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.")

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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.

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.