'Sweet' Influences on lawmaking

 



(At the end of this week, we will be done with the study of congress and Lawmaking. To give you a sweet taste of an instituion that we know has all-time sour public approval ratings, here are a couple of interesting posts from the Political Warrior's archives. First, the Tribune reports on the important desk Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk is manning. Second, a look in on the influence candy makers had on the treat of  moving the end of Daylight Savings until after Halloween six years ago.)

 WASHINGTON — Here's a sweet story from the nation's capital, a tale devoid, mostly, of its political knife fights and grenades.

Sen. Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, maintains a Senate tradition dating to 1965, back when he was in kindergarten at Fairmount School in Downers Grove.

He is assigned to Desk No. 95, which is near the Senate's most heavily used entrance, making it perfect to serve as the chamber's "candy desk." Kirk, his aides and Illinois candy manufacturers keep it stocked with treats for senators and staff. It's loaded with confections such as Jelly Bellys, bite-size Snickers bars and Ferrara Pan chocolates.

"Senators, being older, can get kind of grumpy in the afternoon, and have this tradition of being able to reach into this desk to get a treat," Kirk, 52, said.

Chocoholics in the chamber need not worry because Kirk won't name names. It's partly discretion, partly the nature of his calorie-laden cache. Rather than staying at his desk and minding the store, Kirk is often buttonholing colleagues on the Senate floor.


"I'm deep in the well (of the Senate) talking to 15 members about 14 things," he said. "The desk kind of runs itself. I can't tell you individual (candy) preferences. It's a 'drive-by' pickup they do … a pretty stealth swoop."

His own weakness? When sugar-free Orbit gum won't suffice during a "hypoglycemic dip," Kirk chooses chocolate.

For more on how the Illinois Republican handles this informal leadership spot:

Kirk's Sweet Desk

The Senate, more than the House of Represenatives, is associated with evolving traditions of (worthy?) of the Upper House. Here's the skinny (really?) on the history of the candy desk.

Since 1965

(Was it a Trick, or a Treat? This was big news at Halloween and the influences on lawmaking on Capitol Hill six years ago. This post origninally posted on Political Warrior in Nov. 2007)

For the last six years, Trick-or-Treating has been different. Because Congress in 2007 moved Daylight Savings time back to the first Saturday in Novemeber, my son (in 2007) went to a record number of doors in the Sunlight.

"I got lots of candy more than ever before,'' said then nine-year-old Patrick. "It should have been night, because night is cooler going trick-or-treating, and the houses are more lit up . But I probably wouldn't have got as much candy."

Hmm. Despite the fact that Patrick did get tooth paste at one house, the load of his loot may have been due to influences on Capitol Hill. The New York Times City Room Blog says the candy lobby gave an influential push for a rider to the 2005 Engergy Policy Act.

NYT story on the influences on federal lawmakers to shed more light on Halloween night (child safety was also a legitimate concern) is linked here:

Energy Policy Act of 2005

Energy Policy Act gets 'sweet' treat rider light

 

 

 

 



TED Talk: How economic inequality harms societies

This video is more to the subject area of my sociology class, but when we think about shaping domestic and international public policy, Professor Richard Wilkinson offers much lawmakers and their consitutents should think about.

Richard Wilkinson Bio

Can Congress push the NFL out of being a League of Denial?

Many of you missed the extra-credit opportunity today on which function was illustrated in this House Judiciary Committee investigative hearing of the National Football League and traumatic brain injuries. While the NFL is not part of the executive branch of government, this was oversight function of Congress. At the end of these investigative hearings, the committee could recomend, for example, that the NFL loses its federal anti-trust protection if it did not become more transparent on the dangers of its game. It also could have advised the executive branch justice department to take legal action against the NFL.

At the end of the 2009 hearings, the NFL did become more transparent about football's head injuries. So one might say that this oversight function was successful.

However, as we ready ourselves for our lawmaking function , yet another knowlege drop that might keep you feeling frustrated with our Congress linked here. Read Matt Taibbi's Four Weddings and a Funeral (2005) and comment your thoughts here for a 3-point assignment. Also make sure you come in Monday with an idea for a bill and a co-sponsor to work with.

Test Tomorrow; Congress on Friday, will government be open by then?

Terms to know for tomorrow's MC portion of the test:
Traditional Roles of the Media
Voter Turnout in U.S.
Significance of 2000 presidential election
Campaign finance reform (Bipartisan Campaing Finance Reform Act of 2002, Soft Money, Hard Money, FEC, PACs, Super PACS)
Incumency Advantage
Primaries, Caucuses
National Conventions
Public opinion polling
Politcal Socialization
Political Efficacy
Where do liberal Democrats live?
Where do conservative Republicans live?
Conservative ideology
Liberal ideology
Third parties in America
Institutional challenges to third parties in America
Purposes of Politcal Parties
Valance issues vs. Positional Issues
Expanding electorate
Proportional representational voting systems
First-past-the post voting systems
Iron Triangle
Republican Party founding
linkage institutions
Special Interest groups
Growth of lobbyists in Washington
How many PACs in US?
Importance of Iowa and New Hampshire in campaigns
FEC
FCC
Ralph Nader
John McCain/Russ Feingold
Jon Stewart
Tea Party
Occupy Wall St.

Also, watch these short videos on political movements, on the fringes of our political parties:

Who are the Tea Party?

Blog here your Days of the Government Shutdown (I set the over/under line at 10 days, and tomorrow is Day 10).

Campaign Finance, Lobbying Flipped Lesson

Since the days of Andrew Jackson, campaign financing in America has been a controversial, confusing and important issue effecting elections in our republic. All you will need to know and more on Thursday's Test (Patterson, Ch. 7-9) is here. This "flipped" lesson will need to be completed in the comment section here by Thursday, 10/10.

Campaign Finance History in US

1) Define: a) Buckley v. Valeo (1976); b) Bi-Partisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (2002); c) Citizens United v. FEC (2011).

2) Watch the video above and identify the Citizens United vs. FEC case and explain its impact on elections in the U.S. today.

 

 

 

 3) View the Prezi presentation (thanks, Maura O'Kane). In a sentence or two, what's the biggest takeaway?

 

Campaign Finance Prezi

 

 

Jack Abramoff was the King of K Street (the HQ of lobbyists in Washington)

until he went to prison on 2006. (Thanks, APGov.org)

 

4) MCQ: Which of Jack Abramoff's activities listed below is the closest to bribery - one of his crimes for which he spent 4 years in federal prison.
A. Giving $2,000 to a Congressperson's re-election fund
B. Taking members of Congress golfing in Scotland
C. Holding a fundraiser for a member of Congress
D. Promising to hire a member of a Congressperson's staff in the future
E. Suggesting obscure additions to legislation that would help his clients

Casino Jack, with Kevin Spacey....about Jack Abramoff.

 

 

 

5)  FRQ: Although all lobbyists attempt to influence the governmental policymaking process, not all groups employ the same methods.

 

 

A) Identify and explain two (legal) methods lobbyists use to influence public policy makers.

 

 

B) Identify and explain the best methods lobbyists would use for two of the following groups: MADD, NAACP, NRA or AARP.

 

_________

 

Just for kicks, Colbert Super PAC meets disenter John Paul Stevens

 

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"Only talk when it improves the silence"

Government Closed, Affordable Health Care Act Open for Business

Matthews: 'Tip and the Gipper' solutions over shutdowns

By a historical comparison of good, divided government, Chris Matthews suggests the need for Pols in Washington to listen and work with each other for the good of the country. Here's an excerpt that is timely today and may be a preview of next summer's read:

Visitors to Washington are taken with its quiet grandeur. Just like they saw in the postcards, they witness the beauty of the Mall stretching from one horizon to the other. They see the Capitol itself up there on its hill, pay respects to the beloved Lincoln sitting high in his memorial, and gaze like children at the tall, clean obelisk honoring the city’s namesake.
   
The truth is, no loud commerce or clanking industry disturbs the peace; no smokestacks darken the skies even in the distance. Tourists, generally speaking, are respectful rather than boisterous. Even the bureaucracy, busy along its daytime corridors, fails to shatter the stillness. Yet for all the statues and monuments loyally attesting to what’s gone before, Washington is very much a living city.
 
And what makes it so is its jamboree of human voices engaged in discourse, debates, discussion, argument, compromise, leaks, gossip, criticism,and commentary, not to mention speechmaking. Undeniably the city’s signature output, it’s been this way since General Washington and Pierre L’Enfant together on horseback envisioned our new nation’s capital in the late eighteenth century. It’s a place where talking matters, and even more important, who’s talking to whom.
 
Since the moment of its creation the city has been marked in every era by voices. Year in and year out, the questions they hurl into the air lie at the center of the American conversation, and this ritual of the voices is what animates our government.
 
And always there come the responding questions from the country: Shall the people hold sway? Will the winning faction deliver on its promises? Will the losing faction give way? Will a divided electorate see a spirit of compromise? These are the recurring quandaries that separate action from stalemate, a working democracy from one seized by dysfunction.

The framers of the American Constitution, who also made Washington the capital, established two great offices. One is the president of the United States; the other, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The role of the first is to lead the country; the province of the Speaker, through custom and his prerogative to set the House agenda, is to control the government’s purse strings. Not a dollar can be allocated that the Congress hasn’t guaranteed by law or specifically appropriated. This historic arrangement makes simple human bargaining a central task for the two leaders. The check-and-balance relationship between president and Speaker can either propel the government forward or not. Put plainly, they either talk, or they don’t. When they join in alliance, the government rumbles ahead. When their interests collide, something’s got to give. Either one side prevails, or a compromise is struck. Otherwise,the republic stalls.
  
This means that, for the Constitution to work, the two must be open to the larger picture, to resist base obstructionism, to accommodate differences for the common good. Historically, this coupling of president and Speaker has been a tricky one that encourages a choreography both quickfooted and wary.

I was witness, with eye and heart, to one of the most celebrated of these pairings. The time was the 1980s, the president was Ronald Reagan, and the Speaker was Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Both were Irish-Americans. Both men were larger than life. The former was a California conservative Republican, elected in a landslide. He arrived in Washington to his very first job there, walking into the White House on Inauguration Day 1981.The latter was a New England liberal Democrat, a hardened, blooded Washington veteran who’d entered the House of Representatives in 1953 and had spent the twenty-eight years since finessing and cajoling his way to the top of the Hill.
 
The outsider and the insider: these two moved together in a remarkable, if sometimes rough, tandem. They argued mightily, each man belting out his separate, deeply cherished political philosophy—but then they would, both together, bow to the country’s judgment. Decisions were made, action taken, outcomes achieved. They honored the voters, respected the other’s role. Each liked to beat the other guy, not sabotage him.
   
During this period, government met its deadlines. Members of Congress listened and acted. Debates led to solutions. Shutdowns were averted. What needed to proceed did, and America’s citizens were the beneficiaries.
 
Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill were definite political rivals. Just not always.
    
People in politics, like everyone else, like to talk about how different things were in the old days. They point to the relationship between President Reagan and Tip O’Neill—old-school guys, only two years apart in age, who were so different yet not, on some level, that different—whose commitment to comity came out of their shared integrity. They disagreed on the role of government, knew it, admitted it face-to-face. But they put concentrated effort into trying to get along even as they challenged each other. Why, we wonder, can’t it be that way again?
 
Why won’t our leaders work to accommodate each other, employing civility as they cooperate to accomplish goals in the country’s best interests? Why must we continue to suffer their relentless gumming up of the works? What in our national character, in the ways we choose to deal with one another and respect different viewpoints, has changed so since the days of Reagan and O’Neill? How can we win back the faith that our republic is working?
 
Today we have government by tantrum. Rather than true debate, we get the daily threat of filibuster. Shutdowns are engineered as standard procedure. In place of hard-earned statecraft we witness new tricks of the trade. Presidents make “recess” appointments to end-run Senate consent. Tea Partyers in the House of Representatives act as if voting “Nay” constitutes twenty-first-century governance. Democrats in the Senate, for a while, refused to approve the annual budget—withholding consent to skip the embarrassment of admitting dire fiscal reality. Brinkmanship grabs today’s headlines even as public faith dies a little with each disappointing eleventh-hour deal.
 
What’s to be done? I truly believe it doesn’t have to be this way. And the story I’m about to tell of these two extraordinary figures will show you why. My goal is to bring you the true account of what took place. Our country is less in need of a myth than a real-life account of one imperfect leader dealing with another. It serves no purpose in this time of habitual conflict to spin a tale of happy harmony; far better to illustrate how two very different figures managed to make politics work.

Ronald Reagan was dismissed by his enemies as a Hollywood lightweight, Tip O’Neill as a Tammany-style ward heeler. I refuse to add a third cartoon to those two. The credit for their civility goes not to their off-duty socializing and shared Irish stories: it was their joint loyalty to American self-government. Tip’s oldest son, an elected politician himself, put it best in a 2012 New York Times column: “What both men deplored more than each other’s political philosophy was stalemate, and a country that was so polarized by ideology and party politics that it could not move forward. There were tough words and important disagreements. . . yet a stronger commitment to getting things done.” They respected elections, accepted who had won, knew that duty came with office. It’s all true. I was there.
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