#new majority

Hans von Spakovsky: What will Kavanaugh mean for the Supreme Court? | Fox News

Kavanaugh’s ascension to the Court and his strict textual reading of the law could actually diminish the power of the Supreme Court over the political, social, and cultural affairs of the nation – and that would be a good thing. — Read on www.foxnews.com/opinion/hans-von-spakovsky-what-will-kavanaugh-mean-for-the-supreme-court

 by Victor Figueroa Clark

With victory sealed in the second round it is possible to begin analysing Bachelet’s ability to deliver on the reform programme her New Majority coalition promised.

  Although the 15 December election took place in the context of an abstention rate that varied from 50-59%, depending on how large the voting population is assumed to be (incredibly figures from the last census are unusable and estimates of the voting population vary from 12 million to 13.5 million people, in addition the SERVEL electoral service has admitted some 600,000 dead people remain on the rolls – unbelievably including Salvador Allende and the dictatorship’s disappeared), it was also the largest second round victory recorded under this electoral system (nearly 25 percentage points difference).  While some commentators seem to be focusing on the abstention issue, it is not this sector that will be politically decisive over the near term. Furthermore, since second round voting rates are always lower than first round votes, and since the abstainers did not all abstain for the same reasons, the result can be seen as a ringing endorsement of the government’s reform programme by the vast majority of the politically active population.

  Bachelet and the New Majority have promised to fight for the following measures:

  -free education and education reforms

-tax reform to make the system more progressive and to fund education reforms

-a new labour code

-more spending on health and housing

-constitutional reforms, including a definition of rights, the secularisation of the state and proportional representation in elections

-decentralisation

-the creation of a state run pensions company

  Other reforms she is expected to push for are a civil partnership/gay marriage law, legalising some forms of abortion, all as part of a drive to create legal equality for all and balancing gender differences, as well as taking steps to deal with severe inequality, a legacy of the Concertacion governments of 1990-2010.

  Under the current constitution and despite the majority her government has in parliament, not all of these reforms will be simple to achieve because of the purposefully conservative bent of the Chilean constitution inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship and because of the nature of the coalition she leads.  This coalition is a left-centre coalition in which the left at the moment holds the advantage. However, the Christian Democrat party contains both left and right wings, arguably having more in common with the more moderate sectors of the right-wing Alianza coalition. 

  Reforms for which the New Majority needs a simple majority in parliament include:

  Tax reform

Gay marriage/civil partnership

Labour code reform

Introducing PR for elections to lower chamber

Giving Chileans abroad the vote

  There is a broad Congressional and social majority backing for electoral reforms (with a survey of parliamentarians carried out by Que Pasa magazine, which interviewed all but 2 congressmen, indicating that the vast majority of politicians are ‘in principle’ behind changes to the binomial electoral system). However, a large number want to see what alternative is proposed before committing to voting for it. However, on other issues there are potential divisions. The New Majority coalition includes some rather conservative Catholic politicians who are unlikely to vote for abortion or gay marriage. On the other hand the same survey shows that several members of the right-wing Alianza, and the 4 independent politicians are willing to vote with the government on certain issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and so on. So on these and other issues we may see temporary alliances formed to push through specific measures.

  Within the New Majority, unity on the broad agenda of the coalition is undermined by the varying views on the urgency and extent of the agreed reforms. Thus, on the education reforms the Bachelet government has promised change within 4 years, but 2 of the student leaders (who are now deputies) and several other politicians are known to want immediate and more wholesale change. At the same time a number of PDC congressmen own profit-making educational institutions and they will be reluctant to reform the system to their disadvantage. Yet their votes will be needed to push through a reform. Similar divisions exist on some other issues such as the proposed tax reforms. These problems are eminently negotiable, and will be resolved by Bachelet and the parties of the New Majority. Whether the result will be moderate or radical will depend on the extent of social mobilisation, on Bachelet’s position in this regard, and on the activity of the more left-wing parliamentarians.

  The likelihood of a moderate reform exists thanks to the possibility that members of the Alianza will vote for specific moderate reforms. It is possible that some form of alliance will be formed between the unwilling reformers within the New Majority and the reformists of the Alianza to water down reforms as far as possible.  It is probable the government will bet that by making education free at source for the vast majority of students the steam will be taken out of the movement as a whole. Therefore, a radical reform - nationalising education - is unlikely under this government.

  The defining issue for the New Majority government will be reducing inequality and constitutional reform. Bachelet’s coalition doesn’t have the majority necessary to write the necessary new constitution and this leaves four basic options:

  1 – A constituent assembly

2 – A citizens’ assembly

3 – A plebiscite on constitutional reform

4 – Reforms through congress (via negotiation with the right)

  The first option would mean stretching the existing legal framework, even if many people, including leading constitutional lawyers, support it as the best way of cutting the Gordian knot of the Pinochet constitution. Former President Lagos, who carried out the last set of limited reforms to the 1980 Constitution, has also said that it would be ‘better to start with a blank page’, having carried through the last set of reforms to the 1980 constitution. Furthermore, during the recent elections some 10% of voters marked their ballots with ‘AC’, calling for a constituent assembly - showing that a significant minority of the public want this option (Despite the fact that this action wasn’t officially supported by the New Majority. It is highly likely that the true figure for those that want a constituent assembly is much higher). There is also significant support for this option from intellectual circles and the world of culture. However, it is politically risky and would be an unprecedented move. On the other hand, not dealing with the issue of the Constitution decisively will be political suicide, and will likely result in the fracture of the New Majority. Bachelet’s government cannot afford to confront the social movement head on, and yet social demands on every front come up against constitutional constraints meaning that for any significant change the constitution must be changed.

  Meanwhile some form of Citizen’s Assembly would write a document that would in effect be analysed and changed by Congress. This would necessarily be a document heavily mediated by the right-wing in Congress. The plebiscite on whether a new constitution should be written can be called by Bachelet, but only with sufficient majority support in Congress. This option could combine with the call for a constituent assembly, except that a majority in Congress oppose this form of developing a new constitution. And the final option is to go through Congress, where the New Majority would need the support of at least 4 additional senators and between 4 and 12 additional deputies to push through various constitutional reforms. This may be possible given the support for reform shown in the Que Pasa survey despite declarations of opposition by the most recalcitrant right-wing. It would not be the most democratic way of making changes, but it could serve until the next elections – although it is doubtful that people have the patience to wait that long for substantial changes. Bachelet has yet to commit to any particular one of these possibilities, and no doubt it will be the subject of negotiation with other political groupings.

   Other difficulties to be faced by the Bachelet government will be the falling price of copper on world markets, the latent possibility of discontent with the slow pace of reforms, the international court’s verdict on the maritime border with Peru, and a similar case involving Bolivia. However, none of these are necessarily too difficult to deal with. More difficult may be dealing with military and elite opposition to more profound reforms, given the dominant right-wing and in some cases, neo-fascist ideology of both. This can be seen in the recent statement by one Chilean businessman that if Bachelet ‘undermined the economy’ (a euphemism for systemic changes) then “we would need another Pinochet.”

Initial Analysis of Chilean elections 2013

 Victor Figueroa Clark

The 2013 elections were fought out on the background of the massive social mobilisations of last two years, and amid growing calls for institutional change to the political system left by the Pinochet dictatorship. Inequality, injustice and the legacy of the coup all played a role in the electoral campaign. Now the results are in it is possible to outline what this means for the future.

  There are several relevant factors in analysing the results. Firstly, a relatively low turnout of 6,600,000 voters from a potential 13 million. However, many commentators expected a maximum voter turnout of 8 million, so this result isn’t too bad in that light. However, what it shows is that a significant proportion of the population remain unconvinced of the possibilities of the political system to effect real change, are apathetic, or were so convinced of the defeat of their candidates that they didn’t set out to vote.

  Secondly, Bachelet and the New Majority coalition failed to win in the first round of the presidential election. Since there was some confidence that victory would be achieved in the first round this is something of a blow. However, despite this Bachelet's figures show she has maintained her share of the vote, showing a solid core support. Matthei, while doing better than some polls indicated, has still dropped down to 25% of the vote, from an average of 45% voting for the right in recent years. Furthermore, while Bachelet failed to get a first round majority, candidates arguing for deep systemic change accounted for 62.73% of the vote, showing a clear majority for changes, and the vote of the left was in fact double that of the right. In other words, this is still a clear and serious defeat for the right.

  The failure to win in the first round means a second presidential election on 15th December between Michelle Bachelet and Evelyn Matthei, in which no serious commentator expects Bachelet to do anything other than win. The size of her victory in the second round will carry some political weight though and is important.

  Thirdly, in the parliamentary elections Bachelet’s New Majority coalition did not achieve the number of seats necessary to push through constitutional changes alone, although they did achieve a majority in both houses of parliament. Here the effects of the binomial system were played out again (For example in the Senate the New Majority won 50.48% of the votes and got 21 senators, while the Right got 37.97% and took 16 seats). As a result, in the Senate the New Majority is 5 seats from the necessary quorum for changing the constitution, and in the Congress they are 10 seats off that required majority. However, the New Majority did achieve 10 ‘doblajes’ - situations where their candidate pairings won enough votes to take both seats in their constituency (a peculiarity of Chile’s binomial system). The New Majority will now have 58% of Congress, a clear majority for change.

  Moreover, the size of the victory in parliament does mean that Bachelet will be able to push through two of the main elements of her platform – tax reform and educational reform. It is in the key issue of constitutional reform that the New Majority will have to negotiate to get any changes through.

  With regard to this point of constitutional change, the effects of the elections on the internal politics of the two main coalitions will be important. Among these effects are the following:

  The Right:

The hard line of the right, represented by the UDI party has suffered a grave defeat. Several of its leading ideologues lost their election campaigns and the party as a whole has gone from 38 deputies to 29, an indication of their loss of influence. Some commentators argue that this will mean a severe loss of influence and the end of the UDI veto in parliament. Within the right it is the more moderate wing, the Renovacion Nacional (RN) that has come out tops, a fact that opens the potential for negotiations over constitutional and other reforms, since historically it has been the UDI that has blocked any talk of reform to the model imposed on Chile by their gurus, Pinochet and Jaime Guzman.

  The Centre:

Here the Christian Democrats and the right-wing of the Socialist Party have been dealt serious blows. The leaders of both these wings of the old Concertacion coalition, Soledad Alvear and Camilo Escalona, lost their seats. While the Christian Democrats as a whole remain the largest party of the centre, and the largest party in the New Majority, it is the more left-wing of their candidates that have done well overall.

  The Left:

The left has been significantly strengthened within the New Majority. To the extent that some commentators are arguing that the Socialist Party and the Communist Party are the big winners of the elections. The Socialists have won 6 extra seats in Congress, while the Communists have doubled their representation to 6 seats, with most of their candidates winning high majorities. Furthermore, both inside and outside the New Majority all but one of the leaders of the student movement were elected, who all have quite strong left-wing agendas of change.

  What this means is that both within and outside the New Majority those arguing for reforms are in the lead. Within the New Majority the victories of the more left-leaning candidates will force conservatives on the defensive, increasing the possibilities for reforms to succeed. Within the right, the strengthening of the RN means there is some possibility that a deal can be cut between the New Majority and the RN to push through some form of reforms to the constitution, although this would necessarily be less far-reaching than many on the left want to see. However, even if they only manage to reform the electoral system they will have managed to fundamentally change the face of Chilean politics, and opened the road for further changes down the road.

The Minority is Now the Majority: Analyzing the US Census Data 

More than half the babies born in the U.S. last year were not white but either Latino, Black, Asian or from some other minority. The new report from the U.S. Census Bureau tell us more about how far and how fast our country is changing.

--- The Takeaway, May 17, 2012

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Ask most major marketers what their primary concerns are today, and you'll inevitably get back responses such as digital, cause marketing and multicultural marketing. But those three areas are far from mutually exclusive as the world becomes increasingly blended.

But beyond the sheer numbers -- there are 103 million Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans that currently make up one-third of the U.S. population, and are projected by 2042 to become the majority of the nation's population -- this new majority will be a young, diverse group that consumes media very differently.