As Steven Taylor notes, the third-party candidacy by Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd congressional district seems to have backfired, delivering a solid Republican seat for generations to Democratic candidate Bill Owens.

While some conservatives like my Twitter pal (and OG blogger) Jayvie Canono have suggested that Republican nominee Dede “Scozzafava would’ve been a vote for the Dems,” one of the iron laws of contemporary politics in the House is that the vast majority of the time, even the most liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats vote with their party.

Would Hoffman have been a more reliable Republican vote than Scozzafava? Probably. But Owens, if he’s anything like the vast majority of his future colleagues, will almost certainly vote with the Democrats more than 90% of the time; even the most “disloyal” Republicans only break from their party around 35% of the time while the vast majority only defect less than 10% of the time. In other words, conservatives have probably traded a reasonably Republican vote in the House for a reliably Democratic one, which in the grand scheme of things is not likely to be smart politics.

(Cross-posted at Signifying Nothing.)

UPDATE (James Joyner):  The Breitbart headline for Valerie Bauman’s AP report sums it up nicely: “Democrat wins House seat in heavily GOP area in NY.”

As background for some our posts on the Iranian election, it is probably helpful to have some information about Iran’s political system. Helpfully, The Red Pill at Cadillac Tight has a lengthy primer on the design and workings of the Islamic Republic’s various directly-elected and appointed political bodies.

As Dave Schuler points out below, the Iranian political system, as currently constituted, really isn’t “capable of producing a legitimate result.” That said, given the menu of choices permitted to the Iranian people by the mullahs, the incumbent’s apparent advantage in making use of state-run media, and the role of domestic concerns in the minds of rural voters (just like Americans, voters everywhere rarely are concerned first and foremost about foreign policy issues), it is not all that surprising that Ahmadinejad would be reelected even if the actual balloting was “free and fair”—which, of course, seems unlikely.

For those of a more analytical bent, I posted some more abstract thoughts on the structure of the system at my home blog.

One of the Supreme Court’s most anticipated decisions this term is likely to deal with the constitutionality of part of one of the landmark laws of the 20th century, the Voting Rights Act of 1965; this may be the most important of a series of cases the court will tackle this term considering civil rights. In this post, I’m going to try to dissect the case from a few perspectives; since it’s longer than the usual OTB fare, I’m going to put most of the post in the “extended entry section.”

A brief summary for the impatient: the Supreme Court is looking at a particular section of the Voting Rights Act, “Section 5,” which deals with preclearance, authorizing the Justice Department and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to delay (and in some cases nullify) actions of state and local governments in certain parts of the United States that might have an adverse effect on voting rights. The Court is unlikely to strike down all of the Voting Rights Act, and may not even strike down all of Section 5, but I think it is likely that the Court will at least narrow the interpretation of the VRA to either (a) allow jurisdictions other than counties, states, and independent cities to “bail out” of Section 5 coverage or (b) restrict Section 5’s application to only elections to federal office, where Congress arguably has broader powers to regulate elections. In particular, the Court will almost certainly retain Section 2 of the VRA, a more general provision which provides for all of the relief authorized in Section 5 (except the preclearance procedure) but which applies nationwide. Finally, even if the Court strikes down Section 5, Congress would probably be within its powers to adopt a notification requirement that would in essence be a modified version of preclearance.

A necessary disclaimer: my expertise is in voting and Southern politics, not the intricate details of Voting Rights Act jurisprudence, and I am not a lawyer.

Background: Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as the culmination of a series of civil rights laws beginning late in the Eisenhower administration and continuing through the Kennedy and Johnson years that gradually increased the role of Congress and the executive branch in enforcing voting rights, primarily among African Americans in the South. While the judiciary had been active in striking down some measures that discriminated against minorities, including the “white primary” laws and grandfather clauses, these acts had limited effect on improving black voter registration and participation rates in the South, where local election officials continued to be authorized to employ literacy and understanding tests and the poll tax to legally exclude “undesirable” persons from the voting rolls, and often employed these and other tools (such as limited registration windows designed to coincide with times when the working poor would be expected to be planting or harvesting) in a blatantly discriminatory way.

In response, Congress passed a number of civil rights bills, including the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, which included authorizing the executive to exercise increased oversight of local election practices and limitations on the use of various devices such as the literacy test and poll taxes; the 1964 Civil Rights Act in particular legally mandated that completion of the 8th grade would be considered sufficient to prove “literacy” and abolished poll taxes in federal elections (the poll tax ban was made permanent in federal elections and extended to state and local elections by the 24th Amendment). However, these actions had a limited impact on the 1964 elections in the South, and continued attacks on civil rights protesters by white mobs (most notably in Selma in early 1965, a protest directed specifically at voting practices in Alabama’s black belt counties) led the Johnson Administration to propose a separate Voting Rights Act, which was debated by Congress that summer and passed into law.

For our purposes, the two key provisions of the VRA were Sections 2 and 5 of the law (Sections 3 and 8 are also significant in that they authorize the DoJ and the courts to monitor election practices in covered states, but the importance of these activities has diminished since the 1960s). Section 2 provides that private citizens and the DoJ can bring suit against any election practice that is discriminatory in either its intent or impact; this provision was made permanent in the 1982 renewal of the Voting Rights Act, and applies nationwide. Section 5, which is more controversial, applies only to certain “covered jurisdictions” defined by criteria in Section 4 of the original act and subsequent amendments; effectively, these areas are most (but not all) of the southern states, Alaska, Arizona, and certain counties and townships in North Carolina and a few other states outside the south.

The 1982 amendments also allowed covered jurisdictions to “bail out” of coverage; all of the jurisdictions that have done so thus far are counties and independent cities (which carry out the functions of counties as separate subdivisions of the state) in Virginia.

Constitutionality of the VRA: The Act as a whole, and Section 5 of the Act in particular, was controversial from the get-go. However, the Supreme Court in South Carolina v. Katzenbach (383 US 301) upheld the VRA, including Section 5’s provisions that “froze” election practices in covered jurisdictions until reviewed by the DoJ or D.C. Court, in an 8-1 ruling authored by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Warren argued that the VRA was a valid exercise of Congress’ enforcement powers granted by the 15th Amendment and that Section 5’s “uncommon exercise of congressional power” was justified because:

Congress knew that some of the States covered by 4 (b) of the Act had resorted to the extraordinary stratagem of contriving new rules of various kinds for the sole purpose of perpetuating voting discrimination in the face of adverse federal court decrees. [footnote omitted] Congress had reason to suppose that these States might try similar maneuvers in the future in order to evade the remedies for voting discrimination contained in the Act itself. Under the compulsion of these unique circumstances, Congress responded in a permissibly decisive manner.

In short, Congress had resorted to adopting Section 5 to combat attempts by the states and their subdivisions to employ what we might call a “Whac-a-Mole” strategy of filibustering efforts to enforce the VRA by replacing provisions declared unconstitutional with other, barely distinguishable provisions that more than likely would be no more constitutional but remain in effect until DoJ or other plaintiffs could challenge them in court.

The Case Before The Court: The case before the Supreme Court this term was filed by Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One (NAMUNDO), which sounds like it would be a mediocre Latino boy band but is actually a political subdivision of the state of Texas that provides local utility services in suburban Travis County. NAMUNDO contends that it should be allowed to “bail out” of coverage as a “covered jurisdiction” even if Travis County remains covered (the county does not appear to have any interest in bailing out itself, and has filed a brief in opposition to NAMUNDO’s position); however, the Justice Department contends that only states and state subdivisions that register voters are eligible for the “bail out” provision of the VRA. NAMUNDO also argues that the Section 5 coverage formula is no longer constitutionally justified, as the extraordinary circumstances of “Whac-a-Mole” challenges to federal authority no longer exist and Section 2, along with the activities of the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division and various organized interest, is sufficient to deter formerly covered jurisdictions from attempts to limit minority voting rights in the future.

The Merits of the Case: My reading of the relevant laws and regulations suggests that the court could go either way on NAMUDNO’s “bail out” argument. The simplest ruling that would make most everyone happy would be to allow any subdivision that conducts elections to “bail out” of coverage; while NAMUDNO would probably take advantage of this provision if it could (it has spent plenty to litigate the case to this point), I am uncertain whether most cities, towns, villages, sewage districts etc. would be willing to expend the money to do so themselves for the convenience of avoiding preclearance. Given the Court’s current predilection for strict reading of statutes and Roberts’ efforts to make questions as narrow as possible, there’s a good chance the decision will simply grant NAMUDNO’s request on this point and not reach the constitutional argument.

If the Court were to reach Section 5 as a whole, I think there is a tougher question at work. If Section 2 did not also exist, it would be very difficult for the Court to strike down Section 5; however, the only advantage Section 5 offers over Section 2 is the “freezing” of existing laws and procedures prior to review. Given that most actions in covered jurisdictions these days are precleared with little controversy–and even controversial actions such as the mid-decade redistricting in Texas and Georgia’s voter ID law have been precleared only to face Section 2 challenges–there is a fair argument to be made that Section 5 is no longer narrowly tailored to accomplish the objective in question and represents an aberration in the relationship between federal and state authority. The enforcement powers granted to Congress by the various voting rights amendments (15th and 19th as of 1965, along with the 26th today) are broad, but not plenary, otherwise Congress would have had the authority to abolish poll taxes and extend the right to vote to 18-20 year olds in state and local elections without constitutional amendments.

There is also an argument to be made that Section 5, to remain constitutional, is not broad enough; arguably, the jurisdictions that historically discriminated against ethnic and linguistic minorities have made their peace with voting rights (and many are now majority-minority in nature, making it unlikely that their election officials will deny voting rights to fellow minority members). On the other hand, jurisdictions not covered by Section 5 have become more ethnically diverse due to further northward migration by Hispanics and increased immigration by Asian-Americans to regions other than the Pacific coast; it is possible that local officials might seek to marginalize votes by citizens from these groups in areas of the country that historically were ethnically homogeneous.

However, I do think Congress does have the power to impose something like preclearance on state and local actions that impact federal elections, per Article I, Section 4 of the constitution which allows Congress to “by Law make or alter” “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives.” The Court could thus argue that actions by political subdivisions that do not impact elections to Congress are not coverable by Section 5 of the VRA; NAMUDNO and other local subdivisions that only conduct elections with state or local impact independent of federal elections would thus be “bailed out” but Section 5 would remain intact for at least any election procedure that has implications for federal elections, including decisions by counties on polling place locations etc. in covered jurisdictions. For most elections that “matter” Section 5 would remain in effect, but this would effectively give NAMUDNO the relief it seeks without dismantling Section 5 in its entirety.

Even if Section 5 were to be struck down by the Supreme Court in its entirety, I believe Congress does have the authority (either directly or by tying the requirement to federal aid) to require states and other jurisdictions of its choosing to notify the federal government of any action that affects procedures for federal, state, and local elections in advance of their going into effect; while this would not have the automatic injunctive power associated with the current Section 5, the Civil Rights Division and/or any organized interest that monitored these notifications would have ample notice to request an injunction from a federal court under Section 2 (which applies nationwide and is permanent) of the VRA prior to the action becoming effective.

Last but not least, there is virtually no prospect of the entirety of the VRA being struck down; none of the litigants or amici have argued in favor of that position, and Section 2 in particular is clearly within Congress’ 15th Amendment power to enforce that amendment. Given the vibrant health of the organized interests that litigate in voting rights cases (as demonstrated by the number of amicus briefs from those organizations) even if Section 5 is struck down–something I think is relatively unlikely to happen–there are unlikely to be any notable adverse effects on minority voting rights as a result of this case, no matter the outcome.

Constitution of the State of Alabama, 1901

The voters this month sued several state officials in Jefferson County Circuit Court’s Bessemer division, claiming they violated voter rights by failing to ensure that Alabama’s 108-year-old constitution is valid. State historians say the 1901 referendum on the document was plagued with voter fraud.

The lawsuit is the latest approach at forcing reform of a lengthy state constitution that is riddled with racist language, offers little power to local governments and imposes a tax system that critics call immoral. Efforts to change it at the legislative level for years have been unsuccessful.

“All I’m asking is that the constitution of Alabama be the constitution of the people, which it is not right now, because they didn’t vote for it,” said Ed Gentle, the attorney for the plaintiffs.

Wayne Flynt, a retired Auburn University professor who has written extensively on Alabama history, said the constitution never passed. The official election results showed black voters supported it – but such support was unlikely, since a vote for the document was a vote to disenfranchise blacks, he wrote in an affidavit attached to the complaint.

While I’m highly sympathetic to arguments—made often by friend-of-OTB Steven Taylor—that Alabama’s lengthy, detail-oriented state constitution, which is still laced with (inoperative) racist provisions, is in need of reform to make it more streamlined and coherent (much as similar constitutions from the same era in southern states are in need of reform), I’m not sure that the plaintiffs have a very good chance of winning their case.

While there is compelling evidence presented of voter fraud in Flynt’s affidavit, primarily in the “black belt” counties where the level of support for the constitution strongly indicates ballot-stuffing took place, given that these facts have been been known for decades (the primary source Flynt relies on was published in 1955), it seems a little late to be raising this issue in court. Some of Flynt’s data in his affadavit seem to be inaccurate as well; while he claims that 5,326 votes in Lowndes County in the Black Belt were cast for ratification, these returns from the Alabama state archives only indicate 1,390 votes were in favor of the new constitution (and, indeed, a majority of votes were opposed in that county, consistent with a non-fraudulent outcome there at least).

Furthermore, even if they are successful in their challenge, presumably the 1875 Constitution — which was ratified by a quite “fraud-proof” margin and reflects a similar philosophy of centralized government with limited powers — is the legitimate constitution of Alabama. And, as a matter of general principle, at some point key provisions of laws, constitutions, and legal acts of dubious origins become accepted and essentially irrevocable, such as the disputed ratification of the federal constitution’s 16th Amendment, the annexation of Puerto Rico, or the severing of West Virginia from Virginia.

Via Rick Hasen’s Election Law blog and How Appealing.

The opening of the 111th Congress is, as always, accompanied by the typical minutiae of opening a new session of Congress. Most of these events aren’t too terribly interesting to the public, although the events surrounding the Minnesota and Illinois seats have raised the profile of the opening of the Senate.

By contrast the opening of the House of Representatives has been comparatively low-key, but the package of proposed rules changes in the House is noteworthy nonetheless. In addition to abolishing the term limits on committee chairs that Republicans imposed as part of the 1995 rules changes that accompanied their takeover of the House — a largely symbolic measure that, if anything, increased the power of the majority party leadership in the House at the expense of the committee system — Democrats are also proposing a more insidious change to abolish an obscure, but important, bit of parliamentary procedure, the motion to recommit with instructions.

Princeton political scientist Nolan McCarty describes the effect of this rule:

[T]he motion to recommit (MTR) is provides an important opportunity for the minority party to participate meaningfully in the legislative process. Essentially, when a bill is passed, any opponent may make a motion to send the bill back to committee with some suggested amendments. But because the language of the motion may require the committee “to report forthwith,” the MTR is essentially an opportunity for the minority to offer substantive amendments (but ones that may be again amended by the majority). So even if the Rule Committees [sic] doesn’t allow it to offer any formal amendments to the legislation, the minority will still have an opportunity to at least force a vote on one of its amendments, presumably one with the greatest importance and/or chance of peeling off enough moderate majority-party voters for passage. Even though few MTRs pass, the threat that they might pass or at least force some unpopular votes generates some leverage for the views of the minority party.

Given majority-party control of the House, however, the real effect is not so much to diminish the power of the GOP — who would be unable to sustain a motion to recommit on their own — but to weaken moderates within the majority party; as McCarty points out, the motion to recommit with instructions “giv[es] them a credible threat to vote with the minority on the MTR if their concerns are not addressed in the bill.” These votes also have an important symbolic role for moderates; even if the motion does not pass, they can point to these votes and argue to their constituents (many of whom are not natural supporters of the majority party) when seeking reelection that they tried to rein in the excesses of the majority.

While the Democratic majority may find that the rules change is, over the short term, to their advantage in passing a few controversial bills, the medium to long-term effect may be to promote the erosion of their majority.

I’ll concede that those who are upset about Rick Warren giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration have a point when it comes to his views about homosexuality, but this complaint seems a bit beyond sanity:

I’ll grant that appointing a creationist to give the invocation is not exactly the same as appointing him science adviser, but if it represents the “spirit” of Mr. Obama’s administration, then I am not, shall we say, optimistic that Mr. Obama is truly the agent for change that he purports to be.

I dare say virtually all Christian (Catholic, Orthodox, mainline or evangelical), Jewish, and Muslim spiritual leaders of any repute are–pretty much by definition–creationists of various stripes. Now, if the compliant is that Warren is a young-earth creationist who believes the biblical account of creation is inerrant, that might be a reasonable complaint, but the idea that any creationist shouldn’t speak at Obama’s inauguration strikes me as borderline nutty.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports today that Bob Jones University’s current president has “apologized” for his institution’s racist policies, which persisted until the Civil Rights Movement finally made it to their little corner of Greenville, South Carolina in 2000. Per the university’s website:

For almost two centuries American Christianity, including BJU in its early stages, was characterized by the segregationist ethos of American culture. Consequently, for far too long, we allowed institutional policies regarding race to be shaped more directly by that ethos than by the principles and precepts of the Scriptures. We conformed to the culture rather than provide a clear Christian counterpoint to it. …

On national television in March 2000, Bob Jones III, who was the university’s president until 2005, stated that BJU was wrong in not admitting African-American students before 1971, which sadly was a common practice of both public and private universities in the years prior to that time. On the same program, he announced the lifting of the University’s policy against interracial dating.

As my fellow political scientist Jacob Levy points out this statement is rather pathetic and, shall we say, rather lacking in any sense of just how out-of-step BJU was with the rest of the nation for 32 of the past 40 years:

In short, Bob Jones University did not passively float along on the tide of American racism, and it was not racist only in its “early stages.” It was worse on racial questions, longer, than any other university in the country. And it was actively, determinedly, passionately worse. The University did not conform itself to a surrounding ethos. It fought to resist changes to that ethos; it fought hard, at serious institutional cost.

Now, resisting the surrounding culture is something one expects from religiously dissident institutions. Of course a fundamentalist Christian university views itself as being at odds with the surrounding world–for better and for worse. Passive conformity is no great virtue, and fighting hard for one’s beliefs is admirable. But if it turns out that your beliefs were grotesquely, abominably wrong, then it’s cowardice to suddenly plead passive conformity. That’s a vice of which Bob Jones University has never been guilty–and the lie that it has been strips its supposed apology of any moral force.

As Levy is perhaps too polite to point out, not only is the plea of “passive conformity” cowardly, it’s also factually inaccurate, unless the trustees, faculty, and administration of Bob Jones University were conforming to the norms supported by the Ku Klux Klan and few others.

While the university’s statement does recognize a failure of leadership by white Christian organizations during the segregationist era that was hardly unique to Bob Jones and his progeny, it fails to recognize the degree to which the university both served to legitimate values that today it acknowledges were fundamentally at odds with Christian teachings and acted as an exemplar of racial intolerance that bigots everywhere could point to as a legitimate institution that shared their warped sense that segregation and white supremacy were acceptable values in late 20th century society. While today’s mealy-mouthed statement may assuage those who seek political cover for their association with Bob Jones, it should not satisfy those who expect intellectual honesty from a purported institution of higher learning.

Marc Ambinder dutifully reports that the ordinary kabuki theater of the Democratic convention will now include an extra layer of double-secret kabuki theater so Clinton supporters will feel better about themselves.

Jeff Jarvis is right: journalists and their employers must end the farce now. The conventions now only exist to feed the fantasies of political reporters who dream of a “brokered convention” that just simply won’t exist in today’s political environment. If only the four major networks jointly refused to cover the conventions at all, they’d effectively be gone and out of our collective misery, saving national, state, and local taxpayers millions of dollars in the process.

Congratulations to Radley Balko, whose dogged reporting on miscarriages of justice in Mississippi has led to the dismissal of the state’s most prolific medical examiner, Dr. Steven Hayne. Hayne’s bogus medical reports led to a capital murder conviction for Cory Maye, a man wrongly subjected to a no-knock drug raid by police, and quite possibly many other innocent men sitting in prison at Parchman.

While I’ve been busy moving my stuff to Texas, Barack Obama has been inadvertently injecting race into the presidential contest with his statement that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.” While the historically-inclined might have criticized his remark for lumping Alexander Hamilton in with the motley crew of ex-presidents represented among the now-circulating bills, many voters seem to be more concerned that the comment is racist. As Daniel Larison points out, that doesn’t seem to be the right term:

What I find even more remarkable is the idea that anyone could interpret Obama’s comment as being racist. It is now “racist” to hint that others are going to use a candidate’s race against him? Does that make any sense? Do 53% of likely voters really think Obama making an obvious reference to his race (one so obvious that you have to think your audience morons to deny it) is racist? If so, can we officially declare that the word has no more meaning, or at least that for the most part it is trotted out whenever we want to refer to something as Very Bad? Obama’s remark may be many things, but of all the words I can think of to describe it racist is not among them.

Nonetheless, now the oft-maligned “race card” is now in play, and probably to the disadvantage of the Obama campaign. The political science literature on the topic generally indicates that the best strategy for minority candidates attempting to win a sufficient share of the non-minority vote to win is to downplay race and racially-connected issues as much as possible.

Tellingly, the main stumbling blocks so far (Jeremiah Wright, his travails in the Democratic primaries in Appalachia and weak support in the primaries from Hispanic voters in the southwest, and now with the “dollar bill” remark) for Obama have largely been related to race. And while the McCain campaign and RNC will almost certainly be smart enough not to leave their fingerprints on any overt racial fingerpointing that could damage Obama’s support, it’s virtually guaranteed that the 527s and independent groups will have far fewer scruples in that regard.

The Scottish Nationalist Party took one of Labour’s safest seats in a rather dramatic and unexpected upset that marks yet another setback for British prime minister Gordon Brown:

Unfortunately for Labour, Glasgow is only the latest in a string of woeful electoral performances for the party under Mr Brown’s leadership. His party lost the London mayoralty to the Conservatives; it was routed in local-council elections; was beaten in a by-election in Crewe and Nantwich, a once-safe-Labour northern seat; and finished fifth, behind the extremist British National Party, in another by-election in Henley. Perhaps even more worryingly, in national opinion polls Labour is flatlining: it is roughly 20 points behind the Tories, in the sort of polling territory that governments find it very hard to come back from.

But Glasgow East—one of the most deprived constituencies in the country—is undoubtedly the worst humiliation of the lot. Glasgow’s east end has been a Labour stronghold for almost as long as the Labour Party has existed. Mr Brown once wrote an admiring biography of an early local socialist MP. Shallow anti-Scottish prejudice of the kind perhaps evident in some bits of England cannot explain why its voters have turned against him and his party so violently. The big question being asked after the Glasgow defeat—though it was already being asked before—is whether Labour will now ditch Mr Brown, replacing him with a new leader and prime minister.

Not all of the Labour Party’s problems can be chalked up to Brown: he inherited the job from a prime minister who badly miscalculated by supporting the War in Iraq (which, unlike in the United States, was unpopular in Britain from the start and justified to the public to a much greater degree than in the U.S. on the basis of Saddam Hussein’s WMD ambitions), the economy in Britain isn’t that much better than it is here, and Europe broadly speaking has made a turn rightward in recent years. But really the question surrounding Brown’s departure from Downing Street is not if but when: will he fall victim to a palace coup like Margaret Thatcher did after the poll tax fiasco, or survive long enough to be booted out by the voters and David Cameron’s Conservatives?

Biologist PZ Myers has followed through on his threat to acquire a consecrated communion wafer and deface it–for good measure, he also decided to desecrate an English translation of the Koran (which, according to my understanding of Islam, doesn’t actually count as a copy of the Koran) and a copy of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion apparently just to ensure he angered as many people as possible in a single act.

While I’m generally in agreement with Myers’ sentiment that people should “question everything,” it’s not obvious to me that public, petty iconoclasty is the most productive means of doing so. Amber Taylor, from whom I got the link, predicts this situation will not end well, and I fear she is right.

Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama further elaborated on his “accidental foreign policy” agenda Friday in a speech before the Cuban American National Foundation, the Cuban exile group that historically has been a bastion of hard-line anti-Castro sentiment. In his remarks, Obama called for a “new strategy” towards Cuba and other Latin American nations and contrasted his position with those of the Bush administration and presumptive GOP nominee John McCain:

It’s time for more than tough talk that never yields results. It’s time for a new strategy. There are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban Americans. That’s why I will immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island. It’s time to let Cuban Americans see their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers. It’s time to let Cuban American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime.

I will maintain the embargo. It provides us with the leverage to present the regime with a clear choice: if you take significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the freeing of all political prisoners, we will take steps to begin normalizing relations. That’s the way to bring about real change in Cuba – through strong, smart and principled diplomacy.

And we know that freedom across our hemisphere must go beyond elections. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is a democratically elected leader. But we also know that he does not govern democratically. He talks of the people, but his actions just serve his own power. Yet the Bush Administration’s blustery condemnations and clumsy attempts to undermine Chavez have only strengthened his hand.

We’ve heard plenty of talk about democracy from George Bush, but we need steady action. We must put forward a vision of democracy that goes beyond the ballot box. We should increase our support for strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, free press, vibrant civil society, honest police forces, religious freedom, and the rule of law. That is how we can support democracy that is strong and sustainable not just on an election day, but in the day to day lives of the people of the Americas.

Steven Taylor suggests that the risk associated with offending the Cuban-American lobby is lower than in past elections, in part because even the Cuban exile community has realized that the current policy is largely ineffective given the commercial relationships the Cuban regime has developed with most other developed countries since the fall of the Soviet Union, its former patron.

Given the divisions in the Cuba lobby, the (largely symbolic) shift of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul, and the likelihood that Florida will not be as pivotal a battleground in 2008 as in past elections, the days of our Cuba policy being dramatically at odds with the opinions of most Americans may be approaching their end, no matter which major party candidate is elected in November.

On February 17, 2009, most analog television broadcasting in the United States will cease, with the exception of some “low-power” television stations and stations physically located in Canada and Mexico that broadcast to U.S. audiences.

After that date, most televisions bought before 2005 will not be able to tune into most over-the-air TV channels without a digital converter box; the proceeds from the FCC auction of the TV frequencies to be vacated as part of the transition are being used, in part, to provide a coupon program for consumers to buy low-frills converter boxes for their old TVs. Of course, more advanced converters and devices with digital tuners are also available, with features such as high-definition output, video cassette/DVD recording, and digital video recording, but these are not eligible for the coupons; virtually all new televisions sold in the U.S. and Canada also include a digital tuner, but again are not eligible for the subsidy program.

Over at my other blog-home, I’ve been posting brief reviews of the coupon-eligible digital converter boxes I’ve tested personally so far; as the earliest-issued coupons are nearing their expiration dates, hopefully these reviews will be helpful to others. Other perspectives and further information on many models is available at the AV Science Forum’s CECB discussion board.

The Democrats have picked up their second Deep South congressional seat in as many weeks, with Travis Childers defeating Republican candidate Greg Davis by a substantial margin in the special election contest to replace Roger Wicker, now serving as the interim junior senator from Mississippi, in the House of Representatives:

The seat had been in Republican hands since 1995, and the district, largely rural and stretching across the northern top of Mississippi, had been considered one of the safest in the country for President Bush’s party, as he won here with 62 percent of the vote in 2004. …

Merle Black, a Southern politics expert at Emory University, called a Democratic victory potentially “a huge upset, and an indication of a terrible year ahead for the Republicans.” He added, “In theory, this should be an easy win for them.”

Mimicking a strategy that proved successful in 2006, Democrats ran staunch conservatives in both this and the Louisiana race, forcing their Republican opponents to attack national party figures as surrogates.

While Childers’ victory is somewhat surprising, despite Mississippi’s reputation as a “deep red” state it has never returned a Republican majority to the House since Reconstruction–the closest the GOP has come to any form of dominance is parity from 2003 (after the 2000 census led to a court-ordered redistricting plan that left Democratic incumbent Ronnie Shows as the odd man out when the musical chairs stopped) through Wicker’s resignation in late 2007, holding two seats against the Democrats’ control of the majority-black 2nd District (currently held by Bennie Thompson) and the south Mississippi 4th District held by yellow dog Democrat Gene Taylor.

I remain skeptical that Childers will survive in the strongly Republican 1st District past November, when he will face reelection on a ballot headed by John McCain and longtime incumbent Wicker after serving six months in a Democrat-controlled House, but stranger things have happened. And, as Ole Miss professor Marvin King observes the GOP’s “go-to” strategy of associating Childers and similarly conservative Democratic candidates with the national party (in particular, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama and speaker Nancy Pelosi) isn’t working, as NRCC chairman Tom Cole tacitly acknowledged Tuesday evening.