Thursday, May 24, 2018

Parkland and the political coming of Generation Z

This blog originally appeared in The Hill.

Does Generation Z, Americans born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, look at politics
differently from previous generations, like Baby Boomers or even Millennials, such that they will change America and remake the world in its image? Right now it is too soon to tell but their reaction to the recent school shootings, in particular at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., might portend a coming of political age or consciousness moment that could change America over the next 20 years.

Political scientists often overlook generations as an important variable in politics shaping attitudes and behavior. More often the focus is on race, gender, and socioeconomic status. When age is considered the claim is often made that as people get older they become more conservative. Yet ignoring generation influences misses a critical factor in politics.

It was sociologist Karl Mannheim in 1928 who first talked about generations. Since then others have looked at generations as a social variable. Mannheim argued that a cohort of people born around the same time often develops a consciousness or awareness about themselves that define their political outlook for the rest of their life. A generational consciousness is triggered by some major event in adolescence that defines a set of political values that shape the views both initially in youth, and approximately 20 years later when that group matures and assumes leadership positions when they can act on their beliefs.

Some evidence suggests that political views or values once defined as adolescents are permanent and rarely change even as we age. Yes, factors such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status may mediate or affect attitudes, but in general a generational consciousness has two stages: the initial formation and then eventually its re-emergence when a generation takes power.

The Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, were shaped by the JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinations as well as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. That generation is split in terms of Democratic and Republican party support and is beginning to exit the political arena along with the Silent Generation (1924-1945), which forms a major base of the Republican party. The exit of these two generations creates an existential crisis for the two major parties, especially when one considers that the Millennials (1982-1994) hold views at odds with the two major parties on a range of issues. Contrary to the mantra of some, demographics are not destiny, generational attitudes are.

Yet while many have focused on the rise of Millennials as they begin to take leadership positions (Millennials are now the largest voting bloc, and the oldest are now 36 and eligible to run for president of the United States), few have thought about Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2010. The oldest Gen Zs are 23. How do they difference from Millennials?

Marketing and business books suggest major differences between Millennials and Gen Z. The latter are more tech savvy and grew up in a world of 9-11 and the Great Recession of 2008-9, but so far political scientists have not examined who Gen Z are and whether they politically differ from Millennials. The reason for this is simple: Right now the oldest Gen Z is 23 — they are only now coming of voting age. What do we know about them?

There is not a lot of data. Two studies examining their political attitudes are the General Social Science Survey (GSS) done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago in 2016, and the American National Election Study (ANES) by the University of Michigan, also in 2016. These studies are perhaps dated, but they offer some important information about whom then Gen Z was and how they contrast with previous generations.

Generally, both the Millennials and Gen Z are far more liberal on a range of issues including immigration and economic equality compared to the Silents and Boomers. But there are subtle contrasts between Millennials and Gen Zs. Start with the issue of ideology.

When asked in ANES on seven-point scale to rate themselves extremely liberal/liberal versus extremely conservative/conservative, 19.6 percent versus 14 percent of Millennials rate themselves that way respectively compared to 15 percent versus 12.4 percent for Gen Z. In the GSS, employing the same seven point scale, 19.6 percent of Millennials say extremely liberal/liberal versus 13 percent extremely conservative/conservative, while with Gen Z respectively lists 21.9 percent versus 14.4 percent.  Yet in the ANES study if simply asked if liberal versus conservative, 22.3 percent of Millennials say liberal and 27.1 percent say conservative, while it is 24.7 percent and 30 percent respectively for Gen Z. Depending on how the question is asked, one gets either Millennials or Gen Z coming out more liberal or conservative, but the differences in percentages are so slight as not to be statistically significant.

Turning to issues, in the GSS 60.3 percent of Millennials think it is the government’s responsibility to promote equality while 64.9 percent of Gen Z say the same. In ANES, when asked what should immigration levels be, 22.1 percent of Millennials say it should be increased a lot or a little compared to 28.4 percent of Gen Z. Conversely, 35.2 percent of Millennials say immigration levels should be decreased a little or a lot compared to 28.9 percent of Gen Z. Gen Z comes out more liberal on two of the more salient issues in American politics.

Finally, look at guns, an issue supposedly of importance to Gen Z. When asked in the GSS whether they favor gun permits, 73 percent of Millennials say yes and 73.8 percent of Gen Z also say yes. When asked in the ANES how important the gun access issue is, 59.2 percent of Millennials say it is extremely or very important compared to 56.8 percent for Gen Z. Guns back in 2016 might have been a more important issue to Millennials than Gen Z because of their history with school shootings, and this was of course before the Parkland shooting.

On just these issues it is difficult to discern significant differences in political ideology between Millennials and Gen Z. But recall the 2016 GSS and ANES are two years old, back when the oldest Gen Z was 21. This is significant for two reasons. If Mannheim is correct, generational attitudes are formed in adolescence by a major triggering event. Back in 2016 many members of Gen Z may have still not yet formed or developed a set of political attitudes. But it is entirely possible that this is changing as they are getting older, and the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the demonstrations coming afterwards may have been the triggering event for Gen Z.

If Parkland was in fact a focusing event for Gen Z the 2018 may give us some evidence for that. But more likely if Mannheim is correct, one needs to look at the longer term impact in the next 20 years to see if and how Parkland affected Gen Z and what it means not just for guns but other issues too.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Why Are We Shocked the 2018 Minnesota Legislative Session Ended in Disaster?

Why anyone should be shocked that the 2018 Minnesota Legislative session ended as one of the least productive in the state’s history?  It would have been more shocking if the governor and the
legislature had been able to agree on anything.
The roots of the problems that explain the 2018 failure are both long and short term, as well as structural and unique.  Recall first that recent Minnesota history foreshadowed  what happened this year.  This year was yet another example of what can be called the “new normal.”  The new normal refers to a process dating back 20 years where special sessions, government shutdowns, and failed legislative sessions are the rule and not the exception.  The new normal in Minnesota reflects a changing political climate in the state that started about 20 years ago.  This is no longer a solidly DFL state.  As the shifting partisan control of the governor’s office and legislature have shown over the last 20 years, Minnesota is a politically competitive and divided state.  Clinton’s relatively narrow presidential victory over Trump in the state in 2016 demonstrated that. 
Look at a map of Minnesota. It reveals from the presidency down to legislative and local races clear patterns of DFL and GOP control.  More importantly, the two major parties are polarized along a range of issues ranging from health care, mass transportation, taxes, guns, abortion, and preschool funding.  The two parties are relatively equally divided in strength and along their values, making  compromise difficult.
Secondly there is a collective action problem.  There is a collective interest in compromising and reaching political agreement in a timely fashion, but there is little individual or partisan incentive to compromise. Among the 201 seats in the Minnesota legislature, no more than about 15-20 in the House and perhaps a maximum of 10 are from swing districts.  The remainder are strongly Democratic or Republican, representing districts where legislators are elected to stand firm onto their partisan views.  It is only those legislators who come from the s wing districts–those with a real chance to flip from one party to another–is there an incentive to compromise.  Strong partisanship in one of these districts is a political liability.   A paucity of swing seats means less pressure to compromise, and throw in strong party government in the state and even in those swing seats there is powerful pressure to vote straight party line.  Third, reinforcing this partisan divide is a money and politics issue.  By that, entrenched special interests spend heavily via lobbying, independent expenditures, and contributions to candidates, parties, and legislative caucuses, solidifying partisan preferences and making compromise nearly impossible.
The above three forces are structural and long term.  But there are also personality-driven, unique, short term forces that made it no surprise nothing really got done.  First, Governor Dayton  was a lame-duck presiding over a Republican legislature.  One should never have expected them to cooperate given what had transpired for the previous seven years.  But add to that a GOP angry that Dayton last year line-item vetoed their funding in an effort to get them to make some policy changes.  The Minnesota Supreme Court gave the governor a Pyrrhic victory that Dayton threw away the start of this session when he restored funding to the legislature. 
Dayton got nothing from his veto.  He should have demanded policy changes first before he restored funding.  In effect, that court victory that looked so good to Dayton did him no good.  Instead, it angered the GOP who effectively decided to ignore the governor in his last session.  He was not going to get anything he wanted and instead the Republicans were going to pass what they wanted and play to their base.  They forced the governor into vetoes, with the aim being that they will run against a do-nothing DFL this fall.  The GOP simply decided that it will show its base what it can pass if they elect a Republican governor, and it did what it wanted to do in 2018.  Thus, this session started with the governor’s veto and the 2018 elections hanging over it, guaranteeing little would be accomplished.
Finally, there is a leadership issue here.  While parties or party polarization may be strong, leadership is weak in the sense of being able to prevent individual members of the legislature from offering bills to appease interest groups or constituents.  Moreover, safe-seat legislators are less dependent on party leadership and can pursue or push special legislation, often without fear that leadership will punish them for it.  This happened in 2017 and it happened again this year. Additionally, it just does seem any of the principal legislative leaders or the governor have the leadership skills to move beyond partisanship.
Overall, we should no longer be shocked that gridlock has become a defining characteristic of Minnesota politics.  The state has become a microcosm of so many of the problems found at the national level, suggesting diminished prospects for Capitol cooperation for the foreseeable future.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Want to Really Help the Poor in St. Paul? Fix the Infrastructure

What might be the better and perhaps more progressive and proven policy to benefit the lives of present or future generations of those in St. Paul?  One answer is opening bank accounts for children at birth. But the smarter answer would be a long-term infrastructure project to fix all the roads, bridges,  sewer lines, and other public assets in the city so that a future generation is not burdened with these costs that they will have to bear if we continue to do no more than the pittance as is presently the case.
The Melvin Carter administration in St. Paul is right to be concerned with addressing the needs of  low and moderate income individuals in the city.  One initiative already under consideration and touted by those who consider themselves as progressive  is raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour.  Elsewhere I have argued that this idea may have limited  impact in that it ignores a more fundamental problem of how a lack of affordable child care serves as an impediment to employment and providing it may be a better anti-poverty  program that rewards work and supports women. 
A second idea also touted by the progressives is opening up bank accounts for all children born in St. Paul.  The idea is premised upon the work of scholars such as Michael Sherradan and David Kirp who argued that child savings accounts (CSAs) would be a way to address the lack of income and wealth characteristic among the poor.  CSAs would include seed money from government to open an account at birth, with in many cases it matching deposits made by parents, or providing tax incentives to build savings.  Overall, the goal of its supporters  is to build financial security and capabilities, and perhaps affect educational outcomes for children and families.
Nationally, according to  the Urban Institute, the United Kingdom briefly flirted with CSAs until abandoned. Canada and Singapore have also experimented with them, and so have several cities in United States.  CSAs have not been around long enough to test whether they have been successful in meeting their goals.  Should St. Paul pursue CSAs, it needs to consider how to pay for the initial seeding of the accounts and then subsequent deposits into them.  Additionally, one needs to be cautious about claims that they will improve educational outcomes.  In general evidence shows educational performance increases with family household income, but simply giving people a bank account at birth does not  automatically translate into better grades or enhanced learning, at least in the short term.  Another problem with CSAs if done at the city level is that recipients of them might not stay in the city as children or adults, thereby depleting the impact they would have in St. Paul. Public investments by St. Paul should first serve the benefit of its present residents and the concept of inter-generational justice suggests the same.
While educational programs, especially early childhood and K-12 are among the best ant-poverty policies,
consider then an alternative–a commitment by the City to plan, bond, and budget for replacing its aging infrastructure over the next few years.  Nationally, the American Society of Civil Engineers rates the US a D+ in terms of its grade for infrastructure.  Minnesota does not earn much better of a grade.  Those of us who drive in St. Paul, know the roads are in bad shape and that the city has aging water and sewer lines.  According to St. Paul Public Works Department, it is responsible for “1,874 miles of streets, 806 miles of sanitary sewer, 450 miles of storm sewer, 107 bridges, and 145 miles of bike lanes.”   St. Paul only has money, for example, to repair eight miles per year of its roads.  The City’s infrastructure is in bad shape, and the problem is being kicked down the street for future generations to finance.  In effect, we are saddling our children with the cost of  fixing a crumbling infrastructure–they will have to pay for repairs we refuse to finance.  How fair is that to them?
If we really wanted to make a difference in the lives of present and future generations in St. Paul the City and is people would commit to a realistic multi-year infrastructure plan.  The benefits in doing this are significant.  First, it addresses a real need–fixing the roads, bridges, and other public systems.  Their decay costs, for example,  drivers money every year in terms of car repairs.  Second, it is a public investment in a public project, having collective benefits for the city that do not run the risk of being exported or lost in the way a CSA can be if someone moves.  Third,  infrastructure investment produces jobs–not just in construction, but a lot of different types, and that benefits current and future St. Paul residents–and there is solid evidence to support this.  Fourth, infrastructure investments help the economy and employers, not just workers.  
Finally, infrastructure investments may be a better way of helping the poor than CSAs.  As noted, they provide jobs, but also they take away from our children the burden of having to assume the debts to repair the City’s infrastructure.  In effect, CSAs may provide funds for future children, but any benefit they bring will be offset by the costs to them for fixing a failing infrastructure.  The real progressive solution, and not just the feel good one, might be fixing the infrastructure.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

With Unemployment So Low Why are Wages Stagnant?

My latest blog originally appeared today in Counterpunch.


If the unemployment rate is so low why have wages for most Americans failed to go up very much recently?  The simple answer is for the very same reasons why economic inequality and social mobility in America has largely ground to a halt in the last 40 years–the decline and war on labor unions.

Last Friday the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate dropped to 3.9%–the lowest rate since the 1990s.  Yet with this drop wages have yet to increase very much, especially since the Great Recession of 2008.  Why?  Venerable neo-liberal economists, such as the New York Times’ Paul Krugman, hypothesize that employers are reluctant to raise wages for fear they cannot cut them in the future. Others contend that we have not fully recovered from the recession or that the actual labor force participation rates are still high, making wage increases sticky.  All of these explanations miss the point.  Employers are not raising wages because they do not have to.  The reason is that labor unions are so week now that they cannot do what they historically have done which is to pressure employers to increase wages.

Last week was May 1–May Day.  Yet people forget why we have unions. The last 150 years of American history is the battle of workers and unions against corporations. America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the country of  trusts.  It was the emergence of the railroads, steel, big oil, and monopolies.  It was also the era of sweatshops, child labor, adulterated and unsafe foods, and the six day, 70 hour+ work weeks.  It was also the era of piecemeal below subsistence wages, poor working conditions and high injury rates, no health benefits, no retirement benefits, and no protections against discrimination and harassment.  It was the world of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Unions were illegal, and workers who stood up for their rights were beat up by the Pinkertons–company hired security–or arrested by the newly created public police forces which were created to control and brake unions.

No one should wax romantically for this era if you care about workers and the people.  America economically may have grown exponentially, but it did so unevenly, producing massive fortunes for a few but significant economic inequalities for the rest.  The America of the early nineteenth century–the one that Alexis De Tocqueville so famously described in his Democracy in America as one characterized by a general equality of conditions–had vanished.  By the time the stock market crashed in 1929 the income and wealth gap in America had literally produced two Americas:  One was the country of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the other of the depression-era novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

The 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) or the Wagner Act brought relative peace to the labor market in that it recognized the right of workers to collectively bargain.  The NLRA established a process for how to unionize, organize workers, hold elections, and bargain for benefits.  It was a victory for workers, but also for the American people and the economy.  The Wagner Act was part of the New Deal, it was one element in a package of legislation to restructure the economy and fix the market failures in the economy.

The NLRA had more than an economic purpose or impact.  Many of the economic problems in America are political.  They are produced by asymmetric political power between corporations, the rich, and rest of the people.  Unions at their best can be what Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., once called the countervailing power to help limit the power of businesses and corporations.  The Wagner Act thus reset the political equilibrium in American politics to help favor the people.

And it worked.  Labor density and unionization in America dramatically increased in the United States, peaking in 1954 with over 35% of the workforce collectively bargained.  But what did unions accomplish?  There is powerful evidence first that they brought tremendous economic benefits to American workers and the economy.  They produced the minimum wage, the eight hours, five day work week.  They improved workplace safety, gave us health insurance, retirements, and workers compensation.  They raised the standard of living of most Americans, often even those not in unions. They also helped bring more economic equality to the economy, significantly erasing the disparities of the Gilded and Robber Barron eras.  Unions grew and flourished  at a time of significant economic growth, and there is little hard data to show that they caused rises in unemployment.  America’s post WW II affluence is tied in with unions.

But in addition to the economic benefits that unions bring, there was a political aspect to them.  Unions were part of the Democratic New Deal coalition.  The strength of the Post World War II Democratic Party dominance was tied to unions.  Unions got out the vote and they did so to the advantage of Democrats.

But many employers, conservatives, and Republicans hate unions.  Even many workers, especially white collar professionals, share this animosity, thinking they are better off on their own. Almost from the day the NLRA was passed opponents sought ways to circumvent the law.  The found ways to fire striking workers and replace them.  They harassed and fired organizers, they found ways in court to delay or challenge elections.  They claimed unions hurt the economy or restricted individual freedom and passed right-to-work legislation.  Yet unions remained a potent force in American politics until President Reagan became president and signaled with the firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981 that it was okay to go to war against the unions.  Since then, one can  correlate the rising inequality that Thomas Piketty describes or the decreasing social mobility in America to the decreased power of unions.

As Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison tell in The Great U-Turn, the Reagan era war against unions was part of a strategy along with deregulation and tax cuts to restructure the economy.  It was also part of a political restructuring of American politics.  The strategy has largely worked.  Overall, less than 12% of all workers are now in unions in the United States, with only 7% of the private labor force collectively bargained.

The decline of the American income in the last 40 years goes part and parcel with the decline of unions. In the last thirty years the American economy has seen a dramatic increase in the gap between the rich and poor such that it now mirrors that of the 1920s.  According to the United States Census Bureau in 2010 the richest five percent of the population accounted for 21% of the income, with the top 20% receiving over 50% of the total income in the country.  This compares to the bottom quintile accounting for about 3% of the total income.

A second study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in 2010, drawing upon Congressional Budget Office research, found that income gap between the top one-percent of the population and everyone else more than tripled since 1973.  After-tax income for the top one-percent increased by 281% between 1973 and 2007, while for middle class or middle quintile it increased by 25%, for the bottom quintile it was merely 16%.  Looking beyond income to wealth, the maldistribution has not been this bad since the 1920s.  According to the Institute for Policy Studies, in 2007 the top one-percent controls almost 34% of the wealth in the country, with half of the population possessing less than 3%.  Since the Great Recession, the numbers have accelerated.

Opposing unions and workers costs families money.  There is a significant difference in median family incomes in states that are right to work (RTW) versus those that are not.  Several years ago I did a study using a three years average median family income for 2009 to 2012.  I found that  RTW states have a median family income of $46,919, non RTW it is $53,418–a difference of $6,499 or 13.9% per year.  Testing for the statistical impact of RTW on median family incomes, the relationship is -0.4.  This means there is statistical evidence that RTW is associated with lower incomes.  RTW depresses wages.  If all of this does not demonstrate a war against unions it definitely does reveal an attack on workers.

Yet Americans have been convinced unions and workers’ rights are bad.  They resent successful unions that pay better wages than they receive instead of organizing to bring themselves up to that level.  We live in a culture that worships the Donald Trumps and MBA-led management teams, yet these are the people who brought us the economic crash of 2008, gross mismanagement of the economy, and the mass layoffs that frequently dot our workplaces.  For many middle class workers, the image of a surprise visit to your cubicle by a HR person with a box telling you that you are fired and have one hour to clear out your desk is all too real.  Yet despite this, Americans continue to believe that they are better off without unions and worker protections.

Fixing the NLRA is a must to yet again reset the economic and political imbalances in the law.  Some claim that unions are no longer relevant or that their corruption has led to their own demise.  There is no question that unions need to clean up their act and support meaningful government reform, but there is also evidence that many people do want to organize and want representation in a union.  If it were easier to organize, perhaps more people would have health care even without Obamacare, or maybe more people would have retirement pensions.

At the federal level, unions made fixing the Wagner Act a top priority in 2008 and 2009 with the Employee Free Choice Act.  The law would have streamlined organizing and holding elections.  While initially as candidate saying he would support such changes, President Obama never pushed the Act when the Democrats had control of Congress, and now the chances for its passage are dead.  Perhaps the most important structural reform of the economy Obama could have made, he simply ignored, costing lasting damage to workers and middle class America.  And how with the Supreme Court ready to take the final constitutional shot against public sector unions, the last organized force to represent workers will be gone.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Giuliani’s admission about paying hush money to Stormy Daniels strengthens special prosecutor’s obstruction of justice claims and why presidential pardons may make problems worse for Trump

Note:  This is a press release I am sending out today.

The obstruction of justice and other potential criminal charges against Donald Trump were
strengthened by Giuliani’s admission about paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, and the use of presidential pardons may make problems worse for the president.

SAINT PAUL, MN (PRWEB) May 3, 2018 -- Hamline University professor David Schultz, noted expert on constitutional law and legal ethics, argued today that obstruction of justice and other potential criminal charges against President Donald Trump were strengthened by Giuliani’s admission about paying hush money to Stormy Daniels.  He also argued that presidential pardons to shut down the investigations may constitute new evidence of obstruction of justice.

According to Schultz: “Giuliani’s admission closes an important circle, connects critical dots, and portends far more serious problems for Trump than simply a violation of campaign finance laws.  Trump always had plausible denial that his attorney Michael Cohen had gone rogue when he made payments to stormy Daniels to silence her, even though the general presumption is that lawyers act as agents for their clients.   Acting alone,  one could argue that Cohen’s payments were independent expenditures meant to influence the presidential campaign and therefore should have been  reported, as required by federal campaign finance law. Giuliani’s statement clearly ties Cohen, to Trump and Daniels and it now raises questions about possible illegal activity of Trump or the Trump campaign regarding the 2016 election.  Even more powerfully, for a president who claimed he has done nothing wrong, this connection impeaches Trump’s credibility, raising questions about his motives regarding other criminal allegations he is facing, as well as whether he took other action to obstruct justice.”

Schultz, author of more than 35 books and 150 articles on various aspects of American law and politics, including his most recent two volume Constitutional Law in Contemporary America, (West Academic), said on Thursday that critical to establishing obstruction of justice under federal law is showing a corrupt intent meant to impede a criminal investigation.  The acknowledgment of the Stormy Daniels payment provides evidence of an intent to hide or obstruct information, leaving open interesting questions regarding whether he has undertaken other actions with the intent of concealing information or obstructing the legal.

Additionally Schultz, who teaches government ethics and criminal law, also said: “If Trump thinks that issuing pardons to his attorney Michael Cohen or other will stop the criminal inquiry, he is wrong.  First, while presidents may issue pardons, if the purpose of the pardon is to impede a criminal investigation, that pardon may be evidence of obstruction of justice.  Second, the use of a pardon will remove the ability of individuals to assert their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, thereby making it more probable that people such as his attorney would potentially have to provide against evidence against the president.  Any pardons at this point by the president are suspect and potentially more damaging to the president than even Giuliani’s statements.

Schultz is a professor of political science at Hamline University. He has taught classes on American government and election law for more than 25 years. A  three time Fulbright scholar and winner of the Leslie A. Whittington national award for excellence in public affairs teaching,   David Schultz is the author and editor of 35 books and 150 articles on American politics and law and is a frequently quoted political analyst in the local, national, and international media.

--End–