Also Friday, the The Rachel Maddow Show added the “Democrats did it, too” numbers, and a link to Livengood’s story, to its blog. And in an on-air update on Monday Maddow conceded that she:
should have made clear in our initial reporting, that both Democrats and Republicans in Michigan have passed lots of legislation by “immediate effect.” Republicans are not doing this more frequently than Democrats did when the legislature had Democratic control. Both sides have done this.
So the idea that widespread use of “immediate effect” is new is just not true. But that gets to the next part of Maddow’s scoop— House Republicans apparently ignoring requests for a roll call vote to determine if they had mustered the constitutionally required two-thirds majority. It seems clear that they were ignoring Democrats’ objections. But that raises another question: it’s rare that one party controls so large a bloc, so how was immediate effect used so often in the past? And in light of the GOP’s aggressively conservative agenda, why didn’t Democrats object before now?
I called Rick Pluta, managing editor and state Capitol bureau chief for the Michigan Public Radio Network. Pluta, who has covered the Statehouse for 25 years, added some important additional context, which the Maddow Show could have used last week.
“In the culture of the Michigan legislature—though this is more true in the Senate—there’s very much a sense that once you lost on the substance of the question, you won’t be dilatory to the majority,” Pluta said.
In other words, legislative minorities would routinely accede to “immediate effect” motions. What has changed, he added, “is a group of House Democrats has become so frustrated [with this common practice], they are going against the culture.”
Thanks to Michigan’s term limits, Pluta probably has deeper historical knowledge than anyone, including lawmakers. But two of the Democrats who are plaintiffs in the suit told me basically the same thing about practices in the legislature. The casual use of “immediate effect” is “standard,” said Rep. Richard Hammel, and “longstanding practice,” according to Rep. Steven Lindberg (who added that Maddow “essentially has her facts right, though the way she presents them is a little dramatic.”) Both men said they had not approached or been approached by the Maddow Show, though Democrats here have started citing her coverage in their fundraising emails.
(On the Republican side, meanwhile, Adler said he spoke with representatives of the Maddow Show a week before the original segment aired, and he shared with them the GOP appeal to the Democrats’ lawsuit and “everything I shared with our capital press corps here.” He spoke with them again before Maddow’s Monday follow-up.)
So what is new, in the end, is that one party, having lost out for the moment on every path to power in state government, is trying to use this constitutional provision to slow the majority’s agenda—and the majority is trying to proceed with business as usual, which means ignoring that provision.
And, actually, that’s a pretty important story about the breakdown of legislative norms, and about what happens when lawmakers try to enforce rules in the absence of those norms.
As much as Maddow overplayed her “scoop,” though, most of the media here in Michigan have underplayed it. The story hasn’t been ignored by any means—in addition to the Detroit News article mentioned above, here’s a Free Press article about the legal battle from April 5, before the first Maddow segment aired, and here’s a News piece about developments in the legal battle—but neither has it been covered in real depth, even after other national media started paying attention. Even the Lansing State Journal, located in the capital, has been using wire copy (in one case under a headline referring to a “House spat,” code for “only politics geeks could possibly care about this”).
One thing that also must be checked is how was the business of the Michigan House conducted under the democrats?
Did Michigan democrats introduce partisan and radical legislation which provoked Republicans to ask for roll calls to justify immediate effect and did those calls get ignored?
Because the on the national and state level republicans have
a) been routinely pushing radical legislation
b) been routinely using exceptional measures to achieve legislative goals
c) been routinely ignoring procedure in order to get what they want through.
Fallows has called examples of this nullification
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/a-process-that-is-running-out-of-control-the-new-nullification-crisis/249754/
And this kind of thing isn't new. It was present all through the time when the republicans controlled power in all three branches, using their power to push out legislative input from the minority and to demand that their initiatives be passed without obstruction. It is present now, for instance when their amendments on the healthcare bill were accepted without challenge and YET they still sought to filibuster and debate. They don't care about governing or negotiating, they care about winning.
Republicans on the state and national level have become very disenchanted with the democratic process since they've learned to exploit the aggression of social conservative voters and the money of libertarian conservative donors.
They don't need to appeal to majorities and therefore they don't act like participants in a majority determined process. This isn't democracy, this is warfare.
Why? Because modern conservatives are authoritarian.
"Authoritarian leaders do not govern when they control the apparatus of government; rather, they rule. And given their worldview, they rule from either the hard or radical right...
Authoritarianism is, by its nature, anti-democratic. One look at the House under Republican rule shows how authoritarian behavior has distorted the deliberative processes of this legislative chamber. Under GOP rule, leaders have represented the interest of the Republican Party, and have run the place as if the Democrats who represent over half the country did not exist. For good reason, voters took control away from the GOP in 2006, and as the Party's members have done nothing to change their ways, we must all hope that voters keep sending the same message until Republicans choose to hear it, and to reconstitute themselves into a party capable of actually governing."
Unless you see republican action through this prism, you will not understand why they do the things they do. They don't want to talk, they don't give a frig about consensus, they want to rule and shout.
#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 12 Apr 2012 at 08:05 PM
Under GOP rule, leaders have represented the interest of the Republican Party, and have run the place as if the Democrats who represent over half the country did not exist.
That would explain why Nancy Pelosi's first order of business on the first day of the 111th United States Congress was to overturn the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America which allowed minority parties to introduce amendments to any bill in the house and why the first thing Boehner did when he was swarn in as speaker was to reverse it.
Did Michigan democrats introduce partisan and radical legislation which provoked Republicans to ask for roll calls to justify immediate effect and did those calls get ignored?
Its like your boy Obama says: "elections have consequences".
#2 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 12 Apr 2012 at 08:43 PM
What does anti-democratic authoritarianism look like in practice? Let us review:
http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3079:goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult
"Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.
This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.
You can probably guess who those people are."
What? What was that about the New Black Panthers again?
"Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. Rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (Karl Rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition."
Is any of this confusing to you people? Do you not get it yet? You cannot have bipartisan or centrist government with people who do not care about being involved in a democracy.
In this environment, this is what bipartisanship looks like.
"Give the Republicans nearly all of what they want, and they will grace your Rose Garden signing ceremony. All you need do is cut the heart out of what Democrats believe in and what the country needs."
It is only by making republicans pay and suffer for these tactics that this environment will change.
Media, that is your job.
You can't keep doing political journalism as George Packer described it:
"But political journalism—unlike war reporting—long ago stopped being about what is true or important. Sometime in the nineteen-eighties, reporters began covering politics like sports and entertainment. How many times and ways can you say that the Republican Party has descended into unreality and extremism before you lose your viewers and readers? On the other hand, there’s an endless appetite for stories about Santorum’s effort to reach out beyond his evangelical base, or Gingrich playing the expectations game in Iowa. This stuff is political candy."
If there is no cost to being a totalitarian when one is in power and being a militant secessionist the second one is out, then there is no incentive to be a statesman.
If you are not calling out republicans on their decades long authoritarianism or you are doing the old "well republicans burned a house down yesterday, but in the 1970's the democrats lit up cigarettes" shtick, you are cowards. What republicans are doing all over the country is radical and has been radical since they started authorizing torture and mass surveillance. It is up to you to stop the authoritarianism because most democrats are too gutless (which
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 12 Apr 2012 at 09:11 PM
Oh, Hai Mikey!
"That would explain why Nancy Pelosi's first order of business on the first day of the 111th United States Congress was to overturn the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America which allowed minority parties to introduce amendments to any bill in the house and why the first thing Boehner did when he was swarn in as speaker was to reverse it."
Not quite, and the republicans know it - which is why they aren't setting those rules back:
http://www.congressmatters.com/storyonly/2011/1/4/2551/-Rules-changes-and-the-crying-game
You knew about that, right?
And the the republicans really REALLY have no reason to complain about their treatment in the minority:
http://www.alternet.org/story/49581/unhinged_republicans_can't_even_get_their_insults_straight/
"Its like your boy Obama says: "elections have consequences"."
a) My boy? What are you talking about?
b) "elections have consequences"? So it would have been awesome if the democrats mandated the Michigan state private sector to use union labor + serve tofu meals at lunch to immediate effect over the objections of the republican 5/12ths minority because "elections have consequences"? What are you talking about?
I hope it's tofu. Yum.
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 12 Apr 2012 at 09:50 PM
November is coming, and the Gravy Train is ending.
The liberals know it, and this why they're crapping bricks, a la Maddow.
Now we just have to pay for the liberal stupidity that has ruined our schools, filled our prisons, and that has created an ignorant and dependent underclass, and maybe, just maybe, after weaning the dependent masses, we can save the American dream from the commie nonsense.
#5 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 13 Apr 2012 at 12:27 AM
..."Now we just have to pay for the liberal stupidity that has ruined our schools"...
Like No Child Left Behind - started by Bush - you know, teaching to the test. Talk about dumbing down.
"...filled our prisons"... Yeah, the Calvinist ethos that says "punish, punish, those evil godless people who use drugs. No programs to lessen drug use, just punish (and reward corporations in the business. You're sooo obvious!
..."and that has created an ignorant and dependent underclass... You must mean Faux viewers, right???
..."after weaning the dependent masses"... Yeah the unemployed and the outsourced and the ones wrecked by the global meltdown caused by greedy bloodsuckers that you admire.
..."the American dream from the commie nonsense"...You must be at least ninety years old, senile and drooling. How else to explain your dementia. See your surgeon; the programming batteries you need are low in power.
#6 Posted by skeptic, CJR on Fri 13 Apr 2012 at 04:47 PM
Even though your cjr story made worthwhile and worthy points regarding local and national reporting vis a vis this issue I remain unconvinced that maddow "botched", "mishandled" or "overplayed" her hand, though it could have been smoother as she herself has admitted i.e. pointing out the use of this tactic on both sides of the aisle. However your call for her to have used on-the-ground, local reporting to provide context and depth to her story, while on its face worthy, doesn't seem to recognize a basic point: this was a 15 min segment (already pretty lengthy)within an hour long show. Such context and depth, while, yes, making the story fuller could very likely have made her broadcast longer, making I'm sure, O'Donnell a very unhappy camper. The bigger issue is why Michigan bloggers and reporters, with more space and less time constraints, didn't highlight this story before and at length. You describe it as "too endemic to be visible". OK. That just sounds to me like a euphemism for "asleep". However the most important point - one that your reporting does not address - and is the central point of all Ms. Maddow's in-total Michigan reporting, is that regardless of how many times Democrats used these exact tactics I have yet to see anywhere (if there is an example of such law on Dem side please point out) they used it to advance such ridiculously and breathtakingly anti-democratic, racist laws such as emergency manager and the upcoming voter id.
#7 Posted by John M, CJR on Sat 14 Apr 2012 at 06:37 PM
Rachel Maddow may be faulted for some errors. She is human. There is always another show in which to correct errors.
A better questions in the Big Picture always used is how many newspapers, television, radio,cable stations have a full time State Capitol reporter or a team?
State capitols are unique. Consider the fact that of all 50 state capitols only about ten percent in in the major city of the state, (Boston, Providence, Hartford, Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City). Since news budgets are cut back the reporting on the state legislatures if frequently slighted.
This is a point to ponder. Much of the leglislation passed was not covered. Hence many who are not involved in politics are shocked SHOCKED, to discover legislation they don't like.
#8 Posted by David Reno, CJR on Wed 18 Apr 2012 at 11:27 AM