Blog 3.4

1. How did the Obama Administration prepare for the Trump Administration's plans for the EPA?

2. What does Trump have to do to policies that Obama enacted by Executive Order instead of Congressional action?

3, What policies did Obama's Administration pass through the rule-making process, and what does Trump have to do to get rid of these?

4. What history does Trump's pick for head of the EPA have with the agency?

5. What is the main way that Congress can limit the effectiveness of the EPA?

6. How could Trump and Congress alter the future of all EPA rule-making? (What would the REINS Act do?)

7. Based on what you know about environmental protection and Congress, what do you think the impact of this would be if it were to pass?

Answers

1. "The Obama administration raced to finish a bunch of environmental regulations before leaving, though it had yet to publish four energy efficiency rules that will now be put on hold."

2. It takes merely a memo to cancel the Executive Orders of the Obama Administration.

3a. "Under the Obama administration, the EPA also issued a number of more complex regulations that went through the formal rulemaking process. That includes fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, the Clean Power Plan to reduce CO2 from power plants, rules around mercury and ozone pollution, and much, much more."

3b. "If Trump wants to repeal or modify these rules, he can’t just do so with the stroke of a pen. The EPA would have to formally start the time-consuming rulemaking process all over again. That means notifying the public of any rule changes, soliciting public comment for those changes, responding to all those public comments, and then rigorously justifying their new rules — likely before the courts."

4. "His pick to run the EPA, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, spent a lot of time suing the Obama administration over many of its rules and is familiar with the legal process here, but the courts rejected Pruitt’s arguments over and over again while he was in Oklahoma."

5. "Under a little-used law known as the Congressional Review Act, Republicans in the House and Senate can kill by majority vote certain Obama-era rules finished after late May 2016."

6a. They may attempt to reform the rule-making process in full, thus making it harder to produce new regulations.

6b. "They could try to pass the REINS Act, which would require that every major new EPA rule be subject to an up-or-down vote from Congress (which would kill a lot of new regulations)."

7. We would likely see an increase in pollution, among other harmful results in the environment.

Blog 3.3

1. How does Paste Magazine characterize Cory Booker?

2. Why did Cory Booker vote against an amendment that seems like it would help people?

3. How does Cory Booker justify his vote publicly?

4. Where does Cory Booker get his campaign funding from?

5. What else, besides sources of campaign funding, may impact his vote?

6. Why did Cory Booker testify against Jeff Sessions?

7. Why would voting against the medical bill impact his "national ambitions"?

8. How do his ties to industry and special interest jeopardize those?

9. What will serve as Trump's "bully pulpit"?

10. How are Trump's nominations serving to keep his party happy?

11. Why is it important that Trump get more attention than the policies he is likely to enact?

12. Why would Trump meet with high profile candidates like Al Gore, but chose someone else for the job?

13. In what ways might the role of the Cabinet change under a Trump presidency?

Answer:

1. When Big Money is involved, he'll side with them over all else.

2. "His vote may have had more to do with the concentration of the pharmaceutical industry in his home state."

3. "Booker’s spokesperson cited concerns over the "safety standards" of the prescription drugs that would be coming in from Canada under the amendment."

4. "Jezebel reported that Booker received $267,338 from pharmaceutical companies, which led some on the left to say that this money explained his vote."

5. He's done a lot of work with the private sector before in other fields.

6. Sessions had historically done and said many racist things.

7. He is "stuck between two bad outcomes — defying the industries of their home states, or taking a position that could be broadly unpopular with their national parties."

8. If he acts against the interests of his constituency, they may backlash against him.

9. Twitter, the media, and his own stages events will serve as his pulpit.

10. By giving the jobs to hard-right Republicans, his party gets to pass the sweeping legislation they have wanted for so long.

11. It's like a magic trick. While we're watching "Trump, the Magnificent" waving the magic wand that is his Twitter account in his small, right hand, his equally small left hand is hiding the real trick: sweeping executive orders to the detriment of America.

12. Plain and simple: It's a decoy, a decoy meant to lead us on in this political mess.

13. "The Cabinet could return to prominence under the Trump administration... The trend in recent years... has been for more and more power to accrue to the White House staff at the Cabinet’s expense.... It does seem [though] that the secretaries could get a lot of leeway to run their own shops as they see fit, while the Trump Show gets all the media attention... Alternatively, it’s also possible that the Trump White House could get it together and exert a firm hand on the Cabinet."

Blog 3.2

1. How did the public deal with the attempt to shut down the Office of Congressional Ethics?

2. How did sharing control of the government with Democrats actually end up helping Republicans in Congress?

3. What does the professor from University of Miami mean when saying that the Republicans were more of a "protest party"?

4. Why is Trump a potential problem for Republicans in Congress?

5. In what situations will Trump be willing to oppose Republicans in Congress?

6. How are some Republicans, like the Freedom Caucus, adjusting their stances preparing for a Trump presidency?

7.  How will the public view Republicans differently now that they are in charge of lawmaking?

Answers

1. There was a strong amount of public backlash.

2. "For the past eight years, divided government has inadvertently protected the House GOP from electoral consequences for many of their legislative actions. Even the unpopular GOP-driven shutdown of the federal government in 2013 was soon forgotten by the electorate, since a majority of the voters consistently disapproved of President Barack Obama’s job performance the following year, and voted accordingly."

3. "For the last six years, their organizing strategy has been to be a protest party, and all their actions have been interpreted not as actual governing but as protest."

4. "About two-thirds of Republicans in the House have never served under a Republican president, which means Republicans will have to figure out 'what it means to be the party that controls the House, Senate, and the presidency for the first time in a while.'"

5. If it makes him look good, he'll do it.

6. "There are early signs that the Freedom Caucus — who had styled themselves as the House’s staunchest conservatives — are reinventing themselves as fervent Trump supporters, in many cases because they’ve concluded their base voters care far more about Trump than they do about free-market orthodoxy."

7. "Republicans are the governing party now — which means they’ll face much tougher public scrutiny."

Blog 3.1

1. What types of policies is the new Congress going to pursue? Why is the Ethics office an obstacle to these?

2. What changes did the incoming Congress make to the Office of Congressional Ethics?

3. How does Republican leadership feel about these changes?

4. Why do current Congressmen dislike the Office of Congressional Ethics?

5. What was the role of the Office of Congressional Ethics?

6. Why do Congressmen want to be able to control the spokesperson for this office?

7. What are the likely outcomes of these changes?

Answer

1a. "Emboldened Republicans are ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests."

1b. They would provide oversight on the actions taken to reach these goals, oversight that could prevent them in some fashion potentially.

2. The change they want to make is one that would effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics, thus taking away "both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries."

3. "Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, spoke out during the meeting to oppose the measure..."

4. "The Office of Congressional Ethics has been controversial since its creation and has faced intense criticism from many of its lawmaker targets — both Democrats and Republicans — as its investigations have consistently been more aggressive than those conducted by the House Ethics Committee."

5. The essentially act as a watchdog too: "The Office of Congressional Ethics, which is overseen by a six-member outside board, does not have subpoena power. But it has its own staff of investigators who spend weeks conducting confidential interviews and collecting documents based on complaints they receive from the public, or news media reports, before issuing findings that detail any possible violation of federal rules or laws. The board then votes on whether to refer the matter to the full House Ethics Committee, which conducts its own review."

6. If Congress has a control of the office, there would be partisan investigations, which would thus allow for more lenient investigations by the Office, thus allowing for more unbridled activity.

7. "By moving all of the authority to the House Ethics Committee, several ethics lawyers said, the House risks becoming far too protective of members accused of wrongdoing."