January/February 2011

A Publication of the Public Policy Committee
Elizabeth Spiro Clark, Editor

IN THIS ISSUE

Unrest in the Middle East
Alice Rivlin at the WNDC
Senate Rules Reform Outcome
Disenfranchising DC Voters
Vermont Legislature on "Corporate Personhood"

UNREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Egypt: As of this writing (1/31/11) it is unclear what the outcome of the massive demonstrations in Egypt will be. Secretary Clinton has taken the right position focusing attention on the already scheduled September Presidential elections, insisting that they be free and fair and that an interim Egyptian government be “representative”. Clinton took the same position on Tunisia. (read both Blog posts here)

Falling Dominos
With events in Egypt following hard on the heels of Tunisia, the question is who is next? I was in Jordan as an official monitor of their November parliamentary elections. Jordanian officials made serious efforts to follow international standards, as far as the election day process went. However, elections took place under a monarchy with governing powers and an unpopular unelected Prime Minister. Immediately after unrest broke out in Tunisia, Jordanians took to the streets to protest their unelected government, as well as poverty and unemployment. King Abdullah responded quickly on the economic front by instituting subsidies for food and fuel and at the beginning of February dismissed the government and called for the election of the Prime Minister. My odds are on the King managing the protest and delivering on (more) reform. Leaders in Yemen and Algeria should perhaps be more anxious.

--Betsy Clark, Editor, Political Dispatch

More on the Middle East on the WNDC Blog.
In addition to your editor’s post on the riots in Tunisia, Sandi Bieri posted a fascinating account of a trip she took with other WNDC members to Tunisia in 1998 where they only slowly began to understand that “Ben Ali was not the benign leader we had thought”.
“We were part of the small group from WNDC to tour there for 10 or so days in 1998... We were pretty naive as to the political scene in Tunisia, but upon arrival started to wise up, especially as there were soldiers at many intersections with what Jim says were A-K47s. (How would I know?) When I inquired of the guide why this was, we were told to keep Islamic extremists at bay. This was our 1st hint that Ben Ali was not the benign leader that we thought, even though his picture was ubiquitous on all of the street and in the shops.
Our 1st outing in Tunis was to a reception as guests of American Amb. Robin Raphael, who warned us to keep a low profile. So guess what? We toured Tunisia in the only lavender-colored bus that I saw, which had an American flag decal (Great!) Our tour guide in Tunis was a very knowledgeable archeology profession from the U. of Tunis. During one excursion, Jim and I came upon him alone. After looking around to see if anyone else was within ear-shot, he pronounced that Tunisia plays the game of democracy. One other hint of what the true situation was that that the entire time we were in Tunis, we had a woman “hostess” with us, whom many of us decided was our Soviet-style minder. All in all, it was a trip we were grateful to have taken as it gave us many insights into a rich culture, friendly people (with a few exceptions, but that’s true wherever one goes), and beautiful and uniquely interesting scenery.

Alice Day, chair of Energy and Environment Task Force commented on the 01/10 WNDC Blog on posting on Israeli-Palestinian settlement and the Israeli drive to cut up Palestinian territory into lumps of territory connected only by tunnels.

“This is indeed one more discouraging revelation dashing our hopes for a genuine two-state “solution.” Surely, the Palestinian leaders are aware of the UNOCHA maps and the potential impact of non-contiguous land area resulting from current Israeli settlement? The degree of separation between the north and south that you describe would be unsustainable and unacceptable as the basis for a state. Did you determine in your interviews whether the USA will play a role in working for a better outcome? I heard today that the Israelis are in the process of dismantling an ancient hotel important to Palestinians to make way for more Israeli housing. In the face of all this, your comment about wondering whether the two parties to the dispute know what they are doing seems right on the mark.”

Betsy Clark replied: “Indeed the Israelis are dismantling an ancient hotel - Shepherd’s – and there is outraged reaction. Even worse, in Palestinian East Jerusalem while Israeli settlements may be few in terms of absolute numbers, it is clear that they are chosen with the aim of surrounding Jerusalem, and forcing a situation of an ever diminishing number of Palestinian residents. I think the Israelis think they know what they are doing – which is to put off a final settlement for a very, very long time.”

Click here for more Blog postings on the Middle East

And more on the Tunisia story:
Our Unreliable Press In Action

From the January 23 letter your editor wrote to the Washington Post: “The editorial in the January 23 Washington Post “An uncertain Middle East” was mistaken in stating that, in reacting to the crisis in Tunisia, Secretary of State Clinton “didn’t mention elections or democracy”. In her January 14 statement on Tunisia, Clinton said: “We look to the Tunisian Government to build a stronger foundation for Tunisia’s future with economic, social, and political reforms, and call for free and fair elections in the near future (ital. added) that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people.”

AT THE WNDC

Alice Rivlin, the first director of the Congressional Budget Office spoke to a packed house January 25, giving an address that framed issues taken up by President Obama in his State of the Union address that night. Rivlin, the former, member of the Bowles-Simpson commission, and the Rivlin- Domenici commissions on the deficit, started by acknowledging that reaching across the aisle to Republicans "was hard". Perhaps especially so in the light of the Republican destruction of the Clinton Administration’s legacy to the Bush Administration of a budget surplus and economic growth.

The 2008 collapse of the housing bubble could have been prevented by better regulation. The Democrats got little credit for the “awesome” things they did to deal with the crisis. The State of the Union will be the Democrats “opening offer” on how bring about faster growth and decrease the debt; goals seemingly contradictory but both absolutely necessary. The issue is not smaller or larger government but paying for government. A number of tax changes will help including taxing all income, putting a consumption tax on (we are the only major country without some sort of VAT tax). The health care system is so inefficient it will take a decade to squeeze it out and save money. Debt was 40% of GDP only 3 years ago, now it is 60%. Debt can get out of control very fast and then it is too late to deal with it. On another alarming development, Rivlin said that the increasingly unequal income distribution in America was “very worrisome.”

Rivlin was the 2000 recipient of the WNDC’s “Woman of the Year Award”.

Senate Rules Reform Outcome: The Good and the Bad: Comment by Shelly Livingston, VP Public Policy

S.Res. 10, the legislation WNDC was championing to reform Senate rules in a meaningful way, did not pass. Coalition members tried to urge enough Senators to sign on to that resolution so that these reforms could be adopted by the Constitutional Option, or a simple majority vote. We just didn't quite get there. The good news: Senators Reid and McConnell pledged not to use the Constitutional Option to change Senate rules for the next four years. As Sandy Newman, President of Voices for Progress, who briefed the Public Policy Committee on this issue recently, said in a blog on January 28th, "This is a big deal. Looked at one way, the glass is half-empty because the agreement makes it harder to change the rules at least until 2015." "Newman believes that without reformers' persistence, the rules would probably have stayed the same through 2012. Click here to read Sandy's informative blog posted on the American Constitution Society's page.

The brokered deal also includes four other smaller components:

• prohibits anonymous "holds" and requires that at least one of the Senators responsible for blocking any particular nomination or legislation dislose his or her identity:
• for legislation that has been made available to Senators 72 hours in advance, banning the delaying tactic of requiring that the entire bill be read aloud on the Senate floor;
• trimming from about 1,400 to 1,000 the number of executive branch nominations requiring Senate confirmation; and
• an "understanding" between McConnell and Reid that Republican filibusters of the motion to begin consideration of legislation, and Democratic use of procedures to prevent Republicans from offering amendments, will become "the exception rather than the rule"

One outstanding issue remains: whether a deal is reached to shorten post-cloture debate on nominees. We had hoped for a limit of two hours, instead of the 30 hours, which can take up about a week of the Senate's scarce time.

LOOKING BACK AT THE WNDC

US Rejects Its International Commitments By Disenfranchising DC Voters

In 2005 the WNDC issued a WNDC Brief : “DC Votes: The International Dimension”

From the Brief on DC Votes: "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US, with other members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) signed the 1990 "Copenhagen Document." The Document sets out core democracy standards which the US, other countries and international organizations use to help countries organize elections and to assess those elections. The number one democracy standard is "universal and equal suffrage".

In the summer of 2005 then House Democratic whip Steny Hoyer (MD) and DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton worked to get a statement on DC suffrage from the OSCE Parlia- mentary Assembly that was meeting for the first time in Washington. Norton and Hoyer were successful. The Assembly, including a 12 member delegation from the US Congress, issued the “Washington Declaration” with the following statement: “The Assembly urges participating States to guarantee the individual right of vote to all citizens, and in particular calls upon the US government to grant the residents of Washington, DC equal voting rights in their national legislature, in accordance with OSCE standards.”

IN BRIEF
Vermont Legislature takes up resolution calling for a Constitutional Amendment to ban corporate "personhood."

A year ago today, the Supreme Court issued its bizarre Citizens United decision, allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections as a form of "free speech" for the corporate "person." Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the dissent wrote "Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desiresÉ.Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

According to a report in AlterNet.com (1/22/11, by Christopher Ketchem), Vermont state senator Virginia Lyons on Friday presented an anti-corporate personhood resolution for passage in the Vermont legislature. "The resolution, the first of its kind, proposes 'an amendment to the United States Constitution... which provides that corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States.' Sources in the state house say it has a good chance of passing.

The language in the Lyons resolution is unabashed. 'The profits and institutional survival of large corporations are often in direct conflict with the essential needs and rights of human beings,' it states, noting that corporations 'have used their so-called rights to successfully seek the judicial reversal of democratically enacted laws."

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