MoveOn Assists Internet Bill Filibuster

A prominent progressive advocacy organization is urging its supporters to sign an online petition against a highly controversial bill to regulate Internet content. That petition will help fuel an expected filibuster of the legislation when it comes up for debate in the Senate, according to MoveOn.org.

MoveOn began circulating its petition Tuesday to help Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) block PROTECT IP, the Senate companion to the The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). A longtime advocate of Internet freedom, Wyden has vowed to “fight this every step of the way.”

Although the legislation aims to fight illegal use of copyrighted material, it could have far-reaching and unintended consequences, according to Wyden and other opponents.

“While some would like to paint this issue as a simple matter of being for or against intellectual property, that would be a mistake,” says Wyden, in recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. “Believing that a free and open Internet is worth fighting to protect does not mean that we aren’t concerned about copyright infringement or that we are somehow oblivious to the fact that unscrupulous foreign suppliers are using the net to traffic counterfeit and illegal goods. They are and Congress and this committee are right to be considering remedies to stop them and to protect the hard work of our creative industries.

“Rather, those of us who value the Internet’s growing role in our society recognize that any government intervention in the online ecosystem that is the Internet can and will have a ripple effect on more than just its bad actors,” Wyden adds.

For instance, pop star Katy Perry could decide that a fan-made video posted on YouTube lip-synching to her latest hit constitutes copyright infringement, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has come out against SOPA.

“All Ms. Perry would have to do is notify YouTube’s ISP of the supposed copyright infringement, and YouTube’s entire site could effectively disappear from the Web, perhaps even before YouTube was notified and despite the fact all other content on the site was non-infringing,” the ACLU says. “Fear of an entire website being taken down for such a small piece of content could lead such user-generated websites to police their users’ content, thus impeding free speech.”

Wyden hopes his filibuster will effectively kill the legislation from moving forward. The senator “will read the names of every person that signs a petition against Internet censorship,” MoveOn.org says in its email which circulated the petition.

“It’s the perfect opportunity for 5 million Internet-connected progressives to visibly add their voice to a Senate debate. The more of us that sign, the stronger this effort to block this terrible law will be,” the email adds.

SOPA and its Senate counterpart have fractured the conventional left-right divide.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), traditionally a progressive stalwart, is listed as a co-sponsor of SOPA along with Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Further, unions have also come out in support of SOPA and its Senate counterpart.

Meanwhile, although Republicans like Smith are backing the bill, others like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky oppose the measure.


Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:




Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Crony Capitalism? Hank Paulson’s Extraordinary Meeting

by Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica

On Monday, federal judge Jed Rakoff slammed the Securities and Exchange Commission for making a toothless settlement with Citigroup over financial crisis misdeeds, arguing that it obscured the basic facts of what actually happened. Today, Bloomberg has an important story by Richard Teitelbaum that, from a very different vantage point, demonstrates the same infuriating point: Despite the economic wreckage we are still trying to repair, we have yet to have an adequate accounting of how the financial crisis happened, what caused it, and who knew what when.

According to the story, on July 21, 2008, then-Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson met with “a dozen or so hedge- fund managers and other Wall Street executives” and discussed “a possible scenario for placing Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac] into ‘conservatorship.’” That’s a fancy term for a government seizure that would have allowed the entities to keep operating, but would have caused severe adverse consequences to holders of the Frannies’ equity and, possibly, debt. A fund manager told Bloomberg he was “shocked that Paulson would furnish such specific information -- to his mind, leaving little doubt that the Treasury Department would carry out the plan.” After the meeting, this manager consulted a lawyer, who told him to cease trading immediately in the Frannies, lest he later be accused of – here’s the rub – insider trading.

The Bloomberg story cites law professors to say that Paulson did not break the law. But the story’s implicit allegation is that the former head of Goldman Sachs was so clueless – or contemptuous – of his role as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America that he engaged in a clubby tête-à-tête with his former peers and handed them what Bloomberg says “amounted to inside information.”

It’s actually worse, because as Bloomberg also reports, Paulson was publicly playing down the possibility of dramatic government action -- practically the opposite of what he confided behind closed doors to those elite traders.

Paulson didn’t comment for the Bloomberg story, and his spokesperson referred questions to his book, On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System – which, Bloomberg points out, doesn’t mention the meeting.

There are limits to what a reporter can get – starting with whether any of those powerful and canny Wall Street sharks profited on the information. They may have shorted the Frannies, but, as the Bloomberg story points out, "tracking firm-specific short stock sales isn’t possible using public documents." We need a more powerful entity -- perhaps a Congressional committee? --to find that out. And, here are a few more questions that cry out for answers:

1. What is the justification for such a meeting? Former St. Louis Federal Reserve bank president William Poole suggests that the Treasury needs to be able to prep the market with information.

Fair enough. A Treasury Secretary should talk to smart market participants, and needs to know how the market might react to any given action.

But there’s a difference between meeting to receive information and telling a chosen few market-moving plans. Hank Paulson and now Timothy Geithner should receive information from all types of parties. If they want to float a trial balloon, they have to float it in such a way that doesn’t give select participants market sensitive information.

2. Why did Paulson meet with these people specifically? The Bloomberg piece notes that Eric Mindich, a hedge fund manager who is a former Goldman Sachs employee, hosted the meeting. Several Goldman Sachs executives attended.

If the Treasury secretary is going to hold meetings with market participants, the attendees should be chosen based on – you are going to laugh here – merit, not connections. And they should be transparently disclosed at the time.

3. How many other meetings like this were there? As Felix Salmon recalls, Andrew Ross Sorkin in his book “Too Big To Fail” revealed that Paulson met with the board of Goldman Sachs in June 2008 in Moscow -- a month before the meeting Bloomberg has revealed -- and discussed market conditions, and even contemplated that Lehman Brothers might fail.

Here’s how Sorkin wrote about this:

“For the nearly two years that Paulson had been Treasury secretary he had not met privately with the board of any company, except for briefly dropping by a cocktail party that Larry Fink's BlackRock was holding for its directors at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi in June.

Anxious about the prospect of such a meeting, [Paulson Chief of Staff Jim] Wilkinson called to get approval from Treasury's general counsel. Bob Hoyt, who wasn't enamored of the "optics" of such a meeting, said that as long as it remained a "social event," it wouldn't run afoul of the ethics guidelines.

Still, Wilkinson had told Rogers, "Let's keep this quiet," as the two coordinated the details. They agreed that Goldman's directors would join him in his hotel suite following their dinner with Gorbachev. Paulson would not record the "social event" on his official calendar.” END OFFSET

One possible defense for Paulson floating government conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie is that by the time of his July meeting with traders and executives, the market was widely anticipating the government would take that action. But what if the market only anticipated this because there were other, previous meetings between Treasury officials and well-connected investors in which such plans were floated?

4. What did this meeting do for the Treasury?

My sense of Paulson’s approach – act first, act boldly, move on and dwell no more – is that his actions weren’t well thought out at all.

But let’s concede, arguendo, that Paulson and the Treasury held this meeting as part of a carefully thought-out strategy to prep the market for the Frannie conservatorship. What did that get the government? If anything, the prepping only would make the investors more likely to extrapolate and short or sell other financial stocks.

If preparation was indeed the rationale and justification, then Paulson and Treasury needed to have a contingency plan for investor reaction. Which they almost certainly didn’t, since Lehman then failed and they were forced into a series of desperate actions. Over the next weeks, they scrambled to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, and then remake it into the preferred equity-buying program (rather than the toxic asset purchasing program).

Without a full and convincing accounting, we are left with a picture of a Treasury Secretary who took care of his buddies while allowing the system to blow up. This is the kind of thing that a crony capitalist system – and only such a corrupt system – would allow.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:


Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Want To Defeat Public Policy? Label Supporters As 'Extreme'

New research shows how support for a generally liked policy can be significantly lowered, simply by associating it with a group seen as “radical” or “extreme.”

In one experiment, researchers found that people expressed higher levels of support for a gender equality policy when the supporters were not specified than when the exact same policy was attributed to “radical feminist” supporters.

These findings show why attacking political opponents as “extremists” is so popular – and so effective, said Thomas Nelson, co-author of the study and associate professor of political science at Ohio State University.

“The beauty of using this ‘extremism’ tactic is that you don’t have to attack a popular value that you know most people support,” Nelson says.

“You just have to say that, in this particular case, the supporters are going too far or are too extreme.”

Nelson conducted the study with Joseph Lyons and Gregory Gwiasda, both former graduate students at Ohio State. The findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Political Psychology.

For the study, the researchers did several related experiments.

In one experiment, 233 undergraduate students were asked to read and comment on an essay that they were told appeared on a blog. The blog entry discussed the controversy concerning the Augusta National Golf Club’s “men only” membership policy. The policy caused a controversy in 2003 before the club hosted the Masters Tournament.

Participants read one of three versions of an essay which argued that the PGA Tour should move the Masters Tournament if the club refused to change this policy.

One group read that the proposal to move the tournament was led simply by “people” and “citizens.” Another group read that the proposal was led by “feminists.” The third group read that the proposal was led by “radical feminists,” “militant feminists,” and “extremists.” Additional language reinforced the extremist portrayals by describing extreme positions that the groups allegedly held on other issues, such as getting rid of separate locker room and restroom facilities for men and women.

Participants were then asked to rate how much they supported Augusta changing its membership rules to allow women members, whether they supported the Masters tournament changing its location, and whether, if they were a member, they would vote to support female membership at the club.

The findings showed that participants were more supportive of the golf club and its rules banning women when the proposal to move the tournament was attributed to “radical feminists.” They were also less likely to support moving the tournament, and less likely to support female membership.

“All three groups in the study read the exact same policy proposals. But those who read that the policy was supported by ‘radical feminists’ were significantly less likely to support it than those who read it was supported by ‘feminists’ or just ‘citizens,’” Nelson says.

By associating a policy with unpopular groups, opponents are able to get people to lose some respect for the value it represents, like feminism or environmentalism, Nelson says.

The researchers were able to show that in a separate experiment. In this case, 116 participants read the same blog entry used in the previous experiment. Again, the blog entry supported proposals to allow women to join the golf club. One version simply attributed the proposal to citizens, while the other two attributed them to feminists or radical feminists.

Next, the subjects ranked four values in order of their importance as they thought about the issue of allowing women to join the club: upholding the honor and prestige of the Masters golf tournament; freedom of private groups to set up their own rules; equal opportunities for both men and women; and maintaining high standards of service for members of private clubs.

How people felt about the relative importance of these values depended on what version of the essay they read.

Of those participants who read the proposal attributed simply to citizens, 42 percent rated equality above the other three values. But only 32 percent who read the same proposal attributed to extremists thought equality was the top value.

On the other hand, 41 percent rated group freedom as the top value when they read the proposal attributed to citizens. But 52 percent gave freedom the top ranking when they read the proposal attributed to extremists.

“Tying the proposal to feminist extremists directly affected the relative priority people put on gender equality vs. group freedom, which in turn affected how they felt about this specific policy,” Nelson says.

“Perhaps thinking about some of the radical groups that support gender equality made some people lose respect for that value in this case.”

This tactic of attacking a policy by tying it to supposedly extremist supporters goes on all the time in politics, Nelson says.

For example, foes of President Obama’s health-care reform initiative attacked the policy by calling Obama a “socialist” and comparing the president to Adolf Hitler.

These tactics can work when people are faced with competing values and are unsure what their priorities should be, Nelson says.

Environmental values, for example, may sometimes conflict with economic values if clean air or clean water laws make it more difficult for companies to earn a profit.

“If you want to fight against a proposed environmental law, you can’t publicly say you’re against protecting the environment, because that puts you in the position of fighting a popular value,” Nelson says.

“So instead, you say that proponents of the proposed law are going to extremes, and are taking the value too far.”

One problem with this tactic for society, though, is that it can hurt support of the underlying values, as well as the specific policy.

“If you use this extremism language, it can make people place less of a priority on the underlying value. People may become less likely to think environmentalism or gender equality are important values.”

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Why a Federal Judge Trashed the SEC’s Settlement With Citigroup

by Marian Wang, ProPublica

When the Securities and Exchange Commission struck a deal with Citigroup over a failed security that the bank sold to investors, we asked whether regulators had handed Citigroup too sweet a deal.

On Monday in Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff appeared to reach that very conclusion: “If the allegations of the Complaint are true, this is a very good deal for Citigroup,” Rakoff wrote as he refused to sign off on the $285 million proposed settlement agreement.

While the full opinion is worth reading, here’s a summary of the judge’s objections:

The SEC's allegations don’t match the charges.

The SEC, in its complaint, alleged that Citigroup knowingly misrepresented or failed to disclose to investors key information about the collateralized debt obligation, or CDO, known as Class V Funding III. We first reported on Class V last year in our story on CDO self-dealing, noting that the CDO contained risky pieces of other Citigroup CDOs.

Specifically, the SEC charged that Citi put risky assets into the deal, bet against it and didn’t disclose that to investors. According to the SEC, “Citigroup knew it would be difficult” to sell the CDOs if it disclosed all that to investors.

Judge Rakoff concluded, “This would appear to be tantamount to an allegation of knowing and fraudulent intent.”

But in the end, the SEC only charged Citigroup — and one low-level exec — with negligence, for which there's a lower standard of proof than for intentional fraud. Charges were not filed against more senior Citi execs who, according to the SEC, also knew details of the deal.

The settlement's boilerplate language forbidding future violations by Citigroup is essentially meaningless.

“By the S.E.C.’s own account, Citigroup is a recidivist,” wrote Rakoff, who noted that the SEC had not sought to enforce that prohibition for at least a decade.

The context here is more than adequately explained by a recent New York Times article that found that Citigroup had agreed on at least four other occasions not to violate that same anti-fraud statute, only to continually break that promise.

The fine is too modest to have a deterrent effect.

According to Rakoff, the fine in this case is “pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup” and amounts to just a cost of doing business.

Rakoff loathes the longstanding practice of reaching settlements without admissions of wrongdoing.

Sure, it’s standard in deals like this, and judges have routinely signed off on such language, but Rakoff has signaled that he has serious qualms about non-admission, non-denial settlements.

For one, he said the Citi deal shortchanges investors, who lost more than $700 million, according to the SEC: With no mea culpa from Citi, private investors will have a much harder time bringing their own lawsuits against the company — which, for Citigroup, is precisely the point.

Rakoff also argued that this practice cheapens judicial power, which must be used in conjunction with “cold, hard, solid facts.” A non-admission of guilt but agreement to pay, while in keeping with conventional procedure, denies the court of established facts on which to decide whether the settlement is reasonable, he said.

The truth should come out.

Finally, Rakoff argued that, especially regarding the financial sector – and especially now, the public deserves to know the truth: “In any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth.”

One thing Rakoff didn’t touch on? A discrepancy we raised last month: Citigroup seems to believe this deal would have settled all of its potential liability over CDOs — something the SEC has denied.

The SEC’s response

The SEC issued a statement today defending its settlement: “We believe that the proposed $285 million settlement was fair, adequate, reasonable, in the public interest, and reasonably reflects the scope of relief that would be obtained after a successful trial,” said Robert Khuzami, the SEC’s head of enforcement.

Khuzami pointed out that Rakoff’s objection to the lack of an admission of guilt “ignores decades of established practice throughout federal agencies and decisions of the federal courts.”

That response is in line with what Khuzami has said in the past — that securing confessions from companies like Citi, while ideal, would slow down the agency’s investigations.

“No one disagrees with the sort of abstract notion that you’d like to have admissions in your cases,” Khuzami said earlier this month. “One has to make choices between competing demands.”

The SEC also has argued that taking banks to costly trials would divert scarce resources from its other efforts to fight securities fraud, and prove counterproductive.

What’s next?

The case has been scheduled for trial next year — something Citigroup would presumably like to avoid, given the mountains of evidence in the SEC’s possession that would become public in a trial.

But a trial is still not a sure thing. Rakoff initially rejected a proposed SEC settlement with Bank of America but eventually approved a deal last year after the agency came back with a bigger fine. It remains to be seen whether the SEC will try to do the same this time around.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:




Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Senate Democrats To Put GOP On The Spot With Tax Cut

Senate Republicans who have been intensely devoted to tax cuts may find themselves this week on record in support of a big tax hike on the middle class.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Monday plans to consider a bill to extend President Obama's payroll tax cut which benefits 160 million American workers. Without an extension, those tax breaks will expire at the end of the year, however.

Sen. Bob Casey’s legislation not only would continue the existing 2-percent payroll tax cut for employees into next year, it would boost it to a 3.1-percent break. The legislation would also cut in half (from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent) the employer-side Social Security payroll taxes, Democrats say.

Democrats also are quick to note that the extension of the payroll tax cut would not hurt the Social Security Trust Fund one penny, because it would require that the Social Security Trust Fund be reimbursed for the lost revenue.

The extended tax cuts also would not add to the budget deficit because they would be paid for with a 3.25-percent surtax on income over $1 million. It is that millionaire surtax, in which a wealthy taxpayer who makes $1.1 million would pay $3,250 more in taxes, which is likely to raise GOP ire.

Reid also surmises Republican opposition to the extension is due to partisanship because the payroll tax cut originally was President Obama's idea.

"These are the same Republicans who loudly claim to care about keeping taxes low. But too often it seems they only care about keeping taxes low for the richest of the rich," Reid says.

Reid anticipated Republican objection to the bill, and sought to tweak Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell a bit by noting that the average family in McConnell's home state of Kentucky would keep $1,330 next year under the expanded payroll tax break. And 70,000 firms in Kentucky would benefit from new tax cuts, as well, Reid says.

"So let’s be clear what a 'no' vote on this proposal really means. It’s a vote to deny tax relief to millions of businesses. It’s a vote to raise taxes for 120 million families by nearly $1,000 each," Reid adds. "Republicans who vote 'no' will literally be taking money out of the pockets of middle-class taxpayers."

Reid cites economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s who predicts the U.S. economy will likely plunge back into recession if Congress does not extend this tax cut.

"It is clear neither our fragile middle class nor our fragile economic recovery can afford the kind of setback a failure to extend and expand these tax cuts would bring," the majority leader says. "Republicans say we cannot afford to raise taxes. If they choose to oppose this payroll tax cut, we’ll know what they meant to say was, 'We cannot afford to raise taxes on the rich –- but we are happy to raise taxes on the middle class.'"



Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:





Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Occupy Remains More Popular Than The Tea Party, Poll Finds

Despite having endured recent weeks of evictions, continued political assault from the right, and more, the Occupy Wall Street movement remains more favorable in the eyes of Americans than the tea party, according to a new poll.

Two in five U.S. adults (39 percent) say they support the OWS protests, while one-quarter (27 percent) oppose them, and three in 10 (29 percent) are not familiar with the protests, according to the results of a survey from the Harris polling organization.

Meanwhile, one-third of Americans (34 percent) support the conservative tea party while two in five oppose it (41 percent) and one-quarter (25 percent) are not at all sure.

These are some of the results of the Harris poll of 2,499 adults surveyed online between November 7 and 14.

Already three years old, the tea party is three years old and dramatically influenced the results of the 2010 midterm elections and tilted much of the political debate toward Republicans in the months that followed.

By contrast, Occupy Wall Street is only a little more than two months old. However, in that time, the movement has spread quickly from its original home in New York to similar demonstrations nationwide. It's also been credited with helping turn the nation's political discourse leftward, toward unemployment, economic disparity, and corporate responsibility.

As one might expect, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to be tea party supporters (71 percent vs. 6 percent) and the same holds true for conservatives over liberals (68 percent vs. 7 percent). But moderates and independents are not that similar as just one quarter of moderates (24 percent) support the tea party while two in five independents do (39 percent).

When it comes to the Occupy Wall Street movement, two-thirds of Liberals (67 percent) and almost three in five Democrats (58 percent) support it, as do one in five Republicans (19 percent) and 16 percent of conservatives.

President Obama and others Democrats trying to court independents in the 2012 elections should take note: independents (43 percent) and moderates (44 percent) are more closely aligned with the OWS protests than they are when looking at tea party support.

"It is very likely that both of these groups will continue to play a role during the upcoming election year and it will be interesting to see how candidates of both parties deal with these movements and the feelings associated with them," Harris says in an analysis accompanying the poll results. "Obviously, Democratic candidates will favor OWS while Republican candidates will lean more towards the Tea Party."

But, what about those candidates trying to win over the middle?

If you look at the likely swing states for 2012 (Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia) 38 percent of those people support the tea party and 39 percent oppose it, while 36 percent of people in these states support the OWS movement and 31 percent oppose it.

"This may make for hard choices by both President Obama and the eventual Republican nominee," Harris says.

As is its policy, Harris did not publish a margin of error for this poll, as the polling organization believes such terminology is misleading.


Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:




Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Progressives To Step In Where Supercommittee Failed

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) plans to fill the void left by the collapse of the so-called bipartisan supercommittee by introducing its own legislation to tame federal red ink while also putting Americans back to work.

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the co-chairs of the supercommittee announced that the 12-member panel would be unable to forge a bipartisan deal to cut more than $1 trillion off the federal budget deficit.

Much of the blame for the inability to come up with a deal rested on a refusal by Republicans to accept any tax increases.

The CPC, which claims more than 50 lawmakers as members, believes the overall direction taken by the supercommittee was flawed from the start because it didn't specifically address job creation.

The caucus went so far as to hold a hearing earlier this month on job creation, and invited all supercommittee members to attend. None did so.

“Instead of focusing on jobs, which is the only way to grow our economy and fix the country’s deficit problems, we witnessed Republicans again refusing to compromise and putting their loyalty to lobbyists ahead of the American people. After manufacturing this crisis over the summer, Republicans insisted on protecting tax giveaways for millionaires and billionaires and eliminating the Medicare guarantee. Republicans seem more committed to protecting the one percent than to finding bipartisan solutions that create jobs,” CPC co-chairs Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) say in a joint statement.

“Last month, the Congressional Progressive Caucus submitted its recommendations to the Super Committee that would create jobs while protecting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Since the Supercommittee failed to produce a plan, we will introduce our own legislation that reduces the deficit by trillions of dollars and puts America back to work,” the statement adds. “The best way to eliminate the deficit is to get America working again. Americans want leaders who work for all of us, not just the top one percent.”

In those recommendations to the supercommittee, the CPC says it identified more than $4 trillion in savings, which would increase to more than $7 trillion if the Bush-era tax cuts are allowed to expire on schedule next year.

The proposals would reduce the deficit, put Americans back to work and protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, according to the CPC. Key recommendations include an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving $1.6 trillion; enacting the Fairness in Taxation Act, creating a millionaire tax that generates $872.5 billion; and allowing the Medicare program to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving $157.9 billion.

The full text of the CPC proposals is available here.


Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:





Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

President Under Fire For Keystone Delay

President Obama has come under increasing criticism, largely from Republicans, for the decision to delay approval of a massive and controversial transnational pipeline.

More than 50, mostly Republican, members of the House sent the president a letter decrying his administration's decision to put off a decision on the proposed 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

The Obama administration earlier this month pushed back action on the pipeline to 2013 at the earliest after a huge outpouring of opposition to the project. Thousands of protesters had converged on the White House to demontrate against it.

Because the project would cross the U.S. border, it requires a permit from the State Department.

Connie Mack (R-Fla.), along with 56 other members of the House, signed a letter recently demanding the president reconsider his decision to delay approval of the pipeline.

That letter followed earlier criticism from GOP House Speaker John Boehner, who opened fire against the delay after a meeting with the premier of Alberta to discuss the project.

"President Obama says ‘we can’t wait’ to act on jobs," Boehner says. "And yet that’s exactly what his decision on the Keystone energy project has out-of-work Americans doing: waiting."

However, opponents cite potentially great environmental harm from the pipeline, particularly in a key aquifer along its planned route through Nebraska.

The process by which the administration had been considering Keystone also became a flashpoint due to the influence of corporate lobbying.

Paul Elliott, who worked on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, actively lobbied the State Department and Congress about the project for a year and a half before he officially registered as a lobbyist, according to State Department email messages which later were made public.

(Read a complete explainer of the Keystone XL pipeline, and its controversies, online here.)

In fact, the administration only agreed to delay consideration of the pipeline after a number of left-leaning lawmakers, particularly Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), asked the independent inspector general of the State Department to investigate the matter. Sanders and others asked Obama to hold off any decision on Keystone until the probe was complete.


Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:








Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

No Time to End Unemployment Benefits: Congress Must Act by Year-End

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Heather Boushey

Unemployment insurance is the primary government mechanism providing financial assistance to workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own. These benefits are set to expire on December 31. If Congress does not address this problem by the end of December, 2.2 million unemployed workers will lose their benefits by February. In 22 states, more than 30,000 unemployed workers will lose benefits.

Extending unemployment benefits is critical because our economy remains mired in one of the worst labor markets since the Great Depression. There are currently 13.9 million Americans unemployed, with the unemployment rate at or above 9 percent for 28 of the past 30 months. In October, the last month for which complete data are available, nearly half of those unemployed (42.4 percent)—5.9 million workers—had been out of work and actively seeking a job for at least six months.

Currently, there are nearly five workers actively searching for work for every job available, compared to just one and a half job searchers per job opening before the Great Recession began. Allowing unemployment benefits to expire amid such a weak labor market would have serious implications for the unemployed, as well as every one of us who still has a job.

The reason: An end to the benefits would threaten our economic recovery. Economists across the board agree that unemployment benefits are one of the most important countercyclical economic policies we have, helping those who do not have jobs with assistance that is immediately spent in the broader economy. Over the past few years, according to a detailed study by Wayne Vroman for the Department of Labor, benefits for the long-term unemployed led to the creation of about 700,000 new jobs each quarter.

Congress needs to act. It’s that simple.

Heather Boushey is an economist at the Center for American Progress.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Our Reading Guide on Congressional Dysfunction

by Lois Beckett, ProPublica

Congress’ approval rating is abysmal, and the failure of the congressional “super committee” to find a compromise on reducing the national debt has set off a new round of recriminations.

One senator on the super committee, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, told The Washington Post, “We’re at a time in American history where everybody's afraid — afraid of losing their job — to move toward the center. A deadline is insufficient. You’ve got to have people who are willing to move.”

Decrying partisanship is almost as old as the republic itself. But longtime observers say Congress has actually taken a turn for the worse — with more gridlock, more grandstanding, less compromise to get things done.

Old rules are being used in newly aggressive, partisan ways, and routine Congressional activities have become politicized — most notably, the vote to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. Once a nonissue, it brought the nation to the brink of default.

As former Republican Congressman Mickey Edwards points out, “Leaders of both chambers have embraced the strategy of precluding minority amendments, out of fear that even members of the majority party might vote for them.” This means, Edwards argues, that “to be in the minority is essentially to be made a nonfactor in the legislative process.”

The use of filibusters to block votes in the Senate used to be a last-ditch tactic, but in 2010, Republicans were filibustering even routine Democratic initiatives, effectively paralyzing the Senate. Democrats had previously ramped up the use of filibusters to oppose George W. Bush’s agenda, but Republicans “appeared to be taking the filibuster to a new level,” McClatchy Newspapers reported, even filibustering “15 nominees to mid-level jobs that formerly got routine approval.” Here is a helpful bar graph from McClatchy showing the trend. (Efforts to overhaul the filibuster earlier this year failed.)

The confirmation process of many of President Obama’s nominees has also lagged, creating gaps in the Treasury and Federal Reserve, leaving regulatory agencies without leaders. It has also resulted in prolonged judicial vacancies, which has sparked criticism from Chief Justice John G. Roberts, who said the delays are impairing the judicial system.

How exactly did it get so bad? Here’s our reading guide to a few smart, in-depth explanations of how Congress became so dysfunctional.

There’s a bigger partisan divide between voters — and members of Congress

Norman Ornstein’s Foreign Policy article — “Worst. Congress. Ever.” — provides a helpful overview of what’s the matter, from a man who’s been a Congressional expert for decades. (Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann co-wrote a 2006 book, "The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track.")

Ornstein explains that the nation's partisan makeup has changed dramatically since the late 1960s, when the country was less divided between red and blue states. Conservative Democrats from the South and liberal Republicans from the North regularly crossed party lines on different policy issues.

Since then, both parties have consolidated geographically — and become more homogenous and more partisan.

Looking at Congressional voting records in 2010, the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein found that the most left-leaning Republican senator still voted more to the right than the most conservative Democrat. The House, too, had an unprecedented level of polarization, with most politicians voting in lockstep with their parties.

This makes life easier for party leaders, Republican Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader from Mississippi, said, but “in terms of getting things done for the country, that’s not the case.” (Brownstein is the author of a helpful book on polarization, "The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America.")

And the partisan divide isn’t just in Congress. As Bill Bishop documented in his book "The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart," voters are likelier to live in politically homogenous counties. “In 1976, only about a quarter of America's voters lived in a county a presidential candidate won by a landslide margin. By 2004, it was nearly half,” Bishop found.

Members of Congress are raising money instead of building working relationships in D.C.

In the Boston Review’s "Fixing Congress" issue, Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee (recently named the House’s “last moderate” by New York Times columnist Joe Nocera) wrote a detailed chronology of how fundraising has changed Congress.

In the 1980s, Cooper argues, most members of Congress lived in Washington with their families and socialized with each other across party lines. Hotly contested campaigns cost only a few hundred thousand dollars, and political parties did not expect that politicians would make donations to their colleagues.

Cooper blames former House Majority Leader and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich for changing this restrained culture.

“Gingrich ordered freshman Republicans not to move their families to Washington, D.C., because he thought they needed to campaign full-time at home,” Cooper wrote. “Soon everyone belonged to the Tuesday–Thursday Club. Members became strangers, the easier for them to fight.”

Cooper isn’t the only one to emphasize Gingrich’s role. Edwards, the former Congressman, told the Associated Press that Gingrich “greatly increased the party-versus-party polarization.” According to Edwards, Gingrich pushed his fellow Republicans to focus less on actually making laws and more on being “a champion of the Republican cause, constantly at war, defeating Democrats."

Cooper notes that campaigns now cost millions of dollars, and that members of Congress are expected to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in party dues, as well as to make large donations to other candidates in their party.

George Packer’s New Yorker story on Senate dysfunction — perhaps the most vivid and comprehensive take on this issue — also elaborates on the impact that fundraising pressure has on senators.

“Of any free time you have, I would say 50 percent, maybe even more,” is spent on fundraising, one senator told Packer. “It sucks up time that a senator ought to be spending getting to know other senators, working on issues,” another said.

Congress’ culture is also more combative because it’s more competitive

In his Boston Review article, “Ending the Permanent Campaign,” Ornstein notes that this hyper-focus on fundraising and campaigning is related to the new competitiveness of Congress. Democrats had a “stranglehold” on the House of Representatives for four decades. After Republicans seized control of the House in 1994, each election “now provides a plausible scenario for a power shift.” Campaigning has grown in importance because the stakes are higher.

Writing in response to Cooper in the Boston Review, Dana Houle, the former chief of staff to former Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes, argued that comparing Congress today with Congress in the 1980s, as Cooper does, isn’t quite fair. It was because a single party reliably dominated the House that Congress members could “spend more time in Washington, D.C., focus on legislating, and build relationships with fellow members. Serving in Congress is easier and probably more rewarding when one does not face a strong possibility of defeat in every election.”

24/7 media scrutiny of Congressional drama has intensified while local news coverage has declined

Packer’s New Yorker article on the Senate also highlighted how good, old C-SPAN may have made things worse. “After C-SPAN went on the air, in 1979, the cozy atmosphere that encouraged both deliberation and back-room deals began to yield to transparency and, with it, posturing,” Packer wrote.

(One 2003 study, looking at the years 1959-98, found that the presence of television cameras on the legislative floor correlated with an increase in Senate filibusters.)

Financial shakeups in the media business, including the decline and even bankruptcy of regional newspapers, also have changed political coverage. In 2010, while he was still in office, former Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut told Packer, “I used to have 11 Connecticut newspaper reporters who covered me on a daily basis. I don’t have one today, and haven’t had one in a number of years. Instead, D.C. publications only see me through the prism of conflict.”

Dysfunction’s potential silver lining

Of course, a stalled Congress might not be such a bad thing, depending on your perspective. William J. Bennett argues that gridlock is a side effect of an ideological divide on policy issues. “We are in the midst of a serious philosophical battle over the future of this country — a battle between a small, limited government system and a big government entitlement state,” Bennett wrote as part of a CNN series called “Why is our government so broken?" He concluded: “Don't mistake broken government for the growing pains of a democratic republic.”

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

In The Supercommittee Blame Game, Fingers Point To Just One Republican

The failure this week of the so-called congressional supercommittee to agree on a package to reduce the federal budget deficit comes down not only to Republican intransigence, but really to that of just one conservative in particular, a man referred to as the “13th member” of the committee.

Specifically, many on both sides — including Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, a prominent member of the supercommittee — called out Grover Norquist, the extremely powerful anti-tax activist in Washington, for his role in keeping Republicans from agreeing to any new taxes.

Norquist wields much of his power due to the anti-tax pledge signed by most Republicans in Congress, and his ability to enforce that oath by working to defeat any who renege. All six of the GOP members of the supercommittee had signed on to the Norquist pledge.

Perhaps this doomed the supercommittee from the start, given that Norquist had blessed the Republican supercommittee members this summer.

The supercommittee was supposed to recommend more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years to be considered by Congress on a fast-track basis. The panel, known formally as the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, bogged down mostly on partisan lines, however.

Indeed, after the co-chairs of the bipartisan supercommittee announced that the panel would not be agreeing to a deal, the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal ran an article headlined, “Thank You, Grover Norquist.”

“Democrats on the Committee made clear everything was on the table. Our offers were balanced. We walked the line of shared sacrifice, however difficult, and we proposed painful choices for programs we care about deeply,” says Kerry, who reportedly tried until the very end to get the supercomittee to forge a compromise. “However, we simply could not overcome the Republican insistence on making tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans permanent. We would not give another $550 billion tax cut to the wealthiest. Shifting the tax burden to the middle class was not the way to reduce the deficit. This was simply doctrine for some of our Republican colleagues, even as many worked very hard in good faith to find a better way forward.

“I believe it would have been unconscionable to ask middle class Americans to finance more tax cuts for the wealthy while seniors on fixed incomes paid the price,” Kerry adds. “People need to remember: The Committee was created to cut the deficit not to cut taxes for the wealthiest, the exact tax policies that didn’t create jobs and gave us deficits in the first place. The bottom line is that no Super Committee can succeed with Grover Norquist as its 13th member.”

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Federal Rights Panel To Probe State Immigration Laws

A federal civil rights watchdog panel plans to take a close look next year at the growing number of controversial state-level immigration statutes.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights announced Tuesday that it would hold a briefing in 2012 that will allow the eight-member commission to receive testimony as to the impact that these state-enacted laws have had on local communities.

The commission, which only can issue recommendations and has no regulatory power of its own, plans specifically to look at laws in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

"I believe that the enactment of these state immigration enforcement laws presents a pressing national civil rights issue that affects immigrants and U.S. citizens alike," says Chairman Martin Castro, an Obama appointee. "I'm proud that my fellow Commissioners joined me in voting unanimously and in bipartisan manner to have the Commission look into this important issue."

State-level immigration statutes have been drawing scrutiny since Arizona passed its law, SB 1070, last year. Other states have followed suit, including Alabama, whose immigration law particularly has drawn fire.

Among the provisions of the law in Alabama:

■ Police officers must ask anyone they stop who they think might be undocumented to prove their immigration status on the spot.
■ It is a felony for an undocumented immigrant to enter in to a contract with any state or local governmental entity.
■ Most contracts entered in to with an undocumented immigrant are null and void including child support, loans, rentals, and so forth.
■ Some undocumented immigrants must be indefinitely detained.

President Obama, himself, has spoken out against the Alabama law.

“It’s a bad law,” he says. “The idea that we have children afraid to go to school, because they feel afraid that their immigration status will lead to being detained … it’s wrong. We’re already seeing the impact in some school districts and high schools, where 20 or 25 percent of children aren’t going to class.”

The Civil Rights Commission intends to analyze whether the state-enacted immigration enforcement laws have adversely affected the civil rights of both naturalized and native-born U.S. citizens and non-citizen immigrants on the basis of color, race, and/or national origin, and whether they cause a denial of equal protection in the administration of justice.

In particular, the Commission will examine whether the state-level immigration laws foster discrimination and/or contribute to an increase in hate crimes; cause elevated racial and ethnic profiling; affect students' rights to public primary and secondary school education; and compromise public safety and community policing.


Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Race and Beyond: Did We Really Expect the Super Committee to Succeed?

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sam Fulwood III

I have little doubt that most Americans woke up the morning after the congressional super committee admitted defeat and, as I did, yawned.

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, formed in August after the debt-ceiling standoff, surrendered Monday, offering a terse statement that declared its failure. “[W]e have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline,” the statement said.

Big surprise. All the preceding weekend, members of the committee—six Democrats and six Republicans selected from the House and Senate—took to the chat shows to cast the impending failure on the other party. Democrats slammed Republicans for refusing to raise taxes on billionaires and millionaires; Republicans implausibly countered that Democrats refused to cut spending.

For the most part, though, I suspect the debt-reduction debate is an abstraction to average, work-a-day folks—whether they have a job or not. Most Americans simply want an economy that is growing in ways that give them good employment opportunities and a chance to become more prosperous. Anyone paying attention to the debate in Washington, however, probably sees the bickering on Capitol Hill as business as usual in the game of politics. And, like me, they yawn.

A crisis of some sort comes and goes hourly in Washington, like passengers and trains through nearby Union Station. For the most part it has a modest impact on most people’s daily lives. This latest fiscal drama was supposed to be the endgame to last summer’s near-fiscal collapse, when only a looming default on our national debt led lawmakers to come to a partial debt-reduction deal and then create this super congressional committee to finish the job.

The 12 super lawmakers were granted power in September to draft a binding plan to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal debt by Thanksgiving Day. Well, guess what happened. That’s right, the committee didn’t finish the job. Still, the sun rose the next morning and Old Glory yet waves. I yawned as I tapped on my iPad to read the news and reactions to what the super committee did or, more precisely, did not do.

Now if the doomsayers are correct, the $1.2 trillion (say, just how much is that in real-people money, anyway?) will be cut automatically from the budget beginning in January 2013. Those cuts would be split almost evenly between domestic discretionary and defense spending, the most draconian way to balance the budget.

But of course, even that future-forward crisis may never come to pass. Some lawmakers are already talking about changing the rules so that the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, never occur. “The sequestration is not engraved on golden tablets,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). “It’s a notional aspiration and I think we’d have sufficient support to prevent those kind of cuts from being enacted because of the impact it would have on national security.” President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) think otherwise, stating yesterday that the entire sequestration must proceed if Congress does not find a way to compromise on spending cuts and revenue raising to tackle future federal budget deficits.

That was what the super committee was obviously supposed to do. So what was the point? The answer is simple: politics, the business of Washington.

Fortunately, next year is a big election year. Nothing substantial can be decided until after the next president is known and the new Congress is seated. That means voters will have their say about the shape and course of the nation’s economic fortunes before anything can be settled.

Indeed, the battle lines are already taking shape. As my colleague Tanya Somander at ThinkProgress points out, conservative leaders are reluctant to cross swords with Grover Norquist, head of the extremist, antitax group Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist holds a death grip on conservative politicians who fear primary challenges if they seek to save the nation by demanding wealthy Americans pay their fair share of taxes.

President Obama vowed not to allow Congress to take the shortcut from their fiscal responsibilities. “There will be no easy-off ramps on this one,” the president said shortly after the super committee announced failure. “The only way these spending cuts will not take place is if Congress gets back to work and agrees on a balanced plan to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. ... they’ve still got a year to figure it out.”

Yawn! That’s never going to happen. Wake me up when it’s time to vote.

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Director of the CAP Leadership Institute. His work with the Center's Progress 2050 project examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Despite Veto Threat, Defense Interests Seek Those 'Easy Off Ramps'

Powerful military interests in Washington are ringing alarm bells as they must now come face-to-face with the massive automatic cuts in defense spending triggered by the failure of the so-called congressional supercommittee to reach a deal.

From the American Legion, to the aerospace industry, pro-military advocates have immediately begun exerting pressure to essentially undo the automatic $492 billion in defense spending cuts that are to be made under law as a consequence of the supercommittee's failure to put forward any alternate deficit-reduction recommendations.

These groups are pushing back against the defense cuts despite an explicit veto threat made by President Obama following the announcement of failure by the supercommittee.

"I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one," Obama warns.

The automatic defense and other spending cuts are to begin taking effect in 2013.

American Legion National Commander Fang Wong says he is "profoundly disappointed" that the bipartisan Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the so-called "supercommittee) failed to reach an agreement to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade.

"They were given an important job to do, and they failed," Wong says. "What this means to the future of our military and our veterans remains to be seen, but the challenges have now intensified for those who believe in a strong national defense and want to protect the hard-earned benefits of veterans. We are profoundly disappointed in the work of this committee."

In a letter to the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, John McCain of Arizona, Obama's own secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, says the automatic cuts would roll back ground forces to pre-World War II levels, leave the Navy with a fleet the size of the one in the years before World War I, and reduce the Air Force to its smallest size ever.

"That may be the worst-case scenario, but it could certainly occur unless these automatic cuts are rolled back between now and 2013," Wong says. "There is still time to avoid Panetta's nightmare, but we need to use it wisely in pressuring our lawmakers to make sure the Department of Defense has adequate funding to do its vital job."

In a separate statement, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA)warns of layoffs as a result of the defense cuts.

"AIA will continue to make sure that the impacts to our nation, economy and industry are well understood by all Americans," the head of the trade group says.

The American Legion notes, however, that the automatic reductions in spending also could impact veteran care.

"Even if [the budget of the Department of Veterans Affairs] is OK, that doesn't mean all veterans' support programs are necessarily protected, because not all of them are administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs," American Legion Legislative Division Deputy Director Ian de Planque says.

In recent remarks to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, de Planque noted the vulnerability of veterans' jobs and homeless programs within the Departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development.

"That," says Tim Tetz, director of the Legion's Legislative Division, "is another good reason to keep up strong post-supercommittee pressure on Congress. Restricting Labor and Housing and Urban Development efforts on behalf of veterans could really damage VA Secretary [Eric] Shinseki's efforts to end homelessness among veterans, and even the president's work to curtail veteran joblessness."


Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Capitol Idea: Walking Into Washington, Protesters Will Be Marching Occupy Into The Future

By Scott Nance

Seen in one way, the 20 or so Occupy Wall Street protesters who have marched more than 200 miles from New York to Washington are be a bit late to the party.

When the marchers set out on foot earlier this month, they did so as a statement to tell the so-called congressional supercommittee not to retain the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

In that sense, the protesters needn't have bothered. By the time the protesters actually enter the capital on Tuesday, supercommittee members will have already declared defeat all on their own.

But in another, crucial sense, these protesters represent the future of the Occupy movement. In its first two months of exuberant existence, Occupy has been both praised and criticized for having avoided any direct political engagement.

No more.

By taking a stand on specific issues — those of tax rates and federal spending — the "Occupy The Highway" marchers will be walking the entire movement into the realm of political force. It's a first step, to be sure, but an important one.

This march represents a clear way that the movement can fight even more effectively for the 99 percent despite having lost the ability to form encampments in New York and other cities nationwide. No doubt the Occupiers will have to feel their way through their path of political advocacy, but it needn't be as difficult as some may fear.

The protesters ought to reach out to those politicians who have already embraced their movement, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, or Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. These trusted political leaders could help guide Occupy on effective political advocacy without getting co-opted.

Done in a smart, savvy kind of way, getting more deeply involved in policy and politics could well keep the movement ahead in public opinion. Polls clearly indicate Americans continue to back the goals of Occupy, even if they had begun to question the movement's use of encampments.

Occupy has been talking about entering a Phase II ever since the overnight raid that evicted the protesters from their home in Zuccotti Park. A deeper political involvement clearly should be part of that future.

It's true that Occupy employs a non-hierarchical organizational and decision-making model. However, that model still allowed for Occupy The Highway to make its long, southward trek to confront the supercommittee.

It should also enable Occupiers to get involved in other central political questions, too. I, for one, would be pleased to see Occupy coming back here to Washington in the coming months, again and again. And next time, instead of being late, I'm certain that Occupy will come just in the nick of time.

Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade. Capitol Idea is his regular column from Washington. This article was first published as Walking Into Washington, Protesters Will Be Marching Occupy Into The Future on Blogcritics.


Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Public Opinion Snapshot: Millennials: Still Progressive After All These Years

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Ruy Teixeira

It’s no secret that conservatives have a generational problem. The rising Millennial generation is the most progressive generation in the electorate, and its political influence rises every year as more of that generation becomes eligible to vote.

Conservatives hoped that the severe economic problems of the last few years would solve their generational problem. These problems, they thought, would lead Millennials to blame President Barack Obama and progressives for our current difficulties and desert the progressive camp.

Well, think again. A massive new Pew study on “The Generation Gap and the 2012 Election” indicates that the Millennial generation adults (defined by Pew as those adults born 1981 or after) remain resolutely progressive. Here are a few examples.

On current economic policy, 55 percent of Millennials think the higher priority for the federal government should be spending to help the economy recover rather than reducing the budget deficit (41 percent).

On health care, 67 percent of Millennials either want to expand the 2010 health care legislation (44 percent) or leave it as it is (23 percent). Just 27 percent want to repeal it.

On social issues, 59 percent of Millennials support allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, compared to only 35 percent who oppose this.

On foreign policy, 66 percent of Millennials believe the best way to achieve peace is through good diplomacy, compared to 27 percent who believe the best way to peace is through military strength.

Conservatives were right that they had a generational problem. They still have one.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis, go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Uncoordinated Coordination: Six Reasons Limits on Super PACs Are Barely Limits at All

by Marian Wang, ProPublica

Ask any campaign-finance expert about super PACs and you’ll likely keep hearing one word: “coordination.” That’s because Super PACs — the super-powered groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from anyone — have just one crucial restriction on their powers: By law, they’re not supposed to coordinate with candidates.

Think that sounds clear? Think again.

“The restrictions on interactions between candidates and Super PACs are far more modest than the public believes,” said Paul Ryan, a lawyer with Campaign Legal Center, a campaign-finance advocacy group.

So long as candidates and Super PACs don’t discuss the particulars of their election spending — such as exactly where or how long their election ads will run — they’re free to discuss strategy and candidates can even help fundraise. One result: A presidential candidate can ask supporters — even his own father — to give to a Super PAC without it being “coordinated.” Or a group could plan to produce a “fully coordinated” ad with a candidate that it argues is uncoordinated.

“Coordination limits are essentially a joke if you want to avoid them,” said Michael Franz, an associate professor of government at Bowdoin College.

At least one professional joke-teller agrees: Comedian Stephen Colbert recently seized on the issue, ridiculing how some groups seem to be cutting it laughably close with the law.

Fundamentally, coordination rules are no laughing matter. Just ask the Supreme Court, which ruled in Citizens United that as long as money is spent independently of candidates — that is, without coordination — corporate and union donations are legal because they “do not give rise to corruption.” With that important restriction, corporations and unions were given free rein to spend as much as they want on elections.

The problem, says Ryan, is that the current coordination rules are so limited the Supreme Court was “either being disingenuous or naïve.”

We’ve pulled together a list to explain what the fuss is all about — six examples of what common sense might suggest is coordination, while the rules suggest otherwise:

1) The rise of candidate-specific super PACs

While Super PACs began forming in the lead up to the 2010 midterm elections, the big fad so far this year has been the formation of Super PACs dedicated to specific candidates.

Obama, Romney, Perry, Cain, Huntsman, Bachmann — all the major candidates have at least one supporting them now. The groups are often set up by former aides, former campaign managers or close confidantes familiar with both the candidate’s messaging and talking points.

According to Democracy 21, a campaign-finance reform group, these close ties to the candidates make candidate-specific Super PACs illegal, offering a “false veneer of ‘independence.’” But so far, the Federal Election Commission -- the agency that enforces campaign finance law and regulation — hasn’t issued a single rule that specifically pertains to Super PACs, let alone these candidate-specific groups.

2) Cooperative fundraising, uncoordinated spending

Of course, some candidates now have more than one candidate-specific group — and they may trust certain groups with their messaging more than others. So what’s a candidate to do? Endorse one and help fundraise, of course.

In guidance handed down by the FEC in July, the commission allowed candidates to help fundraise for the supposedly independent groups, on the premise that it was, after all, only coordinated spending that was banned.

The FEC did place a few restrictions: Candidates still can’t solicit unlimited donations or corporate donations to the Super PACs, but they can ask for contributions within the traditional $5,000 contribution limits that apply to direct donations. Whether that limit is meaningful is up for debate — donors can still give as much as they want.

Democrats — namely, Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi — promptly embraced the ruling by raising money for a Democratic-leaning Super PAC.

Meanwhile, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has given his blessing to one of the Super PACs specifically set up to support him. He’s even spoken at the independent group’s fundraising events.

3) Uncoordinated father and son

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman may be low in the polls, but at least he’s got a pro-Huntsman super PAC on his side — and a billionaire father, Jon Huntsman Sr., who’s already provided funding for the Super PAC, Our Destiny.

According to the New York Times, the younger Huntsman’s aides and supporters “have placed increasing hope that Mr. Huntsman’s father would shovel enough money into Our Destiny” to sustain the ad campaign launched by the group last week — a sticky situation, seeing as the elder Huntsman, founder of Huntsman Chemicals, “has been unwilling to do so without being asked."

If Huntsman the candidate does ask, he should watch his wording: “Dad, will you support me by giving this Super PAC $5,000?” — followed by a wink, a nudge, and a follow-up conversation with a super PAC staffer — might be just enough non-coordination to get the millions that the Super PAC needs without raising hackles at the FEC.

And if that’s the case, it may only be Huntsman Jr.’s pride that gets in the way: The Times reports that he’s been reluctant to ask.

4) An uncoordinated marriage

This may not come as news to some people, but marriages can also be uncoordinated! Just ask Janie Waltz, treasurer of a super PAC called Heartland Empowered Action Fund. Waltz — the only official listed for the super PAC — registered with the FEC at the very end of 2010, not long after her husband, John Waltz, lost a Congressional bid.

But now John Waltz, a Democrat and veteran from Michigan, is a candidate yet again. He announced in August that he’s challenging Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, for his seat in the House. His wife is still heading up the Super PAC. So far, the PAC doesn’t seem to have paid for much beyond upkeep for the group itself — fundraising expenses, office supplies, and payroll — and no one has raised a formal objection to the uncoordinated spousal setup. We’ve asked Janie Waltz for comment but have not received a response.

5) ‘Fully coordinated’ uncoordinated ads

Last month, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska appeared in a political ad. No, not an ad by his own campaign, but a supposedly uncoordinated ad paid for by Democratic Party officials.

The ad prompted American Crossroads, a Republican-leaning Super PAC set up by Karl Rove, to ask the FEC for permission to do the same — to create advertisements that “would be fully coordinated” [PDF] with candidates “insofar as each Member would be consulted on the advertisement script and would then appear in the advertisement.”

How can “fully coordinated” ads not run afoul of the limits on coordination?

The FEC has a two-part coordination test that’s as detailed as it is permissive: The first part is whether groups and candidates have conducted themselves in a way that’s coordinated, such as discussing the particulars of an ad buy. The second part is a more complicated test that looks at the timing to an election and the content of the ad, such as whether it essentially advocates for or against a candidate.

In its request, American Crossroads announced its intent to fully coordinate its ad with a candidate, but argued that the ad it intends to produce could also be interpreted as an issue ad that happens to improve the public image of a candidate for office, but not an ad that advocates for the candidate’s election.

The request was spoofed by Stephen Colbert in a must-read comment letter to the FEC. The issue has yet to be decided by the commission.

6) No need for coordination anyway

Whether or not its their intent, groups and candidates have increasingly sidestepped even the loose restrictions in a rather obvious way. Many groups have simply published the specifics of their spending on their websites or through news reports. A few examples, emphasis ours:

On the pro-Huntsman group’s latest ad buy, as reported in The Hill:

According to Our Destiny spokesman Brian Nick, the ad will start airing statewidein New Hampshire Tuesday morning. "The ad is a substantial buy that will run statewide in New Hampshire on broadcast and cable," according to Nick.

On a pro-Perry group’s ad blitz in Iowa, reported by CNN:

Ads will begin airing in Iowa on Wednesday on broadcast networks in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Omaha, as well as on cable stations in eight cities. The ad buy in Iowa costs $202,000.

On ads launched by a pro-Obama super PAC in July, as reported in the News & Observer:

The Democratic group, called Priorities USA Action, began running a commercial in five key battle ground states – Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Virginia as well as North Carolina. The group said it plans to run the ad for two weeks.

What this means is that even the logistics that candidates are barred from coordinating behind closed doors are — in a practical sense — entirely possible to coordinate out in the open.

“This is a way to communicate information without running afoul of coordination rules,” said Ryan. “The rules are largely rendered meaningless by the way campaigns are now run.”

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark The Washington Current and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.