Tag Archives: democrat

The Pileggi Electoral College Plan and 1960

Posted on by
Reply

In 1962, after the successive failures of both his presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, a weary Richard Nixon bid the press goodbye:

But as I leave you, I want you to know: just think how much you’re going to be missing. You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.

Of course, if Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi had his way, Nixon might not have spoken those famous words. He would not have had to: if Senator Pileggi had been in charge, Nixon might have beaten John F. Kennedy and become president in 1960.

I am referring, of course, to Senator Pileggi’s ill-conceived Electoral College plan (next session’s version, last session’s plan was defeated). The idea is simple: divide all but two of a state’ Electoral College votes up and award them to the candidates according to the percentage of the popular vote that they won. The candidate that wins the state then gets the extra two votes.

Take the 2012 election, for instance. President Barack Obama won about 52 percent of the popular vote to Governor Mitt Romney’s 47 percent. This gives President Obama 12 electoral votes (10 electoral votes for the popular vote, plus 2 more for winning state-wide).

This would not have changed the outcome of the 2012 election. Indeed, changing Pennsylvania alone might not have altered the outcome of most American elections. But it would have had an effect. For instance, in 2000, President George W. Bush’s margin of victory would have been larger, even though he still would have lost the popular vote.

But to really demonstrate how Pileggi’s system would work, imagine that his plan was in effect in all 50 states. Under this scenario, John F. Kennedy stands a good chance of beating Nixon in the popular vote, but losing to him in the Electoral College.

According to my calculations, the Electoral College votes come in like this:

  • 264 for Kennedy
  • 267 for Nixon
  • 6 Unpledged Electors

Those unpledged electors would have come from the largely Democratic Louisiana and Mississippi. But these states were part of the Southern, conservative wing of the Democratic Party — a wing that was suspicious of Kennedy and that Nixon would successfully court years later. It only would have taken 3 of those 6 to make Nixon president.

Can we say with absolute certainty that Kennedy would have absolutely lost in 1960? No. But it is surely a possibility. And a reason to be wary of any claims that Pileggi’s proposal is somehow fairer than the current system.

FURTHER READING

1960 Presidential Election Results: Pileggi Plan (Excel), Diniverse Major Blog.

Co-Sponsorship Memo, Dominic Pileggi.

“Pileggi to reintroduce plan to change Pennsylvania electoral-vote system,” Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Corbett-Pileggi plan bad for democracy,” Michael J. Gaudini (Main Line Times). *(This article refers to last session’s Electoral College plan)

What Would Have Happened in 2012 Under Gov. Corbett’s Election Plan?

Posted on by
Reply

Last session, Governor Tom Corbett and Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi unveiled a plan to change how Pennsylvania votes for president. Now that the 2012 election has actually been held, Pennsylvanians can see for themselves how that system would have impacted their votes.

But first, a bit of context. Americans do not vote for president directly. Instead, they vote through the Electoral College. In the Electoral College system, each state gets a number of electoral votes for president equal to their representation in Congress. Pennsylvania has 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 2 in the U.S. Senate, so therefore it gets 20 electoral votes.

States can choose to decide how they distribute those votes, but most states give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate that wins the statewide election. And, for most of American history, that has worked. Four times in the past, however, president have lost the popular vote but won the presidency: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush.

The other key concept to keep in mind here is redistricting. Redistricting is the process by which legislators redraw political boundaries to account for population shifts. After all, people move, are born, and die every day. In order to make sure that elected officials represent about the same number of people, legislators redistrict their state and Congressional seats every 10 years using U.S. Census data. Without this, one official could end up representing several times as many people as another — even though they both only get one vote in Congress.

States redistrict differently. In Pennsylvania, Congressional redistricting is passed like any other bill. The General Assembly writes it and passes it, and the governor signs it. (There is a different system for General Assembly redistricting, but it is not relevant to this discussion.) There are also few prohibitions on how legislators can choose to redraw the political maps. Legislators cannot discriminate against voters based on race, but beyond that they generally have carte blanche.

This means that legislators can — and do — split up blocs of voters to help their party. If one area generally votes for Party X, legislators from Party Y can simply split up that area into numerous districts that each have a Party Y majority. Thus, Party Y maintains control by watering down Party X’s power — a process known as ‘gerrymandering.’

All of this means that whoever controls the General Assembly and the governorship essentially controls the political landscape of Pennsylvania. For the past few redistrictings, that has been the Republican Party. And so, they have drawn Congressional maps that benefit the Republican Party.

Here’s where Governor Corbett and Senator Pileggi’s plan comes in. It would have split Pennsylvania’s electoral votes by giving them to presidential candidates according to which Congressional districts they win. The candidate to win the entire state then gets an additional 2 electoral votes, to make up the difference between electoral votes and Congressional districts. Of course, the Republican Party is drawing those same Congressional districts that they want to use to distribute electoral votes.

So, how would Pennsylvania have fared if this plan was in place for the 2012 election? Well, President Obama won the Pennsylvania popular vote about 52% – 47%. Under the current system, this means Obama got 20 electoral votes. Under Governor Corbett and Senator Pileggi’s plan, however, this means Obama would have gotten 7 votes, while Governor Romney would have gotten 13 votes.

To put it another way: under Governor Corbett’s plan, Obama would have won the popular vote in Pennsylvania, but lost the electoral vote. Fortunately for President Obama, this would not have changed the outcome of the 2012 election. Other presidents would not have been so lucky. Had the Corbett system been in place in 1960, for example, John F. Kennedy would never have become President of the United States.

Elections will always be partisan affairs; what they should not be is undemocratic.

FURTHER READING

Michael J. Gaudini, “Corbett-Pileggi election plan bad for democracy,” Main Line Times.

Michael J. Gaudini, “Gerrymandering undermines democracy in Pennsylvania,” Main Line Times.

Michael J. Gaudini, “Redistricting Texas 2012: A Primer,” Diniverse Major.

Michael J. Gaudini, “What You Should Know About Redistricting in PA,” Diniverse Major.

Pennsylvania 2012 Election Results, CBS News.

 

I Voted For President! Now What?

Posted on by
Reply

Americans just do not like to vote.

For all of the talk of American democracy and the importance of the ballot, a strikingly small number of eligible Americans show up at the polls each November. Presidential elections, of course, see the largest level of turnout as a percentage of the voting age population. But for many Americans, that is it. The only time they see the inside of a voting booth is in a year that is divisible by four.

Take Pennsylvania, for example. In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, about 64 percent of eligible Pennsylvanians showed up at the polls. That was a couple points above the nationwide turnout of about 62 percent.

Just two years later, those numbers were down to 42 percent for Pennsylvania and 41 percent for the United States. That election, significantly, decided which party would control not only the House of Representatives, but numerous state legislatures and governor’s seats. Last year, turnout in Pennsylvania dropped even lower, to 32 percent.

The Keystone State is no outlier; most states see similarly dismal figures. Why, then, is voter turnout so much lower in midterm and off-year elections? To simplify: the president. Or, rather, the absence of a presidential candidate on the ballot. The president is the only official elected nationwide in the United States. Campaigns for the office are fought over high-stakes national and global issues. The media cover the proceedings extensively.

And the perception that there will be relatively high voter participation, possibly reinforced by friendly conversation and media coverage, could have the effect of turning out more voters simply due to social pressure. That is, people go to the polls because they do not want to be the person caught not voting.*

All of this can make presidential elections seem more relevant than off-year or midterm elections. But these latter elections — which generally feature many state and local positions — often have a direct impact on voters’ everyday lives. State and local governments are the ‘boots on the ground.’ They are responsible for keeping your neighborhood safe, paving your streets, picking up your trash, educating your children, providing for poor, zoning your community, and countless other services that affect your daily life. As Hurricane Sandy has recently reminded many Americans, state and local governments also prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

Not only that, but these elections also have far-reaching political ramifications. I wrote about just such a situation in a 2011 election op-ed:

[I]n 2009, only 21 percent of registered Pennsylvanians cast their ballots. The majority of those select few chose Republican candidate Joan Orie Melvin as the next justice of the PA Supreme Court, solidifying a 4-3 Republican majority on the bench.

 

This year, as in the past, the Supreme Court was called upon to choose the tie-breaking member of the commission that redraws the legislative districts in the state every decade. The resulting map was a patchwork of gerrymandering and political protection submitted on a party-line vote in the Republicans’ favor. By carefully designating which group of voters elects which representative, this map will likely dictate the outcome of Pennsylvania’s elections for years.

And it had the potential to dictate the 2012 presidential election, as well. That year, Pennsylvania Republicans (swept into office in a midterm election) introduced a bill that would have changed the way the Commonwealth distributes its electoral votes for president. Instead of following the “majority wins” system that nearly all other states use, this plan would have split its votes according to Congressional districts that the Republicans themselves drew. To put that into perspective, had this system been in place in 1960, Richard Nixon would have bested John F. Kennedy for the presidency.

Midterm and off-year elections can have huge ramifications. Keep that in mind for 2013, and beyond.

FOOTNOTES

*As an aside, Pennsylvania actually has a “Voter Hall of Fame,” where it recognizes those citizens who have cast their ballots every November for 50 consecutive years or more. If you have not gotten started on that yet, now might be a good time.

FURTHER READING

Michael J. Gaudini, “Corbett-Pileggi election plan bad for democracy,” Main Line Times.

Michael J. Gaudini, “‘Like’ the Vote,” Diniverse Major.

Michael J. Gaudini, “Think Off-Year Elections are Unimportant? Think Again,” Narberth-Bala Cynwyd Patch.

“United States Election Project: Voter Turnout,” George Mason University.

“Voter Hall of Fame,” Pennsylvania Department of State.

‘Like’ the Vote

Posted on by
Reply

America had an electoral fraud problem. Voter intimidation was pervasive. Bribery, too, was common. Laws against both were regularly ignored. What Americans needed most was a secret ballot.

Today, many people may take for granted the fact that they are able to cast their ballots in secret, but Americans that lived up until the late 1800s had no such illusions.

“Confidence was shaken in a voting system which made known the contents of every man’s ballot,” declared an 1892 essay on a new Pennsylvania law that established, for the first time in the state’s history, a secret ballot.

The new system, known as the “Australian system” after the country in which it was first implemented in 1856, ensured secrecy and fairness in several key ways. It stipulated that all ballots must be the exact same. It ordered the names of all legally nominated candidates be printed on the ballots. And it required voters to mark their preferences in secret.

The laws combated intimidation and bribery by making it difficult to verify how a person had actually voted. But the laws, which had spread to nearly every state by 1892, had another, unintended side effect, as well.

Voter turnout in the mid to late 1800s had been fairly high, around 70 to 80 percent of the voting age population for presidential elections. In the years after the spread of the secret ballot, that percentage steadily tumbled, finally settling around about 50 to 60 percent.

What happened?

Well, the late 1800s were a period of rapid change in America. Industrialization was quickly changing the country. Immigration increased tremendously and the population exploded, with workers flocking to the nation’s cities. At the same time, reformers focused on “good government” laws, like civil service reform, and attacked political ‘bosses’ and their machines.

All of these societal changes likely had an effect on voter turnout. But so too did the secret ballot.

Voting has long confounded economists, as the act of voting seems to be inherently irrational. The gains — one lousy vote in an election decided by hundreds of thousands — seem small compared to the time and effort spent waiting in line at the polling place.

True, there is also the satisfaction of performing a civic duty, but there is also another important component to why people vote: social pressure. Simply put, people know they are “supposed to vote,” and do not want to be caught otherwise.

A 2008 study of Swiss voter turnout after the adoption of optional postal voting demonstrated this. Postal voting, in which citizens can mail in their ballots, is meant to reduce the costs of voting and increase turnout. Yet in small Swiss communities — the types of places where one might expect voters are more likely to know each other — turnout actually went down. Postal ballots, it seems, may have eliminated the social pressure to be seen at the polls because, well, maybe that person mailed in their ballot.

The opposite also appears to be true. In 2006, researchers sent out several kinds of mailers to Michigan citizens, one of which  promised to publish whether they and their neighbors voted in the next election. They found that those people who thought their voter turnout information would be publicized were more likely to vote.

Which brings us to Facebook. If social pressures impact voter turnout, then it would make sense that social media affect it as well. And, in fact, this is exactly what researchers studying the 2010 election reported. On Election Day, Facebook provided an “I Voted” button at the top of users’ news feeds for them to show they had cast their ballots. Some users were shown the pictures of friends who had voted; others were not. By comparing friend data with voter rolls, researchers determined that the first group were more likely to vote in that election.

So go ahead and tweet your followers or update your status this Election Day to let everyone know you voted. You never know who might be watching.

–FURTHER READING–

Charles Binney, “American Secret Ballot Decisions,” American Law Register and Review.

Charles Binney, “The Merits and Defects of the Pennsylvania Ballot Law of 1891.”

Robert Bond, et al, “A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization,” Nature.

Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, “Why Vote?” New York Times.

Patricia Funk, “Social Incentives and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the Swiss Mail Ballot System.”

Michael J. Gaudini, “Election-time reflections on the irrational voter,” Main Line Times.

Alan Gerber, et al, “Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment,” American Political Science Review.

John Markoff, “Social Networks Can Affect Voter Turnout, Study Says,” New York Times.

“Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections: 1828-2008,” The American Presidency Project.

 

Church, State, and Contraceptives

Posted on by
Reply

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput recently described the Obama Administration’s move to ensure access to birth control for women as both “dangerous” and “unprecedented.” Fortunately, neither of these charges is true.

The ruling in question requires employers to offer insurance plans that cover the cost of contraceptives. Such laws already exist in 28 states, and have been upheld by state courts. It would appear that there is a very clear precedent for the “unprecedented.” These states’ experiences also reveal that the fear of Catholic-affiliated universities and hospitals suddenly dropping employee health coverage in order to avoid providing contraceptives is unfounded.

Archbishop Chaput also argues that this decision undermines the Constitution by forcing Catholics to “violate our consciences.” But such action is not necessarily unconstitutional. After all, Catholic taxpayer dollars continue to fund the death penalty, an act that likewise violates the Catholic conscience, according to the Vatican. Yet the death penalty is undeniably constitutional.

Furthermore, the archdiocese does not object when the terms involve violating other people’s consciences. It has not come out against the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, despite the fact that many Americans feel it violates the Constitutional protections of the Establishment Clause. And just last fall, the Pittsburgh Archdiocese sought to use tuition assistance as leverage to convince parents to lobby the state legislature in favor of a school voucher bill. They eagerly supported this bill, ignoring that it explicitly violates Article 3, Section 15 of the Pennsylvania Constitution by providing funds for religious schools.

Also, one should keep in mind that the Obama Administration’s decision does not require any woman to violate her conscience. It does not force anyone to take contraceptives. Rather, it simply makes them more accessible by offering to cover the cost. Contraceptives, it should be noted, is one of the most effective ways to reduce the abortion rate because it addresses a key underlying cause of abortions: unintended pregnancies. It also has additional health benefits, such as reducing the risk of cancer, and is also widely accepted by Catholic Americans. Almost all sexually active Catholic American women use contraceptives, and a solid 58 percent of Catholics Americans believe health insurance should cover contraception.

Finally, it is important to remember that churches, with a specifically religious mission, are exempt from this mandate. The Catholic-affiliated institutions that are not exempt have secular aims, such as health care or education. That they employ and serve people of all different faiths underlines this fact.

With all this in mind, one can probably think of many ways to describe the Obama Administration’s recent ruling on contraceptive coverage – but “dangerous” and “unprecedented” are not two of them.


Governor Corbett Wrong on Food Stamps

Posted on by
Reply

In Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel, “Don Quixote,” the titular character rides off into battle against several windmills he believes to be giant beasts. His hapless sidekick Sancho Panza watches helplessly as the crusader launches his ferocious assault on imagined monsters.

Similar images come to mind when discussing Governor Corbett’s new policy regarding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. The Corbett Administration recently announced that it would bar people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets (home, retirement benefits, and one car not included) from collecting food stamps. A higher limit would be set for seniors. This was all done under the guise of clamping down on fraud.

Yet a closer examination reveals these vague claims of fraud to be more akin to Quixote’s imaginary monsters than to any real threat to taxpayers. A Department of Agriculture report on how well the states administered their food stamps program shows that no fraud claims were established in 2010. In fact, the costs of agency errors far exceeded that of non-existent fraud, raising the question of whether an asset test could have unforeseen costs. It is widely accepted – except, of course, by the Corbett Administration – that the additional training, paperwork and document verification accompanying this policy change will mean higher administrative costs. An increase in agency errors resulting from the added bureaucracy could have a similar effect.

But the cost is not only monetary. Food stamp usage has increased as a result of the Great Recession and its aftermath, which dislocated workers and wreaked havoc on families’ finances. Yet putting a limit on the amount of savings and assets one can hold punishes people that choose to save for the future, encouraging them instead to deplete their reserves.

The Corbett Administration claims this will stop people from taking advantage of the system. But food stamps are already limited to those with low incomes, and food stamp payments are low enough only to help people, not to provide for them entirely. Pennsylvania ranks in the bottom tenth of the nation as far as average state food stamp payment amounts go – below even Texas. The average monthly benefit for a Pennsylvania household ($262.61 in 2010) would only go so far in covering that average household’s grocery bill. The Department of Agriculture’s estimates that monthly food costs for a family of four range from around $550 to $800 per month, depending on how old the children are. And those estimates are for the spending plans it labels “thrifty” and “low-cost.”

Losing such aid would hurt not only the recipients, but businesses and the economy as well. Food stamps help prop up demand, preserving jobs in grocery stores and the trucking and warehouse services they employ. The spending done by workers in those preserved jobs, in turn, ripples through the economy. Moreover, food stamps are the most effective form of economic stimulus, since they are given to cash-strapped individuals who usually spend them immediately. A Moody’s Analytics study found that food stamps generated $1.73 for every dollar spent.

So one could be excused for feeling a bit like Sancho Panza as he watches his leader gallop off full-speed at a windmill. Perhaps Quixote truly believes in the imaginary beasts he seeks to slay, or perhaps he has some inkling of the absurdity of his quest. No matter – the result is the same.


The Ron Paul Presidency You Will Never See

Posted on by
Reply

What do the following have in common?

  • Limits on the amount of money corporations can spend on political candidates
  • Government regulations and testing to make sure children’s toys are not contaminated with lead
  • Environmental Protection Agency standards ensuring clean water
  • Laws protecting workers against sexual harassment in the workplace
  • Laws protecting whistleblowing offshore oil workers from retaliatory firing
  • Public schools

The answer? These are all things Ron Paul opposes.

Before I go any further, let me make one thing clear: I respect Ron Paul personally. I think it is wonderful that he has remained true to his principles, and not conveniently changed his views for political gain. I admire his ability to unflinchingly take unpopular stands and break rank with his nominal party (I say “nominal” because although Paul is technically a Republican, it would be more accurate to describe him as a Libertarian). I like that he has brought obscure economic ideas into the public spotlight for debate. And, not for nothing, he also seems to me to be a genuinely honest guy.

So for that, I respect him. Of course, I also think he is generally unelectable and would make an awful president. This is the point at which I expect some people will stop reading and immediately begin pondering ways to decry this post as a vast conspiracy of big business, big government, and the media. But before that happens, let me just ask that this post be judged on its accuracy, rather than any emotional attachments to Paul’s candidacy.

Bizarrely, some Ron Paul supporters point to the fact that Paul was elected to Congress as evidence of his electability, regardless of the fact that he represents a district of only 651,619 Texans. To put that into perspective, that is about 0.2 percent of the United States population.

A more common claim is that his second and third place finishes in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively, support his electability. Of course, Rick Santorum finished second (or first, perhaps) in Iowa, but I have yet to hear someone tell me with a straight face that they think Santorum is electable, largely for the same reason that I think Ron Paul is unelectable: once the public takes Paul’s views to their logical conclusions, they will shy away.

Perhaps the Santorum comparison is unfair. After all, Rick Santorum’s views are extreme and out of touch with public opinion. Banning abortion under any and all circumstances? Bombing Iran? That’s crazy talk. Any Paul supporter will tell you that he wants to pursue commonsense reforms, like rolling back our overreaching military and cutting a bloated federal government.

Things start to break down when the discussion goes beyond these generalities into specifics. Paul’s libertarian utopianism envisions a country in which private industry self-regulates itself at almost every turn. Should the government ensure that citizens have clean drinking water? Or that every child has access to a public education? Most Americans think so, even if they advocate some sort of reform of the current system. But Paul eschews such things. This is an ideology based not in small, efficient government — but, rather, in no government (or, as close to no government as you can get).

The problem is that following his positions to their conclusions produce grim results in the real world. Unemployment benefits would end for thousands of people, causing a large contraction in demand in the economy, helping derail a fragile economy and causing greater hardship for the unemployed. Failure to raise the debt ceiling (an action against which Paul voted) would have caused enormous turmoil, and the first ever American default, exacerbating, rather than alleviating, the current economic situation. As it happened, the near-failure caused the first ever downgrade in America’s credit rating.

Many Americans agree that the Pentagon should share the sacrifice of spending cuts, but Paul’s advocacy of large-scale shuttering of overseas military bases is dangerously naive. Despite the harsh lesson America has learned about its own limitations over the past decade, it remains the global hegemon, and a stabilizing force. An Economist article notes the possible unintended consequences of military cutbacks in Europe:

The thinking behind the “rebalancing” looks flawed for several reasons. The first is that far from being on oasis of stability, EUCOM’s 51-country region covers some pretty flammable trouble spots, among them Georgia’s border with Russia, Kosovo’s border with Serbia and Turkey’s border with Iraq and Syria. Israel is also within EUCOM. There are less conventional security threats too, from terrorists moving between safe havens to cyber attacks.

The second is that—quite apart from possible flashpoints in its own region—Europe is closer to many of the fights that American forces may be committed to in the future than bases in the United States.

…

The third is that the new strategy places great emphasis on military-to-military co-operation with other countries. The best way of enhancing that is for American soldiers to train with their counterparts from other nations. General Hertling says that after training, the command’s second priority is to enter into effective partnerships with the many different countries in its region. “By sharing ideas, tactics and procedures,” he says, “you build trust with partners.” During the final readiness exercise before deployment to Afghanistan, the 172nd trained with troops from nine other countries, the same ones, notes the general, whom they would later find themselves fighting alongside.

And that article is talking about President Obama’s comparatively modest rebalancing of American forces. Paul advocates a much larger drawdown, which would inevitably gut NATO, and further weaken our military capacity and lessen global stability.

The thing is, people can get behind the generalities of his platform. They (rightly) do not think we should be overreaching in two simultaneous ground wars. But, more than that, I think people can get behind the Ron Paul persona. Americans love to identify with the underdog and the straight-talker, and Paul has both in spades. His unpolished speaking style has a genuine, endearing feel to it that many Americans take to heart. He’s that kindly old gentleman that could well be your own uncle (albeit, your slightly crazy old uncle).

And, indeed, polls of Republican primary voters show Paul ranks highly in questions about his personal character and human interactions. Voters say he stands up for what he believes in and is honest, and that counts for a something when faith in government (and Congress in particular) has fallen to new lows. Indeed, right now he is polling fairly well among independents.

But throw him in the general election and that will all change. His views will not only be revealed as outside the mainstream, but will also leave him open to attacks from both the right (on defense and social issues) and the left (on economic and labor issues). President Obama’s current edge in the polls when hypothetically matched against Paul would quickly expand.

Yet, for a moment, let us imagine a world in which Ron Paul wins the nomination and the presidency. What then? Well, as president, he would have little control over enacting his particular agenda and would face a Congress that has absolutely no interest in moving his legislation. The right would bristle against his demobilization, while the left would staunchly oppose gutting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. His average man persona would be of no help in dealing with Washington’s power brokers.

You thought the gridlock of the past few years has been bad? A Paul presidency would be a million times worse.

Economic liberalization and free trade agreements, which one might hope for from a libertarian candidate, would languish. This seems counter-intuitive, considering Paul’s ideology, but his voting record in Congress (against free trade agreements) shows that the strictures of his views lead him to the belief that free trade results from less government intervention, not from agreements with foreign nations. While wonderful in theory, this, of course, is utterly unrealistic.

Stymied by Congress and his own beliefs, Paul’s biggest effect would be through his appointive and veto powers, the latter of which he would undoubtedly use with relish.  Congress, not up to the task of overriding his vetoes, would sit by helplessly as little to nothing becomes law. The de-stimulative effect of vetoed federal spending would shrink the economy (sorry, no more unemployment benefits for you, never mind that your job search keeps turning up nothing), possibly even pulling it into a double-dip recession, like the austerity-laden Europeans. Courts and federal agencies would be filled with people that believe the job they are being paid to do should not exist in the first place, and that the federal government has little role in anything at all. So, in sum, little would get done, but the effects would be long-ranging.

I appreciate Ron Paul’s character, his dedication, and his role in bringing alternative economic ideas to the public debate (no matter how incorrect I believe that they are). All of that makes him a man that I would love to sit down and have a nice, pleasant dinner with. What it does not make him is a good president.


Balancing Budgets: The Government is Nothing Like a Family

Posted on by
2

One side effect of the constant bickering over federal debt-related issues is a proliferation of snappy, yet ultimately meaningless, slogans and phrases. “If my family has to balance my budget, the federal government should too” comes to mind. The phrase is short, simple, and scores quick political points by appealing to listeners’ “common sense.” After all, why should the government escape belt-tightening when all of its citizens are forced to make difficult choices with their household budgets?

Yet, as one quickly learns when studying economics, simplistic “common sense” is often wrong. And, given today’s economic circumstances, the family/government budget comparison is dangerously wrong. On one level, it should be obvious that the federal government is really nothing at all like a family, and that this is a comparison of apples and oranges. Imagine trying to fight World War II with a balanced budget. Mobilization and the war effort took high debts from the ongoing Depression and sent gross federal debt skyrocketing past 100 percent of GDP. Top marginal tax rates, above 90 percent, failed to balance the budget — only booming economic growth in the post-war period helped to achieve that.

But put aside the difficulties of comparing two extremely different things for a moment, and focus only on the economic issue at the heart of the comparison: should the federal government be forced to balance its budget during a recession? In a word, no. The explanation is a bit more complicated.

Let’s start off with a quick refresher on Keynesian economics. In a nutshell, John Maynard Keynes, whose book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money shaped modern economic thinking, would say that a government should run a surplus during booms and a deficit during busts. That is, it should take in more money than it spends when times are good (raising taxes and cutting spending and the debt), and spend more money than it takes in when the economy tanks (cutting taxes and spending more).

Keynes viewed proper government policy as counter-cyclical, trying to smooth out the economic cycle by putting the breaks on an over-heated economy and speeding up a stagnant one. An economy is powered, essentially, by spending. People use their paychecks to buy goods and services. The money charged for those goods and services help pay for another person’s paycheck. The cycle continues. Savings, too, are channeled into spending, through loans and investments. This further grows the economy as businesses expand and productivity and technological gains are made.

But, during a recession, spending falls precipitously. Businesses lay off workers, and households cut their spending, blowing a huge hole in the economy. If the government were to likewise suddenly balance its budget, it would amplify this damage.

There are two ways a government can balance its budget in any one year:

  1. Cut spending
  2. Raise taxes

Or it can pursue some combination of the two. Either way, these policies would have dragged the economy down deeper into recession, perhaps even into a full-fledged depression, had they been implemented back in 2008, and could derail the economy today.

Consider what would happen if the government cut spending immediately. It will need to lay off government workers (meaning they will have less to spend), halt contracts and projects that help employ private sector workers (meaning they will have less to spend), and cut back on programs that encourage or sustain spending. Social safety nets are a good example — food stamps and unemployment benefits are very stimulative because beneficiaries usually spend the money soon after it is received, generating economic activity.

Tax increases to address budget issues have a similar effect, by taking money out of citizens’ pockets instead of encouraging them to invest and spend to get the economy started again.

The result is that trying to balance a budget during a recession or a fragile recovery can actually lead to greater debt and deficits. This is because the state of the economy dictates how much a government will take in in taxes. When the economy is tanking, the government will take in less money in taxes because of falling incomes. When you have a lower income (due to being laid off, having hours cut, having pay cut, etc…) the amount of money you pay in taxes falls.

If the government tries to deal with this fall in revenue levels by raising taxes and cutting spending, it will send the economy down even further, blowing a new hole in the economy, necessitating further cuts and tax increases, etc…

Tax increases and spending cuts are needed as solutions to address debt and deficit issues once the economy is growing steadily again (and then, cuts should usually outnumber tax increases by a 3:1 or 2:1 ratio), but such austerity during the crisis could drive an economy deeper into a recession or derail a fragile recovery.

We only need to look as far as the Great Depression for evidence of this. The idea that governments should always balance their budgets, and that doing so would spur investment and recovery, was widespread before and during that period. Both President Hoover and President Roosevelt raised taxes early in the Great Depression, hampering economic recovery. Increased spending by President Roosevelt (and, more importantly, the stabilization of the nation’s banks and removing the United States from the gold standard) helped the nation begin a fragile recovery.

However, insistence that America balance its budget led to cuts in spending and tax increases that derailed the economy in 1937, plunging it back into recession. This is especially relevant for Americans today, as we debate deficit reduction.

The best policy options for dealing with the current budgetary outlook would be to sustain short-term tax cuts and well-placed spending increases (like on infrastructure projects and extending unemployment benefits), while also laying out a long-term plan addressing budgetary issues (including future tax increases and spending cuts, but mainly restructuring Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to make them more sustainable).

The riskiest and worst policy the government could pursue would be balancing its budget “like a family.”


The Myth of Voter Fraud

Posted on by
2

The Economist‘s Democracy in America blog recently posted an excellent article about the disturbing trend towards voter identification laws that place more obstacles between citizens and their civic duty. The post notes that, despite state legislatures’ new-found appetite for compelling citizens to provide government-issued identification at the polls, there is really little to no evidence that widespread voter fraud is even a problem. To the contrary, there is much evidence to say that it just does not occur, including the vigorous investigation of potential voter fraud by President Bush’s Justice Department in the 2000s, which turned up extremely few cases.

Still, the Pennsylvania General Assembly (along with many other legislatures) is moving forward with a bill (tagged at $11 (eleven) million) that professes to safeguard our democracy by preventing a non-existent problem.

The fact that voter fraud is not widespread may come as a surprise to some people. Indeed, some polls show that around half of Americans think that voter fraud occurs fairly regularly (and as an interesting aside, the existence of voter identification laws doesn’t even seem to have any impact on these perceptions — that is, voter ID laws don’t even have the psychological effect of increasing confidence in election safety).

People seem to think voter fraud is extremely pervasive, and many point to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) as proof of a grand conspiracy. The problem with this is that the ACORN case is one not of voter impersonation (which is the only type of fraud that Voter ID bills would prevent), but of voter registration fraud. The difference is key.

Though people often lump them together in their minds, the two are actually quite different. For voter impersonation to occur, people would actually need to show up at their polling place and fraudulently try to vote. Voter registration fraud, on the other hand, occurs when someone submits a fraudulent voter registration form. Keep in mind that these forms are then reviewed by the state, and also that registration figures don’t determine elections, votes do.

While it is fairly easy for a person to simply fill out a registration paper with false information, it would be incredibly difficult for them orchestrate widespread voter fraud. Current law already demands voters show identification the first time they vote at their polling place.

So, in order for Joe Fake to actually do this, he would need to fill out a fake registration. That registration would need to get the ok. Then Joe Fake would have to show up on election day with valid identification (since this is his first time voting). Then Joe Fake goes and casts 1 vote. But Joe Fake knows 1 vote won’t swing the election, so he travels to another polling place, where he hopes not to be recognized by anyone who might know he doesn’t live in this area. He has a different fake registration for here, and different fake identification that must again pass the poll workers.

This process has to occur thousands upon thousands of times, so Joe Fake better have a lot of time on his hands and a lot of fake identification for his various personas, and he’d better be good at persuasion because it’ll take everyone he knows voting as many times as they can all day at different polling places, with none of them getting caught or spilling the beans.

With all the time and effort Joe and his cohort have put into this effort, they’ve probably thought through the harsh penalties and fines they’ll be facing if they get caught. Voter fraud in a federal election could land them in prison for five years and with a $10,000 fine — and that’s on top of however the state penalizes them. So they must have come to the conclusion that they value trying to change the outcome so much (already a slim chance they will), that it is worth taking on these high risks.

No sane person would take such extraordinarily high risks for such a small chance of success, let alone be able to convince the numbers of people necessary to fraudulently swing an election to do likewise (with no one ever saying a word). Of course, not everyone is sane. I suppose it is lucky for us, then, that enforcing existing law would keep our elections both accessible and safe.

And we wouldn’t have to spend a couple million extra dollars to do it.

–SOURCES–

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/12/voting-rights?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/holdercomesoutswinging

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/truthaboutvoterfraud/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/12/voting-rights-0

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/may08/Essay_2417.php

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2011/11/15/opinion/doc4ec1e36956216890232981.txt


Subverting Democracy: A Primer on Gerrymandering

Posted on by
Reply

Gerrymandering is one of the most important problems facing Pennsylvanians today. We’ll look at what it is, how it occurs, and why it is a problem. This post will be broken up into the following sections:

  • Electoral Districts and Redistricting
  • What is Gerrymandering?
  • What are Some of Gerrymandering’s Effects?
  • How Do We Redistrict in Pennsylvania?
  • The Way Forward
  • Conclusion

–ELECTORAL DISTRICTS AND REDISTRICTING –

In order to understand what gerrymandering is, you first have to understand redistricting.

As you know, Americans live in a representative democracy (also known as a democratic republic). That is, we elect people to represent us at various levels of government. We elect mayors, presidents, congressmen, senators, etc… In Pennsylvania, we elect everyone from the governor and PA Supreme Court justices on down to the local coroner. We march into our polling place on election day and cast our ballots. But how do we know which candidates will appear on which ballots?

Some offices (like governor) are elected statewide, which means the candidates appear on every ballot in the state. Some (like mayors) are elected only in their own municipality. One office (president) is elected country-wide.

But for our purposes, let’s focus on U.S. senate elections. Every state gets two senators, no matter the size. California, with 37,253,956 people has the same number of U.S. senators as Wyoming, with 563,626. Because the number of representatives is not proportional to the representative’s population (A U.S. senator from California represents more people than one from Wyoming), this is known as non-proportional representation. This system was put into place during the Constitutional Convention because small states were worried that their votes would be meaningless if the big states had more representatives.

But, as you know, the U.S. Congress (which makes federal laws) has two houses, the Senate being the upper house. The lower house, the House of Representatives, is elected on the basis of proportional representation. This means that each state is given a number of congressional seats based on how big or small their populations are — the bigger the state, the more representatives. And the states divided these seats up proportionally, so that each congressman represents roughly the same amount of people.

This is where electoral districts come in. In the next election, Pennsylvania will have 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Those 18 people will have to each represent roughly the same number of people. In order to account for this, we draw electoral districts. Electoral districts are political boundaries that define who represents you.

But, since populations are always changing — people are born, die, and move all the time — that means electoral districts’ compositions are always changing. And by the end of a decade, two districts that were once the same size could suddenly be very different. So, every ten years, we redraw the districts, to keep the sizes equal and the representation fair. The process by which these districts are redrawn is known as redistricting.

–WHAT IS GERRYMANDERING?–

Unfortunately, politicians since the founding of the country have taken this noble goal of proportional representation and used it for their own means. Gerrymandering is the result. Essentially, gerrymandering occurs when the people redrawing the district lines do so with ulterior motives.

Back in the day, a lot of gerrymandering was racial. Politicians would draw lines that split up minority populations into different voting districts, so that none of them would be represented. Say, for instance, that an outspoken racist had a lot of minority voters in his district. Those voters could pose problems for his re-election. So, when redistricting came around, the lines would be redrawn to divide the minority population into several districts — and also to include people in his district that he knew would vote for him. With less minority voters in his electorate (and more supporters), his re-election was assured.

Though the courts have ruled racial gerrymandering unconstitutional, they have found no workable standard for political gerrymandering, where groups are split up or put together based on voter registration figures. People that redraw political lines use information on how many Republicans or Democrats are in an area to decide where the lines will be drawn. Clever redistricting allows those in charge of the process to consolidate power, reward friends, punish foes, and escape accountability. They are allowed to pick their constituents, instead of their constituents picking them.

Political gerrymandering has a long and storied history in the United States. The term “gerrymandering” itself comes from Massachusetts Governor and Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, who signed off on a redistricting map that the opposition said looked like a salamander, or (once they combined it with the governor’s name) a “gerrymander.”

–WHAT ARE SOME OF GERRYMANDERING’S EFFECTS?–

Gerrymandering has many effects. First, it undermines democracy. Democracy is based on representative government and accountability. Both of these are subverted if a handful of people are able to redraw the lines in such a way that designs districts with the specific purpose of isolating the opposition. Imagine a district that is 50% Democrats and 50% Republicans, and all around it is surrounded by areas that are 75% Democratic. With a little maneuvering, the Democrats can split the Republicans in that 50-50 district, putting some in one district, some in another until voila! Suddenly, the Democrats have a commanding lead in every district. And the Republicans can do the same thing in the places where they control the process.

Under these circumstances, pretty much everyone knows who is going to win in the general election. The seat is safe. In the words of Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” Nothing short of a full-blown scandal or major misstep will unseat them. And when voters already know the outcome of an election before it is even held, there is little reason to turn up at the polls. Decreased voter turnout is another vicious effect of gerrymandering. Where’s the democracy or accountability in that?

Furthermore, when an electoral challenge comes, it won’t be in the general election. The opposition doesn’t have enough votes to launch a credible challenge. Under these circumstances, a challenge normally comes from within the incumbent’s party. A Republican, for example, challenging a fellow Republican in the primary.

Voters in primary elections are often (though not always) more partisan or ideological purists. Fending off a primary challenge means an incumbent will pander to his base and take extremist positions on issues instead of cooperating and compromising. That is another effect of gerrymandering: creating a dysfunctional atmosphere of polarization and partisanship.

Gerrymandering also allows political powerbrokers to punish enemies and reward friends. For instance, an annoying legislator can have his district eliminated or merged with another, nearby district in the hopes that he will lose the next election battle against a fellow incumbent. Potential challengers can likewise be redrawn out of districts, in order to reward loyalty with a safe seat.

In the first round of 2011′s PA General Assembly redistricting, State Sen. Piccola’s (R-15) seat was kept safe from an angry electorate. Piccola had sponsored a controversial plan for the state to take over the city of Harrisburg. Piccola represented part of Harrisburg and many of his constituents were unhappy with this legislation. After the preliminary redistricting plan was put forth, Piccola’s new district conveniently lost its Harrisburg bits, insulating the legislator. As an aside, Piccola later announced his retirement anyway, and the map was changed accordingly.

This type of chicanery makes legislators beholden not to their constituents, but to those people drawing the political boundaries.

–HOW DO WE REDISTRICT IN PENNSYLVANIA?–

The PA Constitution lays out the process for redistricting of PA General Assembly (the body that makes state laws) seats. In 1968, Pennsylvania drafted a new constitution and made a major reform to how it redistricts. Before 1968, the General Assembly simply passed a plan as it would any other bill — by a majority vote. This meant that the party that controlled the majority seats in the General Assembly and the Governorship got to pass whatever plan they wanted, no questions asked.

This is how Pennsylvania’s U.S. House of Representatives seats are still redistricted today. The PA General Assembly’s own seats, however, are redistricted through a different process.

After 1968, the PA Constitution provided that a commission composed of the four majority and minority leaders from the PA Senate and PA House of Representatives, and a fifth person of their choosing, would produce the plan. This ensured that both Republicans and Democrats would have a say, and a supposedly neutral chairman of their choosing would break ties. In the event that the four could not mutually choose a chairman, the PA Supreme Court would decide. This has turned out to be the general rule, rather than the exception.

However, this process still results in gerrymandering. Sometimes, as in 2011, the chairman has generally favored one party’s demands over another’s, allowing that party to dominate the process. Yet, even when the chairman is supposedly neutral, the other four members still have a vested interest in maintaining political power, and the result is a bipartisan gerrymander that protects their incumbents.

–THE WAY FORWARD–

There are ways to minimize the dangers of gerrymandering. Other states use independent commissions, comprised of citizens not holding any elected office, to redraw political boundaries. These commissions can be barred, by law, from using political considerations (like voter registration figures) when drawing districts. With specific prohibitions on such practices, the courts would have an easier time striking down blatantly political maps.

Maps could also be judged by contiguousness and compactness formulas that are designed to make preempt the creative drawing that often signals rampant gerrymandering. Such a formula was included in State Sen. Daylin Leach’s redistricting reform proposal for Pennsylvania in 2009. Essentially, it would have mandated that if a circle were drawn around a district, that district would have to fill at least 15 percent of the circle.

Finally, advances in technology are continually providing us with more tools of transparency and accountability, and it is conceivable that the redistricting process could be undertaken by a computer algorithm, and signed off on by an independent, or other appointed or elected, commission (with no powers to amend, only to approve or reject).

At the very least,Pennsylvania’s U.S. House of Representatives seats should be likewise placed in the commission’s hands, rather than allowing it to go through the General Assembly on a party-line vote in which the majority dominates the minority party. And proposals to expand the commission to 7 members instead of 5 would nullify the chairman’s ability to tip the balance of power, forcing more compromise — though it would not adequately address the issue of bipartisan gerrymandering.

–CONCLUSION–

Gerrymandering is one of the most important political issues of our day — but it is complicated and unglamorous. The blatantly gerrymandered maps that are turned out every decade are an indication that those who draw the boundaries know the electorate cares very little about the issue. They do not even try to hide the fact that they are engineering these maps in a way that benefits their political parties and ambitions.

Reform will come only from one place: the grassroots. That makes educating the public about gerrymandering and its effects that much more important. Our democracy depends on it.