Kontextmaschine

21st November 2016

Post reblogged from Kontextmaschine with 46 notes

This is Not Normal: Selected Structural Anomalies in US Federal Politics, 1980-2000

kontextmaschine:

(one-off ruptures, as distinct from bottom-turtle “power flows from the barrel of a gun” stuff or norm changes like the regularization of the filibuster, the end of earmarks or the decline of deference in Supreme Court confirmations from Bork on.)

Hinckley Shooting (1981)

69 days into his presidency, Ronald Reagan is shot in the lung. The shooting is seen in the lineage of “national hero” assassinations from Kennedy (1963) to King (1968) to Lennon (1980) which contributed to the sense of no “successful” presidency since Eisenhower

Taken to a public ER, prompt medical attention saves the jocular Reagan, breaking the streak in a visceral display of his “Morning in America” pledge to remoralize the country through sunny optimism.

Iran-Contra Affair (1985-1987)

Following Watergate, the publication of the Pentagon Papers, and the “Watergate babies” wave election of 1974, Congress moved to limit the power and autonomy of the executive, particularly over military and security services.

High-profile actions included the Church Committee and passage of the War Powers Act as legitimating rituals, but much leverage was made of Congress’ “power of the purse”, with a legitimating tradition back to the Magna Carta. The Impoundment Control Act removed Presidential volition in spending appropriated funds, which allowed the President to tack into the wind of Congressional opinion and was a major source of leverage over individual legislators.

(there were unsuccessful attempts to restore an equivalent in the 90s as the “line-item veto”)

More specific acts like the Boland and Clark Amendments, which prohibited aid to resistance groups in Angola and Nicaragua, moved to undercut executive desires to pursue Cold War proxy wars. During this period the Democrats were considered to have a lock on Congress while Republican strength was in the presidency and right-aligned theorists considered these Congressional acts improper trespasses on the President’s sovereign power over foreign policy.

The administration of Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) is remembered for a foreign policy that upheld not only the letter but the spirit of this new constraint and was considered a failure by anti-communists and large branches of the deep state for it.

In this climate, elements of the Reagan administration with at least the noninterference of POTUS himself end-ran the laws, supporting a forceful anti-communist posture. Figures up to the SecDef were indicted (and later pardoned by George H W Bush), but Congress could not generate the political will for impeachment and lacked any further enforcement mechanism. Congressional checks on the President became increasingly vestigial, retained as the pro forma AUMF.

Base Realignment and Closure (1988-)

Victorious in the Cold War, the United States was left with an unnecessarily large military footprint.

Military units, installations and the programs that supplied them had long been the subject of Congressional pork and logrolling at the margins, in a power politics system ill-suited to executing major shifts in a coherent way.

Accordingly, the regular process of appropriation-by-negotiation was circumvented in favor of appointing a commission of experts to make en bloc recommendations for the drawdown then ratified by legislators.

Ross Perot (1992)

A third-party Presidential candidate takes almost 19% of votes, the strongest ever third-party showing not by an ex-President.

Federal government shutdown (1995-6)

A power struggle between Democratic President Bill Clinton and a Congress under unified Republican control for the first time since the 1950s, the two sides could not agree to a budget and the federal government suspended “non-essential” operations for 4 total weeks. With the executive more united than a Congress still developing “responsible party government” parliamentary discipline, the Republicans yielded, though similar actions were attempted under the Obama administration with greater party coherence.

Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (1998)

a nationwide parategulatory regime over tobacco is established through settlement between leading companies and 46 state attorneys general.

The regime, which in ways resembled irregular-but-precedented systems like utility franchising and workman’s comp, was constructed this way rather than through Congress, the formally legitimate venue for interstate compacts, to circumvent friendly legislators from tobacco-growing constituencies or elected in open elections with industry support who might be expected to defend industry interests.

Bill Clinton impeachment (1999)

After recapturing both chambers of Congress in the Republican Revolution of 1996, the GOP was eager to assert its power against the Democratic executive (see shutdown, above).

A series of investigations were launched into President Bill Clinton, originally focusing on ethics in the operation of his political machine as Arkansas governor, expanding into any area thought to be a political vulnerability.

Eventually the second-ever impeachment of a US President was launched over the proximate issue of perjury under law regarding a sexual affair with a petty staffer, a matter that had come collateral to prior investigations.

The impeachment ended, like that of Andrew Johnson, in acquittal. (Nixon resigned in anticipation of a successful impeachment).

The act of Republicans to issue impeachment over matters tangential to government and of Democrats to vote for acquittal in the face of evidence were reciprocally considered norm-breaking in pursuit of power.

Bush v. Gore (2000)

coming down to a close and ambiguous result in Florida, the victor of the Presidential election of 2000 remained unclear for weeks after the vote and it became apparent that contested interpretations of election law would decide the winner.

In an unprecedented and non-precedent decision, the Supreme Court usurped the issue from lower courts and election boards to effectively decide the election in favor of Republican George W Bush, on a 5-4 court split that closely tracked the parties responsible for Justices’ appointments.

Tagged: rerunfor the day crew