Political Insiders Research Articles

Selecting the 'Right Sort': Patterns of Political Recruitment in British By-elections

Analyses of by-elections traditionally focus on explorations of electoral behaviour, rather than on patterns of political recruitment. However, whom the parties select is important, as the candidate essentially constitutes the temporary face of the party. Furthermore, each party adapts their selection rules during by-elections to facilitate a greater role for the centre in the process. Combining qualitative research with selection and election data, this article explores intra-party tensions regarding the candidate selection process by focusing on the success rates of three specific groups of candidates: political insiders, women and locals. Focusing on by-election political recruitment provides an opportunity to assess the various tensions that arise over candidate selection between central strategists and local party activists, during intense and high profile campaigns.

Capitol Losses: The Mediocre Performance of Congressional Stock Portfolios, 2004-2008

Given the well-documented effects of public policy on financial markets, one would expect political insiders to be capable of enriching themselves through savvy investing. Consistent with this, two prior studies of stock trades in Congress conclude that members of both the House and Senate easily out-perform the market, fueling the perception that corrupt insider is widespread in Congress. In this paper, we point out serious shortcomings in existing studies on congressional investing and carry out our own analysis using financial disclosure data from the 2004-2008 period. We fi nd no evidence of either informed trading or above-market portfolio returns for Congress as a whole or any subset of members. In fact, the average investor in Congress underperformed the market by 2-3% annually during this period, suggesting that a substantial majority of members would have financially benefited from replacing their stock holdings with passive index funds. Our research suggests that widespread political insider in Congress is more myth than reality.

Emergence of a New Political Movement

Zimbabwe's turbulent electoral history is seldom recounted by a political insider. The author, a former Minister in a Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government, and a Senatorial candidate for Simba Makoni in the contentious 2008 elections, charts the electoral volatility of Zimbabwe, probes the advent and subsequent split in the Movement for Democratic Change, and champions the alternative provided by Simba Makoni, also once a Minister under Mugabe, who deserted ZANU-PF.

Primary politics: how presidential candidates have shaped the modern nominating system

The 2008 presidential primaries produced more drama than many general election campaigns. John McCain overcame the near-implosion of his campaign to capture the Republican nomination by March, despite a strong challenge from quotable pastor-turned-governor Mike Huckabee. Hillary Clinton entered the Democratic race as the heavy favorite, only to fall to a first-term senator from Illinois in a battle that lasted into July. Democratic delegations from Florida and Michigan were unseated and reseated; superdelegates took to the airwaves; and millions of Americans heard of the robot rule for the first time. In Primary Politics , political insider Elaine Kamarck explains how the presidential nomination process became the often baffling system we have today. Her focus is the largely untold story of how presidential candidates since the early 1970s have sought to alter the rules in their favor and how their failures and successes have led to even more change. She describes how candidates have sought to manipulate the sequencing of primaries to their advantage and how Iowa and New Hampshire came to dominate the system. She analyzes the rules that are used to translate votes into delegates, paying special attention to the Democrats' twenty-year fight over proportional representation. Kamarck illustrates how candidates have used the resulting delegate counts to create momentum, and she discusses the significance of the modern nominating convention. Drawing on meticulous research, interviews with key figures in both parties, and years of experience, this book explores one of the most important questions in American politics --how we narrow the list of presidential candidates every four years.

Three Decades of Politics and Failed Policies at HUD

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has long been plagued by scandals, mismanagement, and policy failures. Most recently, HUD's subsidies and failed oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped to inflate the housing bubble, which ultimately burst and cascaded into a major financial crisis.Given this giant policy blunder, now is a good time to review the many failures in HUD leadership over the years. This study discusses how HUD officials operate within a highly politicized environment, which is heavily influenced by the groups that HUD subsidizes and regulates, including the housing industry, financial institutions, and community activists.At the same time, HUD leaders often put their personal goals ahead of those of the general public. Recent HUD secretaries have focused on gaining private benefits while doing favors for business interests and political insiders. These leadership failures are illustrated in this study by profiles of four recent HUD secretaries: Samuel Pierce in the 1980s, Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo in the 1990s, and Alphonso Jackson in the 2000s.These public officials touted seemingly noble goals while pursuing personal and political agendas that ended up harming taxpayers and the economy. Even if there were a need for federal housing programs, experience has shown that HUD could not implement such programs without mismanagement, cronyism, and other abuses.Federal housing policies illustrate broader realities of government intervention. When making decisions, policymakers usually have self-interested goals that conflict with the broader interests of taxpayers and the general public. Furthermore, their visions for improving society with federal programs usually backfire because of the distortions that those programs create in the economy.Housing was traditionally a private concern, and it should be made so again because government involvement has done great damage. Alas, policymakers have not learned this lesson even after the recent housing boom and bust. Since the housing and financial meltdowns, federal intervention in housing markets has substantially increased, thus paving the way for further troubles down the road for taxpayers and the economy.

Democracy and the Extended Republic: Reflections on the Fishkinian Project

Democracy and the Extended Republic:Reflections on the Fishkinian Project Sanford Levinson (bio) When holding a "town meeting" during a visit to Strasbourg early in his term of office, President Obama told a German student, "We spend so much time talking about democracy—and obviously we should be promoting democracy everywhere we can."1 One might, of course, write a full essay about the extent to which we should or, perhaps more to the point, can, promote democracy throughout the world, but that is not my concern in this essay. Instead, I take it as a given that most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, broadly support such a commitment, even if there might be differences of opinion over the limits suggested by the "we can" at the end. If "ought implies can," after all, then perceptions of practical possibility might well temper the enthusiasm for what I would label the international "democracy project" conducted by American presidents, with various degrees of enthusiasm, at least since Woodrow Wilson (and domestically by their predecessors going back most famously to Abraham Lincoln). The obvious issue presented by the "democracy project," whether foreign or domestic, is what counts as its achievement. If, as is patently the case, "democracy" is a model example of what political theorists have grown to call "essentially contested concepts," then different definitions may have considerably different ramifications, not only for actual effectuation but also for the normative evaluation of what is achieved. So consider President Obama's own elaboration of what he meant by "democracy": But democracy, a well-functioning society that promotes liberty and equality and fraternity, a well-functioning society does not just depend on going to the ballot box. It also means that you're not going to be shaken down by police because the police aren't getting properly paid. It also means that if you want to start a business, you don't have to pay a bribe. I mean, there are a whole host of other factors that people need to—need to recognize in building a civil society that allows a country to be successful. ...2 A number of things might be said. One is that Obama rejects a "procedural" version of democracy in favor of a stunningly substantive one, where the values of "liberty, equality, and fraternity"—one wonders what the domestic reaction in the United States would have been had he said these words in their original French!—seem to dominate the undoubted good of being able to go to the "ballot box." This, too, could be the subject of an independent essay, for it is difficult indeed to disagree with the President's comment and its reminder that a "well-functioning society," which we might describe as "democratic" requires an honest police force and civil service, in addition to the ability to participate in elections. That being said, it is also worth noting some important additional limitations of focusing on "going to the ballot box" as an index of "democracy," even if one has the boon of living in a corruption-free society that respects a wide variety of important rights. And here is where the work of James Fishkin takes center stage. One of the major contributions of Fishkin's new book, When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation, is to underscore the extent to which a robust conception of popular government cannot stop with "going to the ballot box" (and, presumably, having one's votes counted honestly). That may be a necessary condition of democracy, but in no sense should it be viewed as even close to a sufficient condition even in a regime that features an honest constabulary and civil service. Rather, as he eloquently writes, a model of "Competitive Democracy," which focuses almost exclusively on the occurrence of elections by which oppositional political parties can mount plausible challenges to the maintenance of power by current political insiders, "keeps the mechanism of democracy without its soul."3 It is unacceptable to limit "the decision-making capacity that is supposed to animate the democratic process" to "whatever competitive efforts, exercised in whatever way happens to win in a mostly unrestricted adversary process" or, even more so...

Isaiah and His Young Disciples: Justice Brandeis and His Law Clerks

Isaiah and His Young Disciples: Justice Brandeis and His Law Clerks TODD C. PEPPERS* Introduction It cannot be said that Louis Dembitz Brandeis has suffered from a lack of scholarly attention. Brandeis is considered to be one of the most influential Justices in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, and scores of books and law-review articles have been written about Brandeis the lawyer, the political insider, the Zionist, and the Justice. A case can be made, however, that history has not fully recognized the important and lasting contribution that Brandeis made to the development ofthe institutional rules and norms surrounding the Supreme Court law clerk, an oversight that this essay seeks to rectify. Brandeis was not the first Supreme Court Justice to hire law clerks. Upon his elevation to the Supreme Court in 1882, Justice Horace Gray started the practice of hiring recent Har­ vard Law School graduates to serve as his legal assistants.1 Justice Gray instituted the tradi­ tion of hiring law clerks while serving as the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts supreme judicial court, and one of the young Harvard Law School men Gray hiredwas Brandeis him­ self. Norwas Brandeis responsible for much of the early mythology surrounding the relation­ ship between Justice and law clerk. It was the “Magnificent Yankee,” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who summoned a generation of Harvard Law School graduates to serve as pri­ vate secretaries, social companions, surrogate sons, and caretakers to “God’s grandfather.”2 It would be Brandeis’ clerkship model, however, that led to the professionalization ofthe clerk­ ship institution. From the hiring of his first law clerk, Brandeis demanded that each law clerk have a strong work ethic, possess supe­ rior legal writing and research skills, and abide by the fiduciary relationship between Justice and law clerk. While future Justices have dif­ fered from Brandeis in the type of substan­ tive job duties assigned to their law clerks, the 76 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY expectations about the duties ofconfidentiality and loyalty as well as the skills to be possessed by law clerks remain unchanged. This essay will explore the Brandeis clerkship model, ar­ guing that Brandeis’ rules for and expecta­ tions ofhis law clerks not only were unique for their time, but also forever shaped the clerk­ ship models adopted by future generations of Justices. Before turning to Justice Brandeis, a brief aside about one of the primary sources used in this essay. In the early 1980s, author and attorney Lewis J. Paper had the rare oppor­ tunity to interview twelve surviving Brandeis law clerks as he prepared to write his book on the late Justice? His interview notes offer a fascinating peek into the world ofthe Brandeis clerkship and contain many details and tidbits never before discussed in any book or arti­ cle. Mr. Paper donated his interview notes to the Special Collections Department at Harvard Law School, and he has graciously allowed me to quote from them in this article. The Selection of Justice Brandeis’ Law Clerks The selection of law clerks by the Justices on the White, Taft, and Hughes courts var­ ied dramatically from the selection practices of the modern Court. While today’s Justices pore through hundreds of applications, often assisted by a screening committee, in the early years of the clerkship institution law students at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia found them­ selves tapped by faculty members to work at the Supreme Court for such Justices as Holmes, William Howard Taft, and Harlan Fiske Stone. Upon arriving at the Supreme Court, Brandeis began following Holmes’ practice ofhaving Harvard Law School profes­ sor Felix Frankfurter select his clerks. In a De­ cember 1,1916, letter to Frankfurter, Brandeis wrote that Frankfurter’s selection of Calvert Magruder as his first law clerk strengthened the Justice’s confidence in Frankfurter,4 and two years later Brandeis stated that Frankfurter now had unlimited discretion to select his clerks—while adding that “[w]ealth, ances­ try, and marriage, of course, create presump­ tions; but they may be overcome.”5 Brandeis later supplemented his list ofnon-binding hir­ ing preferences, telling Frankfurter that “other things being equal, it is always preferable to take some one...

Political Insiders Say Health Reform Likely in 2009

Political Insiders Say Health Reform Likely in 2009

Political Insiders Think Health Reform Is Likely in 2009

Political Insiders Think Health Reform Is Likely in 2009

Political Insiders Say Reform Is Likely in 2009

Political Insiders Say Reform Is Likely in 2009

Dean Acheson and the Making of "the West"

Robert Beisner's book is a monumental, deeply researched biography of Dean Acheson, focused on his years as secretary of state. It is in all respects a first-rate political study. A bishop's son and a literary stylist who published essays somewhat in the manner of Lamb and Hazlitt, Acheson was also, somewhat improbably, a sharply distinctive Washington lawyer and political insider. Indeed, this sartorial dandy sometimes seems in the mind's eye to have sprung from a New Yorker cartoon rather than his actual milieu of rough politicos in the spittoon and panama hat culture of Harry Truman's Washington. Yet in reality he was a dominating figure. President John F. Kennedy, consulting him later, commented on his “intimidating seniority” (p. 330). Acheson on another occasion told Lyndon Johnson, who was complaining about fickle public support, “Mr. President, its simple. You're not a very lovable person” (p. 633). This was a man who spoke truth to power, in season and out.

Vertical Integration, Institutional Determinants and Impact: Evidence from China

Where legal systems and market forces enforce contracts inadequately, vertical integration can circumvent these transaction difficulties. But, such environments often also feature highly interventionist government, and even corruption. Vertical integration might then enhance returns to political rent-seeking aimed at securing and extending market power. Thus, where political rent seeking is minimal, vertical integration should add to firm value and economy performance; but where political rent seeking is substantial, firm value might rise as economy performance decays. China offers a suitable background for empirical examination of these issues because her legal and market institutions are generally weak, but nonetheless exhibit substantial province-level variation. Vertical integration is more common where legal institutions are weaker and where regional governments are of lower quality or more interventionist. In such provinces, firms led by insiders with political connections are more likely to be vertically integrated. Vertical integration is negatively associated with firm value if the top corporate insider is politically connected, but weakly positively associated with public share valuations if the politically connected firm is independently audited. Finally, provinces whose vertical integrated firms tend to have politically unconnected CEOs exhibit elevated per capita GDP growth, while provinces whose vertically integrated firms tend to have political insiders as CEOs exhibit depressed per capita GDP growth.

Insurgency Campaigns and the Quest for Popular Democracy: Theodore Roosevelt, Eugene McCarthy, and Party Monopolies

American politics has featured numerous intra-party and third-party insurgency campaigns. Scholarship on minor party, independent, and dissident campaigns has focused on how they have influenced electoral and policy outcomes. In particular, the existing literature highlights the capacity of these campaigns to play spoilers in presidential voting or to place new issues on the public agenda, but says little about their efforts to transform the political process. Revisiting forgotten elements of V.O. Key's work, we highlight the fundamental procedural ambitions of many intra-party and third-party insurgencies, campaigns driven as much (if not more in some cases) by visions of stronger popular democracy in national electoral politics as by final vote counts or specific policy innovations. Two significant dissident campaigns receive special emphasis: the insurgencies of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Like many other major electoral insurgencies, both cases exemplify the centrality of procedural reform aspirations for these campaigns and, on occasion, their capacity to leave an indelible mark on the rules of electoral and partisan politics. Ultimately, their procedural triumphs compelled political leaders and other insiders to adapt but they did little to advance popular democracy or better serve the interests of ordinary citizens.

Democratising Capitalism? The Political Economy of Post-Communist Transformations in Romania, 1989-2001 by Liliana Pop (review)

382 SEER, 85, 2, 2007 one might expect, Poland's newest entrepreneurs tend to be people with strongpersonalmotivation or some historyof family initiativeand prosperity. They also tend to support capitalism,privatization,democracy and Poland's entryto the EuropeanUnion. Some entrepreneurshave yet to grow out of the practices that were necessary for survivalduring Communist times, namely, informalityof contracts and corruption, but ethical standardsare rising, in part as a result of the work of the professionalbodies that have developed since I989. The authors make substantialuse of factor analysis and regression, and relatetheir findingsto wider sociologicaldebates. To this extent, Open for Businessprobably makes a contribution to the sociology of the post-Communist transformationof Centraland EasternEurope. However, the readeris offered little information about the scale, nature and structure of the enterprises whose founders were interviewed, or about the extent to which they are typical of Poland's entrepreneurialclass as a whole. Chapter six's regional analysis of factors likely to affect the emergence of entrepreneurshipis too limited to add significantlyto our understandingof the topic;and only a small proportionof the informationcollected in the interviewsappearsto have been presented.To this extent, the book will be of much less interestto economists and political scientists,let alone politicians and journalists, for all of whom relevance is claimed in the Preface, than it might otherwisehave been. Arbroath ANDREwH. DAwsON Pop, Liliana. Democratising Capitalism? ThePoliticalEconomy of Post-Communist Transformations in Romania, I989-200I. Europein Change.Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2oo6. Xii +208 pp. Notes. Glossaryand biographies.Appendices. Bibliography.Index. ?55.?0. THIS is a timely work of revisionism. Liliana Pop challenges the view that post-I989 Romania witnessed state capture by former Communist officials allied to elements in the formerintelligenceservices.Her book, demonstrably based on a PhD thesis,showshow a new systemof open politicsand competitive economics emerged after I989. She characterizesthe events of 1989 as a genuine popular revolt and wastes no time with explanations purportingto show that well-placed elements in the Communist system used them as a springboardto remain dominant forces in the pluralistcontext. She insistson the Communist regime's 'considerablecontribution to the modernisation of the country' (p. I7). The successorregime under Ion Iliescu was an independent actor 'concerned to protect the interest of consumers' (p. 79) despite events like the unmentioned Caritas pyramid banking scandal. Iliescu's's National Salvation Front was very much a victim of the successiverampages by coal-minersin I990 and I99I which led to a period of renewed isolationfor the country.The slow pace of reformwas due not so much to decisionstaken by Iliescu and his circle but to 'structuralconstraints'and especially to the role of transnationalagencies with free-marketagendas. Nicolae Vtacaroiu, Iliescu'sprime ministerfrom I992 to I996 at last receivessome vindicationfor REVIEWS 383 his policy of 'economic gradualism' which is compared favourably to the IMF-inspired'shocktherapyof I997' that appearsto have blighted the record of the only government opposed to Iliescu in office before 2004. Insteadof overlookingthe distributionof stateassetson an informalbasisto political insiders,Dr Pop should have graspedthe nettle and argued that this form of crude redistributionof public goods encouraged the growth of a new authentic capitalist class. She reminded us that no serious commitment to reform was likely from bureaucratsunless 'they can maintain and enhance their life chances' (p. 2I). This was true for the 'undergroundelite', her pithy termfor the secretpolice, and it is perhapsa blessingthat a professionalgroup that had attracted some of the brightest graduates in the I970S and ig8os moved into capitalism with such alacrity in the early I99os. There were spectacular banking failures which caused the state losses of $4.i billion in missingcreditsbetween 1992 and 2004, but Dr Pop points out that corruption was a feature of transitionsin all of the former satellite states. She is instead criticalof the privatizationrecord of the centre-rightgovernmentsof the late I99Os. Radu Sarbu, head of the state privatizationagency of the time is the only person in the book whom she describesas 'currentlyunder investigation' for dealings during his period in office (p. I55). It is perhaps time for Iliescu's post-Communiststo be seen in a balanced light. Ion Iliescu 'was an advocate for moderationin politicalcompetition, supportedthe rulesof democracyand sought to act as a facilitatorfor inter-partycooperation during...

Guide to political campaigns in America

Campaigns are a critical part of the political process in the United States, but until now, reference sources on campaigns have only covered selected parts of the process or have been written for political insiders. Guide to Political Campaigns in America is the first resource to examine and explain every aspect of campaigns in a manner that satisfies the needs of many different audiences. This unique and comprehensive volume explores history, issues, processes and people, and types of campaigns. Editor Paul Herrnson, a well-respected government and politics scholar who has worked on many campaigns himself, brings to the work a dynamic combination of high-level scholarship and hands-on experience that sets this guide apart from all other campaign resources. Readers will find information on every aspect of political campaigning in America, including: The evolution of political campaigns; The political and regulatory environment of campaigning, including suffrage and ballot access; The importance of the voters and what influences the vote; The key players in the campaign organization, including the candidate and various managers; Other players who interact with the campaign, including the media and political parties; Key strategies and tactics, such as polling and campaign financing; Specific types of campaigns, including the well known, such as the presidency, House, Senate, governorship, and key state and local races; as well campaigns for the judiciary and for initiatives and referenda; and, Campaign and election reform. The expansive coverage and distinctive approach of this resource will appeal to a wide variety of library patrons, including students, professors, teachers of AP high school courses, and professionals in the media and campaigning fields.

A symposion of praise: Horace returns to lyric in Odes IV

Horace's later lyric poetry, Odes IV, which focuses on praising Augustus, the imperial family, and other political insiders, has often been treated more as propaganda than art. But, the author, here, examines the richly textured ambiguities of Odes IV.

Is Economic Exclusion a Legitimate State Interest? Four Recent Cases Test the Boundaries

For most people, economic opportunity defines American Dream. Yet many legal barriers interfere with the right to earn a living. Although these regulations are promulgated in the name of public safety and welfare, they often protect, not the public, but the private interest of established firms seeking to prevent competition from entrepreneurs. Occupational licensing laws, for example, sometimes accomplish no public safety objective, but merely prevent competition within a trade. Under the basis test, courts have on rare occasions, struck down such laws. For example, in Schware v. Bd. of Examiners, the Supreme Court held that under the Due Process Clause, occupational licensing requirements must have some rational connection with the applicant's fitness or capacity to practice the profession. This is consistent with the Court's repeated holding that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses require laws to have some public justification, rather than being based on mere animus, or the desire to benefit a particular constituency. In four recent cases, federal courts have been confronted with the issue of whether regulations designed for no other purpose than to protect political insiders from fair economic competition meet the standards of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Powers v. Harris, the Tenth Circuit upheld an occupational licensing requirement even while acknowledging that it was solely intended to protect established companies against competition, on the grounds that intrastate economic protectionism constitutes a legitimate state Shortly afterwards, in Sagana v. Tenorio, the Ninth Circuit upheld explicitly discriminatory labor laws on the grounds that protecting some laborers against competition from others is a legitimate state interest. Two recent trial court decisions explore these themes further by evaluating the constitutionality of occupational licensing laws that lack any serious public-regarding justification. In this article, I use these four cases to explain why mere economic protectionism is not a legitimate state interest, and why courts must revive the Constitution's limits on government's ability to grant pure political favors to economic interest groups.

Balancing on the political high wire: The role of humor in the rhetoric of Ann Richards

An examination of rhetoric from the political career of former Texas Governor Ann Richards reveals important roles that humor can play in women's political strategies. Richards used humor to successfully negotiate conflicting and constraining roles, including national political party outsider versus Texas insider and woman versus politician. Richards also used humor as a tactic for negotiating and reorganizing superiority and subordination of gender expectations in public life. Considering the case of Ann Richards, this article examines the constraints and opportunities regional sociopolitical and cultural factors have on women's political rhetoric.

The New South Wales Election of 22 March 2003

Well before polling day, public commentators and political insiders thought the outcome of the March 2003 NSW election was clear: Labor would win. Seventy per cent of the polled public agreed, according to the Newspoll of 7–10 March (Newspoll 2003), as did those putting their money where their mouths were: Centrebet offered odds of 10:1 against for the Coalition $10.00 and 50:1 on for Labor (Daily Telegraph 13 March 2003). Even Prime Minister Howard, lending his support to NSW Liberal Leader John Brogden, did not predict a Liberal win (Australian Financial Review 12 March 2003). The main question of interest in the election was whether the Coalition would win enough seats to pose a threat to Labor in 2007. Secondary interest lay in whether the Greens would add to their recent series of strong election results. The election campaign was overshadowed by the war in Iraq. The outcome was decided far more by the politics of the preceding four years than by the short official campaign. Consequently, this commentary focuses on understanding the election in the context of NSW politics from 1999.

Making Things Better

An engineer and political insider exhorts his fellow engineers to get off the sidelines and into the fray. A typical day in the life of a state senator in Texas is described to illustrate the many demands made on politicians and to underline their need for advice on technical issues. The many contributions that engineers can make to the political process are described, but the author sees no substitute for direct involvement.