Progressive Fix will be off on Monday to celebrate Memorial Day. Regular blogging will resume on Tuesday. Have a great holiday weekend!
Archive for May, 2010
Happy Memorial Day
Friday, May 28th, 2010
Elbert Ventura
Elbert Ventura is the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. He formerly served as the managing editor of the Progressive Policy Institute.
P-Fix Highlights of the Week
Friday, May 28th, 2010by Tessa Gellerson
In case you missed them, here are Progressive Fix’s highlights from the past week:
- PPI Capital Forum, “Turnaround Schools: Rising to the Challenge”
This past Wednesday, PPI hosted a panel discussion on education reform and turning around low-performing schools. Panelists included D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee; Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO); David Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers; Justin C. Cohen, president of The School Turnaround Group; and Jordan Meranus, partner of the NewSchools Venture Fund. Click here for video of the event.
- “Get Ready for School Turnaround Fight,” Will Marshall
With Rhee driving change in traditional schools, and one of the nation’s largest public charter sectors, Washington is on the front lines of the school reform debate. Read more…
- “Congress Puts the Breaks on Iran Sanctions — But Is the UN’s Deal Any Better?” Jim Arkedis
In the end, we’re left with a potentially counterproductive bill out of Congress, or an imperfect UN package. I’ll take the UN version any day of the week — even though Chinese companies get exemptions, it’s better to forge a strong international coalition against Iran’s nuclear program. Read more…
- “Bagram Detainee Case Likely Headed to the High Court,” Matthew Dahl
Bagram is not only the largest American military base in Afghanistan, it also serves as a major detention center for those taken prisoner there, and allegedly holds some prisoners captured in other countries as well. In an opinion by Chief Judge David Sentelle, a Reagan appointee, the court found that the constitutional right of habeas corpus does not extend to detainees being held at the base. Read more…
- “‘Make ‘Life Math’ Mandatory in Our Schools,” Kyle Bailey
The single greatest threat to our security and prosperity might not be terrorism or biological warfare — it just might be financial illiteracy. Our current economic crisis has myriad causes, but it can be traced to the failure of many Americans to make smart financial decisions. Read more…
Evening Fix
Friday, May 28th, 2010
Elbert Ventura
Elbert Ventura is the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. He formerly served as the managing editor of the Progressive Policy Institute.
Some of the day’s best reads:
- Michael Mandel discusses one possible explanation for the innovation shortfall: “I’ve been arguing for a while that we’ve been experiencing an innovation shortfall in recent years, but I’ve stayed away from explanations so far. Jones’ analysis–that scientific incentives have become increasingly misaligned with the realities of the scientific endeavor–has some real possibilities for understanding what’s been going on.”
- Leslie Gelb thinks that the new National Security Strategy is a missed opportunity: “In Obama’s first effort, he provides some rhetorical flourishes in his introduction and conclusion. In the main, however, it reads like a bureaucratic collection of politically approved thoughts. Thus, it will quickly pass from memory.”
- Bradford Plumer files a dispatch from Jiayuguan, a Chinese city striving to become a model for green living: “Every building has solar panels propped up on the roofs, soaking in the desert rays. Instead of riding gas-guzzling scooters, the locals putter around in electric bikes that hum softly down the sidewalks.”
- Alan Abramowitz and Larry Sabato throw cold water on the incessant talk of the angry American voter: “Claims that Americans are unusually dissatisfied with the country’s condition and with elected leaders have become so common that they tend to be accepted without any attempt to compare attitudes now with those in past election years. In fact, indicators of public mood show that Americans have been far more dissatisfied with the state of the nation and the performance of its leaders than they are today.”
- Education Sector has a new report on using technology to transform higher education.
In Idaho, a Palin Pick Goes Down; Contentious Primaries May Be Hurting GOP
Friday, May 28th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
The country remains largely focused on the Gulf oil spill going into the Memorial Day weekend, but the large batch of upcoming primary elections will keep candidates on the campaign trail and on every available communications medium.
One notable primary, Idaho’s, was held since our last update, and in the GOP competition to take on Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick, front-runner and national Republican wunderkind Vaughn Ward was beaten by state Rep. Raul Labrador, despite late personal appearances with Ward by Sarah Palin. Ward damaged himself with several gaffes, including incidents of apparent plagiarism in his speeches and a boneheaded debate statement suggesting that Puerto Rico is a foreign country. Meanwhile, Labrador (who was actually born in Puerto Rico) benefited from Tea Party support.
Next Tuesday primaries will be held in Alabama, Mississippi (whose state elections are in off-years) and New Mexico. The marquee contests then are the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial primaries in Alabama. Among Democrats, long-time front-runner Rep. Artur Davis is trying to hold off a late upswing in support for state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks. Davis, an African-American, has ceded endorsements by four major African-American groups in the state to Sparks, who is white. That, along with Davis’ vote against health reform in Congress, seems to be fueling Sparks’ campaign, and the competition is getting a bit nasty down the stretch, with Sparks accusing Davis of breaking campaign finance laws and Davis running an ad accusing Sparks of discrimination at his agency.
The Alabama Republican gubernatorial contest looks to be boiling down to a question of whether Judge Roy Moore or Tim James joins state community college chancellor Bradley Byrne in a runoff. Byrne has strong business support, and is the closest thing to a moderate (by Alabama GOP standards) in the race. Moore is, of course, a Christian Right icon, and James, the son of a former party-switching governor, has sought to horn in on Moore’s political turf, helped by his own substantial financial resources. Byrne and James have been accusing each other, somewhat implausibly, of secret ties to the Alabama Education Association. And Byrne has gone after James’ famous “English-only” viral ad for threatening the foreign investment on which Alabama disproportionately depends. Believe it or not, James has had to deal with a rumor that he’s said he would cut the salary of Alabama football coach Nick Saban.
Campaigns are approaching red-hot status in many of the June 8 primary states. The hottest, and certainly the strangest, has been in South Carolina, whose Republican gubernatorial campaign was roiled this week by a conservative blogger’s claim that he had an “inappropriate physical relationship” with front-running candidate state Rep. Nikki Haley. She’s denied it categorically, and the blogger and Haley’s campaign have engaged in a cat-and-mouse game where the former has slowly released highly circumstantial “evidence” based on text message and cell phones records, and the latter has challenged the former to come forward with real evidence or shut up. Haley seems to be winning the p.r. battle the state so far, and today, the saga could take a new turn as RedState blogger Erick Erickson, one of Haley’s legion of national conservative supporters, is promising to release evidence that the accuser was paid to make the allegations (possibly by someone connected with a rival campaign). Interestingly, the whole story broke as Haley surged into the lead in polls; her most likely runoff opponent is Attorney General Henry McMaster.
In California’s torrid Republican primaries, it’s becoming reasonably clear that Meg Whitman is finally putting away Steve Poizner in the governor’s race (though Poizner is now staking everything on attacking Whitman’s opposition to the Arizona immigration law), and Carly Fiorina seems to be suddenly pulling away from Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore in the Senate race.
In Nevada, the Republican primary to choose an opponent for highly vulnerable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has turned into an unpredictable three-way fight, with long-time front-runner Sue (“Chickens for Checkups”) Lowden trying to hold off Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, with Danny Tarkanian not far back.
But in both California and Nevada, there are growing signs that Republican primary infighting could damage the GOP in close general election battles. In CA, the vicious and incredibly expensive Whitman-Poizner contest has been accompanied by a steady rise in the polls by Democrat Jerry Brown. The focus on immigration in the GOP race probably won’t help the party’s already fragile relationship with Latino voters, either.
And in Nevada, Harry Reid, once left for dead by most observers, is creeping back into close contention with his potential GOP opponents, actually leading the rapidly surging Sharron Angle.
UPDATE: Another strange turn in the Nikki Haley saga in South Carolina, as RedState’s Erick Erickson finally released a post following up his promise yesterday that he had the goods on someone paying big money to blogger Will Folks to smear Haley, and would “name names.” In what was apparently an attempted send-up of Folks’ own methodology, Erickson offered no evidence of a payoff at all, but instead simply expressed his own weakly documented suspicions that Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer might have had something to do with it. Hilarious, eh?
Top 10 Pragmatic Progressive Ideas from the National Security Strategy
Friday, May 28th, 2010by Jim Arkedis
Since copies of the Obama administration’s new National Security Strategy began to circulate, there’s been a lot of cheering about how different from Bush’s it is. And true, it is. That’s made clear in the letter from the president on the document’s first page. And my hunch is that people stop there — you get your headline, and you run with it, not bothering to read the rest of the document.
Well, guess what? I just cozied up with a chicken sandwich, a Diet Coke and a bag of chips and read the whole enchilada.
It’s long and at times unwieldy. I understand, for example, that “spending taxpayer’s dollars wisely” is important, but not sure the White House should be compelled to include it in the strategy text. But that’s indicative of Obama’s style — when you seek input from everyone, you’ll tend to end up with a longer list.
But after digging through the document, it’s worth pointing out the specifics of how the strategy has a distinctly pragmatic progressive outlook. With that, here are the top 10 examples:
1. It reaffirms that America’s values are the source of its power, and that American exceptionalism endures:
[T]he work to build a stronger foundation for our leadership within our borders recognizes that the most effective way for the United States of America to promote our values is to live them. America’s commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law are essential sources of our strength and influence in the world. America has always been a beacon to the peoples of the world when we ensure that the light of America’s example burns bright.
2. It prioritizes terrorism, Iraq, and Afghanistan while weighing them in the context of the 21st century’s other threats:
[T]hese wars—and our global efforts to successfully counter violent extremism—are only one element of our strategic environment and cannot define America’s engagement with the world. Terrorism is one of many threats that are more consequential in a global age. The gravest danger to the American people and global security continues to come from weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons. The space and cyberspace capabilities that power our daily lives and military operations are vulnerable to disruption and attack. Dependence upon fossil fuels constrains our options and pollutes our environment. Climate change and pandemic disease threaten the security of regions and the health and safety of the American people.
3. America will only be secure if all government agencies coordinate effectively:
To succeed, we must update, balance, and integrate all of the tools of American power and work with our allies and partners to do the same. … We are improving the integration of skills and capabilities within our military and civilian institutions, so they complement each other and operate seamlessly. We are also improving coordinated planning and policymaking and must build our capacity in key areas where we fall short.
4. It is comfortable with, but prudent about, the use of force:
While the use of force is sometimes necessary, we will exhaust other options before war whenever we can, and carefully weigh the costs and risks of action against the costs and risks of inaction. When force is necessary, we will continue to do so in a way that reflects our values and strengthens our legitimacy, and we will seek broad international support, working with such institutions as NATO and the U.N. Security Council.
5. It’s tough as nails on al Qaeda:
[W]e reject the notion that al-Qa’ida represents any religious authority. They are not religious leaders, they are killers; and neither Islam nor any other religion condones the slaughter of innocents.
6. It advocates the responsible, measured pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons:
As long as any nuclear weapons exist, the United States will sustain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal, both to deter potential adversaries and to assure U.S. allies and other security partners that they can count on America’s security commitments.
7. The Obama administration trusts the UN:
We are enhancing our coordination with the U.N. and its agencies. We need a U.N. capable of fulfilling its founding purpose — maintaining international peace and security, promoting global cooperation, and advancing human rights. To this end, we are paying our bills. We are intensifying efforts with partners on and outside the U.N. Security Council to ensure timely, robust, and credible Council action to address threats to peace and security.
8. “Democracy promotion” — a term that became identified with the Bush administration — isn’t a dirty phrase:
The United States supports the expansion of democracy and human rights abroad because governments that respect these values are more just, peaceful, and legitimate. We also do so because their success abroad fosters an environment that supports America’s national interests.
9. The United States’ security is closely linked to clean energy:
As long as we are dependent on fossil fuels, we need to ensure the security and free flow of global energy resources. But without significant and timely adjustments, our energy dependence will continue to undermine our security and prosperity. This will leave us vulnerable to energy supply disruptions and manipulation and to changes in the environment on an unprecedented scale. The United States has a window of opportunity to lead in the development of clean energy technology.
10. It calls on politicians to stop being ridiculous and put country above politics:
Throughout the Cold War, even as there were intense disagreements about certain courses of action, there remained a belief that America’s political leaders shared common goals, even if they differed about how to reach them. In today’s political environment, due to the actions of both parties that sense of common purpose is at times lacking in our national security dialogue. This division places the United States at a strategic disadvantage.
Education Week: What, Exactly, Does School ‘Turnaround’ Mean?
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Steven Chlapecka
Steven K. Chlapecka is the director of public affairs for the Progressive Policy Institute.
Education Week‘s Lesli Maxwell covers the PPI Capital Forum on turnaround schools:
That, to me, was the key question raised, but not really answered, at an edu-salon convened yesterday by the Progressive Policy Institute.
And the question didn’t come from any skeptic on whether or not turning low-performing schools around is an achievable goal. It came from Justin Cohen, who as the president of the School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, is working closely with educators in a half-dozen states on this very difficult endeavor.
With $3.5 billion in stimulus-funded Title I School Improvement Grants flowing to the states and local districts to fix chronically low-performing schools, U.S.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his team at the Education Department have focused heavily on how you turn schools around, and are requiring one of four ways to do it. Their four endorsed school-improvement models are also part of the Obama administration’s blueprint for renewing ESEA. (Those models, of course, have been gaining more detractors lately, especially inside the halls of Congress.)
Evening Fix
Thursday, May 27th, 2010by Tessa Gellerson
Some of the day’s best reads:
- Third Way outlines talking points for Congress’ upcoming vote on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: “The compromise is crafted in a way that respects and incorporates the military’s implementation process and guarantees that the transition will take place in an orderly and responsible way.”
- Mark Thoma evaluates the benefits of tax cuts and government spending when it comes to stimulating the economy: “The most important concern is still aggregate demand, and policies must be devoted to this problem first and foremost, but tax cuts have a role to play in the recovery process even when they are saved.”
- Michael Leachman reviews a recent Congressional Budget Office report, which credits the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with significant job creation: “CBO’s analysis finds that ARRA has significantly boosted both the number of jobs in the economy and the number of hours worked. Without ARRA, millions more workers would be either unemployed or struggling to get by on less income”
- James Traub discusses Brazil and Turkey’s nuclear deal with Iran and what it means for the Obama administration: “All this raises a fundamental question about President Obama’s engagement policy. For all his efforts to improve America’s international standing and to treat states, cultures, religions, international institutions, and everything else with due regard, Obama has found the world only slightly more tractable than George W. Bush did.”
- Michael Levi explains why the oil spill may not lead to sweeping climate and energy reform: “The oil spill, in contrast, is not issue #1 for most Americans; I doubt that it’s even in the top three. For most, it is a somewhat distant tragedy whose importance still ranks well below their concerns about jobs and the economy.”
Congress Puts the Breaks on Iran Sanctions – But Is the UN’s Deal Any Better?
Thursday, May 27th, 2010by Jim Arkedis
The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009, a potentially counterproductive Iran sanctions bill working its way through Congress, has been delayed. Versions of the law had been passed by both houses and were being reconciled in conference committee. A staffer I spoke to a few weeks ago suggested that the bill would be signed by Memorial Day.
But no longer. My friend Brian Wingfield at Forbes reported this week that bill sponsors Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) have delayed their bill for at least a month.
A delay, and potential scuttling of the law, may not be the worst thing in the world. Read Pirooz Hamvatan’s and Ali K‘s piece on P-Fix a few weeks ago, where they point out the current bill’s flaws:
The new bill aims to cripple Iran’s economy in response to Iran’s refusal to halt its nuclear program. But the sanctions being proposed are not the right answer. Such a sweeping measure would end up only hurting ordinary Iranians, especially the middle class that the U.S. must shore up to improve Iran’s chances for reform.
The delay is thanks to the UN Security Council, which announced it had reached a multilateral sanctions deal with China and Russia. Dodd and Berman say they preferred the multilateral approach all along, and seem content to let that process play out. Both China and Russia have been reluctant partners, so the deal is a potentially big diplomatic win for the Obama administration.
However, it raises the question — why would these holdouts acquiesce to the UN sanctions package now? Did they suddenly see the light? With all the exemptions and loopholes for Chinese companies, it’s doubtful in at least Beijing’s case. Check out this TIME article for a good explanation:
Beijing extracted a significant price for its support. Not only has Beijing watered down the sanctions to be adopted by the Security Council in order to ensure they don’t restrain China from expanding its already massive economic ties with Iran; Chinese analysts also claim that, in the course of a protracted series of negotiations with Washington, their government also won undertakings from Washington to exempt Chinese companies from any U.S. unilateral sanctions that punish third-country business partners with the Islamic Republic.
The Russians must have not gotten such a great deal. Iranian President Ahmadinejad singled out Moscow as a “historic enemy” for supporting UN sanctions, but seems to have forgotten to mention Beijing.
In the end, we’re left with a potentially counterproductive bill out of Congress, or an imperfect UN package. I’ll take the UN version any day of the week — even though Chinese companies get exemptions, it’s better to forge a strong international coalition against Iran’s nuclear program.
And members of Congress who supported that bill can still campaign on their vote, whether or not it ever gets to the president.
Photo credit: Daniella Zalcman/ CC BY-NC 2.0
Defense Spending Fight Could Turn Nasty
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Steven Chlapecka
Steven K. Chlapecka is the director of public affairs for the Progressive Policy Institute.
The following is an excerpt from Jim Arkedis’s op-ed in Forbes online:
The infamous Iron Triangle of Pentagon spending has officially challenged Defense Secretary Bob Gates. This week, the House Armed Service Committee approved its FY2011 budget authorization, which funds certain high-visibility weapons systems explicitly cut by Gates in this year’s budget request.
Here’s how this works. The Secretary of Defense submits a budget to Congress every year. Then, the military services essentially go behind the Secretary’s back and provide Congress with a list of “unfunded requirements,” a wish-list of weapons that the services want Congress to buy, but that the Secretary has chosen not to ask for. Congress is all too happy to provide money for these systems of dubious strategic or tactical merit because politically savvy defense contractors fill campaign coffers and open offices in most districts.
As an example, the “alternate engine” for the Joint Strike Fighter (Lockheed Martin) has become this year’s poster child for unfunded requirements. Gate’s budget request cut funding for one of the two engine designs under consideration — the F135 engine (Pratt & Whitney) was prioritized over the F136 engine (GE, Rolls-Royce).
Read the full column at Forbes.
Make “Life Math” Mandatory in Our Schools
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Kyle Bailey
Kyle Bailey is the former chief operating officer and interim executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats. He is chair of the Young Democrats of America LGBT Caucus and a participant in the 2010 New Leaders Council Institute-Atlanta.
The single greatest threat to our security and prosperity might not be terrorism or biological warfare — it just might be financial illiteracy. Our current economic crisis has myriad causes, but it can be traced to the failure of many Americans to make smart financial decisions. In light of this epidemic of financial recklessness, education leaders should consider making “life math” curriculum mandatory in our schools.
The standard mathematical curriculum in high schools — algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics, calculus — is designed to give students the building blocks necessary to further their education and, for some, eventually launch successful careers in science, medicine, engineering and other important fields. For the rest of us, mathematics beyond the basics is mental exercise that keeps us intellectually spry.
I had a great math teacher in high school, Mrs. Wanda Dostall, who helped me achieve the only “A” I ever earned in a math course. While I don’t remember a single algebraic or trigonomic function, the courses I took stimulated my critical thinking skills and challenged me to embrace complexity and search for answers. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t (frequently) ask the question (quietly to myself, and aloud), “When am I going to use this in the real world?”
And that’s why throughout high school, I looked forward to Mrs. Dostall’s “life math” course for seniors. ”Life math” was designed to give students the real-world math skills they would need to manage their personal finances and, hopefully, enjoy financial security. Unfortunately, school administrators decided the course was not “college preparatory” — and I never had the chance to take it.
It’s a shame because I, like most Americans, could have benefited from it. As an adult, I manage multiple checking and savings accounts, pay bills and taxes, and save for my retirement. I have multiple credit cards with varying interest rates. I have applied for and taken out loans, managed and paid down debt, purchased multiple types of insurance policies, and invested in the stock market – and these are just some of the many types of financial decisions that I have made, and many more that I will make in the future.
I also vote for leaders who make critically important financial decisions for our government and economy – they manage budgets, adjust tax rates, negotiate trade policies, administer jobs and safety net programs, regulate financial institutions, monitor fiscal policy, and so on.
This is real-world mathematics. But I never learned this type of real-world math in school. And to me, that’s problematic.
Why Financial Literacy Means a Better Citizenry
I remember Mrs. Dostall’s frustration with our high school’s decision to terminate the “life math” course. She understood that a course in financial literacy, while perhaps not “college preparatory,” was in fact “life preparatory,” and that the mathematics department in our public school had a responsibility to prepare young people for the real world.
I think she also understood that financial literacy is necessary to fulfill civic responsibility. Take a look at what’s been going on the last couple of years. Americans are angry about the Wall Street bailout, and rightfully so. But it’s not just the bailout that worries Americans. Our fiscal house is not in order. Our elected leaders spend more money on government programs, while they cut taxes. To fund the resulting budget shortfalls, they mortgage our future to China.
There’s much to be angry about, and sure, we can play the blame game. We can even attack government as the problem, as the right continues to do. Or, we can act like adults, face reality and own up to our own mistakes.
For too long, too many of us have chosen to live beyond our means. To get more non-essential goods and services too many of us can’t afford — but claim we can’t live without — we have amassed huge sums of debt. Too many of us have taken out loans we can’t pay off and taken on mortgage payments that consume half or more of our monthly incomes. We’ve made poor investments and failed to properly save for retirement.
And what’s really scary is that too many young Americans today, from the “me” generation of the ‘80’s through Generation X, were raised in working- and middle-class families that adopted materialism without consequence as a norm — a way of life that too many young Americans have come to expect.
If that’s not enough to convince you that we need our Mrs. Dostalls to once again teach “life math,” you can see how our poor financial decisions at home reflect the poor financial decisions made by our leaders in government and business. The culture of financial recklessness in Washington and on Wall Street is rooted in our own individual failings — and threatens the prosperity of all, including those who live responsibly and plan for the future.
I think Mrs. Dostall would tell us that we can prevent another prolonged recession; avoid another housing bubble, mortgage crisis and financial meltdown; restore fiscal responsibility; return to the surpluses we experienced in the Clinton years and pay down our debt; and secure our prosperity in a global economy. But for all that to happen, we must first take steps to increase our financial literacy, and make sure our government does the same and regulates Wall Street to balance short-term and long-term gains.
At age 27 with five years of experience in the workforce — and after some personal financial missteps — I am taking proactive steps to increase my own financial literacy. Looking back, I wish there had been a “life math” course available to me in high school, one that would have helped me understand how to create a realistic personal budget; taught me about credit, debt, loans and insurance; and given me lessons in investing for retirement. To equip the next generation with the skills and tools needed to succeed in the real world and chart our nation’s course to fiscal responsibility and prosperity, we should think seriously about making a “life math” curriculum mandatory in secondary education.
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Progressive Policy Institute.
Photo Credit: Maximalideal/ CC BY-NC 2.0
Bagram Detainee Case Likely Headed to the High Court
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Matthew Dahl
Matt Dahl is a judicial clerk in Virginia and writes about national security law on his blog. The views expressed here are his own.
In 2008, the Supreme Cou
rt decided that detainees held at Guantanamo Bay had the constitutional right to challenge the legality of their detention. Thus ended the question of whether all detainees in the fight against terrorism had a right to habeas corpus, right? As with all complex legal questions, the answer is never that simple.
The federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia added to the complexity of the habeas corpus issue when it ruled last Friday on a case filed by three detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Bagram is not only the largest American military base in Afghanistan, it also serves as a major detention center for those taken prisoner there, and allegedly holds some prisoners captured in other countries as well. In an opinion by Chief Judge David Sentelle, a Reagan appointee, the court found that the constitutional right of habeas corpus does not extend to detainees being held at the base.
The court made three central determinations in its decision. First, it found that the current procedure used at Bagram to deal with the detainees is even worse than the procedure that was used at Gitmo, which the Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional. The procedures at Gitmo, referred to as Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), did not allow detainees access to an attorney and severely restricted a detainee’s right to present evidence on his behalf or rebut evidence by the government. The court in this case found that the procedures at Bagram, called Unlawful Enemy Combatant Review Boards (UECRBs), were even less sufficient than the CSRTs, and found that this factor initially favored giving Bagram detainees habeas corpus.
But despite that finding, the court found that two other factors weighed against granting the right. It concluded that Bagram is in fact different from Gitmo because the U.S. does not intend Bagram to be a permanent base similar to Gitmo, which has been operating for over a hundred years. More importantly, it found that giving Bagram detainees the right to habeas corpus could adversely affect the military’s ability to carry out operations in Afghanistan.
It is true that giving the detainees at Bagram the right to habeas corpus could cause a host of problems. It would require giving the detainees access to attorneys, and creating that system could eat up badly needed military assets. Also, Bagram detainees whose detentions were invalidated would most likely be released inside Afghanistan. This could put enemy fighters directly back on to the battlefield.
However, as the D.C. Court of Appeals admits, the fact still remains that the Bagram detainees are being held without constitutionally sufficient procedures available to them. If the U.S. is going to operate a prison where habeas corpus does not apply, what is to stop it from shipping all future terrorist detainees to Bagram to avoid giving them the right?
That’s why this case is on a beeline to the Supreme Court. While the Court has disagreed with the D.C. Court of Appeals on detainee cases, it is far from clear how it will come out on this issue. One factor making it hard to predict is that the Court’s makeup will be different from when it decided its last major detainee case with the addition of Justice Sotomayor and – almost certainly – Elena Kagan.
In its last major detainee case, the Court split down ideological lines, with Justice Kennedy writing the opinion and siding with the more liberal justices. It is likely that Justice Sotomayor, as part of the liberal bloc, would vote for extending habeas corpus to the Bagram detainees. Similarly, soon-to-be Justice Kagan would almost certainly be in favor of extending the right to Bagram detainees — in 2005, while dean of Harvard Law School, she joined in a letter with three other law school deans stating that detainees should be allowed access to federal courts for review of procedures such as CSRTs and UECRBs.
That said, neither are very experienced with national security cases, so one can’t say for sure how each will vote. Another factor making it difficult to predict the outcome is the fact that Bagram and Gitmo are situated differently. Both are active military bases, but Bagram is operating in a theater of war. Allowing detainees at Bagram to engage in the habeas corpus process could affect the military’s war effort in Afghanistan, a fact that could sway one or more of the liberal justices to the other side.
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Progressive Policy Institute.
Photo Credit: U.S. Army Africa’s Photostream
New Poll Shows Tradeoffs on Immigration
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
It’s been pretty obvious for a while that there’s a major split between Hispanics and non-Hispanics on the immigration policy furor sparked by Arizona’s new law authorizing state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws.
A new MSNBC/NBC/Telemundo poll helps outline the political choices this situation poses for both parties.
To put it simply, white Americans tend to support the Arizona law while Hispanics tend to oppose it, by roughly even two-to-one margins. But the internals of the poll tell a more interesting story. The short-term advantage to Republicans of loudly backing the Arizona law is reinforced by the fact that many Democratic-leaning voters — notably suburban women and women over 50 — say they’d look favorably on candidates raising Arizona. And the long-term problem for Republicans is reinforced by the finding that hostility to the Arizona law — and to the GOP — is especially strong among younger Hispanics.
Complicating the picture further is the fact that a sizeable majority of all Americans (60-29) continue to support some sort of comprehensive immigration reform with provisions that include stronger border security and sanctions against both employers of undocumented workers and the workers themselves–short, however, of deportation. (This is what Democratic Strategist Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira has been pointing out). And big majorities want Congress to do something about the problem.
This last finding may tempt Democrats to move ahead with comprehensive reform in Congress, heightening Hispanic hostility to alternative approaches while convincing non-Hispanic voters that it’s possible to increase enforcement without deportation schemes or potential harrassment of citizens and legal immigrants. But as Jon Chait notes today, certain GOP obstruction of comprehensive immigration reform legislation might simply increase the frustration of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic voters about the status quo, while shifting attention away from Republican extremism on the subject. And as William Galston recently argued, highlighting this issue is a perilous strategy for Democrats, given the likely composition of the 2010 electorate.
There are big risks and big tradeoffs for both parties in making immigration a big issue in 2010. I doubt Republicans in most parts of the country are going to be able to keep themselves from expressing solidarity with Arizona and trying to make this a wedge issue. Democrats need to be more consciously strategic than that, which probably means a principled position that avoids the extremes of “amnesty” as well as deportation or ethnic profiling by law enforcement agencies — but that also makes Republicans play offense on immigration, and lets them become truly offensive.
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
