Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

Are States Outmoded?

Indiana residents who follow state economic trends probably know the name Morton Marcus. Marcus–who sometimes comments here– used to head up a business school think tank at Indiana University, and even though he’s retired, remains a popular public speaker–not just because he is very knowledgable, but because he’s always been willing to speak his mind and share his often “unorthodox” opinions.

When I first joined the faculty at IUPUI, Morton’s office was down the hall, and he would sometimes pop in to discuss those opinions. I still remember a conversation in which he argued that states–whose boundaries have always been artificial–no longer made sense. Instead, he thought the U.S. should be governed through designated areas of economic influence: the Chicago region, the Boston region, etc.

I thought back to that conversation when I read a recent paper issued by the Brookings Institution. Many years later, Brookings scholars have evidently come to the same conclusion.

The paper began by noting the country’s haphazard response to the coronavirus pandemic, exacerbated by the failure to coordinate governance across local and state lines.

There are a number of ways in which the patchwork of state responses–and the tendency of many Republican governors and legislators to treat the pandemic as a political and economic problem rather than a public health crisis–is leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths. The recent majority decision by Wisconsin’s conservative Supreme Court justices to the effect that the state’s Democratic governor lacked the authority to order a uniform state response is just an extreme example of the chaos caused by internal state political struggles.

Even without the politicization of Covid-19, however, state lines complicate government’s response. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo explained the problem during a  briefing about plans to deploy contact tracing:

“If I turn up positive, yeah, my residence is in Westchester County, but I work in New York City, and I would have contacted many more people in New York City than I did in Westchester…If you’re going to do these tracing operations, you can’t do it within just your own county, because you will quickly run into people who are cross-jurisdictional.”

The paper pointed out that the multiple governance dysfunctions caused by state lines aren’t limited to those highlighted by the pandemic:

Before the arrival of the coronavirus, our planning processes formalized many inequities within and across regions, ranging from hospital bed availability to housing inventory to environmental racism…

Before the coronavirus arrived, both established metropolitan regions and “megaregions”—combinations of two or more metro areas—were consolidating at unprecedented levels. This brief presents evidence documenting these trends, and makes the case for new state and federal policy frameworks to address cross-jurisdictional equity problems that emerge when everyday activities happen in a mega-region.

The paper describes the changes in residential and commercial activity over the past decades, resulting in the creation of what the authors call “large polycentric regions, or a “megapolitan America.” Jobs, housing, and consumption now occur across multiple state and municipal jurisdictions. Significant numbers of people commute between cities or town centers. Etc.

The paper describes several of these regions, and the inequities within them, and I encourage those of you who are interested in the data to click through and read the entire paper. But living in Indiana, I was particularly struck by this description of one problem caused by the mismatch between legal jurisdictions and contemporary realities:

The lack of regional governance institutions is particularly problematic for addressing equity problems within regions. For example, a worker may live in a lower-cost municipality and work in a wealthier one. The revenues generated in the wealthy area will not normally support the services available in the worker’s lower-cost neighborhood if it is in a different county.

We have the opposite situation in the Indianapolis region: workers who commute to Indianapolis from wealthy suburbs in other counties. These commuters use the infrastructure and public services paid for by cash-strapped Indianapolis (where state government agencies and nonprofit statewide organizations occupy roughly 25% of the real estate and are exempt from property taxation), but their taxes go to their already flush home counties.

The Brookings paper provides one more example of an over-arching and increasingly dire problem–the failure of America’s governing institutions to keep pace with contemporary realities. Structures like the Electoral College, the filibuster, the way we conduct and finance elections, and the way we allocate governance responsibilities among local, state and federal authorities are just a few of the systems that no longer serve their intended purposes.

A blue wave in November is an absolutely essential first step toward addressing America’s creaky governing infrastructure.  Given the percentage of voters who remain in the cult that was once the GOP, however, I don’t have high hopes for the thoroughgoing reforms we need.

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Here Comes The Judge

This is why ethical, competent Judges matter.

The linked article from The Washington Post is one of many similar stories we awoke to on May 12th. The “back story” –William Barr’s frontal assault on both the rule of law and the integrity of the Department of Justice by petitioning to drop the case against Michael Flynn–enraged patriotic Americans; it outraged lawyers in particular. (Lawyers and former lawyers tend to think that the rule of law matters. A lot.)

When news broke of this unprecedented and dishonest pleading, my hope was that the judge presiding over the case–who had shown no particular sympathy for Flynn–would deny it. I assumed that Barr knew such a denial was probable. However, Barr also knew that the mere fact that the DOJ had filed such a pleading would add plausibility to the President’s multiple lies about the Mueller investigation and the wacko conspiracy theory he’s calling “Obamagate.”

In other words, no matter what the judge ruled, the mere fact that Barr submitted the pleading would be a “win/win” for the forces of obfuscation, and would become part of  Trump’s Big Lie about a nefarious “Obamagate” plot.

The judge outsmarted him. Bigly.

A U.S. judge put on hold the Justice Department’s move to drop charges against Michael Flynn, saying he expects independent groups and legal experts to argue against the bid to exonerate President Trump’s former national security adviser of lying to the FBI.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said in an order Tuesday that he expects individuals and organizations will seek to intervene in the politically charged case. Having others weigh in could preface more aggressive steps that the federal judge in Washington could take, including — as many outside observers have called for — holding a hearing to consider what to do.

Sullivan also appointed a retired judge to argue against the DOJ’s request.

Judge Sullivan said he will set a schedule for outside parties to argue against the claims made in the Justice Department’s effort to drop the charges. Amicus briefs will be allowed from parties who believe they have interests that would be affected by the ruling, or from
parties or organizations with “unique information or perspective that can help the court.”

The nearly 2000 lawyers who formerly worked for the DOJ and recently signed a letter demanding Barr’s resignation would certainly qualify as having a “unique perspective.”

So would a group that identified itself as “Watergate Prosecutors,” who had filed a unique request a day earlier. They asked permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief addressing the need for independent scrutiny and oversight to “ensure that crucial decisions about prosecutions of high-ranking government officials are made in the public interest.”

“The integrity of prosecutorial decision making is a cornerstone of the rule of law,” they wrote. “Amici have a special interest in restoring the public trust in prosecutorial decision making and in public confidence in the viability of future independent investigations and prosecutions if the results of such work are likely to be subjected to reversal by transparent political influence.”

What is especially gratifying is that the Judge’s order not only allows these and other parties to file objections to the Justice Department’s move, but that such objections could open the door for adversarial proceedings in which arguments for and against Barr’s effort to dismiss the case would be heard.

Especially gratifying is the conclusion that such objections would also permit, if the judge chooses, requiring both sides to produce evidence and revisit the case for and against Flynn.

Instead of allowing Trump to use Barr’s pleading to confuse voters and sow even more distrust of the government he was elected to manage, the Judge’s move might allow re-litigation of the charges and re-airing of the evidence–something quite contrary to what Trump and Barr were hoping to accomplish.

As Jean-Luc Picard might say, “Make it so.”

Karma’s a bitch. I love it.

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An Omen….

Like most of you who read this blog, I’ve been sequestered for several weeks now. And also like most of you, my link to the outside world–to work, family, news, commerce–has been the Internet.

I think there’s a song about not appreciating what you have until it’s gone…

A few days ago, in the midst of end-of-semester grading and other academic “wrap-up” obligations, our Internet went out. The timing was particularly bad, because I’d agreed to participate in a FaceBook “town hall” on voting that night, and the next morning a doctoral committee on which I’ve been serving was meeting via Zoom for the candidate’s all-important dissertation defense.

Thanks to my phone, I was able to participate in both, at least to a degree. But when I drew a breath of relief, it occurred to me that I had seen a highly plausible version of the future.

Think about just how dependent we have become on the Internet.

In our house, we have a “smart” thermostat. We open and close our front door with an Internet-enabled Amazon Key. Our new water softener uses the Internet to tell us when it needs salt. We bank online–remote depositing the occasional checks that still come via snail mail, and paying bills through the bank or PayPal. If we run out of some household good–batteries, furnace filters, vacuum-cleaner bags, whatever–we order replacements on line.

Our burglar alarm is online. We pay our taxes online. We stream television online.

The pharmacy that fills our standard medications is online. Amazon is there for so many purchases–especially during the Coronavirus lockdown. And during this lockdown, we’ve been able to order groceries online and have occasional dinners delivered by ClusterTruck and the like.

Communication and information? All online.

After my panicky episode (lasting a whole day!), I started to think about what America would look like if huge numbers of our citizens lost access to the Internet.

We are already seeing the problems caused by the so-called “digital divide.” As schools and universities have moved to online instruction, poor children and children in rural areas without access broadband have been significantly disadvantaged, further driving a wedge between the haves and have-nots.

In my more idle times, I’ve wondered what would happen if America was attacked not by guns or bombs, but by a successful effort to take down the country’s Internet. I don’t know whether that’s possible–whether there is sufficient redundancy in the system to foil such an effort–but the consequences would be disastrous. It would bring all the country’s systems and commerce to a screeching halt.

What is far more likely is that, when we finally emerge from this pandemic, it will be into an economy where unemployment is at Depression-era levels. Millions of people would be hard-pressed to pay for food and a roof over their heads–let alone IPhones and Internet service.

What would that America look like?

This pandemic has brought so many of our national weaknesses into sharp focus, and not just our inexplicable refusal to adopt universal healthcare. Chief among those weaknesses is a longstanding inattention to aspects of our constitutional system that no longer serve us; glaring examples are the Electoral College and the way our federalist system currently allocates responsibility/jurisdiction between the federal government and the states–especially responsibility for conducting elections. Along with gerrymandering and the widespread lack of both civic literacy and civic responsibility,  outdated constitutional structures are a major reason we have both a President and a Senate utterly incapable of doing their jobs, let alone handling the crisis we are now facing.

Meanwhile, social media promotes the conspiracy theories and “alternate facts” these officials depend upon for their continued political viability.

Think Nero was bad?

Our own mad leader doesn’t fiddle; he tweets while America burns–continuing to squander America’s global credibility, endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions of our citizens, and demonstrate un-self-aware buffoonery.

What would he and his pathetic crew do if more than half of America lost access to the Internet?

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They Aren’t Even Pretending Anymore

As it has begun to dawn on the Trump criminal enterprise that it is in danger of losing in November, it’s ramping up its efforts to destroy federal agencies and the rule of law–and in its haste, abandoning efforts to be subtle about it.

The Republican National Committee and the Trump Campaign has budgeted twenty million dollars to fight efforts to expand voting by mail.  Wouldn’t want to make it easy for people to vote…..

Congressional investigators are asking for information about loans and other bailout funds that the Trump Organization has tried to get from Britain, Ireland and other foreign governments, to cover the wages of employees who’ve been furloughed from the company’s golf properties in Europe due to the pandemic–setting up a conflict-of-interest that probably violates the Constitution.

Then, of course, there’s the astonishing move by Attorney General and Trump lackey William Barr, who has petitioned the court to drop the Justice Department case against Michael Flynn. Tellingly, the filing was signed only by Barr’s hand-picked US Attorney for the District of Columbia–not by a single career prosecutor.

In order to understand how stunningly improper this request is, it may help to remember the behaviors for which Flynn was prosecuted–and for which he twice pled guilty–and why, after the election, President Obama warned Trump not to hire Flynn.

Flynn was evidently being watched because he had suspicious connections to Putin. When the Obama administration announced retaliatory measures for Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, he immediately made five phone calls to the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. When the FBI interviewed Flynn, he lied about those calls, prompting the famous warnings from Sally Yates to the White House that Flynn was compromised and vulnerable to blackmail.

Trump ignored Yates’ warnings, and when Comey wouldn’t drop the investigation into Russia–focused largely on Flynn’s activities– he fired Comey.

Flynn subsequently offered to testify about the campaign’s connections to Russia in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution, but was turned down. When it became obvious that Mueller had enough evidence to bring criminal charges against both Flynn and his son, he began to cooperate with the investigation. He subsequently pled guilty to lying to federal investigators. (Evidently, he was not sentenced at that time because he had not yet finished cooperating with the special counsel’s office.)

These are hardly the actions of an innocent man, but when Mueller’s investigation ended–and, presumably, heartened when the Senate GOP supinely refused to convict Trump despite evidence of impeachable offenses– he moved to withdraw his guilty plea.

Barr’s pleading (it would be a mistake to attribute it to the professional Justice Department since none of the career prosecutors would sign on) is based on an astonishing assertion: any investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 election was unfounded and illegitimate. It’s a flatly dishonest assertion, one clearly dictated by Trump, who is talking about rehiring Flynn.

We learn something new–and appalling–about this horrific administration every single day.

The fossil fuel lobbyists currently dismantling the EPA are continuing their assault on the environment–the number of regulations they have rolled back or eliminated is approaching one hundred. Betsy DeVos continues her efforts to gut public education and to funnel our tax dollars into private and for-profit schools. The Interior Department is busy giving away public land. Etc.Etc.

And Trump, of course, is barreling ahead with his insistence on “opening” the economy, in an effort to salvage his re-election prospects– despite universal warnings from health officials that we are not nearly ready and that many people will die unnecessarily.

His administration is already killing people with increased pollution, so I’m sure a few thousand extra deaths won’t bother them.

If the voters don’t throw this crew out in November–and by “this crew” I very much include the Republicans in the Senate, whose partisanship and lack of patriotism have enabled it all–we can just bid farewell to the America we thought we knew.

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Elitism? Or Respect For Knowledge?

One of the many lessons of the current pandemic is that electing leaders who sneer at expertise and make war on science was a big mistake.

In The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis defended the federal bureaucracy, and pointed out how significantly the tasks they perform – from maintaining nuclear waste to  forecasting the weather–depends upon knowledge and training. In a recent interview, Lewis pointed to the Trump camp’s “glaring ignorance” of government’s responsibilities and the expertise required to discharge those responsibilities.

I’ve previously blogged about Trump’s effort to eject scientists from the federal bureaucracy–a fixation exceeded only by his determination to purge anyone responsible for oversight–but the excessive anti-intellectualism of this administration isn’t simply due to Trump. It’s the result of a longstanding Republican “culture war” strategy in which educated folks are demonized as “elitists.”

“Real” Americans don’t put on fancy airs, or point out when policies aren’t based on facts.

As the “Big Sort” has accelerated America’s cultural differences, the GOP has found it easier to sneer at the effete intellectuals who flocked to congenial urban neighborhoods.(I recently read that House Democrats represent 78 percent of all Whole Foods locations, but only 27 percent of Cracker Barrels.) Trump doesn’t understand much, but he does recognize that most of those remaining in the dwindling GOP- -whiter, older and more Christian than the country as a whole–don’t care about policy, or about voting what others might consider their own self-interest. They see themselves as an identity group under threat, and they’ll follow anyone who speaks to their sense of grievance. It’s easy to convince them that coastal “elitists” look down on them.

The GOP’s constant assault on knowledge, professionalism and education has had a predictable effect on trust in all the institutions necessary to democratic self-governance.

A recent report from the Brookings Institution focused on the degree to which the erosion of trust has made us more vulnerable to this pandemic, and noted that Trump is “merely the apotheosis of a political approach that has animated much of the conservative movement for a half century or more: undermining trust in the media, science, and government.”

For America to minimize the damage from the current pandemic, the media must inform, science must innovate, and our government must administer like never before. Yet decades of politically-motivated attacks discrediting all three institutions, taken to a new level by President Trump, leave the American public in a vulnerable position.

Trump has consistently vilified the national media. When campaigning, he called the media “absolute scum” and “totally dishonest people.” As president, he has called news organizations “fake news” and “the enemy of the people” over and over. The examples are endless. Predictably, he has blamed the coronavirus crisis on the media, saying “We were very prepared. The only thing we weren’t prepared for was the media.”

Science has been another Trump target. He has gutted scientific expertise and administrative capacity in the executive branch, most notably failing to fill hundreds of vacancies in the Centers for Disease Control itself and disbanding the National Security Council’s taskforce on pandemics. During the coronavirus crisis, he has routinely disagreed with scientific experts, including, in the AP’s words, his “musing about injecting disinfectants into people [to treat COVID-19].” This follows his earlier public advocacy for hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment, also against leading scientists’ advice. Coupled with his flip-flopping on when to lift stay-at-home orders, the president has created confusion and endangered people.

Finally, President Trump has consistently demeaned essential government agencies, labeling them part of a “deep state.”

An article originally from Salon looked at the history of empiricism and its importance:

What Galileo established as separating science from other types of “revealed” truths was this: facts and the ability to make testable predictions mattered. There weren’t anymore your facts and my facts, neither were there facts and “alternative facts“. There weren’t revealed facts or aspirational facts. Facts came in only one flavor — observable. Observations, experiments, and reasoning based on reliable data became the only acceptable methods for discovering facts about the world.

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt summed it up:

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

Since at least the 1960s, the GOP has waged a sneering assault on “elitists” who respect empirical inquiry, and pursue facts, knowledge and expertise. The result is that today’s Americans occupy alternate realities. Denigrating knowledge, however, is equivalent to a demand that we disarm the front-line soldiers fighting our wars.

That is no way to fight a pandemic–or run a country.

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