RICHARD A. ARENBERG Visiting Professor of the Practice of Political Science Brown University
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Minority Views
MINORITY VIEWS The Minority Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 26, 2018 submit the following Minority Views to the Majority-produced "Repo11 on Russian Active Measures, March 22, 2018." Devin Nunes, California, CMAtRMAN K. Mich.J OI Conaw ay, Toxas Pe1 or T. King. New York F,ank A. LoBiondo, N ew Jersey Thom.is J. Roonev. Florida UNCLASSIFIED Ileana ROS·l chtinon, Florida HVC- 304, THE CAPITOL Michnel R. Turner, Ohio Brad R. Wons1 rup. Ohio U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC 20515 Ou is S1cwart. U1ah (202) 225-4121 Rick Cr.,w ford, Arka nsas P ERMANENT SELECT C OMMITTEE Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 0A~lON NELSON Ellsr. M . S1nfn11ik, Nnw York ON INTELLIGENCE SrAFf. D IREC f()ti Wi ll Hurd, Tcxa~ T11\'10l !IV s. 8 £.R(.REE N At1am 8 . Schiff, Cohforn1a , M tNORllV STAFF OtR ECToq RANKIN G M EMtlER Jorncs A. Himes, Connec1icut Terri A. Sewell, AlabJma AndrC Carso n, lncli.1 na Jacki e Speier, Callfomia Mike Quigley, Il linois E,ic Swalwell, California Joilq u1 0 Castro, T exas De nny Huck, Wash ington P::iul D . Ry an, SPCAl([ R or TH( HOUSE Noncv r c1os1. DEMOC 11t.1 1c Lr:.11.orn March 26, 2018 MINORITY VIEWS On March I, 201 7, the House Permanent Select Commiltee on Intelligence (HPSCI) approved a bipartisan "'Scope of In vestigation" to guide the Committee's inquiry into Russia 's interference in the 201 6 U.S. e lection.1 In announc ing these paramete rs for the House of Representatives' onl y authorized investigation into Russia's meddling, the Committee' s leadership pl edged to unde1take a thorough, bipartisan, and independent probe. -
The Filibuster and Reconciliation: the Future of Majoritarian Lawmaking in the U.S
The Filibuster and Reconciliation: The Future of Majoritarian Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate Tonja Jacobi†* & Jeff VanDam** “If this precedent is pushed to its logical conclusion, I suspect there will come a day when all legislation will be done through reconciliation.” — Senator Tom Daschle, on the prospect of using budget reconciliation procedures to pass tax cuts in 19961 Passing legislation in the United States Senate has become a de facto super-majoritarian undertaking, due to the gradual institutionalization of the filibuster — the practice of unending debate in the Senate. The filibuster is responsible for stymieing many legislative policies, and was the cause of decades of delay in the development of civil rights protection. Attempts at reforming the filibuster have only exacerbated the problem. However, reconciliation, a once obscure budgetary procedure, has created a mechanism of avoiding filibusters. Consequently, reconciliation is one of the primary means by which significant controversial legislation has been passed in recent years — including the Bush tax cuts and much of Obamacare. This has led to minoritarian attempts to reform reconciliation, particularly through the Byrd Rule, as well as constitutional challenges to proposed filibuster reforms. We argue that the success of the various mechanisms of constraining either the filibuster or reconciliation will rest not with interpretation by † Copyright © 2013 Tonja Jacobi and Jeff VanDam. * Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law, t-jacobi@ law.northwestern.edu. Our thanks to John McGinnis, Nancy Harper, Adrienne Stone, and participants of the University of Melbourne School of Law’s Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies speaker series. ** J.D., Northwestern University School of Law (2013), [email protected]. -
Gould Article
JONATHAN S. GOULD Law Within Congress abstract. Procedure has long shaped how Congress operates. Procedural battles have been central to legislative contestation about civil rights, the welfare state, tax policy, and presidential impeachments. In these instances and many others, procedural disputes often turn not on written rules but on parliamentary precedents. These precedents constitute a hidden system of law that has received little scholarly attention, despite being critical to shaping what goes on in Congress. This Article explores parliamentary precedent in Congress. Parliamentary precedent mostly resembles judicial precedent: both are common-law systems that rely on the arguments of adver- sarial parties. But the two systems differ in key respects. Parliamentary decision-making employs an especially strong form of stare decisis, is minimalist in the extreme, and relies freely on legisla- tive purpose and legislative history as tools of interpretation. These seemingly legal dynamics play out in the shadow of congressional politics. Understand- ing parliamentary precedent requires understanding the institutional positions of the parliamen- tarians, the nonpartisan officials who resolve procedural disputes. The parliamentarians’ distinc- tive jurisprudence reflects their tenuous positions—namely, that they can be removed, overruled, or circumvented by the majority party. Drawing on novel interviews with parliamentarians and the legislative staffers who work closely with them, this Article illuminates the intersection of law and politics in the making of parliamentary precedent. A better understanding of parliamentary precedent contributes to our understanding of how Congress operates and the fault lines that emerge in an age of polarization and hardball. These dynamics also hold lessons for public law more broadly. -
Daniel's Roofing
VolumeVol.Volume 66, No. 65,65, 80 No.No. 207207 MONDAY,MONDAY,THURSDAY, FEBRUARYFEBRUARY AUGUST 6,10,10, 2020 20202020 50¢ A tree fell across wires in Queens Village, knocking out power and upending a chunk of sidewalk. VolumeQUEENSQUEENS 65, No. 207 LIGHTSMONDAY, OUT FEBRUARY 10, 2020 Photo by Teresa Mettela 50¢ 57,000 QueensQueensQueens residents lose power Vol.VolumeVolume 66, No. 65, 65, 80 No. No. 207 207 MONDAY,MONDAY, FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 10, 10, 2020 2020 50¢50¢ VolumeVolumeVol.VolumeVol. 66,66,67, 65, No. No.65,65, No. 80 8033No.No. 207 207207 MONDAY,THURSDAY,MONDAY,MONDAY,THURSDAY,TUESDAY, FEBRUARY FEBRUARYFEBRUARYFEBRUARY AUGUST AUGUSTAUGUST JUNE 1, 6,10, 6,10,20216,10, 10,2020 20202020 20202020 50¢50¢50¢ Volume 65, No. 207 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020 50¢ VolumeVol.TODAY 66, No.65, 80No. 207 MONDAY,THURSDAY, FEBRUARY AUGUST 6,10, 2020 2020 A tree fell across wires in50¢ TODAY AA tree tree fell fell across across wires wires in in TODAY QueensQueensQueens Village, Village, Village, knocking knocking knocking out power and upending Queens legislator wants cityoutout power power to and and upending upending A treeaa chunka chunkfell chunk across of of ofsidewalk. sidewalk. sidewalk.wires in VolumeVolumeVolumeQUEENSQUEENSQUEENSQUEENS 65, 65,65, No. No.No. 207 207207 LIGHTSLIGHTSduring intenseMONDAY,MONDAY, OUTOUTOUT FEBRUARY FEBRUARYFEBRUARY 10, 10,10, 2020 20202020 QueensPhotoPhoto PhotoVillage, by by byTeresa Teresa Teresa knocking Mettela Mettela Mettela 50¢50¢50¢ QUEENS out power and upending 57,00057,000reconsider Queens QueensQueensQueensQueensQueens -
The Eastern Question
The Eastern Question: Russia, the West and Europe's Grey Zone Recommendations for Western Policy Lead Authors Daniel S. Hamilton and Stefan Meister Center for Transatlantic Relations Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Johns Hopkins University German Council on Foreign Relations/ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik Funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………..…iii Headline Summary………………………...…………………………………………………..…v Introduction The New Era……………………………………………………………………...………………1 Chapter 1 Eastern Challenges……………………………………………………………………………....5 Russia under Putin……………………………………………………………………….5 The Ozero Maxims………………………………………………………………..7 Putin's Toolbox…………………………………………………………………..11 The Common Neighborhood…………………………………………………………....16 Forces of Inertia………………………………………………………………….16 The Changing Economic Map…………………………………………………...17 The Maidan Precepts…………………………………………………………….18 Ukraine's Meaning and Importance……………………………………………...19 Chapter 2 Western Dilemmas……………………………………………………………………………...21 Doubts and Distractions………………………………………………………….21 Shared Interests…………………………………………………………………..22 WHAT THE WEST MUST DO……………………………………………………………….25 1. What the West Must Do with Russia……………………………………………………….25 2. What the West Must Do with the Common Neighborhood……………………………….33 3. What the West Must Do for Itself…………………………………………………………..49 Lead Authors…………………………….……….....…………………………………………..57 Endnotes…………………………………………………………………..…………………….58 ii Preface and Acknowledgements Dramatic developments -
2018 Country Brief: Russia
PRIMER Published July 16, 2018 • 13 minute read 2018 Country Brief: Russia The National Security Program Takeaways Despite what the President thinks, Russia is our enemy, not our friend. Russia’s goal is to undermine America and its allies, sow discord and dissention, weaken alliances, and alienate us from our closest partners. Russia has done this by: Undermining democracies and Western institutions by interfering in elections (including the 2016 US election), spreading disinformation, and supporting separatist movements; Threatening the United States’ allies by amassing troops and conducting large-scale exercises near their borders and, in some cases, directly invading their territories; Violating long-standing arms control treaties with the United States; and Contributing to instability in the Middle East; for example, Russia provided support to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where a 7-year civil war has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and allowed terrorism to thrive. The United States imposed a series of sanctions on Russia over the years related to its malicious activities but further sanctions may be needed with oversight from Congress to deter Russia’s bad behavior. President Trump cannot be trusted on Russia. During his recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump demonstrated he is advancing Russia's interests at every turn at the expense of America's security. The US Congress must step in and nd a way to counter Russian hostility toward the West despite our President’s refusal to challenge Putin at every turn. Ultimately, the world is safer when Russia and the United States cooperate. -
Parliamentary Rule: the US Senate Parliamentarian and Institutional Constraints on Legislator Behaviour
Parliamentary Rule: The US Senate Parliamentarian and Institutional Constraints on Legislator Behaviour JAMES I. WALLNER This article analyses the extent to which institutional rules constrain member behaviour in the United States Senate by examining the evolution of its parliamentarian. Interestingly, the US Senate parliamentarian has received surprisingly little scholarly attention given the important role she performs in the legislative process. The subsequent analysis thus provides a new understanding of the parliamentarian’s role in the legislative process and the interplay between institutional rules and member behaviour in the Senate. To this end, the following analysis is situated within the context of the two primary theoretical approaches to understanding how institutional rules constrain member behaviour: path dependency and majoritarianism. These contrasting approaches provide expectations about the extent to which members will defer to the parliamentarian’s interpretation of Senate rules rather than exercising their own discretionary control over those rules. Examining the evolving relationship between the parliamentarian and individual members affirms the centrality of institutional rules as a constraint on member behaviour over the past several decades. Yet such an examination also yields two surprising, and potentially contradictory, observations. First, individual senators in both parties have increasingly deferred to the parliamentarian to interpret the Senate’s rules. This is sur- prising given that the Senate has simultaneously become more individualistic, partisan, and ideological over the same period. Second, the majority party has recently disregarded the norm of parliamentary constraint reflected in past practice and demonstrated a will- ingness to ignore Senate rules when doing so was necessary to achieve legislative success. -
Shatter the House of Mirrors: a Conference Report on Russian Influence Operations
Cover photo credits: Scott Medway/Shutterstock.com and BushAlex/Shutterstock.com October 2017 Shatter the House of Mirrors: A Conference Report on Russian Influence Operations EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ladimir Putin’s Russia is engaged in a well-financed and determined campaign to undermine democratic political and social institutions as well as international alliances, Vand to remove resistance to Russia’s foreign policy objectives. Russia has the motive and the means to do so. Russia’s motives are clear. Putin resents the collapse of the Soviet Union and seeks to restore Russia’s lost empire in order to give the Russian government a freer hand at home and abroad. Russia’s intervention in the American election was part of a broader effort to undermine confidence in Western democracies and the credibility of Western institutions; weaken trans-Atlantic relationships, including NATO; diminish the international appeal of the United States as well as reduce American power abroad; reassert Russian power; and, ultimately, protect Putin’s regime from the threat of people power. The means at Russia’s disposal include: official Russian state-organs, such as its intelligence services, that have a long history of conducting such operations; state controlled media outlets, such as RT and Sputnik which are propaganda arms whose narratives seep into Western media coverage; and Russian-controlled bots and trolls in social media that engineer the trends and popularity of both individuals and narratives. Russia has a long history of employing so-called “active measures” that by 2016 included traditional propaganda and computational propaganda, cybercrimes, as well as weaponized information—in the form of selective release of information to groups like Wikileaks. -
The Tax Legislative Process: a Byrd's Eye View
University of Chicago Law School Chicago Unbound Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 2018 The Tax Legislative Process: A Byrd's Eye View Ellen P. Aprill Daniel Hemel Follow this and additional works at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Ellen Aprill & Daniel Hemel, "The Tax Legislative Process: A Byrd's Eye View," 81 Law and Contemporary Problems 99 (2018). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Chicago Unbound. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Chicago Unbound. For more information, please contact [email protected]. APRILL_HEMEL_FINAL (DO NOT DELETE) 5/16/2018 4:54 PM THE TAX LEGISLATIVE PROCESS: A BYRD’S EYE VIEW ELLEN P. APRILL* AND DANIEL J. HEMEL** I INTRODUCTION The year 2017 was, among other distinctions, the year of the Byrd rule. This once-obscure Senate procedural provision—on the books since 1985 but only recently the stuff of page one news1— featured prominently in several failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the spring and summer. Then again at year’s end, the Byrd rule played a central role in the successful effort to rewrite large swaths of the Internal Revenue Code. While the Byrd rule has influenced the legislative process in the past, never before has it drawn so much attention from the mainstream and trade press, and never before has it shaped so consequential a law in such a significant way. One theme that runs throughout this article is that when it comes to the budget math mandated by the Byrd rule, numbers can obscure the truth. -
Court Filing
Case 1:19-gj-00048-BAH Document 20 Filed 09/13/19 Page 1 of 46 THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ____________________________________ ) IN RE: ) ) APPLICATION OF THE COMMITTEE ) Civil Action No. 1:19-gj-00048-BAH ON THE JUDICIARY, U.S. HOUSE OF ) REPRESENTATIVES, FOR AN ORDER ) AUTHORIZING THE RELEASE OF ) CERTAIN GRAND JURY MATERIALS ) DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE’S RESPONSE TO THE APPLICATION OF THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE FOR AN ORDER AUTHORIZING RELEASE OF CERTAIN GRAND JURY MATERIALS JOSEPH H. HUNT Assistant Attorney General JAMES M. BURNHAM Deputy Assistant Attorney General ELIZABETH J. SHAPIRO CRISTEN C. HANDLEY Attorneys, Federal Programs Branch U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division 1100 L Street NW Washington, DC 20005 Tel: (202) 514-5302 Fax: (202) 616-8460 Counsel for Department of Justice Case 1:19-gj-00048-BAH Document 20 Filed 09/13/19 Page 2 of 46 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................ 7 A. Procedural Background ........................................................................................... 7 B. Statutory Background ............................................................................................. 9 ARGUMENT ............................................................................................................................... -
November 2020 Newsletter
WNDC N E W S L E T T E R | N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 From The Right To Vote... The Power To Lead www.democraticwoman.org PRESIDENT'S LETTER As we go to press ahead of the most consequential election of this era, uncertainties and anxieties facing Americans abound. We continue to deal with a global pandemic, racial unrest, a broken economy, massive unemployment, and a highly polarized electorate. And yet the numbers of early voters are breaking records every day, despite challenges. The hate-filled tone adopted by Donald Trump, the poisonous rhetoric that emboldens white domestic terrorists, and the fear instilled in local leaders who are attempting to do the right thing to combat the ravages of COVID-19—are all galvanizing voters even more. The sun is peeking through the dark clouds of Trump-world! This election is exceptional in many ways. We have the first non-white woman on the Democratic ticket as the running-mate of Joe Biden. Kamala Harris has inspired women and minorities, bringing in a huge windfall of campaign funds. Disaffected Republicans are defecting to the Biden/Harris camp and congressional races are looking good for Democrats. Women are again the story this cycle: 583 women are running for the House of Representatives, a 22.5% increase over 2018; and 60 women are running for the Senate, 37 of them Democrats. MONEY Democrats have almost doubled the money they raised in both 2016 and 2014, raising substantially more than Republicans. According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), women have contributed nearly $1.7 billion across the political spectrum, accounting for 43% of political donors in the election and surpassing their $1.3 billion in 2016. -
A CALL for TRANSPARENCY Donald Trump Still Has Not Revealed
A CALL FOR TRANSPARENCY Donald Trump still has not revealed to the American public his international business relationships, even as it becomes increasingly clear that his overseas ties could well constitute significant conflicts of interest when it comes to charting US foreign policy. This is unprecedented for a candidate for the nation's highest office. As such, we are calling on Mr. Trump to disclose, in full, the nature of his business relationships overseas -- to include specifically who his business partners are and what and where are his foreign investments. We also call on him to pledge that he will divest himself of his overseas business interests should he win the presidency. According to an investigative article published September 15th by Newsweek, Mr. Trump has shown poor judgment with regard to whom he has associated with overseas in order to further his business interests. The Newsweek article reports that Mr. Trump courted Muammar Qaddafi, a dictator who murdered his own people and who once pursued nuclear weapons and conducted terrorism against Americans. Newsweek also asserts that Mr. Trump's other business partners have included Kremlin-tied oligarchs and Russians with mafia links, an individual accused of money laundering for the Iranian military, a Turkish media tycoon accused of running a fuel-smuggling ring, Indian companies that may have violated India’s laws in their pursuit of business with Mr. Trump, and a South Korean company mired in scandal. Importantly, according to this news item, Mr. Trump's business partnerships owe millions of dollars to Chinese entities. It’s not hard to see why these reported relationships would be problematic.