A Taff, A Roberts

We'll get to the Roberts nomination in a moment, but first... Adam Taff?

Let's not assume he's guilty -- in fact, this is America. Let's assume he's innocent.

But let's also assume that, as a political matter, he's probably finished, whatever comes of the court case. You'll remember Taff came from nowhere to win his first primary, beating a well-financed Jeff Colyer (and the 3rd's reliable conservative contingent.) That fight -- and the close loss to Kris Kobach -- left the usual, predictable hard feelings on both sides of the moderate-conservative divide in the 3rd's Republican ranks. Taff -- had he chosen to run again -- would always face a close encounter in his own party, let alone a race again Dennis Moore.

Now, of course, winning such a close encounter would seem almost impossible.

Reporters like Adam Taff. He's well-informed, interesting, and always willing to talk. (We did always wonder where he made his money.) Everyone who knows him has praised his integrity, at least publically. In the political world, though, the damage from a federal indictment is almost always fatal.

So good luck to Adam as a person. As a candidate, goodbye.


- - - -

It looks like the Dems have given up on opposing John Roberts' nomination. Oh, Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer are making a few noises, but by and large no one has found anything to stall the momentum that will build after public hearings start just after Labor Day.

It's a good idea for the Dems to lay off Roberts, on political and policy grounds.

One of my rare, early posts suggests why it's politically unwise to attack Roberts: since Republicans control Congress and the White House, it's a battle they'd almost certainly lose. (And deservedly so, politically: when you lose elections you don't get to govern.) Instead, I've suggested, Dems might better center their attention on the states, where 1) issues really matter, 2) the possibilities for gaining seats are better, and 3) where Washington is shipping all of its problems, anyway.

But there's another reason, on policy grounds, to let Roberts sail through.

There's a chance -- a small one -- that John Roberts is a actually a closet moderate. A major frontal attack, though, might make him bitter enough to push him into the Antonin Scalia camp. Exhibit A: Clarence Thomas. Let's remember Thomas's biggest supporter has always been John Danforth -- hardly a raving right-wing zealot. I think it's safe to assume that, at one time anyway, Danforth's political views and Thomas's were fairly congruent.

Then, the deluge.

Without judging the truth of the charges against Thomas, can anyone doubt that the experience would have left him extraordinarily furious with liberals and progressives? And that that fury might -- just might -- inform his decisions in the court?

Thus we proceed to John Roberts.

Look: Roberts may be very conservative. If so, nothing liberals say or do now will change that. There's a chance, though, that he might decide cases on the Sandra Day O'Connor model. Any attempt to blister him now might bury that chance forever.

Where did I go?

It's mid-August and the Political World blog, created with such enthusiasm, has been, uh, inactive for several weeks.

Sorry.

What I hoped would be a summer of reflection turned upside down very quickly. My mother suffered through her final illness and I had to help her with that.

My writing and thinking muscles have turned slightly stiff, so I'll come here in the next couple of weeks to loosen up again.

Tomorrow: why the Democrats should lay off John Roberts.

As you may know, I'm going to work for the Star in about three weeks, so there's a chance the Political World will migrate to another website. I'll keep you posted here.

More is less

I had planned to wrap up the Kansas legislature's $148 million get-out-of-town package, but with today's bombings in London another topic came quickly to mind: me, or us, I guess, the reporting fraternity.

I sat in today for Noel Heckerson on KMBZ radio (and unless the protest calls get too loud I'll do it again Friday.) It's been about 28 years since I've done drive-time radio news and I was quite struck by all the technical changes -- when I started, we would rip and read by, well, ripping and reading, wire machine copy mostly. Today it's all computerized, digitized, changeable at lightning speed. (Many thanks, by the way, to Scott Parks, Ellen Schenk, and the whole crew at KMBZ for leading me through the technical wilderness.)

With all of that, though, the basic business of reporting is still what it was when I started in the late 1970s: report the facts as quickly and accurately as possible, or, as we often reminded ourselves then, "get it right and get it first." Both jobs now take place at hyperspeed, of course, so perhaps things have changed, more than I might have guessed. The challenge to be first is more difficult than ever, and that can make the challenge to be right equally hard.

But speed isn't the only hurdle. When I began reporting, the three commercial networks, and their affiliates, offered newscasts, typically at 5:30, 6:00, and 10:00 each weekday night. Radio newsrooms (I ran one -- I was the only employee) offered hourly broadcasts. Your local newspaper landed on your doorstep each morning, and, if you were lucky, a different paper landed in the afternoon. The setup meant that most news consumers chose from among five, six, or at the most seven news sources any given day.

Well those days are gone.

In an Internet, cable-TV, multi-channel world, news consumers have hundreds of choices each day. CNN? PBS? Fox News? The New York Times? The Kansas City Star? KMBZ? KMBC? All of those sources are a click away, not to mention your favorite blog, linking to other blogs, linking to mainstream media, and then back again. Okay, I'm telling you something you already know. But consider what it's like on our side of the window: journalism is conducted not only at hyperspeed but with hypercompetition.

This should be a good thing, if you're a marketplace-of-ideas kind of guy or gal, as most reporters are. They're competitive, too, so don't expect too much whining about all the alternative news sources. What bothers some reporters is the result: viewers, readers, news consumers all seem less informed, not more.

How can that be?

In a morass of information, it turns out, many news consumers simply shut the computer/TV/newspaper/magazine off. It's simply easier to listen to one voice at a time than a thousand clamoring for your attention. We make it worse, of course, by clamoring for your attention at an EVEN HIGHER VOLUME LEVEL, forcing many folks to hate the cacaphony even more. And, because you have so many more choices, it's harder, not easier, to find the information you want or need -- it's no longer enough just to pick up the paper or watch a TV newscast at listen to drive-time radio.

The result? We have more information about the London bombing, more quickly, than ever before in human history. When the day's over, though, many Americans will know less about it than they might have 40 or 50 years ago, when one newscast, one radio broadcast ("this.... is London") and one newspaper would have focused on the story.

We get the news faster, from more sources, and, in truth, better than we ever have. But by making it easier to get, we've made it cheap: and, in the end, harder to truly see, and value.

How 'bout this?

Kansas lawmakers seem to be closing in on a school bill that will 1)make the state Supreme Court happy, and 2) put off the real decisions until next year.

In the political world, fistfights are always entertaining, so no one will be disappointed, exactly, that a two-week special session will yield only a temporary solution to the school funding problem. And no one really expected House and Senate members to cook up a permanent answer this summer, not when the three political parties (Democrats, Republicans, and conservative Republicans) couldn't agree on a dinner menu on most nights.

Still, someone needs to think about ways to change the dynamic among the interested parties. Left unchanged, the current Supreme Court ruling will require the Legislature to cough up more than half a billion dollars in new money in 2006. That is some serious cash. Tax increases won't get there. Major tax increases won't get you there. You'll have to add gambling, and you'll have to cut other parts of the budget, too. Kathleen Sebelius, facing re-election, won't like the alternatives, and legislators won't, either. In fact you won't like them much.

Conservatives (and even some moderates) believe the way to avoid all of this is to amend the state constitution and take the Court out of the school picture all together. That answer does appear, at first glance, to have a certain elegant simplicity: if you don't like the outcome, change the rules. But Democrats (and even some moderates) are never going to support such an amendment (which takes a two-thirds majority in each house before it gets to your ballot.) The Court's school ruling is the Democrats' only bargaining chip: take the courts out and the Legislature could simply zero out education next year -- the Court's hammer would be gone. There are so few Democrats in Topeka that the ones who are there are uncommonly smart, at least politically, and they refuse to give away their only chance to influence the 2006 game before it even begins.

At the same time, getting the courts out of school finance is an important goal, on policy and political grounds: schools don't want to run to the courts before setting budgets each year, and, besides, Republicans are right: having unelected judges decide tax and spending issues is anti-small-d-democratic.

How 'bout this?

Let's consider a constitutional amendment that would keep the courts out of school decisions -- but let's not stop there. Add language that sets a current, dollar definition of a "suitable" education (say, $4200 a student.) Then require the Legislature to spend at least that much, plus inflation, each year. (The Legislature could always spend more if they want.) If lawmakers refuse to pass that kind of budget, then the amendment would allow the courts back into the process. (And, as an added bonus, the Helling amendment would define the ability of local boards to enhance or increase funding. Let's get that issue off the table while we're at it.)

This modest plan, dare I say it, could bring all the factions together. Conservatives could say they've gotten the courts out of school spending decisions, while liberals could claim they've put school funding on an auto-pilot that, incidentally, would end one-half of the politicking in Topeka each winter.

In the political world that's a pretty good deal. Maybe this fall, instead of mumbling about the court, legislators could fashion something to end this arguing forever.

More ideas to come, in this space, in the coming days.

Here we go.....

Today's papers are crowded with dire warnings about the coming battle over the next Supreme Court nominee: all sides, says the New York Times, may toss $100 million into the propaganda battle.

Well, yeah, the stakes are pretty high. But for Democrats and other progressives -- who start the Supco war at a decided disadvantage -- does it really make sense to spend that kind of cash on the nomination fight?

No.

Let's assume for a moment that in the 2006 term, Justice Rightwing joins with other conservatives and overturns Roe v. Wade. As virtually everyone points out, that decision would throw abortion back onto the floors of state legislatures everywhere. Instead of one massive pro-choice/pro-life argument, you'd get fifty.

This is bad news if you're an abortion rights supporter in Middle America, where Republicans and conservatives are ascendant. But they're ascendant for a reason: Democrats here have ignored state capitols for years. While Republicans have organized -- primarily in the churches -- Democrats have ignored recruiting, network-building, fundraising, and all the other boring-but-important work of politics. Kansas Democrats can't even find an opponent for Sen. Sam Brownback! Missouri Democrats -- easily the dominant party for the last half of the 20th century -- are vanishing in the 21st. The party is in shambles.

Democrats and liberals have gotten away with this because the courts have served as a last-gasp backstop, and because the courts have assumed powers that legislatures used to use (more about that later in the week.) That's why the coming Supco war will be so expensive and brutal.

Relying on judges, though, is a nasty form of crack cocaine -- very addictive and ultimately harmful. After all, what judges give, judges can take away (Kansans: if the Supreme Court can tell the legislature it isn't spending enough for a "suitable" education, how long will it be before it says some districts are spending too much for a "suitable" school?)

Bad outcomes are bad enough, but in the political world the ultimate effect is even more troubling, if you're a Democrat: your party crumbles because you've placed all your bets on unelected judges and none on the statehouse.

What would happen if all the leftist interest groups abandoned their fight against the next nominee and used that energy to elect state legislators? Not only would the state-by-state abortion argument be closer, but Dem legislators would be around to fight out a long list of other issues: Medicaid cuts, school spending, and other social concerns. And, those legislators would grow into governors, senators, and congressmen and women, too.

Republicans learned this lesson, years ago (in part after losing decision after decision in the Warren Court) and built a political farm system that, among other things, turned Missouri into a Red state. Democrats, gearing up for the "nuclear option" over the Supco nominee, might be better advised to scare up a hand grenade or two first.


- - - - -

Okay, this is my first attempt in blogger-world. Regular visitors may remember a similar column when I worked for, ahem, a Kansas City television station. Real old-timers may remember my column for the New Times in Kansas City.

It'll take some time, but it's my plan to post here regularly for awhile, so I can keep my mind exercised while refocusing my work. And blogs are the future! Or, part of the future!

I'll loosen up eventually. For now, let's hear from you.......

Dave Helling