The View from Right Field

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.”

What Is It About President Obama and Negotiating?

A couple of weeks ago, Megan McArdle had an article asking “Does Obama Even Know How to Negotiate?”  I am not going to repeat the points of her article here since you can read it yourself.  (And you should read it; she always writes so well.  Whether you agree with her or not, her articles are a pleasure to read.)

In any case, I think the problem is not that so much that President Obama doesn’t know how to negotiate.  I think it is that he is not good at negotiating.  Negotiating, especially in person, is a special skill.  Some people are good at it.  Others aren’t.  I don’t feel I am good at negotiating in person; I certainly don’t like doing it.  On the other hand, I have seen people who are excellent at it.

I think President Obama knows that he is not good at negotiating in person, and that he doesn’t like doing it, so he doesn’t do it.  That is probably one of the reasons he was a constitutional law professor instead of a mergers and acquisitions lawyer.  I think he is worried that somebody like Mitch McConnell would get the best of him in a negotiation.  I remember a time back during the Obamacare debates when Republican Representative Paul Ryan tried to engage President Obama on the details of his plan.  President Obama wouldn’t do it.

Since President Obama is not good at/doesn’t like to negotiate, he doesn’t do it.  Instead, he give speeches, which he is good at (or so they say).  And so we had last night’s speech.

2014 Isn’t 1964 and John Boehner Isn’t Nelson Rockefeller

With 2014 being the 50th anniversary of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, there have been a number of articles about how then-Senator Goldwater lost that election and yet ultimately won the ideological contest with Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980.  The moral, then, is that standing firm may hurt in the short run, but it will win in the long run.  Which is, I suppose, the theory of Senator Ted Cruz, et al, with respect to the immigration crisis on our southern border: Stand up for what you think is right.  Maybe you won’t win now, but “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” and “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue”.  Perhaps that is why Senators Cruz and Sessions (Jeff, R-AL) stirred up enough House Republicans to prevent the House from passing a bill on Thursday and to threaten the possibility that the House wouldn’t pass any bill before it adjourned for five weeks.

With the following result:  Even though President Obama proposed a plan but then wouldn’t negotiate with Republicans about it (negotiation/compromise isn’t something he does well with who disagree with him*) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wouldn’t even bring up a bill up in the Senate, the efforts of Ted Cruz, et al, wound up focusing attention on disarray among House Republicans (who actually did wind up passing a plan, though that wound up being almost an addendum to the main story).  I understand that much of the media is out of sync with Republicans and will criticize them almost no matter what, but we don’t need to make their job easier for them.  Even if the media isn’t great, the media counts.  It’s how a lot of people, especially those in the middle (i.e., those who decide elections) get the news – and their impression of the news.

It was important for the House to pass a bill.  It won’t become law (because the President won’t negotiate and Harry Reid won’t force his members to vote on something that might hurt their chances for re-election), but it would have been great to show people that the Republicans were trying.  Instead, because of the efforts of people like Senator Cruz, it was the House Republicans who looked like fools.

The key point here is that this is about tactics.  It’s not about ultimate philosophy; it’s about how to get there.  A good argument can be made that the Goldwater campaign was an important part of a philosophical change in the Republican Party and America.  But that is not the situation today.  John Boehner has the same general principles as the House Republicans who were fighting him on Thursday.  It’s not about the destination; it’s how to get there – and whether we can convince the American people to go with us.

As the title of this post says, 2014 is not 1964.  John Boehner is not a 2014 version of Lyndon Johnson – or even Nelson Rockefeller.  And Ted Cruz, et al, need to understand they are not Barry Goldwater.
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* At least those in the United States.  He seems to handle negotiation/disagreement with those outside of the United States better than with those at home.

Immigration: The Children Are Coming

President Obama was lucky he could talk about “Republican obstruction” Monday in his Rose Garden talk on immigration.  Except I’m not sure it's true.  There are plenty of immigration proposals that might be able to pass – if the bill was split up and its parts were considered one by one.  But President Obama doesn’t want to do it that way.  It’s either his way (a bill that covers everything) or no way.  For all the talk by the President about Republican obstructionism, it’s entirely possible the President couldn’t get Congressional Democrats to vote for individual parts of an immigration bill.  In particular, without some kind of limited “amnesty” (so-called by its opponents), it’s possible Hispanic congressmen wouldn’t vote for anything, and the President/Democrat leadership isn’t willing to pass immigration proposals without them.  Therefore, for the President/Democrats, if they can’t get all of what they want, they’ll take nothing – and the campaign issue that comes with it.

Also, by being able to focus media attention on Republican obstructionism (a story line that seems to play well with some parts of the media), the President was able to divert attention from what he was proposing.  You see, we have a problem.  Children, especially from Central America, are swarming into America, coming across Texas border.  The numbers are up dramatically.  They are up so much that President Obama is seeking over $2 billion to deal with the problem, as well as seeking authority to send minors from Central America home faster.  This is a big change for the President, and it’s contrary to what he has tried to do so far.  It is, in fact, contrary to what many people have said is the best part of the President’s immigration proposals: not taking it out on the kids.  The Dream Act.  The President’s deportation halt for minors who were brought here by their parents before June 2007.  It’s not the kids fault, we were told.  We shouldn’t be mean to them. 

Except look what has happened.  We are getting a veritable Children’s Crusade of minors coming to the United States. 

I understand that the children coming here now would not be able to take advantage of what the President has proposed.  But it’s not what the President is proposing that counts.  It’s what the parents of children in Central America are hearing – and what they are being told by the smugglers who charge big money to sneak people across the border – that counts.  They’re hearing: kids can get into the US and can stay.  Given what the President has proposed in the past, you can see why some parents might believe what they are being told.  Parents who left their children in Central America when they came here are seeing this as a time to bring their children to join them.  Other parents, still in Central America, are sending their children alone because they see their children as having a chance for a better life if they can get to the United States. 

In other words, the law of unintended consequences applies not just to statutes.  It applies to proposals – and speeches – too.  Something for us all to keep in mind.