A post on the Washington Post’s blog the Fix headlined “The death of the Kansas moderate?” linked Tuesday’s apparent conservative takeover of the Kansas Senate to other events around the country, including tea party candidate Ted Cruz’s surprise win in Texas over the lieutenant governor in a primary for U.S. Senate and the recent defeats of incumbent legislators in Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma related to guns and taxes. “It’s not just Kansas,” Curtis Ellis of the anti-incumbent Campaign for Primary Accountability told the Fix. “Clearly, Republican voters understand that state legislatures are where the action is.”
“The Campaign,” the new political comedy starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, features two billionaire siblings played by Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow. Galifianakis told the New York Daily News it was “pretty obvious that the Motch brothers represent the Koch brothers,” and that “I disagree with everything they do. They are creepy and there is no way around that. It’s not freedom what they are doing.” Which brought this response from Koch Companies Public Sector’s Philip Ellender: “Last we checked, the movie is a comedy. Maybe more to the point is that it’s laughable to take political guidance or moral instruction from a guy who makes obscene gestures with a monkey on a bus in Bangkok,” referring to a scene from “The Hangover Part II.” Ellender added: “We disagree with his uninformed characterization of Koch and our beliefs. His comments, which appear to be based on false attacks made by our political opponents, demonstrate a lack of understanding of our longstanding support of individual freedom, freedom of expression and constitutional rights.”
The American Legislative Exchange Council and its corporate funders have been under fire for drafting “model legislation” for states on voter-ID and “stand your ground” gun laws. As a result, more than a dozen major companies have pulled out of the organization, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s and Walmart. But at least eight state lawmakers, including Rep. Gene Suellentrop, R-Wichita, registered to attend ALEC’s July 25-28 annual meeting in Salt Lake City, the Lawrence Journal World reported. Kansas taxpayers paid the $475 registration fee for each lawmaker ($575 for Suellentrop and a state senator, who registered late). Other state lawmakers may have attended the meeting but did not register through Kansas Legislative Administrative Services.
Today is the 89th birthday of Bob Dole, who represented Kansas in the U.S. Senate from 1969 until he resigned to be the GOP presidential nominee in 1996. Sixteen years later, Dole still stands out not only for the length of his service and his dedication to veterans but also for his ability to work extremely well with others in Washington, D.C., to get big things done. Dole once said he hoped that the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence would become a place “where conviction coexists with civility, and the clash of ideas is never confused with a holy war.” The state and country need more such places.
Observing that “many data sets show” that conservatives are happier than liberals, Arthur C. Brooks argued in the New York Times that “marriage and happiness go together” and that “religious participants are nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy about their lives as are secularists.” He also highlighted how “the happiest Americans are those who say they are either ‘extremely conservative’ (48 percent very happy) or ‘extremely liberal’ (35 percent),” suggesting moderates are miserable. He asked: “What explains this odd pattern? One possibility is that extremists have the whole world figured out, and sorted into good guys and bad guys. They have the security of knowing what’s wrong, and whom to fight. They are the happy warriors.”
“If change is what you want, you can’t keep voting for the status quo when November rolls around,” columnist Lane Filler wrote. He contends that trying to change the Republican and Democratic parties from within doesn’t work. “You can’t influence these parties by voting for them,” he said. “You can only change the Democrats and Republicans by defeating them.” But wouldn’t voting for a third party be a waste? No, said Lane. “If everyone who abhors the coziness of politicians and big-money contributors, and the shared corruptions of the Republicans and Democrats, refused to vote for a major party, the total numbers would shock,” he argued. “And in the next election, when people saw the way the tide was pulling, they’d be even higher.”
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed three bills this week that his fellow Republicans had pushed as necessary to safeguard the integrity of elections – an issue Republicans in Kansas have promoted as well. Snyder vetoed bills that would have required photo ID to obtain an absentee ballot, required a ballot box affirmation of citizenship, and mandated training for groups doing voter-registration drives – something he said could “cause confusion.” Like Kansas, Michigan already requires those voting at the polls to show photo ID. Jennie Bowser of the National Conference of State Legislatures told the New York Times that “voter ID falls on very stark partisan lines, and there are very few exceptions to that. It’s unusual and notable when somebody crosses it.”
Many GOP lawmakers used to argue that the best campaign-finance solution was to lift limits on donations but require immediate, full disclosure. But Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor at the Washington Post, noted that most Republicans don’t talk about disclosure anymore. Why? The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has resulted in a flood of corporate money favoring Republicans, much of it undisclosed. “The playing field has tilted toward Republicans, and they’re in no hurry to tilt it back,” Hiatt wrote. One GOP lawmaker who is still raising alarms is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He called the Citizens United decision “misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious,” and he lamented the huge amounts of money that are now pouring into politics (some of which may originate overseas, he warned). “I just wish one of them had run for county sheriff,” McCain said of the Supreme Court justices. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., defended the lack of disclosure as protecting free speech, arguing that the government or activist groups on the right or left might use such disclosures to target and intimidate citizens.
Though most Republicans oppose the federal health care law, they support many of its key provisions, according to a new Reuters-Ipsos survey. For example, 80 percent of Republicans favor creating an insurance marketplace for small businesses and individuals (yet Gov. Sam Brownback sent back federal grant money last year to help Kansas set this up). Also, 57 percent of Republicans support providing subsidies on a sliding scale to help people buy insurance, 54 percent favor requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide insurance, and 78 percent support banning insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions (which necessitates the individual mandate to purchase insurance). How is it that people hate the law but like what it does? “It’s another sign of the conservative messaging triumph in this fight and the failure of Dems to make the case for the law,” wrote Greg Sargent of the Washington Post. But if the Supreme Court strikes down the law, Sargent said, there might be opportunities to refocus on some of these individual reforms.
This week’s acquittal of Roger Clemens in a federal perjury case followed the mistrial in the federal case against John Edwards, the former presidential candidate accused of campaign-finance misdeeds related to a mistress. Why couldn’t the Justice Department make either case? “Jurors could be sending a message to Washington they don’t like the awesome firepower of the Justice Department brought to bear on borderline cases without an obvious victim,” suggested Forbes senior editor Daniel Fisher. He wrote: “The jurors in the Clemens case, as with Edwards before them, might be reacting to a core idea in constitutional law which is playing out in slightly different form in the Obamacare debate. What is the extent of federal power?”
A new book by David Maraniss of the Washington Post documents mistakes and distortions in President Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” Some of this already has been reported, such as Obama’s accounts of a girlfriend in New York City who actually lived in Chicago. Washington Post reporters also found that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., whose autobiography came out this week, embellished accounts of his parents’ emigration from Cuba.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (in photo) “had the temerity to state in public what many others think in private: that the Republican Party has become so intransigent that even Ronald Reagan couldn’t fit under its tent,” Dana Milbank wrote in the Washington Post. Bush noted this week that Reagan got a lot done because he tried to find common ground with Democrats. Reagan also raised taxes several times. Not surprisingly, Bush was condemned by tax-pledge enforcer Grover Norquist, who called his views “foolish” and “bizarre.”
Johnson & Johnson announced this week that it was withdrawing its support of the American Legislative Exchange Council. In the past few months, more than a dozen companies, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s and Walmart, have dropped their memberships with ALEC, a corporate-backed organization that provides “model legislation” for state lawmakers. The companies have been under pressure from liberal activists because of ALEC’s support of voter-ID laws and “stand your ground” gun laws. Common Cause has also filed a federal complaint that ALEC is violating tax laws by acting as a lobbyist and not a nonprofit. ALEC announced in April that it was refocusing its agenda on economic issues.
Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles’ take on the impact of the Citizens United ruling on political spending.
“I would love you guys to outlaw Justin Bieber or something like that.” – Gov. Sam Brownback (in photo), in Manhattan last week, suggesting a piece of mock legislation for Kansas Boys State
“Who wants to be sitting at the table when all heck hits the fan?” – Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, telling Politico that long-term budget projections may be deterring House members from challenging current House GOP leaders
“The people have spoken, and they’re both named Koch.” – humorist Andy Borowitz, tweeting after the Wisconsin recall
“Unions blaming the Koch brothers for (Tuesday’s) election is like Emperor Hirohito blaming Bob Hope for Hiroshima.” – blogger David Burge, on Twitter
“BREAKING: Scott Walker Wins Koch Industries ‘Employee of the Month’ Award for Record 17th Time” – the Daily Edge, on Twitter
“Someone stop the Koch brothers! They’re about to … sob … give $100 million to … the OPERA! #OccupyLaBoheme” – John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, in a tweet (referring to David Koch’s $100 million gift to renovate what was then the home of the New York City Opera)
From the beginning, the money behind Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (in photo) was intended to turn a once-reliable blue state into a laboratory for Republican ideas, where business could grow free of union fetters, taxes could be cut, and thousands of people could be removed from Medicaid rolls. That’s why David Koch, the billionaire industrialist whose family money was crucial to Walker’s election in 2010, gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association this year, which, in turn, ran ads supporting Walker. Koch said Walker’s fight against public unions was “critically important.” The tactics worked in Wisconsin, and in several other states. Labor, so long in decline in the private sector, is also losing its clout in states and cities, unable to match or withstand the unfettered bank accounts of industry. The people who kept Walker and his policies in power are just getting started. – New York Times
Now that Scott Walker has decisively won Wisconsin’s recall election, I wonder if we’ll be hearing any expressions of remorse for the smears, false rumors and general vilification that his opponents have hurled at him over the past year and a half. Walker’s foes are now complaining that he bought the election with corporate money from out of state. Of all the excuses being offered, this is the most pathetic. Of course Walker exploited existing state campaign-finance law to raise as much money as possible wherever he could. What the heck did his opponents expect him to do? Unilaterally disarm? The unions and Wisconsin Democrats knew the rules. If they didn’t want Walker to bring a financial gun to their knife fight, they shouldn’t have started it in the first place. – Charles Lane, Washington Post
One of the key reasons why Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survived his recall election is that Democrats were outhustled by Republicans, wrote former Bush adviser Karl Rove (in photo). “If the Wisconsin results are cause for concern among Democrats, they provide a call to action for Republicans, especially in battleground states,” Rove said. “To beat (President) Obama, Republicans must duplicate the ground game deployed by the GOP in Wisconsin that registered, persuaded and produced a massive turnout.”
There’s no sugarcoating what Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s survival of Tuesday’s recall vote means for organized labor, Greg Sargent wrote in the Washington Post: “Unions invested heavily in this battle in order to make an example of Walker. . . . That effort failed, and the failure will have major repercussions for labor groups as they gear up for future fights over bargaining rights in states.” But Sargent also noted the role of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which enabled corporations to spend unlimited amounts on politics. “Outside groups supporting Walker vastly outspent unions, thanks to Citizens United,” Sargent wrote.
Any attempted recall of a governor is remarkable for its rarity. But national media may be overdoing it in seeing the Wisconsin face-off between Republican incumbent Scott Walker (in photo) and Democrat Tom Barrett as “a bellwether for the presidential election and the future of organized labor,” as the Daily Beast put it. “Each side would have you believe the election means everything – until late Tuesday night, when one side will abruptly change tack and say it means absolutely nothing,” wrote Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson. And even if Walker fends off the challenge, the New Republic’s Alec MacGillis thinks that may not bode ill for President Obama’s re-election, but instead be “a statement of grudging pro-incumbent sentiment in a time of cautious optimism about a painfully gradual economic recovery.”
“It’s no surprise that the Justice Department case against the two-time Democratic presidential candidate basically crashed and burned,” columnist Dick Polman wrote about the John Edwards trial. “The jurors got it right yesterday when they exonerated Edwards on one count, deadlocked on the other five counts, and the judge declared a mistrial. In nine days of deliberation, they couldn’t bring themselves to believe that Edwards was a criminal – scoundrel, yes; jailbird no – just because he took money from a pair of rich friends to abet his perfidy.”
Thomas E. Mann, of the left-leaning Brookings Institution, and Norman J. Ornstein, of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, contend that the core of the problem with politics today lies with the Republican Party. “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics,” they wrote in the Washington Post. “It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.” But Tim Graham of the Media Research Center doesn’t buy it. “You say extreme partisanship is ruining Washington, and then you turn around and say everything that’s wrong in Washington comes from those horrid Republicans,” he wrote. “Isn’t that awfully partisan?”
“One of the great differences between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives will freely admit that they have an ideology,” columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote. Instead of being honest, Goldberg argued, “liberals speak in code when they want to make an ideological argument without conceding that that is what they are doing.”
Charles and David Koch have filed a second lawsuit against the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank they helped found. Their latest lawsuit accuses Cato of a “board-packing scheme.” Cato’s board of directors voted last month “to increase the number of seats on the board and to fill those seats with four previous members whom the Kochs had removed,” the Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, Michael F. Cannon, the director of health policy studies at Cato, wrote an open letter to the Koch brothers warning that a Koch takeover would undermine Cato’s credibility. “Cato scholars fear your lawsuit, because even the perception that a think tank is dependent on a single financial interest is enough to wreck its credibility,” he wrote.
UPDATE: Melissa Cohlmia, director of corporate communication at Koch Companies Public Sector, responded that the Washington Post was incorrect in saying that Charles Koch and David Koch had four members “removed.” She said the Kochs requested that the vote on the board members be delayed. When that didn’t happen, the Kochs voted to retain two of the four board members. Regarding the concern about independence, Charles Koch said: “We seek to elect board members and officers who will ensure that Cato becomes increasingly effective in advancing liberty while remaining dedicated to its core principles. These officers and directors would act independently from me or any other individual.”
Activists have been lobbying various corporations for months to sever their support of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a free-market group that provides “model” legislation for state lawmakers. But media scrutiny of ALEC’s involvement with “stand your ground” gun laws seems to be prompting several leading corporations to jump off the ALEC ship. Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, McDonald’s and other companies recently announced they are ending their ALEC memberships. The companies said they supported ALEC because of economic policy issues and were unaware of its involvement in other issues, including pushing voter-ID laws. Wichita’s Koch Industries said it wasn’t involved with the gun legislation and would continue to support ALEC.
At age 88, former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole (in photo) shouldn’t have to explain himself anymore. But plenty of Republicans will want to know why, according to a new book by former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, Dole said in 2010 that Specter did the right thing in switching to the Democratic Party in 2009 and added, “I probably would have done the same thing.” As Specter puts it, “He said I faced a dead end with what was happening in the Republican Party.” The memoir by Specter, “Life Among the Cannibals: A Political Career, a Tea Party Uprising, and the End of Governing As We Know It,” will be published later this month. Specter was born in Wichita, and Dole and Specter both graduated from Russell High School.
A post on the Washington Post’s blog the Fix headlined “The death of the Kansas moderate?” linked Tuesday’s apparent conservative takeover of the Kansas Senate to other events around the country, including tea party candidate Ted Cruz’s surprise win in Texas over the lieutenant governor in a primary for U.S. Senate and the recent defeats of incumbent legislators in Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma related to guns and taxes. “It’s not just Kansas,” Curtis Ellis of the anti-incumbent Campaign for Primary Accountability told the Fix. “Clearly, Republican voters understand that state legislatures are where the action is.”
