The Citizens League of Minnesota

I am so disenchanted by the politics of today. In the UK, political life is dominated by “Brexit means Brexit” although no politician has shown any real understanding of what Brexit actually means. The Annual Party Conference season is upon us. The Labour Party is re-running its leadership contest where the likely winner does not enjoy the confidence of his parliamentary colleagues. Soon, the Conservatives will meet with the likely result that the debate on Europe will deepen the Party’s divide. Before the end of this year, both the Labour and Conservative Parties may split.

In the United States, the media is concentrating on the unedifying battle between Mrs Clinton and Mr Trump. Accusations of lying, cheating and dishonesty abound, not to mention the gratuitous insults paid by Trump to his fellow citizens. In fact, it is more hatred than politics that emanates from both sides. It is the most negative of campaigns and there are still weeks more to go.

In Brazil, President Rousseff has been impeached and convicted. The Russian paraplegic athletes have been banned from the Paralympics in Rio because of state-sponsored doping. It seems that everywhere you look, there is disheartening political fallout.

Looking for solace, some positivity and simply to cheer myself, I have decided to write about the role played in Minnesota politics by the Citizens League. The League is a civic participation group, advocating good government policy in both Minnesota and the Metropolitan Area, which comprises the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, where approximately half the state’s population lives.

The League is an institution probably unique in American politics because it is run by its volunteer members, ably assisted by a small but effective professional staff. Both members and staff carry out research, write proposed policy recommendations and often help guide Bills through the Minnesota legislature.

The League’s central ethic is that people should participate as volunteers and seekers of public good, not merely as agents of special interests. The League is non-partisan, although highly active politically. Some might call it altruistic. I prefer the phrase, “enlightened self-interest,” where a group of people who believe that what is good government and good governing for the state is good for the majority of its individuals.

The League was founded in 1952 by a group of prominent Minneapolis businessmen and women, seeking to make their city a more attractive place for people to live and work. By the late 1970s, the League’s membership exceeded 3,250 but it dropped in the 1990s and now moves between 1,250 and 1,750. There are many reasons for the decline but changes in corporate civic engagement, competition for time and a generational switch to more single-issue groups account for some of the changes.

League membership is likely to be from elder generations who have time to do the work. The League could be accused of elitism because its members are drawn largely from the middle class but does this matter? The test of the League’s effectiveness is in the policy proposals and help they give to all classes of people.

In its 64 years of existence, The League has proposed numerous policies for the common good and seen them through to legislation. In 1966, the League listed seventeen functions and services not being provided adequately in the Twin Cities, including sewage disposal and public transportation. Reports were requested by public officials. Ultimately, based on League recommendations, a new, directly appointed Metropolitan Council took over these functions, re-organizing many aspects of local government and making them much more efficient in the process.

The League has a fine record in education. Its fiscal disparities policy negated the effect of wide discrepancies in property taxes in the poor and rich districts of the Twin Cities. Each district was then responsible for running and funding its schools. As a result, poor districts received far less money for education than rich districts. The League devised a formula that shared the growth in the tax base between wealthy and low-income communities. Statutory changes had the state provide the major part of funding per pupil. Accordingly, the same dollars-worth of education would be purchased equally and no school pupil would be disadvantaged financially.

The League championed the Metro State University, a college without a campus, similar to UK’s Open University. The League also pioneered a charter school policy for the state, giving schools more leeway in settling their curricula. The League’s rationale was that better educated children and adolescents would serve the expanding business and civic communities.

The League’s policy process is transparent and democratic. Members, all of whom are unpaid, elect a Board of Directors annually from within its membership. Members lobby Board members about topics they want investigated. Each year, the Board selects two or three of those topics for study in committee, which members and community stakeholders may join.

For a period of between six and twelve months, the committees meet twice a month, considering policy detail and taking expert evidence. Research is “hands on.” With assistance from the staff, draft reports are circulated to all interested parties, including outside institutions who will have an informed view. Once a report is settled, with minority reports attached, it is circulated to members for approval, as well as state legislators and the media.

Currently, the League is considering ways to reduce concentrations of poverty in the region and foster increased connections to social and economic opportunities. This includes the evaluation of existing transit routes, to ensure the best means to directly connect areas of concentrated poverty with job centres and high-growth industry clusters.

This autumn, the League is taking on the issue that ultimately blocked end-of-session legislation on taxes and infrastructure investment: how to fund transit improvements in the legislature. The committee has included a wide range of interests and political viewpoints, all seeking to find better long-term solutions to this problem.

Last year, the League convened a diverse task force to study metropolitan governance. It researched the Metropolitan Area Council’s performance against current stated goals, learn more about local concerns and examine the tensions between counties, cities, and individual Minnesotans. The task force has already made five recommendations, two of which were directed at the state Governor and the Legislature, seeking changes in Metropolitan Council member terms of office and improvements to the nominations process. The outcomes are awaited. To add to the breath-taking width of its policy interest, in partnership with the Twin Cities Public Broadcasting System, the League has launched a project called “Calling Home”, looking at “the home” as a starting place for conversations about aging and planning for the life changes that are inevitable for the elderly.

For those of us who believe politics should be a force for the good of all, the current national situation both in America and UK leaves much to be desired. Partisanship, name calling and point scoring does not amount to adult politics. I begin to wonder whether seriousness of the body politic is a thing of the past. Where I live, local politics is mired in corrupt councillors, over-rewarded executives and partisanship to rival the US Congress. How I wish I could join a local Citizens League that would rise above this kind of politics so I might help resolve some of the many issues that confront us. 

 

 

[For those who would like more information on the Citizen’s League, their web site is www.citizensleague.org]

 

 

 

Media Double Standards: The Follow-Up.

My last blog received a large number of comments. (By all means, please use the “Comments” function at the bottom of any blog.) They included:

1.      The observation from a GP that whilst bacterial pneumonia may be easily treated with antibiotics, viral pneumonia is a different kettle of fish and is not 'easily treated with antibiotics'. This could lead to a suspicion of either a wrong diagnosis or, far worse, that the true cause of the illness is being hidden.

2.      The Huffington Post is a liberal leaning title. However, the newspaper does not shirk from criticising both Mrs Clinton and the Democrats in upholding the principle of fair and balanced reporting.

The point I was trying to make was that the media doesn’t seem to have drilled down much on certain areas of Trump’s campaign, including:

1.      He is the first nominee since Nixon to refuse to reveal tax returns. Nixon disclosed. I suspect Trump is nowhere near as rich as he claims or he has avoided tax on a major scale.

2.      Trump’s ties to foreign interests, which may not coincide with American interests.

3.      Trump’s actual donations via the Trump Foundation that don’t match his charitable claims.

4.      The scandal of Trump University and cheating its students.

5.      Worst of all, Trump’s policies; Americans don’t know how he proposes to govern, except as a one-man band. Why is the press not emphasising that Trump seeks to be a dictator?

Were there equivalent issues for Mrs Clinton, the press would have a heyday, bringing her to book. Why is Trump getting such an easy ride? Here we have a man whose campaign is based on prejudice, fear, lies, insults, disrespect to fellow-citizens and no clear plans. Why has the media not shot him to pieces with one of those guns he favours?

 

 

Double Standards: America's Media is Guilty

When I was at school, I was taught about fair play, the value of a level playing field, respect for rules and even-handed treatment for all concerned. Mind you, there were double standards. No mention was made in those days of glass ceilings and sticky floors and their application to women; nor was my school’s quota thought to be wrong. At the Church of England school I attended, a 10% quota for Jewish boys was imposed.

While it is a challenge to follow the Presidential campaign from a distance of over 3,500 miles, the media coverage does not seem to equate with fair play and even-handedness.  There are only so many newspapers and television reports I can read and watch. As a result, it is arguably improper for me to castigate America’s media for bias but Mrs Clinton seems to have been set benchmarks by the communications industry far higher than those of her opponent.

Let’s begin with finances. Hillary Clinton has published her tax returns going back 40 years. Trump has not published his return for even one year. His son, Donald Junior, was quoted as saying that would be unfair to Trump senior as everyone would then know his business dealings. Duh! Presidential contenders for fifty years or more have made tax disclosures. Mitt Romney, a very wealthy man, had no problem disclosing his tax affairs in 2012. Surely, it is important for Americans to know what and how Mr. Trump has acquired his alleged huge wealth, how he might have avoided taxes and with whom he has had business dealings.

Mrs Clinton continues to be castigated in the press for her use of a private e-mail server. “How do we know the people she has dealt with and what business deals she has made?” the Republicans yell. The voters actually do know because of all the disclosures, financial and political, that the Democratic nominee has made over many years. What of Trump? How does any American voter, except Trump insiders, know details of Trump’s business relations with foreigners? In short, they do not. But where is the media demand for disclosure? It is left to the Democratic Party to make the point but does the media listen?

The hue and cry over Mrs. Clinton’s recent illness was alarming. Contrast the medical reports disclosed on her physical condition, compared with Trump’s one paragraph letter hastily written by a physician, followed up this week with a little more detail and the fact that the 70-year old has high cholesterol and is overweight. Where is the media enquiry into Trump’s cardio-vascular health? The press has hardly touched or questioned Trump’s fitness, yet he is two years older than his opponent. Trump admits to a fast food diet that is unhealthy. Bill Clinton’s fast food addiction may have contributed to his coronary disease. Is the media only interested in digging down to the details of Hillary’s fitness?

Mrs Clinton has been diagnosed with pneumonia, a lung inflammation caused by bacterial or viral infection. It is easily treated these days with antibiotics. I am a little surprised that Hillary is already back on the campaign trail. If she has returned too soon, there will be further media frenzy on whether she is physically fit for the Presidency. “It’s all part of the narrative,” a BBC reporter said, but what of Trump’s health narrative?

Let’s explore the health issue of Presidents and contenders. Here are just a few. George W choked on a prezel. He was made fun of by the media, as was Gerald Ford when he slipped down a set of stairs alighting from an aeroplane, not to mention George Bush Senior when he threw up at a banquet hosted by the Japanese Prime Minister. At no stage was it suggested that these men were “not physically fit for the Presidency.”

More seriously, in the 1960 Presidential campaign, Richard Nixon suffered from a badly infected knee after hitting it on a car door. His campaign was suspended for two weeks. The media did not suggest Nixon withdraw from the campaign. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, the country as a whole may not have known he suffered from polio but the media knew it full well, as did many voters. After all, FDR regularly attended fund raisers for Polio charities. The point was neither the Republicans nor the press thought it appropriate to concentrate on FDR’s infirmity because it did not interfere with him doing his job.

The Huffinton Post, hardly a left-leaning newspaper, prints an editor’s note attached to every article about Donald Trump: “Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.” Why does not every other mainstream newspaper print something similar? Why does the media seem to treat Trump with kid gloves while for Mrs. Clinton it is open season? And why does the Democratic Party communications machine not point this out time and again to all media outlets?

Hillary Clinton is not the first woman on a Presidential ticket. In 1984, the late Geraldine Ferraro was on the bottom of the Democratic ticket. Her campaign stalled amid accusations about her personal finances, which were never proved. The storm reached its height in a two-hour press conference, after Ms. Ferraro had released the tax returns of her husband, Mr. Zaccaro, a private citizen. She responded well to question after question. New York Governor Mario Cuomo called it “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen by a politician under pressure.” The point was that Ms. Ferraro was attacked for the actions of her husband. Was Mrs. Reagan submitted to the same onslaught because her husband was running for re-election?

It has to be said that Vice-Presidential contender Sarah Palin did little to encourage the belief that women had as much right as men to entry into the top level of the executive. It strikes me that Trump may have learned from the Palin school of politics. Is his claim about President Obama’s birth any less fatuous than Palin’s claim that she “knew Russia” because she could see it from her house?

I have no proof but it seems that the media could be challenged for misogyny. If not, why is Mrs. Clinton under so much attack in the media when her opponent is given a much easier ride? He has said so many things which would disqualify him from the Presidency, yet most of the media laughs it off. Shooting people on 5^th Avenue, barring Muslims and building that wall, is this truly the leadership America wants? Why has the media not slammed this ghastly man into the ground?

Next month, the contenders will face each other in three debates. I hope the moderators deal with both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump fairly and equally and that they will stop Trump from his overbearing, interrupting ways. If not, these double standards will just continue.

 

 

 

US Congress: Here We Go Again.

In 1946, the Democratic Party was destroyed in the mid-term Congressional election. For the first time in fourteen years, the Republican Party controlled both Houses. What did they do with this power? For one thing, they steered the 2^nd Amendment through, limiting Presidential terms to eight years. But surprise, surprise, they sought to confound the Democratic executive branch in all initiatives to bring the American economy safely from wartime to peacetime conditions.

Over the ensuing two years, President Harry Truman proposed numerous policies to aid and assist the economy, all of which were rejected by Congress. However, when it came to the 1948 Presidential campaign, Republican candidate Thomas Dewey and his colleagues proposed the very same economic policies that Truman had advocated. Truman, a savvy politician running badly behind in the polls, saw an opportunity. He recalled Congress in July, 1948, challenging Congressmen and Senators in the Republican Party to legislate on the policies that Dewey supported. Typically, Congress sat on its hands. This failure to act, added to Truman’s barnstorming, whistle-stop campaign, saw him back in the White House that November.

What goes around comes around. The Republicans currently control both Houses of Congress and a Democrat occupies the White House. Congress has blocked all executive initiatives over the past two years. There are many issues before the current set of Republicans in Congress on which they have refused to act. Funding a programme to battle the Zika virus and filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court are but two matters that need resolution. There is also the important, essential matter of the funding bill, without which the US government will be unable to pay its bills and will have to shut down.

I believe President Obama missed a trick by not recalling Congress this summer to try to resolve such matters. In terms of government, it was worth a shot. Politically, it would have helped Mrs Clinton in her campaign. But crying and spilled milk are a combination that is not a pretty sight. Congress returns next week after a seven-week summer break. I hope the President goes on a media offensive with a single message to legislators: Keep the American government open for business and for the people.

A new spending deal has to be agreed with the Executive and approved by Congress before the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. Should no agreement be reached, will Congress agree instead to a stop-gap Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government in business? If so, how long will a CR last? Conservative Republicans are pressing for a six-month CR, moving the real budget fight into 2017, when there will be a new President in office and a new Congress in place. The argument is: “Coming back after the election to complete the annual budget work during the lame-duck session would result in a legislative package hiking spending and pandering to special interests.” The concern about a spending hike is fair enough but pandering to special interests? That is true Republican gall!

Congressional Democrats and a few moderate Republicans prefer to finish the annual budget work either now or immediately after the election. Clearly, there is going to be another budget fight which has little effect on the pugilists themselves, comfortable in their jobs and perks, but hurts the ordinary people who rely on government for all manner of things, such as welfare payments.

Harry Reid, the retiring Senate Minority leader, has refused to agree a long term CR. There is an implicit threat of a filibuster against any deal Democrats don’t support. The stalemate over spending is a headache for Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, neither of whom want any whiff of a shutdown threat weeks before the election. It is a big vote loser for the Republicans.

Senate Republicans hold a slim 54-46 majority. The Party may well lose control come November because the GOP is so unpopular, thanks in part to the efforts of Donald Trump. House Republicans have a more comfortable advantage of 247-186, but Democrats could make significant gains in the election.

Republicans are likely to hold closed-door meetings to assess whether their members would negotiate with Democrats on the budget or a CR, as well as funding Zika. Senate Republicans will encounter fierce pressure to reach a solution soon so vulnerable members can head back to their states and districts to campaign. Twenty-four Republican senators are up for re-election come November and many are behind in the polls.

Whatever happens over the next few days, there will be a lot of finger-pointing, harsh partisanship and the exchange of unpleasant words. Is this the right way to run a government? Is this really what the Framers of the Constitution anticipated? I leave the answer to you.

 

The Presidential Pardon

It is a paradox to be elected President of the United States. You inherit the title, Commander-in-Chief and you are told by the great and good you are the most powerful man (or woman) in the free world but you know deep in your gut that this is guff. You might make the final decision on use of armed forces but your Secretary of State and Armed Forces Chiefs are on your tail. As for legislative power, you have none save a veto which can be overridden. You can sign Executive Orders but these can be overruled by Congress and the Supreme Court. The right to enact laws belongs to Congress which also has extensive oversight powers on the executive, i.e. the President. Furthermore, the Supreme Court can undo all kinds of programs you want to see through. Just look at what the Supremes did in 1935 to Roosevelt’s first New Deal legislation. Two years later, when FDR retaliated with the Court Packing Plan seeking to diminish the Court’s powers, the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress rebuffed FDR.

However, there is a Presidential power that is not subject to checks and balances. Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution states that the President shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences, except in the case of impeachment. All Presidents bar two, Harrison and Garfield who both died early in their terms, have issued pardons. Numbers have varied considerably. George Washington issued a mere 16 pardons. FDR granted the most, 3,687, but he had twelve years in office. Some who benefited were former bootleggers and FDR liked his tipple! LBJ granted 1,187 pardons, Nixon 926, Reagan a measly 406 and Clinton only 456. “W” was a hard man. During his eight years, only 176 miscreants received a pardon.

There have been scandalous and, arguably, undeserved pardons. One of the 20th century’s most notorious union leaders, Teamster’s leader Jimmy Hoffa, was the recipient of a particularly controversial pardon. In 1964, after a series of government investigations into the practices of the Teamsters, Hoffa was sentenced to eight years for jury tampering and five years for mail fraud. Hoffa entered jail in 1967, but only served a few years before President Nixon commuted his sentence. The offer of clemency came with the condition that Hoffa would no longer participate in Teamsters activities, but critics argued it also involved a backroom deal that the union would support Nixon’s re-election campaign, Hoffa’s pardon was overshadowed by his 1974 disappearance from the parking lot of a Detroit restaurant. Hoffa’s body was never found.

Nixon himself was pardoned after resigning his office in August 1974, amid accusations of malfeasance related to the Watergate scandal. The punishment for impeachment is removal from office but there was a possibility that Nixon might have been prosecuted for Watergate-related offences. The Watergate Grand Jury had referred to him as an “un-named, unindicted conspirator.” Nixon was granted a full pardon by President Gerald Ford only weeks after stepping down. Ford’s offer of clemency came before Nixon was charged with any misdeeds and covered all federal crimes the former president “had committed or may have committed or taken part in” during his terms in office.

In 1974, the granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped and held for ransom by a radical group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. While the 19-year-old heiress began her ordeal as a hostage, she soon shocked the world by announcing that she had voluntarily joined the ranks of her captors. She went on to wield a rifle during an SLA bank heist only days later. The unlikely revolutionary eventually spent more than a year on the run before being captured in September, 1975 in an FBI dragnet. Hearst’s attorneys argued she had been brainwashed and abused during her captivity, but this was not enough to avoid a seven-year prison sentence for bank robbery. President Jimmy Carter judged the punishment too harsh, and commuted Hearst’s prison sentence after she had served only 22 months behind bars. At Carter’s urging, in 2001 President Bill Clinton issued her a full pardon.

On January 20, 2001, hours before leaving office, Bill Clinton granted commodity trader Marc Rich a highly controversial presidential pardon. Rich had been imprisoned for numerous fraud offences. Several of Clinton's strongest supporters distanced themselves from the decision. Former President, a fellow Democrat, said, "I don't think there is any doubt that some of the factors in his pardon were attributable to large gifts. In my opinion, that was disgraceful." Clinton himself later expressed regret for issuing the pardon, saying that "it wasn't worth the damage to my reputation." Clinton's critics alleged that Rich's pardon had been bought, as Denise Rich had given more than $1 million to the Democratic Party, including more than $100,000 to the Senate campaign of Mrs. Clinton and $450,000 to the Clinton Library foundation.

Clinton sought to justify his decision by noting that cases similar to Rich’s had been dealt with in the civil courts. Clinton also cited clemency pleas he had received from Israeli government politicians including Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert. Rich had made substantial donations to Israeli charitable foundations over the years.

America has a vast prison population, swelled by mandatory minimum laws and “three strikes and you’re out” life sentences. Last week, President Obama commuted the sentences of 111 federal prisoners as part of an initiative aimed at reducing prison stays of individuals incarcerated under the nation’s harsh drug laws. The commutations brought Obama’s total for the month of August to 325, the most commutations granted in a single month in United States history. The total number of prisoners who met the administration’s criteria for clemency is believed to be around 1,500. Of those, President Obama has granted clemency to 673 individuals.

White House Counsel, Neil Eggleston, wrote: “They are individuals who received unduly harsh sentences under outdated laws for committing largely non-violent drug crimes. For each of these applicants, the President considers the individual merits of each application to determine that an applicant is ready to make use of his or her second chance.” In truth, the President has a Pardons Attorney who makes recommendation on which the President might act.

In an election year when one Presidential candidate is holding himself out as “the law and order candidate,” it is to be hoped that Presidential pardons will add some common sense to the debate, not to mention the process of fixed-term sentences where judicial objectivity is removed from the equation.