Politics – 2011 Michigan Debate Institutes – gls lab
Download 0.58 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Winners Win
CompartmentalizationPolitical capital is not key – issues are compartmentalized Dickinson 9- professor of political science at Middlebury College and taught previously at Harvard University where he worked under the supervision of presidential scholar Richard Neustadt (5/26/09, Matthew, Presidential Power: A NonPartisan Analysis of Presidential Politics, “Sotomayor, Obama and Presidential Power,” http://blogs.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2009/05/26/sotamayor-obama-and-presidential-power/) As for Sotomayor, from here the path toward almost certain confirmation goes as follows: the Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to hold hearings sometime this summer (this involves both written depositions and of course open hearings), which should lead to formal Senate approval before Congress adjourns for its summer recess in early August. So Sotomayor will likely take her seat in time for the start of the new Court session on October 5. (I talk briefly about the likely politics of the nomination process below). What is of more interest to me, however, is what her selection reveals about the basis of presidential power. Political scientists, like baseball writers evaluating hitters, have devised numerous means of measuring a president’s influence in Congress. I will devote a separate post to discussing these, but in brief, they often center on the creation of legislative “box scores” designed to measure how many times a president’s preferred piece of legislation, or nominee to the executive branch or the courts, is approved by Congress. That is, how many pieces of legislation that the president supports actually pass Congress? How often do members of Congress vote with the president’s preferences? How often is a president’s policy position supported by roll call outcomes? These measures, however, are a misleading gauge of presidential power – they are a better indicator of congressional power. This is because how members of Congress vote on a nominee or legislative item is rarely influenced by anything a president does. Although journalists (and political scientists) often focus on the legislative “endgame” to gauge presidential influence – will the President swing enough votes to get his preferred legislation enacted? – this mistakes an outcome with actual evidence of presidential influence Once we control for other factors–a member of Congress’ ideological and partisan leanings, the political leanings of her constituency, whether she’s up for reelection or not – we can usually predict how she will vote without needing to know much of anything about what the president wants. (I am ignoring the importance of a president’s veto power for the moment.) Despite the much publicized and celebrated instances of presidential arm-twisting during the legislative endgame, then, most legislative outcomes don’t depend on presidential lobbying. But this is not to say that presidents lack influence. Instead, the primary means by which presidents influence what Congress does is through their ability to determine the alternatives from which Congress must choose. That is, presidential power is largely an exercise in agenda-setting – not arm-twisting. And we see this in the Sotomayer nomination. Barring a major scandal, she will almost certainly be confirmed to the Supreme Court whether Obama spends the confirmation hearings calling every Senator or instead spends the next few weeks ignoring the Senate debate in order to play Halo III on his Xbox. That is, how senators decide to vote on Sotomayor will have almost nothing to do with Obama’s lobbying from here on in (or lack thereof). His real influence has already occurred, in the decision to present Sotomayor as his nominee. If we want to measure Obama’s “power”, then, we need to know what his real preference was and why he chose Sotomayor. My guess – and it is only a guess – is that after conferring with leading Democrats and Republicans, he recognized the overriding practical political advantages accruing from choosing an Hispanic woman, with left-leaning credentials. We cannot know if this would have been his ideal choice based on judicial philosophy alone, but presidents are never free to act on their ideal preferences. Politics is the art of the possible. Whether Sotomayer is his first choice or not, however, her nomination is a reminder that the power of the presidency often resides in the president’s ability to dictate the alternatives from which Congress (or in this case the Senate) must choose. Although Republicans will undoubtedly attack Sotomayor for her judicial “activism” (citing in particular her decisions regarding promotion and affirmative action), her comments regarding the importance of gender and ethnicity in influencing her decisions, and her views regarding whether appellate courts “make” policy, they run the risk of alienating Hispanic voters – an increasingly influential voting bloc (to the extent that one can view Hispanics as a voting bloc!) I find it very hard to believe she will not be easily confirmed. In structuring the alternative before the Senate in this manner, then, Obama reveals an important aspect of presidential power that cannot be measured through legislative boxscores. Winners WinWhen a tough measure is enacted Obama can build more capital – health care proves Singer 9 (Jonathan, 3/3/9, MyDD, “By Expending Capital, Obama Grows His Capital” http://mydd.com/2009/3/3/by-expending-capital-obama-grows-his-capital) Peter Hart gets at a key point. Some believe that political capital is finite, that it can be used up. To an extent that's true. But it's important to note, too, that political capital can be regenerated -- and, specifically, that when a President expends a great deal of capital on a measure that was difficult to enact and then succeeds, he can build up more capital. Indeed, that appears to be what is happening with Barack Obama, who went to the mat to pass the stimulus package out of the gate, got it passed despite near-unanimous opposition of the Republicans on Capitol Hill, and is being rewarded by the American public as a result. Take a look at the numbers. President Obama now has a 68 percent favorable rating in the NBC-WSJ poll, his highest ever showing in the survey. Nearly half of those surveyed (47 percent) view him very positively. Obama's Democratic Party earns a respectable 49 percent favorable rating. The Republican Party, however, is in the toilet, with its worst ever showing in the history of the NBC-WSJ poll, 26 percent favorable. On the question of blame for the partisanship in Washington, 56 percent place the onus on the Bush administration and another 41 percent place it on Congressional Republicans. Yet just 24 percent blame Congressional Democrats, and a mere 11 percent blame the Obama administration. So at this point, with President Obama seemingly benefiting from his ambitious actions and the Republicans sinking further and further as a result of their knee-jerked opposition to that agenda, there appears to be no reason not to push forward on anything from universal healthcare to energy reform to ending the war in Iraq. Wins build momentum Wasson, 1/12 (Erik, 1/12/11, The Hill, “Jarrett: Korea FTA is first legislative priority in path to compromise,” http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/international-taxes/137599--jarrett-korea-fta-is-first-legislative-priority-in-path-to-compromise) ***Note – Valerie Jarrett is the Senior White House adviser The adviser said the administration believes it has momentum to find workable solutions with the GOP after the productive lame-duck session of Congress, which featured the tax cut compromise, the repeal of the military’s "Don’t ask, don’t tell" policy and the Senate ratification of the New START Treaty with Russia. “There is nothing like success to breed success,” she said. Capital isn’t finite – victories regenerate it Lichtman, 4/15 – Political Historian at American University (Michael Brissendonl, 4/15/10, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Transcripts, “Obama’s first term test,” Factiva) ALLAN LICHTMAN, POLITICAL HISTORIAN, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Health care victory has kind of renewed and reinvigorated his presidency. A lot of observers make the mistake of thinking that a president has a finite amount of political capital and that if you spend a lot of it on a big initiative like health care you're then bereaved with you political capital. Just the appositive is true, political capital is like an investment if you invest it well it grows and I think political capital for Obama is much greater now than it was before the health care victory. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
|