Entangled Alliances

photo credit: Thomas Roche

Last month Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge, to replace the retiring David Souter on the Supreme Court. As battles go, the battle between Democrats and Republicans over Sotomayor hasn’t been particularly hard-fought so far – at least in comparison with some of the legendary heated nominee battles of the past. This is because, with 60 Democrats in the Senate,  Republicans have about as much hope of sinking her confirmation as the media does of pronouncing her name correctly (for the record, it’s Soh-toh-my-YOR). However, this hasn’t stopped the Right from attacking her and it’s important that Democrats are effective in rebutting these attacks, especially since they won’t always have the votes to waltz through their chosen nominee in the years to come.

Luckily for liberals the main form of attack on Sotomayor – aside from a liberal dose of racism & sexism from the ever-vocal conservative fringe – has come from the worn, dog-eared folder marked “judicial activism”.  Accusations of being an “activist judge” are par for the course for liberal nominees to any high court in America.  But what is judicial activism? In the fevered minds of conservative Republicans, activist judges are those who frequently strike down state or federal legislation so they can impose their liberal policy agenda on America. Instead of acting like judges, they act more like politicians: legislating from the bench. They are frequently contrasted with conservative-minded judges, who simply “apply the law of the land”.  The nomination of Sotomayor has brought these old accusations back into the open, with a new twist that as part of her liberal activism Sotomayor favours the rights  of minorities over those of whitey.

The main problem with the “activist judge” critique is that it’s really, really dumb. For a start, the idea that judges, when faced with controversial cases, should simply “apply the law” doesn’t make any sense. The whole point behind the kind of case that ends up in an appeal court is that it’s impossible to “apply the law”, since the application of the law in this case isn’t particularly obvious – thanks in no small part to the fact that the constitution is full of phrases that are incredibly vague (hello, second amendment!). Indeed, the existence of these “hard cases” is virtually the first thing a law student of any legal system learns about, but the last thing that many conservatives would ever acknowledge. But those attacking Sotomayor aren’t (just) making this attack out of stupidity; they are using it as a way to disguise their real, extremist aspirations within misleading but effective populist rhetoric. To see the proof of this deceit in action, we need only do something that the American Right (and in large part the American media) can’t really be bothered with: that is, actually examine the cases decided by Sotomayor that have got conservatives so hot under the collar.

Read more…

It’s crunch time on capital hill as the Obama administration puts its political capital on the line for the House to pass the Waxman-Markey bill. For those of you who don’t know, the Waxman-Markey bill is the first Climate Change bill to be introduced in the US ( on a federal level).

So what does it promise? (See here for a more comprehensive overview)

• To reduce US emissions on 2005 levels by 17% by 2020
• To bring US emissions down by 80% by 2050
• 25% of US energy by 2025 must be renewable
• A Cap and Trade system, 85% of permits will be auctioned off
• 2 Billion tons worth of carbon offsets
• A whole host of other measures from building efficiency, fuel standards and even a new technology bank!

Read more…

by TfUnQ

Is the European Union at a decisive point?

The Constitutional Treaty was savagely beaten by the Dutch and by the French.  Awkwardly righting itself ike an overweight middle aged boxer, convinced that its younger and sprightlier opponent ( the citizens of each European country) will fall victim to its experience, it crafted a new treaty. The Lisbon treaty, cunningly devised to make things like flags non-binding ( and yes it was a little paired down in other areas).  The leaders of the EU sent this one flying back at its citizens and this time avoided those awkward referendums by letting parliaments vote. After all, nothing says democracy like keeping out the people – not burdening their minds with issues or even giving them the chance.

Read more…

You couldn’t make this stuff up…

It is a weak point in the theory of representative government as now organized and administered, that a large portion of the voting people are permanently disenfranchised.

So said U.S. President James Garfield, back in 1881. At the time, he was talking about an American voting system that had only recently been opened up to African-Americans and was still denied to women. But if Garfield was alive today, he might well feel compelled to say the same thing about the effects of  the first-past-the-post system on the majority of voters in the United Kingdom. In Part One of this in-depth look at electoral reform, I examined why Britain’s current system is so bad and also tackled some of the criticisms frequently directed at the main alternative: proportional representation. Now I want to take a close look at what kind of electoral reform the UK could have and in doing so answer the question: just how proportional do we want our representation, anyway?

(By the way, as I was was almost finished writing this Gordon Brown announced (admittedly not unsurprisingly) that  he was planning a consultation on voting reform. Thus this post is transformed from a look at a complex, brain-achingly dense topic into a hot-off-the-press must-read. No, really!)

Read more…

Welcome to Entangled Alliances’ liveblog of the EU elections results. We’ll be reporting and discussing the results this evening.

02:13 (Edward) The UK picture in summary: Great night for fans of fascism. Great night for UKIP.  Fairly good night for the conservatives – though more from Labour’s downfall rather than their gains.  Average night for Lib Dems. Terrible night for Labour. Bad night for Gordon Brown. 16% of the vote might be enough for Labour rebels to take on the Prime Minister. Or it might not.

Europe picture in summary: Socialists can’t use near-depressions to their advantage. Centre-right parties can – at least in the big countries of Europe. Italians are mental. Berlusconi is scandal-proof. Sarkozy is happy. The Netherlands needs to lose its love affair with the xenophobic Geert Wilders.  That is all.

Read more…

Entangled Alliances is at Liberty’s 75th anniversary convention today, there have been some very interesting speeches and I’ll be writing about them later, trying to connect with Ed’s post (just before this one) on electoral and constitutional reform.

photo credit: amanky

Shortly after U.S. President Barack Obama was elected, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel gave the following advice: “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.” He was referring to the global economic meltdown, but he may as well have been talking about the current crisis in the UK surrounding MPs expenses. With Parliament in a state of disarray unseen since the time of Cromwell and the public demanding sweeping change, it looks like the door has finally been opened to the kind of major constitutional reforms that have been talked about for years but never acted on.

Chief among the major reforms now being seriously discussed by Parliament is electoral reform – specifically embracing a system of proportional representation. Ever since Labour swept into power twelve years ago, they’ve been promising to change the way we vote.  However, these promises have never materialised; changing the electoral system is a lot less appealing when you’re sitting on a nice big Parliamentary majority. But now that everything’s on the table bar the kitchen sink, (which some MP has already claimed for, boom boom) it looks like the death knell might finally be sounding for our much maligned first-past-the-post system.

It isn’t surprising that Britain’s current system should be facing extinction, since first past the post is, in terms of representing the will of the votes, awful. It allows MPs and governments to be elected with minority support – support that is often no more than a third of votes cast. It leads to swathes of safe seats, where those who vote against their MP do so knowing their party has no chance of winning. In summary, it renders millions of voters powerless and allows the winning party to make a healthy, powerful parliamentary majority from a minority of votes. But is P.R. any better? And what kind of P.R should we have? The answers to these questions may determine Britain’s political landscape for decades to come…

Read more…