Month: November 2014

The Republican Landslide At The Local Level

state governments

It was huge:

It appears that Republicans will have a net gain of between 300 and 350 seats and control over 4,100 of the nation’s 7,383 legislative seats. That is their highest number of legislators since 1920. Republicans gained seats in every region of the country and in all but about a dozen legislative chambers that were up this year.

Libby Nelson recognizes the importance of these wins:

Republicans now control state government outright in at least 24 states, one more than they did before the election. They control at least 66 of 99 state legislative chambers nationwide. And they cut the number of states with total Democratic control from 14 to seven — the lowest number since the Civil War. …

Republicans made historic gains in state legislatures in 2010. They held on in many states in 2012, or made up for losses in one state with gains in another — even though Democrats won the national election. And they won even more in 2014. This isn’t an accident — it’s the result of strategic fundraising from national Republicans, beginning in 2010, aimed at engineering statehouse takeovers. Out-of-state contributions were shuffled to states where they would make a difference, particularly as congressional partisanship and gridlock made policymaking in Washington increasingly unlikely.

John Hood analyzes the Republican gains:

The 2014 legislative results will allow many more Republicans to serve as house speakers, senate leaders, and committee chairman, gaining critical experience for possible future careers in federal politics. It gives the GOP more chambers with which to advance economic and social legislation. Even if a bill goes to a Democratic governor for a veto, that’s useful to define issues and expose squishes. In many cases, however, newly Republican legislatures will be able to enact conservative reforms with the cooperation or acquiescence of such governors, who are first and foremost political animals. As for state Democrats, their ability to legislate liberal policies has just taken a nose dive. Only seven state governments are fully blue at this point.

These are, of course, just opportunities for Republicans. They could certainly squander them on pointless crusades, poorly crafted policies, or disastrous infighting.

Earlier Dish on the power of state legislatures here.

Marriage Equality Update

https://twitter.com/JustinCSnow/status/530481550388113409

Will The GOP Block Obama’s Judges? Ctd

With a Republican Senate likely to give Obama problems in the realm of judicial appointments, Jonathan Ladd bets Justices Ginsburg and Breyer are having second thoughts about holding off on retirement:

[T]o find a situation as favorable for replacing Breyer and Ginsburg with liberals as  2013-14 was, we have to wait for the next time Democrats control both the Presidency and the Senate. Because presidential elections are so influenced by short term economic swings, the results in 2016 (and all future elections) are very uncertain. And with the Republicans’ new 54 seat Senate majority, party control of the Senate after 2016 is up for grabs as well. Considered together, the joint probability of Democrats controlling both the Senate and the Presidency after 2016 is only modest. The likelihood of a big fight over a Supreme Court nominee in the next decade between a president and Senate of different parties, resulting in one or more nominees being rejected and possibly a seat being vacant for an extended period of time, is reasonably high and just got higher.

Noah Feldman considers who Obama might nominate if a seat on the court opens up in the next two years:

To be confirmed by a Republican Senate, the nominee would have to be at least a credible centrist — more in the model of Sandra Day O’Connor or Kennedy then Ginsburg or Breyer.

What potential candidates fit that description? The big midterm election winners in the pool of potential justices are people like Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, or Sri Srinivasan, a relatively recent appointment to the D.C. Circuit. … Garland is known as a moderate, and he could plausibly replace any of the three old white men should one of them have to step down. As a judge he has managed not to incur the wrath of conservatives, and he is probably confirmable. Srinivasan has much less experience, having been appointed to the federal bench in 2013. But Srinivasan has even less partisan baggage than Garland.

Jonathan Bernstein offers a solution that he thinks would avoid a chaotic confirmation process:

Barack Obama could select an old nominee, who might be confirmed. In the event of a vacancy, a normal replacement could easily serve for decades. On the other hand, a nominee at age 75 or so would lower the stakes considerably, to the point at which obstruction would be less of a partisan imperative, even if the nominee was broadly within the liberal judicial tradition. Obama is entitled to nominate anyone he chooses. And Republicans are entitled to oppose someone they think would be terrible for the nation (and terrible for groups in their party coalition). But both sides have an obligation to find and accept reasonable compromises. If a senior appointment is the only way out, it’s hard for either side to oppose it.

Calling Out The Catcallers

Jesse Singal, regretting how he’d never challenged a “borderline-compulsive” street harasser he once knew, spoke with Hollaback’s Debjani Roy in an attempt to better prepare himself for such interventions in the future:

[A]m I overestimating the impact one disapproving conversation can have? Probably not, said Roy. [This serial harasser] Harry had probably, like many young men, been in a lot of social situations in which street harassment wasn’t looked down upon and may have been actively encouraged. “We all know about peer pressure,” said Roy. “And I think a lot of the original behavior comes out of that. Like, ‘Dude, why aren’t you hitting on her? Dude, why aren’t you trying to pick up more women? Why aren’t you yelling that at her?’” Having another guy come up and say exactly the opposite, then, can make an impact — even if it’s not guaranteed to.

Singal adds that even just commiserating with or checking on the harassed woman afterwards can be a beneficial way to get involved. He concludes:

What all this comes down to is that, in much the same way that harassing is a socially ingrained part of Harry’s life, not responding to “mild” incidents of harassment is a socially ingrained part of mine. For whatever reason, I and a lot of other otherwise “good guys” have succumbed to the notion that it’s best to just stay out of these situations rather than intervene.

A reader shares his own missed opportunity:

Many years ago when I was in my early 20s and living in Boston, I was on the T late at night and saw this middle-aged Hispanic man harassing a young black woman clearly unappreciative of his advances.

She was very overweight, and after the man sat down next to her, he started leaning in and talking to her and touching her arm while she just shrank into the wall of the car. Occasionally she would turn to glare at him, or say something so softly as to be inaudible. It was a pretty crowded train, but nobody else seemed to be paying attention to the situation and I, having never witnessed anything like it before, sort of froze. I just kept watching and told myself that if he really grabbed her or became belligerent, then I would intervene, but that never happened, and so still I did nothing. He kept harassing her, and I kept watching uncomfortably and wondering what I should do. Several minutes later when my stop came, I asked the group of people standing next to me to please keep an eye on the guy to make sure “nothing happened” and I got off the train.

I have no idea what happened to the woman, but of course something was already happening to her, and it may have gotten much worse. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. Naturally, my regret over that night has only grown, especially after hearing my wife and female friends’ personal experiences with public harassment and assault. For all the consternation about these feminist campaigns and their tactics, the resulting discussion and increased awareness is surely a net gain. The women in my life certainly never told me about any of this stuff until I knew to ask, and I’m now quite grateful for, and influenced by, their perspectives.

As for us men? We’re long overdue to grow out of this crap, harassers and bystanders alike. I definitely wish I had sooner.

I’ve actually been in a couple of similar situations and have actually intervened. “Is this guy bothering you?” is my usual question. Both times, the answer was a demurral. But my just asking that question in public shifted the atmosphere a little bit. And I stood by, watching the dude until he moved away. I guess I could have been foolish and certainly didn’t want a physical confrontation with the dude. But it struck me how potent a simple question can be in making a woman feel a little less alone and a man a little more self-aware that others were keeping tabs.

Read our two long catcalling threads here and here.

No, Mr President: Wait Some More On Immigration Reform

US-VOTE-MIDTERMS-OBAMA

On the whole, I found the president’s presser yesterday reassuring. First off, it upset Ron Fournier and the usual Washington establishment types, which is a good sign. Second, his very affect – calm, upbeat, confident – is classic Obama. Third, his basic stance of asking the GOP to put up or shut up now they have majorities in both Senate and House is exactly the right move. It forces some kind of constructive proposal out of them and puts the onus on them to say – at long last – what they might be for instead of whom they are against. Or, more likely, it reveals the emptiness of their opposition and lack of a constructive policy agenda.

But it seems to me that this effective strategy is immediately undermined by his continuing to threaten unilateral executive action on immigration. The threat makes sense as a way to bring the GOP to the table, but not if he fully intends to follow through before the end of the year regardless. Instead of forcing the GOP to come up with a compromise bill – which if it can, great, and if it cannot, will split the GOP in two – he’d merely recast the debate around whether he is a “lawless dictator”, etc etc. rather than whether it is humane or rational to keep millions of people in illegal limbo indefinitely. It would strengthen those dead-ender factions in the House that are looking for an excuse to impeach. It would unify the GOP on an issue where it is, in fact, deeply divided. And it would not guarantee a real or durable solution to the clusterfuck.

Yes, he’s out on a limb with his supporters on this – and they punished him for it with low turnout on Tuesday. But he punted before the election and he could punt again. And the truth is: no real progress on this can be made without legislation, and the looming demographic challenges for the GOP in 2016 without any action on the issue makes some movement on this a sane move in the next six months, especially from the point of view of the donor class and business lobby.

In other words, it makes much more sense to me for Obama to ask the GOP for a major legislative proposal before he takes any unilateral action. If they fail to do so – and it’s perfectly possible they do, given intense divisions within their ranks – then Obama’s executive action makes much more sense and can be defended much more easily, as a response to Congressional failure. But to pre-empt this with a divisive act that would polarize the country still further would make no long-term progress likely and put the blame for gridlock on his shoulders, rather than the GOP’s. And what good would that do?

What I’m saying is that he should precisely “wait” some more before acting on this. He’s waited long enough to make another six months’ delay, while he demands a bill to sign, a perfectly palatable option. If he accepts another bucketload of efforts to secure the border as part of the deal, his position remains more popular than the GOP’s with the center and the Latino population. And the real goal of all this is legislation that can guarantee citizenship, better immigration criteria and a secure border beyond any president’s executive orders or revised regulations. Unilateralism can make that less likely rather than more.

(Photo: US President Barack Obama pauses during a press conference in the East Room of the White House November 5, 2014 in Washington, DC. By Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.)

Alabamans Defeat Imaginary Sharia Threat

Alabama’s Amendment 1, drafted by a lawyer who fears the non-existent problem of American courts applying Sharia law, passed on Tuesday with 72 percent of the vote. The amendment to the state constitution declares that Alabama courts “shall not apply or enforce a foreign law if doing so would violate any state law or a right guaranteed by the Constitution of this state or of the United States”. Many reports on the amendment (like the preceding link) claim that it bans the application of foreign law altogether, but Eugene Volokh disputes that:

Normal American “choice of law” principles often call for the application of foreign law in cases that involve foreign transactions, for instance in some tort cases arising from injuries in foreign countries, determining the family status of people who were married or adopted children in foreign countries, and more. American courts wouldn’t enforce foreign rules that violate Americans’ free speech rights, equal protection rights, and so on; but in the great bulk of cases in which foreign law would be applied, there would be no such constitutional problem. The Alabama amendment wouldn’t bar use of foreign law in such cases.

What it would do is less clear, Paul Horwitz explains, because the prohibition on applying foreign laws that contradict Americans’ constitutional rights is, er, “already the law in every state, including Alabama”. The redundant amendment, Horwitz argues, is a waste of time and money that will likely have unintended consequences and serves only as a gesture of hostility toward Islam:

Our state and federal constitutions prohibit discrimination against religion. An explicitly anti-Muslim law would be unconstitutional. But hostility to Muslims, or to any minority, always buys a few votes in some corners. So we now have the worst of both worlds. The law, in its past and present versions, is driven by religious hostility. But in order to avoid being struck down, the current amendment bars courts from recognizing Jewish or Christian (or, yes, Islamic) prenuptial contracts, or enforcing judgments by Southern Baptist arbitrators. At least, it would, if those judgments violated state or federal law. But our courts already forbid that. Amendment One is literally not worth the paper the law would be printed on–and printing laws costs money.

Even the state’s conservative evangelicals didn’t get behind the amendment:

Although anti-Shariah bills are often proposed and supported by conservative Christians, Amendment 1 was actually heavily criticized by many religious groups in the Cotton State — including several prominent evangelical Christians. Organizations such as Greater Birmingham Ministries publicly decried the measure, and Randy Brinson, the president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, blasted the law as “just silliness.” Brinson argued that the bill did not actually protect “Christian values,” and passing it could potentially jeopardize foreign adoptions, marriages to people outside of the U.S., and religious liberty. “This is a tremendous waste of effort. It’s a waste of time and it costs money,” Brinson said ahead of the vote.

Beyond the phantom menace of Sharia, Mark Joseph Stern characterizes Amendment 1 as an effort “to nullify Supreme Court decisions that lean on foreign law”, particularly regarding capital punishment:

According to the amendment, any decision that uses international law could not legally be applied in Alabama courts, since citing it would involve the “application” of foreign law. A state judge couldn’t overrule the execution of a minor based on Roper, since Roper relied in part on international law. Nor could she annul the conviction of a gay person for having gay sex, since Lawrence cited foreign courts. The execution of the mentally retarded, too, would be back on the table in Alabama; in fact, much of the Supreme Court’s modern death penalty jurisprudence would now seem to be inapplicable in the state. This is not some speculative overinterpretation of a poorly worded amendment; overturning established death penalty law was a stated goal of the amendment’s chief drafter. No doubt a team of lawyers is already poring over Supreme Court rulings, searching each decision for a reference to international law. Once they’ve found one, they can alert state judges: Use this ruling, and you’ll be breaking the law.

Looking over the situations in which Alabama courts would typically come into contact with foreign law, Amanda Taub remarks on the legal uncertainties the amendment creates:

Start with disputes governed by foreign law, which are common. Consider, for instance, what might happen if a couple was married overseas, but then sought a divorce in Alabama. Or if they adopted a child overseas, but then a custody dispute came before Alabama courts. Such cases would, by necessity, require Alabama courts to consider foreign law in order to determine the validity of the marriage, adoption, or custody agreement. After Amendment One, it’s not clear whether, or how, they will be able to do so.

It’s also extremely common for contracts to be governed by foreign law, through what is called a “choice of laws” clause. Amendment One carves out an exception for “Alabama business persons and companies,” who may decide to use foreign law in Alabama Courts. But it’s not clear how that exception will be applied, because the very same clause says that “the public policy of Alabama is to prohibit anyone from requiring Alabama courts to apply and enforce foreign laws” — which appears to directly contradict the exception. That’s a potential nightmare for companies that do business in the state, who now don’t know if their choice of law clauses will be enforced, or if global contracts will now become subject to uncertain interpretation as soon as they cross Alabama state lines.

Furthermore, Faisal Kutty points out, “the consequences” of such restrictions on Sharia and foreign law “may be counterintuitive”:

In August 2012, for instance, just one month after Kansas passed Senate Bill 79, a state court found its hands tied when Elham Soleimani sought the enforcement of the mahr (dowry) provision in her Islamic marriage contract. Her husband, Faramarz Soleimani, had agreed to pay 1,354 gold coins—valued at $677,000 at the time—in the event of divorce. Faramarz agreed to this at the time of the marriage, given that it was his second marriage and Elham was 24 years his junior. The Johnson City District Court refused to enforce Elham’s claim for various reasons, the most significant being the religious nature of the contract. In its 28 August 2012 ruling, the court concluded that enforcing the agreement would “abdicate the judiciary’s role to protect such fundamental rights, a concern that was articulated in Senate Bill No. 79.” Essentially, the court took the position that enforcing the Islamic contract would violate the foreign law ban and the separation of church and state doctrine under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Elham lost her claim to her dowry thanks to the law, which Republican State Senator Susan Wagle introduced as “a vote to protect women.” Elham would surely beg to disagree.

Who’s Afraid Of The Internet Of Things?

Sue Halpern is, a little:

[A]s human behavior is tracked and merchandized on a massive scale, the Internet of Things creates the perfect conditions to bolster and expand the surveillance state. In the world of the Internet of Things, your car, your heating system, your refrigerator, your fitness apps, your credit card, your television set, your window shades, your scale, your medications, your camera, your heart rate monitor, your electric toothbrush, and your washing machine—to say nothing of your phone—generate a continuous stream of data that resides largely out of reach of the individual but not of those willing to pay for it or in other ways commandeer it. That is the point: the Internet of Things is about the “dataization” of our bodies, ourselves, and our environment. As a post on the tech website Gigaom put it, “The Internet of Things isn’t about things. It’s about cheap data.” Lots and lots of it. “

What Might Congress Get Done?

Neil Irwin considers legislation that the GOP and Obama might agree on. A big first test:

One way or another, the debt ceiling will need to be raised sometime in the first part of 2015 to prevent a government default, and deals will need to be made to continue funding the federal government without the high drama of standoffs like that over the debt ceiling in 2011, the “fiscal cliff” of late 2012 and the shutdown in 2013.

It will pit two sides of the G.O.P. against each other. One team of Republican leadership seeks to bolster the party’s brand in the run-up to 2016 elections and is responsive to business interests who prefer stability. The other is the harder-right contingent of the caucus that wants to try to shut down Obamacare at any cost. Presidential politics may come into play as well, as potential candidates like Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky push for a harder-edged approach than that preferred by the majority leader Mitch McConnell. (“Let me be clear: There will be no shutdowns and no default on the national debt,” Mr. McConnell said Wednesday in his appearance in Louisville).

Howard Gleckman isn’t betting on tax reform:

Everyone says they want tax reform but once past that rhetoric, they agree on very little. President Obama says he supports corporate reform. Cruz wants a flat tax. Paul Ryan, who wants to be the new chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, favors broad-based overhaul rather than corporate reform alone. House Speaker John Boehner says he favors tax reform but when presented with a plan by Ways and Means Chair Dave Camp earlier this year, Boehner ran for the hills. On top of that, Democrats and Republicans are completely at loggerheads over whether reform should cut taxes, raise them, or leave them roughly the same. Other than that, a deal is imminent.

Republicans may have better luck on Keystone XL:

The new Senate Republican majority creates an opportunity for likely Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to force a vote on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline he’s been waiting years to hold. By The Huffington Post’s count, the new Senate will have at least 61 votes in favor of a measure forcing the pipeline’s approval — a filibuster-proof majority.

Plumer sizes up the Keystone fight:

[O]ne big question is whether President Obama would veto. Some onlookers are skeptical he could hold out forever. “People are fed up on Keystone,” an aide to a moderate Democratic senator told my colleague Ezra Klein. “I don’t know how Keystone isn’t just approved if Republicans take over.”

A lot may depend on the form that the bill takes. If Republicans sent a standalone pro-Keystone bill to the White House, Obama could veto rather easily. But if it was attached to a larger budget bill? If a government shutdown was potentially at stake? That’s tougher.

Trade is another area where bipartisan agreement is possible. Heather Timmons thinks the GOP victory is “good news for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free-trade agreement between a dozen countries that excludes China”:

Republicans are big fans of the TPP, which would drop trade tariffs and regulatory barriers among the participating countries. Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky, promoted the TPP last week at a speech in New York, saying: “Instead of just talking about a so-called ‘pivot to Asia,’ the Obama administration should prioritize negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership by year’s end.” TPP member nations are using the APEC summit this week in Beijing as a chance to meet on the sidelines, and plan to discuss the pact Nov. 8.

Actually, Obama already supports the TPP, but key Democrats have blocked the pact, opposing fast-tracked trade agreements over concerns they would send more manufacturing jobs overseas, and in particular hurt the auto industry. Now, Obama may be able to “ride the Republican wave” to get trade deals passed, as Foreign Policy puts it.

Regardless of the issues under debate, Jacob Weisberg is hopeful that the gridlock will ease:

Until this year, the biggest hazard to Republican incumbents came from more extreme Tea Party conservatives. But in this year’s primaries the Tea Party’s power began to wane, as money from wealthy donors flowed to old stalwarts such as Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Pat Roberts of Kansas who were better positioned to keep their strongholds out of Democratic hands. This will be even more true in 2016, since turnout is far larger, and the electorate much more Democratic, in presidential election cycles.

If you are a Republican incumbent who feels that the greatest threat to your job comes from your right, then you take a big risk when you side with Obama about anything.

If, on the other hand, your principal worry is losing to a Democrat, you have an increased incentive to strike deals with the opposition on issues where Democratic positions are more popular than Republican ones.

 

Obama’s Next Legacy: Detente With Iran

https://twitter.com/thekarami/statuses/530400160715931648

Amid all the drama of the last few days – in which the inevitably triumphant Democratic coalition scenario segued seamlessly into the Republican lock on the Congress for decades – it’s worth taking a deep breath to see what’s really changed under Obama. On domestic policy, we had a huge shift toward universal health insurance – a shift that looks very likely to stay in place. On foreign policy, Obama has bet a huge amount on a long-game engagement with Iran. So far, the strategy has worked far better than most predicted. The sanctions have been effective in both getting rid of Ahmadinejad, and getting Iran to the negotiating table; the international coalition has stayed rock solid; Rouhani’s election made detente feasible; lower oil prices have given Iran an incentive to deal to save its economy; and slowly, Iran itself has changed in a way that makes an opening to the West much more feasible. For a sample of that, I recommend the Economist’s latest survey on the country. Money quote:

While the world has been cut off from Iran, it has failed to notice how much Iranians have changed. No longer is the country seething with hatred and bent on destruction. Instead, the revolution has sunk into the disillusion and distractions of middle age. This is not always a nice place, perhaps, but not a Satanic one, either.

As if on cue, this week saw a potential breakthrough in the nuclear negotiations, three weeks before the looming deadline for a deal:

Iran has tentatively agreed to ship much of its huge stockpile of uranium to Russia if it reaches a broader nuclear deal with the West, according to officials and diplomats involved in the negotiations, potentially a major breakthrough in talks that have until now been deadlocked. Under the proposed agreement, the Russians would convert the uranium into specialized fuel rods for the Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran’s only commercial reactor. Once the uranium is converted into fuel rods, it is extremely difficult to use them to make a nuclear weapon. That could go a long way toward alleviating Western concerns about Iran’s stockpile, though the agreement would not cut off every pathway that Tehran could take to obtain a nuclear weapon. … For the United States, the fuel agreement would give negotiators more flexibility.

Perhaps the most striking thing is the role of the Russians. Despite a dramatic worsening of the relationship with the US, Russia has twice now cooperated in key WMD restrictions in the Middle East – first by brokering the deal that destroyed Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons, and now in helping nudge the negotiations past a stumbling block. At some point, those dismissing the reset may have to rethink when it comes to broader international problems. I’d argue that the next deadline can be breached, as long as serious progress is still being made and as long as Iran’s ongoing suspension of its nuclear program continues. But the deal is easily the most substantive foreign policy achievement in a generation. It should not be lost over an arbitrary deadline.

The incoming Republican Congressional leadership, of course, has other ideas:

Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican likely to replace Rep. Mike Rogers as the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast Wednesday that he would like to begin digging into the administration’s Iran talks—in particular, the role played in those talks by the U.S. intelligence community. … Nunes said he thinks the deal being contemplated could lead to disaster. “Shouldn’t the Congress be concerned about the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon,” he said. “They are going to be close to getting a nuclear weapon because of this deal, this should matter to the American people.”

McCain said he, Corker, and Burr are also interested in pursuing more vigorous oversight of the Iran deal as well. “The Iranians are helping [Syrian dictator] Bashar Assad,” McCain added. “They are the ones that got the 5,000 Hezbollah guys into the fight [against Syria’s rebels], they are gaining more and more influence in Baghdad. And we somehow believe we make a nuclear deal with them and that will lead to other areas of cooperation.”

John Hudson wonders how presumptive Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will approach the Iran file:

One thing McConnell did not mention that will surely loom large in the coming months is congressional action on Iran’s nuclear program. This year, Reid single-handedly prevented a bipartisan bill leveling new sanctions on Tehran from reaching the Senate floor because the White House feared it would upend the fragile nuclear negotiations the United States is conducting with Tehran in Vienna. Republicans have shown no such concern about disrupting the talks with punishing sanctions. “The pressure is now on President Obama to bear down and negotiate a good Iran deal or face a resounding political defeat when the Senate votes ‘no’ on the deal,” Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Foreign Policy.

But more opposition from the right and the Greater Israel lobby might actually help get the deal off the ground – especially as the administration does not need the Congress to relieve some financial sanctions as part of an ongoing confidence-building deal. In this vein, Golnaz Esfandiari listens to what Iranian officials had to say about Tuesday’s Republican rout and what it portends for the nuclear talks:

Iranian Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmud Vaezi said the victory of the Republicans in the November 4 elections will not have “any effect” on the nuclear negotiations. … But former diplomat Ali Khorram, who reportedly advises Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that the Obama administration could be forced into taking a harder line in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, if both sides fail to reach a final agreement by November 24. “Obama has to use the remaining time to reach a deal with Iran,” Khoram said.

Apparently addressing domestic critics, he said those who oppose the talks “out of ignorance” should “wake up” because he said Iran’s national interests could be jeopardized if there was no deal. “We should not allow Republicans to unite with Israel and witness the tensions we saw under [former President] Mahmud Ahmadinejad and George W. Bush because it is not in the interests of Iran and the region,” Khorram said in an interview with the official IRNA news agency.

Arash Karami rounds up some more Iranian reactions:

Outspoken University of Tehran professor Sadegh Zibakalam, who is politically aligned with moderates, told Khabar Online, “Republicans do not believe in decreasing conflict and creating friendly relations with Iran.” He said the Republican victory is “not to our benefit,” as “Within the Republicans, there are more who are opposed to Iran, and they think the way our own conservatives do.” … Fars News Agency interviewed analyst for US affairs Fouad Izadi, who said that he believes the chances of new sanctions being passed is much higher now, given the Republican victory. He criticized domestic analysts and officials who have focused entirely on Obama while “The problem is in the Senate.”

Izadi said that this victory should be a “wake-up call” for some in Iran and predicted that Iran’s problems with Congress in the last 30 years “will become more clear in the coming days and months.”

The Bloomberg View editors weigh in, warning DC not to spike the talks:

The alternatives to Obama’s sanctions-plus-diplomacy approach are two: sanctions alone, or airstrikes. Neither of these would end Iran’s nuclear-weapons program for good. On the contrary, they would probably accelerate Iran’s bid for the bomb and undermine critical support for sanctions in Europe. So long as Iran sticks to the restrictions on its enrichment program, and the current sanctions remain in place, there is no hurry to end this negotiating process. What matters is getting the right deal. Iran’s nuclear program is largely frozen. At the same time, Iranian society is gradually becoming among the least religious and least anti-American in the Middle East. Yes, the conservative regime remains hostile and committed to creating a nuclear weapons capability. Yet it also needs a deal to keep its growing consumer society happy.

Comparing Obama’s effort to seal the Iran deal with FDR’s struggle to get Congress on board with entering World War II, Scott McConnell urges the president to fight like hell for it, because his legacy may well depend on it:

There is little doubt that if Obama reaches a deal, Israel and its advocates will be able to generate a seemingly massive Congressional uproar to undermine the President’s diplomacy. But larger forces, both inside and beyond the Beltway, line up on Obama’s side. The Pentagon, it was reported recently, has been seeking to make deals with Iranian companies in order to stabilize Afghanistan. Will the U.S. military brass, having expended large amounts of blood and treasure to wrest Afghanistan from the Taliban, wish to see it revert to Islamic extremism because Israel doesn’t want Iran involved in stabilizing the country?

Maneuvering for an Iran deal will take all the political acumen Obama can muster, and more than he has demonstrated in previous dealings with Congress. And in terms of political skill and appeal, Obama is no Franklin D. Roosevelt. But the president has powerful cards to play, and will have the support of much of the world if he plays them well. One day peace with Iran may seem as inevitable as did war with Germany. Even though he was drubbed in the midterms, Obama’s chance to forge an historic and positive legacy still lies very much before him.

He should seize it with both hands.