IRS and Constitutional Education

At The Washington Post's Vokokh Consiracy blog, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz writes:

It is now well known that the IRS targeted tea party organizations. What is less well known, but perhaps even more scandalous, is that the IRS also targeted those who would educate their fellow citizens about the United States Constitution.

According to the inspector general’s report (pp. 30 & 38), this particular IRS targeting commenced on Jan. 25, 2012 — the beginning of the election year for President Obama’s second campaign. On that date: “the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] criteria were again updated.” The revised criteria included “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”'

Grass-roots organizations around the country, such as the Linchpins of Liberty (Tennessee), the Spirit of Freedom Institute (Wyoming), and the Constitutional Organization of Liberty (Pennsylvania), allege that they were singled out for special scrutiny at least in part for their work in constitutional education. There may have been many more.

The tea party is viewed with general suspicion in some quarters, and it is not difficult, alas, to imagine the mindset of the officials who decided to target tea party organizations for special scrutiny. But federal officers swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is chilling to think that these same officials who are suspicious of the tea party are equally suspicious of the Constitution itself.

What is most corrosive about this IRS tripwire is that it is triggered by a particular point of view; it is not, as First Amendment scholars say, viewpoint-neutral. It does not include obfuscating or denigrating the Constitution; only those “involved in … educating on the Constitution” are captured by this criterion. This viewpoint targeting potentially skews every national debate about politics or government. And the skew is not strictly liberal; indeed, it should trouble liberals as much as conservatives. The ultimate checks on executive power are to be found in the United States Constitution. Insidiously, then, suppressing those “involved in … educating on the Constitution” actually skews national debate in favor of unchecked executive power

Sugar Politics

Many posts have discussed how interest groups can influence public policy.  At The Washington Post, Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger explain the survival of sugar subsidies. (h/t BK)

This year, a well-heeled coalition of sugar-using companies stepped up their lobbying efforts to portray the program as costly to consumers and American workers. Newly elected tea party conservatives vowing to crusade against government meddling in free markets also provided fresh potential support.

“You would have thought that this would have been the year for reform,” said Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), whose state is home to Hershey and who sponsored measures to roll back sugar support. But, he added, “we were up against a force.”

Liberal sugar advocates included [Sen. Al] Franken, whose state is home to a large concentration of sugar-beet farmers, along with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), whose home areas include Fanjul-controlled refineries.

Nearly the entire Florida delegation — from Rubio, a potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate, to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee — voted to keep sugar protections in place.

Strong support has come from House conservatives, as well, including Rep. Michael K. Conaway (R-Tex.), chairman of a key agriculture subcommittee.

“The sugar guys win votes because they are better at politics than anyone else,” said one lobbyist who is close to sugar executives and requested anonymity to discuss industry thinking. “What other interest group in town do you know that can consistently draw support from hard-core conservatives, ethnic liberals and cost-conscious moderates?”

The industry is tiny in comparison to other agricultural commodities, but it outspends all other crop sectors combined on political-action-committee contributions to federal candidates. Sugar interests have spent $49 million on federal campaign donations and lobbying over the past five years.

On average, sugar farmers and employees gave more than five times as much money to members of Congress who sided with the industry than to members who did not, according to an analysis of key votes conducted for The Washington Post by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Christie and the 2013 Elections

Our chapter on elections discusses state and local races, and our chapter on federalism features of photo of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (who just won reelection) with Cory Booker, the Newark mayor who has become a US senator.  At The Daily Beast, Lloyd Green writes that Christie's landslide reelection yesterday puts him into presidential contention:

As he goes forward, Christie will need to address the questions that clouded his consideration as Romney’s running-mate. Christie will need to assure the party about his own integrity, and his tendency to conflate government with his own self. “Steering government contracts to friends and political allies” is not the best trait for a former federal prosecutor.

Still, the nation having endured Bill Clinton and the Devil in the Blue Dress, Bush 43’s eleventh-hour disclosures about driving under the influence, Obama’s alleged sweetheart deal with corrupt businessman Tony Rezko, and Romney’s offshore and overseas investments, Christie is far from being out of contention.

America has re-defined deviancy down. If a plagiarizing Joe Biden can become vice president, while a plagiarizing Rand Paul can mull the presidency, and a grifting Hillary Rodham Clinton can be the Democrats' leading contender, then Christie should be allowed his moment of glory.

Christie has done more than just log frequent flier miles by jetsetting around the world. He has demonstrated that bipartisanship is more than a dream or a speech applause line. Christie showed that he could reach across the aisle during Superstorm Sandy and he did it again on Election Day, winning two thirds of independents and a third of Democrats.

The scrum over the nation’s future did not end yesterday. The results remained too equivalent. Rejection of Obamacare was not enough to carry the day for Cuccinelli. The Tea Party lost, but it was not vanquished. In New York City, Bill de Blasio—an ex-Sandalista—romped to election as Mayor, while across the Hudson River, a moderate conservative had a landslide win of his own. There was something for everyone.

Town Halls and Deliberative Democracy

Eric Zorn writes at The Chicago Tribune:

The American town hall tradition dates back centuries, as do critiques of its fundamental flaw: "In all very numerous assemblies," observed James Madison in Federalist 55 (1788), "passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason."

Especially when passion is organized. In spring of 2009, Connecticut tea party activist Bob MacGuffie authored a widely distributed memo, "Rocking the Town Hall, Best Practices," that served as a blueprint for those who sought to turn congressional meet-and-greets into taunt-and-shrieks about then-pending health care reform legislation.
...
Activists on the political right took the lead in undermining the town hall. But those on the left have learned well from their techniques, and this summer both sides are reportedly planning to — how to put it nicely again? — orchestrate their contributions to these events; to turn "Congress on Your Corner" into "Your Congressperson Cornered," as Stanford University's James Fishkin put it.

Fishkin heads Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy and advocates replacing the shrill town hall meeting with a gathering of a "scientifically selected microcosm of a lawmaker's constituents" to provide "informed feedback" representing the district.

Sounds a bit fussy to me, but closer to the ideals of democracy than ceding the platform to the loudest, angriest factions. And a sight better than Twitter town halls, admission fee barriers and other options some representatives adopted after the harum-scarum of 2009. In fact, prior to the 2011 August recess, the No Labels nonpartisan group surveyed all members of Congress and found 68 percent of the Democrats and 51 percent of the Republicans were not planning town halls. The Washington Post reported then that the number of such meetings had fallen 24 percent since 2009.

I found no comparable figures for 2013, but my suggestion is to cut the number to zero. The Internet, 24/7 cable news and relentless operatives in these polarized, high-volume times have turned meeting rooms into stages.

And congressional representatives who want to get a handle on what their constituents really think instead of simply getting an earful need to get off their — how to put it nicely? — chairs, walk around and ask.

IRS Political Targeting

At The Washington Post, Zachary Goldfarb and Karen Tumulty write:

The Internal Revenue Service on Friday apologized for targeting groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, confirming long-standing accusations by some conservatives that their applications for tax-exempt status were being improperly delayed and scrutinized.

Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the “absolutely inappropriate” actions by “front-line people” were not driven by partisan motives.

Rather, Lerner said, they were a misguided effort to come up with an efficient means of dealing with a flood of applications from organizations seeking ­tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012.

During that period, about 75 groups were selected for extra inquiry — including burdensome questionnaires and, in some cases, improper requests for the names of their donors — simply because of the words in their names, she said in a conference call with reporters.

They constituted about one-quarter of the 300 groups who were flagged for additional analysis by employees of the IRS tax-exempt unit’s main office in Cincinnati.

It was not clear whether the IRS had anticipated the firestorm that it would ignite with its disclosure. Indeed, it appeared to have happened by chance when Lerner, appearing Friday at a conference held by the American Bar Association, responded to a question about the allegations by conservative groups.

The IRS’s subsequent conference call with reporters was clumsily handled. At one point, Lerner attempted to do arithmetic on the phone and blurted out: “I’m not good at math.” That admission was understandable, given that her training is as a lawyer, but it produced a quote that is likely to haunt the agency that handles the nation’s tax returns.

David French of the American Center for Law and Justice writes:

In addition, they asked for such things as the résumés of board members and disclosure of family members’ identities. I shouldn’t even have to explain how unconstitutional this is. Also, to be clear, these are questions designed not just to create a paperwork burden for tea-party groups but also to dissect their operations and to chill even the activities of family members.

Moreover, if the IRS claims this was a localized problem, we had voluminous communications with IRS offices in California, Washington D.C., and in the Ohio office that was the alleged source of the problem.

In 1999, J.F. Couch and associates wrote at Cato:

Some observers point out that political considerations may influence enforcement activities such as audits. The blatant use of the IRS for political purposes is not new. During the Kennedy presidency, a mysterious IRS organization called ‘‘The Ideological Organizations Audit Project’’ was formed to investigate right-leaning groups; among those apparently targeted was Young Americans for Freedom (Davis 1997: 246). The Special Services Staff (SSS) was formed during the Nixon administration to coordinate ‘‘all IRS activities involving ideological, militant, subversive, radical, and similar type organizations’’ (Davis 1997: 88).
 

Davis, Shelley. (1997) Unbridled Power. New York: Harper Collins.

The American Creed

In his second inaugural address, President Obama repeatedly referred to the American creed.  At RealClearHistory, Brian Vanyo discusses the origins of this creed, with specific reference to the Tea Act crisis of 1773:

The Tea Act was designed primarily to prop up the struggling British East India Tea Company by granting it a license to export its tea duty-free to North America. But it also aimed to undercut the price of tea being smuggled into America — tea that many Americans bought to evade the tea tax imposed by Parliament’s 1767 Townshend Acts. The effect of the Tea Act was that Company tea became cheaper (even with the Townshend tax) than smuggled tea, thereby presenting the American people with a corrupt bargain. They could buy Company tea at lower cost, but by doing so they would be implicitly accepting Parliament’s right of direct taxation in America.

The American people rejected the tea altogether. When a shipment of Company tea arrived in Boston in December 1773, Samuel Adams famously led the Sons of Liberty in an attack on the ship and tossed the tea into the harbor. This brazen act demonstrated that the American people were committed to liberty at all costs — that they would not betray their principles even when doing so might benefit them financially.

The Boston Tea Party made the Revolutionary War practically inevitable, for Parliament responded in 1774 by passing the Intolerable Acts, which then prompted the American people to convene the First Continental Congress.

At Philadelphia in 1774, the First Continental Congress requested the British government to redress its many grievances, but it also proclaimed in the Declaration of Colonial Rights the sacred principles upon which the American political union was based. In the very first resolution of this document, Congress declared that the American people, “by the immutable Laws of Nature ... have the following rights: ... that they are entitled to life, liberty and property; and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatsoever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.”

Occupy, RIP

Previous posts have tracked the rise and fall of the "Occupy" movement. The Los Angeles Times offers an obituary of sorts:

On Monday, a year will have passed since activists took over the park near the symbolic heart of American capitalism, sparking a movement with offshoots in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere around the world.

But the movement has yet to have a broad tangible effect, leaving some to wonder whether it will fizzle.

Polls have shown that the public generally supports Occupy's message but not its disruptive tactics. A majority of respondents in one poll this spring said the movement had run its course.
As the Occupy movement turns 1 year old, its primary target — Wall Street — keeps churning out scandals. Major banks have been caught rigging key interest rates, laundering money and taking risky bets that lose billions of dollars.

Yet the movement cannot claim any new policy, law or regulation as its own. Unlike the Tea Party on the political right, there is no cohesive Occupy group promoting candidates in November's national election.

"After the media effects wore off, a lot of politicians just figured out that these people weren't going to matter," said Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard who co-wrote a book about the Tea Party.

"Politicians pay attention to people who vote or who organize and spend money in elections," Skocpol said. "That's what Tea Party did and does, and that's what Occupy doesn't do. I don't think it matters very much anymore."

Bad Journalism and the Colorado Shooting

CNN drew criticism for a hasty and inaccurate report about the Supreme Court's decision on the health care law.  ABC just made an even bigger mistake, as The Huffington Post notes:

ABC's Brian Ross got himself into trouble on Friday when he incorrectly suggested there may have been a link between the alleged shooter in the Colorado theater tragedy and the Tea Party. Both Ross and the network later apologized for making the claim.

Ross' comments came after federal officials informed news outlets that the suspect was named James Holmes. George Stephanopoulos threw to him on "Good Morning America" by saying, "You've been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant."

"There's a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year," Ross said. "Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado."

The page that Ross seems to have been looking at has no identifiable information about the person on it other than his name.

Writes Eric Wemple of The Washington Post:

ABC News has posted this text on its site: 

Editor’s Note: An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.

The mistake: Unforgivable, regrettable, amateurish, miserable. “MEDIA BIAS? WHAT MEDIA BIAS?” asks an e-mail promoting a blog post on the conservative NewsBusters site about the mistake. Though ABC News won’t answer any questions at this point, it’s possible that Ross was basing his conjecture on a single Web page for the Colorado Tea Party Patriots.

What Ross failed to understand is that speculation about the Aurora shooter is a journalistic felony. You can speculate on air about Mitt Romney’s motives for not releasing his tax returns; you can speculate on air about whether the heat wave will pass; you cannot speculate on air about the identity of an alleged mass murderer. Especially when: 1) You’re rolling the suspect into a political overlay by mentioning the Tea Party movement; and 2) According to a quick online search, there are six “James Holmes” listed in Denver and 21 in the state of Colorado; error likelihood for such a common name is high.

The correction: Quick, responsible, complete and honest. Credit ABC News for cleaning up its gooey mess.

The Candidates and the Constitution

In The Constitution on the Campaign Trail, Andrew Busch finds a limited resurgence in constitutional rhetoric in recent campaigns, reflecting concern with judicial issues, rights, and federalism. Since the book's publication, the tea party movement has further increased the prominence of such rhetoric. And last night, the GOP presidential candidates discussed constitutional issues in a televised forum. Joy Lin writes at Fox News:

Six presidential candidates participated in Mike Huckabee's presidential forum in New York City Saturday, fielding questions from three Republican attorneys general - Pam Bondi of Florida, Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia, and Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma.

Newt Gingrich, who in a Des Moines Register Poll out Saturday has taken the lead in Iowa at 25 percent support, defended his proposal for determining which illegal immigrants should be able to stay in the United States. Bondi expressed concerns that neighborhood boards would undermine the rule of law, especially when neighbors and friends would be determining their fate.

"That is what we do in a jury trial," said Gingrich. "That's the whole point. That's why the founding fathers who distrusted judges insisted on juries. Because ultimately, in a free society, the citizens have to bear responsibility for their own culture and their own society. And ultimately, they are -- I believe they are -- more trustworthy. If you ask me would I trust a jury or a Washington bureaucrat, I would rather have my fate decided by a jury of my peers than have my fate decided by a Washington bureaucrat."

Republicans Looking for the Ideal Candidate

Our chapters on political parties and elections examine the presidential nomination process. In the current race, Republicans are taking their time settling on an overwhelming favorie. At the Associated Press, Steven R. Hurst writes:

"This year has the feel of one where the tea party people are looking for a savior," said John Baick, professor of political science at New England College. "But they will never find someone who fits the bill. No one can be a savior because everyone has flaws."

...

Through the rise and fall of fortunes, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney _ favorite of the more moderate party establishment _ has held steady in the polls but failed to move above a tepid 20 percent to 30 percent backing.

Jack Holmes, political science professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, explains that Romney has failed to catch fire because the most conservative among Republicans are looking for an antiestablishment candidate, albeit one who can defeat Obama.

"If the candidate doesn't measure up, politicians are quickly abandoned," said Holmes, who is active in Republican politics.

Seth Masket, assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver, contends the conservatives are "trying all these non-Romneys on for size.

"The active part of the Republican base right now is much further to the right than they used to be. If the party base were somewhat more moderate, I think they would have converged in support of Romney by now," said Masket.

...

While Romney remains the odds-on favorite with the Republican establishment, Baick said a "dream candidate" still could emerge for the deeply conservative base.

"Those Republicans are hoping for a candidate with no negative history, no negative record. Just a staunch conservative. If that candidate could just offer them something, some symbolism, those conservatives would follow," he said.

So far it doesn't appear the current field is measuring up.

What is more, says James Riddlesperger, professor of political science at Texas Christian University, the party base "cares a lot more about policy than winning. They would rather be ideologically pure than win."

Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party: A View from Texas

At Scripps-Howard, Trish Choate reports that West Texas lawmakers and tea party activists say that they have little in common with Occupy Wall Street. Choate quotes a political scientist on similarities and differences between the tea party and Occupy Wall Street.

"Occupy Wall Street is capturing more of the general dissatisfaction and malaise within society," University of North Texas political science professor Kimi King said.

The Tea Party movement argues we need to change by shifting more to the right, King said. Occupy Wall Street argues we need to shift more to the left.

...

King sees some glaring differences and some similarities between the two groups.

"The Tea Party wants to change the election outcome for 2012," she said. "Occupy Wall Street wants to change society for the next decade."

It's questionable whether Occupy Wall Street's goals are the same across all of the groups in the United States, King said.

The Tea Party, however, focuses on a narrow range of issues, King said. Tea Partiers also have more history and experience, as well as more organization and money.

"They have been successful in gathering support from political candidates for their views," King said.

Occupy Wall Street seems to be suffering from being a relatively new phenomenon, she said.

Both movements are using the right of assembly and free-speech rights to raise awareness about their causes, King said.

"But the method that Occupy Wall Street is using will sooner or later become problematic unless you have identifiable goals because while you have free speech rights, no free speech right is absolute," she said.

Concerns about public order, sanitation, criminal behavior and the general health and welfare of individuals allow the government to impose limits, King said.

"That's not a free-speech issue," she said. "That is an issue of maintaining health and welfare."

Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street

At The Aberdeen News, Professor Kenneth Blanchard discusses the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements:

Both the left and the right in American politics want to believe that their own army of protesters is spontaneous and righteous and that the folks across the street are artificial and pernicious.

In fact, the tea party movement and the occupy movement are entirely genuine, composed of red-blooded American sons and daughters of liberty. We're mad as hell, and we aren't going to take it anymore, or at least not without a good shaking of our fists.

After the tea party movement emerged, Democrats launched a campaign to show that the movement was violent and racist. Neither accusation was true. Whoever you are, you'd be safer at a tea party gathering than pretty much anywhere else. And now that the current favorite of the tea partyers is Herman Cain, the charge of racism is refuted.

It's true that of the hundreds of tea party gatherings, a handful of racist signs have been observed. It's also true that some occupiers have carried anti-Jewish posters. There are bad eggs and oddballs at any gathering.

The tea party movement had a big influence on the last election. The influence of the occupation remains to be seen. Let me just say that this is how Americans are supposed to behave.

Politics and the Box Office

The movies are a political medium. Sometimes Hollywood figures also make political statements on their own time, and apparently there is an impact on the box office. Prompted by Morgan Freeman's attack on the tea party, The Hollywood Reporter notes:

In a far-ranging poll Penn Schoen Berland conducted for The Hollywood Reporter of 1,000 registered voters to gauge moviegoing tendencies of Democrats vs. Republicans, it's clear political allegiances have shifted entertainment viewing habits. Jon Penn, the firm's president of media and entertainment research, says that before Freeman's words, interest in Dolphin Tale was considerably higher among conservatives and religious moviegoers than among liberals. After the remarks, 34 percent of the conservatives who were aware of them, and 37 percent of Tea Partiers, said they were less likely to see the film -- but 42 percent of liberals said they were more likely. (Five days after Freeman's remarks, 24 percent of all moviegoers were aware of them.)

In fact, overall, 35 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Tea Partiers consider a celebrity's political position before paying to see their films, compared with 20 percent of Democrats.

Many exhibitors say privately that they cringe when a star waxes politically just before one of their movies opens -- like when, seven weeks before Contagion, Matt Damon attended a Save Our Schools march where some attendees compared Republicans to "terrorists." Videos of Damon mocking conservatives for their fiscal policies spread like wildfire on the Internet.

"Of course it impacts box office," says Landmark Theatres owner Mark Cuban. "You just hope that for every member of one party that no-shows because of comments, another buys a ticket for the same reason."

As with all survey data about political behavior, there is reason to take the findings with a little skepticism. First of all, people typically do not see a movie simply on the basis of one of its cast members. The presence of a beloved actor such as Tom Hanks does not guarantee success, and the presence of a controversial performer does not mean failure.

To the average moviegoer, Morgan Freeman is not the guy who says silly things about the tea party. He's The Guy Who Sounds Like God.

Dolphin Tale appeals to children. If kids beg to see it, will parents really say no just because they don't like Morgan Freeman's politics?

Murky Tea

The post-election update of our book discusses the tea party movement. Despite its name, it is not a political party: it has no place on the ballot, no hierarchy, no single platform. Instead, it is a loose social movement, a set of often-warring organizations as well as rank-and-file supporters with varying degrees of attachment. They agree broadly on what they are against, but naturally have trouble agreeing on what they are for. At Roll Call, Janie Lorber and Ambreen Ali write:

Every interest group in town is vying for the attention of the super committee members except the very movement that drove the federal deficit to the top of Congress' agenda.

Tea party leaders can be found this fall hawking a Constitution-themed coloring book, riding a tour bus across the country and endorsing 2012 candidates — but not issuing policy proposals for cutting the deficit.

"It's generally not what we do," said Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, which is leading a campaign to encourage schools to teach lessons drawn from the Constitution. "We are an organization that's designed to push the debate toward fiscal responsibility. Our job is not to come up with policies."

The Tea Party and Presidential Politics

In the election update of our text, we discuss the "tea party" phenomenon. At The Washington Post, Dan Balz summarizes the latest scholarly observations:

That the tea party sprang to life during Obama’s presidency should have been less surprising than it was. According to Alan Abramowitz of Emory University, “The tea party movement can best be understood in the context of the long-term growth of partisan-ideological polarization within the American electorate and especially the growing conservatism of the activist base in the Republican Party.”

...

In other words, the Republican base was primed to dislike Obama as president. In fact, it already did before he was ever sworn in. “People attending the tea party events that began early in the Obama administration expressed the same vehement hostility toward Obama first observed at campaign rallies for John McCain and Sarah Palin” in the fall of 2008, writes Gary Jacobson of the University of California at San Diego.

They were also predisposed to oppose his agenda, whether it was his big stimulus package or his health-care proposal. Those measures helped galvanize the group that became known as tea party activists or supporters, but as Jacobson notes, “The tea party movement conferred a label and something of a self-conscious identity to a pre-existing Republican faction that already held strongly conservative views on both economic and social issues.”

Nicol C. Rae of Florida International University sees the tea party as a populist rebellion reacting not just to Obama, but also to “the failure of the Republican Party in power from 2001-2006 when it controlled the White House and both houses of Congress and yet did little to fulfill the conservative political agenda.”

Rick Perry is capitalizing on this sentiment, casting himself as an outsider to Washington politics. In Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, tea party support is helping Perry:

Even before Perry puts a boot on the ground here as a candidate, he is leading Romney in the most recent poll.

The survey by the GOP firm Magellan Strategies has Perry leading Romney 29 percent to 24 percent among 631 Nevada Republicans likely to take part in the caucuses set for Feb. 18.

Herman Cain had 7 percent backing, Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul 6 percent each and Newt Gingrich 5 percent, while Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman came in with 1 percent apiece. The auto-dial survey was taken at the end of August. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent.

Perry is getting much of his support from the tea party movement of conservatives. Among tea party members, who made up almost half of those polled, the Texas governor led Romney, 36 percent to 16 percent.

Mark Peplowski, a political science professor at the College of Southern Nevada, said the tea party swing to Perry "should be scary to Romney. It says that Perry is resonating with people who are not necessarily in his cadre" and who are motivated to become active.

Peplowski said Perry can't afford to wait long to establish a beachhead here: "Perry will be making a mistake if he assumes he can maintain these numbers without creating a presence on the ground."

The Town Hall Dearth

No Labels reports:

Is your representative holding a public town hall meeting this August recess? No Labels called every office, and only 40% are scheduling open town hall meetings. It’s a sad sign of the state of affairs when our elected officials don’t have time to meet with their constituents.

No Labels activists spoke to all 430 current members of the House of Representatives to find that only 175* of them scheduled meetings. The results of the phone survey also reveal that members of both parties share the blame, with 67% of Democrats and 50% of Republicans stating they had no town hall meetings scheduled for the recess period.

*UPDATE: Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI) is holding town hall meetings this month, as is Rep. Steve King (R-IA).

Last week, USA Today provided some background:

The 2009 protests over health care not only pushed the Tea Party activism to the front lines of American politics, it also changed how members of Congress interact with their constituents. And it put the sleepy August recess on the political calendar, transforming town hall meetings into made-for-YouTube events.

Matt Kibbe, the director of the Tea Party umbrella group FreedomWorks, had been organizing protests at town hall-style meetings since the mid-1990s. What made the 2009 protests possible, he said, was the ease of alerting volunteers by e-mail.

This year, a website promoted by conservative talk show host Glenn Beck gives location information, talking points and advice: "Make sure that a Tea Partier is the first person to the microphone ," the "August Action" kit says.

Even liberal groups begrudgingly admire the Tea Party tactic, and are replicating it.

"The Tea Party managed to really spook Congress with a really smart, organized effort. After a week of aggressive town-hall disruptions, they managed to create a narrative about the health care law that stuck," said Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group launched in 1998.

The forums have the ability to show a depth of passion on an issue that e-mail petitions — once the staple of MoveOn's organizing — can't convey, he said.

...

Now, town-hall-style meetings are less publicized, Kibbe said. He worries his town-hall strategy may become a victim of its own success. It awakened opponents to the power of the strategy, and may discourage some members from holding open meetings. Telephone town halls, webcasts and business luncheons allow members of Congress to control the audience and the questions.

"If that's a fact, it's too bad, because it's one of the few ways I could use to know what ordinary people in my district thought," said former representative Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who heads the Center on Congress at Indiana University. "So much of the problem with our politics today is that politicians tend to interact with homogenous groups, and they therefore misinterpret a mandate."

Protesters on the left and right have drawn inspiration from Saul Alinsky. But so have their targets. Alinsky wrote:

Once a specific tactic is used, it ceases to be outside the experience of the enemy. Before long he devises countermeasures that void the previous effective tactic. Recently the head of a corporation showed me the blueprint of a new plant and pointed to a large ground-floor area: “Boy, have we got an architect who is with it!” he chuckled. “See that big hall? That’s our sit-in room! When the sit-inners come they’ll be shown in and there will be coffee, T.V., and good toilet facilities — they can sit here until hell freezes over.

President Obama v. The Tea Party

Charles Babington writes at AP:

The rising profiles of Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are giving the White House a new opening: linking the entire Republican field to the tea party movement, whose popularity has recently sagged.

If the strategy works, it could cause guilt-by-association problems even for non-tea-party Republicans like Mitt Romney.

That might be a lot to ask, however. Unflattering comparisons are a well-worn campaign tactic, and many Americans have only a hazy notion of the tea party movement, which advocates shrinking government and reducing taxes. Still, President Barack Obama's top aides are giving it a go.

Republican candidates must decide whether to "swear allegiance to the tea party" or work with Democrats to create jobs, Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. After last week's Republican debate in Iowa, Obama campaign guru David Axelrod claimed the presidential contenders were "pledging allegiance to the tea party."

And a new video by the Democratic National Committee says Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates are "embracing extreme tea party policies."

Tying the opponent to an object of scorn is an old tactic. In 1996, for instance, President Clinton's campaign ran ads attacking "Dole-Gingrich."

Like Gingrich, the tea party has become unpopular -- and Democrats may be hoping that it will do for them what Gingrich did in 1996. But as Saul Alinsky taught, a good enemy has to be a specific person. A diffuse movement with no clear leader does not arouse the same kind of emotion. President Clinton also had one big advantage that Obama probably won't have: a good economy. The Clinton campaign could accuse the other side of trying to take away something good. The Obama campaign will have a tougher time making that case.

Wisdom about the Tea Party

There has been a good deal of hyperbole about the tea party movement, both pro and con. Back in 1984, there was similar commentary about Newt Gingrich and his followers in the House, who were confronting the House Democratic leadership. Barber Conable, a moderate Republican from upstate New York, was retiring that year, and wrote a column reflecting on life in the House. Instead of looking at the upstarts with horror, he instead saw something very natural:

Old as I am, I recall being a "young turk" at one point and participating noisily in a successful effort to change House rules which the then Establishment found adequate. I learned a lot about the institution from the effort, vented my frustrations, and gradually became part of the Establishment myself. Youth presses age, provides a good deal of the dynamic and the dialogue, and eventually ages. Partisans may not like the tranquility of my view of these recent histrionics, but I find reassurance in the cycle of renewal.

Tea Party Divisions

The tea party is far from a monolithic movement, as Chris Good demonstrates at The Atlantic:

If you like squabbles, then the 2012 presidential primary is for you.

Not only will we be treated, this time around, to squabbling between the candidates and their respective teams (which has already begun, with some hearty badmouthing between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin), but we'll get to hear the gradually amplified bickering of tea-party activists, many of whom have disliked each other for years. Until now, they haven't had to pick sides in a national race; if anything can bring out their differences, it's the 2012 White House race.

Case in point: Mitt Romney's candidacy is already dividing activists, and the sniping has already begun between Tea Party Express and Tea Party Patriots, two groups that have been at odds, on and off, since 2009.

"Whoever the Republican nominee is will have to have the support of the Tea Party movement, the entire Tea Party movement," Tea Party Express co-chair Amy Kremer told "Fox News Sunday" this past weekend, even if that nominee turns out to be Mitt Romney.

With former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's group FreedomWorks already opposing Romney, Tea Party Patriots fired back at Kremer in a press release specifically about her statement:

Last weekend, a tea party "spokesperson" told Fox News that the grassroots would support any candidate opposed to President Obama.

"A pledge of allegiance to the Republican party, or any other party, violates what the tea party movement is all about and is completely out of touch with grassroots Americans," said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder and national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots. ...

"As national coordinators of the largest tea party group in the country, we've heard little support for Romney in the movement as we interact daily with local coordinators and activists," said Mark Meckler, co-founder and national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots. "We believe it's premature to say whether anyone would support him if he were the nominee, and anyone who says that tea partiers would support him is certainly not speaking for the movement at large.

Constitutional Authority Statements

From the House Committee on Rules:

On January 5, 2011, the House adopted a new rule requiring each introduced bill or joint resolution to be accompanied by a statement of constitutional authority. This describes the requirements of the rule, along with links to materials which will be helpful to ensure compliance.

Text of the Rule

The rule is a new paragraph of clause 7 of rule XII:

“(c)(1) A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor submits for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution. The statement shall appear in a portion of the Record designated for that purpose and be made publicly available in electronic form by the Clerk.

“(2) Before consideration of a Senate bill or joint resolution, the chair of a committee of jurisdiction may submit the statement required under subparagraph (1) as though the chair were the sponsor of the Senate bill or joint resolution.”.

The rule also repeals clause 3(d)(1) of rule XIII (relating to constitutional authority statements in committee reports).

Compliance with the Rule

When a Member presents a bill or joint resolution for introduction and referral (when it is dropped in the “hopper”), the bill must be accompanied by a separate sheet of paper citing the constitutional authority to enact the proposed bill or joint resolution.

The statement should include the Member's name and signature, the title of the measure it accompanies, and a citation to the power or powers granted in the Constitution to enact the bill. Below are links to a form (in both Word and PDF format) designed by the Office of the Legislative Counsel to assist Members in complying with this requirement.

The rules change was a nod to the tea party movement, whose members may have expected that it would curb legislative activism. After all, if members could not find constitutional justification for bill expanding government power, they could not introduce them. But there are two gigantic loopholes.

The first is Article I, section 8, clause 1, which empowers Congress "to provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States. " That phrase covers just about any kind of legislation about anything.

The second is the well-known "elastic clause," Article I, Section 8, Clause 18, enabling Congress to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

A glance at a recent set of constitutional authority statements indicates that many House members are taking advantage of these loopholes.

The rule may have symbolic value but it has no substantive impact at all.