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Don Moynihan Profile picture
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Feb 17 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Functional governments do allow radical actors to routinely veto leadership positions
For better or worse, the US system of government depends on political appointees to lead public organizations. Hawley, Cotton and Cruz are serial offenders when it comes to blocking qualified appointees for their pet reasons…or for no reason at all
Hard to top the time that Cotton blocked Obama's nominee to Ambassador to Barbados for reasons that had nothing to do with her. After more than 800 days waiting for a hearing, she died waiting. Image
Obviously the Senate has advise and consent powers. If you think a nominee is lousy, hold a hearing, make your case and take a vote. But that is not what is happening. Senators are using their power to ensure the Senate does not exercise its advise and consent function.
The reason that Senators block nominees rather than make their case in hearings is that their cases are unrelated to the nominees.
Cruz: upset about a pipeline.
Hawley: angry about Afghanistan withdrawal.
Cotton: wants Garland to resign, and someone interrupted him once. ImageImageImage
There is no functional argument for allowing Senators to put holds on executive branch nominees. It erodes the quality of public sector leadership, and undermines the Senate's advise and consent function. Well past time for this practice to stop.
Good example of how Senate blocks on nominee are less about the individual candidate, and more about a distaste for functional government

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More from @donmoyn

Don Moynihan Profile picture
Feb 18
The University of Texas faculty called for respecting academic freedom and in response the Lt Governor has called for ending tenure protections and firing faculty who teach in areas he dislikes. Image
This is true, but also entirely opposite to the way that Patrick believes and wants to see.

In the meantime, faculty at privates and blue state institutions are emailing those UT faculty they always wanted to recruit. Net effect will be to weaken higher Ed in Texas.
When Scott Walker messed with tenure in WI a bunch of talented faculty started heading for the door. Most of them did not feel personally vulnerable but did not see a long-term commitment to protecting higher Ed in the state. Same will happen in Texas.
Read 9 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
Feb 18
There is a debate about why economists are paid a premium within social science.
One market-based response is that economists are scarce relative to demand (see below). But since economists control the supply of economists (through grad admissions) what does that tell us?
Maybe economists are better negotiators. This might be true at the margin, but in most places there are broad disciplinary bands. If you are a sociologist getting $80K & 2/2 load, you can try asking for $160K 1/1 load your peer in the Econ dept is getting, but it won't work. Image
Maybe economists are just smarter. I guess that depends on the criteria you use to evaluate "smart." But based on those prioritized by Econ, the academics in stats and math should be paid more. But they are not. aeaweb.org/articles?id=10… Image
Read 4 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
Feb 18
Great piece about the challenge that administrative burdens pose.

It's not just a technocratic problem, its about the kind of government we want to have, and how we want to be treated by that government.

Hassles, or help? nytimes.com/2022/02/18/opi…
This piece quotes some of the smartest people I know about how to make government work (full disclosure, I married one of them).
Lets start with @pamela_herd Image
Nodding along to @ElizabethLinos here. (Noting she has been promoted to "economist" - congrats!) Image
Read 5 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
Feb 17
This is incredible. Second-most powerful politician in Texas sent a deceptive mass mailer giving bad voter registration information to the public, putting their votes at risk texastribune.org/2022/02/17/tex… Image
New Texas voting laws are already creating confusion about vote-by-mail, leading to 25-40% of ballots being rejected in some counties. Elected officials should be helping to reduce this confusion. Patrick is making it worse. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-to-think…
Dan Patrick pushed Trump's fraud narrative. Which has reduced trust in elections. Patrick has used that distrust to then justify misleading voters into sending their request for ballots to *the wrong office.* Absolute contempt for the public. Image
Read 6 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
Feb 16
My normal tag-line for this sort of thing is "the commanding heights of universities are actually conservative places" but honestly, there is nothing conservative about this.
Doesn't seem like too much to ask that the leaders of American higher education institutions support American democracy ajc.com/education/geor…
If you think Purdue participating in a Stop the Steal rally is not disqualifying for a higher ed position, he also made clear in his job as Secretary of Agriculture that he was perfectly willing to punish researchers whose views did not align with his.
Read 7 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
Feb 15
This seems like a prime example of where forms either did not consider how people interact with mailers, or worse, did do so.
Here is the full context from the AL Secretary of State. My question is, did he do any testing of the mailer with actual people? Its possible this is just poorly designed, but its cheap and easy to test different options.
A lot of the time people ignore mail. With mail from government they still might not read everything, but skip to where they are being directed to do something (the big arrow canceling their registration in this case). Real potential for voter error here. Image
Read 6 tweets

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