One of my Facebook friends had a perceptive post the other day about the Tony Bennett debacle: she noted that, whatever the merits or deficiencies of his “reforms,” he’d broken every rule she’d ever learned about fostering organizational change.
Coincidentally, last night I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in several months. She is retired now, but taught high school for over 40 years and worked with several education reform groups as well. She had a number of Tony Bennett stories–none flattering– but the one that struck me was this: she’d been at a teachers conference when Bennett was introduced to the assembly by a just-re-elected Mitch Daniels. Taking the stage, Bennett wasted no time on frivolous introductions–instead, he immediately launched into a recitation of all the things the people in that room were doing wrong, and all the changes they were going to have to make.
Shades of Steve Goldsmith!
Changing the way any organization works requires changing its culture, revising behaviors that have become habitual and comfortable. Most people fear change–they find it disorienting, and they understandably resent the implication that the reason changes are needed is because their performance has been inadequate. Good managers understand both the dimensions of the task and the need to connect with and reassure people who are being asked to do things differently.
If change is to occur, and persist (which is the meaningful measure), there absolutely has to be buy-in from the troops–from the people who need to make the changes happen. No lasting change has ever been made by an arrogant superior intent upon imposing his “expertise” on the rank and file.
Strange as it may seem, “Help me figure out how we can achieve our common goal” goes a lot farther than “Listen to me, you idiot, and I’ll explain what you’ve been doing wrong.”
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy has introduced a bill that would require the Supreme Court to develop a code of ethics. (Surprising at it may seem, the high court does not have such a code, although all other courts do.)
The bill was prompted by several recent controversies over judicial recusal, especially a number of cases in which Scalia–who has grown more voluble and intemperate over the years– has spoken publicly on the merits of cases that were highly likely to come before the Court (historically, and under existing codes of ethics, a judicial no-no) and then refused to recuse himself when the cases were argued.
There has also been considerable criticism of Justice Thomas, who has failed to recuse himself in cases where his wife has a clear interest in the result. Justice Kagan has been criticized for sitting on cases in which she was involved to some extent as Solicitor General.
As a scholar of constitutional courts noted on a listserv the other day, “the US is still rare in the world in making recusal of a judge a matter for the personal decision of that judge, without any way to contest it. In the German Federal Constitutional Court, for example, the decision to remove a judge from a particular case is made by the rest of the judges in that Senate with the judge in question not participating. We should have some comparable process here.”
Codes of ethics are about more than recusal, of course. They are centered on avoiding even the appearance of impropriety, in recognition that the legitimacy of public institutions and especially the Courts is dependent upon public trust.
Ethics codes typically limit the value of gifts that may be accepted, or forbid their acceptance at all. That includes junkets, generously paid speaking engagements, and other activities or favors that might produce bias. And most codes of ethics require a measure of disclosure significantly greater than is current Court practice.
In a government based on separation of powers, the legislature may lack the authority to tell the Court to clean up its act–and the Court gets the final word on that issue. In a Court as ideologically divided as this one, I suppose decisions about recusal could themselves become politicized. The GOP’s Tea Party wing will probably oppose Murphy’s bill, since most of the shenanigans these days are by conservative jurists. So passage of this measure is hardly a slam-dunk.
That said, it really is indefensible that the Supreme Court exempts itself from ethical principles that apply to other judicial and administrative entities. Even Congress has a Code of Ethics, however honored in the breach it may be.
When Justice Scalia goes duck hunting with a litigant (Dick Cheney) whose case is then pending before the Court; when Thomas sits on a case despite the fact that his wife’s organization is an interested party, I think skepticism about their ability to render a dispassionate verdict is understandable–and foreseeable.
Such behavior erodes the public trust, and it greatly diminishes the stature of the Court.
There is a reason Courts should be–and be seen to be–incorruptable. They are, after all, in the business of disappointing litigants; every time someone wins, someone else loses. If credible charges of favoritism or bias can be leveled, even if untrue, citizens ultimately lose respect for the rule of law.
Judges–especially Supreme Court Justices– used to take great pains to avoid the slightest appearance of impropriety; they used to aspire to be “as pure as the driven snow.” Lately (as Mae West memorably put it), they’ve drifted.
It is something akin to an article of faith that white senior citizens are the backbone of the GOP–that they will troop reliably to the polls to support the Grand Old Party even as it regresses into an anti-reason, anti-science cult. It is overwhelmingly my age cohort (aka “old farts”) that watches Faux News, votes religiously (in both senses of that word), and constitutes the loyal and irreplaceable base of the Republican Party.
I have resigned myself to the probability that improvements in American political life won’t occur until the over-65 generation dies off. Of course, that inconveniently includes me, but hey–it is what it is. I routinely apologize to my students for the mess my generation is bequeathing them.
Carville-Greenberg, the Democratic polling operation, has recently reported growing disaffection with the GOP among the elderly.
We first noticed a shift among seniors early in the summer of 2011, as Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare became widely known (and despised) among those at or nearing retirement. Since then, the Republican Party has come to be defined by much more than its desire to dismantle Medicare. To voters from the center right to the far left, the GOP is now defined by resistance, intolerance, intransigence, and economics that would make even the Robber Barons blush. We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens.
According to Carville-Greenberg, seniors voted for Republicans by a 21 point margin (38 percent to 59 percent) in 2010, but among seniors likely to vote in 2014, the generic Republican candidate leads by just 5 points (41 percent to 46 percent.) Seventy-one percent of seniors disapprove of the Republicans in Congress. Only 28% of seniors view the GOP favorably, down from 43% in 2010. During that same period of time, seniors’ approval of Democrats actually rose three points, from 37% to 40%.
More than half (55 percent) of seniors say the Republican Party is too extreme, half (52 percent) say it is out of touch, and half (52 percent) say the GOP is dividing the country. Just 10 percent of seniors believe that the Republican Party does not put special interests ahead of ordinary voters.
These numbers, if accurate, reflect a sea change in a constituency that has been the GOP’s most dependable voting bloc.
Evidently, when a party gets crazy enough, even its most loyal foot-soldiers begin to notice.
Yesterday, I participated in the ACLU of Indiana’s much-lauded “First Wednesday” series. I was on a panel titled “The Constitution: Peruse It or Lose It.” The program was introduced by ACLU Executive Director Jane Henegar; the moderator was local businessman and owner of the IBJ, Mickey Maurer; the two other panelists were Michael Gordon, who teaches government at Munster High School, and State Senator Brant Hershmann.
Michael Gordon was superb. If we could clone this guy and put a clone in every high school government class, we might beat this civic deficit problem. And this event may have marked the first time I’ve ever agreed with Sen. Hershmann (who opposes any and all gun regulations, and sponsored the ban on same-sex marriage, among other things).
The format was informal, with Mickey goading the panelists (and making an effort to promote fireworks–an effort that failed). Although there were no scripts, we each were allowed a brief opening statement, and I thought I’d share mine.
I know this will seem all too familiar to regular readers, but really–it can’t be said too often!
Only 36% of Americans know we have three branches of government. Why does that freak me out? Why is civic literacy important?
This is a country where, increasingly, people read different books and newspapers, visit different blogs, watch different television programs, attend different churches and even speak different languages—where the information and beliefs we all share are diminishing and our variety and diversity are growing. Our constitutional values, our history and governing philosophy are ultimately all that Americans have in common.
Like all human enterprises, governments have their ups and downs. In the United States, however, the consequences of the “down” periods are potentially more serious than in more homogeneous nations, because this is a country based upon what Todd Gitlin has called a covenant. Americans don’t share a single ethnicity, religion or race. (Culture warriors to the contrary, we never have.) We don’t share a comprehensive worldview. What we do share is a set of values, and when we don’t know what those values are or where they came from, we lose a critical part of what it is that makes us Americans.
At the end of the day, our public policies must be aligned with and supportive of our most fundamental values; the people we elect must demonstrate that they understand, respect and live up to those values; and the electorate has to be sufficiently knowledgeable about those values to hold public officials accountable. We can’t do that if we don’t know what those values are or where they came from.
In a country that celebrates individual rights and respects individual liberty, there will always be dissent, differences of opinion, and struggles for power. But there are different kinds of discord, and they aren’t all equal. When we argue from within the constitutional culture—when we argue about the proper application of the American Idea to new situations or to previously marginalized populations—we strengthen our bonds and learn how to bridge our differences. When those arguments are between people trying to rewrite history and citizens who don’t know better,we undermine our political institutions and erode social trust.
At our new Center for Civic Literacy at IUPUI, we intend to research a large number of unanswered questions. What, for example, do citizens need to know? Why have previous efforts to improve civics instruction lacked staying power? How is civic ignorance implicated in our currently toxic politics?
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I think the Establishment Clause requires a certain result and you think it requires a different one. What matters is that we both know what the Establishment Clause is, and what value it was meant to protect. It doesn’t matter whether I think Freedom of the Press extends to bloggers and you disagree. It matters a lot that we both know what Freedom of the Press means, and why it was considered essential to the maintenance of trustworthy government.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. If I think this is a table and you think it’s a chair, we aren’t going to have a very productive discussion about its use. We don’t need citizens who all agree about the implications of our founding decisions, or who even agree with the decisions themselves.
But we desperately need citizens who share an understanding of what those decisions were.
As the Republican party has become more and more irresponsible, it has become fashionable for its defenders to argue from equivalency: sure, there are some loony-tune legislators who are Republican, but there are equally demented Democrats. Both sides do it, so it’s not fair to single out the GOP examples.
Now, there is an element of truth to this. Certainly, there are rabid ideologues on both the left and right. But no fair-minded observer can deny that for sheer lunacy, the Republicans win in a walk. They have depth and breadth. (Lest you think it’s confined to Michelle Bachman and Louie Gohmert, let me assure you they have an absolutely formidable bench.)
For example, I’d never previously heard of Florida Congressman Ted Yoho.
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) recently told a group of constituents that he backing a birther bill because he hoped that it would “get rid of everything” that President Barack Obama had done, and then added that the president’s “racist” health care law forced white people to pay more to use tanning beds.
The Florida Republican continued: “I had an Indian doctor in our office the other day, very dark skin, with two non-dark skin people, and I asked this to him, I said, ‘Have you ever been to a tanning booth?’ and he goes, ‘No, no need.’ So therefore it’s a racist tax and I thought I might need to get to a sun tanning booth so I can come out and say I’ve been disenfranchised because I got taxed because of the color of my skin.”
I defy anyone to find a Democrat who can match that for idiocy or racism. And this guy isn’t even one of the GOP’s usual subjects!
As Juanita Jean, who blogs from the World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Parlor, accurately notes, if there wasn’t a tax on tanning beds, that would mean that President Obama is encouraging everybody to become dark skinned like him or the Muslims. Because he’d be trying to turn us all black!
These folks are just obsessed with the President’s skin color. Too bad they aren’t equally invested in stuff like–oh, I don’t know… logic. Or coherent thought. Or public policy, although asking that they actually do the jobs they were elected to do and stop their single-minded obsession with preventing Obama from doing anything may be too great a stretch.
