Citizens United: A U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Ensconced in the Status Quo?

According to Rodell Molineau, executive director of the Democratic super PAC American Bridge in 2012, "The meta-lesson from [the 2012] election cycle is that showing up and participating in the process is key, which is something that we didn't do in 2010. I think a lot of Democrats ceded the field on super PACs because most people in progressive circles didn't believe in the Citizens United ruling."[1] The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling on January 21, 2010 opened up unlimited corporate and union spending on political campaigns. The fact is, sometimes you have to play by rules you don’t agree with in order to compete. The obvious danger is that one gets coopted by those rules in the process, even having a financial disincentive to push for a repeal of the problematic ruling. In other words, the ruling accrues the benefit of being the status quo and thus becomes extremely difficult to dislodge.

The full essay is at "Citizens United."

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1. Paul Blumenthal, “Democratic Super PACs Trim Conservative Advantage in Congressional Races,” The Huffington Post, November 10, 2012.

Leading at the Top beyond Appearances: The case of John Boehner, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

In the wake of President Obama's mission to execute Osama bin Laden, Speaker Boehner issued a statement complimenting his rival in the White House. In contrast, Sarah Palin gave George W. Bush all the credit. The Speaker, too, could have gone with political expediency. Therefore, for the Speaker to have publicly acknowledged Obama's victory as America's more generally involved political self-discipline. Speaker Boehner had sought to apply self-discipline, moreover, to his decentralized leadership style from the moment of his swearing in. Given the consolidating nature of power, such a leadership style in the U.S. House of Representatives faced considerable head winds.

The Full essay is at "Leading at the Top beyond Appearances."

See also, Skip Worden, Ethical Leadership, a booklet available at Amazon, and, more generally, Essence of Leadership, a book available at Amazon as well.

Federalism 101: Does Power Naturally Consolidate?

Consolidated power seems, at least in theory, to be contrary to American political culture.   The financial consolidation even after the financial bailouts of 2008, can be deemed dangerous economically and even politically, given the unlimited campaign contributions made possible by the Citizens United case in 2010. Such consolidation complements the political consolidation at the federal level in the U.S.  Is the consolidation, which has occurred since 1865, and especially from FDR's New Deal onward, natural or contrived? That is to say, will the E.U., when it is over 200 years old, suffer the same plight? If so, federalism itself, which I submit must include a balance of power, given the checks and balances feature, between the federal level and that of the states, may be a temporary system inherently. 

The full essay is at "Does Power Naturally Consolidate?"

For more on this topic, see: Two Federal Empires and American and European Federalism

Word-Games Obfuscating Britain Losing a Region: Too Many Bagpipes

Following the Scottish National Party’s victory in the Scottish region's elections in the United Kingdom) the question of whether the E.U. state of Britain would or should be partitioned received a lot of press. Plenty of word-games were in the mix. “Scottish National Party” alone is problematic, as Scotland has not been recognized as a country, nation or a nation-state since the beginning of the eighteenth century because Scotland is in the UK and is thus not an independent political unit. If a specific cultural identity alone were sufficient to connote national, then the word would be applicable at virtually any scale of territory from a town on up. Even Britain, being a semi-sovereign state in the E.U., is only a country (and nation) if Virginia and California are so as well, as they are also semi-sovereign states in a union and thus not independent political units. 

The full essay is at "Word Games."

The Consolidation of Power in the American and Roman Empires: On the Rise and Fall of Empires

The American federal government was for at least a century, and perhaps even longer, primarily involved in defending the new empire and regulating commerce between the republics (or states more generically). By the dawning of the twenty-first century, the U.S. Government had grown both in scope and in the number of employees on its payroll while the governments of the republics had been reduced to functioning as little more than local governments. In other words, Congress had come to act like a state legislature, while the states had accepted their status as mere localities. This fundamental shift with respect to American federalism, as well as the empire-“kingdom”-city arrangement, bears a striking resemblance to the Roman empire. By implication, this similarity might lead us to some conclusions regarding the future the United States within the larger story of the rise and fall of empires.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.