Tag Archives: Justice Department

Redistricting litigation gets underway this week

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Starting tomorrow, a three-judge panel in San Antonio will hear one of the two redistricting-related lawsuits that have been filed in Texas. I figure this is as good a time as any to review the landscape as we head into … Continue reading →

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A peek behind the scenes

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Want to know what the Republicans were thinking during redistricting? Here you go. Emails unsealed by a federal judge show that key Republicans involved in Texas congressional redistricting bickered over strategy and actively considered bypassing the Justice Department two months … Continue reading →

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Commissioners Court approves its redistricting plan, DOJ approves city’s plan

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Greg and Stace attended today’s Commissioners Court meeting, where to nobody’s surprise the slightly-less-but-still-retrogressive new redistricting plan was unanimously approved. And why shouldn’t it be? It took care of the main, if not the sole, purpose of the task, which … Continue reading →

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Taking aim at the Voting Rights Act

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

In responding to a petition by State Rep. Marc Veasey and State Sen. Wendy Davis to intervene against the state in its lawsuit to get the federal court to pre-clear the new maps, the Attorney General responded by saying that … Continue reading →

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Chron story on Harris County redistricting

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

County Commissioners are shocked and dismayed to learn that there are people who would question their ability to do whatever they want to do. The county released an amended map on Friday, having gathered community input on the initial map … Continue reading →

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The alternative Commissioners Court map

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Opponents of the proposed County Commissioners map have presented their version in the last public hearing on county redistricting. Democrat Sylvia Garcia was Precinct 2 commissioner from 2002 until this year, having lost to Republican Jack Morman in last November’s … Continue reading →

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Texas seeks preclearance from the courts

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

This was expected. Texas bypassed the Obama administration’s Department of Justice on Tuesday, opting to ask a panel of federal judges in Washington, D.C., to review the state’s new maps for congressional, legislative and State Board of Education districts. Attorney … Continue reading →

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A closer look at the proposed County Commissioner precincts

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Rick Casey does some analysis of the proposed Harris County redistricting map and notes some concerns about the way Precinct 2 was drawn. The total population of the proposed new precinct is 57 percent Hispanic and 31 percent Anglo. But … Continue reading →

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Austin presents a single-member Council map

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

The city of Austin has released the first maps of a proposed six-district City Council, which Mayor Lee Leffingwell would like to put on the ballot next year for public approval. The City of Austin has for decades operated under … Continue reading →

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Williams in, Lucio out for Congress

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Now that the Lege has finished its job with Congressional redistricting, expect to hear a lot more stories about the hopefuls and the not-hopefuls and their plans. For instance, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams. With the race for Senate getting crowded, … Continue reading →

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Two other views of Texas redistricting

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s a fascinating paper from the Harvard Election Data Archive that attempts to project how many Congressional seats each party will win based on statewide performance. Based on the 2008 presidential election results, twenty-two of the twenty-three current Republican members … Continue reading →

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Senate map is out, controversy precedes it

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Before we had a State Senate map, we had a brawl brewing over one proposed district on it. Accusing the state Senate’s Republican leaders of a “shameful partisan attack,” Sen. Wendy Davis said Tuesday that a new redistricting map for … Continue reading →

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Time to start analyzing the new districts

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

You will no doubt be excited to hear that I now have electoral data for the new State House districts as they currently stand. My thanks to Joe Madden of the Legislative Study Group for getting all that to me. … Continue reading →

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House passes redistricting map

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

The Trib stayed up all night to see how it ended. The Texas House tentatively approved new political districts early this morning on a 92-52 vote after hours of nips and tucks that left the proposal they started with mostly … Continue reading →

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Smith v. Barton on redistricting

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

From Politico: A bitter, behind-the-scenes fight has broken out among Texas Republicans over redistricting, pitting Rep. Lamar Smith against longtime colleague Rep. Joe Barton. The dispute is over the makeup of four new congressional districts for the Lone Star State, … Continue reading →

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Eversole rests his case without presenting one

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

You have to admire the guts, if nothing else. In a move even his attorneys acknowledged was risky, Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole’s defense team rested Wednesday without calling a single witness after prosecutors ended more than two weeks of … Continue reading →

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Voter ID passes the House

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

As expected. There was a long and often contentious debate, but when you have a 2/3 majority as the Republicans currently do, you usually get what you want. Gov. Rick Perry declared the voter ID issue an emergency issue, which … Continue reading →

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The next step for voter ID

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Very likely, the courthouse. While the Democrats have little chance of stopping the bill from getting the votes to pass, this particular piece of legislation may very well be tied up in lawsuits for years. And today, Democrats can lay … Continue reading →

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Jury selection begins in Eversole trial

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Get your popcorn popper fired up. Jury selection begins this morning in the trial of Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole, who stands accused of accepting bribes from a friend and developer to whom he allegedly steered county contracts and appointments. … Continue reading →

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The opening bars of the redistricting overture

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Now that we have Census data, you know what comes next. Here’s an Express News story that discusses how redistricting will be different this time around. Democrats still are smarting from the redistricting plan engineered in 2003 by then-U.S. House … Continue reading →

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Voter ID 2011

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

The debate is going on in the Senate today over voter ID – it will be taken up by the House later, after committee hearings that are sure to be a freak show. You can follow the ins and outs … Continue reading →

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More on Sumners and the LWV

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve got some updates on the change in policy by Tax Assessor-to-be Don Sumners regarding voter registrations at naturalization ceremonies. First, Sumners has acknowledged the need to get pre-clearance from the Justice Department for any changes to voter registration procedures, … Continue reading →

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No voter registration for you

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

The following email, sent from the League of Women Voters registration address to its membership, was forwarded to me. I present it below in its entirity: From: LWV Voter Registration Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2010 3:19 PM Subject: Voter Registration … Continue reading →

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Ryan issues opinions about poll watching

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan has issued a couple of opinions relating to poll watching that may help clear things up a bit. The first opinion has to do with where poll watchers may and may not go: Poll watchers … Continue reading →

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DOJ gets a call on voter intimidation allegations

Posted on October 20, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Day Two of early voting saw far fewer allegations of voter intimidation and the possible arrival of the Justice Department to keep an eye on things. Responding to complaints that poll watchers were intimidating voters in predominantly minority polling locations, … Continue reading →

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Paper ballots on the menu

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

The county’s plan for dealing with the loss of all of its voting machines includes some low technology. Despite a fire that destroyed Harris County’s voting machines Friday, County Clerk Beverly Kaufman said she intends to keep all polling places … Continue reading →

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The TYC still has problems

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Three years after the Texas Youth Commission was rocked by a sexual abuse scandal, there are still major problems at its facilities. In a formal complaint asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate, Texas Appleseed, Advocacy Inc., the Center for … Continue reading →

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Jail passes another state inspection

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Good news for the Harris County jails: They passed another surprise state inspection by a Texas Commission on Jail Standards team last week. “This certificate of compliance is a direct result of your department’s commitment to excellence and further attests, … Continue reading →

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Getting smarter about crime, state prison edition

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Some good news on the criminal justice front. Texas has a new swagger that comes from a recently released U.S. Justice Department report showing the growth of the state’s prison population is slowing to the extent that three new prisons … Continue reading →

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“Jail hell”

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

That’s the title of this Houston Press story about the experiences of those who have served time in the Harris County jail, as told by those who have just gotten out. The story is partly a response to the county’s … Continue reading →

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Harris County disputes federal criticism of its jails

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

This is interesting. Harris County officials today delivered a 300-page response to the U. S. attorney general’s findings that the Harris County Jail was unconstitutional, saying the report was largely based on anecdotal accounts from inmates and incomplete data. County … Continue reading →

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SCOTUS upholds Voting Rights Act

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

For now, anyway. The Supreme Court ruled narrowly today in a challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act, siding with a small Texas governing authority but sidestepping the larger constitutional issue. The court, with only one justice in dissent, avoided … Continue reading →

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Feds’ report on Harris County jails

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Still a lot of people dying in the jails here, at least as of the last federal inspection. Their experiences are detailed in a U.S. Department of Justice report, completed last week and obtained Monday by the Houston Chronicle, which … Continue reading →

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Garcia’s plan to fix the jails

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Sheriff Adrian Garcia is off to Austin to explain how he’s going to fix problems with the Harris County jails. Garcia, who took office in January, inherited a massive downtown detention system under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and … Continue reading →

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