A BETTER WAY?

I have during the history of this blog ascribed to our constitution an almost sacred quality. That is, as the basic compact between all Americans, it is a solemn agreement in which we federate ourselves with each other. But, for all that “sacredness,” it can be changed. Not easily, but we can either add some provision or we can delete some provision. My purpose here is not to go over the long and arduous process by which changes can be made, but to write about how a civics teacher can instruct students about the purpose of amendments to the Constitution.

The teacher can present students with proposed amendments and have students analyze them, determine the purpose of a given proposed amendment, evaluate it, and perhaps alter it to conform with what the students believe would be a better amendment. I would begin with a bit of advice I heard a long time ago (I think I heard this when I was high school). The advice is: when confronted with a proposed change to the Constitution, first say no and then look into it. That is, be disposed to reject our constitution; history has shown it works pretty well as it is. But from time to time, either structural and/or procedural governmental problems develop or problems with citizenship or voting rights arise, or it could be a problem with the relationship between the states. There are probably other sorts of problems that only a change to the Constitution will fix, but these are the types of problems that call for an amendment. And people engage in proposing new amendments all the time. Currently, there is a so-called 28^th Amendment movement calling for a provision which mandates that the members of Congress be equally subject to the laws they pass. Without exemption, those who pass laws might be more careful about the effects those laws might have on the rest of us – or so the thinking goes. So, in this posting, I will present two proposed amendments that are aimed at addressing current problems. They are examples of the type of proposals teachers can present to students. I will add that they are not proposals I would necessarily vote for, but I think an argument can be made for both of them.

Before presenting these proposals, let me remind you that I am not a constitutional scholar or constitutional lawyer, so the language I am using should not be seen as being adequate to the task. I am also not claiming they are optimal in terms of what they are suggesting as to the structural changes they would implement – as a matter of fact, what they suggest could be part of what students could determine is wrong with them. But despite all that, here they are:

Proposed amendment one,

1 - Upon the recorded agreement by twenty percent of the combined number of electors – known as voters – from the various state voter registries for a proposed national law, both houses of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate) shall take up the proposed measure, as written and presented, for a vote of approval or disapproval within six months of its presentation to each body. If the proposed law is agreed upon by the houses of Congress and signed into law by the President, the proposal shall be statutory law.

2 - State legislatures shall enact legislation empowering appropriate state officials to provide federal government officials with voter related information necessary to administer this provision.

3 - This provision will be administered by the federal Department of State.

4 - Congress shall enact necessary legislation to implement this provision.

As suggested above, students will be asked to analyze this proposal and determine what current problem(s) this proposal is meant to address. I will share with you that the ongoing inability in Congress to pass any meaningful legislation spurred the idea of this amendment. What do you think? Is the current intransigence we see in Congress bad enough to call for such an amendment? And if so, is this the solution? Will it cause other problems? Is it too expensive a solution? These are the types of questions students can tackle and to which they can derive answers.

Proposed amendment two:

1 - The power to administer national elections is vested in a national election commission. The commission is comprised of seven members. The commission is to:

administer federal government's duties related to the election determining the members of the Congress, the President, and the Vice President;

determine the boundaries of the Congressional districts; and

administer a non-partisan informational and promotional program to encourage active participation on the part of the citizenry.

2 - The electoral commission is comprised of members who serve seven year terms and will serve as long as they maintain lawful status. The terms of members will be established as staggered with one new member selected every year. Each member is selected by one of various bodies consisting of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President, the Supreme Court, the chief officer of the Department of State, the chief officer of the Department of Justice, and the active members of the sitting electoral commission.

3 - Members of the election commission are limited to one full term of seven years. Those initial members whose terms are fewer than seven years can be reappointed for one full term.

4 - Congress shall pass necessary legislation to administer this provision.

For this second proposed amendment, a useful line of questioning could be initiated if the teacher asks: whose power will be affected if this change were put into effect? For example, by a national body determining the composition of Congressional boundaries, state legislatures will be deprived of a very coveted power. They exercise this power every ten years after the national census. Many believe that the current inability to get things done in Washington is to a significant degree caused by how these boundaries are drawn. This was demonstrated in the 2012 election when the Democrats garnered a million more votes than Republicans in House elections, but still couldn't get control of that body. Hence, we still have divided government and we still have stymied policy makers. And another line of questioning might be about how much power a given executive administration has, under the provisions of the amendment, to determine who shall serve on the commission. Perhaps the administration should have only one choice in a given cycle and have the commission made up of five members instead of seven and have five year terms. This change to the change would have meaningful implications.

This exercise of thinking up proposed amendments is great fun. Try it. Just remember to first say no to each proposal that occurs to you.

SMALL STATE BLUES

In the last posting of this blog, I reviewed James Madison's ideas concerning the political sins committed in small territorial republics. In short, he argued that in a small republic the common good is less likely to be achieved because in a small political arena the chances are that one or very few factions – interest groups – would have inordinate influence over government policy makers. Why? Because relative to the wealth of the republic, these interest group(s) would own or have control over a significant amount of that wealth and/or other political resources. As I mentioned in that posting, Madison had first-hand knowledge of what he argued since he belonged to the elite group that controlled the politics of his home state, Virginia. He was the owner of a plantation. So were Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe, to name a few. Of course, all four of these examples later became presidents of the national republic. But even if we agree with Madison's argument based on conditions of over two hundred years ago, does his view still hold today?

In this context, I found a report on the politics of West Virginia very interesting. In that small republic, apparently their politics are not controlled by a gaggle of plantation owners, but instead their politics are highly influenced by the coal and chemical industries. This arrangement came to national attention lately when a chemical company's storage tank developed a hole which in turn caused a highly toxic chemical to ooze into that West Virginian area's drinking water. This resulted in 300,000 people being deprived of usable water for days. The effects of the contamination continued to affect the folks in the area as they remained suspect of the water since it continued to smell. Since then, it still has not been determined how extensive the toxicity of the water supply is and, to date, 400 people have been reported ill as a result of the spill.¹

Is this just an anomaly, a case of an accident, or is it closer to being the result of an industry being too cushy with the state government – a la Madison? Or stated another way, has the chemical company been allowed to run its affairs in a purely self-serving way; that is, to further or protect its financial interests? What is it?

Let's look at the record as it applies to both the coal mining and chemical industries. In the mining industry, worldwide, thousands die annually. In this country, the incidence of fatal accidents has become significantly fewer although through the twentieth century there were some memorable events. For example, in 1968 there was the Farmington, W. Va. mining disaster that killed 78 miners. I highlight this incident because among those who lost their lives was Senator Joe Manchin's uncle and five classmates. Today Manchin is a strong defender of the coal and chemical industries. As it turns out, West Virginia has been afflicted with five major incidents involving the coal and chemical industries in eight years.²

Apparently this latest incident is not an anomaly:

“This crisis is about much more than a renegade chemical company,” said Bob Kincaid, board president of Coal River Mountain Watch, an organization based in Raleigh County in the state's southern coal fields that fights mountaintop-removal mining. “It's about an entire state subjected day after day for more than a century to a laundry list of poisons by renegade companies. This particular poisoning happened to catch the world's attention, but for us, it's another day in the Appalachian Sacrifice Zone.”

The question is, [w]ill the nation continue to turn a blind eye to the mounting toll of the aging extraction industry on the health and livelihoods of central Appalachians or take action against the growing, untenable costs of mining, cleaning, transporting and burning dirty coal?³

But the question remains, how has the state government of West Virginia acted in relation to these conditions?

According to The New York Times article, cited here, the following list of actions has characterized the state government's response to the related health and safety issues:

• There are no state laws that regulate the storage location of chemicals such as those that leaked from the tanks in question. Therefore, these tanks, situated dangerously close to the Elk River, the major fresh water supply of the area, were legally placed. A distinction between production facilities and storage facilities exists in state law but there are no regulations addressing storage.
• Federal law, in which West Virginia's representatives have had influential roles determining its content, requires reporting chemical storage facilities, but does not call for inspection of them.
• State officials did not deem the spilled chemical into the Elk River as deserving a legal designation as “extremely hazardous” despite the fact the company that owned the tanks had described them as “immediate (acute) hazards.”
• In 2010, the state government sued the Environmental Protection Agency over its water pollution standards as they applied to the coal industry. This position was recently bolstered by the current governor when he was quoted as saying, “ never back down from the E. P. A.”
• West Virginia has a unique provision in its environmental laws which states that any new regulation written by its environmental agency has to get a majority vote in both houses of its legislature before taking effect. This is a significant extra hurdle that pending regulations have to overcome before taking effect. The legislature has the authority to change any details, including striking any provision of any regulation.
• The state has allowed the oil company, Halliburton, to keep confidential the chemicals it uses in its fracturing activities despite state regulations to the contrary.
• The state's environmental regulatory department recently began allowing an increase in the allowable amounts of aluminum, a toxic mining pollutant, into the state's waterways. This pollutant, beyond being toxic to fish, is expensive to remove.
• State officials have filed lawsuits against PPG Industries at the request of PPG. The aim was to outmaneuver lawsuits by environmental groups. State lawsuits call for much more lenient decisions toward PPG's water pollution activities than would have been called for if the environmental groups' lawsuits would have been successful.
• Current efforts to update the Toxic Substances Control Act – of 1976 vintage – are being pushed by the state of West Virginia's representation in Congress. The update has been judged by the Natural Resources Defense Council's representative as toothless. It doesn't even legislate the disclosure of information or further regulate the toxic substance that oozed into the Elk River.
• The state's environmental regulatory department, which employs 800 people, has a separate office to regulate the coal industry. According to one knowledgeable observer, “Dow Chemical and a car wash are regulated in the same office. Mining gets a separate office.”⁴ Since the observer refused to be identified for fear of retribution, the implication is that the arrangement exists to give coal companies favorable treatment.

Is this a cherry-picked list of complaints? Perhaps; I'm not an expert. But given the state's apparent support of the coal and chemical industries, perhaps this favoritism is allowed and even encouraged if it results in providing benefits to the people of West Virginia. Well, according to the Times, West Virginia is 49^th out of 50 states in median household income (it was 46^th in 1969). The coal industry today hires about 4 percent of the labor force. And yet Manchin was quoted as saying, “[i]f it weren't for the resources we had here, you wouldn't have the middle class.” Whether the “we” is the national middle class or that of West Virginia, it is Senator Manchin's job to represent the interests of all the people in his state. Are the politics of this small republic advancing the interests of these people? Or is it as Madison warned: advancing and protecting the interests of its few major factions?

1Breslin, S. (2014). West Virginia chemical spill worse than initially reported. The Weather Channel, January 28, http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/west-virginia-chemical-spill-latest-20140128. 

 

2Gabriel, T., Wines, M., and Davenport, C. (2014). In a state wary of regulations, a chemical spill changes little. The New York Times, January 19, pp. 1 and 16 (“front page” section). Most of the facts reported in this posting were derived from this article.

3Biggers, J. (2014). How dirty coal foretold West Virginia's disaster. Aljazeera America, January 14, http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/west-virginia-chemicalspillcoalminingcleanwater.html .

4Op. cit., Gabriel, Wines, and Davenport, p. 16.

DOES THE MADISONIAN SOLUTION WORK?

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst” is an adage I find particularly insightful. This, to a great deal, is how I see our constitution. The founding fathers, I believe, were motivated by a variety of reasons. Among them was a federalist hope to forge a nation that could congregate to meet the opportunities and challenges of the future. But they also had a healthy respect for the reality that times do change. While they laid down a blueprint with a set of goals and a structural plan for government, they made those goals broad enough and the structure and implied processes open enough to allow us, their inheritors, the ability to work out our responses to those opportunities and challenges we would meet along the way. That was the hope and as far as the foibles of being human, the structure was to address the worst: the inevitable attempts by some to exploit the situations to come.

How? They made it so that interests would find themselves pitted against those counter- interests in the competition for society's benefits. The worst would be met with a governmental mechanism which would derive the best – or at least the workable – by having people's countervailing interests vie for what would be wanted. Yes, they would compete in markets, but they also would compete before public policy makers and public policy implementers. Oh yes; they also would compete before the courts that interpret those policies.

This approach at meeting the worst is intentional. The “father of the Constitution,” James Madison, explained the thinking in Federalist Papers, Number 10. There Madison points out that in small republics, there are a limited number of interests or factions. Usually one or a very few number of factions who control the most number of financial assets can pretty well run the politics of the republic. Of course, Madison, being a Virginian, saw how the plantation owners controlled just about every aspect of southern life. These elites sponsor and support those policies that benefit them at the expense of the common good. But if the republic is large, then there are many wealthy factions whose wealth and power are derived from a variety of sources. And when one of them sets out on a strategy that offends the others, then the others will respond. These others will apply pressure on policymakers to get government to reign in that overly selfish faction. In the case of the thirteen newly formed states, you had the northern small farmers; the middle states had the tradesmen and farmers, and the South had those plantation owners. And to really put diversity into the mix, the North had a burgeoning industrial faction. Here, already along the Atlantic seaboard, a fine array of economic interests existed and promised to develop much further.

This theory of balanced governance was somewhat contrary to what was accepted as truth: republics needed to be small territorially. The political philosophers of the time followed ideas of such thinkers as Charles-Louis Montesquieu. They argued that for a republic to maintain the loyalty of its citizens – that is, for the citizenry to not engage in unbridled, self-serving strategies that would be to the detriment of all – they would need to be psychologically attached to their fellow citizens. This would be promoted by a small territory in that such a jurisdiction would be populated by the personal relations that smallness allows. In such a republic, citizens would be disposed to not act in an overly selfish way. In larger republics, the people would lose many of the personal relations that marked the social realities of a small area. And without such relations, citizens would follow their selfish natures and act in too self-serving ways. Therefore, to be in a large republic is to be in a republic with a short-lived future.

But the hypothetical relation between small size and longevity of republics offered by these philosophers proved to be wrong. We experienced how wrong they were between the years of the Revolutionary War and the writing of the 1787 constitution. During those years, we were a confederation of small republics – thirteen of them. We found the “worst” prevailed just fine. We found serious class warfare break out culminating with Shay's Rebellion; we saw the republics engage in shortsighted policies against their sister republics; we saw a serious reluctance to pay for the mutual benefiting policies such as maintaining the national military. Things were a mess and getting worse; hence, the call for a constitutional convention. But, in the public mind, the assumption was: in order for republics to last, they needed to rule over small territories.

Madison gave the public discourse another view – the one outlined above. And so, the “expanded republic” was born. But does the expansion of a republic really handle abuse as Madison foresaw? Well, we have had a Civil War; we have had the growth of corporate power which many believe is killing our republic, and we have increasing inequality that belies any claim to having equality. These are troubling developments. Where are the rise of countering factions to reign in those who are acting in an abusive way which has led to these troubles? I have wondered, for example, as we experience climate change and the resulting droughts and increased incidents and viciousness of tornadoes, why those victimized don't organize themselves and begin an organized campaign against those responsible for changing our climate – I'm told by the bulk of scientists – the fossil fuel producers. That would be the Madisonian solution. What's going on or what's not going on?

One, those who benefit from abusive behavior have invested in propaganda efforts to do two things: de-legitimize the evidence that connects their behavior to the harmful effects being felt and de-legitimize government inserting itself in addressing any area of concern – emphasizing the notion that the government that governs less, governs best. Two, the propaganda has worked and affected people to not engage in the necessary political activity that might result in the needed pressure to change things. We have such movements as the Tea Party that mistakenly argues that the founding fathers hated government. Three, business entities understand the danger of setting costly precedents that will negatively affect other monied interests in the future. If you can make corporations, for example, pay for external costs – such as pollution – what will that mean to other corporations who are responsible for external costs? Four, there are the honest concerns over the costs that will result from changing the established practices of business entities, including costs to consumers. What will it cost all of us, for example, if we stop or significantly cut back on using fossil fuels? It won't be cheap. You might be able to think of other hindrances blocking other factions from doing the Madisonian thing. But there are cases in which we are starting to see affected parties being motivated to counter the actions of the abusers or alleged abusers.

You see, in our example, climate change is beginning to step on very big toes. The concern for Coca-Cola might have begun in 2004. That's when the soft drink maker lost its contract in India. There, drought has caused water shortages: “[w]hen we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events [droughts] as threats”¹ stated a Coca-Cola executive. Joining Coke in its concerns over climate change are the World Bank, led by its president, Jim Young Kim, and Nike. Whether these toes are big enough is a question we will have answered. There are many ways to act against corporate power, especially if you represent another corporate power. For example, you can sponsor alternative energy technologies. Each of these entities has its own affected interests. They, in this case, might find it beneficial to push for the development of other fuels, but fossil fuel interests are not alone in advancing their interests. China and India, the new large economies emerging from lesser developed status, are highly dependent on fossil fuels to “fuel” their growth.

And so we have a Madisonian conflict, one in which vested interests will engage in the politics of energy. Who will win is an interesting question and one in which we all have our own interests at stake. I wish I could report that the public will play a meaningful role. But our history suggests that an active citizenry is stirred sufficiently to act only when enough of them experience direct results of existing conditions. I and many of my cohorts were involved with the politics of Vietnam. By and large, despite our democratic rhetoric, we simply did not want to get drafted and end up being a statistic on the battlefield for a cause in which we did not believe. Madison didn't promise us an easy political future, just one that plans for the “worst.” Here's hoping that he was right when it comes to the big questions such as climate change.

1Davenport, C. (2014). Threat to bottom line spurs action on climate. The New York Times, January 23, http://nytimes.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx . The facts concerning the politics of fossil fuel producers vs. other entities such as Coca-Cola, which are reported in this posting, were derived from this article.

EQUALITY BEFORE THE COURT

There are times when our government gets close and personal with us. I cannot think of any time when this is more true than when our government drafts us into military service or when the government, either at the federal or state level, charges us with a crime. Now-a-days we have put the draft into hiatus and most of us are never charged with a crime. I remember when as a young man, I was in a car accident and was charged with causing it. I was directed to go to court and I remember the document stating the State of Florida vs. Robert Gutierrez. The actual charge was driving too fast for the conditions. I remember my emotional discomfort when I saw in black and white that I was pitted against the State of Florida. I think that hurt more than the $25 fine – and that was despite the fact I was a poor college student at the time and was facing expensive costs caused by the damage. As bad as it is to be charged, how much worse is it when a person can't afford legal representation? This wasn't an issue in my case, but for serious accusations it is an issue of significant consequence. It is our constitutional right to have representation by a licensed lawyer. So, as the familiar refrain states, if you can't afford one, one will be appointed for you.

Who assigns an indigent defendant a lawyer? A judge does. Problem solved? Not really. Take the case of George Stinney from the 1940s (a story much in the news these days); he was a fourteen year old boy who was charged, tried, and executed for the murder of two white girls – Stinney was an African American youngster. His incarceration lasted 81 days, there was no physical evidence of his guilt, the trial lasted two hours, and there was no appeal filed by his court-appointed lawyer. The only “evidence” there was was the fact that Stinney was seen with the two girls on the day of the murders and that he had “confessed.” There was no written account or a recording of the confession. There was only the testimony of the police officers stating the young boy confessed to the crimes. While this is an extreme case from a highly segregated South, it is not unique. How unjust the criminal procedure can be has been amply portrayed in our popular media. We hear of a sufficient number of convictions that have been overturned by DNA testing. My understanding is that nationally there are over 4,000 such cases to date. How many of those were cases initially defended by court-appointed lawyers, I don't know. But the point here is that the system is flawed enough and that we need to address this area of concern. If we are serious about our claims of honoring equality – we have stamps on which the word is boldly printed – then we need to do what we can to minimize the chances of an injustice occurring within our legal system. We need to keep very clear in our minds what an injustice of this type means to those victimized. It means, in terms of a faulty verdict, that a person is condemned for a crime he or she did not commit and that that means a person is doomed to years of imprisonment or even an undeserved execution – a horrible consequence to consider. Yet we seem to tolerate an unacceptable level of probability that such a result happens and happens all too often. So if something – some change in policy – can minimize this probability, we are constitutionally obliged to pursue it.

Under this light, I found that there is an experiment being conducted in Texas that deserves mention. There, in Comal County, it has been determined that court-appointed lawyers are a source of serious systemic injustices.

“The fundamental problem is that [court-appointed] lawyers in this country are oftentimes beholden to judges for appointments,” said Norman Lefstein [a Texas official] … “The allegiance of the lawyer is not principally to client, where it ought to be.”

The other problem is that clients have no meaningful control over this important professional relationship. It is hard to trust a lawyer you have not chosen and generally cannot fire.¹

These Texas officials addressed these concerns by developing a conservative approach to the problem. That is, they have begun issuing vouchers to defendants so that they can purchase legal representation of their own choosing. The idea for this policy originally was presented in a law-reviewed article. The authors of this article are Stephen Schulhofer and David Friedman. I believe that the proposal appealed to conservative policy makers because of its reliance on a market solution. It has been criticized by respectable experts – for example, Judge Richard A. Posner, a federal appeal judge, fears that defendants could paralyze a local legal system if they all begin to demand the same lawyer or a select few number of lawyers. I personally don't see this as a possibility since a lawyer can beg off a case if he or she is overloaded with existing clients. A Comal official claims that implementation of the policy can be regulated in such ways that the main concerns can be addressed. One official stated that this will not be a purely free market. It will be monitored and regulated. It is believed by the officials who are implementing the policy that there will be practical limitations so that the system will continue to function under reasonable conditions.

I will not claim I know enough to pass judgment on this option, but I believe that consideration for it is justified. My main message here is that this is an ideal “federalist” issue and has the makings of a powerful civics lesson. It focuses on a condition that, as it is now experienced around the country, puts in question any claim that our justice system is run by the principle of equality. In addition, here is a proposed policy option that, at least in terms of its stated rationale, is meant to level the legal playing field. If it works, it will put substance into the promise of the fifty year old Supreme Court decision, Gideon v. Wainwright, which ruled that every poor defendant is entitled to legal representation. Whether giving these defendants the ability to choose their attorneys will rectify the systemic problems such defendants face, only time will tell.

In any event, for civics instructors this issue is a promising one, one that directly relates to our national goal of instituting meaningful equality, one that is suitable to analyzing actual and proposed solutions, and one that reflects real, active concerns with ample local examples. It has the promise of engaging students on a meaningful national problem.

1Liptak, A. (2013). Need-blind justice. The New York Times, January 5, Sunday Review section, p. 4. The facts related in this posting regarding this Texas experiment are contained in this source.

A TRANSACTIONAL AIM

If you are new to this blog, let me point out that a recurring claim I have been making in previous postings is that in the past fifty to sixty years, civics courses around the country have been guided by a prevalent view of government. That mental construct I have entitled the natural rights construct. In essence, this view sees government as the ultimate protector of our individual rights. As a philosophic statement, the construct is a moral view. It holds, as a moral imperative, that government should be established and maintained in order that each of us is able to determine the life we want to lead; we are to be unfettered to do what we wish as long as we do not interfere with others' rights to do likewise.

Government is needed under this view, but only to protect this basic moral claim. “Government that governs least, governs best” is a standard adage associated with the natural rights view of governing. Yes, there might be some offhand allowance for the importance of community or an encouragement for people to participate in community affairs – after all, a person might determine that such activities add to his or her personal happiness – but the focus is on the individual and his or her rights. Surely, under the natural rights view, there must not be any laws dictating any such involvement; it is only suggested as the “thing” good citizens do.

With a focus on describing and explaining a “rights-protecting” institution, the study of government is centered on teaching the structure, processes, and functions of government and governance with a more or less mechanistic perspective. Why? Several reasons, but prominent is the following: among our rights is the right to compete for favorable governmental decisions and benefits. But one must remember that the benefits can be of only a certain type and amount. After all, the goal, under this view, is for the least governance. But – and here is the irony – in this day and age, even minimal aims call for extensive government and governance. To protect our rights, for example, a government must sustain an adequate military. This simple determination, though, calls for enormous outlays of funds so that the government can buy the necessary weapons and other related goods and services – expenditures of hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Who will get that business? We all have the right to compete. While most of us will not compete to manufacture the newest tank, we might want to compete for other outlays in serving our military or other governmental operation. In order to be able to compete, to be able to exercise this right, we need to know stuff.

Well, our civics instruction is meant to teach you that knowledge, in terms of governmental structure, functions, and processes, at least at an introductory level. That is the type of knowledge a government or civics course will contain and try to impart to its students. As evidence for this overall view, let me share with you a list of intended outcomes of an American Government course from a document that was issued by the Dade County Public Schools¹ system in the mid 1980s.

After successfully completing this course, the student will be able to

1. Contrast the structure and function of government at all levels in American political life.
2. Analyze the basic principles of political organization embodied in the Constitution.
3. Contrast the processes by which power is passed on within all levels of the three branches of government.
4. Analyze the effectiveness of influences on governmental decision making by the support and dissent of individuals and interest groups using the criteria of actual changes initiated or completed.
5. Trace the relationship between majority rule and individual rights as it is reflected in our legal and governmental system and as it evolved through differing interpretations of the Constitution.
6. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of our federal system of government to deal with those domestic and foreign problems facing our nation today.
7. Show relationships between American political traditions and the American way of life (social, economic, and religious ideals).
8. Demonstrate the importance of participating in community, service, civic importance, and involvement in political activities.
9. Utilize appropriate vocabulary, geographical, reference/study, critical thinking, and decision-making skills.

I know that when I, as a government teacher, reviewed these stated curricular aims, I interpreted them, collectively, as a fairly neutral stand about any governmental or political ambition, either by government or government officials. And yet I do not interpret our Constitution in that light. What we have here is a justification for transactional politics – “I do something for you, if you do something for me.” Instead, I believe our Constitution is a compact among all of us in which we promise to work toward our common welfare.

Our Preamble to the Constitution is more than just a goal statement for establishing a government as an arena for competing interests. This blog has been dedicated to making and explaining a mental construct that promotes a more proactive approach toward striving for the commonwealth of the nation that is based on republican principles and democratic processes. Under this other, federalist, view, civics instruction would present content that encourages, not dictates, a shift away from transactional politics to a view of a shared partnership, one in which we all sense a more palatable common fate.

1The name of this school district has since changed; it is now known as the Miami-Dade Public Schools. This school district is among the five largest in the nation.

“HEAD OUT ON THE HIGHWAY”

Like most creative endeavors, an idea for a civics lesson comes from many sources. There is an advertisement running in my local TV market – I'm sure it is running nationally – that I believe contains a strong civic message. The car manufacturer, Subaru, is the responsible party.

The ad starts with a fairly close-up shot of a young woman struggling with some physical chore. It turns out that she is changing a tire on a car (of course, a Subaru). As the ad progresses, she struggles with loosening the bolts (finally, resorting to some foot action – better leverage); she struggles with removing the tire; she struggles with picking up the replacement tire and then lining it up. The shooting splices the action into short segments of the chore. As she finally finishes, which one assumes took a very long time, this fairly tall man emerges from behind the car. You hear a male voice-over saying that he wanted her to know she could do it and the shot then shifts to another close up of the young lady's face, smiling and portraying a sense of pride. The next scene is of the tallish man putting his arm around the young lady's shoulder. From this perspective, it becomes clear the young lady is a very young teenager. This is the first time you see her standing up and you realize the tire height is almost half her height. Here, in a few scenes, is a good summation of what this blog has tried to establish – the federalist vision of equality.

No product represents our sense of individualism more than the automobile. While Steppenenwolf's classic rock song, Born to Be Wild, is probably about motorcycles, the song can serve as a natural rights anthem and, for most of us, the automobile promises the song's image of freedom. It, the car, allows one to be able to travel where one wants to go in order to do what one wants to do. Our folklore is full of images of the young and the not so young traveling around our open spaces capturing this image of independence. And yet, even here, there are duties to fulfill and necessities to satisfy. This young girl, as a personification of liberty, needs to have workable tires on that conveyer of freedom. She will not necessarily have, at all times, access to a service station or helpful person – a male – to fix a flat tire. Even if she belongs to AAA – how institutional – she might find herself in some remote place without her cell phone or in a place where she does not have a strong enough signal to use that cell. As the male voice in the ad tells us, he wants her to be as safe as possible; therefore, she needs to know how and be physically able to change a tire. Flats are common enough that the inability to fix one does offer a meaningful enough danger.

And yet who is it that is providing the instruction? It's someone who cares enough to provide it: Dad. So, even when the image is one of independence, of individualism, there is the appropriate institutional figure, the family member, who is providing the instruction for the young lady to be able to exercise her freedom in a reasonably safe manner. The ad doesn't show the interaction between father and daughter that led to this instructional session. I think we are led to believe that a bit of even coercion might have led to the two of them being out there so the daughter could accomplish this purely instructional task; the first tire didn't seem flat or seem it had a puncture. I'm not positive, but I am fairly sure the car was not presently hers to use and, therefore, changing the tire did not benefit her in any immediate way. If the young teen is symbolic of a typical teenager, then the lesson probably did not have the importance to her that it did her father. Yet she fulfilled her obligation to follow her father's directive.

I don't have a daughter. I have a lovely daughter-in-law. I have wondered about how good a dad I would have been to a daughter. I have often felt strongly that what I would have tried to accomplish would include instilling a strong sense of independence and self-reliance. Sports – even team sports – is a good teacher of such values. Perhaps naively, I would have highly encouraged her to participate in sports as I did my son. In any event, a scene like the one depicted in the ad would have definitely been part of my parenting strategy. Nothing promotes women's lib more, other than sane public policy, than to promote among young girls a strong sense of self-worth and self-confidence in order for them to aim high and to attain the skills necessary to succeed in our competitive economy.

To me, obviously, there is a lot in this ad – maybe more than its producers intended. But I believe the ad is a fine way to introduce a federalist conception of the balance between communal and individualistic interests. Symbolically, the ad presents a fine depiction of the relative legitimacy of both types of interests and how they both can function in a productive interaction. It suggests a model for such interactions that a civics class can formulate and then apply to many politically challenging situations.

HOPEFUL TREND

I'm a city boy. I presently live in a town with fewer than two hundred thousand inhabitants, but before moving here, other than my college years, I lived in cities of over 200,000. I was born in New York City and lived there for the first ten years of my life. My folks moved me to Miami, but I made frequent trips to New York since many of the years after that move, one or both of my parents needed to move back and so I would visit quite a bit. Of course, Miami grew enormously through the years. It's a significantly different city today than the town I first moved to in the late fifties. There are great things about living in a big city and there are challenges. I currently choose not to live in Miami because of those challenges but, as was the case with New York, I do cherish my frequent trips down there. I will continue to make them. But the question remains, why not live there? It happens that many are deciding to do just that; that is, to live in big cities. Big cities have their restaurants, their entertainment (especially the theater in New York), their museums, their architecture, their people-watching. But there is also the traffic, the disagreeable interactions with hurried and gruff people, and the indifference one encounters all too often.

The media has been reporting that a lot of young people are choosing to live in cities as opposed to the suburbs. Perhaps the attraction is the more cosmopolitan lifestyle that movies and TV shows glamorize. One supposes they are seeking their vision of happiness. Among certain scholars – social researchers – the focus has been directed to that elusive dependent variable we call happiness. In a recently published book, the journalist, Charles Montgomery, reports on the work of these academics. Leading the way have been behavioral economists. Since many of them have a background in psychology, these researchers have delved into studying everyday decisions. I will admit that I haven't read Montgomery's book, Happy City, but according to a New York Times' review,¹ the book points out that most people are not very good at making decisions that result in maximizing their well-being. I would argue that people set out to make decisions that do maximize their well-being, but they get sidetracked by influences that in retrospect lead to irrational choices. The review offers this example: a young couple, upon seeing a beautiful four/two or two and a half house in the suburbs with the big yard in the pleasant neighborhood, fall in love with an image of the ideal American family lifestyle the house promises them. They lose sight that the house can be a one or two hour drive from work – which means the round trip is twice that, or put another way, leaving the house before daylight and coming home exhausted and frustrated with the long commute. “Montgomery cites studies reporting that the farther people have to commute, the less happy they are, not just with the driving but with the quality of their lives altogether.”

The purpose of the book is not only to sell shorter commutes, but also to report on studies that have identified those elements that could be designed into city environments to increase levels of happiness; for example, and I do relate to this, the presence of greenery interspersed throughout urban areas. I was gratified the review made a point of stating that they were not recommending more Central Parks – a la New York – but smaller patches that do not take a special trip to a faraway place in order to see and visit. These would be patches that one would encounter in normal movement within all parts of the city. I know that when I lived in New York, a real ballgame on a real diamond called for a walk of what I would now consider about three miles. Hence, stick ball, stoop ball, and a host of games on the street in front of my apartment building were our mode of play. Safe? No way, but despite the occasional broken window, it was a great way to spend a summer day.

The book also features the importance of casual friendships that neighborhoods offer. In a city block, in the course of just normally walking around, the activity lends itself to making these kinds of encounters – the same people over and over again, day in and day out. While you wouldn't go on vacations or have dinners with these people, they were the cast of characters that made up the backdrop of one's life. They made you feel like you belong to something; that was, you belong to a viable neighborhood. They also reported to your parents when you were up to no good. Now I know a lot of what I am describing is my personal recollections of what I experienced in those years I lived in New York. But with the type of study Montgomery is reporting, perhaps city planners can pick up on these types of features and begin to include those physical elements that would create these types of communal qualities. Work of psychologists and social psychologists indicate that we absorb the emotional metaphors that our experiences suggest.² Apparently, it is just this type of planning we are seeing in many, if not most, of our cities today. This is a counter-development to what was fashionable at the end of the last century. Those designs were characterized by blank walls in downtown areas. Ironically, that trend countered the more people-friendly environs of an earlier time: today, more so, “public spaces, built for conviviality and conversation, [serve as] an antidote to the empty, windswept plazas that became staples of life in the center of New York and other major cities in the 1960s and 1970s.”³ Happily, the more communal options are being put in place in many of our urban areas.

For civics teachers, there is no more a civic issue than this: what will our local environments be like? It is surely a federalist issue. This area of concern offers us an issue where the average citizen can have meaningful input. This is a local concern and therefore one that, while attracting the concern of vested interests – just considering the value of urban real estate – a participating electorate can put direct pressure on city officials to do the communal thing. It seems that currently, on this front, the communal forces are winning across the land.

1Ehrenhalt, A. (2014). Greener pastures. The New York Times, Book Review section, January 5, p. 25.

2Schnall, S. (2013). A sense of cleanliness. In J. Brockman (Ed.) Thinking: The new science of decision-making, problem solving, and prediction, (pp. 215-224).

3Op cit., Ehrenhalt, p. 5.