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Labeling Waves In The Tide
At least someone is trying to do it:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has pledged to bring new campaign finance legislation to the Senate floor before July 4, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday.
He added: “We have designed this proposal so it can take effect by 2010, in every way.”
Schumer’s comments, offered on the steps of the Supreme Court, underscore his opposition to its Citizens United decision earlier this year, which lifted restrictions on corporate and union spending on political advertising. The Disclose Act is a response to that 5-4 ruling and is aimed at forcing businesses, labor unions and other groups to provide information about any money they spend on political ads. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had vowed to fight the legislation even before it was introduced.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The Radical At 1 First Street
Jeffrey Rosen on the uncompromising, radical–and falsely sold–Chief Justiceship of John Roberts:
Since [the end of his first term on the Court, in 2006], Roberts has presided over some narrow, unanimous (or nearly unanimous) rulings and some bitterly divisive ones. And so, it’s been hard to tell how seriously he is taking his pledge to lead the Court toward less polarizing decisions. Then came Citizens United, by far the clearest test of Roberts’s vision. There were any number of ways he could have persuaded his colleagues to rule narrowly; but Roberts rejected these options. He deputized Anthony Kennedy to write one of his characteristically grandiose decisions, challenging the president and Congress at a moment of financial crisis when the influence of money in politics–Louis Brandeis called it “our financial oligarchy”–is the most pressing question of the day. The result was a ruling so inflammatory that the
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Popularity: 2% [?]
An UnReasonable Conclusion
Until today I hadn’t read anything at Reason’s Hit & Run blog, my favorite outlet for snarky libertarianism, on the Supreme Court’s atrocious decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections. But I’d assumed that its editors would have been ambivalent about the decision, their eagerness to slash regulation clashing with their concern for an individual liberty, which was inarguably harmed by the ruling, at least politically.
I was mistaken:
One problem, though–they didn’t address the exceptional blow to a real person’s liberty that this ruling handed down, instead offering to the debate , which is a real intellectual and moral battle over what a legal person is (and hence welcomes original thinking), …
Popularity: 1% [?]
This Week in the Senate
Senate Committee Signs Off on Sotomayor. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The vote was 13-6 and is a strong leading indicator of Sotomayor’s impending confirmation by the U.S. Senate. All 6 votes against Sotomayor were cast by Republicans. Still, it is improbable that her confirmation will bring about drastic change: the L.A. Times reported, “If confirmed, Sotomayor is unlikely to change the ideological balance of the high court, since she will replace moderately liberal Justice David H. Souter.”
Cash for Clunkers? The government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program has sparked partisan debate between Republicans who feel the program is too expensive, and Democrats who feel that it is necessary. Currently, this program accepts older, less fuel-efficient cars and provides the owner with a $3500 or $4500 credit towards a more fuel-efficient car. The program has already used the majority of the allotted $1 …
Popularity: 1% [?]
The Grand Old Politics of Exclusion
Amid a furious bid for relevance, mainstream GOPers have cast away notions of racial inclusion and temporarily abandoned the dream of “big tent Republicanism” — a long-held ideal that, under today’s conditions, seems like little more than a moderates’ fantasy.
Zeroing in on controversies regarding “reverse racism” and affirmative action over strictly judicial matters, Republican pundits and Congressmen have unwittingly streamlined rhetoric that will not just exclude non-white constituencies but renew suspicions that minorities of all types are an unwelcome influence in their vision for a “traditionalist America.”
This is it — a self-imposed Republican Waterloo that stems from the party’s conscious efforts to retain its oldest, bigoted constituencies and stonewall the POTUS’ nomination of Latina Sonia Sotomayor. These principled stands — driven more by hyperbole than strategy — are little more than a collection of failed, self-destructive efforts to dignify “the Republican …
Popularity: 1% [?]
