interviews
Water and the American West
by Richard Frank
October 25, 2021
This interview with Richard Frank, professor of environmental practice at the UC Davis School of Law and Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
frank | Can you tell me a little bit about the story of water and how it's tied to the West, and to California in particular?
Richard | A friend of mine who's a Court of Appeals Justice here in California wrote an opinion on a water law dispute and started it with the quote, "the history of California is written on its waters." And I think that the point is true of the entire American West.
Water policy and legal issues are inextricably tied to the development of the Western United States; water is the limiting factor in so many ways to settlement, to economic development, to prosperity, and to the environment and environmental preservation.
Can you talk about the difference between groundwater and surface water– and the policies that regulate each?
There are really two types of water when it comes to human consumption. There's surface water: that is the water that is transmitted by lakes, rivers, and streams. Then there is groundwater, and a substantial amount of water that Americans and the American West rely on is groundwater. That is water that is stored in groundwater aquifers, which are naturally occurring groundwater basins. Both groundwater and surface water are critical to the American West and its economy and its culture.
Traditionally a couple of things are important to note, first of all, water is finite. Second, water gets allocated in the Western United States generally at the state level. There's a limited federal role. Primarily, policy decisions about who gets how much water for what purpose are made state by state.
I think allocation is really interesting in that it's more state-level than federal. How was water and the allocation of water in California designed? Is it a public-private combination? What goes on in terms of the infrastructure of water?
Another very good question. The answer is it depends. Most of our water infrastructure is public in nature.
Again, in the American West, the regulation of water rights is generally done at the state level, but the federal government, historically, has a major water footprint in the American West because it has been federal dollars and federal design and management that really controlled much of the major water infrastructure in the American West — you know, Hoover Dam, and the complex system of dams and reservoirs on the Colorado River in California, with the Central Valley Project that was built and managed by the federal government with Shasta Dam on the upper Sacramento River as the centerpiece of that project. But we also have a California State Water Project, the key facility being the Oroville Dam and reservoir on the Southern River that is managed by state water managers. If we were starting over, that kind of parallel system would make no particular engineering or operational sense.
But, we are captive to our history.
And then you have these massive systems of aqueducts and canals that move water from one place to another throughout the American West. They are particularly responsible for moving water from surface water storage facilities to population centers. In the last 50 to 75 years, these population centers have really expanded dramatically, so you need massive infrastructure to deliver water from those storage facilities, the dams, and reservoirs, which generally are located in remote areas to the population centers. So it takes a lot of time and energy to transport the water, from where it is captured and stored to where it is needed for human use.
California has faced continuous drought – what measures is the state taking now to manage water?
Just to frame the issue a little bit — we have, as I mentioned, a growing population in the American Southwest at a time when the amount of available water is shrinking due to drought and due to the impacts of climate change. We have growing human demand for residential and commercial purposes and at the same time, we have a shrinking water supply. That is a huge looming crisis.
And it is beginning to play out in real-time. You see that playing out in real-time. For example, several different states and Mexico rely on Colorado River flows based on an allocation system that was created in the 1920s, which is overly optimistic about the amount of available water. From the 1920s until now, that water supply has decreased, and decreased, and decreased. Now you have interstate agreements, and in the case of Mexico, international agreements that allocate the finite Colorado river water supplies based on faulty, now obsolete, information. It is a real problem.
What measures do you take now, knowing this information?
If you look at the US Drought Monitor, it is obvious the problem is not limited to the Colorado River. We are in a mega-drought, so cutbacks are being imposed by federal and state water agencies to encourage agricultural, urban, and commercial water users to cut their water use and, and stretch finite supplies as much as possible through conservation efforts.
In California, we have the State Water Resources Control Board, the state water regulator in California, and they have issued curtailment orders. Meaning, they have told water rights holders, many of whom have had those water rights for over a hundred years, that, for the first time, the water that they feel they are entitled to, is not available. Local water districts are also issuing water conservation mandates; the San Francisco water department is doing that, in Los Angeles, the metropolitan water district, is urging urban users to curtail their efforts.
And then agriculture. Agricultural users — farmers and ranchers — have had to get water rights in many cases through the federal government, as the federal government is the operator of these water projects. They have contracts with water users, individual farmers, ranchers, or districts, and they are now issuing curtailment orders. They're saying, we know you contracted for X amount of water for this calendar year, but we are telling you because of the drought shortages we don't have that water to supply. Our reservoirs are low at Lake Shasta or at the Oroville Dam.
When you drive from San Francisco to LA on the five, you see a lot of signage from the agricultural farming community about water. There's apparently some frustration about this. What are the other options for them?
About 80% of all human consumed water goes to agriculture. That is by far the biggest component of water use, as opposed to 20% used for urban and commercial, and industrial purposes.
Over the years, ranchers and farmers, and agricultural water districts assumed that the water would always be there — as we all do.
And the farmers and ranchers have, in hindsight, exacerbated the problem by bringing more and more land into production. You see on those drives between San Francisco and Los Angeles, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley, all these orchards are being planted. Orchards are more lucrative crops than row crops — cotton, alfalfa, and rice. But, if you are growing a row crop, you can leave the land fallow in times of drought.
We don't have to plant. If the water stopped there, or if it's too expensive to get, it may make economic sense, but if you have an orchard or a vineyard it's a high value, those are high value crops, you don't have that operational flexibility and they need to be irrigated in wet years and in dry years. Now, you see these orchards, which were only planted a few years ago, are now being uprooted because the farmers realized that they don't have the water necessary to keep those vineyards and orchards alive. For ranchers, the same thing is true with their herds. They don’t have enough water for their livestock.
The water shortage has never been drier than it is right now. Farmers and ranchers are being deprived of water that they traditionally believed was theirs and they're very understandably, very unhappy about it. They see it as a threat to their livelihood and to the livelihood of the folks who work for them. Their anger and frustration are to be expected, but it's nobody's fault.
To say, as some farmers do, that it is mismanagement by state and federal government officials, I think is overly simplistic and misplaced in the face of a mega-drought. Everybody's going to have to sacrifice. Everybody's going to have to be more efficient in how they use water. All sectors are going to need to be more efficient with the water that does exist.
Looking at this percentage breakdown of water use – is it actually important for individual users to change their water habits?
Well, every little bit helps. When you're talking about homeowners, about 70% of urban water use is for outdoor irrigation. So we're talking parks and cemeteries and golf courses and folks' yards. You know, that used to be considered part of that American dream and the California dream — you would have a big lawn in front of your house and behind your house. Truth be told, that has never made much sense in an arid environment. That's where the water savings in urban areas is critical in the way it really involves aesthetics rather than critical human needs, like water for drinking and bathing and sanitation purposes. There is a growing movement away from big lawns, and away from the type of landscaping that you see in the Eastern US — there is no drought in the Eastern United States. As Hurricane Ida and other recent storms have shown, the problem is too much water, or rather than too little in most of the Eastern United States. So it really is a tale of two countries.
We just need to recognize that the American West is an arid region. It has always been an arid region, we can't make the desert bloom with water that doesn't exist. We need to be more efficient in how we allocate those water supplies. And it seems to me in an urban area, the best way to conserve and most effective way is to reduce urban landscaping, which is the major component of urban water use.
You also write about water markets and making them better – for those who don’t know, what is the water market?
Water markets, that is, the voluntary transfer of water between water users, is more robust in some other Western states. Again Arizona and New Mexico come to mind. California somewhat surprisingly is behind the curve. We are in the dark ages compared to other states. Water markets are kind of anecdotal. There is not much of a statewide system. It is done at the local level, through individual transactions without much oversight and without much transparency. And I have concerns about all of those things.
I believe conceptually watermarks are a way to stretch scarce, finite water resources to make water use more efficient. I can, for example, allow farmers or ranchers to sell water to urban uses or commercial usage or factories in times of drought.
Farmers sometimes can make more money by farming water, than they can by farming crops.
There are efficiencies to be gained here.
The problem in my view is really one of transparency. The water markets are not publicly regulated, and some of the people who are engaging in water transactions like it that way, frankly, they want to operate under the radar.
In my opinion, water markets need to be overseen by a public entity rather than private or nonprofit entities. We need oversight and transparency, so that folks like you and myself can follow the markets to see who's selling water to whom, for what purpose, and make sure that those water transfers serve the public interests and not just the private interests.
There have been a number of stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the Salt Lake City Tribune about efforts in some parts to privatize water transfer. Hedge fund managers are buying and selling water, as a means of profiting. And it strikes me that when you're talking about an essential public resource — and in California, it is embedded in the law that public water is an inherently public resource, that water is owned by the public and it can be used for private purposes, but it is an inherently public resource — the idea of commoditizing water through the private, opaque markets is very troublesome to me. I think it represents a very dangerous trend and one that needs to be corrected and avoided.
Why is California so behind?
There's no good reason for it. It's largely inexplicable that since the state was created on September 9th, 1860, we've been fighting over water. In the 19th century, it was miners versus farmers ranchers. In the 20th century, with the growth of urban communities, the evolution of California into one of the most populous states with 40 million Californians, it has been a struggle between urban and agricultural uses of water.
In the second half of the 20th century, there was a recognition that some component of water had to be left in streams to protect ecosystems, landscape, and wildlife, including the threatened and endangered wildlife. That suggestion has made agricultural users in California angry. You will see those signs that allude to the idea that food and farming are more important than environmental values. I don't happen to believe that's true. I believe both are critically important to our society. But the advocates for the environment have a proverbial seat at the water table. So that's another demand for water allocation that exists.
Do you maintain optimism?
Yes. I think it's human nature to look on the bright side. I try to do that through research scholarships and teaching. There are models for how we can do this better in the United States. Israel and Saudi Arabia and Singapore are far more efficient with their water policies and efforts. Australia went through a severe megadrought. They came out of it a few years ago, but they used that opportunity to dramatically reform their water allocation systems. That's an additional model. I think most people would agree in hindsight that their previous system was antiquated, and not able to meet the challenges of climate change and the growing water shortage in some parts of the world.
Here in the United States, we can learn from those efforts. There are also some ways to expand the water supply. Desalination for one. Again, Singapore and Saudi Arabia have led the world in terms of removing the salt content from ocean water and increasing water supply that way. In Carlsbad, California, north of San Diego, we have the biggest desalination plant in the United States right now, and that is currently satisfying a significant component of the San Diego metropolitan areas’ water needs. It's more expensive than other water supplies, but the technology is getting more refined, so the cost of desalinated water is coming down at a time when other water supplies, due to shortages and the workings of the free market are going up.
At some point, they're going to meet or get closer. Unlike some of my environmental colleagues, I think desalination is an important part of the equation.
In a proposal that came up in the recall election, one of the candidates was talking about how we just need to build a canal from the Mississippi River to California to take care of all our problems. That ignores political problems associated with that effort, as well as the massive infrastructure costs that would be required to build and maintain a major aqueduct for 2000 miles from the Mississippi to California. That's just not going to happen. Some of those pie in the sky thoughts of how we expand the water supply, I think, are unrealistic.
interviews
We Used to Call Them Kings
by Eric Segall
December 14, 2020
This interview with Eric Segall, author and professor, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
Eric | I've been teaching and writing about Constitutional law for 30 years at Georgia State University College of Law here in Atlanta. My specialty is the Supreme Court. If you ask law people about me, they would say that I am very much a Supreme Court critic.
frank | What does it mean to be a Supreme Court critic?
In 2012, I wrote a book called Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court Is Not a Court and Its Justices Are Not Judges. That gives you some flavor of where I am coming from.I wrote the book during the first Obama administration. I didn't write it as a progressive displeased with the Supreme Court, I wrote it as a progressive who thinks it's a broken institution and thinks it has been broken since 1857.
And there have been very few justices with a strength of character that is singularly strong.
A lot of the people we’ve spoken to this month mentioned that after Buckley vs Valeo, the country was able to shamble together some campaign finance laws, the crux of which was the McCain Finegold Act. But, shortly after that act, the Supreme Court started striking down reforms.
Who made up this court, and what makes up their ideology?
I have always thought that the logic of Buckley v. Valeo, the idea that independent expenditures are protected, but the contributions can be limited, was incoherent and bizarre. But, you are right, it was workable for a while. Justice Rehnquist, no liberal of course, was willing to let go a lot of state restrictions on corporate spending because of his federalism and his states' rights views. He wrote a big case that allowed states to limit corporate expenditures.
The watershed event has nothing to do with cases or law or anything else. The watershed event was Justice Alito replacing Justice O'Connor and Justice Roberts replacing Justice Rehnquist. That switch changed everything. And not surprisingly, Citizens United comes pretty soon thereafter. A case that I think is one of the most misunderstood cases in history.
Misunderstood how?
Let me back up and tell you some background on myself first to put this in context. I think the Supreme Court should almost never strike down laws. People were concerned during ratification that judges had too much power in their ability to strike down laws. Alexander Hamilton's response in Federalist paper Number 78, was that they would only do so when there's an irreconcilable variance between a law and The Constitution. They won't do it very often.
I believe in that very strongly. I think that's what our world should look like.
That's the context of my next sentence, which is: Citizens United reached the right result. I mean, it did. Citizens United is about a nonprofit institution wanting to show a movie on cable or in movie theaters and the government wanting to censor that movie. We live in a country where we don't censor things. If Exxon or the New York Times wants to put out a book, a TV show, or a movie, in America, they get to do that. I'm not as big a freedom of speech person as most but that's the essence of freedom of speech.
What went wrong in Citizens United was the court used that case to overturn the case Justice Rehnquist wrote a few years earlier. The rationale was insane; they said that corporations have exactly the same free speech rights as people. We can agree that money facilitates speech. We can agree that money sometimes co-mingles with speech, and when it does, it raises hard legal issues. But none of that means corporate speech and individual speech is the same. The court should have said, this is a non-profit, this is an ideological grouping of people, who want to put out a movie. They should have said the government can't censor that, and we will leave the hard issues for another day.
The thing that's misunderstood about this case is the idea that this case has to come out that way unless you want the government censoring movies or books. In fact, Kagan was asked in the oral argument, if this were a book could the government censor the book? And she fumbled. She had no good answer to that. What she should've said is that's a very hard question, the answer is no, I wouldn't think so, but that's not this case.
Corporations have to have constitutional rights, otherwise, the police could go into the New York Times, search their offices without a warrant, and close them down. We all agree that corporations have some constitutional rights. What thoughtful critics of these cases will say is, of course, they do. We're not suggesting corporations don't have any constitutional rights. What we're suggesting is each case is different, and you have to look at what's happening in each case. That's why Citizens United is so pernicious.
What are other key cases, in your view?
Well, then we get McCutcheon, which is a case no one hears about unless you're a lawyer or a law professor, but it's a case where a guy in Alabama writes a check for a campaign donation and sends it in the mail to a politician in California. The court says that's protected speech. Well, writing a check is not protected speech in any way, shape, or form. If I write a check to a plumber, I'm not speaking. I agree that that check could have helped facilitate the campaign speech of the person it was sent to, but facilitating speech and speaking aren't the same. McCutcheon closed the door on any arguments for campaign finance other than limits on direct contributions.
The third case is the one that really kills me. Again, this is a case nonlaw professors don't really hear about. So Citizens United says the only kind of corruption that we're going to let be used as a compelling interest to limit election type speech by corporations or anybody else is quid pro quo. If it's not quid pro quo, it's not a compelling interest. You and I both know that's ridiculous. Donating to a politician gets you access if you give enough. Montana had a campaign finance law on the books since the early 20th century. They passed that law because there was incredible corruption in this very small state, by a single big company that had bought all the politicians through non-quid pro quo contributions, but other sorts of means. Montana had this law for almost a century. The Montana Supreme Court looks at that law and says that, yes, Citizens United seems to say, this is unconstitutional. This limits the speech of corporations, but we're different. They went through pages of historical data and evidence to point to that fact that the corruption in their state was so bad that they had no choice. The Supreme Court did something called a summary reversal, they didn't have an additional briefing, they didn't hear the case. They just reversed it.
Think about that for a minute. Think about that from a question of federalism, or from the perspective of 1980s Republicans, right? This decision is judicial review run amuck. That is not law. That's just values and preferences.
But it'd be better. And more importantly, let the states be laboratories for this. Let them experiment and try to figure out how to reduce the corrosive effects of money and politics. I rarely agree with Justice Rehnquist, but I do here because this is where he was coming from in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti.
Is there an underlying ideology behind granting corporations these rights? I know you write a lot about originalists, is there a view of corporations under that framework?
My last book was called Originalism as Faith. I have been eating, sleeping, drinking, breathing, talking, writing about originalism for ten years. First of all, there's never been an originalist Supreme Court justice in history. Not Scalia, not Thomas, not Gorsuch. Kavanaugh has never been one.
In Citizens United, Justice Stevens, a decidedly non originalist justice, in the dissent chided Scalia, an originalist, by saying that in 1789 and even probably later, corporations only had the rights that states gave them. They were state-chartered companies. The state could give free speech rights or not. It was up to the states. If you were really an originalist, this is an easy case. Scalia responded in his concurring opinion to Justice Stevens. He said, even if you're right about this, historically corporations have changed so much that different standards should apply. Well, that's just living constitutionalism.
Richard Posner wrote a piece for Slate after the Alabama case. He suggested justice Roberts is either stupid or a liar. Because if he thinks that only quid pro corruption is bad, then he's stupid. Posner said, I don't really think he thinks that because we know Justice Roberts is not stupid. That makes him a liar. He can't think that the only type of corruption that's bad in politics is quid pro quo. If I'm a billionaire and I give someone's PAC $50 million, and then I call the politician on the phone the next day, is that person going to see me? Of course. And if in that meeting, I say, I'm not asking you to do anything for me, but just so you know, I have a strong interest in xyz. It is going to get done. I mean, come on people. The whole thing is just Supreme Court justices run amuck. You can quote me on that one.
How can corruption, legally, be defined more broadly, to encompass that reality of garnering favor?
That's a great question. I'm an expert in the constitutional law of campaign finance reform. I am not an expert in campaign finance reform, on what works and what doesn't. I try not to talk about things I'm not an expert on, so let me just say this: that should be up to people we vote in or vote out.
The court should just defer to the policy makers and let us vote them out if we don't like them. Let's put it this way, I have no doubt that I know as much about what's good campaign finance reform or bad campaign finance reform as anybody on the Supreme Court, except maybe Justice Breyer, who actually worked for the Senate. What does Justice Roberts know about campaign finance reform? Seriously, nothing.
Do you think the Supreme Court has run amuck because of who we've put in power, or is it a design flaw?
It's the fault of the design of the Supreme Court. Let me ask you a question. You work for franknews, right? Is it yours?
No. I work for somebody.
Okay. If tomorrow you received a contract that gave you a job for life, unless you committed a crime, nobody could review your decisions, you are the boss of this company, you can never be fired, unless you commit a crime. Would you do your job differently than you do it now? Maybe a little bit?
Sure.
Okay. Now imagine yourself, 30 years from now. You've had this job for life that no one can take away from you. You wouldn't let theoretical, pre-commitments deter you from doing what you want.
I have a long story about this that really drives the idea home. I was doing a radio show with Dahlia Lithwick about the Obamacare case. And I said, we're both liberal progressives, I hate to say this, but Justice Kagan needs to recuse herself. And that took Dahlia by surprise. She said, what are you talking about? If she recuses, it is likely that they're going to overturn it. Why should she recuse?
The major reason was that her deputy litigated the case in the lower courts. There's a rule that if you were a lawyer in the lower courts, you can't serve as a judge on the same case. Technically she wasn't the lawyer, but the deputy was. I wrote a piece called A Liberal’s Lament on Kagan and Health Care: Should Elena Kagan recuse herself in the ACA case. It went kind of viral by law professor standards. I also wrote a piece in the LA Times supporting it. In the LA Times, I referred to myself as a progressive. I'm in favor of Obamacare, but I'm sad to say under legal rules, Kagan has to recuse herself. That probably means the end of Obamacare, but the rules are the rules.
I received a handwritten letter from a reader. It said:
"Professor Segall, I read your op-ed and I'm really confused. You identify as a progressive in favor of Obamacare and helping 30 million Americans get health insurance when otherwise they would not have. Why in the world would you want Obamacare to go away because of a technicality about recusal? Why would you do that if you really are a progressive who cares about Obamacare?”
That threw me for a loop. I thought about Justice Kagan. And I thought, I am sure in her heart, she believes that there are 30 million Americans a year whose lives depended on Obamacare being upheld. And she has unreviewable power for life. Would she really trade in Obamacare for a technicality about recusal? And then I thought, what would I do if I were her? Because I know the right legal answer: don't hear the case. The rules are clear. Well then, 30 million Americans don't get health insurance. Now repeat that for abortion, affirmative action, or campaign finance reform. You're going to do what you think is best. You have a job for life with unreviewable power.
In a democracy, we should never give any institution unreviewable power for life. We used to call that a king. No democracy gives their highest court judges life tenure except maybe Iceland. They do need their independence, don't get me wrong. Other countries have created fixed terms of 20 years or mandatory retirement ages. Anyway, it really made me think: what would I do if I was Justice Kagan.
It's too much resting on the shoulders of people who then end up having to make political decisions.
That is a great way to put it.
How do you think we fix that?
Term limits would help, but I'm at the point where I think they need to get scared. That's the only way. We need to scare them with jurisdiction stripping, meaning taking away some of their authority. Congress has the power to do this. It's happened in the past. FDR scared them with court-packing, after the New Deal. In 1870, the Supreme Court struck down Congress' power to make paper money legal tender for past debts. After Grant got two new appointments, they reversed that decision one year later because they now had the political will to do so. It is about politics not law.
They need to be more modest. They need to be more humble. They need to be more deferential.
Checks and balances, some might say.
Yes, ma'am
Do you think there is political will for that in Congress?
That's a really good question. If the Democrats had 55 senators and the Supreme Court was stopping a Democrat President and a Democrat Congress from doing what they want to do, which this Supreme court will do, then yes. But you have to get rid of the filibuster first.
When Justice Scalia died in February of 2016, progressive and famous liberal constitutional law professors were writing op-eds about what the great new liberal court was going to do. Wait until Hillary gets in. We're going to overturn Citizens United. We're going to make affirmative action easier. We're going to solidify abortion.
I said, no, we shouldn't do any of that. We have four Republicans and four Democrats, we should freeze it there. Congress can't constitutionally stop the president from nominating anybody he wants, that's his power, but the Senate can say, sorry, we're not going to take them, as we found out with Merrick Garland. If you’re a Republican president and a Democrat dies, you have to give us a Democrat. If you're a Democrat president and a Republican dies, you have to give us a Republican. If there is a four-four split, if they are going to decide the case, by definition, one Republican has to vote with one Democrat, or one Democrat has to vote with the Republicans. I still think that's a great idea, frankly.
Justice Kagan in 2017 gave several public speeches where she said, 2016 really wasn't so bad. We had to compromise more. We had to issue narrower decisions. We had to be more attuned to each other. She was clear to say, this can't last forever, but she listed all the benefits of the four-four evenly divided court. If you read her speeches and my law review article, or my New York Times piece, or my Daily Beast piece on the subject, they were pretty similar. And if you think about it, it makes sense. Why should the country be turned around because of a five to four partisan vote of unelected, life-tenured lawyers? Why would we live in that world? If, for example, Justice Roberts and Justice Kagan agree on a decision, I am going to say well, those are two pretty smart people. They have different politics, but they both think it's a good idea. I can live with that. I may not like it, but I can live with it. What I can't live with is five, four partisan decisions changing our country.
What do you think the future of campaign finance legislation looks like, particularly with Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment?
Your assumption is this country has a future? I'm not kidding when I say that. 74 million Americans voted for Donald Trump — that doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies. I mean you're obviously very smart and also young, but there's nothing inevitable about this country. We had a Civil War not that long ago by world standards. The Supreme Court was in crisis in 1935. We're not forever.
Assuming we're a country, I think the future of campaign finance reform is extraordinarily dark. I think that the judges who have been put on the Supreme Court recently, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett, Alito, not Roberts, and Thomas all have very strong Federalist Society ties. The Federalist Society is run by people who believe in Citizens United all the way down. If anything, they're going to overturn Buckley and say contributions can't be limited either. And boy, wouldn't that be dark?
Absent court-packing, balancing the court, or justices dying, there will be no progress. There is no chance, absent major court restructuring, of campaign finance reform getting better.
In this respect, it certainly is defined by the people, and Republicans seem to be attuned to that. Do you think Democrats have learned anything over the past couple years?
Probably not. There's a maybe in that, but Biden is not going to help. A colleague of mine worked for Clinton and Obama, but he left Obama early because he was so depressed about judges. He was part of the nomination process. He said Obama cared, but not really. Clinton cared, but not really. Is Biden, who is the bequeather of that going to care? Probably not.
Seems bleak and not strategic.
Yeah, that's a great phrase. The Republican party has been incredibly strategic about judges and the Democrats have been completely not strategic.