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walkitoutI had two lovely phone calls: one in the middle of the day with J., one in the evening with K.
I walked with M.
I did the 3 mile loop by myself.
I have been putting together a little wish list. It is based on the observation that incremental change has proven to have a lot of problems with it, notably that incremental changes made to appease people who would prefer to do a u-ey and go back to the horrifying past ... do not successfully appease them. And also do not actually get anything like the actual desired goal.
I probably will never get my wish list. And I will surely update it many times over the years and decades to come. But here is the current draft:
(1) Repeal the 1929 permanent apportionment act, and do real apportionment after the 2020 census, that reflects something a helluva lot closer to the ratio of population to representative that held up to the 1910 census.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/31/u-s-population-keeps-growing-but-house-of-representatives-is-same-size-as-in-taft-era/
There are a range of numbers that could be added to the House and justified by international examples, or historical examples of ratios. I’m fine with pretty much any of them, because they are all a LOT more than where we are now. The pressure to get rid of the Electoral College (which would require a constitutional change) would drop off considerably if we expanded the House of Representatives in this manner, as the disproportionate over-representation and power of small states because all states have 2 Senators would be considerably reduced. It would not be precisely equal to the popular vote, but it would be much, much closer. This does not require a constitutional amendment, just the repeal of a law, and then an Act to do the apportionment. It would be nice to also have another law that enacts rules for states to follow in drawing districts (or to do it for the states).
(2) Currently, there are 13 appellate courts in the United States, representing 12 regions, with 1 extra at-large for dealing with special stuff. Some of the regions are also specialist (like, all the federal security cases come up in NY and wind up in that region, type of thing. Some of the regions have a lot more population than others, and have a lot more work to do. We can just keep adding judges, but that creates its own problems. We should probably do something to add more regions and/or take some of the backlog of work away from the regions and move it to more regions like the 1 at-large that deals with special stuff. Also, we should make sure all of the courts have enough judges to catch up on their backlogs. And, we should have one Supreme Court Justice for each appellate court — that’s how it was originally set up. If we did not add more regions, but only more judges, that would mitigate some of the recent gaming-of-the-system in which judgeships were held open during Obama’s administration and then filled during this administration. The 1978 expansion of the 9th district under Carter could guide us here. Supreme Courts around the world do not typically engage in all of their work en banc; with 13 (or more, if we added regions) justices, our Supreme Court might finally give in and do that also. We might also consider adding back statutory requirements for which kinds of cases must be reviewed by the Supreme Court. We used to have that, but they were overwhelmed, and convinced the Congress to remove most of those requirements in 1988. I am not advocating to bring back precisely the statute that went away — just noting that _we can require_ the court to review certain categories of cases. Again, none of this requires a constitutional amendment, but rather Acts and Nominations and confirmation processes.
(3) Pass the ERA. Yes, that is a constitutional amendment. At this point, all of the things that the ERA was going to require us to do have basically been done. And yes, I still want to pass it.
https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2019/2/23/era-queer-and-were-here-it
(4) Create and pass a constitutional privacy amendment. Roe v. Wade is based on privacy, which in turn was developed from the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment. As a result, conservatives bent on undoing Roe v Wade have cultivated a theory of the law that is highly textual (“originalism”) and extremely rigid, as they are bent upon undoing the existence of any such right to privacy as a mechanism to make it possible once again to ban medical procedures which they disapprove of. There is a broad, deep commitment in the US to a right to privacy that is quite far reaching; a carefully worded privacy amendment would both defuse most of the motivation for originalism (altho I feel confident it will not immediately go away, because some people are Just That Way about sacred texts), provide extensive protection for women’s right to choose, and could be used as a flexible instrument for regulation of all sorts of egregiously and pointlessly intrusive modern technology.
(5) Adjust regulation of scheduled drugs. Obviously, legalize and regulate cannabis (duh), but a lot more needs to be done here. Prohibition is stupid, and interferes with users of these substances accessing normal dispute resolution services (law enforcement, the courts). Regulation offers the opportunity to raise revenue, reduce ancillary crime, and create a broad pathway to provide assistance to people who develop unwanted dependency.
(6) Make sure we still have an ecosystem / climate that is compatible with human life in our current and future generations. (<— This is the Big Scary One We Have To Do)
(7) Reform bankruptcy law to make the process of discharging student debt less onerous. [ETA: This could take a variety of forms; the minimum would be to define legislatively “undue hardship”.]
(8) Raise the minimum wage.
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-out-bankruptcy-can-wipe-out-student-loan-debt-after-all
“Undue hardship” was never defined. It should be defined, either at the 7 years from when it was due standard that seems to be evolving, or something even less onerous.
There will be more! I want to explain, tho, why the biggest one is there in the middle at number 6.
Redoing apportionment has to be done _first_ if it is to be useful during the next midterm.
Restructuring the Judicial System is necessary to restore confidence that there really is equal justice — that it can be accessed in a timely way, that it is consistently delivered across the United States, that judges are by and large competent people doing a competent job in a not-too-partisan way.
The ERA is necessary, because we are spending a horrifying amount of time still litigating whether or not civil rights can be abridged and justice denied on the basis of sex / gender. As long as we are still having to argue about that, we cannot focus on #6 with our whole heart.
The privacy amendment is necessary, because if women do not get to control their own bodies, nothing works well.
The scheduled drugs regulation must be reformed, because a great deal of crime, poverty and medical costs are associated with lack of access to rehab for people dependent on those drugs, quality problems with those drugs, and the alternative dispute resolution pathways used by people who are engaged in the business of those drugs. All of this makes it hard to pay attention to #6.
#6 is needed to deal with #6. Because, it is the same!
And finally, #7 and #8 would be helpful, because when people feel like their lives are ticking along nicely (debts under control, able to form relationships, grow a family, plan for retirement, etc.), they can engage with the political process. When they are terrified about some key aspect of their financial life, solving problems for the group seems less important, especially if it seems like the sort of thing that is big and scary and the solution is not easy.
There is a #0 that I am struggling to define. Black Lives Matter. There is so much that needs to be done: we need to be able to call for help in an emergency and not automatically have people who show up and kill the victim(s). Police forces need to be de-militarized, right-sized and they need to come from and be connected to the community they police. We need nationwide accountability to ensure that bad cops can’t just go get hired in some other police department. The white donor community needs to start and continue to include organizations run by and for people of color in their donations. We need to either get rid of voter registration or turn it into a tool for making it easier for people to vote instead of harder. There is so much more.
I walked with M.
I did the 3 mile loop by myself.
I have been putting together a little wish list. It is based on the observation that incremental change has proven to have a lot of problems with it, notably that incremental changes made to appease people who would prefer to do a u-ey and go back to the horrifying past ... do not successfully appease them. And also do not actually get anything like the actual desired goal.
I probably will never get my wish list. And I will surely update it many times over the years and decades to come. But here is the current draft:
(1) Repeal the 1929 permanent apportionment act, and do real apportionment after the 2020 census, that reflects something a helluva lot closer to the ratio of population to representative that held up to the 1910 census.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/31/u-s-population-keeps-growing-but-house-of-representatives-is-same-size-as-in-taft-era/
There are a range of numbers that could be added to the House and justified by international examples, or historical examples of ratios. I’m fine with pretty much any of them, because they are all a LOT more than where we are now. The pressure to get rid of the Electoral College (which would require a constitutional change) would drop off considerably if we expanded the House of Representatives in this manner, as the disproportionate over-representation and power of small states because all states have 2 Senators would be considerably reduced. It would not be precisely equal to the popular vote, but it would be much, much closer. This does not require a constitutional amendment, just the repeal of a law, and then an Act to do the apportionment. It would be nice to also have another law that enacts rules for states to follow in drawing districts (or to do it for the states).
(2) Currently, there are 13 appellate courts in the United States, representing 12 regions, with 1 extra at-large for dealing with special stuff. Some of the regions are also specialist (like, all the federal security cases come up in NY and wind up in that region, type of thing. Some of the regions have a lot more population than others, and have a lot more work to do. We can just keep adding judges, but that creates its own problems. We should probably do something to add more regions and/or take some of the backlog of work away from the regions and move it to more regions like the 1 at-large that deals with special stuff. Also, we should make sure all of the courts have enough judges to catch up on their backlogs. And, we should have one Supreme Court Justice for each appellate court — that’s how it was originally set up. If we did not add more regions, but only more judges, that would mitigate some of the recent gaming-of-the-system in which judgeships were held open during Obama’s administration and then filled during this administration. The 1978 expansion of the 9th district under Carter could guide us here. Supreme Courts around the world do not typically engage in all of their work en banc; with 13 (or more, if we added regions) justices, our Supreme Court might finally give in and do that also. We might also consider adding back statutory requirements for which kinds of cases must be reviewed by the Supreme Court. We used to have that, but they were overwhelmed, and convinced the Congress to remove most of those requirements in 1988. I am not advocating to bring back precisely the statute that went away — just noting that _we can require_ the court to review certain categories of cases. Again, none of this requires a constitutional amendment, but rather Acts and Nominations and confirmation processes.
(3) Pass the ERA. Yes, that is a constitutional amendment. At this point, all of the things that the ERA was going to require us to do have basically been done. And yes, I still want to pass it.
https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2019/2/23/era-queer-and-were-here-it
(4) Create and pass a constitutional privacy amendment. Roe v. Wade is based on privacy, which in turn was developed from the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment. As a result, conservatives bent on undoing Roe v Wade have cultivated a theory of the law that is highly textual (“originalism”) and extremely rigid, as they are bent upon undoing the existence of any such right to privacy as a mechanism to make it possible once again to ban medical procedures which they disapprove of. There is a broad, deep commitment in the US to a right to privacy that is quite far reaching; a carefully worded privacy amendment would both defuse most of the motivation for originalism (altho I feel confident it will not immediately go away, because some people are Just That Way about sacred texts), provide extensive protection for women’s right to choose, and could be used as a flexible instrument for regulation of all sorts of egregiously and pointlessly intrusive modern technology.
(5) Adjust regulation of scheduled drugs. Obviously, legalize and regulate cannabis (duh), but a lot more needs to be done here. Prohibition is stupid, and interferes with users of these substances accessing normal dispute resolution services (law enforcement, the courts). Regulation offers the opportunity to raise revenue, reduce ancillary crime, and create a broad pathway to provide assistance to people who develop unwanted dependency.
(6) Make sure we still have an ecosystem / climate that is compatible with human life in our current and future generations. (<— This is the Big Scary One We Have To Do)
(7) Reform bankruptcy law to make the process of discharging student debt less onerous. [ETA: This could take a variety of forms; the minimum would be to define legislatively “undue hardship”.]
(8) Raise the minimum wage.
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-out-bankruptcy-can-wipe-out-student-loan-debt-after-all
“Undue hardship” was never defined. It should be defined, either at the 7 years from when it was due standard that seems to be evolving, or something even less onerous.
There will be more! I want to explain, tho, why the biggest one is there in the middle at number 6.
Redoing apportionment has to be done _first_ if it is to be useful during the next midterm.
Restructuring the Judicial System is necessary to restore confidence that there really is equal justice — that it can be accessed in a timely way, that it is consistently delivered across the United States, that judges are by and large competent people doing a competent job in a not-too-partisan way.
The ERA is necessary, because we are spending a horrifying amount of time still litigating whether or not civil rights can be abridged and justice denied on the basis of sex / gender. As long as we are still having to argue about that, we cannot focus on #6 with our whole heart.
The privacy amendment is necessary, because if women do not get to control their own bodies, nothing works well.
The scheduled drugs regulation must be reformed, because a great deal of crime, poverty and medical costs are associated with lack of access to rehab for people dependent on those drugs, quality problems with those drugs, and the alternative dispute resolution pathways used by people who are engaged in the business of those drugs. All of this makes it hard to pay attention to #6.
#6 is needed to deal with #6. Because, it is the same!
And finally, #7 and #8 would be helpful, because when people feel like their lives are ticking along nicely (debts under control, able to form relationships, grow a family, plan for retirement, etc.), they can engage with the political process. When they are terrified about some key aspect of their financial life, solving problems for the group seems less important, especially if it seems like the sort of thing that is big and scary and the solution is not easy.
There is a #0 that I am struggling to define. Black Lives Matter. There is so much that needs to be done: we need to be able to call for help in an emergency and not automatically have people who show up and kill the victim(s). Police forces need to be de-militarized, right-sized and they need to come from and be connected to the community they police. We need nationwide accountability to ensure that bad cops can’t just go get hired in some other police department. The white donor community needs to start and continue to include organizations run by and for people of color in their donations. We need to either get rid of voter registration or turn it into a tool for making it easier for people to vote instead of harder. There is so much more.
Nuance matters
Date: 2020-10-28 01:33 pm (UTC)However, the immediate problem lies in BK law with a substantial amount of ambiguity in what constitutes “undue hardship”, which effectively means you have to be able to pay a lawyer to access those parts of the justice system that will let you use the undue hardship exemption — a lot of BK advice says you _cannot_ discharge student loan debt, which is ridiculous.
It should become clear relatively quickly after reform of the BK law (this could be as simple as legislation to clearly define “undue hardship” — say, failure to make any progress towards paying the original loan balance for 7 years after the loan becomes due) which other steps would be best to take, which might ultimately make the cost-shifting goal a whole lot more attainable.
This is the long way round to saying that generalizations about the impact of bankruptcy law reform upon the loan business, or assertions about the cost of education, are not helpful in identifying specific political actions to work towards next. Obviously, there will be opponents, and there will be people who should align with the goal but who choose not to because it is inadequately sweeping.