The Senate will vote later today to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as the sixth right-wing justice on a Supreme Court that is already historically pro-corporate.
This is just the latest in a crisis of democracy fed by and feeding multiple crises.
American government has become increasingly counter-majoritarian.
The Republican Party is on track by the end of 2020 to pick 67 percent of the life-tenured justices but only win the popular vote in 12 percent of the last eight presidential elections. rooseveltinstitute.org/2020/09/23/his…
Further, 18 percent of the population picks a majority of the Senate that will confirm Amy Coney Barrett. Over four million Americans in DC and the US territories have no say over the Senate (and by extension, the Court) at all. Read @jbouie for more. nytimes.com/2019/05/10/opi…
The Electoral College – whereby states matter more than citizens – gives small states outsize influence and serves to suppress voter participation in states that are reliably blue or red. No other advanced democracy has such an institution. link.springer.com/article/10.100…
As @RonBrownstein notes, “Though Republican nominees have won the popular vote only once in the five presidential elections since 2000, the GOP has controlled the White House for 12 of the 20 years since then.” edition.cnn.com/2020/08/11/pol…
The lower courts are just as tilted. As @scotusreporter and @seungminkim note, "There are no vacancies on the circuit court level, where approximately 30 percent of those on the bench have been nominated by Trump – who lost the popular vote."
Republican governors and legislatures from Arizona to Georgia have expanded the size of state supreme courts to entrench their rule, as @EricLevitz notes. nymag.com/intelligencer/…
And as @EJDionne@TakeBacktheCt have flagged, this right-wing dominance influences how the courts at various levels vote on democracy itself, with GOP judges voting to impede ballot access at two times the rate of Democratic appointees.
These counter-majoritarian features have led political scientists @levitsky2 and @dziblatt, who literally wrote the book on “How Democracies Die”, to warn that “In our political system, however, the majority does not govern. “
The crisis of democracy on its own would be bad enough. But it’s made worse by and makes worse the other challenges we face: COVID, inequality, the climate crisis, and systemic racism.
A response to COVID at scale will require executive branch agencies to move quickly on vaccines, commandeering supply chains, etc. Yet right-wing justices embrace judicial theories that make it harder for Congress to delegate authority for them to do so. washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/…
Ditto the economic recovery that is worsening inequality. Justices during the Lochner era (the so-called “originalists” of their day) blocked much of the early New Deal’s response to the Great Depression. Barrett could help do so again, per @imillhiser vox.com/21497317/origi…
This judicial philosophy will also make it very difficult to address the climate crisis, as @JodyFreemanHLS points out here
Climate-induced changes in state population patterns will lead to worsening inequalities in the Senate, going from a 67-to-1 discrepancy between the power of the least to the most populous state, to 154-to-1 by the end of the century. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/f…
Fourth, as @ElieNYC reminds us, the right-wing elements on the Court have been busy shredding the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, all which entrench systemic racism and White minority rule as the country become majority people of color. thenation.com/article/societ…
Luckily, there are steps we can take to begin the process of building democracy back better, and in the process improve our ability to address existential threats.
We can expand the number of justices so that the composition of the Court reflects the country – something that is constitutional, can be done by majority vote in the House and Senate, and has been done repeatedly at moments of crisis. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/o…
This has precedent in other countries, some of whom strip the normal courts of the ability to hear cases affecting unions and labor. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/s…
We can eliminate the filibuster, which we have already done for SCOTUS nominees. Indeed, that’s how Barrett is even sailing through. We could do that for good things, like de-carbonization. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/f…
We can give Senate representation to DC and the territories, with statehood for those that want it or without it for those that don’t. And we can honor treaty commitments to give Native Americans dedicated congressional representation. politico.com/interactives/2…
That’s the low-hanging fruit of stuff that’s constitutional. But a more comprehensive approach would make it easier to modernize the Constitution itself
And any solution to our domestic democracy will need a new approach to how we manage globalization, as @trevorcsutton@AndyGreenSF of @amprog argue here
If this seems like a big lift, that’s because it is.
But as @FeliciaWongRI told @ThePlumLineGS, if progressives are hoping to push for ambitious governmental reforms of the economy, it will be a nonstarter unless they credibly represent a “government that actually works better for the public good.” washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
And fixing US democracy so we can regulate better can help address the global climate crisis.
Finally, these structural fixes will (eventually) lower the winner-take-all arms race nature of US elections and force both sides to compete for working people's votes.
In the short run, per @Jacob_S_Hacker and Paul Pierson, the side with the unpopular ideas will continue to escalate. It can't be a one-sided fight, especially with principled fixes on hand that will improve lives. END wwnorton.com/books/97816314…
This is the result of a 4 year review since the beginning of the Biden administration, which has been evaluating whether various Chinese policies comport with US trade laws.
Fantastic panel @HarvardMWC on lessons we can learn from global experiences with industrial policy, with @rodrikdani @straightedge @myrto_kaloup and @rohlamba.
Myrto talking Chinese shipbuilding excess capacity. Has 50-70% market share today.
@Rohan_Sandhu Myrto says Chinese shipbuilding not efficient when taken on their own, but had clear benefits in terms of outward exports / lowering transportation costs / enhancing military capacity. nber.org/papers/w26075
NEW from me @RooseveltFwd: How Biden's comments on US Steel's tie up with Japan's Nippon company indicate what a Foreign Policy for the Middle Class might look like in practice. rooseveltforward.org/2024/04/03/bid…
The idea of reorienting foreign economic policy to build labor power and combat inequality was articulated by @JakeSullivan46 @jennifermharris and others in a series of essays and reports in 2019-20. foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/07/ame…
This doesn't mean that traditional diplomacy has to die out. Indeed, as @dimi and @KanaInagaki report, even after Biden's comments, the US and Japan are slated to make the biggest upgrade to their alliance in 60 years. ft.com/content/df9999…
BREAKING from @AP: @Energy agency announces $6 billion to slash emissions in industrial facilities.
@JenMcDermottAP @anniesartor @SecGranholm @alizaidi46 and me on why this is game changing, and could allow the US to catch up/ lead on industrial decarb. apnews.com/article/climat…
The mix of projects funded here is exciting, including a range of technologies to be deployed by US leader @CLE_CLF, and even projects by Sweden's SSAB. energy.gov/oced/industria…
"EVEN IF YOU’RE CONVINCED that unionized labor is sclerotic and expensive and an impediment to production, cutting them out creates the very real risk of losing the coalition necessary to sustain green industrial policy."
@ddayen responds to @ezraklein. prospect.org/economy/2023-0…
I am sympathetic to Klein's wish to live in a society with more corporatist labor arrangements.
https://t.co/5jiumaovWrnytimes.com/2023/07/16/opi…
Want government that builds super fast, without the pesky guardrails of civil society input, local government consultation, or environmental or safety permitting?
The last 70 years of development economics has been technocrats & engineers slowly learning that you can't wish away politics and institutions. If your developmental strategy can't work politically and institutionally, it can't work.
That's why @ddayen's framework @TheProspect of A Liberalism That Builds Power is so useful. If you try to Either/Or your way through economic development or (countervailing) power-building, you could end up with neither. prospect.org/economy/2023-0…