Tag Archives: political parties

Texas Redistricting

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As a result of the 2010 census, Texas picked up four additional Congressional districts, four House of Representatives seats in the Federal Congress.  Pursuant to this, the Texas legislature redrew the existing district map to create those four additional districts.

Of course, someone’s ox is going to be gored by such a remapping, and Texas was sued in Federal court as some groups were unhappy that they hadn’t been favored enough by the new map.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  The primary reason the Federal government has any say at all over how a State sets is Congressional districts is carried in the Voting Rights Act of 1965: this law gives the Federal government, in the form of its Federal courts, the authority to approve or disapprove Congressional district maps of certain enumerated States before those maps can take effect, and Texas is one of those enumerated.  However, and this is key, the purpose of that prior approval requirement is to prevent racial gerrymandering.

The District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the Texas Legislature-drawn district map and sent the case to the District Court for the San Antonio Division of the federal court system for trial.  The San Antonio federal court then proceeded to draw its own district map, which is far out of the jurisdiction of the Federal courts.  This drew, correctly, a sharp reaction from Texas’ Attorney General Greg Abbott as he announced his emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to stay this Federal intrusion into a State’s internal affairs.

A court’s job is to apply the law, not to make policy.  A federal court lacks constitutional authority to interfere with the expressed will of the state Legislature unless it is compelled to remedy a specific, identifiable violation of law.

Beyond this, though, is what the San Antonio District Court did with its map.  The court’s own map would ensure minorities made up the majority in three of the additional four districts.  This is exactly the racial gerrymandering to which the Voting Rights Act authorized the Federal courts to object.

Even larger, though, is this: either we’re all Americans, each of whose vote is as valuable as the others’, or we’re not, and government-favored groups get louder, stronger votes than those disfavored by government.  It’s plain where one Federal judge’s sentiments lie.

Progressive Logic

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This would be funny if it weren’t so sad.  The Daily Caller reports that the ProgressivesDemocrats of South Carolina are complaining that Republicans are attacking women.  The only racists are those who play the race card where racism is absent, as with the Democrats’ constant attempts to play the race card these last three years against anyone who dared criticize their meme.

So it is with sexism.  The only sexists are those who cry “waging a war on women” where no such thing is occurring.  Here’s the plaint.  As a result of census-driven redistricting in South Carolina, three (count ’em) of six Democratic Party State Senators were double-bunked—put into redrawn districts that will require them to run for re-election in another incumbent’s district or in a new district that combines two incumbents’ districts in some way (as if a district belongs to a particular incumbent at all), and six of twenty Democratic Party State Representatives were similarly double-bunked.

Now, one might make a case for reducing the number of Democrat-held districts out of proportion to changes in the number of Republican districts, but that’s not the complaint here.  It seems that the real beef, the one Democrats are loathe explicitly to articulate, is that Democrats don’t think women can run against men with any success; women need to be able to retain their special-for-women districts.

A Bipartisan Government?

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In yesterday’s The Wall Street Journal, pollsters Doug Schoen and Patrick Caddell had an editorial that urged President Obama to do the honorable thing and withdraw from the Presidential campaign in the manner of Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson.  Although interesting in its own right, it was another remark of theirs that caught my eye.  “[Hillary Clinton] is the only leader capable of uniting the country around a bipartisan economic and foreign policy[,]” they wrote.

To have a bipartisan government, though, there must be fundamental agreement on the nature of American values and on the role of government in protecting those values.

To have a bipartisan government within the present framework of partisans, modern Conservatives—Americans—must accept into their governing principles elements of the empirically demonstrated destructiveness of Progressives’ ever-rising taxes and Keynesian spending.  Americans must accept the legitimacy of the destruction wrought by the Progressives’ 2009 Stimulus Bill.  Americans must accept as legitimate that government need not be responsive to its American employers, as it was unresponsive with the passage of Obamacare.  Americans must accept the Progressive attacks on business, large and small, of Dodd-Frank and its wholly unaccountable Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the latter with an unlimited budget.  Americans must accept the legitimacy of the Progressives’ Stimulus Light, which masquerades as a jobs bill.  Americans must accept the blowup of the Supercommittee from the Progressives’ demand for a $1 trillion tax hike, coupled with their refusal to cut spending or reform entitlement programs in any way, or there can be no agreement—more of that rising taxes and profligate spending.

To have a bipartisan government within the present framework of the partisans, modern Conservatives—Americans—must accept into their governing principles elements of the empirically demonstrated destructiveness of a foreign policy of apology and retreat.  Americans must accept the premise that there’s nothing special, nothing exceptional, about the United States or our values, and we must apologize for our having touted them in the past.  Americans must accept the legitimacy of the Progressive insistence that we have no right to defend ourselves, and so we must forego a missile defense system—because Russian feelings might be hurt.  Americans must accept the Progressive view that Russia and China must have veto authority over our foreign policy and so, given Russian and Chinese objections, we do nothing serious to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons.

In short, to have a bipartisan government Americans must accept into their governing principles elements of an ever-expanding and intrusive central government, abandonment of the primacy of individual liberty and of Federalism, and a retreat from our global responsibilities to our friends and allies.  How can there be compromise, how can there be bipartisanship, when one of the partisans so plainly does not share the values of limited Federal government and individual responsibility, or does not see the importance of American global leadership?

How is such “bipartisanship” possible, and the United States to survive as an independent political entity in today’s world of an active, militarily strengthening and increasingly aggressive People’s Republic of China that does not at all have the interests of a strong America at its heart?  How is such “bipartisanship” possible, and the United States to survive as an independent political entity in today’s world of an active, soon-to-be-nuclear armed Iran, whose sole purpose in obtaining nuclear weapons is to obliterate Israel and to give nuclear warheads to terrorists so the latter can use them in American cities—and European cities?

No.  The destructive policies of the Progressives, however heartfelt or well-intended, have led our nation to the brink of oblivion.  These policies must be utterly, completely repudiated; only then can we begin to repair the horrendous damage done by them.  Indeed, I wrote earlier how our President had made himself a laughingstock on the world’s stage.  After three years, he’s made our entire nation a laughingstock on the world’s stage.

Progressives: Republicans, Economy, Take a Hike

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Republicans on the Super Committee, that Congressional facility charged with finding a deficit-cutting compromise for the welfare of our nation as a whole, have offered their ProgressiveDemocratic party counterparts $500 billion in revenue increases, including $300 billion from plugging loopholes in the present tax code.  This represents a significant move away from the Republicans’ spending cuts only push, a move made in an effort to save the talks and our economy.

Those Democrats, though, have dismissively rejected the compromise offer without any serious consideration.  For instance, we have Senator Patty Murray (D, WA):

I have yet to see a real, credible plan that raises revenue in a significant way to bring us to a fair, balanced proposal.

And Senator John Kerry (D, MA):

They’re anxious to promote a certain concept with all of you.  I’ll be very clear that whatever they put there doesn’t get the job done.

With this knee-jerk, offer not to be taken seriously, rebuff, the Progressives have, once again, demonstrated lack of interest in compromise.

The Democrats refuse to close loopholes; that would jeopardize their own tax shenanigans (“green” energy subsidies, for instance, and loan programs for failing, but connected, “green” energy companies).  Instead, the Democrats insist on wholesale tax rate increases, particularly on Progressive-disfavored groups.  The Democrats insist on prosecuting their class warfare, trying to pit American against American for no better reason than their own personal political gain.  And they don’t care a whit about the damage to our economy their intransigence or their taxes cause, if they can get that.

What’s Missing?

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Spiegel Online International writes

There is a lack of alternatives to Berlusconi in Italy. The left has spent years criticizing the prime minister, making fun of his dyed hair and of his philandering — but they forgot to present a political program of their own. The Berlusconi phenomenon, which has caused mystification outside of Italy, is the result of this weakness. Berlusconi is a joke. But behind him is a void.

The Republicans threaten their chance for success in 2012 with a similar failure.  There is a critical difference, though, between their position and the Berlusconi opposition: the Republicans actually have a plan—or rather subsets of a plan.

The Republicans have a budget, passed by the House of Representatives, that makes a serious start at addressing our budget deficit and national debt problems, even if its effects generally show up in later years.  The Republicans have several bills that address in the immediate term the existing employment crisis that, as much as the existing debt crisis*, stands in the way of any serious economic recovery, all passed by the House of Representatives.  The Republicans have a partial answer to Obamacare, having passed its repeal in the House of Representatives.

But the Republicans have failed to do a number of things that are critical to their success.  They have not put these various subsets together into a coherent plan, at least not in any way that the public has heard.  They have not pushed the fact that Obama’s “do-nothing Republican Congress” is, in fact, a do-nothing Obama/Reid Senate, where that budget has languished to the point of functional expiration (it was for the 2011 fiscal year), nor have they pushed the fact that their 15 jobs-related bills are languishing in that same do-nothing Obama/Reid Senate.  Nor have the Republicans pushed the fact that, in both cases, the refusal to act is because Reid and Obama are so terrified of them that Reid won’t even allow the bills to be discussed on the floor of the Senate, much less let them come up for a vote.  The Republicans also have not offered an alternative to Obamacare beyond niggling around the edges (“repeal and replace” is a medicine man’s chant): their budget only sought to tweak Social Security and to convert Medicare from a defined benefit program to a defined contribution program.

All of these flow from the biggest—and entirely too typical—Republican failure: their inability to get their message out.  They’ve ceded, once again, the information high ground to the Progressives.  Republicans explain their moves only with sound bites in the immediate moment; even their criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy performance are limited to one-offs, such as this one by Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC).  Thus, it is a “do-nothing Republican Congress,” the Republicans are painted as having no alternative to Obamacare beyond going back to the “failed policies of the past,” the Republicans are painted as being anti-jobs as they continually block the Obama/Reid tax and spend bills that are labeled by them “jobs.” The Progressives don’t even have to speak of their foreign policy failures.

What’s missing, then, are two things.  The Republicans need to unify their message.  What is their overall plan for recovering our economy and our standing in the world?  How do their budget (I presume the House will pass another Ryan-like plan for the coming fiscal year) and jobs bills support this overall plan?  How does repeal of Obamacare support this?  What do they intend to replace Obamacare with (the status quo ante is vastly better, but it’s badly broken itself)?  How does their overall plan enhance individual liberty and responsibility, and how does it reduce the size and reach of government?

The second thing the Republicans need to do is understand—and then act on that understanding—that they need to get their word out repeatedly, often, in a steady drumbeat.  They can’t succeed with only short, one time interviews and quick sound bite pressers following a vote in Congress.  The Progressives understand the need for constantly talking to Americans.  Obama’s left-populist message is motivated by that understanding, and being the only message on the bulletin boards, it’s having the (Progressive) desired effect.

The Republicans—and not just the leadership; all Republicans—need to get out on the hustings, get onto the NLMSM TV and radio talk shows, frequently and steadily.  And when reporters ask them a misleading or loaded question, these Republicans need to push back, point out the distortions in the question, and then answer the real question.  And if the NLMSM publishes inaccurate edits of the interviews, the Republicans need to point that out, also, and publish their own, unedited, copies of those interviews.

The Republicans also need to move away from the NLMSM as their primary outlet.  “Non-traditional” outlets are powerful venues for reaching all Americans.  The social media (Facebook, yahoo!, and Twitter are just some examples, podcasts can be a powerful tool) are powerful messaging mechanisms with the whole of the United States for their audience.  Americans also are moving away from print newspapers and reading the online news outlets (The Daily Caller, The Weekly Standard, National Journal are examples); Republicans need to talk to these outlets early and often.

*As an aside, our debt crisis is a borrowing demand problem, driven by that lack of employment, as much as it is a borrowing supply one.