Supreme Court Battle Quietly Brews As Future Nominations Loom - ABC News

Supreme Court Battle Quietly Brews As Future Nominations Loom - ABC News
An interesting article from longtime PAEC member and chair Tyler about possible upcoming nominations to the Supreme Court. At the center of the piece is Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu who was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Hearings regarding his nomination will be held this week in committee. A son of Taiwanese immigrants, Liu would be the only active APA federal appellate court judge in the country. What makes the story more intriguing is that according to the ABC News article, Liu is seen as a possible Supreme Court nomination for Obama. Given that Liu is only 39, this could mean that as the possible first Asian American on the court, Liu could serve for a very long time.

You can read more about Professor Liu here.

Thanks for the heads up, Tyler. As always, anyone is welcome to email yalepaec@gmail.com with an interesting story you'd like to see on the blog.

Counter-terrorism Policies Panel

On February 23, 2010, the Muslim Students Association and the International Students Organization cosponsored a panel on U.S. counter-terrorism politics, featuring Professor Charles Hill, Yale’s diplomat-in-residence, and Alejandro Beutel, the government liaison of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. The discussion panel focused on the U.S. heightened air travel security policies after the Christmas Day bombings.

Beutel's Views

Beutel believes that the latest policy of the TSA, which involves heightened security screenings of nationals from fourteen designated countries, is not effective. In his view, Al-Qaeda is a transnational organization and therefore is not merely composed of individuals of a specific country or region. There is no reliable terrorist profile. This security measure does not prevent terrorists from going through other countries and only displaces the problem, while telling terrorists our strategy.

Beutel’s alternative is to create multiple layers of defenses and security measures, while fixing bureaucratic problems. He states that bureaucratic inefficiencies had contributed to preventing the sharing of information that could have precluded several terrorist incidents. These inefficiencies include techniques such as data mining that inundate the system with useless information. However, he remains strongly in support of strong legal defenses for all individuals.

Professor Hill's Views

Professor Hill states that it is hard to analyze the effectiveness of the policies because they deal with complex issues. However, he is in support of the current strategy, because it is a responsible step to take, based upon other states’ abilities to control security. There are realities of patterns of conduct and authorities should take action against known behavior. He added that the current list is not a closed list, and new states may be added as new developments occur.

Without this strategy, Professor Hill believes that the only other alternative would be to subject everyone to heightened security like the Israeli system, which would shut down the economy. He argues that the current system is not broken but “has done remarkably well.” Regarding civil liberties, he states that people who choose to travel by air should have to be subject to heightened screenings. He is not in favor of “intrusion” but says “we have to deal with it.” Air travel is such a unique and dangerous situation, and he comments, “We’re all in this together.”

I was disappointed in the performance of Professor Hill. He seemed to not put too much effort into the debate by being vague and apathetic. Instead, he relied on his ethos and reputation to carry him through. On the other hand, Beutel was extremely prepared and armed with facts, studies, and detailed statistics. It was an interesting contrast to see Beutel argue earnestly and intensely, while Professor Hill spoke in lackadaisical and half-hearted way. Therefore, it was unfortunate that I was convinced by Beutel’s argument so easily because I’m sure there are concrete reasons for the new policy.

The above image is courtesy of http://gis.nwcg.gov/.

Obama Nails It With “Question Time”

Last week was a very busy one in politics. On Wednesday, President Obama gave his first State of the Union Address. Given the tough political climate, it was clearly an important speech, and the president and his team were well prepared, shifting the focus to jobs and the economy. Health care reform wasn’t even mentioned until after the first half hour, but Obama still urged Congress not to give up on it yet. He made a lot of swings at the Republicans and took some jabs at his own party as well, challenging both parties to lead the country. He surprisingly made a direct mention of the Supreme Court and its decision on federal election spending, which usually does not happen in political speeches. (Not to be outdone, Justice Alito reacted visibly, which was not supposed to happen as well.) Obama also spent a lot of time talking about the culture of Washington and what it needs to clean up: the permanent election, playing politics with Senate confirmation of public officials, zero-sum game mentality, and the general cynicism and disillusionment these problems create.

One could sense that President Obama was frustrated with Congress, and perhaps that’s not a bad thing given that he’s often criticized for not showing enough emotion or fight. If his critics wanted more, President Obama gave a speech to the Republican party at their retreat in Maryland and offered a question-and-answer time. “President’s Question Time” as it’s been called is similar to a practice in British Parliament in which the Prime Minister takes questions from the opposition party, basically a weekly debate between the parties. Obama has generated a lot of buzz with his visit to the Republicans, as pundits generally agree that the President nailed it, proving his knowledge on a many crucial issues and presenting his position very well on everything the 100+ Republican members of Congress threw at him.

Colbert Report on Obama’s first year

Great piece from the Colbert Report about the criticism of President Obama’s first year:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Two-Faced
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

Citizens United vs. FEC

This past week’s special senatorial election in Massachusetts has received a lot of national attention. Conservatives have heralded Scott Brown’s win as clear signs of the nation’s discontent with President Obama while liberals worry about what the repercussions will be not only for health care reform but also for climate change and the rest of their agenda. The added drama that the Kennedy seat was won by a Republican just 14 months after Obama carried the state by 26 points has helped this incident overshadow the far more important political news of the week. In a 5- 4 decision on Citizens United vs. FEC, the Supreme Court overturned over a century’s worth of precedent in allowing corporations and unions to spend from their own treasuries on political campaigns.

The reactions to this ruling have varied from cries of treason to the celebration of “a great day for the First Amendment.” This broad range of responses comes as no surprise given the long history of government restrictions on corporate participation in campaigns starting with the Tillman Act of 1907 and as recently as McCain-Feingold Act of 2002. The rulings will allow special interest groups to use their deep pockets to run ads for or against candidates who support their agendas. Proponents of the first amendment rights of institutions see it as a big victory and have dressed it up as a great win for Americans. At the same time, the dissenting opinion of the court warned that the decision “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation.” Complicating the matter even more is the group of supporters who argue that the ruling is both good and bad for our democracy because the potential for corruption is greater but it decreases the power of big media corporations, which were exclusively allowed to participate in campaigns.

Of course, the court’s primary concern should be whether the law in question, the McCain-Feingold Act, violates the Constitution, not what political ramifications such a ruling may have. Hence, the court is within its authority to rule against restrictions of free speech based on how powerful a group is. What is troubling is that the Court was far from apolitical in its proceedings in this case. It went out of its way to hear the case, expanded the grounds on which a lower court’s decision was appeal, and rushed the trial so that its decisions could effect the upcoming 2010 elections.

Not everyone believes that the ruling will have such a dramatic an effect on our politics. Some experts suggest that the impact will be minimal citing studies that political ads have diminishing effects as they occupy more airtime or even negative since large corporate support may be met with harsh backlash in the era of grassroots fundraising ushered in by the 2008 Presidential elections. Others concede the dangers of opening the floodgates to more money in politics but argue that this could be a necessary evil that will bring about reform by challenging the high reelection rate for incumbents or providing the impetus for a better public campaign finance system.

Such a wait-and-see outlook is far from reassuring. And yet little can be now to reverse the decisions. Short-term measures that place restrictions on corporations with government contracts or require shareholder approval before corporations support campaigns will probably run into resistance. Court appointments are for life and constitutional amendments take time. For now, waiting and seeing may be all we can do. Hopefully, the experts will be right.