The question on Death Penalty in the second Bush-Dukakis Presidential Debate and the Willie Horton Political Ad (1988)

Commission on Presidential Debates
October 13, 1988

SHAW: On behalf of the Commission on Presidential Debates, I am pleased to welcome you to the second presidential debate. I am Bernard Shaw of CNN, Cable News Network. My colleagues on the panel are Ann Compton of ABC NEWS; Margaret Warner of Newsweek magazine; and Andrea Mitchell of NBC NEWS. The candidates are Vice President George Bush, the Republican nominee; and Governor Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee. (Applause)

SHAW: For the next 90 minutes we will be questioning the candidates following a format designed and agreed to by representatives of the two campaigns. However, there are no restrictions on the questions that my colleagues and I can ask this evening, and the candidates have no prior knowledge of our questions. By agreement between the candidates, the first question goes to Gov. Dukakis. You have two minutes to respond. Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?

DUKAKIS: No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. We've done so in my own state. And it's one of the reasons why we have had the biggest drop in crime of any industrial state in America; why we have the lowest murder rate of any industrial state in America. But we have work to do in this nation. We have work to do to fight a real war, not a phony war, against drugs. And that's something I want to lead, something we haven't had over the course of the past many years, even though the Vice President has been at least allegedly in charge of that war. We have much to do to step up that war, to double the number of drug enforcement agents, to fight both here and abroad, to work with our neighbors in this hemisphere. And I want to call a hemispheric summit just as soon after the 20th of January as possible to fight that war. But we also have to deal with drug education prevention here at home. And that's one of the things that I hope I can lead personally as the President of the United States. We've had great success in my own state. And we've reached out to young people and their families and been able to help them by beginning drug education and prevention in the early elementary grades. So we can fight this war, and we can win this war. And we can do so in a way that marshals our forces, that provides real support for state and local law enforcement officers who have not been getting that support, and do it in a way which will bring down violence in this nation, will help our youngsters to stay away from drugs, will stop this avalanche of drugs that's pouring into the country, and will make it possible for our kids and our families to grow up in safe and secure and decent neighborhoods.

SHAW: Mr. Vice President, your one-minute rebuttal.

BUSH: Well, a lot of what this campaign is about, it seems to me Bernie, goes to the question of values. And here I do have, on this particular question, a big difference with my opponent. You see, I do believe that some crimes are so heinous, so brutal, so outrageous, and I'd say particularly those that result in the death of a police officer, for those real brutal crimes, I do believe in the death penalty, and I think it is a deterrent, and I believe we need it. And I'm glad that the Congress moved on this drug bill and have finally called for that related to these narcotics drug kingpins. And so we just have an honest difference of opinion: I support it and he doesn't.

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See also

The political ad on Willie Horton (1988)

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"Governing through Institution Building" by Johan P. Olsen

Many reformers argue that the future of democracies depends on the quality of their political institutions. If so, it may be worthwhile examining the democratic-instrumental vision of citizens and their representatives -- which assumes that they can and should decide how they might be organized and governed -- and thereby develop a better theoretical understanding of the nature, architecture, dynamics of change, performance, and effects of institutions.

It may be useful to study the possibilities and limitations of governing through deliberately changing institutional arrangements and thereby achieving intended, anticipated and desired effects - including how institutions contribute to organized rule, orderly change, civilized co-existence, unity in diversity and the ability to accommodate and continuously balance rather than eliminate what John Stuart Mill called "standing antagonisms".

This book offers an organization-theory-based institutional approach and it assumes that a fruitful route to improved understanding of political organization and government is to observe large-scale institutional reforms. The primary source of insight is the grand experiment in political integration through institution building and polity formation in Europe - the European Union. Yet, the book relates to century-long controversies concerning what is good government and how best to organize common affairs. The main challenge is to examine the claim that theoretical ideas and concepts developed in the context of the sovereign state are outdated in the context of the emerging European polity and a globalized world and to analyze what students of political institutions, as well as citizens, can learn from recent European experiments in democratic organization and government.

Johan P. Olsen, Professor Emeritus and Former and Founding Director of ARENA - Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo

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Read the first chapter

Η ατυχής νομοθετική τροποποίηση της διαδικασίας επιλογής των Προεδρείων των Ανωτάτων Δικαστηρίων

του Αντώνη Μανιτάκη

www.constitutionalism.gr
13 Σεπτεμβρίου 2010

Με το άρθρο 1 του νόμου 3841/2010 τροποποιήθηκε η διαδικασία επιλογής των Προεδρείων των Ανωτάτων Δικαστηρίων με την παρεμβολή της Διάσκεψης των Προέδρων της Βουλής, η οποία καλείται να διατυπώσει γνώμη επί της προεπιλογής υποψηφίων που κάνει ο Υπουργός Δικαιοσύνης. Η διοικητική Ολομέλεια του ΣτΕ θεώρησε, όταν κλήθηκε από τον Υπουργό να εκφέρει σχετική γνώμη, την τροποποίηση αντισυνταγματική και η διάσκεψη των Προέδρων δεν κατάφερε να διατυπώσει «γνώμη», επειδή τα κόμματα της Αντιπολίτευσης αρνήθηκαν να συμμετάσχουν στη διαδικασία κρίνοντας το νόμο αντισυνταγματικό. Η μελέτη εξετάζει αναλυτικά τους λόγους αντισυνταγματικότητας και επισημαίνει τις αθέλητες θεσμικές και πολιτικές παρενέργειες του νόμου.

Όταν ο κοινός νομοθέτης αγνοώντας τη βούληση του αναθεωρητικού επιχειρεί να τον υποκαταστήσει

1. Τουλάχιστον ως ατυχής θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηριστεί η πρόσφατη νομοθετική πρωτοβουλία του Υπουργού Δικαιοσύνης, με την οποία τροποποιήθηκε η διαδικασία επιλογής των Προέδρων και Αντιπροέδρων των Ανωτάτων δικαστηρίων, που καθόριζε η παράγραφος 3 του άρθρου 49 του Οργανισμού Δικαστηρίων και Κατάστασης Δικαστικών Λειτουργών. Και τούτο, όχι μόνον διότι η σχετική νομοθετική τροποποίηση ήγειρε από την αρχή σοβαρά ζητήματα αντισυνταγματικότητας, αλλά κυρίως διότι αποδοκιμάστηκε πολιτικά και συνταγματικά από το ίδιο το όργανο το οποίο είχε κληθεί να θεραπεύσει τις αδυναμίες της προηγούμενης ρύθμισης αντικαθιστώντας τη μονομερή κυβερνητική επιλογή από την παρεμβολή μιας πρόσθετης συναινετικής-διακομματικής ‘προεπιλογής’ οργάνου της Βουλής. Πράγματι, το όργανο που έπρεπε σύμφωνα με το νόμο να πραγματώσει και να δικαιώσει τη νομοθετική πρωτοβουλία, δηλαδή η Διάσκεψη των Προέδρων, δεν κατάφερε, παραδόξως, πέρα από κάθε προσδοκία, να συναινέσει στη διατύπωση ‘συναινετικής γνώμης’ προς τον Υπουργό, όπως απαιτούσε ο νόμος και ευελπιστούσε ο νομοθέτης. Τούτο συνέβη, διότι σύμπασα η Αντιπολίτευση θεώρησε τη νομοθετική τροποποίηση της συνταγματικής διαδικασίας επιλογής των επικεφαλής της δικαστικής εξουσίας, αντισυνταγματική.

Η παταγώδης αυτή αποτυχία της πρώτης εφαρμογής του νόμου κατέστησε τη νέα διαδικασία επιλογής στην πράξη ανενεργό και έπληξε ανεπανόρθωτα τη νομιμοποιητική δύναμη και, τελικά, το ίδιο το κύρος του νόμου. Υπονόμευσε εξ αυτού του λόγου και την μελλοντική εφαρμογή του, η οποία καθίσταται πλέον προβληματική.

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Justice William Brennan, a liberal lion who wouldn't hire women

by David J. Garrow

Washington Post
October 17, 2010

William J. Brennan Jr. served on the Supreme Court from 1956 to 1990 and came to be seen as "the very symbol of judicial activism." As Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel write in this superb, definitive and long-awaited biography, based in part on extensive interviews that Brennan gave to Wermiel, he also became "perhaps the most influential justice of the entire twentieth century."

Brennan was a 50-year-old Roman Catholic Democrat and a seven-year veteran of the New Jersey state courts when Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- or, more truthfully, Attorney General Herbert Brownell -- chose him for the Supreme Court. As a state jurist, Brennan "had certainly not developed anything resembling a coherent judicial philosophy," and his first five years on the top court exhibited no consistent approach.

By 1962, however, in tandem with Chief Justice Earl Warren, Brennan had begun to mold a solid liberal majority that revolutionized constitutional interpretation with regard to reapportionment, freedom of speech, privacy and the rights of criminal defendants. Stern and Wermiel reveal, however, that even in the mid-1960s, Brennan's young law clerks were crafting much of the language for the justice's most important opinions, such as New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which transformed libel law.

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Ο φτωχός συγγενής

της Βάσως Κιντή

Το Βήμα
8 Οκτωβρίου 2010

Σε όλον τον κόσμο οι ανθρωπιστικές σπουδές αντιμετωπίζονται όλο και πιο συχνά ως οι φτωχοί συγγενείς της εκπαίδευσης και της έρευνας. Λιγότεροι φοιτητές τις επιλέγουν, λιγότερα χρήματα συγκεντρώνονται για να τις υποστηρίξουν, πανεπιστημιακά τμήματα αναδιατάσσονται ή κλείνουν. Στη νέα σύνθεση του Εθνικού Συμβουλίου Ερευνας και Τεχνολογίας που ανακοίνωσε το υπουργείο Παιδείας εκλείπουν εντελώς. Οι σπουδές αυτές φαίνονται άχρηστες, περιττές, μια πολυτέλεια για την αργόσχολη τάξη, ένα λείψανο μιας μακρινής εποχής που μοιάζει να μην έχει θέση σήμερα στη ζωή μας.

Οσοι λίγοι τις υπερασπίζονται ακολουθούν, κατά κανόνα, τους εξής δύο δρόμους: είτε αυτάρεσκα θεωρούν πως η αξία τους είναι αυταπόδεικτη (με τίμημα όσοι δεν την αναγνωρίσουν να χαρακτηριστούν αδαείς, άξεστοι και τεχνοκράτες) είτε προβάλλουν μεγαλορρήμονες λόγους περί των σπουδών αυτών, όπως ότι μελετώντας κλασικά κείμενα θα ανακαλύψουμε τα πανανθρώπινα ιδανικά, θα βρούμε το νόημα της ζωής, θα μάθουμε αιώνιες αλήθειες και ηθικά διδάγματα με αποτέλεσμα να γίνουμε καλύτεροι άνθρωποι και πολίτες. Οπως όμως παρατηρεί ο Stanley Fish, οι άνθρωποι των γραμμάτων δεν είναι καθόλου πιο σοφοί ή ηθικοί από τους υπόλοιπους, ενώ επιχειρήματα σαν αυτά ανατροφοδοτούν την παγιωμένη εικόνα ενός αιθεροβάμονος και ελιτίστικου λόγου άσχετου με την πραγματική ζωή.

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Διάβασε εδώ το πλήρες κείμενο

Voters Face Decisions on a Mix of Issues

New York Times
October 5, 2010

The nation’s job woes may be the determining factor in which party controls Congress, but voters across the country will also have the chance to weigh in directly — through ballot initiatives — on some of the other contentious issues that have made cameo turns in the spotlight this year.

In Oklahoma, the ballot will feature a measure to ban state judges from using Islamic law, called Sharia, in court decisions, even though it has never happened. In Washington, voters will address an issue similar to one Republicans successfully kept from coming to a vote in the United States Senate: a proposed tax increase for the rich.

Voters in three states will have the opportunity to take a largely symbolic stand against the federal health care law approved this year by declaring that individuals or business cannot be compelled to buy health insurance. And in Colorado, leaders of all political persuasions are joining to urge voters to reject three tax initiatives they say would drive the state to fiscal calamity.

In total, 155 measures are on the ballots in 36 states, a number roughly unchanged from previous years. While lacking the thematic cohesion of years past — when states around the country simultaneously weighed in on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage or eminent domain — this year’s raft of initiatives, referendums and propositions nonetheless capture the political spirit of the season.

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