Notations From the Grid (Special Friday Edition): On The US Political Scene

 We present a sampling of discourse on the US Political Scene courtesy the Brennan Center and Defense One:

Campaign Finance Victories Across the Country With campaign finance reform ballot initiatives passing in several states, it’s clear that voters are keen on limiting the influence of wealthy interests and increasing transparency in elections. For example, in Oregon, voters overwhelmingly supported capping contributions to candidates. And in Baltimore County, Maryland, voters supported a measure creating a public financing program for local candidates. Reforms like these will empower citizens to hold politicians accountable.

Trump’s Delay Tactics Threaten Democracy Even with the official presidential transition underway, Trump is still refusing to formally concede. Max Feldman spoke with Tim Lau to explain the rationale behind Trump’s lawsuits, how they reinforce racialized voter suppression, and what it all means for the health of American democracy. He also shares what can be done to repair the damage that has been done to democracy, such as passing the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and eliminating the Electoral College.

How Voter ID Laws Threaten Transgender Voters Voter identification laws across the country are a major form of voter suppression — especially for transgender voters. Currently, 35 states require an ID to vote, and many transgender and nonbinary voters do not have identification that matches their gender identity. Our democracy is better when all citizens are able to participate, and transgender and nonbinary Americans deserve to have their voices heard without undue barriers.

Justice Alito and Supreme Court Ethics Justice Samuel Alito recently gave a controversial speech to the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal group with close ties to the judiciary. Bemoaning what he characterized as growing threats to free speech and religious liberty, Alito took aim at the Supreme Court’s historic same-sex marriage decision, along with recent cases on abortion rights and restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of Covid-19. It was an unusually political speech for a justice at a time of growing scrutiny about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, and it highlights the need for the Court to adopt an official code of ethics.

The Movement for Democracy Reform Saved the Election The chance to render a verdict on Donald Trump clearly drew out voters on both sides, but that’s not the only reason for the amazing surge in turnout. Also deserving credit is the broad-based movement that over the last five years has transformed access to voting in many states. As Brennan Center Fellow Zachary Roth writes, in an election where democracy itself was on the ballot, the democracy reform movement had a major impact — especially in pushing back against voter suppression targeting racial minorities.

December 3, 2020

The lame-duck Trump administration is defying precedent by pressing ahead with a fiscal 2022 defense budget request, and could release it before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. The White House Office of Management and Budget and the Pentagon are going back and forth over various items. While the incoming Biden team will likely redo parts of the budget to reflect its own priorities, large portions developed by Trump's Pentagon team are sure to make it into Biden's proposal, which we probably won't see until the spring.  So let's go through what's inside Trump's fiscal 2022 request. My colleague Katie Bo Williams got a copy of the "passback" — a document sent from the White House Office of Management and Budget ordering Pentagon planners to modify their proposal. Defense officials are due to respond with objections or changes this week. A few caveats: this is just a draft, as of earlier this week, and not a finished product. Also, the draft passback document rarely says what the original proposed amounts were, just the changes OMB wants made. The Topline The proposed $722 billion spending plan is exactly in line with the five-year budget projections included in Trump's 2021 proposal. It's a 2.3 percent increase over the $705 billion requested for 2021. Top Pentagon leaders have frequently lobbied for 3 percent to 5 percent annual growth. Something else worth noting is that the Trump administration has reduced the Overseas Contingency Operations, or war, portion of the budget from $69 billion in 2021 to roughly $16 billion in 2022. The remaining $706 billion is in the base budget. As usual, the topline figure does not include the Energy Department nuclear weapons spending or various pots of national security spending in other agencies' budgets.  Brought to you by Microsoft Microsoft Government Leaders Summit, December 7  Microsoft invites senior federal leaders to the Government Leaders Summit, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET, Monday, December 7. This year's gathering will be a digital broadcast focused on empowering mission and leadership resiliency in unprecedented times. We'll cover the dynamic government landscape, real-world examples of resiliency and how historic challenges provide a roadmap for today. Join us for an event dedicated to reimagining a future of innovation and transformation to advance our nation.   Register today. Missile Defense The suggested Missile Defense Agency budget for 2022 is $9.3 billion (about $241 million more than planned), and $52.3 billion over five years (a plus-up of about $4.8 billion). OMB asked MDA to consider putting more money toward a proposed homeland-defense anti-missile layer based on the Aegis system. It also suggests a $1.8 billion plus-up over five years to the Next Generation Interceptor program. That money would "fund two contractors through Critical Design Review (CDR) in early FY 2026 rather than just through [preliminary design review]," the draft passback memo said. "The NGI program is already high-risk, and the best mitigation is keeping two contractors through CDR." There's also a recommendation for $203 million in fiscal 2022 (and $1.5 billion over five years) for countering hypersonic weapons. The 2022 money would be used "to accelerate development and testing of a hypersonic glide phase defeat weapon, associated systems engineering, and integration into Aegis ballistic missile defense weapon systems to defeat adversarial hypersonic threats." Missiles OMB wants the Pentagon to spend at least $150 million in 2022 to demonstrate the "Mobile Intermediate Range Missile (MIRM) variant to maintain development and testing of a viable ballistic option for future consideration." Research and Development Priorities OMB called for increases in Pentagon's artificial intelligence and biotechnology research funding, as well as quantum information science. F-35 The passback reveals a Pentagon proposal to reduce the planned purchase of F-35 Lightning II fighters over the next five years by 40, and use the funds to pay for other items related to the program. The "Department should fund all F-35 program cost increases from within the program by reducing the corresponding number of F-35 aircraft to be procured in the FY 2022-26 [future years defense program] to offset those program cost increases," the memo says. The Pentagon is also proposing to cap annual F-35 purchases at 85 jets. Air Force and Navy 2021 budget documents show the Pentagon had planned to buy 85 F-35s, but then increase production to 94 jets in 2023 and 2024 and 96 jets in 2025.  "OMB directs that reductions to the planned fleet must be based on a strategic risk and capability analysis of the need for the F-35 in the most stressing contingency and that such an analysis is vital to obtain support for any proposed reductions to the fleet. The Department, therefore, shall provide to OMB a dynamic analysis of the ability and risks associated with the planned TACAIR fleet to prevail against expected threats in the Pacific theater in 2030 and 2040 with moderate risk." Operation & Maintenance Cuts The White House also asked individual services to trim their proposed operation and maintenance budget: the Army by $2.3 billion to $56.4 billion; the Air Force, $2.5 billion to $52.5 billion; and the Marine Corps, $457 million to $8.8 billion. Navy OMB forbids the Navy to go through with its plans to decommission five cruisers over the next five years, a measure that was meant to save some $1.9 billion. It also says the Navy must keep around two fast-attack submarines it planned to decommission in fiscal 2027. The bill for that is $710 million. OMB also orders the Navy to "assess all Large Surface Combatants for maximum life extension opportunities" after 2026.  Air Force Advanced Battle Management OMB calls for a $137 million cut — from an undisclosed amount — in 2022 to the high-profile project known as ABMS. It also recommends a $200 million cut in 2023 and 2024. It was critical of the Air Force, citing a critical Government Accountability Office report released earlier this year. Space OMB says it's "concerned about FY 2020 and FY 2021 congressional marks against the Space Development Agency," the fast-buying satellite shop created by defense leaders less than two years ago. The Pentagon had proposed a "precipitous increase" in the organization's funding in 2022, which OMB recommends cutting by $200 million (the document does not say how much money SDA is asking for total). It also recommended $200 million in cuts in both 2023 and 2024.  Personnel OMB directed the Pentagon to include a 2.7 percent pay raise for the military. That's down from the 3 percent annual increase that the Trump administration requested for fiscal 2021.