Colorado General Assembly Adjourns Sine Die Today

CAVEAT: Trapped in a blog time warp - originally posted in May.

Today is the last day of the Colorado General Assembly's annual legislative session. As I write, two "must pass" items on the legislative agenda look unlikely to pass by the midnight deadline today: (1) the bill authorization the implementation of the year's executive branch regulations (a legislative check on executive branch power not present at the federal government level), called Senate Bill 78, which has reached a stand still as a result of a partisan dispute over payday lending charge limits adopted in the 2010 legislative session, and (2) approval of a Congressional redistricting map based on the 2010 Census for use in the 2012 election. Any bill not passed by the end of today dies.



For all of its technological marvels, the Colorado General Assembly's bill tracking system does not make it easy to do a simple search to see which bills remain in play, having been approved or defeated in the previous 119 days of the legislative session.



Governor Hickenlooper has the power to call a special legislative session limited to select issues to address these and/or other matters later this year (possibly after some of the details are hashed out in intersession committee meetings). There may be some authority (in at least some cases) to impose regulations on a temporary basis, however, and if there is no legislative resolution of the issue of Congressional redistricting, a court will have to draw Congressional district lines as it did the last time around, although it is not entirely clear when this issue becomes ripe for litigation.



The 2012 legislative session ends in May 2011, which in theory could put a Congressional district map in place in time for candidates to run August primaries and November general elections, but that still would leave the state without Congressional districts by the times that the current election law provides for candidates to declare their candidacies, and for partisan nominating caucuses in advance of the primary elections to be conducted. Normaly, the 2012 election season would start in earnest in Deccember 2011 or January 2012, although, of course, political scheming never really stops. No incumbent members of Congress from Colorado have expressed an intent not to run for re-election.



State legislative seats in Colorado's General Assembly are drawn by a blue ribbon commission that has a process pretty much guaranteed to produce a map, that does not require legislative approval. So, the deadlock on redistricting that Colorado is experiencing now is limited to races for members of the United States House of Representatives, and state offices, such as the University of Colorado Regents and Colorado Board of Education that are elected from districts that coincide with Congressional districts.



The deadlocks aren't terribly surprising, given that this is the first time in many years that different political parties have controlled the state house and state senate, particularly in the case of an inherently partisan issue like drawing Congressional districts. Republicans have a 33-32 majority in the Colorado House of Represenatives, while Democrats control the state senate.



Similarly, it is not surprising that this partisan divide has ended the tradition in place when Andrew Romanoff was Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives to adjourn the legislature a day or two earlier than the constitutional limit of a 120 day regular legislative session.



There is still an outside chance that one or both of these must pass issues will be resolved in the last ten hours of the legislative session, but I for one will not be up late listening to podcasts from the state capitol expected to see this kind of break through. At this stage of the game, it is just short of procedurally impossible to get either bill passed without large bipartisan majorities willing to suspend the rules to do so.



Once the legislative session ends, the other main remaining item of legislative business are Governor Hickenlooper's decisions to sign or veto bills passed in the last ten days of the legislative session, which he must do by June 10, 2011. It is too late to veto any bills passed by the Colorado General Assembly this year in January, February, March or April. In theory, it is also possible for citizens to sign petition to put to a vote of the people any legislation passed during the leigslative session without a "safety clause" but that has never actually happened in practice, mostly because only the very least controversial and important bills are passed without a "safety clause."

READ MORE - Colorado General Assembly Adjourns Sine Die Today

Colorado Voters Not Conservative

Colorado voters polled by PPP narrowly favor marijuana legalization, strongly favor civil unions for same sex couples, and want to keep Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper in their jobs by large margins. Other polling has shown that they favor President Obama over any of the GOP contenders in the 2012 Presidential race.

Also, "Voters are closely divided on a referendum slightly raising the state income and sales tax rates in order to fund public education. 47% disapprove and 45% approve of these potential hikes. Republicans are more against it (73%) than Democrats for it (63%), but independents side 48-44 in its favor."

This is bad news for the public education funding measure as revenue increasing measures have historically almost always see their support decline in Colorado as the election grows closer, and the election is not that close yet.

READ MORE - Colorado Voters Not Conservative

Iowa Wants A Big Heap of Crazy

With Oral Roberts law school alum Michele Bachman and sometimes libertarian party member Ron Paul as the #1 and #2 players in the Iowa straw poll, #3 Pawlenty is dropping out of the race based on his poor performance there, and Romney coming far back in the pack, it seems that the Tea Party will be alive and well in the lastest round of GOP Presidential nominations. Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy in South Carolina, is no prize for his party either.

If the crazies make a good showing in New Hampshire and South Carolina as well, President Obama's chances of re-elections will be greatly elevated.

READ MORE - Iowa Wants A Big Heap of Crazy

Another Not So Bright Texas Republican

Academic prowess is clearly not an asset in the task of becoming Governor of Texas or to becoming a GOP Presidential nominee.

First, we had George W. Bush (the GOP Presidential nominee in 2000 and 2004) who was a mediocre student at Yale in the era before admissions we are merit based as they are today (although his father, George H.W. Bush, was a quite intelligent man with real academic talent and senior civil service experience as C.I.A. director), who went on from the Texas Governorship to become President.

Arizona Senator and 2008 GOP Presidential nominee John McCain was also a mediocre college student at the U.S. Naval Academy:

McCain came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel, and he did not always obey the rules, which contributed to a low class rank (894 of 899), despite a high IQ. He did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he struggled with, such as mathematics.

Sarah Palin, McCain's Vice Presidential nominee was also a pretty mediocre college student and known for her lack of a command of policy issues on the campaign trail as well.

Now, Rick Perry, a 2012 Presidential candidate with the same political credentials as George W. Bush, however, makes George W. Bush look like a genius by comparison to any of these other candidates, given is truly dismal performance at Texas A&M. 

…In his freshman and sophomore year, Perry struggled with core science classes, earning D’s in several organic chemistry classes and C’s in general chemistry and physics.
But after Perry switched his major at the beginning of his fall semester in 1970, his grades didn’t improve. Perry got a C in Reproduction in Farm Animals, a C in genetics, a D in Feeds & Feeding, a C in Sheep & Angora Goat Production and two C’s in animal breeding classes.
Many of Perry’s other classes involved military education. Perry has previously credited his time in the A&M Corps of Cadets with giving him the necessary discipline to complete school.
Perry got two C’s in Development of Air Power and took four levels of World Military Systems, earning two C’s, a B and an A. The A was one of only two Perry earned at college — the other was for a class called Improv. of Learning.
The future governor only took one political science class while he was in school — American National Government, for which he earned a B. Other classes outside of Perry’s major included Shakespeare and Writing for Professional Men, which earned him two D’s.
Perry took two summer sessions before his senior year but still needed two more after the rest of his class graduated to complete a degree. He graduated in August of 1972.

Like George W. Bush, Rick Perry was a cheerleader in college.

While college grades are not the be all and end all of life, I'd think we could expect a bit more of people who want to rule the free world.

READ MORE - Another Not So Bright Texas Republican

Bust Hit New Single Family Homes Strongest; Employment Recovery Slow

The Real Estate Bust Was New Single Family Home Investment Dominated

Many components of new real estate investment took a hit in the housing bubble collapse that triggered the financial crisis. But, the dominant component of reduced construction investments has come from new single family homes. This is about 20% of the pre-bust peak right now and still well below late 20th century historical norms. New single family home investment plummeted to far below historical levels in the housing bubble collapse and remains where it fell today.

Other components of construction investments (single family home improvement, multifamily, commercial, etc.) have merely experienced a modest bump in the road and aren't far below pre-financial crisis levels today, although they too have experienced a slump.

The Employment Recession

Meanwhile, while the latest monthly job creation figures weren't horrible, in the bigger picture, the U.S. economy is in a pickle.

The number of jobs lost relative to the pre-recession peak is currently about the same point as it was at the deepest post-WWII recession where it stayed for only a couple of months in 1948. The situation has been that bad in the cuurrent employment recession for about two year and two months.

Jobs lost relative to pre-war jobs has been worse than the five months it spent there in 1957, and the situation has been that bad for about two yearsand four months. The employment recession has been worse than every employment recession since 1990 for two years and eight months already. These are the so called "post-modern" employment recessions which have tended to be more shallow, but longer lasting.

Four months from now, this will be the longest post-Great Depression employment recession in history, surpassing the four year long job slump that followed the tech bust in 2001.

It is almost certain that this employment recession will last much longer than four years. It is very unlikely that employment will recover to pre-financial crisis levels anytime in 2012 either given the trendlines of this employment recession.

Nothing that is going on in the domestic policy agenda or in the global economic situation suggests that the United States will be changing these trendlines dramatically any time soon. The U.S. government and almost all states (and most first world foreign countries) are taking Hoover style austerity measures instead of injecting demand into the economy with Keynsian/New Deal type stimulus efforts. The only remotely political plausible step that the U.S. could take which would provide a government spending boost that could pull the economy out of the jobs recession sooner would be to start some major new war (a solution that I heartily disfavor).

Given the growth in the labor force over three or four years that occurs naturally, the United States will be hard pressed to return to pre-financial crisis employement per population levels until late in 2013 at the earliest, and it could take until 2014 or later, or might never reach pre-financial crisis levels and produce a structural reduction in the amount of people employed in the U.S. relative to its population.

Current trendlines for this employment recession suggest a recover to pre-financial crisis levels sometime around the fall of 2013, about six year after it started.

2012 Election Implications

Naturally, if you are President Obama's campaign manager, this is not good news. Empirical studies of the impact of the economy on voter behavior in the election suggest that the relevant time frame starts around January of the year of the election, i.e. January 2012 in this election, about five months from now. Nobody thinks that the economy will have recovered to pre-financial crisis levels by then in employment, which is the most politically sensitive economic indicator. A double dip recession isn't out of the realm of possibility.

Republicans in the House of Representatives and the newly inked debt limit deal, however, severely restrain his ability to use government spending and employment to change the current trend, or enact major new economic legislation of any kind. They are playing to deny him any victories to campaign upon and their desire to deny him victories so will surely only heighten as the election grows closer.

Obama can try to blame Republicans for inaction, but only if he first makes a dramatic change of course and starts vigorously advocating for a course of action that Republicans refuse to take. Obama can hope that the Republicans nominate someone unelectable whose campaign will self-destruct and alienate the American people, but he has essentialy no say in that process. Republican brinksmanship in the debt limit deal wasn't well played in the court of public opinion. But, counting on Republicans to screw up isn't exactly a pro-active strategy that inspire much confidence.

The optimist narrative says that a Republican resurgence peaked too soon for Republicans to experience any further gains in 2012. The Tea Party gains in the off year 2010 election were a high water mark at which President Obama had already hit bottom and the Republican Party's enthusiasm levels had surged as much as they could. But, in 2012, voters can see from two years of Tea Party efforts to govern in Congress and in state governments where they made inroads, that their style of governing has little to recommend it. Divided government has also denied President Obama any major acts that could rally Republicans and independents against him as health care reform did in the 2010 election. Obama's major legislative steps are now old news, the credibility of efforts to frame him as a threat to gun rights that thrived in 2010 hasn't materialized.

U.S. troops will essentially be out of the Iraq War that President Obama campaigned against and reduced U.S. involvement in dramatically. And, President Obama is already starting to heed bipartisan discontent over the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan and may be able to back down from it without paying a political price for doing so now that Obama bin Laden has been killed on President Obama's watch. The bipartisan debt deal, which included defense budget cuts that President Obama's own new Secretary of Defense Panetta has already started to publicly complain about loudly, also makes it hard for Republicans to campaign on the need for more defense spending.

Republicans are trying to make the limited U.S. military involvement in Libya look bad. But, to do so risks looking like they back Gaddafi over the revolutionaries and the Arab Spring movement generally, but they are likely to be in a stronger position by the time the election comes around than they are now, and are likely to seem less like an Islamist radical political movement than some pundits were worried that the Arab Spring movement might have been at first. In any case, President Obama has already stepped back from an already brief level of central U.S. involvement in that conflict which France and Britain have taken the lead in managing, and may be in a good position to reduce U.S. involvement further before Republicans can form a united and vocal front in opposition to it that becomes part of the national conversation. This operation is unlikely to produce many U.S. casualties, and it gives Obama some way to tell the American people that the vast sums we spend on the defense budget is producing some results somewhere, an argument that pro-defense budget Republican factions will be wary of undermining. Republicans are not natural anti-war activists.

Presidential re-election campaigns are fundamentally referrendums on the incumbent. A Republican Presidential nominee will bear the burden of proof with the American people to show that President Obama needs to be replaced and will have to do so without the enthusiasm gap of 2010. This will be a tall order for anyone that the Republican base, newly infused with Tea Party extremists can feel comfortable supporting.

The Republican primary, while providing free press to the Republican nominee that will help familiarize general election voters with Republican policy frames, is also almost invariably going to remind voters just how extreme some of those candidates are and generate a fear factor that could seep to independents and even moderate Republicans if the ultimate nominee is too extreme. No consensus has started to gel in the GOP nomination race, which still lacks a clear front runner. Since some Republicans in Congress will surely hitch their wagons to more right leaning nominees whose campaigns will crash, burn and discredit those candidacies, the Presidental race prove to be a drag on some Congressional campaigns. Strict GOP adherence to a hard right party line over the last two years will also give Republicans fodder in their campaigns in newly redrawn and unfamiliar Congressional districts.

All in all, 2012 looks like it will be a base v. base grim war of attrition that will be fought without enthusiasm or strong central themes by both parties.

READ MORE - Bust Hit New Single Family Homes Strongest; Employment Recovery Slow

A Silly Argument And A Smart One

Mark Thoma at The Fiscal Times argues that "balanced budget rules can cause rushed decisions if the statutory deadlines for achieving balance leave little time for careful deliberation" in the course of arguing that Congress is disfunctional. This is silly.

How many times in my lifetime have state or federal legislatures gotten fiscal matters done in advance in a carefully deliberated manner, rather than right at a deadline? I can't remember a year that Congress didn't have a continuing resolution or passed all of the dozen different appropriations bills separately before the deadline came and an omnibus bill had to be pushed through, even in years when we haven't had divided government.

Colorado's joint budget committee is better, but still highly deadline driven. And, one of the key's to Colorado's deadlines - a joint set of legislative rules made necessary by a short session, amateur legislature and strong legislative services division are almost impossibly to constitutionally impose on Congress.

But, Thoma also has a worthwhile point to make:

[A]nother explanation that is often put forth to explain the change in congressional behavior is that legislators today are less patriotic than they once were. That is, nation used to come before party, but those days are long gone.

But patriotism is not the problem. What has changed is that we have become, in many respects, two separate nations living within a common border. Patriotism is as strong as ever within each nation, but there is very little recognition that the needs of the other group are legitimate or have any standing at all in policy decisions.

Thus, we are no longer indivisible. Justice for my group rather than justice for all dominates the political landscape and pollutes the policy environment. Until that is fixed–if it can be fixed–no amount of rules, triggers, ticking bombs, or other devices will set it right again.

The two nations thing isn't entirely Mark Thoma's invented rhetoric. For example, Texas Governor Perry, who has campaigned for the GOP Presidential nomination in Colorado recently, has publicly said positive things about the possibility of Texas leaving the United States of American again. The partisan divide between U.S. regions is as strong as it has been in recent memory and social class divides are also more intense in the U.S. than they have been in a very long time.

It isn't just the politicans. I frequently finding myself asking what the heck Republicans are thinking, because when I ask myself what someone who hates American would do and then compare it to what they are trying to accomplish, it very frequently seems to be the same thing. My civility instincts tell me that this is a horribly bad attitude that I should try to fight, but it is what comes to the surface emotionally whenever their latest idea comes up. Whatever agenda they are advancing, it is so profoundly distant from my reality that it makes no sense at all to me, much of the time, or violates deeply held values about the political process and policy substance of what makes our country special and uniquely American. Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't be better off if Governor Perry got his wish and rid us of the influence that he and his have on our politics.

Then again, Thoma makes one more argument that is neither here nor there. He says that the press doesn't do a good enough job of holding politicians accountable. There is merit to that. Politicans are held accountable for very little of their destructive bad behavior and mischief.

But, I'm not convinced that the press is the most guilty party. It is hard to educate the large share of the voting public that isn't interested in paying attention, and the fact that the nation feels that it can get away with indifference is mostly a testament to a fairly healthy political culture in the formative period of the average voter, rather than being a purely negative indicator. Many of us managed to earn the privilege of not paying much attention because politics has tended to be incrementalist for the last few decades in the United States. Only when elected leaders really screw up in a way that forces a radical change that is contrary to the agreed rules of the political game, as we saw this year in Wisconsin and Minnesota, does the sleeping giant that is the American public wake up and start paying attention. We can be outraged about the process because we have been taught to expect better.

If the U.S. had defaulted on its debt and there had been dire consequences, the American public probably would have woken up and been determined to do something about it in 2012. But, a deal to complex and arcane and unlikely to be adhered to in the long term to make it interesting to the general public was reached, constitutional crisis was avoided, and the public will return to its slumber for a while.

I don't like the way that we are making our sausage and would like to reform it. The Republican balanced budget amendment proposal is a DOA way of addressing the problem. But, there is room for process reform and better ways of holding politicians accountable as well.

READ MORE - A Silly Argument And A Smart One

Sizing Up The GOP Presidential Field

[Sarah] Palin, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, had the support of 22 percent of the Republicans surveyed. The former governor of Alaska has not said whether she will run for president next year.

Romney, who failed in a 2008 presidential bid, had 20 percent support.

Representative Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican from Texas, and former pizza executive Herman Cain were tied for third with 7 percent each. . . .

In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the other Republican contenders fared even worse than Romney's 13-point gap in a match-up with Obama. Palin trailed Obama by 23 points and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was behind by 19 points. . . . The poll, conducted Friday through Monday, surveyed 1,132 adults nationwide by telephone, including 948 registered voters. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.

From here.

The story also notes that: "Other surveys have shown Romney in a stronger position. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this week gave Romney a slight lead over Obama among registered voters."

The fact that two polls in the same week have a 14 point plus gap in an identical Obama-Romney matchup each among registered voters suggests that one or both of the polls have far less accuracy than their sample size based margins of error would suggest. An average of the margins in the polls, which would give Obama an approximately six point lead over Romney in a head to head matchup with this, the most competitive of the possible Republican Presidential nominees, is probably a more realistic state of the 2012 Presidental race right now.

Historical reviews of the GOP field by pundits in recent months have noted that lack of a strong front runner this early in the 2012 field compared to other post-war Presidential primaries.

READ MORE - Sizing Up The GOP Presidential Field

Recall Elections Of Six Republicans Go Forward In Wisconsin

Public sector union supporters have successfully gathered enough signatures to force six Wisconsin legislators to face recall elections triggered by the controversial effort of Wisconsin legislators to deny public employees unions in the state collective bargaining rights. Notably, form a political perspective, Republicans has not made eliminating meaningful public sector unions a major point in their 2010 campaign effort which had focused on budget cutting measures, so it isn't unreasonable to expect that independents and Republicans who have some sympathy with the cause of public sector union workers or aren't happy with the fact that Republicans have pushed such a controversial issue in a way that created a media circus could vote to recall Republican state legislators whom they voted for last November.

A state judge in Wisconsin has also ruled that the public employee union law was passed in violation of the state's open meetings law and hence is void.

Thus, while Republicans won the battle to bust public sector unions in Wisconsin, they risk losing the war if voters use the recall elections to hand control of the state legislature, which Republicans won in November's election, back to Democrats. Another fight brought to the voters that was colored by the union busting legislation was, an electoral fight between a conservative and liberal candidate for the state supreme court that had previously been a non-issue that almost assured the incumbent conservative judge's re-election was won by the incumbent by only by a nose after a recount. The recall fights, however, are more directly related to the union busting legislation which they personally voted to enact.

The amount of grass roots support for a recall necessary to get one on the ballot in Wisconsin is suggestive of the amount of political energy and momentum that recall supporters have in this fight:

At no time in U.S. history have attempts been made to recall so many legislators at the same time over the same issue. To recall a senator in Wisconsin, recall organizers had to gather signatures from voters in each district equivalent to 25% of the number of people who voted for governor in November. That meant staff for the board had to review more than 18,000 signatures for each recall attempt.

Keep in mind that these signatures are being gathered in state legislative districts that elected Republicans within the last year, not safe Democratic seats. Also, the level of organization and political intensity displayed by union supporters against Republicans now may decisively influence Wisconsin's vote in the 2012 Presidential elections in favor of Democrats. The union busting move of Wisconsin's Republican leadership has activated vast numbers of otherwise apathetic or only slightly active union members and union supporters in the state, turning them into a political force to be reckoned with, regardless of the outcome of these particular recall efforts. And, if many of the recall elections are successful, it would also pop the balloon of any mandate in popular opinion that Republicans could have claimed based upon their 2010 electoral sweep, only about a year before the next state legislative and Presidential election. Voters, campaign contributors and political campaign volunteers don't like political losers; they want to vote for someone who can win and may lose faith when a candidate's prospects seem diminished.

The Wisconsin legislation inspired copycat efforts in a number of other states, some successful, that face a less imminent threat of being overturned after the fact than the Wisconsin legislation.

READ MORE - Recall Elections Of Six Republicans Go Forward In Wisconsin

Wisconsin and 2012

Democratic partisans are fond of saying that anti-immigrant measures advanced by Republicans are good for Democrats because they alienate a large Latino population that would otherwise be inclined to vote Republican (see e.g. "Even More Opportunities for GOP Latino Alienation").

The Republican anti-union showdown with public employees unions playing out at the moment in Wisconsin (and the Denver Post's AP story advises me in other states across the country like Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Nevada and Florida) may have a similar effect.

One of the crucial sources of the big Tea Party wins in 2010 was union member ambivalence about voting for Democrats. While Democrats have near unanimous support from the leadership of organized labor, union members themselves barely favored Democrats more often than Republicans in 2010 election in many key races.

But, the current multi-state Republican jihad against labor unions, whether or not it is successful, may change that in 2012. By reminding the public that the Republican brand hates unions and favors making deep spending budget cuts substantially on the back of union member compensation, the Tea Party union members of 2010 may return to the Democratic fold in 2012.

Half of union members in the United States are public employees who are directly affected by the stance Republicans have taken in Wisconsin, and the other half don't have to be particularly prescient to see Republican attacks on public sector unions translating into attacks on their economic interests should Republicans gain control of the federal government as well.

READ MORE - Wisconsin and 2012

The Minimal 2012 Presidential Race Map

The Big Orange One has a nice map and post showing the amount of backsliding that could be tolerated with new census figures and the same relative political strength from state to state in order for Obama to win in 2012 (about eight percentage points). Obama could win while not securing Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana, but would need to capture Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Hampshire (as well as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada) to do so.

In theory, Colorado is the swing state, by margin of victory, although, like the author, I don't really think it will turn out that way. I worry more about states like Iowa and Wisconsin. The analysis of a potential shift in Virginia, in light of its increasingly Northern political and cultural climate is also appropriate.

Notably, Wisconsin's GOP Chair was just elected to replace Michael Steele as the chair of the RNC, so they're on to this plan. But, ultimately it comes down to who runs on the Republican side and how the economy is doing in the fall of 2012. If the economy improved in the next year and a half, and the Republicans nominate an idiot as they did in the Colorado Governor's race in 2010, then life is good and President Obama is re-elected. If the economy continues to stall and the Republicans nominate a solid candidate (the prospects of which seem rather dim at this point), then President Obama loses.

READ MORE - The Minimal 2012 Presidential Race Map