Senator Larry Craig and Anonymous Holds (last updated October 29, 2003) (back to top)
This plot line with Josh and Senator Kerrick is clearly based on a summer 2003 incident in which Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) held up the approval of Air Force promotions for a month. Craig's "leverage hold" is just one example of the controversial Senate practice that allows a single senator to stall legislation or appointments anonymously.
Anonymous Holds
"It has become increasingly common for holds to be placed on nominees and bills for reasons that have nothing to do with the nominee or the bill. Instead, bills and nominations are held hostage because a Senator is trying to leverage something from the Administration or from another Senator. These so-called leverage holds are routinely used by members from both parties," Senator Trent Lott said at a June 15, 2003 hearing of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. "I believe that holds, whether anonymous, or publicly announced, are an affront to the Senate, the leadership, the Committees and to the individual members of this institution."
Senate tradition has long allowed for senators to place secret holds on legislation, and the tradition persists despite efforts to curtail it or at least require senators to disclose what they have done. In 1997 and 1998, the Senate voted unanimously to change the practice, but the amendments ultimately were not adopted. In 1999, Senators Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), then the heads of their respective parties, set a policy requiring all senators to notify others of they wanted to place a hold on any matter, but this policy did not endure.
Larry Craig and the Air Force
Craig's anonymous hold became perhaps the most public and controversial in recent years.
Craig began his hold in late May because the Air Force had not provided a full squadron of C-130 aircraft for an Idaho air base, and the hold was initially anonymous as senators need not disclose their identity when issuing a hold. The New York Times then reported on the hold in a June 11, 2003 editorial, saying that Craig's action was "so obnoxious that it calls the country's attention to one of Congress's normal operating procedures," the seeking of Pentagon contracts for one's own district.
Craig subsequently defended his action as a way of making sure the Air Force lived up to its promise to deliver four C-130 cargo planes to the Idaho Air National Guard. "Facing a brick wall, I placed a hold on Air Force Officer promotions, as other Senators have done in the past, to get the Air Force's attention and to send the message to its leadership that this commitment must be met and that I expect them to keep their word," Craig said in a June 9, 2003 statement. "Since the Air Force has decided to use the media and publicly discuss our negotiations, let me now say that the Air Force has had several opportunities to resolve this issue."
The White House became involved and arranged a meeting between Craig and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Craig then announced on June 23, 2003 that he would release his hold on the remaining promotions in light of the scheduled meeting. "These holds served their purpose of drawing the attention at the highest levels of the Air Force, the Defense Department, and the White House to this important issue for our state," Craig said in a statement.
Military promotions are recommended by a selection board and are generally approved by the President "with the advice and consent on the Senate," according to federal law. The Senate usually approves the promotions without objection.
Sources: Information about the Senate Rules and Administration Committee's June 15, 2003 hearing is on-line here. Senator Ron Wyden also has information in a press release on-line here. Larry Craig's June 9, 2003 statement on the holds is on-line here and his June 23, 2003 statement is on-line here. Editorial, Larry Craig's Air Force Antics, New York Times, June 11, 2003. Airman magazine has a list of all Air Force facilities on-line here.
Missile Defense (last updated October 29, 2003) (back to top)
For two decades, a vocal segment of policy makers and military leaders have sought to develop a broad, multi-faceted program involving land, sea and space-based means to protect the United State from limited ballistic missile attacks.
Expectations for such a shield have risen and fallen in scope over the years. Missile-defense proponents started with highly ambitious goals under Reagan, went to more limited expectations in the 1990s, and gained ground in the later days of the Clinton administration and now under George W. Bush. The Bush administration said in a May 2003 policy statement that it plans to begin deploying a set of missile defense capabilities in 2004 and to field expanded capabilities afterwards.
"We must devalue missiles as tools of extortion and aggression, undermining the confidence of our adversaries that threatening a missile attack would succeed in blackmailing us. In this way, although missile defenses are not a replacement for an offensive response capability, they are an added and critical dimension of contemporary deterrence," the Bush administration said in the May 20, 2003 policy statement.
Nonetheless, development efforts have met with difficulty on two fronts. Technologically, efforts have not yet met with completely reliable success. Politically, countries such as Russia and China have viewed the United States' efforts as destabilizing the nuclear balance of power.
Initial Efforts under Reagan and Bush
In 1983, Reagan revived and expanded missile-defense as a military strategy by making achieving an antiballistic missile system capable of resisting a large-scale attack one of his biggest military strategies. The research program to examine this program became the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as Star Wars. Originally, Reagan had hoped to protect the United States fully from the "mutually assured destruction" scenario wherein the Soviet Union was deterred from the total annihilation of the United States by the prospect of similar retaliation; even the strongest proponents of missile defense have conceded that such an effective shield is beyond current capabilities.
With the end of the Cold War, Bush announced a shift in focus in 1991 from protecting against a massive attack towards global protection against limited strikes. The Gulf War provided the first operational engagement between ballistic missiles and theater missile defense (TMD) systems able to protect US forces from short-range attacks, and the defense systems had some success.
Missile Defense under Clinton
The Clinton administration continued the trend towards TMD but cut funding of missile-defense research. However, in 1998, developments revived the efforts in favor of NMD and pushed the Clinton administration to consider laying the foundations for an NMD system of its own.
That year, a committee led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, who had been Secretary of Defense under the Ford administration and holds the post again under George W. Bush, reported that the threat of ballistic missiles from rogue countries such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq was growing. A month later, North Korea fired a missile over Japan; the test failed but the debris did land not far from Alaska.
Additional funding for NMD quickly followed, and in early 1999, Clinton's Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, the sole Republican on Clinton's Cabinet, foreshadowed Bush by saying that the US would withdraw from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty if the Russians were not willing to amend it so that the US could develop NMD, but the Clinton administration quickly disavowed Cohen's statement. The armed forces continued to work on efforts to develop NMD while the State Department tried unsuccessfully to convince the Russians to amend the ABM treaty.
Finally, on September 1, 2000, Clinton expressed his general support for NMD, but decided to delay the beginning of long-term NMD plans until the next president could come in, citing both the technological difficulties still plaguing the program and the long-term nature of the program.
Missile Defense under George W. Bush
That next president would be George W. Bush, and on May 1, 2001, Bush called for an expansive missile defense program and said that the ABM treaty was effectively dead (he informed Russian President Vladimir Putin in late 2001 that the United States was withdrawing from the treaty). His plans include a network of land-based installations (not simply in North Dakota) and sea-based systems that could be moved to appropriate hot spots. His approach is thus more in the lines of his father, a national missile-defense system that would work against limited attacks. Along with this expanded defense, Bush has called for large cuts in the United States' nuclear capabilities.
Funding has jumped dramatically since Bush took office, particularly in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Just days before the attacks, the Senate Armed Forces Committee, headed by Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), announced it would increase NMD funding in FY 2002 to about $7.0 billion, a 20 percent increase but still less than the $8.3 billion Bush had requested. The committee supported the "development and deployment of improved theater missile defense systems as soon as possible after rigorous testing has proven these systems to be operationally effective," but said the additional $1.3 billion requested was "poorly justified and would better be used to meet more pressing needs."
In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Levin and the other Democrats on the committee backed away from this position and restored full funding as Bush had requested. Accordingly, missile defense spending in FY 2002 was to be more than twice what it was just two years earlier.
The Bush administration said in May 2003 that it plans to begin deploying a set of initial missile defense capabilities in 2004 and to expand afterwards.
Concerns
Still, broad political and technological concerns about NMD remain.
First, critics say that NMD forces other countries, notably Russia and China, into upping their own military capabilities in order to maintain the balance of power. Russia in particular is threatened by the US's plans to develop a space-based laser that could target launches made from Russian territory, though Bush has made efforts to reach a compromise with Russian President Vladimir Putin. China is threatened by smaller-scale programs that could be used to protect Taiwan. Critics within the United States thus favor developing more limited defense systems within a broader international consensus.
Second, even if tests do show that missile-defense systems can stop a missile, it might simply shift an enemy's attempts to use explosive or nuclear armament to other delivery systems. Even the most comprehensive program envisioned by Bush and Rumsfeld would do nothing to minimize the threat of a small device smuggled inside a country's borders (as in so many Hollywood action movies).
Sources: The Bush administration's May 20, 2003 policy statement on missile defense is on-line here. Frances FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue (Touchstone, 2000). Missile-defense development is coordinated within the Department of Defense by the Missile Defense Agency, which was formerly known as the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and is available on-line here; histories of missile-defense development are available here. The Senate Armed Services Committee is on-line here; Chairman Carl Levin, a critic of Bush's efforts on missile defense, has a website available here. Adam Clymer, Democrats in Senate back down on missile shield issue, New York Times, September 22, 2001.
Senators who have Switched Parties while in Office, since 1950 (last updated November 6, 2003) (back to top)
Senator Kerrick would not be the first senator to switch parties while in office or seeking re-election. The most dramatic switch in recent years was that of James Jeffords, who left the Republican party in 2001 to become a Democratic-aligned Independent and whose switch resulted in a mid-term change in the Senate's balance of power. Compared to Jeffords, Kerrick's move is just embarrassing for the Democrats and for Josh.
Including Jeffords, seven active senators have switched parties during the second half of the 20th century.
- Wayne Morse of Oregon. Republican to Independent in 1953 and to Democrat in 1955.
- Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Independent Democrat to Democrat in 1956 and then to Republican in 1964.
- Harry F. Byrd, Jr. of Virginia. Democrat to Independent in 1971.
- Richard Shelby of Alabama. Democrat to Republican in 1994.
- Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado. Democrat to Republican in 1995.
- Bob Smith of New Hampshire. Republican to Independent in 1999, and back to Republican in 1999.
- James Jeffords of Vermont. Republican to Independent in 2001.
Sources: The Senate has data on senators who switched parties available here.
Changes to E.P.A. Report (last updated October 30, 2003) (back to top)
This episode's controversy over changes to an E.P.A. report seems to be inspired by disclosures that the Environmental Protection Agency dropped a section on global climate change from a major report due to conflicts with the White House. Democrats and environmental groups have accused the White House of improperly influencing this report and trying to foster uncertainty over the issue of global warming.
The E.P.A. released the draft report, without the controversial section, on June 23, 2003, describing the Report on the Environment as "an unprecedented effort by the Agency to present the first-ever national picture of U.S. environmental quality and human health." E.P.A. Administrator Christine Todd Whitman commissioned the report in November 2001 and released it days before stepping down.
According to various accounts, the White House reportedly recommended major edits to the section on global climate change in order to express more uncertainty over the phenomenon. The E.P.A. felt that such changes were so extensive that, according to an internal E.P.A. memo distributed by the National Wildlife Federation and others, the section "no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change." The E.P.A. then decided it would be better to simply drop the section entirely than to produce a compromise version.
"The first draft, as with many first drafts, contained everything," Whitman told the New York Times. "As it went through the review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change. So rather than go out with something half-baked or not put out the whole report, we felt it was important for us to get this out because there is a lot of really good information that people can use to measure our successes."
James Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, told the New York Times that the draft report's section would have been redundant given other discussions by the Bush administration about global climate change. The E.P.A.'s science adviser, Paul Gilman, told the New York Times that the E.P.A. decided to focus the report on national issues, not global ones, and to leave climate change to a different project.
Whether the final report will contain the excised section is still unclear. That decision may be up to the White House with or without Whitman's successor, Utah Governor Michael Leavitt, who was confirmed by the Senate on October 28.
For more on global warming, go here.
Sources: The National Wildlife Federation is on-line here; its June 19, 2003 press release on this subject included a copy of the internal EPA memo on the White House's proposed edits. The Draft Report on the Environment is on-line here. Andrew C. Revkin with Katharine Q. Seelye, Report by E.P.A. leaves out data on climate change, New York Times, June 19, 2003. Katharine Q. Seelye and Jennifer 8. Lee, E.P.A. calls U.S. cleaner and greener than 30 years ago, New York Times, June 24, 2003.
Clean Coal (last updated October 29, 2003) (back to top)
Coal is used in the United States primarily to produce electricity and it does produce more than half the electricity generated in the United States each year. However, coal consumption for electricity generation also results in greenhouse gas emissions. To help reduce such emissions, the federal government has sponsored several projects since the late 1980s to encourage private industry to develop so-called "clean coal" technologies.
Most recently, President George W. Bush has promised to commit $2 billion over 10 years to advance clean coal technologies via the Clean Coal Power Initiative. The Department of Energy is running competitions to implement this commitment, and in January 2003 announced the first projects to receive some public funding.
Sources: The Department of Energy has information on the Clean Coal Power Initiative on-line here.
Federal Anti-Violence Programs (last updated October 29, 2003) (back to top)
When Amy was trying to increase funding for anti-violence programs, she was probably referring to the grant programs administered by the Department of Justice's Office of Violence Against Women (formerly the Violence Against Women Office). In fiscal year 2002, this office was budgeted at $375 million, which actually was a large increase from its FY 2001 budget of $274 million.
These anti-violence programs were established by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which was renewed and expanded in 2000.
In addition to service and grant programs, the original Violence Against Women Act of 1994 created a new civil-remedy provision by which victims of gender-motivated violence could sue their attackers for civil damages (not criminal). However, the United States Supreme Court declared this provision unconstitutional in May 2000 on the grounds that only states - and not Congress - could pass such a law since .
The court's decision involved a female Virginia Tech student, Christy Brzonkala, who allegedly was raped by two male students, Antonio Morrison and James Crawford. Brzonkala filed a complaint with Virginia Tech, which initially suspended Morrison but not Crawford. Morrison then challenged his suspension twice, first getting the description of his offense changed from "sexual assault" to "using abusive language" and then having the punishment set aside. Brzonkala then sued Morrison and Crawford using the Violence Against Women's civil remedy provision.
"If the allegations here are true, no civilized system of justice could fail to provide her a remedy for the conduct of respondent Morrison," Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the majority opinion that threw out Brzonkala's case. "But under our federal system that remedy must be provided by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and not by the United States."
Sources: The United States Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women is on-line here; budget information can be found in the annual budget summaries available on-line here. The Supreme Court's May 2000 decision in United States v. Morrison is available on-line here.
Removing a Justice or Judge (last updated October 30, 2003) (back to top)
What can you do if a Supreme Court justice is going senile and will not step down voluntarily? Not much.
All federal judges are appointed for life, and they generally do leave office of their own volition. Most federal judges can be removed from office against their will in two different ways, but Supreme Court justices cannot be removed involuntarily unless impeached.
First, any judge can be removed from office if he or she is impeached by the House and then judged by the Senate. A judge, like the President and other federal officials, can be impeached for committing "high crimes and misdemeanors," though what constitutes such an offense is generally considered whatever the House and Senate decide it to be. At least 12 federal judges (and one Supreme Court justice) have been impeached, and at least seven were then removed from office.
Second, under 28 U.S.C. 372(c), a judge can be removed if other judges certify that he or she is disabled and if the President finds that the judge cannot "discharge efficiently all the duties of his office by reason of permanent mental or physical disability and that the appointment is necessary for the efficient dispatch of business." However, this statute as written does not apply to justices on the United States Supreme Court, and thus there is no way to force someone off the country's highest court except through impeachment.
In fact, 8 out of the 15 fully-recognized Chief Justices have only left office with their death; the others resigned or retired. John Marshall had the longest term as Chief Justice, serving 34 years in that position; he died in office in 1801. Roger Taney served as Chief Justice until he was 87 years old, again dying while in office.
As for the current Chief Justice, William H. Rehnquist, who began serving as Associate Justice in 1972 and as Chief Justice in 1986, will turn 79 years old on October 1, 2003. He is the second-oldest member of the current bench (Associate Justice John Paul Stevens is four years older), and he is not likely to leave the Supreme Court until he chooses to do so.
Oliver Wendell Holmes was the oldest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, resigning when he was 91 years old and had been in the office for 30 years. Associate Justice William O. Douglas served longer than any other member of the Court, serving 36 years until he retired.
For more on impeachment, go here. For more on the Supreme Court, go here.
Sources: Biographical information on the current bench is available from the Supreme Court's website, on-line here. Henry J. Abraham, Justices, Presidents and Senators (1999, 4th edition). Gerald Gunther and Kathleen M. Sullivan, Constitutional Law (The Foundation Press, Inc., 13th edition, 1997).
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