As we reach the end of August, be sure to mark your calendar for that all-important September holiday, National Talk Like A Pirate Day, coming at you in less than three weeks, on the nineteenth. Dave Barry plugs it in his column today, meaning that I've been getting a lot of referrals from the Pirate Links page. It's things like this that remind me what a truly great country we live in. Arrr!
I'm not feeling very pundit-like (punditesque?) today, so I'll go for the easy and cheap shot by pigpiling on the Chron's hotshot new columnist Rick Casey, who comes to the amazing conclusion that maybe, just maybe, competitive districts for elected officials may be good for democracy. This particular effort contains more artificial filler than a truckload of Twinkies:
What would you say if I came up with a plan that gave both of you a chance to greatly increase the number of seats you held in the Legislature and in Congress?A plan that would ensure that you would never again suffer the kind of stand-off that is now making both sides the ridicule of the nation and the objects of disgust among Texans.
A plan that would strengthen the nation while making the working lives of elected officials more pleasant.
What's the plan? Before I tell you, let me remind you of your commitment to the virtues of free enterprise, competition and a government run more like a business.
Because the fact is, your behavior doesn't reflect your stated beliefs.
When it comes to a commitment to competition, you act in ways that would make John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould and Leland Stanford blush.
If Texaco and Exxon Mobil divided up market share the way you do, somebody would go to prison.
Harris County is not atypical. We have 25 state representative districts, at least part of seven state senate districts and at least part of eight U.S. House districts.
He then spends six paragraphs telling us why this is a Bad Thing before admitting that the idea of competitive districts was suggested to him by someone else, then finally goes for the big finish by touting the advantages of this idea, which are conveniently enough the exact converse of the disadvantages of the current system. Someone get me some smelling salts, all this excitement has me feeling faint!
Does he mention Senate Bill 2 and its faithful companion House Bill 49? Does he mention the March 2001 Texas Legislative Council report, which is called "State and Federal Law Governing Redistricting in Texas"? Heck, since he was really more interested in a computer program to do redistricting instead of people doing it, does he mention that the Texas Legislative Council already owns such a program? Please. Do you eat your Twinkies with a wheat germ chaser? I didn't think so.
Thom Marshall, come back! All is forgiven!
About a month ago, the Houston Press ran a reasonably fair and balanced profile of Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal, who has had a difficult first term in office as the replacement for his retired mentor, the well-respected Johnny Holmes. (I coulda swore I'd blogged about it, but I've scoured my archives and I didn't. Oh, well.) Reporter Rich Connelly had access to Rosenthal for the story, and though he touched on most of Rosenthal's missteps since taking office - the Houston Crime Lab debacle, the trials of Chief C.O. "BAMF" Bradford and Captain Mark Aguirre, his sublimely inept performance in front of the Supreme Court arguing for the state in Lawrence v. Texas - he liberally quoted Rosenthal's defenders as well as Rosenthal himself.
Today, the Chron has its own profile of Rosenthal, and though it doesn't mention the latter two lowlights, it's a lot more critical of Rosenthal. These quotes are indicative:
"There's an air in the district attorney's office now that I don't feel was quite there when Johnny Holmes was in office," said lawyer Katherine Scardino. "I don't get the impression that Chuck is as open as Johnny was. And, frankly, I don't think he's as smart."Lawyer Dan Cogdell said, however, that the difference is more than intellect.
In August 1997, Cogdell and another criminal defense lawyer, Kent Schaffer, found themselves in a legal dilemma when a federal government informant attempted to double-cross them. The attorneys feared they might be targets of a Justice Department sting, so they went to Holmes for advice and help. Holmes came to their rescue by running a reverse sting and arresting the informant on bribery charges.
"Without Holmes' stepping up and doing the right thing, I would have had a very expensive legal battle, and probably a change in my ZIP code," Cogdell said. "There's no way that if I went to Chuck, and I had a federal sting headed in my direction, that Rosenthal would intercede."
Rosenthal did not talk to Chron reporter Steve McVicker, which may explain why the overall tone was more negative towards him. In addition to focusing on the crime lab problems, the story and its sidebar examine some of Rosenthal's ethical lapses as assistant DA, most of which I was unaware of.
I'll say again that if there's one countywide office the Democrats should set their sights on in the 2004 election, it's this one. Rosenthal can be beaten with a good candidate and sufficient funding. My suggestion: Eric Andell, currently slumming it in the Department of Education. Come home, Eric! Your city needs you!
On Thursday, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project kicked off a big voter registration drive.
The voter project, founded in San Antonio in 1974, bills itself as a national nonpartisan, nonprofit group that mobilizes Latinos to vote."We have invited Democratic presidential candidates to speak, since the Democratic primary race is the juciest, and there's no race on the Republican side for president," said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the voter project.
The group hopes to register 2 million more Latino voters by the 2004 general elections, increasing the number to 10 million. It also hopes to mobilize 8 million registered Latino voters to cast votes come fall 2004.
"Houston has the top concentration of unregistered Latinos in Texas and is second in the country for concentration of unregistered, eligible Latino voters," said Gonzalez.
The group hopes to register at least 30,000 new Latino voters in the Houston area by fall 2004. Gonzalez said the area now has about 200,000 registered and 200,000 unregistered, eligible Latino voters.
Although the group has concentrated its Texas efforts in San Antonio and South Texas in the past decade, it plans to get more involved in Houston, whose Latino population has exploded in the past 15 years, Gonzalez said.
The group, he said, mobilizes voters by first networking with community leaders, elected officials, civic groups, businesses and church leaders.
"We offer them training so they can go door to door and literally register people one voter at a time," he said.
Mobilizing Latinos to vote has never been more important, Gonzalez said, because the increased population holds the potential to help Republican and Democratic candidates gain or maintain a majority in political offices.
"There was a time the mainstream didn't believe the Latino vote could make a difference," he said. "But both parties know they need a larger share of our vote, and that gives us a lot of leverage. If we play our cards right, we can advance issues from our various points of view in politics."
The group hopes to raise $3 million and plans to focus efforts in 14 Southwest states and assist sister organizations in the Midwest, East and Southeast.
It said it has registered more than 2.2 million Latino voters throughout the Southwest and Florida.
Al Sharpton was the keynote speaker, and he got in his usual jabs at President Bush. I'm with Kos on this - Sharpton's been a good presence in the primary so far. He's focused on Bush and has highlighted some differences in the Democratic Party without being divisive. That could change, of course, but for now all that scaremongering about his candidacy has been just hot air.
No surprise here: Mayoral candidate Sylvester Turner is critical of the stripped-down Metro proposal to add 22 miles of light rail over the next nine years, and calls out Bill White for supporting it.
Standing adjacent to a rail station on the 7.5-mile rail line under construction, Turner said the Metro board should reconsider its decision to take a $640 million expansion to voters Nov. 4.Instead, Turner said, the board should offer a $980 million alternative that would provide 40 miles over 14 years rather than 22 miles over nine years.
Metro has three more weeks to consider the matter before setting the final ballot language, Turner said. At that time, Turner will decide whether he will support or oppose the referendum.
"I am now and have always been pro-rail," Turner said. "I will be pro-rail for years to come, but this plan is broken. To the Metro board, I say, 'Fix it.' "
[...]
Turner said the plan was designed to boost White's candidacy. White is supported by former Mayor Bob Lanier, who took part in negotiations that resulted in the 22-mile plan.
"In public, the Metro board was all too eager to do what it needed to placate the masses," Turner said. "Behind closed doors, Metro lost its backbone and caved in to rail opponents and special interests who did not bother to attend Metro's public meetings."
Schechter said White did not take part in negotiations. He noted that while White has supported the $640 million plan, the candidate also voiced prior support for as much as $980 million.
White warned that Turner was playing a dangerous political game if he ultimately opposes the referendum.
"Sylvester says he is for rail, but defeating the bond issue could set us back a decade," White said. "Nobody gets exactly everything they want. Leadership is building consensus and moving forward."
White pointed out that when Turner ran for mayor in 1991, eventually losing to Lanier in a runoff, he and Lanier both opposed a monorail plan proposed by then-Mayor Kathy Whitmire. During that campaign, Turner said that if elected, he would return with a different rail plan.
That's the pro-rail schism in a nutshell. As I said before, either you think this is the best plan that could have gotten passed, or you think Metro wimped out. I'll take what's before me and will work from there, but I know not everyone feels that way. It makes sense for Turner to advocate this position, as White's moderation is seen as a copout by some and the two candidates are mostly fighting over the same voters anyway. Turner, who like Orlando Sanchez got into the race a lot later than White and Michael Berry, needs to do some catching up, and distinguishing himself from White is a clearcut strategic move.
Speaking of Sanchez, he still appears to be on his own little planet:
Rail has been one of the most-discussed issues in the mayor's race because the next mayor must oversee implementation of the plan if one is approved.Of the other major candidates, Michael Berry has said he opposes the plan and Orlando Sanchez continues to study it.
Okay, this issue has been in the headlines for months. The different options Metro debated have been public knowledge for weeks. The biggest concern voters have is traffic congestion. You're honestly telling me that Sanchez doesn't freaking know what he thinks about the Metro rail plan? What is he doing, waiting for the Cliff Notes? Unbelievable. The only logical explanation I can think of for Sanchez' utterly inept performance in this campaign is that he's been replaced by a pod person. Before today, I wouldn't have thought I'd be able to tell the difference, but there you have it.
The Chron editorial page recalls a bit of history that would have served the pinheads at Faux News well had they too remembered it:
The Warner Brothers movie studio threatened to sue Groucho Marx when it learned that the Marx Brothers were going to make a film called A Night in Casablanca. Warner Brothers argued that the title was too similar to their now classic Casablanca. Groucho was not about to be threatened. "I'll sue you for using the word Brothers,"Groucho replied. Warner Brothers dropped the matter.
Indeed.
Notice anything similar about this Houston Press article from last week and this column in today's Chron by their new hotshot Rick Casey? Me too. I can think of three possible explanations: Casey didn't read Tim Fleck's story and found out about Rep. Nixon and his associated sleaziness on his own; Casey did read Fleck's story and didn't bother to credit him with printing it first; Casey wrote this story last week and had other columns in the pipeline before this one.
My guess some variation on the latter. Since both pieces are so similar, they're probably the result of each writer getting a call from lawyer Fred Hagans, who wanted to get the word out about how Nixon was affecting his court case. Since I'd assume that Hagans would call the guy at the paper with the bigger circulation first, Casey either sat on this or just took his time between writing it and printing it. Meanwhile, Hagans either called Fleck as he'd always planned to and Fleck was simply quicker off the draw, or he got impatient waiting on Casey and called Fleck out of frustration and/or spite.
Obviously, I'm just guessing. But I'll bet that if Casey hadn't read Fleck's column before his own ran, he now wishes he had. And I'll also bet that this is the subject of a future Hair Balls piece.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals has named the three-judge panel to hear arguments in the Texas 11 Democrats' lawsuit which contends that dropping the 2/3 rule is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. The panel includes George Kazen, the judge who sent it to the panel despite his doubts about it, Patrick Higginbotham, who was one of the judges responsible for the current boundaries, and Lee Rosenthal. Kazen was appointed by President Carter, Higginbotham by Ford, and Rosenthal by Bush 41.
(Note: The above paragraph contains corrections - I misread the Chron article and named one judge incorrectly. Thanks to Beldar for pointing this out to me.)
I can't see the Democrats winning on this lawsuit, and I can't say that's a bad thing. I find Kazen's logic that the courts should wait until after a map has been adopted to be compelling. I feel for them, but that's the way it should be. I will say this - when the court rules for the state, will those who criticized Judge Higginbotham for his part in the 2001 redistricting case suddenly decide that he's a pretty sharp guy after all?
(On a side note, a good friend of mine spent a year clerking for Higginbotham and had nothing but praise for the man. Take that for what it's worth.)
Assuming the Democrats' don't get an unexpectedly favorable ruling from the court, the next question will be when is the third session to start and will they attend? There was apparently a brief ruffling of feathers among the Texas 11 in Albuquerque as Sen. John Whitmire had wanted to make an undercover trip home and got chewed out for it, but everyone seems to be friends again. Running out the clock would remain the only viable option to be sure of killing redistricting for the 2004 election, but cost and strain on the senators might make them decide to take their chances in court later.
Dave McNeely thinks the racial angle in the federal lawsuit may backfire on the Dems by casting anglo West Texans, who oppose redistricting on grounds of losing Congressional clout, as their enemy. He doesn't cite any specifics or offer any quotes, but the psychology is sound.
On the other hand, the Republicans' tactics have backfired on themselves a few times as well. The latest example of their mentality is this report:
As a potential hurricane headed toward South Texas two weeks ago, so did the Senate sergeant at arms — to see whether AWOL Democrats would return to check on their homes and thus leave themselves open to being served with an order to return to the Capitol.
A spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst confirmed Thursday that three two-person teams made the unsuccessful attempt. Tropical Storm Erika did not become a hurricane, and the senators didn't show up, so Sgt. at Arms Carleton Turner and the others left after an overnight stay."If they failed to try to round up the senators, they would not be doing their job properly," Dewhurst spokesman Dave Beckwith said of the Aug. 15 trip south by Turner, four assistant sergeants-at-arms and a Senate doorkeeper.
[...]
Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, called the effort "cruel and opportunistic" and said it also showed a lack of concern for Turner and the others sent to South Texas.
"There is a storm — a hurricane — coming, and you send people into it?" she asked.
Asked whether the trip was Dewhurst's idea, Beckwith said, "It was the Senate's idea that they take all available reasonable measures to enforce a quorum."
He said he saw nothing wrong with the timing.
Would you put yourself in the path of a hurricane on your boss' orders? I don't get paid enough for that, but maybe that's just me.
Here's some more good news.
Schlitterbahn announced plans Thursday to build a $28 million water-park resort in Galveston.The family-owned, New Braunfels-based company plans to build the state-of-the-art park on 25 acres adjacent to Moody Gardens and the Lone Star Flight Museum on city-owned property that was once part of Scholes International Airport.
"We want to become the Club Med of family water parks," Jeff Henry told Galveston City Council on Thursday. Henry is general manager of Schlitterbahn Beach on South Padre Island.
[...]
"There are 5 to 6 million people within two hours of here," Henry said. "It's a great market."
Henry told the council that Schlitterbahn Galveston will be the world's most advanced water park. He said his company has developed rides that push water uphill so visitors won't have to leave their floating tubes to go from one water course to another.
More than twice as big as the park on South Padre Island, the Galveston park will be built around a man-made river almost a mile long. Visitors will be able to placidly drift down slow-moving streams or careen over white-water rapids.
There will be beaches with artificial surf and room for visitors to stretch out and catch some sun, he said.
Parts of the park will be covered with movable roofs, allowing the action to continue during rainy and cold weather, Henry said.
Henry said the company hopes to attract 400,000 to 450,000 visitors a year.
"There will be no environmental impact because we just don't create any pollution," Henry said.
The water used at the family's New Braunfels park returns to the Comal River cleaner than it is when it is taken out to be used on the water rides, Henry said.
Sounds fine to me, though like Ginger I expect to remain loyal to the original New Braunfels location. If they sell a season pass that's good at any of their parks, that'll really rock.
Hmm, this could get interesting.
Indicted ex-Enron Treasurer Ben Glisan Jr. is negotiating a plea bargain and cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors.Glisan, one of the highest ranking Enron officials before he was fired for his involvement in a side-deal, is charged with two dozen counts of money laundering, fraud and conspiracy. His charges are part of a 109-count indictment against Glisan, former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and former Enron executive Dan Boyle.
"When Glisan flips, this could be a bloodbath," said one lawyer familiar with the Enron investigation. Glisan was installed as Enron treasurer in 2000 and was known as a protege of both Fastow and ex-CEO Jeff Skilling.
Sounds good to me, but I must temper my joy somewhat:
There is still no indication that the Enron Task Force is prepared to either accuse or clear former CEO Skilling or ex-Chairman Ken Lay, however.
Well, at least there's still hope. My fingers are crossed.
Well, hey, if certain other bloggers can post interesting photos of themselves from olden times, I figure I can too. This picture was just sent to the MOB mailing list. (I'm the guy on the left, in case there's any question.) It's vintage 1991, which I can tell from the T-shirt I'm wearing, which was the official band shirt that year and was based on the movie The Rocketeer. I was fresh out of graduate school and obviously still had that grad-student look.
By the way, the surgical mask on my fedora was a prop from a show we did at the University of Texas called The MOB Looks At The Environment, in 1989. One of the bits we did was about the wreck of the Exxon Valdez. We formed a tanker on the field and played a medley of "Tequila" followed by "Wipeout", having the ship move forward during this. A gaggle of show assistants dressed up as birds flapped around nearby. When we started "Wipeout", another group of show assistants emerged from the ship formation and unfurled a huge swath of black plastic (imagine a Hefty bag large enough to cover a bus) and, um, wiped out the SA birds with it. Not in the best of taste, perhaps, but really really funny.
It's Friday again, meaning it's time for the second Flood the Zone Friday. This week the boys at Not Geniuses are focusing on the environment. They've got some better guidelines for writing and sending your letter, based in part on last week's effort, along with a set of talking points and a nifty new FTZF graphic. Check it out.
The second part of the Friday gig is Fund The Zone Friday, with this week's recipient being the Democratic National Committee. Click on my Boot Bush icon on the sidebar or on this link if you'd like to throw a few bucks at them.
[set mode = "slightly preachy"]
As always, remember that while doing this sort of thing is fun and may make a splash, it's more style than substance. Really making things happen takes a lot of time, effort, and money, and is often done in anonymity and obscurity. Having designated one day a week as the day to send a letter to the editor, let's not forget that there's a ton of other stuff that needs to be done every day. Let's think of FTZF as a first step.
[set mode = "usual level of snarkiness"]
Really, I'm not a Deanblogger...I can stop any time...
Mark Yzaguirre sent me this article by Larry Kudlow on Howard Dean, and I have to say it's one of the funnier things I've read in awhile. Take a look at how Kudlow leads off:
A shocking Zogby poll this week had Vermont Gov. Howard Dean at a giant 21 point lead over former New Hampshire frontrunner Sen. John Kerry. That's more than two-to-one with a 38 percent to 17 percent margin. Dean is the clear frontrunner and may well lead the Democrats next year. So, this is a wake-up call for the Bushies. It's time for all the president's men to aggressively defend Bush's policies and attack Dean's extreme left-liberal positions.So far, Dean has been relying on a relatively narrow base of voter support — largely Bush-hating, anti-war liberals who make up about half of the Democratic party and a third of the electorate. But Dean is well-funded and he has quickly become the darling of the liberal media.
Following his successful rally in New York's Bryant Park this week, the New York Times saw fit to run a huge frontpage story with a color picture of the candidate. Meanwhile, a story on Bush's excellent speech at the VFW convention — where he emphasized a stay-the-course commitment in Iraq — was placed below the Dean story with a much smaller headline.
In the long Times piece on Dean you had to go 23 paragraphs deep to find a statement on the candidate's basic policy positions: universal health insurance, opposition to the Iraq war, balanced budgets, tax-cut repeal, affirmative action, and gay rights. This is not a winning combination, as numerous moderate Democrats point out. Still, if Dean's the one, administration spokespeople should start underscoring the extremism that defines his campaign.
For example, Dean's universal health-care insurance is Hillarycare. It's the same government-paid health insurance that's been a disaster in Western Europe and Canada. And it's the same socialist proposal that was defeated handily in a Democratic Congress ten years ago.
It's impressive how much misinformation Kudlow packs into a few short paragraphs. I have to wonder just what sources Kudlow has been reading about Dean. "Extreme left-liberal"? That's so last month. And of course, you have to love Kudlow's use of the traditional tactic of advising a political adversary on policy positions. "Unless those other guys adopt our positions on everything, they'll never amount to anything." Don't call us, Larry, we'll call you.
Still, as Mark mentioned in the email he sent to me, it's interesting to watch righty pundits start to sit up and see Dean as a threat. One of the things that I've liked about Dean so far is that he really has run a good campaign. He's gained a competitive advantage through his use of the Internet, he's generated an awful lot of free (and favorable) publicity for himself with a few well-chosen media buys, and he's survived the few bad things that have happened to him (his son's arrest, spamming supporters) without any lasting effect so far.
The one thing Dean hasn't done yet is respond to a coordinated attack. Kudlow's right in that the press coverage of Dean has been generally positive if occasionally clueless. How will he do when the President turns his guns and his umpty-million dollar campaign war chest on him? Unfortunately, we won't know until primaries are in full swing, if not already over. I can't imagine Bush taking Kudlow's advice and attacking a specific Democratic candidate four months before an actual vote is taken - that just strikes me as projecting vulnerability. However, this may be a sign that the mighty Wurlitzer will start to make some noise. When that happens, the key question will be whether or not Dean can neutralize the falsehoods before they become conventional wisdom in the mainstream. If he does, whether through his own nimbleness or the media's continued love affair for him, then I don't think anyone can reasonably question his viability.
UPDATE: As hamletta points out in the comments, the Dean Defense Forces have responded as well.
The Quorum Report points to a pretty fascinating editorial on Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and redistricting in the Park City Peoples Newspaper. This looks to me like a little suburban Dallas rag, and I daresay they're more R than D (please correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway, I've reproduced it below since it looks like their links aren't permanent. Check it out.
Won’t you come home, Kay Bailey?
If Rick Perry calls another session, Republicans should elect another governor
The line is 10-1 that Rick Perry will call another special session to jam through Congressional redistricting. As we’ve said before and will say again, the Republicans have every right to redistrict. The voters gave them the power, and the voters expect them to use that power. But we doubt the voters expected they would use their power so ineptly. While the governor pursues his one-track strategy, a buzzing host of financial troubles hovers overhead. When those troubles descend on Texas, there will be hell to pay. The governor’s political clumsiness has created a legislative crisis that leaves Texas unprepared and unarmed to fend for itself.
There’s more. Seasoned political observers talk about the new GOP leadership with a growing cynicism that long-time Republicans should find appalling. From the stories that are circulating, the new Republican leaders don’t sound much different that the old Democrats who controlled the state for over 100 years.
Corruption is hard to track and harder to prove. A major donor buys a private jet for $500,000 and then sells it to an aspiring candidate for $100,000, which he borrows personally so he can campaign across state. When the election is over, the now-elected official turns around and sells the plane on the open market for $400,000. In these transactions, nothing illegal has occurred. Yet the official has pocketed $300,000 before taxes.
But most things are subtler than that. The intertwining of business interests with state regulation provides a fertile field for mischief. Take the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as an example. One of its three members is a lobbyist for the Texas Chemical Council. Another of its three members, appointed by Rick Perry, is a long-time activist for the Texas Cattleraisers Association, whose lobbyist also happens to represent various utility and chemical interests before the Commission on which she serves. Nothing wrong with that. But how do you think this Commission votes when chemical industry interests are at stake? It makes a joke of the Commission’s name.
Anything illegal here? Not at all. It’s all business as usual in Austin — and that’s the other problem with this governor, besides his ineptitude. He’s a Republican who could as easily be a Democrat. There’s not, in the famous phrase, a dime’s worth of difference between how state government is operated now under the GOP than how it operated under the Tory Democrats who ran the state for over 100 years.
That’s why many Republicans’ eyes are turning to Washington, where Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has served Texas with honor and distinction. We don’t agree with her on every issue (it’s time to dump the Wright Amendment, Senator), but we are second to none in our respect for her abilities and her probity.
Senator Hutchison is a Republican to her fingertips. She grew up in an insurgent Texas Republican Party whose goal was reform, not business as usual. Her integrity is unquestioned. Her good sense is well known. Her political instincts are excellent.
If Kay Bailey were to challenge Rick Perry in the March primary, Texas Republicans would face a clear choice. There’s no question the battle would be bloody. Perry is the kind of politician who, because he believes in nothing, will stop at nothing to get elected. The primary is dominated by the kind of hard-nut conservative that gives that admirable word an almost pejorative meaning. And, finally, Republicans are notoriously loath to fight it out in public.
Against that, Kay Bailey has advantages. She is the most popular Republican in the state, next to the president himself. She is a prodigious fund raiser. She has a deeply embedded network of support throughout the state.
If Rick Perry goes through with his threat to call another session, costing the taxpayers another $30 million, he may achieve his obsession of getting Tom DeLay three more seats in the U.S. Congress. But if he thinks that’s why Texans elected him, he’s reading tea leaves, not election results. The Republicans received a mandate, but not for this. The GOP needs to replenish and reclaim that mandate. It will achieve that by addressing and fixing the state’s problems, not by adding to them.
Kay Bailey Hutchinson, come home.
In all the excitement yesterday, I failed to post about the death of former TCU football coach Jim Wacker, who succumbed to cancer at the age of 66. He was a breath of fresh air in the old Southwest Conference after taking the reins for the Horned Frogs, and when he discovered, in the year following the school's most successful season in decades, that seven players had been accepting payments from a booster, he unhesitatingly did the right thing and took his medicine from the NCAA. (Naturally, being the hypocritical organization that it is, the NCAA slapped the Frogs a lot harder than they would have a big state school, even though the Frogs turned themselves in. But that's a rant for another day.) It's clear from reading what his former players and colleagues have had to say about him that he was a man of integrity. Rest in peace, Coach Wacker.
Awhile back I wrote about how there would be opportunities available for Democrats to make a pitch to Libertarian voters in the next election (here and here). Today Jim Henley points me to this article by W. James Antle III about the incipient breakup of the 40-year-old conservative/libertarian coalition.
The commitment to limited government and constitutionalism that animated Barry Goldwater is conspicuously missing from today's Republican Party and, worse, the conservative movement. Fred Barnes recently wrote approvingly of "big government conservatism," arguing that efforts to shrink government should be abandoned because "people like government so long as it's not a huge drag on the economy." And Irving Kristol described a "neoconservative persuasion" that Arnold Kling recognized to be in conflict with libertarian principles.
The end result of all this is that many libertarians see no compelling reason to support the Republican right they identify with John Ashcroft and Sen. Rick Santorum. By default this means that they often end up working with the left. They've joined with the ACLU and other traditionally liberal civil libertarian organizations to oppose Patriot Act-style legislation (although some prominent conservatives joined them in opposition). Antiwar libertarian bloggers and Internet columnists often link to left-of-center websites like Indymedia, Common Dreams, Alternet.org and CounterPunch in making their arguments.
I don't pretend to believe that large numbers of libertarians who are long used to pulling the lever for Republicans are suddenly going to vote Democratic in 2004. The thing is, though, we don't actually need that many in our evenly-divided electorate. Heck, as long as they're not voting for Republicans, it doesn't really matter if they're voting Democratic or Libertarian or just plain abstaining. Every little bit will help.
There are any number of things that the Democrats can do to encourage libertarians to look for alternatives to the Republican Party. They can, of course, start to champion some of the causes that libertarians hold dear, but as some of the bigger ones directly conflict with important planks in the Democratic platform, that option is somewhat limited. Far easier would be to stop doing certain things that annoy libertarians, such as the ill-conceived recent legislative crackdowns on file sharers and rave parties. A continued and intense focus (rather like a laser beam, as someone once said) on the excesses of John Ashcroft, Rick Santorum, Roy Moore and the entire theocratic wing of the Republican Party would be wise. And of course, if one wants to be a bit Machiavellian, one could also encourage the Libertarian Party to run a strong candidate for President in 2004. (Anyone have Ron Paul's phone number?)
For what it's worth, Howard Dean is probably in as good a position to maximize this effect as any Democratic Presidential candidate. There is a Libertarians For Dean group, though unlike almost every other group-for-Dean they don't have their own web page. However, as Henley and Antle make clear, there are plenty of reservations about Dean as well, so I'd consider it foolish to expect much more than grudging or least-of-evils type support.
Early voting for the September 13 Constitutional Referendumpalooza begins today and runs through Tuesday, September 9. Proposition 12, the freedom-limiting and patient-endangering tool of Republican special interests, is the reason why this election is being held on a Saturday in September instead of on Election Day, when Houston's mayoral race might have raised overall turnout to an undesireable level for its supporters.
Anyway, as you contemplate the long list of amendments that will be up for your approval or rejection, take a moment to read about the poster boy for why medical malpractice insurance rates are what they are. When doctors figure out a way to weed out bad apples like this one, then we can talk about jury awards.
Regarding my earlier post about Gov. Perry's mediocre poll numbers, Kevin made a reasonable comment:
I suspect when Perry reminds voters he held the line on taxes when most states raised them, his numbers will rebound. With all of the (mostly negative) publicity over redistricting, I'm surprised his numbers haven't sagged further. Very surprised, actually.
Looks like Perry will have to do that reminding over his Comptroller's voice.
Texas taxpayers will shoulder $2.7 billion of the state budget in higher fees, charges and other out-of-pocket expenses over two years that will kick in next week, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said today.Teachers and school employees will bear most of it with increased insurance premiums, co-payments and health care contributions, according to the analysis released this week by the comptroller's office.
During the next two years, health care costs to doctors, nurses and state employees will account for more than $596 million in fees and other costs, the report said.
"September 1, next Monday, is a red letter day because much of the legislation from the regular session of the 78th session goes into effect next Monday. Because of this, I believe that it's critical to notify Texans in advance of the changes they will face in the costs of various services state government provides to them," Strayhorn said.
Not to mention the likelihood of higher costs for local services, as the tax burden trickles down from the feds to the states to the counties and cities.
I agree with Governor Perry about as often as this happens, but I have to admit he has a point here:
"Mrs. Strayhorn didn't raise any of these concerns during the session and did not offer any real alternatives for funding trauma centers, cleaner air, greater public safety and better roads," Perry said Wednesday. "However, the Legislature did agree that stiffer penalties for drunk drivers, traffic violators and polluters were far superior to Mrs. Strayhorn's last minute calls for $2 billion in higher taxes and more gambling to fund bigger government."In April, Strayhorn proposed allowing video-lottery gambling at Texas racetracks to help pay for public education, among 42 other money-saving recommendations. She said at the time that the gambling proposal would have generated $712 million.
Strayhorn proposed an increased cigarette tax and endorsed video gambling as noted, both of which Perry shot down, and released a report on various cost savings, so it's not fair to say she did nothing. However, between her sandbagging on the revenue estimate and her end-of-session certification two-step, I can never tell where her political ambition leaves off and her honest opnion (assuming she has one) kicks in. It is fair to say that she's been at odds with Perry for months now, so whenever she says something that contradicts him, it's best to reach for the salt shaker first.
That said, Perry will have to contend with her and her fondness for calling him out between now and 2006. If this is an extended primary for Governor or Senator, she'll be doing whatever she can to help keep his approval ratings down.
UPDATE: That was an AP wire story. The Chron story has some more details.
"She sounds like a candidate who's running for higher office. My gut on the deal is it's lieutenant governor," said political consultant and lobbyist Bill Miller, noting "longstanding ill will" between Strayhorn and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.Dewhurst also thinks something's up with Strayhorn, but he suggested she's possibly running for Gov. Rick Perry's job, not his own. "It sounds like the Republican primary started early this year," Dewhurst said about the points Strayhorn raised at her news conference.
"I think you're going to have to ask Governor Perry about that," Dewhurst added.
Other Republicans piled up on her as well.
"As I recall, this self-styled watchdog for the taxpayer more closely resembled an attack dog when she proposed new gambling initiatives and increased taxes as a way to deal with a drastic revenue shortfall that she failed to predict," said Senate Finance Chairman Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo.[...]
House Speaker Tom Craddick made clear he thinks Strayhorn was not only criticizing fellow Republicans but doing so unfairly.
He said her comments "continue a pattern of misguided messages that seem intended more to stir up trouble than to increase public confidence in state government."
I dislike Strayhorn for the reasons cited above, but that doesn't mean I won't enjoy watching her piss off her colleagues. Keep it up, Carole!
Good news and bad news for the Senate Democrats, I guess. A federal judge in Laredo has called their lawsuit against redistricting "all but totally frivolous" but agreed to let the three-judge panel review it anyway.
U.S. District Judge George P. Kazen said he believes Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's push for mid-decade congressional redistricting is wrong and a waste of taxpayer money. However, Kazen also criticized the Democratic senators for fleeing to Albuquerque, N.M., to break the Senate's quorum."We're almost like the Middle East. We've got these two camps over here, and it's total victory or total surrender," Kazen said.
Kazen refused to grant the Democrats' request for a restraining order to prevent the Senate sergeant-at-arms from arresting them in case there is another special session. Kazen also urged Perry not to call a session until the three-judge panel hears the Democrats' lawsuit in about two weeks.
"Let's chill out for awhile. Let's stop spending the taxpayers money for awhile," Kazen said.
The self-exiled Democrats had hoped to find a friendly judge by filing the lawsuit in Laredo. Kazen was appointed by former President Jimmy Carter. But the judge made it clear from the start of today's hearing that the only reason he was not throwing the case out was that federal case law requires voting rights questions to be answered by a three-judge panel unless the lawsuit is wholly frivolous or fictitious.
"The agreement we've made is your lawsuit is not wholly frivolous," Kazen told Renea Hicks, a lawyer representing the Democrats.
"That's cold comfort, but I accept it," Hicks replied.
According to the Statesman, the three-judge panel, which is the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, will probably convene in mid-September. No word on the next session or the Dems' return to Texas, but this AP report has some info:
Kazen told Max Renea Hicks, attorney for the Democrats, that he would not grant a temporary restraining order that would permit the Democrats to return to Texas. But the judge liked Hicks' counter proposal that the Democrats be given 72 hours notice before Republican Gov. Rick Perry calls for a third special session on redistricting."Let's all chill out for a while and stop, stop spending taxpayers money for a while and get this ruled on," Kazen said.
R. Ted Cruz, the state's solicitor general, said that he didn't have the power to agree to a 72-hour advance notice but that he would take the idea to Perry and Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
Once again, the Express News has the most interesting stuff.
“The issue is not whether it’s right or wrong, but rather if I should rule on it at all,” Kazen said, adding the lawsuit didn’t appear to be frivolous, either.“Right now, I do disagree with you, but I don’t think it is totally off to disagree with you, myself,” he said.
Kazen said a solo judge should not act on voting rights cases unless the claims are “wholly unsubstantial or frivolous.”
[...]
Despite setbacks for both parties, each walked out of the downtown courthouse today resilient about their case.
“We got what we asked for, and that is a three-judge court,” Hicks said.
R. Ted Cruz, solicitor general for the state of Texas, said he’s confident that the courts “will resolve this in the appropriate way.”
“We believe under state law the answer is forward,” Cruz said.
The state argued the redistricting proposal doesn’t violate the voting rights of minorities and that because it hadn’t been adopted, the federal court couldn’t address it.
It was an argument that Kazen agreed with today. The judge told lawyers that when and if the redistricting plan passes, then Democrats can file lawsuits challenging it.
“That protection is there,” the judge said. “The question is, does it apply to the internal process?”
Cruz supplied the court with a Justice Department finding announced Tuesday that it didn’t.
One last bit of info is that Judge Kazen himself will probably be on that three-judge panel, so the Dems have their work cut out for them.
As always, stay tuned.
The Chron finishes off a four-part look at Proposition 12, which would encode a cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases in the state Constitution. Part one looks at the players involved, part two examines the case against Prop 12, part three looks at the case for, and part four looks at the insurance companies themselves.
The second article covers something that I think is under-discussed in these debates. I'll quote from the article to get the context.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Merrimon Baker once left a surgical sponge inside a patient's body. In another case, the Cleveland, Texas, physician operated on the left leg instead of the right. In another, he operated on the wrong hip.He lost privileges to perform surgery at two hospitals. Later, in court, his ex-wife testified that she divorced him because of his addiction to prescription painkillers. In 2000, a jury found Baker partially responsible for botching a routine back operation and leaving a 42-year-old man with severe brain damage.
"I'm happy to know that hopefully something will change," that patient's wife, Dolores Romero, said after winning a $40.6 million verdict in a medical malpractice lawsuit, "and other people will not have to go through this."
But in regard to Baker's practice, little has changed. The 46-year-old doctor still sees patients in his Cleveland office and performs surgery at Houston Community Hospital on Little York. Baker did not return phone calls for this story.
[...]
"I can neither confirm nor deny we still have (Baker) under investigation," said Dr. Donald Patrick, executive director of the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners, the agency that oversees and licenses physicians. "But you never know what the future is going to hold, is about the strongest I can say. Anything that's still under investigation is a matter of confidentiality. Believe me, I'd like to tell you the whole story."
In 1998, Ricardo Romero of Humble decided to undergo back surgery. Romero, a 20-year employee of Houston Marine Services, had injured his back while moving a heavy hose. After 12 months of medication and therapy the problem wasn't better, so he opted for an operation.
He saw Baker's advertisement in the Yellow Pages and liked the fact that Baker was conveniently located at Columbia Kingwood Medical Center. When Romero met Baker, "He seemed pretty nice. He seemed to be knowing what he talked about."
On July 15, 1998, Dolores Romero kissed her husband goodbye before he was wheeled back for what she understood was an uncomplicated operation. Hours passed without word of her husband's progress. When Dolores Romero pressed hospital employees for news, they told her they didn't know anything.
What she later learned was that her husband had lost nearly all of the blood in his body during the operation. Blood for a transfusion was late in coming, and in the meantime his heart stopped beating. His brain, deprived of blood and oxygen, was severely and irreversibly damaged.
In the malpractice lawsuit that followed, Dolores Romero gained a wealth of information about Baker that would have helped her avoid the doctor.
The Romeros' attorney, Richard Mithoff, ticked off a laundry list of malpractice allegations against Baker -- 12 separate incidents between 1988 and 1998. One 1994 case involved an unnecessary ankle surgery, lawyers said, which led to an infection and ultimately the amputation of the patient's foot.
[...]
Today, the information about Baker unearthed by Mithoff's staff sits in four cardboard boxes in a Harris County storage facility, where it remains too difficult to access, or interpret, to be of any practical use for consumers. Online county court records list malpractice suits against Baker, but without enough detail for customers to draw conclusions.
The National Practitioner Data Bank lists malpractice payments made by doctors, as reported by insurance companies, but this information is shared only with hospitals and state medical licensing boards -- not with the general public.
One of the keys to a successful free market, as I've always understood it, is unfettered access to full information. If I have no way of knowing that someone is selling widgets across town for one dollar each, I may wind up buying them at my neighborhood store for two dollars each. Or I may not buy them at all because I can't afford them. This is an inefficiency in the market, one that would be solved if full information about widgets had been available to me.
As we see with the story of Dr. Baker, propsective customers have no good way to get the information they need to make their choice. How many patients do you think he would have if his record were easily available? Surely if Ricardo Romero had known, he would have chosen a different doctor for his surgery, and that $40 million jury verdict never would have happened.
I understand that there are privacy issues, and I understand that there are always problems with centralized databases of this sort, but I also understand that the cost of doing nothing is that the Dr. Bakers of the world will continue to practice medicine on an uninformed public. Everybody - patients, competent doctors, insurance companies - loses in that case. Yet here we are, pursuing new government regulation instead of looking for a way to make the free market more efficient. Aren't Republicans supposed to favor that sort of thing?
It's interesting to note, by the way, that one of the organizations against Prop 12 (PDF) is the Texas Eagle Forum. I can't wait for someone to explain to me why their opposition doesn't matter because they're not really conservative.
There's been a lot of good blogging on the subject of tort reform and medical malpractice insurance. Check out The Bloviator on one doctor's Road to Damascus moment, Something's Got To Break for his examination of Prop 12, and of course PLA, which is your one stop shop for tort reform analysis.
As of yesterday, several of the Texas 11 were planning to make a quick trip to Laredo to attend a hearing on their federal lawsuit today. There were concerns that such a trip carried risks.
[Governor] Perry has said he will call a third special session on redistricting but will not say when. If he called one immediately, and any of the boycotting senators were in Texas and forced back to the Capitol, it would restore a quorum in the 31-member Senate.Perry said the Democrats should fear arrest.
"I don't think the lieutenant governor has any other option," he said. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, with the approval of senators present at the Capitol, could issue an order for the arrest of quorum breakers in Texas once a session was under way.
But the four senators planning to attend the court hearing said they don't expect that the governor will call a sudden session to trap them.
"We're comfortable that we can get to the federal courthouse and get out," said Sen. Royce West of Dallas. "I do not believe the governor would stoop to that level."
West and Sens. Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso, John Whitmire of Houston, Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa of McAllen and Judith Zaffirini of Laredo plan to fly to Laredo this morning and return to Albuquerque immediately after the hearing. The plane they are taking has room for two more, and other senators also were considering making the trip.
The Democrats hope a favorable court ruling would enable all of them to return to Texas.
As of late last night, the Senators decided to heed warnings of their arrest and have cancelled their trip.
Democratic consultant Harold Cook said the group cancelled the trip after the Democrats obtained "credible evidence" that Gov. Rick Perry intended on calling another special session and "deputized officials" would try to detain the senators.Cook did not say what the evidence was, but said a Republican senator advised his Democratic colleague not to return to Texas today.
"They haven't come this far just to get caught," Cook said.
[...]
The Senate Democrats believed they could return to Texas safely because the special session had expired. But they became concerned, Cook said, when they began hearing reports that Perry might call lawmakers back to Austin today for another session. The Democrats then could have been detained if they were in Texas.
The hearing is expected to continue today without the senators. The senators had planned to meet again Wednesday night to decide whether they are staying in New Mexico or returning to Texas.
The Express-News has more details:
"Because of very credible information that we have gotten out of Austin, no senators will be making the trip this morning," Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio said early today. "We felt there was a possibility that we would be caught and trapped, and so we wanted to act with extreme caution."Van de Putte, head of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said that senators had met till after midnight before finally deciding the risk was too great.
They feared that Gov. Rick Perry would quickly call a third special session of the summer while the five to seven senators would be inside the courtroom at the Laredo district court for a 9 a.m. hearing.
"The risk would have been too great to be trapped," she said.
She said that earlier in the day, lawyers for the Texas 11 had advised them not to make the Laredo trip.
"A Republican Senate source in Austin (Tuesday night) indicated it was in their best interests not to go to Laredo," said Harold Cook, an adviser to the Democratic senators here.
Sources close to the senators had cited concerns that plans were being made late Tuesday to have the Senate sergeant at arms in Laredo.
Among the strongest rumors that initially caused them to cancel their plan, Democrats here heard two senators preparing to leave Austin were intercepted at the airport and asked not to leave.
The unidentified senators were told their presence would be needed for an important meeting to be held this morning. The Senate and House adjourned Tuesday, and no legislative business was scheduled for today.
Still no word when the next special session will be. I'd guess at this point that Gov. Perry is waiting to see if the federal lawsuit gets dismissed or not. The Texas 11 are weighing their options as well.
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the senators would make a decision on when and whether to leave New Mexico later in the week.Some Democrats said they would fight Mr. Perry as long as it took.
"Let's get it on," said Sen. Mario Gallegos, a retired firefighter from Houston. "I've fought fire before. They cool down but then they flare back up. I know how to fight. Let's do it."
[...]
Still, there was talk of a possible return to Austin among the senators, weary after weeks away from home.
[Sen. Royce] West said if the federal court in Laredo ruled against them, the lawmakers might have to return to Austin.
"But let me assure you that once they get their map out that it's not over with, because we will continue to fight the issue through the Justice Department end of it, and ultimately it will end back in the judiciary," he said. "This is long from over."
Several of the articles quoted Lt. Gov. Dewhurst as saying he'd made a new proposal to the Democrats. Sen. Van de Putte confirmed that they had spoken, but denied that anything new was offered. The Quorum Report mentioned a rumor yesterday that said a "watered down" redistricting proposal that would give the GOP 18 seats was being discussed and possibly delaying the introduction of the new boundaries until 2006. I have to say, if that's true and if there's a map already drawn for it and if there were ironclad carved-in-stone guarantees that no other map would be up for debate and if the sales pitch for this proposal included dropping all fines and other sanctions against the Texas 11 and their staff, I'd consider that an acceptable compromise. Doesn't look like it's any more than rumor, though.
Remember that Scripps-Howard poll from yesterday, the one that showed that people opposed redistricting and the Texas 11 boycott? Turns out they also asked about how the Governor is doing.
According to the Scripps Howard Texas Poll, 48 percent of Texans disapprove of Perry's job performance, his highest disapproval rating ever -- and equal to that of former Gov. Ann Richards in 1994, the year she lost the governor's job to George W. Bush.Perry's 44 percent approval figure tied his fall 2002 numbers.
The Texas Legislature hit an all-time low in the summer poll, with only 22 percent approving of the job lawmakers are doing. Sixty-eight percent disapproved.
That's a 30-point rise in the disapproval ratings from 2001, when 47 approved and 38 disapproved of the Legislature; in the spring, 32 percent approved and 53 percent disapproved.
[...]
About 35 percent of respondents approve of the job Republican David Dewhurst is doing as lieutenant governor while 39 percent disapprove and 26 percent couldn't answer. Twenty-seven percent approve of the job House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, is doing. Thirty-three percent disapprove and 40 percent couldn't answer.
State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn had relatively strong ratings, with 45 percent approving and 23 percent disapproving, but a third said they didn't know or couldn't answer.
The low approval ratings for Gov. Perry confirm what Democrat-aligned pollster Jeff Montgomery discovered last month. Once again, though, he's not up for reelection until 2006, and he'll have another regular Legislative session to work on his image in the meantime.
I just wanted to say that I'm glad I took Brian's advice and made sure that I caught the rebroadcast of the VH1 special on Warren Zevon tonight. I confess, I'm not very familiar with Zevon's body of work, but after seeing this show tonight, I plan on rectifying that.
The Justice Department has issued a ruling saying that the Senate did not need pre-clearance from them in order to do away with the 2/3 rule in a special session on redistricting.
"Our analysis indicates that the practice in question is an internal legislative parliamentary rule or practice — not a change affecting voting — and therefore is not subject to the preclearance requirement," Joseph Rich, chief of the voting section in the Justice Department's civil rights division wrote to state officials.Federal law requires changes to voting patterns or districts in southern states to be considered by the Justice Department before taking effect to ensure that minorities' voting rights are protected.
The ruling could affect a court hearing in Laredo on Wednesday, where a federal judge is expected to review the Democrats' lawsuit and the Republicans' motion to dismiss. The Democrats also have challenged Dewhurst's move on other legal grounds but much of their argument rested on the claim that waiving the two-thirds rule requires federal approval.
I don't know if this will have any effect on the federal lawsuit, but I can't say it's a good sign for the Democrats. The lawsuit is their best hope to either scuttle redistricting now or at least give them cover to return home without being dragged back to Austin. If the lawsuit gets dismissed, or if an unfavorable ruling gets handed down, their only option is a continued holdout.
Still no word yet when the next session will be, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is threatening more sanctions for when it does occur.
Dewhurst said he had advised the boycotting Democrats that he intends to propose changes in Senate rules that would lay out penalties against members who deliberately break quorum.Republican senators levied fines and other penalties against the Democrats who left, but the Democrats contend those measures are invalid because the Senate had no quorum when it voted on them.
Once again, how one can change the rules in the absence of a quota is left as an exercise for the reader. Sure is a good thing there won't be any residual acrimony when the Democrats eventually return, right?
It seems we've got our own little battle brewing over religious displays in public places.
Citing concern over what she perceives as growing religious fundamentalism, a Houston woman filed suit Monday in federal court against Harris County, demanding it remove a King James Bible from a monument near the Fannin Street entrance of the civil courthouse.The Bible, tattered and waterstained, has occupied the lighted display case since 1995, when an employee of then-state District Judge John Devine's court undertook an effort to refurbish the neglected monument. The 4-foot-tall pedestal was erected in 1956 to honor industrialist William Mosher for his philanthropic contributions to the Star of Hope Homeless Programs.
"It's unconstitutional and I expect our elected officials to follow the law," said real estate agent Kay Staley, explaining her suit. Staley, who also is a lawyer, is a member of the Houston chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The lawsuit was filed by civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen.
Late last week, Kallinen indicated the lawsuit would be filed only if further negotiations with the county, started in May, proved fruitless. Early Monday, however, he announced he would move forward with the legal action.
For what it's worth, I don't feel quite as strongly about this as I do with Roy Moore and his Ten Commandments monument. The monument is smaller, it was apparently built to honor an individual, and it's not quite as exclusive as the Protestant version of the Commandments that Moore has displayed. It's not that I think this is appropriate, it's just that there are bigger fish to fry.
Of course, the best argument against such monuments invariably come from their strongest proponents, who would surely be appalled if the icon in question came from a non-Christian faith. To wit:
Devine, who served as a civil court judge from 1995 to 2001, said refurbishing the monument became his "personal cause," and he directed his staff in the work."We have this insane rush to eliminate every Christian tradition and symbol from our culture," Devine said. "As much as the Bible is a religious text, it is a book of law. It's always had a position in the courtroom since the early 1800s. Witnesses and jurors were sworn in on the Bible."
Devine dismissed the concept of separation of church and state as "falsity," saying it was supported neither in the Constitution nor Declaration of Independence.
"The Bible is not welcome anywhere in the American system, it appears," Devine said. "I think that's outrageous. It's been here 200 years, and now someone has the harebrained idea it doesn't belong."
Devine, who first ran for judge on the campaign slogan "The court needs Devine intervention", was one of the loopier judges in Harris County. He's spent campaign funds on a wide assortment of religious and patriotic art, been reprimanded for displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, confounded observers by resigning to make an unsuccessful run for the lower-prestige County Attorney's office, and is now apparently the contact for a lawsuit-financing group. He's gone from the bench (thankfully), but his essence apparently lives on.
UPDATE: Ginger has some more details about John Devine and his cohort Aubrey Vaughan.
Today is the last day of the second special session, the fourth such session ever to end without a bill being passed. It's unclear as yet when the next session will be called, as Gov. Perry has made no announcement and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has called for a "cooling off period" first. The Democrats say they'll stay away as long as they must, and called on Dewhurst and Perry to be specific about their plans.
The Star-Telegram is now reporting a Scripps-Howard poll that the Quorum Report mentioned a few days ago. The poll shows general opposition to the Democrats' walkout, and general opposition to redrawing Congressional lines.
According to the Scripps Howard Texas Poll, 62 percent of those surveyed oppose the decision by 11 Democratic senators to leave the state in order to strip Republican leaders of the quorum necessary to conduct business. Only 29 percent said they supported it.On the flip side, just 40 percent of those polled support redrawing congressional lines now, compared with 46 percent who expressed opposition.
[...]
Other findings in the Texas Poll:
• Sixty percent of Republicans polled support redrawing congressional lines now, and 27 percent oppose it. Only 19 percent of the Democrats support it, with 68 percent against. Thirty-two percent of independents polled said they want it now, and 32 percent don't.
• A whopping 89 percent of Republicans opposed the Democratic boycott, and 7 percent supported it. Sixty-two percent of Democrats supported it and 27 percent expressed opposition.
• A narrow plurality, 47 percent, agreed with Perry's decision to call a special session on redistricting, compared to 44 percent who didn't. But 49 percent opposed a second special session on redistricting, and 43 percent approved.
• Many of that 43 percent who expressed support for a second special session changed their minds when told it costs $1.7 million in taxpayer money: 65 percent still favored it, but 30 percent said they now did not.
• Among ethnic groups, blacks were the most likely to support the walkout. Some 49 percent said they agreed with the decision, and 39 percent opposed it. Anglos opposed it 68 percent to 25 percent; 54 percent of Hispanics disagreed with the boycott, compared with 36 percent in favor.
The message I take from this is that the Democrats need to do a better job of explaining why walking out was their only viable strategy. The Republicans have obviously done a good job at getting their base to toe the line. Of course, the only opinions that really matter right now are those in the 11 Senators' districts, and there are no indications that I've seen that would indicate they have anything to worry about there.
Perhaps the million dollars raised by MoveOn to run ads in Texas and elsewhere will have an effect on public opinion. I have my doubts, since I don't think it can buy nearly enough air time to make a difference, but it probably can't hurt to try. Given the large personal cost of the boycott, I'd like to see a few of those dollars tossed at the Senate Democratic Caucus to help defray them.
Both sides are claiming victory in the aftermath of a district judge dismissing a case that everyone apparently wanted dismissed.
In an example of the legal quicksand surrounding the standoff, lawyers argued for two hours Monday in state district court in Austin over the dismissal of a lawsuit that both sides agreed should be dismissed.District Judge Darlene Byrne finally ended what she called the "ping pong" match and handed down the dismissal sought by both parties, leading both sides to declare they'd won a significant victory.
Democrats had sought to bar authorities from forcibly returning them to the Capitol and challenged Mr. Perry's authority to call a special session for redistricting. Republicans had countersued, asking for a court order to compel the senators' return. Ultimately, both sides agreed that the state judge should dismiss the case while each side pursues the matter on other fronts.
With that decision, attention will shift to Laredo. The Democratic senators hope that they can persuade a judge to empower a three-judge panel to determine whether the removal of the two-thirds rule violates the voting rights of minorities.
The federal lawsuit in Laredo, which should have some sort of ruling by tomorrow, will clear things up a bit. Or not. That's just how it's been lately.
Finally, some misdirection from Sen. Jeff Wentworth:
Wentworth says he tried to reason with his San Antonio colleague, Democratic Caucus Chair Leticia Van de Putte, before Gov. Rick Perry called the current special session and the Democrats left for Albuquerque. "I told her I had 201/2 senators willing to vote for my fair map," Wentworth recalled -- a number that included Republican Bill Ratliff, Democrat Ken Armbrister, and "almost" one more Democrat. "She said she couldn't accept a fair map because, she said, 'I have to give my guys a win.'" Wentworth insists that his map could have prevailed against the less-fair proposals already adopted by the House and Senate. "My concern is that a fair and balanced map may not be on the table when [the Democrats] return."
I'd really like to believe Sen. Wentworth. Unfortunately, the problem with his premise is that his "fair" map wasn't approved by the redistricting committee. Sen. Staples' map was. I never read any story that indicated his map was ever even up for consideration by the committee. There's also no evidence that I'm aware of that indicates his map would have been approved by the House, mostly because it was never up for consideration in the House. If David Dewhurst were to stump for Wentworth's map, then he'd have a case. Until then, he's kidding himself.
UPDATE: This is curious. The Star-Telegram said "Thirty-two percent of independents polled said they want it [redrawing congressional lines] now, and 32 percent don't", but this graphic in the Chron shows independents saying "No" to that question by a 53-32 margin. I'm not sure what accounts for the difference.
Now that Faux News has dropped its lawsuit against Al Franken after a judge declared it wholly without merit, I've decided to reset my banner back to its original state. I'll second Joe Conanson's suggestion for a new slogan at Faux.
Chron columnist Ken Hoffman provides a nice update on former Astro star J.R. Richard, who is now helping teach kids how to pitch at the Sports House athletic facility in southewest Houston.
Richard began coaching kids last year. He happened to drive by the Sports House and stopped in to talk over an idea with owner Ivan Shulman."He said he wanted to teach kids how to pitch," Shulman said. "This was J.R. Richard talking! Of course I knew who he was, and I knew his story. I jumped at the chance to get him here.
"You should hear him. He's pretty straight with them. He says, 'Look, your father is paying me to teach you how to pitch. Don't waste his money or my time.' The kids do listen to him, I'll say that."
The kids may not know that Richard struck out 15 Giants, including Willie Mays three times, in his big-league debut in 1971. They probably don't care that he struck out 300 batters in 1978 and 1979. Or that he put together the best winning streak in Astros history. He won 20 games in 1976 and 18 games each year 1977-79.
His students can plainly see that he's 6 feet 8 inches tall, wears a sleeveless T-shirt that shows off his muscles, has hands the size of skillets and, at age 53, can still throw a fastball 90 mph.
And he still has that glare. He was perhaps the most frightening pitcher ever. A batter would have been crazy to dig in against Richard. He once walked 10 batters in a game -- and still pitched a shutout.
His teammate, mind you, his teammate Bob Watson once said, "I've never taken batting practice against him, and I never will. I have a family to think of."
As you may know, Richard went through some tough times a few years ago, winding up homeless and living on the street. He's back on his feet now, and it's good to see. There's been a grassroots effort for some time to get the Astros to retire his uniform number 50, but they haven't done so. Richard was quoted by Chron columnist Mickey Herskowitz last year as saying he doesn't feel welcome by the Stros. That's a damn shame, and I can only hope they change their minds.
Here's an interview from 2001 with Richard, conducted by the same fan who's pushing for his number to be retired. Richard's career stats are here. It's pretty clear that had he gotten another five or six seasons like the ones he had between 1976 and 1980, he'd have been a Hall of Famer.
This isn't exactly fresh news, but what the heck, it was news to me.
Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), a leading developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment software products, today announced that it has filed a breach of contract suit against Viacom.In its complaint, which was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California on June 30, 2003, Activision accused Viacom of breaching its fundamental promise to continue exploiting the Star Trek franchise consistent with its practice at the time the agreement was signed in 1998. “Activision cannot successfully develop and sell Star Trek video games without the product exploitation and support promised by Viacom. A continuing pipeline of movie and television production, and related marketing, is absolutely crucial to the success of video games based on a property such as Star Trek,” charged Activision in its court filings.
However, through its actions and inactions, Viacom has let the once proud Star Trek franchise stagnate and decay. Viacom has released only one “Star Trek” movie since entering into agreement with Activision and has recently informed Activision it has no current plans for further “Star Trek” films. Viacom also has allowed two “Star Trek” television series to go off the air and the remaining series suffers from weak ratings. Viacom also frustrated Activision’s efforts to coordinate the development and marketing of its games with Viacom’s development and marketing of its new movies and television series.
The complaint goes on to state: “By failing and refusing to continue to exploit and support the Star Trek franchise as it had promised, Viacom has significantly diminished the value of Star Trek licensing rights including the rights received by Activision. Moreover, in so doing, Viacom has breached a fundamental term of its agreement with Activision … and has caused Activision significant damage.”
You know, if I were the judge in this case, I'd rule that each side's lawyers must come to court dressed up as either Klingons or Romulans. Of course, I'd instruct the bailiff that all phasers, disruptors, and batleths must be checked at the door. Wouldn't want things to get out of hand, after all.
Via Tacitus.
UPDATE: Dwight says that lawyers are Romulans and Ferengis, never Klingons. He's probably right, but making them talk like Klingons would be worth it ("Tremble before the might of my deposition, lowly targ!").
I really don't intend to become a Deanblogger - there are plenty of more qualified folks for that job - but I do want to comment about something in this article about Dean's swing through Austin and San Antonio today. The speaker quoted is Glen Maxey, former state representative and current chair of Dean for Texas.
Win or lose -- Clinton or Dukakis -- Maxey sees Dean as a no-lose candidate for Texas Democrats."This is the real thing," Maxey said. "The kicker for me about Howard Dean is, I want to see the Democratic Party revived in Texas. What I see in Howard Dean is a catalyst for reviving an institution.
"There is so much residual effect of this campaign. In the last 10 years, all we've done is lick our wounds and pick up the pieces after an election. George Bush, unless I perform a walk-on-water miracle in this campaign, is going to win Texas," Maxey said.
But here's where Maxey embraces the dreaded McGovern analogy that is anathema to the Dean campaign.
"I see happening for a lot of people what happened for me in 1971," he said, recalling when he worked in the McGovern campaign, which also included young folks such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Garry Mauro and others who later built careers in politics and public service.
"There's hundreds of college kids organizing the San Antonio rally," Maxey said. "They're going to be state reps and state senators 20 years from now."
I think that's exactly right. Barring a complete meltdown of some kind (and even then I wouldn't bet on it), Texas' electoral votes will not be in play for the Democrats in 2004. What will be in play, though, are a bunch of other offices - every State and US House seat, various State Senate seats, and countless local offices. The single best thing that could happen to the Texas Democratic Party in 2004 is for there to be a Presidential candidate on the ballot that people here will want to get out and vote for, even with the realization that that particular vote is meaningless, because that will also generate votes for all of the down-ballot candidates.
We all know that (again, barring some kind of unprecedented meltdown) Republicans will be out in force voting for President Bush. Having a Democratic candidate at the top of the ticket that generates some excitement will be necessary just to not lose any more ground. And if the stars align well, a decent turnout among Dems could not only protect various vulnerable incumbents (such as Congressmen Stenholm and Edwards, assuming no change in districts, and State Rep. Patrick Rose, to name three) but maybe score a few pickups. I'm thinking the 23rd CD, where Rep. Henry Bonilla won 51.5-47.2 in 2002, and State House districts 5, 8, 9, 19, 32, 48, 134, and 149, all of which were won with less than 56% of the vote by the GOP candidate.
Longer term, as Maxey alludes to, getting people involved when they're young is an unqulified boon as well. The future has to come from somewhere, after all. Whatever else happens, if Dean's candidacy means there are more Democratic volunteers for 2006 and beyond, it will have been a resounding success.
Tim Fleck does a great job showcasing Rep. Joe Nixon's utter hypocrisy about his mold claim. Not only has he received preferential treatment, he's actually helping to represent Farmers Insurance in a lawsuit filed by a church that didn't get nearly as cordial a deal.
At first glance, Houston State Representative Joe Michael Nixon and Spring's Oak Ridge Baptist Church would seem to have a lot in common.In the past few years both have been forced to leave their homes because of health-threatening mold contamination. Both filed claims to cover the costs of remediating the damage and both claims were initially denied by their insurance companies.
The 46-year-old Nixon moved his wife and three teenage sons to a cramped two-bedroom apartment for a year while the mold demons were exorcised from his Briargrove Park home in West Houston. The church had to move out of its contaminated building on I-45 and hold its services at four different temporary locations, losing half its membership in the process.
There the similarities between the mold cases of the District 133 legislator and the church end, even though their paths have now converged.
Nixon received a $300,000 settlement of his claim by Farmers Insurance Group. It has spawned a Travis County grand jury investigation after a former Farmers official claimed the payout was unjustified favoritism designed to influence a state legislator.
The church is still seeking its day in court. A trial had been set for last February in Montgomery County, but in November 2002 the defendants -- a group of insurance companies headed by Utica Lloyd's of Texas -- added a new attorney to their team.
He was none other than Joe M. Nixon.
As noted, the advantage that Farmers gets in having Nixon on its team is that they get automatic continuances for as long as the Legislature is in session, meaning that until the redistricting fiasco is finally resolved (or Governor Goodhair gives up), the church's case will not be heard. Pretty tidy, no?
While Nixon wouldn't address the issue of hypocrisy, he did tell constituents in a newsletter sent out last February that "the homeowners insurance crisis has been primarily driven by a barrage of increasingly expensive mold claims."He went on to blast "a cottage industry of mold remediators and experts who are unregulated and unlicensed." Additionally, noted Nixon, "the science behind much of the alleged danger of various molds is coming into question."
Of course, that stance didn't stop the legislator from using his own remediators and experts and their own questionable science as the basis for his mold claim.
As for his own settlement, Nixon hints that he asked for even more than Farmer's gave him. "There's a lot of assumptions," he says. "How do you know the claim wasn't really $600,000 and I settled it for less?"
Well, if you stopped playing coy and gave us all some full disclosure about what happened, that might be a start. After all, how do we know that the damage wasn't really $100,000 worth and Farmers decided to sweeten the pot in anticipation of your tort reform bill? Would you have questioned such a generous payout from them, or would you unquestioningly accept it and then huffily insist that there was no quid pro quo?
Will all of this make Joe Nixon vulnerable in the next election? Greg Wythe, who makes the same point about Nixon's lack of forthrightness, speculates about the possibilities. We can only hope.
San Antonio is the latest city to adopt electronic voting, and the latest city to feel a bit queasy about doing so.
With Bexar County's first fully electronic election less than three weeks away, some are raising red flags about what they see as a vulnerable paperless ballot process."There's something about this technology that obscures your ability to ever really know the outcome of an election, because there's no paper trail," said Alyssa Burgin, a member of Citizens for Ethical Government.
On Sept. 13, voters statewide will hit the polls to cast ballots on 22 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution.
Those in Bexar County will do so using $8.1 million worth of touch-screen machinery touted as user-friendly.
County officials contend that the machines, made by Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software, are secure.
"There's no fail-safe system in voting," said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. "But I think the new touch screen system is better than anything else we've seen."
But there are challenges that come with electronic voting, which is spreading throughout the country as officials turn to technology for elections that produce fast results.
"The technology itself opens up new kinds of fraud that we haven't seen before," said David Dill, a computer scientist at Stanford University who studies electronic voting.
We all know the concerns about electronic voting, at least for the black-box/proprietary code variety (see here for some background), but this is the first article I've seen in which a county official has tried to counter the doubters.
One suggestion critics have is to print out a receipt at the time a ballot is cast. The voter could confidentially review the paper ballot to make sure it matches their computerized choices and then place the paper ballot in a lock box.[Bexar County Elections Administrator Cliff] Borofsky raised several concerns with a printed receipt:
Would the electronic result or the printed page be the official record of an election?
What if the printer goes out?
On a long ballot, like next month's 22-amendment slate, will people remember how they voted on each question?
Since allowing voters to stop and review their ballot would add extra time at the polls, will the county have to buy more machines to get voters in and out in the required time?
Borofsky said investing in printers would cost an additional $2.5 million in addition to the $8.1 million the county has already invested in the touch-screen machines.
In order:
1. The printed page would be the official ballot. That's the best defense against fraud. Sure, it's possible to do bad things with printed ballots, but we have a lot more experience guarding against it and detecting it when it does happen. As far as I'm concerned, the fancy touchscreens should be used only as the interface, not as the database.
2. You can always use regular optical-scan ballots as a backup if there are no extra printers available. Honestly, though, I'd advocate having a printer built into every electronic voting machine.
3. This is a red herring. In Harris County, at least, the eSlate machines allow you to review your ballot before you cast the actual vote. Those who take the time to review their ballots before they commit to them will know if there's an error on the hard copy. Besides, no one is saying we must have perfection (if that were true, we wouldn't be where we are now, anyway).
4. Maybe. Maybe the counties can push early voting, which would help alleviate the congestion. Hell, maybe it's time the whole country re-thought the idea of having elections on a single weekday instead of, say, over a weekend. As with the previous point, this is mostly FUD.
5. It always comes down to money, doesn't it? Look at it this way - would you rather spend $8.1 million on a bad solution, or $10.6 million on a good one? Alternately, if there's a scandal that results from the inability to verify electronic votes, how much will it cost to fix that? I guarantee the extra $2.5 mil is cheap insurance and money well spent.
What do you say, Mr. Borofsky? Is your mind made up, or are you willing to consider the possibility that the solution you have in place isn't what it's cracked up to be?
Just a quick look at the not-much-to-say-but-we've-gotta-write-something stories about the Texas 11. Next week, as this session ends and the federal courts make some rulings in the various suits and countersuits, there'll be some real news.
Anyway. The Senators miss their families but are finding ways to cope as they get support from well-wishers and from the MoveOn fundraising effort. They met with some House Democrats to talk strategy for the next session, though nobody knows when exactly Governor Perry will call it. Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is advocating a cooling off period before another session is called, but the decision is solely up to Perry. The Dems continue to insist they're in for as long as it takes:
But [Sen. Leticia] Van de Putte of San Antonio said [the boycott is] not about making a statement."They don't get it. It's about protecting voting rights," she said. "We're not out here for show."
Democratic strategist Kelly Fero said the absent senators won't trust any GOP offers at this point.
"There's going to need to be some sort of legal restraint placed on the people who are running this power grab so the Texas 11 can come home and know that they are still able to represent the interests of their constituents" Fero said.
The most interesting article is this one about Sen. Bill Ratliff, who has seen his influence wane and is considering resiging.
Ratliff admits he's lost influence with his Republican colleagues because he opposes redistricting."I'm not nearly as effective as I have been in my career," Ratliff said this week. "It's not a whole lot of fun to feel like you are out of step with the leadership and what appears to be most of my colleagues.
"Fifteen years may be long enough."
He doesn't appeeaer to regret the position he took, though.
Ratliff insists his relationship with Dewhurst remains cordial. Last week Ratliff said he talked to Dewhurst about resigning."I wasn't after him," Ratliff said of Dewhurst. "I believed I was representing the people of Northeast Texas when I did it. My mail and phone calls have confirmed to me that I was."
Stay tuned for the lawsuit results.
I wish I had a clear memory of Bobby Bonds, who succumbed to cancer at the age of 57 yesterday, but I don't. I remember the Yankees traded fan favorite Bobby Murcer straight up for him, he had one of his patented 30/30 seasons in 1975, back when the only other player to ever have a 30/30 season was Willie Mays, and then got traded to the Angels for Ed Figueroa and Mickey Rivers, who were two cornerstones of the three pennant-winning teams that followed. That's pretty much it.
I'm not really sure why Bonds, whose career numbers would have put him on a Hall of Fame track had his career lasted a bit longer, made so little impression. Ray Ratto suggests it was being ahead of his time and being in the shadow of Mays and McCovey with the Giants. I don't know the answer, but I do know that I wish I did remember him better. Having Barry Bonds as a son is certainly a great legacy, but Bobby Bonds' career is well worth remembering in its own right. I hope a few people will take the time to look at his numbers and to read what his contemporaries are saying, as that can only help.
Two recent items of interest concerning Bill White's mayoral campaign. First is this report, via Greg Wythe, which says that the Harris County GOP is already running ads accusing White of being a liberal.
[Harris County Republican Party Chairman Jared] Woodfill says the county GOP decided to place the ads because White, the former chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, is attempting to win the support of Republican voters.Woodfill says "Bill White has spent a lifetime trying to defeat conservative candidates," he said. "The last election, he supported Al Gore against President Bush on down to congressional and state representative races."
"When he was chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, he presided over one of the most liberal platforms in the history of Texas."
"Now, he is trying to define himself as an individual who is moderate to conservative," Woodfill claims.
Woodfill says the county GOP concluded that many Republicans "didn't know who (White) was."
"He was redefining himself and there was confusion," said Woodfill. "So as our role to educate Republican and conservative voters, we launched this campaign to identify who Bill White is."
"It is all based on truth," Woodfill insists.
Putting aside the question of whether or not White actually qualifies as a liberal, at least by someone who uses the label as something other than an insult, it seems to me that this is an indication that White is doing better than expected so far. Why bother spending money to attack the guy this early in the cycle if his numbers are lagging? Frankly, as a White supporter, I consider this to be good news.
Then there's the recent Metro vote for a scaled-back light rail extension. White is the only major candidate to support the plan as it is - Sylvester Turner wanted the bigger plan, Michael Berry wants no plan, and Out Of Town Orlando will check with his buddy Paul Bettenourt before announcing that he, too, wants no rail. This puts White in a position to get support from the Bob Lanier types, but may cause some defection from liberals into Turner's camp.
In my previous post, when I mentioned that some pro-rail supporters were upset by the Metro vote, some of them also directed some venom at White. White has opposed the termination of Metro giving road funds to the smaller cities in its jurisdiction, voiced support for delaying the November referendum, and has generally advocated a smaller rail plan than Turner has. These are all defensible positions, though I confess none of them are my first choice, but they all carry a risk of losing support from people who should be in White's corner.
All in all, a mixed bag. I really can't wait to see a poll. Is it Labor Day yet?
Earlier this week, the Metro board gave final approval to a light rail extension plan that will be on the ballot this November. After much talk and several proposals to put in rail all over the place, the final proposal only calls for 22 more miles. A good graphical overview is here, along with who voted for what.
I can tell you that rail proponents are not very happy with this. There were several upset messages posted to a mailing list I'm on. For me personally, the fact that there won't be a line built along I-10 means that there won't be any rail within walking distance of my house, making the system fairly useless to me. (The proposed commuter rail line that would come in along US 290 may still be useful to me, if it ever gets built.)
I'm a half-a-loaf kind of guy. If this plan, which was identical to the more ambitious plans for the first few years anyway, is the most likely one to survive a voter referendum, I'll take it. If I've interpreted Metro board chair Arthur Schecter's buzzword-filled op-ed correctly, we'll be voting again on more rail in 2009, hopefully after people have become acclimated to its existence and more convinced of its utility. I can live with that, especially if the alternative is a glorious yet devastating defeat.
That said, I'm disappointed. I'm tired of having to placate the pigheaded business "leaders" who think that roads are the only option. I'm tired of Congressmen who've probably never taken public transportation in their lives. Who does John Culberson think he's kidding here?
Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, who sits on the House transportation appropriations subcommittee, urged the board to postpone the Nov. 4 referendum. Culberson said the public and elected officials need more time to study the plan.A November vote, he said, would "leave me with no other option but to oppose what you would force upon us."
To Culberson's comments, Schechter later responded "some of you have been hard at work in Washington" and probably were unaware that Metro had held extensive public meetings and discussions with elected officials in drafting the plan during the last two years.
Jackass.
I would like, once and for all, for our city's leaders to make their case and sell this solution. I wish they'd been more bold in their vision, but a baby step forward is still better than no step forward.
Of course, now I'm worried that the true supporters of rail may be tempted to vote against this proposal on the grounds that it's not worthy of their support. I totally understand that position, but it feels more than a little Naderesque to me. Voting this proposal down isn't going to convince anyone that it failed because it was too little. The nattering naysayers will claim their victory, and that will be that.
I don't believe we'll get another opportunity as good as this one. It's now or never. Get this thing started, and we'll expand on it later. It's not the best of all worlds, but it's the best we can do right now.
Last year I criticized another blogger for publicly asking how he could get out of jury duty. According to today's paper, all he really had to do was not show up.
Many of the empty chairs can be attributed to old addresses in the database -- 13.7 percent of the mailed summonses are returned to sender -- and about half of those who do respond get exemptions or are disqualified. Regardless, the low response rates are forcing the courts to send out five times as many summonses as needed. At a cost of about 30 cents to prepare and mail each summons, Harris County spent more than $120,000 to get people into the jury boxes during the first six months of this year.A common explanation from those who fail to show is that they never saw the summons. The only way to confirm whether an individual actually received his or her order would be to send it through certified mail with a return receipt requested, officials say. But that would boost the cost to more than $4 per mailing, meaning it is not cost-effective to investigate those who fail to appear.
In other words, the only real consequence for not showing up is the nagging feeling that a civic obligation has been shirked.
Technically, residents who miss jury duty without a valid exemption or disqualification are subject to arrest for contempt of court, a misdemeanor punishable by six months in jail and a $500 fine. Eight years ago, amid concerns over lagging response rates, Harris County began cracking down. Some people were fined.
But no one has been prosecuted in at least eight years, said state District Judge Mark Davidson, administrative judge of the district courts here, because it would divert police from other crime-fighting efforts. Besides, court officials report no problems securing jurors for the county's 82 civil and criminal courts.
Through June of this year, Harris County put 401,090 summonses in the mail, said Fred King, spokesman for the district clerk's office. About 21 percent of those summoned either received an exemption or were disqualified. Twenty percent showed up and were found eligible to be considered for jury duty. No one responded to 45 percent of the summonses.
In Dallas County, the state's second most populous county after Harris, a near-identical 21 percent show up and are eligible for service.
"For urban areas that's not out of line," acknowledged Tom Munsterman, director of the Center for Jury Studies of the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts.
That's really annoying. I'd never consider not replying to a jury summons, and the thought that those who don't have nothing to fear bothers me. At least this hasn't caused a real problem, in that trials are seldom delayed due to a lack of potential jurors. But it still chaps me.
Just a few things of interest I've come across lately, all worth your time to click and read.
Michael finds FireWire Dino, a four port hub shaped like Godzilla. You know you want one.
StoutDem says that men are doomed. Well, that's rather cast a pall over the evening.
I had sent Ginger a link to this column about illegal immigration in hopes that she would blog about it, but she notes that Colorado Luis has already done a bang-up job of it.
Also via Ginger comes this post, which is all you need to know about Arnold Schwarzeneggar and the Traditional Values Coalition.
Tom Spencer is not about to take David Ignatius' advice, and neither am I.
Scott Chaffin rips Jonah Goldberg a new one for his whiny insistence that rules are for others.
San Diego Soliloquies notes a fact about the California recall election that's likely to be underreported, if not outright unnoticed, in the mainstream press. (It's the August 20 entry if the permalink is bloggered.)
TAPPED understands the appeal of the Dean blog. Others may well imitate the form, but I think very few will capture the essence.
Amy Sullivan says Tom Daschle is just as he is on his blog, highlights the tax battle in Alabama, and confesses to her abnormal adolescence.
Pete explains why something other than text messaging is the real reason why bad movies aren't making money.
Greg has the best campaign ad Gray Davis could ask for.
Happy reading!
Governor Perry has pardoned 35 Tulia defendants, which is mostly good news. I hate to poop on this, but there are a few things which trouble me:
Perry announced the pardons in the notorious Tulia case along with 25 others. In June he had signed into law a bill releasing those incarcerated in the Tulia busts, pending an appeal."Questions surrounding testimony from the key witnesses in these cases, coupled with recommendations from the Board of Pardons and Paroles, weighed heavily in my final decision," Perry said.
"Texans demand a system that is tough but fair. I believe my decision to grant pardons in these cases is both appropriate and just," he added.
Perry spokesman Kathy Walt, however, said the pardons granted were not based on a determination of innocence.
A full pardon does not have the legal effect of expunging a criminal record or of exoneration except in rare cases based upon innocence, according to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. This means the Tulia residents will still have records that say they were convicted on the charges.
This leads to the question: what exactly do these pardons accomplish? I guess, though the story doesn't say, that this means the defendants, all of whom are now out of jail, will not be retried. That's a big deal, sure, but that felony drug conviction on their records is a pretty big deal, too. At least the pardon means they're now eligible to vote again. I'm still worried that having the conviction on their records will negatively affect their lives, though.
Walt said the governor's office reviewed each case individually and noted that there were three Tulia cases not eligible for pardons.Two of those already had been dismissed while a third defendant, Lawanda Smith, had agreed to deferred adjudication, a form of voluntary probation.
Fourteen of those convicted in the Tulia busts had served up to four years in prison before their release was ordered in June.
Forty-six defendants, thirty five pardons, three ineligible for pardons. What about the other eight? Why weren't they pardoned? Again, the story doesn't say.
Don't get me wrong - I'm happy that Governor Perry took this necessary step. I'm just left with some questions that I'd really like answered.
I had a nice time at the Dean house party at the lovely home of Mr. and Mrs. GetDonkey. It takes a certain leap of faith to throw something like this, since the guest list was (I presume, anyway) quite a bit different than their usual social gathering. Rob said that they sent invitations to area folks who had voted in at least four of the last five Democratic primaries, plus of course there were folks who found out about it via the Dean campaign site and a few who came along with invited attendees. I'd say there were about 40 people there.
I chatted with various people - a Sylvester Turner campaign aide who recognized my name from this blog (rumor had it that Turner himself might drop in, but he never did), a young woman who moved into the Heights two years ago after she and her husband finished their graduate work at Cornell, an older woman from Brooklyn whose brother is a retired policeman who insisted on working on the relief effort following 9/11 despite his emphysema, Ted and his fiancee Leslie, who were the only other people there that I'd met before. The crowd was mostly white, on average a little older than me, and were all pretty plugged in to what was going on. I've had to fight the urge at gatherings like this to work in a gratuitous plug for my blog - one of these days I'm going to succumb to temptation and write my URL underneath my name on my name tag. Thankfully, I'm still a bit too self-conscious to actually do this.
There was a petition for us to sign to get Dean's name on the Texas ballot. You have to promise not to vote in the Republican primary (no problem there) and to not sign such a petition for any other Democratic candidate. There were forms available to collect campaign donations, which will count towards the Sleepless Summer million dollar challenge. Rob had various streaming video clips from DeanTV playing on the telly. A little before 8 (the event started at 7), Rob gave a brief speech in which he introduced the video of Dean's speech at a Democratic stump event in California the day before we invaded Iraq, saying this was what made him a Dean supporter in the first place. There were lots of nods and "uh huhs" as Dean outlined his vision.
Later, at about 8:30, we and all of the other Texas house parties connected to a conference call organized by Glen Maxey, which featured Governor Dean himself answering some of the questions that had been contributed beforehand. What I didn't expect, and I don't think Rob expected it either, was that the questions were read by their submitters. All except one, anyway, which was a question I had sent in (the "what do you think of the GeorgeWBush web site and their attempts to fundraise this way" question) and which Maxey read (he got my name wrong in the process, calling me "John" Kuffner). Oh, well.
Most people left after that, so things mostly wound down by about 9. Ted and Leslie and I hung out for awhile longer so we could spend a little time with Rob and Jenn, which included the chance to talk about some non-political things. (Leslie gives a thumbs-up to Freddie Vs. Jason, in case you're wondering.) All in all, a very pleasant evening. I'm not quite at the point of being willing to host one myself, but I'll be on the lookout for another one to attend later.
UPDATE: Rob has recovered sufficiently to post his version of events.
Here's a nice little article about some revitalization going on in downtown San Antonio. They've at least got the advantage of not having a bunch of torn-up streets making it impossible for anyone to enter these fledgling businesses, unlike some other allegedly downtown-revitalizing cities I could mention. One curious bit:
"The average tourist is in San Antonio four days," [real estate marketing agent Don] Thomas said. "We know they will spend two days on the River Walk. Then they're looking for something else to do. That's when they go to the Quarry, but if they had an alternative downtown, they'd just as soon stay downtown."
I'm sure the owners of Sea World and Fiesta Texas are surprised to hear that.
Looks like the Harris County GOP has backed off its idea to aid in the destruction of the former Democratic Party headquarters.
County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill said Friday night that the party received anonymous threats after announcing plans to gather Sunday afternoon and hammer on the former Democratic headquarters on La Branch. The building has been sold and is slated for eventual demolition anyway.Woodfill said callers to GOP headquarters threatened to physically interfere with the event.
He said Republicans will have a party Sunday at their own headquarters instead.
"Once we realized that swinging a sledgehammer would make us, like, all sweaty and stuff, we decided we'd rather not. Besides, none of us actually owned a sledgehammer," Woodfill did not add.
The local Democratic Party had not planned any kind of counter-demonstration, although the AFL-CIO said it would conduct a peaceful rally nearby.[Democratic County Chairman Gerry] Birnberg said Friday that neither the Democratic Party nor the labor unions ever had any intention of interfering with the Republican event.
"I wanted it to go forward because I think that indicated metaphorically exactly the image that we think fits what Republicans have done in government," he said. "We had no thought of doing anything at all that would be in any way threatening."
"I think the Republicans recognized in retrospect that maybe this wasn't the best idea they ever had," he said.
Indeed.
Sent from my Yahoo mailbox to viewpoints@chron.com:
It was nice to see the article in today's paper that some parts of the oil patch are hiring. It's good to know that someone, somewhere, is creating jobs.Since taking office in 2001, over 3 million jobs have disappeared from the American landscape. George W. Bush is on track to be the first President since Herbert Hoover to see a net loss in employment over a four year term. Amazingly enough, he'll achieve this record while creating half-trillion dollar deficits and being labeled the "mother of all big spenders" by the libertarian Cato Institute.
If America were a Fortune 500 company and Bush were the CEO, the board of directors would have handed him his golden parachute months ago. Perhaps next November, the American people will do it to him. The three million Americans left behind by Bush's economic policies can only hope so.
Remember to include your name, address, and telephone number when sending a letter to the editor. The Houston Chronicle policy is here, a list of talking points is here, and of course a list of media contact information can be found here by entering your ZIP code. Happy writing!
SoI received an email yesterday from Matthew Gross of the Dean campaign saying that I could get a press pass for their Sleepless Summer tour. Pretty cool, but as the closest they'll be coming is San Antonio, I regretfully declined. I am, however, attending my first Dean House Party tonight. Apparently, there will be a conference call with Governor Dean, in which he will answer questions that we submitted beforehand. (I asked if he thought the spam story would be a campaign issue, what he thought about the GeorgeWBush website copying his fundraising techniques, and just what the heck kind of name Zephyr is, though I told Rob, who collected the questions to submit, that last one was optional.)
Anyway, speaking of San Antonio, the Express-News had a nice little story about the local Dean supporters.
It's a Wednesday night at Picante Grill on Broadway, and nearly 100 Democrats convene for a meeting and nachos with the works. Dozens of heads are bent over the tables, scribbling. They're not writing out checks. They're writing letters to registered Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold early primaries, asking them to vote for Howard Dean as the party's candidate for president.“We're in Bush's home state, and look at what we're doing,” said Matt Glazer, 21, a Trinity student and San Antonio coordinator for the Dean campaign.
sniff That's my alma mater, you know. I'm so proud. Anyway, the article mentions the Dean blog and Meetup and plugs the local support group, and unlike some other newspaper websites I could name, actually encodes the links to those sites. But never mind all that, the article is worth reading just for this:
Zada True-Courage, who works in treasury management, became a Dean fan when he helped her husband, John Courage, run for Congress last year.“Part of his campaign is building the party up,” she said. “People have gotten more active and interested. If he does that, he will have accomplished tons for this country.”
[...]
“I think he can win,” True-Courage said. “I want to see somebody like that win.”
Zada True-Courage wins my vote Name Of The Year hands down. She's on my short list for Best Name Ever.
Finally, on a more serious note, check out the Dean Sleepless Summer flash ad.
Natasha attended a public forum in Washington held by Congressman Jay Inslee that focused on what intelligence the US had on Iraq's alleged WMDs and what we did with it. She took some great notes on what was said. (There will be a webcast of this event later on.) Go check it out.
What the heck is going on with Orlando Sanchez? Has he forgotten how to act like a politician? I don't know what else to make of this story, in which Sanchez denied knowledge of an incident for which he'd already apologized, with the person he'd apologized to being in the room when he said it.
Mayoral candidate Orlando Sanchez falsely claimed during a forum sponsored by a police union that he was unaware his campaign adviser had dismissed the importance of the event using crude language, the union head said Thursday.Houston Police Officers Union President Hans Marticiuc said Sanchez twice had apologized to him for the adviser's remark before denying knowledge of it at the forum Wednesday.
"I don't know why he denied it," Marticiuc said. "I would say that (what Sanchez said) is not correct.
"I was surprised that he would say that, with me in the room here."
Sanchez acknowledged Thursday that he had apologized to Marticiuc, but stood by what he said at the union's mayoral forum.
The exchange at issue came during a portion of the forum in which the candidates questioned each other, and Sanchez was responding to questions from fellow mayoral candidate Michael Berry.
Sanchez said he denied what he interpreted as a suggestion by Berry that Sanchez was not loyal to the police.
"I had no idea what the heck he (Berry) was talking about," Sanchez said.
[...]
Marticiuc said he learned last week through union political consultant Joe Householder that Sanchez campaign adviser Dave Walden had said Sanchez would not attend the debate. Marticiuc said he was told that Walden laced his remarks with a vulgarity directed toward the union boss.
Marticiuc said Walden made the comment while Walden and Householder were at a local bar Aug. 13.
Marticiuc said Sanchez called him from Los Angeles the next day to discuss the matter and apologize. Then on Wednesday, hours before the debate, Sanchez again called to apologize and to say he would attend.
Walden said he also apologized to Marticiuc Wednesday, and that the comments he made to Householder were in jest.
Householder -- the campaign spokesman for Brown in the 2001 runoff -- helped the union stage the Wednesday debate that will be broadcast on local radio stations this weekend.
During the debate, Berry twice asked Sanchez about the remarks.
"Mr Sanchez, within the past week, your highest-ranking campaign official, your campaign manager, your top consultant, commented to an HPOU official in very disrespectful terms that you would not be here this evening, that you held the HPOU in very low esteem and that you thought very little of him, to say the very least," Berry said in one exchange.
"Is that comment indicative of your relationship with HPOU, and is that what will characterize your administration were you elected mayor?"
Sanchez replied, "Mr. Berry, I am not a party to that conversation, so I don't know what you're talking about. I am here tonight and do respect the men and women in blue."
Berry then attacked Sanchez for not being accountable for the remarks of his campaign staff.
"I hope that's not the kind of leadership we could expect out of your administration were you elected mayor, because our police officers, frankly, deserve better," Berry said.
Later during the debate, when Berry brought up the incident again, Sanchez said, "Well, Mr. Berry, I guess you spend a lot of time eavesdropping.
"But I have I have no way of knowing what parties are talking about out there if I am not present, so I have no clue what you are talking about or what conversations transpired."
What's there to interpret? Berry specifically mentioned the advisor and the incident. Contrast what Sanchez said to what he very easily could have said: "Sometimes when another person is speaking for you, that person says what he wants to say instead of what you want him to say. That's what happened here, and both Dave Walden and I have apologized to Hans Martuciuc and the HPOU for his unfortunate remarks. Dave was just making a joke, but the business of supporting our police is very serious, and as Mayor I will take it with the seriousness it deserves. Now do you have anything of substance to bring up, or are you going to continue with your usual pattern of using personal attacks in place of discussing real issues?"
Surely if I can think of something like this, a professional politician could do so in his sleep. Why in the world is he blowing it off like that? Not that I'm, you know, sorry to see him implode like this. I'm just amazed by it. I think Sanchez is putting himself in danger of not making the runoff, a scenario I would have laughed at six months ago. He's been completely outhustled by Berry and Bill White, and I think he's lost more voters than he realizes to those campaigns. I really don't understand it.
Something I totally forgot to mention in yesterday's post about the Texas 11 was a remark that Governor Perry made that was quoted in the Chron.
Gov. Rick Perry has said he will call another special session if the Democrats do not return to pass a Republican congressional redistricting plan. But he hinted Wednesday that he might not call one immediately."I'll call a session if they don't show up and get their work done. I don't know when exactly that might be," Perry said in Dallas, according to The Associated Press. At a later stop in Tyler, he said that a special session on school finance could be held in "April or sometime thereabouts, " the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported.
If indeed the next special session is not until April, then the Democrats have won. It doesn't matter if there's no blocker bill, or if anything else is on the agenda, or whichever of the many Salvador Dali maps gets passed. The Democrats will have won because no new map would be applicable in 2004. Period. They can then focus their resources on the inevitable Voting Rights Act lawsuit. Given that redistricting could always have been brought up again in the 2005 regular session regardless of whatever other tomfoolery had occurred, this was always the best they could hope for in the short term.
Is this what will actually happen? I kind of doubt it, and the Statesman today is saying that the next session will be called a few days after this one ends. I personally can't see any way for Perry to spin that as victory for himself and his party (which of course doesn't mean such a way doesn't exist), which makes this scenario even less likely. But we'll know soon enough. We should also have some rulings in the Democrats' lawsuits by the time this session ends, which may or may not affect the playbook.
I am planning on taking part in Flood the Zone Friday, an activity which I recommend for you as well. However, before you put metaphorical pen to paper, read what Lisa English has to say about activism and and sabotage.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the "purpose" that's been articulated in this instance. Bottom line: I sure as hell wish that the same energy put into "sabotage" - would be channeled pro actively into any number of virtual Liberal crusades that are going on right now. Crusades, mind you...that many bloggers are missing out on because it is certainly a sexier write, and a sexier read, to focus on the poli-virtual tit for partisan tat. Crusades like swamping our legislators with faxes for an end to Ashcroftian Justice in Patriot I and the latest version 2.0. - both of which are currently being promoted on the Attorney General's "Victory Tour." Or how about organized cries of outrage for a threatened presidential veto of rolled back media rules?There are many others - campaigns that could use the assistance of those who have readerships whose attention they've already captured.
I believe that the Internet is a gift to the process of activism. I think we should use this gift wisely. With men like John Ashcroft pursuing an agenda of legal intolerance, we might one day waken to the sweeping crush of online dissent. I think it behooves us to right now, this very moment, take advantage of the medium...loudly, forcefully and frequently. I think we need to get our side accustomed to seeing solutions instead of road blocks. Granted, these are mighty troubling political times, but we need to believe that change can be virtually and legitimately effected: the media concentration issue proved that we've the power to move mountains - and funny damn thing...we didn't require sabotage, just a dedicated and coordinated drive to do the correct thing.
I think "sabotage" is too strong a word - "mischief" seems closer to the mark to me - but Lisa's basic point is correct and very important. In the grand scheme of things, using GeorgeWBush.com to send snarky letters to editors is to effecting real change as collecting pull tabs is to kidney dialysis. Whether we look back on this little adventure as a success or not, consider supplementing the experience by checking out one or two of the many fine causes that Lisa has linked on the lower left of her blog, or by throwing a few coins at MoveOn to help fund their Defend Democracy ad campaign. You'll be glad you did.
By the way, if this exercise does feel like "sabotage" to you, then consider merely using the GeorgeWBush page for inspiration and media contact addresses, and send your missives via your own email account. Or what the heck, why not get medieval and print something out to send via the snail mail system. I think my mother-in-law still has an IBM Selectric I can borrow, maybe even some carbon paper, too. I mean hey, the 21st Century hasn't been all it's been cracked up to be so far, right?
Anyway, I don't think speed is critical here, so get your message out by whatever means are suitable to you. The message is more important than the medium.
I guess I don't have any more excuses for avoiding Killer D/Texas 11 stuff now that I'm safely out of class and back in touch with the world. There really isn't much to report - the Dems have amended their lawsuit to claim that their First Amendment rights are being abridged, the Republicans have scoffed in response, and the clock keeps ticking on Special Session 2: The Governor Strikes Back. There's a bit more coverage here, and an interesting history of an episode of quorum breaking in 1870, which may or may not offer some parallels to today, depending on which university political science professor you ask for a quote.
During the 1870 special called session, the boiling-point topic was the state militia.The senators who left the chamber went to a nearby Capitol committee room to discuss strategy, according to Volume 2 of The Texas Senate, a history edited by Patsy McDonald Spaw, secretary of the Senate.
The Senate sergeant-at-arms sent to retrieve them "flung himself through" a committee room window because the senators had locked the door, according to Spaw's history. He finally convinced them to return.
The "Radical Republicans" had the absentees arrested, then excluded from their seats all but four necessary for a quorum, according to the Handbook of Texas Online. The term radical was applied to those who "were more willing to accept black suffrage" and take action against postwar violence, Moneyhon said.
Several of the quorum-breakers were held under arrest for three weeks so the Radical Republicans could pass their legislation, the handbook says.
One of the senators — E.L. Alford of La Grange — was expelled after an investigatory committee found he "did, in contempt of the Senate, violently resist said arrest, and did forcibly close the shutters" of the committee room, according to Senate history.
Seems a bit extreme to me, but I no longer rule anything out if I can help it.
Dave McNeeley blames ambition for the stalemate, the Star-Telegram calls out Tarrant County Senators Jane Nelson, Kim Briner, and Chris Harris to "tell Perry and Dewhurst that the current redistricting-poisoned special legislative session should end immediately", and the Chron salutes Bill Ratliff. On a different topic, the Morning News says Texas should be more like Colombia, whose citizens are about to vote on a reform that would "require that the votes of all elected officials be public". I'll drink to that.
Finally, a little comic relief, spotted by Gunther in the Political State Report:
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- After rumors swept the ranks of Texas Senate runaways that arch-foe Tom DeLay had been in town, the Democrats swept their Marriott hotel rooms Wednesday for electronic bugs.They found no evidence of eavesdropping, but 11 Texas Democratic senators on the lam in Albuquerque took the possibility of cloak-and-dagger tactics at least somewhat seriously.
"There have been some clicks and some things like that," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and a leader of the boycott of a special session on redistricting. She said staffers did not tell her they had had the rooms checked for listening devices, but she did not think it was a bad idea.
"Let's face it, it's happened in Republican administrations before," she said, alluding to the bugging effort central to the Watergate scandal that felled President Nixon.
U.S. House U.S. House Majority Leader DeLay, R-Sugar Land, is the mastermind of the congressional redistricting effort the Democrats are in Albuquerque to block. When Democratic state House members fled Texas in May to block redistricting in the regular session, DeLay tried to involve federal agencies in the effort to track them down.
The Democrats heard rumors that DeLay paid a visit to Albuquerque last week.
A spokesman for DeLay denied that, and called the Democrats paranoid.
"It's the latest offering from the conspiracy-theory-of-the-month club," Jonathan Grella said. "Sounds like someone is aggressively tapping the Marriott minibar."
John Madden once told a story about an opposing coach, who after addressing his players in the locker room at the Oakland Coliseum at halftime, looked up at a light fixture on the ceiling, shook his fist at it, and yelled "And damn you, Al Davis! I know you're in there!" Given all that's gone on so far, it's hard to blame the Dems for feeling that way about Tom DeLay.
My faithful correspondent Alfredo Garcia has been mailing me regular updates on the case of Mary McCarty and Roger Stone. McCarty is a Republican County Commissioner from Palm Beach who was cited for election law violations as chair of a PAC called the Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary, which was formed in the aftermath of the Florida election circus of 2000 with the intent of unelecting three state Supreme Court judges who had had made a favorable ruling to Al Gore in his effort to get a statewide recount. Stone is the man who allegedly financed the PAC; McCarty claims she did nothing knowingly wrong but merely followed Stone's bidding. You can read some background here, here, here, here, and here.
All along, Stone has refused to give up any information about the source of the $150,000 that was used to fund Take Back Our Judiciary, and the state laws are essentially toothless to compel him to do so. Now comes the kicker: Stone was personally recruited by James Baker to "help the Bush-Cheney post-election campaign in Florida".
“Shortly after Election Day, Stone received a call from Baker aide Margaret Tutwiler, who said, “Mr. Baker would like you to go to Florida,” [author Jeffrey] Toobin wrote in “Too Close to Call,” his 2001 book on the presidential election meltdown.Toobin also reported that on Nov. 22, 2000, Stone was a leader at a noisy protest outside the Miami-Dade County election division’s offices in the Stephen P. Clark Center in downtown Miami. The protesters were upset about the recount that was ordered to continue the day before by a unanimous Florida Supreme Court. The protest disrupted the recount.
“From a building across the street, Roger Stone communicated with his people on the ground by walkie-talkie,” wrote Toobin, who interviewed Stone for the book.
I do believe he's referring to the so-called bourgeois riot, in which paid GOP activists were flown in to shut down an ongoing recount. Amazing how cozy these working relationships can be, isn't it?
This is yet another piece in a larger pattern of grabbing power by the national Republican Party. I can joke all I want to about tinfoil hats, but at some point one has to wonder if it's crazier to believe or not to believe. Teresa's words, first spoken here, ring more and more true: "I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist."
From the Unsubtle Symbolism Dept:
Republicans in Harris County have pounded their Democratic opponents time and time again at the ballot box during the past decade.Sunday, they intend to throw a grand old party to batter the Democrats' former headquarters in Midtown.
Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill is asking local Republicans to bring sledgehammers and other implements of destruction to help level the building the Democrats vacated three months ago.
"You bring the muscle, we'll bring the refreshments and we will have a party as we tear down the Harris County Democratic Party headquarters," Woodfill said in his invitation to party faithful.
Whatever. It's just a building (the Dems were on a monthly lease and have moved into new headquarters). Knock yourselves out, fellas. But please, do be careful. Try not to spill any chardonnay on your Cole Hahns, and don't ruin your manicures.
Here's a sure sign that Orlando Sanchez's mayoral campaign is in trouble: Kevin is pissed at him, and for good reason.
[11 News has] found some intriguing details deep in the latest filings by the Orlando Sanchez campaign. Literally thousands of dollars have been spent on dining and drinking and travel. Page after page of entries written off as meetings with political supporters, from as little as ten bucks at a River Oaks Starbucks to six visits to the upper Kirby cigar bar Downing Street to hundreds of dollars of dining at nearby Pesce.In all more than $22,000 has been spent at bars and restaurants around Houston.
The Sanchez campaign funds also paid for quite an itinerary of trips all over the country. Three trips to Washington, D.C., Vail, Colorado, over New Years, two visits to New Orleans and trips to Charleston, South Carolina, Santa Fe, New Mexico, San Antonio, Austin and two weeks after he lost the 2001 mayoral race there was a pricey visit to Beverly Hills, California.
There he dined at the famous Spago restaurant running up a nearly $700 tab.
All those trips were taken after he had lost the mayor's race and before this campaign began.
Kevin, who like me first saw the story on Greg Wythe's blog, doesn't like this at all.
Sorry, Orlando, but I didn't donate to your campaign last time so that you could continue to avoid EVER getting a private-sector job and paying for your OWN damn meals at La Colum Dor, Pesce, Vail, and elsewhere.This sort of spending is STUPID in purely political terms (and your spin is weak, my friend, OH SO WEAK).
But at a purely personal level, I find it offensive. I don't tolerate slackers and lazy asses who don't pay their way in my personal circle (at least not for long). And I don't find the slacker/user mentality very appealing in a mayoral candidate.
I've wondered about Sanchez's campaign strategies for some time now. I've been shocked at how much local Republican establishment support Michael Berry has gotten. I've not been able to figure out why, given their best shot to claim the mayor's office, someone as influential as Steven Hotze (to name one example) would cast his lot with an upstart one-term City Council member with a limited record and thus split support for the putative frontrunner. Now I have some idea.
I really really really want to see a poll on this race. I know no one's paying attention yet, but still. I suspect the first poll numbers will contain some big surprises.
Byron points to this DMN story about Sen. Bill Ratliff, who in an interview was critical of the decision to remove the 2/3 rule from the second Senate special session. How firmly does Ratliff believe in Senate tradition? See here:
Mr. Ratliff, who had declined to comment on the redistricting fracas until Tuesday, also disclosed that in the summer of 2001 he was asked by Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land and current U.S. House majority leader, whether he, as acting lieutenant governor, would suspend the Senate's two-thirds rule so the GOP could push through a favorable congressional redistricting plan during a special session."I said, 'No,' I would not agree to that," he said, adding that the subject was not brought up again while he was the state's No. 2 officeholder.
And so DeLay's lapdog, Governor Goodhair, declined to call a special session in 2001, choosing instead to let the courts sort it out. You know the rest.
Further proof that this exercise is about nothing other than raw power: Ohio is considering re-redistricting, too, even though their legislature drew lines in 2001 and the GOP already has a substantial majority among its House delegation.
I'll be back to my usual level of blogging tomorrow, after I wade through my email. Byron and Gunther have been doing an excellent job keeping up with the story at Polstate in the meantime. Thanks, guys!
Enron has put its its main building at 1400 Smith Street (affectionately known as the Speed Stick Building, at least by me) on the auction block. Its remaining employees will move into nearby Four Houston Center. This means there will be two former Enron buildings downtown, neither of which will have any Enronites in them. Anyone need a few hundred thousand square feet of office space? Good location, and sure to be cheap...
Day Two of my class is ongoing, and as you can see I do have some access to a computer. It's pretty limited, though.
Just wanted to highlight this article about the really high rental car taxes and fees in Houston. This is what happens when local governments get chicken about explaining their cost of doing business to the voters. The usual result - some out of town writer takes gratuitous cheap shots at Houston for its real and imagined sins, using rental car fees as an excuse to pile on, followed by local pols defending Houston's "world-class-city-ness" - is always good for a chuckle.
One point of interest:
The latest fee in Houston is called a "customer facility charge." This daily fee is earmarked to pay debt service on the $135 million, two-level rental car facility.The new facility is widely regarded as the most modern of its kind in the country, and plans are under way for facilities in other cities.
But Houston still stands out.
Rent a car at Bush Intercontinental and fees you will have to pay include a 10 percent sales tax, an airport concession recoupment fee, a 5 percent Harris County Sports Authority fee and a vehicle title registration fee.
All the rental car agencies operating at Bush Intercontinental participated in the planning for the new consolidated rental facility, which is on a 140-acre site on the east side of JFK Boulevard. And they all agreed to the financing plan.
Marshall Fein, general counsel for Advantage Rent-A-Car and chairman of the committee of rental car agencies that put the deal together with the city, said no company could afford to construct a new facility.
"Frankly, no company could build this kind of facility anywhere around the country," Fein said. "We had to find another mechanism that could be sustained through payments. Wall Street bought it and they are happy with it."
State Rep. Martha Wong, R-Houston, criticized the rental car facility's financing setup when she was a Houston City Council member, before construction on the facility began.
"I was for the concept of putting them all together," Wong said. "What I wanted was have the rental car people pay for it because they are going to be the benefactors, rather than passing it on to the general public."
Martha, dear, if the rental car people were told to pay for the facility themselves, they still would have passed the cost on to the general public in higher rates, instead of the city-imposed "customer facility charge". Assuming, of course, that it got built in the first place - it's certainly possible that they would have decided to live without it if the city weren't ponying up. One way or the other, though, the end user was going to foot the bill. That's actually a justifiable reason for the fee, as it's directly connected to the experience of renting a car in Houston, unlike the airport concession recoupment fee (whatever that means) and the 5 percent Harris County Sports Authority fee.
(I must confess, I voted for the various sports stadia. Feel free to blame me for part of your rental car cost. If it makes you feel better, I occasionally feel guilty about it.)
I'm about to head off to The Woodlands for a three-day training class. I have no idea if I'll have any computer access during this time (it's not a technical class), so this may or may not be the last update you see here until Wednesday night. If I can post I will, so please do check in. If all else fails, I'll see you on Wednesday.
On the day that the tape recording which revealed his desire to tar murdered player Patrick Dennehy as a drug dealer became public, disgraced former Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss visited a player's home in an attempt to enlist him in that scheme.
Richard Guinn, whose son R.T Guinn will be a senior on this year's squad, said Bliss was "calm and collected" when he arrived at the Guinns' home in Waco on Saturday and asked to talk about the recent developments in the investigation into the Baylor basketball program."Weird is not even the right word to describe it," Guinn said.
According to Guinn, Bliss wanted to record the conversation. Guinn agreed and did likewise.
"He wasn't irrational or anything like that, but when he wanted to make a tape, I knew I had to make one too, to protect my son," Guinn said.
"We're not going to cover up for anybody, lie for anybody, or participate in any of their schemes."
Guinn, who turned his tape over to the school's investigative committee, would not comment on the details of the conversation with Bliss, though he said at one point Bliss offered an apology for the turn of events. Bliss offered a similar apology when he resigned on Aug. 8 and again at a meeting with the team on Aug. 11.
"It's too late for that," Guinn said. "I can't believe he would take these boys and put their future on the line to cover up things he did wrong. That's completely out of bounds."
Is there any reason why the McClennan County DA hasn't announced that he's looking into obstruction of justice charges against Dave Bliss? What more evidence does he need?
This is the funniest thing you'll read today.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is pushing congressional redistricting in Texas, said Sunday that Democratic state senators who fled to New Mexico to prevent a redistricting vote are violating the U.S. Constitution."We're supposed to, by Constitution, apportion or redistrict every 10 years," DeLay, R-Sugar Land, said on Fox News Sunday. "We in Texas have prided ourselves on honor, duty and responsibility. Unfortunately, the Democrats in the state Legislature don't understand honor because they're violating their oath of office to support the United States Constitution."
Tom DeLay complaining that someone lacks honor is like Ken Lay claiming that he got shortchanged at Denny's.
On Sunday, DeLay criticized the three judges who drew the boundaries. "They did a very poor job, as evidenced by the fact we have a minority of Republicans in our congressional delegation," he said.
Two of the three judges are Republicans. Obviously, we need more Democrats on the bench!
DeLay's clearly missed his calling. With his firm grasp of the facts and complete lack of irony, he really should be running for Governor of California.
This, via Byron, is unbelievable:
McALLEN — Local Democratic leaders are upset about a new radio spot that is running on at least one area radio station attacking State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen.Hinojosa is among the 11 Democrat senators holed up in and Albuquerque, N.M., hotel to break quorum in the State Senate and prevent passage of a congressional redistricting plan that would slice up Rio Grande Valley congressional representation.
The ad, paid for by the Texas Republican Party, questions Hinojosa’s voting record.
But it’s not necessarily the words in the ad that have Democrats so steamed. While the ad might mislead listeners about Hinojosa’s voting record, local leaders are questioning the method of delivery.
The radio spot features two unidentified actors — one female, the other an older male — speaking in cartoonish, thickly Mexican-accented English.
“That’s the mentality that the Republicans have of our part of the state,” said Juan Maldonado, chairman of the statewide Tejano Democrats organization.
“They think we’re still sleeping under a cactus with a big sombrero and don’t know how to speak English.”
Republican state chair Susan Weddington refused to take calls from The Monitor. A reporter was referred to Trey Dippo of the party’s communication department.
“I haven’t heard it,” Dippo said. “I know this is a Republican party ad, but let me talk to our political director and I will get back to you by 12 noon, how’s that?”
He did not call back, and no other return call from the Republican Party was received.
Putting aside any racial aspects of this ad, I have to wonder what the ad is trying to accomplish. Sen. Hinojosa ran unopposed in 2002 for the seat left open by Carlos Truan's retirement. Do they think he could be challenged? Remember, one of the side effects of the GOP-controlled Legislative Review Board redistricting of state Senate boundaries in 2001 was to pack Democrats in the 12 districts that they have. Of the boycotting Senators, only Gonzalo Barrientos ran anything resembling a competitive race, defeating a Republican challenger 53-43, with a Libertarian Party candidate getting 4%. Ken Armbrister won the closest race, 53-45, but of course he's there in Austin. John Whitmire was the only other Democrat to even have a Republican on the ballot with him, and he won 60-40. Judith Zaffirini had a Libertarian opponent, whom she trounced 89-11, and all the others were unopposed.
But hey, let the state GOP waste its money on ads like these. It says more about them than anything I could write. If this is what their outreach to Hispanic voters is like, I say bring it on.
The Chronicle reiterates the Democratic strategy of running out the clock.
"The clock is ticking. The end game is: At what point does the clock run out on the Republicans' ability to pass a redistricting plan and have it in place for the next elections?" said Jeff Montgomery, a Democratic pollster unaffiliated with the boycotting Democrats.Once a redistricting bill is approved by the Legislature, it must be reviewed by the U.S. Justice Department under the federal Voting Rights Act, a process that normally takes 60-90 days. The legislation also is subject to federal lawsuits under the act. When state legislative districts were redrawn in 2001, four months elapsed between the maps' adoption by the Legislative Redistricting Board and final federal court approval.
Democrats believe that if they can delay the close of this process beyond the Dec. 1 start of primary election candidate filing, a federal court will be unlikely to order the new plan used in 2004. That also will give them the chance to fight the redistricting plan all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before the 2006 elections.
Jim Ellis, a political aide to Tom DeLay and one of the early voices pushing for new boundaries back in January when Lt. Gov. Dewhurst still considered it a "contagious flu", remids us all why this fight is important:
Noting that the GOP House majority now has a margin of just 12 seats, Ellis said the Republicans want to use gains in Texas as part of a plan to build a 30-40 seat majority such as the one that allowed Democrats to control the House for almost four decades."When you've got those kinds of margins, it's going to take a national tide to sweep you out," Ellis said. "We're looking to build a long-term majority."
The Express-News writes about the racial aspects of the battle.
All but one of the Democratic holdouts represent districts that are at least 61 percent minority, with three of them — Sens. Shapleigh, Royce West of Dallas and Eddie Lucio of Brownsville — in districts that are 79 percent minority or more. Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos of Austin, a Hispanic lawmaker, is the only one whose district is majority Anglo.Each of the senators still at the Capitol serves a district that's 40 percent minority or less. Eleven of those districts are 28 percent minority or less, bottomed out by that of Sen. Craig Estes of Abilene at 16 percent.
As others have written here and elsewhere, the impact of this squabble will be felt nationally one way or another:
"It started in Florida, and it's going on in California. There seems to be a Republican need to kick Democrats out of office by something other than fair elections," said Democratic political consultant Dan McClung of Houston, referring to the 2000 presidential fight in Florida and the recall election facing California Gov. Gray Davis.House Democratic Chairman Dunnam said that makes the Ardmore and Albuquerque walkouts worthwhile even if the Democrats ultimately suffer a legislative defeat.
"It created a national dialogue on the abuse of power that is going on," Dunnam said.
"That will have more of a lasting impact than one congressional map."
Editorials:
The Statesman says that regardless of the intent, the fines levied by Republican Seantors on their colleagues raise the specter of racism.
An op-ed in the Express-News slams Tom DeLay.
I didn't think it was possible for the story of murdered Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy to get any sleazier, but I was wrong.
WACO -- Baylor University president Robert Sloan and chairman of the Board of Regents Drayton McLane expressed "outrage" and "anger" Saturday at the actions of former head men's basketball coach Dave Bliss.Evidence surfaced Friday that Bliss, who resigned his position Aug. 8, attempted to have players lie to investigators by presenting information that would lead them to believe murdered teammate Patrick Dennehy had paid his tuition by dealing drugs. There is evidence that one player may have gone through with the deception.
Dennehy's stepfather, Brian Brabazon, was furious to find out Bliss had attended his slain son's funeral one day before his resignation, shaking family members' hands to offer condolences, despite knowing he had tried to tarnish Dennehy's reputation.
"Had I had even an inkling of this, I would have grabbed his hand and his throat and thrown him against the wall and beat him," Brabazon told the Associated Press.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram acquired copies of tapes of conversations secretly recorded by assistant coach Abar Rouse, detailing Bliss' plan to throw investigators off the trail. Sloan has strongly hinted that the school believes Bliss was solely responsible for the payment of Dennehy's and teammate Corey Herring's tuitions.
[...]
The tapes, which were reportedly made on July 30, 31 and Aug. 1, indicate Bliss was preparing his counterattack even as the school's investigators were looking into allegations regarding the basketball team.
"I think the thing we want to do -- and you think about this -- if there's any way that we can create the perception of the fact that Pat may have been a dealer," Bliss reportedly said on the tape. "Even if we had to make some things look a little better than they are, that can save us."
Rouse, who was hired by Bliss on June 1, said the former coach threatened to fire him if he did not help with the coverup scheme. He decided to record the conversations for his protection.
The committee found no evidence Dennehy was involved in drug dealing. Bliss could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Jesus H. Christ. That's just amazingly callous and selfish. Frankly, I hope that this leads to Bliss' arrest for attempting to tamper with the investigation.
Chron columnist John Lopez wrote recently that the Big 12 should give Baylor the boot. Hard to believe that a conference whose schools have hired the likes of Barry Switzer and Jackie Sherrill in the past could find something to get morally indignant about, but there you have it. Of course, on a practical level, it's not clear who would replace Baylor among the Dirty Dozen. Lopez' suggestion of Arkansas or LSU is fantasy - there's no way in hell the SEC lets itself get raided. Brigham Young has often been tossed around as a candidate for one of the BCS conferences. I can't really think of any other reasonable fits. Not that I really care what happens to the Big 12, mind you.
The Sundy editorials are all about insurance, mostly Proposition 12. Rep. Joe "Mold claim? What mold claim?" Nixon has the pro-Prop 12 position, while former State Supreme Court Justice Deborah Harkinson says it's a violation of the principle of separation of powers.
Inside, the Chron officially recommends a No vote on Prop 12, while Clay Robison examines the manufactured outrage against Farmers Insurance last year. Want to know why nothing of any substance was done to resolve the homeowners insurance crisis that Governor Perry fulminated against last year?
Farmers political action committee donated thousands of dollars to legislators and legislative candidates of both parties last year. Its biggest contribution, $150,000, went to Texans for a Republican Majority, the committee that helped the GOP capture a majority of the Texas House.And four days before the election, Perry took $25,000 from Hillco Partners, a lobbying firm that represents Farmers and also has ties to Speaker Tom Craddick. Perry had taken another $25,000 from Hillco earlier in the campaign.
Political donations had to stop during the regular legislative session this year, but shortly after the session adjourned on June 2, the Farmers PAC was at it again, giving more than $21,000 to at least 13 legislators within a few weeks and another $10,000 to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
Quelle surprise, no?
Well, this is interesting:
MIAMI - For the first time since he became a U.S. citizen decades ago, 62-year-old Santiago Portal won't vote for a Republican for president.The Cuban American says he's fed up with President Bush's policy on Cuba and is urging other exiles to choose someone else in next year's election.
"He can't ask Cubans for votes if he hasn't helped Cubans get freedom," said Portal, holding a sign saying "President Bush push freedom for Cuba now! Why only Irak?"
This kind of change of heart among Cuban-Americans — who overwhelmingly supported Bush in 2000 and helped ensure he won Florida's 25 electoral votes — has GOP officials in Florida concerned heading into an election year.
Some Florida Republicans are now telling Bush they don't think his administration is doing enough to help the Cuban people and opponents of Fidel Castro's communist government. The president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, publicly questioned the administration's decision in July to return 12 alleged Cuban hijackers to face trial at home.
An increasing number of Florida's elected Republicans have urged the president to review or change his Cuba policy.
"If our concerns are ignored, there's a real possibility that the Cuban community could" stay away from the polls, said state Rep. David Rivera of Miami, one of 13 Hispanic GOP state lawmakers who warned the president that he could lose support in Florida if he fails to revamp his Cuba policy.
Music to my ears. I think our policies on Cuba are screwy, and I generally think the Cuban exile community has power that's way out of proportion to its population, but it really doesn't much matter what I or any Democrat thinks about this. It's the Republicans' problem. The possibility that these guys might not give Bush their enthusiastic support in 2004 if more than enough to make me happy.
UPDATE: Here's an earlier story with some more info:
"The Cubans are finally rebelling. But it's not the Cubans in Havana who are up in arms," said political analyst Paul Crespo."Simmering doubts in the Cuban-American community about President Bush's unexpectedly anemic Cuba policy have erupted into open discontent," the conservative analyst said in the Miami Herald Wednesday.
His comments coincided with the publication of an open letter to the president from Cuban-American leaders who claimed Bush failed to make good on promises to adopt tough measures to force change in the Caribbean island.
[...]
Florida's 700,000-strong Cuban-Americans have traditionally supported the Republican party. They played a key role in getting Bush elected in 2000 by helping him win a narrow but decisive majority in the southeastern state.
Bush's appointment of Cuban-Americans to prominent posts, among them Roger Noriega who recently became the top US diplomat for the Americas, had boosted hopes the administration would aggressively promote democratic change in Cuba.
But, says Crespo, "a lack of follow-up has squandered that initial goodwill."
Now where have I heard that before?
Now that Fair And Balanced Friday is history, I can go back to talking about redistricting. Both sides are dug in for the long haul, though neither side knows where the finish line is. Republicans are talking about postponing primaries to give them more time to get a map approved, but Democrats say they can't do that without a quorum.
The big news from yesterday is the imposition of extra sanctions on the Senators and their staffers.
Acting under provisions of the state Constitution that allow a legislative majority to "compel" attendance whenever a quorum is broken, the Senate Republicans on Tuesday ordered fines against the boycotting Democrats. The fines will total $57,000 for each missing member if they do not return by the end of the special session on Aug. 26.The Republicans on Friday voted to enforce the fines by taking away certain senatorial privileges until the missing members return and pay the fines.
"We don't want to penalize our colleagues. We just want them to come back," said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, sponsor of the resolution.
If the Democrats do not return and pay the fines, they and their staffs will lose parking on the Capitol grounds, state cell phone use, all purchasing for their offices, staff passes to the Senate floor, travel, use of conference rooms and subscriptions. Their postage will be limited to $200 a month.
Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said his staffers told him they were told they would not have Capitol parking spaces on Monday. A staff member for another one of the boycotting senators said the Senate postal service refused to pick up their office mail Friday.
The Dems continue to be defiant - their staffers are talking about taking the bus if they can't park. Meanwhile, the GOP continues to play good cop/bad cop.
"We don't want to penalize our colleagues," said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, who made the motion to penalize her colleagues. "Our whole goal is to get them to come back, let us work together and resolve this issue."[...]
Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the Senate's presiding officer, said the GOP senators had no choice but to take action to compel the Democrats to return. More penalties could be added next week, he said.
"I think at the end of the day, the most important thing that the senators were concerned about is making sure that each of our 11 colleagues out in New Mexico has the complete ability to represent their constituents. Their offices remain open, functioning," Dewhurst said of the penalties approved Friday. "But we have 11 friends and colleagues who have violated the Texas Constitution."
[...]
The 11 Democrats, who fled to block GOP efforts to redraw congressional maps and end the current 17-15 Democratic majority in the state's U.S. House delegation, say they will end their boycott if Gov. Rick Perry takes redistricting off the special-session agenda or Dewhurst agrees not to consider any map unless two-thirds of the Senate agrees to do so.
Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, called those demands unacceptable.
"They're saying, 'If you will just raise the white flag of surrender, then we'll come home.' We're not going to do that," said Wentworth, whose district includes portions of southern Travis County.
Of course, coming back without the 2/3 rule is raising the white flag of surrender for the Democrats. You can bet any sum of money you like that the minute there's a quorum, the Senate will be voting on a bill, any bill. The Democrats know this fully well, and they have good reason to not trust any "come let us work together" rhetoric.
The GOP also continues to push the dishonest "come back and fight" line:
"This is a bad example to our children, for them to see our state senators run away from an issue and not stay and fight," said Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville.
Let's clear this up once and for all. The Democrats already stayed and fought, through the entire 30-day first special session. They fought by the rules, and with the support of their Republican colleague Sen. Bill Ratliff, they won. The Republicans refused to concede, and thus called another special session with rules more favorable to themselves. The Democrats quite rightly refused to play in a game that was rigged against them. I'd call that a damn good example to set.
Some people have mentioned the one-day 1993 walkout by Republican Senators as the prime example of GOP hypocrisy in this fiasco, but I don't consider that to be really comparable. Besides, there's a much better example of hypocrisy, courtesy of the Quorum Report.
In 1997, Senator Drew Nixon (R-Carthage) was arrested and convicted of soliciting a prostitute who turned out to be an undercover police officer.Democratic Lt. Governor Bob Bullock arranged for his release and ultimately testified in court as a character witness on his behalf.
Nixon continued to serve in the Senate while he was incarcerated on weekends in a correctional facility.
Many of the Republican senators standing behind Lt. Governor David Dewhurst at today's press conference were in the Senate when it happened.
Not a single Republican rose to seek sanctions against a colleague who was a convicted sex offender. Maybe that was because he was the 16th Republican and Nixon's presence at that time afforded them their one vote majority. [NOTE: As a later entry in the QR reports, the margin was 16-15 in the Democrats' favor at the time.]
More significantly, not one Democrat attempted to make any political hay out of Nixon's troubles. A little well orchestrated publicity could have tarred the other Republican members as well as Nixon. He could have conceivably been forced by public opinion to resign, thereby putting what was then a marginal swing district back in play.
It would have certainly strengthened Bullock's partisan hand.
Yet, the fundamental collegiality of the Senate in combination with the protection of a Lt. Governor who had in his life suffered similar demons all worked to allow Nixon to participate unencumbered by sanctions or personal criticism.
But while they could countenance a convicted sex offender in their midst, Texas Republican senators struck what may be a fatal blow to Senate collegiality by punishing colleagues who, whether right or wrong, believe they are acting from deeply held principals and convictions.
Keep that in mind the next time you hear Dewhurst say that this fight won't hurt Senate working relationships in the future.
Editorials (most links via Save Texas Reps):
The Statesman lauds the Wentworth bill while once again criticizing the GOP leadership and Tom DeLay.
The Star-Telegram says that Gov. Perry's fight for redistricting was lost in 2001 when the State Senate districts were redrawn:
This fight was decided on July 24, 2001, when the Legislative Redistricting Board adopted a map outlining the current boundaries for state Senate districts. The map created 11 districts that were strongholds for Democrats.And guess what? Those 11 districts today are represented by the senators who are holed up in an Albuquerque hotel.
They can stay there for a very long time -- or at least until sometime this fall, when it's too late to draw new congressional districts for the party primaries next spring.
Here's the important point: They face no political danger back home.
They're Democrats sticking up for a Democratic cause: maintaining their party's 17 seats in Congress. The voters in their own districts back home are -- mostly by huge majorities -- Democrats.
The Morning News suggests a compromise.
The Statesman has the best line so far:
On the local circus scene, the stalled second special session of the Legislature called by Gov. Rick Perry to force a redistricting bill degenerated further this week. Lawsuits went flying back and forth, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst levied fines against the 11 Democratic senators who absconded to New Mexico to prevent a quorum and kill the redistricting effort. All that led one exasperated observer of this soap opera to say, "They're only about a week away from giving one another wedgies."
Indeed.
Back in April I noted a story about possible "hostile workplace environment" ramifications of unwanted pornographic email. I quoted a part of the story in which Hans Bader, an attorney for the Center for Individual Rights, said the following:
"It's ironic to treat gross e-mails as sex discrimination against women, since that assumes that women are especially sensitive and mentally frailer than men are--if it offends them equally, there is no discrimination," Bader said. "Yet that is what sexual harassment law does now in many jurisdictions--it bans sexual speech because people think women are uniquely offended by it. It is based on sexual stereotypes."
I aimed several criticisms at Mr. Bader for these remarks. Yesterday, I received an email from him in which he disputed some of what I said. I present here his email in its entirity for your perusal. It's a bit long, so it's under the More link. Judge for yourself.
Dear Mr. Kuff,
In your blog, you cite me as opposing anti-spam legislation ("Too bad this
guy [Bader] opposes such legislation").
I don't. I haven't taken any position on legislation aimed specifically at
spammers, and I generally don't like receiving spam myself.
I just think that a hapless employer shouldn't be held responsible for spam
sent into its workplace, especially not under the dubious theory that it is
"sexual harassment" by the employer of its employees simply because the
employer failed to bend over backwards to stop it from coming in. If anyone
should be responsible for spam, it ought to be the spammer, not the
employer -- and that ought to be under a viewpoint-neutral anti-spam law,
not "sexual harassment" law.
You feel that I am "sexist for assuming that blocking porn spams is designed
to protect women." Actually, I criticize the assumption that women are more
offended than men (as opposed to be offended to the same extent as men)
by spam, which is the only theory under which it could be deemed to be
sexual harassment under federal law.
Why? because under federal law, sexually offensive conduct that is equally
offensive to both men and women is not deemed to be actionable sexual
harassment. See Henson v. Dundee (11th Cir. 1982) (so holding). That
may strike you as odd, but that limitation was approved (albeit in dictum) by
the Supreme Court in the Oncale case (1998) (sexual conduct must be
"based on . . . sex," not just have sexual overtones ), and federal courts
routinely hold that even reprehensible conduct is not actionable where it is
not more offensive to women than to men. See Holman v. Indiana (7th Cir.)
(sexual extortion directed at both men and women); Butler v. Ysleta Indep.
School District, (5th Cir. 1998) (anonymous sexual letters); Brown v.
Henderson (2d Cir. 2002) (obscene parody) . (The state courts don't always
agree; Massachusetts and Minnesota courts have held that sexual
harassment doesn't have to be based on sex to violate their state anti-
discrimination laws).
To get around the federal requirement that harassment be "because of sex,"
plaintiff's lawyers make an assumption that you yourself seem to agree is
objectionable: that women are more easily offended by, or vulnerable to, all
manner of sexual speech and conduct, than men are. (I say you that
yourself seem to agree that it is objectionable because you recognize that it
is "sexist" to "assum[e] that blocking porn is designed to protect women." I
hope I am not overstating your point). That's not my assumption, it's theirs.
Frankly, I suspect that most spam either offends both men and women, or
neither. What little difference exists is too slight to use as a basis for legal
distinctions lest it foster exaggerated gender stereotyping.
Even if spam can be banned by a proper anti-spam law, I don't think it
should be restricted by sexual harassment law. For spam to be treated as
sexual harassment, one would have to ignore the fact that it is sent to both
men and women, diluting the statutory because of sex requirement, and
focus on its content as being disproportionately offensive to women to show
the discrimination required under federal law.
That turns harassment law into a law focusing on content, rather than
discriminatory selection of the victim, and creates, in my opinion, serious
First Amendment problems outside the area of spam -- not for the run of the
mill pornographic spam, whose prohibition would be no great loss, but for
less explicit, non-pornographic speech in the workplace not aimed at a
particular complainant, which could be prohibited based on stereotyped
notions of what speech is purportedly offensive to women. For examples of
non-pornographic speech that it regulated under such a broad conception of
harassment law, see Eugene Volokh's web sites and articles.
Perhaps spam can be likened to a noisy sound-truck, regulable because of
its intrusive nature. But just as the government could not regulate only
Republican sound-trucks while leaving Democratic soundtrucks unregulated
(even if it could ban all soundtrucks), I don't like the idea of sexual
harassment law prohibiting just "sexist" spam while leaving unsexist spam
unregulated. That smacks of content and viewpoint discrimination.
Thanks for reviewing my e-mail.
Hans Bader
Center for Individual Rights
Kevin is pretty happy about this story of how the new Country Legends radio station in Houston is replacing tampon seller KILT as the top-rated country station in Houston. I'm glad to hear it, too, but I still have the same reservations about this station that I had back in February when I first heard about it and compared them to 106.9 The Point, the all-80s station in town.
[The Point] started playing stuff I hadn't heard in years, and it was great fun. But a year or so later, it's dry as dust. I don't know if they've narrowed their playlist (it sure feels like it to me) or if the life span of such a station is that limited, but I guarantee that the novelty will wear off...Will you still love "Ring of Fire" and "You Ain't Woman Enough" after you've heard them every day for nineteen straight days?
Country Legends plays music from a broader time frame (the 50s through the 80s), and according to the Press article, they do play lesser known songs by their regular artists, something that The Point and the classic rock station The Arrow cannot claim, both of which are to the good. Again, though, any format that is limited to a forever-static set of music is bound to go stale sooner or later.
It's really amazing, by the way, what lengths static format stations will go to in order to ensure that they never play something their audience doesn't already know by heart. The Point hosted a concert by The Human League earlier this week. They broadcasted live from the concert venue and had a brief chat with the two female Human League members. One of the things they touched on was the album that Human League released last year. Why bother if you're never ever going to play any song off that album? I don't care one way or the other about Human League, but isn't it just barely possible that someone who likes "Fascination" and "Don't You Want Me Baby" might enjoy the new stuff? Is anyone being served by not spinning a few tracks to find out?
The same basic thing happened a few months ago on The Arrow. They had a phone interview with Robert Palmer, who's promoting a new album. Again, this is exactly the audience that the artist would like to reach, but they'll never hear what he's got unless they hunt it down for themselves. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I can't help but think that this behavior by radio stations has a bigger negative impact on CD sales than any amount of illegal downloading.
I understand that the Country Legends manager feels he's got a winner on his hands and that he'd hate to muck with success. But he's already got a what-not-to-do example to guide him in the failed KIKK experiment. Would it kill him to survey a few listeners and see what they might think about mixing in some new stuff that's in the style of what they like even if it isn't a known commodity to them? Would it kill any radio station manager in this town to do that?
The 1108th Aviation Classification Repair Activity Depot is Fair And Balanced. Hey, FauxNews, sue that! Via Blah3, which has over 300 other Fair And Balanced (But As Yet Un-Sued) weblogs listed for your approval.
I'm not feeling so fair this morning, so maybe a little balanced blogwatching will help.
The Agitator does lunch with Ann Coulter. Hilarity ensues. Skip the comments, which are fairly bogged down by unbalanced trolls. Via Barney Gumble.
Speaking of Coulter, did you know that she tried to run for Congress on the Libertarian Party ticket, but the LP rejected her? I had not known that. Pretty darned amusing.
Mark Evanier reports that Don Novello, a/k/a Father Guido Sarducci, will not be on the recall ballot in California. Mark also has some background info on Novello, including his authorship of The Lazlo Letters, still one of the funniest books you'll ever read.
Scott Chaffin proposes BloggerCon - TFG Style (I kinda like Pete's suggestion to call it Three Blog Night). I confess that I'm one of those pencil-necked geeks who doesn't like camping (a fact which drives Tiffany to despair), but I may have to get over it for this.
Speaking of Pete, he has an important bakery domain/pr0n story and a few words about Blender Magazine's 50 Worst Bands list.
Ginger points to an interesting NYT story about suburban areas trying to keep kids out.
Wyeth Ruthven fact checks Don Rumsfeld. Via Greg Greene.
Finally, (belated) happy First Blogiversary to UggaBugga.
Welcome to Fair And Balanced Friday, and what could be more fair and balanced than to start it off with Neal Pollack's Fair And Balanced Blackout Story? So join in with Vice President Dick "Fair" Cheney, former radio "personality" Michael "Balanced" Weiner and a really long list of fair and balanced bloggers to celebrate in a fair and balanced way. Yes, you're going to be reading the words "fair and balanced" today until you react like post-treatment Alex the Droog to Beethoven's Ninth. That's only fair, isn't it? Balanced, too.
I don't actually have any comments about this story (although TAPPED does). I just wanted to be the first kid on my block to say that.
Great. As if I don't have enough to worry about:
If Russian researchers in Antarctica succeed in drilling through the final 396 feet of nearly 2-1/2 miles of ice to reach an ancient, unexplored lake underneath, scientists at NASA warn the hole could cause an eruption that spews water thousands of feet into the air.The American scientists speculate that the water in pristine Lake Vostok, filled with gases and pressurized under tons and tons of ice, would act like a carbonated drink in a can that's shaken and then popped open.
Their concern is that the lake water, which has not been exposed to Earth's atmosphere in as many as 15 million years, might become contaminated with microbes and chemicals from the surface. And unsuspecting researchers could get injured by an icy blast from the lake.
In an article published last month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Chris McKay at NASA-Ames Research Center and his colleagues issued a simple message to the Russians: Be careful.
"Imagine opening a can of Coke," McKay said. "We know from experience that you can do it carefully, no problem. But if you didn't do it carefully, there would be problems."
All righty, then. Nobody shake Antarctica before the Russians pop it open, OK?
This is an amusing story about an important principle: The Harris County Commissioner's Court is looking for a way to keep the wackos from wasting their time by adjourning their meetings before the floor is opened to the public.
For the last 11 years, Charles Hixon has rarely missed a meeting of Harris County Commissioners Court so he could publicly scold Commissioner Jerry Eversole over a clogged roadside ditch on his Huffman property.But County Judge Robert Eckels wants to pull the plug on Hixon and others who come to the court with complaints having nothing to do with the county.
Like many public bodies, Commissioners Court has a cadre of regular speakers. Some display signs of mental illness, discussing topics ranging from sinister alien rays to who is the "true president of the United States."
"Most recently, it was that the county judge and commissioners had had all of our organs replaced and we're controlled by the international global Mafia," Eckels said Tuesday. "There may be a couple of commissioners whose organs have been replaced, but there are forums for that kind of discussion. There is no reason that they should make those comments here at a meeting of the court."
Eckels said he would begin adjourning meetings before allowing such speakers to say their piece. Court members would be free to stay and listen or leave the room.
"It is degrading, not only to Commissioners Court, but to the entire process of government," Eckels said. "People who want to speak can speak. They can speak on the courthouse steps all day long. If they want to address the Commissioners Court, it needs to be about business which is either before the court or which we can legally do."
I sympathize with Judge Eckels, but beyond the Open Meetings problem that the county attorney's office has noted, what about those who show up at these meetings with legitimate questions? There's no way to filter out just the cranks, so I think the right answer is for the Court to suck it up and let them have their say.
Eversole -- the target of Hixon's speech -- is more supportive of Eckels' plan. In recent months, he has made a habit of having Art Storey, director of the Department of Public Infrastructure, respond to Hixon's biweekly remarks with a scripted speech of his own stating that the county cannot fix the ditch because it's on private property.
That's the right idea. Letting everyone have their say does not mean giving them all an equal amount of respect and attention. But you do have to let them have their say first.
This was in yesterday's Chron, but I didn't quite get to it at the time. Executive summary: A provision to limit a certain type of fee that insurance companies charge, which is factored into individual premiums, was stripped out of a bill at the last minute, over the objections of the bill's Republican sponsor, in a closed committee meeting. After the regular session ended, several of the committee members, who may or may not have been directly involved in the removal of the provision - there wasn't a majority of the committee present at the time, so the Open Meetings Act did not apply - received donations from Farmers' political action committee.
On May 30, three days before the regular legislative session adjourned, four House conferees signed off on Senate Bill 14, which omitted language sought by their chairman and the bill's House sponsor, Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo.At Smithee's insistence, the version of the bill previously approved by the full House had included a provision that would have given the state insurance commissioner some oversight of profitable management fees charged by insurers, primarily Farmers, operating in Texas.
Although the Senate didn't approve similar language, Smithee said he thought he had an agreement, in negotiations with senators, to keep the language in the final version of the bill. But after he left Austin for several hours to attend his daughter's graduation ceremony in Amarillo, other House conferees succeeded in killing the provision, which Farmers opposed.
Rep. Gene Seaman, R-Corpus Christi, said most of the House conferees wanted to remove the language.
Smithee was so angry that he refused to sign the conference committee report on his own bill and delivered a speech on the House floor, accusing Farmers of treating the Legislature and "everyone else in Texas" with "utter contempt."
One of the House conferees signing the bill was state Rep. Joe Nixon, R-Houston, who is now embroiled in a controversy over more than $300,000 in payments he has received from Farmers for mold-related claims on his west Houston home.
An allegation from a fired Farmers' executive that Nixon received preferential treatment on at least part of his claim because he is a legislator is being investigated by Travis County prosecutors. Nixon denies the complaint.
Nixon said he wasn't involved in final negotiations on the insurance bill because he was tied up for hours that same day on the final drafting of House Bill 4, a bill making major changes in civil justice laws.
"I don't know what a management fee is," Nixon said Tuesday.
Seaman and Rep. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, two other House conferees, agreed that Nixon was mostly a nonplayer on insurance regulation. Taylor said the management fees were an "insignificant part" of the bill, which made other major changes in how homeowners and auto insurance are regulated in Texas.
"No one else had heartburn on the management issue, except Smithee," Taylor said.
What's the big deal about management fees?
Management fees are what some insurance companies charge their affiliates for centralized accounting and other administrative functions, and they can affect policyholders' rates. Farmers Insurance Group is the biggest beneficiary of such fees in Texas, Smithee said, and he believes the fees have been "abused."In a lawsuit filed against Farmers by the state during last year's homeowners' insurance crisis, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn said Farmers' parent company, headquartered in Los Angeles, charged its affiliated exchanges in Texas a management fee of between 12 percent and 13 percent of collected premiums.
Cornyn said Farmers, in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, also reported an after-tax profit for fiscal 2001 of $438 million nationally from its management services alone. His suit alleged that Farmers, through the management fees, made more money -- to the detriment of policyholders -- as premiums increased.
So Farmers got what it wanted, nobody knows who exactly was responsible for it, and in the end, rewards were doled out:
It was illegal for legislators to accept political donations during the regular session. But soon after the June 2 adjournment, political giving resumed, and the Farmers PAC made contributions to several legislators by June 30.They included $3,000 to Taylor, $3,000 to Seaman, $2,000 to Nixon, and $2,000 to Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, one of the five Senate conferees.
The recipients insisted the donations had nothing to do with their decisions as insurance conferees.
"I got a contribution from a PAC that has supported me in the past," Nixon said.
"There was no quid pro quo," Taylor added. "There's no question they (Farmers) appreciated my work all session on the insurance bill. (But) you tend to support people who have similar viewpoints as you."
The "no quid pro quo" excuse is barely worth a snort of derision these days. Of course Farmers liked your work, Rep. Taylor. You were doing exactly what they wanted all along. There doesn't have to be a bagman involved for a transaction to stink.
Everyone who pays homeowner's insurance is getting screwed, and our Governor is too busy carrying Tom DeLay's water to do anything about it. Sheesh.
So I get a phone call from Tiffany...
T: A vendor wants to take a bunch of us to their luxury box at Minute Maid Park for an Astros game next week. Do you want to go?
C: You're asking me if I'd like to see a baseball game on someone else's dime, with free food and beer as part of the package? Am I missing something?
T: Well, the vendor's a Microsoft partner. They'll probably be trying to sell something.
C: Please. I work in IT. I lost the receipt for my soul years ago.
T: OK, OK, we'll go.
It's the little things in life, you know?
Yeah, I know, John Hawkins put up the list on Tuesday. I overslept, OK? Here's my list, with explanations:
- John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Lee Harvey Oswald - Killing a President makes you a bad American.
- Anthony Comstock - Did more to suppress sexual freedom and freedom of expression than John Ashcroft will ever be able to do.
- Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis - For their role in the Civil War.
- Cap Anson - The leader of the movement to ban blacks from major league baseball in the 19th century.
- Father Charles Coughlin - The "Father of Hate Radio", an anti-Semitic Fascist sympathizer whose broadcasts reached up to 40 million people.
- Confederate Civil War veterans Captain John C. Lester, Major James R. Crowe, John D. Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard R. Reed, and Frank O. McCord - Founders of the Ku Klux Klan.
- David Duke, George Lincoln Rockwell, Richard Butler, Matthew Hale - Their faithful descendants.
- Robert Hansson and Aldrich Ames - For selling out their country for money.
- Joe McCarthy - The most contemptible politician ever to disgrace a national stage.
- Pat Robertson - What sets him apart from the rest of the greedy and hypocritical televangelist crowd is his longstanding business relationship with the genocidal Al Qaeda supporter Charles Taylor.
Notes: Obviously, every list will overlook some number of worthies for inclusion. Any glaring omissions from my list are the result of me putting it together in too short a period of time and thus simply not thinking of them.
The Klan founders list came from this ADL page. Everyone else named Nathan Bedford Forrest. However you Google it, my intent was to name the founders of that organization for their well-deserved place on the Worst Americans list.
I'm not sure how much value there is in this sort of exercise, but lists are easy to relate to and are often a good springboard for discussion, so what the heck. But I think next time, I'll stick to something a bit less controversial (Run-DMC fans excepted).
I knew Ginger would have something to say about this article about L-1 visas and tech workers suffering the indignity of having to train the cheaper foreign workers who will eventually replace them, even if it was just a pointer to this Cringely article about why offshoring is a bad idea. Cringely has some interesting, if not exactly reassuring, insights, so check it out.
UPDATE: And of course Brad deLong has a couple of posts about the sucky job market, too. Having read all that, now I need a beer.
David Beckwith, spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, has apologized to Democratic Senators for a remark he made Monday.
According to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Beckwith said 11 Democratic senators who fled to New Mexico to prevent Senate action on redistricting planned to stay just a few days and "declare victory."Instead, Beckwith said, "they got captured by the Democratic National Committee blowing smoke up their rears and telling them what great Americans they were. So now they've gone from making a statement to `doing the right thing.' They think they are Rosa Parks II."
Parks, a black seamstress and civil rights activist, gained fame in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat near the front of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks and led to court rulings desegregating public transportation nationwide.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he was offended by Beckwith's remarks, which he described as "besmirching the memory of Rosa Parks" -- apparently a reference to the memory of her civil rights activities. Parks, 90, lives in Michigan.
On Tuesday, Beckwith faxed a letter of apology on Dewhurst's stationery to Ellis and Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, in Albuquerque.
Dewhurst said he had "chided" his spokesman and suggested he choose his words more carefully. "He assured he meant the comment in a historical context, and I took him at his word," Dewhurst said.
So, like I said when this happened, Beckwith, who has a history of making dumbass statements, made a dumbass statement. As in 2002, his boss, who undoubtedly cringed when he read what was being said on his behalf, made him take it back. I'm sure that like John Cornyn before him, David Dewhurst has made it clear to Beckwith that he needs to be a lot more circumspect when performing his official duties.
Well, hey, not only did our friend from Alaska make the first callback at the American Idol tryouts today, she and her dad made the front page of the Chron website, in the photo above. She's also quoted in the accompanying story.
Bridget Sullivan flew with her father, Len, from Eagle River, Alaska, Tuesday.The trip was worth it. Bridget ran out the main entrance, clutching a blue "call back" sheet and leapt into the arms of her proud papa.
"A lot of people got rejected," said Sullivan, 20, a student at the University of Alaska. "I couldn't believe they chose me. A lot of other tables weren't letting anyone through."
Way to go, Bridget! She'll be back for the next round on Friday morning, meaning she has all day tomorrow to recuperate. Her dad will fly back to Alaska as originally planned tomorrow, but she'll be getting a new return ticket.
Oh, and they wound up not having to sleep on the street, too. Officials gave people the choice of entering Minute Maid Park and staying there, or getting a wristband so they could sleep elsewhere. The reason they lined up at first was because there's usually more contestants than the producers can handle, but apparently everyone was promised an audition this time, so your place in line wasn't as important.
Go Bridget!
By now you've probably heard that the remaining members of the Senate, in the absence of a quorum and without any clear indication of how they might enforce it, voted to fine the boycotting Senators up to $5000 per day starting on Thursday if they don't return to Austin. The Chron has a good report:
The stage for the fines dispute was set Monday when the Texas Supreme Court refused to grant a request from Dewhurst and Gov. Rick Perry for an order forcing the Democrats to return to the Capitol.Dewhurst called the Republican senators into a three-hour, closed-door session Tuesday. Through narrow windows, reporters occasionally could see the senators arguing heatedly.
Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, who had opposed the fines, stormed angrily out of the meeting and returned to his northeast Texas home. He declined to talk to reporters on his way out of the Capitol.
Sen. Ken Armbrister of Victoria, the only Democratic senator still in Austin, registered a vote against the fines on the Senate floor. He quickly left the Capitol.
In Albuquerque, the runaway senators huddled around a computer screen to watch the Senate session in Austin over the Internet. The runaways wisecracked before hearing the proposed sanctions.
"I went from chairman of criminal justice to the chain gang," said Whitmire, who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
Others in the room broke into a chorus of Sam Cooke's Chain Gang.
The mood grew more somber, and some senators groaned, when they heard Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, announce the fines.
Nelson's resolution gives the boycotting senators until 4 p.m. Thursday to return to the Capitol. The fine is $1,000 for the first day, then doubles each day until it reaches $5,000 a day -- or a total of $57,000 by the special session's end on Aug. 26.
The resolution also says the Democrats must pay their fines out of personal funds, so they cannot use political donations.
There was immediate confusion about what will happen if the senators refuse to pay the fines.
Dewhurst three times said the senators would not be allowed to vote in the Senate until they paid the fine.
"Prior to them coming back and voting, we expect them to pay the fine," Dewhurst told reporters on one occasion.
Then Sen. Florence Shaprio, R-Plano, interjected, "I'm not sure we can deny them the vote, but we haven't made that decision yet."
Dewhurst spokesman David Beckwith later said no decision on enforcement has been made. Beckwith said if the boycotting senators do not pay the fines, they may be denied Senate floor privileges or have their office budgets cut.
Both sanctions have problems.
Under Senate rules a senator can only be denied floor privileges on a two-thirds vote of the 31-member Senate. That would require at least one vote from among the boycotting Democrats.
The problem with cutting the senators' office budgets is that the full Senate on June 2 passed a resolution establishing the budgets. That resolution might have the force of law until overturned by another resolution, which only could be passed with the full Senate in session.
Even Owen thinks the fine is against Senate rules. File this under It'll Never Happen. Amazingly, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst still seems to think that everything will be peachy when the Dems return to Austin.
As senators gathered for the private meeting, two leadership sources said there was considerable consternation about imposing fines."Nobody wants to see the Senate change," said one source close to the talks, "and there's a fear this could be a permanent change to the Senate."
Heading into the meeting, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, said the Democrats should get the blame.
"I think they have significantly . . . harmed this body by doing what they've done," she said. "We've got to stop this, and if it takes fines to get them back to take care of our business and go home, that's what we need to do."
Dewhurst said the ongoing battle, now including fines, would damage Senate bipartisanship "not in the slightest."
I wonder if Texas Monthly might want to reconsider its Best and Worst Legislators list about now.
And hey, according to Governor Goodhair, the fun isn't going to end any time soon.
Republican Gov. Rick Perry, voicing support for GOP senators' decision to fine Democrats who fled to New Mexico to block congressional redistricting, today indicated he will call continuous special sessions until that issue and others are resolved."If there is work to be done, I expect the Legislature to be here conducting it," Perry told the American-Statesman. "There is work to be done."
Asked if that means continuous special sessions, Perry said, "You can surmise that."
Well, you know what they say the definition of insanity is...
In related news, just as the American GI Forum announced that it would have to close its Dallas office due to the loss of $300,000 in government funding that they say is payback for opposing redistricting, the Governor's office has announced that the funding has been restored. Via Byron.
Elsewhere, the Justice Department released an inspector general's report that said that with one exception, FBI agents and Justice officials ignored requests from Republican lawmakers for assistance in tracking down the Killer D's in May.
Despite the pressure by Texas Republican leaders, several Justice Department officials quickly determined the partisan issue was a "hornet's nest" and that federal involvement would be "wacko," according to an official quoted in the report.The inspector general found that a lawyer in DeLay's office contacted Assistant U.S. Attorney General William Moschella on May 13 to inquire about help in locating the lawmakers.
The lawyer, unnamed in the report, also contacted Johnny Sutton in San Antonio, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas. In both cases, Moschella and Sutton said the federal government wouldn't get involved.
Well, good for them. Thanks to this fiasco, new rules will be put in place to ensure that this is the default response in the future. But before you feel too good about this, read what Amy Sullivan found in the report.
Rob Booth is looking for online confirmation that a private citizen in Sen. John Whitmire's district has filed his own writ of mandamus, claiming that with Whitmire in Albuquerque, he's being denied representation in Austin. Sounds like crackpottery to me, but hey, you never know. Drop Rob a line at rob(at)robbooth.net or leave me a comment here if you find anything.
Doug has a suggestion for nonpartisan redistricting that doesn't depend on a commission. I haven't taken the time to compare his idea to the March 2001 Texas Legislative Council report called State and Federal Law Governing Redistricting in Texas, which Hope linked to awhile back, but don't let that stop you from doing so.
Ginger has some thoughts about the racial aspects of redistricting, and why this makes her feel disfranchised (yes, that's the right word).
Morat mentions that the Senate action may have violated state Open Meetings law in addition to being done without a quorum. I see now that the Quorum Report also brought this up yesterday.
Finally, a bit of humor from The Lasso:
JUST ANOTHER GOVERNOR'S DAY: Lasso was up and about early Saturday morning, buying a new pair of shoes and some cheap Terminator shades. Walking to the check-out counter, Lasso heard the sales clerk ask, "Are you going to the rally?"Lasso looked up and saw a guy, sweaty as a field hand, with a towel and a water bottle. It was. . .
The Governor.
The Governor asked, "What rally?" The clerk said the anti-redistricting rally set for later that morning. The Governor said he didn't think he would be attending, that "they can rally until Hell freezes over; we're going to do what's best for Texas."
The clerk then told The Governor that the good people of McAllen didn't know anything about Austin, Texas. The Governor disagreed. The two appeared to know one another. She called him "Guv." He smiled. She said she had relatives in the Valley and she could assure The Governor that the two places — McAllen and Austin — didn't belong in the same Congressional district. The Governor moved away.
All this left Lasso with a question: What is it about these West Texas boys? They like to talk about the virtues of digging ditches and drinking well water back home, but when they come to the People's Republic of Austin they get to buying Popsicle-colored jogging shoes and sipping city water from clear plastic bottles?
Hee. Via the permalinkless ToT.
UPDATE: I've added a few links to other blog posts since I first published this. Even I can't keep up with all of it sometimes!
Tiffany and I and a few friends, including Ted, saw Weird Al Yankovic in concert last night at the Verizon Theater. It was the second time we'd seen Weird Al at that theater, the last time while he was on tour for his Running With Scissors album. As with the last show, we had a heck of a good time.
I suppose people either "get" Weird Al or they don't. Personally, I'm a big fan of funny songs and song parodies. Before the show, I said that there were any number of Weird Al parody songs that I preferred to the originals - in fact, there's quite a few where I can hardly listen to the original without hearing Al's voice. We all agreed with that sentiment, and admitted further that there were a few songs that Al had done where it was years before we'd ever even heard the original.
One of the (sadly, many) ways that I can tell that I'm depressingly far down the road of decrepitude is how unfamiliar I am with many of the hit pop songs that Al spoofs nowadays. I've usually heard of them - or at least, I've heard of the artists - but stuck as I am in my rut of demographically-appropriate radio stations, I've never actually heard them. Fortunately, though Al actually pays a lot of attention to little details (compare his "Smells Like Nirvana" video to the original some day and you'll see what I mean), understanding the subtle points is not a prerequisite to laughing at what he's doing. Anyone can enjoy "A Complicated Song" or "Pretty Fly For A Rabbi", and there's plenty of Al's own compositions to go along with them.
A Weird Al concert features more costume changes than Cher's this-time-I-mean-it farewell tour. Various video clips, including scenes from UHF, Al's various TV and movie cameos, and faux interviews conducted by Al with hilariously inarticulate and incoherent pop stars like Avril Lavigne, Justin Timberlake, Celine Dion, and Eminem, play during these interludes. Al lampoons a lot of rappers these days - Coolio ("Amish Paradise"), P-Diddy ("It's All About the Pentiums"), Nelly ("Trash Day"), and of course, the Real Slim Shady himself ("Couch Potato") - and he really gets into character when doing these songs. It probably says something about me that I like Al's versions but can't stand the originals, but I'd rather not explore what that may be.
Believe it or not, Al will be eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year - his career officially started in 1979 with the release of "My Bologna", meaning his 25th year in the business is 2004. Al himself says "I think my chances of ever making it into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame are about as good as Milli Vanilli’s", but I think he sells himself short. Any "novelty act" that's still going strong after a quarter century, never mind one that's permeated the pop culture lexicon as thoroughly as Al has, should be a first ballot shoo-in. I hope that when his next tour comes though town, he will have been so honored.
UPDATE: Greg Wythe was in attendance as well, and he liked what he saw, too. Wish I'd known beforehand that you were going to be there, Greg, but I missed your post yesterday about it. Sorry!
Neal Pollack declares August 15 to be Fair and Balanced Friday in honor of Al Franken. (Don't say I didn't warn you, Fox News.)
Is David Beckwith, spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a loose cannon? Given some of the things he's said since the Democratic walkout, I wonder if his boss keeps much of a rein on him. He's got all of the Democrats riled up over a comment he made today.
Senators said a spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst made inappropriate comments in a published report by suggesting the Democrats consider themselves akin to Rosa Parks, whose refusal to yield her seat at the front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama contributed to the civil rights movement.The spokesman, David Beckwith, was quoted by Scripps Howard’s Austin bureau today saying of the absent Democrats: “After they got” to New Mexico “thinking they were going to stay a few days and then declare victory or whatever they thought they were going to do, they got captured by the Democratic National Committee blowing smoke up their rears and telling them what great Americans they were. So now they’ve gone from making a statement to ‘doing the right thing.’ They think they are Rosa Parks II.”
Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, who is African American, said he was “personally offended” by the comment and contended the comment reflected a history of similar lapses by Beckwith, who once worked for Vice President Dan Quayle.
“He owes the entire state of Texas an apology,” Ellis said.
Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos of Austin said Beckwith deserves a kick in the rear.
“He’s pulled the race card,” Barrientos said. “He’s dealt himself a very bad hand.”
Sen. Royce West of Dallas said he started to give Beckwith “a sheet and a hood” but decided that was too reactive.
Beckwith, informed of the criticism, said today he was simply telling Scripps Howard that the Democratic flight was “not a historic event. I’m sorry if anybody is offended.”
For what it's worth, I do think that the Dems overreacted a bit, but given that every Democratic Senator is black, Hispanic, or representing a majority black/Hispanic district, and every Republican Senator is white and representing mostly white districts, there is a racial aspect to this standoff whether we like it or not. It's okay to raise the subject, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and this was not the right way.
The problem that I have with Beckwith is not that he's made one silly remark, but that he seems to have a history of doing so. Last year, while acting as spokesman for John Cornyn's Senate campaign, Beckwith called the Democratic top of the ticket "based on a racial quota system", a remark that Cornyn specifically disavowed. I've reproduced the Chronicle article from April 13, 2002, under the More link for reference.
As I've said before, once is a mistake and twice is a habit. David Beckwith has a habit of saying strange things about race. Someone in the Lt. Governor's office ought to put a leash on him before his habit makes this standoff even more heated than it already is.
Cornyn disavows aide's comment about Democrats
By CLAY ROBISON, Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
Staff
AUSTIN - Republican U.S. Senate nominee John Cornyn on Friday disavowed a campaign spokesman's remark that Texas Democrats had used a "racial quota system" to put together their general election ticket.
Cornyn , the Texas attorney general, said his campaign against former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk , the Democratic Senate nominee, "will be based solely on the issues."
He said he has "great respect" for Kirk 's accomplishments in Dallas.
"I believe he would join me in declaring that race should not play any part in this campaign. I certainly can make that promise from my side," he added.
Cornyn was responding to remarks made Wednesday by campaign spokesman Dave Beckwith , who told the Dallas Morning News that the Democratic ticket was "cynical."
"It is based on a racial quota system. In the end, it will not work because most people vote on issues and philosophy, not on race," Beckwith was quoted as saying.
Democratic leaders took pains to assemble a racially diverse ticket with an eye toward increasing their party's appeal to a broad range of voters in November. And they have repeatedly touted that diversity.
Kirk is the first black ever nominated for the U.S. Senate from Texas, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee is Hispanic businessman Tony Sanchez, and John Sharp, an Anglo running for lieutenant governor, rounds out the top of the party's ticket.
Cornyn said he was "shocked" when he read Beckwith 's comments. He called the remarks "inappropriate."
"I just want to make it absolutely clear that race is not going to play any part in this campaign, not on my part, not on the mayor's part, I trust," he said.
"We do differ on the important issues that I think confront this state and this nation, and that's the kind of race that I think Texans expect and Texans deserve and the kind of campaign that I expect to run," he said.
Beckwith , who was in Washington, didn't attend Cornyn 's news conference. But Cornyn said he had discussed the remarks with him, and "he knows I'm unhappy."
Asked if Beckwith 's involvement in the campaign would change, Cornyn replied, "At this point his status is not changed."
He said Beckwith had "expressed regret" over the comments.
Beckwith declined further comment.
Kirk spokesman Justin Lonon said it was "encouraging that Mr. Cornyn recognizes the distasteful and divisive nature of his own spokesman's remarks."
"We hope that he is indeed committed to focus on the issues important to Texans in this campaign," Lonon said.
Cornyn said he wasn't going to characterize the Democratic ticket "other than to say this is going to be an historic election."
Beckwith was a spokesman for former Vice President Dan Quayle and for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison during her 1994 campaign.
He also was a spokesman, for a time, for then-Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign, but he lost that job after speaking too freely with reporters.
As you can see above, I've jumped on the Fair and Balanced bandwagon in support of Al Franken, who is being sued by Fox News Network because his latest book is called "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right".
Silly Fox News. Didn't you learn anything from Michael "Savage" Weiner? I can already hear Neal Pollack warming up his engines, a sound that will surely make the stoutest of Roger Ailes' lawyers tremble in their wingtips. Surrender now, Fox News. It will only get worse for you from here.
Democrats are rejoicing and Republicans regrouping after the State Supreme Court refused to issue a writ of mandamus that would have compelled the boycotting Senators to return to Austin. Chron coverage is here, Statesman is here, and Express-News is here.
Items of interest: While the Supremes rejected the GOP's lawsuit, they did not address the Constitutional arguments about whether or not any court could get involved.
Lawyers for the Democrats argued that the court does not have the power to issue a mandamus writ against state senators because it would violate the separation of powers between the Legislature and judiciary.The court did not answer that question, instead issuing a one-sentence order saying that the request was denied.
By the end of the day, however, three of the court's nine justices amended the order. Justices Nathan Hecht, Priscilla Owen and Stephen Smith added: "The Court denies the petition for writ of mandamus without regard to the merits of the constitutional arguments."
The possibility of a mandamus writ could surface again in another setting. The Democrats have filed a lawsuit in state District Court in Travis County challenging the governor's authority to call a special session on congressional redistricting.
In response, Republican attorneys have asked the District Court for a writ of mandamus similar to the one rejected by the Supreme Court.
Most likely, a trial judge will follow the Supreme Court's lead, said Alexandra Albright, a University of Texas law professor who specializes in civil process.
"The issue is whether the trial court has jurisdiction," Albright said, and state law is not clear on that point.
The Democrats' federal lawsuit challenges the legality of changing Senate rules when Voting Rights Act issues are in play.
The lawsuit challenges Dewhurst's and Perry's plans to drop the Senate tradition that all legislation must receive a two-thirds vote in the 31-member Senate before being considered for debate.The lawsuit alleges that the proposed change in procedure violates minority voting rights under the federal Voting Rights Act. The suit notes that nine of the boycotting senators are black or Hispanic while the two Anglo senators represent heavily minority districts.
The lawsuit claims any change in procedure under the Voting Rights Act must first be pre-cleared by the U.S. Justice Department or a three-judge federal panel in the District of Columbia.
Democratic lawyer Renea Hicks said he did not see the lawsuit as drawing a federal court into a state issue because it involves protected minority voting rights.
"It is a change in pattern and practice with respect to redistricting in Texas in a way that's never happened before," Hicks said. "There is a direct link between the change the lieutenant governor is proposing and minority voters in Texas."
This is new ground, so as with the GOP's writ of mandamus, the court may well be reluctant to get involved.
Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is mulling penalties for the missing members:
A Senate leadership source said the "authorized measures" would be fines against the missing senators. No fine had been set, but one scenario considered would assess a $1,000 fine the first day and double the fines each subsequent day.Senate rules make no mention of fines, but the Texas Constitution says lawmakers can "compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide."
Well now. "Double the fines each subsequent day" means we're into Exponential Growth territory. The fine for missing Day 30 would be $536,870,912,000 per Senator, which is larger than the projected federabl budget deficit and slightly less than what President Bush plans to raise for his reelection campaign. The total fine for missing 30 days would be $1,073,741,823,000 per Senator. Good luck collecting on that.
In other news, the Killer D's did some fundraising, while Willie Nelson called the Texas 11 heroes. Links via Rob.
Finally, I think the Star Telegram sums everything up best:
One veteran Capitol observer, University of Texas at Austin professor Bruce Buchanan, said the unfolding drama is doing little to enhance the reputation of Texas politics."I've said from the beginning that this will end when the public starts paying attention," Buchanan said. "And my sense is what the public is experiencing now is mild irritation with the whole process."
Hard to argue with that.
Editorials:
The DMN scolds the Democrats for their letter to President Bush, calling it "a perfect example of the kind of trouble politicians in either party can manufacture when they have too much time on their hands".
The Chron applauds the Supreme Court ruling, while Linda Curtis of IndependentTexans.org has an op-ed that pushes for "a statewide proposition to be placed on the November ballot to establish a permanent citizens' redistricting commission consisting of equal numbers of Democrats, Republicans and independents".
The Baseball Prospectus has an exclusive report which says that Pete Rose has reached an agreement with Major League Baseball that will allow him to come back in 2004 and includes no admission of wrongdoing by Rose. I am in shock.
When I first heard about this possibility, I was willing to accept it if Rose made a no-bullshit admission of wrongdoing. If BP's report is accurate and Major League Baseball is essentially wiping the slate clean without any such admission from Rose, then I will consider this the absolute worst thing that Bud Selig has ever done, even dwarfing his execrable anti-marketing and pervasive dishonesty about the game's finances. Frankly, if this report is true, I'm prepared to lead a pitchfork-and-torch assault on the Commissioner's Office. Any of the nineteen thousand candidates for California Governor, including Mary Carey, Gallagher, and Peter Ueberroth, would be a vast improvement over Beelzebud.
I'm too angry to think straight about this. Go read this Derek Zumsteg trifecta and this Rob Neyer column and you'll see why. I'm going to go bite through a chair leg and snarl a bit.
UPDATE: Mike T at Rhetoric & Rhythm sees it differently.
I am unabashedly a huge Pete Rose fan and have been so since I first picked up a baseball glove. The Cinncinnatti Reds were my team when I was growing up and Johnny Bench and Pete Rose baseball cards were the Holy Grail of my youth. So I was deeply disappointed when the whole Rose scandal broke out in the late '80s, but I also felt at the time as I do now that Rose paid for his mistake. I'll go over it again... he lost his job as manager of the Reds, he had to pay a sizable fine, he served time in jail, he suffered the humiliation of having his name forever associated with gambling on baseball, he suffered the indignity of being banned from baseball.... All of these things I could understand at the time, because gambling is a serious problem for professional sports and should be dealt with harshly whenever it is rooted out. However, the lifetime ban that has prevented Rose from inclusion in the Hall of Fame was and is over the top.
It's true that Rose has not gone unpunished in all of this. I guess what drives my anger on all this is that since his banishment, Rose has been very successful at convincing people that he really wasn't guilty. I've pointed to the Dowd Report before, and I'll reiterate again the most important part of it:
4. Peter Edward Rose acknowledges that the Commissioner has a factual basis to impose the penalty provided herein, and hereby accepts the penalty imposed on him by the Commissioner, and agrees not to challenge that penalty in court or otherwise. He also agrees he will not institute any legal proceedings against the Commissioner or any of his representatives, either Major League, or any Major League club.
Rose agreed to the punishment that was meted out. Subsequently, he has waged a (highly dishonest, in my view) PR campaign to discredit the same charges that he acknowledged at the time. You may be able to persuade me that Rose has been punished enough, or that the Hall of Fame ban on top of his disbarment from MLB is overkill, but Rose's attempts to obfuscate the facts really drive me nuts.
(Note: Rose's acknowledgement of "factual basis" for his punishment is part of his agreement with baseball, and not part of the evidence within the Dowd Report itself. I have been told that my wording here was a bit confusing, so I wanted to clear this up.)
But as I said before, I am willing to forgive, if not quite forget. All I ask is that Rose allocute to his crime. It's the thought that Rose may be welcomed back as someone who was done wrong, instead of someone who had done wrong, that I object to.
For what it's worth, MLB's chief operating officer, Bob de Puy, has denied BP's report.
DuPuy, who spoke to ESPN.com's Jayson Stark, said there has been "no decision, no agreement, no nothing" clearing the way for Rose to return to the game next year.Baseball Prospectus, in a statement in response to DuPuy's denial, stood by its story, saying the report "was compiled using reliable sources. We believe that, in the end, our report will be found to be accurate."
A number of different sources familiar with Rose's situation have told Stark in recent days that Rose's case will become a top priority for commissioner Bud Selig right after the World Series. And indications are that, barring some unforeseen development, Rose could be reinstated before Thanksgiving.
However, contrary to the Baseball Prospectus report, the sources have consistently indicated that Rose would have to admit to betting on baseball and would have to apologize for damage he's done to the sport.
In fact, it wasn't until Rose sent word to Selig that he was open to some sort of admission and apology that the commissioner changed his stance last year on reinstatement.
"When a decision is made, it will be reported through the appropriate channels," DuPuy said in a statement later Tuesday.
If so, then I will have bitten that chair leg in vain. I can live with that. Will Carroll, one of the stories authors, stands by what he wrote.
Bill Howell conducted a poll of Texas Democrats to see who they'd vote for in a Presidential primary right now. The results are here, and as he observed, it's nothing surprising. Having a strong online presence is a good way to win online polls, of all crazy things. 319 people from 35 different counties voted. It'd be interesting to compare this to a "real" poll, whenever one may get taken. Thanks, Bill!
The score is now Democrats 1, Republicans 0 as the Texas State Supreme Court refused to grant a writ of mandamus to compel the Dems to return. The GOP is now considering fining the Texas 11 for not showing up, while the Dems have filed a federal lawsuit to block the redistricting effort. The Quorum Report has statements from Dewhurst and Perry (both Word docs). So much for peace and quiet!
Byron has complete coverage of the lawsuits and the Dems' letter to President Bush, an editorial roundup, and a report from the rally on Saturday, while Timo Thompson has photos from the rally (no permalinks, so you may have to scroll down). There's sure to be a lot more action real soon now.
They're holding tryouts for American Idol at Minute Maid Park here in Houston. That picture is the line of hopefuls currently camped out at the stadium. Auditions are scheduled to begin on Wednesday, meaning these 5000 or so folks (so far - as I understand it, up to 10,000 may show up) are going to be living on the sidewalk there for two days.
In Houston.
In August.
To quote Ms. Grant, "Fame costs, and right here is where you're gonna start paying - in sweat."
A friend of my in-laws is here with his college-age daughter for her to take her chance at appearing on the show. They're in from Anchorage, Alaska, which last week had a record heat wave, with high temps in the mid-80s, slightly higher than what our low temps have been lately. I know they're used to surviving in harsh weather conditions, but I fear that by Wednesday they'll be reduced to puddles on the street. I'll be checking on them on my way home from work (Minute Maid is more or less in between where I work and where I live), so we'll see.
UPDATE: They seem to be holding up all right. Thanks to today's rain, it's a lot cooler than it had been recently, and they're all under the freeway, which will provide some shade. Ah, show business.
UPDATE: There's a bunch of comments here from people asking when the next American Idol tryouts will be, or if there'lll be any in their area, or whatever. People, I don't know and I don't care. You obviously know how to use Google or you would never have found this blog post. Now use a little common sense, OK? I'm closing comments for this entry.
So San Antonio has joined the list of cities with tougher bans on smoking in public places, though not without some confusion and a sense on both sides of the issue that no one is happy about it.
Devastated after a bitter loss in 1997, [public health advocates had] been waiting for years for a charismatic champion with consensus-building skills. So when then-Councilman Ed Garza announced during his 2001 mayoral campaign that he'd like to revisit the issue, advocates began mobilizing and the Smoke Free San Antonio Coalition was born.The coalition assured Garza it had the expertise and the medical research if he could provide the leadership. He took the issue on, boldly vowing this spring to seek a total ban on smoking in all public places.
But by last week's council vote on a new ordinance, the enthusiasm and energy surrounding the alliance long since had fizzled.
The mayor wasn't returning frantic phone calls from coalition leaders eager for details of a proposed council compromise. The group's chairwoman, Suzanne Lozano, turned up the rhetoric against her one-time champion.
"We are disappointed in the mayor's whole lack of leadership," she said, blasting Garza for wasting time on "a watered-down ordinance that goes entirely in the wrong direction."
The broken relationship stands as a visible sign of the divisive nature of the smoking ban battle, which isn't over yet. The council plans to revisit the issue this week because language was mistakenly omitted from the ordinance.
The day after the vote, Garza announced that the council had intended to approve an ordinance allowing smoking in designated dining sections enclosed by four solid walls. Instead, the council voted to isolate restaurant smoking within sections surrounded by three walls and a partial fourth wall.
Overall, the council opted against an all-out ban on smoking and instead voted to tweak the City Code regarding lighting up in public.
Smoking will be permitted in stand-alone bars, bingo parlors, pool halls and meeting rooms in restaurants, hotels and motels that are used for private functions.
It will be allowed in tobacco retail stores and bars, enclosed dining areas reserved for smokers and on restaurant patios.
To enter an area where smoking is permitted, those under 18 must be with a parent or guardian. Signs must be posted at establishments indicating whether smoking is allowed. If so, the health effects of secondhand smoke must be listed.
Neither of the main sides in the debate, the anti-smoking coalition nor the San Antonio Restaurant Association, is pleased over the changes. Compliance with the new ordinance will be costly and ineffective, they say.
Got all that? I can see why people are unhappy, and I have to think that Ed Garza is kicking himself for ever bringing this up in the first place. And given San Antonio's history trying to get its water supply flouridated, is anyone really surprised that this thing turned into a farce?
Personally, I'm torn about this. Like most nonsmokers, I hate cigarette smoke and will do almost anything to avoid it. I love the fact that the Mucky Duck offers non-smoking shows. It's a beautiful thing to arrive home after two hours in a bar and not have to immediately strip naked, burn my clothes, and hose myself down so that I don't scare the dog and kill Tiffany's houseplants. The last time I attended an Asylum Street Spankers show at Rudz, which has no such offerings, the smoke got so thick at one point that the band, almost all of whom smokes, asked everyone to refrain from lighting up for awhile. I still cough just thinking about it.
On the other hand, I have a hard time telling a private establishment that it cannot allow a legal activity to take place within its walls. I can't help but think that ordinances like this are not just a net loser for most bars, they're a big loser for them. (Not that I've ever seen any evidence one way or the other - I suspect that once these laws get passed, everyone moves on and no one really tries to measure their impact. Feel free to correct me if I'm all wet about this.) I'm not forced to enter a smoky bar, and I'm not prevented from telling the bar's owner that I'd patronize his place more often if I didn't think it was significantly shortening my lifespan.
I suppose San Antonio will find out for itself if the effort was worth it. It's a tourist town, so what it loses in barflies it may make up in families, I don't know. I do know that Ed Garza has his work cut out for him if he wants to live this experience down and aim for higher office some day.
Houstonian Ekaterina Dmitriev had her space wedding yesterday, tying the knot with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko via proxy. There had been a few bumps in the road, with the Russians balking at first, but in the end it was all systems go. They still have to wait until late October, when Malenchenko returns to Earth, to have a honeymoon, and they'll travel to Russia in June for a religious wedding that will be recognized in that country. Best wishes to the bride and groom from all of us here at Off the Kuff.
Kevin Phillips, on one of the keys to beating President Bush in 2004:
The younger Bush's vulnerability for pandering to the religious right is a lot different — bigger, but tougher to nail — than his father's. In 1992, as the elder Bush's job approval and election prospects plummeted, he had to openly flatter the party's preachers, paying a price with suburban swing voters. President Bush hasn't had to do that since early 2000, when he needed Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the Bob Jones University crowd to save his bacon against John McCain in the South Carolina GOP primary. What the younger Bush has done instead is to give the religious right so much patronage and critical policy influence — to say nothing of coded biblical references in key speeches — as to have built them into the system.The degree is little less than stunning. In late 2001, religious right leaders sampled by the press said Bush had replaced Robertson as the leader of the religious right, becoming the first president to hold both positions simultaneously. Next year's Democratic nominee could win if he or she is shrewd enough to force the president to spend the autumn of 2004 in the Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago suburbs defending his stance on creationism, his ties to flaky preachers and the faith healer he's appointed to an advisory board for the Food and Drug Administration.
Ross Baker, on one of the keys to President Bush's reelection:
Bush, however, will never utter any unkind words about his legislative henchman, because [Tom] DeLay stands high in the eyes of the president's core constituency, conservative Republicans. DeLay's conservatism, moreover, is an all-encompassing mantle. Unlike some congressional Republicans who love tax cuts but shrink from moralistic lectures about abortion and homosexuality, or those who feel squeamish about the bias toward the rich in the recent tax cuts but see the government as moral guardian, DeLay is the seamless conservative.DeLay abominates any environmental regulation (a hangover from his time as head of a pest-control company), is four-square anti-abortion and supports the president's most truculent assertions in foreign policy except for the so-called road map for peace in the Mideast, which he regards as a sniveling sellout of Israel's biblical right to virtually all of the Holy Land.
Add to that a delirious delight in cutting taxes, not so much for the purpose of ventilating the economy but because tax cuts cut off oxygen to the federal government, and you have the man Democrats love to hate.
But you also have the man whose positions on so many issues are just so far over the top that he gives to Bush the power to reassure the American people in 2004 that, unlike some Republicans, he is the standard to which critical swing voters can enthusiastically rally.
Two sides to the same coin. Whoever does a better job of it will win. (LAT link via Calpundit.)
It's a Joe Nixon triple play in the Chron op-ed section today. An unsigned editorial wags a finger at the Houston Republican, while Clay Robison and John R. Cobarruvias, who appears to be an activist and the founder of Home Owners for Better Building, slap him around as well.
Both Robison and Cobarruvias connect Nixon's mold claim to his work on the evil tort reform bill Propoaition 12. Here's Robison:
Warming up for his new leadership role in the tort war last February, Nixon offered his opinion of how the homeowners' insurance crisis had been "primarily driven by a barrage of increasingly expensive mold claims."He spoke then in an interview with his own law firm's in-house publication. Phillips & Akers, in which Nixon is a partner, specializes in representing defendants in medical malpractice and other lawsuits seeking damages.
"Between the mid-'90s and 2001 the average mold claim cost increased from $4,000 to $22,000; and by 2001, 70 percent of all mold claims filed nationally were filed in Texas," complained the $300,000 claimant.
Nixon, in the interview, acknowledged that some mold claims -- including, I assume, his own -- were legitimate. But he blamed much of the increase on a "cottage industry" of unregulated mold remediators and "experts," which the Legislature later attempted to address.
[...]
Nixon, in essence, contends that he is just one of the "little people" who got what he was owed from a big, bad insurance company.
Maybe, but forgive his constituents -- and other Farmers customers -- if they are a bit suspicious. Legislators can get phone calls answered that most "little people" can't.
"Little people" often have to give up or take their beefs against insurance companies and corporate America to the courthouse, if they can afford the hassle, have a complaint worthy of a lawyer's time and aren't preempted by still another "tort reform" restriction.
Nixon should try wearing their shoes for a while.
And here's Cobarruvias:
In 2001, while hearings and legislation was being crafted to address mold claims, Nixon received more than $300,000 for his own mold claim. Like many mold victims, his life was disrupted while his family spent a year in a crowded apartment during mold remediation at their home. But unlike many victims, he kept silent about the dangers of toxic mold, the cost of remediation, the stress upon his family and the urgent need to address mold contamination.Nixon had an opportunity to address the Texas Department of Insurance during one of many of historic mold hearings held across the state and in Austin. His position, as a Texas representative, would have validated the claims by other homeowners affected by mold contamination. His own experience of having his family life disrupted, his financial situation threatened and his emotions stretched would have put a halt to the opponents' claims of "hysteria," "frivolous" and "mold is gold."
But he didn't. Instead, he stood silently by while others were foreclosing on their homes and struggling to keep their children in good health, as well as struggling with their insurance companies.
Later in the 2003 legislation session, Nixon sponsored the tort reform bill on behalf of the insurance industry and tort reform groups. These were the same organizations that were claiming toxic mold had driven up the cost of insurance, forcing companies out of business. Members of these organizations testified at the mold hearings, and some were appointed to the Department of Insurance Mold Task Force. All the while, Nixon was collecting $300,000 on his own "legitimate" mold claim and crafting an insurance welfare bill, House Bill 4.
When I first wrote about this story, I said that I could believe Joe Nixon's claim that he had no knowledge of Farmers' attempts to treat him with favoritism. I still believe it. I believe that Joe Nixon really does have no idea that his experience, whatever he may have thought of it at the time, was better, smoother, and more quickly resolved that it would be for a non-legislator. I believe it's never entered Joe Nixon's head that sometimes the only way an average person can get the attention of those "big, bad insurance companies" is to drag their asses to court. I believe he'll come out of this experience with the same faith that limiting jury awards is fairly and properly restoring equity to businesses who are otherwise completely at the mercy of the little people. And I believe he's far from unique in this regard.
The folks at Public Citizen, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, lampooned President Bush in Crawford yesterday as part of their White House for Sale campaign.
[A] group of advocates sought to put some heat on the president for what they said was excessive fund raising that creates the impression that people can buy favorable treatment from the Bush administration.The 20-by-12 inflated White House was erected by the group Public Citizen, which monitors campaign financing.
"These people are some of the smartest businessmen in America, and if they didn't continue to see a payback in their investment in the Bush campaign, they wouldn't continue to make these kinds of donations time after time," said Tom Smith, director of Public Citizen for Texas.
Asked if they would mount similar protests at events staged by Bush's Democratic rivals, McDonald said, "All parties do this, all the major candidates use the same techniques. But the Bush network is the most sophisticated we've ever seen."
The protesters' news conference was held beside a local clapboard house bought by a group of Austin peace advocates for $54,000 in January and dubbed "Peace House".
Less flamboyant, but more intriguing to me, is the news that Rep. Charlie Stenholm gave the Democrats' weekly radio address, and ripped into President Bush in doing so.
"When you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging," he said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "Yet the Republican leadership in Washington continues to advocate policies that would put us further in the red."The administration recently projected deficits of more than $450 billion this year and $475 billion next year -- numbers that don't factor in money borrowed from Social Security and other trust funds, Stenholm said.
"Budget deficits place a drag on the economy and our living standards now and in the future," Stenholm said. "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has repeatedly warned that deficits undercut the ability of the economy to grow in a way that reduces unemployment and increases the wages of American workers."
Stenholm said deficits are a bad legacy for future generations. He said interest payments on the nation's debt are an extra burden for taxpayers, past and future.
"The $323 billion we will spend this year for interest on our $6.7 trillion national debt represents a 'debt tax' that must be paid by all future generations and can never be repealed," he said. "Continuing to run up debt will ensure that we and our children and our grandchildren are overtaxed for the rest of our lives."
Stenholm said "it's not too late to reverse course and embrace a policy of fiscal discipline that boosts our economy and promotes long-term growth." He urged Bush to reconsider his economic agenda.
Given that Stenholm is one of the Democrats marked for elimination under Tom DeLay's redistricting scheme, and given that Stenholm represents one of the stronger Republican areas of Texas, you'd figure he'd be an unlikely candidate to deliver this message. Maybe he figures that his odds of reelection in 2004 are independent of what happens in the neverending Legislative session, I don't know. I do know that fiscal discipline is a message that plays well in that part of the world, and I see this as a theme that will get a lot of play in Democratic talking points between now and next November. After all, as Kos points out, if big deficits are a reason to boot Gray Davis, then surely they're a reason to boot Bush.
If that's the case, then I consider the recent rumblings about Ross Perot to be a nonstarter. Unlike 1992, the deficit has been an issue from the beginning. Howard Dean has made an issue of it all along, and has gotten a lot of publicity for doing so. Dean actually does a pretty good unintentional Perot impression when talking about the deficit, and he doesn't have the baggage of being a wacky paranoid billionaire who once claimed that the CIA was disrupting his daughter's wedding plans. It wouldn't surprise me if he's already picked up the support of some of Perot's constituency. Any former Perot supporters out there that want to comment on that?
Somewhere between 2000 and 5000 people rallied in Austin against redistricting, depending on which account you read ("about 5000 Democratic activists", "As many as 5000 people from across the state", "between 2000 and 4000 rowdy protesters", "about 4000 people"). It's an impressive figure no matter how you slice it when you consider it was a Saturday in summer and 100 degrees outside. 40 buses from all over the state brought people in for the rally.
There are a variety of quotes and anecdotes from the rally in each paper, but as is often the case in a story like this, the key to getting noticed is to be a little different. Three of the four papers (there was nothing in the Star-Telegram) carried a variation on this:
Killeen Mayor Maureen Jouett told the rally outside the state Capitol that she had voted in the Republican primary in 2002 and had been a "Mayor for Perry" in that year's elections. She said the congressional district that includes Killeen is overwhelmingly Republican, but it elects U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco.[...]
"Now, because someone doesn't like who we voted for, they want to change the map again," Jouett said.
And two of the four had this at the end:
A handful of Republicans were on hand to voice their support of the redistricting effort."Republicans voted for governor, lieutenant governor, Texas Senate, Texas House, and Texas resident President Bush is commander-in-chief," said Dana Petroni, a Katy resident, who drove to Austin for the rally. "Redistricting is a legislative process, not a judicial process."
The Statesman has an analysis of redistricting arguments whose headline says that both parties are right and wrong, but whose text seems to lean towards the Democratic side.
The GOP effort is confounded by the constant need to explain why redistricting, usually an activity enjoyed in post-census years that end with the digit 1, is going on in a year that ends with the digit 3. The GOP answer, arguably defensible, is based on process: The current map was drawn by federal judges in 2001 after the Legislature (then with a Democratic majority in the House) failed to act (largely because Republicans, pretty sure they'd have complete control in 2003, balked).The GOP justification for the extraordinary current process is also backed by politics. Democrats hold a 17-15 edge in the state's U.S. House delegation. As the new millennium unfolds, there is little on which to base an argument that there should be a Democratic-majority anything in Texas.
But here's the biggest problem with the GOP argument for drawing new lines. An overwhelming majority of Texans fall into one of two categories:
1. They like their current U.S. House member.
2. They have no idea who their current House member is.
It's a powerful combination that doubles the difficulty Republicans have in explaining why they're doing what they're doing.
"Redistricting is so far down the list of things people care about now that it wouldn't make the top 10,000," Austin activist Robin Rather said at a recent gathering of local Democrats opposed to redistricting.
Republicans, prevail though they might, have managed to get the Democratic base, small though it is, excited in a way it has not been since Ann Richards was lighting up crowds with her incomparable stage presence.
Suddenly, mild-mannered Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Elliott Naishtat of Austin are rock 'n' roll icons as they are welcomed at Democratic events across the nation.
"The whole room went crazy," Waco Rep. Jim Dunnam, leader of the House trip to Oklahoma in May, said of his recent appearance at a Texas AFL-CIO convention.
The Democratic Party line on redistricting also is not without holes, starting perhaps with the fact that they find themselves where they are because they have trouble winning elections.
It's a party without an identifiable leader, devoid of solid statewide candidates and about as low as it can be and still carry the tag "major party." And, like the Republicans, the Democrats' attempt to take the moral high ground in redistricting is confounded by reality.
Hispanic Democrats argue that Republicans are out to sap the voting rights strength of their community. It's an argument that would ring truer if more Hispanics showed more of an interest in participating in the activity.
Though there has been improvement, the historically low turnout among Hispanics is among the causes of the Democratic decline in Texas.
Finally, the Chron has an op-ed piece that suggests some alternatives to ordinary Congressional districts.
What if Texas told each party to put up a slate of 32 candidates, with voters choosing one slate or the other? Texas congressional election would be winner take all, which is known as an at-large election. Talk about upping the political ante.
The argument against at-large elections is pretty straightforward: rural and other low-population areas would get no representation. I can't believe such a thing would survive a Votings Rights Act challenge nowadays.
Alternative #2 is multi-member districts:
[M]ulti-member districts would group voters into natural communities. Under single-member districts, large cities like Houston are artificially sliced apart into districts. The district lines often twist and turn, up one street and down another, dividing neighbors into separate voting blocks. The result can be district maps that look more like Rorschach ink blots than geographic boundaries. Multi-member districts keep communities together, allowing neighbors to vote together for several representatives.A second advantage of multi-member districts is less incentive for pork barrel politics. When a representative hails from a small, single-member district, she feels pressure to satisfy the voters' petty, local interests. But, if she represents a large, multi-member district, she answers to a more diverse electorate where the power of any single interest group is reduced. That is why U.S. senators, who are elected statewide, are less inclined to local pork than their colleagues in the House.
Some fear that multi-member districts dilute the voting power of racial, ethnic or political minorities. Single-member districts guarantee minorities a small number of safe districts, while large, multi-member districts threaten to overwhelm their votes. But, multi-member districts could just as easily have the opposite effect. If a large, multi-member district is evenly divided between the major parties, minorities could prove the crucial swing voters, magnifying their influence beyond their numbers.
That actually seems pretty reasonable to me, though you still have to decide where those districts are, and I'd bet that fight would be as nasty as the current one.
We should have some court rulings early next week. Stay tuned.
There's a nice article in the Star-Telegram about Gary Gardner, one of the leaders behind the movement to free those who were wrongly convicted in the infamous Tulia drug bust. He's not who you'd expect. Check it out.
I love Movable Type's categories, but every once in awhile I come to the realization that they're not doing the job for me. Categories are most useful for me when I want to search through my archives for a specific post. With categories, I don't have to remember when I posted something, I just have to remember what topic I associate it with, then search that category page until I find it.
There are two signs that I need new categories. One is when a new story comes along that I know I'm going to follow obsessively, like the K-Mart Kiddie Roundup. This sort of story deserves its own slot so I can easily refer to my entire coverage on it. The other sign is being unable to remember what category I filed an earlier post in, either because I'm trying to find it now or because I'm posting a followup. When I realize that I've posted the same story under three different categories because I could never remember which one I'd decided it fit in, it's time to create a new one.
With that in mind, there are a few new categories on the sidebar: The Making of the President, for things relating to the ongoing Presidential election, Election 2004, for other races of interest, Show Business for Ugly People, for generic political stuff, and Scandalized!, for various stupid political tricks. It is somehow unsurprising to me, after recategorizing a bunch of posts, that this latter subject would have the most initial entries.
Still mulling over the best solution to my case of neverending blogroll expansion. In the interim, I've decided to compound the problem by adding a few more entries, some of which were overdue for inclusion:
Angry Bear
Pacific Views
Rob Booth
Suburban Guerrilla
Uggabugga
Yellow Doggerel Democrat
I've moved things around a bit one the sidebar to make the blogroll a bit more prominent, and to group things more efficiently (at least I hope so). We'll see how it works for me.
Missed this on Thursday, but Rob caught it: Tommy Whaley, the State Republican Executive Committee member who was recently accused by state GOP Chair Susan Weddington of tape recording conference calls and leaking the tapes to the Chronicle, has no plans to resign and says he cannot be fired.
"They can't fire me, because I was elected by the people of the First Congressional District," Whaley said.Whaley has been given the option of resigning from the State Republican Executive Committee, according to the Associated Press.
Whaley is accused of letting non-committee members listen in on GOP conference calls on April 7 and May 13.
"The long and short of it is, they want to try and make me mad to get me to resign. And I'm not going to resign," Whaley said Wednesday, declining to discuss specifics of complaint.
"They are going to have a meeting in a couple of weeks, and they are going to find some way to charge me. As soon as I hear back, I'll know better what I've been charged with."
What makes this more than just inside-baseball stuff to me is the possible reasons why a guy like this would do something like that. Why embarrass an institution for which you sit on the executive board? The most plausible answer I can think of is that he doesn't like the direction the state GOP has been going and is working to show the leaders of that direction in an unflattering light in the hopes that the rank and file will turn against them. Seems awfully quixotic to me, but given that the standard Democratic method of trying to change party philosophy is either public slagging of those with whom you disagree or joining another party in hopes of destroying the old one, I'd say his tactics are relatively mild.
A couple of followups to the flurry of lawsuits that were filed on Thursday. Democrats are wondering aloud if they can get a fair shake from the Texas Supreme Court.
All nine justices are Republicans, and one, Priscilla Owen, has had her nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked three times by U.S. Senate Democrats.Republican President Bush, the former Texas governor, nominated Owen for the federal appeals court. Bush's political aide, Karl Rove, has maintained an active interest in the Texas redistricting battle, discussing it with Dewhurst and at least one state senator.
Two state Supreme Court justices -- Wallace Jefferson and Michael Schneider -- were originally appointed to the court by Perry before winning election to the office.
Additionally, Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is representing Perry and Dewhurst, was a Supreme Court justice before resigning in 2001 to run for his current office.
"I would be shocked if there was not some reason for (Perry and Dewhurst) to believe the Supreme Court would take it (the lawsuit)," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, "and I wouldn't be totally shocked if they already knew the outcome."
But Jim Dunnam, chairman of the state House Democratic Caucus, said he believes the Republican leadership's lawsuit is flawed in asking the court to violate separation of government powers.
He said a court simply cannot order a legislator to take a specific action, including attending the legislature.
"It is so fundamental that this is a place where courts have no business that I find it difficult that even with a stacked deck that they're going to be able to assume any type of jurisdiction," Dunnam, of Waco, said.
My gut says the court will take the relatively easy way out and rule that it has no jurisdiction, which is the ruling that I'd expect any higher court to hand down anyway.
The last time the state Supreme Court was asked to involve itself directly in legislative affairs was December 2000, when the Texas Senate was preparing to elect a lieutenant governor to fill the vacancy left when Perry became governor after Bush was elected president.The Senate wanted to hold a secret vote, but news organizations sued to force a public vote, claiming a secret ballot would violate both law and the state Constitution.
In that instance, the Supreme Court issued a narrow opinion that said the lieutenant governor is a Senate officer and the Constitution specifically allows the Senate to elect its officers by secret ballot. The high court avoided questions of whether the Senate was violating the open meetings provisions of the state Government Code.
Meanwhile, the Dems have criticized the recent visit by Republican Sens. Todd Staples and Robert Duncan at the behest of Lt. Gov. Dewhurst as a "sham".
"Let's make it clear. This was a setup. It was sham. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they didn't come here in good faith. It's pretty obvious they were already planning to file a lawsuit against us," said Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, one of the three Democrats who met privately with the GOP senators."They came here so they could say they tried to get us to negotiate and cooperate before they filed their lawsuit," he said.
That assertion was rejected by Dave Beckwith, a spokesman for Mr. Dewhurst, who said the meeting was "a serious attempt to communicate with them" to try to break the impasse. He also insisted the Democrats were not receptive to meeting with their GOP colleagues.
Byron and Rob will be attending today's anti-redistricting rally in Austin. I look forward to their reports from the scene.
Finally, the Chron does its usual anti-redistricting editorial. At what point do you think this will affect their endorsements in 2004 and 2006?
We're not at California recall levels yet, but the November mayoral race now has seven declared candidates.
Anthony Dutrow, part of a national Socialist Workers Party campaign to change the U.S. government under the party's terms, will try to sell the socialist platform locally as a candidate for Houston mayor.He says he's offering something different than Houston's other mayoral candidates.
"We'll tell the truth, the unvarnished truth," Dutrow said. "We're running a campaign which is a working-class alternative to the twin parties of racism, war, unemployment."
Dutrow is working to get 4,000 signatures so he can earn a spot on the November ballot. He's kicking off his campaign this evening with a barbecue and speech at Pathfinder Bookstore on West 8th Street.
Dutrow is a proponent of expanded rail -- which likely will be proposed in a referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot along with the mayoral and other city and school board races -- but he's for a much larger mass transit project than the ones under consideration.
He said a larger project would improve local transportation as well as provide jobs.
Dutrow also would push national socialist issues as mayor, including bringing home all troops stationed abroad and ending American "occupation" of Iraq, creating jobs for everybody, allowing illegal immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, defending women's access to abortion and re-establishing U.S. relations with Cuba.
I'm glad to see at least one mayoral candidate talk about foreign policy, a subject which has been badly underserved so far in this year's race. Potholes and property taxes are boring, y'know?
Anyway. Our neighborhood association will be holding a candidates' forum in September, so assuming this guy will be there I'll get to ask him a few questions about how he plans to implement some of these policies. That ought to be fun.
Public Citizen has a new site called White House For Sale that will be tracking President Bush's prodigious fundraising efforts. They've also got a permalinkless blog that appears to be their clearinghouse for tidbits about individual Bush Pioneers and Rangers. (May I add, what retarded names those are. What are the next levels called? Avengers? Superheros? Protectors Of All That Is Righteous From Hippie Liberal Commie Freaks?)
Anyway, this should be a useful and informative addition to the 2004 campaign. They've even got a handy button you can use as a link image if you're so inclined. Check it out.
Here's the wall-to-wall coverage of the dueling lawsuits over redistricting, quorums, the powers of DPS, traditional rules, and whether or not Governor Perry's harispray habit is accelerating the depletion of the ozone layer (okay, I made that last one up). The thrust of the suits is as follows, from the Chron.
The Democratic senators filed their own lawsuit in Travis County district court asking for an order barring their arrest by the Senate sergeant at arms. The legislative sergeants at arms historically have been charged with rounding up lawmakers who fail to show up at the Capitol, often enlisting state troopers to carry out the task.The Democrats contend in their lawsuit that a provision of the state Constitution forbids the arrest of a lawmaker when the Legislature is in session except "in cases of treason, felony or breach of the peace."
The matter probably would only be relevant if the Democrats returned to Texas, since neither the sergeants nor the state police have jurisdiction outside the state.
The Democrats' lawsuit also contends that Perry did not have the power to call the current special legislative session on redistricting because it is not an "extraordinary occasion."
[Democratic attorney Reana] Hicks said the existing congressional district boundaries were upheld two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court, so congressional districts present no crisis that can be used as a basis for calling a special session.
[...]
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Perry, the top Republicans in state government, filed their lawsuit in a Travis County district court and before the Texas Supreme Court. Attorney General Greg Abbott and Solicitor General R. Ted Cruz are representing them.
They asked the courts to order the boycotting senators back to Austin to establish a Senate quorum. Dewhurst said the Democrats face possible court sanctions if they do not respond.
"Obviously anytime anyone violates a court order they do it at their own peril and their own risk," Dewhurst said.
Perry said the lawsuit is necessary because two legislative boycotts in four months amount to "constitutional abuse." Fifty-five Democrats killed congressional redistricting in May by breaking the House quorum during the regular legislative session.
Perry said the latest walkout "illustrates the potential for a constitutional crisis whenever a minority number of legislators refuse to participate in the process on issues where they lack the votes to succeed."
"If the Supreme Court does not intervene, nothing will stop a handful of legislators from halting a vote on any difficult issue," the governor said.
The text of the Dems' lawsuit is here, and of the Repubicans' suit is here. Both links are PDF files. The rest of the coverage is in the Statesman, the Morning News, the Express News, and the Star Telegram.
A couple of side issues: Here's more on Rep. Dan Branch's bill to redefine a quorum as 2/3 of the members present in the state, rather than 2/3 of all members. I understand why this would be popular and would likely pass, but it's one of those things a majority party does without ever considering that someday it will be in the minority and maybe would have been better off if they'd not strengthened their majority-derived power. You know, like how the Democrats are surely wishing they'd passed Jeff Wentworth's bill to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission, a bill whose continued failure to pass is something I'm equally sure the Republicans will rue some day.
Finally, if you believe that in a state where one party controls the executive and legislative branches and where the last redistricting was done in a courtroom gives the controlling party the right to redraw the lines to reflect the state's voting trends, then you've just argued in favor of redistricting in New Mexico, where Democrats have only one representative in Congress. So be careful what you wish for. Via Polstate.
The designers of the new Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test have admitted that they screwed up on one of the 10th grade math tests, though it appears from their explanation that they still don't fully grasp the nature of their screwup. Here's the problem they presented, which was to find the perimeter of the regular octagon shown:
As the Texas Education Association states in its press release, they thought that students would use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve the problem, which yields an answer of 36 cm. However, if a student noted that the angle from the center of the octagon is 45 degrees, then using the Law of Sines would have led to an answer of 27 cm. Given that, they gave everyone credit for the question.
The real problem, as the various mathematicians and engineers quoted in the story note, is that the problem is impossible on its face. Here's why:
In any regular polygon, the sum of the exterior angles is always 360 degrees. For an octagon, that means each exterior angle is 45 degrees, which in turn means that each interior angle is 135 degrees.
In the triangle drawn within the octagon, the two sides that go from the center of the octagon to one of the interior angles bisects that angle. That means that the angle formed by the bottom segment of the octagon (whose length we need to calculate in order to find the perimeter) and the line whose length is given as 4.6 cm is 67.5 degrees.
(Even if you didn't know all that, if you observe that the angle from the center of the octagon to the two corners as drawn must be 45 degrees, then the other two angles in the isoceles triangle must be 67.5 degrees each.)
Now then. In a right triangle, one can calculate the sines of its angles by the formula sine = opposite/hypotenuse. (Cosine is adjacent/hypotenuse and tangent is opposite/adjacent, leading to the mnemonic SOHCAHTOA.) In the drawing, that would make the sine of 67.5 degrees about 0.870. Unfortunately, the angle whose sine is 0.87 is about 60.4 degrees. The actual sine of 67.5 degrees is about 0.923. In other words, a right triangle with a 67.5 degree angle cannot have a side measuring 4 cm and a hypotenuse measuring 4.6 cm. It's impossible.
Shame on the TEA for getting this wrong. They claim that "Each test item goes through a rigorous review process that includes a field test of the items and two separate review sessions by professional educators who have subject-area and grade-level expertise and who are recommended by their district", and they say that this sort of error has "rarely been used" in the history of these tests, but this is still inexcusable.
As it happens, I'm not reflexively opposed to standardized testing. I think standardized tests are a useful tool that can help to objectively evaluate how much a student has really learned. What I do object to is the amount of emphasis being put on standardized tests. I believe they should be a means to an end, and not an end in and of themselves. I won't indict an entire system based on one case of quality control failure, but given what's at stake for the students, the least the TEA can do is make damn sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again.
Finally, if you have a few minutes to kill, check out this page, which has over 40 different proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem, including links to pages that have animated demonstrations. Did you know that President James Garfield published an original proof of the Pythagorean Theorem in 1876? Corollary jokes about our current President are left as an exercise for the reader.
UPDATE: Mike T speaks from experience working for a textbook publishing company in the comments. He doesn't think much of the TEA's claims of "rigorous review".
I suppose it was just a matter of time: Both sides in the redistricting standoff have sued each other.
The 11 Democrats, who are holed up in a New Mexico hotel, filed a lawsuit in Travis County District Court asking that state officials or their deputies be prohibited from arresting them should they return to the state. Their lawsuit also challenges Gov. Rick Perry's authority to call a special legislative session on redistricting.Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst filed their own court action asking the Texas Supreme Court to order the Democrats to return to the Capitol.
No other details were immediately available about the Supreme Court filing made by Attorney General Greg Abbott on the Republican leadership's behalf.
Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said in Albuquerque, N.M., on Thursday that the Democrats are challenging Perry's authority to call the special session on redistricting because the Texas Constitution limits the governor's powers to call a special session only when there are extraordinary occasions.
"It's our contention that if you have a legal map in place that's been approved in federal court and defended by the attorney general, then extraordinary occasions do not exist," West said.
[...]
Dewhurst said at a news conference that he expected a Supreme Court ruling by early next week.
"Enough is enough. It's time to end the games," Dewhurst said.
The lawsuit filed by the Democrats lists Dewhurst, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Carleton Turner and Col. Thomas A. Davis Jr., director of the state Department of Public Safety as defendants. West said the lawsuit will be amended to include Perry.
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte in Albuquerque said the part of the lawsuit that seeks to allow the Democrats back into the state without fear of arrest simply seeks clarification.
A state judge has ruled that DPS did not have the authority to arrest members of the state House of Representatives to enforce a quorum in the chamber. The ruling stemmed from the May walkout by more than 50 House Democrats to thwart redistricting efforts.
The DPS troopers had been dispatched to try to find the House Democrats. They could not bring them back from Ardmore, Okla., because they did not have authority to do so since the Democrats were in another state.
Van de Putte said it is unclear what action the Senate sergeant-at-arms can take.
Dewhurst has said that if the Texas Democrats return to the state he will ask that they be compelled to return to the chamber.
According to the Quorum Report, Dewhurst filed a writ of mandamus, which is what former Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Boyd had speculated he'd do. One reporter apparently asked if using the state Supreme Court to sanction legislators for breaking quorum is not a violation of separation of powers. Dewhurst said he didn't think so. I guess we'll see.
The Statesman has a little bit more, while the Express News once again (and once again, surprisingly to me) has the most complete coverage. From the E-N:
Earlier today, Democratic senators today offered to meet with their GOP colleagues a second time in what one negotiator described as a possible first step toward ending their impasse on congressional redistricting.Senator Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, who heads the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the Democrats suggested a Monday meeting here and said any Republicans sent by Dewhurst should include Sen. Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant.
Ratliff, who preceded Dewhurst as lieutenant governor, was the sole Republican senator to declare his opposition to redrawing the state's 32 congressional districts in the first special session called on that topic by Gov. Rick Perry.
[...]
Asked how many senators may come, Van de Putte said, "We can't have a quorum, that's for sure."
Two Republican senators, Todd Staples of Palestine and Robert Duncan of Lubbock, flew to Albuquerque on Wednesday and met with Van de Putte and two other Democrats, Sen. Royce West of Dallas and Sen. Juan Hinojosa of McAllen.
West conveyed the Democrats' offer to Duncan in a phone call today.
"Now they've got to go back and report to the group," Van de Putte said.
Asked why the Democrats wanted Ratliff there, she said, "He was lieutenant governor. He understands what's at stake here. He also understands the traditions of the Texas Senate."
Regarding the possibility that more talks could end the stalemate, West said, "If they come in good faith and recognize the importance of the institution of the Senate, hopefully we can find a resolution."
One way or the other, we may have a resolution in sight.
More on the story about Farmers Insurance giving special treatment to legislators like Rep. Joe Nixon and other muckety-mucks that they thought might be useful to them. Basically, the mold manager that they fired, Isabelle Arnold, isn't going away. She's filed suit and doesn't appear to be shy about talking to the press. I suppose she'll either turn out to be a total crank, or this could be Yet Another Nasty Corporate Scandal which may or may not resonate with the general public. (Damn, I feel cynical today.)
The Quorum Report says that several Farmers execs testified before the Grand Jury today.
Four Farmers Insurance executives, including Texas President John Hageman, are testifying before a Travis County Grand Jury about a payment made to state Rep. Joe Nixon (R-Houston).The story was first reported in QR Tuesday.
The other Farmers executives present appearing are Jim Killian, a government affairs officer, Vinh Nguyen, area claims Houston, and Fred Green, mold supervisor for the Texas region out of Phoenix, AZ.
Prominent Austin attorney Roy Minton accompanied the executives.
According to Farmers spokeswoman Michelle Levy, the Grand Jury is mostly concerned about the $13,000 payment to Nixon for damage to his driveway and landscaping by mold remediators.
So stay tuned.
The debate over what to do with the Astrodome continues, as county officials seek input from developers who might have an interest in the land. There are a few, um, requirements, though.
The Sports and Convention Corp. issued a request for proposals in early June, seeking creative ideas to make the Dome, once again, a destination. The deadline for submissions is Friday.The request for proposals is geared toward large developers, requiring that they have a proven record of successful mixed-use projects costing $100 million or more. It also requires them to produce a financing plan.
Further, any proposal must be compatible with the county's contractual obligations with the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
In short, the county asks for a complete package: a creative money-generating idea likely involving an entertainment complex, a plan to build it and a way to pay for the whole thing.
And it is asking for it quickly and rather quietly.
Hey, you've got till tomorrow. No sweat.
Frankly, I have no idea what to do with it. I'd like to see the Dome rehabilitated into something cool and useful, but if it has to be dynamited then such is life. History is unfortunately not on its side:
A second life as something other than a sports venue would mark another first for the Dome. Attempts to reanimate concrete dinosaurs in other cities swept by new-stadium fever in the 1990s have so far proved unsuccessful.Detroit officials appear ready to give up on the nearly 90-year-old Tiger Stadium after four years of trying to attract developers to transform America's oldest major-league ballpark into condominiums, restaurants and office space. The Tigers abandoned the downtown stadium in 1999 for Comerica Park.
Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh were dynamited in 2001 after attempts to renovate them as residential and retail space failed.
As noted, the Dome was built as a multipurpose facility, which gives it an advantage over those other ballparks, but let's face it. Given the economy and the real estate market, I'm having a hard time imagining any development that doesn't start with a few hundred pounds of explosives.
But hey, if you feel differently, the Chron has a little online poll going. So far, "redevelop it" is leading "dynamite it" by 77-23%. For what it's worth.
All of the papers are reporting on a trip taken by Sens. Todd Staples (R, Palestine) and Robert Duncan (R, Lubbock) to Albuquerque to meet with the boycotting Democrats. The basic information is the same - Staples and Duncan flew out in a private plane, met with Sens. Leticia van de Putte, Royce West, and Juan Hinojosa, attempted to persuade the Democrats to return but offered them no concessions, and the Democrats rejected their overture.
There are some variations in the stories. The Chron reports as follows:
Staples and Duncan arrived in Albuquerque Wednesday morning but did not meet with the runaway Democrats until early afternoon."It's been a long day," Staples said.
He would not comment on whether Perry or Dewhurst knew about their trip, nor would he say who paid for the charter flight.
Van de Putte said the Democrats were delayed in meeting the Republicans because they did not know their GOP Senate colleagues were coming."We certainly made the effort to get to the location as quickly as possible," she said.
Neither side in Albuquerque publicized Wednesday's meeting, and senators acknowledged it only after reporters found them at a small private airport.
Van de Putte blamed the governor's office for alerting the media.
The Express News has it differently:
The meeting was described as an effort to reach out to Democrats, and had the support of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who a day earlier said he was exploring unspecified "legal options" to yank the senators back across the state line.Dewhurst provided the leased twin-propeller plane taken early Wednesday by Republican Sens. Todd Staples of Palestine and Robert Duncan of Lubbock. The two sought to meet with all the Democratic senators at their hotel, the Marriott Pyramid.
Duncan and Staples waited at a private aircraft office until midafternoon when Democratic Sens. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, Royce West of Dallas and Juan Hinojosa of McAllen arrived.
Staples, who chairs the Senate Republican Caucus, invited a reporter into the conference room of the Cutter Flying Service at Albuquerque International Airport where he and Duncan had finished huddling across a table from the Democrats.
Asked to comment, Staples said repeatedly: "The only type of communication that we've had with our colleagues has been through the media. We thought it would be a great idea to see our colleagues face to face."
All three papers (the Morning News and Star-Telegram didn't file stories on this) describe the meeting as friendly, which is backed up by this blurb in the Express News:
The meeting was interrupted once by the roar of laughter audible from a hallway.Leaving, West gave Duncan a hug, repeating words from a popular beer commercial: "I love you, man."
Hinojosa, shaking hands with Duncan, said: "Thank you, my friend."
That's a lot friendlier than what was being said in Austin.
"We cannot have 11 senators (or) 51 members of the House make up their minds one day they don't want to work on redistricting, they don't want to work on school finance, they don't want to work on a tort bill and leave the state of Texas," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. "That is not what the people of Texas intended when they elected us to office."[...]
The Republicans' comments about a constitutional crisis came after Dewhurst huddled behind closed doors for an hour with 13 senators.
Afterwards, he repeated his threat that, as presiding officer of the Senate, he would have to act. Dewhurst has refused to say what legal options he is considering.
Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, predicted action any day.
"I think the stakes are much bigger than the political spoils of a redistricting plan that benefits one party or another," he said. "A constitutional crisis is not an exaggeration."
The Express News, whose coverage isn't usually this thorough, explains what kind of legal action Dewhurst might take.
A potential court action would be for Dewhurst, senators, or voters in an absent senator's district to file a petition for a writ of mandamus for their return, said lawyer Jeff Boyd, a former deputy attorney general who has returned to private practice.Such an action would try to convince a judge to tell the senators they must come back to do their elected job.
Boyd said he hasn't been involved in discussions about possible legal remedies between Dewhurst and Attorney General Greg Abbott.
Among legal recourses, Boyd said, "the most logical one I can think of would be the mandamus."
Any long-term action would require a change to the state Constitution, something which is being proposed in a new bill that would make future walkouts useless.
On Tuesday, Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that could make it harder to stall legislative action by denying a quorum, as the Democrats have done.Currently, a quorum consists of two-thirds of the members of the House and Senate. Under the proposal, a quorum would mean two-thirds of the number of House or Senate members within the boundaries of Texas. That would mean that lawmakers who flee the state would not be counted for the purpose of establishing a quorum
As a Constitutional amendment, it would have to be approved by voters, something which I would guess would be likely.
Meanwhile, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn continues to throw curveballs at the Governor over money that's earmarked for schools.
Strayhorn, the state's chief financial officer and a two-term Republican, is asking Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for an opinion on the executive order that Perry issued Wednesday to disburse more than $700 million to school districts around the state."I want the school districts to get this money," said Strayhorn, whose signature appears on all checks issued by state government. "But I need General Abbott to show me what legal authority my office has to cut these checks."
An item pending before the special legislative session, called by Perry on congressional redistricting, would clarify actions taken during this year's regular session dealing with sending state money to local school districts.
But all business pending in the special session remains up in the air because 11 Democratic senators fled to New Mexico last week to derail a redistricting plan that would cost their party clout in Washington.
Because they left, the 31-member Senate is one member short of the quorum it needs to convene and act on legislation.
In a news conference at the Capitol, Perry said he issued the order under his "budget execution authority" to ensure that all of the state's business is not "held hostage" by the Democrats' holdout. The previous day, he announced his intention to free up $167 million for state health initiatives.
Strayhorn said she is hesitant to begin disbursing the money because her reading of state law is that the governor's budget execution authority applies only while the Legislature is not in session. But by calling lawmakers back to Austin, first in late June and again in late July when the first special session ended without a redistricting bill, Perry may have surrendered his execution authority, at least temporarily, Strayhorn said.
Got that? Strayhorn is saying that until all of these special sessions are over, the Governor doesn't have the legal authority to execute the budget. That would mean that Perry, who has blamed the missing Democrats for the delay, need only to stop calling special sessions to do what he wants to do. Oh, the irony of it all. Strayhorn sure is a lot more fun when she's playing cat and mouse with the Governor instead of sandbagging about revenue shortfalls. The Attorney General is looking into it.
Finally, Byron's Polstate post points to these two articles in the Austin Chronicle which has some more in-depth coverage.
Editorials:
Rep. Jim Dunnam writes in the Chron that the current map is already quite favorable to Republicans.
The Star-Telegram looks at how budget cuts have started to affect local services while carping about the $2 million plus spent so far on redistricting sessions.
Don't look now, but Gary Coleman will be on the ballot in California's recall election.
Assembling our crackerjack campaign staff, we went to work. With Gary's authorization, we took out nomination papers and hit the streets to collect signatures. Express editor Stephen Buel cruised the bleachers during last week's A's-Indians game. Managing editor Michael Mechanic hit up lunchtime crowds at the Emery Bay Public Market food court, a campaign sign in one hand and a stack of petitions in the other. Staff writer Chris Thompson worked the crunchy-granola set outside the Berkeley Bowl. Everywhere we went, we found ordinary folks desperate for a People's Candidate, someone who really connected with the voters. (Well, that and people who haven't ever voted, wouldn't think of voting, or cannot vote because they are currently on parole.)Still, the people spoke with breathtaking speed: Gary Coleman was their man. We FedExed the documents down to Southern California, and Gary signed his declaration of candidacy before a notary public. On Wednesday, August 6, we walked into the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office and officially put Gary Coleman into the running. Come October 7, you'll see his name on the ballot, right next to seasoned politicians who have dedicated their lives to public service. And thanks to a guaranteed low voter turnout, a shallow, populist resentment of career politicians, and Coleman's name recognition, the former child star has as good a shot as anyone of becoming our next governor.
I may have to move to California right now just so I can vote for him. Thanks to Greg Greene for catching this.
Jerry Springer has decided not to run for Senate in 2004.
"As long as I'm doing that show, my message, no matter how sincere and no matter how heartfelt, does not get through to the people I need to reach," he said.Springer, a Democrat, had said he would quit his show should he run for the Senate seat held by Republican George Voinovich since 1998. It would have been his first run for office since he served as mayor of Cincinnati from 1978-81.
Springer, 59, had crisscrossed Ohio the last six months, speaking at Democratic dinners and gauging support for a Senate bid. He had said he would run if he could "break through the clutter of the show" and be a formidable candidate.
"That separation obviously hasn't taken place and would not take place in time for this election," he said, his voice occasionally breaking.
Oh, well. It would have been interesting, to say the least. Based on his interview in Polstate, I think he would have been a good candidate, but if he feels he can't get past the outsized reputation of his TV show, then it's just as well he's not running.
So there's a story in the papers today (in the Chron and in the Statesman) about allegations that Farmer's Insurance paid off on claims for mold-related damage to State Rep. Joe Nixon's house even though his policy didn't cover it. The allegations, which came from leaked emails, say that the person in charge of mold coverage was getting pressure from her bosses to make the payments to Nixon because "he's a legislator" and they wanted to be friendly to him because of a bill he was sponsoring in the House on insurance reform. Nixon, for his part, denies any knowledge of what Farmer's may have thought it was doing.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Yeah, me too.
For what it's worth, I'm somewhat more inclined to believe Joe Nixon's claim of no involvement than I am of the claims of the Westar Five. Insurance reform was going to come up in this session no matter what was going on with him (unlike the Westar case, in which that company's pet Congressmen attempted to create a special exemption just for them), and it's easy for me to imagine the execs at Farmer's taking it on their own initiative to treat him as a "special" customer. I'm even inclined to believe that Nixon himself didn't think there was anything special about it.
Nixon said the ordeal cost him $50,000 for which he wasn't reimbursed, although he believed his homeowners policy was "supposed to cover all of it." According to the Harris County Appraisal District, Nixon's home has a market value of $369,500.He wouldn't say how much Farmers paid altogether.
"If this was preferential treatment, I'd rather get hit over the head with a baseball bat," he said.
I'll wait and see what Ronnie Earle has to say about any wrongdoing before I get too indignant. But I will say this: The reason there's a knee-jerk tendency to get suspicious about things like this is because there's so damn many examples of it out there, all of which get dismissed with the same explanations ("I'd never do that", "There was no quid pro quo", "It's not my fault if they thought they could buy my influence", etc). We've come to expect it. Why should we be surprised by it?
By the way, Westar has now officially implemented its new policy of no corporate political donations. Let's hope that's the start of a trend.
UPDATE: KHOU-TV in Houston has an interview with Isabelle Arnold, the Farmers manager who received the email requesting that Nixon's mold claim be paid. She was later fired from Farmers and is now suing them for wrongful termination. There's a video clip that requires Real Player as well.
After many twists and turns, Texas will be joining a multistate lottery system. It just won't be Powerball.
Texas is placing its bets on the multistate lottery Mega Millions, noted for its record-setting jackpots and 1-in-135 million odds, the Lottery Commission decided Tuesday.Commissioners gave Lottery Executive Director Reagan Greer approval to negotiate a contract for Texas to join the 10 other states that form the Mega Millions game, meaning the well-known Powerball lottery appears out of the running.
The Legislature, seeking a way to climb out of a $10 billion budget hole, authorized Texas last spring to join a multijurisdictional lottery.
I confess, I've never heard of Mega Millions, a name which unfortunately sounds to me like it came from a Make Money Fast! chain letter. I've probably read about them and just assumed it was Powerball. Silly me. In any event, a multistate lottery with bigass jackpots is what the state Lottery Commission was looking for, and it appears they've found one.
The game is expected to ring up $372 million in ticket sales in Texas during its first 10 months of operation, the commission's study shows.It is also expected to generate $91.5 million in state revenues in the budget year that starts Sept. 1, far better performance than the legislative prediction of $101 million over two years, said Greer.
Anyone want to bet me that actual revenue falls short of projections? I don't have a lot of faith in lottery commission projections. This doesn't ease my mind any, either:
Dawn Nettles of Garland, who publishes the Lotto Report and is a self-described Texas Lottery Commission watchdog, said she's concerned that public accountability is lacking with Mega Millions and joining it would be "a tragic mistake."After e-mailing the Mega Millions Web site to request sales figures, she was informed that "Mega Millions is not a public body and is therefore not subject to the requirements of freedom of information statutes."
Rebecca Paul, president and chief executive officer of the Georgia Lottery Corporation and a leader in the Mega Millions organization, said the only way to obtain Mega Millions ticket sales records, if someone wished to check the accuracy of the payoffs, would be to contact each state for its individual report.
Texas Lottery Commission spokesman Bobby Heith said that if the commission has documents about the total sales figures for Mega Million, it will release them if required under the Texas Public Information Act. He noted sales figures for other lottery games are public record.
Chuck Strutt, executive director of Powerball (a nonprofit association), said that Nettles also asked for detailed ticket sales information from Powerball, and it was provided to her.
Frank Ferguson, general counsel for the Virginia Lottery, said Tuesday that he wrote the response to Nettles' request for information. He said Mega Millions is "the product of an agreement which is essentially a contractual agreement among the participating states."
Since Mega Millions lacks the organizational structure of Power Ball, he said it does not have to spend money on staffing and can therefore return more dollars to participating states.
Why, exactly, should Mega Millions' sales information be exempt from public scrutiny? There's a lot of money involved here. What assurances to we have that they're telling the truth? We ought to be able to infer from future state budgets and the Texas Lotto public records how much revenue was derived from Mega Millions, but without sales figures that won't tell us if Mega Millions is a better performer than Lotto Texas is. Lotto Texas is not going away, and everyone believes (correctly, in my view), that Mega Millions will cannibalize Lotto Texas sales to an extent. How can we know what our return on this investment is if we don't have full information? This smells fishy to me.
I could be making something out of nothing here. Other states are using Mega Millions, and presumably they're happy. I'm sure the Lottery Commission did some due diligence and came away satisfied. All I'm saying, though, is that we've learned quite a bit over the past two years about what can happen in institutions with lots of revenue and not much oversight. I fear we're at risk of setting ourselves up to have to learn those lessons all over again.
Byron has found my favorite editorials so far in the whole redistricting mess. They come from the Crawford Iconoclast, and they name New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and State Rep. Jim Dunnam as their Iconoclasts of the Week for their roles in this. How about that?
Two items in the paper today to make me feel better about things. One is that Planned Parenthood has received a reprieve from a new state law whose intent is to deny it federal funding unless it stops performing abortions.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks granted Planned Parenthood a temporary injunction halting state enforcement of a law that would deny funding to clinics that provide abortions paid for with private donations.That law was set to go into effect Sept. 1 but now must await the outcome of a trial on the merits of the case. A trial date has not been set.
At issue are 33 Planned Parenthood clinics across the state that provide abortions along with a range of other reproductive health services. About $13 million, including federal funds administered by the Texas Department of Health, would have been affected.
"This ruling would mean that all of those would be funded," said Health Department spokesman Doug McBride.
"As a state agency, we're obligated to do what the Legislature through law tells us to do until a court tells us otherwise," he added. "A court has told us otherwise, and we will comply with the judge's ruling."
[...]
Planned Parenthood argued that without the federal funds, it would no longer be able to provide Pap smears, family planning services, breast and cancer screenings and other health care to women.
In Houston and Southeast Texas, 23,000 women at nine Planned Parenthood clinics would have lost services, said Peter Durkin, chief executive officer at Planned Parenthood of Houston and the Southeast.
"It's a great sense of relief because the state fiscal year starts at the first of September," Durkin said. "This small victory will postpone implementation of any of the Draconian requirements of Rider 8."
[...]
The lawmakers voting for the measure also said they believe that, despite claims otherwise, Planned Parenthood subsidizes abortions somewhat through the federal funding. Planned Parenthood says numerous audits prove that isn't true.
Sparks' order noted Congress intended for federal money to fund clinics that provide reproductive counseling, cancer and sexually transmitted disease screening, physical examinations, pregnancy tests and other health services.
"The court finds the public interest will certainly be served by allowing the plaintiffs to continue receiving federal funds to provide these crucial services to women throughout Texas," Sparks concluded.
This was a truly brutal legislative session for reproductive rights, so anything to stem the tide is welcome.
The other item concerns the constitutional amendment to limit non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits, which was passed during the regular session. The state GOP, apparently afraid that a high turnout in the Houston mayoral election might sink this measure, moved the date of the election to September 13. With turnout expected to be extremely low, Harris County thought they'd save money by consolidating voting locations. After complaints from two County Commissioners, that decision was reversed.
"I think there's just a basic democratic principle of trying to be sure that people exercise their right to vote," Sylvia Garcia said last week, joining Commissioner El Franco Lee in criticizing the consolidation plan. "To me, everything that's been said about this election appears to discourage, to confuse and frustrate people to not vote."Using a nearly full complement of 700 polling places will cost the county $1 million more than under the consolidation plan, Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman's office said Monday.
But it probably will not improve what already is expected to be a low turnout, a Rice University political science professor said.
"It's probably fairly marginal if you have an election involving constitutional issues at a time when there aren't any other major elections," Professor Earl Black said. "There will be very few people who will want to take the time on a busy Saturday to wade through what the Legislature has done."
Opponents of a state constitutional amendment on tort reform say the Sept. 13 date was chosen for that very reason, calling it a deliberate attempt to short-circuit voter turnout to improve the measure's chances to win approval.
"The hope is that the fewer the votes, the more impact the very, very conservative business, insurance and HMO interests have on the outcome," said Houston lawyer Ron Franklin, who is a co-founder of Texans for Civil Justice, a political action committee trying to defeat the amendment.
Be sure to thank your GOP representative or Senator for that extra million that Harris County is being forced to spend. They could have had this election on Election Day, but that was too complicated.
State Rep. Joe Nixon, R-Houston, who wrote the tort reform law, denied Franklin's assertions."It was the first available election date," Nixon said. "The governor called it an emergency issue and it is. It needs to be resolved as quickly as we can get it resolved."
The amendment is intended, Nixon said, to thwart efforts to overturn a newly passed state medical malpractice law that would cap noneconomic damages at $750,000 in medical malpractice cases.
"There are 37,000 doctors in this state," Nixon said. "And I've been informed they're paying an average of $2,000 a month in medical malpractice premiums. That's $74 million a month in medical malpractice premiums. And knowing that we have a crisis regarding access to health care, it doesn't make any sense to wait any longer than necessary."
Would someone please contact Rep. Nixon and tell him what happens when people who testify about malpractice lawsuit abuse are sworn to tell the truth instead of being allowed to lie like cheap rugs? He might find it enlightening.
I'll post periodic reminders about this election as it draws near. If you feel like getting involved, here's the place to go.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is warning that he might go to court to drag the eleven boycotting Senators back to Texas.
"I'm not going to discuss our legal options. But it's very, very clear that there are a number of things we can do to compel the attendance of the absent members," Dewhurst told news reporters in Austin.[...]
Dewhurst, a Republican who presides over the Texas Senate, said consideration of a lawsuit is not a threat. "I'm not threatening anyone," he said.
But the lieutenant governor also said, directing his comments to the absent senators: "If you don't come back in a timely fashion we're going to be forced to look at other options, including legal options. And don't put us into that position."
I suppose that's sauce for the gander, since the Democrats have also spoken about lawsuits. I didn't care for the Dems' talk, and I don't care for Dewhurst's either. In some sense, I think the first side to sue is admitting defeat.
Speaking of admitting defeat, Gov. Perry has announced (PDF) that the state can spend that extra money it has lying around on Medicaid after all, meaning that his attempt to blame the boycotting Senators for denying these funds to those who need them was in fact a ton of malarkey. Not that this should surprise anyone.
Meanwhile, the Dems met today with the American GI Forum, while Gov. Perry denied that withholding funds to them was politically motivated.
Perry spokesman Gene Acuna said the GI Forum asked for the grant money and wanted it by June 30, but the federal government did not send the money to Texas until July 14. Acuna also said the governor's office is establishing criteria under which all the funds from this grant program will be distributed.Acuna rejected arguments that the group was denied the money because its members opposed congressional redistricting.
"That argument might hold more water if that group was the only one affected by this decision," Acuna said. "Everyone who has applied for these federal dollars is in the same situation."
Maybe he's right, I don't know. I do know that the timing was suspicious, and whatever else you may say, there have been hard feelings engendered. The perception is that Perry screwed these guys, and he's going to have a hard time overcoming that.
We're #1...in jobs lost for the month of July.
U.S. employers announced 85,117 job cuts in July, a 43 percent jump from 59,715 in June, according to Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas, which publishes monthly tallies of job-cut announcements.[...]
Texas saw the most cuts, with 9,593, followed by Massachusetts, with 9,235, and Illinois, with 8,438.
Aw, c'mon, it's not that bad. I mean, any time we rank higher than Mississippi in anything is a victory. Isn't that right, Governor Perry?
Via War Liberal Mac.
A reader with a subscription to TNR sent me a printout of this Peter Beinart article which ties together the recent fights over redistricting and judicial nominees to a new form of identity politics being played by the GOP. I'll quote from the first part:
Around the time of the 1990 census, the GOP forged an unholy alliance with civil rights groups: Both would support an interpretation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that forced states to create majority black (or Hispanic) congressional districts wherever possible. The result was more black members of Congress and more Republican members of Congress--since, stripped of their Democratic-leaning black constituents, many white Democratic congressmen fell to Republican challengers. GOP politicos were thrilled, but principled conservatives were disgusted. The Weekly Standard has called the arrangement, which eviscerated political interaction across the color line, "thoroughly repulsive." National Review wrote, "In another day, this was called 'segregation.' It was wrong then, and it's wrong now."The good news is that, by the time the 2000 census came along, many black leaders agreed. Their motivations were largely partisan--they realized that handing the GOP a congressional majority hadn't exactly enhanced black political power. But the effects were salutary nonetheless. In Georgia, the state's black officials blessed--and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld--a redistricting plan that added racially mixed districts rather than overwhelmingly black and white ones.
But, while the NAACP now favors integrated districts, the White House and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay don't. In fact, in Texas they are pushing perhaps the most radical political segregation plan in recent memory. DeLay's effort to redistrict as many as eight Texas Democratic congressmen out of their jobs has sparked outrage, mostly because it violates the long-standing principle that states redistrict only once per decade. But equally scandalous is the way DeLay's map would produce an avalanche of new GOP seats. His plan would create an additional black majority district, an additional Hispanic majority district, and a sea of bleached-white districts that would likely vote Republican. As University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray told The New York Times, the "plan basically envisions all Democrats elected to Congress being either from Hispanic-majority or African-American majority districts."
Beinart could have quoted Grover Norquist, who basically said this very thing in that infamous article in which he likened bipartisanship to date rape. (Alas, the original Denver Post article appears to be offline, but a Google search of "Grover Norquist date rape" will find you many citations of that particular quote.) The recent Supreme Court decision to which Beinart refers shows how the thinking has changed.
Sam Hirsch, a Washington attorney who has been involved in several redistricting cases, said the ruling will prevent Republicans from "packing" minority voters into districts to "bleach" surrounding areas with white voters to help GOP candidates."The Voting Rights Act will no longer serve as a tool for building Republican majorities in state legislatures and Congress," Hirsch said. "It's a good thing for Democrats, and it's a good thing for minorities."
The case seemingly turned politics on its head. Democrats supported a strategy contending that minority voters could be spread out, while Republicans argued that they would be disenfranchised.
The Bush administration had argued in court that Georgia's original districts amounted to an unconstitutional "retrogression" of black voters. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, sought without success to have state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democrat, drop the appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case stems from a rancorous special legislative session on redistricting in 2001. The majority Democrats who drew the state Senate map spread African-American voters into many districts, in hopes that reliably Democratic black voters would help elect Democrats in more districts.
Republicans raged, and the three-judge panel rejected the redrawn map, citing problems with districts in Savannah, Macon and Albany.
In its lawsuit heard by the three judges, the state, including many black leaders, argued that the state had matured on race.
"The state is not the same state it was. It's not the same state that it was in 1965 or in 1975, or even in 1980 or 1990. We've come a great distance," U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an African-American leader of the civil rights movement, argued in court papers.
The Supreme Court majority essentially agreed with the state's contention.
Almost makes you want to let the Texas Lege pass whatever horrible map it's hellbent on drawing just so that the courts can shove it back down their throats. Almost. In any event, you can be sure that this issue will be fought and re-fought many more times before any equilibrium is reached.
Michael Schattman is a former state district judge. He was nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton, but his nomination was blocked by Republicans.
He's also Catholic, and he has some pretty strong words for the current Republican ploy of calling opponents of Bush nominee Bill Pryor "anti-Catholic".
There was no mass exodus from the military of Catholic chaplains and service personnel after the pope condemned the war. They made their peace between God and Caesar.There is still no mass uprising of the Catholic right against the death penalty.
The only dish that most of these Catholics choose from the doctrinal cafeteria is opposition to abortion. This is the only Catholic position respected by fundamentalist Protestants -- not because it is Catholic doctrine but because it mirrors their own.
[...]
In [Pope Leo XIII's] 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, he taught the dignity of work, the rights of the worker to a living wage and the justice of organized labor.
Since then, the principles of Catholic social justice have matured under successive popes and the leadership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to include:
• An end to racial discrimination.
• A minimum wage.
• Equal employment opportunity.
• Housing assistance.
• A consistent respect for human life, encompassing opposition to abortion, euthanasia, eugenics, the death penalty and war (with the current pope condemning the U.S. attack on Iraq).
• More generous immigration and refugee policies.
• An end to the Cuba embargo.
• Increased Medicaid eligibility.
• National health insurance and a patient's bill of rights.
And the list goes on.
Doug broke out the Latin to address a distinction between opposition to the death penalty versus opposition to abortion, which leads him to conclude that the latter is more fundamental to the faith than the former. I've yet to see anyone else address the issues that Schattman raises. Perhaps Sens. Durbin, Kennedy, et al ought to ask Pryor's opinion on these topics. Maybe that will give us a better overall view of everyone's faithfulness to Church doctrine and how that faithfulness relates to one's qualifications for the federal bench.
OK, this is pretty funny. Go here and read a little bit to get the flavor of it, then go here for an amusing variation on the theme. Standard beverage warning applies. Via Brian Linse.
Took a day off from obsessing about redistricting yesterday. There really isn't much to report, and barring either legal action or a sudden turnaround by one side or the other I don't expect there will be anytime soon. Byron had you covered, with posts about El Paso Dems in ABQ, a weekend wrapup, and another trip to ABQ by UT students.
On to today's news. As noted, both sides appear to be unwilling to back down at this point.
"I don't think our 11 colleagues are in a position to ask for anything," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told reporters Monday. "They have broken the Texas Constitution. They need to come back. They were elected to do a job. Come back and do it."Dewhurst was responding to questions about whether he would consider reinstating the Senate practice of requiring 21 senators, or two-thirds of the membership, to agree before any action is brought to the chamber floor for debate.
[...]
"To quote John Paul Jones, 'We've only begun to fight,' " said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, slightly altering the Revolutionary War hero's declaration. "We're strong, we're determined and we've been reinvigorated by the overwhelming support that we have received from the public in telling us that we are doing the right thing for all of Texas."
The article also notes that there is some resolution in the earlier court case regarding DPS:
On Monday, state District Judge Charles Campbell formally entered his ruling that DPS troopers cannot be used to apprehend missing House members. The ruling does not extend to the missing senators, but Dewhurst has said he has no plan to send DPS troopers to bring back the Democrats.
Meaning again that they'll be in Albuquerque until they no longer feel the need to be.
The renegade Senators are calling on colleagues to listen to their constituents about redistricting.
State Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, said 90 percent of the testimony in hearings around the state last month opposed redistricting."I'm telling you, Waco said 'No.' San Angelo said 'No.' Lubbock said 'No,' " Gallegos said.
[...]
Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, urged fellow senators in Austin to return to their districts and listen to what their constituents have to say about the issue.
At a news conference in Albuquerque, the senators said Republican state Sens. Robert Duncan of Lubbock and Kip Averitt of Waco should join them because of citizen opposition in their districts to redistricting.
"Where are those senators who need to be representing their constituents?" Gallegos asked.
Duncan's constituents oppose a redistricting plan passed by the state House that would put Lubbock in the same district as Abilene to create a congressional district that would be dominated by Midland. That plan is supported by state House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland.
Lubbock now dominates a district that includes Midland. About 30 West Texas officials met with Duncan and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst last month to oppose any major change in the district.
"I figure we will eventually work out those issues in West Texas, and an overall map is the objective," Duncan said Monday.
Averitt said redistricting is a delicate issue in his district, but not one that would motivate him to go to New Mexico.
"There are a lot of people in my district who don't want to do redistricting," he said. "But for the most part, the Republican folks would see a benefit in sending President Bush reinforcements, people who are working with his program rather than against it."
Averitt said people in his district oppose the state House plan that divides McLennan County from other neighboring counties in the district now held by U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco. A Senate proposal keeps McLennan County and its neighboring counties together.
"This transcends Chet Edwards. This transcends the Republican Party," Averitt said. "What they don't want is a congressperson from Tarrant or Brazos or Williamson county."
State GOP leaders will be on the air today, talking to various radio show hosts, while the family of Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos has announced that there will be a rally 11:30 a.m. Saturday on the south steps of the Capitol.
Over in the House, Rep. Phil King, whose redistricting bill was passed by that chamber in each of the two special sessions so far, has officially filed a bill that would allow the Secretary of State to postpone the deadline for candidates to file for primary elections.
Like other legislation, it can go nowhere unless the senators return.Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, said it's meant as insurance in case Democrats simply delay passage of a congressional redistricting plan.
Even if a bill is passed, it must be federally reviewed to ensure it doesn't violate the Voting Rights Act. In addition, it is likely to be challenged in court.
"I had been told that one of the Democrat strategies was to try to continue to back this thing up through different delay tactics ... so it couldn't get through in time for the filing deadline," King said.
"It just gives us some flexibility to not let someone take advantage of the system."
King said the measure was his idea but that he "ran it by the governor's office and by the speaker to make sure it was OK with them."
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said of the bill, "That means they're worried."
On a side note, the state GOP is going after a member of its Executive Committee for allegedly leaking embarrassing statements to the press.
Thomas Whaley of Marshall, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, has been instructed to appear before high-ranking GOP officials to answer allegations that he let non-SREC members listen in on party conference calls on April 7 and May 13.He also has been given the option of resigning.
In the first call, later reported in the Chronicle, Texas GOP Chairwoman Susan Weddington downplayed the effects on the needy of state budget cuts advocated by the party. Many low-income Texans, she said, could purchase their own health insurance and "maybe have a little less disposable income or a little less inheritance from Mom and Dad."
The second call, also reported in the Chronicle, took place after more than 50 Democratic members of the Texas House had fled to Ardmore, Okla., to kill a congressional redistricting bill during the regular legislative session.
During that call, Weddington told SREC members that she was deliberately using language in public statements that suggested the runaway Democrats were guilty of "criminal wrongdoing," although she acknowledged that their quorum-busting act wasn't criminal.
The Chronicle reported both stories after obtaining tape recordings of the calls.
Now why would he do that? Well, here's a possible reason:
The businessman and longtime financial contributor to Republican candidates is holding his first party office. He was elected to the SREC at the state party convention in June 2002, defeating a candidate favored by the social conservatives who control the party hierarchy.
Any of my Republican friends want to comment on this?
I understand the reasons why some bloggers don't have comments enabled, but by doing so they miss out on feedback like this. Whoever said that odd-numbered years have boring elections?
The horses may be in several different counties, but Westar's barn door is now securely locked.
After revelations that Westar Energy Inc. executives may have violated federal election law with illegal political donations, the company's board has banned corporate political contributions.Beating a self-imposed 90-day deadline, which comes Tuesday, the board adopted its new policy on July 16, spokesman Jim Ludwig said Friday.
"I think this is an excellent, good step by Westar," Craig Holman, campaign finance lobbyist for Washington-based advocacy group Public Citizen, said Monday.
Noting that the policy also bans corporate contributions in states where they're legal, Holman praised Westar for "taking an extra step and even going beyond what might be required by state laws."
Meanwhile, Westar special counsel Tim Jenkins of Washington continues to examine Westar's financial donations during the 2002 congressional elections, which critics have described as "bribes."
"The investigation is continuing," Ludwig said.
The new policy and investigation were recommended by the authors of a 360-page internal report released May 15.
The new policy states that officers may "encourage" one another to contribute to particular candidates but that "under no circumstances will corporate facilities or administrative personnel be used in connection with any such efforts."
My breath is actually bated in anticipation of that special prosecutor investigation. Thanks to Alfredo Garcia for the tip.
The Chron has a two-part overview of Rod Paige (Sunday and Monday), the Secretary of Education and former Superintendant of the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Not much there that isn't general knowledge (I'm moderately surprised to hear that Eric Andell, who was the last Democratic judge standing in Harris County, is now working for Paige as an undersecretary), but useful as a primer.
My friend and former band-mate Doug Haunsperger has started a blog. As you can tell from the title, his views don't exactly mirror mine, but he's a sharp guy and I expect he'll bring some good ideas to the table. So stop by and say Hi.
On a side note, I'm due for a little blogroll maintenance. What's on my sidebar right now has gotten to be a bit unwieldy. I'm toying with the idea of displaying a smaller blogroll on the main page, with a link to the full thing on a separate page. Does anyone have any strong opinions about that? Please let me know if you do, I'm planning on doing something this week. Thanks.
I've seen the Howard Dean TV ad that's running in Austin (you can see it here), and I must say I like it. He comes across as calm and reasonable, but still makes his point that President Bush's policies have been bad for the country. Thumbs up from this corner.
As for the wisdom of running this ad, let's first be clear about something. George W. Bush is going to carry the state of Texas in 2004. Texas didn't provide his biggest margin of victory in 2000 percentage-wise (that was Wyoming, which he won 69-28), but 59-38 is pretty impressive. The Democratic ticket got roughly the same number of votes in 2000 that it did in 1996, when Bob Dole nipped Bill Clinton by 49-44%, while Bush improved the Republican total by nearly a million ballots. That's a mountain that isn't going to be climbed in 2004.
So if Texas is essentially unwinnable for a Democratic candidate, why bother spending the money? There are three very good reasons to do so.
1. There's still the small matter of the Democratic nomination for President. Texas may not have any electoral votes for Howard Dean, but it does have delegates, and he will need all of them he can get.
2. By bearding the lion at his ranch like this, Dean generated all kinds of free publicity for his campaign. People all around the country will read about it. How many political ads - in particular, how many political ads that don't have some pissed-off advocacy group demanding an apology and a retraction - become known to an audience that will never see them? As an added bonus, now Dean gets to add the "unafraid to take on the President on his own turf" meme to his story line. That will serve him well some day.
3. From the perspective of the state Democratic Party, the best thing that could happen to them in 2004 is for the Presidential candidate to spend money contesting Texas. If people feel they have a chance to vote for a winner, they'll overlook the fact that their vote won't actually make any Electoral College difference. Getting these voters out to the polls in 2004 could make the difference between losing more Congressional and State House seats to the Republicans and holding steady or even picking up a seat here and there.
I doubt that the latter point weighed on their minds at Dean Nation, but I do hope that the national Party and whoever the nominee will be has realized that just beating Bush isn't enough. If you want to undo some of the things he's done, you've got to win back at least one chamber of Congress as well. Not losing ground in a state like Texas would help.
So I approve of this ad. I hope to see more like it next year.
(Sidebar: Be sure to read this WaPo article and this US News article on the good doctor. Via Not Geniuses.)
Today's op-ed pages contain this piece by a recently retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who spent the last three years in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Under Secretariat for Policy. She started out as a Bush fan, but after seeing how decisions were made before, during, and after the invasion of Iraq, she's not any more. Check it out. Thanks to reader Melanie for the tip.
The Chron has had a series of articles relating to Metro's mobility plan, which has been approved by its board for a referendum this November, though the sticky question of how to pay for it is still unresolved. That referendum will surely have an effect on the Mayor's race (and vice versa). Staking out their generally anti-Metro positions, candidates Orlando Sanchez and Michael Berry have called for decreasing Houston's proportional representation on Metro's board. Candidates Sylvester Turner and Bill White, who are much more closely aligned with Metro, disagree.
Under the system established with Metro's creation in 1979, Houston's mayor essentially controls the agency.The mayor appoints five of Metro's nine board members, pending City Council confirmation. Commissioners Court and the mayors of the 14 smaller cities each appoint two members.
The Metro board then elects its chairman, a process generally mandated by Houston's mayor by virtue of the mayor's control over the board majority.
Sanchez on Wednesday proposed expanding the Metro board to 11 members, with the county getting another appointment and the city and county jointly appointing a chair who was not on the board.
The proposal is similar to the manner in which the Port of Houston Authority and Harris County-Houston Sports Authority share power between the city and county.
"As we move forward, we need more cooperation in regional transportation issues," Sanchez said. "This is a step in the right direction. If you have a unified support, you have an advantage."
A wing of the Greater Houston Partnership, which supports big business in the region, has expressed a nearly identical viewpoint.
Earlier this week, Walt Mischer, chairman of the partnership's Transportation & Infrastructure Advisory Committee, floated a rail compromise that called for a change in the Metro board make-up, possibly during a special session of the Legislature.
Berry believes the idea is a good one.
"Solving this regional problem is going to require a regional buy-in and a regional commitment," Berry said.
But Turner asked, "Why would a mayor want to weaken his position to the detriment of the people? (The) proposal is consistent with those people who believe there is not a necessity for city government."
As mayor, White said, he would primarily look to protect the city's interests because most of Metro's funding come from inside Houston.
"The mayor should stick up for the city, but be willing to cooperate with the county and the small cities and members of Congress," White said. "I personally have met with the small city mayors and members of Congress. That's a better approach than changing the governance of Metro."
I don't suppose it'll surprise anyone to learn that I think White and Turner are correct, and Berry and Sanchez are wrong. It does make for a clear choice, though. If you think Houston should be the dominant partner in Metro, vote for White or Turner. If you think the county and suburbs should have a bigger voice, vote for Berry or Sanchez.
Today, the Chron rides with commuters and gets their view of commuting, from Friendswood, Clear Lake, Sugar Land, the East End, North Houston, and Katy. I have to say, I used to think that I left for work at an ungodly hour (around 6 AM), but some of these people are on the road before 5 AM because of traffic. That's just nuts.
Buried way down in the main story today is the key to what this is all about:
Highway builders fear the loss of business if public infrastructure investment turns away from concrete and asphalt. Suburban interests, including subdivision developers, don't want to see a thriving inner city drawing people inside the Loop. Harris County and small-city leaders don't want their road money taken away.
I hate to sound all melodramatic, but this is to an extent about competition for a way of life. I'd rather see more power in the hands of people who live in the city and have the city's needs as their priority. I'm going to vote that way in November. I can't put it any more succinctly than that.
Dan Cook, the San Antonio sportswriter and broadcaster who coined the phrase "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings", has written his last column after 51 years in the business.
[L]ooking back, it was my great privilege and pleasure to sit in the press boxes for 30 Super Bowls, 22 Kentucky Derby races, 11 Indy 500 runs, three Daytona 500s, several Major League Baseball All-Star Games, perhaps 200 Texas League games, countless college and pro football games, 25 Cotton Bowls, a half-dozen other bowls and at ringside for at least 35 world championship boxing matches.There was more. So much more.
Perhaps even better than having a press-box seat was shaking hands and visiting one-on-one with many of the greatest legends of our time, from Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis to Ted Williams, Jim Brown, A.J. Foyt, Johnny Rutherford, and Johnny Unitas, with many dozens more in between.
Yeah, I can think of worse ways to spend a lifetime. Enjoy the time off, Dan. You deserve it.
If it's Sunday, that means it's time for analysis and overview. We'll start with the Chron and this piece which looks at Lt. Gov. Dewhurst's role in the redistricting flap. Elsewhere, in the editorial section, Clay Robison rips into Gov. Rick Perry and State GOP Chair Susan Weddington for their "newly contrived bleeding-heart, crocodile-tear act".
The Statesman reminds us that the national implications of this battle will be felt at least until the next regularly-scheduled round of redistricting in 2011, which is one reason why both sides are dug in so deeply. Meanwhile, speaking of the national picture, the Star-Telegram profiles New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who is surely hoping to raise his profile.
The Morning News and Express-News are all about the spin, as the DMN looks at how the Democrats are minding their image, while the E-N deconstructs the talking points.
Finally, a little levity. The Star-Telegram has the Top Ten Future Hiding Places for state Democrats, while the Houston Press looks at Tom DeLay's next mission:
U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, frustrated by the inaction over congressional redistricting in the current special state legislative session, called for another session this week to enact further reforms.The powerful Republican from Sugar Land says emergency action is needed to correct a long-standing inequity: Not a single Republican has been able to gain the post of county Democratic chair anywhere in Texas.
"Republicans now control every statewide office; we've got the majority in the [Texas] legislature. But -- because of the Democrats' legacy of Byzantine political ploys -- Republicans have been denied their constitutional right to become a county Democratic chair," DeLay said. "The electorate should be outraged."
Staffers said there may be problems in redrawing current county lines to ensure GOP dominance in what has traditionally been Democrat-only balloting. DeLay's counsel and receptionist were added to the state payroll by Attorney General Greg Abbott to begin preparing new maps.
Governor Rick Perry repeated his position that he is not DeLay's puppet but withheld further comment until the congressman returns from a Middle East trip with new instructions for him. A Perry aide said the costs of one more special session for this issue can be covered by cutting health care from another 5,000 Texas children.
DeLay's spokesman said the new initiative already has been enthusiastically endorsed by many prominent civic and business groups, including the Hotel-Motel Associations of Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico.
Indeed.
July was by far my best month for visits, with nearly 19,000 Sitemeter hits. That's more than double my next best month. There were two factors for this. One was that search engine referrals are now being counted by Sitemeter. I'd guess that amounts to about 7000-8000 hits, which means that this still would have been easily my best month ever. The reason for that, of course, was the ongoing redistricting mess. As in the month of May, our legislative circus has helped bring many people here.
On that note, I'd like to thank the many bloggers who have cited my coverage of this continuing saga, in no particular order: Taegen Goddard, Atrios, Byron LaMasters, Calpundit, Rob Booth, Sisyphus Shrugged, Save Texas Reps, Ruminate This, Greg Wythe, Angry Bear, Ginger Stampley, Pacific Views, Linkmeister, Kevin Whited, UggaBugga, Scott Chaffin, Steve Smith, Daily Kos, Puri sermonis amator, JBHolston, Apostropher, Swanky Conservative, Henry Lewis, Greg Greene, Morat, PG, Norbizness, Thomas Nephew, and Jeff Cooper. I've probably forgotten someone, and if it's you please accept my apologies for the oversight. (Update: And the winner of the I-knew-I'd-forget-someone sweepstakes is Tom Spencer. Sorry, Tom!)
As usual, top referrers can be found under the More link. As always, thanks to everyone for reading and for returning. I do appreciate it.
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When I got home from work yesterday, there was a message on my answering machine that I had to listen to three times before I was sure I heard it correctly. The caller was a woman who said she was with the FOX News Channel's show Your World with Neil Cavuto, and she wanted to know if I would appear on the air to discuss whether or not President Bush should be taking a month-long vacation at his ranch right now.
No, really. I'm serious.
The message had been left at about 9 AM, and it was after 4 PM when I came home, so I was pretty sure it was too late, but I called the number anyway and spoke to the woman. Indeed, I discovered, I had missed my chance. The show airs at 4 PM Eastern time, so it was just finishing when I called back. They wanted a pro-vacation and an anti-vacation person, and since I was unavailable, they settled for David Corn, who writes for The Nation, instead.
I had one very important question for them: How in the world did they find me? She didn't remember exactly, but said she'd seen me "quoted" somewhere. I asked her if she realized that I was just some weblogger and not someone that anyone had ever heard of. She didn't seem to think that was a big deal - in fact, she said they'd try me again the next time something in "my field" came up. I thanked her and said good-bye.
If they do call me again - and if they call on Fridays, there's a 50-50 chance I'll be at home - I'm not sure if I'll take them up on this. I'd feel like a fraud, an impostor. I read the newspapers and I have opinions. I have no real qualifications. I mean, I know that that doesn't stop 90% of the existing professional media pundits. I feel like I'd just be adding to the problem.
On the other had, well, how many people get this opportunity? Maybe I'd be good at it. Maybe I'd hate myself for not trying. And didn't I read somewhere the idea that bloggers could be a professional punditry farm system? Someone's got to be a pioneer.
What do you think? Should I go for it if they call again?
UPDATE: Among the many go-for-it comments, Steve Smith asks an obvious question: "BTW, what is your opinion on Bush taking a vacation?" And the answer is...well, I don't really care one way or the other. Not that I would have said anything like that on TV, mind you. In true pundit style, I would have covered for the fact that I have nothing of value to say by making snarky comments about it - you know, like "I have to say, Neil, speaking from Houston where it's a balmy 96 degrees today, I'd seriously question the sanity of anyone who'd choose to spend the month of August in Crawford. And what's up with all this brush-clearing? How much brush does one ranch have to clear, anyway? Does he have it trucked in at night so he'll have something to do the next day?" You can see why I'm not quite ready to give up my day job just yet.
Gov. Perry has been pushing the ludicrous line that the Democrats have been holding up "important state business" by refusing to be rolled over on redistricting. Never mind the fact that most if not all of this business was stuff that he chose not to push for - or actively opposed - in the regular session and the first special session, never mind that the state Comptroller has contradicted his logic, never mind that the only thing he had on the agenda for this session at first was redistricting. In Gov. Perry's world, the Democrats are somehow hurting folks who need state services.
One such group of people is grad students of the state universities. They got reamed by the many and massive budget cuts during the regular session, and they'd like someone to listen to them about that. Aziz, one of the people affected by these cuts, explains what they're up against. Go check it out.
TiVo alert! Sen. Leticia van de Putte will be among the roundtable guests on Real Time with Bill Maher, tonight at 11 PM EDT on HBO. Alasi, I'm HBO-free until the Sopranos come back on the air, so if you manage to watch it, please tell me how she does.
I've received a couple of emails about this picture, currently seen in the Austin Chronicle, as well as here. I forgot to blog about it when I first saw it (sorry, Greg!), but better late than never. The AusChron also has some good stuff I've not seen elsewhere, about quorumless business in the House being done on Monday, and other shenanigans.
Rep. Charlie Stenholm lashes out at Tom DeLay, calling him "one power hungry politician" who is responsible for all of this. Via Save Texas Reps.
There's a rally to support the Texas 11 tomorrow morning at 11:30 AM in Austin (via Byron).
According to the Quorum Report, there's an "unsubstantiated rumor" that if a redistricting map does manage to pass this year, several presumably about to be unemployed Congressmen (the title of the piece names Stenholm, Chet Edwards, and Jim Turner) might consider running for the state Senate in 2004. I must say, that would make a lot of sense.
Also in the Quorum Report, Sen. Mario Gallegos has responded to Sen. Troy Fraser's wish to see the 2/3 rule permanently eliminated by pointing out that if it had been, a hate crime bill would have passed much sooner than it eventually did, and redistricting would have gotten accomplished in 2001, presumably with the then-Democratic House map. In other words, be careful what you wish for.
Speaking of Sen. Gallegos, I just got a recorded call from him asking me to call Gov. Perry's office at 1-800-252-9600 to tell him to put an end to the redistricting fight. Feel free to join me.
I'm so ready for the weekend...
Gotta hate it when that happens: The University of Florida, whose school mascot is the alligator, sent out 19,000 copies of its football media guide before anyone figured out that the animal on the guide's cover is a crocodile. Oops!
[Sports information director Steve] McLain said he envisioned the cover featuring a ferocious-looking alligator, but he couldn't dig up a photo.So he commissioned the company overseeing the publication's production, GBS Productions Graphics of Gainesville, to find the image he was seeking. But when the company passed along the photo, no one in the school's sports information office noticed that the "gator" was really a crocodile.
"When I ordered a picture of an alligator, I expected to get a picture of an alligator," McLain said.
You can bet he'll be able to recognize the difference next time. The article has a handy side-by-side comparison for those of you who aren't sure themselves.
Longtime Chron TV critic and professional prude Ann Hodges is hanging up her remote after 40 years in the business. Hodges could always be counted on to take great offense at some obscure lowbrow sitcom that was defining yet another new low in American culture. On the plus side, her doing so also provided professional snarkmeister Richard Connelly with plenty of material.
Rest well, Ann. We will miss you, one way or another.
I think we're pretty safely past all of the excitement concerning the Democrats' flight to Albuquerque and are now firmly in the human-interest-story cycle. This fluffy front page Chron story about reaction of the locals to their unusual visitors is typical. (Time-saving executive summary: As long as the Texans are paying their own tab, nobody in ABQ cares one way or the other.)
At this point, it's pretty much a war of attrition and sound bites. I was going to do a more analytical piece about how this may play out, but frankly there's little that I can add to this Statesman article, which pretty much says it all.
[Veteran political consultant and lobbyist Chuck] McDonald suggested that both sides' strategies make sense politically."When you look at the state as a whole, they're going to vote 60 percent Republican, so for the Republican governor who has to run statewide to take this hard line, that's a winning decision," he said. "When . . . Senator Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) comes from a Senate district that votes 70 percent Democrat, it's a winning decision for him to stay in New Mexico."
And that means more of the same, McDonald said:
"The most likely outcome is no outcome, no movement on either side."
In practical terms, that means the Dems will stay away until they've effectively run out the clock on any action in time for the 2004 elections, which may be October 6 or possibly mid-September. A wild card here is a bill by Phil King, the House redistricting bill sponsor, that would allow the Secretary of State to push back the deadlines to file for the March primaries in the event that a redistricting bill is not completed in a timely manner.
If there is any news to report in the short term, it will be because the Democrats have filed a lawsuit. There are two being discussed right now, one that would ask for an injunction prohibiting the sergeant-at-arms of either the House or Senate from arresting legislators who refuse to show up for a special session. That would allow the Dems to return home from New Mexico (and avoid expensive hotel bills) without being forced back to Austin. The other lawsuit would seek an injunction to force Lt. Gov. Dewhurst to uphold the 2/3 rule.
I must say, I don't care for this approach. I've already said that I think the two chambers should have some power within the state to compel wayward members to attend. The shoe may be on the other foot someday, after all. I also agree with Chuck McDonald, who says in the Statesman article that the Dems are in a better PR position in exile than they would be at home. As for a lawsuit to enforce a traditional rule, well, the less said the better. The time for a lawsuit is after a map has been passed, when harm can be demonstrated. I understand the Dems' desire to take action, but they'll be better off sitting tight and letting the calendar do the dirty work for them.
Meanwhile, Gov. Perry continues making bizarre and contradictory statements about how the Democratic walkout is costing the state money.
In his first public comments since Senators bolted, the governor said lawmakers need to be in Austin to authorize spending $167 million in new federal matching funds to boost Medicaid reimbursement rates for hospitals and doctors.Democrats complained that Mr. Perry was introducing the issue of Medicaid funding as a diversion.
Tuesday's remarks appeared to be an about-face for Mr. Perry, who said three weeks ago there was no need for legislators to allocate the federal money for Medicaid or other social services.
"There are no plans to open the call to that issue," Mr. Perry's spokeswoman Kathy Walt said on July 11. "That's why there is budget execution authority, a practice that has been in place for many, many years."
Under budget execution authority, the governor and the Legislative Budget Board have the power to move money around within the budget when lawmakers are not in session.
Asked about the conflict, Ms. Walt said Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn had previously raised a question whether budget execution authority was appropriate for spending the federal money.
In a statement Thursday, Ms. Strayhorn said the governor was wrong.
"As the governor's staff is well aware, my staff has been working closely with the leadership's staff and we found a solution that grants authority for the governor and Legislative Budget Board to spend the money under budget execution when the Legislature has adjourned," she said.
She said she was pleased the governor and GOP leaders have agreed to spend the $167 million for Medicaid, but noted that Mr. Perry had yet to include that requirement on the call of the current special session.
Finally, Byron points to this deconstruction of the SurveyUSA poll, currently being touted by the state GOP, which claims that 53% of Texans oppose the Democratic walkout. I agree that S-USA has a weak reputation (Kos certainly derided them on a regular basis last year), though it should be mentioned that this survey does not necessarily contradict the previous poll which showed people opposing redistricting by a 45-30 margin. It is logically consistent for someone to believe that redistricting is wrong, but that the Democrats should have stayed in Austin to fight it. I think that's a silly position to take, since the removal of the blocker bill took away the Dems' main weapon, but I can understand how people might feel that way.
Editorials:
Not related to redistricting, but the Chron bashes Tom DeLay for his trip to the Middle East.
The Chron has an op-ed by State Rep. Joe Deshotel (D, Beaumont) which rebuts yesterday's piece by Lt. Gov. Dewhurst.
The DMN has an op-ed by Sen. Royce West, one of the boycotters, which calls for Lt. Gov. Dewhurst to reinstate the 2/3 rule, and an op-ed by Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R, San Antonio) which touts his own redistricting map. While Sen. Wentworth is no doubt correct that Democrats ran over any Republican input on redistricting in past sessions, someone ought to remind him that the barrier to adopting his map was the Judiciary Committee, chaired by his fellow Republican, Sen. Robert Duncan.