[OT again]
Hi Tom,
Neither I nor my friend and mentor James M.<vbg> would suggest that the executive or legislative branches disagree just to disagree. But what we have now is almost complete control of all three branches federal government by the Republican party. There is no serious independence of the legislative branch vis a vis the executive, and, IMO, there will be no truly independent hearings in Congress on legislation. True control of the SC is still somewhat dicey, but if, e.g., Ruth Ginsberg falls ill again and is forced to resign, or if John Paul Stevens, who is, what, about 83 or 84, decides he can't deal with it anymore, that could easily change too. As minimal protection, there is the filibuster in the Senate, and there is the 60 vote rule on some legislation in the Senate, which has been often referred to but never really explained by the Press (it may have to do with filibusters, it may have to do with something else; from what I can see I'm not even certain the people in the press understand it, even though it can't be that difficult--I should look it up), but these aren't terribly adequate.
Look, the example of the CA energy fiasco is there for all to see. Before Jeffords switched parties, there were barely hearings, FERC was stonewalling and essentially saying to CA that their deregulation legislation was bad, they had too many regulations that "stifled" the building of energy plants, and that was the cause of their crisis. After Jeffords switched parties and the Democrats in the Senate actually got subpeona powers, it gradually emerged that, whoa, whaddya know, energy traders did play games with the system; whaddya know, energy companies did engage in sham transactions to make it appear that there were shortages when there weren't; and whaddya know, they would sell the energy that they managed to "find" in other parts of the system back to CA at the resulting artificially inflated prices. What a shock, what a surprise. I'm suggesting, at least, that none of this would have come out if the Democrats hadn't had subpoena powers. And while it may be that now that the information is out, and the investigations have proceeded so far that they can't be stopped, it may also occur that somehow they will be stopped. After all, Al Qaeda provides a ready excuse for anything and everything. For example, they can say that there just aren't enough resources to divert to a problem that is no longer pressing. Or there can just be a game of Delay and Delay (pun intended).
This is just one example. I would think the same thing if the Democrats had as much a lock on government as the Republicans, except I don't think that they are, in general at least, as extremist as the Republicans have in general become, perhaps because I agree with more of what they stand for than Republicans. But I don't believe that it is a good thing for any one party to have the kind of power that Republicans could get in the current environment.
Best wishes,
Sam |
