Puerto Rico might become a state without wanting to Puerto Rico has been a self-governing commonwealth of the United States since 1952, a status that has survived many reform efforts. But there is a bill in Congress that presents a novel issue. The Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2009 would initiate a series of convoluted … Read more
Why the Citizens United case is a blow to democracy The outcome of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission has rocked the political world by reframing the controversy over corporate influence in political campaigns. In the 5-4 ruling, a majority of the Supreme Court struck down provisions of the McCain–Feingold Act that forbade corporations and … Read more
How the filibuster evolved and why it’s here to stay “In the older and better times of the Senate, it was supposed that the representatives of sovereign states … would restrain themselves from the excessive use of irrelevant talking.” Speaking over 150 years ago, Senator Willie Mangum of North Carolina deplored what he saw as … Read more
James McAuley asks today in the Harvard Crimson: “What is it with Harvard students and pretending to be poor?” James is a polite guy, so he doesn’t name names. He cites “the more well-moneyed of our peers,” he cites “many affluent students,” he cites “wealthy individuals” and “wealthy peers” and “wealthy Harvard undergraduates.” And he … Read more
Why the politics of immigration must be reconciled with reality Immigration always seems to be a hot-button topic, but despite President Bush’s second-term attempts at comprehensive reform and President Obama’s campaign promises to address the issue, the past two decades have seen little meaningful immigration legislation. While it is convenient to point to the economic … Read more
Last summer I worked for five weeks as a member of an Appalachian Trail crew, living in tents in Northern Maine while performing maintenance on the trail. Apparently I gave them my mailing address, because yesterday I received “The MAINEtainer,” an eight-page newspaper from the Maine Appalachian Trail Club (MATC). One headline stood out: “MATC … Read more
I hope everyone understands that when the Wall Street Journal calls Obama’s “up or down” vote on health care reform an “abuse of power,” they’re lying through their teeth. To be clear: the bill on the floor has already passed a supermajority in the senate and a majority in the house and more — it’s gone … Read more
Can you blog Tweets? I don’t know, but let’s give this a try. For those of you who couldn’t spend an hour and a half at the Halperin/Heilemann forum last night, here’s a minute-and-a-half tweet rundown…. Waiting for Halperin/Heilemann forum to start. Definitely not packed. Maybe people are over the 2008 gossip? What about midterm … Read more
Starting at 6pm or roughly thereabouts, I’ll be live-tweeting the IOP Forum with “Game Change” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Hopefully they’ve got some juicy gossip that didn’t make it into the book! Check it out at twitter.com/harvardpolitics!
Yesterday, President Drew Faust sent out another one of her overly lengthy and strangely timed emails to the Harvard community, this one ironically entitled, “Diversity and Excellence at Harvard”. She sums up the sad history of faculty diversity at Harvard in 900 words, presenting the following dismal statistics: Approximately 17 percent of Harvard’s ladder faculty … Read more