The State of the State Of Texas - 2013

Yesterday, Governor Rick Perry gave his 7th State of the State address outlining his priorities for the state of Texas. Left out of the list of Republican priorities that Perry outlined in his 45-minute address are the legislative priorities being pressed by Democrats in the Texas Senate and House.

Progress Texas recently published a brief on the major issues concerning Texans and the 83rd Texas Legislature - clicking on the links take you straight to that issue:

1. Budget and Taxes: Investing in Our Future
2. Expanding Medicaid: 231,000 Jobs by 2016
3. The Battle to Save Public Schools
4. Family Planning Cuts Run Deep
5. Water for a Rainy Day
6. LGBT and the Fight for Equality
7. The Voting Rights Act Still Matters

Gov. Rick Perry gives his 7th State of the State address.

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Texas Democratic legislators respond to Gov. Perry's 7th State of the State address.

Democratic priorities include plans to fix the state's business tax, end what they called accounting gimmicks to make the state's books appear balanced, making improvements to infrastructure and to restore funding to the Women's Health Program.

One House Democrat said the governor painted an unrealistic picture of the state. "Not sure what parallel universe Gov. Perry is living in, but it's not the same one as the people in my district," said Rep. Naomi Gonzalez, D-El Paso. "We need to restore money to education and health care."

Two years ago, Perry declared there would be "no sacred cows" immune to deep budget cuts as the state struggled with a $27 billion budget deficit amid an economy still feeling the effects of The Great Recession. Lawmakers responded by passing deep cuts across-the-board, including slashing $5.4 billion from public schools and billions more from state Health and Human Services programs. (Gov. Rick Perry's State of the State Speech - 2011)

Democrats Launch Plan To Turn Texas Blue

Politico: National Democrats are taking steps to create a large-scale independent group aimed at turning traditionally conservative Texas into a prime electoral battleground, crafting a new initiative to identify and mobilize progressive voters in the rapidly-changing state, strategists familiar with the plans told POLITICO.

The organization, dubbed “Battleground Texas,” plans to engage the state’s rapidly growing Latino population, as well as African-American voters and other Democratic-leaning constituencies that have been underrepresented at the ballot box in recent cycles. Two sources said the contemplated budget would run into the tens of millions of dollars over several years - a project Democrats hope has enough heft to help turn what has long been an electoral pipe dream into reality.

At the center of the effort is Jeremy Bird, formerly the national field director for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, who was in Austin last week to confer with local Democrats about the project.

In a statement to POLITICO, Bird said the group would be “a grass-roots organization that will make Texas a battleground state by treating it like one.”

“With its diversity and size, Texas should always be a battleground state where local elections are vigorously contested and anyone who wants to be our commander in chief has to compete and show they reflect Texas values.

Yet for far too long, the state’s political leaders, both in Austin and in Washington, D.C., have failed to stand for Texans,” said Bird, who recently founded a consulting firm, 270 Strategies. “Over the next several years, Battleground Texas will focus on expanding the electorate by registering more voters — and as importantly, by mobilizing Texans who are already registered voters but who have not been engaged in the democratic process.”

Read the full story @ Politico

Related:

• Building Democratic Base Capacity
• Dems hope generational shift will turn Texas blue
• Democrats launch plan to turn Texas blue  

Jon Stewart Reveals Paul Ryan As A Taker, Not A Maker

In his Inaugural Address, Pres. Barack Obama's gave an unapologetic defense of America's social safety net program and refuted Paul Ryan's often repeated charge that Social Security recipients are "takers not makers."  In interviews on conservative media channels this week, Paul Ryan questioned the President's choice of rhetorical devices as a "straw-man" and denied ever making the "takers vs. makers" claim. But by weaving together comments Paul Ryan made on the presidential election trail last year about entitlements and "takers vs. makers," as well as citing the former VP nominee's own experience with government assistance, Stewart cheekily "proves" in the final seconds of his commentary that Obama plagiarized Ryan in his inauguration speech.



The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Obama's Reference Of American Equality And Fellowship

Particular passages from President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address strike a cord within most Americans for the promise of equality and fellowship that inspires the spirit of America —

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

"Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed."

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

Many younger Americans, who were not alive to witness or do not know of the events at places called at Stonewall, Selma, and Seneca Falls, may not fully appreciate the President’s references to those places.

Seneca Falls — The Seneca Falls Convention—held on July 19-20, 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York—was a gathering organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in conjunction with a group of radical Quakers displeased with the state of women’s rights in the United States. The event is widely considered to be the start of the women’s rights movement in the United States.

Selma — A series of three protest marches that took place during the month of March, 1965 in Selma, Alabama, that forever altered the public’s perception of the Civil Rights movement, mobilized President Lyndon Johnson and quickly led to the introduction and passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Stonewall­ — The event that is widely regarded as “the opening shot” in the gay rights movement in the United States took place early in the morning of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in the Greenwich Village section of New York City.

Click here to read the details of events at those places @ Forbes.

Women's Right Of Choice Turns 40

by Michael Handley

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.  On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision, Roe v. Wade, recognizing the constitutional right to privacy and a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health care decisions. At the time Roe was decided, most states severely restricted or banned the practice of abortion.

Seven in ten Americans support the historic Roe decision, according to just out NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll and a recent Pew Research study found that 63 percent of Americans support the Roe decision.

The decision ruled unconstitutional a Texas state law that banned abortions except to save the life of the mother. The Court ruled that the states were forbidden from outlawing or regulating any aspect of abortion performed during the first trimester of pregnancy, could only enact abortion regulations reasonably related to maternal health in the second and third trimesters, and could enact abortion laws protecting the life of the fetus only in the third trimester. Even then, an exception had to be made to protect the life of the mother.

President Obama's Progressive Inauguration Speech

President Obama's inauguration speech centered on a declaration of our country's progressive values and historic journey toward a more just society that includes women's rights, racial equality, gay rights, and immigrant rights  — progressive values that Obama campaigned on to win the 2012 Presidential election.

"Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts," Obama declared.   "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law."

"Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote."

"Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country."

As the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Ayn Rand aficionado Paul Ryan sat listening, Obama delivered a strong rebuke to the Ayn Radian theories that inspires conservative movement's ideology about society's "takers" and "makers":

"The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

Pres. Obama offered a strong a defense of the New Deal programs that protect the poor and elderly from disaster--through government spending:

"But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn."

Pres. Obama delivered a strong statement about the threat of climate change –  that America must lead the transition to renewable energy, because "failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."

There was the hopeful statement that "enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war." 

Pres. Obama offered a poignant vision of a progressive possibility: "We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else."

President Obama’s reelection was the electoral equivalent of a progressive exclamation point. Obama not only won 8 of the original 10 battleground states (winning: CO, FL, IA, NH, NM, NV, OH, VA; losing: IN and NC), but also earned a whopping 332 electoral votes. Beyond the headlines, consider for a moment the underlying dynamics of this win: Democrats have now won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Democrats topped Republicans by 1.2 million votes cast for House candidates in 2012 — meaning that the American people preferred progressive Democrats over Republicans by nearly a full percentage point of the total vote.  In the popular presidential vote Pres. Obama received 65,899,660 (51.1%) votes to Romney's 60,929,152 (47.2%) votes.

Clearly, America is a center left nation! 


Prepared text for Pres. Obama's second inaugural speech:

Pregnant Women Stripped Of Rights

A new study shows hundreds of women in the United States have been arrested, forced to undergo unwanted medical procedures, and locked up in jails or psychiatric institutions because they were pregnant.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women found 413 cases when pregnant women were deprived of their physical liberty between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005.

At least 250 more interventions have taken place since then. In one case, a court ordered a critically ill woman in Washington, D.C., to undergo a C-section against her will. Neither she nor the baby survived. In another case, a judge in Ohio kept a woman imprisoned to prevent her from having an abortion.

Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, is interviewed on Democracy Now. 

Democracy Now

In her video interview Paltrow said, "We've had cases where lawyers have been appointed for a fetus before the woman herself, who's been locked up, ever gets a lawyer. We've had cases where they've ordered a procedure over women's religious objections, and one court said, pregnant women of course have a right to religious freedom -- unless it interferes with what we believe is best for the fetus or embryo."


RH Reality Check: Conservatives like to complain about judicial activism, which generally means, a judge issued a decision which they don’t like. I have grown to hate the term because it is used so frequently that it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Still, there are few alternative phrases that accurately describe the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in the consolidated cases of Amanda Kimbrough and Hope Ankrom. Amanda and Hope are two women who were swept up in the Alabama judiciary’s zeal to promote an anti-choice personhood agenda at the expense of pregnant women, by redefining the word “child” in Alabama’s chemical endangerment statute, so that it now applies to pregnant women who use any amount of controlled substances, whether prescribed by a doctor or not.  Read the full article @ RH Reality Check.

This news comes on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on the right to abortion -- a right that has been under siege ever since.

Related:

•  Personhood At Conception And Criminalizing use of Birth Control
• 15-Year-Old Girl Faces Life in Prison for a Miscarrage
• The Republican War on Women: A Democratic Network Fourum - Part 1.
• The GOP War on Women: A Democratic Network Forum - Part 2

Roe v. Wade at 40: Most Oppose Overturning SCOTUS Decision

As the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision approaches, the public remains opposed to overturning the historic ruling on abortion, according to a new Pew Research study. The court's Roe v. Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion at least in the first three months of pregnancy.

During the 112th Congress, Republicans introduced several bills to outlaw abortion.  One of those bills proposed a Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. As Mother Jones reported, the Personhood amendment would outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, domestic violence and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies. In addition, this change to the Constitution would criminalize in-vitro fertilization and common birth control methods, including birth control pills and IUD's.  (More: The Republican War on Women and Justice Scalia: Women Have No Constitutional Right to Abortion and Contraception.

The Pew study shows that Republicans are out of step with the American public on this "pro choice" issue.  Decades after the Supreme Court rendered its decision, on Jan. 22, 1973,  more than six-in-ten (63%) say they would not like to see the Roe v. Wade decision overturned. Only about three-in-ten (29%) would like to see the ruling overturned. These opinions are little changed from surveys conducted 10 and 20 years ago.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 9-13 among 1,502 adults, finds that abortion is viewed as a less important issue than in the past. Currently, 53% say abortion “is not that important compared to other issues,” up from 48% in 2009 and 32% in 2006. The percentage viewing abortion as a “critical issue facing the country” fell from 28% in 2006 to 15% in 2009 and now stands at 18 percent.

WMD: Weapons Of Mass Destruction And Common Sense

Baltimore Sun: The past few days, we've been wowed in the network news that since the Newtown, Conn. shootings, the NRA has recruited 100,000 new members. Impressive! Until you look at a few real statistics. The number of NRA supporters is being touted as 4.2 million. I looked up the U.S. Census figures. The nation's 2012 population was 311,591,917. Those under 18 comprised 23.7 percent or 73,847,284. That means the total U.S. adult population is 237,744,633. If 4.2 million of those adults are members of the NRA, that means that 233,544,633 adults are not members of the NRA. That is, 98.2 percent of all U.S. adults choose not to join the National Rifle Association. Now, what I want to know is how many members of Congress are beholden to the NRA when it represents fewer than 2 percent of adult Americans?

NBCNews.com, The Rachel Maddow Show
David and Francine Wheeler, who lost their six year old son Ben
at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT last month:

MLK Day 2013

On this day in 1929 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born. 

On Saturday January 19, 2013, beginning at 8:00 a.m., Collin College will again host the Dr. Martin Luther King Day Leadership Power Breakfast at Collin College Spring Creek Campus Living Legends Conference Center.

The Power/Community Unity Walk event  at 11:00 a.m follows the breakfast starting. The walk assembles at the north parking lot of the Parker Road DART station (2600 Archerwood) and will involve Collin College students and staff as well as community members. 


A Plano City Hall Program begins at 12:00 p.m., immediately following the Unity Walk, in the Plano Municipal Building Council Chambers, 1520 K Ave, Plano, TX 75074.  Keynote Speaker is Dale Long, noted Community Leader and organizer, 2007 Clifford P. Norman National Award winner for local board participation from Big Brothers and Sisters of America.  Enjoy the MLK All-Community Choir in a musical tribute to Dr. King on Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 7:00 PM at the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, 920 E. 14th St., Plano, TX 75074.

National Day of Service activities will take place around the area on Saturday afternoon. Collin College students and staff will be a part of rebuilding trails at local centers or restoring, cleaning, stocking and moving furniture in partnership with the City of Plano and Habitat for Humanity. Four years ago President Obama started the National Day of Service, a day to honor the life of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and continue the lifelong commitment to service our community. On January 19th, 2013 President Obama is asking all citizens to participate in a tradition his family started in 2009, and spend the day doing service work in communities across the country. You can volunteer on Saturday, January 19th by clicking to the National Day of Service webpage.

Building Democratic Base Capacity

by Michael Handley

Targeted GOTV programs in the 8 to 12 weeks before Election Day are essential. The problem Democrats face is that candidates and activists don't know the names, addresses, (cell) phone numbers, email addresses and social media site hubs of enough Democratic leaning people to target for positive GOTV contact in this 8-12 weeks to poll anything close to 50.1% of the vote.

The Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was the decisive 2012 winner of this consistently red state.  Romney rolled up 57 percent (4,555,799) of the 2012 vote compared to Obama’s 41 percent (3,294,440) of the vote. Romney won Texas by 1,261,359 votes this year.

This year, Obama won 50 percent or more of the vote in seven of Texas' fifteen largest counties -- see chart at bottom of this post.  In the last three presidential year general elections, the nine largest counties made up between 53-54 percent of the total vote: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin, Denton, Fort Bend and El Paso.

In 2012, these nine counties represent 54 percent (4,330,888) of the total vote(7,965,384) in Texas. In these nine counties, 59 percent of the 7.27 million registered voters turned out to vote for one of the presidential candidates, but only 40% of the 10.7 million eligible voting age persons living in those counties voted.

In the Nov. 2012 election, Pres. Obama's performance in Collin County declined on both raw vote count and vote spread, while Romney's performance (196,000)  improved over McCain's 2008 vote count and percentage wins. In 2008, Pres. Obama polled 209,047 (37%) votes in Collin Co., but only 101,000 (32%) votes in 2012.

There are now nearly 465,000 registered voters in Collin Co. out of an estimated voting age population (VAP) of about 700,000 people.

The chart below shows that a very high percentage of the most conservative Republican portion of the VAP (age 50 and older) voted in 2012, while a high percentage of younger registered Collin Co. residents did not vote.  About 166,000 of already registered young voters didn't vote. Another large portion of  younger Collin Co. residents (under age 50) aren't even registered.  About 207,000 Collin Co. of mostly younger residents were not registered to vote for the November 2012 election.

President Obama polled only 32 percent of the 2012 vote because a very low portion of the most progressive Democratic leaning potion of the electorate (age 39 and younger) did not vote.  Where Democrats did win across Texas it was because larger percentages of younger voters voted.

In a 2012 national exit poll, 59 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds said government should be doing more to solve problems. Just 37 percent thought government was doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals. That is basically the reverse of the sentiment among seniors: just 35 percent of this age group thought government should be doing more, compared to 58 percent who thought government is doing too much.

Assuming younger Collin Co. voters carry the same views as those in the rest of America, getting more younger voters to the polls must be a key strategy for Democratic candidates.  There is currently no way to urge younger voters to get out and vote because the party leanings of individuals in younger age cohorts have not been identified through canvassing programs, and they have no primary election voting history to indicate party affiliation. (click picture to enlarge)

Even if party-related organizations and candidates could identify those potential young voters, the only way to make contact with them is by knocking on their front door. That is because that part of the electorate has a cell phone mostly lifestyle and no voter information data base contains their cell number, email address, or social media site preferences.

Democrats have about 93 weeks until early voting starts for the Nov 2014 election. Activists at the county and neighborhood levels must work every week to identify every Dem leaning voting age citizen, documenting their contact and demographic info. As Democratic leaning people are identified, county level organizations must plan and execute programs that build relationships with those people to make them an active part of the Democratic base.

Those programs must be designed to invite that disconnected part of the electorate to participate in regular conversations at house and town hall meetings, and on social media.  Democrats must do old fashioned base building work, and learn how to combine Internet and mobile communication with those traditional community organizing activities to accomplish that mission.

What's The Procedure To Replace Our Committeewoman?

 
James White

Senate District 8 December Newsletter 
by Senatorial District 8 Committeeman James White

The main topics for this month are the SDEC TDP Election Debrief Meeting held earlier this month in Austin and SD8 Committeewoman Replacement Procedures.

Saturday, December 8, the SDEC met in an informal session to discuss election results, where we are, and what we can do. It was more than that, to me it seemed like one of our more information dense meetings. I learned a lot about what happened and what we are wanting to execute on going forward.

Let me give credit first to SD9 Committeeman Michael McPhail who takes real-time facebook notes of the SDEC meetings. Go "friend" him.  We all won't be at the top of the ticket. And I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in having the pox of 2010 revisited upon me.

December SDEC Meeting

Chairman Hinojosa said if we do what we've always done we'll get our butts kicked. I doubt many of you reading this would disagree.

We must put together a statewide structure, we must expand into the rural areas, we must run everywhere. That's me summarizing this and, well, I'm strongly agreeing. We may not have a Howard Dean 50 state opportunity but with work and showcasing our Democratic principles, we can get a 254 county strategy.

We also heard Darlene Ewing, Dallas County Democratic Party Chair, speak, along with Tarrant, and Bexar county chairs. Darlene gave me, indirectly (and I'm positive she wasn't thinking of me at all) a shoutout when she said there are Democrats everywhere in Dallas County, even in Far North Dallas. Yes, she said, there is even a Democratic club in Far North Dallas. Well, that would be the club I'm president of, The Far North Dallas Democrats and you can find us on FaceBook at Far North Dallas Democrats. I'll take the kind word even if it isn't directed at me because Darlene is a successful Democratic County chair and I - and we - can learn a lot from her.

I don't want to fill this news letter up with the minutiae of the event, but I have to say, the information content in this meeting was great. If you want to know more, let me know!

What's The Procedure To Replace Our Committeewoman?

SD8 Committeewoman Linda Magid will leave us this month and move to Bexar County, Texas.  I've been looking up the procedure for mid-cycle replacement of our committeewoman. At the SDEC meeting someone approached me and was fairly emphatic about another procedure that I did not think was correct, so I've researched it. This person perhaps astutely pointed out that I might need "help with complex ideas", so if you agree about that, then proceed with caution. What I believe to be the procedure is based on my questions and research, but the ultimate determination is made by the TDP - so with that proviso and warning, here is what I believe will happen. (TDP RULES CAN BE FOUND HERE. [pdf that opens in googledocs])

ARTICLE III: EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES, SECTION D: STATE DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, PARAGRAPH: SDEC MEMBERS, SUBSECTION (f) SDEC VACANCIES:

"When a vacancy occurs on the SDEC, the vacancy shall be filled by the majority vote of the members of the SDEC. The new member shall be an eligible person of the same sex and from the same senatorial district as the vacating member. The Senatorial District Committee of the affected district shall meet to nominate a person for such position. The State Chair shall mail written notice of the meeting to consider such nomination to the members of the Senatorial District Committee and, if known, the Chair of the affected district’s Senatorial District Caucus at the last State Convention, at least two weeks prior to the meeting. The Committee shall report its nominee to the SDEC. A vacancy shall be filled no later than the next meeting of the SDEC following written notice of the vacancy by at least five weeks."

What I take from this paragraph is:

1. The majority of the SDEC has to vote for the replacement.
2. It must be, in this case, a female who resides in SD8.
3. The Senatorial District Committee of the affected district nominates a person for the position.
4. Some time constraints spelled out.

That is all pretty straightforward EXCEPT for the "Senatorial District Committee". What is that? Ah, that definition can be found in TDP rules, too:

ARTICLE III: EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES, SECTION F: DISTRICT EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, PARAGRAPH 1 MEMBERS, SUBSECTION (c)

"For a senatorial district made up of more than one county or parts of more than one county, the District Committee’s membership shall include the County Chair of each county wholly contained within that district and one District Committee member elected from among their number by each group of Precinct Chairs within a portion of a county included in such senatorial district. The District Committee thus formed shall elect its own Chair. The District Committee member so elected by the group (or committee) of Precinct Chairs (from only part of a county included in such a multi-county district) shall be and act also as Chair of such group or committee of Precinct Chairs. (Texas Election Code §171.054)"

What I take from this paragraph is:

1. The COUNTY CHAIRS are NOT automatically members of the "Senatorial District Committee" in certain Senatorial District mappings such as Senatorial District 8 (re: 'shall include the County Chair of each county wholly contained'.)  Neither Dallas NOR Collin counties are wholly contained in Senatorial District 8. 
2. Each county shall elect its own "Senatorial District Committee" representative from the COUNTY PRECINCT CHAIRS who are in Senatorial District 8 of each respective county.  
3. The Senatorial District Committee, once formed and officially notified of the SDEC vacancy by the TDP State Chair, then meets to recommend a person to the SDEC to fill the vacancy. 

SO I've asked others and I've asked party officials and I've heard nothing to disabuse me of my interpretation up to this point. As I see it, Collin precinct chairs within SD8 will elect ONE person and Dallas precinct chairs within SD8 will elect ONE person and that shall constitute the SENATE DISTRICT COMMITTEE.

Officials from the TDP have offered to help us and observe us so that things run smoothly and I've encouraged them to do so. Think about your choice! I believe that these positions and the energy someone might bring are important. DOUBLE CHECK me. I've provided a link to the rules and it's important that we understand them.

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Michael Handley Michael Handley runs the excellent Democratic Blog News. Here he is looking as dapper as ever at the SDEC meeting earlier this month. If I looked like that I would not hear every morning, "Are you going out dressed like that?"		SHOUT OUT TO CLUBS Now, in this interregnum, is your chance to break your habits, just a bit. Try new clubs and new events, both near you and not so near. I'm sure it would be worth it. For example, there are several excellent Drinking Liberally Clubs near us. Drinking Liberally Plano  Living Liberally McKinney  Drinking Liberally Addison  Drinking Liberally Dallas

Subscribe to the Senate District 8 SDEC Committee-persons Newsletter


James White's SDEC page is www.facebook.com/SD8Committeeman.
James White's SDEC  twitter feed is www.twitter.com/txsdec8. 

African American Voter Turnout Likely Topped Anglo Voters

by Michael Handley

The rate of nationwide African American voter turnout remained high in 2012 and, for the first time, may have topped the rate for Anglo turnout, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center.

In 2008, the rate of African American voter turnout almost equaled that of Anglos, continuing a trend of a steady increase in African American turnout rates that began in 1996. This year, African American turnout seems very likely to have exceeded the Anglo level voting, partly because Anglo turnout appears to have dropped slightly.

Republicans took over swing state state legislatures as part of the 2010 mid-term tea party wave election. Those Republican-majority legislatures immediately adopted American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, model legislation designed to limit minority voter access to the polling booth by curtailing early voting days, voter registration activities and acceptable voter identification documents.

Many African American leaders said those laws would disproportionately hurt elderly, poor and minority voters and accused Republicans of running a campaign of “voter suppression.”

Republicans said those new laws were needed to combat voter fraud. In a few states, Republican legislative leaders explicitly said they hoped the measures would hurt Democratic candidates or reduce the “urban” vote.  ("Florida Republicans Admit Voter Suppression Agenda" and "The GOP’s Crime Against Voters")

Courts blocked some of those laws, and in the end Republican attempts to suppress minority voters may have backfired as African American organizations used “voter suppression” as a rallying cry to turn out the vote. The perception that Republicans were attempting to disenfranchise their vote strongly motivated many African Americans to get out the vote.

School Choice - Privatizing Our Public Schools

by Michael Handley

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and State Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston), chair of the Senate Committee on Education, chose a private Catholic school as the backdrop to explain their education voucher scheme that they plan to push through the Republican controlled 2013 Texas legislative session.

The proposed Republican legislation would create a private school scholarship fund by offering businesses franchise tax breaks credits for paying into the private school voucher program.

Commenting on the Republican plan announced by Dewhurst and Patrick, Texas Democratic Party State Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said,

"Public education is the key that unlocks the American Dream for the vast majority of our children. And anything that threatens that is beyond unacceptable.

Cell Phone Only Continues To Grow

by Michael Handley

Preliminary results from the January–June 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that the number of American homes cutting their landline telephone service in favor of cellular telephone service only continues to grow.

More than one-third of American homes (35.8%) had only cellular telephone service during the first half of 2012 — an increase of 1.8 percentage points since the second half of 2011.  In addition, nearly one of every six American homes (15.9%) received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones despite also having a landline telephone.  More than half of American households (51.7%) can now be contacted only by knowing the cell phone of someone living in that household.

Florida GOP Leaders Admit Suppressing Student Vote

Raw Story - The chairman of the Alachua County Republican Party told a newspaper this week that he and another prominent Florida Republican pushed for changes to the state’s provisional balloting system in order to suppress young and poor voters, many of whom are students or rent their residence.

The Miami Herald found that the law, sponsored by State Rep. Dennis Baxley (R) and supported by Alachua County GOP chairman Stafford Jones, eliminated the ability of poll workers to quickly check a statewide database of voters registered in counties other than where they’re casting a ballot.

The end result was a 25 percent spike in the use of provisional ballots, leading to more work for elections staff and much longer lines — all of which was by design, Jones told the Herald.

The changes to Florida’s voting laws ahead of the 2012 presidential election were just one front in a national vote suppression campaign by Republicans who claimed to be concerned about supposedly rampant “voter fraud.” Studies show, however, that the type of in-person voter fraud these laws would guard against is incredibly rare, and there’s no evidence to support the conclusion that any U.S. election has been swayed by such tactics.

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1xirm)

Related:

• Florida Republicans Admit Voter Suppression Agenda... 

Texas Now Serves Fewer Family Planning - Spending More On Less

In the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers cut the state's family planning budget by two-thirds, a loss of around $73.6 million over the next two years. The reason behind this, naturally, was that "family planning" is clearly a secret code word for "abortion."

"Of course this is a war on birth control and abortions and everything," Representative Wayne Christian told the Texas Tribune. "That's what family planning is supposed to be about."

Now, the Department of State Health Services has released new documents showing how the new, lean, highly efficient family planning budget is working for the state. Or not working. Those documents show that the program is now serving almost 128,000 fewer people, while spending more money per patient.

Jordan Smith at the Austin Chronicle was the first to lay out the new program's flaws . She points to a memo sent to the State Health Services Council by the Department of State Health Services. The memo, which we've posted below, shows that in 2012, the family planning budget served 75,160 people, at a cost of $236.54 each. Last year, before the cuts went into effect, the family planning money served 202,968 people, and cost $205.93 per patient.

In other words, the cost per patient has climbed by 15 percent, while the number of people served has nosedived by 63 percent. (A DSHS spokesperson told the Chronicle that's due to "infrastructure costs," and that the situation should "resolve itself over time.")

In the new funding structure, family planning money is going first to entities known as federally qualified healthcare centers, which are primary care community health clinics. There are 69 of them in Texas, according to DSHS, operating at around 300 sites.

But FQHCS aren't specifically set up to provide family planning services, and, as the Texas Observer points out they have struggled to cope with the influx of new patients. Outside of the new family planning money, many also continue to have serious budgetary issues of their own.

Read the the full story @ Dallas Observer

Bill Moyers Essay: Living Under The Gun

In a web-exclusive video essay, Bill Moyers says Friday's deadly shooting in Colorado is yet another tragic indication that our society -- and too many of our politicians -- covet guns more than common sense or life itself. The National Rifle Association in particular, Bill says, “has turned the Second Amendment of the Constitution into a cruel and deadly hoax.”


Bill Moyers Essay: Living Under the Gun from BillMoyers.com 

Mental Illness And Guns

It can be argued that Pres. Reagan bears some responsibility for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, committed by a mentally ill gunman. Pres. Reagan promoted the near total collapse of publicly funded care for the mentally ill.

Government's primary responsibility is the protection of the citizens it represents through collective defense. This is true of government at every level. Government is meant to protect us from enemies that we can not possibly be expected to individually protect ourselves against. That collective defense can take the form of gun ownership regulation, at least comparable to the regulation applied to owning and operating motor vehicles.

That collective defense can also take the form of care for those in our society who are mentally ill.

U.S. AG Says Voter Registration Should Be Automatic

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday that U.S. election officials should register eligible voters automatically and take steps to reduce the long lines Americans encountered in national elections on Nov. 6.

In a speech in Boston, Holder became the highest-ranking official to call for voting changes since President Barack Obama expressed exasperation with the hours-long lines during his re-election victory speech last night.

“Modern technology provides ways to address many of the problems that impede the efficient administration of elections,” Holder said.

Registering to vote is a necessary step to be eligible to cast a ballot in almost every U.S. state, and some jurisdictions require the paperwork weeks before Election Day.  The United States has a patchwork election system, relying on local officials in 3,141 counties across the 50 states and the District of Columbia to the define laws and manage the bureaucratic process used to register voters.   This does not include U.S. Commonwealths and territories with what are generally county equivalents.

Holder said the current system was needlessly complex and riddled with mistakes, resulting in 60 million adult U.S. citizens not being eligible to cast a ballot in the 2008 presidential election because they had not filed the right paperwork.  

In Texas, voters must be registered to vote 30 days before election day, and re-register when they move.  All the registration paperwork is handled at both the county and state levels, and sometimes across Texas' Secretary of  State and Department of Motor Vehicles (DPS) state agencies.

Because of the  Broken (DPS) Texas Motor Voter Registration Process many people who thought they re-registered when they change their driver's license after moving from one Texas county to another found they were not properly re-registered by their visit to the DPS office or website. These voters thought they had filed the right voter registration paperwork, but one of the state agencies seemingly mishandled or lost it. These harried voters were forced to travel to their county's main election office to vote a limited ballot during early voting or vote a provisional ballot at their polling location on election day, and many of those provisional ballots were likely not accepted for counting.

The safeguards are in place to prevent a problem that rarely, if ever occurs, largely because few people are willing to risk felony charges to influence an election, Holder said.

“You can’t get groups of sufficient numbers of people that are willing to face that possibility and try to influence an election, which is why in-person voter fraud simply doesn’t exist to the extent that some on the right have said that it does,” Holder told a crowd of several hundred at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

By coordinating existing databases, the government could register “every eligible voter in America” and ensure that registration does not lapse after moving to a new home, Holder said.

Holder, also recommended that polling places should have an adequate number of voting machines and be open for additional days — a challenge because thousands of local officials make those decisions independently.  Holder also suggested that Election Day should be moved to a weekend.

“We should rethink this whole notion that voting only occurs on Tuesday, which is an agricultural notion from way back,” Holder said. “Why not have voting on weekends?”

An overhaul would likely require approval from Congress, a significant obstacle because of the view by many Republicans that easing registration requirements could increase voter fraud. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on “the state of the right to vote” on Dec. 19.

Full text of Holder’s remarks.

Search For Muslim Bias In Texas Schools, Finds Only Christian Bias

Think Progress: A bizarre chain email sent to district and school board officials in the Dallas area this October titled “IRVING ISD INDOCTRINATING ISLAM” inspired a recent investigation of “Islamic bias” in the district’s curriculum. Only Christian bias found.

Despite the outlandish claims, the district requested that an official from the organization that created the curriculum to respond. The results of a 72-page investigation done by the organization were not surprising: there’s a Christian bias in schools, not a Muslim one.

The official told the board that a bias toward Islam didn’t exist, even mentioning that “she hired a ‘very socially and fiscally conservative’ former social studies teacher who ‘watches Glenn Beck on a regular basis’ to seek out any Islamic bias in CSCOPE [the curriculum].” She “asked her to look for anything she would consider the least bit controversial.”

The Dallas Morning News has the details of an investigation that mentioned “every religious reference in the CSCOPE curriculum, from kindergarten to high school”:

• Christianity got twice as much attention in the curriculum as any other religion. Islam was a distant second.
• The Red Crescent and Boston Tea Party reference mentioned in the email were nowhere in CSCOPE’s curriculum, although they may have been in the past.
• If there was any Islamic bias in CSCOPE it was “bias against radical Islam.”

This isn’t the first time Texas has debated the perceived presence of too much Islam in its school books. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education banned any books that “paint Islam in too favorable of a light.”  The reasoning was head-scratching: “the resolution adopted Friday cites ‘politically-correct whitewashes of Islamic culture and stigmas on Christian civilization’ in current textbooks and warns that ‘more such discriminatory treatment of religion may occur as Middle Easterners buy into the US public school textbook oligopoly.’”

A Texas based civil liberties advocate said at the time that “the members who voted for this resolution were solely interested in playing on fear and bigotry in order to pit Christians against Muslims.”

Full story @ Think Progress

Tax The Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale

Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale, is narrated by Ed Asner, with animation by Mike Konopacki. Written and directed by Fred Glass for the California Federation of Teachers. An 8 minute video about how we arrived at this moment of poorly funded public services and widening economic inequality. Things go downhill in a happy and prosperous land after the rich decide they don't want to pay taxes anymore. They tell the people that there is no alternative, but the people aren't so sure. This land bears a startling resemblance to our land.


Hat tip to my friend D Karen Wilkerson.

President Obama's #My2k Twitter Live Chat

Behind the scenes look at President Obama on a Twitter (#My2k) live chat from the Roosevelt room of the White House. President Obama connected directly with Americans via Twitter on Monday, where he answered questions about extending middle class tax cuts.

During the live Twitter Q&A, the President addressed the need for a balanced approach to reduce the deficit, the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations, and even weighed in with his predictions for Chicago sports teams from the White House Twitter account. During the conversation, the hashtag #My2k was used more than 31,000 times and trended nationally on Twitter throughout the chat.



More:

• http://www.whitehouse.gov/My2k
• Social Media Caucus - Tx Sen. Kirk Watson explains Twitter live chat

Guiding Principles On Fiscal Cliff Negotiations With Republicans

Author, Berkeley professor, and Clinton-era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich lays out the what, why and how of the Fiscal "Cliff", the showdown in Congress that Republicans created to demand painful cuts in vital domestic programs in exchange for raising taxes on the top 2%. Guiding Principles On Fiscal Cliff Negotiations With Republicans

Did Romney Pollsters Not Understand Cell Phone Only Demographics

by Michael Handley  (Updated Sat., Dec. 1, 2012 @ 9:38 a.m.)

The Romney campaign and GOP politicos, like Carl Rove, absolutely believed Romney was headed for victory on Election Day. Did Romney's polls skew toward the right by as much as an eight point spread because his internal pollsters fell into the wireless (cell phone) only polling gap trap?

A few journalists have reported that team Romney’s internal polling showed him comfortably moving into the lead in North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and a few other swing states.  Add in Ohio, where Romney's internal polling had him in a statistical tie with Obama, and team Romney thought they were on track to lock in enough electoral votes to win the White House.  GOP confidence in these numbers was such that Romney decided to not prepare a concession speech in advance.

An article by Noam Scheiber published today in The New Republic provides some details about the Romney Campaign's internal polling snafu.

The Internal Polls That Made Mitt Romney Think He'd Win

...In an exclusive to The New Republic, a Romney aide has provided the campaign’s final internal polling numbers for six key states, along with additional breakdowns of the data, which the aide obtained from the campaign’s chief pollster, Neil Newhouse.  Newhouse himself then discussed the numbers with TNR.

...Newhouse and some of his colleagues have said that the biggest flaw in their polling was the failure to predict the demographic composition of the electorate. Broadly speaking, the people who showed up to vote on November 6 were younger and less white than Team Romney anticipated, and far more Democratic as a result. "The Colorado Latino vote was extraordinarily challenging," Newhouse told me. "As it was in Florida.

...One Romney aide told me that he ran into Tagg Romney, the candidate’s eldest son, as the results came in on election night. “He looked like he was in a complete state of shock,” the aide said. “[As if] these numbers cannot be real.”

Read the full story @ The New Republic.

We know polls that included properly weighted cell phone only voters gave Obama the lead in all battle ground states through the summer and fall.  In late September Nate Silver wrote that Obama has shown a clear lead in the 16 cell phone-inclusive polls of seven top battleground states taken since the convention. A national survey conducted by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, in mid September, which include properly weighted cell phone only respondents, found that Obama had an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters.  

The cell phone only trend is increasingly problematic for pollsters for several reasons.

Political Engagement In The Digital Age

Pew Research Center: The growth of social media and the rapid adoption of smartphones have changed the way Americans engage in politics. Here is a summary of Pew's 2012 findings.

Background and details @ ePolitics

Florida Republicans Admit Voter Suppression Agenda

Florida’s former Republican Party chairman, Jim Greer, claims Republicans have made a systemic effort to suppress the Democratic vote. Greer served as Florida's GOP chairman from 2006 until 2010 when he was forced to resign after allegedly stealing $200,000 from the party. He was arrested and his case is pending trial in February.

In a 630-page deposition, related to his corruption case, recorded over two days in late May, Greer unloaded a litany of charges against the “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies” in his party, including the effort to suppress the black vote.

In the deposition, released to the press last July and reported by the Tampa Bay Times, Greer mentioned a December 2009 meeting with party officials. “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” he said.

Repeating his allegations of voter suppression, Greer last week told the Palm Beach Post, “The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,”  “It’s done for one reason and one reason only...‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us.’"

"When those consultants and legislative leaders approached me about putting forth election changes to the law that would benefit the Republican Party, I didn't agree to it," Florida 10-News reported.

But in 2010 with Charlie Crist out and Governor Rick Scott in as Governor, Greer says the voter suppression effort had support at the top.

Florida's HB 1355 bill, which was passed by Florida's Republican dominated legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott in November 2011, reduced the number of early voting days from 14 down to eight. Republicans promoted the legislation as a measure to reduce rampant voter fraud, but Greer says the voter fraud argument was simply a "marketing ploy. Despite lines during early voting and lines as long as nine hours on Election Day 2012 in Florida, Scott said he stands by the new law.  "Well I'm very comfortable that the right thing happened," he told WKMG Orlando after the election.

Former Governor Charlie Crist and a GOP consultant have also been quoted as part of a growing chorus accusing Republicans of intentionally trying to keep Democrats from the polls.  Gov. Scott's immediate predecessor, the formerly Republican Charlie Crist,says he frustrated Republican legislative efforts to shorten the state's early voting period while he held the governor's office, citing reasons that mesh with Greer's claims.  In an interview with The Huffington Post, Crist said HB 1355 was clearly aimed at curbing turnout among Democrats.

"The only thing that makes any sense as to why this is happening and being done is voter suppression," he said, "People have fought and died for our right to vote, and unfortunately our legislature and this governor have decided they want to make early voting less available to Floridians rather than more available ... It's hard for me as an American to comprehend why you don't make democracy as easy as possible to exercise for the people of our state. It's frankly unconscionable."

Greer acknowledged that the effort to restrict early voting would directly affect turnout among Florida's African Americans, a demographic that consistently supports Democrats. There is "absolutely nothing" state Republicans wouldn't do in their "absolute obsession with retaining power," he told the Post.

Related:

• The Fake Voter Fraud Epidemic And The 2012 Election 
• Women At Risk Of Being Disenfranchised
• Sarah Silverman Explains Voter Photo I.D. Laws
• True the Vote’s Spreading Campaign to Intimidate Minority Voters 
• Texas’ Long History Against Voting Rights
• Texas Restrictive Voter Photo ID Law Blocked By Federal Court
• Federal Court Turns Back Texas' Redistricting Plan 
• Restrictions On Deputy Voter Registrars At Issue 
• Texas Voter Photo ID FAQ

Has The GOP Lost A Generation Of Voters?

Barack Obama won 60% of the vote among those younger than 30, down from 66% in 2008, says a Pew Research Center survey of the 2012 youth vote.  Nationwide, Obama received a blowout 66% of the national vote among the 18-29 year old age group in 2008 compared to McCain's 33% of that vote. Obama also won the 2008 youth vote in many Republican states like Texas, where he won 54% of the vote. Young voters also gave 63% of the vote to House Democrats in 2008 -- Young voters not only voted for Obama at the top of the ballot, they also voted down ballot or straight ticket by a high margin for other Democratic candidates.

The divide between young voters and older voters was as stark this year as it was in 2008. While Obama lost ground among voters younger than 30, he still won this age group by 24 points over Mitt Romney (60% to 36%). He also maintained a slimmer advantage among voters 30 to 44 (52% Obama, 45% Romney), while losing ground among those 45 to 64 and those 65 and older.

Among all voters 30 and older, Obama ran behind Mitt Romney (48% for Obama, 50% for Romney). Four years ago, Obama edged John McCain, 50% to 49%, among all 30+ voters.

In Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania, Obama also failed to win a majority of voters 30 and older. Yet he swept all four battleground states, in part because he won majorities of 60% or more among young voters.

Just as critically, young people made up as large a share of the overall electorate as they did in 2008, according to the national exit poll (19% in 2012, 18% in 2008). As recently as September, young voters were significantly less engaged in the campaign than they had been four years earlier. But their interest and engagement levels increased in the campaign’s final weeks. In the Pew Research Center’s final pre-election survey, as many registered voters under 30 said they were giving a lot of thought to the election as did so in the last weekend of the 2008 race.

Young voters continue to identify with the Democratic Party at relatively high levels and express more liberal attitudes on a range of issues – from gay marriage to the role of the federal government – than do older voters. In fact, voters under 30 were as likely to identify as Democrats in the 2012 exit poll as they had been in 2008 (44% now, 45% then). And they are the only age group in which a majority said that the government should do more to solve problems.

His losses among young voters since 2008 might have been even greater, but for the fact that the under 30s are by far the most racially and ethnically diverse age group. Just 58% are white non-Hispanic, compared with 76% of voters older than 30. A recent report by Pew Social and Demographic Trends found that minorities are on track to become a majority of the overall population by 2050.

The racial and ethnic composition of young voters has shifted dramatically over the last four presidential elections. Just 58% of voters age 18-29 identified as white non-Hispanics, while 18% were Hispanic, 17% were African American and 7% identified as mixed-race or some other race. The share of young voters who are white has declined 16 points since 2000, when 74% of voters under 30 identified as white and 26% identified as nonwhite (including 12% who were African American and 10% Hispanic).

This stands in sharp contrast to older voters. Fully 76% of voters 30 and older were white, down only six points from 2000. Only 24% of voters 30 and older were nonwhite, including 12% who identified as black and 8% as Hispanic.

Read the full survey report @ Pew Research Center.

Related: The Millennial Generation: Our Liberal Future

Collin Co Election Results

by Michael Handley

Like much of the rest of Texas, 2012 Collin County election results drifted to the right.  On measures of both candidate and party, Collin County voted less Democratic and more Republican in 2012 than in 2008.

Obama's performance in Collin County declined on both raw vote count and vote spread and Romney's performance improved over McCain's 2008 vote count and percentage wins.

This table represents early results and does not include
the number of provisional ballots accepted for counting
or final number of mail ballots returned. 3,565
provisional ballots were cast. Final numbers will be
reported in December.

While straight party voting increased for both parties in 2012 over 2008, Republican straight party voting increased much more than Democratic party voting. 4,176 more Democrats and 20,199 more Republicans voted straight party in 2012 over 2008.

Comparing ballots cast as a percentage of registered voters, 2012 turnout lags behind 2008 turnout in Collin County, as it also does in eleven other of Texas' fifteen largest counties.

According to Texas DSHS Center for Health Statistics population estimates the Collin County population base has expanded over the last four years.

While the population has grown, the percentage of voting age persons (VAP) who registered to vote for the presidential election has fallen from 2008 levels.

Does this mean these Texans were less motivated to vote in 2012 than in 2008?

It seems apparent from the county and top line turnout numbers that Texas Democrats, including those who live in Collin County were less motivated to vote in 2012 than in 2008.

Cell Phone Only Voters Making GOTV Phone Banks Obsolete

In the final weeks before Election Day, a scary statistic emerged from the databases at Barack Obama’s Chicago headquarters: more than half the campaign’s targeted swing-state voters under age 29 had no listed phone number. They have adopted a wireless cell phone only lifestyle, effectively immune to the obsolete 20th century "voice phone bank canvassing" get-out-the-vote efforts.