This Friday, Michael McConnell shares his legal analysis of why President Trump’s deployment of the national guard in California does not violate the Constitution; Ross Levine asks where concern about the federal debt and persistent large deficits has gone among once fiscally conservative lawmakers; and H.R. McMaster offers historical and geopolitical context for Israel’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Revitalizing American Institutions
At his Volokh Conspiracy blog, Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh shares a brief analysis from his Hoover Institution colleague Senior Fellow Michael McConnell on the constitutionality of President Trump’s deploying the California national guard without the request of California’s governor. McConnell notes that this very issue was debated at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and he shares quotes from delegates both opposed to and in favor of a federal ability to intervene “when protest spills over into violence.” The latter position, held by a majority of delegates, was codified in the Constitution under both Articles I and II. McConnell concludes, “Whether President Trump's actions are justified as a matter of prudence may well be debated, but the notion that the Constitution's rules of ‘federalism’ are offended by federal intervention absent gubernatorial request is contradicted by the words and history of the Constitution.” Read more here.
US Fiscal Policy
In an opinion column for The Hill, Senior Fellow Ross Levine asks, “Where have all the fiscal conservatives gone? And, more pointedly, will they ever return and shrink the deficit?” Analyzing why some Republican lawmakers who in recent years have expressed concern about the size of the federal debt have supported a budget reconciliation bill “that would increase primary deficits by about $3.3 trillion over the next decade,” Levine suggests political calculus is the driver. As he writes, “Many politicians staunchly oppose deficits when the opposing party holds power, yet downplay fiscal irresponsibility when their own party controls the government … The result is a bipartisan consensus in favor of red ink.” Levine argues that this approach, if unchecked, may drive interest rates up, limit business investment, hinder entrepreneurship, and slow economic growth. Read more here.
Determining America’s Role in the World
In a new piece for his Substack History We Don’t Know, Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster argues that Israel’s recent attack on Iran “is part of what will be a sustained campaign to block the Islamist dictatorship’s path to a nuclear weapon.” McMaster suggest that this campaign was “inevitable given Tehran’s stated intention to destroy Israel” and Israeli policies “aimed at preventing any enemy state from obtaining nuclear weapons.” The former national security advisor posits that Israel’s “principal objectives seemed to be first, setback Iran’s effort to build nuclear weapons and, second, cripple Iran’s ability to respond effectively to the strikes.” McMaster stresses that it is now “important to anticipate how Iran might respond and what Israel, the United States, and other nations should do to defend against that response.” He then shares a relevant excerpt from his book Battlegrounds discussing how Iran’s citizens might bring an end to a “form of governance that has inflicted so much violence and suffering on the people of the Middle East and the Iranian people.” Earlier today, McMaster also joined CNBC’s Squawk on the Street to discuss the Israeli strike and Iran’s likely response. Read more here.
A new issue of The Caravan examines the maritime Middle East: the bodies of water that frame the region, from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean through the Suez to the Red Sea and the Gulf. The projection of power by global actors as well as regional conflicts continue to play out on the sea. Control of key chokepoints defines the competition, as noted by Distinguished Visiting Fellow Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. in his essay for the issue. US strategy ultimately must pay attention to the naval dimension of the region as well as the priority of preserving freedom of navigation—a conclusion advanced by both Senior Fellow Russell A. Berman and Distinguished Military Fellow Admiral Gary Roughead in their contributions. Read more here.
As part of an essay series at Persuasion, Senior Fellow Larry Diamond makes the case that the Trump administration’s policies in aggregate threaten to weaken the United States, undermine international institutions and alliances, and damage America’s standing in the world. Diamond expresses concern about the impact scientific funding cuts and other domestic policy choices will have on America’s edge in its ongoing competition with China. He writes, “We are not going to win the technological competition with China through export controls; they are only a very partial and mostly temporary fix. The key to success is to innovate faster and better.” Doing this requires international talent, Diamond argues, suggesting that advantage too has been undermined by current immigration policies. Diamond concludes that “China surpassing the United States as the world’s dominant power” would have “horrific consequences for the freedom, prosperity, and health of Americans (and our allies).” Read more here.
State and Local Governance
“Last week,” writes Senior Fellow Lee Ohanian, “the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a Notice of Intent to terminate two federal funding agreements totaling about $4 billion with the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). The FRA’s 300-page report cited systemic failures in management, funding, and schedule compliance in its decision.” In this essay for California on Your Mind, Ohanian reviews the “very troubled and expensive history” of the California High Speed Rail project. As he notes, key “reasons why the FRA intends to defund California HSR include a $7 billion funding gap, a missed 2024 procurement deadline for trains, [and] over $1.6 billion in cost adjustments in the last two years …” Even if the project proceeds, Ohanian projects the modest Bakersfield to Merced line would not be finished until “25 years after the bond was approved, if not longer.” Read more here.
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