Hasta La Gadget!

In a recent public appearance, Chief Justice John Roberts expressed concern about the extreme polarization and partisanship that have gripped the other branches of the federal government. He was particularly concerned that, because of the increasingly partisan nature of the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process, Americans might get the false impression that the Supreme Court itself might fall victim to such politicization. He assured his audience that that is not the case, that the Court is not “a political entity,” and that the Court is not “divided into Republicans and Democrats.” In short, he explained, that is not “how [the Court] works.”

In fact, though, a good deal of the growing lack of confidence in the Supreme Court these days is due precisely to the concern that the justices are increasingly voting in ways that reflect the political values and preferences of the presidents who appointed them. Americans, in other words, increasingly believe that the justices are voting as “Republicans and Democrats.” If this is so, it is not because the justices are “repaying” the favor of their appointment, but because presidents have gotten better at selecting nominees whose judicial approaches are likely to lead them to vote in ways that more or less conform to the appointing president’s own political values and preferences. But is any of this true?

To test this possibility, I did a simple, back-of-the-envelope “study.” Because the Court recently completed its 2013 term, I decided to look back over the Court’s 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, and 2003 terms in order to compare the justices’ behavior in those terms with their behavior during the 2013 term.

I began by identifying what I thought to be the five most “important” decisions in each of those five earlier terms. That is obviously a subjective enterprise, but I made what are at least plausible judgments on that score. The twenty-five decisions I identified (five decisions in each of the five earlier terms) dealt with a broad range of issues, including, for example, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, abortion, terrorism, voting rights, racial discrimination, and criminal procedure.

In those twenty-five decisions, which spanned four decades, justices appointed by Democratic presidents voted regularly with justices appointed by Republican presidents, and vice-versa. Indeed, in not a single one of those twenty-five decisions were all of the justices appointed by Republican presidents on one side, and all of the justices appointed by Democratic presidents on the other side.

To cite just a few examples, in Elfbrandt v. Russell (1963 Term), which dealt with the free speech rights of Communists, the majority included three justices appointed by Democratic presidents and two justices appointed by Republican presidents, and the four dissenters included two justices appointed by Democratic presidents and two justices appointed by Republican presidents.

In Escobedo v. Illinois (1963 Term), which dealt with the right to counsel, the majority again included three justices appointed by Democratic presidents and two justices appointed by Republican presidents, and the dissenters included two justices appointed by Democratic presidents and two justices appointed by Republican presidents.

In Gertz v. Robert Welsh (1973 Term), which dealt with the freedom of speech, the majority included four justices appointed by Republican presidents and one appointed by a Democratic president, and the dissenters consisted of two justices appointed by Democratic presidents and two justices appointed by Republican presidents.

In Lynch v. Donnelly (1983 Term), which dealt with the freedom of religion, the majority consisted of four justices appointed by Republican presidents and one justice appointed by a Democratic president, whereas the dissenters included three justices appointed by Republican presidents and one justice appointed by a Democratic president.

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1993 Term), which dealt with abortion, the majority included five justices appointed by Republican presidents and the four dissenters included three justices appointed by Republican presidents and one justice appointed by a Democratic president.

In McConnell v. Federal Elections Commission (2003 Term), which dealt with the constitutionality of campaign finance regulation, the majority consisted of three justices appointed by Republican presidents and two justices appointed by Democratic presidents, and the dissenters included four justices appointed by Republican presidents.

In Ashcroft v. ACLU (2003 Term), which dealt with the regulation of sexual expression on the Internet, the majority included four justices appointed by Republican presidents and one justice appointed by a Democratic president, whereas the dissenters included three justices appointed by Republican presidents and one justice appointed by a Democratic president.

I could go on, but you get the point. This pattern held true in every one of the twenty-five cases I examined from the 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, and 2003 terms. In not a single one of these cases, which I selected without regard to the voting pattern of the justices, did all of the justices appointed by Republican presidents vote one way and all of the justices appointed by Democratic presidents vote the other way.

Now let’s turn to the Court’s 2013 term, the one just completed. Different people will no doubt have different opinions on this question, but in my view the five most important decisions last term were Schuette v. Coalition to End Affirmative Action, which dealt with affirmative action; Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, which dealt with religious freedom and contraception; Town of Greece v. Galloway, which dealt with legislative prayers; McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which dealt with campaign finance regulation; and Riley v. California, which dealt with cell phone searches.

Here’s the kicker: In three of these five decisions (Hobby Lobby, Town of Greece, and McCuthcheon), the justices in the majority consisted of all five of the justices who had been appointed by Republican presidents, and the dissenters consisted of all four of the justices who had been appointed by Democratic presidents. The contrast from the five earlier terms – spanning a period of half-a-century – is extraordinary.

For Chief Justice Roberts to suggest that the current Supreme Court is not “divided into Republicans and Democrats” may be true in the large majority of cases, but in the most important cases, the ones that matter the most to the American people, the polarization of the justices along partisan lines cannot be denied – and it is, at least in the last half-century, unprecedented. To be clear, none of this is Chief Justice Roberts’ fault, but it also won’t due to deny what is in fact a reality.

The U.S. Department of Education is turning its back on at least 1,000 borrowers in favor of shielding their former colleges from potentially crippling sanctions that would have resulted from high rates of default on federal student loans.

The move, announced late Tuesday and further detailed on Wednesday, concerns an Obama administration decision not to punish as many as 20 schools for loan defaults caused by questionable servicing practices overseen by the Education Department.

Borrowers, however, were provided no such relief. The estimate of the number of affected borrowers is only a small subset of those with loans in default as a result of questionable servicing practices the Education Department identified on Tuesday.

“Borrowers aren’t getting any relief or similar consideration from the Education Department,” said Debbie Cochrane, research director at the California-based Institute for College Access & Success, which advocates affordable education. “If the school isn’t held accountable for the default, then the borrower shouldn’t either.”

As many as 20 schools won’t lose access to critical federal student aid programs, an Education Department official said Wednesday. Losing access to taxpayer-provided student aid would be the equivalent of a death sentence for most colleges. The institutions that were let off the hook include for-profit schools, private and public colleges, and historically black colleges and universities, the official said on a conference call organized for news media.

The department did not specify the number of schools aided by its new policy. Nor would it make officials available for a subsequent interview, or answer emailed questions.

The Huffington Post identified 13 schools that may have been affected by the policy shift. Seven are for-profit institutions, four are historically black colleges, and two are community colleges. Only one — Frank Phillips College, a community college in Borger, Texas — confirmed that it was aided by the Education Department’s decision. Another — Maysville Community and Technical College, a community college in Maysville, Kentucky — said it assumed it was helped by the move.

Borrower advocates, experts on federal student aid programs, and one prominent congressional Democrat denounced the Education Department’s decision, accusing it of putting the interests of for-profit schools over those of borrowers in distress. It is likely to further cement the reputation of an Education Department that is seen as valuing its contractors and colleges over students.

The Education Department showed “absolutely no concern for borrowers,” said Maura Dundon, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending.

“Any changes in the student loan system that reduce transparency and consistency may compromise our ability to hold poor-performing colleges accountable,” said Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House education committee. “The department should be doing everything it can to ensure student borrowers who have defaulted have every opportunity for redress.”

The Education Department decision relates to the share of borrowers who default on a loan within the first three years they are required to make payments, a measurement known as the “cohort default rate” that the department employs to determine colleges’ effectiveness, and whether they’re improperly taking advantage of taxpayer programs.

When calculating that figure, the Education Department said it won’t count certain borrowers who defaulted on one of their federal student loans, but remained in good standing on their other Education Department debt, Jeff Baker, a senior official at the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office, wrote in a memo published online.

The reason has to do with so-called split-servicing, or a situation in which the Education Department has assigned a borrower’s loans to multiple specialists that collect monthly payments. In November 2011, Cynthia Battle, an Education Department official, told college financial aid administrators that some 500,000 borrowers with federal student loans were being forced to make multiple monthly payments to different loan companies.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told Congress in December 2011 that borrowers who have to make monthly payments to multiple companies are more likely to default. Typical borrowers who don’t consolidate their debts have multiple federal student loans — at least one for each year of schooling.

Jee Hang Lee, vice president for public policy and external relations for the Association of Community College Trustees, said he heard of one borrower who had to deal with five loan servicers.

Borrowers are forced to deal with multiple servicers for a variety of reasons. In some instances, they took out Education Department-guaranteed loans from banks under the Federal Family Education Loan program, or FFEL — before Congress ended the program in 2010 — then returned to school in recent years and took out new loans under the Direct Loan program.

Another example includes undergraduate student borrowers who entered school in the fall of 2008. These borrowers may have taken out FFEL loans from banks for the first two years of college, then got loans directly from the Education Department for their junior and senior years.

The Education Department says it has tried to ensure that all student borrowers only deal with one company when making their loan payments. For example, it has put an emphasis on borrowers with Direct loans and FFEL loans owned by the Education Department, which it purchased under a 2008 financial crisis-era law that amounted to a $110 billion bailout of the student loan industry, according to figures cited by Baker.

Still, many of those borrowers are making payments to multiple loan servicers. Borrowers with Direct loans and FFEL loans that are owned by banks also are most certainly making monthly payments to multiple loan servicers.

The Education Department has not disclosed a recent count of borrowers forced to make payments to multiple loan servicers, or how many of them may be in default on just a portion of their federal student debt.

In his memo, Baker of the Education Department wrote that among borrowers forced to make payments to multiple loan servicers, some are in default on one of their loans, but in good standing on other federal student loans. In other words, borrowers are making payments to one of the department’s loan servicers, but not to another.

Deanne Loonin, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, said borrowers may be falling victim to incompetent loan servicing practices.

“If it’s because of servicer incompetency, why not give the borrowers rather than the schools a break?” Loonin said.

“The department is taking multiple steps to help borrowers better understand their repayment options, including working to expand income-driven options for borrowers,” Denise Horn, an Education Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We also working closely with our servicers, conducting our own targeted outreach, and working to improve our counseling tools to ensure all borrowers have the information they need to keep all of their loans in good standing.”

Last year, in a move celebrated by the White House, the Obama administration directly emailed millions of borrowers, urging them to consider repayment plans that would cap their monthly payments based on earnings. Borrower advocates said they were unaware of any similar efforts directed at borrowers who were behind on one set of their federal student debt, but current on their other Education Department loans. Horn didn’t respond to questions regarding the details of the department’s efforts.

Jee Hang Lee, vice president for public policy and external relations for the Association of Community College Trustees, said he had heard from numerous borrowers who thought they were current on their federal student loans, only to learn that they were in default on a loan they didn’t know was being serviced by another company.

“Think about it: You’re dealing with the servicer who were referred to by you college, you’re current, and you think you’re golden, right? Then, all of a sudden, you get this spam-ish email telling you you’re in default on a loan you didn’t know about,” Lee said, noting that his organization had heard from many students who were current on one or multiple loans but didn’t know they were in default on another.

Lee said the community colleges group had previously warned the Education Department about defaults caused by split-servicing. The group was worried that its member colleges would be punished for what he described as improper loan servicing.

“There was no real response,” Lee said of the Education Department’s reaction to his group’s warnings.

The Education Department had earlier notice that a problem was brewing.

In recent years, ITT Technical Institutes, a for-profit school operated by ITT Educational Services, successfully challenged its default figures by pointing to defaults among borrowers whose loans were serviced by multiple entities, said Nicole Elam, an ITT spokeswoman.

Schools whose former students subsequently default on their federal student loans at unacceptably high rates can cost their current and future students access to federal grant and loan programs. Penalties kick in once a school’s default rate exceeds 30 percent over three straight years.

In his memo, Baker said that some schools were able to avoid sanctions as a result of the department’s decision. Some will maintain access to federal student loans, while others will maintain access to federal grants meant for low-income students, he said.

Experts said schools slated to lose access to federal loans or grants will almost assuredly close down.

Frank Phillips College could have been one of them. Jud Hicks, the school’s president, said the college challenged the Education Department over its reported default figures. For fiscal years 2009 and 2010, Frank Phillips College had default rates over 30 percent.

Hicks said that among his school’s reported defaults, a significant number were for borrowers who were dealing with multiple loan servicers.

Split-servicing was the common thread that connected many of the school’s reported loan defaults, Hicks said. Some of his former students were dealing with at least three loan servicers for their federal student loans, he added.

The department’s decision not to hold Frank Phillips College responsible for those defaults caused the school’s default rate to fall from 31.1 percent in 2010 to 25.2 percent. In 2009, the rate fell from an original 34.1 percent to 29.1 percent, Education Department data show.

“I can sympathize with the confusion caused by multiple servicers,” Hicks said. “If I’m the student and I’m at home and I get a letter saying, ‘Here’s your loan balance, here are your servicers, please make payments,’ and then three months later I get another letter from another company, then another letter six months later from yet another company, I’m wondering, ‘Who do I pay, and how much?'”

Jessica Kern, a spokeswoman for Maysville Community and Technical College, said the school’s default figures were adjusted without any prompting from the school. The Education Department simply told the school it wouldn’t face any sanctions as a result of its default rates, a move Kern assumed was due to the department’s decision to not count defaults from borrowers who were forced to deal with multiple loan servicers.

But community colleges weren’t the only schools to benefit. Arkansas Baptist College, Central State University, Jarvis Christian College, and Texas College — all historically black schools — also had their default figures revised downward. It wasn’t clear why. Representatives for Arkansas Baptist couldn’t be reached for comment. Representatives for the other three schools didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The mere fact that some schools dodged punishment as a result of the change is an indication that there are a large number of borrowers who have defaulted on at least one of their loans because of split-servicing, experts said.

Baker dryly noted in his memo that even though schools were let off the hook, “the borrowers’ defaulted loan remains in its current status for collection and other purposes.”

Borrowers in default on at least one of their federal student loans face high collection fees, damaged credit scores, an inability to secure home mortgages or auto loans, and garnishment of their tax refunds and Social Security payments, said Cochrane of the Institute for College Access & Success.

A recent federal audit revealed that the Education Department is demanding so much money from seniors with defaulted student loans that it’s forcing tens of thousands of them into poverty. At least 105,000 Americans had a part of their Social Security benefits garnished last year to the point that their monthly benefits were below federal poverty thresholds, according to the Government Accountability Office.

“Borrowers have no control over who services their loans. So why not remove the defaults from the borrowers’ records as well?” Cochrane said.

In commentary published online, analysts at the New America Foundation questioned the rationale behind the Education Department’s decision, lamenting the “message such a move sends about prioritizing institutions over students.”

“The institutions churning out borrowers who don’t repay their loans in such high numbers that the federal government takes notice are granted excuses from government regulations,” wrote Ben Miller, a former senior policy adviser under Arne Duncan at the Education Department, and Clare McCann. “There’s no indication, though, that the borrowers who have to deal with the consequences of a defaulted loan are getting any similar assistance in terms of making that loan automatically current or discharging any collection costs. If the default is not the colleges’ fault, why isn’t the student helped also?”

Cochrane, whose organization is in frequent discussions with the Education Department, said she had no indication the department was considering helping borrowers the way it helped colleges.

Another tech giant is parting ways with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Yahoo’s withdrawal from the group was confirmed in a statement to Common Cause late Wednesday.

“We’ve decided to discontinue our membership in ALEC. We periodically review our membership in organizations and, at this time, we will no longer participate in the ALEC Task Force on Communications and Technology,” the company stated.

The controversial conservative policy group has come under fire in recent years for promoting pro-business legislation that rolls back protections on civil rights, environmental, labor and public health laws, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. ALEC also generated or disseminated voter suppression legislation and helped craft the “stand your ground” laws that were adopted in 31 states, including Florida, where teenager Trayvon Martin was shot to death.

Microsoft, Facebook and Google recently distanced themselves from ALEC.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company was unlikely to renew its membership in 2015 because of disagreements on “some key issues,” National Journal reported.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt even went so far as to call its affiliation with ALEC “a mistake.”

“Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,” Schmidt said on Diane Rehm’s syndicated call-in radio show. “And so we should not be aligned with such people — they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”

ALEC spokesman Bill Meierling disagrees with Schmidt’s assessment.

“We are not climate-change deniers, we’re not anything of the sort,” Meierling said, according to the Washington Post. “We do have serious reservations about how implementation is being done by the government.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Yelp announced that it parted ways with ALEC several months ago after receiving backlash from the public. Luther Lowe, Yelp’s director of public policy, also cited ALEC’s lack of transparency.

“We suggested ALEC invite C-SPAN to fully cover their meetings,” Lowe stated. “Such sunlight on the organization would exert important pressure on ALEC to steer clear of controversial issues it has taken up in the past, while revealing to the broader public that providing a forum for policy makers and industry leaders to collaborate can result in consumer benefit (as was our experience).”

To date, more than 90 companies have left ALEC over its positions and actions. However, AOL (the parent company of The Huffington Post) and eBay are still members.

Poll after poll indicates that the vast majority of Americans believe the minimum wage isn’t high enough. Apparently, a lot of U.S. employers agree.

A national survey of 2,000 human resource and hiring managers done for the job search site CareerBuilder found that most of those managers think the minimum wage in their state should be at least $10 per hour. No state currently has a minimum wage of $10, although many have a higher wage floor than the federal level of $7.25.

According to results released by CareerBuilder Thursday, more than 60 percent of the employers surveyed, including 58 percent of senior-level managers, said their state minimum wage should be increased to some degree. The survey was performed by the market research firm Harris Poll.

“Among employers who want an increase in their state, improving the standard of living of workers led all business-related reasons for their support,” CareerBuilder said in a breakdown of the survey. “A majority say a higher minimum wage helps the economy and helps them retain employees.”

A proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour has languished in Congress, where House Republicans have so far refused to give the bill a vote. Nonetheless, cities and states around the country have moved ahead with their own minimum wage hikes, and several such proposals will be on state-level ballots come November.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage often argue that businesses couldn’t withstand the higher costs. The survey done by Harris Poll suggests that many hiring managers don’t necessarily agree, even in low-wage industries like restaurants and retail.

Although only 7 percent said a minimum wage of $15 was reasonable, about half of those surveyed said they thought a fair minimum wage would be somewhere between $10 and $14:

• $7.25 per hour: 8 percent
• $8.00 to 9.00 per hour: 29 percent
• $10.00 per hour: 29 percent
• $11.00 to 14.00 per hour: 19 percent
• $15.00 or more per hour: 7 percent
• No minimum wage: 9 percent

Of those who opposed raising the minimum wage in their states, about two-thirds said it would force businesses to hire fewer people, and half said it would lead to layoffs. More than 60 percent of those respondents also said a wage hike would result in higher prices for consumers.

In a surprising finding, the employers who said they plan to hire minimum-wage workers this year voiced more support for raising the wage floor than employers with no such plans, by a margin of 11 points. In the hospitality and retail industries, which employ a disproportionate amount of low-wage workers, 60 percent and 68 percent of managers, respectively, said they think the minimum wage in their states should be raised.

Move & Groove is a fun and creative way to get your family dancing.
It’s also a way to introduce your child to game play without the stress
of winning and losing. Those are not bad lessons, but since this game is
meant for toddlers 18 months and up, Move & Groove is about
learning simple rules, taking turns, and fun movement. With cards that
tell you to waddle like a duck and raise the roof, you will be sure to
get up offa that thing.