On the Role of the U.S. Supreme Court in Safeguarding the Peaceful Transfer of Power

In the E.U., the state governments and federal institutions can ask the European Court of Justice (the ECJ) for an opinion on a legal matter. This is rare in the U.S., though waiting for a dispute to winds its way formally through district and appellate courts may be unduly bureaucratic, not to mention lengthy. On December 11, 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the U.S. Supreme Court the ECJ’s counterpart, to decide whether the former U.S. president Donald Trump had any immunity from criminal prosecution of his involvement in the riot at the U.S. Capitol that interrupted the formal counting by a joint session of Congress of the Electoral College presidential ballots. The trial was set to begin the following March, and the question of the former president’s immunity had to be decided before the trial could begin. Hence the “extraordinary request,” which I contend should not be extraordinary given the time frame and the important role of the highest court in safeguarding American democracy from domestic threats.

The full essay is at "On the U.S. Supreme Court."

American religion and politics: Overreaching Realms

Even though they are formally separated in the U.S. under the constitutional rubric that the federal government cannot lawfully establish a religion and infringe on the free exercise of religion, religion has ventured into politics and vice versa. Valued ideals pertain to both even though the highest in religion are transcendent, meaning that they extend beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility, according to St. Denis (aka Pseudo-Dionysius) in the sixth century. So far is the political variety from such ideals as being in heaven! Yet the political sort has enjoyed a near monopoly in the world, including its public discourse. At least as 2019 was giving way to a new decade, captivation on President Trump’s tweets (i.e., brief statements made on the internet’s social media) and the process of impeaching him in the U.S. House of Representatives was strangely devoid of any religious discussion in the public square. This is all the more extraordinary because of the significant role that religion had played historically in presidential politics.

The full essay is at "American Religion and Politics."

The Electoral College Hampered: The Case of Nixon’s 1968 Campaign Treason

While he was running for the U.S. presidency in 1968, Richard Nixon told H.R. Haldeman “that they should find a way to secretly ‘monkey wrench’ peace talks in Vietnam” by trying to get the South Vietnamese government to refuse to attend peace talks in Paris until after the U.S. election.[1] Specifically, Nixon gave instructions that Anna Chennault, a Republican fundraiser, should keep “working on” South Vietnamese officials so they would not agree to a peace agreement before the U.S. election.[2] “Potentially, this is worse than anything he did in Watergate,” said John Farrell, who discovered evidence of Nixon’s involvement from Haldeman’s notes on a conversation with the candidate. That Nixon committed a crime to win the election is itself an indication that the way Americans elect the federal president was flawed. That he went on to cover up the Watergate crime committed during the 1972 campaign only to win by a landslide should give pause to anyone having faith in an unchecked popular election.  I contend that the American Founders had designed the Electoral College in part to catch such a candidate from becoming president, even if the College had never operated as such. Yet it could.

The full essay is at "The Case of Nixon's Treason."

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1. Peter Baker, “Nixon Sought ‘Monkey Wrench’ in Vietnam Talks,” The New York Times, January 3, 2017.

2. Ibid.

Wasteful Agency-Spending: Employee Bonuses as a Solution

Use it or lose it. I am referring to “the habit of [U.S. Government] agencies spending all surplus funding at the end of the fiscal year in order to avoid budget reductions the following year.”[1] By spending the entire amount allotted for the budgetary year, a federal agency can avoid a lower base-line for the following year’s allotment from Congress. The incentive in this system is to spend every dollar in the budget, whether efficiently or profligately. The challenge is how to replace that incentive with another—one that results in efficient public budgeting. Unfortunately, relying on an incentive presupposes discretion, and one person can never be sure what lies behind another person’s use of it.

The full essay is at “Wasteful Agency-Spending.”

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[1] Andy Medici, “New Bill: Point Out Surplus Funds, Get a $10,000 Bonus,” Federal Times, May 21, 2015.