mass

those blimmin activist judges, part two

or is it Mass. support?

will and tnr

George Will and The New Republic agree. Count me in, kinda.

A few days ago, I read Noam Scheiber in this week's TNR taking issue with the fairly typical response to the, now, common wisdom--that poverty was the largest cause of the scale of death and destruction in Katrina's wake; that typical response being to throw money at the problem.

Sheiber urges what ought to be common sense to progressives: one easy solution, money, does not a problem fix (much like how one simple solution, force, does not hasten down terrorism). Poverty, its causes, and its results all fit into a contextual and sociological setting. Poverty, like anything else, doesn't pay us the convenience of existing in a vacuum. Thus, the simpleton result of fixing poverty with money does little good. As Sceiber writes, responding to various politicos complaining that the poorer residents simply lacked the funds to get out of town:

Implicit in these arguments is the idea that poor people are pretty much like everyone else, just with less money. From this, it follows that the remedy is primarily financial. Consider Lewis's proposed solution not just for New Orleans but for the problem of urban poverty in general: "[I]n rebuilding, we should see this as an opportunity to rebuild urban America. ... There must be a commitment of billions and billions of dollars."

The problem was not money alone. Describing a middle class family against a poorer family, Sceiber writes:

The matriarch of the middle-class family, a local court clerk, tapped a cousin to secure a low corporate rate at the Lafayette Hilton. She paid for it with her American Express card. The woman then worked connections in local government and churches to land a scarce rental property. She even won a dispensation from local authorities to sneak back into her abandoned house in a quarantined area so she could rescue some televisions and furniture.

Needless to say, the poorer family had no such advantages. The husband had never been out of New Orleans before; the wife had never flown on a plane. Neither appeared to have contacts capable of assimilating them into another community; in any case, the concept of doing so seemed altogether unimaginable to them. And, while the family had $2,000 in savings, they didn't have a bank account. Their money burned up along with their apartment in a fire that followed the flood.

Scheiber ends his discussion with pleas for life-skills training.

George Will, in today's Post, continutes the thought...call it a variation on a theme:

The senator is called a "new kind of Democrat," which often means one with new ways of ignoring evidence discordant with old liberal orthodoxies about using cash -- much of it spent through liberalism's "caring professions" -- to cope with cultural collapse. He might, however, care to note three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal.

Progressives, or liberals, or whatever, might reflexively gag at Will's evocation of the family bit...but we oughtn't. One does not have to Qualishly dismiss all single mothers, fathers, or non-traditional families to embrace a general, Willian, taste for healthy and loving families. If we embrace every idea that might eliminate poverty, and the terrible effects thereof, we will necessarily navigate away from simply money and think hard about the living conditions, social structures and civic relationships associated to these families and individuals that are to often ignored in poltical discussion (until, anyway, a flood washes out the blinders).

CA

those daggone activist judges...oh wait

Rehquist and federalism

While it was surely expected, I was sorry to hear Rehnquist lost his struggles with health problems. And while I don't know the man, his fingerprints on the state of current jurisprudence are well powdered.

Mark Tushnet has a very good column in salon.com on the largest impact Rehnquist implimented on the Court--reshaping federalism, the allocation of powers between federal, state (and local) governments.

Tushnet's larger point is that Rehnquist himself had less impact than did the Court over which he presided. This, of course, might be the stuff of issues taken by other jurist-watchers...could it be said, perhaps, Rehnquist was extremely effective in shaping the Court, as well as the federal judiciary?

In any event, the jurisprudence of federalism has surely shifted through Rehnquist's tenure--from a New Deal era expansive powers of Congress to the current Court, where supposed 'Conservative' jurists strike down more laws passed by Congress than ever before. While Congress appreciated a broad ability to control national policy through it's taxing, spending and commerce powers through the middle part of last century, that breadth has eroded notably.

Well and good. Where I might differ from most commentators is in the quick conclusion most make that this is a Conservative development. I'm not sure what about power allocations between localized and federal government has to do with idealogy. Rather, it is when "state's rights" is trumpeted as a step-in for something else that the issue becomes partisan: ie, where state's rights = slavery/ racism/ anti-regulation/libertarianism...where, in other words, the proponent in fact favors no government presence (including the state's). But so long as the debate is about who should regulate, as opposed to whether there should be regulation, it is an honest and non-politicized question of who is in the better position to set policy. And while Rehnquist did not always follow the intellectually honest line I have proposed, he did so more than most commentators aknowledged.

As for the effect of this shift in federalism, Tushnet writes:

Only the Supreme Court's future rulings can indicate which direction it will go with regard to Rehnquist's primary contribution -- convincing the court that it has the option of invalidating national laws.

We'll have fun watching.

summer aint over

Back from Holiday.

I'll reckon labor day is as good as any to reunite with our web discussion. I look forward to a new season of helpful chatter with my friends Mike and Lily.

Here's hoping everyone is squeezing the tastiest out of the remaining summertime. That I can't type while swimming has caused our scant attention to this forum of late. That, and trading in New Republic for Rolling Stone for summer reading.

As for the substance of reporting today, am I mistaken in noting a few paradigm shifts? The common wisdom seems to be dim for the President. I would have thought his fairly pitiful bout with Social Security reform would pass and we'd reenter a non-descript sunny couple years for the man. Rather, from the bits of news I caught, the not-necessary war appears to have, at last, caught up his ankle. And once down, he gets grief rather than grandeur from the Katrina fallout. It will be interesting to see how the Supreme court fillings work into this context. But more immediately, I wonder if the mood will persist into the 2006 elections.

This is a good time for those with ideas to get loud. And I disagree with the standard "Democratics need to voice a clear plan" complaint. Rather, I want broad brush ideas about what government can and can't do for its people; and, more importantly, in what kind of society--made up of what kind of commuities--do we want to live?

The policies we invent, the bonds we build abroad, our system of Justice, and, importantly, the rhetoric we engage in, will remain as important as ever over the coming years. I've seen a good deal of prophesy of paradigm shifting lately (see this, from David Brooks). If we are indeed in a societal/civic flux, let's have a say in the outcome. I look forward to the coming discussions.