46th Leg Dist Caucus

May 1, ’04 9:33 AM

Am at the caucus for the 46th legislative district this morning. I decided not to run for state convention delegate because I’m traveling so much these days. But I’m here as a delegate for Kerry.

It’s interesting how many folks here are still die-hard Kucinich folks. Somewhat less surprisingly, there are a ton of Deaniacs as well. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised…my Leg Dist is just north of the Univ. Of Washington. The draft platform is so breathtakingly left-wing that I find large chunks unsupportable — evidence, I suppose, that I’m not as leftist as one might have suspected.

More later when something actually happens.

UPDATE: Whew. If I knew democracy was going to take so long….we just spent nearly 8 hours electing 19 Kerry delegates and 10 alternates, intermixed by some entertainment presented by the Student LaRouchies, and more than I ever wanted to know about Robert’s Rules of Order.

Turns out roughly 110 candidates ran for the “next” convention, and since nobody could even keep ’em straight, I’m glad I decided to not run. I’m guessing the top couple of delegates will be all the elected officials and Leg Dist party officials and volunteers here today since their names were easy to remember.

Still, I was happy to participate. Around 2 p.m., however, I was starting to wonder whether a primary election would just be simpler…

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Hamdi, Padilla, and the Detention Cases

Apr 29, ’04 10:35 PM

It’s a fantastic thing that the Supreme Court is releasing audio of oral arguments in significant cases. People all over the country can hear the arguments in critical cases that define our rights for years to come.

Rumsfeld v. Padilla, and to a lesser extent Hamdi, are such cases. Or could be.

There is less room to skirt the issues than last week’s cases involving non-citizens (e.g., Rasul v. Bush), but skirting is possible. If the Court wants to avoid the substantive issue for now, Padilla can be ruled on a jurisdictional error and Hamdi can be ruled on the interpretation that Guantanamo is not under U.S. jurisdiction — at least in an Article III sense.

One hopes the Court doesn’t skirt the issues, however, because good solutions exist. The normal powers of a Commander-in-Chief can persist, alongside the ability to gather intelligence data, while still affording the prisoner due process. In some cases, due process will be a military court as has been done in the past, but this is clearly better than indefinite and unrepresented detention.

In Padilla’s case, the written law seems clear — the Non-Detention Act of 2004 in addition to case law (e.g., Ex Parte Endo, Ex Parte Milligan) clearly indicates that Padilla must be afforded due process, unless there is a clear Congressional act to grant the Executive Branch extra-constitutional detention powers. No such grant exists, and so the government’s case depends largely on a massively expansive reading of the Authorization for Use of Military Force. A reading of the AUMF expansive enough to justify unlimited detention would clearly fall afoul of Ex Parte Endo, in which the Court required a narrow construction on broad powers which depart from clear constitutionality.

Perhaps the most important and poignant reason for ruling on the merits in these cases is given in the amicus brief filed by Fred Korematsu, the former Japanese detainee who challenged Roosevelt’s executive order and was sent to prison. Only 40 years later was his conviction overturned and vacated. Korematsu remains one of the most powerful reminders why Executive power should not be unlimited. Even the best, most far-seeing Presidents (including FDR) are capable of mistakes — even capable of abusing the power of the office under pressure. Korematsu reminds us that Hamdi and Padilla should be given trials, where evidence against them can be presented, a defense mounted, and due process accorded. How can we deny any citizen due process, if we expect to receive it ourselves if the need arises?

Clearly, the nation and homeland must be defended. What is unclear is that defense calls for a complete suspension of normal due process, except in truly emergency circumstances — the kind of situations already envisioned within the provisions of the habeas corpus statutes. The kind of discretion temporarily exercised by Lincoln with care and soul-searching during the depths of the Civil War.

Although I remain unconvinced that the Court will find a compelling reason to rule in favor of the detainees in Rasul v. Bush, I can see no clear path for the Court to rule against Padilla, and possibly Hamdi, as long as they decide to examine the merits, and not take the easy way out.

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Tasting Notes

Apr 25, ’04 8:00 PM

I had a couple of wine tasting opportunities this week. First, for a Board dinner on Wednesday, I served the Heitz Martha’s Vineyard 1992, which was OK but nothing special. The second wine, however, was the Clos du Val 1974 Cabernet and it was special. I’m not a huge fan of domestic cabernets, but this was terrific. A hint of maturity but still going strong in the glass for an hour, a bit of spice, but it didn’t turn to coffee or fading aromas.

With a group of friends last night over a grilled lamb dinner, we tried the Chateau la Nerthe Cadettes 1995 (courtesy of my friend Bill), and it’s still incredibly tight and shutdown, but with a ton of potential. More friendly at the moment were the Pallieres Gigondas 1998 and Tempier Bandol 2000 regular bottling.

Today, with my regular “serious” tasting group, we had a variety of wines, but the stand-outs were a Dauvissat Vaillons 1999, and for me, a Tempier Bandol 1992 regular. The Janasse Vielles Vignes 1995 Chateauneuf I opened was completely closed. The 1992 Bandol is showing the beginnings of maturity and won’t last too long since it’s from a light and somewhat underripe year. Turned to coffee aromas in the glass after an hour. We finished with a Robert Eymael 2002 Erdner Pralat Auslese that was light and full of effervescence, with a gorgeous nose.

I am convinced that the 1995 Chateauneufs are still in a tight, closed stage, without any real signs of maturity. And that’s a very good thing — along with 1989, 1990, 1998 they’ll be the wines I drink throughout the next decade with great pleasure.

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Jurisdiction and the Guantanamo detainees

Apr 24, ’04 2:46 PM

This week saw the oral arguments in two cases (Rasul v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States) involving non-citizen detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison. Listening to the arguments, I have to say that John Gibbons, the attorney for the detainees, did a poor job in the arguments. He was unfocused, hesitant, and entirely reactive in his answers — never making any real positive points. At various points, Justices Stevens and Breyer threw him a rope, which Gibbons seemed not to notice.

Because the case is focused exclusively on whether jurisdiction in a U.S. civil court is possible, few of my general concerns in an earlier post are relevant this time. And the jurisdiction question looks like a complex one. Regardless of the verbal machinations during argument, it’s unreasonable to claim that the U.S. does not exert sole jurisdictional power at the Guantanamo base. The 1903 treaty states: “the Republic of Cuba consents that during the period of the occupation by the United states of said areas under the terms of this agreement the United states shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas…”

Nevertheless, the government’s point concerning the limits of habeas corpus in military situations is a subtle one. Clearly, everyone recognizes that enemy captives on the battlefield aren’t given habeas. Similarly, prisoners of war aren’t eligible for civilian legal remedies, and instead are treated under the Geneva Convention rules. In the current case, the Bush Administration is not calling the detainees POW’s, and they’ve been removed from the battlefield to a non-combat area and detained in a military prison. Thus, the plaintiffs argue, they are being held in Federal custody and are eligible for habeas corpus access to the Federal courts.

The government argues that Johnson v. Eisentrager is the controlling precedent, which disallowed habeas for enemy aliens imprisoned in American-occupied Germany. Federal habeas corpus statutes are also fairly specific about the need for specific territorial jurisdiction, and also say that “As a general rule, Federal courts will not entertain habeas petitions from a person in military custody unless all available military remedies have been exhausted.” Arguably — and sadly — the recent moves by Rumsfeld and the Pentagon to slowly determine status for the detainees probably means that “all available military remedies” have not been exhausted, since the statute doesn’t give the military a time limit for its processes.

Basically, I think the non-citizen detainees are screwed. It’s not a question of whether the Court could find an argument for extending habeas in this case — thus opening the door to lawsuits to determine the detainees’ individual cases. The Court could do so, since Eisentrager itself rests on partially overturned precedents. At the very least, the Court could construe the Constitution as requiring that the detainees must be processed by military justice, but that due process and representation are required, and that the detainees have a right to a speedy determination of their status.

But the Court won’t, I predict. It’s going to be too easy for the standard 5-4 majority to allow Eisentrager to control the case, and allow Scalia’s textualist approach to find no specific support for habeas in “grey areas” like this.

On the other hand, I think the Padilla case next week will go very differently. Eisentrager will be irrelevant. It’s much clearer when someone is a U.S. citizen, especially when arrested by civilian authorities on U.S. soil. Bush has labeled Padilla an “enemy combatant,” as if this label has the power to strip a citizen’s constitutional rights. Even during the Civil War, the Court has ruled (in Ex parte Milligan, for example) that American citizens arrested for aiding the enemy had a right to trial in civilian courts. It’s possible that the Rehnquist majority will decide against Padilla and other citizen detainees, but they’re going to have to work harder to patch together a justifying rationale.

And all of this is really less relevant than the question of how Congress and the Court haven’t pointed out that the President has unilaterally claimed the power to suspend constitutional privileges. Only Lincoln in previous times has suspended habeas, in the depths of extremity, but even he did so carefully and very temporarily. Bush shows no signs of caring whether he exceeds his constitutional powers. Congress and the Court, sadly, show little sign of holding him accountable for this breach.

And so, it will fall to the voters to do so in November.

Leaving aside every other issue, in November we need to elect a president who will uphold the Constitution, not ignore it.

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The Best Brandenburg Concertos…a 17 year saga

Apr 23, ’04 1:05 PM

I received a package in the mail today, which contained two CD’s and a note, from an old friend of mine who lives in Tucson and runs Eliot Books. The note reads (in part):

Enclosed find the Brandenburgs that I mentioned something like 17 years ago. They are the best. F**k the rest.

The story begins in the summer of 1987, at the University of Washington’s Archaeological Field School on San Juan Island. My friend was a staff member, and I was a student on the field school. He, in his wisdom, had brought a high-quality CD player and CD collection to the island, and we discovered mutual interests in classical music, partying our way around the island, and honing our expertise in “field bartending.” At the time, his Bach collection was serious and well-stocked, except for an obvious hole with the Brandenburg Concertos. His answer was that he wouldn’t buy the Brandenburgs until he found the perfect recording. Pinnock, Hogwood, all good conductors, all good recordings, but the best was an elusive recording by Karl Ristenpart. It remained elusive, and my friend’s collection lacked a copy of the Brandenburgs, all these years.

Until now. He found the Ristenpart recordings in France, and waited 9 months for the boxed set to be shipped to the United States. And today, I got an envelope with the Brandenburgs, as performed by Karl Ristenpart and the Saar Chamber Orchestra in 1960. What an amazing pleasure it is to hear them, after 17 years of anticipation.

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Jasmin Cote Rotie 2000

Apr 18, ’04 12:55 PM

While in New York last week, I visited Veritas with my business partner. Dinner was excellent, but of course the “main event” was the wine list. Not ordering actual wine, because most of the bottles I’d like to drink were fairly steep. The markups are pretty healthy, for the wines whose retail prices I know. But the list itself is a work of art — the PDF version on their website is 61 pages, and when you sit down, they hand you a weighty tome about 2″ thick.

Ultimately, in the interests of cost, I chose the 2000 Jasmin Cote Rotie. Having had the wine previously (most recently, at Jardinere in San Francisco last fall) I knew what to expect. The wine is fairly open, though with a good grip and tannic core. But it’s not shut down, or at least not enough to preclude a nice experience. The nose was dark fruit, with a beautiful floral (hawthorne, lilac, neither is quite right…) note. I didn’t buy any of this for my cellar, which I regret, but I’ll happily drink it whenever I encounter it.

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