This Week in Political News -- 9/29/11

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 9/29/11

PERRY’S TANKING, GOP FLAILING: Last Thursday night there was yet another GOP primary debate. The debate moment that gained the most attention was the audience’s booing of a gay soldier serving in Iraq, along with the failure of any of the candidates to thank the man for his service. (The GOP audiences have become so absurd that Obama has started mentioned them, albeit obliquely, in his speeches. “That’s not reflective of who we are,” he said.) The second-most talked about moment occurred when Rick Perry completely and utterly mangled what must have been a scripted attack on Romney as a flip-flopper. (Really, watch the video. It’s painful. Just a hair’s breadth away from “I personally believe that U.S. Americans...”.) Perry’s terrible debate performance was followed by a dismal showing in last weekend’s Florida straw poll, despite his best efforts to sway the voters. Perry’s tanking, and fast -- and it led to yet another round of fantasizing about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie getting into the race. Do these people know anything about Christie? Part of the GOP’s sudden disaffection with Perry is his apostasy on illegal immigration: He passed a law providing for in-state tuition for undocumented students living in Texas, and told conservatives at last week’s debate that if they don’t support the bill, they “don’t have a heart.” Predictably, this deeply upset the GOP base, and so...they go scurrying to a governor who has stated that “being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime” and urged Congress to create a “path to citizenship” for people here illegally? They are begging a man who has called the Tea Party freakout over “Shariah Law” “crap” pushed by “crazies” to become the new GOP standard bearer? Christie supports gun control, acknowledges the existence of man-made global warming, criticizes the GOP for “overreacting” to the so-called Ground Zero mosque, and refused to join other Republican governors in challenging health reform in court. Oh and he supports tax increases. This is the man conservatives are supposedly desperate to see enter the race as an alternative to Romney and Perry? Do they know themselves at all?

OBAMA TO SCOTUS: PLEASE RULE ON HEALTH REFORM: On Wednesday, the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to review the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) and resolve the split between the 11th Circuit, which held the individual mandate unconstitutional, and the 6th Circuit, which ruled that the law was clearly within Congress’ power. The request means that the Supreme Court will almost certainly decide a case on health reform next term -- with a decision expected just months before the 2012 election. Of course, the Court may not necessarily decide the case on the merits. It may follow the Fourth Circuit and find that the issue isn’t ripe yet and/or that the plaintiffs who challenged the law lack standing to sue. Perplexed as to why the Obama administration would want to tee up a potentially enormous loss to come just weeks before the election? People smarter than I have offered at some possible reasons why the White House wants this resolved now: The Obama DOJ -- rather than the Romney or Perry DOJ -- gets to control the case and argue forcefully for the law’s constitutionality; it shows confidence rather than delay; and, perhaps counterintuitively, it could provide a political win-win for the Obama campaign, as Rick Hasen explains: “If the Court strikes down the law, Obama makes more of an issue of a Court out of control (think FDR) during the 2012 campaign. ... If the Court upholds the law, this takes some of the wind out of the argument likely to come from the Republican presidential nominee that the health care law is unconstitutional.” But Dahlia Lithwick suggests that a rational Court may not want to get into this political morass at all, or at least not right now. “I remain unsure that there just are five justices at the high court eager to have the court itself become an election-year issue,” she writes. “I don't think Chief Justice John Roberts wants to borrow that kind of partisan trouble again so soon after Citizens United.” Time will tell. But please remember, as Andrew Koppleman explicates, the Affordable Care Act is obviously and undeniably constitutional -- though, as he concludes somewhat distressingly, “the silliness of the constitutional objections may not be enough to stop these Justices from relying on them to strike down the law.”

ALABAMA’S EXTREME ANTI-IMMIGRANT LAW: Today, the toughest anti-immigrant law in the country went into effect, in Alabama, a day after a federal court upheld some of its key provisions. The law allows state police to question and detain without bond anyone they suspect of being in this country illegally. No other underlying criminal offense is needed, just a suspicion that the person is undocumented. The law also required every single public school child to register with the state and provide proof of their citizenship through an elaborate documentation review procedure. All families who don’t pass through this process are presumed to be here illegally -- and, presumably, can automatically be arrested. Employers are required to demand documentation from anyone they suspect to be here illegally, an obvious invitation to racial profiling. So, yeah, this is bad.

THE LEGITIMACY OF THE PRESIDENCY DEPENDS ON SOME REPUBLICANS IN PENNSYLVANIA DOING THE RIGHT THING: In 2010, Republicans took over both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature and captured the governorship. The new governor decided to one-up his peers across the country -- who are enacting systematic changes to voting laws to make it less likely for Democrats to win -- by proposing a change to the state’s allocation of electoral college electors that would throw the entire legitimacy of presidential elections into question. Gov. Corbett has proposed allocating the state’s electors district-by-district, rather than on a statewide level. So in 2008, Obama would have won only 11 of Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes, even though he won the state popular vote by 10 points (9 electors for the 9 districts he won, plus 2 for winning the statewide vote -- meaning he and McCain would have come to a draw). This is an assault on our democracy. The electoral college already greatly reduces the power of individual votes in cities and non-swing states. This scheme would enormously elevate the impact of Pennsylvania’s rural (and Republican) voters, who are already overrepresented in Congress -- and it would take the rest of us even farther away from the popular election of the president by vastly increasing the chances of someone winning the electoral college (and the presidency) without winning the popular vote. (Akhil Amar has a good video up explaining why this is such an unprecedented and dangerous move.) The scariest part is there is nothing Democrats can do to stop this plan. Our only hope lies in Republican members of the Pennsylvania legislature doing the right thing. Luckily, the public seems to get it: 52% are against the plan, and 57% understand the move as coming from purely partisan impulses. National Republicans are lukewarm on the plan (although Rick Santorum endorsed it after stating its benefits: “It would turn it from a state Democrats rely on, as part of the base, to a state that they're gonna lose under almost any scenario."), with some state GOPers saying that it would diminish Pennsylvania’s status as a swing state. 11 of the state’s 12 GOP House members apparently are against it, saying it would make their House races more competitive (though, to be honest, I don’t quite see how that would be the case). Hearings begin on this next Tuesday.
The absolute best, most sensible, easiest, and wholly constitutional fix to the problem of the electoral college (which, lest we grow sentimental, we should remember was created to protect the power of slave states) is to enact the National Popular Vote. Under this interstate compact, states pass legislation to allocate their electors to whomever wins the national popular vote (ie, Al Gore in 2000). But those laws wouldn’t go into effect until enough states have passed equivalent laws to equal 270 electoral votes, the number necessary for an electoral victor. This way, no state risks being the first one to give up its own electors; rather, everyone jumps at the same time. New Yorker writer and personal-hero-to-Yours-Truly Hendrik Hertzberg has written lots about this; check it all out here.


Fun Video of the Week: Jon Stewart to dissatisfied GOP voters: Maybe the problem is you. (Scroll down to the video labeled Part 3)
Fact Check of the Week: Did you hear something about how Obama “scolded” the Congressional Black Caucus last week, telling them to “stop whining, stop complaining”? Did you hear how this was yet another example of Obama spitting on his base/hippie-punching, etc etc? Well, that’s really not what it was at all.