Don McGahn is a member and former chair of the Federal Election Commission. He has many years’ experience practicing election law, and he has thought a lot about both the law and politics of his subject. The other day, after the Cato conference on Citizens United, he sat down with Cato’s Caleb O. Brown to discuss that famous decision and its aftermath. McGahn’s thoughts are worth your time:

At the same conference, University of Massachusetts political scientist Ray LaRaja discussed his research on the impact of Citizens United on elections, spending, and the political parties. For my money, LaRaja is among the best of the young scholars working on campaign finance.

It’s my job to advocate for spending cuts. It’s a job I’ve been doing in one form or another for over a decade. If I’ve ever experienced a victory, it must have been a pretty small one, because I can’t recall any.

So why do I persist?

For one, I’m a naturally optimistic person. And fueling that optimism is the press. I’m constantly reading about the possibility of spending cuts, and those articles usually say that the cuts would be major … or massive … or severe … or even draconian! The possibility sends a thrill up my leg.

Alas, the “draconian” spending cuts invariably turn out to be not-so-draconian after all. In fact, it’s often the case that reporters are talking about smaller spending increases rather than real spending cuts. Other times, the cuts are likely to only be temporary or come after years and years of increases.

In today’s example, a National Journal article reports that the “unthinkable” could happen: the fiscal 2013 sequestration cuts–just reduced and postponed by the fiscal cliff deal–might actually go into effect March 1^st as scheduled:

Republicans and Democrats in the Senate appear to be coming to the same conclusion on spending, namely that once unthinkable, draconian cuts designed to force a more reasonable compromise may be much harder to undo than anyone ever imagined.

How “draconian” would these “unthinkable” cuts be? About $85 billion. To put that in context, the federal government will spend around $3,500 billion ($3.5 trillion) this year. The deficit alone is likely to approach or exceed $1 trillion (the federal government has run a deficit in excess of $1 trillion for four straight years).

If that’s draconian, what would the press call cutting enough spending just to balance the budget?

As we’ve been trying to demonstrate at Down​siz​ing​Gov​ern​ment​.org, spending cuts would be good for the country. I encourage journalists who cover federal policy to check out the site to see what real spending cuts are all about. It might cause you to have to find new adjectives to use to describe what Republicans and Democrats are really doing, but your readers would be better served–especially the wild-eyed optimists like me.

Like my colleague Michael, I found “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall” the best moment in President Obama’s address. It was unifying: by going far enough back in time, it summoned up (as a recitation of current controversies would not) a sense that in historical perspective, nearly all present-day Americans have come to agree on crucial fundamentals about not using the law to mistreat each other. I especially liked the touch of geographical obscurity. It makes me imagine a million explanatory conversations going on this week from Kalamazoo to Karachi: “Okay, so *that’s* why Americans still talk about Selma and Stonewall. Now what was Seneca Falls about?” That could be time well spent.

My opinion piece defending the filibuster appeared today in the Philadelphia Inquirer just as Senate leaders were reaching a deal that largely preserves the rule.

I would like to explicate this sentence in the op-ed:

In a polarized time, the filibuster tends to make Senate actions more representative of the nation as a whole.

Here’s the reasoning behind that conclusion. Assume the electorate forms a normal distribution with regard to policy preferences. Normally both parties would compete to attract the vote of the median voter thereby winning an election. In a polarized time for whatever reason, both parties might have programs some distance from the median voter. If a governing party acted on such non-median preferences, the resulting law would ignore the wishes of a substantial number of voters in the middle or “thick” part of the distribution. A filibuster would either 1) prevent a law from passing or 2) force a majority to accommodate the views of the most right- or left- leaning legislators in the minority party. The views of the legislators required by the filibuster would presumably reflect the views of many voters in the thick part of the distribution. In this way, the filibuster would require laws to become closer to what a majority wanted than the laws that a filibuster-free majority would have passed.

Of course, with regard to the theory, it makes no sense that polarization would exist to begin with: if either party varied from the wishes of the median voter, the other would swoop in and pick up those votes. However, polarization exists so I assume both parties govern somewhat off the median.

An effort is underway at the Department of Agriculture to reform the federal government’s mandatory country-of-origin labeling rules for beef. The current scheme was successfully challenged by Canada and Mexico as a violation of WTO obligations prohibiting protectionist regulatory discrimination. If the United States does not bring its law into compliance, Mexico and Canada will have the option of raising tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation.

The supposed purpose of mandatory origin labels is to improve food safety by providing consumers with information. How does the country of origin of the cattle impact food safety? I surely do not know. If consumers want this information, why is a law needed to compel businesses to provide it? I don’t know that either.

The actual purpose of the law is to prevent Canadian cattle raisers from competing with American cattle raisers. The labeling scheme accomplishes this not by informing consumers that their beef is made from cattle that ate grass north of the 49th parallel, but by imposing on downstream processors the expense of keeping track of the cattle’s historical whereabouts. The meat packers can avoid this expense by purchasing only purely U.S. origin cattle. The price of American cattle goes up accordingly.

The extent of any reforms made this year will tell us how much the WTO ruling affected the balance of political power within the cow-to-hamburger value chain. The law’s existence is evidence that cattle raisers currently have more influence in Washington than meat packers, but the WTO ruling has already made a difference simply by prompting the initiation of a reform effort. The possibility of retaliation by Canada and Mexico spreads the negative consequences of the law to other politically relevant U.S. industries with a stake in North American trade. These industries will not sit idly by while their own businesses suffer in the name of expensive beef. 

Let the lobbying begin!

I recently blogged that for me, the one (and perhaps only) bright spot of President Obama’s second inaugural address was this gem:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

A reader responds:

Just a little feedback for your post below. I think you are being a bit too “highbrow” by not explaining what the three place names signify. I had to look up two of them to realize what they signified. They may all be top-of-mind to Obama Democrats, but this long-time libertarian (30+ years) and previous to that conservative republican really knew not of the references. With Wikipedia & Google search, it does not take much to look them up, but still.…

I think a lot about why more women and minorities don’t show an interest in libertarianism, especially when libertarian ideas should be particularly appealing to groups that have suffered at the hands of the state. I think my correspondent exhibits one reason. Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall represent seminal moments in the movements to liberate three groups who had suffered (and at least one of which is still suffering) state-sponsored repression right here in the United States. Yet this 30-year libertarian had to look up two of those references. I had to look up one. We didn’t know all three because libertarians do not routinely talk about these incredibly important moments and movements in the history of American freedom. Sure, we are glad they happened (and are ongoing). But we don’t celebrate them. Which we should. Barack Obama is ahead of us on this one.

Suppose you or a close family member had been in Selma. If you met a libertarian, and mentioned Selma, and he drew a blank — what would you think?

On Tuesday, I testified before the Florida Senate’s Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Also testifying was economist Jonathan Gruber. Gruber is an architect of RomneyCare, and one of ObamaCare’s leading proponents. So it was significant when Gruber agreed that there is no reason for states to establish Exchanges this year:

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, and Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agreed on little about the federal health law, [yet] one bit of common ground emerged: Florida should go slow in its approach to a health-insurance exchange.

Gruber thinks that for 2014, states would be better off opting for a type of federal Exchange called a type of “partnership” Exchange, and then maybe running the Exchange themselves after that. I argue there is no reason for states to lift a finger to implement this law, now or ever, and that states would benefit from refusing both to establish an Exchange and to expand their Medicaid programs.

But now that ObamaCare’s leading proponent has acknowledged there is no reason for states to establish Exchanges this year, it will be easier for states who are still wrestling with that question (e.g., Idaho, Utah, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi) to make up their minds.