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News Cut: June 30, 2009 Archive

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Five at 8 - 6/30/09

Posted at 7:54 AM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

(h/t: Steve Mullis)

1) Bar none, the most compelling story of the last day or so was colleague Stephen Smith's time travel back to the end of World War II, when returning soldiers and their wives bunked with relatives, when only the well-off got loans for mortgages, when debt wasn't the enemy.

2) So you don't like not being able to buy a beer at the new University of Minnesota football stadium? Let's wing down the Big 10 Highway and see what constitutes controversy at the University of Illinois. Special treatment for kids with clout, a Chicago Tribune investigation shows:

The commission was convened by Gov. Pat Quinn in the wake of a Chicago Tribune investigation that revealed more than 800 undergraduate applicants and dozens of graduate students within the last five years had been flagged for special treatment. Some substandard students -- pushed by legislators, university trustees or other politically connected people -- were admitted against the wishes of admissions officials and deans, the newspaper reported after examining thousands of pages of public documents, including campus e-mail.

(h/t: Nick Young)

3) An effective environmental-protection tool or the assumption of good marketing to suckers? Renting things is the new goat cheese.

It almost seems anti-American to rent, rather than buy; a look at the popular reality TV show "Clean House'' is a testament to Americans' love of accumulating stuff. In this global recession, people are warming to the idea of renting, and not buying, certain goods - because of cost, ease, or space considerations.

4) The Supreme Court is rolling back legal precedents established during the Warren Burger era, according to Tom Goldstein at SCOTUS Blog, and there's nothing President Obama can do about it:

It isn't until the election of 2016 at the earliest that there is a real prospect for a significant shift to the left in the Court's ideology. Actuarially, that election is likely to decide which President appoints the successors to Justices Scalia and Kennedy (both on the right, and both 73 now) and Justice Breyer (on the left, and 70 now). Absent an unfortunate turn of health, between now and the summer of 2017 there is no realistic prospect that the Court will turn back to the left. Over the course of that eight years, it is possible to take enough measured steps to the right to walk a marathon. Again, no need to rush.

5) Sign of the Apocalypse. Reports Time Magazine:

Two-timing politicians, take note: cheating has never been easier. AshleyMadison.com, a personals site designed to facilitate extramarital affairs, now boasts slick iPhone and Blackberry versions that help married horndogs find like-minded cheaters within minutes. The new tools are aimed at tech-savvy adulterers wary of leaving tracks on work or home computers. Because the apps are loaded up from phones' browsers, they leave no electronic trail that suspicious spouses can trace.

Flashback to November 2008: Rich Cut Back on Payments to Mistresses (Wall St. Journal)

What's wrong with us?

Bonus: Maybe it's not so bad, though. Take these bike cops in Minneapolis, for example. Yesterday they were riding around and found a gym full of kids, according to their blog. So they read a book to them. The kids sang them a song. And I stole a picture from their blog:

(h/t: Fiona Quick)

Question of the Day

How do you decide whom to trust with your money?

To submit your answer and hear it on the radio, go here.

What's we're doing

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: How much will a public health plan cost? Second hour: Edmund Andrews reported on the downturn in the economy, writing articles on the go-go mortgage market before anyone thought it would collapse. Like millions of Americans, Andrews found himself weighed down by a home loan he couldn't afford. Unlike the others, he wrote a searing account of his own mortgage crisis.

Here's the entire article that appeared in the NY Times Magazine in May.

It's been open season on the guy since. Megan McArdle at The Atlantic, however, wrote that the story has been "tidied up," and that the fact his wife filed for bankruptcy -- twice -- didn't make the essay. We'll see if this comes up today.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - -- An update on the situation in Iraq. The guest is Stephen Van Evera of MIT. Second hour: From the Aspen Ideas Festival this week, several speakers with short presentations on their "Big Idea." Here's an idea for the people at AIF: Make the video on your Web site embeddable. And Quicktime? Put it in a more user-friendly format. By the way, you can follow the festival on Twitter.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - Nearly a million Iranians live in the United States, more than any country outside of Iran. Many fled the Islamic revolution 30 years ago, and now watch warily as government forces crackdown violently in Tehran. How are they viewing the current crisis?

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Dan Olson reports on urban gardeners who are in it for the profit. Also: Why is there so little Arabic content on the Internet? A body farm in Texas that's used to teach forensics. Older doctors provide their perspective on health care; the younger docs get their shot on tomorrow's show.

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Signs suggest housing has hit bottom

Posted at 8:36 AM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

case_schiller_apr_09.jpg "What impresses me no matter how you look at it... the story comes up again and again: there is some serious improvement. We've taken the first step toward beginning to turn this around," said David Blitzer, who runs the Case-Schiller Index. He fairly gushed today over the April results of his survey, which tracks resale price of homes around the country.

The index showed a .6% drop in home prices, which these days qualifies as great news.

In Minneapolis, the drop in resale prices mirrored the nationwide average (-.66%), the ninth consecutive month of declining prices, but the lowest drop during that period in which home resale prices dropped here about 16 percent. They've dropped 22 percent in the last year. Good times, indeed.

"In 13 of the 20 cities the decline is less than last month," Blitzer said this morning. "Some people out there are feeling a touch better and are willing to go out and look at a house and in some cases are willing to buy a house."

House resale prices in April 2009 are roughly the same here as they were in August 2000.

Meanwhile, another report today shows consumer confidence has dropped.

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Sharing the blame

Posted at 10:51 AM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

After listening to most of today's Midmorning interview with New York Times economics reporter Edmund Andrews, the biggest question isn't "how can an economics reporter for the New York Times be so clueless when it comes to assuming a mortgage." The real question is "how can someone so financially clueless get a gig as an economics reporter for the New York Times?"

Give Kerri Miller credit for being tough on Andrews, who has written a book on how he fell into "a catastrophic binge on overpriced real estate and reckless mortgages. "

How could it have happened?

"The answer to that question takes you into the financial system and the recklessness that pervaded the financial system over the last few years," he said.

Well, maybe, but we also learned during a fabulous interview that Andrews never made any calculations on his $400,000 mortgage; a serious dereliction of duty by a homeowner even if the lender never asked for proof he could afford it. He also admitted he let the house become critical in his mind to making his second marriage work. Understandable, perhaps, but unbelievably ignorant.

It wasn't until well into the hour that Andrews strayed from his insistence -- which, for the record, has plenty of validity -- that the fault for his problems lay with mortgage-lending practices. "It was a stupid loan that never should've been taken and never should have been made," he said.

The meltdown in the nation's economy -- the meltdown that's taken hundreds of thousands of jobs from hard-working people -- clearly has its foundation in the lending practices of financial institutions. But there's also plenty of blame for people who couldn't be bothered "running the numbers" for the biggest purchase of their lives. Andrews is proof of that.

"In spite of people making poor decisions, it never happened in the past... because the mortgage lender wouldn't have let them," a Realtor called in to say. Clearly true. But if there's no one to save us from ourselves, who can we turn to besides... ourselves?

"Human beings make good decisions and bad decisions all the time, but there's nothing we've ever seen before where millions and millions of borrowers went over the cliff at the same time, " Andrews said. True, perhaps, but Andrews makes it entirely too easy to blame the victim. And that's the tragedy here. That people who did their due diligence and lost homes because of lender fraud, won't be able to get past the "how can you be so stupid?" questions that people like Andrews make all too easy to ask.

"There's no one out there who's as financially literate as you are," Miller said near the end of the show.

On that, she couldn't have been more incorrect.

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The money quotes in the Coleman-Franken decision

Posted at 1:11 PM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Here are the money quotes from today's Minnesota Supreme Court decision confirming Al Franken as Minnesota's junior U.S. Senator:

On absentee ballots:

The distinction between errors by voters and errors by election officials is an important one. We have drawn "a clear distinction between the provisions and prohibitions in the election laws which are personal to the elector and those which apply to election officials over whose conduct he has no control."...Fitzgerald v. Morlock, 264 Minn. 520, 524, 120 N.W.2d 339, 345 (1963). We have said that "any reasonable regulations of the statute as to the conduct of the voter himself" are mandatory, and a vote is properly rejected if the voter fails to comply with the law. Id. at 524, 120 N.W.2d at 345. But if a voter complies with the law, his vote should not be rejected because of "irregularities, ignorance, inadvertence, or mistake, or even intentional wrong on the part of the election officers."

We conclude that our existing case law requires strict compliance by voters with the requirements for absentee voting. Thus, we reject Coleman‟s argument that only substantial compliance by voters is required. Having rejected this argument, we also conclude that the trial court‟s February 13 order requiring strict compliance with the statutory requirements for absentee voting was not a deviation from our well-established precedent.

Is absentee voting a right or a privilege?

At oral argument, Coleman posited that because of the increased use of the absentee voting method, it should now be treated as a right, not a privilege. But that is a policy determination for the legislature, not this court, to make.

On the differing standards from county to county for how absentee ballots were judged:

Coleman was required to prove either that local jurisdictions ‟differences in application or the trial court‟s application of the requirements for absentee voting was the product of intentional discrimination. Coleman neither claims nor produced any evidence that the differing treatment of absentee ballots among jurisdictions during the election was the result of intentional or purposeful discrimination against individuals or classes. Nor does Coleman claim that the trial court‟s February 13 order, establishing certain categories of ballots as not legally cast, was the product of an intent to discriminate against any individual or class.

On Coleman's claim that some ballots were counted twice:


Coleman called no witnesses with direct knowledge of the handling of duplicate ballots in the relevant precincts, but he did introduce at trial voter rosters, envelopes from accepted absentee ballots, copies of ballots challenged during the manual recount, and machine tapes from the identified precincts in which he alleges double-counting of absentee ballots occurred. On appeal, Coleman has identified nothing additional that an inspection of ballots under section 209.06 would have produced.We therefore hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the petition for inspection.

On missing ballots in Minneapolis:

The ballots are missing, but Coleman introduced no evidence of foul play or misconduct, and the election day precinct returns are available to give effect to those votes.

The Supreme Court did not order Gov. Pawlenty to sign an election certificate.

Q&A on the Franken-Coleman fight

Posted at 2:19 PM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (18 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Q: What happens now?

A: Al Franken needs an election certificate before he can enter the Senate. It has to be signed by the Secretary of State and the Governor.

Update 3:57 p.m. - Coleman has conceded the election. "I have always believed you do the best you can and leave the results up to a higher authority. I'm at peace with
that," Coleman said. "It's time to move forward."

Listen

Q: Where's the governor and what's his plan?

A: He's in Washington and released this statement shortly after Coleman conceded:

The Minnesota Supreme Court has today addressed the issues surrounding the accuracy and integrity of our election system during the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. In light of that decision and Senator Coleman's announcement that he will not be pursuing an appeal, I will be signing the election certificate today as directed by the court and applicable law.

"I would like to thank Senator Coleman for his service. As state solicitor general, Mayor of Saint Paul and United States Senator, he has been an extraordinary leader and public servant for Minnesota.

"I also want to congratulate Al Franken and wish him well as he serves the people of Minnesota."



Sen. Harry Reid issued the following statement:

"I congratulate Senator-elect Al Franken, the next Senator from the state of Minnesota. The people of Minnesota will now finally get the brilliant and hardworking new senator they elected in November and the full representation they deserve. After all the votes have been counted and recounted, the Minnesota Supreme Court has made the final determination that Minnesotans have chosen Al Franken to help their state and our country get back on track. "The Senate looks forward to welcoming Senator-elect Franken as soon as possible. He will play a crucial role as we work to strengthen our economy, ensure all Americans can access and afford quality health care, make our country more energy independent, confirm the President's outstanding nominee to the Supreme Court, and tackle the many other challenges we face. "I once again encourage Governor Pawlenty to respect the votes of his constituents and the decisions of his state's highest court. He should put politics aside, follow his state's laws and finally sign the certificate that will bring this episode to an end."

The Senate is not currently in Washington. It's on its July 4th break.

Franken told reporters today he's "going up to the Range to do some parades." So it'll be a few days before he's sworn in. Listen

Q: Did judges on the Supreme Court all agree?

A: Yes. The decision was unanimous -- per curiam, in legal speak. Two members of the court abstained because they served on a panel that considered the issue earlier.

"Whatever your political point of view, you had someone on the court from your perspective, who from a political perspective would share your point of view. And yet, given that diversity, they all saw the law the same way. That's significant," Ned Foley said.

Q: Why did it take so long?

A: "One of the things that's always on the mind of judges and justices is not wanting to be reversed," said Prof. Rick Hasen of Loyola Law School, who also writes the Election Law blog. He says the decision was intended to keep Coleman from winning had he attempted to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

Q: Could Coleman have continued the fight?

Yes, according to Hasen. He had two options. "One is an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court , the other is federal appeals court. He certainly has federal and constitutional issues, "and the Supreme Court is open for business to hear those."

A lawsuit to the federal appeals court would likely not have been successful, the professor said, because the court was likely to say the issues had already been decided at state court.

Q: Why didn't Coleman continue the fight?

A: Larry Jacobs at the University of Minnesota says Coleman is "busted" and also has to pay some of Al Franken's legal bills. Jacobs says Coleman also has his eyes on running for governor in 2010.

There was also little chance of success. Realistically, the federal options are only a few days' delay, Ned Foley of Ohio State told MPR's Gary Eichten this afternoon. "It's not going to delay it much further," he said.

Q: Will Coleman run for governor?
A: Not saying "no" when asked that question is saying "maybe." Coleman said he's more concerned with catching fish.

Q: How does this affect Washington?

A: Franken becomes the Democrats' 60th vote. That's the number required to avert filibusters. "...with both Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd absent due to illness, the Democrats have sometimes scrambled to make sure they had lined up enough votes," the New York Times notes.

Closer to home, we will likely start hearing opinions on critical issues from Sen.-elect Franken.

Q: So that's it, then? The Democrats get everything they want?

A: These are the Democrats. In-fighting is part of the party DNA. Just look at the veiled shots President Obama has sent Congress' way in the last month. As Forbes noted on Tuesday:

... rifts over climate change and energy policy tend to be more regional than partisan. Last week, a sweeping bill that addresses both issues barely squeaked by in the House. Even before the Minnesota court's ruling, the bill's future in the Senate was in doubt. Opponents worry that it would lead to rising energy costs and is too watered-down to be meaningful anyway.

The Democrats' biggest foe in climate change legislation last week wasn't a Republican. It was a Democratic congressman. From Minnesota.

"I'm not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator. I'm going to be the second senator from Minnesota," he said on Tuesday.

Q: What committees will Franken serve on in the Senate?

The Health Education, Pension and Labor Committee; the Judiciary Committee; the Committee on Indian Affairs, and the Committee on Aging.

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Coleman-Franken: The reaction

Posted at 5:13 PM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

MPR has been getting plenty of comments in the wake of the end of the Minnesota Senate race. Our Public Insight Network has been posting them here. You can also find reaction on the Polinaut blog.

The Network's Michael Caputo and I were on All Things Considered with Tom Crann on Tuesday evening. Listen in:

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