interviews
The Nationalization of U.S. Elections
by Dan Hopkins
December 31, 2020
This interview with Dan Hopkins, Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
What were the original assumptions in the Constitution about state-level loyalty versus national government loyalty?
It's a good question. The Constitution is now far enough back in our collective memories that I think it's really valuable to start by having some sense of what the U.S. was like at the time. There were some scholars who argued that the Constitution is well understood as a peace treaty between sovereign states about how they were going to govern their affairs.
In 1776 and even in 1787, when the Constitution was drafted, the U.S. was a collection of 13 quite different colonies. It took the Georgia delegation six weeks to travel to Philadelphia in order to participate in the Constitutional Convention. Different colonies had very different economies and different religious heritages. This was a quite diverse country and, thus, the Constitution was designed to protect substantial levels of state-level autonomy. I think it is really important to recognize that at the time, many of the people thought of themselves as Americans, but also to a certain extent, as New Yorkers or Virginians or Pennsylvanians.
When do you start to see a shift towards politics in the U.S. becoming more nationalized?
To some degree, it's an ongoing process that has unfolded in fits and starts over our 200-plus year history. I do think that the Civil War is a critical turning point. In the run-up to the Civil War, you see many more implications of state-level identities. I'm a Georgian, I'm a Virginian. And obviously, the Civil War pitted state against state.
It's generally been the case that the Republican party has been more likely to invoke federalism. Of course, the exemplary issue is the issue of civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. Even in more recent times, the Republican party has advocated for there being less of a role in the federal government asserting itself to protect the rights of African-Americans, especially, but not only in the South. I think it's fair to say that if you've heard a state rights argument in the last 50 years, it's more likely to be coming from the Republican party.
There's also an element in which as power shifts, we see changes. When the Republicans control the federal office, sometimes it's Democrats who say, "Hey, it's important to let California write its own laws with respect to clean energy or car emissions standards." At the same time, the extent to which we see Republican states moving to block sanctuary cities, for instance, is surprising.
If you're a principled federalist, then presumably cities shouldn't be punished for diverging.
In general, I see very few principled federalists in American politics. I think that all too often in contemporary American politics, federalism is just the clothing we use to dress up certain arguments instead of being a principled approach to a range of policy problems.
What factors contribute to a nationalized political landscape?
I actually think there's a relationship between the transformation of campaign finance, the transformation of voting, and the transformation of what's getting covered in our newspapers. There's a unifying element to all of this.
Let's look at campaign finance first. In many of the most competitive 2020 Senate races, large majorities of money came from out-of-state donations. What does that do to the candidates, and how does that affect the way constituents perceive elections?
I think that the nationalization of the campaign finance structure is an example of our nationalized set of divisions. What we're trying to do is refract these highly nationalized divisions through our federalist system. And the result often distorts representation in critical ways. One of the key facts about campaign finance has been that as late as 1992, two-thirds of all donations to federal candidates, to members of Congress, were coming from within the state that they represent. 20 years later in 2012, only one-third of all dollars were coming from the states that people represented.
The danger is that the representatives and senators increasingly have one constituency where they get their votes, but a separate constituency from where they get their money.
That is not how our system was designed to work. It was not designed for members of Congress to spend four hours a day raising money from people who are not their constituents.
And simultaneously, there has been a collapse of local media. I wonder how the decline of local news plays into this landscape?
When the internet first became a sizable presence, there was a hope that it might actually lead to a proliferation of local news. With the internet there are very, very low production costs, so, theoretically, I could put up a newsletter about my neighborhood. But in fact, as you said, the rise of the internet and the rise of cable television led to this dramatic concentration of our attention on a very, very small number of nationalized news sources. Partly that's because the news media would target us based on where we lived. The Philadelphia Inquirer targeted a set of people who wanted to know about life in and around Philadelphia.
But more recently we instead see that the business model for many media companies is to compete based on who voters are and who readers are and who consumers are, rather than where they live.
Rather than providing me with information specific to Philadelphia, they will identify me as someone who likes the National Football League or cares about politics.
That has led to the fragmentation of our media environment. One of the real losers in this has been people's attention to state and local politics. State and local politics have never been on the top of people's priority lists. It used to be that if I were reading the Philadelphia Inquirer, as a by-product of learning what the Eagle's score was, I also learn a little bit about who my mayor was or who my governor was. And nowadays, since I can go right to ESPN or I can go right to Fox News, I can skip over all that state and local information.
In a world where state and local politicians want to be well-known, they're much more likely to attach themselves to a lightning rod federal issue than they are to actually dive into the challenging, complex issues that face their local community.
Which really allows issues to be manipulated. When we focused on immigration, something I found interesting was how much immigration was used as a campaign tool in Ohio or Maine. It’s easy to make a border terrifying when you don’t live near one. Do you feel like campaigning has changed based on the ability to take issues that don't have anything to do with your constituents, but are made to look like they have everything to do with constituents?
Yeah, absolutely. One of the real challenges with a nationalized political environment is that it encourages attention to issues that are evocative and emotionally charged and often have to do with specific groups of people, but ultimately do not have clear policy effects. I think one prominent example of this is not long after President Trump was elected he attacked football players who refused to stand for the National Anthem. I think it's a very instructive case because he wasn't proposing any policy. This was purely about symbols.
I worry that in the nationalized political environment, it's very hard to put together a political coalition that speaks to auto workers and nurses in the suburbs of Detroit, and retirees in Maricopa County. This is a very diverse country. One of the easier ways to knit together a political coalition is to reach for these divisive, identity-oriented issues, even if that's not actually what's going to motivate the policies that you're proposing.
I do think that there's been a real connection between the way in which our politics has nationalized and the way in which our politics has become more identity oriented.
It's these kinds of identity charged issues that can have an intuitive meaning to people in places from Montana to North Carolina.
Has your work clarified your opinion about how national politics should work? What do you advocate for moving forward in terms of policy and campaigning?
I certainly think that voters do better when they have the information that they need, and I think that we are missing an opportunity to really use our federalist system, because there are so many different kinds of issues that face the different communities in our country.
If we are trying to force all of those issues onto a single divide between Democrats and Republicans, we're going to miss a lot of critical issues.
I think some of the disaffection with contemporary politics stems from the fact that many of us deal with problems in our day-to-day lives that are not represented by the Republican-Democrat divide.
I do want to be wary of nostalgia — or suggesting that some earlier period of history was markedly better. Yes. I worry a lot that today's voters just don't know much about state and local politics, but state and local politics wasn't always vibrant and democratic in previous generations, right? As a social scientist, I think part of my job is to lay out trends. I do think that nationalization is something that we should forecast as being a major part of our politics moving forward.
I also think that there are some policy changes on the edges that I would advocate for that I think would help reinforce the connections between places and voters, and to make better use of our current federalist system. For instance, I think campaign finance matching, so that every dollar you get locally is amplified, is a great idea. I think that could encourage politicians to lay down roots in the specific communities they represent and to spend less time trying to raise money from Manhattan or Dallas.
I think we should also do everything in our regulatory capacity to help promote, protect, and foster high-quality, non-partisan coverage of states and localities.
As a country that is hemorrhaging reporters who cover states and localities I do think that given how many important decisions are made at the state and local level, as a society, we have a real stake in the quality of local news media. There are fewer statehouse reporters, there are fewer city hall reporters, and there are fewer people who are tracking state and local politics to hold our politicians accountable. I think that has been underappreciated, and one of the real dangers in contemporary American democracy.
interviews
An Interview with Jee Mee Kim, Principal at HR&A Advisors
by Jee Mee Kim
May 17, 2018
This interview with Jee Mee Kim, principal at HR&A Advisors, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
What is the role of an advisory firm in relation to government agencies, city planning, and architects? How do you fall in to that mix?
Our work is really focused on helping cities. Either at the level of a private developer or a land owner trying to figure out what they should build on their site or helping the mayor of the city determine how to create an economic revitalization strategy that will bring jobs and reinvigorate downtowns and position them for the next economy. So, it really varies.
We also have a lot of open space and transit projects. For open space projects in particular, we help clients think through creating a design that is respectful of the urban context and supports their vision and goals? We help clients think of ways to pay for upfront costs of construction and ongoing maintenance, often through real estate as a vehicle for funding.
We also help clients think through the political and community buy-in needed for a project of scale and impact . It boils down to bringing all of those different pieces and perspectives together to create and help shepherd a project along that both satisfies the public goals as well as private interest.
Which projects do you see as a passion?
I've been exposed to a lot of places that are not big cities. I've been a planner for almost 20 years and spent most of my time in New York. Recently I started to get projects in the Midwest. I've been spending a lot of time in Indiana which is having a bit of an economic boom. For example, Indianapolis is really thriving: Salesforce just located its second headquarters there.
There are so many small cities across the US that are thriving and doing really innovation, interesting things. And some of these cities are former Rust Belt cities that are reinventing themselves. As New Yorkers, big city dwellers, we tend to think we’re the center of the universe
These places that are in the middle of cornfields that have traditionally been very auto-centric. Maybe have a small Main Street, but these places are largely single detached homes with the yard and garage.
If they want to entice young people, professionals, and if they want to grow their population, they need to create places that are like the neighborhoods of New York.
As a consultant, I have the privilege of being able to travel across the country and see so many different types of projects. I love being able to share what I see and learn with my clients all over the country and even now in Saudi Arabia.
We keep hearing that young, expanding families are choosing to move out of New York to other cities, rather than to the suburbs.
I'm totally seeing that. I think places like Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, are realizing they have competitive edge because the quality of life is still pretty good. But the housing costs and the cost of living are so much lower.
They're trying to figure out, how do we create these amenitized communities that can really attract people who once lived in New York or Chicago or LA, and entice them to come to their cities? They're really making investments in their downtowns, parks, and waterfronts. That's really cool.
How do you see this playing out as a planner? What are your biggest concerns and hopes?
I think there's a running debate. I was just at a planning conference, and I was on a couple of panels talking about the future with autonomous vehicles.
The other scenario is that because you have broader and cheaper accessibility to AV technology, people will want to live even further out. We'll see greater sprawl. We'll see more cars and more driving.
Obviously, it's unknown right now. What I think is really positive is the move towards creating these downtowns. It's really heartening because a lot of these places, especially the Main Streets that we're looking at, those Main Street retailers have suffered over the past 30 years. The discussion you hear a lot is there's still a future for brick and mortar retail because people want to go to a store where they can have an experience. I think of Warby Parker, that revolutionized how you purchase glasses. I was in a Warby Parker and I said, "there's never a crowd like this at a LensCrafters."
I think that's what cities are embracing now, that they have assets they can take advantage of. I think on the optimistic side, with more people living in cities instead of living in these big sprawling suburbs, where you're driving everywhere, land value is tied to walkability. There are clear statistics that having access to transit, parks, and bikeable, pedestrian friendly streets, actually increases property values. It's this virtual cycle of what makes a great place.
That's heartening.
But the suburban revolution, is it really over? No, the suburbs are actually trying to figure out what to do now. How do we become relevant again?
What are your thoughts on loneliness? When you're driving your car alone there's loneliness, highways, loneliness, shopping online, loneliness. We're craving human interaction, and I wonder if this psychology factors into your work.
How people are experiencing technology is changing, social norms are changing, and so many people work from home. They work these off hours, and somebody could have made the case, well, we won't need offices anymore. But WeWork spaces and coworking spaces are so popular. People are willing to pay money to be surrounded by other people, even if they have nothing to do with the business that they're in. Maybe it is the loneliness. Being at home and working all day in your pajamas isn't all that interesting.
Secondly, people still thrive on the social interaction and the bumping into each other and sharing ideas and this notion of the agglomeration. There's a reason why institutions and hospitals are clustered together. Because of that bumping into each other.
As planners we always think about those spaces. There's a reason why public plazas are so popular. There's a reason why people are craving sidewalks, and bike lanes, and nice parks.
It's intrinsic to the human condition. Cars and the highway revolution took some of that away. There's still a place for it, I'm not going talk about it as someone who wants that one-acre lot with a yard. We should still provide options. I think if we can create better cities, it's going go a long way for everyone.
You're creating more vehicle miles, more travel - there's just more of an impact. Whereas you add a 10-story, 20-story tower in Manhattan, most of those people are going take transit or walk or bike.
In a past job, I worked on the Barclays Center Arena. People were freaking out. I worked on the transportation side and said, "well, you're putting an arena up. It's like Madison Square Garden on top of one of the best served transit hubs in the city." It's probably unprecedented to have an arena so well-served by transit. Would you rather have it here, over in some less dense location, where you're going have to create all this economic activity? We can guarantee a lot of people who come are not going to come by car.
Where does community come into that?
Well, that's the thing about planners, and this is where we can get more on the fuzzy side because so much of the work we do has to do with community engagement. In some cases, it's not just about notifying people that some project is happening. I would say 80% of the projects I do, there is some form of robust community engagement where you're getting people's feedback. I think the multidisciplinary folks I work with, generally are very attuned to recognizing the history of the community and recognizing the different tensions and dynamics of a place. What you're getting at is how do you deal when a neighborhood changes? When a neighborhood increases in value? Are you displacing people? What happens to the folks who can no longer afford to live there?
We've been spending more time in recent years, really thinking about how you do inclusive development and inclusive planning. How do you create more opportunities for affordable housing? How do you mitigate the impacts of just creating a place and only thinking about space? You have to think about the people. That is part and parcel of all of the projects we work on. How do you make sure that the economic and social benefits of a new investment, of a new project, of a new building, don't just serve one group? Especially in many communities, you have these historical neighborhoods that have always been underserved. How do you make sure those benefits occur to those folks?
What's one piece of technology you're really excited about that you think it going have a big impact on city planning?
I've learned a lot about autonomous vehicles recently. I think transportation has informed the way our cities look, has informed the way our communities look. I think we take so much transportation related stuff for granted.
The way we move is so important. New York is such an exciting place because it's easy to get from point A to B, barring New York City traffic issues. With new transportation coming online, it's going to change the way our places look. It's going to change behaviors. It's going to change economy. There's a lot of talk about what happens when trucks become autonomous? What happens to all those truck drivers? It has this ripple effect, and I don't think we really figured that out.
How did you come to this profession? What's your background?
Some people are fascinated with their cities as children, that's what they do. I always liked to draw. I went to school, and I got a BFA in Painting. I painted landscapes. I loved that. And then I got an American Studies degree at the same time, and I did a lot of research on immigration and cities. And then, when I was an undergrad, I got tired of naval gazing. That's what I called it. I got tired of being an artist. I became really active doing community organizing work, mostly in New York's Chinatown, doing tenant organizing, vendor organizing, youth development.
As I was working on a volunteer basis and having other jobs, I thought I should go to planning school because that's going make me be a better organizer. I felt like there were certain things we wanted from the city, but I didn't understand how you get to the actual implementation. When I went to planning school, I was set in my ways. I'm going to be in the nonprofit grassroots sector forever, and I graduated and I needed a job. And there was a small company called Sam Schwartz Engineering, and I thought I would stay there for a year because I needed work.
They had a marketing position. I didn't know anything about the business of consulting. I didn't know what marking did. I didn't know what engineers did. I just took the job. And then about 14 years later, I decided to leave.
I did all sorts of work from doing land use approvals in the city, environmental review, transportation planning projects, to building up a great network of people around me. And then I came to HR&A. A firm I worked with a lot in the past. I was always fascinated by economic development and real estate, and more recently on issues of resilience and dealing with the impact of climate change. So, I ended up here. It's just an interesting career, because you really do get to do so many different things, meet so many different people, and go to so many different communities.
As a consultant, I would say consulting is not for everyone. It can be a little crazy, and also, it's really a business, right? There are some down cycles that you have to muddle through, but then there's also intense moments where you get 10 jobs at once. I find it exciting because I don't think I could work on the same project for four years. A lot of learning, and I really like that.