The View from Right Field

Is Partisan Gerrymandering an Issue for the Courts?

Partisan gerrymandering is one of the big issues before the U.S. Supreme Court this term.  The question is whether gerrymandering, which has been going on for 200 years, has become so extreme that the courts should, and can, do something about it.  Those urging the Court to act argue that computer technology is allowing ever more precise gerrymandering, which is locking in legislative majorities for one party, regardless of what the voters want.

Last October, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case brought by Democrats in Wisconsin, Gill v. Whitford, challenging an allegedly partisan gerrymandering plan of the Wisconsin state legislature.  The Wisconsin Democrats complained that, because of the way the Republicans drew the district lines after the 2010 census, Republicans were able to win 60 of the 99 seats in the State Assembly in 2012 even though Republican candidates won 47% of the total votes for State Assembly candidates. 

What’s Worse: Trump’s Scandals or Obama’s Executive Overreach?

I was talking to a friend last night.  He was very worried about the scandals in the Trump administration.  Now I don’t know which scandals he was talking about.  The possibilities are many: possible collusion with the Russians during the 201 campaign;¹ firing the head of the FBI; Michael Flynn lying; Trump family products promoted from the White House; Stormy Daniels;² the Secretary of HHS resigning after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on private flights; etc., etc..  Then there are things like some of his tweeting, which may not fit the definition of a “scandal,” but are appalling just the same. 

My friend then said that Barack Obama didn’t have any scandals.  I disagreed, which I think surprised him.  When he asked me what they were, I decided not to talk about President Obama publicly prejudging the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, both because I’m tired of former Secretary Clinton’s emails and because I wanted to mention what I think was real scandal in the Obama administration: what I saw as the gross overreach of executive power by the President and his administration.

“The Chicago Way”

There was a brouhaha in the Chicago media earlier this week about whether Chicago Alderman Edward Burke had violated the City Council’s ethics rules.  A resolution was introduced in the City Council by almost two dozen aldermen (out of 50) to get the City to try to increase the assessed valuations (and, therefore, the real estate taxes) on seven big commercial buildings in Chicago.  Two of these properties had previously gotten their assessments lowered in tax appeals handled by Klafter & Burke, a law firm that does property tax appeal work and that Alderman Burke is a partner of.

The potential conflict of interest arose when, after the resolution was introduced, Alderman Burke said the resolution should be sent to the Finance Committee, of which he is the chairman, instead of the Housing and Real Estate Committee, whose chairman had agreed to give it a hearing.  By saying the resolution should go to his committee, Alderman Burke created a disagreement, which apparently means the resolution will go to the Rules and Ethics Committee.  According to the Chicago Tribune, the Rules and Ethics Committee is known as “the place where controversial legislation often withers on the vine.”

Why Is Amazon Considering Chicago?

Most of the articles asking why Amazon would consider Chicago as a location for its second headquarters¹ have focused on the sorry state of Illinois’s budget woes and unfunded pension liabilities, the inability of Republicans and Democrats to work to together in Springfield,² Chicago’s own budget problems and unfunded pensions, the increases in taxes that will have to happen to pay for all these things, and so on.

I am sure Amazon is thinking about more than government finances, however.  There is also how it would be for their employees to live in the new location.  Chicago’s supporters say this plays right into Chicago’s strengths.  Culture, art museums, parks, sports teams, etc.  Schools might be a different story.  And the weather isn’t something to brag about at certain times of the year.

A Few Comments on the Government Shutdown

Everybody is talking about the federal government shutdown, so maybe I should, too.  First, I suppose the proper libertarian response to the shutdown is that it is unfortunate – that it will eventually end.  (Just to be clear, that is a joke.)

Second, you can tell something about a presidential administration not only by the President himself (someday, herself), but also by the way the people in the administration act.  In that regard, the response of the lower down people in the Trump administration to the shutdown is so much better than the response of some of the lower down people in the Obama administration in 2013.

New Nuclear Weapons? Making Us Safer – Like in the ‘80s

During the third presidential debate in 2012, Barack Obama mocked Mitt Romney’s foreign policy expertise¹:

“A few months ago when you [i.e., Mitt Romney] were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat² facing America, you said Russia, not Al Qaeda.  You said Russia.  And the 1980s, they're now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years.”

Regardless of what you think of President Obama’s somewhat snarky comment, I remembered it when I was reading an article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal about the Pentagon’s plans to start development work on two new nuclear weapons.  The idea is to respond to Russian and Chinese military strategy and capabilities, as well as address the threat from countries such as North Korea.

The article included comments from critics of the new plans.  Jon Wolfsthal, who worked on President Obama’s National Security Council, said, “We should be doing everything to reduce the risk that nuclear weapons are going to be used, not expanding the ambiguity of when we might use nuclear weapons.”

“The Post,” Richard Nixon, and an Historical “What If”

As a movie, The Post is going to be a blockbuster.  But you expect that with any movie starring both Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep (in alphabetical order).  As history, however, it leaves a little to be desired.  First, it was The New York Times, not The Washington Post, that had the scoop on the Pentagon Papers, and it was the Times, not the Post, that was sued by the Nixon administration.  The Supreme Court case is, after all, New York Times Co. v. United States.  However, it could be that the Times’s newsroom did not have a role for Ms. Streep, while the Post did.

Second, I have yet to see the movie, but I hope it makes it clear that the Pentagon Papers were about how the Kennedy and Johnson administrations misled the public about the Vietnam War.  The Pentagon Papers were not about Richard Nixon.  In fact, according to Henry Kissinger,¹ there was sentiment among some political types in the Nixon White House to let the Pentagon Papers be published to show how Kennedy and Johnson had messed up Vietnam.  Obviously, President Nixon did not take that approach.

33rd Annual Cubs Convention – A Few More Comments

A few more comments:

• Theo said you need the starters to go through the lineup three times so the bullpen is fresher.  Things can be different in the postseason, but even this year, the Dodgers and Astros’s bullpens were fried by the World Series.
• Per Theo, the NLCS might have been different if Cubs had won NLDS in four games (without the rainout).  But, in any case, he said, the Cubs did not execute in NLCS.  Also, sometimes, things just happen.  For example, Kenley Jansen was lights out against the Cubs in the NLCS, but he’s the guy who we beat in the ninth inning of the home opener back April of 2017 (two-out single to left by Riz).
• With many guys in the bullpen having career-worst strike throwing ratios in 2017, and the bullpen being not that good at the end of the year, maybe “reversion to the mean” will help us in 2018.

33rd Annual Cubs Convention – January 12-14, 2018

I made it back to the Cubs Convention this year, my 27th.  (I missed the first four and then ’05 and last year.)  It was good to be back.  I will mention a few things that maybe didn’t get mentioned by sportswriters, etc.  A few things from a fan’s point of view.  (This means that I unfortunately do not get to talk about Willson Contreras’s rather colorful description of what he told Jon Lester to do with respect to Tommy Pham of the Cardinals.)

“Friday Night With Ryan Dempster” was Friday evening and was hosted by Ryan Dempster.  (Which was the level of much of the humor.)  A few of Demp’s jokes (as I scribbled them down):

• The White Sox are really going with a youth movement.  In fact, they are going so young, Sox Fest will be held on Tuesday from 1 to 4 pm at the Chuck E. Cheese down on Cermak.
• Wrigley Field is the most Uber-ed to place in Illinois.  Mostly, because everyplace else in Illinois has parking.

Obamacare’s Elusive 60th Vote

Democrats complained a lot about the way Republicans passed the tax bill.  Megan McArdle explained¹:

“Last week, as you may have noticed, Republicans passed a tax bill.  As you may also have noticed, Democrats were aghast.  Passing a bill like that on straight party lines!  Using a parliamentary maneuver to push through something that could never have survived a filibuster!  How could Republicans be so brazen, so immoral, so fiscally irresponsible?

Those of us who remembered saying many of the same things during the passage of Obamacare had to beg them to stop.  I mean, we could have been seriously hurt, laughing that hard.”

In addition to the things Ms. McArdle mentioned, there were complaints about how Senators Bob Corker and Mario Rubio agreed to vote for the bill at the last minute.  Democrats complained Senator Corker had abandoned his concerns about the deficit, and Senator Rubio was bought off by a last-minute change to the family tax credit.  Of course, in making those complaints, the Democrats forgot about the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase that got Senators Ben Nelson (of Nebraska) and Mary Landrieu (of Louisiana) to vote for Obamacare.