Thursday, November 04, 2010

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports

Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a research agency of Congress and writes reports at Congress' request. These short reports (usually 10-40 pages long) cover recent topics of concern. This week brings us reports on foreign relations, military, and much more. Although these reports are in the public domain, there is no central database available to the public. To get a copy of a CRS report, you can request it from your senator or representative. These reports were discovered by Secrecy News:
Interested in historical CRS reports? If you are here at the Boulder campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports dating back to 1916.
Posted by Jennie at 4:27 PM
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The Supreme Court Discusses a Minor's Right to Play Mortal Kombat

The Supreme Court this week heard oral arguments in Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California v. Entertainment Merchants Association,a case that contemplates whether video games deserve specific legal treatment that excludes them from protection under the First Amendment.


SCOTUS transcripts of oral arguments are both enjoyable and fascinating to read, and in this case (number 08-1448, to be exact), the discussion has particular relevance to a younger set that has grown to see video games change from simple distractions between homework assignments to becoming a tournament sport and the source of very public discussions on whether the format is an recognizable art form.

In his questioning Zackery Morazzini, the Supervising Deputy Attorney
General for California, Justice Antonin Scalia frames the overall issue:
JUSTICE SCALIA: You are asking us to create a -- a whole new prohibition which the American people never -- never ratified
when they ratified the First Amendment. They knew they were -- you know, obscenity was -- was bad, but -- what's next after violence? Drinking? Smoking? Movies that show smoking can't be shown to children? Does -- will that affect them? Of course, I suppose it will.

But is -- is that -- are -- are we to sit day by day to decide what else will be made an exception from the First Amendment? Why -- why is this particular exception okay, but the other ones that I just suggested are not okay?

Where the discussion becomes difficult to deliberate is in reference to the games themselves. Three games were mentioned by name in Tuesday's discussion: Mortal Kombat, a fighting game that has also been turned into a movie franchise; MadWorld, an over-the-shoulder perspective video game in colored only in black, white, grey, and red; and Postal 2, an open-ended first-person-perspective shooting game, and the most widely discussed at the Court for its extreme violence. (Perhaps not surprising to those in public relations, the publisher of Postal 2, Running With Scissors, has created a page on its Web site to track the progress of the case, with considerable editorializing.)

Debates on the First Amendment are easily discussed in the abstract, but when recorded examples from gameplay in Postal 2 depict the brutalization of women and what appears to be a deliberate nod to the teen-aged perpetrators of real-life murders in public schools, the debate becomes far less abstract.

While avoiding approaching the topic's more nebulous aspects, the Court takes the practical considerations of censorship into consideration, such as when Justice Scalia asks Morazzini how video game developers can avoid prosecution, or if the expectation is to define video game obscenity trial-by-trial.



Also discussed is the effectiveness of the existing but voluntary ratings system for video games, as organized by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, and whether parents having the last word in the purchase of items otherwise unavailable to minors is protection enough from violent content. Chief Justice Roberts takes a particular interest in how the distribution of video games might be parallel, in the state's view, with the sale of cigarettes and other items seen to be as harmful toward minors.

The arguments overall are an excellent opportunity to see the working styles of individual Justices, and in particular its newest members, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. Both Justices show a familiarity with the medium and good humor about the process (Kagan remarks that half her staff likely grew up playing Mortal Kombat), though nearly every Justice participates in the discussion.

All in all, the oral arguments are a short, timely, and interesting introduction to the deliberations of the Supreme Court about a topic on which surely most college students themselves have an opinion.
Posted by William Cuthbertson at 2:14 PM
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Tuesday, November 02, 2010

GAO Reports and Releases

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) which is often called the investigative arm of Congress. This past week GAO investigated immigration, airlines, small businesses, and other issues. If you would like to know more about GAO, check out the library's guide.

Reports
Correspondences
Posted by Jennie at 10:21 AM
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Monday, November 01, 2010

How Judge Robert Bork Became a Verb

In late October newspapers reported that Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, telephoned Professor Anita Hill, a former aide to Justice Thomas, and in a voicemail message asked Hill to apologize to her husband. Anita Hill is probably best known for her testimony against Justice Thomas during his nomination hearings for the Supreme Court, for in her testimony, Hill cited multiple inappropriate sexual advances Thomas had allegedly made while Hill was his employee both at the Department of Education and at the Offices of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It was for making these allegations that Virginia Hill sought an apology.

That telephone call – and the memories of the Thomas Nomination it rekindled – served as a reminder that nominations to the Supreme Court are hardly as smooth a process as recent history may imply. Indeed, when looking at even a contemporary history of SCOTUS nominations, there have been startlingly pointed hearings that make President Obama’s success at benching two new Supreme Court Justices in his first two years appear somewhat astounding.

The 1987 nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court is probably the most angrily remembered by politicians of both parties (though for substantially different reasons), and is seen by many Republicans as having established new lows in the nomination process. That point is argued from the first day of the nomination, July 1, 1987, when within an hour of the announcement of the nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy minced no words on the Senate floor about the Democratic party’s stance against Judge Robert Bork.


Senator Kennedy continued:


This speech – succinctly remembered as "Robert Bork's America" – was met with a comparatively forgettable rebuttal by Senator Robert Dole, and statements against Reagan’s nominee continued in a combative vein, with questions raised about Bork's judicial rulings that seemed, to the political Left, to be directly at odds with the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Among the most vocal of opponents to the nomination was then-Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee (now Vice President of the United States) Joe Biden. In a 78-page document prepared for the Senator -- A Report to the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Joseph Biden, on the nomination of Robert H. Bork to the United States Supreme Court -- Biden accused the Reagan White House of distorting Bork's judicial record to make him appear as political moderate, thus masking the ideological shift in the make-up of the Supreme Court that would result from his confirmation. As the Report stated the issue:


If this seems enough to ensure that Bork would fail as a nominee, the conversation was only beginning. In a move all-to-familiar in political theater, high-profile television ads were launched against the nomination, and news reports became decidedly personal, evoking rumors of Judge Bork's drinking habits and possible alcoholism. This widget provides an audio summary of commercial news reports made during the nomination hearings, running from the political to the personal:



In the end, the weight of accusations and evidence against Judge Bork led to the Judiciary Committee voting to move the nomination to the full Senate, but without their support for Bork's affirmation to the Supreme Court, a decision that rankled both the White House and the nominee. President Reagan, looking to salvage his nominee, took his message to the public, asking them directly to contact their Senator to vote in support of the nomination.


The result was negligible, with the nomination ending in a 58-42 Senate vote against Bork's appointment to the Supreme Court, with discussions remaining volatile until the day of the vote.



For its blistering rhetoric and focus on personal habits and public perception, the Bork nomination was a turning point for many politicians and commentators. The tone of that entire summer, from the July announcement through the October vote, displayed to many a viciousness in discourse unseen -- and unexpected -- in discussions of surrounding the Supreme Court. Indeed, from 1988 forward, in virtually every Congressional discussion on the Supreme Court nomination process, and sometimes in the nomination hearings themselves, Robert Bork's name is used to illustrate either how unworkable the nominations process can become, or how unfit a candidate to the Court can be. The change in tone was enough that the nominee's very name became synonymous with the process he'd been put through, and Robert H. Bork the man became simply, "Bork," the verb:



Definition of "Bork" in the OED



Full-text of the Bork confirmation hearings are available in Lexis-Nexis Congressional, and video recordings are available via the C-Span video archive for all five-days of hearings, or in a three-hour summary.
Posted by William Cuthbertson at 2:57 PM
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Election Day 2010

Tomorrow brings us the midterm elections of 2010 for the House and Senate, as well as a variety of Colorado, local and initiative measures. Here are a few resources from the state and county to help you prepare for tomorrow:
Still looking for more information? Why not check out the library's elections and voting guide.
Posted by Jennie at 9:08 AM
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