BOSTON – The U.S. immigration system, with visa pathways and restrictions that discourage business creation, hampers the nation’s ability to maximize the enormous benefits foreign-born graduates of U.S. colleges and universities can provide, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.
International students are responsible for nearly a quarter of all current billion-dollar private startups in the U.S. On average, those 143 companies each created 800 jobs and have together generated $591 billion in value.
“The founders of 25 of those 143 unicorns were educated at Massachusetts colleges and universities,” said Aidan Enright, who co-authored “International Students: Poorly Suited Pathways Stymie Formation of High-Growth Businesses” with Joshua Bedi. “In fact, 59 percent of the former international students who founded venture capital-backed startups in the commonwealth were educated here.”
The U.S. educated 28 percent of the world’s foreign students in 2001, but that number fell to 21 percent by 2021. In all, foreign students comprise about 5 percent of post-secondary enrollment in the U.S., compared to around 20 percent in places like Australia, Canada and the U.K.
International students are disproportionately represented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, whose graduates are in great demand. They earned 36 percent of all STEM degrees conferred by U.S. master’s programs during the 2021-22 academic year. Similarly, 46 percent of doctoral degrees in STEM fields were conferred to U.S. international students.
U.S. immigration policy has not fundamentally changed since early this century. Meanwhile, other developed countries made it a priority to attract and retain top global talent by reforming their immigration systems. Some offer a fast track to legal status and citizenship. Countries like the U.K. and Canada offer much more efficient visa application processing and entrepreneur-specific visas.
In terms of attracting foreign students, other countries offer more secure employment opportunities or even guaranteed employment after graduation.
In addition, visa processing often takes twice as long in the U.S. as in other countries. When more than 500 U.S. colleges and universities were surveyed about the declining share of foreign students in 2019, 87 percent mentioned visa processes, delays and denials.
The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign students to work for one-to-three years after graduation from a U.S. college or university, but employers are less likely to sponsor those in the program because of longer-term uncertainty about graduates’ ability to remain in the country. OPT applications generally take 213-426 days to process.
H-1B visas are targeted at immigrants with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, but strict caps mean that 80 percent of those seeking the visas were rejected by lottery in fiscal 2023 before their cases were even adjudicated.
“The U.S. immigration system likely delays foreign-born graduates from creating incorporated firms by as many as five years,” said Joshua Bedi. “We conservatively estimate that the system delayed the creation of 150,000 incorporated firms and 580,000 jobs between 2013 and 2021.”
Immigrants are up to twice as likely to start new businesses than those born in the U.S. and more likely to own a STEM firm. Immigrants holding a master’s degree are 57 percent more likely to own an incorporated high-growth business than their U.S.-born peers.
But our current system offers no visa pathways that are well suited to entrepreneurship. Student visas often expire before the holders can start a business, employer sponsorship requirements for the most accessible visas effectively bar immigrants from starting their own firms, and new ventures must be well established before founders can qualify to sponsor themselves or for other investor category visas that also require a high bar of capital investment.
The authors’ recommendations include creating an entrepreneurship-specific immigration lane, raising the cap for H-1B visas and speeding up the processing time for visa applications.
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About the Authors
Aidan Enright is Pioneer’s Economic Research Associate. He previously served as a congressional intern with Senator Jack Reed and was a tutor in a Providence city school. Mr. Enright received a B.S. in Political Science and Economics from the College of Wooster.
Josh Bedi began his undergraduate career with the International Business Program at Mississippi State University and received a Bachelor of Business Administration in business economics and a Bachelor of Arts in German. At MississippiState, he worked with Germany Trade and Invest as a Service Industries Intern. He earned his Ph.D. and was a Mercatus Center Fellow at George Mason University. He is now working at Copenhagen Business School as a Postdoc in Entrepreneurship at the Department of Strategy and Innovation. There, he works under the Mærsk McKinney Møller Chair in Entrepreneurship.
This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and DFER’s Alisha Searcy interview Pulitzer Winner Kai Bird. Mr. Bird focuses on the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb.” He discusses Oppenheimer’s impact on history, his early life and education, and his academic achievements in quantum physics. Bird covers Oppenheimer’s political views, relationships, as well as his leadership in the Manhattan Project and his role in the Trinity test. He reflects on Oppenheimer’s ethical concerns about the atomic bomb’s devastation of WWII Japan and impact on the Cold War’s arms race. He examines Oppenheimer’s post-WWII career, including his involvement with the Atomic Energy Commission and the security clearance hearings that marked his decline. Mr. Bird continues with a discussion of Oppenheimer’s legacy and the lessons from his life about the interplay between science, technology, and politics. He shares the experience of his book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, being turned into an Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan. Mr. Bird closes by reading a passage from his Oppenheimer biography.
Stories of the Week: Albert discussed an article from Education Next on higher grade inflation on AP test scores; Alisha reviewed an article from The Globe & Mail sharing the positive influences of having early financial literacy courses for students.
Guest:
Kai Bird is an award-winning historian and journalist. Executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, he is the acclaimed author of biographies of John J. McCloy, of McGeorge and William Bundy, Robert Ames, and President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Bird won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (co-authored with Martin J. Sherwin), which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film Oppenheimer. His work has been honored with the BIO Award for his significant contributions to the art and craft of biography. He received his B.A. in history from Carleton College and an M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University.
Tweet of the Week: https://x.com/CyberNews/status/1812185223976964384
Click here to read a transcript
[00:00:00] Joe Selvaggi: This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi. Welcome to Hubwonk, a podcast of Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston. Unfolding in real time is the quadrennial process of choosing our next American president. While Article 2, Section 1 of our Constitution outlines the procedures for electing the president, it leaves out the specifics of how candidates should be nominated.
[00:00:25] In a process steeped in history, reform, and the vibrant energy of democracy, it has been the work of parties themselves. to shape the delicate balance among constituent voters, political professionals, and events of the day to determine the nominee. This year, the Democrat Party must also address their members concerns that their presumptive nominee, President Biden, may not have the ability to sustain a successful campaign, leaving many to consider late stage options for alternate nominees.
[00:00:56] How did our current primary system evolve? Who governs primary rules in states and at conventions? And who has the power to change the nominee as Election Day approaches? My guest today is the Keenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, Professor Charles Stewart III, who is the Founding Director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
[00:01:19] Professor Stewart’s work focuses on the historical developments of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. He will explain how our modern primary process has evolved, Who determines and enforces primary rules, and what choices are available when nominees are either unwilling or unable to successfully campaign for president?
[00:01:40] When I return, I’ll be joined by Director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, Professor Charles Stewart III. Okay, we’re back. This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi, and I’m now pleased to be joined by the Keenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, Professor Charles Stewart III. Welcome back to Hubwonk, Professor Stewart.
[00:01:59] Charles Stewart III: Oh, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:02] Joe Selvaggi: Well, it’s good to have you back. It was nearly four years ago when you last joined me. You helped us sort out the complexity of trying to run a presidential election during a pandemic. Uh, uh, we’ll say it, uh, you know, it turned out okay, I suppose.
[00:02:14] Uh, today we’re going to talk about, um, uh, the election before us. We’ve got a primary process, uh, we, I suppose the votes are in, but we’re, um, recording at a time during the, uh, Republican convention in Milwaukee and soon, uh, Democratic convention in, uh, Chicago. We’re going to pick, uh, the nominees for president for the.
[00:02:34] Uh, 2024 presidential election. For the benefit of our listeners, I want to break down, uh, the process of, uh, primaries. Uh, I also want to address the fact that whereas both candidates, um, are clear, uh, both parties and many members within those parties have concerns, um, uh, either that, uh, because of age or infirmity of, of candidates or, uh, we’re recording shortly after the attempted assassination of one of the candidates, uh, former President Donald Trump, Um, events of the day can intervene in an unforeseen and unpredictable way, so we want to understand how the process is supposed to work, but also, um, what can be done, um, mid race to adapt to, uh, changing, uh, events.
[00:03:19] So let’s start at the beginning. Let’s, let’s start simple. Uh, let’s talk about the pre presidential primaries. Who defines how primaries work, both at the federal or at the state level? Where is that set up?
[00:03:33] Charles Stewart III: Well, um, so you asked us to start simple, and in some ways, this is among the most complicated parts of things to answer about.
[00:03:41] Um, I mean, the simplest way to start is just by pointing out that that primaries of all sorts, but especially presidential primaries, Um, are owned by the parties. And, um, so in a fundamental way, the parties, um, create the, the, the broad, let’s say, guardrails around which, um, they govern, um, how the process will happen.
[00:04:07] Um, but even then, you know, the, the parties themselves are, um, you know, are complex because you have the national parties and then you have the state parties. We can talk, kind of get into the details about that, but the national parties set out the broad parameters of, say, what the, um, what the season is for holding the primaries, what the rules are about binding or not binding delegates, how many delegates, allocation of delegates, things like that.
[00:04:37] And the national parties could constrain the state parties There’s a lot of difference in the decisions that the state parties are allowed to make. Um, for instance, the national parties can leave it up to the states, state parties, in how they allocate delegates. Um, or they can be very prescriptive about, um, how they can do that.
[00:04:59] And the Democrats and Republicans are different in that regard. At the same time, there’s the states. And the states actually Run the primaries. Now, there are still a few states that have caucuses, and there the parties are entirely in charge, but if, um, but if you want to run a primary, in almost all cases, it’s going to be the state that runs the primary.
[00:05:22] And the state has the caucuses. Um, a certain practical, um, um, kind of influence on this if, um, and a good example is New Hampshire, right? New Hampshire has this law, which states it has to be the first primary in the nation. Um, the Democrats, um, a while back said, um, no, South Carolina is going to be the first primary in the nation.
[00:05:45] How is that resolved? Well, New Hampshire held a primary, first one in the nation. Democrats said, okay, fine, but you’re not going to elect any delegates to our convention at this, you know, and, and so it kind of created this kind of confusion about what was going on in New Hampshire in January, right? So, you have this dance, um, and there are other examples where this, where the state governments and the national parties or the state parties kind of play a game of chicken around who’s actually going to run things and how it’s going to, how it’s going to operate.
[00:06:16] Um, nonetheless, at the end of the day. Um, it’s really the parties who are in charge. Um, not the states or even the federal government, certainly, in, um, determining how things, you know, what the rules are going to be ultimately.
[00:06:34] Joe Selvaggi: So, we have 50 states, it’s a, uh, you know, a whole array of different, uh, systems in charge there, I’d say individual state parties.
[00:06:42] I would say, again, I don’t want to speak for all primary voters in this great country, but I’d say in general, we get the sense that Individual party members go out on primary day and vote, we count up the votes, and the winner, the one with the most votes, either gets all or a proportionate share of the state’s delegates. Has it always been this way? And if not, what came before, you know, how old is what we consider normal? Uh, how did we get here?
[00:07:10] Charles Stewart III: Yeah. Um, the, the system we have right now, I would say it, it well, um, that we can demarcate history, um, in 1972. And it’s really 72 forward and, and 72 came about in reaction to the 68 Democratic Convention.
[00:07:32] And, um, the reforms, the changes that happened around there focused on the Democratic convention, but the Republicans of that era pretty much came along. So, let’s say 68 and before 68 and before, there was a mixture of methods for choosing delegates to the conventions, the conventions. were seen really as the actors in making the, making the choices, um, and there had been, um, even in the 20th century, um, going into the dimension, not quite knowing who was going to be the nominee.
[00:08:08] So some states had caucuses, other states like New, again, New Hampshire, have been holding a primary for a century. So you had a kind of a mix before 72, so we have a 50.
[00:08:20] Charles Stewart III: Go ahead.
[00:08:20] Joe Selvaggi: So just, just curious, so we have a 50-year sort of, I, I mean convention as in standard that we’ve come become used to. Is it, was it perceived, and I You’re the expert, so I’m asking this candidly, was it, let’s say a move from where, you know, in the olden days, I suppose conventions serve to determine who the nominee would be.
[00:08:39] And I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it seems that conventions now are merely sort of rah-rah sessions where we just. You know, balloons fall out of the ceiling, and everybody cheers, so they don’t seem, they seem ceremonial, if you will, and again, I’m not putting words in your mouth, you tell me if I’m wrong. Why did we go from where we determine the candidate at a convention with, let’s say, party professionals, and now
[00:09:01] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, I think, I think it’s more ceremonial than not. Um, although, you know, kind of, it’s always been the case, and certainly for the past century, century and a half. That, um, incumbent presidents have basically been the most important player in their party.
[00:09:19] Um, and so it was pretty much all the time, although like Grant, I mean there are exceptions like President Grant, where party elders’ kind of push Grant out as an incumbent. Um, so it was celebratory like when Eisenhower was re nominated. Or, you know, those, those, those circumstances. But really, um, before 68, and certainly moving back further in time, um, in the 20th century into the 19th century, the parties could be thought about really as kind of holding companies of 50 state parties, some of which were run according to kind of quasi open um, Um, rules, but others were very much what we would imagine to be kind of, um, you know, kind of, kind of inside baseball, smoke filled rooms, sorts of, um, kind of a club.
[00:10:15] And, um, it’s not too far from reality to say in many of those states. Illinois was the most famous with Mayor Daley, Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago, but the boss, party boss of the entire state. very much. Right, really could deliver delegates, could deliver votes on election day. And so, you, and so it really was a mostly kind of 50 bull mooses in a room, um, bringing their delegates and they could pledge their entire delegation or some of their delegation if, you know, and so, so that was 1 thing.
[00:10:54] Um, there was a revolt publicly and certainly within the Democratic Party in the 68 conventions, which your listeners will know, even if they weren’t alive at the time, was a disaster in Chicago. Not only riots in the streets, but riots actually made it onto the floor of the convention and Herbert and Hubert Humphrey was nominated, despite the fact that he really didn’t run in primaries.
[00:11:22] Um, and, um, so, um, and that’s why I mentioned the McGovern Fraser Commission that really changed the rules of the Democratic Party and make it so that delegates would be chosen mostly by primaries and that they would be, um, required to vote for, you know, the, the candidate that had won that primary or that they were associated with.
[00:11:48] Certainly on the first ballot. Um, and, um, and so it’s, it’s kind of celebratory now, but it still is, well, it’s mostly more celebratory, but potentially, you Could be, um, you know, could make a decision.
[00:12:05] Joe Selvaggi: Well, that sets up my next question perfectly, which is to say, okay, we now have what we consider individual state, very sort of traditional elections.
[00:12:13] We count votes, and we figure out, you know, who won. Those delegates have their marching orders, right? Party members in their state have spoken, and they have to go to the convention with specific orders. Uh, they’re committed to that, that candidate. What I want to ask you is, you know, again, in the, let’s say, modern times, last 50 years, does that resolve things?
[00:12:31] It seems like, you know, we knew, um, uh, President Trump, or former President Trump would get the nomination, it seems, uh, and, uh, incumbent President Biden would. You know, have there been contested elections and if one, um, conventions, and if one were to be, what, what does that look like if, if there isn’t a clear winner walking into the, the, um, the, um, convention?
[00:12:54] Charles Stewart III: Well, are there contested, um, conventions? Um, there haven’t been, um, and certainly there have been, there have been instances where the, the kind of the second-place candidate has wanted to make it a contested election. And those were cases where the party was closely divided, and the famous cases were Ronald Reagan in 1976.
[00:13:15] Um, Ted Kennedy in 1980 in the Democratic primary, and then even, um, in, um, in 2016, um, there were efforts to derail, um, um, Donald Trump’s nomination and, um, kind of make the, the primary really the decider and, um, to throw it open, a so-called brokered convention. I mean, it turns out, though, that, you know, in this 50-year period, um, we’ve gone into both major party conventions.
[00:13:45] With somebody having a majority delegates, and that’s really hard to, um, dislodge, even in a situation as we find ourselves in right now, or even, you know, in 76 or 80 cases where the second-place candidate had a good argument to make that they would be the better candidate. Um, and, um, but once you’ve chosen people who are really loyal to the frontrunner, um, also, you know, the, the, the primary rules are such kind of the one who gets the most votes in states kind of gets a bonus.
[00:14:23] That’s especially true in the Republican Party, um, but also true in the Democratic Party. So, uh, you know, the frontrunner comes in with a cushion, even if their, their, you know, their support begins to kind of get soft, they’re going to have a big cushion. Um, and, um, and I’m sure we’ll talk about, um, Joe Biden in particular, but he’s going to come in with 90 percent of the delegates.
[00:14:46] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, so he could lose half of his, almost half of his delegates and still get the nomination.
[00:14:50] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed, so he has a comfortable lead and as you mentioned, this isn’t a case where we have a second-place person who’s, you know, sort of chomping at the bit, chomping at the bit, trying to say, okay, I might be better.
[00:14:59] We have really, I don’t know who second place would be really, but let’s, let’s unpack that a little further. You talked about, um, these, these delegates going to the convention. They’ve been committed. Um, I’ve read something, and in research and preparing for this, this conversation, that they’re bound in good conscience to vote for the person who they, was elected in their state.
[00:15:19] Okay, you know, there’s a lot of wiggle room in good conscience, because some would argue, again, I’m not putting, I’m not making any normative judgments, but some might say, we had no idea, um, uh, President Biden was, um, Aging the way he is, until let’s say the debate or recent gaffes, were we to have known that, we would have perhaps voted differently in our individual primaries.
[00:15:41] Now that we do know it, me as a delegate, I’m going to the convention in Chicago, do I have any prerogative? You know, I might like the guy, but, you know, conventions and primaries and parties are for winning elections. If I don’t think my guy can do it, where is, what prerogative do I have?
[00:15:59] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, well, here, here’s where the two parties are different, again, um, and, and as you said, I mean, really, I mean, we’re really talking about Biden, but it should be said, there’s something sometimes called the robot rule.
[00:16:09] The robot rules are, you know, basically bind a delegate to their person, kind of stand by my man or woman type of, type of rule that usually binds that pledged delegate to vote for their candidate on the first, on their first ballot. And in fact, like the Democratic Party rule, actually, I’m sorry, the Republican Party rules allow delegates to be replaced on the, you know, on the fly if they vote for the wrong person.
[00:16:39] or not, for those votes not to be recognized. And so, um, the Republicans still have, um, a strong version of the robot rule. The Democrats have a weak version of the robot rule, as you, as you just mentioned, which is that they, um, their delegates are required to vote in good conscience to reflect the sentiments, um, of those who elected them.
[00:17:03] But we have to recognize that the delegates at the state level or the congressional district level, however the states allocate them, are identified by the political parties, or I’m rather the candidates, as people who are loyal to those candidates. Um, and so I won’t say that, you know, the Biden delegates are like the Stepford Wives, but, um, you know, in that sense, but you don’t get to be a Biden delegate unless you’re willing really to go to Matt for Joe.
[00:17:37] And I think it’s kind of, um, really wishful thinking to imagine that there’s going to be really kind of a come to Jesus moment, um, in the Democratic, um, convention, unless Biden himself instructs his delegates not to vote for him and to find somebody else.
[00:17:58] Joe Selvaggi: So, uh, accepting that, that eventuality, if Biden doesn’t say, I’m sorry guys, uh, I’m going to pass the baton, uh, if he wants the nomination, there’s almost no choice, conscience or otherwise, for delegates to change horses this late in the race.
[00:18:13] Charles Stewart III: Oh yeah, no, they’re, um, yeah, they’re, they’re, they got their guy. Got their guy.
[00:18:19] Joe Selvaggi: Right, okay, so we talked about sort of primaries, we’re leading up to conventions, what about, okay, we have a nomination. Um, but, current events happen. I’m going to You know, again, we keep talking about President Biden, but, uh, the horrible, um, uh, event that happened past weekend, uh, uh, uh, assassination attempt.
[00:18:36] Look, these guys are both 178, 181, actually at our tables, hey, it could be a heart attack. Where is it that, um, let’s say, parties and process, and we’re still not at election day, were something terrible to happen? Either they you know, become incapacitated or die. What happens, let’s say, as we approach Election Day?
[00:18:54] Where, what, where does the party, where do delegates, are these all, you know, active participants? Until Election Day or something else happens, if it happens after the convention.
[00:19:06] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, um, it kind of depends on how close you are to Election Day. And this is where, um, kind of the, kind of the, I won’t call it loosey goosey, but kind of the ambiguous nomination.
[00:19:20] The role of the parties comes up against, um, our constitution, quite frankly, national, um, laws. I mean, Congress has mandated, ah, ah, so we’re coming back to our discussion four years ago about voting during the, during, um, the pandemic, and what I was saying four years ago, I don’t know if I said it, um, on this, on this, um, broadcast, but even if the zombies are in the street, um, And the, uh, and the asteroids are raining down on us on election day.
[00:19:52] We’re going to have an election. We have no choice, right? And so even if the, you know, one of the presidential candidates gets hit by a bus the day before the election, we’re going to have the election the next day. And the only person for that party on the ballot will be that person, right? So we can’t, like, most of the rest of the democratic world, we couldn’t postpone.
[00:20:15] We don’t have any of that flexibility. Um, and that’s where I think. Um, a lot of the ambiguities and the chaos would emerge, um, because now if you’re really close to me, if you’re kind of far from the election, like, if it were to happen, like, like the week after the, after the conventions. There would be time for, you know, the national committees have mechanisms for naming replacements for their nominees.
[00:20:47] And the best, um, historical example was in 1972, when the Democrats had to replace their vice presidential nominees, the DNC, that, that, that replaced them under the party rules. And the party rules have ways of replacing nominees. Um, but if the ballots have been printed, and if people are already voting, Then you’re left with a position of people voting for somebody who is incapacitated or is no longer alive, and then what to do.
[00:21:18] Um, and, um, I think there we’re up against, um, norms and what the laws are in the states about what electors can do. Um, yeah, so I’ll stop there. I mean, there’s details that we can, we can dig into, but that’s, that’s, I’ll stop for a moment right there.
[00:21:42] Joe Selvaggi: Well, let’s, let’s not have such a grim possibility, you know, scenario play out.
[00:21:46] Let’s just talk about, you know, there’s certainly a healthy movement to try to persuade people. Uh, President Biden to step aside and perhaps let someone, uh, let’s say, more viable or more electable, uh, take his place. There’s a lot of question about, uh, money. A lot of people give money to the actual president himself.
[00:22:05] This is not super PACs or, uh, political, uh, committees. These are, the president himself has a, a war chest. I think all in is something like 240 million. That’s people writing checks to him or his re election. What happens to those monies were a leading candidate to say, you know, I’m sorry, uh, I’m gonna, you know, retire at the end of my term.
[00:22:28] Where does that go?
[00:22:30] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, it kind of depends. I mean, it depends on when they, when they bow out. Um, if they are not the nominee, like, um, so I mean, so let’s just focus because we know what we’re talking about. Let’s Biden. He woke up this morning and says, okay, I’m out. He’s not the nominee. Um, he would have to give the money back, um, um, unless, ah, the campaign committee is the Biden Harris.
[00:23:03] And so, um, Harris, Kamala Harris would inherit. So it makes a difference here that we have a joint committee of a presidential and a vice presidential candidate together. Um, and so that would allow Harris to continue, but if the party doesn’t nominate her, then that’s a problem. Um, the other thing to consider is that You know, let’s say in a couple of weeks, and keep in mind, the Democrats are, look like they’re moving forward on their plan to do a virtual roll call in the next week or two, so Biden may be the formal nominee sooner than the convention.
[00:23:48] Once he’s nominated, then those funds, it’s no longer a nomination fund, it’s a general election fund, and the general, again, if it’s Kamala Harris, Who ends up replacing him, then that’s one thing, but if it’s not, then there are limits on what, um, that committee can do with those funds. He could only give 2, 000 to the, to the, to the other, um, um, um, candidate, you know, to who to judge or whoever becomes the nominee.
[00:24:26] Um, the rest of the money would have to go to, like, a super PAC. He could create a leadership pack, um, that could pour money into the election in, um, uncoordinated in theory. Um, but um, but not know kind of directly part of the campaign and the new nominee would need to start RA fundraising, um, on their own.
[00:24:54] Um, we hear reports that there’s a bunch of wealthy donors sitting on $90 million. Um, and maybe they would disgorge that 90 million for, uh, Mayor Pete or whoever. Um, but, um, it would be kind of starting from a cold start, um, for anybody else, especially if it’s not Kamala Harris.
[00:25:14] Joe Selvaggi: Yeah, it seems like the party would have to be rather desperate.
[00:25:17] So, to be clear, I just want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. If, uh, Biden steps aside and the convention, uh, chooses someone, if it’s Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, she would be entitled to the money that’s been raised. That’s my, I mean, that’s my understanding and listening to the election lawyers. But if it’s anyone else, uh, whereas they could, they as candidates or former candidates, um, you know, can’t use it. You know, because they’re not candidates. They could create their own super PAC. Why wouldn’t the money that was given, and again, we know from campaign finance laws that, you know, every one of those donations is documented somewhere.
[00:25:55] Why don’t they have to give it back? In a sense, why is it now the prerogative of the candidate who’s no longer the candidate to choose where that money goes? Wouldn’t it have to be given back to the donor?
[00:26:03] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, no, that’s a good question. I don’t know why, but from everything I’ve read from the election lawyers, that they make this distinction, um, about, um, you know, before and after, um, nomination, and, um, that it belongs, I mean, it now belongs to the, um, to the committee.
[00:26:18] Committee could give it back, um, for sure, um, And, um, but my suspicion would be that, um, it would be rolled into some sort of political operation in support of the nominee, the new
[00:26:33] Joe Selvaggi: nominee. So our conversation is talking about the nomination getting up to the, uh, the election. Um, I want to, I don’t want to bring up a sore subject, but of course now November 5th, as you say, is coming no matter what.
[00:26:43] Zombies? Asteroids? It’s coming. Get ready. So someone’s going to get elected. But we had, again, I don’t want to bring up a sore topic, but in 2020, a lot of, um, disagreement about the prerogatives then when we’re in, again, now this is governed by statutory law. This is no longer the prerogatives of, of parties.
[00:26:59] This is the real thing. It’s a real election. Individual states, as, as we know, um, it’s not people that elect presidents, it’s states that elect presidents. Each of those states send electors, uh, that have been determined by that state’s constitutional obligation to send those electors. What, you know, we had a lot of disagreement.
[00:27:16] Maybe it wasn’t legitimate disagreement. Some disagreement in 2020, how those electors must then ultimately go in and be counted for the election. Is there any disagreement, again, with the wisdom of reflection? For years, any ambiguity or any changes in the law that have sort of shored up our, our system such that we’re not going to have any more debate as to, you know, prerogatives of actual electors, not, not delegates, these are electors.
[00:27:42] Charles Stewart III: Right, right, right, exactly. Well, um, um, debate? No, there’s always going to be debate. Um, actual actions? Um, um, yes, we’re in a better, um, we’re in a better situation now than we were four years ago, and that’s because a couple of years ago, um, in a fit of bipartisanship, um, Congress passed and President Biden signed, um, the Electoral Count Reform Act, Um, which also had a Transition Act component to it as well, which also dealt with, you know, the kerfuffle over whether Biden could start his transition, um, before the inauguration.
[00:28:21] The Electoral Count Act addresses, um, many of the issues that arose in 2020. It starts by specifying That the vice president’s role is purely ministerial. Um, no decisions about who gets, who gets to count or anything like that. He’s purely presiding over a counting of votes. Um, there are, it’s harder to make a congressional, um, challenge to votes.
[00:28:55] Um, it can only be given for clause and instead of 1 member from each chamber objecting, you need 1 5th of each chamber to object to the counting of any votes. Um, states cannot change their method of election after election day. That’s been, that’s been settled because you recall 4 years ago, there were some Attempts to get the state legislatures to elect, um, um, electors and that’s been foreclosed.
[00:29:27] Um, there are stricter, um, um, deadlines for certifying elections and, um, and there is now a provision if a candidate is unhappy with certification, or if there’s any, um, any legal challenge to certification, um, um, you can impanel in that state a special, I believe it’s a 3 judge court to, um, rule on those challenges.
[00:29:59] So, um, so there’s a belief among the legal community that, that this kind of covers most of the, you know, the problems that arose and at least solves those problems. Well, no, there could be new problems in the future we haven’t anticipated. There’s also an argument that has been made that you can’t bind a future Congress.
[00:30:20] And so that’s why I say it’s not going to cut off debate. Right. Um, there’s still going to be people claiming if they’re unhappy. Well, we can go into, um, January 6th and we, or whatever the date will be, and we can, um, you know, we can, overturn this election. But the, the, the black letter of the law is pretty clear, um, to try to foreclose a lot of
[00:30:45] Joe Selvaggi: There may be all new, different Krakens to set loose, uh, this, this time.
[00:30:51] Charles Stewart III: There’s always a new Kraken.
[00:30:53] Joe Selvaggi: So, uh, we’re getting close to the end of our time together. I just want to ask sort of a meta question. I think sort of the sentiment bouncing around, particularly among Democratic circles, is sort of, look, Biden, you know, you know, is not the best candidate. We make the rules, we can break the rules.
[00:31:08] I want to get meta on you. It’s like if, if, if People believe that rules are just something we’ve created and therefore infinitely malleable. What is it about elections or just rules that, you know, sort of constrain our ability to change them on the fly? Isn’t there something within us, maybe as Americans or maybe as human beings, where whatever the rules may be, you got to stick by them through the, through the entire process?
[00:31:32] Match. You can’t change the game, rules of the game, mid stride. Is that real or is that just my perception as sort of a conservative guy who doesn’t like, uh, you know, messing with the controls, you know, while you’re still flying?
[00:31:47] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, yeah, you know, look, and something I teach, teach my students, um, that, um, you know, the rule of law is a very strong principle in this country.
[00:31:56] And certainly it’s been kind of bandied about over the last, you know, several years. But, um, speaking about conservatives, go back to the founding, go back to Locke, go back to Montesquieu, go back to all those people, right? What, you know, it justifies, you know, the rule of law is really an important thing, and it’s really drilled into Americans.
[00:32:19] We’re not quite Germans in that sense, right? Um, we’re kind of, we do see some flexibility, maybe other places won’t, But fairness in the United States, um, is, is oftentimes judged in terms of following the rules and then, you know, to use sports metaphors, you know, winning or losing based on everybody playing on the same playing field and knowing the rules ahead of the game.
[00:32:47] That’s kind of the American way of doing it. If we were. Um, British, you know, we might be a little more sophisticated or whatever, cosmopolitan about, um, the use of rules and might understand a bit more that, you know, um, that politics is about power and that it’s sometimes okay to bend the rules to get power, but that’s really kind of, that’s not the American way.
[00:33:14] Yeah,
[00:33:15] Joe Selvaggi: so you made reference to your students. I want to, before we close, I want to give an opportunity to plug your work at MIT with the Election Science and Data Center. Um, what kind of work do you do? And can our listeners, uh, look it up and learn something? Or is there some sort of repository of research and information about elections in general?
[00:33:33] that they could access, uh, let’s say, online.
[00:33:36] Charles Stewart III: Oh, absolutely. Um, go to our website. Um, we, like everyone else, have a website, um, electionlab, one word, electionlab. mit. edu. And, um, we do research, um, ranging from the geeky to the publicly accessible. We write explainers. Um, we write commentary about a number of things.
[00:33:57] We will be following the 2024 election very closely and be writing, um, kind of more kind of geeky, number crunchy analyses about what’s going on. We’ll be following on the election skeptics. Um, and I’m trying to kind of debunk the kind of the weirder and crazier takes on the American election. So in any case, electionlab.mit.edu.
[00:34:22] Joe Selvaggi: That’s wonderful. Well, good. I promise I will be checking on that often in this crazy time of election. So I really appreciate your time, Professor Stewart. You know, I hope our listeners have learned something. And I hope, uh, you know, we have a, uh, a safe fair and, um, you know. Uh, uncontested, God bless, uh, election, uh, ahead of us in 2024.
[00:34:43] Thank you for your time, Professor Stewart. Sure enough. Likewise,
[00:34:45] Charles Stewart III: and this was fun. It’s a lot of fun.
[00:34:48] Joe Selvaggi: This has been another episode of Hubwonk. If you enjoyed today’s show, there are several ways to support Hubwonk and Pioneer Institute. It would be easier for you and better for us if you subscribe to Hubwonk on your iTunes podcatcher.
[00:35:00] It would make it easier for others to find us if you offer a five star rating or a favorable review. We’re of course grateful if you share Hubwonk with friends. If you have ideas or comments or suggestions for me about future episode topics, you’re welcome to email me at hubwonk@pioneerinstitute.org.
Please join me next week for a new episode of Hubwonk.
Joe Selvaggi talks with MIT Professor Charles Stewart III about the political party’s presidential candidate nomination process and what or who ultimately decides who is chosen.
Guest:
Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, where he has taught since 1985, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research and teaching areas include American politics congressional politics, elections, and American political development. His research about Congress touches on the historical development of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. His books of congressional research include Budget Reform Politics, Electing the Senate (with Wendy J. Schiller), Fighting for the Speakership (with Jeffery A. Jenkins), and Analyzing Congress. Professor Stewart is an established leader in the analysis of the performance of election systems and the quantitative assessment of election performance. Since 2001, Professor Stewart has been a member of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, a leading research effort that applies scientific analysis to questions about election technology, election administration, and election reform. He is currently the MIT director of the project. Working with the Pew Charitable Trusts, he helped with the development of Pew’s Elections Performance Index. Professor Stewart also provided advice to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. His research on measuring the performance of elections and polling place operations has been funded by Pew, the Democracy Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation. As part of this research, he was the co-editor (with Barry C. Burden) of The Measure of American Elections. In 2017, with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Joyce Foundation, Professor Stewart established the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, which applies scientific principles to how elections are studied and administered. In 2020, he partnered with Professor Nate Persily of the Stanford Law School to establish the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
“She’s a good girl. She helps me a lot. She has big, big dreams. I don’t have the money, but she has big dreams. I hope she’s going to get everything, but she works so hard. She works so hard in school.”
“Our family is needing to make some really big sacrifices because we believe this is important, and so, we’re basically going to do whatever it takes… Sometimes we look at each other and go ‘I don’t know if I can do it again another month…’”
“A lot of the families have to sacrifice and work multiple jobs… And just scraping together enough money to just make tuition, just the basics.”
“It is discriminatory, that parents who want to choose an alternative to public school for their children, would not in any way receive any compensation for that, whether it be tax credit, whether it be a voucher…”
In the 1840s, nativist movement leaders formed official political parties and local chapters of the national Native American Party (later the American Party), although they continued to be commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party. Politicians sought to insert provisions into state constitutions against Catholics who refused to renounce the pope. The Know-Nothing movement brought bigotry and hatred to a new level of violence and organization.
The party’s legacy endured in the post-Civil War era, with laws and constitutional amendments it supported, still today severely limiting parents’ educational choices. A federal constitutional amendment was proposed by Speaker of the House James Blaine prohibiting money raised by taxation in any State to be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations. These were then named the Blaine Amendments of 1875.
in recent decades, often in response to challenges to school choice programs, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated great interest in examining the issues of educational alternatives and attempts limit parental options. Massachusetts plays a key role in this debate. The Bay State was a key center of the Know-Nothing movement and has the oldest version of Anti-Aid Amendments in the nation, as well as a second such amendment approved in 1917. Two-fifths of Massachusetts residents are Catholic, and its Catholic schools outperform the state’s public schools, which are the best in the nation.
BOSTON – The U.S. immigration system, with visa pathways and restrictions that discourage business creation, hampers the nation’s ability to maximize the enormous benefits foreign-born graduates of U.S. colleges and universities can provide, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.
International students are responsible for nearly a quarter of all current billion-dollar private startups in the U.S. On average, those 143 companies each created 800 jobs and have together generated $591 billion in value.
“The founders of 25 of those 143 unicorns were educated at Massachusetts colleges and universities,” said Aidan Enright, who co-authored “International Students: Poorly Suited Pathways Stymie Formation of High-Growth Businesses” with Joshua Bedi. “In fact, 59 percent of the former international students who founded venture capital-backed startups in the commonwealth were educated here.”
The U.S. educated 28 percent of the world’s foreign students in 2001, but that number fell to 21 percent by 2021. In all, foreign students comprise about 5 percent of post-secondary enrollment in the U.S., compared to around 20 percent in places like Australia, Canada and the U.K.
International students are disproportionately represented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, whose graduates are in great demand. They earned 36 percent of all STEM degrees conferred by U.S. master’s programs during the 2021-22 academic year. Similarly, 46 percent of doctoral degrees in STEM fields were conferred to U.S. international students.
U.S. immigration policy has not fundamentally changed since early this century. Meanwhile, other developed countries made it a priority to attract and retain top global talent by reforming their immigration systems. Some offer a fast track to legal status and citizenship. Countries like the U.K. and Canada offer much more efficient visa application processing and entrepreneur-specific visas.
In terms of attracting foreign students, other countries offer more secure employment opportunities or even guaranteed employment after graduation.
In addition, visa processing often takes twice as long in the U.S. as in other countries. When more than 500 U.S. colleges and universities were surveyed about the declining share of foreign students in 2019, 87 percent mentioned visa processes, delays and denials.
The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign students to work for one-to-three years after graduation from a U.S. college or university, but employers are less likely to sponsor those in the program because of longer-term uncertainty about graduates’ ability to remain in the country. OPT applications generally take 213-426 days to process.
H-1B visas are targeted at immigrants with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, but strict caps mean that 80 percent of those seeking the visas were rejected by lottery in fiscal 2023 before their cases were even adjudicated.
“The U.S. immigration system likely delays foreign-born graduates from creating incorporated firms by as many as five years,” said Joshua Bedi. “We conservatively estimate that the system delayed the creation of 150,000 incorporated firms and 580,000 jobs between 2013 and 2021.”
Immigrants are up to twice as likely to start new businesses than those born in the U.S. and more likely to own a STEM firm. Immigrants holding a master’s degree are 57 percent more likely to own an incorporated high-growth business than their U.S.-born peers.
But our current system offers no visa pathways that are well suited to entrepreneurship. Student visas often expire before the holders can start a business, employer sponsorship requirements for the most accessible visas effectively bar immigrants from starting their own firms, and new ventures must be well established before founders can qualify to sponsor themselves or for other investor category visas that also require a high bar of capital investment.
The authors’ recommendations include creating an entrepreneurship-specific immigration lane, raising the cap for H-1B visas and speeding up the processing time for visa applications.
###
About the Authors
Aidan Enright is Pioneer’s Economic Research Associate. He previously served as a congressional intern with Senator Jack Reed and was a tutor in a Providence city school. Mr. Enright received a B.S. in Political Science and Economics from the College of Wooster.
Josh Bedi began his undergraduate career with the International Business Program at Mississippi State University and received a Bachelor of Business Administration in business economics and a Bachelor of Arts in German. At MississippiState, he worked with Germany Trade and Invest as a Service Industries Intern. He earned his Ph.D. and was a Mercatus Center Fellow at George Mason University. He is now working at Copenhagen Business School as a Postdoc in Entrepreneurship at the Department of Strategy and Innovation. There, he works under the Mærsk McKinney Møller Chair in Entrepreneurship.
This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and DFER’s Alisha Searcy interview Pulitzer Winner Kai Bird. Mr. Bird focuses on the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb.” He discusses Oppenheimer’s impact on history, his early life and education, and his academic achievements in quantum physics. Bird covers Oppenheimer’s political views, relationships, as well as his leadership in the Manhattan Project and his role in the Trinity test. He reflects on Oppenheimer’s ethical concerns about the atomic bomb’s devastation of WWII Japan and impact on the Cold War’s arms race. He examines Oppenheimer’s post-WWII career, including his involvement with the Atomic Energy Commission and the security clearance hearings that marked his decline. Mr. Bird continues with a discussion of Oppenheimer’s legacy and the lessons from his life about the interplay between science, technology, and politics. He shares the experience of his book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, being turned into an Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan. Mr. Bird closes by reading a passage from his Oppenheimer biography.
Stories of the Week: Albert discussed an article from Education Next on higher grade inflation on AP test scores; Alisha reviewed an article from The Globe & Mail sharing the positive influences of having early financial literacy courses for students.
Guest:
Kai Bird is an award-winning historian and journalist. Executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, he is the acclaimed author of biographies of John J. McCloy, of McGeorge and William Bundy, Robert Ames, and President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Bird won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (co-authored with Martin J. Sherwin), which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film Oppenheimer. His work has been honored with the BIO Award for his significant contributions to the art and craft of biography. He received his B.A. in history from Carleton College and an M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University.
Tweet of the Week: https://x.com/CyberNews/status/1812185223976964384
Click here to read a transcript
[00:00:00] Joe Selvaggi: This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi. Welcome to Hubwonk, a podcast of Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston. Unfolding in real time is the quadrennial process of choosing our next American president. While Article 2, Section 1 of our Constitution outlines the procedures for electing the president, it leaves out the specifics of how candidates should be nominated.
[00:00:25] In a process steeped in history, reform, and the vibrant energy of democracy, it has been the work of parties themselves. to shape the delicate balance among constituent voters, political professionals, and events of the day to determine the nominee. This year, the Democrat Party must also address their members concerns that their presumptive nominee, President Biden, may not have the ability to sustain a successful campaign, leaving many to consider late stage options for alternate nominees.
[00:00:56] How did our current primary system evolve? Who governs primary rules in states and at conventions? And who has the power to change the nominee as Election Day approaches? My guest today is the Keenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, Professor Charles Stewart III, who is the Founding Director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
[00:01:19] Professor Stewart’s work focuses on the historical developments of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. He will explain how our modern primary process has evolved, Who determines and enforces primary rules, and what choices are available when nominees are either unwilling or unable to successfully campaign for president?
[00:01:40] When I return, I’ll be joined by Director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, Professor Charles Stewart III. Okay, we’re back. This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi, and I’m now pleased to be joined by the Keenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, Professor Charles Stewart III. Welcome back to Hubwonk, Professor Stewart.
[00:01:59] Charles Stewart III: Oh, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:02] Joe Selvaggi: Well, it’s good to have you back. It was nearly four years ago when you last joined me. You helped us sort out the complexity of trying to run a presidential election during a pandemic. Uh, uh, we’ll say it, uh, you know, it turned out okay, I suppose.
[00:02:14] Uh, today we’re going to talk about, um, uh, the election before us. We’ve got a primary process, uh, we, I suppose the votes are in, but we’re, um, recording at a time during the, uh, Republican convention in Milwaukee and soon, uh, Democratic convention in, uh, Chicago. We’re going to pick, uh, the nominees for president for the.
[00:02:34] Uh, 2024 presidential election. For the benefit of our listeners, I want to break down, uh, the process of, uh, primaries. Uh, I also want to address the fact that whereas both candidates, um, are clear, uh, both parties and many members within those parties have concerns, um, uh, either that, uh, because of age or infirmity of, of candidates or, uh, we’re recording shortly after the attempted assassination of one of the candidates, uh, former President Donald Trump, Um, events of the day can intervene in an unforeseen and unpredictable way, so we want to understand how the process is supposed to work, but also, um, what can be done, um, mid race to adapt to, uh, changing, uh, events.
[00:03:19] So let’s start at the beginning. Let’s, let’s start simple. Uh, let’s talk about the pre presidential primaries. Who defines how primaries work, both at the federal or at the state level? Where is that set up?
[00:03:33] Charles Stewart III: Well, um, so you asked us to start simple, and in some ways, this is among the most complicated parts of things to answer about.
[00:03:41] Um, I mean, the simplest way to start is just by pointing out that that primaries of all sorts, but especially presidential primaries, Um, are owned by the parties. And, um, so in a fundamental way, the parties, um, create the, the, the broad, let’s say, guardrails around which, um, they govern, um, how the process will happen.
[00:04:07] Um, but even then, you know, the, the parties themselves are, um, you know, are complex because you have the national parties and then you have the state parties. We can talk, kind of get into the details about that, but the national parties set out the broad parameters of, say, what the, um, what the season is for holding the primaries, what the rules are about binding or not binding delegates, how many delegates, allocation of delegates, things like that.
[00:04:37] And the national parties could constrain the state parties There’s a lot of difference in the decisions that the state parties are allowed to make. Um, for instance, the national parties can leave it up to the states, state parties, in how they allocate delegates. Um, or they can be very prescriptive about, um, how they can do that.
[00:04:59] And the Democrats and Republicans are different in that regard. At the same time, there’s the states. And the states actually Run the primaries. Now, there are still a few states that have caucuses, and there the parties are entirely in charge, but if, um, but if you want to run a primary, in almost all cases, it’s going to be the state that runs the primary.
[00:05:22] And the state has the caucuses. Um, a certain practical, um, um, kind of influence on this if, um, and a good example is New Hampshire, right? New Hampshire has this law, which states it has to be the first primary in the nation. Um, the Democrats, um, a while back said, um, no, South Carolina is going to be the first primary in the nation.
[00:05:45] How is that resolved? Well, New Hampshire held a primary, first one in the nation. Democrats said, okay, fine, but you’re not going to elect any delegates to our convention at this, you know, and, and so it kind of created this kind of confusion about what was going on in New Hampshire in January, right? So, you have this dance, um, and there are other examples where this, where the state governments and the national parties or the state parties kind of play a game of chicken around who’s actually going to run things and how it’s going to, how it’s going to operate.
[00:06:16] Um, nonetheless, at the end of the day. Um, it’s really the parties who are in charge. Um, not the states or even the federal government, certainly, in, um, determining how things, you know, what the rules are going to be ultimately.
[00:06:34] Joe Selvaggi: So, we have 50 states, it’s a, uh, you know, a whole array of different, uh, systems in charge there, I’d say individual state parties.
[00:06:42] I would say, again, I don’t want to speak for all primary voters in this great country, but I’d say in general, we get the sense that Individual party members go out on primary day and vote, we count up the votes, and the winner, the one with the most votes, either gets all or a proportionate share of the state’s delegates. Has it always been this way? And if not, what came before, you know, how old is what we consider normal? Uh, how did we get here?
[00:07:10] Charles Stewart III: Yeah. Um, the, the system we have right now, I would say it, it well, um, that we can demarcate history, um, in 1972. And it’s really 72 forward and, and 72 came about in reaction to the 68 Democratic Convention.
[00:07:32] And, um, the reforms, the changes that happened around there focused on the Democratic convention, but the Republicans of that era pretty much came along. So, let’s say 68 and before 68 and before, there was a mixture of methods for choosing delegates to the conventions, the conventions. were seen really as the actors in making the, making the choices, um, and there had been, um, even in the 20th century, um, going into the dimension, not quite knowing who was going to be the nominee.
[00:08:08] So some states had caucuses, other states like New, again, New Hampshire, have been holding a primary for a century. So you had a kind of a mix before 72, so we have a 50.
[00:08:20] Charles Stewart III: Go ahead.
[00:08:20] Joe Selvaggi: So just, just curious, so we have a 50-year sort of, I, I mean convention as in standard that we’ve come become used to. Is it, was it perceived, and I You’re the expert, so I’m asking this candidly, was it, let’s say a move from where, you know, in the olden days, I suppose conventions serve to determine who the nominee would be.
[00:08:39] And I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it seems that conventions now are merely sort of rah-rah sessions where we just. You know, balloons fall out of the ceiling, and everybody cheers, so they don’t seem, they seem ceremonial, if you will, and again, I’m not putting words in your mouth, you tell me if I’m wrong. Why did we go from where we determine the candidate at a convention with, let’s say, party professionals, and now
[00:09:01] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, I think, I think it’s more ceremonial than not. Um, although, you know, kind of, it’s always been the case, and certainly for the past century, century and a half. That, um, incumbent presidents have basically been the most important player in their party.
[00:09:19] Um, and so it was pretty much all the time, although like Grant, I mean there are exceptions like President Grant, where party elders’ kind of push Grant out as an incumbent. Um, so it was celebratory like when Eisenhower was re nominated. Or, you know, those, those, those circumstances. But really, um, before 68, and certainly moving back further in time, um, in the 20th century into the 19th century, the parties could be thought about really as kind of holding companies of 50 state parties, some of which were run according to kind of quasi open um, Um, rules, but others were very much what we would imagine to be kind of, um, you know, kind of, kind of inside baseball, smoke filled rooms, sorts of, um, kind of a club.
[00:10:15] And, um, it’s not too far from reality to say in many of those states. Illinois was the most famous with Mayor Daley, Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago, but the boss, party boss of the entire state. very much. Right, really could deliver delegates, could deliver votes on election day. And so, you, and so it really was a mostly kind of 50 bull mooses in a room, um, bringing their delegates and they could pledge their entire delegation or some of their delegation if, you know, and so, so that was 1 thing.
[00:10:54] Um, there was a revolt publicly and certainly within the Democratic Party in the 68 conventions, which your listeners will know, even if they weren’t alive at the time, was a disaster in Chicago. Not only riots in the streets, but riots actually made it onto the floor of the convention and Herbert and Hubert Humphrey was nominated, despite the fact that he really didn’t run in primaries.
[00:11:22] Um, and, um, so, um, and that’s why I mentioned the McGovern Fraser Commission that really changed the rules of the Democratic Party and make it so that delegates would be chosen mostly by primaries and that they would be, um, required to vote for, you know, the, the candidate that had won that primary or that they were associated with.
[00:11:48] Certainly on the first ballot. Um, and, um, and so it’s, it’s kind of celebratory now, but it still is, well, it’s mostly more celebratory, but potentially, you Could be, um, you know, could make a decision.
[00:12:05] Joe Selvaggi: Well, that sets up my next question perfectly, which is to say, okay, we now have what we consider individual state, very sort of traditional elections.
[00:12:13] We count votes, and we figure out, you know, who won. Those delegates have their marching orders, right? Party members in their state have spoken, and they have to go to the convention with specific orders. Uh, they’re committed to that, that candidate. What I want to ask you is, you know, again, in the, let’s say, modern times, last 50 years, does that resolve things?
[00:12:31] It seems like, you know, we knew, um, uh, President Trump, or former President Trump would get the nomination, it seems, uh, and, uh, incumbent President Biden would. You know, have there been contested elections and if one, um, conventions, and if one were to be, what, what does that look like if, if there isn’t a clear winner walking into the, the, um, the, um, convention?
[00:12:54] Charles Stewart III: Well, are there contested, um, conventions? Um, there haven’t been, um, and certainly there have been, there have been instances where the, the kind of the second-place candidate has wanted to make it a contested election. And those were cases where the party was closely divided, and the famous cases were Ronald Reagan in 1976.
[00:13:15] Um, Ted Kennedy in 1980 in the Democratic primary, and then even, um, in, um, in 2016, um, there were efforts to derail, um, um, Donald Trump’s nomination and, um, kind of make the, the primary really the decider and, um, to throw it open, a so-called brokered convention. I mean, it turns out, though, that, you know, in this 50-year period, um, we’ve gone into both major party conventions.
[00:13:45] With somebody having a majority delegates, and that’s really hard to, um, dislodge, even in a situation as we find ourselves in right now, or even, you know, in 76 or 80 cases where the second-place candidate had a good argument to make that they would be the better candidate. Um, and, um, but once you’ve chosen people who are really loyal to the frontrunner, um, also, you know, the, the, the primary rules are such kind of the one who gets the most votes in states kind of gets a bonus.
[00:14:23] That’s especially true in the Republican Party, um, but also true in the Democratic Party. So, uh, you know, the frontrunner comes in with a cushion, even if their, their, you know, their support begins to kind of get soft, they’re going to have a big cushion. Um, and, um, and I’m sure we’ll talk about, um, Joe Biden in particular, but he’s going to come in with 90 percent of the delegates.
[00:14:46] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, so he could lose half of his, almost half of his delegates and still get the nomination.
[00:14:50] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed, so he has a comfortable lead and as you mentioned, this isn’t a case where we have a second-place person who’s, you know, sort of chomping at the bit, chomping at the bit, trying to say, okay, I might be better.
[00:14:59] We have really, I don’t know who second place would be really, but let’s, let’s unpack that a little further. You talked about, um, these, these delegates going to the convention. They’ve been committed. Um, I’ve read something, and in research and preparing for this, this conversation, that they’re bound in good conscience to vote for the person who they, was elected in their state.
[00:15:19] Okay, you know, there’s a lot of wiggle room in good conscience, because some would argue, again, I’m not putting, I’m not making any normative judgments, but some might say, we had no idea, um, uh, President Biden was, um, Aging the way he is, until let’s say the debate or recent gaffes, were we to have known that, we would have perhaps voted differently in our individual primaries.
[00:15:41] Now that we do know it, me as a delegate, I’m going to the convention in Chicago, do I have any prerogative? You know, I might like the guy, but, you know, conventions and primaries and parties are for winning elections. If I don’t think my guy can do it, where is, what prerogative do I have?
[00:15:59] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, well, here, here’s where the two parties are different, again, um, and, and as you said, I mean, really, I mean, we’re really talking about Biden, but it should be said, there’s something sometimes called the robot rule.
[00:16:09] The robot rules are, you know, basically bind a delegate to their person, kind of stand by my man or woman type of, type of rule that usually binds that pledged delegate to vote for their candidate on the first, on their first ballot. And in fact, like the Democratic Party rule, actually, I’m sorry, the Republican Party rules allow delegates to be replaced on the, you know, on the fly if they vote for the wrong person.
[00:16:39] or not, for those votes not to be recognized. And so, um, the Republicans still have, um, a strong version of the robot rule. The Democrats have a weak version of the robot rule, as you, as you just mentioned, which is that they, um, their delegates are required to vote in good conscience to reflect the sentiments, um, of those who elected them.
[00:17:03] But we have to recognize that the delegates at the state level or the congressional district level, however the states allocate them, are identified by the political parties, or I’m rather the candidates, as people who are loyal to those candidates. Um, and so I won’t say that, you know, the Biden delegates are like the Stepford Wives, but, um, you know, in that sense, but you don’t get to be a Biden delegate unless you’re willing really to go to Matt for Joe.
[00:17:37] And I think it’s kind of, um, really wishful thinking to imagine that there’s going to be really kind of a come to Jesus moment, um, in the Democratic, um, convention, unless Biden himself instructs his delegates not to vote for him and to find somebody else.
[00:17:58] Joe Selvaggi: So, uh, accepting that, that eventuality, if Biden doesn’t say, I’m sorry guys, uh, I’m going to pass the baton, uh, if he wants the nomination, there’s almost no choice, conscience or otherwise, for delegates to change horses this late in the race.
[00:18:13] Charles Stewart III: Oh yeah, no, they’re, um, yeah, they’re, they’re, they got their guy. Got their guy.
[00:18:19] Joe Selvaggi: Right, okay, so we talked about sort of primaries, we’re leading up to conventions, what about, okay, we have a nomination. Um, but, current events happen. I’m going to You know, again, we keep talking about President Biden, but, uh, the horrible, um, uh, event that happened past weekend, uh, uh, uh, assassination attempt.
[00:18:36] Look, these guys are both 178, 181, actually at our tables, hey, it could be a heart attack. Where is it that, um, let’s say, parties and process, and we’re still not at election day, were something terrible to happen? Either they you know, become incapacitated or die. What happens, let’s say, as we approach Election Day?
[00:18:54] Where, what, where does the party, where do delegates, are these all, you know, active participants? Until Election Day or something else happens, if it happens after the convention.
[00:19:06] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, um, it kind of depends on how close you are to Election Day. And this is where, um, kind of the, kind of the, I won’t call it loosey goosey, but kind of the ambiguous nomination.
[00:19:20] The role of the parties comes up against, um, our constitution, quite frankly, national, um, laws. I mean, Congress has mandated, ah, ah, so we’re coming back to our discussion four years ago about voting during the, during, um, the pandemic, and what I was saying four years ago, I don’t know if I said it, um, on this, on this, um, broadcast, but even if the zombies are in the street, um, And the, uh, and the asteroids are raining down on us on election day.
[00:19:52] We’re going to have an election. We have no choice, right? And so even if the, you know, one of the presidential candidates gets hit by a bus the day before the election, we’re going to have the election the next day. And the only person for that party on the ballot will be that person, right? So we can’t, like, most of the rest of the democratic world, we couldn’t postpone.
[00:20:15] We don’t have any of that flexibility. Um, and that’s where I think. Um, a lot of the ambiguities and the chaos would emerge, um, because now if you’re really close to me, if you’re kind of far from the election, like, if it were to happen, like, like the week after the, after the conventions. There would be time for, you know, the national committees have mechanisms for naming replacements for their nominees.
[00:20:47] And the best, um, historical example was in 1972, when the Democrats had to replace their vice presidential nominees, the DNC, that, that, that replaced them under the party rules. And the party rules have ways of replacing nominees. Um, but if the ballots have been printed, and if people are already voting, Then you’re left with a position of people voting for somebody who is incapacitated or is no longer alive, and then what to do.
[00:21:18] Um, and, um, I think there we’re up against, um, norms and what the laws are in the states about what electors can do. Um, yeah, so I’ll stop there. I mean, there’s details that we can, we can dig into, but that’s, that’s, I’ll stop for a moment right there.
[00:21:42] Joe Selvaggi: Well, let’s, let’s not have such a grim possibility, you know, scenario play out.
[00:21:46] Let’s just talk about, you know, there’s certainly a healthy movement to try to persuade people. Uh, President Biden to step aside and perhaps let someone, uh, let’s say, more viable or more electable, uh, take his place. There’s a lot of question about, uh, money. A lot of people give money to the actual president himself.
[00:22:05] This is not super PACs or, uh, political, uh, committees. These are, the president himself has a, a war chest. I think all in is something like 240 million. That’s people writing checks to him or his re election. What happens to those monies were a leading candidate to say, you know, I’m sorry, uh, I’m gonna, you know, retire at the end of my term.
[00:22:28] Where does that go?
[00:22:30] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, it kind of depends. I mean, it depends on when they, when they bow out. Um, if they are not the nominee, like, um, so I mean, so let’s just focus because we know what we’re talking about. Let’s Biden. He woke up this morning and says, okay, I’m out. He’s not the nominee. Um, he would have to give the money back, um, um, unless, ah, the campaign committee is the Biden Harris.
[00:23:03] And so, um, Harris, Kamala Harris would inherit. So it makes a difference here that we have a joint committee of a presidential and a vice presidential candidate together. Um, and so that would allow Harris to continue, but if the party doesn’t nominate her, then that’s a problem. Um, the other thing to consider is that You know, let’s say in a couple of weeks, and keep in mind, the Democrats are, look like they’re moving forward on their plan to do a virtual roll call in the next week or two, so Biden may be the formal nominee sooner than the convention.
[00:23:48] Once he’s nominated, then those funds, it’s no longer a nomination fund, it’s a general election fund, and the general, again, if it’s Kamala Harris, Who ends up replacing him, then that’s one thing, but if it’s not, then there are limits on what, um, that committee can do with those funds. He could only give 2, 000 to the, to the, to the other, um, um, um, candidate, you know, to who to judge or whoever becomes the nominee.
[00:24:26] Um, the rest of the money would have to go to, like, a super PAC. He could create a leadership pack, um, that could pour money into the election in, um, uncoordinated in theory. Um, but um, but not know kind of directly part of the campaign and the new nominee would need to start RA fundraising, um, on their own.
[00:24:54] Um, we hear reports that there’s a bunch of wealthy donors sitting on $90 million. Um, and maybe they would disgorge that 90 million for, uh, Mayor Pete or whoever. Um, but, um, it would be kind of starting from a cold start, um, for anybody else, especially if it’s not Kamala Harris.
[00:25:14] Joe Selvaggi: Yeah, it seems like the party would have to be rather desperate.
[00:25:17] So, to be clear, I just want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. If, uh, Biden steps aside and the convention, uh, chooses someone, if it’s Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, she would be entitled to the money that’s been raised. That’s my, I mean, that’s my understanding and listening to the election lawyers. But if it’s anyone else, uh, whereas they could, they as candidates or former candidates, um, you know, can’t use it. You know, because they’re not candidates. They could create their own super PAC. Why wouldn’t the money that was given, and again, we know from campaign finance laws that, you know, every one of those donations is documented somewhere.
[00:25:55] Why don’t they have to give it back? In a sense, why is it now the prerogative of the candidate who’s no longer the candidate to choose where that money goes? Wouldn’t it have to be given back to the donor?
[00:26:03] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, no, that’s a good question. I don’t know why, but from everything I’ve read from the election lawyers, that they make this distinction, um, about, um, you know, before and after, um, nomination, and, um, that it belongs, I mean, it now belongs to the, um, to the committee.
[00:26:18] Committee could give it back, um, for sure, um, And, um, but my suspicion would be that, um, it would be rolled into some sort of political operation in support of the nominee, the new
[00:26:33] Joe Selvaggi: nominee. So our conversation is talking about the nomination getting up to the, uh, the election. Um, I want to, I don’t want to bring up a sore subject, but of course now November 5th, as you say, is coming no matter what.
[00:26:43] Zombies? Asteroids? It’s coming. Get ready. So someone’s going to get elected. But we had, again, I don’t want to bring up a sore topic, but in 2020, a lot of, um, disagreement about the prerogatives then when we’re in, again, now this is governed by statutory law. This is no longer the prerogatives of, of parties.
[00:26:59] This is the real thing. It’s a real election. Individual states, as, as we know, um, it’s not people that elect presidents, it’s states that elect presidents. Each of those states send electors, uh, that have been determined by that state’s constitutional obligation to send those electors. What, you know, we had a lot of disagreement.
[00:27:16] Maybe it wasn’t legitimate disagreement. Some disagreement in 2020, how those electors must then ultimately go in and be counted for the election. Is there any disagreement, again, with the wisdom of reflection? For years, any ambiguity or any changes in the law that have sort of shored up our, our system such that we’re not going to have any more debate as to, you know, prerogatives of actual electors, not, not delegates, these are electors.
[00:27:42] Charles Stewart III: Right, right, right, exactly. Well, um, um, debate? No, there’s always going to be debate. Um, actual actions? Um, um, yes, we’re in a better, um, we’re in a better situation now than we were four years ago, and that’s because a couple of years ago, um, in a fit of bipartisanship, um, Congress passed and President Biden signed, um, the Electoral Count Reform Act, Um, which also had a Transition Act component to it as well, which also dealt with, you know, the kerfuffle over whether Biden could start his transition, um, before the inauguration.
[00:28:21] The Electoral Count Act addresses, um, many of the issues that arose in 2020. It starts by specifying That the vice president’s role is purely ministerial. Um, no decisions about who gets, who gets to count or anything like that. He’s purely presiding over a counting of votes. Um, there are, it’s harder to make a congressional, um, challenge to votes.
[00:28:55] Um, it can only be given for clause and instead of 1 member from each chamber objecting, you need 1 5th of each chamber to object to the counting of any votes. Um, states cannot change their method of election after election day. That’s been, that’s been settled because you recall 4 years ago, there were some Attempts to get the state legislatures to elect, um, um, electors and that’s been foreclosed.
[00:29:27] Um, there are stricter, um, um, deadlines for certifying elections and, um, and there is now a provision if a candidate is unhappy with certification, or if there’s any, um, any legal challenge to certification, um, um, you can impanel in that state a special, I believe it’s a 3 judge court to, um, rule on those challenges.
[00:29:59] So, um, so there’s a belief among the legal community that, that this kind of covers most of the, you know, the problems that arose and at least solves those problems. Well, no, there could be new problems in the future we haven’t anticipated. There’s also an argument that has been made that you can’t bind a future Congress.
[00:30:20] And so that’s why I say it’s not going to cut off debate. Right. Um, there’s still going to be people claiming if they’re unhappy. Well, we can go into, um, January 6th and we, or whatever the date will be, and we can, um, you know, we can, overturn this election. But the, the, the black letter of the law is pretty clear, um, to try to foreclose a lot of
[00:30:45] Joe Selvaggi: There may be all new, different Krakens to set loose, uh, this, this time.
[00:30:51] Charles Stewart III: There’s always a new Kraken.
[00:30:53] Joe Selvaggi: So, uh, we’re getting close to the end of our time together. I just want to ask sort of a meta question. I think sort of the sentiment bouncing around, particularly among Democratic circles, is sort of, look, Biden, you know, you know, is not the best candidate. We make the rules, we can break the rules.
[00:31:08] I want to get meta on you. It’s like if, if, if People believe that rules are just something we’ve created and therefore infinitely malleable. What is it about elections or just rules that, you know, sort of constrain our ability to change them on the fly? Isn’t there something within us, maybe as Americans or maybe as human beings, where whatever the rules may be, you got to stick by them through the, through the entire process?
[00:31:32] Match. You can’t change the game, rules of the game, mid stride. Is that real or is that just my perception as sort of a conservative guy who doesn’t like, uh, you know, messing with the controls, you know, while you’re still flying?
[00:31:47] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, yeah, you know, look, and something I teach, teach my students, um, that, um, you know, the rule of law is a very strong principle in this country.
[00:31:56] And certainly it’s been kind of bandied about over the last, you know, several years. But, um, speaking about conservatives, go back to the founding, go back to Locke, go back to Montesquieu, go back to all those people, right? What, you know, it justifies, you know, the rule of law is really an important thing, and it’s really drilled into Americans.
[00:32:19] We’re not quite Germans in that sense, right? Um, we’re kind of, we do see some flexibility, maybe other places won’t, But fairness in the United States, um, is, is oftentimes judged in terms of following the rules and then, you know, to use sports metaphors, you know, winning or losing based on everybody playing on the same playing field and knowing the rules ahead of the game.
[00:32:47] That’s kind of the American way of doing it. If we were. Um, British, you know, we might be a little more sophisticated or whatever, cosmopolitan about, um, the use of rules and might understand a bit more that, you know, um, that politics is about power and that it’s sometimes okay to bend the rules to get power, but that’s really kind of, that’s not the American way.
[00:33:14] Yeah,
[00:33:15] Joe Selvaggi: so you made reference to your students. I want to, before we close, I want to give an opportunity to plug your work at MIT with the Election Science and Data Center. Um, what kind of work do you do? And can our listeners, uh, look it up and learn something? Or is there some sort of repository of research and information about elections in general?
[00:33:33] that they could access, uh, let’s say, online.
[00:33:36] Charles Stewart III: Oh, absolutely. Um, go to our website. Um, we, like everyone else, have a website, um, electionlab, one word, electionlab. mit. edu. And, um, we do research, um, ranging from the geeky to the publicly accessible. We write explainers. Um, we write commentary about a number of things.
[00:33:57] We will be following the 2024 election very closely and be writing, um, kind of more kind of geeky, number crunchy analyses about what’s going on. We’ll be following on the election skeptics. Um, and I’m trying to kind of debunk the kind of the weirder and crazier takes on the American election. So in any case, electionlab.mit.edu.
[00:34:22] Joe Selvaggi: That’s wonderful. Well, good. I promise I will be checking on that often in this crazy time of election. So I really appreciate your time, Professor Stewart. You know, I hope our listeners have learned something. And I hope, uh, you know, we have a, uh, a safe fair and, um, you know. Uh, uncontested, God bless, uh, election, uh, ahead of us in 2024.
[00:34:43] Thank you for your time, Professor Stewart. Sure enough. Likewise,
[00:34:45] Charles Stewart III: and this was fun. It’s a lot of fun.
[00:34:48] Joe Selvaggi: This has been another episode of Hubwonk. If you enjoyed today’s show, there are several ways to support Hubwonk and Pioneer Institute. It would be easier for you and better for us if you subscribe to Hubwonk on your iTunes podcatcher.
[00:35:00] It would make it easier for others to find us if you offer a five star rating or a favorable review. We’re of course grateful if you share Hubwonk with friends. If you have ideas or comments or suggestions for me about future episode topics, you’re welcome to email me at hubwonk@pioneerinstitute.org.
Please join me next week for a new episode of Hubwonk.
Joe Selvaggi talks with MIT Professor Charles Stewart III about the political party’s presidential candidate nomination process and what or who ultimately decides who is chosen.
Guest:
Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, where he has taught since 1985, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research and teaching areas include American politics congressional politics, elections, and American political development. His research about Congress touches on the historical development of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. His books of congressional research include Budget Reform Politics, Electing the Senate (with Wendy J. Schiller), Fighting for the Speakership (with Jeffery A. Jenkins), and Analyzing Congress. Professor Stewart is an established leader in the analysis of the performance of election systems and the quantitative assessment of election performance. Since 2001, Professor Stewart has been a member of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, a leading research effort that applies scientific analysis to questions about election technology, election administration, and election reform. He is currently the MIT director of the project. Working with the Pew Charitable Trusts, he helped with the development of Pew’s Elections Performance Index. Professor Stewart also provided advice to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. His research on measuring the performance of elections and polling place operations has been funded by Pew, the Democracy Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation. As part of this research, he was the co-editor (with Barry C. Burden) of The Measure of American Elections. In 2017, with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Joyce Foundation, Professor Stewart established the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, which applies scientific principles to how elections are studied and administered. In 2020, he partnered with Professor Nate Persily of the Stanford Law School to establish the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
Study: U.S. Immigration System Limits Benefits Foreign Students Could Provide
/in Economic Opportunity, Economic Opportunity, Immigrant Entrepreneurship, News, Pioneer Research, Press Releases: Economic Opportunity /by Editorial StaffBOSTON – The U.S. immigration system, with visa pathways and restrictions that discourage business creation, hampers the nation’s ability to maximize the enormous benefits foreign-born graduates of U.S. colleges and universities can provide, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.
International students are responsible for nearly a quarter of all current billion-dollar private startups in the U.S. On average, those 143 companies each created 800 jobs and have together generated $591 billion in value.
“The founders of 25 of those 143 unicorns were educated at Massachusetts colleges and universities,” said Aidan Enright, who co-authored “International Students: Poorly Suited Pathways Stymie Formation of High-Growth Businesses” with Joshua Bedi. “In fact, 59 percent of the former international students who founded venture capital-backed startups in the commonwealth were educated here.”
The U.S. educated 28 percent of the world’s foreign students in 2001, but that number fell to 21 percent by 2021. In all, foreign students comprise about 5 percent of post-secondary enrollment in the U.S., compared to around 20 percent in places like Australia, Canada and the U.K.
International students are disproportionately represented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, whose graduates are in great demand. They earned 36 percent of all STEM degrees conferred by U.S. master’s programs during the 2021-22 academic year. Similarly, 46 percent of doctoral degrees in STEM fields were conferred to U.S. international students.
U.S. immigration policy has not fundamentally changed since early this century. Meanwhile, other developed countries made it a priority to attract and retain top global talent by reforming their immigration systems. Some offer a fast track to legal status and citizenship. Countries like the U.K. and Canada offer much more efficient visa application processing and entrepreneur-specific visas.
In terms of attracting foreign students, other countries offer more secure employment opportunities or even guaranteed employment after graduation.
In addition, visa processing often takes twice as long in the U.S. as in other countries. When more than 500 U.S. colleges and universities were surveyed about the declining share of foreign students in 2019, 87 percent mentioned visa processes, delays and denials.
The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign students to work for one-to-three years after graduation from a U.S. college or university, but employers are less likely to sponsor those in the program because of longer-term uncertainty about graduates’ ability to remain in the country. OPT applications generally take 213-426 days to process.
H-1B visas are targeted at immigrants with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, but strict caps mean that 80 percent of those seeking the visas were rejected by lottery in fiscal 2023 before their cases were even adjudicated.
“The U.S. immigration system likely delays foreign-born graduates from creating incorporated firms by as many as five years,” said Joshua Bedi. “We conservatively estimate that the system delayed the creation of 150,000 incorporated firms and 580,000 jobs between 2013 and 2021.”
Immigrants are up to twice as likely to start new businesses than those born in the U.S. and more likely to own a STEM firm. Immigrants holding a master’s degree are 57 percent more likely to own an incorporated high-growth business than their U.S.-born peers.
But our current system offers no visa pathways that are well suited to entrepreneurship. Student visas often expire before the holders can start a business, employer sponsorship requirements for the most accessible visas effectively bar immigrants from starting their own firms, and new ventures must be well established before founders can qualify to sponsor themselves or for other investor category visas that also require a high bar of capital investment.
The authors’ recommendations include creating an entrepreneurship-specific immigration lane, raising the cap for H-1B visas and speeding up the processing time for visa applications.
###
About the Authors
Aidan Enright is Pioneer’s Economic Research Associate. He previously served as a congressional intern with Senator Jack Reed and was a tutor in a Providence city school. Mr. Enright received a B.S. in Political Science and Economics from the College of Wooster.
Josh Bedi began his undergraduate career with the International Business Program at Mississippi State University and received a Bachelor of Business Administration in business economics and a Bachelor of Arts in German. At MississippiState, he worked with Germany Trade and Invest as a Service Industries Intern. He earned his Ph.D. and was a Mercatus Center Fellow at George Mason University. He is now working at Copenhagen Business School as a Postdoc in Entrepreneurship at the Department of Strategy and Innovation. There, he works under the Mærsk McKinney Møller Chair in Entrepreneurship.
Pulitzer Winner Kai Bird on Robert Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb
/in Education, Featured, Learning Curve, News, Podcast /by Editorial StaffRead a transcript
The Learning Curve Kai Bird
[00:00:00] Alisha Searcy: Welcome back to the Learning Curve podcast. I’m your cohost, Alisha Thomas Searcy, and joined this week, of course, by Albert Cheng. Hello, Albert. How’s it going? Hey, going all right. Going all right. How about you? Doing great. Of course, I think our listeners want to know, do we have a baby yet?
[00:00:37] Albert Cheng: No, I mean, I’m here, so I think that gives it away.
[00:00:40] Alisha Searcy: That’s true. So we’re all watching and wishing you and your family well, and I’m sure by the next time we talk, we’ll have a new family member to the Learning Curve podcast. How about that?
[00:00:52] Albert Cheng: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. I’ll let you guys know when I show back up, you know, on the show.
[00:00:56] Alisha Searcy: Excellent. Very, very exciting.
[00:00:58] Well, let’s jump in to our stories of the week. I will start, I found a really interesting, it’s really an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, and it’s entitled Financial Education in Schools is a Good Start, but the Psychology of Money is Complex and Students Need Help Navigating the Real World. So I loved this story for a couple of reasons, or this piece I should say.
[00:01:24] Number one, because I’m a big fan of financial literacy in our schools, and as you probably know, Albert, that doesn’t happen in our K 12 system, and you know, when you talk to kids about why they Some kids don’t like school, they talk about how it’s not meaningful, that they’re not learning things that they can use in real life.
[00:01:43] And so this conversation about financial education and financial literacy, I think is so important. And frankly, this piece is about the psychology of teaching that. In the U. S., I just want to get to a place where all of our kids are learning, you know, financial literacy and financial education. So, we’ve got a ways to go.
[00:02:02] But one of the things that is interesting about this article, it talks about the need to include the psychology of money with this financial literacy. So a recent study of middle school students in Italy found compelling evidence that financial education can have a causal impact on financial behaviors.
[00:02:21] The study showed that students who took a financial literacy course were significantly more likely to make better decisions and money related tasks compared to a control group. So of course we know that. But the writer goes on to say that researchers have uncovered numerous ways in which human psychology influences our financial choices, often leading us astray from what traditional economic theory would predict.
[00:02:46] And so as an example, he talks about this notion of the pain of giving up consumption today is magnified precisely because it’s felt now. And so in other words, we know, for example, right, in our age group that we need to be saving in terms of our 401k or Whatever your financial saving tool is for retirement, but it’s hard to do that when you’re also faced with, you know, can I go on this vacation this week or next week or, you know, in a few months, right?
[00:03:15] And so the joy, giving up the joy that you would have now and experiencing some kind of pain, right, in some ways, in terms of the sacrifice, for what you will get in the future. And so, it’s really interesting that it’s true. You need those financial skills. You need to know how to save and how to budget and how to use a credit card and what those things are.
[00:03:37] But he’s arguing that you also need to learn the psychology of that, so that you can make better decisions. for your life if you understand the psychology of that. So, I thought this was really, really good. And one example that he gives is, you know, teaching strategies for decision making, such as setting up automatic savings transfers to help avoid the influence of present bias, right?
[00:03:57] You get that check, you’re like, I’m going to do all these things. But if you don’t see that money because it’s already in your savings account, then it takes away that savings. That psychological challenge that you’re having with making that decision. And so, he closes by saying, in the world of personal finance, knowing what to do is only half the battle.
[00:04:15] Understanding why we often fail to do it and how to overcome those obstacles may be the key to truly improving financial well being for generations to come. So again, very good piece, very good conversation. I hope that we’ll have in a lot of our schools in the U. S. in terms of not just teaching financial literacy.
[00:04:34] But the psychology that goes behind it so that we can make good financial decisions for the right reasons, right, for the present and in the future.
[00:04:43] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a great article. I was drawn to that article as well. And I’ll make two comments. One is I’ve weighed in on math education a bunch on this show in the past.
[00:04:52] And while I’m all for teaching the practical application of math, I hope math education doesn’t get just reduced to that. So, I hope we figure out a way to to, you know, teach financial literacy and these kinds of practical skills while not losing out on some of the more, shall I say, beautiful parts of mathematics that I think kids should uncover.
[00:05:10] But I think, I think that can be done. We just have to kind of figure that out. And you know, I really like the emphasis that you’re making and that the article is making on the psychology of it. You know, this, this actually, when I was kind of reviewing this article, it reminded me of We talked about classical education a lot and a lot of these schools that are focusing on virtue and character.
[00:05:26] And I think that’s another piece of it too. You know, how do we become the kinds of people that use money well and can have discernment over what we should be investing in and not investing in. You know, do we have the character to not completely to be, you know, to be completely self-centered in what we have and to be generous?
[00:05:44] And I think these are all parts of the conversation too, in getting kids, and even us adults, you know, to really use money well and to think of others. And as we, you know, pursue our good, the good of our families, the good of our neighbors, I think there’s a lot to impact there.
[00:06:00] Alisha Searcy: Yeah, that’s such an excellent point. Thank you for that.
[00:06:03] Albert Cheng: So actually, the article I want to talk about is, it’s, there’s some math in it, but it’s not all about math. It actually comes from our friend Iris Stoll over at Education Next, and he was pointing readers to some data in his article about AP testing. And so, he begins the article and notes that, for instance, in the AP US History exam, about 25 percent of students who took the test earned a 4 or 5 in 2023, and this year, this past year, 2024, That pass rate, or at least the students getting a 4 or 5, it soared to 46%, so almost doubled.
[00:06:42] And what Ira wants to, is arguing in his article is this concern over, I know we talked about grade inflation with GPAs but AP test score, inflation, so to speak. And he outlines a number of, I guess, pressures that are maybe causing the college board to do this. You know, some of it is trying to increase pass rates generally, particularly for students who have been disadvantaged in the past.
[00:07:10] Certainly pressure to kind of incentivize school or students to pursue higher ed. And, you know, while I’m all for seeing improvement in, in AP test scores and closing of outcome gaps in education, you know, I think he’s got a point here. We’ve got to be worried about whether these gains in the scores are actually real learning and so I think this is something to think about and look into some more. So, I just want to flag this article for our readers to think about.
[00:07:36] Alisha Searcy: Yeah, I’m, I agree with you. This is a big thing for me. And as you all know, I work as the president of the Southern Region for Democrats for Education Reform. And one of our pillars is accountability.
[00:07:46] And I just get really fired up when we talk about lowering the standards. I want us to tell kids the truth about where they are in terms of their academic achievement, how much they know, their levels of proficiency. And I certainly get the equity issue here and making sure kids are prepared and that the tests are equitable in terms of the way that they are implemented and administered and the questions and all of that.
[00:08:10] I also believe that when you see this level of inflation, whether it’s grades, or whether it’s in AP test scores, we have to be honest with where we are so that we can tell kids and educators the truth about their progress.
[00:08:25] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Well, let’s see as people dig into this data, um, let’s see what we find out.
[00:08:30] You know, hopefully we can work this out for the good of our kids.
[00:08:33] Alisha Searcy: Yeah. And if students are improving at those levels, then wonderful. You know, tell us what you’re doing in your schools so that we can spread that learning all across the country. So hopefully some of those are mixed in there as well. How about that?
[00:08:45] Oh yeah. Well, we’re super excited about our guest for today. It’s Mr. Kai Bird. He’s a Pulitzer Prize winning author of American Prometheus, The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, on which the Academy Award winning film Oppenheimer was based. So, stay tuned.
[00:09:14] Kai Bird is an award-winning historian and journalist, Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography. He is the acclaimed author of biographies of John J. McCloy, of McGeorge and William Bundy, Robert Ames, and President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Bird won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for American Prometheus, The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Co-author by Martin J. Sherwin, which was adapted into the Academy Award winning film Oppenheimer. His work has been honored with the Bayeux Award for his significant contributions to the art and craft of biography. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Carleton College and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University.
[00:10:00] Welcome to the show, Mr. Bird.
[00:10:02] Albert Cheng: It’s a pleasure to have you on The Learning Curve.
[00:10:05] Kai Bird: Thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure too.
[00:10:08] Albert Cheng: Let’s start with a brief overview of Oppenheimer, along with the late Martin Sherwin. You co-authored the Pulitzer Prize winning American Prometheus, the Triumph and Tragedy of J.
[00:10:18] Robert Oppenheimer. I think listeners are familiar with him, but in case they’re not, you know, the theoretical physicist and leader of the Manhattan Project. And your biography was also the basis for Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award winning film Oppenheimer. So, could you just share briefly an overview of why Oppenheimer is among the most influential figures in human history?
[00:10:39] Kai Bird: Well, you know, he was born in 1904 and in 1945, he gave us the atomic age, which we’re always going to be living with. And it’s a dangerous thing. He gave humanity the possibility of destroying all civilization and destroying human existence. And we’re, 79 years later now, we’re still living with the bomb, but we’ll always be living with it.
[00:11:09] So that’s the major reason that is As Christopher Nolan, the director of the Oppenheimer film, once said in an interview, he’s probably the most important man who ever lived, precisely because he gave us the atomic age. But there are several other reasons why he’s, his life is relevant to our own times.
[00:11:29] What’s remarkable about his life in part is that nine years after he became America’s most famous scientist. He was brought down and humiliated in this terrible 1954 security hearing where his personal life was ripped apart and investigated and his loyalty and patriotism as an American citizen was questioned.
[00:11:56] He was stripped of his security clearance and then publicly humiliated, leaving the suggestion in the minds of Americans that this famous scientist might have been disloyal or maybe even a spy. He becomes the chief celebrity victim of the McCarthy era. And of course, we’re still living with the bomb, but we’re also still living with the consequences of McCarthyism, you can see it in our divisive politics today, and Oppenheimer symbolizes that.
[00:12:30] Finally, I would argue that he is important, his life is important to understand because, precisely because he was a scientist, because he was on the cutting edge of quantum physics in the 1920s. And we, today, live in the 21st century, we’re in a society, a civilization drenched in science and technology, and yet many of our citizens, our common citizens, are ignorant of the scientific process of experimentation and hypothesis and fact, evidence, experimentation, and they distrust science.
[00:13:15] And they distrust scientists, yet we are dependent on science and technology in the society we live in, and we should actually be paying more attention to scientists as public intellectuals. But precisely what happened to Oppenheimer in 1954 sent a message to, you know, scientists everywhere to beware of getting out of their narrow lane, right?
[00:13:41] And pretending to be. Experts to be able to weigh in on public policy or politics, and this is a tragedy since we’re again, as we speak, on the cusp of yet another scientific revolution, artificial intelligence, and we need scientists of the caliber and public intellectual caliber of someone like Oppenheimer to explain to us the choices we face.
[00:14:08] So, these are three powerful reasons why the Oppenheimer biography is so important. You know, living with the bomb, we’ve become too complacent, understanding our politics and McCarthyism, the legacy of McCarthyism, and the need for scientists as public intellectuals.
[00:14:27] Albert Cheng: Well, let’s get into Oppenheimer’s life in a bit more detail, and let’s begin with his earlier years.
[00:14:33] He said of himself, quote, I was an unctuous, repulsively good little boy, end quote. So could you discuss Oppenheimer’s family background, his early life and education, any formative intellectual interests and experiences, which, which you actually, you describe in your book. as quote, a uniquely American offshoot of Judaism, the ethical culture society that celebrated rationalism and a progressive brand of secular humanism. So, unpack that quote and tell us a bit about his earlier years.
[00:15:04] Kai Bird: Well, as I said, he was born in 1904 in New York City. His father was a German immigrant. His mother was of German ancestry, though born in Baltimore. They are both of Jewish ancestry, but by the time Oppenheimer was born, they were very much part of the Ethical Culture Society, which was indeed an offshoot of Reformed Judaism.
[00:15:26] And was sort of a secular religion that emphasized science, among other things, but ethics and progressive politics, you know, they revered books and study, and education and young Oppenheimer was Schooled at the Ethical Culture School, which is today still in existence, known as the Fieldston School in New York City.
[00:15:52] And you know, he was raised in very privileged circumstances. His father was sort of a self-made man who made a fortune on the clothing business. And his mother was a art collector and painter herself. And they lived in a 10-room apartment on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. He grew up with a cook and a maid and a chauffeur for the car.
[00:16:19] And, when he was a teenager, his father bought him a beautiful schooner sailing boat. He lived in quite privileged circumstances. He finished high school at the Ethical Culture School and then went on to Harvard, finished three years studying chemistry. He was always, you know, quite interested in science and chemistry and gradually physics.
[00:16:45] And then he went off to Cambridge, England, to study in graduate school. Thought he wanted to be an experimental physicist. in the laboratory doing experiments and he turned out he was quite awkward with his hands and physically awkward and not just not very good at it. So, he had his first confrontation with failure as a young man in Cambridge, England.
[00:17:11] But he discovered the sort of early debates surrounding the discovery of quantum physics and within a year he was off to Göttingen, Germany, where he studied quantum physics under Max Born, a German physicist.
[00:17:30] Albert Cheng: Well, let’s press into his education a bit more. As you mentioned, he attended Harvard, University of Göttingen, and then he eventually joins the physics faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, which is my alma mater.
[00:17:43] And so he made, as you’ve been alluding to, these contributions, significant ones to physics, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, even, tell us a bit more about his scientific work and in particular, how it really set the stage for him to lead the Manhattan Project.
[00:17:59] Kai Bird: He came to Berkeley in the late twenties and founded essentially Berkeley’s department of theoretical physics.
[00:18:10] Berkeley quickly became the sort of, on the cutting edge of the study of quantum physics in America. You know, it had been discovered in Germany, but it brought the quantum to America as such. And initially, you know, he, he never managed more than a handful of graduate students. Initially he wasn’t a very charismatic teacher, but he, he transformed himself into that.
[00:18:34] He learned to teach, learned how to lecture and acquired a, uh, Quite a following of students who just loved his teaching methods and his personality. He was quite intense, but he was also sort of, and I think this is what made him a good physicist, is that he had other interests. He wasn’t just interested in science per se.
[00:18:58] He loved the poetry of T. S. Eliot. He liked the novels of Hemingway. He was somewhat of a polymath. He was raised in ethical culture. Jewish offshoot, but he also suddenly in the early 1930s, he started reading Hindu mystic scriptures and became so interested in Hindu mysticism that he began to teach himself Sanskrit so that he could read the Gita in the original.
[00:19:31] So, you know, he was a polymath, and I think this is what helped him to sort of have the imagination to ask imaginative questions in the field of science and astrophysics, as you mentioned. But he was somewhat of a dilettante in his scientific, uh, work. You know, so for instance, he, in 1939, wrote, co-wrote with a graduate student of his, a very short paper positing the theoretical possibility that the universe was inhabited by black holes, ancient stars that had turned on themselves and collapsed out of gravitational pull.
[00:20:11] And, you know, there was no physical evidence for black holes in 1939, but. He asked himself the right questions and had the imagination to explore the subject and math itself and his understanding of quantum made it possible for him to sort of be the first to do so. physicists to posit the existence of black holes, which of course were proven actually to exist physically when x ray telescopes came along in the 1960s and we could finally prove the existence of such a phenomenon.
[00:20:49] But Oppenheimer, you know, was somewhat of a dilettante in this in that he wrote this short paper with one of his grad students and then moved on to other questions. If he had focused on black hole theory for a number of years, many people think he might well have at some point won the Nobel Prize, which he never did, but that was not the kind of, you know, his curiosity and his imagination kept moving him to go on to other subjects.
[00:21:21] Albert Cheng: Right, right. Well, speaking of, you know, as you describe him being a polymath and giving his attention to lots of different topics, I want to bring in his views on politics. In the 30s, during the Spanish Civil War, Oppenheimer supported the Spanish Republicans, and some of his closest intimates were active in the Communist Party in the 30s and 40s, including his brother Frank, his wife Kitty, and he had a girlfriend and mistress, Jeanne Tatlock, and several grad students too at Berkeley, so Just, you know, before we get back to the Manhattan Project, could you talk a little bit about his politics and just relationships with some of these individuals and women in his life?
[00:21:58] Kai Bird: Initially in, let’s say, the early 1930s, he was rather apolitical, focused on his science and his life in Berkeley, and his other passion was horseback riding in New Mexico. But, in the mid-1930s, he met a woman, Jean Tatlock, who was very bright, intellectual, studying to be a medical doctor and psychiatrist at Berkeley.
[00:22:24] Oppenheimer was clearly attracted to intelligent women. Anyway, Jean Tatlock was herself politically active, and by the time she met Oppenheimer, she was already a member of the Communist Party. And she sort of nagged up E. T. Oppie was his nickname, to become more politically aware, and more politically aware, particularly in the depths of the 1930s depression of how, you know, the average American citizen was struggling to survive economically.
[00:22:58] And capitalism seemed to be failing, and she, you know, pushed him to become more politically aware. Now, there’s a mystery. There are always mysteries about Oppenheimer, but one of the mysteries is just how close to the Communist Party did he become? Was he just pink, or was he also red? A full member of the Communist Party.
[00:23:20] Did he have a Communist Party card? Did he pay dues? It’s a mystery. Even the 7,000 plus pages of his FBI file don’t definitively clear this up. He was clearly left wing. Which was not surprising in the 1930s for a university professor. But it’s quite clear he did give as much as 400 a year to various activities sponsored by the local Communist Party in California.
[00:23:53] Things like, you know, desegregating the public sector. Swimming pool in Berkeley or helping farm workers to organize in a union or raising money to send a, an ambulance to the Spanish Republic in the midst of the Civil War. And yes, Tatlock is his first love of his life whom he actually proposed marriage to twice.
[00:24:20] She was a member of the party. Then when she turned down his marriage offers, he moved on and met, in 1940, Kitty Oppenheimer, Kitty Pruney, who was then 29 years old and had already been married three times. Kitty was, you know, a very vivacious, smart woman who was then studying biology in a master’s program at Berkeley.
[00:24:47] So she was herself Anyway, they met at a cocktail party in Pasadena in 1940, and he invited her to come up and join him at his cabin in the Picos Mountains in New Mexico at 9, 000 feet. And she came, leaving behind her husband, and by the end of the summer, she was pregnant. She got a Las Vegas divorce and married Oppenheimer.
[00:25:14] They had a very long 20-year marriage. Marriage until he died, but it was a rocky marriage as well. She was a tempestuous woman and frustrated, particularly in the years she had to spend in Los Alamos. So that was, you know, his personal life too. It’s always a little complicated and a mystery.
[00:25:38] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Well, let’s get back to the Manhattan Project on that note.
[00:25:42] So that started during World War II, and in 1943, he was appointed director of the project’s Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, whose mission it was to develop the first atomic bomb. So, could you discuss how his leadership at Los Alamos Integrated, I mean, he’s coming from an academic setting, right?
[00:26:03] Integrated his deep knowledge of quantum physics with the administration of an enormously complex and top-secret World War II military project.
[00:26:13] Kai Bird: In the 1930s, actually, Oppenheimer said he could really find happiness in life if he could somehow find a way to combine his love for physics with his love for New Mexico.
[00:26:26] And, of course, he did. So, when General Leslie Groves came to Berkeley in 1942 to interview him and others for He was looking to appoint a scientific director to lead the project. Oppenheimer came up with the notion, he told Groves, that what you need to do is instead of scattering these scientists all over in different university laboratories across the country, you need to bring the people you need all together in one place.
[00:26:55] And I understand you have a concern for security, so you should bring them to an isolated spot and put them behind a barbed wire fence and let them talk freely to each other behind the barbed wire and collaborate as scientists want to do. That would be the strategy for producing this gadget. General Groves was quite taken with this idea, and Oppenheimer actually had the notion of, you know, he had an idea of where it should be located.
[00:27:28] He suggested the Los Alamos Boys School in a very isolated spot in the mountains on the high plains of New Mexico, which just happened to be about 40 miles down the road from his loved cabin in the Picos. So, indeed, he was successful in combining his love for physics with his love for New Mexico. Now, at Los Alamos, you know, initially, they only thought that, you know, Oppenheimer only thought he needed maybe a hundred scientists.
[00:27:59] Well, it quickly grew within months to a thousand, and then eventually, by 6, 000 people living in this secret city. He, again, transformed himself. He’d never really been an administrator, but he learned how to do it, and he had a particularly charismatic style of leadership and management. You know, he was dealing with a lot of big ego scientists, and typically, instead of convening a meeting and standing at the head of the room behind a lectern or desk, Oppenheimer would stand at the back of the room and let other people talk.
[00:28:37] And then at precisely the right emotional moment, he would step forward and summarize what everyone had been saying, proving that he had been listening carefully. And he would summarize the conversation in such a way that it became clear that he to everyone what the next step was in their problem solving and trying to figure out how to build this gadget.
[00:29:06] And so, you know, everyone we interviewed in the course of our research on Los Alamos, everyone says, you know, that if Oppenheimer had not been selected, the gadget would not have been produced in two and a half years. It would have happened, but it would have been three or four or five years down the road.
[00:29:26] Alisha Searcy: So, Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project’s first test of the atomic bomb, the Trinity, on July 16, 1945. And this implosion designed test bomb, called the Gadget, which you referred to, was the same design as a World War II bomb. The U. S. later dropped on the Japanese cities. of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and August 9th of 1945.
[00:29:52] Tell us more about Oppenheimer’s role in the Trinity test, as well as explain the famous quotation he drew from the Hindu scripture while watching the Trinity, where he said, Now I am, become death, the destroyer of worlds.
[00:30:07] Kai Bird: So, the Trinity test that occurred on July 16th, 1945, was testing the plutonium based device.
[00:30:17] They weren’t quite sure that it would work. It required taking a piece of plutonium that had to be manufactured in the laboratory painstakingly, and they took a piece that was about the size of a softball and then surrounded it with conventional explosives to sort of push inward to create an implosion to compress the plutonium and create a chain reaction.
[00:30:45] The other type of bomb was the uranium sort of shotgun design, and they knew pretty well that that was going to work, so they didn’t even test that. And one such bomb was used on one Japanese city, and the other was used on Hiroshima. And of course, Oppenheimer, uh, When the Trinity test was clearly successful, you know, he was lying on the desert floor, anticipating this explosion.
[00:31:14] And when it happened, it was an enormous explosion, much larger than he had expected, actually. He turned to his brother, Frank, and said, it worked. But, a few days later, a New York Times reporter came to interview him in preparation for publishing a series of stories about the making of the atomic bomb after the end of the war, and this reporter asked him what went through his mind when he saw the Trinity explosion, and Oppenheimer was, had a sense of the dramatic, and he drew on his love of the Gita, Hindu Recall the, one of the most famous lines from those scriptures where the Hindu god turns to Arun and says, I am death, destroyer of worlds.
[00:32:06] And uh, it’s, you know, a quite dramatic quote in the context of the atomic bomb.
[00:32:13] Alisha Searcy: Wow. So, I want to talk more about that. Your book notes that more than 95 percent of the roughly. 250, 000 people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians, mostly women and children. And at least half of those victims died of radiation poisoning in the months following the initial blast.
[00:32:34] So can you talk about his thoughts, his understanding, the ethical concerns about playing such a central role in developing a weapon of mass destruction and his reservations about scientific advances potentially leading to a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union?
[00:32:50] Kai Bird: Yes, well, he was very concerned, and he did think about these ethical issues.
[00:32:56] I think the best story to illustrate this is, I interviewed his last secretary working for him at Los Alamos, Anne Wilson, and she told me that one day, soon after the Trinity test in July of 45, she was walking to work with Oppenheimer, and he suddenly started muttering to himself, those poor little people, those poor little people.
[00:33:22] And she turned to him and said, Robert, what are you talking about? And he said, well, you know, the Trinity test, we now know from the Trinity test that the gadget works. And it is now going to be used on a Japanese city. I know the victims are going to be mostly innocents, women and children, old men, very few soldiers, because the bomb was so large that it had to have.
[00:33:49] A large target to demonstrate its power and its destructiveness. So, there was no military target large enough for such a weapon. And in fact, the army had reserved five Japanese cities as virgin targets, pristine targets that were undamaged by all the fire bombings. from the spring of 1945. So, they were pristine targets that could be used where an atomic bomb could be used and would then demonstrate the horrific nature of its destructive powers.
[00:34:26] Anyway, he told Anne Wilson that, you know, these were now going to be used on a Japanese city and those were going to be the victims. Now, what’s interesting about this story is that we know that same week Oppenheimer was meeting with some of the bombardiers who were going to be on the Enola Gay mission.
[00:34:46] the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb, and he was instructing them at exactly what altitude the gadget should be released from the plane, and at what altitude it should be ignited to have the most destructive firepower. So, this is a complicated man. He’s capable of doing his duty, carrying out his responsibilities as the scientific director of this weapons lab, and giving the bomb to the generals and the politicians back in Washington to determine how to use it.
[00:35:20] And at the same time, he’s privately worrying and in anguish about the tragedy that is about to unfold and the victims. So, he’s very aware of the ethical concerns, but he thought he had to do his duty. And he also made an argument to himself that if this weapon was not used in this war, That humanity just was incapable of understanding the terrible nature of the weapon.
[00:35:52] And he feared that in the next war, then, the war would be fought by two or three or four adversaries, all of whom would be armed with these nuclear weapons. And that could mean Armageddon. So, Oppenheimer was ethically troubled, and he spent the rest of his life actually trying to warn humanity and Americans in particular about the dangers of these weapons.
[00:36:19] Alisha Searcy: So, I want to talk about sort of the other side of this, because to your point, after World War II, Oppenheimer became the most famous scientist in the world, and an iconic figure of the Cold War’s technocratic culture. Can you share with us the other side or narrative of Oppenheimer’s story, including his directorship of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the work with the Atomic Energy Commission, or the AEC, and ultimately his decline and fall at the hands of Louis Straw, the AEC, and the FBI during his spring 1954 closed door security clearance hearings?
[00:36:58] Kai Bird: Yes, well in You know, Oppenheimer, after the war, he did not want to continue working on atomic weapons. He left Los Alamos, even suggesting that the weapons lab should be returned to the Native Americans. Well, of course, they continued to build weapons at Los Alamos, but Oppenheimer left, and in 1947, he accepted the position of director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which was a sort of private think tank where prominent intellectuals, many largely scientists, mathematicians, and so on.
[00:37:38] A few historians were invited to just simply think and do their work, not to teach. It was a perfect job for Oppenheimer. He loved it, and he used it as a platform from which to continue to try to exercise his knowledge. And it was his influence to use his celebrity status as a scientist to influence Washington and the President and the generals and the Pentagon on how to think about nuclear weapons.
[00:38:09] And he became more and more outspoken as the years went by. He talked about these weapons as weapons for aggressors, weapons of terror, weapons that, you know, he argued can’t be used to defend America. They can only be used to sort of Terrorize your opponent, and that’s a dangerous thing. So he was arguing for international controls.
[00:38:34] He wanted to ban atomic weapons. He came out in 1949 against the development of a super bomb, the hydrogen bomb. But he lost that argument and continued to argue against it. Reliance on these weapons, and this is what got them into trouble with the authorities. The Army and the Air Force and the Navy in 1949, 50, 51, were all eager to spend more money developing their own nuclear arsenals.
[00:39:08] And here is the father of the atomic bomb coming along and saying that these are immoral weapons. So, at one point, Edward Teller suggested that Oppenheimer needed to be defrocked in his own church. They needed to find a way to undermine the legitimacy of Oppenheimer’s voice as a public intellectual.
[00:39:32] Edward Teller, of course, had worked with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos and was a proponent of building the hydrogen bomb. So, they disagreed, but then along in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower, the new president, appoints Louis Strauss. to become the chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, and at this point Oppenheimer was still a consultant with a security clearance working for the AEC.
[00:39:59] And Strauss got it into his head that Oppenheimer was dangerous because of his opposition to nuclear weapons, and that he needed to be silenced. He suggested privately that perhaps, after looking at his FBI file, maybe he was even a security risk. Maybe he was a spy for the Russians. Strauss was the one who orchestrated this security hearing and brought charges against Oppenheimer.
[00:40:29] And then in the spring of 1954, there was a one-month secret trial. Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance and Strauss made sure that the entire record of the proceedings was published in the New York Times and other newspapers around the country, thus humiliating Oppenheimer and destroying him as a public intellectual.
[00:40:52] Alisha Searcy: Hmm. Very interesting. Oppenheimer is remembered as a genius scientist, the leader of the Manhattan Project and father of the atomic bomb. Can you talk about more about his legacy and perhaps some of the cautionary lessons from his life? That teachers and students alike should learn, as well as some of the thorny conflicts between science, technology, the military, and politics.
[00:41:17] Kai Bird: I think, you know, Oppenheimer’s life story, and particularly the tragedy that happened to him in 1954, is very instructive. It reminds us that science is a complicated profession and it has consequences, and we face choices in the technology that we use. Sam Altman, one of the founders of OpenAI, has himself been talking about our confrontation, our encounter with artificial intelligence as another Oppenheimer moment.
[00:41:54] And what he means is, in the same way that Oppenheimer was arguing that we needed to think hard and long about how to regulate this new technology of atomic weapons, in the same way the scientists who are giving us artificial intelligence are suggesting that we need to have a debate about how to use this technology.
[00:42:18] What kind of regulations should be imposed? What kind of rules about privacy and rules against creating fake narratives? So, it’s a very difficult problem. And it’s just very reminiscent of the problems that Oppenheimer faced. At the dawn of the atomic age.
[00:42:38] Alisha Searcy: Wow. I appreciate you bringing up the point about AI and all of that we’ve got to think about there.
[00:42:44] For you and your fellow co-author Martin Sherwin, this has to have been a remarkable 30- or 40-year journey, including researching and writing a Pulitzer winning biography and then having it turned into, oh, just an Oscar winning film. Directed by Christopher Nolan. So, can you talk to us about sharing the importance of biography writing to the teaching of history and what it’s like to have your work become internationally famous and be portrayed by a star-studded cast on the big screen?
[00:43:18] Kai Bird: Yes, well, I’m very sorry that Martin Sherwin isn’t with us any longer. He died of lung cancer in 2021, just two weeks after knowing that Christopher Nolan was about to embark on making a film based on American Prometheus. Marty was 84. At the time of his death, but he’d been in good health, he’d been skiing black diamond slopes in Colorado the year before.
[00:43:47] And Marty was a wonderful historian, very funny guy, and a great historian of the Cold War. And he spent 25 years working on Oppenheimer. on his life story. 20 years doing the research and then he came to me in sort of frustration. He hadn’t started writing and he just was buried in archival documents. So, he came to me and suggested that I join him and I did eventually and but then it still took another five years to write the book with him.
[00:44:21] It was a terrific collaboration, and the book came out in 2005 and won the Pulitzer in 2006. Actually, three different Hollywood parties attempted to do a film based on the book over the years. And they all gave up. And then in 2021, Christopher Nolan suddenly appeared and called me up and said that he had already written a screenplay based on the book and was going to start filming in a few months.
[00:44:52] So it all, it was a Hollywood miracle. It doesn’t often happen this way. Artie and I had given up on the possibility of a film until Nolan came along. The film is a triumph in many ways. I think it’s just cinematically brilliant and captivating on the big screen. But the most satisfying thing to me is that it is also historically accurate.
[00:45:16] Nolan really kept very close to the book. I can recognize whole, Paragraphs of dialogue that come straight out of the biography. And he was very careful to sort of capture Oppenheimer’s personality and to tell the history based on what Marty and I thought was the right historical narrative.
[00:45:38] Alisha Searcy: Wow, so very important. So, Mr. Bird, you’ve had this great success with your biography and now the movie. Can you tell us what’s next?
[00:45:48] Kai Bird: Well, actually, I’m writing another biography of an American lawyer named Roy Cohn, who was the chief counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950 McCarthy witch hunts. So, it’s a subject sort of somewhat related to Oppenheimer, but I do want to mention that there’s going to be a young adult edition of American Prometheus.
[00:46:13] That’s already been adapted from the book and written and edited and it will be published next spring and will be, I hope, will be available for junior high and high school students and others who are interested in an abbreviated edition of this 720-page narrative biography. So, I’m very pleased with that. It’s very exciting.
[00:46:41] Alisha Searcy: Excellent. Congratulations. We look forward to that. Thank you. Before we close, would you read for us a paragraph from the book?
[00:46:50] Kai Bird: Let’s see. I’ll try to cobble together a few sentences from the couple of paragraphs at the beginning. Robert Oppenheimer’s life, his career, his reputation, even his sense of self-worth, suddenly spun out of control four days before Christmas in 1953.
[00:47:08] That’s actually the first sentence of the entire book. Then we go on to say, we quote him, I can’t believe what is happening to me, he exclaimed, staring through the window of the car speeding him to his lawyer’s Georgetown home in Washington, D. C. There, within a few hours, he had to confront a fateful decision.
[00:47:29] Should he resign from his government advisory positions, or should he fight the charges contained in the letter that Louis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, had handed him out of the blue earlier that afternoon? So then, he adjourns to the home of his lawyer, and good friend, Herbert and Anne Marks, in their Georgetown home, and they’re sitting around having a drink and discussing what he should do.
[00:47:59] And by the end of the evening, Robert was exhausted and despondent. After several drinks, he retired upstairs to the guest bedroom. A few minutes later, Anne, Herbert, and Robert’s wife, Kitty, who had accompanied him to Washington, heard a terrible crash. Racing upstairs, they found the bedroom empty, and the bathroom door closed.
[00:48:22] I couldn’t get it open, Anne said, and I couldn’t get a response from Robert. He had collapsed on the bathroom floor, and his unconscious body was blocking the door. They gradually forced it open, pushing Robert’s limp form to one side. When he revived, quote, he sure was mumbly, Anne recalled. He said he had taken one of Kitty’s prescription sleeping pills.
[00:48:49] Don’t let him go to sleep, a doctor warned over the phone. So for almost an hour until the doctor arrived, they walked Robert back and forth, coaxing him to swallow sips of coffee. Robert’s beast had pounced, the ordeal that would end his career in public service, and ironically, both enhance his reputation and secure his legacy, had begun. So that’s the opening, basically, of American Prometheus.
[00:49:18] Alisha Searcy: Very powerful. Thank you for sharing and thank you so much for being with us, Mr. Burr. What a privilege. We’ve learned a lot about history and science and ethics and so many things. So, we appreciate your time with us today.
[00:49:31] Kai Bird: Okay. Well, thank you for having me.
[00:49:45] Alisha Searcy: Well, Albert, just as we expected, that was a pretty fascinating interview.
[00:49:50] Albert Cheng: You know, I have to say, I actually haven’t seen the movie yet and I think I’m kind of excited to watch the movie now,
[00:49:55] Alisha Searcy: knowing all this stuff. I’m definitely excited. I haven’t seen it either, but I certainly will be seeing it now.
[00:50:01] Before we go, why don’t you talk to us about the tweet of the week?
[00:50:05] Albert Cheng: Oh yeah, sure. Well, this one comes from CyberNews. There’s a robotics company in Boston called Boston Dynamics, and they’ve got a, I guess it’s this robot named Atlas. And for those of you who are like me, big fans of, I’m going to nerd out here, MechWarrior and Battletech, you know what the Atlas is. Just had to get that in. I just want to point readers to this tweet and watch the video of this robot doing the things that it’s doing. I mean, it looks pretty agile and it’s like carrying things upstairs and it’s, you know, clunky, unwieldy thing. So, it’s pretty fascinating where we’ve gone with robotics now.
[00:50:41] Alisha Searcy: And don’t forget about that cool little dance. He also does.
[00:50:44] Albert Cheng: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So, check it out. It’s fun to watch.
[00:50:47] Alisha Searcy: For sure. Well, Albert, thanks for joining me this week. Great interview. Great to be with you. We’re looking forward to our next episode where we’ll have Professor Arnold Rampersad. He is the Sarah Hart Kimball Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Stanford University and the author of the biography, Jackie Robinson. So, we’ll look forward to seeing you next week, Albert.
[00:51:10] Albert Cheng: Hopefully, but if not, soon.
[00:51:13] Alisha Searcy: For sure. Take care.
This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and DFER’s Alisha Searcy interview Pulitzer Winner Kai Bird. Mr. Bird focuses on the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb.” He discusses Oppenheimer’s impact on history, his early life and education, and his academic achievements in quantum physics. Bird covers Oppenheimer’s political views, relationships, as well as his leadership in the Manhattan Project and his role in the Trinity test. He reflects on Oppenheimer’s ethical concerns about the atomic bomb’s devastation of WWII Japan and impact on the Cold War’s arms race. He examines Oppenheimer’s post-WWII career, including his involvement with the Atomic Energy Commission and the security clearance hearings that marked his decline. Mr. Bird continues with a discussion of Oppenheimer’s legacy and the lessons from his life about the interplay between science, technology, and politics. He shares the experience of his book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, being turned into an Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan. Mr. Bird closes by reading a passage from his Oppenheimer biography.
Stories of the Week: Albert discussed an article from Education Next on higher grade inflation on AP test scores; Alisha reviewed an article from The Globe & Mail sharing the positive influences of having early financial literacy courses for students.
Guest:
Tweet of the Week: https://x.com/CyberNews/status/1812185223976964384
Candidate Selection Breakdown: Presidential Primary Primacy or Determined Delegate Detour
/in Featured, News, Podcast Hubwonk /by Editorial StaffClick here to read a transcript
[00:00:00] Joe Selvaggi: This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi. Welcome to Hubwonk, a podcast of Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston. Unfolding in real time is the quadrennial process of choosing our next American president. While Article 2, Section 1 of our Constitution outlines the procedures for electing the president, it leaves out the specifics of how candidates should be nominated.
[00:00:25] In a process steeped in history, reform, and the vibrant energy of democracy, it has been the work of parties themselves. to shape the delicate balance among constituent voters, political professionals, and events of the day to determine the nominee. This year, the Democrat Party must also address their members concerns that their presumptive nominee, President Biden, may not have the ability to sustain a successful campaign, leaving many to consider late stage options for alternate nominees.
[00:00:56] How did our current primary system evolve? Who governs primary rules in states and at conventions? And who has the power to change the nominee as Election Day approaches? My guest today is the Keenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, Professor Charles Stewart III, who is the Founding Director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
[00:01:19] Professor Stewart’s work focuses on the historical developments of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. He will explain how our modern primary process has evolved, Who determines and enforces primary rules, and what choices are available when nominees are either unwilling or unable to successfully campaign for president?
[00:01:40] When I return, I’ll be joined by Director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, Professor Charles Stewart III. Okay, we’re back. This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi, and I’m now pleased to be joined by the Keenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, Professor Charles Stewart III. Welcome back to Hubwonk, Professor Stewart.
[00:01:59] Charles Stewart III: Oh, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:02] Joe Selvaggi: Well, it’s good to have you back. It was nearly four years ago when you last joined me. You helped us sort out the complexity of trying to run a presidential election during a pandemic. Uh, uh, we’ll say it, uh, you know, it turned out okay, I suppose.
[00:02:14] Uh, today we’re going to talk about, um, uh, the election before us. We’ve got a primary process, uh, we, I suppose the votes are in, but we’re, um, recording at a time during the, uh, Republican convention in Milwaukee and soon, uh, Democratic convention in, uh, Chicago. We’re going to pick, uh, the nominees for president for the.
[00:02:34] Uh, 2024 presidential election. For the benefit of our listeners, I want to break down, uh, the process of, uh, primaries. Uh, I also want to address the fact that whereas both candidates, um, are clear, uh, both parties and many members within those parties have concerns, um, uh, either that, uh, because of age or infirmity of, of candidates or, uh, we’re recording shortly after the attempted assassination of one of the candidates, uh, former President Donald Trump, Um, events of the day can intervene in an unforeseen and unpredictable way, so we want to understand how the process is supposed to work, but also, um, what can be done, um, mid race to adapt to, uh, changing, uh, events.
[00:03:19] So let’s start at the beginning. Let’s, let’s start simple. Uh, let’s talk about the pre presidential primaries. Who defines how primaries work, both at the federal or at the state level? Where is that set up?
[00:03:33] Charles Stewart III: Well, um, so you asked us to start simple, and in some ways, this is among the most complicated parts of things to answer about.
[00:03:41] Um, I mean, the simplest way to start is just by pointing out that that primaries of all sorts, but especially presidential primaries, Um, are owned by the parties. And, um, so in a fundamental way, the parties, um, create the, the, the broad, let’s say, guardrails around which, um, they govern, um, how the process will happen.
[00:04:07] Um, but even then, you know, the, the parties themselves are, um, you know, are complex because you have the national parties and then you have the state parties. We can talk, kind of get into the details about that, but the national parties set out the broad parameters of, say, what the, um, what the season is for holding the primaries, what the rules are about binding or not binding delegates, how many delegates, allocation of delegates, things like that.
[00:04:37] And the national parties could constrain the state parties There’s a lot of difference in the decisions that the state parties are allowed to make. Um, for instance, the national parties can leave it up to the states, state parties, in how they allocate delegates. Um, or they can be very prescriptive about, um, how they can do that.
[00:04:59] And the Democrats and Republicans are different in that regard. At the same time, there’s the states. And the states actually Run the primaries. Now, there are still a few states that have caucuses, and there the parties are entirely in charge, but if, um, but if you want to run a primary, in almost all cases, it’s going to be the state that runs the primary.
[00:05:22] And the state has the caucuses. Um, a certain practical, um, um, kind of influence on this if, um, and a good example is New Hampshire, right? New Hampshire has this law, which states it has to be the first primary in the nation. Um, the Democrats, um, a while back said, um, no, South Carolina is going to be the first primary in the nation.
[00:05:45] How is that resolved? Well, New Hampshire held a primary, first one in the nation. Democrats said, okay, fine, but you’re not going to elect any delegates to our convention at this, you know, and, and so it kind of created this kind of confusion about what was going on in New Hampshire in January, right? So, you have this dance, um, and there are other examples where this, where the state governments and the national parties or the state parties kind of play a game of chicken around who’s actually going to run things and how it’s going to, how it’s going to operate.
[00:06:16] Um, nonetheless, at the end of the day. Um, it’s really the parties who are in charge. Um, not the states or even the federal government, certainly, in, um, determining how things, you know, what the rules are going to be ultimately.
[00:06:34] Joe Selvaggi: So, we have 50 states, it’s a, uh, you know, a whole array of different, uh, systems in charge there, I’d say individual state parties.
[00:06:42] I would say, again, I don’t want to speak for all primary voters in this great country, but I’d say in general, we get the sense that Individual party members go out on primary day and vote, we count up the votes, and the winner, the one with the most votes, either gets all or a proportionate share of the state’s delegates. Has it always been this way? And if not, what came before, you know, how old is what we consider normal? Uh, how did we get here?
[00:07:10] Charles Stewart III: Yeah. Um, the, the system we have right now, I would say it, it well, um, that we can demarcate history, um, in 1972. And it’s really 72 forward and, and 72 came about in reaction to the 68 Democratic Convention.
[00:07:32] And, um, the reforms, the changes that happened around there focused on the Democratic convention, but the Republicans of that era pretty much came along. So, let’s say 68 and before 68 and before, there was a mixture of methods for choosing delegates to the conventions, the conventions. were seen really as the actors in making the, making the choices, um, and there had been, um, even in the 20th century, um, going into the dimension, not quite knowing who was going to be the nominee.
[00:08:08] So some states had caucuses, other states like New, again, New Hampshire, have been holding a primary for a century. So you had a kind of a mix before 72, so we have a 50.
[00:08:20] Charles Stewart III: Go ahead.
[00:08:20] Joe Selvaggi: So just, just curious, so we have a 50-year sort of, I, I mean convention as in standard that we’ve come become used to. Is it, was it perceived, and I You’re the expert, so I’m asking this candidly, was it, let’s say a move from where, you know, in the olden days, I suppose conventions serve to determine who the nominee would be.
[00:08:39] And I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it seems that conventions now are merely sort of rah-rah sessions where we just. You know, balloons fall out of the ceiling, and everybody cheers, so they don’t seem, they seem ceremonial, if you will, and again, I’m not putting words in your mouth, you tell me if I’m wrong. Why did we go from where we determine the candidate at a convention with, let’s say, party professionals, and now
[00:09:01] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, I think, I think it’s more ceremonial than not. Um, although, you know, kind of, it’s always been the case, and certainly for the past century, century and a half. That, um, incumbent presidents have basically been the most important player in their party.
[00:09:19] Um, and so it was pretty much all the time, although like Grant, I mean there are exceptions like President Grant, where party elders’ kind of push Grant out as an incumbent. Um, so it was celebratory like when Eisenhower was re nominated. Or, you know, those, those, those circumstances. But really, um, before 68, and certainly moving back further in time, um, in the 20th century into the 19th century, the parties could be thought about really as kind of holding companies of 50 state parties, some of which were run according to kind of quasi open um, Um, rules, but others were very much what we would imagine to be kind of, um, you know, kind of, kind of inside baseball, smoke filled rooms, sorts of, um, kind of a club.
[00:10:15] And, um, it’s not too far from reality to say in many of those states. Illinois was the most famous with Mayor Daley, Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago, but the boss, party boss of the entire state. very much. Right, really could deliver delegates, could deliver votes on election day. And so, you, and so it really was a mostly kind of 50 bull mooses in a room, um, bringing their delegates and they could pledge their entire delegation or some of their delegation if, you know, and so, so that was 1 thing.
[00:10:54] Um, there was a revolt publicly and certainly within the Democratic Party in the 68 conventions, which your listeners will know, even if they weren’t alive at the time, was a disaster in Chicago. Not only riots in the streets, but riots actually made it onto the floor of the convention and Herbert and Hubert Humphrey was nominated, despite the fact that he really didn’t run in primaries.
[00:11:22] Um, and, um, so, um, and that’s why I mentioned the McGovern Fraser Commission that really changed the rules of the Democratic Party and make it so that delegates would be chosen mostly by primaries and that they would be, um, required to vote for, you know, the, the candidate that had won that primary or that they were associated with.
[00:11:48] Certainly on the first ballot. Um, and, um, and so it’s, it’s kind of celebratory now, but it still is, well, it’s mostly more celebratory, but potentially, you Could be, um, you know, could make a decision.
[00:12:05] Joe Selvaggi: Well, that sets up my next question perfectly, which is to say, okay, we now have what we consider individual state, very sort of traditional elections.
[00:12:13] We count votes, and we figure out, you know, who won. Those delegates have their marching orders, right? Party members in their state have spoken, and they have to go to the convention with specific orders. Uh, they’re committed to that, that candidate. What I want to ask you is, you know, again, in the, let’s say, modern times, last 50 years, does that resolve things?
[00:12:31] It seems like, you know, we knew, um, uh, President Trump, or former President Trump would get the nomination, it seems, uh, and, uh, incumbent President Biden would. You know, have there been contested elections and if one, um, conventions, and if one were to be, what, what does that look like if, if there isn’t a clear winner walking into the, the, um, the, um, convention?
[00:12:54] Charles Stewart III: Well, are there contested, um, conventions? Um, there haven’t been, um, and certainly there have been, there have been instances where the, the kind of the second-place candidate has wanted to make it a contested election. And those were cases where the party was closely divided, and the famous cases were Ronald Reagan in 1976.
[00:13:15] Um, Ted Kennedy in 1980 in the Democratic primary, and then even, um, in, um, in 2016, um, there were efforts to derail, um, um, Donald Trump’s nomination and, um, kind of make the, the primary really the decider and, um, to throw it open, a so-called brokered convention. I mean, it turns out, though, that, you know, in this 50-year period, um, we’ve gone into both major party conventions.
[00:13:45] With somebody having a majority delegates, and that’s really hard to, um, dislodge, even in a situation as we find ourselves in right now, or even, you know, in 76 or 80 cases where the second-place candidate had a good argument to make that they would be the better candidate. Um, and, um, but once you’ve chosen people who are really loyal to the frontrunner, um, also, you know, the, the, the primary rules are such kind of the one who gets the most votes in states kind of gets a bonus.
[00:14:23] That’s especially true in the Republican Party, um, but also true in the Democratic Party. So, uh, you know, the frontrunner comes in with a cushion, even if their, their, you know, their support begins to kind of get soft, they’re going to have a big cushion. Um, and, um, and I’m sure we’ll talk about, um, Joe Biden in particular, but he’s going to come in with 90 percent of the delegates.
[00:14:46] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, so he could lose half of his, almost half of his delegates and still get the nomination.
[00:14:50] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed, so he has a comfortable lead and as you mentioned, this isn’t a case where we have a second-place person who’s, you know, sort of chomping at the bit, chomping at the bit, trying to say, okay, I might be better.
[00:14:59] We have really, I don’t know who second place would be really, but let’s, let’s unpack that a little further. You talked about, um, these, these delegates going to the convention. They’ve been committed. Um, I’ve read something, and in research and preparing for this, this conversation, that they’re bound in good conscience to vote for the person who they, was elected in their state.
[00:15:19] Okay, you know, there’s a lot of wiggle room in good conscience, because some would argue, again, I’m not putting, I’m not making any normative judgments, but some might say, we had no idea, um, uh, President Biden was, um, Aging the way he is, until let’s say the debate or recent gaffes, were we to have known that, we would have perhaps voted differently in our individual primaries.
[00:15:41] Now that we do know it, me as a delegate, I’m going to the convention in Chicago, do I have any prerogative? You know, I might like the guy, but, you know, conventions and primaries and parties are for winning elections. If I don’t think my guy can do it, where is, what prerogative do I have?
[00:15:59] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, well, here, here’s where the two parties are different, again, um, and, and as you said, I mean, really, I mean, we’re really talking about Biden, but it should be said, there’s something sometimes called the robot rule.
[00:16:09] The robot rules are, you know, basically bind a delegate to their person, kind of stand by my man or woman type of, type of rule that usually binds that pledged delegate to vote for their candidate on the first, on their first ballot. And in fact, like the Democratic Party rule, actually, I’m sorry, the Republican Party rules allow delegates to be replaced on the, you know, on the fly if they vote for the wrong person.
[00:16:39] or not, for those votes not to be recognized. And so, um, the Republicans still have, um, a strong version of the robot rule. The Democrats have a weak version of the robot rule, as you, as you just mentioned, which is that they, um, their delegates are required to vote in good conscience to reflect the sentiments, um, of those who elected them.
[00:17:03] But we have to recognize that the delegates at the state level or the congressional district level, however the states allocate them, are identified by the political parties, or I’m rather the candidates, as people who are loyal to those candidates. Um, and so I won’t say that, you know, the Biden delegates are like the Stepford Wives, but, um, you know, in that sense, but you don’t get to be a Biden delegate unless you’re willing really to go to Matt for Joe.
[00:17:37] And I think it’s kind of, um, really wishful thinking to imagine that there’s going to be really kind of a come to Jesus moment, um, in the Democratic, um, convention, unless Biden himself instructs his delegates not to vote for him and to find somebody else.
[00:17:58] Joe Selvaggi: So, uh, accepting that, that eventuality, if Biden doesn’t say, I’m sorry guys, uh, I’m going to pass the baton, uh, if he wants the nomination, there’s almost no choice, conscience or otherwise, for delegates to change horses this late in the race.
[00:18:13] Charles Stewart III: Oh yeah, no, they’re, um, yeah, they’re, they’re, they got their guy. Got their guy.
[00:18:19] Joe Selvaggi: Right, okay, so we talked about sort of primaries, we’re leading up to conventions, what about, okay, we have a nomination. Um, but, current events happen. I’m going to You know, again, we keep talking about President Biden, but, uh, the horrible, um, uh, event that happened past weekend, uh, uh, uh, assassination attempt.
[00:18:36] Look, these guys are both 178, 181, actually at our tables, hey, it could be a heart attack. Where is it that, um, let’s say, parties and process, and we’re still not at election day, were something terrible to happen? Either they you know, become incapacitated or die. What happens, let’s say, as we approach Election Day?
[00:18:54] Where, what, where does the party, where do delegates, are these all, you know, active participants? Until Election Day or something else happens, if it happens after the convention.
[00:19:06] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, um, it kind of depends on how close you are to Election Day. And this is where, um, kind of the, kind of the, I won’t call it loosey goosey, but kind of the ambiguous nomination.
[00:19:20] The role of the parties comes up against, um, our constitution, quite frankly, national, um, laws. I mean, Congress has mandated, ah, ah, so we’re coming back to our discussion four years ago about voting during the, during, um, the pandemic, and what I was saying four years ago, I don’t know if I said it, um, on this, on this, um, broadcast, but even if the zombies are in the street, um, And the, uh, and the asteroids are raining down on us on election day.
[00:19:52] We’re going to have an election. We have no choice, right? And so even if the, you know, one of the presidential candidates gets hit by a bus the day before the election, we’re going to have the election the next day. And the only person for that party on the ballot will be that person, right? So we can’t, like, most of the rest of the democratic world, we couldn’t postpone.
[00:20:15] We don’t have any of that flexibility. Um, and that’s where I think. Um, a lot of the ambiguities and the chaos would emerge, um, because now if you’re really close to me, if you’re kind of far from the election, like, if it were to happen, like, like the week after the, after the conventions. There would be time for, you know, the national committees have mechanisms for naming replacements for their nominees.
[00:20:47] And the best, um, historical example was in 1972, when the Democrats had to replace their vice presidential nominees, the DNC, that, that, that replaced them under the party rules. And the party rules have ways of replacing nominees. Um, but if the ballots have been printed, and if people are already voting, Then you’re left with a position of people voting for somebody who is incapacitated or is no longer alive, and then what to do.
[00:21:18] Um, and, um, I think there we’re up against, um, norms and what the laws are in the states about what electors can do. Um, yeah, so I’ll stop there. I mean, there’s details that we can, we can dig into, but that’s, that’s, I’ll stop for a moment right there.
[00:21:42] Joe Selvaggi: Well, let’s, let’s not have such a grim possibility, you know, scenario play out.
[00:21:46] Let’s just talk about, you know, there’s certainly a healthy movement to try to persuade people. Uh, President Biden to step aside and perhaps let someone, uh, let’s say, more viable or more electable, uh, take his place. There’s a lot of question about, uh, money. A lot of people give money to the actual president himself.
[00:22:05] This is not super PACs or, uh, political, uh, committees. These are, the president himself has a, a war chest. I think all in is something like 240 million. That’s people writing checks to him or his re election. What happens to those monies were a leading candidate to say, you know, I’m sorry, uh, I’m gonna, you know, retire at the end of my term.
[00:22:28] Where does that go?
[00:22:30] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, it kind of depends. I mean, it depends on when they, when they bow out. Um, if they are not the nominee, like, um, so I mean, so let’s just focus because we know what we’re talking about. Let’s Biden. He woke up this morning and says, okay, I’m out. He’s not the nominee. Um, he would have to give the money back, um, um, unless, ah, the campaign committee is the Biden Harris.
[00:23:03] And so, um, Harris, Kamala Harris would inherit. So it makes a difference here that we have a joint committee of a presidential and a vice presidential candidate together. Um, and so that would allow Harris to continue, but if the party doesn’t nominate her, then that’s a problem. Um, the other thing to consider is that You know, let’s say in a couple of weeks, and keep in mind, the Democrats are, look like they’re moving forward on their plan to do a virtual roll call in the next week or two, so Biden may be the formal nominee sooner than the convention.
[00:23:48] Once he’s nominated, then those funds, it’s no longer a nomination fund, it’s a general election fund, and the general, again, if it’s Kamala Harris, Who ends up replacing him, then that’s one thing, but if it’s not, then there are limits on what, um, that committee can do with those funds. He could only give 2, 000 to the, to the, to the other, um, um, um, candidate, you know, to who to judge or whoever becomes the nominee.
[00:24:26] Um, the rest of the money would have to go to, like, a super PAC. He could create a leadership pack, um, that could pour money into the election in, um, uncoordinated in theory. Um, but um, but not know kind of directly part of the campaign and the new nominee would need to start RA fundraising, um, on their own.
[00:24:54] Um, we hear reports that there’s a bunch of wealthy donors sitting on $90 million. Um, and maybe they would disgorge that 90 million for, uh, Mayor Pete or whoever. Um, but, um, it would be kind of starting from a cold start, um, for anybody else, especially if it’s not Kamala Harris.
[00:25:14] Joe Selvaggi: Yeah, it seems like the party would have to be rather desperate.
[00:25:17] So, to be clear, I just want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. If, uh, Biden steps aside and the convention, uh, chooses someone, if it’s Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, she would be entitled to the money that’s been raised. That’s my, I mean, that’s my understanding and listening to the election lawyers. But if it’s anyone else, uh, whereas they could, they as candidates or former candidates, um, you know, can’t use it. You know, because they’re not candidates. They could create their own super PAC. Why wouldn’t the money that was given, and again, we know from campaign finance laws that, you know, every one of those donations is documented somewhere.
[00:25:55] Why don’t they have to give it back? In a sense, why is it now the prerogative of the candidate who’s no longer the candidate to choose where that money goes? Wouldn’t it have to be given back to the donor?
[00:26:03] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, no, that’s a good question. I don’t know why, but from everything I’ve read from the election lawyers, that they make this distinction, um, about, um, you know, before and after, um, nomination, and, um, that it belongs, I mean, it now belongs to the, um, to the committee.
[00:26:18] Committee could give it back, um, for sure, um, And, um, but my suspicion would be that, um, it would be rolled into some sort of political operation in support of the nominee, the new
[00:26:33] Joe Selvaggi: nominee. So our conversation is talking about the nomination getting up to the, uh, the election. Um, I want to, I don’t want to bring up a sore subject, but of course now November 5th, as you say, is coming no matter what.
[00:26:43] Zombies? Asteroids? It’s coming. Get ready. So someone’s going to get elected. But we had, again, I don’t want to bring up a sore topic, but in 2020, a lot of, um, disagreement about the prerogatives then when we’re in, again, now this is governed by statutory law. This is no longer the prerogatives of, of parties.
[00:26:59] This is the real thing. It’s a real election. Individual states, as, as we know, um, it’s not people that elect presidents, it’s states that elect presidents. Each of those states send electors, uh, that have been determined by that state’s constitutional obligation to send those electors. What, you know, we had a lot of disagreement.
[00:27:16] Maybe it wasn’t legitimate disagreement. Some disagreement in 2020, how those electors must then ultimately go in and be counted for the election. Is there any disagreement, again, with the wisdom of reflection? For years, any ambiguity or any changes in the law that have sort of shored up our, our system such that we’re not going to have any more debate as to, you know, prerogatives of actual electors, not, not delegates, these are electors.
[00:27:42] Charles Stewart III: Right, right, right, exactly. Well, um, um, debate? No, there’s always going to be debate. Um, actual actions? Um, um, yes, we’re in a better, um, we’re in a better situation now than we were four years ago, and that’s because a couple of years ago, um, in a fit of bipartisanship, um, Congress passed and President Biden signed, um, the Electoral Count Reform Act, Um, which also had a Transition Act component to it as well, which also dealt with, you know, the kerfuffle over whether Biden could start his transition, um, before the inauguration.
[00:28:21] The Electoral Count Act addresses, um, many of the issues that arose in 2020. It starts by specifying That the vice president’s role is purely ministerial. Um, no decisions about who gets, who gets to count or anything like that. He’s purely presiding over a counting of votes. Um, there are, it’s harder to make a congressional, um, challenge to votes.
[00:28:55] Um, it can only be given for clause and instead of 1 member from each chamber objecting, you need 1 5th of each chamber to object to the counting of any votes. Um, states cannot change their method of election after election day. That’s been, that’s been settled because you recall 4 years ago, there were some Attempts to get the state legislatures to elect, um, um, electors and that’s been foreclosed.
[00:29:27] Um, there are stricter, um, um, deadlines for certifying elections and, um, and there is now a provision if a candidate is unhappy with certification, or if there’s any, um, any legal challenge to certification, um, um, you can impanel in that state a special, I believe it’s a 3 judge court to, um, rule on those challenges.
[00:29:59] So, um, so there’s a belief among the legal community that, that this kind of covers most of the, you know, the problems that arose and at least solves those problems. Well, no, there could be new problems in the future we haven’t anticipated. There’s also an argument that has been made that you can’t bind a future Congress.
[00:30:20] And so that’s why I say it’s not going to cut off debate. Right. Um, there’s still going to be people claiming if they’re unhappy. Well, we can go into, um, January 6th and we, or whatever the date will be, and we can, um, you know, we can, overturn this election. But the, the, the black letter of the law is pretty clear, um, to try to foreclose a lot of
[00:30:45] Joe Selvaggi: There may be all new, different Krakens to set loose, uh, this, this time.
[00:30:51] Charles Stewart III: There’s always a new Kraken.
[00:30:53] Joe Selvaggi: So, uh, we’re getting close to the end of our time together. I just want to ask sort of a meta question. I think sort of the sentiment bouncing around, particularly among Democratic circles, is sort of, look, Biden, you know, you know, is not the best candidate. We make the rules, we can break the rules.
[00:31:08] I want to get meta on you. It’s like if, if, if People believe that rules are just something we’ve created and therefore infinitely malleable. What is it about elections or just rules that, you know, sort of constrain our ability to change them on the fly? Isn’t there something within us, maybe as Americans or maybe as human beings, where whatever the rules may be, you got to stick by them through the, through the entire process?
[00:31:32] Match. You can’t change the game, rules of the game, mid stride. Is that real or is that just my perception as sort of a conservative guy who doesn’t like, uh, you know, messing with the controls, you know, while you’re still flying?
[00:31:47] Charles Stewart III: Yeah, yeah, you know, look, and something I teach, teach my students, um, that, um, you know, the rule of law is a very strong principle in this country.
[00:31:56] And certainly it’s been kind of bandied about over the last, you know, several years. But, um, speaking about conservatives, go back to the founding, go back to Locke, go back to Montesquieu, go back to all those people, right? What, you know, it justifies, you know, the rule of law is really an important thing, and it’s really drilled into Americans.
[00:32:19] We’re not quite Germans in that sense, right? Um, we’re kind of, we do see some flexibility, maybe other places won’t, But fairness in the United States, um, is, is oftentimes judged in terms of following the rules and then, you know, to use sports metaphors, you know, winning or losing based on everybody playing on the same playing field and knowing the rules ahead of the game.
[00:32:47] That’s kind of the American way of doing it. If we were. Um, British, you know, we might be a little more sophisticated or whatever, cosmopolitan about, um, the use of rules and might understand a bit more that, you know, um, that politics is about power and that it’s sometimes okay to bend the rules to get power, but that’s really kind of, that’s not the American way.
[00:33:14] Yeah,
[00:33:15] Joe Selvaggi: so you made reference to your students. I want to, before we close, I want to give an opportunity to plug your work at MIT with the Election Science and Data Center. Um, what kind of work do you do? And can our listeners, uh, look it up and learn something? Or is there some sort of repository of research and information about elections in general?
[00:33:33] that they could access, uh, let’s say, online.
[00:33:36] Charles Stewart III: Oh, absolutely. Um, go to our website. Um, we, like everyone else, have a website, um, electionlab, one word, electionlab. mit. edu. And, um, we do research, um, ranging from the geeky to the publicly accessible. We write explainers. Um, we write commentary about a number of things.
[00:33:57] We will be following the 2024 election very closely and be writing, um, kind of more kind of geeky, number crunchy analyses about what’s going on. We’ll be following on the election skeptics. Um, and I’m trying to kind of debunk the kind of the weirder and crazier takes on the American election. So in any case, electionlab.mit.edu.
[00:34:22] Joe Selvaggi: That’s wonderful. Well, good. I promise I will be checking on that often in this crazy time of election. So I really appreciate your time, Professor Stewart. You know, I hope our listeners have learned something. And I hope, uh, you know, we have a, uh, a safe fair and, um, you know. Uh, uncontested, God bless, uh, election, uh, ahead of us in 2024.
[00:34:43] Thank you for your time, Professor Stewart. Sure enough. Likewise,
[00:34:45] Charles Stewart III: and this was fun. It’s a lot of fun.
[00:34:48] Joe Selvaggi: This has been another episode of Hubwonk. If you enjoyed today’s show, there are several ways to support Hubwonk and Pioneer Institute. It would be easier for you and better for us if you subscribe to Hubwonk on your iTunes podcatcher.
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Joe Selvaggi talks with MIT Professor Charles Stewart III about the political party’s presidential candidate nomination process and what or who ultimately decides who is chosen.
Guest: