The guiding principles of Jane Norton's political philosophy, or How to Talk to Strict Constructionsists

Pols points us to an interview with Colorado Republican candidate for United States Senate Jane Norton by conservative blogger Ross Kaminsky. There is a fascinating passage from the Kaminsky piece that I believe deserves greater attention and follow-up from Ms. Norton. Here's the passage in question,

[S]he noted that the word "education" is nowhere in the Constitution and that she has proposed eliminating the federal Department of Education. I wholly support that proposal, not just because the Dept. of Education is unconstitutional, but also because it is arguably one of the least effective parts of government on a per-dollar basis.

This is wonderful. I really appreciate Ross bringing us this interview as it sheds a lot of light on the logic upon which we may now assume will guide Ms. Norton should she be elected.

Here are some issues that I would appreciate Ms. Norton to expound upon, given her now stated belief that when an issue or subject is not explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution that the Federal government has no legitimate jurisdiction.

Does Ms. Norton oppose a Federally recognized right to privacy for American citizens?

The word "God" appears nowhere in the Constitution. May we presume that Ms. Norton opposes any role for God, Christianity, or The Ten Commandments in the Federal Government? Specifically, does she support removing "In God We Trust" from our currency? Does Ms. Norton oppose the tradition of Congressional Invocations?

As Justice Scalia the majority opinion noted in Bush v. Gore, there is no explicit right to vote in the Constitution. What is Ms. Norton's position on the right of citizens to vote for candidates for Federal office?

Immigration is not mentioned in the Constitution. Does Ms. Norton believe that the Federal government has no proper role in immigration policy?

The concept of judicial review is not found within the Constitution. Does Ms. Norton oppose the concept of Judicial Review? If she does, what does she believe is the correct role for Federal Courts, including The Supreme Court? What specific rulings by The Supreme Court should be discarded?

Marriage is not discussed in the Constitution, should the Defense of Marriage Act be repealed and The Supreme Court be barred from ruling on issues of marriage?

Paper money is not referenced in the Constitution, only coins. Should the Treasury be prohibited from issuing paper money?

Transportation and travel are not discussed. Should we eliminate the Department of Transportation? Federal highway funds? May states bar their citizens from interstate travel? May Congress?

Does Ms. Norton oppose the existence of the United States Air Force? How about the United States Marine Corps? Neither are mentioned in the Constitution.

Ms. Norton is running for the United States Senate from the great state of Colorado. The territory that we now refer to as Colorado was largely acquired from the French via the Louisiana Purchase by President Jefferson in 1803. The Constitution does not grant the President the right to purchase lands or otherwise expand the territories of the United States. Does Ms. Norton believe that the Louisiana Purchase was un-Constitutional? Should the territory now consisting of everything east of the continental divide be returned to France? Will Ms. Norton accept the votes of those Coloradans who live east of the Colorado divide or does she hold the text of the Constitution supreme?

I anxiously await Ms. Norton's responses to these pressing issues. If she truly believes that the powers of The Federal government are bound by the explicit terms and conditions of the United States Constitution then the answers to these questions should come rather easily to her.

At least he's accessible and open to debate, discussion and criticism

After my post about Congressman Polis and healthcare reform yesterday I engaged the Congressman in further discussion over in the comments section at Pols. I stand by my assesment's of the Congressman and my criticism of his actions in this case and in other cases.

Reflecting on the exchange though it occured to me how very exciting it is that Polis engages with the public (I'm not in his District) on this level. His wading into the comments section on a political blog no doubt gives Polis' staff heartburn but he's been a regular commenter and poster his entire time in office. He should be commended for his accessibility and his fairly thick skin as he takes incoming from the rabble.

Shelby's hold

I had a quick post up at TFT last night imploring Democrats to seize the opportunity that Senator Shelby has handed them. They should make a public spectacle out of his unprecedented hold and move quickly to reform the Senate's fillibuster rule.

Ezra Klein has a good post with background on holds and the fillibuster process, he also largely comes to the same conclusion as I have.

Celebrity doppelganger

I tried one of those celebrity doppelganger face recognition programs - they matched me up to Rutherford B. Hayes.

What Sully said...

Andrew Sullivan has a lengthy post up exploring the way he has pressed on Sarah Palin and remained largely silent on John Edwards. Sullivan's rather public displays of introspection are a real strength of his. He states,

My mistake as a journalist was in making an assumption of a baseline of decency in public officials that it is not my job to make. My job is to assume nothing and to trust nothing until verified.

This is a good rule of thumb whether you're a journalist or simply a citizen. I am finding that too often I and many of my peers are assuming far too much about our politicians. Beyond just basic human decency I think we are assuming a passion and commitment to our issues that rarely is shared by the political class. That's not so much a value judgment on the pols as it is a reminder to us to remember that causes and issues go on, they are bigger than any politician.

Sullivan concludes his post with this comment about Edwards and I think that it nicely sums up my feelings as well,

We assumed that he wasn't one of the biggest assholes on the planet.

funky formatting

Sorry for the funky formatting when I blockquote. I've been using IE (don't ask) for a while and, as you all know, it sucks - hard.

What in the hell is Jared Polis doing?

Via Pols, a report from the Colorado Independent on Jared Polis and healthcare reform,

Colorado Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis's bold move to pass health reform
legislation that would include a public health insurance option has gained
significant support in the week since he first began circulating among lawmakers
and on the web a letter that he co-authored with Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree
outlining the idea. Polis sent the letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
today with the signatures of 120 Representatives attached.

The plan aims to guard against any watered-down legislation coming from the Senate, where Democrats seem poised to concede to Republican demands in the wake of the GOP Scott Brown Senate victory in Massachusetts.

Polis is urging Democratic Senators to revisit the Senate version of the legislation, not to thin its provisions, but to add a public option and then to pass the bill through the
process known as reconciliation.

Serenity Now!

Jared Polis spent the summer doing his best to undermine healthcare reform because he didn't want to see his personal taxes go up in order to pay for reform. Now, with reform hanging by a thread he wants to grandstand about the public option?

Reports suggest that the only way we're going to see healthcare reform signed into law is for the House to vote for the Senate bill as it stands and for some sort of deal for amendments to the Senate bill to be voted on via the simple-majority reconcilliation process. There is no way that the Senate is going to pass a public option through reconcilliation. Even if it is technically possible to do so there's clearly no leadership in the Senate fighting for the cause. Beyond that there very well may not even be 51 votes in favor of a public option.

Polis must know this and so now we're left to wonder why he's decided to take up this Quixotic fight, at this late stage? If Polis really cared about healthcare reform he'd be pushing House leadership to vote on the damn bill. Instead of doing something that would be, you know, actually constructive he's instead decided to push a proposal that has no hopes of passing at the most critical juncture in the process. The best bill that we can hope for is literally just sitting there and waiting for the House to vote on it.

PASS THE DAMN BILL

This little stunt is completely asinine, it's typical Jared Polis grandstanding. He's nothing more than a narcissistic dilettante.

DADT and Harry Truman

My latest TFT column is now up, "What Would Truman Do?"

Where's the urgency?

Harold Meyerson and I are on the same page, his column in today's WaPo gets at the same issues that I pointed out in my FT column yesterday. Namely, current Democratic proposals to solve unemployment fall woefully short and that there doesn't appear to be any interest in pushing back against Republican narratives or conventional wisdom. All of this in spite of the current unemployment numbers, which will (in conjunction with the overall economy) severely damage Democrats in Novemeber. I called it a lack of aggressiveness - today Meyerson calls it urgency,

Today's Democrats seem to lack the urgency, compassion and spine of their '30s forebears. Obama's proposals fail to challenge the conservative narrative that government can't engender worthwhile economic activity, so all we can do is cut taxes on business and hope for the best. No narrative is more in need of challenging, but Obama has demurred at the very moment he must make the affirmative case for government.

Whatever you call it I think that the problem is clear.

A little perspective

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti President Obama pledged $100 million dollars in emergency aid from the United States government.

That's exactly the same dollar amount that AIG plans to pay out in bonuses to their employees today.

"And Dude, 'Chinaman' is not the preferred nomenclature."

Rahm Emmanuel evidently used the word "retarded" at a strategy meeting in 2009. It's really not appropriate but people often blurt out stupid things that they later regret. What's interesting to me is Slate's take on this "scandal."

Slate has run an article that explores the clinical usage of the word "retarded" and also references it's usage hard news stories to that term. Whatever Rahm's intent I can guarantee you that he wasn't using the word retarded in a clinical sense, nor was he hoping to convey to readers a factually accurate clinical diagnosis. He meant it as a pejorative and no matter what the clinical diagnosis is or was it's use as a pejorative has never been appropriate. Like I said, I don't think it's a huge issue but Slate's framing of this issue in terms the current clinical nomenclature is bizarre.

Happy Birthday Sir Charles

Enjoy it sir.

Why regulatory reform just isn't enough...

This John Judis piece on Obama's work to reform critical agencies is getting a lot of play on the liberal blogs. It offers a ray of sunshine to liberals who are presently disgusted with the administration and the lack of Congressional leadership. Judis writes,

Yet there is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one,
including most liberals, has noticed. Obama’s three Republican predecessors were
all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory
apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),
and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by
regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered
institutions. In doing so, he isn’t simply improving the effectiveness of
various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is
resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive
era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama’s revival of these
agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in
office.

These are important reforms, I really do not want to diminish the substantive change that Obama has brought about in various agencies. However therein lies the issue - just as Bush undercut the missions of these agencies and Obama has revived them so too can the next president choose to weaken these critical agencies. This isn't lasting reform, it's reform that will be in place until the next time a Republican wins The White House.

I worked in a federal agency for sometime while I was in law school. To a person the staff of that agency believed in the agency's mission. Unfortunately Bush was President, Mrs. Mitch McConnel was the Secretary and a certain Italian Supreme Court Justice's woefully unqualified son was the head of the agency. Talk about dispiriting. It's hard to relay to people how demoralizing it is for agency staff to get up and go to work everyday knowing that your bosses not only don't believe in your mission but that they are actively trying to undermine your work.

Lasting reform comes through legislation, this is why EFCA was such a high priority for labor unions. If you want true reform you need to get it into statute where the next administration can't do away with it through the technical and arcane agency rule making process. I'm not trying to disparage the administration's efforts or Judis' work in highlighting these reforms. Liberals though should understand that far from a revolution this is just our turn on the playground.

Budget blogging

My debut post at The Faster Times is now up, you can read it here.

New digs

Whenever I finally get WordPress to cooperate I will have my first post up at the online newspaper, The Faster Times. FT founder and publisher Sam Apple reached out to me a couple of weeks ago about becoming part of the FT staff. I will be writing in the newly unvieled "News" section about breaking and big news stories. I'll be covering politics but not exclusively politics (FT has a fine crop of political bloggers right now) and posting at least two times a week (more when time allows) about news from a domestic angle. My co-blogger is Nathan Hegedus who currently resides in Europe and who's writing will have a more international bent.

I'm really excited about the opportunity to write, opine and blog in a professional setting and I hope that you all will read me over there and tell your friends. I'll continue to blog here at SPO as I have for the last couple of years. I don't anticipate that things will change around here much at all.

Better arguments please

Atrios,

It wasn't just Nelson's little goody, it was also the deal for unions on excise
tax.
[...]

More generally, it's the problem with small-bore
incremental liberalism, as opposed to programs that are now universal like
Social Security and Medicare. Without universality, it's always easy to make it
seem like someone else (someone less deserving, of course) is getting the
goodies making good programs unpopular.

I actually don't disagree with Atrios on the mishandling of the politics of health reform but I take exception to the examples that he cites. First, Social Security was a small bore incremental program when it was adopted, it was amended over the decades to the more universal program we see now. Furthermore, Medicare is the very definition of small bore incrementalism - even now it only covers those 65 and older (coincidentally signed into law as part of the 1965 Social Security Act). Medicare and Medicaid were created as compromise, incremental approaches because LBJ couldn't get a national healthcare plan passed.

You can be upset with the Democrats bungling the politics and process. You can even oppose the final bill on grounds that it is not comprehensive enough. What you cannot do though is point to Social Security and Medicare as anything but examples of small bore incrementalism.