GUEST WORDS--Nation, do not despair. Despite the Trumpian carnage all around us, online wiseacres - along with mass resistance by a galvanized populace, lawsuits by the ACLU and other tireless defenders of the rule of law, ongoing investigations into multiple wrongdoings, impeachment proceedings when appropriate, our time-honored system of checks and balances, and the possible discovery one day soon by the press and Democrats of their respective spines - may help save us.

Kellyanne 'What Is This Thing Called Facts?' Conway offered the latest opportunity to be gleefully horrified - yes, these days that's possible - when in a tee vee interview with Chris Matthews she just plain made up  a "massacre" by Iraqi refugees to justify the travel ban. Conway cited two radicalized Iraqis here who were "the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre," helpfully adding, "Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered."

Yes, well. The media quickly agreed they had, in fact, failed to cover it because it had, in fact, never happened. Turns out Conway was evidently referring to a 2011 case in which two Iraqi citizens were caught in a Federal sting and indicted for trying to send weapons and money to Al Qaeda; both were convicted, and are now serving life and 40 year prison terms. Conway later admitted she'd made an "honest mistake," hastening to add that the press does that, like, all the time, like remember for the 9,784th time when that reporter said the MLK bust was removed and it wasn't so hah what's a fictional massacre anyway?

Too little too late: Twitter took  the massacre and happily ran with it. They offered "alternative thoughts and prayers" and silence for the victims. They chided commenters that the massacre jokes were too soon and "out of respect we should wait till it takes place." They offered RIP to those who lost their lives in the massacre as well as grizzly bear attacks in schools. They urged, "Never remember the imaginary victims." They blasted Conway "for attempting to politicize the massacre, in which I was killed." They listed other victims: "Paul Ryan's dignity, Marco Rubio's spine, Harambe, Voter Fraud Investigation, Cecil the Lion." They bitterly chimed in, "Thanks Obama."

They recalled their thesis on the massacre, their Ph.D from Trump University, and how Betsy DeVos plagiarized it. The best brought it all home by merging recent Trumpian catastrophes, as in, "Saddened and sickened by Frederick Douglass' silence surrounding the Bowling Green Massacre" and, "One still shudders to think how bad the Bowling Green Massacre would've been if not for the heroic intervention of Fred Douglass."

A Wikipedia page quickly sprung up. A mournful tribute folk song  - complete with fields of lollipops and unicorns - emerged. Enterprising New Yorkers held candlelight vigils for the victims: "Never remember! Always Forget! And one ingenious soul took constructive action by creating a Bowling Green Massacre Fund for the victims and families, seeking donations by intoning, "We all still carry the vivid memories of what horrors occurred at Bowling Green, but some still relive those moments every day as they work to rebuild a community torn apart...As we join together with our thoughts and prayers, we will always remember how our fortitude and compassion unite us all through these difficult times." Its website link - brilliant - goes to the ACLU.

Still, it's hard to keep up with orange-tinted idiocies: By mid-day Friday, the enthusiasm for the massacre had met its snarky match thanks to a report from the White House that the Sexual-Assaulter-In-Chief "likes the women who work for him 'to dress like women.'" This news was received about as well as to be expected, swiftly sparking the now-viral hashtag #DressLikeAWoman highlighting high-achieving women wearing whatever damn thing they want. For a change of pace, it relies on photographs not words, even though, don't forget, he has the best ones, ever.

(Abby Zimet posts at Common Dreams … where this and other excellent perspectives on the current state lives was first posted.)

-cw

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA-When I finally got the keys to California, I wondered how fast it would go. So, on the 210 freeway, I floored the accelerator and within seconds I was driving 100 miles per hour. 

I immediately felt exhilaration -- and fear. This speed was totally unfamiliar to someone who has spent his life driving beaten-up Toyotas. In California we like to think we can move as fast as our imaginations can take us, but this shiny red convertible named California moved too fast for me. 

I was not driving my own car. Ferrari let me drive its latest California model -- officially the Ferrari California T -- for four rainy January days. I requested the loaner because I thought it might provide some escapist fun at a difficult time for our state and country, and because, on the north side of age 40, I deserve a mid-life crisis. 

But for journalistic purposes, I wanted to know whether the rare car named for our entire state (it’s far more common to name automobiles for specific California places, like the Chevrolet Malibu or Tahoe) could really embody California. I suspected that the folks back in Maranello, the Italian town where Ferrari makes its cars, might just be using our state’s name to sell a pretty automobile. 

My suspicions were wrong. The Ferrari California was a revelation -- as wonderful as our most kaleidoscopic dreams of the Golden State can be. The real problem was that Ferrari’s representation of California may be too faithful. The car is so damn perfect that it has a way of reminding you of our state’s imperfections. 

The Ferrari California aligns with the state on the level of metaphor. California is famously the “Great Exception” among American states, as the 20th century author Carey McWilliams named it, and California is an exception among Ferraris. But the nature of that exceptionalism might surprise you; California is not the most expensive or the most glamorous or the fastest Ferrari. 

To the contrary, Ferrari markets the California as the most practical and versatile of its cars. In its ultra-luxury, high-end way, it nods to the realities of modern California lives -- our business, our diversity, our traffic. 

The California is not a sports car, but a convertible grand touring car, built for comfort, which makes sense if you’re a Californian who works far from where you live, has kids, or is often stuck on our state’s abysmally congested freeways. It’s got two doors, but also enough space in back to fit two children’s car seats. 

“It is a little bit an exception,” Edwin Fenech, the president and CEO of Ferrari North America, told me by phone. “It’s able to be very versatile. You can drive it every day, and it’s very easy to drive. You can go to the grocery store with your car.” 

This has frustrated some Ferrari purists, who seem to equate the brand’s value with extreme male self-indulgence (you’ll see it referred to disparagingly as the “chick” Ferrari online) and complain about everything from its cupholder to its eight cylinders (most cars make do with four or six, but some Ferraris have 12.) 

But Fenech said that versatility shouldn’t detract from the car’s mystique, or California’s. It’s supposed to represent our sun-kissed Hollywood beauty, the kind he experienced as a young professional who saved up to fly his grandparents to California and guide them on a long drive up the coast, from Los Angeles to Monterey to San Francisco. The memory of that trip is a touchstone for Fenech and his family. 

“It’s a car that has all the attributes of being a Ferrari,” he said, referencing “high performance, elegance and flair.” He added pointedly that, in an era moving with surprising swiftness toward self-driving -- or autonomous -- vehicles, Ferrari wanted to affirm its support for Californians determined to steer clear of the trend. After all, what is more emblematic of the Golden State than our belief in primacy behind the wheel? 

“We are the ones who are going to defend the right to drive,” Fenech told me. “Americans in California should have the right to drive every day … Don’t brainwash the new generation with autonomous driving—it’s so beautiful, driving.” 

Fenech said that, while Ferrari makes all its cars in Italy, the U.S. and California also have defined the brand and its market. The race car driver Luigi Chinetti, who immigrated to the U.S. in the middle of the 20th century, pushed Enzo Ferrari to build his own cars and then imported them here. 

Today’s Ferrari California draws on our current infatuation with everything mid-20th century. Ferrari produced three different California models between 1957 and 1967. (Filmmakers used replicas of a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider in the classic ‘80s comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). The car became such a valuable collector’s item (some have sold for $20 million or more) that Ferrari revived the brand in 2008. 

The newest iteration, the Ferrari California T, was introduced for the 2015 model year. Fenech said the car fits California in multiple ways. It’s designed with a dual-clutch automatic transmission and a technologically advanced suspension, which makes it easy to navigate through the dense neighborhoods of America’s most urban state. “It’s the most urban Ferrari in our range -- you are able to drive it comfortably in the city,” he said. And the T stands for Turbo, as in the twin-turbo, 3.9 liter engine, which is a nod to our environmental awareness. It can still get the car to 196 miles per hour but uses less fuel and decreases the car’s emissions. (The auto press has speculated that all Ferraris will eventually be hybrids.) 

The Ferrari representative who loaned me the car encouraged me to do as much as I could with it. So I tested its California-ness. I drove it for 90 minutes through bumper-to-bumper traffic to my office in Santa Monica. I navigated potholes in downtown LA. (The seats are so comfortable you barely feel the bumps.) I made my rounds to the grocery store and the In-N-Out drive-through, complete with the requisite in-car consumption of a double-double. I chauffeured my kids to school, secured in their car seats in the back. And I carted luggage, golf clubs, and Little League equipment in the trunk. 

The car held up. I felt far safer while driving it in a rainstorm or on bad roads than I do with my usual ride, a five-year-old Prius. With the top down, I loved the way that the car connected me with other drivers and pedestrians, some of whom offered a thumbs-up and asked what the car was. 

When I took it out on PCH with the top down, the ride was joyful. And I’ve never had an automotive experience happier than the drive up Angeles Crest Highway, with the radio first playing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “California” (“It’s time we better hit the road”) and then R.E.M’s “Electrolite” (“Hollywood is under me. I’m Martin Sheen. I’m Steve McQueen. I’m Jimmy Dean.”) 

I didn’t want to keep this experience all to myself, so I took the historian Bill Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, for a spin, hoping for expert commentary on the car’s California-ness. He took exception to the suggestion that such a luxury item could be for anyone but the most moneyed Californians. But mostly, he just enjoyed the ride, and the respite from work. “It sure is fun,” he said. 

Of course, the car, like so many wonderful things in our state, fails the core test of accessibility: the base MSRP of the Ferrari California T is $198,973. The one I drove costs $240,000. By Ferrari standards, that’s a bargain (the hybrid La Ferrari sells for well over $1 million), which is by design: An estimated half of Ferrari California buyers are new to the brand. But the car I was driving would cost this non-profit journalist more than three years’ take-home pay. 

Which is another thing that makes the California very Californian. The good life is highly visible throughout our state. But only a few can afford more than a brief ride.

(Joe Mathews is Connecting California Columnist and Editor at Zócalo Public Square … where this column first appeared. Mathews is a Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010).)Photos by Louis Wheatley. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

MARMOT MUSINGS-I am a scientist who loves Groundhog Day, that least scientific of holidays. Every February, as Punxsutawney Phil shakes the dust off his coat, emerges from his burrow, glances at his shadow (or not) and allegedly prognosticates winter’s end, I gather a group of professors, graduate students, and other assorted science geeks at my UCLA lab to nibble, drink, schmooze, and revel in ground-hoggery in all its magnificent splendor. 

I study the behavior, ecology, and evolution of groundhogs and the 14 other species of marmots --large, charismatic ground squirrels that live throughout the northern hemisphere. I realize that these rodents can’t tell us when seasons will change. I know that the whole idea of celebrating a mid-winter festival in Los Angeles’s usually balmy clime also makes little or no sense. I know that hanging out with a taxidermied animal I stuffed myself might seem a bit quirky for a tenured professor. 

But Groundhog Day -- and its inherent absurdity -- also serves as a reminder to me and my colleagues of why we do what we do. The United States has prospered in no small part because of our commitment to supporting science and technological innovation. With each new advance -- from the automobile to the polio vaccine to computers to space travel -- we have reinvented ourselves and the world around us. Scientific discovery is at the core of America’s success. Conversely, an Internet meme a few years ago wondered, “Why is that only in America do we accept weather prognostication from a rodent but deny climate change from a scientist?” But for my colleagues and me, groundhogs are symbols of science, not superstition. 

At my annual lab celebration, posters of groundhogs and plush stuffed groundhogs -- not to mention a glittering Swarovski crystal specimen, given to me by UCLA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as thanks for years of service as department chair -- add to the ambiance. Groundhog-themed comics festoon the lab walls. “Two Buck Chuck,” our stuffed adolescent groundhog, presides over the festivities perched in one corner. One fall long ago, when I was doing my postdoctoral research, I found him dead on the side of the road and threw him into the freezer. My wife Janice and I had to wait to stuff him until Christmas break, when the smell associated with thawing and skinning him would be less offensive to our lab mates. 

We’ve been holding our Groundhog Day fête since 2001. America has been at it far longer than that. Groundhog Day was originally a reimagining of Candlemas Day, a Catholic mid-winter festival which itself had roots in a pagan celebration. Europeans observing Candlemas tracked hibernating hedgehogs to predict when winter would end. When the Pennsylvania Dutch came to our shores, they too looked for a hibernating mammal that might help them monitor the weather. 

Woodchucks, also known as groundhogs, were native and seemed to fit the bill: Males popped up out of their burrows each February, probably checking things out and deciding when they should start waking up females to mate. The new Americans took notice, and Groundhog Day was born. 

Since 2001, I have run a long-term study, initiated 55 years ago by my mentor Ken Armitage, now an emeritus professor at the University of Kansas. Ken is the world authority on marmots, and is credited with emphasizing the importance of their annual cycle, which varies by location, in explaining why marmot sociality varies. It was Ken, actually, who first came up with the idea of celebrating Groundhog Day. He used to host the members of his lab at his house, serve “ground hog” (a.k.a. sausage), and recite marmot poetry. 

The study follows individually-marked yellow-bellied marmots at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado. The value of the work is rooted in its longevity -- it’s one of the longest-running studies of its kind and an important tool for studying evolution in action. The animals are now emerging about a month earlier in the spring than they did 30 or 40 years ago. 

Understanding how individuals respond to environmental change is essential if we want to predict how animals will react to global warming and other human-driven habitat shifts. 

Science is what I do. I’m thrilled and inspired by being able to spend my days uncovering the secrets that hide in plain sight around us, and to use my marmot studies to train students to think critically and objectively. Our grand American experiment has prospered when it has the best possible information -- and I know that the scientific method is a very efficient process for revealing nature’s truths. This is the spirit in which I commemorate Groundhog Day -- celebrating America’s devotion to science, not just superstition.

(Daniel T. Blumstein is a professor at the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. His seventh book, Ecotourism’s Promise and Peril: A Biological Evaluation, will be published by Springer in 2018. This piece was first posted at Zocalo Public Square.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

LET’S TALK ABOUT IT-As an African-American Democrat, I share the core values of my political party. That is why I am a Democrat. Like me, most African-American Democrats do not want to see the mass deportation of undocumented citizens and families broken up. That said, we would be completely within our right to give the side eye to political leaders who are falling over themselves to get on the “sanctuary state” PR bandwagon.  

When thousands of Blacks left Los Angeles County as a part of the Black flight into San Bernardino County and other far away cities in search of more affordable housing and better schools for their children there was no campaign urging us to stay -- in fact, some would argue cities paved the way to the freeway leading out of city limits. It is not lost on us that no one introduced legislation to help reverse the journey of our grandparents and great-grandparents from the west back to the South. 

When the number of Blacks in California dipped below 10 percent there were no emergency meetings to confer on how cities could better meet the needs of their Black residents and provide sanctuary to those living in areas rife with gentrification to keep them from leaving. 

Living in California -- particularly Los Angeles County -- there is no shortage of “sanctuary cities” with political leaders offering their residents promises of safety from arrest, detention and deportation based solely on their citizenship status. President Donald Trump has wasted no time in making good on the very same controversial campaign promises around immigration laws enforcement that many would agree put him into office.  

To date Trump has signed orders to start construction of a border wall, expand authority to deport thousands, increase the number of detention cells and punish cities and states that refuse to cooperate -- giving new meaning to the phrase “the ish is about to hit the fan.”  

Most African-Americans abhor Trump and the Republican Party, but privately agree with Trump’s assertion that “illegal immigration” has harmed the Black community economically. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that at the end of 2016, 7.8 percent of African-Americans were unemployed compared to 5.9 percent of Hispanics, 4.3 percent of whites and 2.6 percent of Asians. With Blacks making up a disproportionate number of low-skilled workers, they find themselves more likely than any other group to be competing with undocumented workers for work in the construction, service and hospitality industries -- areas where Blacks have traditionally been able to find work. 

I know it’s politically incorrect to point this out but that doesn’t make it any less true. And knowing this, when push came to shove, African-Americans still weren’t willing to let the possible security of their own economic welfare take precedence over everything else that’s wrong with Trump and the Republican Party. In other words, even though Trump told us that we have no jobs, horrible education and no safety or security, we did not buy into his “New Deal for Black America” or the idea that in order for us to succeed others had to leave the country. No, that is what disaffected white voters did last November -- not my people.  

But what have we gotten from the Democratic Party after decades of loyalty besides knowing that ethically we are on the right side of history? What has our silence and “go along to get along” attitude gotten us? The Democratic Party expects (and usually receives) our blind allegiance election after election but what is really our return on investment as African-Americans?    

Too often when it comes to the Democratic Party as a whole, we hand pick our battles based on which way the wind of popularity is blowing on an issue. It’s no secret that African-Americans have been both the conscience and backbone of the Democratic Party seemingly ever since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and today we are just taken for granted right along with our issues.  

I’m not sure which is worse: The Democrats continued assumption of the Black vote or how most members of the Republican Party refuse to acknowledge the passage of the 15^th Amendment granting Blacks the right to vote. 

When Democrats fight for a higher minimum wage, paid sick leave, childcare, paid family and medical leave it means nothing if you can’t get the job to begin with. Now, is that all the fault of undocumented workers? Absolutely not. But when you factor in a job market that demands more and more bilingual employees, employers who want to hire cheap labor, a workforce with generations of Blacks who are not prepared to meet the demands of 21^st century employers, a lack of real educational opportunities as well as the highly exploitable position of the undocumented -- you have a recipe for disaster.    

Instead of ignoring or talking around the issues that plague both Black and Brown people, Democrats need to sit down and talk through them as a Party and figure out how we can all come up -- together.   

Rebuilding the Democratic Party to meet the needs of everyone and not just some means acknowledging and addressing the unequal economic impact that exploiting the undocumented has had on African-Americans in the workforce -- and not just the impact on the undocumented worker. It also means being honest about the situation and not simply labeling those who dare to talk about it as racist. It is not racist to want to figure out how all workers -- both Black, Brown and otherwise -- can work together to further everyone’s cause. On the other hand, acting like what is happening to Blacks is not happening and hushing the voices of those who try to talk about it could be considered as such.  

African-Americans know what it means to fight for human and civil rights probably better than most – hence, the constant replication of our tactics from the 60s Civil Rights Movement by various groups in the fight for theirs. In 2017, the Democratic Party stands at a crossroads. We win elections by bringing people together and working together -- not by taking each other’s support and votes for granted. As a Party we can do better. Our core values demand it and the future success of the Democratic Party requires it.

(Jasmyne A. Cannick is nationally known television and radio commentator on political, race, and LGBT issues who works in politics as a communications strategist. Follow her on Twitter @Jasmyne and on Facebook @JasmyneCannick. Her website is www.jasmyneonline.com.)

Photo: CFAAC, California Friends of African American Caucus. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GUEST COMMENTARY-I am profoundly saddened and angered by the broad discrimination sanctioned on Friday night by the Trump administration against refugees -- those fleeing violence and terrorism within their country -- and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. 

There are two elements to this executive order: a ban on all refugees entering the country and a ban on all immigrants from seven, predominantly Muslim countries. Make no mistake — this is a Muslim ban, many of whom are women and children displaced by violence. 

This runs counter to our national security interests and will be used as a recruitment tool for terror groups, endangering the lives of Americans overseas. 

Furthermore, the Trump administration has proposed no practical or effective solution to make Americans safer from terrorism. Remember, between 2001 and 2015, more Americans were killed by homegrown terrorists than by foreign-born extremists. Rather than address that threat, the administration has cruelly closed our doors to immigrants and refugees who are already vetted for more than two years to ensure they pose no threat to our citizens. 

Since the Holocaust, it has been the policy of presidents of both parties to open our doors to those fleeing war and oppression. This moral leadership has enhanced our ability to shape world events while promoting global stability and protecting Americans abroad. 

Refugees don't make us less safe; they enrich our communities. I have seen refugees in California become business owners in Sacramento who grow our economy and students in Los Angeles developing cutting-edge research, all in the pursuit of contributing to a country that proudly opened its doors in their hour of need. 

During the Holocaust, we failed to let refugees like Anne Frank into our country. And today, we are making the same mistake under the illusion of security. 

Turning our backs on millions of refugees is a dark moment in American history; one that we must rise to meet because this is only the beginning of this fight. I fear that it will get worse before it gets better. 

But I believe that our commitment to action and to defending those who have been left out and displaced will be able to overcome the bigoted policies of this administration. 

To our brothers, sisters, and friends in immigrant and refugee communities at home and all across the world -- know that you are not alone. We are fighting for you. We will not give up on you. Don’t give up on us. 

Fight on. 

(Kamala Harris is U.S. Senator for California and former California Attorney General. She can be reached here.)  Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THE FAILURE OF NEW FEDERALISM-President Nixon, though possessing the instincts and speaking the increasingly conservative language of the mainstream Republican Party all his life (his writings on domestic policy attest to this,) governed within the boundaries set by the New Deal. Where other conservatives like Barry Goldwater had no interest in “streamlining government,” “making it more efficient,” and “promoting welfare,” Nixon sought to do exactly these things. He might be considered a “good-government conservative,” seeking, as did his mentor Eisenhower, to make the institutions of the New Deal state work more effectively and efficiently for the American people. At the time, liberal Democrats had no interest in reforming governance in this way, while more conservative Republicans offered no solutions but “starve-the-beast.” Nixon was pioneering a pragmatic middle ground. 

If there was a single animating principle behind Nixon’s good-government reform efforts, it was this: lessen the power of the federal bureaucracy. There were various ways Nixon went about this, but this article will examine three. Nixon would empower the poor and those dependent on federal aid by replacing strings-attached welfare and social programs with no-strings-attached payments, believing poor people would be better at deciding how to spend their money than bureaucrats. Nixon would empower officials (and bureaucrats) at the state, city, and county levels by passing revenue sharing aid along to them. Finally, Nixon would oversee the smoother management of the federal government, by reorganizing the federal departments into departments based on broad purpose and function rather than on sector or constituency. 

These initiatives-the Family Assistance Plan, General Revenue Sharing, and Executive Reorganization- made up a significant chunk of Nixon’s domestic policy, also known as the “New Federalism.” There were other aspects, including Keynesian full-employment spending, creation of new federal regulatory departments, and a push for universal healthcare. But the Family Assistance Plan, Revenue Sharing, and Executive Reorganization were the boldest in terms of reforming the New Deal and Great Society institutions for a new era, and incidentally, they all failed to gather sufficient popular support to be institutionalized in the long term. The Reagan Administration ended most Revenue Sharing plans in 1986, while the Family Assistance Plan and Executive Reorganization never passed in Congress (in the latter case, largely due to the distracting factor of Watergate.) 

But these bold good-government reforms are worth revisiting today, if only to gain insight into the unique governing philosophy of President Nixon. 

The Family Assistance Plan 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, head of Nixon’s Urban Affairs Council, strongly advocated for what he called the “income strategy“ -- a resolution to fight poverty by boosting incomes and putting money in poor people’s pockets, rather than providing social services staffed by career bureaucrats. After much internal jockeying over such issues as the enforcement of work requirements and rates of support payments, the “Family Assistance Plan” became the administration’s keystone domestic policy initiative, the vital core of its New Federalism. 

The Family Assistance Plan (FAP) was designed to largely replace the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) put in place by the New Deal and expanded under the Great Society. FAP’s logic was simple: poor families would have a better knowledge and understanding of how to help themselves if given welfare payments than would the social workers and bureaucrats whose programs those dollars might otherwise fund. There was also a strong work requirement and work incentive, distinguishing the plan from previous versions of welfare programs. 

As President Nixon said in his August 8, 1969 Address to the Nation on Domestic Programs, “… I, therefore, propose that we will abolish the present welfare system and that we adopt in its place a new family assistance system. Initially, this new system will cost more than welfare. But, unlike welfare, it is designed to correct the condition it deals with and, thus, to lessen the long-range burden and cost.…The new family assistance system I propose in its place rests essentially on these three principles: equality of treatment across the Nation, a work requirement, and a work incentive.” 

The FAP would have been the most significant reform in American social welfare policy since the 1930s and one of the most transformative domestic policies of the latter half of the 20th Century. It would have served the administration’s goal of weakening the bureaucracy by reducing the responsibilities of federal service agencies, opting instead for a cash handouts approach that incentivized job attainment. 

Ultimately, due to lengthy conflicts over the substance of welfare reform between the Moynihan and Burns camps, the administration never put forth a bulletproof proposal to Congress, and Congressional conservatives and liberals united to defeat what they respectively regarded as too generous and too stingy a proposal. 

Revenue Sharing 

If the purpose of the Family Assistance Plan was to remove the bureaucratic middleman from welfare policy, then the point of Revenue Sharing was to remove the bureaucratic middleman from many other aspects of federal policy, particularly social services. Revenue Sharing in its various forms- General Revenue Sharing, which did not have any strings attached, and Special Revenue Sharing, which was directed at specific sectors but still had few strings attached- was conceived in the spirit of decentralizing policymaking power to states, counties, and municipalities. 

As President Nixon said in his February 4, 1971 Special Message to Congress proposing General Revenue Sharing, “There is too much to be done in America today for the Federal Government to try to do it all. When we divide up decision-making, then each decision can be made at the place where it has the best chance of being decided in the best way. When we give more people the power to decide, then each decision will receive greater time and attention. This also means that Federal officials will have a greater opportunity to focus on those matters which ought to be handled at the Federal level.” 

Strengthening the States and localities will make our system more diversified and more flexible. Once again these units will be able to serve–as they so often did in the 19th century and during the Progressive Era–as laboratories for modern government. Here ideas can be tested more easily than they can on a national scale. Here the results can be assessed, the failures repaired, the successes proven and publicized. Revitalized State and local governments will be able to tap a variety of energies and express a variety of values. Learning from one another and even competing with one another, they will help us develop better ways of governing. 

The ability of every individual to feel a sense of participation in government will also increase as State and local power increases. As more decisions are made at the scene of the action, more of our citizens can have a piece of the action. As we multiply the centers of effective power in this country, we will also multiply the opportunity for every individual to make his own mark on the events of his time. 

Finally, let us remember this central point: the purpose of revenue sharing is not to prevent action but rather to promote action. It is not a means of fighting power but a means of focusing power. Our ultimate goal must always be to locate power at that place–public or private-Federal or local–where it can be used most responsibly and most responsively, with the greatest efficiency and with the greatest effectiveness. 

Integral to the Revenue Sharing programs, and indeed to the New Federalism as a whole, was the urge to, as Richard P. Nathan put it, “sort out and rearrange responsibilities among the various types and levels of government in American federalism.” 

With the complex ecosystem of American federalism approaching incomprehensibility, Nixon’s administration sought to rationalize it somewhat by decentralizing some functions and centralizing others. Nathan argues that inherently trans-regional issues, such as air and water quality or basic minimum welfare standards, were best managed at the federal level, as were basic income transfer payments. Meanwhile, more complex and regionally variant issues, such as social services and healthcare and education, might be better dealt with locally. 

Many of the functions of powerful federal departments would thereby increasingly be taken up by states and cities, which would now have the federal funding to manage things they once could not. In this way, Nixon weakened the federal bureaucracy by empowering political entities far away from the national bureaucracy’s central core in Washington. 

Revenue Sharing of all sorts was broadly popular across party lines, but was terminated by the middle of the Reagan Administration. 

Executive Reorganization 

The third significant aspect of President Nixon’s domestic agenda was the wholesale reorganization of the Executive Branch’s departments. The twelve departments existing at the time of Nixon’s presidency had all been born out of necessity over the first two centuries of American history, and typically corresponded to particular economic or infrastructural sectors (for example, the Department of Agriculture.) New agencies proliferated within the departments, and often times different departments would pass conflicting regulations on the same subjects, making a tangled environment for citizens navigating through the mess. 

The solution developed by the President’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization (PACEO) was to completely reorganize the Executive Branch based on function rather than constituency. The Departments of Defense, State, Treasury, and Justice would remain largely as they were; the remaining departments would be reorganized into a Department of Human Resources, a Department of Natural Resources, a Department of Community Development, and a Department of Economic Development. As President Nixon said in his March 21, 1971 Special Message to Congress on Executive Reorganization, "We must rebuild the executive branch according to a new understanding of how government can best be organized to perform effectively. 

The key to that new understanding is the concept that the executive branch of the government should be organized around basic goals. Instead of grouping activities by narrow subjects or by limited constituencies, we should organize them around the great purposes of government in modern society. For only when a department is set up to achieve a given set of purposes, can we effectively hold that department accountable for achieving them. Only when the responsibility for realizing basic objectives is clearly focused in a specific governmental unit, can we reasonably hope that those objectives will be realized. 

When government is organized by goals, then we can fairly expect that it will pay more attention to results and less attention to procedures. Then the success of government will at last be clearly linked to the things that happen in society rather than the things that happen in government. 

Rather than being a conscious component of the New Federalism, the Executive Reorganization is more rightly thought of as a part of what Richard P. Nathan calls the “Administrative Presidency“ -- Nixon’s attempts after 1972 to bring the federal bureaucracy much more directly under his personal control, through reorganizing the Executive Branch and through appointing personal loyalists to Cabinet positions and other spots. This, of course, would have lessened the influence of career bureaucrats and directly increased the President’s power over policy implementation. 

The Executive Reorganization failed largely due to the Watergate scandal. 

Conclusion 

It’s very likely that much of Nixon’s plan to weaken the federal bureaucracy and fundamentally reform the federal government was driven by his own distrust of the “Establishment.” That does not, however, detract from the very real fact that the U.S. federal government of 1968, after almost three-and-a-half decades of near-continuous expansion, was cumbersome, overbearing, and inefficient at fulfilling the tasks assigned it by the American people. Much of this dysfunction, it could be argued, lay in the fact that the federal bureaucracy was becoming an interest group committed to its own perpetuation and loathe to undergo reforms imposed from the outside. 

Nixon’s plans to lessen the federal bureaucracy’s authority, responsibility, and power, whatever their fundamental motive, bore much potential to transform the federal government from a hulking behemoth into a sleeker, more responsive, and fundamentally more effective machine attuned to the needs of the last few decades of the 20th Century. Had the Family Assistance Plan, Revenue Sharing and policy decentralization, and the Executive Reorganization passed, the apparatus of the federal government might well look different today. Agencies and departments would be more goal-oriented than constituency-oriented; many federal services would be outsourced to newly-vibrant state and local governing entities; the welfare system would be entirely transformed into a payments system rather than a services system. 

President Nixon’s legacy as a good-government reformer ought to be examined more closely, both for its own sake, and for the sake of better informing government reform efforts in the 21st Century. There is potentially much we could learn from many of Nixon’s initiatives.

(Luke Phillips is a political activist and writer in California state politics and an occasional contributor to CityWatch. His work has been published in a variety of publications, including Fox&Hounds, NewGeography, and The American Interest. He is a Research Assistant to Joel Kotkin at the Center for Opportunity Urbanism.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.