2008-9 by bailing them out to the tune of billions of dollars through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The administration resisted calls for radical change from the left, and have proposed changes which are significant, in that it is designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 experience, but not revolutionary. This has annoyed large numbers of the American people who are bitter because of massive unemployment and a weak recovery, and has also annoyed the banks who wanted to return to business as usual.

After supporting candidate Obama in the 2008 election to the tune of millions of dollars, they have turned to support the Republicans again, to the tune of millions. To quote Krugman:

So far this year, according to The Washington Post, 63 percent of spending by banks’ corporate PACs has gone to Republicans, up from 53 percent last year. Securities and investment firms, traditionally Democratic-leaning, are now giving more money to Republicans. And oil and gas companies, always Republican-leaning, have gone all out, bestowing 76 percent of their largess on the G.O.P.

These are extraordinary numbers given the normal tendency of corporate money to flow to the party in power. Corporate America, however, really, truly hates the current administration.

This is a problem for the GOP because Obama's reforms will be supported by a large number of Americans because the new law will be seen as punishing the banks for their past misdemeanours. The Republicans have a problem because they are traditionally in favour of big business not being stymied by too much government oversight, and are being tarred as being in the pockets of the big banks.

This is why the party discipline that was so much in evidence on the right over Obamacare, and which narrowly came to bring the administration's momentum to a halt at the end of last year, has wilted under the pressure. Populist movements are "anti-socialist" medicine and anti-bank. The GOP has a problem as the November mid-terms, and the 2012-race approach.

I'll quote the last paragraph of the NY magazine article:

...Wall Street, too, is engaged in some seriously perilous (and mildly deranged) thinking, which reflects not just its political naïveté but its all-distorting insularity from … reality. The populism now stirring in America is bipartisan, ecumenical. No politician of any stripe can afford to ignore it. The Republicans running in 2012 will be contending with or catering to it, too; they’re unlikely to offer Wall Street any safer harbor than Obama has. Yet the best barricade against the pitchfork platoons is an improving economy. And if it comes, not only will Obama stand a good chance of reelection, Wall Street’s amnesia may well kick in—just in time to fall in love all over again.

In Krugman's analysis there is also a problem for the Democrats in November too; populist sentiment against them thanks to health-care reform, balanced against the left's annoyance that a revolutionary change in Wall Street hasn't happened. In his analysis Obama has to occupy the middle ground between Wall Street and populist reformers. Fascinating stuff as the mid-term elections approach.

Useful background for anyone contemplating decline or renewal of parties (both are being buffeted by the populist left and right, which are in fact the "base" of both parties, and this has an effect on the policies of both), party discipline in health-care reform and bank reform votes, and in Presidential power.

Obama and healthcare reform - opinions

There were extraordinary scenes when Obama finally succeeded in getting his health-care reform bill through Congress on 21st March this year, and subsequently signed it into law; a major plank of his domestic agenda had successfully been implemented. The vote itself was interesting; as previously noted, the final vote in the House was 219 to 212 – Republicans voting against along party lines, with 34 Democrats voting against too. In the Senate the previous Christmas Eve the vote went 60-39, with Democrats and Independents voting for and Republicans voting against.

All of which demonstrates very clearly how party discipline is a funny thing – on this issue it is strong for the Republicans, but weak for the Democrats in the House. Possibly, it also shows how divided Americans as a whole are about health-care. This is the major issue which is exciting the Tea Party movement. It may just reflect how worried some Democrats in the House are about their chances in the mid-terms in November.

Useful stuff for any question about Congress, party discipline, Presidential power and the like.

In terms of the points of view, two opinions are striking – that of the Democrats who argue that it is only a thorough reform of the health-care system by government that the poor and uninsured will be covered. For Republicans, health-care reform is too expensive and smacks of socialist government (although the latter is possibly a rather extreme casting of the policy).
A useful summary of the two view points here in the Guardian, which characterises the vote as a “monumental achievement”:

… at its heart the story is about the tension in American society between the individual and the community – whether we are just a loose confederation of individuals who should be left alone to pursue self interest, or something more than that, a community of citizens with mutual ties and obligations.

More about the opinions of the two main parties soon.

Synopticity

A brief note about synopticity – a major focus of A2 Gov and Pol under Edexcel. It is a significant part of the marks for the essay (12 out of 45 for Assessment Objective 2). Ultimately they want to probe the candidate’s understanding of viewpoints or perspectives on the question, and at the highest level clearly appreciating the

“nature of the view points and how they shape political analysis and result in competing arguments and rival conclusions”

Edit 13/03/2015:

Essentially the examiner is looking for a good argument. For marks at the top of level 3 (for the synoptic part of Assessment Objective 2) ideally you argue both sides of an issue, to show the pros and the cons of a particular theme. For example, if you are writing an essay on the effectiveness of the US Supreme Court you need to explore the pros and the cons of judicial review. You are not actually trying to explain the Conservative / Republican / Democratic / Liberal view point on an issue.

Obama and Bank reform

So, Obama has managed to get through his reform of the Banking industry through the Senate, and this bill will go through the reconciliation service following on from a similar, but different, bill passed by the House in December. Ultimately, he has managed a remarkable thing; getting some very radical changes to fundamental parts of American life through Congress in the first few years of his presidency.

Great analysis of the core parts of the bill from Robert Peston here. Interestingly, the Senate vote largely went along party lines, except for 3 Republicans who jumped ship (the vote was 59 to 39). It was close – a vote to decide to end debate and vote on the bill only passed by 60-40. There will be plenty of haggling yet to come, but the most useful part for G&P students will be the points-of-view from the two main sides in the debate – Republicans, largely on the side of the Banks, and the Democrats who claim largely to be on the side of the American public (“main street, not wall street”).

Of course, there is the argument that what benefits the banks, and what give them the ability to make money and grow will benefit the American public in the long-run. Set against that is the problem that these banks have been bailed out to the tune of billions of not trillions of dollars thanks to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which was made necessary by the credit crunch.

Banks have been doing their best to prevent the bill from coming in to being effectively (according to this piece in the left-leaning Observer), and Republicans have been saying that Obama’s plan will severely hit bank’s ability to make money in creative ways because government oversight will limit it. This piece by the Wall Street Journal suggests that it’s all a piece of political theatre by the Democrats to shore up their vote in November’s mid-terms, and not really valuable as an exercise in banking reform. Although, arguably, it’s just another strand in the stop-the-bill movement. The extraordinary right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh claims here that it will drive business out of the country, and also gives regulatory power to the executive from the legislature.

Essentially, big business = good, big government = bad.

By contrast, Democrat Senator for Montana writes in the left-leaning Huffington Post that the Bill is a win for “main street” against the banks too big to fail. He trumpets the benefits of the Bill, and also reveals that he was against the bailouts of the banks (“because I don’t believe in bailouts”) despite the fact that this action possibly saved the global banking system from collapse.

In short, big government = good, big business=bad.

Elsewhere, the NY Times writes that some on Wall Street are phlegmatic about the whole thing, happy that the reform won’t be too punitive and can be softened, while accepting that some reform was inevitable.
All of which is useful for G&P students when answering a question on the opinions of the two different parties, on Congress and the passage of law, and on the power of the Presidency.