Debt Ceiling Hostage Taking: Section 4 Of The 14th Amendment Was Designed To Stop John Boehner
Kevin Drum is skeptical that the Obama administration would really be within its rights to ignore the debt ceiling:
Maybe I’m missing something here, but it strikes me that this doesn’t come close to implying that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional. What it really suggests is merely that the public debt is the only untouchable part of the federal budget.
Jack Balkin delves into the legislative history and shows why the 14th Amendment has a provision guaranteeing the debt in the first place. The sponsor of the provision, Benjamin Wade, wrote at the time:
[The proposed amendment] puts the debt incurred in the civil war on our part under the guardianship of the Constitution of the United States, so that a Congress cannot repudiate it. I believe that to do this wil give great confidence to capitalists and will be of incalculable pecuniary benefit to the United States, for I have no doubt that every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution than he would feel if it were left at loose ends and subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.
Balkin explains:
If Wade’s speech offers the central rationale for Section Four, the goal was to remove threats of default on federal debts from partisan struggle. Reconstruction Republicans feared that Democrats, once admitted to Congress would use their majorities to default on obligations they disliked politically. More generally, as Wade explained, “every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution than he would feel if it were left at loose ends and subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.”
Like most inquiries into original understanding, this one does not resolve many of the most interesting questions. What it does suggest is an important structural principle. The threat of defaulting on government obligations is a powerful weapon, especially in a complex, interconnected world economy. Devoted partisans can use it to disrupt government, to roil ordinary politics, to undermine policies they do not like, even to seek political revenge. Section Four was placed in the Constitution to remove this weapon from ordinary politics.
In other words, it’s in the 14th Amendment to guard against exactly what Congressional Republicans are doing right now.
Balkin does not suggest, nor do I, that the legal merits are open and shut. It’s certainly risky to take a flyer in the middle of a debt crisis. But if we do reach h-hour, we’re probably better off if the Treasury simply announces it’s going to continue to pay the bills and dares Republicans to take them to court than repudiating the debt, right?
Matt Steinglass argues that the Supreme Court would likely side with the Treasury:
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past 11 years, it is that the Supreme Court’s decisions on critical issues are very strongly influenced by political pressure. In a situation where the entire weight of world bond markets was bearing down on Anthony Kennedy’s head, would he really vote to crash the economy and destroy the credit rating of the United States? Would any individual do that? I don’t think even Eric Cantor would, if he were solely and publicly responsible for the decision. The ability of the GOP to push the government to the brink of default, and possibly ultimately over it, depends on the diffusion of responsibility: Republicans can only do it because they can hold Democrats to blame. It’s also driven by political vulnerability: Republicans have gotten themselves into a spiraling tea-party-driven political dynamic where they seem, on issue after issue, to be incapable of voting for any proposals that a Democrat might be able to accept, for fear of the consequences from their base. Anthony Kennedy does not have to fear a primary challenge, and if the United States’ ability to pay its debts comes down to his single vote, he’ll have no excuse. Maybe I have no idea how these things work. But I can’t see a Republican Supreme Court going toe to toe with the entire massed forces of Wall Street and not blinking.
A point that I think is worth drawing out here is that it’s not even clear the GOP leadership wants the power to take the credit of the Treasury hostage, or — more likely — if it’s simply been forced into this position by a financially uneducated base. Republicans in Congress might be relieved to have a deux ex machina absolve them of the need to walk a fine line between the demands of the base and the demands of their business constituency.
By: Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, July 1, 2011
David Prosser Probably Had A Very Good Reason For Putting His Hands On Colleague’s Neck
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser seems to have a bit of a temper! And he also seems to maybe have a bit of a history of verbally and perhaps physically attacking women. The latest, in case you haven’t heard, has the conservative justice accused of putting a liberal colleague in a “chokehold.” Here’s the thing: Even the anonymous sources defending Prosser say he put his hands around Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s neck. They just say it was in self-defense.
Last year, Prosser screamed at a different (female) colleague, reportedly calling her a “bitch” and threatening to “destroy” her. When asked about all that, he blamed her for “goading” him into attacking her. That is classic psycho behavior, but I have to say that I did not expect Prosser to be accused of physical violence. And, you know, I wouldn’t expect “these women keep forcing me to attack them” to continue working as an excuse for attacking colleagues, but I guess I’m underestimating the conservative movement! Because everyone is running with the “Prosser was forced to put his hands on her neck because she ran towards him” story. Fox Nation headline: “WI Judge Prosser Smeared?” Human Events blames “Big Labor” for forcing Prosser to attack his colleagues.
Here’s Ann Althouse’s (a law professor!) defense:
ALSO: People may assume that the man is larger than the woman, but — from what I have heard — Bradley is significantly larger than Prosser. Bradley is also 7 years younger than Prosser, who is 68.
Compelling!
Bradley isn’t accused by anyone of laying a hand on Prosser. The case for Prosser is that Bradley came at him and he pushed her back in “defense,” but everyone seems to agree that his hands did end up on her neck. I don’t really think there’s any justification for that! And attacking women and then blaming them for making you do it is how abusive assholes justify their behavior. Not that I know the facts of this horrible case. But I tend to side with the people who don’t have a history of threatening to “destroy” people, because that is how comic book characters talk.
Anyway, now the right wants to recall Bradley, for attacking Prosser with her huge, terrifying neck.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon War Room, June 27, 2011
A Break For Wisconsin Democrats In Recall Fight
At first glance, this will seem deep in the weeds, but this just in from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal constitutes a real break for Wisconsin Dems in their quest to take back the state senate in the recall wars:
State elections officials Monday took a Republican Assembly lawmaker off the ballot in a recall election against a Democratic senator.
The state Government Accountability Board voted unanimously to leave Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette) off the ballot in the July 19 recall election for Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) in the 30th Senate District. The board found that Nygren fell just short of collecting the 400 valid nominating signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, finding he collected only 398 valid signatures.
The accountability board had initially found that Nygren had submitted 424 qualifying signatures from voters. But after a number of signatures were challenged by Democrats, the accountability board found that 26 of those were invalid.
In a nutshell, what happened here is that one of the Dem state senators that Dems and labor thought was genuinely vulnerable to a recall challenge — Dave Hansen — will now no longer face his toughest challenger. Once it has been established through signature gathering that a recall election will be held against a sitting official, a potential challenger only requires 400 signatures to get on the ballot in the recall elections. Hansen’s leading challenger, John Nygren, fell short and was disqualified.
Hansen is now all but certain to face a challenge from a far weaker candidate — David VanderLeest. According to Journal Sentinel columnist David Bice, this latest challenger has a court record that includes disorderly conduct.
Kelly Steele, a spokesman for the labor-backed We Are Wisconsin, was thrilled about the new development, claiming that VanderLeest’s “rap sheet reads like a directory of the Wisconsin state criminal code.”
Here’s why this is important. In order to take back the state senate, Dems need to net three recall wins. Six Republicans face recall battles; while only three Dems do. But now one of the three Dems may be far safer than previously thought, which means Dems may have an easier time netting three wins — and that Wisconsin GOPers may have a tougher time hanging onto the state senate.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post Plum Line, June 27, 2011
Tea-pocrisy Is Not Particularly Complicated
Michele Bachmann, at her announcement speech today, offering an extended paean to the Tea Party:
I am here in Waterloo, Iowa to announce today: We can win in 2012, and we will. Our voice has been growing louder and stronger. And it is made up of Americans from all walks of life like a three-legged stool. It’s the peace through strength Republicans, and I’m one of them. It’s fiscal conservatives, and I’m one of them, and it’s social conservatives, and I’m one of them. It’s the Tea Party movement, and I’m one of them.
The liberals, and to be clear I’m NOT one of them, want you to think the Tea Party is the Right Wing of the Republican Party. But it’s not. It’s made up of disaffected Democrats, independents, people who’ve never been political a day in their life, libertarians, Republicans. We’re people who simply want America back on the right track again.
The Los Angeles Times yesterday, revealing some very un-Tea-Party-like behavior from the Bachmann family:
Rep. Michele Bachmann has been propelled into the 2012 presidential contest in part by her insistent calls to reduce federal spending, a pitch in tune with the big-government antipathy gripping many conservatives.
But the Minnesota Republican and her family have benefited personally from government aid, an examination of her record and finances shows. A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.
And she has sought to keep federal money flowing to her constituents. After publicly criticizing the Obama administration’s stimulus program, Bachmann requested stimulus funds to support projects in her district.
Bachmann yesterday defended herself by describing the clinic funding and “one time training money” for employees that didn’t financially benefit Bachmann’s husband. But presumably the clinic itself benefitted from having government money train its workers. Otherwise it’s hard to see why Bachmann’s husband’s clinic wanted the funding. And of course, there’s all that stimulus money Bachmann wants for her district.
I don’t really know if these revelations will damage Bachmann’s status as the Tea Party’s leading warrior queen (yes, you have been dethroned, Sarah Palin). That’s because this sort of hypocrisy is widespread among Tea Partyers themselves — let’s call it “Tea-pocrisy.”
As Steve Benen has been documenting — see here and here — there’s no shortage of officials and political activists who embrace the Tea Party even as they benefit directly or indirectly from government generosity themselves. Some House GOP freshmen have even been the direct recipient of farm subsidies. And now the relevations about Tea Party chieftain Bachmann herself.
The point, as always, is that Tea Partyers are frequently for government spending as long as it’s benefitting the right people. Tea-pocrisy is not particularly complicated.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post Plum Line, June 27, 2011
How States Are Rigging The 2012 Election
An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot. If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging. But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.
The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place. Some of the new laws, notably those limiting the number of days for early voting, have little plausible connection to battling fraud.
These statutes are not neutral. Their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young. It is no accident that these groups were key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 — or that the laws in question are being enacted in states where Republicans control state governments.
Again, think of what this would look like to a dispassionate observer. A party wins an election, as the GOP did in 2010. Then it changes the election laws in ways that benefit itself. In a democracy, the electorate is supposed to pick the politicians. With these laws, politicians are shaping their electorates.
Paradoxically, the rank partisanship of these measures is discouraging the media from reporting plainly on what’s going on. Voter suppression so clearly benefits the Republicans that the media typically report this through a partisan lens, knowing that accounts making clear whom these laws disenfranchise would be labeled as biased by the right. But the media should not fear telling the truth or standing up for the rights of the poor or the young.
The laws in question include requiring voter identification cards at the polls, limiting the time of early voting, ending same-day registration and making it difficult for groups to register new voters.
Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up. In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs. And guess what? Nationwide exit polls show that John McCain carried households in which someone owned a gun by 25 percentage points but lost voters in households without a gun by 32 points.
Besides Texas, states that enacted voter ID laws this year include Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina and Tennessee. Indiana and Georgia already had such requirements. The Maine Legislature voted to end same-day voter registration. Florida seems determined to go back to the chaos of the 2000 election. It shortened the early voting period, effectively ended the ability of registered voters to correct their address at the polls and imposed onerousrestrictions on organized voter-registration drives.
In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, by 6 to 3, upheld Indiana’s voter ID statute. So seeking judicial relief may be difficult. Nonetheless, the Justice Department should vigorously challenge these laws, particularly in states covered by the Voting Rights Act. And the court should be asked to review the issue again in light of new evidence that these laws have a real impact in restricting the rights of particular voter groups.
“This requirement is just a poll tax by another name,” state Sen. Wendy Davis declared when Texas was debating its ID law early this year. In the bad old days, poll taxes, now outlawed by the 24th Amendment, were used to keep African Americans from voting. Even if the Supreme Court didn’t see things her way, Davis is right. This is the civil rights issue of our moment.
In part because of a surge of voters who had not cast ballots before, the United States elected its first African American president in 2008. Are we now going to witness a subtle return of Jim Crow voting laws?
Whether or not these laws can be rolled back, their existence should unleash a great civic campaign akin to the voter-registration drives of the civil rights years. The poor, the young and people of color should get their IDs, flock to the polls and insist on their right to vote in 2012.
If voter suppression is to occur, let it happen for all to see. The whole world, which watched us with admiration and respect in 2008, will be watching again.
By: E. J. Dionne, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 19, 2011
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