There’s not much doubt that trying to get at least some mileage out of the lame-duck session is on Democrats’ radar.  In response, right-leaning pundits, politicians, and various organizations are calling for Democrats to pledge that they will not pass any major legislation during the lame-duck session.  I get the politics of this — forcing incumbents to take a stand on these issues before the election, or look like they have no regard for their voters — but it is meaningless in the long run.

There is no reason to stop calling for these pledges if they’re useful politics, but they are meaningless.  There is no way to enforce them, and what repercussions are there for someone that has already been voted out of office?

What needs to happen is for anyone and everyone with an audience to call on Obama for pledge to veto any major legislation that comes out of the lame-duck session.  This pledge is different, for several reasons.  First, if he actually took such a pledge, that bare fact would make attempts to do anything in the lame-duck session far less likely.  The threat of a veto, however unlikely in practice, would position Congress as not only working against the will of the people, but against their own president as well.  A soon-to-be unemployed representative may not care about the former if he has a cushy lobbying job set up, but the latter might give him pause.

Second, this pledge would have teeth.  A politician that is never going to have to face voters again can afford to give them the middle finger, but Obama will still be in office after the lame ducks have flown.  He will have to face the polls, thoughts of his legacy, and an impending election that will be more and more on people’s minds as the Republican primary heats up next year.

The main effect of calls for a pledge to veto lame duck bills, though, would be to make Obama own anything that comes out of that session.  He likes to hide behind Congress (and his attorney general, military commanders, etc.), so it is important that people focus on his actions, not those of the outgoing (hopefully) Speaker of the House.  If he sees that he will get the full blame for the passage of any unpopular bills, he may be less likely to push for action during the lame duck session.   Even if that doesn’t make him hesitate, he will own the negative consequences and publicity.

Keep hammering vulnerable members of Congress, by all means, but every call for restraint to a Democratic Senator or Representative should be coupled with a call for a veto from Obama.

UPDATE (7/24):

Why are people still asking for members of Congress to make this pledge?  It’s utterly meaningless.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

The relevant statutes are easy to find, and the West Virginia Secretary of State’s website provides a summary as well.  I don’t have access to West Virginia case law, though, which may answer some of the questions (so take my analysis with a grain of salt).

One thing I did find was that the timing of the vacancy — which seemed to be Ace’s main worry in his post — will not affect whether or not the governor makes an appointment, but rather how long that appointment lasts.  If there is a vacancy, the governor makes an appointment to fill it.  If the vacancy will be less than 2 1/2 years, the appointment is for the remainder of the term.  If it’s 2 1/2 years or more, the appointment lasts until the seat is filled at the next general election:  “the appointment shall be until a successor to the office has timely filed a certificate of candidacy, has been nominated at the primary election next following such timely filing and has thereafter been elected and qualified to fill the unexpired term.”  W. Va. Code § 3-10-3

That still leaves the question of whether the timing of the vacancy can be gamed to make the appointment be for the remainder of the term instead of until a special election is held, and Ace and I wrote back and forth while I tried to answer that.

Instead of copying and pasting from the emails that Ace quoted at that link, I’ll summarize:

1 — Based on the language of the statutes, I don’t think that a vacancy is ‘declared.’  The only reference I could find to that phrasing was in the Nate Silver article quoted by Ace in the original post (by way of Joe Weisenthal at the Business Insider).  The statutes simply address the situation where there is a “vacancy occurring in the office of . . .”  The governor makes appointments  and/or announces the special election to fill the office.  It looks to me as if the vacancy happens by operation of law when the officeholder dies, is removed from office, etc., and the governor has no role in determining at what point that happened.

2 — Although there isn’t any danger of the governor gaming the system to affect how long the appointment will be for, there is a great deal of confusion as to when or if a special election would take place.  The statute governing vacancies in U.S. Senate seats requires a candidate filling period, a primary, then a general election.  Although related statutes allow expedited processes — e.g., the special election must be within 30-75 days to fill an empty House seat (§ 3-10-4) – section 3-10-3 mentions only the scenario where there is the filing/primary/general.

The problem with that is, according to section 3-5-1, primaries in West Virginia only happen every other, even-numbered, year.  That means the next regularly scheduled party primary is in 2012.  Which in turn means that a ‘special’ election after that primary would be the same general election in which that seat would be filled anyway.  So what’s the point?  The Democrats are naturally making the argument that the appointment should be for the remainder of Byrd’s term since no special election could be had any sooner.

3 — There is hope for Republicans, but it’s iffy at best.  When courts have to decide what a statute means, they use what are called the canons of statutory interpretation.  The first of these is to follow the legislature’s intent, as determined by the plain language of the statute.  When trying to parse the plain meaning fails — because legislatures are generally less coherent than a room full of crack-addled howler monkeys — a couple of other canons that the courts look to are that a statute should be read in such a way that all of its words should have meaning, and that a more specific statute overrides less specific statutes.

Here, the statute explicitly calls for an election if the remaining term is longer than 2 1/2 years.  Applying the more general statute that sets the primaries every two years would make the the 2 1/2 year requirement meaningless, because unless the vacancy occurred three years out a special election could not be held.  So the Republicans can make an argument that, to make the statute make sense, there has to be a way of having a special election sooner.

Is it a winner? No, but at least it’s an argument.

4 — Finally, West Virginia election law — at least this part of it — is a mess.  Just in case you were still wondering

A more recent post by Ace links to a National Journal piece, which in turn cites a case involving a vacancy in a judgeship.  Since the same statute applies to judges and U.S. Senators, it applies here (although the relevant time period has apparently been changed from two years to 2 1/2 since this case was decided).   In this case, Robb v. Caperton, the Supreme Court of West Virginia held that the more specific statute requiring filing by a candidate by a certain date overrode the more general statute (3-10-3) requiring an election if the term was longer than two years.

Huh.  That’s about opposite of what I would’ve held if I were a judge, but seems to dispose of the question here.

To sum up my summary, the statute requires a candidate filing, a primary, and a regular election in order to fill a vacant Senate seat.  Another statute states that primaries happen in even-numbered years only.  Assuming that Robb v. Caperton is still good law, the language in 3-10-3 about 2 1/2 years is irrelevant since Byrd died after the primary was held this year since there will not be another primary until 2012.

Which means that the governor gets to appoint someone to serve out the remaining 2 1/2 years of Byrd’s term, and West Virginia voters don’t get any say in it.

Bummer.

Update:  Adding a link to an article at HotAir, to see if I can get a trackback on a post that links a post that cites me.  Just because.

Also, apparently they will hold the special election at the same time as the regular election, so the appointee will serve until that election is certified, rather than January.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

So Obama has done what he does best: vote “present”, and punt. But in this case, he’s punted to someone who actually knows what they are doing. We may not agree with Petraeus’s exact personnel choices (of which I assume there will be many, not just the second-in-command I note), but I feel certain he’ll make them for better reasons and with better rationale than Obama.

It’s not really clear yet, but Obama either demoted Petraeus by removing him from CENTCOM, or else doubled his workload by leaving him at CENTCOM and also giving him responsibility for Afghanistan.  My bet is that it’s the latter, because otherwise Obama would actually have to make a decision on who to run CENTCOM.  Plus, Obama gets the bonus that Petraeus won’t be able to run in 2012 — assuming he even wanted to, which he denies — because he will have been worked to death.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

1.  What benefits Obama?  Usually in political terms, but not always.  Keep in mind that this is what he thinks will benefit him, not what actually will.

2. What will further Obama’s agenda? If there isn’t a clear political benefit to Obama himself, look to what will further his corporatist/socialist program.

These two cover nearly every situation and can be summed up as:  there is no domestic policy or international policy, there is only Obama policy.  What is best for the U.S.A. is not a factor.

On those rare occasions numbers one or two do not apply, there is a rule number three:

3. Vote present.  If a decision can be avoided, do so.  If there is no way to avoid it, delay it.  When it can no longer be delayed, go with the option that is the closest to the status quo.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Obama won’t relieve him of command, but there will probably be some sort of ‘probationary’ period.

Why? Well, when you are faced with a difficult decision you can’t avoid, going with the status quo is as close as you can get to voting “present.” The probation would be a bonus: the final decision is delayed, and then never really made.

We’ll see tomorrow, but I can’t think of any occasions where the president has made a hard decision — e.g., one where one outcome is not clearly to his advantage.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

In the short-term, I think it helps.  Of course it does:  he shows up to be seen taking responsibility, just as the leak is fixed (if it is).  It’s not unalloyed goodness, though, because the timing will have all the talking heads yammering about the timing of it.  If the leak were stopped at almost any other time, the sole focus would be on the specifics of that (how it happened, what it means, what happens now, etc.).  Instead, the focus will be at least partially on the optics of the president’s trip, and a focus on the underlying politics — whether the pundits cheer him on or not — is not good for him.

In the medium to long term, I think it may actually hurt him.  An ongoing leak would be bad, but if it is now gone, the drama of fixing it is too.  Instead of breathless reporting about what BP is doing or planning, all we have left is the impact.  There may not be any more oil leaking, but there are already millions of gallons in the water, and it’s only just started affecting the shore.  To make a Katrina analogy, the storm has finally passed, but the flood waters are still rising, and will be for the foreseeable future.

So now the news will fill (even more) with photos of oil-soaked wildlife and Monday-morning quarterbacking of the government response.

BP is involved in the cleanup of course, but the government’s role in the cleanup is much bigger than it was in the leak itself, and therefore its actions will be scrutinized much more closely.  There are plenty of people on the Gulf coast, from Gov. Jindal down, that are frustrated with the government’s efforts and lack thereof.  Expect to see them and their complaints featured more prominently now.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Mo in Sharpie on Copy Paper

As explained here (more here, here, and at the Facebook page here).

My intent is not to offend sincere and peaceful followers of Islam, but to do my part in standing up to the violent fundamentalists that force others to follow their religious beliefs.

I will not apologize to anyone who may be offended, though, because the violent minority in Islam is able to function in large part due to the silence of the majority.  Religion-motivated violence by, say, Christians or Jews is immediately followed by denunciations by Christian or Jewish leaders wishing to distance themselves from any such act.  Religion-motivated violence by Muslims, however, is greeted by silence or even tacit approval.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

A well-endowed female blogger named Jen McCreight (AKA Blag Hag) took exception to this sexist feat of mental gymnastics, and has organized a ‘protest’ to take place today wherein ladies display as much cleavage as feasible.  The event has drawn hundreds of thousands of responses on Facebook (where there is also a group page for those interested in future events), as well as national and international media interest.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Eventually I deleted the wp-admin and wp-includes folders on the server, and copied them back in from a fresh WordPress install, and then (after updating the database), it finally worked.

What a pain.

So anyway, it’s up and working again now, for what that’s worth.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

I do not see that as an issue at all.  Why?  Because the government is not seizing mosques because they are mosques.  What it is doing is seizing land owned by an Iranian controlled company.  The fact that some of that land is currently used for religious worship is irrelevant to property law.

If that does not sound right to you, imagine a private corporation that owns some land, and rents one parcel to a church.  If that corporation sells all its land, or goes bankrupt and the land is foreclosed, the church does not have any more right to stay than any other renter.  It is a similar concept here:  for legal purposes, nothing at all is happening to the mosques, just to the mosques’ landlord.

The real issue, and where things will get sticky, is after the seizure.  Because unless the mosques are vacated before or during the seizure process, the government will then own four houses of worship.  That raises First Amendment issues all by itself, and then whatever the government decides to do after will be fraught with First Amendment concerns as well.

I applaud the decision to seize these assets, but I do not envy the person who will have to decide what to do with the mosques.

©2010 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.