Rick Perry To “Activist Judges”: Save Me
Rick Perry appears to be riding into the sunset, but he is not leaving the stage without exercising a true politician’s prerogative of cheerfully sacrificing any principle, no matter how strongly stated, when it becomes inconvenient.
If there’s one thing we know about Perry — one dry-gulch bedrock to his cowboy constitutional philosophy — it’s that he just hates them activist judges and all the perverted things they have done to the Fourteenth Amendment. “[T]he Fourteenth Amendment is abused by the Court to carry out whatever policy choices it wants to make in the form of judicial activism,” he lamented in his book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington. In particular, courts “should be particularly protective of our founding structure — a unique structure of dual sovereigns that placed power as close to the people as was practical so that the people could govern themselves.”
Surely that would mean that the people of Virginia should have a right to determine what level of support a candidate needs to be a serious presidential candidate, deserving of a place on its primary ballot? Or should that decision be made by “unelected judges”?
Well, actually, unelected judges are suddenly looking right good to Gov. Perry.
Perry last week failed to qualify for the Virginia Republican Primary ballot, both a humiliating blow to his dignity and a concrete setback to his hope of remaining in the presidential race after his expected low showing in Iowa.
Well, that don’t sit right with Perry, and now he is shopping for a judge who will agree. In a lawsuit filed Monday, Perry asks the federal courts to step in on his behalf. Nothing too startling about that — if Perry feels the Virginia authorities had cheated him in some way that violates federal law or the Constitution, he has every right to invoke these sources of law in a court. But what’s remarkable is the second count of his suit, in which he asks the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to invent a new constitutional norm about how many signatures a state can require for its ballots. (Newt Gingrich so far has not filed a suit, and his campaign contented itself with a characteristically nuanced statement comparing the long-announced ballot-access rule to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.)
To qualify for the ballot, a presidential candidate has to collect the signatures of 10,000 registered Virginia voters who would attest that they intend to vote in the GOP primary. It’s steep — the 2008 Republican primary attracted just shy of 500,000 voters, making this a requirement of 2 percent of the votes cast — but hardly a staggering burden in a commonwealth of more than 5 million registered voters.
Perry didn’t fall a little short of his goal. He fell real short. By his own admission, he filed more than 6,000 valid signatures — 40 percent less than the required total.
In his suit, Perry makes two claims. One has some support in the caselaw — he says that by requiring the signature gatherers to be eligible Virginia voters, the state violates a line of cases that say that the First Amendment protects the right to use out-of-state personnel to gather signatures on some ballot petitions.
But the second claim comes screaming out of the clear blue Texas sky. “Virginia’s requirement that a presidential primary candidate collect signatures from 10,000 qualified voters, including 400 qualified voters from each Congressional district in the Commonwealth… violates freedom of speech and association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution,” Perry’s complaint alleges.
I’m no election-law specialist, but I don’t know any caselaw supporting this. Perry sure doesn’t cite any. In the context of minor-party ballot access, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that (as it determined in Anderson v. Celebrezze) states have “undoubted right to require candidates to make a preliminary showing of substantial support in order to qualify for a place on the ballot….” In 1986, it approved a requirement that the Socialist Workers Party get signatures amounting to 1 percent of the voters in the state to qualify for the ballot. Perry was required to get 2 percent of the ballots cast — or, to put it another way, one-fifth of one percent of the eligible voters. His signers had to state that they intended to vote in the Republican primary, which limits the field somewhat, but the opportunity was still there.
Why is 10,000 too many but 6,000 is not? What’s the rule? Texas requires 4,500, meaning 300 each from at least 15 Congressional districts. Is that reasonable, but 10,000, including 400 from each of 11 Congressional Districts, is not? Perry’s suit is a request — a desperate plea — for a court to invent a rule. Even if you or I might see a problem with the signature requirement (I admit I don’t), this is precisely the kind of federal court meddling in local affairs that he thumps his chest against when it benefits criminal defendants, gay men and lesbians, or religious dissenters.
Why is there never an activist judge when you need one?
By: Garrett Epps, The Atlantic, December 29, 2011
“The Langoliers Are Coming”: What Boehner Faces In 2012 After Payroll Tax Debacle
In the immediate aftermath of the GOP’s payroll tax debacle, a handful of conservative House Republicans publicly attacked their leaders — particularly Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).
“I am disappointed that our Republican leadership in both the House and Senate chose a course of political expediency rather than standing on conservative principle,” said Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) in an official statement.
Others appealed to Fox News, where conservatives and Republicans feel more comfortable expounding on party/movement contretemps.
“He’s (Boehner) got a big problem when he comes back,” one anonymous congressman claimed. “He may have a hard time keeping his Speakership after this.”
“We were hung out to dry by our leadership,” said another unnamed member.
The list goes on. But the holidays calmed the backlash, and with a week’s hindsight a consensus of sorts has emerged among party strategists, aides (current and former) and congressional scholars. Not all agree on the question of how well or poorly Boehner handled the situation. But though Boehner’s 2012 won’t be easy, those House conservatives who were seeing blood last week are likely to be disappointed again.
“I don’t think his leadership is going to be taken away from him over the course of the next year,” said Norm Ornstein — a Congress expert at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. “But I’m expecting a pretty difficult year ahead for him next year.”
“Going into next year he has to reassert his authority going into the payroll tax debate, and frankly other debates,” said a former senior House aide. “In addition to that he will most likely take a conference-wide stance on the payroll tax fight and will work to fight and win.”
Boehner’s 2012 depends to a huge extent on how much the GOP conference is still spoiling for a fight. If they’re chastened by the horrendous month they had — and thus resigned to ceding the payroll tax issue to the Democrats — then Boehner will have it pretty easy. The payroll tax cut will be extended through the end of the year, and, in a sense, his original judgment will have been vindicated. His members won’t lead the party astray again. But if a substantial number of Republicans return from recess breathing fire, and try once again to use the expiring payroll tax cut to extract massive concessions from Democrats then Boehner and the rest of the GOP are likely in for a politically costly battle.
“When you start with the Republicans rejecting even a dime of taxes on millionaires and you want to take money out of other programs that benefit the middle class or poor people, you’re going to have a tough time doing this,” Ornstein said. “The other part is the Republicans in the House settled on a narrative to justify their action. They said they want a full year payroll tax cut. The fact is a very substantial share of those Rs don’t want anything. They don’t want any payroll tax cut.”
This is correct — and it’s worth recalling that GOP leaders originally solved that problem by tying the payroll tax cut to the Keystone XL oil pipeline. But they already got that — and now that Republicans have built a consensus for a yearlong payroll tax cut almost by accident, it’s unlikely Democrats are going to be willing to concede much of anything to them.
“He tried to throw in this lever, which was this pipeline. Well, they got it,” Ornstein said. “The incentive for Obama to give in more is pretty much zero.”
Despite the unfavorable dynamic for the GOP, most see the worst-case scenario for him as a leadership challenge … in 2013 (assuming the GOP retains its majority in the 2012 elections).
“[Y]ou’re always going to have squeaky wheel members who are never going to be satisfied,” the senior aide said. “And there may be some members who don’t like Boehner who are using it as a way to complain.” However, if the dissent starts creeping beyond that rump in the next couple weeks, “then he’s got a big problem,” the aide says. “[But] I doubt that’s going to happen.”
By: Brian Beutler, Talking Points Memo, December 29, 2011
Rick Perry “Gives Some Thought” To Rape And Incest
As noted in my last post, one of the most counter-factual assertions about the Republican presidential nomination contest is that it’s “about” the economy.
Guess that’s why Rick Perry, who began his campaign boasting of his world-beating jobs record (sic!) in Texas, is now ending his go-for-broke comeback effort in Iowa by announcing he is suddenly adopting the most extreme position available on abortion:
Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that he had undergone a “transformation” on the issue of abortion and now believed that there should be no exceptions made for rape, incest or the life of the mother….“I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest,” Mr. Perry told a local pastor who had questioned whether he had changed his position on the issue.
While it’s good news to hear that Perry is “giving some thought” to any issue, having pretty much campaigned on the basis of what the reptilian segments of his brain dictated, the reality is that his campaign is now focused monomaniacally on outflanking Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum in appealing to Iowa’s divided Christian Right activist base.
This isn’t Perry’s first lurch to the right on abortion; back in August, under interrogation from Christian Right chieftain Tony Perkins, he repudiated his previous “states’ rights” position in favor of the more radical proposition of a federal constitutional amendment to repeal the right to choose.
But the more Perry “thinks” about it, the more determined he becomes to bend the knee to the most hard-core anti-choicers. If the Iowa caucuses were somehow delayed a couple of weeks, he’d probably come out for a national compulsory pregnancy mandate.
By: Ed Kilgore, Published in Washington Monthly Political Animal, December 28, 2011
Half Of North Carolina Concealed Carry Permit Holders With Felony Convictions Keep Their Permit
North Carolina is one of the few states in the country with public records of who has a permit to carry a concealed firearm, so it provides a rare window into how such permits are handled once their holder’s criminal record proves them unfit to carry a hidden gun. The results are not pretty:
More than 2,400 permit holders were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, excluding traffic-related crimes, over the five-year period, The Times found when it compared databases of recent criminal court cases and licensees. While the figure represents a small percentage of those with permits, more than 200 were convicted of felonies, including at least 10 who committed murder or manslaughter. All but two of the killers used a gun. […]
The review also raises concerns about how well government officials police the permit process. In about half of the felony convictions, the authorities failed to revoke or suspend the holder’s permit, including for cases of murder, rape and kidnapping. The apparent oversights are especially worrisome in North Carolina, one of about 20 states where anyone with a valid concealed handgun permit can buy firearms without the federally mandated criminal background check. (Under federal law, felons lose the right to own guns.)
Violent criminals who were allowed to keep their concealed carry permits include Ricky Wills, who “terroriz[ed] his estranged wife and their daughter with a pair of guns and then sho[t] at their house while they, along with a sheriff’s deputy who had responded to a 911 call, were inside,” and Charles Dowdle, who “was convicted of multiple felonies in 2006 for threatening to kill his girlfriend and chasing her to her sister’s house, where he fired a shotgun round through a closed door.” Indeed, violent individuals convicted of domestic violence-related crimes are the most likely to be allowed to keep their concealed carry permits. Nearly two-thirds of individuals convicted of “assault on a female” in the state of North Carolina did not have their concealed carry permits suspended.
The state’s failures to suspend these licenses appears to be a series of oversights, not a deliberate effort to place concealed firearms in the hands of violent criminals — indeed, Mr. Willis’ permit was revoked after New York Times reporters informed the state that he still had it. Nevertheless, these oversights could soon have consequences for the safety of Americans in all fifty states. The National Right To Carry Reciprocity Act, which recently passed the House of Representatives, would give holders of concealed carry permits from any one state the ability to carry a concealed weapon while than were visiting any other state — even if the state they were visiting banned concealed carry or would not allow them to obtain a carry permit.
In other words, should this bill become law, it would mean that a violent felon from North Carolina could keep his permit solely because of an oversight, and then travel to any state he chooses with a concealed gun tucked under his jacket.
By: Ian Millhiser, Think Progress, December 27, 2011
Mitt Romney Must Clarify Defense Of Individual Mandate
I sympathize a little with former Gov. Mitt Romney on the issue of the individual mandate. In effect, the conservative movement pulled the rug out from under him.
He copped the idea from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Conservative legal scholars didn’t cry foul when Romneycare passed in 2006. Tea Party enforcer Sen. Jim DeMint didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich explicitly supported it as late as 2008.
But when it became a central element of Obamacare, it suddenly became the thin end of the socialist wedge.
Still, Romney stretches things with his recent defense of the mandate:
What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts, the plan is still favored by 3 to 1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle to insist that people take personal responsibility as opposed to turning to government for giving out free care.
Is the mandate really a reflection of the principle of personal responsibility?
Doesn’t the purist case for personal responsibility look more like the one made by Rep. Ron Paul in the Tea Party debate, in which Paul said freedom is about letting people suffer the consequences of risky behavior?
Put it this way: If Romney and Paul both say they’re for insisting on personal responsibility, they can’t both be right.
What we have here are two subtly different conceptions of “personal responsibility.”
When Romney uses the phrase, he means that, in the decision to purchase a major medical insurance policy, there’s a self-evidently “responsible” choice: You get coverage, even if you’re young and healthy.
When Paul uses it, he means you should be free not to buy it—and the rest of us shouldn’t have to foot the bill if your luck turns rotten.
Romney the technocrat probably thought of the individual mandate in terms of Cass Sunstein (currently serving in the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) and Richard Thaler’s “nudge theory” of human behavior: Government can encourage people to make better choices through wiser “choice architecture” instead of blunt instruments.
The problem for Romney, of course, is that lots of conservatives now believe the mandate is a blunt instrument—and lustily cheer at Paul’s more exacting definition of personal responsibility.
If Romney wants to continue to use the phrase to win over conservative skeptics, he’s going to have to clarify what he means by it.
By: Scott Galupo, U. S. News and World Report, December 28, 2011
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