Senate watch: Bill To Protect Mueller Is Unconstitutional

Outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) threatened to nix judicial nominees until Mitch McConnell OKs a vote on legislation to protect Robert Mueller from being fired before finishing his Russia probe. McConnell thinks the bill is unnecessary. But the problem, Jonathan Tobin at National Review points out, isn’t that President Trump won’t be “so foolish” as to try to “quash the probe before Mueller” is done; it’s that the bill is “unconstitutional.” Tobin recalls that the courts ruled against Congress when it sought to stop President Andrew Johnson from firing his secretary of war. And, in the 1920s, the Supreme Court upheld the president’s right to remove a postmaster. Fact is, Tobin asserts, the bill “is as much an assault on the Constitution” as anything Flake “imagines Trump wants to do.”

Free-speech watch: Money in Politics Boosts Democracy

That candidates spent $5.2 billion on federal campaigns this year — more than for any other midterm — is “sure to spark calls for new laws restricting money in politics,” the Institute for Free Speech’s Luke Wachob notes at The Hill. But put the amounts in context: Americans spent $9 billion just for Halloween merchandise this year. And the campaign money was spent by “thousands of candidates” making their case. Advertising, usually the top expense, makes “voters more informed and engaged.” So this is a way money “can benefit democracy.” Research also shows money helps challengers more than incumbents, who use their offices to promote themselves. Nor does greater spending necessarily “buy” elections. All of which suggests, Wachob concludes, Americans “rethink laws that restrict it.”

Gov’t analyst: Make Public Advocate a Real Job

Public advocate “is like the pinky toe of political posts,” kids Ross Barkan at City & State. “It looks like it’s there to help . . . but it’s not clear what exactly it does.” If the job remains largely a steppingstone to higher office, it “should be abolished.” But Barkan offers another idea: Make it “stronger.” The city’s bureaucracy is “always in need of more oversight,” and the City Council could give the public advocate subpoena power, to better watch over agencies and the mayor’s office. Public advocates should also vote on legislation, since they already introduce bills. Some changes would need to be approved by voters, but to “maintain the status quo or eliminate the office altogether,” Barkan contends, “misses an opportunity to change our city government for the better.”

From the right: Waters’ ‘Corruption’ Is a Family Affair

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) made the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s annual most-corrupt-Congress-member list in 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011, but the group might “want to consider saving a spot” for her again for its 2018 report, suggests Becket Adams at The Washington Examiner. That’s because Waters’ re-election campaign is set to have paid her daughter, Karen Waters, more than $200,000 this year for running a mailer operation. Adams cites a Washington Free Beacon report that notes that candidates pay the Waters campaign, and the mailers contain “quotes of support from Waters.” Between 2006 and 2016, her campaign paid her daughter’s firm $600,000. And while all this “appears to be legal,” Adams asserts, “that doesn’t mean it’s ethical.” Rather, it “feels like an extension of the corrupt-but-not-quite-illegal familial kickbacks for which the Waters family has become well-known.”

Weatherman’s view: Don’t Blame Us for Storm Chaos

Public officials are trying to figure out how “a storm with only 6 or so inches of snow” Thursday was able to “paralyze” the New York region, which is “so used to snow.” But meteorologist Marshall Shepherd at Forbes offers answers — and the storm came “out of nowhere” is not one of them. Indeed, it was in the forecast for several days, even if “some politicians make a beeline” to attack the weatherman. But a “combination of bands of intense snow, colder-than-expected conditions, rush hour and early-season malaise on winter-weather response produced a chaotic situation,” and, Shepherd argues, a “bit of blame that can be equally shared.”

— Compiled by Adam Brodsky