In "Why Aging and Working Makes us Happy in 4 Charts," Carol Graham describes a research paper in which she and co-author Milena Nikolova examine determinants of subjective well-being beyond traditional income measures. One of these is the relationship between age and happiness, a chart of which resembles, remarkably, a smile.

As Graham notes:

There is a U-shaped curve, with the low point in happiness being at roughly age 40 around the world, with some modest differences across countries. It seems that our veneration of (or for some of us, nostalgia, for) youth as the happiest times of our lives is overblown, the middle age years are, well, as expected, and then things get better as we age, as long as we are reasonably healthy (age-adjusted) and in a stable partnership.

The new post has three additional charts that showcase other ways to think about factors of happiness.

The GOP presidential primary process has taken us to places we couldn’t have dreamed mere months ago. Donald Trump’s apparently ever-growing lead—and the foundering of more mainstream candidates like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich—carries serious implications for America’s role in the world. As top Republican strategists and political pundits alike toss around ideas for slowing Trump’s momentum—in part due to major concerns about how he’s staked out his foreign policy—I’ll add one more idea into the mix: convince Rubio and Kasich to agree, now and in public, to share a Republican ticket.

It would go like this: John Kasich would drop out of the presidential race before Tuesday, March 15—when winner-take-all votes occur in both Florida and Ohio—and encourage his supporters to vote for Marco Rubio (who performed better than Kasich on Super Tuesday). Rubio, appearing with Kasich at that press conference, would accept Kasich’s endorsement and then promise him the vice presidential spot on the ticket if he (Rubio) were chosen to be the Republican presidential nominee. This Rubio-Kasich team would be promised to the voters even as the primary process marched on. A vote for Rubio would henceforth be viewed (by the candidates and their allies at least) as a vote for Rubio-Kasich together.

The March 15 votes constitute perhaps the last best chance to stop Trump’s march to the nomination. More to the point here, they’re a chance of ensuring that a Republican candidate with a traditional internationalist worldview remains in the race until the convention. Even Hillary Clinton supporters should arguably welcome such a voice on the GOP side, as it could keep the national political discourse more constructive and less demeaning as November approaches.

To be somewhat more specific: Trump is known for his views critical of Mexico, many Muslims, immigration, refugees, trade, and U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea (in light of their purported unwillingness to share the burden of the common defense). He is also known for cozying up to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and for vague but emphatic talk of getting America back in the habit of winning again. In addition, he advocates more extreme and ruthless measures in the war on terror. 

Whatever the risks, it certainly seems more promising than the path either one of them is on now.

While Rubio is no dove, he has wrestled with the intricacies and complexities of foreign policy during his time in the Senate, and much more than has Trump. He has serious views on the use of force and defense policy, seasoned by reality. Most centrally, he has a Reagan-like view of America’s place in the world—as a country that is stern and unyielding towards its enemies, but open and welcoming to the vast majority of foreigners and foreign nations. This positive, internationalist outlook is in marked contrast to Trump’s worldview. Kasich’s views are much closer to Rubio than to Trump, of course, though he may be more measured and moderate in some of his pro-defense views than Rubio. 

In many foreign policy issues and beyond, Rubio seems more conservative than Kasich. But of course, some divergence of views is inevitable for any eventual presidential ticket—it is even healthy, to an extent. And the kinds of expertise the two men bring to the national debate are largely complimentary, since Kasich has focused more on domestic policy in recent years and Rubio more on national security matters. In other ways, like their strong religious faiths, they seem natural teammates.

Shake it up

Of course, the goal of this Rubio-Kasich ticket would be to win both Florida and Ohio in March. These are not only delegate-rich, winner-take-all states in the nominating process, but key swing states in general elections. Whether or not the Democratic nominee could ultimately best that ticket come November, the Rubio-Kasich team would have a powerful call on super-delegates at any brokered Republican convention if it already had wins in the nation’s two most important swing states under its belt. It would have demonstrated strength in two states that the GOP nominee will badly want to win in the November election.

Polls show that Kasich is stronger than Rubio in Ohio and Rubio is stronger than Kasich in Florida; both trail Trump in both places. However, their combined tallies match up reasonably well with Trump. Beyond that, the shock effect of this kind of partnership—between an accomplished sitting governor and a bright young senator—could change the race’s dynamics enough to bring them even more votes. It will raise eyebrows and cause many to take a second look at the race. Whatever the risks, it certainly seems more promising than the path either one of them is on now.

The preemptive formation of a Rubio-Kasich presidential team in early March would be a highly unusual step. But it’s already a highly unusual year. Put differently, desperate circumstances call for desperate—or at least dramatic—measures. This kind of a true structural change in the primary process promises a greater likelihood of shaking GOP voters up than big speeches by Mitt Romney or warnings from other parts of the GOP establishment. Kasich and Rubio should consider it.

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Keeping with tradition, we start the year with a compendium of forecasts for 2016 from our guest bloggers and ourselves.  At the end of the year, we will assess how we did (for last year’s forecasting performance, click here).

The prevailing sentiment about economic developments during 2016 is decidedly mixed. There are positive and negative views, sometimes from the same source. Here is a sampling:

On the negative side, “emerging economies will continue to disappoint;” “ODA will be squeezed by refugee costs (and climate change financing commitments);” “geopolitical tensions will remain;” “the dollar will be stronger with a severe impact on emerging economies;” and a range of idiosyncratic, political risks: weak governance and terrorist threats in Kenya; declining investor confidence and rising social strife in South Africa; corruption scandals in Brazil; and low oil prices coupled with domestic and geopolitical tensions in Russia.

On the positive side, “oil prices will remain low;” “the Islamic State will be defeated;” “the effect of monetary policy normalization will be very limited;” “food prices will remain low or fall, helping reduce global hunger;” “African countries will improve cereal yields;” “OECD countries will accept a record number of refugees and migrants;” “oil exporters will reform their economies;” and “peace agreements to end the wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen will be signed.”

An emerging theme is whether the disappointments in developing country growth in 2015 stem from idiosyncratic factors in specific countries—especially the BRICS, Turkey, and Indonesia—or whether those idiosyncratic factors, often associated with domestic political developments, are symptomatic of a broader issue of a slowing down of global convergence. Indeed, this theme of whether convergence remains a strong force that will continue to dominate developing country prospects, or a weak force that is all too easily offset by other factors, will likely remain one of the critical unknowns of 2016.

In summary, it is fair to say that with views as diverse as those we received, the picture for 2016 is complicated to say the least.

There is no analytical clarity in the global economy, despite forecasts from most major organizations (e.g., the IMF) that growth will be better in 2016 than in 2015 in every region except perhaps East Asia (although Asia will still probably record higher growth than anywhere else).

The fears generated by a slowing of one of the main engines of the global economy over the past decade, namely China, are palpable. The big story of 2016 is perhaps that it is an emerging economy, China, which is the major source of uncertainty over this year’s global outlook. While prospects for the major advanced economies—the USA, Europe, and Japan—are relatively stable, it is the developing world where there is the least clarity over the short- term outlook. Certainly, the volatility in global stock markets in the first days of the year suggests that volatility, risk aversion, and differences of views over short-term developments are all high as 2016 begins.

But there is at least one bright note. Almost certainly, prospects will improve for almost 200 million people who were living in countries that last year remained outside the scope of a normally functioning global economy. In Myanmar, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, economic conditions will improve as a result of recent political developments. In addition, in 2016 there will probably be at least 100 million more people joining the global middle class—those living in households with incomes of $10-100 a day (2005 PPP). Good news for them but a reminder that the task of moving towards a world with sustainable consumption and production patterns remains huge.

There was one consensus thread among our bloggers—all the Europeans appear consumed by the Euro 2016 soccer event (“Spain, France, or Germany will win”), while only one blogger dared to comment on the Olympics (that Brazil would do twice as well as in 2012). It seems that sports will be less complicated than economics in 2016.

Event Information

A conversation with USAID Administrator Gayle Smith

On March 30, Global Economy and Development at Brookings and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) hosted Gayle Smith, administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for an address on the fifth anniversary of the USAID policy on evaluation.

A principal recommendation of the Presidential Policy Determination on Global Development, signed by President Obama in 2010, was greater accountability for U.S. foreign assistance funds, including evaluation of development programs. In 2011, USAID adopted a formal policy on evaluation and since has average some 200 evaluations a year.

Among the issues that will be addressed during the event are the success and challenges in implementing the evaluation policy, the use of alternative evaluation methods, and building a system and process for turning evaluations into learning. Administrator Smith was introduced by Brookings Senior Fellow George Ingram. Following her address, he moderated a panel discussion of Ruth Levine, Wade Warren, and Jodi Nelson.

 Join the conversation on Twitter using #AIDeval

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• Assessing the impact of foreign assistance: The role of evaluation

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In this presentation Robert Puentes provides a deeper understanding of trends that are impacting metropolitan America and how those trends may impact the demand for multi-family housing in the coming decades. The presentation stresses several key points including dramatic changes in household formation, the plight of older, inner-ring "first" suburbs, and the increasing diversity reflected in both cities and suburban areas.

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The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) will boost earnings for over 18 million low-income working families in the U.S. by more than $30 billion this year. This survey finds that the EITC provided a $737 million boost to the Chicago regional economy in 1998, and lifted purchasing power in the city of Chicago by an average of $2 million per square mile. Large numbers of Low-income working families lived not only in inner-city Chicago neighborhoods, but also in smaller cities throughout the region like Aurora, Joliet, Elgin and Waukegan. The survey concludes by describing steps that state and local leaders could take to build on existing efforts to link working families to the EITC, such as increasing resources for free tax preparation services, helping EITC recipients to open bank accounts, and expanding and making refundable the Illinois state EITC.

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The United States exported and imported $4.0 trillion worth of international goods in 2014, making it the world’s second-largest trader, after China. The responsibility for moving all those products falls to the country’s 400-plus seaports, airports, and border-crossing facilities, though a smaller group does most of the country’s heavy lifting. In fact, ports in just 10 metropolitan areas move 60 percent of all international goods by value.

This level of concentrated port activity creates a spatial mismatch in the country’s trade flows. While a few ports handle a majority of international trade, few of the goods leaving or entering those ports start or end their journey in that port’s local market: 96 percent actually move to or from other parts of the United States. As a result, problems within and outside certain port facilities—whether a labor dispute like the recent West Coast port strike or congestion near Philadelphia’s seaport or airport—quickly become logistical costs borne by the entire country.

The 10 largest metropolitan port complexes represent a wide range of U.S. geographies, modal specialties, and international connections. Total volumes for these port complexes, listed below, are based on an aggregation of imports and exports across all sea, air, truck, rail, and pipeline facilities in each region. All data are from 2010, and you can find more detailed metrics within the Metro Freight interactive.

10. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI

Total Value: $92.8 billion
Local Share: 4.6 percent
Top Trade Region: Asia Pacific ($41.5 billion)

A traditional Midwest powerhouse of production, metropolitan Chicago is home to a variety of industries and infrastructure assets that connect it to the Midwest and global marketplace. The proximity of factories, warehouses, and rail lines to its major port facilities, particularly O'Hare International Airport, places Chicago at a strategic crossroads for goods distribution.

9. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA

Total Value: $103.9 billion
Local Share: 4.4 percent
Top Trade Region: Asia Pacific ($77.6 billion)

The San Francisco metro area—and the Bay Area as a whole—may be more well-known as a center for tech innovation, but it also contains some of the largest port facilities in the country. The Port of Oakland and the Port of San Francisco  account for the bulk of water traffic ($55.3 billion overall) moving through the area, while Oakland International Airport and San Francisco International Airport help transport nearly $48.6 billion in electronics, precision instruments, and other high-value goods.

8. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Total Value: $116.9 billion
Local Share: 8.2 percent
Top Trade Region: Asia Pacific ($89.4 billion)

The Seattle metro area plays a critical role cycling goods throughout the Pacific Northwest and the rest of the country, largely owing to the key connections its port facilities have forged with China ($47.9 billion) and Japan ($22.0 billion). Valuable transportation equipment and electronics represent a large chunk of these port volumes ($52.7 billion), although sizable amounts of machinery, textiles, and agricultural products are also processed through area facilities. The Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma are especially important in this respect, as they look to partner more closely in years to come.

7. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL

Total Value: $123.7 billion
Local Share: 2.0 percent
Top Trade Region: Latin America ($97.2 billion)

Miami is the country’s primary gateway to Latin America, especially when excluding petroleum-related trade moving through Gulf Coast ports. And while the region and state have made impressive investments at the Port Miami seaport, it is actually Miami International Airport that generates the most regional trade ($74.8 billion). Miami’s facilities are a key component of Florida’s statewide strategy to use trade and logistics to grow local industries.

6. Laredo, TX

Total Value: $124.4 billion
Local Share: 0.0 percent
Top Trade Region: NAFTA ($121.0 billion)

Laredo may only house 250,000 people, but it might be the most important Texas metro area you’ve never heard of, considering that virtually every international good passing through it heads somewhere else in the U.S. The border town is the southernmost point of Interstate 35—the so-called NAFTA superhighway—and handles almost half of U.S./Mexican surface trade. With automotive and other supply chains continuing to stretch across the binational border, Laredo is poised to grow in importance over the coming years.

5. Anchorage, AK

Total Value: $137.4 billion
Local Share: 0.2 percent
Top Trade Region: Asia Pacific ($136.0 billion)

Anchorage may be thousands of miles from the closest U.S. market, but it has a long legacy as a major connector to the Pacific marketplace, resting less than 9.5 hours by air from 90 percent of the industrialized world. In particular, Ted Stevens International Airport was the cargo hub for Northwest Airlines Cargo, once the country’s largest carrier, and still has a vibrant freight business led by FedEx Express and UPS hubs. Continued growth in high-value, low-weight goods trade with Asia can only benefit Anchorage’s cargo business.

4. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX

Total Value: $168.1 billion
Local Share: 10.6 percent
Top Trade Region: Latin America ($48.3 billion)

As one of the world’s leading centers for energy and chemical production, the Houston metro area—along with other parts of the Gulf Coast region—depends on an enormous set of seaport facilities to transport these goods. Collectively, $100.6 billion of energy products and chemicals/plastics pass through these ports annually, accounting for about 60 percent of all their international goods. Stretching more than 25 miles in length and situated close to the Gulf of Mexico, the Port of Houston houses many of the area’s marine terminals.

3. Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI

Total Value: $206.7 billion
Local Share: 4.9 percent
Top Trade Region: NAFTA ($186.6 billion)

Although the Detroit metro area contains a number of freight facilities, such as the Port of Detroit, that unite the Great Lakes region, its land border crossings to Canada make it one of the busiest sites of commerce in North America and beyond. Each year, nearly $175.8 billion in international goods travel by truck and rail between Detroit and Canada—relying almost exclusively on the aging Ambassador Bridge and the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel. The planned New International Trade Crossing (NITC), however, holds promise for expanding capacity at this crucial junction.

2. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA

Total Value: $349.2 billion
Local Share: 9.7 percent
Top Trade Region: Europe ($153.9 billion)

The Port of New York and New Jersey, which spans several marine facilities including the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, is one of the biggest freight assets in the country, cementing the New York metro area’s role as the chief East Coast seaport complex ($185.0 billion). Remarkably, almost the same value of goods ($162.7 billion) flows through the area’s expansive air cargo facilities, including John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport. Combined with New York’s enormous amount of global corporate headquarters, New York is the country’s most globally fluent metro area.

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA

Total Value: $417.5 billion
Local Share: 6.0 percent
Top Trade Region: Asia Pacific ($362.2 billion)

The Los Angeles metropolitan area not only boasts two of the largest seaports in the Western Hemisphere—the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach—but also has one of the busiest cargo airports nationally, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Together, these port facilities channel a wide range of international goods like electronics, machinery, and textiles across the country, many of which come from Asian trade partners like China ($211.3 billion) and Japan ($58.5 billion). Still, only a fraction of these goods actually start or end locally (6 percent), speaking to the port complex’s extensive geographic reach in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

The overall economic efficiency of a quantity-based approach to greenhouse gas mitigation depends strongly on the extent to which such a program provides opportunities for compliance flexibility, particularly with regard to the timing of emissions abatement. Here I consider a program in which annual targets are determined by choosing the optimal time path of reductions consistent with an exogenously prescribed cumulative reduction target and fixed technology set. I then show that if the availability of low-carbon technology is initially more constrained than anticipated, the optimal reduction path shifts abatement toward later compliance periods. For this reason, a rigid policy in which fixed annual targets are strictly enforced in every year yields a cumulative environmental outcome identical to the optimal policy but an economic outcome worse than the optimal policy. On the other hand, a policy that aligns actual prices (or equivalently, costs) with expected prices by simply imposing an explicit price ceiling (often referred to as a "safety valve") yields the opposite result. Comparison among these multiple scenarios implies that there are significant gains to realizing the optimal path but that further refinement of the actual regulatory instrument will be necessary to achieve that goal in a real cap-and-trade system.

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Executive Summary

During the first decade of the 21^st century the six states of the Mountain West — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah — experienced unprecedented political and demographic changes. Population growth in all six states exceeded the national average and the region is home to the four states that underwent the largest population gains between 2000 and 2010. As a consequence, the region is now home to some of the most demographically diverse and geographically concentrated states in the country— factors that helped to transform the Mountain West from a Republican stronghold into America’s new swing region. This paper examines the impact that increased diversity and density are exerting on reapportionment and redistricting in each Mountain West state and assesses the implications that redistricting outcomes will exert both nationally and within each state in the coming decade.  Nationally, the region’s clout will increase due to the addition of three seats in the House of Representatives (one each in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah) and electoral contexts in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico that will result in competitive presidential and senate elections throughout the decade. At the state level, the combination of term limits, demographic change, and the reapportionment of state legislative seats from rural to urban areas will alter the composition of these states’ legislatures and should facilitate the realignment of policy outcomes that traditionally benefitted rural interests at the expense of urban needs.

Introduction

As reapportionment and redistricting plans across the 50 states are finalized and candidate recruitment begins in earnest, the contours of the 2012 election are coming into focus. One region of the country where reapportionment (redistributing seats to account for population shifts) and redistricting (drawing boundaries for state legislative and congressional districts) are likely to have significant consequences in 2012 and beyond is in the six states of the Mountain West: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Driven by explosive growth during the past decade, the Mountain West is now home to some of the most demographically diverse and geographically concentrated states in the country. As a consequence, the region has increasingly become more hospitable to Democrats, particularly Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico and to a lesser extent Arizona. In this paper, I examine how these changes are affecting reapportionment and redistricting across the region. Specifically, after summarizing some of the key regional demographic and political changes, I offer a brief overview of the institutional contexts in which the maps are being drawn. This is followed by an assessment of outcomes in each state. I conclude with a discussion of the national and state level implications that reapportionment and redistricting are likely to engender across the Mountain West.

A Region in Transition

Between 2000 and 2010 population growth in all six Mountain West states outpaced the national average of 9.7 percent and the region contains the four states that experienced the largest percent population increase in the country (Nevada = 35.1 percent; Arizona = 24.6 percent; Utah = 23.8 percent, and Idaho = 21.1 percent).[i] As a consequence, Nevada and Utah each gained their fourth seats in the House of Representative and Arizona was awarded its ninth. Beginning with the 2012 election, the Mountain West will have 29 U.S. House seats (Idaho has two House seats, New Mexico has three, and Colorado has seven) and 41 Electoral College votes.

Across the Mountain West, population growth was concentrated in the region’s largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA).[ii] Most notably, the Las Vegas metro area is now home to nearly three out of four Nevadans — the mostly highly concentrated space in the region. In Arizona, roughly two-thirds of the population now resides in the Phoenix MSA, which grew by nearly 30 percent. The Albuquerque MSA experienced the largest overall increase as a share of total population (nearly 25 percent) and now contains 44 percent of New Mexico’s population. And while Idaho remains the state in the region with the least dense population, growth in the Boise MSA significantly outpaced that state’s overall population gain and nearly 40 percent of all Idahoans reside in and around Boise. On the other end of the spectrum are the Salt Lake City and Denver MSAs, which as shares of the Colorado and Utah populations decreased slightly from 2000. Still, better than half (50.57 percent) of all Coloradoans live in Denver and its suburbs and around 41 percent of Utah’s population is concentrated in the Salt Lake City MSA.

In addition to further urbanizing the region, the prior decade’s growth continued to transform the region’s demographics as all six Mountain West states are now more ethnically diverse as compared to a decade ago.[iii] The largest changes occurred in Nevada where the minority population increased by over 11 percent and now better than 45 percent of Nevadans are classified as non-white. While the bulk of this growth was among Hispanics, whose share of the population increased by 7 percent and are now 26.5 percent of all Nevadans, the Silver State also recorded large increases among Asian and Pacific Islanders. Arizona experienced similar increases as that state’s minority population mushroomed from 36.2 percent to 42.2 percent with Hispanics now constituting 30 percent of the population. In Colorado, the minority population increased by 3.5 percent to 30 percent. Nearly all of this change was caused by an increase in Hispanics, who now constitute 20.7 percent of the state’s population. New Mexico continues to be the Mountain West’s most diverse state as nearly three out of five New Mexicans are minorities and the state contains the region’s largest Hispanic population (46 percent). And while Idaho and Utah remain overwhelmingly white, both states’ non-white populations grew at levels similar to Colorado. Idaho is now 16 percent non-white (including a Hispanic population of 11.2 percent) and nearly one in five Utahans is a minority. Between 2000 and 2010, Hispanics increased by 4 percent to constitute 13 percent of Utah’s population.

Politically, these changes helped to create competitive electoral contexts across the region. Indeed, with the obvious exceptions of Idaho and Utah, the Mountain West is now more hospitable to the Democratic Party than it was in 2000. In particular, Democrats were able to make significant gains in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico and effectively flipped those states from Republican leaning in 2000 to Democratic leaning in 2010. In Arizona, the Democratic performance was highly variable and moved in near perfect tandem with the broader national political environment. At the same time, the downturn in Democratic support in 2010 indicates that the party has not yet consolidated its gains. Riding a favorable 2010 macro-environment, Mountain West Republicans gained one governorship (New Mexico), seats in ten of the region’s 12 state legislative chambers, and seven House seats (out of a total of 26 in the region).[iv] Thus, heading into the 2011 redistricting cycle, Republicans control the executive and legislative branches in Arizona, Idaho, and Utah and there are no Mpuntain West states where the Democrats have unified control as the partisan composition of the Colorado legislature is divided and Nevada and New Mexico have Republican governors and Democratic legislatures.

The Institutional Context

Because of variation in the institutional arrangements governing how each state approaches reapportionment and redistricting, the impact that the demographic and political changes outlined above are exerting on map drawing differs across the region. To be sure, there are a number of commonalities across the states such as requirements of equally populated U.S. House districts, minimum population variation for state legislative districts, and boundary lines that are compact, contiguous, and maintain communities of interests. 

Beyond these constraints, mapmakers across the region are afforded different degrees of latitude in how they go about doing their work. For instance, in Nevada and New Mexico, the residency of incumbents can be considered, while Idaho forbids it. Idaho allows for twice as much inter-district population variation for state legislative districts as Colorado and New Mexico, and Idaho only allows state legislative districts to cross county lines if the counties are linked by a highway. Arizona and Idaho mandate that two lower chamber districts be nested within the boundaries of a state senate seat, while Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah do not. Nevada also allows for multi-member member state legislative districts. Lastly, Arizona’s redistricting plans must be pre-cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice. While Arizona is the only state in the region subject to preclearance, protection of minority voting rights also has been a point of contention in prior redistricting cycles in New Mexico.

The Mountain West states also vary in terms of who oversees the redistricting process. State legislators control the process in Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, while Arizona and Idaho use commissions. In Colorado, the General Assembly draws the map for the state’s seven U.S. House seats, while a commission oversees the drawing of state legislative maps. For the three states that use commissions for either all or part of their processes, commission size and composition differs significantly and only the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) is charged with drawing maps that are competitive.[v] 

However, the most significant constraint on reapportionment and redistricting in the Mountain West is the small size of the region’s state legislatures.[vi] The mix of small chambers, increased urbanization, and large geographic spaces means very large and increasingly, fewer and fewer stand- alone rural districts. This dynamic also helps to explain the region’s history of malapportionment that often allocated seats by county regardless of population.[vii] 

State Summaries

Based upon the overview presented above, expectations about the general contours of reapportionment and redistricting in the Mountain West are fairly straightforward: the clout of urban and minority interests will increase and to the degree that those factors benefit the Democrats, the Democrats should gain some partisan advantage. Realizing these outcomes, however, has proven to be less than amicable. With the exception of Utah, all other states in the region have had various aspects of their processes litigated, and map drawing for Colorado’s U.S. House seats and all of Nevada and New Mexico’s redistricting is being completed in state courts. Below, I summarize the status of reapportionment and redistricting in each state.

Arizona

Beginning its work amid criticism of its composition, calls for its abolishment, and an investigation by the Arizona attorney general, the voter-initiated Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) has struggled to balance the conflicting demands of drawing competitive districts with the protection of minority voting rights. The commission’s work has been further hindered by Republican Governor Jan Brewer’s unsuccessful attempt to impeach the commission’s nonpartisan chair. In addition, Arizona has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the state’s preclearance requirement.

Republican attempts to undermine the AIRC stem from the fact that given unified Republican control of the Arizona governorship and legislature, Republicans would otherwise be in a position to implement a partisan gerrymander. At the same time, the GOP’s present dominance is partially an artifact of the 2001 redistricting. To gain preclearance in 2001, the AIRC’s maps created a large number of majority-minority state legislative districts and minority-friendly U.S House seats by packing Democratic voters into these districts. In so doing, Democratic support in the surrounding districts was weakened; allowing Republicans to more efficiently translate their votes into seats.[viii] Thus, despite a slight partisan voter registration advantage (4.35 percent as of July 2011), Republicans presently hold more than two-thirds of the state legislative seats and five of eight U.S. House seats.

Given Arizona’s growth patterns between 2000 and 2010 coupled with the AIRC’s charge of creating competitive district, drawing a map as favorable to the GOP in 2011 is virtually impossible unless the size of the Arizona legislature is increased. Still, in order to protect minority voting rights, Arizona’s final maps are likely to tilt in favor of the GOP — just not to the degree that they have in the past. In particular, the elimination and consolidation of rural state legislative districts and a more urban orientation for Arizona’s nine U.S. House districts should provide the Democrats with electoral opportunities that will only increase as Arizona’s population continues to diversity and urbanize.

Colorado

As noted above, Colorado uses a commission (the Colorado Redistricting Commission) for redistricting state legislative seats and the Colorado General Assembly draws the maps for the state’s seven U.S. House seats. Neither process has gone smoothly. For the state’s seven U.S. House seats, the Democratic-dominated state senate and the Republican-controlled lower chamber failed to find common ground after exchanging two rounds of maps. Because Democratic governor John Hickenlooper refused to call a special session, redistricting of Colorado U.S. House seats was completed in state court. After a good deal of legal wrangling, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a map favored by Colorado Democrats that creates two safe Republican districts, one safe Democratic district, and four districts where neither party’s registration advantage exceeds 4 percent. As a consequence, Colorado will feature a number of competitive U.S. House elections throughout the coming decade.

Map drawing for state legislative seats by the CRC has also been hindered by partisanship. Hoping to break a partisan stalemate, in late summer the nonpartisan chair of the CRC offered maps that combined parts of prior Democratic and Republican proposals to create thirty-three competitive seats (out of a total of 100) and twenty-four seats with Hispanic populations of 30 percent or more. After being approved by the CRC with some Republican dissents, the plan was rejected by the Colorado Supreme Court, which must sign-off on the CRC’s plans before they can be implemented. By attempting to draw more competitive maps — a criterion that the CRC is not obligated to consider – the CRC’s maps undermined its charge of producing districts that keep communities of interest intact. The CRC’s second set maps, which were widely viewed as favoring the Democrats, were upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court.

Idaho

While partisan considerations have loomed large in the reapportionment and redistricting processes in Arizona and Colorado, in Republican-dominated Idaho the main points of contention have been spatial. Indeed, because of the difficulty of satisfying a constitutional requirement limiting county splits and a state law constraining how geographic areas can be combined, the Idaho’s Citizen Commission for Reapportionment (ICCR) failed to reach an agreement before its constitutionally imposed deadline. After sorting through a number of legal and constitutional questions, a second set of commissioners were impaneled and completed their work in less than three weeks. Given Idaho’s partisan composition, the final maps are a regional anomaly as they benefit the GOP while being somewhat more urban oriented. This was accomplished by moving rural Republican voters into urban Democratic state legislative districts and adjusting the lines of Idaho’s 1st House district to shed roughly 50,000 citizens. At the same time, because of Idaho’s strict constraints on how cities and counties can be divided, the map for the state legislature paired a number of incumbents in the same district and one district contains the residences of five incumbents, setting up a number of competitive primary elections.

While growth patterns and demographic and partisan change in Nevada between 2000 and 2010 insured a redistricting process that would favor Democrats, Nevada Republicans sought to delay this inevitability as long as possible. The state’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, vetoed two sets of maps passed by the Democratic controlled legislature and Sandoval refused to call a special session to complete redistricting. Instead, he and his party hoped for a better outcome in state court. Despite drawing a supervising judge who was the son of a former Republican Governor, Nevada Republicans fared no better in state court. Ultimately, the process was turned over to three special masters who rejected Nevada Republicans’ claim that section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required a majority Hispanic U.S. House district.[ix] As a consequence, two of Nevada’s U.S. House seats favor Democrats, one is safely Republican, and the fourth is a swing district. In the Nevada legislature the representation of urban interests will increase as parts of or all of forty-seven of the sixty-three seats in the Nevada legislature are now located in the Democratic stronghold of Clark County. 

New Mexico

The 2011 process in New Mexico has essentially been a rerun of the gridlock that engulfed the state’s 2001 redistricting debate. Once again, the Democrats sought to use their control over both chambers of the New Mexico legislature to preserve their majorities and draw the boundaries for the state’s three U.S. House seats in manner favorable to the party. However, because of bickering among Democrats the legislature failed to approve its map for the state’s three U.S. House seats prior to the end of the special session and the plans for the state legislature that were passed on party line votes were vetoed by Republican governor Susana Martinez. Thus, once again, New Mexico’s divided state government coupled with the state’s history of litigating redistricting plans (in 2001 map drawing and court battles cost the state roughly $3.5 million) means that redistricting will be completed in state court. While the Republicans may be able to gain some concessions through the courts, New Mexico is the most Democratic state in the Mountain West and, as noted above, the state’s growth during the prior decade was concentrated in heavily Democratic Albuquerque and its suburbs. Thus, as in 2001, the likely outcome in New Mexico is a redistricting plan that will be favorable to the Democrats and weaken the influence of rural interests.

Utah

Utah is the only state in the region where conditions exist (e.g., unified partisan control in a non-commission state) for the implementation of a partisan gerrymander. However, to accomplish this end required the slicing and dicing of communities and municipalities particularly those in and around the state’s urban center. Most notably, in drawing the state’s four U.S. House seats, Republicans divided the Utah’s population center (Salt Lake City County) into four districts by combining parts of the urban core with rural counties - a plan that, not coincidentally, cracks the only part of the state where Democrats are able to compete. Similarly, maps for state legislative districts increase the number of seats that favor the GOP and, in many instances, protect incumbents from potential primary challengers by dividing communities into multiple districts. Democrats in Utah are so depleted that they were unable to get the Republicans to even agree to include recognition and protection of minority communities of interest to in Utah’s redistricting guidelines. Thus, despite constituting nearly 20 percent of the state’s population, minorities received no consideration in Utah’s 2011 redistricting.

Implications and Conclusions

Reapportionment and redistricting are often regarded as the most political activities in the United States; an expectation that is certainly being realized across the Mountain West. In the swing states where legislators draw the maps (for example, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico) but where state government is divided, partisan considerations loomed large, causing all of these states to conclude all or parts of their redistricting processes in the courts. The conflicts between Arizona’s preclearance requirement and the AIRC’s commitment to drawing competitive districts have partisan consequences as well. In one-party Idaho and Utah, the politics of space were at issue.  Geographic constraints on district boundaries imposed through statute and the Idaho constitution ensured that more rural seats were preserved and that the growing influence of urban interests will be checked. In Utah, Republicans moved in the opposite direction by carving up the very communities from which they are elected in order to implement a partisan gerrymander. 

Another school of thought, however, argues that the most typical redistricting outcome is not partisan gain or loss, but an uncertainty that shakes up the state political environment and facilitates political renewal. In the case of the Mountain West, there is evidence to support that claim as well. The biggest source of uncertainty will continue to be growth. While the economic downturn has slowed migration to the region, the Mountain West states remain poised to keep expanding in a manner that will further concentrate and diversify their populations. A second source of uncertainty is the region’s large number of nonpartisans. While redistricting is often framed as a zero-sum game played between Democrats and Republicans, the electoral hopes for either party hinges on its ability to attract the support of the region’s expanding nonpartisan demographic.[x] 

At the state level, with the exception of Idaho, the most significant consequence will be a reduction in rural influence. The combination of term limits in Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado, small legislative chambers, and fast growing urban populations will continue to decrease the number of entrenched rural legislators and the number of stand-alone rural districts. Consequently, urban interests should be positioned to align state policy with demographic reality. The void created by the demise of rural legislators will be filled by minorities, particularly Hispanics. To date, the increased political activism of Hispanic communities across the region has primarily benefited Democrats; helped in no small part by the hard-line rhetoric and policies championed by some Mountain West Republicans.[xi] More generally, depending on growth patterns, by 2020 Nevada and perhaps Arizona may join New Mexico as states with majority-minority populations. Thus, with or without Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, minority legislators, primarily Hispanics, will increase their ranks significantly. The only question is whether all of these politicians will be taking office with a “D” next to their names or whether some will be elected as Republicans.  

Nationally, the impact of reapportionment and redistricting is mixed. Certainly, the addition of three U.S. House seats after the 2010 census will give more voice to regional issues in Washington D.C. At the same time, because the Mountain West’s House delegation will continue to be split along partisan lines and many of the region’s competitive House seats will rotate between the parties throughout the decade, it may be difficult for any but the safest Mountain West representatives to accrue the requisite seniority to become players in the House. Also, because of pending retirements in Arizona and New Mexico, a successful 2010 primary challenge in Utah, and a resignation in Nevada, the region’s influence in the U.S. Senate is likely to decline in the near term. Indeed, after the 2012 election the only senators from the region who will have served more than one term will be Nevada’s Harry Reid, Arizona’s John McCain, Idaho’s Mike Crapo, and Utah’s Orrin Hatch (presuming a successful 2012 reelection).

Thus, the arena where the region is likely to garner the most attention is in the coming decade’s three presidential elections. Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico were all battleground states in 2004 and 2008, with Republican George W. Bush narrowly winning all three in 2004 and Democrat Barack Obama flipping them blue in 2008 by wider margins. Obviously, Idaho and Utah will remain out of reach for the Democrats in statewide contests for some time.  However, Arizona is likely to become the region’s fourth swing state in the near future. Thus, continued investment in Arizona and throughout the region will allow the Democrats to further expand the number of Mountain West states in play while forcing the GOP to spend resources to defend turf that it once could safely call its own.

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• The Impact of Density and Diversity on Reapportionment and Redistricting in the Mountain West

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s idea to withdraw American forces from Asia—letting allies like Japan and South Korea fend for themselves, including possibly by acquiring nuclear weapons—is fundamentally unsound, as I’ve written in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Among the many dangers of preemptively pulling American forces out of Japan and South Korea, including an increased risk of war between Japan and China and a serious blow to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, such a move would heighten the threat of war between China and Taiwan. The possibility that the United States would dismantle its Asia security framework could unsettle Taiwan enough that it would pursue a nuclear deterrent against China, as it has considered doing in the past—despite China indicating that such an act itself could be a pathway to war. And without bases in Japan, the United States could not as easily deter China from potential military attacks on Taiwan. 

Trump’s proposed Asia policy could take the United States and its partners down a very dangerous road. It’s an experiment best not to run.

At the time that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran was being debated here in Washington, I felt that the terms of the deal were far less consequential than how the United States responded to Iranian regional behavior after a deal was signed. I see the events of the past 12 months as largely having borne out that analysis. While both sides have accused the other of "cheating" on the deal in both letter and spirit, it has so far largely held and neither Tehran nor Washington (nor any of the other signatories) have shown a determination to abrogate the deal or flagrantly circumvent its terms. However, as many of my colleagues have noted, the real frictions have arisen from the U.S. geostrategic response to the deal.

I continue to believe that the Obama administration was ultimately correct that signing the JCPOA was better than any of the realistic alternatives—even if I also continue to believe that a better deal was possible, had the administration handled the negotiations differently. However, its regional approach since then has left a fair amount to be desired:

• The president gratuitously insulted the Saudis and other U.S. allies in his various interviews with Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic. 
• After several alarming Iranian-Saudi dust-ups, administration officials have none-too-privately condemned Riyadh and excused Tehran in circumstances where both were culpable. 
• Washington has continued to just about ignore all manner of Iranian transgressions from human rights abuses to missile tests, and senior administration officials have turned themselves into metaphorical pretzels to insist that the United States is doing everything it can to assist the Iranian economy. 
• And the overt component of the administration's Syria policy remains stubbornly focused on ISIS, not the Bashar Assad regime or its Iranian allies, while the covert side focused on the regime remains very limited—far smaller than America's traditional Middle Eastern allies have sought. 

To be fair, the administration has been quite supportive of the Gulf Cooperation Council war effort in Yemen—far more so than most Americans realize—but even there, still much less than the Saudis, Emiratis, and other Sunni states would like. 

To be blunt, the perspective of America's traditional Sunni Arab allies (and to some extent, Turkey and Israel) is that they are waging an all-out war against Iran and its (Shiite) allies across the region. They have wanted the United States, their traditional protector, to lead that fight. And they feared that the JCPOA would result in one of two different opposite approaches: either that the United States would use the JCPOA as an excuse to further disengage from the geopolitical competition in the region, or even worse, that Washington would use it to switch sides and join the Iranian coalition. Unfortunately, their reading of events has been that this is precisely what has happened, although they continue to debate whether the United States is merely withdrawing or actively changing sides. And as both Bruce Reidel and I have both stressed, this perception is causing the GCC states to act more aggressively, provoking more crises and worsening proxy warfare with Iran that will inevitably aggravate an already dangerously-unstable Middle East and raises the risk of escalation to something even worse.

U.S. President Barack Obama walks with Saudi King Salman at Erga Palace upon his arrival for a summit meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 20, 2016. Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque.

Looking to year two

All that said, I wanted to use the first anniversary of the JCPOA to think about where we may be on its second anniversary. By then, we will have a new president. Donald Trump has not laid out anything close to a coherent approach to the Middle East, nor does he have any prior experience with the region, so I do not believe we can say anything reasonable about how he might handle the region if he somehow became president. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has had considerable experience with the region—as first lady, senator, and secretary of state—and she and her senior aides have discussed the region to a much greater extent, making it possible to speculate on at least the broad contours of her initial Middle East policy. 

In particular, Clinton has been at pains to emphasize a willingness to commit more resources to deal with the problems of the Middle East and a fervent desire to rebuild the strained ties with America's traditional Middle Eastern allies. From my perspective, that is all to the good because an important (but hardly the only) factor in the chaos consuming the Middle East has been the Obama administration's determination to disengage from the geopolitical events of the region and distance itself from America's traditional allies. The problem here is not that the United States always does the right thing or that our allies are saints. Hardly. It is that the region desperately needs the United States to help it solve the massive problems of state failure and civil war that are simply beyond the capacity of regional actors to handle on their own. The only way to stop our allies from acting aggressively and provocatively is for the United States to lead them in a different, more constructive direction. In the Middle East in particular, you can't beat something with nothing, and while the United States cannot be the only answer to the region's problems, there is no answer to the region's problems without the United States.

My best guess is that our traditional allies will enthusiastically welcome a Hillary Clinton presidency, and the new president will do all that she can to reassure them that she plans to be more engaged, more of a leader, more willing to commit American resources to Middle Eastern problems, more willing to help the region address its problems (and not just the problems that affect the United States directly, like ISIS). I think all of that rhetorical good will and a sense (on both sides) of putting the bad days of Obama behind them will produce a honeymoon period. 

[T]he second anniversary of the JCPOA could prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first.

But I suspect that that honeymoon will come to an end after 6 to 18 months, perhaps beginning with the second anniversary of the JCPOA and occasioned by it. I suspect that at that point, America's traditional allies—the Sunni Arab States, Israel, and Turkey—will begin to look for President Clinton to turn her words into action, and from their perspective, that is probably going to mean doing much more than President Obama. I suspect that they will still want the United States to join and/or lead them in a region-wide war against Iran and its allies. And while I think that a President Clinton will want to do more than President Obama, I see no sign that she is interested in doing that much more. 

Syria is one example. The GCC wants the United States to commit to a strategy that will destroy the Assad regime (and secondarily, eliminate ISIS and the Nusra Front). Clinton has said she was in favor of a beefed-up covert campaign against the Assad regime and that she is in favor of imposing a no-fly zone over the country. If, as president, she enacts both, this would be a much more aggressive policy than Obama's, but as I have written elsewhere, neither is likely to eliminate the Assad regime, let alone stabilize Syria and end the civil war—the two real threats to both the United States and our regional allies (and our European allies). 

Even more to the point, I cannot imagine a Hillary Clinton administration abrogating the JCPOA, imposing significant new economic sanctions on Iran, or otherwise acting in ways that it would fear could provoke Tehran to break the deal, overtly or covertly. That may look to our traditional allies like Washington is trying to remain on the fence, which will infuriate them. After Obama, and after Clinton's rhetoric, they expect the United States to stand openly and resolutely with them. At the very least, such American restraint will place further limits on the willingness of a Clinton administration to adopt the kind of confrontational policy toward Tehran that our regional allies want, and that her rhetoric has led them to expect. 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (C) speaks with Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh (L) and United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash as they participate in the Libya Contact Group family photo at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi June 9, 2011. Photo credit: Reuters/Susan Walsh.

Reconcile, or agree to disagree?

Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that the United States should adopt the GCC analysis of what is going on in the region wholeheartedly. I think that it overstates Iran's role as the source of the region's problems and so distracts from what I see as the region's real problems—state failure and civil wars—even if the Iranians have played a role in exacerbating both. 

Instead, my intent is simply to highlight that there are some important strategic differences between the United States and its regional allies, differences that are not all Barack Obama's fault but reflect important differences that have emerged between the two sides. If this analysis is correct, then the second anniversary of the JCPOA could prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first. The honeymoon will be over, and both sides may recognize that goodwill and rousing words alone cannot cover fundamental divergences in both our diagnosis of what ails the region and our proposed treatment of those maladies. If that is the case, then both may need to make much bigger adjustments than they currently contemplate. Otherwise, the United States may find that its traditional allies are no longer as willing to follow our lead, and our allies may discover that the United States is no longer interested in leading them on the path they want to follow.

The GOP presidential candidate said he would ban immigrants from sending money home to Mexico.

Donald Trump’s proposal to force Mexico to pay for a Wall guarding against the flux of immigrants into the U.S. made news this week, and rightfully so. Trump’s idea would be to curtail the ability of banks, credit unions, and wire transmission companies to send money abroad — a sharp departure from policy and law whose bipartisan aim has been to bring remittances to all countries into the financial mainstream and out from the shadowy illegal word of people moving cash in suitcases.

Encouraging remittances to go through the financial system benefits everyone: it enhances the ability to combat terrorist finance and money-laundering, it reduces crime in both the U.S. and abroad, it increases economic growth in the U.S. and overseas, and it provides for greater competition and market incentives to allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money to use as they see fit. Moving in the opposite direction would be a major mistake.

This is a big issue that affects a lot more people than one might think – more than just sending money to Mexico. In America today, more than 40 million people were born in other countries, a record number. This translates into just more than 1 in 8 Americans, a sharp increase from 1970 when fewer than 1 in 25 Americans were foreign born. Thus, it is not surprising that many people perceive America to have more foreign-born people than any time in their lifetime. However, that is not the case for the lifetime of America. Between the Civil War and the 1920s, America had as high — or higher — share of foreign born as we do today.

Remittances are not a new phenomenon. Most American families likely sent remittances at some point whenever their family first immigrated. My great-grand father sent money back to what is today the Czech Republic so that his wife and their children (including my grandmother) could come and join him and escape what became the Second World War. Today, remittance flows go toward the new generation of American immigrants and the children of those immigrants. More than $120 billion was sent abroad in 2012 according to the Pew Center and while it is true that Mexico received the largest amount at just under $23 billion, the rest of the top 5 countries may surprise you: China ($13 billion), India ($12 billion), Philippines ($10.5 billion), and Nigeria ($6 billion). And old habits remain as Germany ($2.5 billion) and France ($2 billion) are still among the top 15 countries that receive remittances from the United States.

This money comes in lots of small chunks, which can make sending it expensive. The typical new migrant worker sends money home around 14 times a year, which corresponds to once a month plus Mother’s Day and Christmas. These are usually small sums (less than $300) and represent an extraordinary level of savings given the worker’s income. The money goes through both the formal banking system including banks, credit unions, and wire transmitters who eventually use banks like Western Union and MoneyGram. Some goes through informal means, including “viajeros” who are people that literally carry cash in suitcases on planes that are often breaking the law and outside of the standard anti-money laundering and terrorist finance enforcement system. Why would anyone want to encourage that?

The idea of using this flow of funds to try to implement other policy objectives, such as border control, would be a sharp departure from current practice. The Patriot Act and subsequent federal law governing remittances in financial laws like the Dodd-Frank Act were never intended to be used to threaten to cut off the flow of migrant worker remittances. These laws were intended to track and crack down on the flow of money laundering or support for illegal and terrorist organizations while at the same time providing consumer protections to workers who are sending hard-earned cash back home to their parents, grandparents, and children. In fact, the bipartisan goal of policy concerning remittances has been to encourage the flow of money to come into the official system and to discourage the flow of funds through the underground network.

In 2004, then Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke made clear that, “The Federal Reserve is attempting to support banks’ efforts to better serve immigrant populations, with remittances and other money transfers being a key area of interest.” House Financial Services Chairman Mike Oxley (R-OH) told President Bush’s then-Treasury Secretary John Snow, “Remittances between established and emerging economies foster growth in both types of economies simultaneously. I will be interested in hearing your views on how unnecessary costs can be eliminated in this area.” When Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD) introduced legislation that became the basis for today’s law that covers remittances, he had the simple goal to “increase transparency, competition and efficiency in the remittance market, while helping to bring more Americans into the financial mainstream.”

The longstanding bipartisan support for bringing remittances into the financial mainstream is based on the fact that most immigrants, regardless of whether they are U.S. citizens, legal residents, or undocumented, send remittances. A system that tried to assert proof of citizenship or legal status upon wiring money overseas would be burdensome, costly, and ineffective at best and if effective, it would simply drive more money into illegal transmission schemes while increasing crime here in the U.S. and abroad. Imagine if an entire community knew that someone would be walking through their immigrant neighborhood with a suitcase full of tens of thousands of dollars in cash.

Thought of another way, if I went to the bank to send money to my mother who lives in France part of the year, how would I prove that I’m a citizen? My driver’s license alone is not proof of legal status. Would I need to bring my passport? What if, like the majority of Americans, (62% according to the State Department) I don’t have a valid passport? Would I have to bring my birth certificate to the local Western Union? I guess the one positive thing from such a system is that it would help stop the email scams asking for money from a Nigerian Prince….

Aaron Klein is a fellow at the Brookings Institution and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Department from 2009 to 2012. He also serves as an unpaid member of the Clinton campaign’s Infrastructure Finance Working Group; he has not served as an advisor on any banking or finance issues.

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared on Fortune.

Editors’ Note: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has proposed, in various forms and iterations, banning Muslims from entering the United States “until we figure out what’s going on,” in his words. Shadi Hamid responds to this proposal below, in an excerpt from a longer piece in The Atlantic in which Uri Friedman surveys various experts on the issue.

If Donald Trump is really interested in understanding the roots of anti-Americanism, there’s a solution: to read the hundreds of books and articles written on why, exactly, “Muslims” might not be particularly enthused about American policy in the Middle East (there’s little evidence to suggest that large numbers of Muslims have any particular antipathy toward Americans as people).

But it’s possible that Trump is just being imprecise. Perhaps what he really wants to say is not that Muslims “hate” Americans, but rather that they may be ambivalent about or even opposed to certain liberal values that are associated with being American. Obviously, it is impossible to generalize about an entire religious group, but polling does suggest that majorities in Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan, as well as non-Arab countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, aren’t quite classical liberals when it comes to issues like apostasy, religiously derived criminal punishments, gender equality, or the relevance of religious law in public life more generally.

If this happens to be Trump’s argument, it would be ironic, since Trump himself cannot be considered a liberal in the classical sense. In fact, he fits the definition of an “illiberal democrat” quite well, as I argued in a recent essay here in The Atlantic. That said, I have to admit that I’m concerned about anti-Muslim bigots misconstruing my own arguments around “Islamic exceptionalism”—that Islam has been and will continue to be resistant to secularization—after the attacks in Orlando. It’s undoubtedly true that large numbers of Muslims in both the West and the Middle East consider homosexual activity to be religiously unlawful, or haram, but let us be careful in drawing a link between such illiberalism (which many Christian evangelicals and Republican politicians share) and the desire to kill. That’s not the way radicalization works. We would never argue, for instance, that Senators Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio are “at risk” individuals who may, if we don’t keep a close eye on them, commit mass murder against gay Americans.

In any case, conservative Muslims, orthodox Jews, Christian evangelicals (or for that matter Trump supporters residing in Poland who want to emigrate to the U.S. if Trump wins) have the right to be “illiberal” as long as they express their illiberalism through legal, democratic means. These are rights that are protected by the American constitution, enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

Perhaps Trump is thinking specifically about violence perpetrated by Muslims, as he suggested in comments after the Orlando attacks. The interesting thing though—and something that is rarely acknowledged by U.S. politicians—is that the preponderance of Middle Eastern violence in recent decades has been perpetrated not by Islamists but by secular autocrats against Islamists, in the name of national security. These, as it happens, are the very strongmen that Trump seems to have such a soft spot for.

Ultimately, Trump cannot, through the force of arms or his genuinely frightening anti-Muslim rhetoric, compel the many conservative Muslims in the Middle East to be something they’re not, or would rather not be. To suggest that Muslims need to be secular or irreligious (by Trump’s own arbitrary standards) is dangerous. The message there is one that ISIS would find appealing for its own divisive purposes: that an increasingly populist and bigoted West has no interest in respecting or accommodating Islam’s role in public life, even when expressed legally and peacefully. The sad fact of the matter, though, is simple enough: Trump has less respect for the American constitution than the vast majority of American Muslims, many of whom, like me, are the children of immigrants. In Trump’s America, it so happens, my parents would have been banned from ever entering in the first place.