Jim DeMint

The Republican Statesman is Dead

And Jim DeMint killed him. The extremist, minority leader of his minority caucus will force a reading of the entire START Treaty, in full, consuming 12 hours of Senate time, just to appease… Well, who? The uninformed masses who, like him, feel they should oppose it, but can’t really grasp why? Secretary Gibbs’ reply:

This is a new low in putting political stunts ahead of our national security, and it is exactly the kind of Washington game-playing that the American people are sick of. While some express concern that the Senate doesn’t have time to debate the Treaty, Senator DeMint wants to waste 12 hours to read the text of a treaty that has been available to every member of the Senate and the public for more than eight months. This Treaty has been the subject of nearly 20 Senate hearings and 1,000 questions, and is supported by President George H.W. Bush, every living Republican Secretary of State, our NATO allies, and the military leadership of the United States of America. Every minute that the START Treaty is being read on the Senate floor increases the time that we lack verification of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. It is the height of hypocrisy to complain that there is not enough time to consider this Treaty, while wasting so much time reading aloud a document that was submitted to the Senate months ago.

All politicians, on both sides, should be disgusted. Those who so disrespect their office and their country have no place in its government. America’s international standing is not a toy, some pawn to be fumbled with in a foolish, misguided attempt to checkmate the president for its own sake. Republicans used to serve their country as men of honor, wisdom, and poise, conscious of their country’s place in the world, and the seriousness that place demanded of them. Those days are over.

UPDATE: DeMint folded like a cheap umbrella.

Theologies of Governance

Conservative websites justly criticize Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) for the bold assertion that fiscal conservatism requires “social conservatism,” by which he means a dedication to God, by regulating society to conform to and mirror his subjective idea of what religious righteousness requires.

Setting to one side the arrogant assumption that Jim DeMint, and the Republican Party, are exclusive conduits to the Almighty (no-one comes to the Kingdom, but through the GOP?), DeMint’s theory seems to satisfy neither his theology, nor the strictures of common sense, nor align with the actual meaning of American exceptionalism. 

His theological hook is some neo-gnostic notion that a large government displaces God, by focusing the people on “Caesar,” rather than God. But when government forces the people to God, this is itself an exercise of Caesar’s will, and an accentuation of the “size” of government, both of which DeMint should view as inimical to true faith. Coerced religiosity is no religiosity at all; it’s a tenet of both Christianity and constitutionalism that government intrusion corrupts faith. Properly viewed, “social” conservatism is the enemy of, God, small governance, and any fair understanding of America’s unique place in the world. Theocracy creates the illusion of piety, but this ought not be enough for a religious man, as DeMint purports to be.

Politically, one wonders whether (and when) pronouncements like these will cause tea party groups to finally sour on the Republican Party. If tea party “patriots” actually cared for small government values — and to be clear, I don’t think they do — we would never have come to this pass. But as we get deeper into Republican “governance,” such as it is, we can expect the cognitive dissonance to become increasingly difficult to reconcile.

Trailing Indicators

Tuesday was a bad night for us. But it was also a bad night for Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint, whose strategy of running increasingly controversial and socially far-right candidates — with the exception of, say, Rand Paul — failed to pay dividends in key races.

Nevertheless, it’s alarming that some of those candidates did well at all. People like Sharron Angle should never come so close to having an influence on anything at all. But the same can be said for Jim DeMint’s bizarre opponent, Alvin Greene. Despite being indicted for a sex crime, Greene won 360,000 votes to DeMint’s 780,000. With third parties, Democrats in South Carolina scored 500,000 votes: not enough to make a meaningful difference, of course, but enough to demonstrate that a sizable portion of South Carolinians will vote for anyone but DeMint. With another candidate, and in another year, things could be very different indeed. And that is an encouraging thought.



“Rights for Terrorists”: the Republican Virtue of Universal Safeguards

Unfortunately, I’m running short on time, so this post will have to be the beginning of an idea, to be explored in more depth later. In brief, then:

This past Sunday, Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) squared off against Claire McCaskill (D-MO) over Obama’s response to the (thankfully foiled) Christmas Day airline bombing. DeMint appeared to repeat, as if by rote, the best of the last ten years’ of Republicans’ talking points, rather than actually engaging Senator McCaskill on the merits. Consequentially, McCaskill acquitted herself quite well.

Only one point bears further response: DeMint’s oft-repeated argument that terrorists do not deserve to be treated with any of the rights accorded American citizens.

This argument mistakes the place of rights in American society. We as citizens do consider our constitutional rights to be entitlements, holdovers from that sovereignty ceded  to the United States at the Constitution’s ratification. That’s partially correct, but it’s not the whole picture. While ancient notions of rights did limit them to citizens (Paul’s “civis Romanus sum” wouldn’t have worked were he not a citizen), American democratic theory adds a further gloss. Rights don’t exist simply because citizens deserve them, but because oppressive government is an evil, the restraint of which is its own virtue.

I don’t speak in the legal sense, but in the rhetorical. The Founder’s mortal fear of government transcended concerns for citizens alone: government power is a danger that, directed externally, still threatens those who reside within its protection, for a minor change in the target of government power is the only difference between military prowess and tyranny. It’s for that reason that the Founders, who knew how to contain rights to citizens alone (see U.S. Const., Art. IV, § 2, cl. 1), drew the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause to sweep within it any “person” (“No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”).

The Magna Carta had the seeds of this idea:

To no-one will we sell or deny of delay right or justice.

And although medieval England, a deeply hierarchical society, probably didn’t intend those words to be taken literally, we should probably strive to improve on feudal notions of law.

As a matter of practicality, we can’t afford non-U.S. citizens all the rights of citizenship. No-one argues that we should. But the Founders’ conception of rights, and the danger of government power, expressly disclaims a world in which a government is only a danger to its citizens when it acts directly upon them. I’ll develop this thought more later.

Putting National Security First?

Per Karl Rove:

At what point do we put political correctness behind own safety?

Maybe we should ask Jim DeMint (R-S.C.),

[T]here’s a reason that the Transportation Security Administration is without a permanent head, and that reason’s name is Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. DeMint has a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers, one he put on because he’s concerned that the administration will allow security screeners to use collective bargaining procedures.

Or his staff:

This is an important debate because many Americans don’t want someone running the TSA who stands ready to give union bosses the power to veto or delay future security measures at our airports.

Clearly, if anyone’s going to be delaying the implementation of safety measures, it should be congressional Republicans. Apparently, for fundamentalist conservatives, “unionizing” clocks in somewhere ahead of “terrorism” on the parade of horribles.

Jim DeMint Fundamentally Misunderstands Constitutionalism

Yesterday, we learned that Senator DeMint would force a “vote” on the constitutionality of one of the key provisions of the health care bill, the “individual mandate,” which would require most persons to buy or otherwise belong to a qualified health insurance plan. But, the legislature has neither the power nor the duty to exercise constitutional oversight. While legislators should  endeavor to pass only constitutional laws, interpreting the Constitution is the judiciary’s job, in cooperation with the executive (the Founders intended the President to act as a last, best defense against unconstitutional laws, through the power of the veto). A legislative declaration that a law is constitutional, or otherwise, is a legal nullity, making DeMint’s call to action a case of grandstanding and misplaced pathos at its finest.

Further, the constitutionality of the individual mandate isn’t really up for serious debate. As a matter of law, Congress has the power to regulate in this area, pursuant to even a post-Rehnquist reading of the Commerce Clause, and no legitimate due process interest is implicated by forcing citizens to participate in a public welfare scheme. And as a matter of policy, no Supreme Court has gone toe-to-toe with a President over sweeping regulatory reforms since the New Deal. If I recall, that ended poorly.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Branch Legislature to say what the law is.

– Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).

Apparently, this is how Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) reads the immortal words of Chief Justice Marshall.

Are You Smarter than a Sitting Senator? Jim DeMint Edition

Sen. DeMint (left): "Who among you is brave enough to joust this windmill with me?"

The American Senate takes its name, and an abstract notion of its duties, from the Roman Senate, the primary organ of government in the Roman Republic, which in turn derived its modus operandi from the Etruscan custom of seeking advice from a deliberative body of the oldest, wisest members of the community – the senes, if you will. While the American Senate carries on the tradition of constituting its Senate mostly of old men (the average age of Senators in the 111th Congress is 63), sometimes the “wisest” element is lacking… as, say, in the case of Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

We’ve previously seen Senator DeMint transmute conservative cowarice into “liberal censorship” – thanks, Jim – so you may be wondering, how he sink any lower? Easy. While the remainder of the Senate & people busy themselves with matters of import, Senator DeMint can choose to spend his time drafting legislation in opposition an imaginary, hitherto-unproposed Democratic agenda.

You see, earlier this week, DeMint and some of his illustrious colleagues submitted Senate Bill 34, the “Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2009,” which would block the FCC from re-instituting the “Fairness Doctrine” without congressional approval, despite a complete lack of evidence, from either President-Elect Obama or the Senate, that a new Fairness Doctrine is in the offing. While the Fairness Doctrine is a persistent element of right-wing mythology – oh no, they’re coming for Rush! – it is just that, a myth trotted out to induce conservatives to rally ’round Rush, not an actual threat. Politics, practicality, and the law all bar a resurgence of the Fairness Doctrine: DeMint might as well rebuke France for its imminent plan to invade Manhattan. This is the ultimate straw man, and a criminal waste of government resources.

But wait, there’s more! DeMint’s “Broadcaster Freedom Act” is worse than useless: it’s unconstitutional, at least according to the legal reasoning and logic employed by members of DeMint’s own party. Because the Act purports to legislatively limit the regulatory discretion the FCC, an executive agency, under the popular conservative understanding of the separation of powers and the “unitary executive,” the BFA would amount to an unconstitutional encroachment on executive authority. ((See U.S. Const, Art. II, § 3 (”[The President] shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Justices like Scalia read this as a positive grant of authority to the President, and therefore construe it as limiting the degree to which legislature can circumscribe the executive’s regulatory powers.))

I don’t expect DeMint to know that. I do, however, expect his legislative aides to know it, and we as citizens should certainly expect our representatives not to waste their time questing against imaginary villains. For those of you expecting Obama’s ascent to inspire a GOP renaissance, politicians like DeMint might make this a long eight years.