Tag Archives: Iowa

Insurrection Ineligible

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Under the United States’ federal form of government, elections are administered by the states. Why are state constitutions being left out of the picture?

The Colorado Supreme Court has put state courts front and center for 2024, ruling Donald J. Trump ineligible for the ballot in Colorado, pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

January 6, 2021

As everyone not living under a rock knows, at issue is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. (July 9, 1868)

Constitution of the United States

Shortened to pertinence, the section reads,

“No person shall […] hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, […] who, having previously taken an oath […] as an officer of the United States […] to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same[.]”

The section seems clear to a non-lawyer but is being characterized as vague or not spelled out. Setting aside definition of “officer of the United States” for now, the key term is insurrection.

The U.S. Constitution itself refers to insurrection only briefly—very, very briefly—in enumerating powers of Congress: in Section 8, Congress can call forth the militia to “suppress insurrections.”

No definition is given for “insurrections,” suggesting that none was considered necessary; and suppressing insurrections is a power of Congress, not only of the Commander in Chief. (Sadly, the D.C. Code states that local authorities in Washington, D.C., can call upon the Commander in Chief for help in suppressing riots. An update may be needed.)

The brief statement on insurrection in the U.S. Constitution is reinforced by state constitutions. This is not a federal-government-versus-state-government issue.

For the record, the state constitutions of Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona all refer to “insurrection,” not favorably but as a self-evident ill to address. So do the constitutions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

I have not gotten to the other 29 state constitutions yet, but so far an unshakeable pattern has emerged. To summarize, in the states named, without exception,

  1. The governor has power to suppress insurrection.

  1. The state can take on public debt and/or appropriate funds against insurrection.

In regard to public debt and insurrection, North Carolina goes farther.

Section 3 (4): “Certain debts barred.  The General Assembly shall never assume or pay any debt or obligation, express or implied, incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.”

Section 4 (4): “Certain debts barred.  No county, city or town, or other unit of local government shall assume or pay any debt or the interest thereon contracted directly or indirectly in aid or support of rebellion or insurrection against the United States.”

Variations of language do not disrupt the patterns, the state powers to address insurrection. For example, the governor can call out the state militia and put down insurrection even where, as in South Carolina, Arkansas, or Pennsylvania, the same section does not explicitly designate him “commander in chief.”

Also, for whatever historical reasons, the state constitutions of Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, and Arizona do not contain the word “rebellion,” often in other states associated with “insurrection” or “invasion.” But as said, they all address “insurrection.”

There are two more overall patterns to mention here.

  1. Many state constitutions—though not all—say that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except in connection with insurrection, rebellion, or invasion.  The state constitutions of Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Arizona, and Maryland do not have this provision but say flatly that habeas corpus shall not be suspended.

  1. No state constitution uses the word “convicted” in connection with insurrection, rebellion, or invasion. (If an example turns up, I will include it in a later post.)

With all due deference to Rep. Phillips, none of the references to insurrection or rebellion in any state constitution say anything about being convicted. When the word “convicted” is used about public officials, it mainly refers to offenses like bribery and embezzlement.

Obviously, some state constitutions were written or rewritten after the Civil War, with the Confederacy in mind, although provisions against insurrection pre-dated the Civil War in older states. There was little need for conviction on Civil War actions, when the actions were highly public; the identities of Jefferson Davis et al. were widely known.

In this respect, Donald J. Trump’s actions are indeed analogous to the highly public actions of southeastern states after Fort Sumter. Trump’s actions are always highly public—televised, videorecorded, ongoing even after January 6; trumpeted in rallies, on Trump’s own social media, and at Mar-a-Lago; used flamboyantly in fundraising appeals coast to coast.

Speaking of being convicted, or not, on the related topic of impeachment, the state constitutions create another unshakeable pattern:

  1. As in the U.S. Constitution, punishment in impeachment extends only to removal from office and disqualification from serving in public office in the future. Neither the U.S. Congress nor state legislatures can jail a convicted individual, and rightly not. BUT, also as in the U.S. Constitution, the outcome of an impeachment trial does not protect an official from prosecution or from other actions of the law after office. This provision is stated clearly in the constitutions of Colorado, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Iowa.

Trump’s weakest ground is his weird insistence that he is immune to prosecution because he is out of office but was once in office.

The wording of the Arizona state constitution is luminously clear on this point (Part 2.2):

“The party, whether convicted or acquitted, shall be liable to trial and punishment according to law.”

UPDATE 12/22/23. Add the Michigan state constitution to the list of documents upholding the governor’s power to deal with “insurrection.” The Detroit News today reported that Donald Trump was caught on tape pressuring state election officials in Michigan to avoid certifying the 2020 presidential vote in that state. Also on the call was Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republication National Committee. The telephone conversation as reported would induce them to violate their oath of faithfully performing the duties of their office, but Trump backed up McDaniel in assuring them that they would have legal protection. McDaniel is recorded saying, “We will get you attorneys,” and Trump, “We’ll take care of that.”

Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

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Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

As of New Year’s Day, the odds on yesterday’s football bowls were as follows:

Jan. 1, 2014:

 

Wrong

Spread predictions here.

Six games on Jan. 1; four games picked emphatically wrong. Four 180-degree wrong predictions even by the broad win-loss rubric. Georgia was nowhere near beating Nebraska by two scores in the Gator Bowl, and South Carolina beat Wisconsin definitively in the Capital One Bowl. Central Florida came out scoring in the Fiesta Bowl and never stopped. The Rose Bowl was very hard fought from start to finish, but Stanford seldom or never looked like a favorite.

 

Hard won

LSU did not crush Iowa in the Outback Bowl, either. That game was more wobbly than predicted to be, though the outcome was correctly predicted. LSU had to fight all the way down to the fizzle of an end*–when it almost mismanaged the clock in final seconds so as to give the ball back to Iowa on downs. The coach had to intervene and arm-wave away a snap. Sometimes it’s a mistake to get too cute. With more than a minute left to play, any team worth its salt ought to be able to run a play without undue risk of disaster. If you’re ahead in the final minute and a half but can’t handle one snap, just one snap, and a single attempt to gain a few yards–that don’t even have to be gained successfully, for the win–maybe you don’t belong in a bowl in the first place. Perhaps the rules should be changed to prohibit taking a knee with more than 60 seconds left in the game.

Won

The Heart of Dallas Bowl and a couple of others serve as reminders that again, future years may see a need for more new bowl names. Lackluster Bowl?

 

Bowl season

As of today, 29 games have been played on the NCAA football bowl schedule. Out of 29, ten picks have been completely wrong. Ten or so of the winning teams and right picks, the favored, depending on how you count them, were favored too narrowly to be realistic. The prognosticators’ ratio is still ailing.

Going forward

On to the next college bowl games; how will the next picks hold up?

Today is the Sugar Bowl:

Today’s question: Who will get today’s bowl wrong?

 

*I root for Louisiana teams and thought LSU would be more solid. A regrettable typo in the previous post–typing in ‘Outback Bowl’ instead of ‘Capital One Bowl’–has been corrected. It would have been more wizardly if I had done it on purpose. Maybe I was picking up on something registered subliminally. Uncle Sigmund, call your office . . .

Speaking of offices, tacking on those sponsor names is making the bowl names more forgettable, not less. The more syllables, by and large, the more obscure.

More to come.

 

More on the Romney campaign’s internal polling

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Romney internal polling–myopia rather than rose-colored glasses

I don’t call these post-mortems, but in this election follow-up, The New Republic has disclosed some useful information. The gist is that Mitt Romney’s campaign thought it was likely to win because internal polling at the end said so. The Romney team’s own last-minute projections for six key states showed Romney possibly winning enough electoral votes for victory.

 

Romney and Ryan in Wisconsin

Here, from TNR:

“In an exclusive to The New Republic, a Romney aide has provided the campaign’s final internal polling numbers for six key states, along with additional breakdowns of the data, which the aide obtained from the campaign’s chief pollster, Neil Newhouse. Newhouse himself then discussed the numbers with TNR.”

The six states chosen for outtakes are Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

 

Red states, blue states, purple states by senate representation

The first thing you notice about the Romney internal numbers is that they were nearly right where they focused on votes for Romney. In alphabetical order, here are the states lined up with the Romney campaign’s projections for Romney, and Romney’s actual results:

  • Colorado:            Romney vote projected at 48%. Actual Romney vote 46.1%
  • Iowa:                     Projected Romney vote 46.5%. Actual Romney vote 46.2%
  • MN:                       Projected Romney vote 43.5%. Actual Romney vote 45%
  • NH:                        Projected Romney vote 48.5%. Actual Romney vote 46.4%
  • PA:                         Projected Romney vote 46%. Actual Romney vote 46.7%
  • WI:                         Projected Romney vote 45%. Actual Romney vote 46.1%

The late polls were nearly accurate. In five of the six states, the Romney campaign came within two percentage points of predicting Romney’s actual vote, and in New Hampshire the campaign miss Romney’s actual numbers by only 2.1 percent. In three of the states, the polls were off by less than one percent. One could expound on the Romney campaign’s obliviousness to a key fact about New Hampshire–namely its closeness to Massachusetts, home base or epicenter of Romney’s unpopularity. But the fact remains that most of the Romney team’s numbers were close to the mark. It will be interesting to see the campaign’s late polls for Florida, Ohio and Virginia, if they are ever released.

 

Voting in Florida

Furthermore, the Romney campaign actually underestimated the percentage of the vote that Romney went on to get in three of the states. Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin–percentages highlighted here in red–actually went for Romney in slightly bigger numbers than his own campaign projected in internal polls. This is not wild miscalculation.

Where the Romney team did miscalculate wildly was the Obama vote. This is key: In a presidential election there is more than one candidate running, and dismissing the other major-party candidate the way you would dismiss Virgil Goode is not viable assessment.*

Here are the six states with the run-down on the Obama vote, as calculated by the Romney campaign, and President Obama’s actual outcome:

  • Colorado:            Obama vote projected at 45.5%. Actual Obama vote 51.5%
  • Iowa:                     Projected Obama vote 46.5%. Actual Obama vote 52%
  • MN:                       Projected Obama vote 47.5%. Actual Obama vote 52.6%
  • NH:                        Projected Obama vote 45%. Actual Obama vote 52%
  • PA:                         Projected Obama vote 49%. Actual Obama vote 52.1% 
  • WI:                         Projected Obama vote 49%. Actual Obama vote 52.8%

Again, the underestimates–i.e. all six states–are highlighted in red.

Now the most obvious comment is that Romney’s tacticians made the fundamental mistake of underestimating their opposition, the error warned against by strategists for millennia. However much you wish to despise the person/king/opposition, allowing your assessment to be distorted by your emotions is an elementary error. Machiavelli, whose critics gave Machiavellianism a bad name, would have recognized it. That Machiavelli himself died a despised and forlorn exile is beside the point.

Back to 2012–in regard to the Romney calculations, even hard-nosed numbers crunchers could not see that their numbers re Obama were way off. It did not even strike them as unrealistic that a popular incumbent president was polling, according to their picture, at 47.5 percent in Minnesota and at 46.5 percent in Iowa?

There are several factors at work here.

  • One is ‘demographics’, which as we know did not play well for the GOP in the 2012 elections. Nor should it have. It stands to reason that the people making those well-exposed public comments about immigrants–often basically running against immigration–would be no better at evaluating what they were doing behind the scenes. The same personnel are now scrambling to find new shades of lipstick for the hog, mostly by promoting a few Latino politicians and a few fauxish immigration reforms. Back during the campaign, they kept well away from the people they were characterizing rather than wooing.
  • Another is the millennial generation. It’s not just that cell-phone users tend to be under-polled; it’s that old measures do not always work. WARNING: OVER-GENERALIZATION AHEAD: Aside from Occupy Wall Street, millennials do not tend to be demonstrative. Demonstration with them tends to be a last resort, not a first. They are not vehement at first hue, they do not ask for things stridently. On the plus side, they tend to respect human dignity, they tend to appreciate courtesy, and they tend to let other people have a say. One can imagine how Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich would have fared with this cohort.
  • That leaves the third factor, not explored by TNR, of race. Romney strategists and even Romney pollsters operated in a partial blindness that left them unable to imagine other people voting differently from the way they themselves would vote, and the different race of the president made that back-of-the-eyelids view more plausible. Calling this ‘racism’ does not explain anything. It is a simple facet of the human brain to find difference, or newness, harder to understand than the familiar. Change is so hard to adapt to that even positive change–a promotion, winning the lottery–is stressful.**

For Republican campaigners and campaign operatives, the natural myopia was compounded by their other characteristics, or the related characteristics of their side–a continuing antipathy to genuine information, an unwillingness to see anything positive on the other side, and a corresponding willingness to shout down any unwelcome perception on their own side. These are useful attributes for the politicians who are hired guns for privilege rather than independent thinkers, just as they are useful for the media personalities like them–Limbaugh and Krauthammer et al. These are the qualities that strengthen a Gingrich or a Bachmann to run a campaign as shameful as the policies espoused by the candidate. But for running a national campaign, where winning depends on knowing something outside your own sphere of influence–not so much.

They were hoist by their own petard.

 

*In the interest of full disclosure: according to genealogy research mostly via ancestry.com, Mr. Goode and I may be distantly related.

**[Update Dec. 4: Overt racism was cultivated by the campaign, as we know. Sometimes the overt racism is attributed to blue-collar  voters; this is false sociology. Persons with wealth, status and at least nominal education can and do participate in racist acts and speech.]

Positive harbingers for Obama-Biden

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Pre-election, looking warmer

2012 harbingers

Yet another positive harbinger for the election, from a Democratic and democratic perspective: Citigroup’s CEO just abruptly resigned. Wall Street this fall did a little quiet house-cleaning. Doesn’t suggest that insiders see a wildly lenient Romney-Ryan ticket winning. Rep. Paul Ryan doesn’t seem to see that in his crystal ball, either: he is still on the ballot in Wisconsin, running for reelection to Congress just in case things don’t pan out elsewhere.

 

Ryan with budget

Funny how little attention the hand-wringing liberalish cable commentators have paid to that Wisconsin race.

 

WI challenger Rob Zerban

But then a near-hysterical insistence on closeelectioncloseelectioncloseelection offers little political acumen or illumination.

 

Mad man

Close or not, take a look at some of the hard numbers:

  • by all accounts, the advantage in 2012 early voting is heavily Democratic
  • President Obama outraised Mitt Romney in September, $181 million to $170 million
  • retail sales are up in September, unemployment is down, consumer confidence is up, house sales up, housing permits up; etc
  • Dem Senatorial candidate Tim Kaine is outraising George Allen (R) in swing-state Virginia
  • Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren is outraising incumbent Sen. Scott Brown (R) in Massachusetts in spite of a national lobbyist-superPAC campaign against her
  • compilations of polls and polls of polls still show Obama significantly ahead of Romney in electoral college votes
  • Nate Silver’s micro-tuned statistics continue to predict the win Obama

Even as nominally pro-Democratic commentators keep instilling fear, cherry-picking the most negative opinion polls in order to seem influential, RealClearPolitics makes the picture clear.

RCP, be it noted, accords the incumbent Obama-Biden only 201 electoral votes, and 191 to Romney-Ryan. RCP designates the other 146 electoral votes ‘toss-up’.

That toss-up category includes the following states, in alphabetical order:

What these five ‘toss-up’ states have in common is, among other things, that Obama is ahead in all or most polls in all five of them. Not much surprise there; Obama also carried all of them in 2008. All five also have a history of going Democratic in presidential elections for the past quarter-century. Iowa has voted Republican only once (2004) since 1984. Michigan has voted Dem every time since 1988. Ohio has gone Dem in three of five elections since 1988. Pennsylvania has gone Dem every time since 1988. ‘Swing state’ Wisconsin has gone Dem in every election since 1984.

Jobs minus before, jobs plus after

Meanwhile, Michigan and Ohio are also home to industries that Romney-like policies have damaged. Iowa and Ohio tend to be politically tuned in as state electorates–never a blessing to Romney-type policies. Wisconsin has a history of populism, Pennsylvania of religious freedom, all five states are heartland bastions of the large, self-confident working class called middle class in this country’s sociology.

And as mentioned, every recent opinion poll or almost every recent poll, in all five of these swingy swing toss-up states, puts Obama ahead.

I am beginning to think that the mass media effort to drive every national election to ‘closeness’ bears a strong and unsavory resemblance to price-fixing in retail.

 

The GOP in Iowa; Live blogging the coverage

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GOP in Iowa –Live blogging the coverage

 

Gingrich

The last 48 hours leading up to results from the Iowa caucuses, and “every second counts” according to CNN. That principle does not apply to air time. Yesterday evening, minutes after saying repeatedly that CNN would be bringing you the candidates’ words, live and unfiltered, Candy Crowley cut away just when Ron Paul was heading to the podium.

CNN had been actively touting its direct presentations of the candidates, saying It’s as though you are there. You too will hear the candidates, just as if you were in Iowa. Et cetera. The audience out in televisionland, however, never did get into the room to hear Paul speak to his live audience. A split screen a little while later showed where each candidate was, Rep. Paul speaking at the podium, one visual in the graphic among six. No audio. Instead, more commentary from Crowley—repeating summations of the up-and-down already amply reported–more commentary from guest pundits, and a couple quick cut-aways to Newt Gingrich, in interview, and to Michele Bachmann on the campaign trail. Admittedly some humor value was there to be had. Bachmann said more than once, aiming in the general direction of the mic thrust into her face, that “thousands” of Iowans were switching to her. Bachmann has repeatedly declined to say that she would support the Republican nominee for president, whoever s/he was, always declaring that she will be the nominee. It could have been the diplomatic answer but was styled verbally with typical Bachmann ham-handedness. She did the same kind of thing when asked questions about the war, saying repeatedly, “I’m a mom.” Then she pushes herself as the one “genuine” candidate in the mix.

Crowley interviewed Paul on air today, with clips aired more than once. Since most of the air time in the interview went to Crowley rehashing attacks by opponents—mainly Gingrich–against Paul, the interview was not equivalent to live coverage of the candidate speaking. Paul’s answers tend to be terse and to the point, one source of his appeal. So Crowley ended up doing more of the talking in the interview.

 

Santorum reported as surging

As of this writing, Mitt Romney tops the polls in Iowa, followed closely by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Santorum is aiming fire at Paul. Paul validly responds that the overwhelming majority of Americans want us out of Afghanistan, as he does.* Gingrich and Rick Perry are closely fighting for 4th-5th. Michele Bachmann is consistently at the bottom.

One hesitates to be a mind reader, but somehow that last item feels—what is the word?—unsurprising.

One good thing about listening to television is that it makes you think about the language we use.

A phrase that should be retired, whether it comes from the candidates or the commentators, is “At the end of the day.” I am influenced in this wish partly by the late John Weiglein, a good man who wished the same thing.

Another candidate for retirement, aside from Gingrich and the rest: “If you will.” (Rick Perry is already retired.)

“If you will” is a phrase used when putting forth something a bit doubtful, or something not established, or something a bit risky. The phrase is what one offers when stumped for a final answer or a precise formulation, compelled by the exigencies of the conversation to provide an interim suggestion. It softens the overreach. It is a social gesture to reassure the hearer that one is not overreaching, or at least not wantonly or for the fun of it. It is not a phrase to be used when one is saying exactly what a thousand other pundits have already said, or when one is describing something in perfectly ordinary words. Example: “Michele Bachmann’s coming in last in GOP polls is unsurprising, if you will.”

 

*As does this writer.

“When I was in school . . .” Aren’t any GOP candidates parents?

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“When I was in school . . .” Aren’t any GOP candidates parents of students?

The interminable cable conversation on Iowa continues in Iowa. Today there’s another “C’mon, Man!” moment. This time it’s Newt Gingrich, out on the stump talking about education.

Gingrich, in happier days

First Gingrich says, predictably, that we have to shrink the federal Department of Education. Then he says, rightly, that we have to move away from standardized testing that can lead to teaching to the test.

Nobody’s wrong all the time.

Then he adds that we also need to reduce state regulation of education. Not just the federal government but also the states need to move out of the way, so parents can take over. Gingrich:  we need to go “back” to a time when parents were in control, when parents worked things out with their local school board.

This was my Huh? moment. I do not recall parents’ having any power, or any to speak of, in the schools back in the years Gingrich refers to.

Indeed, Gingrich then goes on to have it both ways. “Back when I was in school,” he says, a kid who got into trouble at school got into trouble again at home. Point being, parents tended to back up the teacher.

For what it’s worth, that is the way I remember it, too.

The difference between me and Gingrich–among others–is that I have experience with education more recent than my childhood. Setting aside their own high school and college years, aren’t Gingrich and the rest parents? It never comes up when they’re talking about education, somehow. The line is always “When I was a kid/in school . . .”

Never, “When I was dealing with my kids’ teachers . . .”

Or, “When my own kids were in school . . .”

Or, “Dealing with my kids’ school/s . . .”

Much less, “My own kids were fortunate enough to have good teachers, good camp counselors, good coaches. I feel for . . .”

Side note: Having failed to get on the GOP primary ballot in Virginia, Gov. Rick Perry is suing the VA Republican Party.

As said, nobody’s wrong all the time.

It is always a bit funny to watch another of our anti-litigation, pro-“tort reform” Republican candidates take to the courts, though. Perry is also adding to the taxpayers’ cost for funding the federal courts. He might even arguably expand federal government. We’ll see whether he inveighs against activist judges, should he win in court.