Young Guns II

Back in 2007, The Weekly Standard heralded the arrival of three rising Republicans in the House who weren’t then household names. We dubbed them the Young Guns. Eric Cantor of Virginia was the deputy whip, a backbencher elevated by then-whip Roy Blunt. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin hadn’t quite come into his own yet as an influential policy maven. Kevin McCarthy of California was a freshman with a gift for understanding the ups and downs of electoral politics. The three were “agitating for the party to return to its small-government roots and to retake the House.”

Admit it, you’d never heard of these guys back then. If you still haven’t, you soon will. In 2007, they hadn’t thought of themselves as a team, either. But the stories noted their complementary talents: Cantor as party leader in the House, Ryan as policy thinker, McCarthy as strategist and candidate recruiter. They were galvanized into action. They formed a fast-on-its-feet campaign outfit to help GOP challengers win House seats. Its name was inevitable .  .  . Young Guns.

The three have now become major players in Washington and around the country. Should Republicans win back the House on -November 2, Cantor will be a shoo-in for majority leader. With his Road Map for America’s Future, Ryan is the party’s leading policy wonk and will be chairman of the budget committee. McCarthy is the favorite to be majority whip. He’s been the chief recruiter of an impressive army of House candidates this year.

Meanwhile, Young Guns has become the gold standard of Republican campaign crews. To be dubbed a Young Gun, candidates must meet benchmarks: a campaign staff, a detailed plan for winning, fundraising goals. Potential donors, particularly PACs, ask if a candidate is a Young Gun. It’s become a mark of credibility.

Now the three have published a book, titled Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders. They’re not only tough on Democrats but also on the Republicans who controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006. Advance copies distributed in late August stirred hyperbolic Democratic attacks and overwrought media analysis. Nancy Pelosi’s office issued a “fact sheet” under this headline: “Congressional Republicans Release Details of Agenda; Includes Privatizing Social Security, Ending Medicare.” The press tried to foment conflict between Cantor, Ryan, and McCarthy and other Republican leaders, citing the book to suggest Cantor might challenge John Boehner for House speaker if Republicans take over. “Typical media wedge-driving,” one Republican said.

It’s the attention the book has gotten that’s most revealing. In 2007, it was a bit farfetched to think the trio of young guns would soon become important political figures with national influence. But they have. ♦

Voting Rights Update

As Jennifer Rubin recently reported in these pages (“Voting Rights .  .  . for Some,” August 23), the Justice Department has been pressuring the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Board of Elections to use bilingual ballots countywide based on Section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act, which assures Puerto Ricans will not be be prevented from voting because they do not speak English. The County Board of Elections commenced extended negotiations with the Department of Justice. Sources tell The Scrapbook that there was vigorous discussion and that the board repeatedly offered to provide targeted bilingual ballots in specific precincts where large numbers of Puerto Rican voters were registered. This was not good enough for the Obama -Department of Justice.

What may have been at play was the administration’s desire for implementation of bilingual ballots countywide for the 2012 presidential election. But the statute that would apply to Spanish language speakers other than Puerto Ricans—Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act—requires 5 percent of voters, or 10,000 in this case, to be “language handicapped” (i.e., Spanish speakers). Some county officials do not believe that trigger would be reached. So what to do? Ah, use the Puerto Rican statute, propose a jumbo, overreaching remedy for the entire county, and get bilingual ballots that way. Rob Frost, a GOP member of the board, proposed to the DOJ that they just wait for the 2010 census numbers to see if Section 203 would be applicable. But that was unacceptable.

The board was unanimous that there would be no countywide remedy in time for the September primary or the November general election. But the board was faced with the threat of litigation, which the DOJ attorneys said would be filed September 2. The board in a public meeting September 1 deadlocked in a 2-2 party-line vote for countywide bilingual ballots in the future. Outgoing Democratic secretary of state Jennifer Brunner broke the tie. Countywide bilingualism will now kick in next year in myriad local elections and could could cost up to half a million dollars. A voting rights expert tells us, “Making sure Puerto Ricans had access to a Spanish language ballot could have been done at far less cost and with better results.”

Plainly, the Democrats felt beleaguered. One Democratic member came with pre-printed postcards to Eric Holder complaining of his attorneys’ bullying tactics. All were unanimous that the department’s legal basis was weak, but under state law, Brunner got the deciding vote.

She made very clear—and the Justice Department was keenly aware—that she was “going to be the one to bring bilingual ballots to Cuyahoga County.” She leaves office in January, and a Republican is leading in the polls to replace her. So time was of the essence. The strong-arm tactics would only work so long as the Democratic secretary of state was there to break a tie. And apparently the Justice Department was unwilling to bet that the 2010 census would give the feds the legal basis to demand countywide bilingual ballots.

Frost told The Scrapbook that one Democrat on the board expressed the view that if even one person was hindered this sort of remedy would be justified. What about the tens of thousands of new European immigrants (who speak Polish, Lithuanian, and other Eastern European languages), whose numbers vastly exceed Hispanic voters? No one really seemed to care.

Former Justice Department Voting Section lawyer J. Christian Adams explains to The Scrapbook that the issue is not closed. “Because this remedy may not be consistent with federal law, a citizen’s group could still intervene before the court enters any proposed consent decree and challenge the court’s jurisdiction over the case, and the power to impose a potentially extralegal remedy. It would force the court to question whether it could impose a remedy that goes beyond what the law allows.”

Time will tell whether such a group steps forward. But for now the Obama voting rights attorneys—who couldn’t be bothered to collect a default verdict against the New Black Panthers or vigorously enforce requirements for providing military ballots—have won. Chalk one up for the bullies. ♦

Twitter Derangement Syndrome

The Scrapbook understands how annoying the media’s irrational exuberance about the power of Twitter is. But last week Twitter Derangement Syndrome caused a columnist at the Washington Post to go barking mad. Post sports columnist Mike Wise decided to post some fake news on his Twitter account. The point of this ruse, he explained on his radio show a couple of hours later, was to spur other reporters into passing along the fake news, highlighting (a) how Twitter can undermine newsgathering by creating a cascade of unsourced “reporting”; and (b) how unscrupulous reporters not named “Mike Wise” can be.

In short order: Other reporters did recycle Wise’s fake news (mostly using the formula that “Mike Wise reports .  .  .”); the Post’s management issued a testy email to the newsroom restating the company’s social media policy; Wise apologized and was then suspended by the paper for a month.

Wise’s gambit wasn’t particularly well conceived. For one thing, the fake news was coming from him, and not from an anonymous or obscure source. Which means that the logic of Wise’s trick was not “people shouldn’t trust anonymous sources” but rather, “people shouldn’t trust the Washington Post.” Perhaps Wise could have gotten away with it if his Tweets had been more Swiftian. If he had said that Tony Kornheiser was now wearing a toupee, it would have been one thing. Instead, Wise’s claims were all football-beat fare—exactly the kind of stuff Wise would be reporting if it were genuine.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the story was the leaked email about the Post’s social media guidelines. The official policy states

All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens. Post journalists must recognize that any content associated with them in an online social network is, for practical purposes, the equivalent of what appears beneath their bylines in the newspaper or on our website. What you do on social networks should be presumed to be publicly available to anyone, even if you have created a private account. It is possible to use privacy controls online to limit access to sensitive information. But such controls are only a deterrent, not an absolute insulator. Reality is simple: If you don’t want something to be found online, don’t put it there. Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything​—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.

Good advice! Of course, the Post has other reporters who made much worse use of social networks by being involved in the now-defunct Journolist​—simple membership in which would seem to have been in direct conflict with this policy. Only one of them was disciplined—and a few weeks after he resigned, he was hired by Slate, another division of the Washington Post Company.

If only Mike Wise had been Tweeting about Republicans. ♦

Understatement of the Year

‘In 2010, Obama’s poll numbers [are] less of an asset for congressional Democrats” (Chris Cillizza, Washington Post, August 30). ♦