I don’t personally have an opinion about who should be included in debates at this point at this point (that is, at this point I don’t have a position about debates that occur at this point and forward), though I think it’s an important public policy question that doesn’t necessary deserve to be decided by corporations (owing to their use of public airwaves).

In the injunction request, Kucinich’s lawyers claim:

[This] undermines the purpose of the Federal Communications Act . . . and is a blatant violation of the Act because of the media’s obligation to operate in the public interest. . . . [It] is effectively an endorsement of the candidates selected by NBC. In addition, if NBC is given the liberty to designate every appearance of with two candidates as “news”, then no third candidate will have the ability to enforce the equal time requirement, which is inconsistent with the intent of Congress in enacting [whatever].

Kucinich also alleges breach of contract, but that’s less interesting.

The court’s initial ruling in favor of Kucinich agreed with Kucinich on both points, but did not provide any elaboration on why.

The injunction request included as an appendix in MBNBC’s appeal, available for download from the Times. The PDF includes the injunction request document twice: the second time, it is not cut off. The PDF also has some other interesting things: a photocopy of a check, the email addresses of campaign managers in some exhibits, and…

Among the materials included with the injunction request (I think- it’s hard to tell from my cursory reading what materials go with which documents) are emails from NBC executives to the candidates about their invitation to the debate, and, more interesting to me, to a telephone conference call about debate format. I wish someone would share or leak a recording of that conference call. That’s what I really want to see, and if you don’t know why….

Here’s a recap of where this post is coming from: I blogged previously on how I think there is an important story of corruption in how presidential candidates are included in televised debates, in that the big media corps do exercise control merely by limiting the playing field of candidates: the fewer candidates there are, the fewer they have to be in the pockets of. Not that I think every registered candidate in any state and his mother needs to be in every debate, but what I do believe strongly is that for those candidates that are included at all, they should get equal time to answer questions. Out of the last 8 debates in 2007 before the primaries (for both parties), MSNBC’s two Democratic debate most egregiously allocated time unevenly to the candidates, with the more popular candidates according to the polls getting much, much more time than the rest. The De Moines Register, on the other hand, ought to be applauded loudly for holding the only two debates in which time was allocated completely evenly.

I’m particularly interested in Pierson’s purportedly novel conception of how political institutions develop over time, apparently filling the gaps that other models fail to address. (He sets his conceptions against “historical institutionalism” and “rational choice theory”.) His analysis is abstract enough to be rigorous and challenging at first, but takes a broad enough view that he can abstract common elements out of disparate systems in a useful, applicable manner. He seeks to “explicate different ways in which things happen over time in social life, drawing attention to processes that are unlikely to be visible without specifically addressing questions of temporality” (p. 10).

In reading just the first few chapters, I’m surprised at how well the concept of “path dependence” maps onto congressional reform efforts. A concept I would probably have referred to as a “positive feedback loop”, path dependence is self reinforcing behavior — development whose onset disproportionately influences further development. Basic examples that come to mind are both debt and wealth, which tend to feed off of themselves.

Pierson applies path dependence to economic theory, illuminating situations that may be well explained by examining self reinforcing structures. For example, various national economies develop divergently, and, rather than taking advantage of each other’s successful strategies, produce very different situations. “Once in place, institutions are hard to change, and they have a tremendous effect on the possibilities for generating sustained economic growth. Individuals and organizations adapt to existing institutions. If the institutional matrix creates incentives for piracy, North observes, then people will invest in becoming good pirates. When institutions fail to provide incentives to be economically productive, there is unlikely to be much economic growth.” (p. 27)

Pierson argues that the political sphere is particularly subject to self-reinforcing behavior (aka positive feedback, path dependence, or increasing returns). He outlines four mechanisms that render the political particularly influenced by whatever the current state of affairs is. They are: “(1) the central role of collective action; (2) the high density of institutions; (3) the possibilities for using political authority to enhance asymmetries of power; and (4) its intrinsic complexity and opacity… Each of these features makes positive feedback processes prevalent in politics”. (p. 30)

Each of these mechanisms seems to easily map onto Congress in a useful way.

Collective action problems make feedback loops because both politicians and constituents (or any political actor) are largely unable to act alone, and must constantly assess the winning strategy, and what is perceived as the winning strategy. This privileges existing organizations, giving established parties, coalitions, and institutions the distinct advantage of clearing the first hurdle of viability. When effectiveness can be found in groups, and groups are hard to form (and political organizing is insufficiently agile), then those groups’ existence will tend to exhibit self reinforcement. The Internet, and blogging, however, are a productively destabilizing force, giving ad-hoc coalitions and unproved institutions an equal voice, where reputations matter less than well sourced convincing arguments. The Internet also reduces the amount to which political activism involves collective action problems: there is a rather low barrier to participation (digital divide notwithstanding). Broader participation and competition means greater alternatives, leading to more agility and easier transitions, meaning we’re less likely to stay stuck on some self-reinforcing pathway.

A dense realm of institutions similarly exists around Congress and the federal government; they sort of approach being the essence of the institution, the defining meta-institution, comprised of departments about departments, creating the conditions for all other institutions. With such far-reaching work, this complex of institutions will be justifiably risk-averse, weighted down by the seriousness of their task, and the high price of failure. The sheer mass of institutions at play gives reform a much higher cost (and renders them path-dependent.)

Third is the “possibilities for using political authority to enhance asymmetries of power.” Congress is full of power begetting itself, as is government generally. Societal expectations and checks and balances are supposed to help define the terms of the equalibria controlling this power. The legislative and executive periodically switch in dominance, as do the parties. The incentives created by elections are enhanced by an information-empowered electorate, helping to reign in self-reinforcing political power structures.

The last political mechanism of path-dependence is “its intrinsic complexity and opacity.” Complexity and opacity make political institutions and agents less susceptible to any societal pressure, which is more likely to be mediated through sympathetic agents (the media, lobbyists). While complexity is often necessary, and has a high cost of shedding (see #2, institutional path-dependence), it can be countered by information availability. In other words, while Senate procedures provide an effective shield against criticism for questionable votes only as long as those procedures are hard to explain. Insofar as Congress is inscrutable, it’s less likely to feel real pressure, and more likely to reinforce itself. Insofar as the Internet helps make Congress scrutable and transparent, pressure becomes productive.

I’m looking forward to going through more of Pierson’s research, finding it similarly helpful to Harvard’s Transparency Policy Project or Congress’s own best attempts to survey itself.

The Des Moines Register held the final debate last night, and I am happy to see that someone decided the debates would be done responsibly. The candidates all held the floor for roughly an equal amount of time (as per usual, according to the New York Time’s debate analyzer widget). Bill Richardson held the floor the longest — not a leader in the polls by any means — and only 1.4 times longer than the least-speaking candidate (versus 3.5 and 3 times above). (Comparing the speaking times to a more recent Nov. 30 poll, there is still a small correlation (r=.3), but not enough to think it was pre-planned.)

By the numbers: The MSNBC debate gave 23 additional seconds to each candidate for each percentage point in their latest poll number, and this totally accounts for the speaking time of each candidate. In the CNN debate, candidates spoke around 12 seconds more per poll percentage point, and while this allocation of time seemed pre-planned, it perhaps was not based entirely/exactly on poll numbers. The Register appeared to allocate time evenly, and any influence of poll numbers on speaking time that there might have been was greatly overshadowed by other factors.

I’m finally tagging this post under “corruption.” Normally we think of corruption as big business influencing the policy of politicians, but here it’s party politics trying to control the media — except I would venture to say that while MSNBC (i.e. General Electric and Microsoft) and CNN (i.e. Time Warner) were happy to play along, The Register (owned by Gannett Co., a major owner of newspapers throughout the country) did things right.

Even if the leadership in both parties make a priority of publicizing committee proceedings, the committee chairs in their variable discretion (as we called it in the report) still need to make it a sufficient priority for it to happen.  To encourage them to do so, we’ve drafted a letter, working closely with VoterWatch (and Perla Ni) to articulate what we are looking for–accurate, timely records of what happens in public hearings, posted online permanently in text, audio, and video.

I’ve also created a pledgebank pledge, which you can view or sign here, (or through facebook), which says the following:

The pledge has links to more detail (and to the letter to committee chairs), and is set to succeed only at 50 people by mid December.  We’re up to 11 as of this email.


Press Credentialing:

I recently finished Donald Ritchie’s Press Gallery, which covers the congressional press galleries through the 19th Century, with a focus on the development of institutional standards that reify things like conflicts of interest and endemic corruption.  (Institutions like ethics committees, or press galleries reify, or recognize and make real, conflicts of interest–effectively or not, where before they were just seen as incidental profits.)

Interestingly, these distinctions (for example, understanding that a reporter shouldn’t also be a committee clerk, a lobbyist, and an stock speculator, all at the same time) largely develop through new technology being introduced, which creates tension and new incentives within the reporting community.  This point is very clearly made in the preface to Reporting from Washington, Ritchie’s book that starts around 1932:

I’m sure there’s a detailed comparison to be made here, taking blogging and comparing it to the growth of such institutions as the initial party-affiliated papers, the penny press papers, the wire (telegraph based) services, larger syndicated papers, radio, and television.  A case could be made that the Internet isn’t so uniquely revolutionary (at least in this sense), but operates in a long tradition of evolving distinctions, each taking a different concern, conflict of interest, party interest, or business interest, and removing them from the narrative of the reporter.

The Constitution:

I’ve alluded a couple of times to the Constitution Annotated, but I’d like to elaborate slightly more on this document, and why it’s worthy of our attention.

The world of legal research is very complex, with different bodies of information being vital to the arrangement of court cases and legislative research, touching on case history, legislative intent, regulatory processes, and differing jurisdictions, precedents, and interpretations.  Within this sphere, just as much as in the world of legislative information, when information isn’t readily available to the public, for-pay services grow to fill this need.  While this has been both necessary and good, there is also a clear public good to securing access to a digital public repository of legal and legislative information.  In other words, more people should take advantage of advanced legal research than can afford to.

The Constitution Annotated is a sort of bridge between the legal and legislative research worlds, since it provides the foundation for both of them.  It is also a great example of a vital technical document.  CRS employees take the Constitution and append explanations and context to every section, based on the most recent supreme court interpretations.  There’s no better place to start looking in order to get a (mostly) current view, from a team of experts, of how the Constitution functions in contemporary life.

CONAN (as it’s referred to) has immense potential to become a digitally vital document, and adding searchability, links for cross-referencing, and versioning would all be possible by making the XML data at its core public.  Third parties with an interest in adding value would likely be happy to create links, searches, and further context.  (See Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, for example, which is already providing a basic set of these value-added features, as they’re able to based on the format the GPO is publishing in.)

I’ll likely be writing more about this soon.

GSA Newsletter:

Finally, I’d like to point again (as Steven Clift recently did), to the General Services Administration’s recent newsletter “How E-Government is Changing Society and Strengthening Democracy” (available near the top of this page).

I know of no better survey of current e-government and digital democracy survey, showing what enterprising citizens and government employees are doing with the Internet.  (I wrote about the Open House Project in the newsletter too.)

Sorry this is so long, but there’s a great deal going on, and I’m trying to keep up with keeping what I’m doing as public as possible.

Even though that video centers on intellectual property issues, Lessig talks about how his focus came to shift away from hoping Congress would pass rational policy. He remarks that the "economies of influence" that dictate congressional policy are fundamentally corrupt, as a system. That made me reflect that Sunlight’s mission is, in a sense, to cultivate an ecology of popular influence, to build the culture of information and deliberation that is necessary for good governance. I wonder how often it is that people are drawn to process reform by virtue of their frustration in working on other issues? The leap shouldn’t be difficult for Lessig to make, since the cultural shift he describes as changing the nature of creativity (and, therefore, the landscape of intellectual property) — that cultural shift to creativity and digital empowerment is exactly the cultural sphere in which Sunlight is thriving. Instead of mashups of disparate clips of audio and video, we’re working with legislative data, creating an approachable and relevant congressional pallette of civic information.

This video speaks also to that cultural shift, discussing exponential growth of digital culture.

Certainly also worth our attention is this page on his wiki, where he lists resources and research.

The Open House Project’s success has come from just such a public conceptual space, a precondition for real collaborative analysis and constructive advocacy. If the societal influences that affect democratic decision making are fundamentally changed by the Internet and the broad public access that it promotes, it makes sense that a project promoting exactly that kind of public access would be among the first to demonstrate success. In a certain sense, the kind of public access that we’re advocating for is a precondition for the civically-empowered society we’d like to see, and the accountable transparent government that is built on it.

In the spirit of loosely connected observations potentially generating progress, here are some things I learned reading this weekend.

I finally got around to reading The Legal Research Manual, which a former employee of mine gave me (a pre-law student). The first few chapters were particularly relevant for me, since they provided a broad practical view of government information sources. I didn’t know about the US Government Manual, which is a yearly document by the GPO outlining the organization and function of the entire government.

The book also helpfully distinguishes between administrative (executive), statutory (legislative), and common (judicial) law, depending on its source, and further distinguishes between digests that organize this law based on either subject matter or chronology. All of the above are organized in both ways, leading to the existence of both an authoritative compendium and a running update. (For example, the Federal Register prints regulations from federal agencies as they’re passed, among other things, and the Code of Federal Regulations lists all of them according to topic.)

The Manual also explains judicial organization in great detail, with special attention payed to judicial jurisdiction (that construction may be a tautology) and practical approaches to researching case law and legal citations. Supreme court decisions are all apparently published in the United States Reports, which was good to see. Legal information, however, seems to suffer from an ad-hoc organizational system combining both official public prints and authoritative private services. For example, West publishes a “US Code Congressional and Administrative News” update, and digests of court opinions from throughout different levels of the Judiciary branch.

The linguistics appreciator in me loves that lawyers rely on a book called “Words and Phrases,” which catalogs legally articulated semantic distinctions. This would be a sort of legal ontology, I suppose.

Ontology, in philosophy, refers broadly to the study of being, in the same way that ethics is about action or epistemology is about knowledge. Ontology often gets brought up in discussions of structured data, and I’ve usually taken it to refer to the way that markup languages choose to recognize certain qualities or attributes as existent in certain settings. According to my understanding, a philosophical outlook leads to an ontology, or the ontic properties, those of existence, in the same way that the context of a given programming language leads to certain attributes. The radical doubt of solipsism leads to the lonely existence of the self, or the medieval metaphysics of Aquinas yields a complex hierarchy of angelic beings, just as RSS standards lead to attributes of title or publication time, or the context of HTML makes tags for italics or headers existent.

What got me thinking about all of this was Clay Shirky’s Ontology is Overrated, which is a great read. He outlines categorization schemas, and concludes that the imprecise statistical organization that arises from crowds organizing on the Internet is more useful than the top-down methods of organization like card catalogues (depending on the context).

Intellectual interaction’s electronically magnified potential will have considerable consequences for democratic governance. I assume that the effect will be a good one. In terms of corruption and conflict of interest, I wonder what the ideal conditions are for it to grow? I assume that a low information sharing environment is one of the basic conditions for administrative abuse. I wonder what else helps corruption to thrive? Is this studied systematically?