February 8

 Sunny this morning and the prediction put the probably temp at low 50s. I have a couple of chores to start off the clean-up season on the patio. I might get to some today but at the moment we are waiting for our breakfast to come out of the oven and the coverage of the Supreme Court hearing on the Colorado decision that Trump is ineligible to run for office. I am wondering where the arguments are going to go. I have no idea what the court's decision will finally be.

One of the commentators this morning posited the possibility that the Supremes would punt back to the states. Basically, the Court can affirm the Colorado decision and reaffirm that elections are run, per the Constitution, by the states. The commentators were united in the conclusion that we would suddenly be in a chaotic world, as we aren't already. I noticed the arguments only went back to the 1865, or thereabouts, when the 14th Amendment was passed and entered the Constitution. However the election of 1861, and earlier elections, might be more instructive. In 1861, there were four parties in serious contention: Republican (Lincoln), Northern Democrat (Douglas), Southern Democrat (Breckenridge), Constitutional Unionist (Bell). The results divided along the fractures involving secession and slavery. Lincoln won the northern states. Bell won the southern states. Douglas won border three states along the Mason-Dixon Line. Bell won Missouri. We have dealt with this kind of chaos before.

Listening to the arguments:

Stray thought #1: if the Court hopes to thread a needle that would shore up their reputation, their hope will be defeated. No matter how they rule a significant number of Americans will vehemently disagree.

Stray thought #2: I have long thought that the U.S. is facing a fork in our road: will we take one fork and become a less of a confederation of equal sovereign states or will we move back toward a collection of sovereign states who handle most of our political, economic, social life at that level. Not long ago the Court shredded women's rights by sending the issue back to the states--in other words appealed to states' rights. But in this issue they seem to be favoring serious restrictions on states' rights.

Stray thought #3: for textualists many of the justices seem to be unable to read the text as written. We would consider that the words "insurrection" and "officer" meant exactly what the dictionary says. But they were constantly splitting hairs.

Stray thought #4: the old saying "what's old is new again" comes to mind. Some years ago my brother and I were discussing the fact that the Electoral College had elected a President who got the minority of popular votes. He asked why the vote of a resident in Wyoming should count for less than that of a California resident. I responded by asking why the several million voters in California should be cancelled out by the less than 200 thousand voters in Wyoming. But that was a restatement of the arguments at the Constitutional Convention which finally led to a bicameral legislature which gave equal representation to states regardless of population in the Senate and a proportional representation by population in the House of Representatives and an Electoral College. Even then the southern states insisted that 3/5 of their slaves, who had no vote, be counted in the populations on which representation in the House was based. Justice Kagan basically resurrected that argument with her question of why one state should be able to determine the result of an election for the whole country.

People, especially political commentators, have asked for some time why Biden isn't getting credit for an economy that, on the numbers, appears to be improving. Robert Reich has a good answer: the housing market. Many ordinary people find themselves priced out of the market. I saw a snippet of a program I didn't watch all of following a young couple trying to get into their first home and who had, again, lost out when their offer was outbid. It sounded like that had happened several times before. In a time when jobs appear to be plentiful and wages seem to be going up and both partners have jobs, people who can't buy a house for a price they can afford just might make them a bit cranky.