Texas’ Long History Against Voting Rights

by Michael Handley

Tuesday, a panel of three federal judges for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia found in favor of a U.S Department of Justice position stated last year that redistricting plans passed during the 2011 Texas Legislative Session and signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) were drawn with the purpose of discriminating against Latino voters.

The federal three-judge panel stops Texas from enforcing its new Voter Photo I.D. Law.  The new I.D. would require voters to present one of a very limited selection of government issued photo I.D. to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots. Approximately 11 percent of otherwise qualified voters overall and up to 25 percent of some otherwise qualified poor and minority groups do not hold any of those specified I.D documents. 

The three-judge panel found that Texas' new law imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty. In other words, Texas Photo I.D. Law (SB 14) was drawn with the purpose of discriminating against African American and Latino voters.

Under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department or a federal court is required to pre-clear laws affecting voters before they go into effect in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination -- and that includes Texas.  The preclearance requirement was enacted in 1965 and renewed by Congress in 1970, 1975, 1982 and 2006.

When Texas was designated as a Section 5 state in 1965 due to discrimination against Latinos and African Americans, it grew increasingly defiant of the Voting Rights Act. According to a report by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, “Voting Rights in Texas 1982-2006,” only one state challenged Section 5 in court more than the Texas in that time period—and that’s Mississippi. From 1982 to 2006, Texas registered at least 107 Section 5 objections. Meanwhile, during that same time period, Texas lead the nation in several categories of voting discrimination, including Section 5 violations.

Dr. Martin Luther King and  Coretta Scott King

Texas had far more Section 5 withdrawals, following the DOJ’s request for information to clarify the impact of a proposed voting change, than any other jurisdiction during the 1982-2005 time period. These withdrawals include at least 54 instances in which the state eliminated discriminatory voting changes after it became evident they would not be precleared by the DOJ.”
In other words, at least 54 times in 25 years, Texas had to back down from an effort to restrict the vote—thanks to the power granted the federal government under the Voting Rights Act.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced he “will immediately” appeal both federal court decisions to the U.S. Supreme Court ~ and again challenge the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

More:

• Voting Rights Act: The State of Section 5 – ProPublica
• Texas voter ID law can’t take effect - SCOTUSBlog

Texas Restrictive Voter Photo ID Law Blocked By Federal Court

by Michael Handley

A federal three-judge panel, composed of D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel, and District Court Judges Rosemary Collyer and Robert Wilkins, ruled today against a Texas Photo I.D. Law that would require voters to present photo I.D. to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots. The three-judge panel found that the law imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.

Originally set to go into effect on January 1, 2012, the Texas Photo I.D. Law (SB 14) would require voters to present one of a limited selection of government issued photo I.D. to election Judges in order to qualify to vote. The accepted forms of currently dated photo identification are: Department of Public Safety issued Texas driver's license, Texas election I.D., or personal identification card; Texas concealed handgun license; U.S. military I.D. card; U.S. citizenship certificate; or U.S. passport.

Update August 30, 2012 @ 6:30pm - Texas had hoped to enforce the Photo I.D. law for the general election this November. While Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said he will appeal the DC Court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Associated Press reported late today that Abbott said the appeal process can not be complete in time for the law to be enforced for the election this November.

The issue is whether the 2011 law violates the federal Voting Rights Act by making it harder for minorities to cast ballots. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department or a federal court is required to pre-clear laws affecting voters before they go into effect in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination -- and that includes Texas. Texas has the burden at trial to prove that its voter photo ID law, signed into law by Gov. Perry last year, does not have the purpose or effect to deny a minority citizen the right to vote.

Here are key parts of the court's ruling:

President Obama At Iowa State University

by Michael Handley

President Obama kicked off his two-day college tour with a grassroots event at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa ~ my Alma Mater. (Yes, I am an Iowa Aggie) The President discussed the choice for young voters in this election.

A choice between two fundamentally different visions of how to grow the economy. The progressive choice will ensure that our future workers can afford to get a college degree. Investing in quality, affordable education is a top priority for President Obama -- it's critical to building the skilled workforce needed to drive America's economy, restoring the foundation that will help the middle class succeed and keeping our country competitive for generations to come.

To help give college students and their families much-needed relief, President Obama established a college tax credit worth up to $10,000 over four years of college. He has also eliminated more than $60 billion in wasteful taxpayers subsidies to big banks acting as federal student loan middlemen and used those savings to double our investment in Pell Grant Scholarships. President Obama increased funding for Pell Grants by 95% helping nearly 10 million students in 2011. Romney would cut Pell Grant awards by $830.

A Remembrance Of Molly Ivans On Her Birthday

by Michael Handley

Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (August 30, 1944 ~ January 31, 2007)
An American newspaper columnist, political
commentator, humorist and author.

Molly Ivins tells a profound story about John Henry Falk and his childhood friend and what happens when you're so scared you lose your freedom. "When you make yourself less free, all that happens is that you are less free ... you are not safe."

An echo of Benjamin Franklin's warning - "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital

by Michael Handley

The Rolling Stone has a good article on how the GOP presidential candidate Willard Mitt Romney and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs by sending them off-shore – and stuck others with the bill.

The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected.

The incredible untold story of the 2012 election so far is that Romney's run has been a shimmering pearl of perfect political hypocrisy, which he's somehow managed to keep hidden, even with thousands of cameras following his every move.

And Romney ratcheted up the hypocrisy of his campaign even further when he chose Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his VP running mate. By selecting Ryan, Romney, the hard-charging, Gordon Gekko like corporate raider of a disgraced yet still defiant Wall Street, is making a calculated bluff – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps - that he can convince voters that corporate raider style governance is good for America. Romney wants voters to return to the Wall-Street-gone-wild conservative economic governance that nearly threw America into a massive depression by the end of George Bush's administration, in December 2008

OFA campaign video

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Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican Convention in Tampa last evening was factually misleading.

Even Fox News says his speech was deceptive.

Ryan lied about Medicare. He lied about the Recovery Act. He said a Romney/Ryan administration would protect Medicare even though they plan to turn Medicare into a corporate raider style private insurance voucher program. He lied about the deficit and debt.

He lied blaming Barack Obama for the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin -- a plant that closed in December 2008 under George W. Bush, a month before Obama took office.

Mitt Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said on an ABC News program, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Will the American press corp fact-checkers hold Ryan and Romney accountable for making blatantly false representations to the American people - paid for with hundreds of millions of dollars from the billionaires and corporate interests that support them?

Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi

Four years ago, the Mitt Romneys of the world nearly destroyed the global economy with their greed, shortsightedness and – most notably – wildly irresponsible use of debt in pursuit of personal profit. The sight was so disgusting that people everywhere were ready to drop an H-bomb on Lower Manhattan and bayonet the survivors. But today that same insane greed ethos, that same belief in the lunatic pursuit of instant borrowed millions – it's dusted itself off, it's had a shave and a shoeshine, and it's back out there running for president.

Mitt Romney, it turns out, is the perfect frontman for Wall Street's greed revolution. He's not a two-bit, shifty-eyed huckster like Lloyd Blankfein. He's not a sighing, eye-rolling, arrogant jerkwad like Jamie Dimon. But Mitt believes the same things those guys believe: He's been right with them on the front lines of the financialization revolution, a decades-long campaign in which the old, simple, let's-make-stuff-and-sell-it manufacturing economy was replaced with a new, highly complex, let's-take-stuff-and-trash-it financial economy. Instead of cars and airplanes, we built swaps, CDOs and other toxic financial products.

Instead of building new companies from the ground up, we took out massive bank loans and used them to acquire existing firms, liquidating every asset in sight and leaving the target companies holding the note. The new borrow-and-conquer economy was morally sanctified by an almost religious faith in the grossly euphemistic concept of "creative destruction," and amounted to a total abdication of collective responsibility by America's rich, whose new thing was making assloads of money in ever-shorter campaigns of economic conquest, sending the proceeds offshore, and shrugging as the great towns and factories their parents and grandparents built were shuttered and boarded up, crushed by a true prairie fire of debt.

Mitt Romney – a man whose own father built cars and nurtured communities, and was one of the old-school industrial anachronisms pushed aside by the new generation's wealth grab – has emerged now to sell this make-nothing, take-everything, screw-everyone ethos to the world.

He's Gordon Gekko, but a new and improved version, with better PR – and a bigger goal. A takeover artist all his life, Romney is now trying to take over America itself. And if his own history is any guide, we'll all end up paying for the acquisition.

Read more @ Rolling Stone

GOP For Choice Poll: Government Should Stay Out Of Reproductive Decisions

by Robin Marty, Senior Political Reporter, RH Reality Check

While the GOP has ratified a party platform that includes a total abortion ban, and changes the definition of pregnancy, Republicans for Choice has discovered most Americans don't want the government involved.

Via UPI.com:

“Regardless of how you personally feel about the issue of abortion,” the polls, which surveyed 1,000 adults, asks, “who do you believe should have the right to make that decision regarding whether to have an abortion…should the woman, her family and her doctor make the decision or should the government make the decision?”

Predictably, 89 percent of Democrats believed “strongly” that the woman should decide.

More remarkably, 71 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of independents also believed strongly that the woman should decide. An additional 10 percent of Republicans believed “not strongly” that the woman should decide, and a total of 81 percent who identified as “pro-life” responded that the woman should decide.

“We challenge ALL national pollsters to include this main question (Q1) in all of their surveys to test the validity of this outcome,” Republicans for Choice said in a press statement.

The polling makes it evident that regardless of the number who self-identify as "pro-life" versus "pro-choice," when it comes to actually deciding who gets an abortion and why, people want politicians to back out.

From RH Reality Check.

Voting GOP? Just Think No!

NYTimes OpEd by Maureen Dowd

Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Todd Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.

Read Maureen Dowd's full OpEd @NYTimes

Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, Republican Senate nominee and member of the House Science, Space and Technology committee, said two weeks ago that pregnancy from rape was "really rare" because "if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Two words that should never be used together in the same sentence: legitimate and rape. But that’s the way Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) chose to speak about the sensitive topic that has impacted millions of women in the United States in an interview with a local television station.

Last year, Akin joined with GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as two of the original co-sponsors of the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” a bill which, among other things, introduced the country to the bizarre term “forcible rape.”

Ryan, Akin and other Republicans in the U.S. Congress also cosponsored the federal Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 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. As Mother Jones reported.

More: The Republican War on Women.

Federal Court Turns Back Texas' Redistricting Plan

by Michael Handley

A panel of three federal judges for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia finds in favor of a U.S Department of Justice position stated last year that redistricting plans passed during the 2011 Texas Legislative Session and signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) were drawn with the purpose of discriminating against Latino voters. From the court's opinion:

The latest Census reports that since 2000 the population of Texas grew by over four million. This dramatic increase required the Texas legislature to create new voting districts for the four seats added to the State’s congressional delegation, U.S. CONST. art. I, § 2, cl. 3; id. amend. XIV, § 2, and draw new boundaries for the state and congressional voting districts to comply with the mandate of one-person, one-vote, see Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U.S. 461,
488 n.2 (2003). [...]

[...] We conclude that Texas has not met its burden to show that the U.S. Congressional and State House Plans will not have a retrogressive effect, and that the U.S. Congressional and State Senate Plans were not enacted with discriminatory purpose. Accordingly, we deny Texas declaratory relief. Texas has failed to carry its burden that Plans C185, S148, and H283 do not have the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

The Justice Department opposed approval of the redistricting maps for U.S. House of Representatives and Texas State House, but various groups and organizations opposed those maps, plus the State Senate redistricting maps.

The judges found that seats belonging to white incumbent members of Congress were protected under the redistricting plans, while districts belonging to incumbent minorities were redrawn such that their seats were put in jeopardy.

All three judges said they were overwhelmed with the amount of evidence showing the new redistricting plans were intentionally discriminatory, writing in a footnote that parties “have provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than we have space, or need, to address here.” All three permanent redistricting plans — for Texas’ congressional delegation, its state House of Representatives and the state Senate — are blocked by this DC District Court decision.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department or a federal court is required to pre-clear laws affecting voters before they go into effect in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination -- and that includes Texas. Texas had bypassed seeking an administrative ruling from the Department of Justice to ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to approve the maps.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced he “will immediately” appeal the DC District Court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Developing, more to come... DC Court Finding

On March 1, the San Antonio U.S. District Court three-judge panel, which controls the state's temporary redistricting maps and 2012 election schedule, issued an order that allowed the Texas Democratic Party and Republican Party of Texas to hold their respective County/Senatorial District (SD) Conventions in April and Primary Election on May 29.

Today's DC District Court decision is on the permanent election maps under which future elections will be conducted. Whether or not today's DC District Court decision will have any bearing on the 2012 general election will take a few days, or maybe a few weeks, to sort out. Texas Republicans have said that if they maintain control of the Texas Legislature following the November 2012 election, they plan to redraw (gerrymander) the election maps again in the 2013 Legislative Session, if the DC Court blocks the redistricting plan passed during the 2011 Legislative Session.

The House GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape

Mother Jones

Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law.

For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. (Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.) ...

Legitimate Rape: A Music Video ~ Taylor Ferrera sings a song in reaction to Todd Akin's recent comments regarding the impossibility of pregnancy resulting from rape.

"This bill takes us back to a time when just saying 'no' wasn't enough to qualify as rape," says Steph Sterling, a lawyer and senior adviser to the National Women's Law Center.

Laurie Levenson, a former assistant US attorney and expert on criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, notes that the new bill's authors are "using language that's not particularly clear, and some people are going to lose protection." Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes.

"There are a lot of aspects of rape that are not included," Levenson says. As for the incest exception, the bill would only allow federally funded abortions if the woman is under 18.

The bill hasn't been carefully constructed, Levenson notes. The term "forcible rape" is not defined in the federal criminal code, and the bill's authors don't offer their own definition. In some states, there is no legal definition of "forcible rape," making it unclear whether any abortions would be covered by the rape exemption in those jurisdictions.

Read the full story @ Mother Jones

Read more: Todd Akin, Paul Ryan, and the GOP's latest push to redefine rape.

Framing the Democratic Message

by Michael Handley

At the west Texas summit of Democratic County and Precinct Chairs last Saturday, Bill Brannon, Executive Director of the Texas Democratic Party, told the gathering of Democrats they must stand up boldly and actively counter Republican message frames. He said Democrats can win the hearts and minds of voters by explaining to them that Democratic values are the values that built a strong America and Texas, and they are the values shared by all Texans.

Brannon said Democrats must make an effort to frame policy arguments in a positive context that speak to the core values held by most Texans. Brannon told the gathering of Texas Democrats they must no longer silently accept GOP message frames, like Democrats support "big government tax and spend" programs, such as road building projects. He said Democrats must learn to counter-frame such GOP rhetoric by explaining to fellow Texans that building roads is "an investment in America's and Texas' future."

"We built this country together. We built railroads and highways; the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge together. We sent my grandfather's generation to college on the G.I. Bill together. We instituted minimum wage and safety laws together. Together, we touched the surface of the moon, unlocked the mystery of the atom, connected the world through our own science and imagination. We did these things together not because they benefited any particular individual group, but because they made us all richer. Because they gave us all opportunity. Because they moved us forward together as one people, as one nation." ~~~ Barack Obama

Voters cast their ballots for what they believe is morally right, for the things that make moral sense to them. Yet Democrats too often fail to use language that links, or frames, a moral values position with their issue policy.

Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you use a word like "revolt," that implies a population that is being taxed unfairly, or assumes it is being taxed unfairly. That's a frame. Then, if you add the word "voter" in front of "revolt," you get a metaphorical frame saying that the voters are oppressed by big government tax and spend programs.

Obama v. Romney Character Narratives In The News Media

A Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism study finds that on the eve of the conventions, the portrayal in the traditional news media of the character and records of the two presidential contenders in 2012 has been as negative as any campaign in recent times, and neither candidate has enjoyed an advantage over the other, according to Pew's study of mainstream media coverage of the race for president.

More of what the public hears about candidates also now comes from the campaigns themselves and less from journalists acting as independent reporters or interpreters of who the candidates are. (How the campaigns are using digital tools to talk directly with voters.)

An examination of the dominant or master narratives in the press about the character and record of presidential contenders finds that 72% of this coverage has been negative for Barack Obama and 71% has been negative for Mitt Romney.

The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, examined the personal portrayal of the candidate in 50 major news outlets over a 10-week period.

These numbers make this as negative a campaign as PEJ has seen since it began monitoring the master narratives about candidates in press coverage in presidential campaigns in 2000.

Only one campaign has been comparable-2004 when coverage was filled with the controversy over the war in Iraq, the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib and the Swift Boat documentaries. That year, 70% of the personal narrative studied about Democrat John Kerry and 75% of that about incumbent George Bush was negative, numbers similar to now.

Journalists themselves now play a smaller role in shaping these media narratives than they once did. Journalists are the source for about half as much of the statements about the candidates as was the case 12 years go. The campaigns, by contrast, have come to play an ever larger role in shaping these narratives.

The candidates and their partisan allies [using the spectrum Internet communication channels] are the source for nearly a third more of the personal narrative about the candidates than in 2000.

On the eve of the nominating conventions, the discussion of President Obama in major mainstream news outlets is dominated by two narratives assessing his economic record-that his policies have

1. failed to help the economy, and
   
2. that things would be much worse without his actions.
   

Together these two narratives on Pres. Obama make up half of all the statements about his record and character. The negative side of these arguments outweighs the positive in traditional media coverage by more than two to one. The next biggest personal narrative about Obama in the mainstream news media is one that raises doubts about whether the president really believes in American capitalism and ideas of individualism.

On the Republican side, the No. 1 personal narrative about Romney is that his experience in private equity suggests he is a "vulture" capitalist who doesn't care about workers, followed closely by the idea that he is an elitist out of touch with average Americans. The third-biggest personal narrative in the media about Romney is that he is a gaffe-prone, awkward campaigner.

Only some of these narratives, however, seem to be sticking with voters-at least so far. While much of the press narrative has suggested Obama has the wrong approach to fixing the economy, voters are split on whether to associate that notion with Obama or Romney. They are also divided on which candidate believes in American values (though Obama's ideals are questioned more often in the press). The two personal narrative themes that appear to be breaking through to voters are Romney's elitism and his awkwardness on the stump.

Read the full report @ Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism.

TDP Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa Coming To Plano Monday August 27

by Michael Handley

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa will be at Fairview Farms Corral Barn on Monday, August 27 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm to support the Democratic candidates for the Fifth District Court of Appeals. (Fairview Farms Corral Barn, 3314 North Central Expressway, Plano 75074 - map)

Democrats living in the Fifth Court of Appeals district (Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Hunt, Rockwall and Kaufman counties) are welcome and encouraged to attend this reception for the Democratic Judicial Candidates asking for your votes this November. This is also your opportunity to meet and talk with Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa.

The Texas District Courts of Appeals are distributed in fourteen districts around the state of Texas. The Courts of Appeal have intermediate appellate jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases appealed from district or county courts. Like the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals, Justices of the Texas Courts of Appeals are elected to six-year terms by general election.

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas, which includes one Chief Justice and twelve Justices, has jurisdiction over appeals from both district and county courts located in Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Hunt, Rockwall and Kaufman counties. The Court hears both civil and criminal appeals.

No Democrats currently sit on Fifth Court of Appeals. In the 2012 General Election five Democratic Candidates are running for the 5th Court of Appeals:

• Tonya Holt for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 11
  
• Penny Phillips for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 5
  
• Larry Praeger for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 12
  
• David Hanshen for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 9
• Dan Wood for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 2
  

Both civil and criminal appeals are typically heard by a panel of three justices, unless in a particular case "en banc" hearing is ordered, in which instance all the justices of that Court hear and consider the case. (Graphical Guide to the Court System of Texas) (map)