CMC In The News

In an AARP article examining the factors impacting the 2022 midterm election season, Prof. Jack Pitney was quoted on the effect of the pandemic: “If COVID is still lingering throughout 2022, there’s going to be more of a demand for mail ballots and early voting. But in a lot of states that’s going to be more difficult so it could have a negative impact on turnout.”

In an opinion essay for the New York Times, Prof. Michael Fortner analyzes how Democrats can achieve sustainable police reform. “Palpable fear in the streets must be met with seriousness, compassion and nuance: People want more than just punishment,” he writes.

In a Standard-Speaker piece about gerrymandering, New York Times columnist Gail Collins quoted Prof. Ken Miller: “There was a lot of expectation the Republicans were going to exploit the process and that would give them control of the House. But it looks like the Democrats will come out at least equal and maybe advantaged.”

In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Prof. Minxin Pei said that whether or not China—the world’s second-largest economy—sides with Russia in its war on Ukraine, it will pay a hefty price. “Short-term inconveniences pale in comparison with potential long-term risks and costs if China fails to strike a delicate balance between supporting Russia, its strategic partner of convenience, and preventing ties with the West from collapsing completely.”

The Los Angeles Times cited Prof. Wendy Lower, director of CMC’s Mgrublian Center for Human Rights, in an article about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected the Ukrainian Jewish community.

An ABC7 Los Angeles story about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could impact the Southern California economy quoted Prof. Manfred Keil, director of CMC’s Lowe Institute of Political Economy, on agriculture. Keil did not expect a big impact to wheat, one of Russia’s key exports, in the United States. While European markets are more closely impacted by Russian exports, Keil said, “American farmers will benefit from this.”

A CBS Los Angeles news story quoted Prof. Jack Pitney about how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had been predicted: "He's been indicating for quite some time this is the way he wanted to go.”

In part one of a two-part series on growth prospects of the Inland Empire, Prof. Manfred Keil and Robert Kleinhenz of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership wrote: “The Inland Empire is among the nation’s largest based on absolute measures such as population and GDP, but it ranks in the bottom third in terms of the economic well-being of its residents as measured by income per capita. … Now is the time to develop long run goals and associated strategies for the region to move up the economic ladder and improve the well-being of its residents.”

In a Governing piece about why the president’s party almost always loses seats in midterms, Prof. Andrew Busch was quoted on the motivation of the party that lost the presidential election. “Even if the population is fairly divided on whether the president is going a good job, the people who are unhappy are more motivated,” he said.

Prof. Tamara Venit-Shelton was interviewed by Spectrum News 1 for a story about Pío Pico State Historic Park in Whittier, Calif. “Going back to the history of California and seeing it as a place that was multi-racial, that was polyglot, that was led by mixed-race people, led by Black people like Pío Pico, is a way of in fact reclaiming that history for the people who live in both Mexico and the United States today,” she said. “It’s important to be able to see your own roots and your own self reflected in history.”

Prof. Minxin Pei wrote an opinion piece for Bloomberg suggesting that China should remember the lessons of Nixon’s visit in 1972.

CNBC ran a story about the wave of House retirements in California as the Democrats scramble for control of Congress, which included substantial commentary from Prof. Jack Pitney. Regarding Rep. Devin Nunes’ resignation, he said, the special election for Nunes’ current district will give Republicans a “much better shot than they would have under the new map” that debuts in November. Pitney’s insights appeared in a similar story on The Current Online.

Prof. Minxin Pei was quoted in a WBUR podcast series about Richard Nixon’s great wager and how the former president’s diplomacy can inform U.S-China relations today. He expressed concern about China’s growing military strength, suggesting that it could take something like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to prompt dialogue. “My fear is that the U.S. and China will not start talking seriously until they've actually gone through a similar episode—a really hair-raising, very dangerous episode in the next, say, three to five years.”

In an opinion piece for EABW News, Prof. Minxin Pei argued that “50 years on, [Nixon’s] visit to Beijing remains, as Americans would say, a geopolitical no-brainer.” While many in Washington consider Nixon’s meeting and the policy of engagement it initiated to be “one of history’s greatest strategic blunders” in that they “helped make China an economic superpower and a geopolitical threat to America,” Pei disagrees and goes on to describe some of the resulting geopolitical and economic dividends for the United States.

In ProMarket, the publication of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Prof. Minxin Pei is quoted in a Stigler Center panel, part of a series of conversations on China’s current situation and future prospects. “[Xi] wants to create a new narrative in China that would convince the Chinese people that China’s day in the sun has arrived, [that] he’s elevated China to a new status in the global community.” Whether he succeeded in achieving these goals, Pei said, is a complicated question