Congressional Grappling- Gridlock Surrounding Immigration Reform

Immigration reform in the United States is quickly coming to a head. As the dust from the Presidential election settles and the nation collectively exhales after our near miss with the fiscal cliff, legislators have refocused on issues that drastically impact constituents of certain key demographics.

The Washington Post explains that the driving factor that has brought the GOP to the negotiating table has been the inability of the party to capture the Latino vote. Politico argues that the concerted interest by the Republicans combined with a push by the Democrats has made reform of American Immigration policy a top legislative priority on capitol hill this year. Minorities have successfully utilized the voting pathway of political action to force some measured level of political reform.

That theme of that reform has boiled down to one word: compromise.

Schumer (D-NY), key player in ‘Gang of 8’ (CNN)

Individuals on both sides of the aisle have realized that passing any comprehensive immigration reform package will require bipartisan support. CNN argues that  the realization of a need for bipartisan cooperation (specifically by key congressional powers such as Democratic Senator Schumer) has given way to the formation of what political pundits are calling the ‘gang of 8.’ The Washington post explains that the committee, consisting of 8 key senators (4 Democrats and 4 Republicans) have hammered out a package (of which a preliminary transcript is posted here) that rests on a couple of key planks. The first is increased border control, a non-negotiable issue for members of the GOP. The second is slightly more unconventional. In an effort to reach a true compromise, GOP members allowed for the inclusion of a path to citizenship in their reform package. The path, though long and arduous (it contains a number of key steps, the most notable of which is a requirement to pay fines and back taxes), is a key plank of the package that gives the Democratic senators on the committee something to back.

In addition to those key overarching planks, the National Review explains that the plan also demonstrates a concerted effort to improve the system of legal immigration to attract high skilled workers as well to improve employment verification and secure working rights for potential immigrants and existing illegal aliens already in the nation.

The president, in an effort to assume the role of chief legislator, has waded in and out of the immigration debate. The Washington Post explains that he most recently proposed a solution in Las Vegas as he “put the weight of his administration behind efforts to pass legislation” on Immigration Reform. Although his plan has been deemed unfeasible by Rubio (a key republican senator who is part of the ‘gang of 8’) he has brought immigration reform to the forefront. The National Journal explains that Obama’s proposal was repeatedly been blasted as “dead on arrival,” but it sends a clear message: that immigration reform will become (and already is) a key legislative issue in the foreseeable future.

Obama lays out his plan in Vegas (Wash Post)

Ultimately, I am of the opinion that we will soon see some sort of deal on the issue of illegal immigration. With 11 million undocumented individuals already in our country’s borders and the immense political might of the Latino community, the stakes are simply too high for the issue to remain unresolved. Though the two groups may seem resolute, with the democrats refusing to budge on a path to citizenship and the republicans intent on blocking that very path without significant border control, progress on immigration reform is inevitable. The issue is simply far too important economically, socially, and politically for gridlock to continue.

Possible Influence of the Buffett Rule

Lately in the News I’ve been following an idea that has been floating around Congress known as the Buffett Rule. It is called the Buffett Rule because Warren Buffett himself gave rise to the taxing issue by originally saying, “Debbie [his secretary] works just as hard as I do and she pays twice the rate I do.”  Debbie Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Warren Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent. The principle behind this rule is that no household making more than $1 million each year should pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than a middle class family pays. To be more specific, Buffett is proposing that the minimum tax rate for the super wealthy be 30%. While this is a major change, the national debt is rising and this is a possible way to bring in more money to the government. Buffett has received much criticism for this idea. The main goal Buffett has in mind is fairness for every taxpayer, not to start class warfare.

While this is still only an idea, it has the potential to turn into a bill. From Government class I have learned the specific process that a bill must undergo before getting past. First and most obvious a bill has to be drafted, or created. Then it is referred to a standing committee in either the House or Senate, depending on the bill. When a bill reaches the committee it can be referred to a subcommittee or reviewed by the committee as a whole. If the committee does not act on a bill, it is the equivalent of killing it. If a bill is passed through the subcommittee a publication of a written report is produced. The report describes the impact on existing laws and programs along with views of disagreeing members of the committee. After doing so the bill has to be scheduled for what order it will come up in. After a bill is scheduled it is debated and voted on. A majority of “Yes” votes out of all the votes being cast is required to pass a bill. If passed a bill is then sent to the President. The President can either sign the bill, making it law, or veto the bill. Congress has the power to override a Presidential veto if they can get a 2/3 vote in the house and senate.

This class has been a major influence on me now being able to formulate my own opinions. For this subject, I happen to agree with Buffett. It seems to be fair if the wealthy pay more because their life is usually more stable than those below. If the Buffett rule doesn’t pass, I still believe change needs to happen. I think Taxes should be a flat rate for everyone, which is 100% fair for everyone, or have the wealthy pay more, which is what the Buffett rule proposes. It is not fair that about 55,000 millionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than millions of middle- income Americans.

Politicians Are Humans Too!

Mitt Romney senior year book picture

Throughout the many years which we attend school and listen to our parents we always hear the common sayings when it comes to how to treat your peers: “follow the golden rule”, and “treat others the way you want to be treated”.  Well sayings like these worked in kindergarten, but as we get older and develop new ideas and perceptions, especially during our teen years, it is inevitable that we are not going separate ourselves from those who do not think like us.  But sometimes this separation is not enough for people, and some feel the need to express their opinions to people who do not believe what they do.  Recently Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee running against Obama, had a scandal with a bullying incident which happened way back when he was in high school.

The cranbrook school

Mitt Romney went to a very prestigious prep school near Detroit called Cranbrook during his high school career.  Romney did very well in school but as most of do, no matter how wrong we all believe it is, teased a student about his hair and decided to pull a prank on him.  The student who accused Romney of this is John Lauber described the attack as if it were a scene pulled out of The Lord of Flies, when simply Romney cut a snippet of the boy’s hair which was hanging over his eyes.  Through the complex and twisted world of media, the idea was firstly twisted as if to say that because of this one act, the act of an 18 year old Mitt Romney, should convince us to vote otherwise in the upcoming election.  How can the action of  an eighteen year old high school student affect how we perceive the man which we see today?  Are we to believe that over all of the years that he has lived since then, he has not learned from his mistakes.  Are we to believe that politicians do not make mistakes; that politicians are supposed to live above the standards we uphold for ourselves?  It does not seem fair to me that because of this one incident which happened in the 1960’s, people can rapidly feel dis-heartened by what he/she did.  Everyone who has gone through high school, or life for that matter, are always making mistakes and learning from them and developing.  Mitt Romney states,” Back in high school, you know, I did some dumb things, and…I participated in a lot of high jinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far, and for that I apologize.”  Mitt Romney is a person too even though he is a politician.  Like all of us he made mistakes in high school and has learned from them.

Obama declares opinion on gay mariage…. Romney has a gay haze scandal leaked? Coincidence?

Secondly around the time this news was released, Obama announced his support for Gay Marriage in America.  Allegedly, the student which Romney “bullied” was gay.  Romney in an interview claims that they did not talk about sexual orientation and that it was not a deliberate act against gay peoples.  Many believe that in light of Obamas new announcement, the story was brought out to bring hatred toward the Romney campaign.  Even though Romney has stated that he did not know nor even care for that matter the sexual interests of the individual, the story still brings fourth Romney into a negative light which is meant to show the exaggeration of his views.  I simply believe that the incident which happened nearly five decades ago, was a learning experience and should not reflect the  Romney of today.  If we have learned anything from our time in government, it is that the media and people manipulate stories to their advantage and personal gain, and we as learned men and women must decipher for ourselves what is false and what is fiction.  Truly an incident which happened fifty years ago, in high school, has no reflection on a man of today!  We all make mistakes, we are all human!; even politicians!

The Unknown World Of Congress

Although we have studied a variety of topics, only one has truly stuck with me and has brought me to question the politics of our time.  Before enrolling into this class I believed I knew how the government worked, and everything that there was to know about government; especially Congress.  From the elementary classes which briefly touched on the matter I knew the superficial basics of what congress is and how it works.  Then, coming into this year when we first stepped into the new unit about congress it was like someone slapped me in the head and took all my lunch money; it seemed that the whole foundation of politics which I had gained was thrown right out the window.  Reading the paper which Woodrow Wilson and other articles helping to explain this new modern concept of congress helped my knowledge of the system  very much muddled brain to lay a new foundation and develop a starting point for my newly developed view of Congress and how our government actually works today.

Though I was quite confused of how Congress truly worked in the midst of my congressional exploration, I soon became enthralled with the idea of how our system actual works and functions and wanted to know more.  While Woodrow Wilson laid down a strong foundation for my new thoughts upon the new Congress I was still slightly confused on the matter of what a committee was at its core value.  A congressional committee is a sub- organization of Congress which handles individual matters rather than that of the whole congress.  Secondly I was somewhat confused on how these committees worked, and why the way they worked was so controversial.  Congressional committees in essence look after ongoing government operations, and offers their view and how they should approach the situation to the main body; Congress.  The controversy behind the Congressional committees is similar to that of the classic high school rebel, who is “gonna do he wants, when he wants!”  Congressional Committees work harder and provide more input into their own committee rather than focusing on ideas which would benefit the country.  Rather than providing input to the congress as whole and actually discussing ideas with the rest of the members of congress, they merely talk about the issues which they believe are important to their committees.  Woodrow Wilson stated it beautiful saying, “… it is not far from the truth to say that Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work.”  Congress at its core is merely a façade of our amusement.  The real work happens behind closed doors, in the committee offices.

But this is merely a small matter in the world of controversy.  The big story here is that of “bill with holding.”  On the way to the White House bills pass through dozens of peoples’ hands, and some of these hands are those of Committees.  Bills are assigned to a specific committee for the distinct purposes.  In most cases the bill has a role which the committee plays a role in.  The problem comes to when the bill actual reaches the committee heads.  When a bill reaches the committee, the committees will consider the impact of the bill and weigh cost and benefits.  If the bill is approved then they will move it on, but the reality is that a majority of the bills never make it out of committees.  It is said that the bills, “died in committee.”  I believe that this is a huge injustice which simply slides under the radar.  The purpose of our form of government is a government for the people, therefore every bill should have the chance to make it at least to the floor of congress in order for proper evaluation of all peers can take place.  If we lose these simple principles where have the values of our times gone?  Where have our values of Democracy gone?

Money’s Influence on Elections

Money’s influence on the election process has increased due to social media and the availability of advertisements for campaigning. In the 60’s it was common for a successful House candidate to spend less than 100,000, but by 2008, the average cost of winning a seat in the House topped 1.4 million. Buying advertisements has been the primary resource for spending money to reach out and influence voters, so the person with the most advertisements and the most successful ads, will have the greatest touch on the voters opinion.

In our work in government class we discussed the pros and cons of the influence of the money in politics. The amount of money being spent for each candidate increases every election with few exceptions. Most would say that the increasing influence of money is a great thing because it allows for more to be informed of the views of the politicians, but I would say it is a disadvantage.

Government has tried to control the raging flow of money in elections by limiting candidates to amounts of money they are allowed to spend. This isn’t such a bad idea because of the downsides of allowing the rich to spend as much they want to get their voiced opinions out to the public, giving the poor a lesser chance of winning power. If a rich man was allowed to spend all of his money, he would have access to more of the public and have more of an advantage over the poor man. Since the man with the less money has insufficient funds to spend on advertisements, he must work harder to have any voice at all in his efforts to campaign.

In the senate and house, the money plays a major role in who is elected or reelected. When an incumbent, someone running for reelection, is in the race for reelection, they have an an advantage in raising money for their campaign. The challengers raise about half the amount of money the incumbent did in total, and there are fewer incumbents then there are challengers. The trust built or lost in the incumbent’s influences the amount of money they are able to raise and if there is a sufficient amount of money raised then their reelection is pretty much guaranteed.

The 2008 Presidential election was predicted to be the “1-billion dollar election”. It was also thought to be the most expensive and longest election in American history. The candidate with the most money was guaranteed presidency. Barack Obama spent more than 747.8 million dollars in his campaigning, which happened to be 400 million dollars more than his leading competitor, John McCain. The reason for the vast amount of spending was because it was the first open seat in this generation, because of the state of the economy and the war in Iraq. The candidates that had no shot at presidency were the candidates with little money to spend in comparison to the leading competitors

Reflecting on Representation

photo from nouveller.com

Over this past trimester we have explored the workings of the United States government piece by piece.  We have studied areas from the crucial foundations of political parties to the presidency that the dream of obtaining.  Through activities and critical readings we have not only studied these areas, but also questioned the features of our rapidly changing society that affect them.  For me the most intriguing topic that I have come across in our studies is the social media’s effect on legislator’s representation.

The first document we read on this topic was Kennedy’s “The legislator as Trustee”.  After a careful analysis of this Journal we were able to understand Kennedy’s viewpoint that legislators “represent their local interests.”(pg. 177) and that though they take into consideration the views of the people,  it is their opinion that should ultimately decide their vote.

photo from nmtcouncil.com

Next we read a journal from the 1812 Commonwealth of Virginia.  This journal, titled “The Legislator as Delegate” explained their reasoning behind their view that the legislator’s had the responsibility to express the will of the people who put them there.  To the Commonwealth of Virginia, “the people have a right to instruct their representatives, that no man ought to be chosen that will not receive instructions.” (pg 184-185).

After both articles had been read and questions had been answered we were challenged with questions concerning how the two articles related to current times.  Though both of these articles were written before the time of the Internet, I found it shocking that is was the Commonwealth of Virginia that was able to predict the future role of the legislator.  The idea sharing capabilities of social media has caused legislators to become more “delegate-like” than ever before.  With 79%of the American population using the Internet, social media sites can be used as a simple random sample of the United States population.  Legislators these days are to turn to these sites to gain an understanding of the people’s view that they represent.

These sites not only help the Legislator understand his people but also the people understand their Legislator.  Sites like Propublica allow every day citizens access to a wealth of knowledge about current events and about the people that are involved in these current events.   Sites like these let voters research the way that senators and congressmen are voting and their views on specific issues such as the SOPA and PIPA bills.  This effect of social media forces Legislators to stay on their toes and realize that if they go against what the people they represent want, they will find out.  In this sense, social media causes Legislator’s to be Delegates due to the fact that if they don’t, they risk re-election and with that their career.  Another way that social media helps the people know their Legislator is through Legislators use of social media sites themselves (i.e. Facebook, Twitter…Etc.).  Take Congressman Pete Sessions, representative of the 32^nd district in Texas.  His use of a Facebook page and a Twitter account allows the people he represents incite into his decisions and views and literally and figuratively to “comment” on them.

Considering the activity we did in class and the first hand experience of researching the topic, I believe that there is no question about the fact that in our modern world a Legislators duty is as a delegate.  The development of social media sites has allowed legislators to become better delegates than ever before.  These considering all of this the question must be presented, Is it even possible for a Legislator to act as a trustee anymore?

photo from cdn1.hark.com

What Really is the Key to a Successful Campaign?

Throughout my time in Government & Economics at Parish, I have had the honor of delving into the operations of our government in America. I have learned so much about how our government functions and I have a much greater appreciation for government then I ever thought I would.  We were told at the beginning of the second trimester that we needed to become acquainted with our government in order to grow and become conscientious citizens. One of our activities in class that has helped me grow into a more assiduous citizen was the Campaign Commercials activity during our elections unit.

In this day and age, we live in a world solely based on technology. Campaign commercials and other forms of media and technology have always been a vital component during the election process, and are even more essential today. Campaign commercials can simply make or break a candidate’s vocation. Persuasion and music are two fundamental components that can aid in making a campaign commercial successful.

Picture from Jennings Social Media

Persuasion is to induce a belief by appealing to reason or understanding. Another form of persuasion is directly attacking the opponent. Campaign commercials are the candidate’s attempt at swaying the opinions of the general public in order to gain both support and votes. In Al Gore’s “Accountability” commercial from 2000, the issue projected throughout the ad is increasing the number of teachers in schools. The main idea of the ad is visibly evident. The central issue is projected clearly, while the importance of the issue, smaller class sizes and more interaction between students and teachers, is stressed systematically throughout. In Nixon’s “McGovern Defense” commercial from 1972, Nixon demonstrates and discusses very methodically, every single flaw of the McGovern Defense Plan.  This form of persuasion, of attacking the opponent, is a brilliant way of gaining support. Persuasion is probably the most important tactic in creating a successful campaign commercial.

Equally as important as persuasion, is the use of music throughout a commercial. In Reagan’s “Prouder, Stronger, Better” commercial, the first thing I notice is the music in the background. The music in this commercial evokes a sense of hope and a sense of pride in America. By creating music that creates emotional sentiment, the audience is instinctively drawn. Senator McCain’s “Ambition” commercial from 2008 provokes a different kind of emotion from the music. The music in this commercial evokes a sense of fear and worry in Obama’s plans and ideas. This kind of emotional effect is equally as commanding when used appropriately.

As demonstrated above, the different motives within campaign commercials all have the same intention in mind – to accumulate as many votes as possible. Successful campaign commercials are the ones that sway the general public and gather the most votes. This activity has really helped me understand how important campaign commercials are to the election process.

Acknowledgements:

Picture:  http://www.jenningssocialmedia.com/blogged/social-networking-friends-politics-facebook-ads-work-political-candidates-favor/attachment/social-media-political-260/