Politics

It’s a New Year but it’s déjà vu at the White House. We saw it before during the Bush-Cheney administration: President Bush infamously tried to undermine legislation by signing it with one hand while using the other to assert he could interpret the law as he pleased. Some of us decried Bush’s attempts to have the seemingly boundless powers of a unitary executive. Some even called it an “Imperial Presidency.” This month, President Obama invited similar outrage when he signed the defense authorization bill.

The good news: President Barack Obama is reportedly launching a major effort to push comprehensive immigration reform through Congress this month. The bad news: These long-awaited changes face the same old and dysfunctional Senate rules.

The world’s great deliberative body is mired in gridlock because of filibuster abuse. The Senate is ruled by a minority that can literally “call-in” a filibuster to block legislation, then leave the Capitol without voicing a reason for its opposition. And the 60-vote requirement to end this obstruction tactic – known as a cloture vote -- is now applied to anything and everything. Even when a majority of Senators support a bill and has enough votes to pass it, if they can’t get 60 votes for cloture, they’ll never get a final vote on the legislation itself.
 

As a member of Congress, I took an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. I did not swear to uphold only the sections I liked. The Bill of Rights contain civil liberties so fundamentally important that no matter how unpopular at times, these rights are guaranteed and no president, no Congress and no person can deprive them from us. The Second Amendment, hated by some, is a fundamental right as well. I, and millions of others, see the wisdom of the Second Amendment even as many do not. But whether you see its wisdom, all public officials were sworn to uphold it.

And this is where I part ways with the president. On Wednesday, President Obama sought to undermine constitutional guarantees when he unveiled 23 measures, in a combination of executive orders and proposed new legislation, to restrict gun ownership.

A delegation exceeding 100 Puerto Rican citizens recently visited Washington D.C., calling upon members of Congress to respond to the results of a political status plebiscite held in Puerto Rico in November 2012. The delegation included representatives from all status options: statehood, independence, and sovereign free association. Their common plight: to convince Congress that based on the democratic majority of Puerto Rican voters, the time for decolonization is now.

Has support for statehood in Puerto Rico suddenly swelled to a historic 61 percent high as its supporters claim or has it receded to a 20 year low of 44.4 percent as its opponents propound? You be judge.

The specific claim made by the 61 percent salesmen as published in a full-page ad the other day is that: "over 75 percent of registered voters came to the polls, and 61 percent voted for statehood." Fact-checking that is simple. According to Puerto Rico's Elections Commission there are 2,402,941 registered voters of which 1,878,969 cast ballots in the November 6 plebiscite. That is a 78 percent voter participation. As to that, the ad is truthful. But what about the 61 percent claim? Read more...

In recent years, Congress has greatly curbed monetary pork, notably earmarks. For example, after reforms were instituted to make earmarks more transparent, their number in legislation decreased from 13,997 (worth $27 billion) in 2005 to 2,658 (worth $13 billion) in 2007. But in-kind pork, such as presidential inaugural tickets, continues to thrive.

In the Seinfeld episode, “Bizarro Jerry” Elaine befriends a group of normal, outgoing friends who physically resemble George, Jerry, and Kramer, but treat her exactly opposite. This is where Jerry informs her that in the Bizarro World, up is down, down is up, and people say hello when they leave, and goodbye when they arrive.
 
On January 1, headlines announcing that a Fiscal Cliff deal had been struck thanks in part to the handy work of Vice President Biden’s eleventh hour heroics were not only surprising, but left some thinking they have entered the realm of the backward.

Ockham’s razor is a principle of logic attributed to medieval philosopher and friar William of Ockham (or Occam), which states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed; that amongst competing hypothesis, the simplest one tends to be the correct one. 

In the case of the November 6, 2012 plebiscite held in Puerto Rico, this postulate is evident. Exercising their democratic right, the U.S. citizens living in Puerto Rico voted on two fundamental questions to determine the future of their political status. The first question asked if the islanders wanted to maintain their current status. The second asked if, given a change of status, which alternative they would favor. 

With this New Year’s unsatisfying resolution of the fiscal cliff debate and the next political fight of raising the nation’s debt ceiling looming over this Valentine’s Day, the 113th Congress and its members from the Republican and Democratic parties inherit an increasingly debilitating legacy from Congresses of the past decade: the inability to work together to solve our country’s grave problems.

The fiscal cliff is over — on to the next self-imposed crisis! Because the deal just consummated made no provision for increasing the statutory debt ceiling, the Treasury begins 2013 with a new round of “extraordinary measures” — the official euphemism for engaging in a set of tried and true accounting tricks. These devices give our leaders at most a few months to reach another compromise.

The conventional wisdom is that this time around, House Republicans have the stronger bargaining position. After all, the debt ceiling must be increased to avoid default, and that cannot happen without Republican votes in the House. As negotiations come down to the wire, what will Obama be able to do but capitulate to Republican demands? To adopt the parlance of a group of economists who applauded the Republicans’ 2011 debt ceiling strategy, in this game of “chicken,” Obama will be the one to swerve.

Both the metaphor and the conventional wisdom are wrong.