Spending Cuts Can Only Boost Executive Power

Feb. 18, 2025

Those hoping the Supreme Court will smack down the President for overstepping his bounds are going to be disappointed.

Not that he will go unscathed.  He will lose a few, but he is going to win some as well.  And the whole process will take so long that there will be lasting damage regardless.

Those with a vested interest are counting on three bits of legalese that seem to offer powerful protection from the drastic spending reductions the President is ordering.

First, the Constitution is clear that Congress has the power of the purse.  Only Congress can make appropriations, and without that money cannot be spent.  Second, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 declares that if Congress appropriates money, it must be spent.  Third and finally, the Constitution requires the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Slam dunk, case closed.  Or maybe not.  To a layman unschooled in the law, there seem to be two major sticking points in the rush to judgment.

The first is that this Court is into parsing words, which turns into parsing the law.  Maybe that’s because Chief Justice John Roberts is trying to be open-minded.  Or maybe it’s because he has no choice in weaving his way through and around the varying degrees of conservatism in the 6-3 majority.

His majority opinion last summer granting broad immunity to the President went to excruciating lengths to distinguish between official and non-official activity, the first of those being immune in the Court’s mind and the second not immune.  He then weaseled a little by declaring that under certain circumstances, non-official activity could also end up being immune.

In that very same opinion, he drew another line in the sand.  Quoting earlier precedents, he wrote, “The courts have ‘no power to control [the President’s] discretion’ when he acts pursuant to the powers invested exclusively in him by the Constitution.”  On the other hand, “if the President claims authority to act but in fact exercises mere ‘individual will’ and ‘authority without law,’ the courts may say so.”

This, I believe, scratches the surface of the fundamental question of the moment.  Do the appropriations bills approved by Congress in and of themselves make law of every line item contained therein?  In which case, the President could well have exceeded his authority.  Or to obtain the status of law, do programs and lines of spending need to be enabled by separate statute?  If that’s the case, everyone is going to be scouring the books for what’s there and what isn’t.

Which brings us to the second sticking point.  The spending cuts might appear to be random, but they are far from that.  And this distinction is a more basic one than reversing policy on climate change, diversity, and what have you.

The first thing to note is that the President’s henchmen haven’t gone after military spending – the nation’s largest discretionary expense.  Is that because the President is a big fan of the Defense Department or because the Constitution explicitly gives control of military spending to Congress?

Neither has he gone after Social Security or Medicare.  Not that he won’t in the future but these programs are classed as mandatory spending that will require a longer-term approach than the quick strikes being dealt today.

Beyond that, a mantra is developing among Administration officials.

The new Energy Secretary said in an interview with Bloomberg News last week that “we will follow the law.”  A spokesperson for the Interior Department said last week that the “ongoing review of funding complies with all applicable laws, rules, regulations and orders.”

This is all in keeping with the constitutional requirement that the President “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”   But what is the law?

One direct example comes from the disemboweling of USAID.  It is funded through the Foreign Assistance Act, which without question is law that dates back to 1961.  And what does the law say?  In a key section dealing with the billions that up until now were allocated for agriculture, rural development and nutrition, right there in black and white it says: “The President is authorized to furnish assistance, on such terms and conditions as he may determine.”

With the fate of the entire Department of Education hanging in the air, Linda McMahon mentioned in her testimony to become its head that the handling of funds for special education could be moved to another department.  Not eliminated but moved.  Why is that significant?  Because providing for special needs is mandated by long-standing legislation.  It’s law.  Other parts of the education budget, such as grants for education research, might not be so fortunate.

That’s where “the law” starts to get murky.  To qualify as such, does it need to be codified in legislation specific to it?  That’s a high standard.  Or do non-specific headings in omnibus spending bills such as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law also qualify?  That’s a lower standard.

The country’s highest tribunal could clarify matters by simply and unambiguously reiterating that Congress has the power of the purse.  But that’s much too easy, the internal and external pressures on the Court far too great.  It is very hard to imagine that the Court, in its version of wisdom, won’t somehow try to parse the baby.  In so doing, it won’t be putting the executive branch in its proper place but rather will end up augmenting the power of the presidency.

One can readily imagine a parallel to Trump’s election interference case.  Having laboriously established a distinction for immunity between official and unofficial acts, the Court sent the case back to district court to determine which of Trump’s actions fell into which category.  (Of course, the clock ran out before that could be done.)

In whatever appeals it agrees to hear from the new wave of lawsuits, the Court could establish some high bar that must be met for funded programs to qualify as “law” and kick the cases back to the lower courts to determine which of the programs rise to that standard.  Those that don’t would end up at the mercy of presidential discretion.

Everyone with a stake in federal funding better be puffing up their statutory imprimatur.  Short of that, the Court will inevitably end up granting the President more power than heretofore we thought he had.

Part I:  Who Will Put the President in His ‘Proper Place’?

Who Will Put the President in His ‘Proper Place’?

Feb. 16, 2025

As the new Administration cuts loose people and programs, an isolated statement tucked far back in the Federalist Papers jumps off the page.

The Founding Fathers had just gone to great lengths to separate and balance power in the new American government.  The first three articles of the proposed Constitution laid out the respective roles of the three branches of government, giving power to each but absolute authority to none.

And yet even after creating this structure, either Hamilton or Madison (it’s unknown which) wrote in Federalist No. 51 that the “several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.”

That is exactly where we are right now.

The President is brazenly grabbing for power by executive fiat.  And who will check him?  With one party in control of all three branches, this is extra problematic.

An emasculated and dysfunctional Congress has gone missing.  The Supreme Court hardly evokes confidence in the wake of the wide immunity it granted the chief executive last summer.  And the Constitution, as amazing a document as it is, doesn’t hold all the answers.

The distinction between the three branches has held up rather well over the years.  Government has grown immensely but the broad contours of which branch is responsible for what have held.  The checks and balances have functioned as intended, providing both reassurance and pride that we Americans have a system that works.

Not that everything is perfect.  The executive branch has been presuming more and more power – sometimes out of opportunity, sometimes of necessity – largely through Executive Orders that are being used as much or more to make policy as to execute policy.  That’s in part because Congress, so caught up in partisan warfare that it can’t get out of its own way, has been ceding its authority.

Nowhere has this been more evident than at the border, with Trump’s first-term Executive Orders reversed by Biden’s Executive Orders that in turn have been reversed by Trump’s most recent Executive Orders.  In the middle of all this flip-flopping, Congress passed on a golden opportunity to steady the ship.

But the border is just a small part of what we are witnessing now.  President Trump is brazenly defying every norm and convention, beginning with taking a stranglehold on spending.

No less than Justice Clarence Thomas has opined, “By the time of the Constitutional Convention, the principle of legislative supremacy over fiscal matters engendered little debate and created no disagreement.”  The Constitution enumerates that Congress is responsible for raising revenues, paying the debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare.

The Founding Fathers did not explicitly spell out that the President is required to spend what Congress authorizes.  The line-item veto Trump and his henchmen are exercising is neither expressly permitted, nor for that matter is it expressly forbidden.

What the Constitution does say is this.  In respect to Congress, “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”  In respect to the President: “He shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”  One could argue the framers believed they had adequately closed the loop.

But President Nixon thought he saw enough ambiguity to refuse in the early 1970s to spend money on social programs approved by Congress.  In response, the legislative branch adopted the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that says the executive branch may seek to temporarily defer some spending or rescind it altogether if Congress approves.  Otherwise, the impoundment law says the money must be disbursed.

Congress was doing exactly what the Founding Fathers expounded.  One constituent part keeping another in its proper place.  But Trump is defiant, claiming the law unconstitutional.

In the face of his actions, the current Congress is deafeningly quiet.  The President has just unilaterally usurped legislative prerogatives.  They should be howling.  Republicans just as much as Democrats.  Not just about the substance of his actions, but about his theft of their authority.  Instead, they are quiet as lambs.

Why are the Democrats so quiescent?  That’s the question everyone is asking.  Why are the Republicans silent?  Because Trump is unilaterally doing with a sweep of the pen what they could not collectively do in proper democratic fashion.

That leaves the third branch in the triumvirate, the Supreme Court being ultimate arbiter.  Alarmingly, the court used the doctrine at issue here – the separation of powers – to explain in the immunity ruling why it could not and would not adjudicate what Trump had done during the conduct of his official duties.

The same ruling holds, however, another sobering clue as to what the court might do in response to the current constitutional crisis.  Next: More on where this might end.

Pardons Fail to Serve Any Common Purpose

Jan. 23, 2025

That didn’t take long.

It was almost guaranteed that Donald Trump would claim a mandate he doesn’t have, overreach, and the pendulum that swung toward him in November would begin swinging away from him.  Before We All Go Off the Deep End – Our Common Purpose.  Within a matter of two days, at least two-thirds of this already has occurred.

The President made no bones about it in his Inaugural Address on Monday.

His words: “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom.”

He doesn’t have the mandate he thinks he has.  His election wasn’t so much a yes vote for him as it was a no vote against Democrats.  Voters demonstrated their ire with Democratic economic policies, unfair as that might be, as well as their reluctance to put a woman, perhaps particularly a black woman, in the White House.

But don’t try telling that to the President.  He has a history of seeing things the way he wants to see them, and then acting upon those impulses.

This week has been all about shock and awe.  The most egregious of his controversial moves was to free the 1,500 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  Perhaps this is what he was referring to in his Inaugural Address when he spoke of giving back people’s freedom.

While this post might be seen up to here as a predictable liberal response to these actions, and perhaps it is, this is where Our Common Purpose kicks in.  For when it comes to pardoning the rioters, Trump’s actions do not represent or reflect the will of the people.

In a poll commissioned by Our Common Purpose just days after Jan. 6, a tiny 3% of the nationwide sampling said the rioters were justified in assaulting the Capitol.  Long before the courts got involved, 43% of respondents characterized the rioters as domestic terrorists and an additional 24% called them criminals.  Still another 17% dismissed them simply as fools.

That was in the moment.  Of much more lasting significance, in poll after poll conducted by Our Common Purpose, Americans have asserted their strong belief in the rule of law.

Principle #5 of the 10 Principles to Unite America states “We are a nation of laws – that need to be equally applicable to all.”  In the survey taken just after Jan. 6, 77% strongly agreed with that sentiment, another 18% somewhat agreed.  Before and after, in poll after poll, the results have come back virtually the same.

Now 77% might not sound like a lot by some standards.  But in political terms, it qualifies as a super majority.

Then most recently, in Our Common Purpose’s study of American values that is now being rolled out, law and order placed among the Top 5 of our nation’s most important values.

Which brings us to this week.  More than 1,500 lawbreakers are now walking the streets, their actions whitewashed by the unilateral decision by one man to override our laws and legal system. Militias somewhere are no doubt cheering, but the pardons are an in-your-face attack on the rule of law. Unfortunately, this ideal is being undermined at the highest levels.  We are descending into a downward spiral that threatens the fairness and perceived objectivity of our judicial system, and the faith we place in it.

To its credit, the U.S. Supreme Court saw this coming in its otherwise lamentable ruling last summer that granted broad immunity to the President.

Court Undoes Trump Sentencing Day – Our Common Purpose

Court Creates False Equivalency – Our Common Purpose

As damaging in many ways as that ruling was, part of the justification put forward in the majority opinion was the aim of preventing any president from being prosecuted by his successor on spurious grounds.  The ruling insulated the president from such political shenanigans but what about those political actors who don’t inhabit the White House?

Joe Biden pardoned his son for fear of what would happen to him under the new administration.  Then he pre-emptively pardoned a number of others including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Gen. Mark Milley whom he feared would be brought up on charges for the crime of doing their jobs.

The barbed response, in this Alice in Wonderland world, was why feel the need to pardon them if they didn’t do anything wrong.   And as long as we are issuing pardons, why not release the 1,500 criminals who assaulted police officers, physically threatened the well-being of the vice president and Congress, and ransacked the Capitol?

The escalating politicization of the judicial process threatens to upend the standards by which most of us have learned to conduct ourselves.  It’s an outrage to law-abiding citizens, and all the mores so to those who are sworn to uphold the law. In no way does it serve our common purpose.

We are better than this.  Our leadership needs to be better than this.  It is hard to imagine how we pull out of spiraling away from “we are a nation of laws — that need to be equally applicable to all” without a steady hand at the helm.

A Darn Good New Year’s Resolution

Jan. 1, 2025

It was not a man of the cloth who originally called up our “better angels.”  No, the appeal comes from America’s greatest orator.

Abraham Lincoln closed his first inaugural address thusly: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Leave it to Lincoln to coin a phrase.  The rest of that closing passage has fallen away but the last few words not only survive, but guide – and inspire – to this day.

And so it is with the little side project by Our Common Purpose to identify a catchphrase that in the best of worlds would stop political extremists dead in their tracks.  Ideally this pithy one-liner will serve both as a snappy comeback when someone says something outrageous and as a label for official actions that go overboard.

Every instinct is to go negative, to fight fire with fire.  That was the tone of the examples put out by Our Common Purpose as a side question in its latest public opinion survey (you’ll be reading about the main thrust of that survey in the months ahead).  And so it was with many of the avalanche of counter-suggestions that came in from respondents.

Among my favorites was “stop the madness,” which efficiently makes a double point in three words.  If you didn’t read it before, check out the summary of the other submissions at Seeking a Snappy Retort to Extremism.

But herein enters the inspiration of good ‘ol Abe Lincoln.  As bad as we think division is today, it doesn’t hold a candle to what he faced.  And yet he somehow found it within himself to call upon our better angels.

In that spirit, there were better angels who submitted positive rejoinders to Our Common Purpose.  Of those, the one that stood out is the familiar phrase “We are better than this.”

One could lean to several possible variations.  I wondered in the last post about “We need to be better than this.”  Bill, a follower of this blog, came along with “We can be better than this” or perhaps “We might be better than this.”

After due consideration of the alternatives, I’ve gone back to the base form.  Adding in any of the so-called modal verbs (can, might, could, should, would) introduces an element of doubt.  They connote possibility.  “We are better than this” is assertive.  It displays conviction.

Admittedly a conviction that many have come to doubt. Are we truly better than this? Depending on the situation, the message could be directed at failures to:

• • Respect each other. This includes civility, actual listening, and ultimately working together.
  • Respect our founding ideals and democratic norms. This includes working within the system to effect change.
  • Prioritize country over factionalism.
  • Balance our respective interests. This includes looking out for the underdog, but there are other interests to account for as well.
  • Act reasonably. This includes practicality, awareness of consequences and societal standards.

As we enter the new year, “we are better than this” is a vow to remember and to use whenever appropriate.  While the offenses might at this moment in time seem weighted in one direction, we need to remember that every action has a reaction.  We wouldn’t be in this fix if both sides didn’t have some serious work to do.

For all concerned, “we are better than this” makes for a pretty darn good New Year’s resolution.

— Richard Gilman

Seeking a Snappy Retort to Extremism

Dec. 8, 2024

“Just stop.” “Are you done?” Or perhaps “enough is enough.”

Here’s proposing that we moderates need a convenient way to register our disappointment with the loony-tune words and actions that dominate the political landscape.

Neither side is immune from bone-headed decisions that are not in the best interests of the country. Nominating Kash Patel to head the FBI is one of perhaps multiple examples. Pardoning Hunter Biden might be another.

Call us what you will, we moderates are mousy, milquetoasts, mealy-mouthed. We are frequently if not constantly tongue-tied. What can we say to express our exasperation at the craziness?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a pithy one-liner that we universally use to express our collective frustration and let the offender know what he has said or done is truly out-there?

This gem has to be brief. It has to have something of an edge, a bite to it. While one phrase might not fit all needs, ideally it would cover two different situations:

• As a snappy comeback when someone says something outrageous.
• To call out officials, whether elected or appointed, when they go overboard.

It would be best if the catchphrase was so catchy that it catches on with everyone, for there would be power in the numbers. Make it a meme on social media, put it on T-shirts. Imagine wearing that T-shirt. Imagine wearing it in public.

In search of the perfect words, I asked the 2,500 respondents to the survey done by Our Common Purpose in September to react to a few possible slogans and to propose ones of their own.

To be entirely transparent, not everyone wanted to play this game. On the multiple-choice question, 18% answered “none of the above.” Three individuals commented to that effect. Those three comments: “I tend not to be confrontive so it is hard for me to come up with a cool response.” “Retorts don’t help the situation.” “Need more than retorts.”

No argument, we need more than retorts. But having a stock rejoinder is better than stunned silence. Best case, it gives a bit of voice to the voiceless.

Many respondents to the poll took up the challenge.  You might say the people are speaking; their suggestions fill seven pages of a Microsoft Word document. Here are the highlights of what came back (get your brain and keyboard ready to weigh in with your own one-liners):

The favorite word is “stop.” “Stop” by itself. “Just stop.” “Stop already.” Then there’s “stop” in various combinations with 50 or so single or strings of words. “Stop the madness.” “Stop the insanity.” A number of “stop the lies.”

Among the more imaginative: “Stop the bull cookies.” Who knows, maybe that will stop the Supreme Court in its tracks.

The one option in the poll’s multiple-choice question that included the word “stop” was “stop the lunacy.” It did okay but not great, finishing as the preference of 15% of respondents.

The multiple-choice answer with the highest response was “enough already.” It scored 29%.   The sister thought, “enough is enough,” was submitted by eight respondents – the highest for any new phrase added to the mix.

Finishing second in the multiple-choice parade was “cut the bull” at 16%. Respondents filled in several variants, including one that sounded particularly young and with it: “Miss me with the bull crap.”

Many responses were clustered around “common.” Common ground, common sense, common good. Although no one taking the polls is provided any information about the sponsor of the survey or the reasons for it, those suggestions, along with companion ones calling for us to “work together,” happen to be the mantra of Our Common Purpose. It’s reinforcing to see such sentiments come in spontaneously, even if they might not have enough zing for this particular purpose.

That said, one of the better formulations is “common sense, no nonsense.”

Some targeted extremism. “That’s too extreme.” “Too extreme to be considered.” And before going any further, I have to acknowledge that a few of the contributions were themselves too extreme. The tersest example being “you fat pig.” But these were few and far between, and this is all you will hear about this more intemperate category.

In addition, there were others who want to admonish. “Grow up.” “Wise up.” “Shut up.” “Wake up.” “Get real.” “Be real.”  So on and so forth.

Some called up America. “We’re all Americans.” “There’s no place for that in America.” “For the good of the country, please stop.” “Country over party.” And then there was this somewhat wordy prescription: “Don’t strive to be the best person on America’s team, be the best player for America’s TEAM!!!”

On the whole, most tried to be constructive. Many were subtle, even gentle. Some reasoned, some fell back on logic. “And you think this why? “Are you sure you want that?”

Some cajoled, some were conciliatory. A number of contributors got on the “peace train.” “Keep the peace.” “Give peace a chance.” “Peace” was sometimes coupled with “love.” And four contributors harkened back to the plea of Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Some preached God and Jesus. “Love not hate like Jesus.”

Others preached “be kind.” “Play nice.” “Play fair.” “Just relax.”

One of my favorite submissions is “Bless your heart!” The intent of this southern phrase depends on the context, but in this case would be interpreted as genteel dismissal that likely would disarm most any offender. The submitter, sure enough, is a 70-year-lady who hails from Alabama.

Others offered familiar phrases. These might work well in personal interactions, although I wonder whether they can be used to call out the latest bone-headed move by Congress. On the other hand, maybe their familiarity is helpful.

“Really?????”

“Oh please”

“Are you done?”

“Seriously?” “Come on now, are you serious?”

“Whatever”

“Next”

By now your mind is spinning, as is mine. So many choices. There are a number of approaches and some good possibilities. My short list includes:

“Stop the madness”

“Country over party”

“For the good of the country, please stop”

“Common sense, no nonsense”

“Enough already”

I like “stop the madness” for its apt double meaning. And there’s one other strong submission that isn’t mentioned above. It’s not original but it might be best of all: “We are better than this.”  Open to discussion is whether it’s better that way or we need to be better.

This musing is anything but conclusive. What about you? What can you imagine wearing on our T-shirts? Like any of the above? Other ideas? Have a clever friend? Pass this along.

— Richard Gilman

‘70% Club’ Represents the True Ideal

Nov. 24, 2024

A Republican-dominated U.S. Congress will soon be grappling with how to move forward, with only the Senate filibuster to hold it in check.

Chances are, however, that whatever comes of the mandate they imagine will not match up with what most voters want.  Over and over, in a succession of polls conducted by Our Common Purpose, the majority of Americans – Republicans included – say they wish for middle ground.

The most recent survey, taken in September, asked whether we as citizens and voters should encourage our elected representatives to: a) Drive a hard bargain by staying true to the political positions staked out by their side OR b) find middle ground that incorporates valid viewpoints from both sides.

The poll found 71% favored finding middle ground.  That preference is shared by 67% of Republicans, along with 74% of Democrats and independents.

The result of this particular survey, conducted in September by Survey USA of 2,500 respondents whose demographics match the nationwide voting population, is akin to similar responses to similar questions asked in previous surveys.

The question in November 2021 was whether elected officials should hold to their party’s stance or engage in give-and-take with the other side.  Of all respondents, 72% favored give-and-take.  That included 66% of Republicans and 76% of Democrats and independents.

Say hello to the 70% Club.  Seven out of every 10 Americans believe we should be looking for middle ground.  Maybe it’s not entirely coincidental that about 70% of Congress votes for must-pass legislation, such as the federal budget, when at last their party leadership releases them from toeing the party line.

The survey in January 2023 took it up still another notch.  The question posed in that go-around was whether on controversial legislation we should work it out or fight it out.  A whopping 93% said work it out.  The result was so resounding that one wondered if respondents could have taken “fight it out” in a literal sense.  The high numbers though repeated themselves. In that same survey, 96% said Americans should work together toward achieving our overall objectives.

Without question, the good intentions that people express in abstract terms become exponentially more difficult when applied to specific issues, especially the tough ones.  The differential between the two shows up in the portion of Our Common Purpose’s September survey dealing with the seemingly intractable issues we face.

The survey indicated that on a number of those issues, there’s plenty of room to find middle ground – if we go looking for it. But none of the preferred approaches to those issues, even expressed in generalities, come anywhere close to the 70% threshold.  That kind of consensus doesn’t come automatically or naturally.  It takes putting people in a room to work through the issues, coalesce around a program, add substance and build support.  In Congress, that requires working across the aisle.

Last winter’s bipartisan bill on immigration was a textbook case of Congress doing what it needs to do.  Had the pending legislation not been scuttled by Donald Trump, the vote on it could well have made it into the 70% Club.  But as we know, that effort came to naught.

Now with Republicans soon to take control of both houses, Congress is about to revert to its bad habit of trying to pass – or to oppose – legislation entirely along party lines.  Republicans will attribute their every action to the mandate they perceive, even if Trump didn’t manage to get a majority of the popular vote — finishing a whisker under 50%.

More importantly, their policy positions – in fact the policy positions of either side – do not fully reflect the will of the people.

The Our Common Purpose poll shows that while 60% of Republicans want to close the border, a plurality of all voters favor keeping it open with limits on the number of crossings.  While 45% of Republicans would outlaw abortions, a plurality of all voters favor allowing them up to a certain point in time.  While 44% of Republicans fall back on the 2^nd Amendment, a near majority of all voters favor tighter gun controls.  While 25% of Republicans deny climate change, a near majority of all voters want to phase in controls on carbon emissions and another sizeable group wants to enact them immediately.

This is not to dump on Republicans. Were their positions reversed, Democrats would have the very same problem — except from the other side of the fence.

The poll shows that while 32% of Democrats would continue current border policies, a large majority of voters – including many Democrats – want to tighten things up.  While 35% of Democrats want to lift all curbs on abortion, a majority of voters want at least some restrictions.  While 42% of Democrats want immediate reductions in carbon emissions, a near majority of all voters want to phase in controls.

While both parties will retreat to their respective corners and come out fighting, common-sense Americans realize that neither party has a corner on what’s best for the country.  The real ideal for the people is politicians working together to craft legislation that makes sense to most everyone, probably not to all the extremists, but to most everyone.  And in so doing, elevate the results into the 70% Club.

In one survey after another done by Our Common Purpose, voters couldn’t be more consistent.  Do they expect the country to fully match up with their own vision of how things should be?  No, most don’t expect that.  Are they willing to combine the view of others with their own?  Yes, 78% say they are willing.

Once more, there’s that magic percentage. By some standards — for instance, in education — 70% might not be a lot. In politics, it’s a super majority.

Before We All Go Off the Deep End

Nov. 10, 2024

Both sides are taking it to the extreme in their reactions to Tuesday’s election.

President-elect Trump interprets the result as a mandate.  Actually as “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” One can see where he might get that idea, given the large margin of his victory and likely GOP control of both houses of Congress.

On the other side, the sky is falling. Peter Baker of The New York Times writes, without conceding even the slightest exaggeration, that “Trump has now established himself as a transformational force reshaping the United States in his own image.”

What ties these views together is the belief that this is a watershed moment, that we are embarking on a new era and there’s no going back. There’s little doubt the next four years will be tumultuous. Unfortunately, all the apocalyptic talk only adds fuel to the fire. Extreme views repeated over and over have a way of becoming self-fulfilling.

As always, however, we should approach such unbridled assessments with considerable caution. There are two ways to construe Tuesday’s result:

 The one supposed above suggests we’re witnessing a long-term structural change. Trump is deemed to have created a movement that extends well beyond his MAGA base, for instance among Latino voters, who have re-aligned behind him and his successors for the long haul.

 The other perspective is much more short-term in nature. In this view, Trump’s new-found support could be here today, gone tomorrow. That’s what happens in a democracy.  Whenever blocs of voters are unhappy with the state of the country, they shift their weight in the other direction. As a result, the political pendulum swings back and forth on a regular basis.

The sitting president takes the blame, fairly or unfairly, for anything that goes wrong on his watch. Voters unhappy with their lot in life (think pandemic) rejected Trump in 2020. In similar fashion, voters unhappy with their lot (think inflation) rejected Joe Biden, and by extension Kamala Harris, in 2024.

This is not anything new. Since 1988, neither party has occupied the Oval Office for more than two consecutive terms. And on top of that, control of Congress has slipped from one party to the other in sometimes disastrous midterm elections.

Our system of democracy is self-correcting. The extensive polling done by Our Common Purpose over the past few years shows as much as anything that the voting public wants balance between too much of this and too much of that. The system has a sixth sense that the country is drifting too far in one direction or another, and it tries to fix that by reversing course in the next election.

So which was it on Tuesday? Is the new support for Trump permanent or provisional? No question, Trumpism is a phenomenon.  But then so was Barack Obama in 2008.

Here’s a humble prediction. Caught up in the aura of a mandate, the Trump administration will overreach. It will ram through too much of one thing or another, with damaging consequences. Voters will react accordingly.

Assuming Democrats can get their act together between now and then, our system will again self-correct by electing a Democrat to the White House in 2028. The victor’s substantial majority will be deemed a mandate, and excited observers will proclaim the dawning of a new era. All that will soon prove overstated. In truth, it will be just another case of the system trying to re-balance the country.

These wild and frequent swings back and forth wouldn’t occur, wouldn’t be necessary, if someone were to put a premium on establishing and maintaining balance in the first place.

— Richard Gilman

Women United on Abortion? Not Entirely

Oct. 13, 2024

A strong majority of American voters favor assuring access to abortions, and yet not all women are on board.

Just as many men as women are pro-choice.  On the other hand, just as many women as men are pro-life.  Gender is hardly the deciding factor as voters go to the polls with abortion on the ballot in 10 states and looming large in the presidential race.

The biggest nemeses for pro-choicers are Republicans, evangelicals, and rural communities.  No news there.   What is a little surprising, however, is that those groups are predominated by women.

These observations come out of the latest nationwide public opinion survey conducted by Survey USA for Our Common Purpose.  Topical questions such as abortion were not the primary purpose of the survey, which you’ll be reading much more about in the coming months, but the results do kind of jump off the screen.

This particular poll has Kamala Harris running neck and neck with Donald Trump, 45% to 45%, thanks in good part to disproportionate support from women.  Harris had an 8-point lead among women; Trump a 10-point lead with men.  The confidence interval of this nationwide voting sample of 2,300 registered voters conducted from Sept. 13 to 19 is +/- 2.6 percentage points.  While the sample size is not sufficient to predict the outcome of the presidential election in battleground states nor predict the outcome of abortion measures state by state, it does provide an ample window on which way the nation is leaning.

The poll shows 62% of respondents favor allowing some level of access to abortion, represented by lines 2, 3 and 4 on the table below.  Men tend to giving less leeway, by a small margin.  Women lean a little more to no restrictions, again by a small margin.  Overall though there is no gender gap.  In fact, of the six topical issues explored in this poll, abortion drew the smallest percentage differences between men and women.

A less favorable way of looking at the same results is that a differently constituted majority, in this case represented by lines 1 and 2 above, would like to impose tighter restrictions than existed under Roe v. Wade, either by prohibiting abortions entirely or by allowing only a shorter timeframe.

The highest number of opponents, no surprise, are Republicans, evangelicals, and rural residents.  What is something of a surprise is that within these groups, the more frequent opponents — albeit by small margins — are women.   Their belief systems overcome any bond of sisterhood.

The latest iteration of the women’s movement has succeeded in making the abortion issue front and center, managed to energize supporters, and likely will draw a number of women to the polls who otherwise would not have voted.

The incongruity is that other women have made a choice of their own, and that’s not to allow the right to choose.

Election Reforms Could Curb Extremism

Sept. 15, 2024

For those who believe the division and dysfunction within Congress is structural in nature, some amount of help might be on the way this fall.

The faces of the problem are hard-liners such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and their polar opposites Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, but they are not necessarily the problem itself.

The real culprits are features of our election system, specifically gerrymandering and closed primaries, that make it easy for extremists to land in Washington and then face no accountability back home.

It’s one of the great paradoxes of modern politics that independent voters are becoming ever more prevalent, yet because of closed or even semi-closed primaries in many states they have little or no say in choosing the candidates they will vote on in November.

Take the case of Arizona. It gets well-deserved recognition these days as a swing state, with the voter rolls showing as many unaffiliated voters as there are Republicans and far more than Democrats. The state went for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

By contrast, the state’s representation in the U.S. House of Representatives won’t be mistaken for middle-of-the-road. In fact, its nine-member delegation is among the most extreme in the country.

Four of the six Republicans in the delegation belong to the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, which is saying something when one considers that the group only has 39 members. Arizona matches the four from Florida and Tennessee, and exceeds the three from much bigger Texas.

With the caucus’s most ardent obstructionists, including some of the Arizonans, once again jamming up discussions on the federal budget, it’s fair to say that these individuals don’t make it their first priority to work together across the House.

But what is one to expect when two of the four ran unopposed in the last general election? Their districts provide them unassailable registration advantages, with roughly twice as many Republicans as Democrats.

This is not entirely a one-way street. The pattern is repeated on the other side of the aisle. Two of the three Democrats in the delegation belong to the most liberal group in the House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They’re able to do so with impunity because they also enjoy huge registration margins back home. One of the two represents a district with three times as many Democrats as Republicans.

That’s Arizona. High percentages of Republicans live in rural counties and certain portions of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Then the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission comes along, and in the course of “fulfilling” its cautious interpretation of certain requirements, tilts the table even more.

Even with all this, however, the extremism would take a hard hit if the state’s plentiful independent voters had an easier time of participating in primary elections. The good news is that this could change in a major way this fall. Arizona is one of seven states that will vote on reforming how elections are conducted.

Initiatives in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon are going after the whole enchilada. They seek both open primaries, in which all candidates and all voters are treated equally without regard to their political party affiliation, and converting to ranked choice voting in the general election. Oregon would take it a half-step further by applying ranked choice voting to its primary elections as well.

Activists in the remaining three states – Arizona along with Montana and South Dakota – are content just to seek open primaries.

Arizona is going at it in roundabout fashion. For starters, it has two conflicting initiatives on the ballot. The one enacts open primaries. The other keeps primaries pretty much the exclusive domain of Republicans and Democrats. If both initiatives somehow pass, the measure with the higher vote total will prevail.

If that confusion isn’t enough, the open primaries measure doesn’t specify whether, like Montana, the top four candidates make it to the general election or, like South Dakota, just the top two candidates move on. Arizona will leave it to the Legislature to decide. What a mess that will be. To top if off, depending on what the Legislature decides, the state could back into instituting ranked choice voting in the general election.

Even with these zig-zags, it still is worth the trouble. Bringing to bear the moderating voice of all those independents will have considerable impact on congressional primaries across the board.  Their influence surely will be felt in the two or three districts that could flip to either party.

And even in the six districts with lopsided registration advantages, the single primary ballot and the size of the independent bloc will encourage moderate candidates to throw their hats in the ring. We have to hope that just the prospect of such will cause the incumbents to think twice before going to the extreme.

— Richard Gilman