Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

Orin Kerr writes at Volokh Conspiracy:

A lot of recent news stories echo the claim that the Bush Administration has improperly politicized hiring of career lawyers at the Justice Department (DOJ). There’s an interesting question lurking in these stories: Should a lawyer’s views of public policy play any role in whether they are hired? And specifically, if an attorney is applying for a position enforcing a politically controversial set of laws, should the attorney’s view about those laws enter into whether they should be hired for a career lawyer slot?

At first blush, it’s easy to say the answer is “no, those views should never matter.” And perhaps that’s the right answer. But I think there are actually some interesting issues lurking here, and I wanted to offer a hypothetical that I hope will illustrate them….

The question arises because it seems that 2001-2003 the young lawyers hired for the Justice Dept. who went to the Civil Rights Division had 0% Federalist Society members (in a conservative Republican Administration, the Ashcroft Justice Department!) and in 2004-2006 they were 40% of the hires. Democrats claim the 40% is a scandal, I think the 0% is a scandal, and Republicans, meek as always, are silent. This comes from thoughts I’ve had in studying the Japanese judiciary, a civil service system. My conclusion is that politics definitely should enter, and it is even acceptable to use political affiliation.

The specific issue now in the limelight is whether political appointees should defer to career civil servants in the hiring of new civil servants. The answer is clear: NO. If the political appointee defers, the hiring does not get less partisan. Rather, the opposite. Just think about the incentives. If the political appointee hires substandard new lawyers just because they support his political views, he will be criticized, and it will hurt his advancement. If the civil servant hires substandard new lawyers just because they support his political views, he will be criticized much less, and any criticism won’t matter, because his career is not in politics and he has a safe job till retirement. He can be as partisan as he wants. Knowing this, who will bother to criticize him? It’s useless, since he doesn’t have to listen.

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The Washington Times tells us

The dispute began in January 2003, when the two Oakland employees created a subgroup at their workplace called the “Good News Employee Association.” It was partly in response to a group of homosexual employees having formed their own group 10 months before and being given access to the city e-mail system. One e-mail, dated Oct. 11, 2002, invited city employees to participate in “National Coming-Out Day.”

When several employees asked whether such a posting was legitimate city business, they got an e-mail from City Council member Danny Wan, reminding them that a “celebration of the gay/lesbian culture and movement” was part of the city’s role to “celebrate diversity.”

In response, the Good News employees posted an introductory flier on the employee bulletin board Jan. 3.

It said: “Preserve Our Workplace With Integrity: Good News Employee Association is a forum for people of faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day.” It said it opposed “all views which seek to redefine the natural family and marriage,” which it defined as “a union of a man and a woman, according to California state law.”

Jewel City Seafood Market and Restaurant in Huntington, West Virginia on the Ohio River is first-rate. It reminded me of how Legal Seafood used to when I was a student in Cambridge in the 80’s, except cheaper and less shiny.

Here are three alternatives:

1. The decider will become a member of the society randomly. Currently, he
does not have any tastes of his own.

2. The decider will *not* become a member of the society randomly. He keeps
his own tastes.

3. The decider will become a member of the society randomly. He keeps his
own tastes.

“Dum loquor hora fugit,” is in the main courtroom of the Ohio Supreme Court (something you should see if you visit Columbus). It means, roughly, “While you’re talking the hours are fleeing.” That’s funny, since each side has exactly 30 minutes to present its case, with a timer to keep track.

This mural is from the library of the Ohio Supreme Court in
Columbus.

Sending email messages at a scheduled later time was supposed to be a feature built into Thunderbird 2.0 but wasn’t. Thereis a great plug-in, though, at http://www.unsignedbyte.com/?page_id=4:

Send Later Extension [SL8TR] sl8tr.xpi

Install it, and then compose a message, and then look in FILE, SEND LATER.

I will use this for my weblog.

To see what you’ve got scheduled, go to the server’s DRAFTS folder, not the local one. The time given is the time of writing, not the time of sending. To see the time of sending, go to VIEW and HEADERS and click so you can see ALL the headers for each message, not just the normal ones. The time-of-sending info is in the header.

Stromata has an excellent concise statement of the injustice of the Libby prosecution:

Mr. Libby was charged with falsely describing conversations with three reporters: Tim Russert, Matt Cooper and Judith Miller. He was not accused of illegally exposing the identity of a covert CIA agent. According to the prosecution’s version of reality –

• He never discussed Valerie Plame Wilson with Tim Russert;

• Matt Cooper raised the subject of Mrs. Wilson’s CIA employment with him, not vice versa; and

• He “did not treat Wilson’s role, or the fact that his wife worked for the CIA, as a big deal” when he mentioned them to Judith Miller.

…There is likewise, despite Patrick Fitzgerald’s bald assertions, not a scintilla of evidence that Mr. Libby’s statements impeded the investigation of the Plame Wilson imbroglio in any way. Had Libby testified in strict accordance with what the prosecutor insists is the truth, that would not have furthered the inquiry. (more…)

I’ve long thought that it’s foolish to keep university grades secret with the hypersecurity of the Buckley Act. Why not post student names and grades, so the students can find them out easily? (especially before email made this less important) Why should a slacker be entitled to keep his D a secret? Why shouldn’t the top student get public recognition? Isn’t it good for students and professors to be able to find out that a particular professor gives all A’s?

England is more sensible, as this BBC report explains:

For 300 years students at Cambridge University have learned their exam results from public notice boards.

…

Until recently, the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA) published all interim and final results in a Saturday edition of the Times newspaper.

This led to many anxious students cutting short their Friday evening fun to seek out an early edition of the paper at a late-opening corner shop. Saturday’s hangover was either tinged with relief or despair.

The institute still publishes its results in the Times, but now also offers text message and e-mail.

Colin Bird asked what I thought about Hayek’s view of economic methodology, in particular, about his criticism of it in his 1937 Economica article. I might not be understanding it fully, but my impression is that what he doesn’t like about the economic theory of his day is that it:

1. Ignores the fact that people are imperfectly informed and differently informed about prices, products, and methods;

2. Ignores the interesting question of how people become informed;

3. Makes policy conclusions on the basis of theories deficient in their treatment of information (i.e., from points 1 and 2).

This is clearest in his 1945 AER article, the most famous one, which is mostly about the role of prices rather than methodology:

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I was glad to see this sign at the Jefferson Memorial requesting people to
show respect.

Doug Wilson has wise things to say about the similarity between liberalism and evangelicalism:

The similarities between modern evangelicalism and liberalism are striking. Both emphasize an experience with Christ over the truth about Christ. Throughout history, some of course have made the opposite error, that of holding to bare propositions instead of holding rightly to the truth — but in our century few have gone in that direction. Our tendency is to exalt personal experience over dogma. Indeed, I at first hesitated to use the word dogma because in today’s climate, it is a dirty word. Taking all this together, I like to tell people that Christianity is not a relationship; it is a religion. Of course it is a religion with a covenant relationship at the heart of it. God promises to be our God, and we will be His people. But the liberal (and modern evangelical) emphasis is on what we are pleased to call a personal relationship (meaning private relationship) — and not the biblical notion of a public covenant relationship. When the relationship becomes “personal,” the truth that undergirds it becomes equally “personal.”

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