The View from Right Field

What's Better? Something or Nothing? Police Reform In an Age of Polarization.

I’ve been writing a lot about baseball lately, mostly because baseball, even with people like Rob Manfred and Tony Clark unable to negotiate anything, is better than politics today, which says something.  But it’s back to the real world.

A big issue in Washington is police reform.  Your first thought about Washington and police reform might be like mine: Huh?  Police, like schools, seems like the epitome of a state and local issue.   We need police reforms (for one of my ideas, see here), but what’s the federal government got to do with it?  State governments, local governments.  Police reform is their issue.  Congress can’t pass laws telling state and local governments how to run their police forces.  About all the federal government can do (with one exception I will get to below) is cut back on the money it gives to state and local police departments if they do things the federal government doesn’t like.  It’s not much, but it’s something.  So the people in Washington are talking about a police reform bill which would increase or decrease the amount of money Washington gives to state and local police departments.

Two Bad Supreme Court Decisions – From a Process Point of View

It’s been a bad week for people who see the job of the Supreme Court as applying the law, as opposed to coming up with ways to do what Congress should do but hasn’t.

First, it was the LGBT workers decision on Monday in Bostock v. Clayton County.  I think that people shouldn’t be fired from jobs for being gay, lesbian, etc.¹  And I think Congress should pass a law to that effect (as should states).  But Congress hasn’t.  I do not believe that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, when it prohibits discrimination in employment because of an individual’s sex, covers discrimination because of sexual preference, gender identity, etc.  “Sex” did not include those things in 1964, and it shouldn’t be interpreted as including them today.  There is a proper way to do it: Pass a law.

Is “Tariff Man” Messing Up the Economy?

At one point in his dealings with China (which continue), President Trump called himself “Tariff Man” – apparently because he likes tariffs and thinks they are good things to impose and/or to threaten other countries with.  Which brings me to the tariffs that President Trump threatened to impose on Mexican imports into the United States if Mexico didn’t do more to stop people from entering the U. S. illegally. 

I have commented previously on President Trump’s arguably rogue or unilateralist approach to foreign policy.  I am not a fan of it.¹  I don’t think it’s good in the long run – or the short run – but I also don’t think it does any good for me to complain about it again and again.  And it gets tiring.  Therefore, this post.

But I think President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico in this case causes a different kind of problem that I haven’t commented on before, at least with respect to President Trump, so I wanted to do so. 

Declaring a “National Emergency” to Build a Wall Is a Terrible Idea

President Trump has apparently decided to sign the budget bill and then declare a “national emergency” to build a wall on the border with Mexico.  I’ll be brief: This is an absolutely terrible idea.  Presidential power once stretched never returns to its prior limits.  A national emergency that lets President Trump build a wall, will let his successor do other things.  Even if you approve of the former, you may not approve of the latter.  And even if courts or Congress stop President Trump from doing this,¹ the mere fact that President Trump tried to use emergency powers in this way will be a precedent for future presidents to use their emergency powers in other ways.  This is a really bad idea.
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¹ It could be an interesting question as to who would have “standing” to challenge President Trump’s order in the courts.

A Few Thoughts on “Dreamers”

“Dreamers” is shorthand for people who were brought to the United States when their parents came here illegally.  In 2012, Barack Obama issued an executive order¹ establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program.  The program allowed people, who came to the U.S. before 2007 and before they turned 16 and who do not have a criminal record, to apply for two-year renewable permits to legally live and work here. 

President Obama initially called on Congress to pass a law to protect Dreamers (among other things), but when Congress failed to do so, he invoked his own special “Congress-won’t-do-what-I-want-so-I-can-do-it-anyway” principle of constitutional law² and issued an executive order establishing the DACA program.

How a Small Country Pays for Donald Trump’s Great Mexican Wall

During Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency, he promised he would build a “beautiful” wall on the border between the United States and Mexico and that Mexico would pay for it.  It was one of his guaranteed applause lines.  He never said how he was going to get Mexico to pay for it, or why they would agree to do so, but that didn’t seem to matter.  He was going to build it and they were going to pay for it.

Now that he is president, things are a little trickier, since now he has to build the wall – and he has to get Mexico to pay for it.  One of his first equivocations was that we would pay for it initially, but he would get Mexico to repay us later.  Once again, he didn’t say how he was going to get Mexico to repay us, but that was just details – or something.

Trump on Immigration; Progressives on Growth Where They Live.

In his big speech on immigration last week, Donald Trump said, inter alia, this:

“We take anybody.  Come on in, anybody.  Just come on in.  Not anymore.”

What Trump says sounds a lot like the policies they have in places such as San Francisco and Aspen – and other places where progressives live and want to keep more people from moving into.  Because they like those places the way they are.  And while progressives say they are merely trying to preserve the places, you have to wonder if they are really just trying to keep them for themselves.

Why Is President Obama Still Blaming George W. Bush?

While President Obama was in New Orleans yesterday for the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the President couldn’t resist yet another chance to blame George W. Bush:

"We came to realize that what started out as a natural disaster became a man-made disaster, a failure of government to look after its own citizens." 

What a sad thing to say.  Is President Obama really so desperate to prove his presidency a success that he has to keep attacking his predecessor seven years after he beat him?

Should a president whose administration:

• Couldn’t build a proper healthcare website in 3½ years
• Turned the Animas River yellow
• Appears to be blocking an investigation by one of its own Inspector Generals into a security breach involving records of almost 22 million current and federal workers
• Doesn’t seem to be properly screening the people into whose custody it is placing thousands of illegal immigrant children
• Whose VA was, and may still be, doing a worse job in caring for our veterans than its predecessor
• And more and more

really be criticizing his predecessor for failures of government?  Maybe instead of worrying about what his predecessor did wrong, he should be spending more time getting his administration to do things right.

Let’s Bring Back Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment

Ronald Reagan famously proclaimed what he called the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”  While President Reagan did not come up with it (California Republican Party chairman Gaylord Parkinson did), he did popularize it.  And I think it’s time to bring it back.

With more candidates and potential candidates than the Chicago Cubs have relief pitchers, there is a real potential for Republicans presidential candidates to consider violating the rule this year.  They may feel the only way their candidacy can gain traction is criticize other Republicans.  But that is not what we need. 

After eight years of Barack Obama and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, we don’t need one Republican gaining traction against another.  We need to elect a Republican in 2016.  Discussion of solid policy differences are one thing.  Ad hominin attacks on fellow Republicans are another. 

Immigration: Is the Emancipation Proclamation a Precedent?

I’m not going to comment on President Obama’s decision about illegal immigration.  Enough people have commented that I don’t need to.  Plus I’d be late.  I would, however, like to comment on the comments; i.e., I would like to comment on one of the examples that some people have used as a precedent for President Obama’s action: The Emancipation Proclamation.

Let me quote from an article by Bruce Ackerman, a professor at Yale Law School:

“Before Lincoln issued his pronouncement in September 1862, congressional majorities had expressly affirmed that the war effort only aimed ‘to preserve the Union’ without ‘overthrowing … established institutions’ in the rebel states.  The proclamation was an act of executive unilateralism, and as Obama has done in his order, Lincoln limited its scope in recognition of this fact.  As a result, both proclamations serve only to initiate, rather than preempt, further democratic debate and decision. …

Particulars in Obama's proclamation may well be changed by Americans over time.  But like Lincoln's, its provisional and limited character will have a democracy-forcing effect — spurring officials and citizens to more actively engage in a constitutional dialogue.”