Campbell Institute News

Tanner Day at Maxwell is a series of lectures and panel discussions focused on the “Future of Citizenship and Public Service” in partnership with the National Academy of Public Administration.

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, says it's too early to discount potential candidates' chances in the 2020 presidential election.

"He [Jeff Sessions] has set DACA in his sights and this is likely not the last anti-immigrant gesture he will make as Attorney General," says Elizabeth Cohen, associate professor of political science.

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, conducted an interview with Syracuse's three democratic candidates for mayor in the party's primary. Reeher attempted multiple times to get each candidate to articulate how they differed on policy positions from each other, with little success.

“[President Trump] has got to go there, and he has got to go there while the problem is still extreme, while the place is still in a state of crisis,” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science. 

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, says a primary challenge to Trump would be futile unless Republicans could "have an agreed-upon person that's going to represent that challenge."

"Social Security is wildly popular," says Leonard Burman, professor of public administration and international affairs. "People support the regressive payroll tax because they like what it pays for and because it’s automatically withdrawn from their paychecks, unlike the reviled income tax that requires an obvious and painful annual reckoning."

 According to Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, the timing of Trump's plan to speak on Afghanistan "feels a little like a ‘wag the dog' type of effort at distraction."

Studies make it clear that crime in sanctuary jurisdictions is lower than in non-sanctuary cities, according to Elizabeth Cohen, associate professor of political science.

"While both the Confederacy and Nazi Germany waged wars to defend white supremacy, those two symbols were mostly kept apart for decades after World War II," says Steven White, incoming assistant professor of political science. "How those two symbols of white supremacy have come to overlap tells us a great deal about how white racist extremism developed— and where it might go."

"No matter how strong or dominant a personality the president has, he is going to have trouble taking on an American political institution as powerful as the U.S. Senate," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science.

According to Shana Kushner Gadarian, associate professor of political science, "Images matter. The emotions that you evoke really do have implications for how the public feels about whether or not they are safe, what kinds of beliefs they want to support, and their feelings about fellow citizens and whether or not they want to take liberties away from fellow citizens."

“The two parties are very close in number—it’s a very even split—and they are polarized,” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. “Those things tend to reinforce each other, make it harder to work across the aisle, which makes it harder to pass any big bill.” 

According to Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, Trump's basic policy framework for energy—reducing regulation, producing and consuming more of America's own energy resources—has more obvious appeal and is easier to sell to voters.

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, theorized that Gillibrand's language could be an effort by the senator to closely connect with critics of Trump.

"Not sure it’s a big deal that @SenKamalaHarris gets interrupted more than her male colleagues during committee meetings? Here’s some reading," tweeted Shana Gadarian, associate professor of political science. She proceeded to share multiple examples and links to published reports of women being interrupted more than their male colleagues.

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, says without key people pushing the administration’s agenda, "the government is going to have a tendency to kind of trundle along in the same direction it was beforehand."