Wednesday Edition: Tim Walz, Moderate?

Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, was already being pulled in opposing directions by moderates and progressives in her party — and that’s before she made her VP pick. (Intelligencer)

The latest: The consensus on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ new running mate, is that he’s more appealing to progressives than Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the other top candidate for the Democrats’ VP slot.

• Republicans have labeled Walz a radical in part due to his stance on transgender medical procedures for children, his handling of Minneapolis riots following the death of George Floyd and his heavy-handed pandemic measures.

Related: A Morning Consult poll from October found voters view the Democratic Party as more ideologically extreme than the GOP by a 9-point margin.

Big picture: Polls suggest Harris's biggest weakness is being viewed as too left-leaning, so conventional wisdom dictates she moderate on policy.

• The problem with that strategy is the Democrats' influential progressive faction is pushing her to go further than Joe Biden on issues like abortion, climate and corporate power.

Jonathan Chait, a liberal political commentator and writer for New York Magazine:

Bubba’s Two Cents

There’s an effort underway to position Walz as a moderate based on his folksy, former high school football coach “vibes,” but I agree with National Review correspondent Jim Geraghty’s assessment: “Perceiving a moderate ‘vibe’ requires not looking at Walz’s actual positions, which includes his own self-described ‘abject failure’ on responding to the George Floyd riots, his support of making Minnesota a ‘sanctuary state’ that doesn’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities, driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, and a hotline number established during the Covid pandemic so Minnesotans could report their neighbors violating social-distancing guidelines.”

There’s a noticeable divide between the left and right on energy sources. (Pew Research Center)

A new Pew Research Center poll: The share of Americans who favor expanding wind (78%) and solar power (72%) has declined by double digits over the past four years, while the share who prefer nuclear has grown by 13%.

• The decline in support for solar and wind is mostly due to reduced backing from Republicans.

• Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support nuclear power, but the gap is smaller compared to their views on fossil fuels.

The trend: There’s been a major alternative energy revolution over the past twenty years, with wind and solar energy consistently defying doubters’ predictions about cost and efficiency.

For the first time ever, solar and wind energy combined to generate more power than nuclear plants in the U.S. during the first half of the year, according to Ember data.

But: That doesn’t mean nuclear still isn’t a remarkably clean and efficient energy source.

Bubba’s Two Cents

I get that there are longstanding political and cultural reasons for the ideological divide on energy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Two data points illustrate the vision:

1) Texas, a red state, is leading the way on clean energy capacity.

2) Republicans buy twice as many Teslas as Democrats.

These are both good developments. And it doesn’t mean you have to abandon nuclear power (or fossil fuels). But why shouldn’t Republicans embrace innovation and technological progress?

A new poll indicates a majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle are skeptical of the freedoms — which include speech, free assembly and religion, among others — granted by the First Amendment. (Reason)

A Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression survey released last week: 53% of Americans think the First Amendment goes too far.

• That includes 52% of Republicans and more than 60% of Democrats.

Big picture: In recent years, both the left and right have tried to move beyond the classical liberal principles that once defined America.

On the left: Liberals have sought to curtail speech through regulation of social media and through proposals criminalizing “hate speech.”

On the right: Despite a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that flag burning is protected under the First Amendment, some right-wingers have sought to criminalize the activity.

• Critics accused Republicans of pushing anti-free speech bills during an attempted crackdown on campus antisemitism earlier this year, with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott explicitly calling for an “update” to university free speech policies.

Bubba’s Two Cents

Many people might be surprised to learn a majority of Republicans think the First Amendment grants too many rights. However, it’s become pretty common for conservatives to endorse classical liberal principles in the abstract, but say that the stakes of the current moment require a different approach.

While some people complain Congress doesn’t do enough, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch argues in a new essay for The Atlantic that government legislation is intruding too deeply into our lives. (The Atlantic)

Some stats: Congress adopts an average of 344 new pieces of legislation each session, which amounts to 2-3 million words of new federal law annually.

• The average bill length has increased from two pages in the 1950s to 18 pages today.

• The number of lawyers in America grew by 1,060% from 1900 to 2021, while the population grew by about a third of that rate.

• 30% of House Members and 51% of Senators in the 118th Congress have law degrees and practiced law.

It’s not just Congress: Rules and regulations written by federal agencies often have the force of law, and they’ve also been increasing rapidly.

• The Federal Register started at 16 pages in 1936, but now averages over 70,000 pages annually.

• By 2021, the Code of Federal Regulations spanned roughly 200 volumes and over 188,000 pages.

• Reading all federal regulations would take over three years, according to Mercatus Center researchers.

Two cents from Gorsuch, one of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices: