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The USA's Broken Government
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[see also below: a review by Elaine Cassel of Dean's book "Broken
Government"]
sent by MichaelP
Findlaw - Jan 11, 2008
http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/dean/20080111.html
Fixing the Broken Presidential Nomination Process
By JOHN DEAN
Only those living in caves, or maybe more interested in the travails of
Britney Spears, are unaware that the presidential primary and caucus
season has arrived. As one who has followed this quadrennial event
closely for many years, I find that it never ceases to amaze that
rather than simplifying this process - not to mention making it less
expensive - with the passage of time, we have done just the opposite.
In the larger scheme of problems, the broken nominating process is
certainly not our most serious. Yet the failure to resolve it is
indicative of the attitude of today's political leaders.
This year, some thirty-four states will determine their presidential
nominee before March 1; in 2000, by comparison, only eleven states took
such action so early. Everything has been front-loaded and compressed.
The process may well exhaust the candidates, not to mention the voters.
Given the current system, moreover, few Americans will actually
interact with the candidates before the process has ended.
Both major parties' inability to fix this fundamental problem should
call into question their ability to govern. It is a very bad sign that
a matter as basic as nominating presidential candidates has been turned
into a contest of money-raising and organization. Such a contest surely
does not translate into effective governing (as Bush and Cheney have
proven).
The sad truth is that political parties care little about American
voters and the democratic processes. One needs to look no further than
the insane primary schedule for 2008.
The Insane 2008 Presidential Preference Schedule
Already, we have seen Iowa (which almost pushed its caucuses into 2007)
and New Hamp****re successfully demand that, though far from the
nation's largest states, they lead the way in selecting the next
president. Now - with the race for the nomination far from settled -
the schedule is picking up speed in the coming weeks (and months). The
presidential primary schedule for 2008 is absurd. A madman could not
have designed it to be worse.
In January, in addition to Iowa and New Hamp****re, there are primaries
in Michigan (1/15), Nevada has precinct caucuses (1/19), and there is a
GOP primary in South Carolina (1/19). A week later, there is the
Democratic primary in South Carolina (1/26), and the month ends with
the Florida primary (1/29).
In February, Maine holds a GOP primary (2/1), and there are a slew of
primaries taking place in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas,
California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho (D), Illinois, Kansas
(D), Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico (D),
New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah (all on 2/5), plus caucuses in
Colorado and North Dakota (also both on 2/5). If this Super Tuesday
scattered across the land has not resolved the matter, then the rest of
the month should, with the Louisiana and Kansas GOP primaries (2/9),
Maine Democratic caucuses (2/10), primaries in the District of
Columbia, Maryland, Virginia (2/12), and primaries in Hawaii (D),
Wa****ngton, and Wisconsin (2/19).
In the unlikely event that the nominees have not been decided by
mid-February, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Wyoming (D) and
Mississippi will hold primaries in March. Pennsylvania has its primary
in April; then Indiana, North Carolina, Nebraska, West Virginia,
Kentucky, Oregon and Idaho (R) in May, followed by Montana, New Mexico
(R), and South Dakota in June.
It is an awful schedule. It is based on the whims and greed of state
legislatures and state and national party officials. It is has no basis
in logic or reason. It creates all but impossible logistical problems
for candidates. It increases campaigning costs, forcing candidates to
rely on large campaign donors. A few small states benefit, at the
expense of everyone else, and it is anything but conducive to finding
candidates most suitable to become President of the United States.
Actually, there are good and relatively simply solutions to this
nightmare. Not for this year, but for the future. For example, among
the soundest is the concept of rotating regional primaries.
Fixing the Broken Presidential Nomination Process
Frankly, a return to the smoke-filled rooms of yesteryear would be no
less undemocratic than the current system, where a few early states set
the table and decide the presidential menu for the nation. Just as
political bosses once shut out qualified candidates, so too does the
current system. Ask Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson.
Some reformers have called for a one-day national primary, but this
would only create its own new set of problems, including even greater
expenses. Most saliently, it would force candidates to focus nationally
and naturally in the states where the most convention delegates would
be found, and ignore the others. A more rational, if not even
reasonable, approach is some variation of a regional primary system.
This approach would divide the country into (typically, in proposals)
four or six regions. The states within those regions would then all
hold their primary or caucus at the same time, with the election in
each of the regions staggered over the first four or six months of a
presidential election year. (A few of the reform proposals have made
exceptions for Iowa and New Hamp****re, to also allow them to continue
as the first in the nation, but such an exception makes no sense, nor
does giving these states such dispro****tionate influence, which forcing
candidates to spend millions to court smaller sets of voters.)
Although there is widespread recognition of the need for reform, and
sup****t for a regional system, nothing has happened. Congress has held
hearings that call attention to the problems, and the opposition has
been token and technical and largely from those who now benefit from
the irrational system in existence. Yet no action has been taken.
This problem, unfortunately, is typical of the current American
attitude in politics of awaiting disasters before addressing them, and
then over-reacting. We do this because of the political division
separating the activists on both sides, with each side more worried
about the other getting some advantage, than it is about simply fixing
the problems everyone acknowledges exist.
Sadly, this attitude is widely prevalent for all problems - be they
small or large. All candidates avoid addressing such problems, in order
to play it safe. Neither party wants to go to the mat with Iowa and New
Hamp****re, and tell them that they do not represent America: They are
too white, too rich, and too rural. But time is running out on politics
as usual, so it was encouraging that a bipartisan forum of high-profile
political people spoke out on the problem in general, as Election 2008
gets underway. For as long as the current political divisions in the
country persist, we cannot fix anything.
A Well-Placed Warning about Politics As Usual
Former Oklahoma Senator David Boren, a Democrat and now the president
of the University of Oklahoma, assembled a bipartisan forum on January
7 and 8, 2008, which made a request of all the presidential contenders:
End the divisive politics. This is the advice of seventeen experienced
political leaders, who paused to call attention to the obvious.
The bipartisan forum explained that the nation, because of its current
political divisions, is in a state of crisis. The New York Times and
others, however, quickly brushed off this effort because of the surging
and transforming victory of Barack Obama in Iowa.
But those who ignore the "Ben Gay Forum" will find they have discounted
this collective and seasoned wisdom at our shared peril. Those who
think the geezers have gotten it wrong, or no longer understand, will
no doubt discover otherwise when it is too late. If we are a nation
that cannot fix the smallest of problems, like the presidential
nominating scheme, what chance is there to fix the larger ones?
***
Findlaw - Oct 5, 2007
http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20071005_cassel.html
Our Busted Government and How to Fix It:
A Review of John Dean's Broken Government: How Republican Rule
Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches
By ELAINE CASSEL
Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the
Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches
by John W. Dean (Viking 2007).
FindLaw columnist and former counsel to the president John W. Dean has
written the third book in what he refers to as an "unplanned" trilogy on
the Bush Administration.
In 2002, in "Worse Than Watergate," Dean explored the Bush
Administration's penchant for secrecy for secrecy's sake. In 2006, in
"Conservatives Without Conscience," he wrote about the Republican
party's drift into right-wing extremism, steeped in authoritarianism.
Now, with a little more than a year left in the current Administration,
Dean focuses a wide-angle lens on the state of our government, contending
that President Bush and the Republican Party have mangled it to the point
that it no longer serves the American people.
Dean is not without hope--he lays out a plan for how the next
administration can fix the mess. However, he also ends this book with a
warning: Since the Republicans have veered dangerously off-course, only
the Democrats can be trusted to repair the damage done.
IT'S ALL ABOUT PROCESS
Dean argues that the Republicans have made a wreck of all three branches
of government--Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary. His focus is
not on Republican policies of the last seven years, but rather on how
Republicans have neglected, or mangled beyond recognition, the lawful and
legitimate processes built into our Constitution and laws.
Compromised processes, Dean argues, inexorably lead to bad policy.
Dean assails Congress for its virtual total neglect of a process that is
at the heart of the doctrine of the separation of powers--oversight of the
Executive branch. In addition, he faults Congress for ignoring the re****ts
of its own General Accountability Office (GAO), condoning the White
House's insistence on secrecy, and tolerating (and outright sup****ting, in
some cases) Bush Administration policies that have given us Iraq and a
host of supposed "anti-terrorism" measures that reject the basic
principles not only of our Constitution, but those of international law,
including the Geneva Conventions.
In addition, Dean faults the Republicans and their authoritarian tactics
for seeing to it that Congress doesn't get much done. (Dean believes,
however, that the atmosphere is more bipartisan since the Democrats took
control of Congress in the 2006 elections.) Column continues below -v
THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH: THE VICE PRESIDENT AND HIS ATTORNEYS HOLD SWAY
Dean contends that the Executive Branch led by George Bush has been
allowed to run amok, thanks to a complicit Congress and a Vice-President
whose primary motive for taking the job, Dean suggests, was to make the
Presidency as powerful, secret, and autonomous as possible. Dean's chapter
on the Executive Branch focuses on Cheney as bearing primary
responsibility for creating what is arguably the most secretive--and most
arrogant --White House in history.
If it isn't Cheney himself pulling the strings, Dean postulates, it's the
lawyers who work for Cheney, including Scooter Libby, who many think took
the fall for Cheney regarding the Valerie Plame scandal. It very likely
was Cheney who was at the root of the attempt to discredit Iraqi war
critic Joseph Wilson by attacking his wife, Valerie Plame. David
Addington, the lawyer who was at the heart of the "torture" doctrine that
the Bush White House embraced, was the proponent of hundreds (to date, at
least 750) of "signing statements" that President Bush has employed to try
to undermine the effect of much Congressional legislation while
ceremonially signing it into law.
Dean argues that it is not signing statements themselves that are the
problem. Signing statements were used by many prior presidents to state,
in essence, that they would not enforce a law that they believed to be
unconstitutional, as is their duty under their oath of office. The
problem, Dean suggests, is the particular language of Bush's signing
statements, in which he claims to exercise the power of a "unitary
executive" to implement the law as he deems expedient.
For instance, if Bush signs a law that mandates that a government agency
take a particular action, yet accompanies that law with a signing
statement containing this "unitary executive" language, he is in effect
saying that he alone, as head of the Executive Branch (within which most
agencies operate), will instruct the agency if, when, and how to comply
with that law.
To add insult to injury, due to the high level of secrecy maintained by
this Administration and the hostile position it takes with respect to
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, it is nearly impossible to
know in what ways, and how often, the agencies of government have outright
violated the law as a result of mandates coming from the White House.
Without a court order, the Bush Administration refuses to turn over
records if there is any possible basis on which it can claim it is not
obligated to do so.
In sum, we have a President who appears to believe that the laws he signs
apply to him and the Executive Branch only if he wants them to.
THE JUDICIARY BRANCH--THE MOST BROKEN BRANCH
It is no surprise, that Dean, himself an attorney, saves his most
passionate argument for the branch of government he sees as being in the
worst state--the Judiciary. While many of Bush's policy initiatives have
failed, his goal to reshape the federal bench during his tenure has been,
on its own terms, "successful."
Most prominently, Bush succeeded in getting two highly conservative
Justices on the Supreme Court, one of them as Chief Justice. Moreover,
until the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, Bush continued the
work of Nixon, Reagan and his father in packing the trial and appellate
courts with judges willing to issue partisan far-right decisions, ignoring
even clear, settled law.
Dean attacks the current state of the judicial confirmation process, which
is highly partisan and which allows Supreme Court nominees, as well as
some nominees to the federal bench, to be disingenuous about their
beliefs, and fail to answer Senators' questions honestly and forthrightly.
Dean traces this practice back to the Reagan years and Chief Justice
Rehnquist's successful nomination. In addition, he takes us back to the
Clarence Thomas hearings, and some of Thomas's implausible responses,
particularly about Roe vs. Wade.
Dean also takes care to remind us, however, that dissembling during a
confirmation hearing is hardly a thing of the past. Chief Justice John
Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito effectively succeeded in distancing
themselves from problematic past opinions, or skirting questions about
those opinions, during their confirmation hearings -- then turned around
and voted the way skeptical Senators had feared.
More than half of our current federal judges are Republican nominees.
Though not all are tools of the extreme right, many appear to be.
Moreover, if Bush has his way, he will continue to fill as many lower
court vacancies as he can with judges whose opinions will turn back the
clock on affirmative action, civil rights, workers' rights, abortion
rights, voting rights and, more generally, the Bill of Rights, while
giving greater power to big business and the President.
Dean refers to this type of partisan, hard-right judge as a
"fundamentalist," one who seeks to destroy the judiciary as a third
independent branch of government and transform it into an ideological arm
of the Republican Party.
FIXING THE MESS: DEAN'S CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS TO GET OUR CONSTITUTIONAL
SYSTEM BACK IN WORKING ORDER
Dean is not without hope: Our government can be fixed, but, at this point
in time, only by a Democratic administration. He believes, as he wrote in
Without Conscience, that the core of today's Republican Party is
authoritarian in character, and dedicated to making big cor****ations
richer through the creation of bigger and more government. In this sense,
the Party has utterly betrayed its traditional Republican small-government
ideals.
Dean is quick to point out that we don't need government reform to fix
broken government; we just need to have people in power who are willing to
play by the rules. Having laid out how Republicans don't "play fair" with
the processes of government, using their own processes to benefit
themselves and special interests, Dean argues that we must insist that
government run the way it is supposed to.
Congressional representatives are supposed to act for the good of their
constituents, not their parties. There are very rules for how proposed
legislation is supposed to make its way through committees, and to votes.
The President is the President of all the people and he (or she) is
supposed to uphold the laws and Constitution, not become a potentate who
rules in secret and flouts the laws with signing statements meant to make
them merely optional.
Federal judges are supposed to decide constitutional issues and interpret
the law. Thus, judges who march in lock-step under any ideological banner
are anathema to the principle of the judiciary as a constitutionally
co-equal branch of government. A judiciary captured by the Executive's
party, and acting in disregard of the law, is simply a branch of the White
House.
Dean states what anyone who listens to the Republican candidates' debates
already knows: Every current Republican candidate (except Libertarian Ron
Paul) would, if elected, continue down the path of Nixon, Reagan, Bush I,
and Bush II and appoint judicial fundamentalists who will, in fact,
legislate from the bench (the very sin Republicans accuse
Democratic-appointed judges of committing). These jurists will shape the
law to benefit special interests and diminish individual rights.
Dean argues that Congress is working better since the Democrats took
control; Wa****ngton is not as partisan as it was just a year ago. Still,
with 60 votes necessary to break a filibuster (Dean mentions the
filibuster, but a more detailed discussion of how it has been used and
abused recently would have been desirable), we are witnessing how little
the Democratic Senate can accomplish if the Republicans are willing to use
that tool.
If the Democrats win the White House, gain a sixty-person majority in the
Senate, and pick up more House seats, we will see if Dean is correct in
his argument that Democrats will reinstate the processes necessary for
good governing.
In the meantime, voters ought to read Broken Government to see just how
bad things are, and how far we will have to travel to return to a
government of, by, and for "the People."
[Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District of
Columbia and teaches law and psychology. Her textbook, "Criminal
Behavior" (2nd ed., 2007, Erlbaum), explores crime and violence from a
developmental perspective. Her book, "The War on Civil Liberties: How
Bush and Ashcroft Dismantled the Bill of Rights," was published by
Lawrence Hill in 2004.]
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