Taxation without Representation, Year 210

The District of Columbia's 600,000 residents came very close this spring to achieving full voting representation in the House of Representatives for the first time in history.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan bill was hijacked by the National Rifle Association, which saw it as an opportunity to strip DC's prerogative to regulate firearms. When the gun-rights provision got tacked onto the voting-representation bill, DC officials split over what to do, and the advocacy coalition splintered. The bill was withdrawn.

The Washington City Paper did a good story on the legislative shenanigans.

The bill had hinged on a deal, worked out by then-Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), that would have temporarily added a (presumably Republican) Congressional seat to Utah's delegation to balance the (assuredly Democratic) DC seat. That deal was only operative through the 2010 Census and subsequent redistricting, which would have returned the House to 435 members in 2012.

DC Vote, a scrappy little nonprofit that has run some of the most creative advocacy campaigns I've seen on any issue anywhere, is now at a crossroads. The House deal is off the table, and the next Congress is likely to be less friendly, not more, to a clean (gun free) bill. DC Vote's visionary leaders and devoted members are as frustrated as they've ever been.

Expect to see some good political theater emanating from 20th & P Sts. The persistence of taxation without representation in the nation's capital never ceases to mystify me.

The Community Service Movement Has Arrived

Numerous scholars, including Russell Dalton and Cliff Zukin et al., have argued that the Millennial generation, born after 1976, is exceptionally service-oriented (though perhaps not especially politically minded). The New York Times offers anecdotal evidence: Teach for America, which places college grads into under-served schools, is vying with elite graduate schools for top talent.

Teach for America, which arose out of Princeton student Wendy Kopp's senior thesis in the late 1980s, has become a core component of the national AmeriCorps service program. At several universities, including my home institution, AmeriCorps was the top hiring institution this year.

The Times notes that "Teach for America has become an elite brand that will help build a résumé," suggesting that the community-service movement, which began in the late 1980s, has truly arrived.

The Supreme Court on Guns, Part 2

Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court has found that the 2nd Amendment protects the right to own a handgun for self-defense in the home. The ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago extended nationwide the logic of the Court's decision two years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Although most of the majority decision and the dissents focused on Constitutional rights (namely, the doctrine of "incorporation" via the 14th Amendment), Justice John Paul Stevens raised interesting questions about guns and participatory democracy. Citing Harvard legal scholar Cass Sunstein, Justice Stevens noted that gun owners are not at a disadvantage in the democratic process, and citing my book, Disarmed, he argued that if anything their policy preferences receive excessive deference from lawmakers. The relevant section is on pp. 49-50.

As I have noted below, policies structure politics. With handgun bans off the table, it will be interesting to see how gun control and gun rights forces mobilize in the new political order.

Photo courtesy of the Supreme Court.

DukeEngage in DC

As part of the university's mission to put "knowledge in the service of society," Duke in 2007 created a summer program, DukeEngage, which puts undergraduates in service postings around the world, from South Africa to China, Haiti to Vietnam.

This summer DukeEngage inaugurated its Washington, DC, program. The students are working with Rock the Vote to register people, especially young people, in time for the next election. (I am leading the students' weekly seminar, with guest speakers and discussions of scholarly work relating to the history of voting rights.)

The students are blogging about their work here and here.

Nonprofit Regulation and Democratic Inequality, Part 2

Update 2: Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pulled the bill after a rebellion among Democrats over the NRA exemption. Politico reports that the Congressional Black Caucus felt the provision would disadvantage the NAACP and other progressive groups.

Update: The Huffington Post is reporting that the exemption has been expanded to include groups that have at least 500,000 members. It will be interesting to learn how (or whether) the legislation defines "member." Nonprofits, especially those whose members are nothing more than contributors, count membership in all sorts of ways. Even if the more relaxed 500,000-member standard goes into effect, it won't help gun control groups, which could only hope to have that many donors.

Political scientists have long recognized that interest groups are not egalitarian. Some are systematically advantaged, particularly those that represent well-heeled constituents and those, such as hobbyist organizations, that can offer tangible social benefits and material inducements to lure members.

The classic example of this inequity involves the 4-million-member National Rifle Association (NRA), on the one hand, and the comparatively weak gun control movement, on the other. In my book, Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America, I estimated that, in the campaign's modern heyday, membership in state and national gun-control groups probably totaled no more than 7% of the NRA's membership.

Now comes word that the House of Representatives, seeking to restore campaign finance regulations that were overturned by the Supreme Court in January, has struck a deal with the NRA to make that inequity even more pronounced.

Politico reports that House members have carved out an exemption to a proposed law that would "require special-interest groups to disclose their top donors if they choose to run TV ads or send out mass mailings in the final months of an election."

However, according to the article, that provision would not apply to groups that "have more than 1 million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states and raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations."

Reports Politico: "Democrats say the new language would apply to only the NRA, since no other organization would qualify under these specific provisions."

Fred Wertheimer, president of the Democracy 21 campaign-reform group, told the Washington Post that the compromise constituted "a very narrow exemption" that would not apply to most advocacy groups.

Understandably, advocacy groups don't want to disclose their donors. Requiring them for the first time to do so, in exchange for the right to state their views on candidates, will no doubt constitute a chilling effect on their political voice.

The proposal, if enacted, would be yet another example of how obscure regulations affecting nongovernmental organizations perpetuate democratic inequalities.

Thoughts on Guns, Cultural Identity, and Political Mobilization

In this piece in the Newark Star-Ledger, I argue that it's time for a good old-fashioning reckoning about the place of firearms in our society.

Gun rights forces have spent nearly four decades crafting a compelling, values-based narrative in which gun owners are all that's standing between us and tyranny. The "pistol packing patriot" ideal is central to many gun owners' civic identity and an incredibly effective mobilizing tool. By contrast, the gun-control side has only fitfully waded into the terrain of political culture and national values.

Ironically, by finding last June that D.C. residents have a Constitutional right to own a handgun for self-protection -- a ruling the Court is poised to extend nationwide this month -- the Supreme Court has opened the way to the values debate.

With openly armed protesters now assembling in legislators' offices, at the base of airport runways, even in Starbucks and Whole Foods, it's about time to have a reasonable debate about the place of guns in our democracy.

The gun rights narrative is succinctly captured in National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre's speech to the group's annual meeting last month.

In a compelling deconstruction of the gun rights narrative, gun control advocates Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson, of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, have published Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea (University of Michigan Press, 2009).

For an excellent piece rebutting common misconceptions about gun regulation, see my colleague Philip Cook's op-ed, with Jens Ludwig, in this week's Washington Post Outlook section.

Is it Pro-Democratic to Urge Non-Participation?

Arlington, Virginia, is a progressive county of about 210,000 across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. Its policies are set by a County Board consisting of five at-large members serving four-year, unlimited terms. For as long as anyone can remember, the Board has consisted entirely of Democrats; in a county that voted 72% for Barack Obama, that is not expected to change. Arlington's day-to-day operations are run by a nonpartisan County Manager.

Generally speaking, Arlington is a happy place. It features low unemployment; strong and stable property values; minimal crime; good schools; a diverse and immigrant-friendly populace; hip restaurants and urban amenities; a vibrant nonprofit infrastructure; active neighborhood associations; a clean and reliable subway line; and policies that, however imperfect, respect the need for affordable housing, smart growth, participatory democracy, parks and bike trails, and inclusiveness.

But there is trouble in paradise. Important groups within the community are mobilizing to pass a referendum that would fundamentally change the form of government in Arlington -- and with it the County's power structure and policy prerogatives.

The dissenters include the police and firefighters unions, who believe that the County Manager has too much power and not enough appreciation for their needs. Also supporting the change-of-government effort are the Green and Republican parties, who are tired of one-party Democratic rule, the near-inevitable result of electing County Board members at-large, rather than by district (as the dissenters have proposed).

Opposing the change-of-government effort are the Democratic party, the County's local and state elected officials, and numerous civic organizations. Opponents are concerned that, among other things, the proposed change of government would undermine the County's ability to set strict standards for child care centers, promote affordable housing (and with it ethnic and class diversity), and sustain a Human Rights Commission. These are features that distinguish Arlington County from the rest of the state. Referendum opponents argue that, besides endangering these policies, the referendum would undermine Arlingtonians' right of self-governance and self-determination.

As the referendum effort has ginned up, most of the commentary has focused on the merits (or not) of the question at hand - whether Arlington should go from a County Manager Plan to the County Board Form of government. But a secondary and very interesting debate has arisen over a prior question -- whether Arlingtonians who are opposed to or undecided on the matter should sign the peitition to put it on the ballot.

Supporters of the referendum must gather roughly 14,000 signatures -- about 10% of the Arlington electorate -- for the proposal to go to a popular vote. So far, no one knows how many signatures have been gathered -- the sponsors won't tell.

Anti-petition forces have launched a "Decline to Sign" campaign, urging Arlingtonians to keep the referendum from advancing beyond the July 15 signature deadline. In effect, they are taking the position that the referendum should not be put to a popular vote.

Ironically, perhaps, those opposed to the reform effort include some of Arlington's stalwart defenders and practitioners of participatory democracy, including County Board Chair Jay Fisette and the prominent civic activists behind the newly created opposition group, the Coalition for Arlington Good Government.

Their "decline to sign" position raises important normative questions for Arlington citizens and civic associations specifically and for deliberative democrats generally.

Should deliberative democrats and other advocates of participatory politics ever advocate nonparticipation?

What if participation would advance a measure that would undermine participatory democracy down the line? (Or, as a friend put it, "What if the referendum advocated a return to slavery? Should we sign the petition then?")

What if the measure would undermine participatory democracy and self-governance in some ways but enhance it in others?

Shouldn't participatory democrats support signing the petition, advocate for or against the referendum in a robust public debate, and trust the voters to decide?

Or are participatory democrats reasonable in assuming that voters in low-turnout elections may have particularly self-interested motives, making them questionable stewards of the broader public interest?

What should self-styled participatory democrats do?

Does an obscure tax law undermine democratic voice?

The Chronicle of Philanthropy carried an interesting story recently about what liberal advocacy organizations, which had fought so long for meaningful health reform, are going to do now. Buried in Suzanne Perry's excellent article is a tidbit of profound importance.

She reports that the Atlantic Philanthropies, a New York-based foundation created by an Irish duty-free-shop magnate, had given $26.5-million to Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a legislative advocacy coalition representing more than 1,000 liberal and labor groups. That's a lot of money to throw at a legislative campaign.

What's interesting about this little-reported fact? Federal tax laws bar U.S. foundations from funding legislative advocacy. In practice this means that those groups most likely to speak on behalf of politically underrepresented groups -- poor people, sick people, children, large diffuse publics -- can't get financial support from the institutions most likely to give it. Since the nation's 70,000 foundations give out more than $44-billion a year, the tax laws have important implications for democratic voice, equality, and public policy.

Barred from receiving foundation grants, advocacy groups must rely on generous individuals who are willing to give without any tax incentive or other tangible inducement -- just the good feeling you get from advancing your beliefs. Industry groups can't deduct lobbying expenses, either, but they don't need to worry so much about a steady source of income. By their nature, they provide incentives to people to give them money -- these incentives are called products and services. One logical result of this funding imbalance is that non-profit advocacy, a public good, is undersupplied relative to that of its for-profit adversaries.

Which brings us back to Atlantic. Turns out, as The Chronicle reports, the foundation's $26.5-million donation toward health-reform lobbying didn't break any laws. Atlantic is incorporated in Bermuda, about 800 miles outside the reach of the U.S. tax code.

Gara LaMarche, Atlantic's New York-based president, told The Chronicle that Atlantic had funded HCAN "to ensure that 'the progressive side was not as outgunned' as it had been during the Clinton years by industry groups opposed to the legislation."

Health reform passed for many reasons. One of them was that the guardians of a pot of offshore wealth boldly decided to do what the U.S. government bars American funders from doing: stand up for the public interest when it matters most.

The Chronicle article is here:
http://philanthropy.com/article/Advocates-Plot-Next-Steps-i/64801/

Policy Creates Constituencies

Does public policy matter? When we think about this question, our attention is naturally drawn to the specific aims of the policy at hand. So, if we pass a law to improve education, our measures of success might be improved standardized test scores or higher graduation rates; for environmental policy, we look at whether the air is cleaner or whether the populations of endangered species are growing.

But a lively group of political scientists has argued that, when we ask whether policy matters, we need to think much more broadly, taking into account how policy affects important values of participation, voice, representation, and equality. These scholars -- who include Andrea Louise Campbell, Helen Ingram, Suzanne Mettler, Paul Pierson, Anne Schneider, Theda Skocpol, and Joe Soss -- make the case that, in a host of subtle ways, public policy structures democracy itself.

Put simply, public policy profoundly influences who counts and who doesn't. It does so by influencing the resources and skills that people can turn toward participation, the belief that their participation will affect political outcomes, and the stake they have in government action.

Public policies create politically relevant constituencies. The political scientist E.E. Schattschneider observed 75 years ago that new policies create new politics. In today's parlance, public policies produce feedback effects on political and civic engagement.

Which brings us to the health-reform debate. Opponents of health reform have argued that passage of the bill will boomerang, dooming supporters' electoral prospects in the midterm elections and planting the seeds for repeal once the Congress changes partisan control.

Studies of policy feedbacks raise serious questions about these assumptions. If the GI Bill, Social Security, and other far-reaching social policies are any guide, the health-care bill's repeal would seem unlikely. Rather, health care reform would be expected to restructure health-care politics in several ways: Beneficiaries could have greater civic resources (money, time) and civic capacity (health) to devote to political participation; they could develop stronger psychic bonds to their government, encouraging greater civic involvement; and they could come together in an interest-based constituency to defend and expand the new programmatic benefits afforded to them.

Of course, this argument assumes that health care reform is a well-designed policy -- that it is, indeed, the sort of good policy that makes for good politics, to paraphrase President Obama. We should have a pretty good sense of this by November 2010.

Bart Stupak & the Dilemma of Representation

The sudden rise of Rep. Bart Stupak in the health-reform debate, and the national role he has played, spotlights a dilemma of democratic representation that has been under-appreciated in the current debate. That dilemma concerns whether members of Congress are servants of their voting constituencies or of the broader public good, the national constituency, if you will.

In his pep talk to House Democrats yesterday, President Obama tried to make the case that, really, there was no trade-off or tension between these two visions. Good policy makes for good politics, he argued. What's good for the nation is good for your district. In a lot of policy debates, that is probably true.

Yet, the case of Bart Stupak (D-MI) suggests that, contrary to President Obama's effort to reconcile the constituency dilemma, elected officials may find it expedient to play them off against each other. Let me explain.

For months, Rep. Stupak has led a group of like-minded House members to get stricter antiabortion provisions into the bill, at times threatening to derail the most significant piece of health-care legislation in two generations. Although his district is conservative, Rep. Stupak has never claimed that he is simply representing the views of his voting constituency. Rather, he has signaled through word and deed that he is representing his own Catholic conscience and the values of abortion foes nationwide.

Such is his prerogative, and there is no doubt that his motives are sincere. What is troubling, however, is that while he purports to represent a national constituency, not simply a district-based one, he has effectively shut out the members of that national constituency, both prolife and prochoice, from communicating their views to him by the only practical means: email.

Go to Rep. Stupak's website (http://www.house.gov/stupak/) and try to send a letter by pressing the "Email Congressman Stupak" link. You will find that you are required to fill in your address. When you get to the state box, you will find that Michigan is the only state listed in the pull-down menu. If you enter a zip code other than one in Rep. Stupak's district, and then attempt to send your letter, your letter will evaporate, and in its place you will be greeted with the following message from the Congressman: "Your zip code indicates that you are outside of the 1st District of Michigan. Regrettably, I am unable to reply to any email from constituents outside of the 1st District of Michigan."

By all accounts, Rep. Stupak is a principled leader, and his efforts are part of the democratic process. However, by seeking to represent a national constituency, but not allowing communication from the citizenry at large, he has left himself vulnerable to the perception that he is hiding behind his district. He is, in effect, trying to have it both ways: purporting to represent a national constituency but holding himself accountable only to a local one. To a citizen outside the 1st District of Michigan who would be deeply affected by his efforts, this seems to violate the spirit of the First Amendment, which accords us the right to petition our government.

Elected officials who aspire to represent national constituencies must be prepared to listen to voices, both friendly and unfriendly, from outside their districts.

Postcard from Ecuador: Giving Globe-locally

About two hours north of Quito, 9000 feet up in the Andes, in the shadow of the Imbabura volcano, lies a wonderful Hacienda owned by the children and grandchildren of two former Ecuadorian presidents. Hacienda Zuleta offers a magical stay for guests, who are welcomed into the family home and treated to fascinating stories about the history and politics of the region, as well as spectacular scenery, perfect weather, five-star meals, and restful accommodations.

The Hacienda uses the tourism proceeds in part to support a family charity, The Galo Plaza Lasso Foundation. The foundation is named after the owners' father, a progressive and farsighted leader who served as President from 1948-52 and went on to have a distinguished career as an international diplomat in trouble spots such as Congo and Lebanon.

The foundation oversees several initiatives: a community center and educational programs for the children of tiny Zuleta village, a rescue and rehabilitation program for Ecuador's endangered condor population, and a microenterprise operated by the renowned embroiderers of Zuleta. The women's collective was begun in the 1950s by the First Lady of Ecuador, Rosario Pallares, before the term microenterprise had come into fashion.

The foundation is a wonderful cause with a ready-made donor base of tourists who visit the Hacienda and see these projects first hand. Yet the U.S. tax laws, while providing incentives for Americans to donate to worthy projects such as these at home, provide no such incentive for charities abroad. Tourists give, but perhaps not at the level they would if they had the extra financial incentive to dig into their pockets.

The foundation's visionary leaders would like to expand its programs, and that takes money. Their choice is to try to establish a U.S.-based charity -- a costly, bureaucratically challenging process whose outcome is by no means assured -- or find a U.S.-based charity that is willing to serve as the foundation's fiscal sponsor. Both are daunting challenges for a small, volunteer-run foundation at the top of the Andes.

The foundation's experience raises interesting questions of public policy. Presumably, Americans can't deduct donations going directly to foreign charities because the U.S. government has no oversight authority over these entities. The policy is reasonable and understandable: No taxpayer wants the government to subsidize charities whose bona fides cannot be monitored, much less guaranteed.

But we live in a global society, and Americans -- particularly young Americans -- consider themselves citizens of the world. It's increasingly difficult to distinguish U.S. causes from those of other countries. For purposes of social change, young people see national boundaries as largely artifacts of geography.

Fortunately, a few entrepreneurial organizations have recognized the dilemma and found ways to encourage global altruism while ensuring domestic accountability.

One such group is Globalgiving.org, whose mission is to "build an efficient, open, thriving marketplace that connects people who have community and world-changing ideas with people who can support them." The website allows Americans to make a tax-deductible contribution to roughly 2,300 small, locally run projects working on issues from feeding orphaned cheetahs in Namibia, to helping families build an ecotourism hub in Jordan, to providing care for young sex-trafficking survivors in Cambodia.

Global Giving charges a 15% sponsorship fee. In exchange, it facilitates the donations and oversees the projects -- making sure, for example, that they have management, mission, and governance standards consistent with international-philanthropy guidelines. In essence, Global Giving fills the role of government regulator, making sure that the charitable projects are doing what they claim.

Global Giving was started by two former World Bank executives who saw the power of online philanthropy in addressing global poverty. Their experience suggests a broader role for other multinational institutions, such as the United Nations, whose foundation serves as the fiscal sponsor for charitable projects such as the antimalaria charity "Nothing but Nets."

There is no substitute for experiencing the social entrepreneurship where it's happening, whether in the Andean highlands of Ecuador or wherever else you might travel. The passion, creativity, vision, and daily labors of love are life-affirming to behold. But if you can't go, you can give.

The Right to Representation

The Swiss will soon vote on whether to offer abused or neglected animals state-appointed legal representation.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,681363,00.html
(Thanks to www.newser.com for finding this story!)

Disenfranchised groups benefit most when their interests are incorporated into the formal architecture of government -- when there is a civil servant or bureau or department on the case. In the U.S., for example, the Children's Bureau played an important role in child welfare policy in the early 20th century. Even more than children, animals are a disenfranchised group -- they don't speak, much less organize or vote -- making institutionalized representation all the more imperative.

Animal welfare is a classic public good -- something we all benefit from without regard to whether we contributed to its production. Left to the free market, public goods will be undersupplied. Government's role is to supply them.

As Zurich's animal-welfare lawyer, Antoine Goetschel, notes: "The changes would acknowledge the importance of human-animal relationships and ensure that the existing law in regard to them is properly applied."

The Swiss are farsighted on this issue, both as a moral proposition and as a matter of political logic.

Capt. Sullenberger Retiring

As I was sitting down to write my first post a few minutes ago, I read that Capt. Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger is retiring, along with flight attendant Doreen Welsh. As everyone knows by now, Sully was the USAirways pilot who safely landed his disabled Airbus in the Hudson in January 2009, making America feel good for the first time in a long time. Ms. Welsh was at the back of the plane and suffered a serious leg gash as she tried to shepherd panicked passengers toward the escape doors in the front. As someone who flies weekly between my house and my workplace, often on USAirways, I've come to admire airline crews for cheerfully putting up with long hours, pay and pension cuts, job insecurity, grumpy and disobedient passengers, and a work environment that leaves no room for error. The USAirways crew and New York ground controllers on January 15, 2009, embody what this blog is about: ordinary people called to unlikely action who leave our world a better place. A tip of the hat to Capt. Sullenberger and Flight Attendant Welsh, their fellow crew members and all the folks who do such a good job taking care of us in the air.