Public Policy and Governance – Page 296

The Blame Game

When I first began practicing law, there were still very few women in the profession. One of the very first to have broken the gender barrier was a local divorce lawyer who had become legendary (not in a good way) in the legal community. Whether she’d become embittered by barriers she’d faced, or was just a bit “off,” there were multiple stories of courtroom appearances and client clashes. My favorite arose during her representation of the husband in a nasty divorce, when she explained to the court that the wife’s personality was so unpleasant that it had finally caused her poor husband to stab her.

That old story came to mind because I’ve been reading various pundits’ assignments of blame for Congressional dysfunction. Evidently, it’s all Obama’s fault that members of the legislature are refusing to do much of anything. He hasn’t “played hardball” or “twisted arms,” or maybe he hasn’t “schmoozed” enough…but whatever the tactical deficiency, it’s clearly his fault that the Republicans hate him and refuse to pass any bill–no matter how reasonable or necessary, no matter that the measure was previously part of the GOP’s own agenda–lest it be seen as compromising with the White House.

The fact that current congressional intransigence stems not from philosophical differences but from petty politics, visceral antagonism and more than a little racism has hardly been a well-kept secret. Pat Toomey, the Republican Senator who cosponsored the recently defeated background check bill, confirmed this state of affairs when he admitted that a number of Republicans had voted against the bill purely out of animus toward the President, and unwillingness to give him a “win.”

Whatever Obama’s strengths and weaknesses, we send people to Congress to focus on sound policy and the common good of the American public. A certain amount of political game-playing is inevitable, but when partisanship dictates every action taken, when calculations of political advantage trump all else, the system is broken. Lawmakers may think they are beating Obama–but they are really betraying the American people.

Blaming the President for the childish behavior of the legislative branch is like blaming the wife whose flawed personality “made” her husband stab her.

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Here’s My Question

A study recently published in The Archives of General Psychiatry adds to a body of evidence linking the growing incidence of autism to early-life exposure to pollution. According to the study, children with autism are two to three times more likely than other children to have been exposed to car exhaust, smog, and other air pollutants during their earliest days.

“We’re not saying that air pollutioncauses autism. We’re saying it may be a risk factor for autism,” says Heather Volk, lead author on the new study and an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California. “Autism is a complex disorder and it’s likely there are many factors contributing,” she says.

Now, I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV. (Nor do I have a subscription to the Archives of General Psychiatry–I came across a reference to the study while reading another journal article.) I’m not a climate scientist either. So–just like the deniers who prefer to believe that climate change is a big myth–I do not possess the ability to independently review the evidence and judge its persuasiveness.

I understand the resistance to environmental regulations by those whose economic interests are affected–the oil and gas producers and others whose profits would suffer if we really got serious about carbon emissions. I know those interests have been heavily invested in a campaign of “disinformation” and that they’ve managed to confuse a lot of people who–like me–aren’t scientists able to independently evaluate the evidence.

But let’s just assume that the deniers are right–that 99% of the scientists who are able to evaluate the evidence are wrong, and the other 1% are right. Why wouldn’t it still make sense to clean up the air and water? Even the deniers aren’t arguing that pollution is good. We have plenty of irrefutable evidence linking air pollution to higher incidences of respiratory diseases. There are these growing links to autism and other disorders. And as anyone whose traveled in China can attest, bad air quality can be a real turn-off–I’ve yet to meet anyone who enjoys breathing black air.

Here’s the calculus as I see it: one the one hand, there is no doubt that continuing our polluting ways negatively affects our quality of life. There is evidence that it contributes significantly to a variety of diseases, and overwhelming consensus that it is warming the earth among those who actually know what they’re talking about. On the other hand, there is no benefit whatsoever from continuing to pollute–except to companies whose profits depend upon continued emissions.

On one side, cleaner air, healthier people, and the possibility of saving the planet. On the other side, big oil.

Seems pretty clear-cut to me.

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Struggling Against Impotence

A friend of mine who lives in Wisconsin sent me a link to a story in his local paper, reporting on a study about hormone levels in the waterways.

“All over the country, chemicals known to disrupt or act like hormones seem to have permeated the waters and may be harming wildlife — or people.

‘The more you know, the more scared you are,’ said Kimberlee Wright, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit law center Midwest Environmental Advocates.”

Just one more example of our human interdependence and individual powerlessness–an example to join with random terrorist attacks like the most recent example from Boston, industrial accidents like the one that leveled much of a small Texas town last week, the periodic outbreaks of e coli caused by contaminated foodstuffs….the list goes on.

In a country and culture that has always emphasized individual responsibility and self-determination, the increasing evidence of our individual impotence is particularly disorienting and destabilizing. We are forcibly reminded that we have few alternative to collective measures–government measures–to protect us. We have to trust that those we entrust with responsibility for public health and safety are doing their jobs properly–that police and OSHA investigators and FDA inspectors are well-trained and honest, and that there are enough of them. In our complex modern world, the only alternative to that trust is withdrawal from the human “grid”–retreat into the woods somewhere, and a life without modern amenities.

No one likes feeling impotent. I have a hunch that much of the “crazy” we see around us–the anti-government “patriots,” the conspiracy theory wackos, the stereotypical angry old white guys–is a response to those feelings of impotence. The notion that we actually have to rely upon our common institutions, the constant reminders that our common lives are complicated and interwoven, and that we require a social infrastructure upon which to “stand on our own two feet” is particularly galling to people who grew up in a less interdependent time. It’s one more element of the dizzying change that confuses and infuriates them.

The reality is, in today’s world, we can’t afford to make government small enough to drown in a bathtub. As unwelcome as that truth is, we need agencies with the authority to require safe factories, to prevent harmful discharges in our waterways, to ensure the food at the supermarket is uncontaminated…Instead of starving government, we need to make sure that it is doing what it is supposed to do–and only those things–and doing them well.

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This is a Test

Whatever your position on the watered-down background check measure that failed yesterday for lack of a super-majority, you should be appalled by the ability of a minority to block action desired by an overwhelming majority of the American public, and a clear majority of their representatives.

If this were an isolated case, we could shrug it off, attribute it to the messiness that is the democratic process. But yesterday was simply another episode in the soap opera called Your Broken Government. The story line is familiar: the Party of No refuses to engage in anything resembling good-faith negotiation or legislative compromise, the Party of Wimps shakes its head and throws up its hands–and nothing happens. Problems aren’t solved. Jobs aren’t created. Petty politics replaces lawmaking. Statesmanship is a word in the dictionary.

This soap opera features a dysfunctional family, where the GOP is the bratty child who has tantrums and refuses to do his chores and the Democrats are the enabling parent who substitutes ineffectual remonstrances for real discipline.

Actually, television offers an even better analogy. In the original Star Trek series, the Enterprise came across a planet where warfare was conducted entirely by computer; rather than use weapons that would devastate cities, the computer would simulate battles and send messages to the losers–who would then obediently report to death chambers. In the United States Senate, a group of Senators sends Harry Reid a message, telling him of its intent to filibuster, and suddenly, sixty votes are required rather than a simple majority. No real war–not even a requirement that the objecting minority actually stand and talk. Just servile acquiescence.

Yesterday, those elected to represent us spit in the faces of the ninety percent of Americans who wanted background checks. Representative democracy did not work. Again.

The question is, what will the American public do about our broken government?

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Balance of Power

The Newtown parents have recently reminded us that ordinary citizens with a compelling story can move policy, even in Washington. They were able to do what even the President could not: prevent a filibuster by Republican Representatives intent upon blocking action. The filibuster threat wilted in the face of bereaved mothers and fathers–a different kind of lobbyist from the pin-striped suits with whom they are familiar.

There are many lessons we might draw from this episode, but something Dana Milbank wrote in a column about the parents struck me. He noted that “Hockley [one of the mothers] and her peers succeeded precisely because they weren’t the usual actors following the usual script. ‘At the start of the week I didn’t even know what a filibuster was,’ Hockley told me Thursday beneath the cherry blossoms outside the Hart Senate Office Building.”

And therein lies a lesson for us all.

I don’t know how many citizens have no idea what a filibuster is, or how it has been used and abused. We know that only 36% of Americans can name the three branches of government; if I had to guess, I’d wager fewer than 10% could explain the filibuster. Could a population that knew the basic structure of our government, a citizenry that actually followed events in the nation’s capital, change the nation’s trajectory? Could they marry righteous wrath to informed participation, and end the petty game-playing and toxic power struggles that increasingly characterize our government?

The Newtown parents had to understand the filibuster in order to prevent one from blocking the action they supported.

Knowledge really is power. No matter how uneven the contest between ordinary citizens and moneyed interests, people armed with information and determination can make a huge difference.

When the only people who understand the system are those who use it to their own advantage, however, it’s no contest.

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