The Progress Report

May 4, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers

JUSTICE

A Supreme Decision

On Friday, Supreme Court Justice David Souter officially announced his intention to resign at the end of the Court's term in June, setting up President Obama for a key decision that will shape his legacy. Making a surprise appearance during the White House press briefing that afternoon, Obama explained that he will choose someone with not only "a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity," but also a "quality of empathy." "I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book," said Obama. "It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives -- whether they can make a living and care for their families; whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation." Obama has also promised to consult with both Democrats and Republicans on his pick, but conservatives automatically went into attack mode just hours after news broke of Souter's departure. During the Bush administration, congressional Republicans insisted that presidents should be allowed wide latitude to choose their Supreme Court nominees and claimed that the use of the filibuster when approving them is unconstitutional. Will they adhere to these views now that a Democratic president is in office?

NO 'SHOCK AND AWE': President George H.W. Bush appointed Souter after he was assured by then-U.S. Senator Warren Rudman that the U.S. Court of Appeals judge was conservative. However, Souter will be remembered for how often he aligned with more liberal justices in recent years, especially on issues of executive power, capital punishment, and race. Therefore, Obama's nomination of a new justice is unlikely to shift the Court's balance, as even most Republicans have admitted. "I have no illusions about President Obama appointing a conservative like Alito or Roberts and so forth," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL). Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta told the Washington Post this weekend that he believes Obama will choose "someone who's going to be mainstream, moderate in their orientation." Similarly, Obama's former law colleagues and students say that he is unlikely to choose a "larger-than-life liberal to counter the conservative pyrotechnics of Justice Antonin Scalia." "His nominee will not create the proverbial shock and awe," said Charles J. Ogletree, a Harvard professor who has known the president since his days as a student.

PROTECTING 'PEOPLE WHO DON'T HAVE A VOICE': In October 2008, Obama hinted to the Detroit News that he would look for justices in the model of Souter and Stephen Breyer, a Democratic appointee, calling them "very sensible judges." "That, I think is the kind of justice that I'm looking for -- somebody who respects the law, doesn't think that they should be making law...but also has a sense of what's happening in the real world and recognizes that one of the roles of the courts is to protect people who don't have a voice," he added. Last week, the Obama administration reiterated this view, with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs telling reporters that the president was looking for someone with "diversity in their background and experience." Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), potentially a pivotal vote on Obama's nominee, has also said that the high court "could use some diversity along a number of lines," a point reiterated by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Many people anticipate that Obama will be looking closely at women candidates, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the only female justice since Sandra Day O'Connor's departure just over three years ago. Indeed, a recent study demonstrated the effect of having a diversity of experience in the judiciary. According to Christina L. Boyd at Washington University and Professor Lee Epstein at Northwestern University, "female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. ... When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only."

CONSERVATIVE INCONSISTENCY: In 2005, when President Bush was trying to push through his Supreme Court nominees, Republican senators decried any attempts to use a filibuster to block them. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) called the legislative maneuver "inconsistent with the Constitution," and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) complained that the chamber's role had been changed from "advise and consent" to "advise and obstruct." Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) called the filibuster a "mockery of our system." However, yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Ensign refused to rule out the use of the filibuster on Obama's nominee. Similarly, Karl Rove recently argued that conservatives have a right to oppose Obama's pick if he or she is "very liberal," even though the Washington Post reported in July 2005 that Rove believed "opposition-party senators have a responsibility to back a president's choice if they believe a nominee is qualified, even if they disagree with the person's views." It is clear that many conservatives are ignoring their stance on Bush's nominee and gearing up to cast any person Obama picks as a "left-wing judicial activist.

HEALTH CARE -- REPORT: MORE AMERICANS ARE LOSING HEALTH INSURANCE EVERY DAY: In 2007, when the national employment level peaked and before the current recession began, 46 million Americans lacked health care coverage. In a new report, the Center for American Progress's Nayla Kazzi writes that "today, that number is markedly higher as many workers who have lost their jobs have also lost their employer-provided health insurance." Noting that employers have shed 5.1 million jobs in the last 15 months, Kazzi estimates that "2.4 million workers have lost the health coverage their jobs provided since the start of the recession, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Approximately, 1.3 million of these losses have occurred in the last four months. More than 320,000 Americans became uninsured in March alone, which amounts to approximately 10,680 workers a day." Kazzi's estimate is conservative since it includes "only individuals who receive coverage directly from an employer, not those who receive coverage through a family member or spouse's employer." Kazzi argues that "the rapid loss of health coverage demonstrates the fundamental instability of health insurance protections in our current system and the need for comprehensive health reform." "Sixty-two percent of the American public believes that the current economic turmoil makes it more important than ever to take on health care reform, and the need for comprehensive reform becomes all the more evident as conditions in the economy continue to deteriorate and more Americans become uninsured," writes Kazzi.

ADMINISTRATION -- SENATORS: PENTAGON HAS DELAYED RECOVERY OF MILLIONS IN CONTRACTING OVERCHARGES: On Friday, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Susan Collins (R-ME) wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, questioning why the "Pentagon has done little to collect at least $100 million in overcharges paid in deals arranged by corrupt former officials of Kellogg Brown & Root, the defense contractor, even though the officials admitted much of the wrongdoing years ago." The New York Times notes that the letter "is likely to revive allegations that the Pentagon has become so close to KBR, and relies so heavily on it, that there is little inclination or incentive to discipline the company." McCaskill and Collins complained that the KBR has maintained its monopolistic relationship with the Army, which has paid the logistics contractor $31.3 billion for operations in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. Indeed, KBR was just recently awarded a new $35 million contract -- just weeks after a review of nearly 30,000 Army buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan found that more than half "failed miserably" when tested for electrical safety, the majority of which were wired by KBR. Last July, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) produced evidence that KBR was aware of the electrical hazard in one of its bases in Baghdad but did nothing to fix the problem. Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth was later killed by electrocution there.

TORTURE -- O'DONNELL: 'SENIOR DEMOCRATS' MIGHT INVESTIGATE BUSH OFFICIALS' 'FALSE STATEMENTS' MADE TO CONGRESS: In the wake of President Obama's release of Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel torture memos, several members of Congress have been pushing for a "truth commission" that would independently investigate the previous administration's approval of torture. Thus far, the idea has sparked the ire of many congressional Republicans. Yesterday, on The Chris Matthews Show, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O'Donnell reported that some congressional Democrats were considering "a different way to go at accountability of the so-called torture memos." "Senior Democrats have told me that they might look at the possibility of were there false statements made to Congress, was there any perjury, when some of the people involved in policy and legal parts of all of that appeared before Congress a few years ago," she explained. Though O'Donnell reported that some "senior Democrats" are seeking "a different approach" to investigating the Bush administration's torture policies, at least one top Democrat is still pushing for a truth commission. In a Boston Globe op-ed yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wrote, "I still believe my proposal for a Commission of Inquiry remains the best way to move forward with a comprehensive, nonpartisan, independent review of what happened.

Former Bush aides Dana Perino, Ed Gillespie, and Tony Fratto are all scheduled to provide "words of wisdom to House Republican press secretaries at their annual workshop this Friday." GOP House Conference Communications Director Matt Lloyd said that the trio represented "the gold standard for Republican communications professionals" and were "outstanding at their jobs."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich claimed that Barack Obama's desire to engage Iran is "very dangerous for Israel." He argued talking to Iran is like talking to Hitler and that the Obama administration is "setting up the most decisive confrontation that we've ever seen" with the Israeli government.

In a potential threat to the funding for President Obama's middle-class tax cut, a growing number of industries -- including electric utilities, auto makers, and oil and natural gas refineries -- "are lobbying for free pollution permits under legislation capping greenhouse-gas emissions." Electric utilities are pushing "to secure up to 40% of the emissions permits for free."

"Tensions over the direction of a sweeping climate change bill boiled over in a House Democratic leadership meeting Thursday," when Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) lashed out at Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) for publicly suggesting that Congress would delay acting on a climate bill. "'This is not helpful,' Waxman told Van Hollen, citing reports that presented the party's campaign chief as opposing aggressive action on the bill."

After the CIA ended its use of "enhanced interrogations" in 2005, Vice President Cheney and Steven Bradbury of the Office of Legal Counsel "fought to revive the program." A Bradbury memo drafted in late 2006 "shocked some officials" when it "gave its blessing to almost every technique, except waterboarding, that the C.I.A. had used since 2002," just months after the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions applied to detainees.

President Obama will unveil a set of proposals today "aimed at changing international tax policy, calling for the elimination of benefits for companies and wealthy individuals that harbor their cash in offshore accounts." "The proposed overhaul in the tax code, which will be fully unveiled in the administration's budget later this week, could help raise $210 billion in revenues over the next 10 years."

Longtime financial backers of President Bush "raised more than $100 million for a presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas that will house his official papers," Time reports. "Much of the money was collected in the 100 days or so since Bush left the White House, a pace much faster than that of his recent predecessors."

As the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency spreads in Pakistan, "senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities." The officials stressed, however, that there is no imminent threat.

Even with the recent uptick in violence, the Iraqi government will not extend U.S. withdrawal deadlines, "ending months of speculation about whether U.S. combat troops would stay beyond June in bases in the restive northern city of Mosul." "These dates cannot be extended and this is consistent with the...handover of responsibility to Iraqi security forces," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

And finally: Last week, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) was "twitterjacked." An imposter pretending to be the senior Alaska congressman posted approximately 30 entries before Young's congressional office put a stop to it. One of the entries claimed that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was preparing to introduce Articles of Impeachment against President Obama, which she hasn't done...yet. Roll Call reports, "Young, of course, isn't the only famous person ever to have a Twitter imposter. Condoleezza Rice, Bill Gates, Osama bin Laden and even Keshia Knight Pulliam (who played Rudy on 'The Cosby Show') all have been victims of Twitter theft.

Coal "will no longer be used for heating Capitol complex buildings and water. Instead...natural gas will serve as the Capitol's sole fuel source for steam.

THINK PROGRESS: Dana Priest: The Washington Post doesn't call waterboarding "torture" because former Bush administration officials "would dispute that."

WONK ROOM: French climate negotiator calls on President Obama to move faster on a green economy.

YGLESIAS: The Jack Kemp legacy.

PRO PUBLICA: White House reinserts commitment to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell on website.

MAINE: Experts "expect Maine to become the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage -- 11 years after voters banned it."

MISSOURI: Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) says voter ID legislation could disenfranchise up to 230,000 voters.

ECONOMY: More than half a dozen housing agencies have refused stimulus funds for capital improvements.

"It doesn't help at all. ...[I]t reinforces a negative stereotype of the party."
-- RNC Chair Michael Steele, 1/05/09, on opponent's distribution of a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro."

VERSUS

CALLER: [Obama] is the magic Negro.
STEELE: Yeah he -- [laughing]. You read that too, huh?
-- Steele, 5/01/09

Think Progress

A Supreme Decision

Blogroll