Ask Texas Senate District 8 candidate Jack Ternan your questions by posting on Jack’s Facebook wall (facebook.com/jackternan) or tweet Jack @ternanforsenate with hashtag #askJack. Thursday, July 19, 8PM-9PM
Use the Google map to see if you live in Senate District 8
View Texas State Senate District 8 in a larger map
The Voter Empowerment Project (VEP) is a new project of the Texas Democratic Party designed to educate and empower Democratic voters.
The VEP will help voters through all aspects of the electoral process, from registration to casting a ballot that counts for the candidates of their choice.
Follow the Texas Democratic Party's Voter Empowerment Project on Twitter @TxDemVote and Like on Facebook.
More:
The Texas Voter Photo I.D. case currently before the federal Washington D.C. Circuit Court will decide whether Texas can enforce its year-old voter photo I.D. law. That federal court five day trial started last Monday, before a three-judge panel composed of D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel, and District Court Judges Rosemary Collyer and Robert Wilkins. The trial concluded with closing arguments last Friday.
During closing arguments Judge Robert L. Wilkins asked the lawyer for Texas if the state’s voter photo I.D. law would force some people to travel more than 100 miles to get the documents required for a photo identification. “How does that impact your argument?” asked Wilkins. “Isn’t that unduly burdensome?” John Hughes, the state’s attorney, said Texans in rural areas are used to driving long distances. “People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get it,” he said. The exchange highlighted the key dispute in this federal court trial.
What a minute -- If you don't have currently dated driver's license (to vote) you probably don't own a car to drive. And, if you don't have a driver's license or car, you're not going to drive 100 miles to the state driver's license bureau, after first not driving someplace else to get your original (or notarized copy) birth certificate, to get a government-issued photo ID. Huh?
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.
Much of the debate during the trial last week focused on the issue of exactly who would be affected by it. The burden is on Texas to convince the three judge panel that the voter ID law is not discriminatory. The State of Texas argues that there is no evidence, statistical or otherwise, that the voter photo I.D. law is discriminatory. Judge Tatel, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia seemed skeptically of the argument that the law will not adversely impact voters. Particularly, poor rural minority voters.
“The record tells us there is a subset of registered voters who lack ID,” said Tatel, who was appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. “We have to think about the economic burden and the fact that minorities are disproportionately poor.”
Tatel added that the record showed that minorities in Texas are more likely than whites not to have cars and to live up to 120 miles away from the closest place to get voter ID documents.
Under the Texas law, the minimum cost to obtain a voter ID for a state resident without a copy of his birth certificate is $22. While the “Election Identification Certificate” needed to vote is free, the state legislature voted down proposed legislation to allow people to get identification documents, needed to obtain the "free" voter I.D., free of charge.
In his closing argument, U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) lawyer Matthew Colangelo said that the Texas law will disenfranchise more than one million African American and Hispanic voters and “is exactly the type of law” that Congress had in mind when it passed the Voting Rights Act.
During the week long trial, the three judge panel heard testimony from lawmakers, professors, civil rights activists, election lawyers and statisticians over the estimated number of people who could be adversely affected. The expert testimony given by witnesses for state of Texas contended that few if any voters lack one of the required photo I.D. cards, while USDOJ witnesses testified that up to 40 percent of registered voters in some rural south Texas counties lacked photo I.D. Now, it is up to the three judge panel to decide.
The judges say they will decide the case by Labor Day. However the three judge panel rules, the losing party is expected to appeal — and that appeal will go straight to the Supreme Court of the United States, bypassing an appeals court.
The Richardson/North Dallas Democratic Club will host a Democratic Candidate Meet-and-Greet at Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Richardson on Wednesday, July 25 from 5PM-7:30PM. (map)
This is a great opportunity to meet one-on-one the Democratic candidates running for local office.
Candidates will include:
Take the opportunity for some one-on-one time with the candidates and come out to Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse! (1251 W Campbell Rd Ste 240, Richardson, Texas 75080-2973)
Please contact 469-443-8680 with any questions.
From The Root by Cynthia Gordy
The speechifying continued at the NAACP Annual Convention in Houston as Vice President Joe Biden took the podium on Thursday.
Biden was pitch-hitting for President Obama, who taped a brief video for the convention (and who will appear in person at the National Urban League's annual conference later this month). Despite Obama's physical absence, Biden used his speech to forcefully defend his policies that have affected African Americans. And where the president probably would have been more congenial, his VP came out swinging.
"He passed the Affordable Care Act, a goal strived for by presidents starting with Teddy Roosevelt," he said to applause from the audience -- a sharp contrast to their loud, sustained disapproval over Mitt Romney's vow to them on Wednesday to repeal the health care law.
"He cut $100 billion from the federal debt over the next 10 years, providing access to affordable health care to 30 million Americans, 8 million black Americans who would never have had insurance."
On the notion of putting convictions before politics, Biden touted the president's stimulus bill and auto-industry bailout as tough decisions from the president that were unpopular but right. "He was right, saving a million jobs and creating 200,000 jobs in the automobile industry," he said. "General Motors now leads the world again, and Chrysler is the fastest-growing company in America."
... Biden closed his remarks by outlining the president's views on civil rights. In a hushed, sober tone, he asked the NAACP audience to reflect on their organization's history.
"Remember what this at its core was all about. It was about the franchise," he said before raising his voice to a shout. "It was about the right to vote! Because when you have the right to vote, you have the right to change things! And we -- the president and I, and Eric [Holder] and all of us -- we see a future where those rights are expanded, not diminished! Where racial profiling is a thing of the past! Where access to the ballot is expanded and unencumbered! Where there are no distinctions made on the basis of race and gender in access to housing and lending!"
He argued that Romney, who has, for example, supported voter-ID laws, sees a future in which voting is made harder -- and asked the crowd to imagine what a Romney Justice Department would look like.
"Imagine the recommendation for who is likely to be picked as attorney general or the head of the civil rights division, or those other incredibly important positions at Justice," he said. "Imagine what the Supreme Court will look like after four years of a Romney presidency. Folks, this election, in my view, is a fight for the heart and soul of America."
Read the full story @ The Root.
Yesterday, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilbero Hinojosa said, 
Two days after Rick Perry said he would turn down billions of federal dollars that would boost our economy and help insure millions of Texans, Congressional Republicans have scheduled their thirty first vote to repeal your health care rights.
Today Republicans like Quico Canseco and Pete Sessions are voting to give lifetime guaranteed government health care to other Members of Congress while they take away health care rights from their constituents. They should be ashamed!
Republicans propose to further hurt sick people by going back to the days when people with pre-existing conditions couldn’t get health care at any price. They propose to hurt our seniors by re-cutting the donut hole in Medicare part D and forcing them to pay more for their prescriptions.
They propose to hurt young people by shoving young adults off their parents’ policies. They care about no one but themselves. They propose to hurt millions of Texans and Americans by reinstating lifetime caps on health benefits—which pretty much assure that a catastrophic disease means you die bankrupt.
The Atlantic: Obamacare Is No Longer So Unpopular:
One of the most accurate polling outfits in the country found this week that President Obama's signature achievement is no longer unpopular with the majority of the country.
The Affordable Care Act, according to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, is now backed by 47 percent of Americans, up from 39 percent in April 2012. Opposition to the law in the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding it is also down, from 53 to 47 percent.
As well, "just one-third of all Americans favor repealing the legislation in its entirety or in part," a number that's been pretty consistent in these polls since 2010. The Republican-controlled U.S. House yesterday made its 33rd failed attempt to repeal part or all of the law.
Romney has made "repeal and replace" into a campaign mantra, promising to undo the law. But that vow is a promise to his base voters and to partisans rather than an appeal to the majority of the country: "Thirty-eight percent of Americans consider Romney's support for repeal a major reason to vote for him, compared with 29 percent who say it is a major reason to vote against him."
One of the first bills brought to the floor for a vote after Republicans took over control of the House of Representatives in January 2011 was the repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care (Obamacare) Act of 2010.
When the DBN wrote about that January 19, 2011 vote to repeal Obamacare we included a partial list of health insurance industry reforms that Republicans want to repeal. The list is given here, again, after the "more" jump.
From Color Lines, by Brentin Mock
Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric Holder declared in his address to the NAACP national convention in Houston what many voting rights advocates had been saying for months: That the photo voter ID law passed in Texas is a poll tax. Determining whether voter ID laws are as unconstitutional as poll taxes won’t be up to him, though. That honor goes to the U.S. Supreme Court justices who lately have been signaling they may be ready to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
When Texas was designated as a Section 5 state due to discrimination against Latinos, 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. Further, from the MALDEF report:
“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. That power may soon be removed by the Roberts court.
The VRA enforcement represents an imposition of the federal government on state sovereignty, according to many Texas state officials today. Gov. Rick Perry said that DOJ’s enforcement of VRA in South Carolina, for instance, represented a “war” on states rights. The current state attorney general, Greg Abbott, has sued the federal government 24 times since he took office in 2004 over a number of federal law enforcement measures, not limited to voting rights.
But the same fear of expanding the electorate to people of color that existed in the years after Smith v Allwright seems to have spurred Texas state legislators to create the voter ID law currently challenged in court. During this week’s district court hearing, voting rights and race expert Morgan Kousser, of California Institute of Technology, testified that “there was considerable concern” among white state legislators about “losing control” of the legislature. “There is such a correlation between partisanship and race that any bill that has partisan effects would have racial effects,” said Kousser.
Read the full story @ Color Lines.
The Texas Voter Photo I.D. case currently before the federal Washington D.C. Circuit Court will decide whether Texas can enforce its year-old voter photo I.D. law. The U.S. Department of Justice contends the law will prevent from 795,955 to 1.4 million registered Latino and African-American voters from casting a ballot in the November General Election.
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. That federal court trial started on Monday, before a three-judge panel composed of two district court judges and an appeals court judge.
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. The other forms of personal identification currently accepted for voter qualification could no longer be used under SB 14. SB 14 provides that people who do not have one of the prescribed photo I.D.'s may obtain a "free" Election Identification Card (EIC) from a Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) Driver's License office.
In opening arguments on Monday, Adam Mortara, an attorney for the State of Texas, told the DC Court three judge panel that the vast majority of registered voters already have a photo ID.
"This is a case about Texas' proposed implementation of one of the most popular voting reforms of the last 20 years, a common-sense requirement that when you show up to polls to vote, you prove you are who you say you are with a photo ID," said Adam Mortara of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott. Mortara said showing a photo ID is part of routine life, from getting into a federal courthouse to riding on an airplane. The DOJ's evidence, Mortara said in his opening statement, is flawed and cannot be used to block the state from carrying out its identification law. Mortara in particular critiqued the work of Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University who found Hispanics and blacks in Texas are disproportionately lacking identification compared to white voters.
A DOJ lawyer, Elizabeth Westfall of the department's Civil Rights Division, said in her opening arguments that Texas "is unable to meet its burden" that the voter ID law will not have a retrogressive effect.
Ansolabehere, Westfall said, determined that at least 1.4 million potential voters [approximately 10 percent of all voting age citizens in Texas] lack any form of state-issued ID that is accepted under the law. "In fact, minority registered voters in Texas are two-thirds more likely than white registered voters to lack an allowable state ID," Westfall said. That disparity exists among recent voters and all registrants, she said.
While the State of Texas disputes the fact that up to 1.4 million, or even "just" 795,955 of all voting age citizens in Texas lack any form of state-issued ID accepted under the new I.D. law, there is still no disenfranchisement. Republicans for the state argue there is no disenfranchisement of those without I.D. because anyone can easily obtain a "free" EIC from a Texas DPS office.
The catch is that in order to obtain a “free" EIC from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), a person must take time to travel to a DPS office and present other government-issued documents mandated by the federal Real I.D. Act of 2005. The Federal Real I.D. Act, which turns state driver's licenses into a national identity card, adds additional barriers for everyone, particularly women of every age, to obtain or renew their driver's license. documents needed to obtain a “free" EIC include a passport, or a combination of documents, or a state certified birth certificate, or a certified copy of a court order indicating the applicant’s name and date of birth, and additional documents. Identification documents required to obtain a "free" EIC can cost considerable time and money to obtain. For example, obtaining a birth certificate in Texas costs $22 in order to vote -- and that amounts to a poll tax. For those who do not have a driver's license, and therefore don't own a car, getting to the DPS adds additional financial burdens that may, in some areas of Texas, be insurmountable -- and that, too, amounts to a poll tax.
As of May, more identification is now required in order to apply for a Texas Driver License, Personal Identification Card, or Election Identification Card, and this new change has brought the state closer to complying with the controversial Real I.D. Act.
Under the new law, applicants must prove they are Texas residents and that they have lived at their residence for at least 30 days. Among the forms of identification and proof of residency are current deeds and mortgages, concealed handgun licenses, medical cards, military documents and school transcripts. For those without photo I.D., under the new Texas voter photo I.D. law, these additional documentation requirements will make it even more difficult to obtain the photo identification they need to vote.
Other states across the country have implemented this law, as well, and many feel it walks the line of invading privacy. They do not want to provide more information than they have to, which is also an issue with the Real I.D. Act.
This act, which has already taken effect in some states, turns driver licenses into national identification cards complete with chips that automatically allow computers to pull up biographic and biometric data.
Many states have been resistant to a national I.D. card and the fact that the federal government could keep track of them.
Though the Real I.D. Act has not yet been fully implemented in the Lone Star State, this additional burdens to obtain a puts Texas one step closer to it.
On May 11, 2005, President Bush signed into law the “Emergency Supplemental Appropriation for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005,” which included the “Real ID Act of 2005.”
The Real ID Act mandates that all fifty states must follow specific security, authentication, and issuance regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in issuing driver's license and personal identification cards. On March 4, 2011, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano extended by 20 months (to January 15, 2013) the May 10, 2011 deadline for states to be in full compliance with the federal Real ID regulations. Texas already substantially complies with the Real ID regulations for obtaining or renewing driver's licenses and personal identification cards.
Once the January 15, 2013 deadline has passed, applicants for first time or renewed driver's licenses, personal identification cards, or election identification certificates will need to prove five items of fact to their state driver's license office: full legal name, birth date, citizenship or immigration status, social security number, and proof of permanent residence address.
The polling firm does an annual survey of the confidence that Americans have in their biggest institutions. Just 21% of adults said they had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in TV news. That's down a whopping 25% from 1993, when Gallup began the poll:
The survey showed an interesting political split. Overall, Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to trust TV news (34 percent versus 17 percent.) But self-identified liberals were the most disenchanted of all groups, with just 19 percent expressing confidence in the medium.
Gallup said that "Americans' negativity likely reflects the continuation of a broader trend that appeared to enjoy only a brief respite last year. Americans have grown more negative about the media in recent years, as they have about many other U.S. institutions and the direction of the country in general."
As if to illustrate that point, American newspapers also fared very poorly in the survey, with only 25 percent of respondents expressing confidence. As the news media has become increasingly controlled by a few global conglomerates who format news as entertainment programing, often little more than repackaged political "think tank" propaganda, Americans have lost confidence in traditional "old media" news outlets.
In 1910, nearly 60% of cities had competing daily papers, but today that completion of viewpoints has all but disappeared. Unfortunately, media consolidation over the past twenty years has taken its toll on the "widest possible dissemination of information as an essential check on government and business."
Through successive acquisitions and mergers a few massive multinational media conglomerates controlled by conservative owners control more and more of our vital information sources – including television networks, cable channels, newspaper publishing, radio, and the Internet.
A robust, free press has been viewed by many as an essential check on government and business since the early days of the Republic. “The only security of all is in a free press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1823. Nearly 60 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is essential to the condition of a free society."
Today, people, particularly younger Americans, have gone to Internet to find the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.
A Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey in 2010 found that the internet surpassed television as the main source of national and international news for people younger than 30. (chart right)
According to a new survey from Harris Interactive, both iPhone and Android owners find common ground when picking the next president.
Regardless of whether they're on iOS or Android, younger smartphone owners overwhelmingly choose Barack Obama -- smartphone users would vote for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, 49 percent to 31 percent.
That wide margin holds across iOS and Android users, with iPhone owners preferring Obama to Romney 47 percent to 34 percent and Android owners preferring Obama to Romney 50 percent to 29 percent.
The survey was commissioned by Velti, a mobile marketing firm.
Politico: “The results of this survey demonstrate that the smartphone market is becoming a whole new demographic that candidates must take into consideration when building a comprehensive campaign strategy,” Velti CMO Krishna Subramanian said. “Clearly, mobile advertising is emerging as an influential medium and a distinct audience.”
Just as candidates are quickly learning how to text mobile device owners for campaign donations, so too candidates will quickly learn how to message mobile Ads to smartphones. In fact, Mitt Romney became the first U.S. politician to use Apple's iAd service in June, with another round of Google ads for Android, coming. Barack Obama's campaign is thought to be planning smartphone Ads in the near future, too.
There was some good news for Romney in the Harris Interactive poll, however: Romney leads Obama 57 percent to 34 percent among older retired iPhone and Android users.
An overwhelming 97 percent of Obama voters were either iPhone or Android users, compared with 63 percent for Romney voters. The survey was conducted online June 27-29 among 2,164 adults, 776 of whom were iPhone/Android owners.
More:
Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday likened Texas' Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) voter photo I.D. law to a “poll tax” that was outlawed by the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“As many of you know, yesterday was the first day in the trial of a case that the state of Texas filed against the Justice Department under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act seeking approval of it’s proposed voter ID law,” Holder told attendees of the 103rd convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (Texas Voter Photo I.D. Federal Trial Opening Arguments)
Holder stated that, "After close review, the department found that this law would be harmful to minority voters and we rejected its implementation."
“Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo ID, but student IDs would not,” the attorney general continued. “Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them. And some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. ... We call those poll taxes.”
The attorney general said he couldn’t predict what would happen in the Texas case, but he promised to “not allow political pretext to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right.”
“The arc of American history has always moved towards expanding the electorate,” Holder said. “We will simply not allow this era to be the reversal of that historic progress. I will not allow that to happen.”
In opening arguments of the photo I.D. trial DOJ trial attorney Elizabeth Westfall said that a disproportionate number of the 1.4 million Texans who do not have the proper ID are black or Hispanic.
Poll taxes were a part of Jim Crow-era laws that were used largely in southern states to disenfranchise minority voters. The 24th Amendment abolished poll taxes in federal elections and the Supreme Court later banned them in state elections as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Click here for full text of Attorney General Holder's speech as prepared for delivery.
More:
Texas Democratic Party State Chair Gilberto Hinojosa today responded to the Gov.
Perry's letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reaffirming his opposition to the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Perry said in his letter, "I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obama care power grab. Neither a 'state' exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better 'patient protection' or in more 'affordable care.' They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care. "Hinojosa said in a statement posted on the TDP website:
Rick Perry is refusing $112 billion in health care money for uninsured Texans for three reasons. First, it doesn’t allow for kickbacks to his political donors. Second, he needs to feed his radical right wing base some red meat. And third … oh heck, he forgot the third.
Now we know why the Texas Republican platform calls for an end to teaching critical thinking skills. Any thinking makes it obvious that Perry’s bullheaded refusal of funding to expand Medicaid is wrong for Texas and deadly for Texans. Rick Perry is playing cute while a teenager never makes it to prom, a father never gets to walk his daughter down the aisle, children are dying from the lack of simple preventative care, and a mother won’t live to see her children to adulthood.
Perry’s decision will cost lives, and it will cost Texans and local governments much needed dollars in a tight economy.
Texans have to wonder how many lives and how much of your money Rick Perry is willing to sacrifice for his political career.
Texas is in 51st place among the 50 states – we are even behind Washington, DC – in delivery of health care to its citizens. But, Rick Perry is turning down these funds, because he believes that Texans know what’s best. Texans do, but their career Republican politicians don’t.
Texas Republicans, including David Dewhurst, Greg Abbott, and Joe Straus hide under the bed in fear of the Tea Party's irrational wrath if they speak up. Texans will continue to die far before their time while Rick Perry and the Republican Party pander to people who applaud the thought of watching people die in pain at the emergency room door.
Enough is enough. Politicians who call themselves “pro-life” while blithely turning down money to help the living need a swift kick to the rear end and a ticket out of the State of Texas. Help Texas Democrats get this message out.
... In an interview Monday on Fox News, Perry was caught off-guard by a hard-hitting question posed by one of the many interchangeable female blond newscasters there: “If part of your goal is to keep the federal government out of the lives of Texans, then why give them that power?” Perry responded by not responding, saying only that Medicaid is a failed program and increasing enrollment is “like adding 1,000 people to the Titanic.”
... But where Perry really got it wrong in the Fox interview was his assertion that “every Texan has health care in this state from the standpoint of being able to have access to healthcare.” That’s like saying that every Texan has food in this state from the standpoint of being able to have access to the grocery store. It doesn’t mean the more than six million Texans who are uninsured can actually afford it. And who but our governor has access to experimental adult stem cell spinal infusions? According to a new study released by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Texas ranks dead last in health care services and delivery. Texas Medicaid is also one of the most limited and strictest programs in the country. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission projects that the state would actually see a net gain of $70 billion over five years if it expanded its Medicaid program. That sounds like some sort of trick.
In the end it looks like Perry would rather go down with the ship than work with the federal government on health care. And he’s taking millions of uninsured Texans down with him.
Read the full story @ The Observer.
There is no public policy justification for a voter ID law. Voter impersonation at the polls - the only type of fraud that could be addressed by a voter ID law - is virtually non-existent. Despite spending millions on a 2005-2006 voter fraud crusade, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott did not find or prosecute one case of voter impersonation. A national five-year effort by the Bush Justice Department netted only 86 prosecutions from 2001 to 2006.
A 2006 study by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found that 18 percent of Americans age 65 and over did not have a photo ID. In Texas, even the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute admit that 37 percent of Texans over the age of 80 do not have a driver's license. The same study found that up to 25 percent of African Americans do not have a government-issued photo ID.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, women are more than twice as likely as men not to have a driver's license. In fact, one of every five senior women does not have a license. Also, a woman's name and address on a photo ID might not match those on the voter list due to name changes related to marriage, divorce and other factors. The Texas Department of Vital Statistics reports an average 200,000 marriages and divorces in Texas each year, after which it can take up to two months to get a new ID. Now, the Federal Real I.D. Act, that turns state driver's licenses into a national identity card, adds additional barriers for everyone, particularly women of every age, to obtain or renew their driver's license.
For many seniors, disabled veterans, and hourly workers, getting a state-issued photo ID is not only costly and time-consuming, it is also difficult if not impractical to get to the forms and information needed to get an ID from agencies with limited locations and hours. Many disable vets and elderly Texans already have difficulty getting to the polls, and forcing vets and seniors who don't have a photo ID to gather documents and jump bureaucratic hurdles to get one before voting is unwarranted and insulting because no one impersonates a voter at the polls.
Nonpartisan academic studies show photo ID laws discourage turnout. An academic study of the 2004 presidential election conducted for the bipartisan Federal Election Assistance Commission found that states with voter ID laws had an overall turnout reduction of 3 percent, a figure that reached 5.7 percent among African Americans and 10 percent among Hispanics. Former Texas Republican Party political director Royal Masset estimated that a photo ID requirement would reduce Democratic turnout in Texas by 3 percent. That is a lot Texans who would be denied the right to vote in Texas!
Spare us any more hooey about “preventing fraud” and “protecting the integrity of the ballot box.”
The Republican-led crusade for voter ID laws has been revealed as a cynical ploy to disenfranchise as many likely Democratic voters as possible, with poor people and minorities the main targets.
Recent developments in Pennsylvania — one of more than a dozen states where voting rights are under siege — should be enough to erase any lingering doubt: The GOP is trying to pull off an unconscionable crime.
Late last month, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mike Turzai, was addressing a meeting of the Republican State Committee. He must have felt at ease among friends because he spoke a bit too frankly.
Ticking off a list of recent accomplishments by the GOP-controlled Legislature, he mentioned the new law forcing voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Said Turzai, with more than a hint of triumph: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done.”
That’s not even slightly ambiguous. The Democratic presidential candidate has won Pennsylvania in every election since 1992.
But now the top Republican in the Pennsylvania House is boasting that, because of the new voter ID law, Mitt Romney will defy history and capture the state’s 20 electoral votes in November.
Why on earth would Turzai imagine such a result? After all, the law applies to all voters, regardless of party affiliation. It is ostensibly meant only to safeguard the electoral process and eliminate fraud. Why would a neutral law have such partisan impact?
Thanks to figures released last week by state officials, we know the answer. It turns out that 758,939 registered Pennsylvania voters do not have the most easily obtained and widely used photo ID, a state driver’s license. That’s an incredible 9.2 percent of the registered electorate.
Most of the voters without driver’s licenses live in urban areas — which just happen to be places where poor people and minorities tend to live. More than 185,000 of these voters without licenses, about one-fourth of the total, live in Philadelphia — which just happens to be a Democratic stronghold where African Americans are a plurality.
Read the full story @ Washington Post.
More:
Gov. Perry's office today sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reaffirming his opposition to the Affordable Care Act.
Perry said in his letter, "I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obama care power grab. Neither a 'state' exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better 'patient protection' or in more 'affordable care.' They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care. "
If Gov. Perry has his way, Texas will neither expand Medicaid nor establish a health care insurance exchange, two major provisions of the Affordable Care Act. When the Supreme Court upheld the insurance mandate provision of the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act, which the GOP calls "Obamacare," the court also ruled that states may decline to extend Medicaid coverage to 17 million Americans with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $14,856 for an individual this year.
If Texas declines the federal funding to implement the Medicaid expansion program, up to 2 million Texans will remain uninsured, seeking care in emergency rooms, shifting costs to the privately insured and increasing uncompensated care costs to health care providers. According to a report published by Texas' Republican state Comptroller, Susan Combs, the state’s uncompensated acute-care hospital expenses (emergency room and other urgent care) totaled $460 per resident in 2006, not including uncompensated costs incurred by charitable clinics or physicians. The U.S. average for such costs was $287.57. The uncompensated care problem in Texas is exacerbated by the fact that uninsured individuals often delay seeking medical care, allowing their health problems to become more serious. By the time such individuals do seek treatment, their conditions may be much more costly to treat, driving uncompensated costs even higher. It is estimated the annual costs of such uncompensated care to run in excess of $10 billion.
By refusing to participate in federal Medicaid expansion, Perry, and the Republican controlled state legislature, will force local taxpayers to pay for otherwise uncompensated care provided hospitals, which will hike hospital district taxes. Health insurance premiums, for those lucky enough to have insurance, will increase, too. The Texas Hospital Association estimates that annual health premiums for an average Texas family are $1,551 higher due to the added costs of covering the uninsured.
The Texas Voter Photo I.D. case currently before the federal Washington D.C. Circuit Court took another step forward today as the three judge panel heard opening arguments in the trial.
The three judge panel will decide whether Texas can enforce its year-old voter photo I.D. law, which the U.S. Department of Justice contends will prevent over 600,000 registered Latino and African-American voters from casting a ballot in the November General Election.
Originally set to go into effect on January 1, 2012, the Texas Photo I.D. law 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.
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.
In March, the U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division refused to clear the Texas law, known as Senate Bill 14 (SB 14), saying Texas officials had failed to prove that it wouldn’t adversely affect minorities. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice in the Washington D.C. Circuit Court to have the state’s controversial voter photo I.D. law implemented without further delay.
Under federal law, lawsuits seeking so-called “pre-clearance” of changes to voting procedures in all of seven mostly Southern states and parts of nine others, are heard by three-judge panels composed of two district court judges and an appeals court judge. D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel and District Court Judges Rosemary Collyer and Robert Wilkins were impaneled to hear the Texas photo ID case.(click here to read a full summary of case through early June 2012.)
As the trial got under way in a packed courtroom, DOJ trial attorney Elizabeth Westfall said in her opening argument that the federal government will show racial motivation in Texas’ passage of the law.
By Jack Ternan
Do you think you should pay more for electricity so that large Republican donors can stay in business? Your state government does.
In 2007, TXU was purchased in a $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Goldman Sachs, and other New York investors and was renamed Energy Future Holdings (EFH). EFH bet on coal powering our future. Unfortunately, the company now faces bankruptcy because cheap natural gas has rendered coal power plants unprofitable.
Fortunately for EFH, Republican leaders believe free market discipline only applies to the middle class and the poor. Rather than letting polluting plants close at a loss to Goldman Sachs, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas recently voted to raise the price cap on wholesale electricity by 50 percent. Starting in August, electricity generators will be able to charge $4,500 per megawatt hour instead of $3,000. According to the Texas Industrial Energy Consumers’ assessment, this change will cost consumers an additional $4.5-$4.7 billion per year on electricity costs.
According to PUC Commissioner Kenneth Anderson, who abstained from voting, increasing prices this summer will allow power companies to “cart away money, not in wheelbarrows, but in Mack Trucks.”
EFH knows how to grease the wheels of Republican government. Its affiliated PACs have given more than $6.3 million to lawmakers between October 2007 and May 2012. My opponent, Ken Paxton, has received more than $7,000 from them. Buying politicians is cheap compared to facing the consequences of bad business decisions, and this latest Republican bailout will ensure that Texas’ pay to play politics continues.
So what does this latest outrage mean for you?
It means that fixed contract you’ve signed with your retail electricity provider might not be “fixed.” It means that by 2013, when the price cap is expected to be between $7,500 and $9,000, you’ll be dishing out more money for electricity than you ever have before. And it means that you will be bailing out New York bankers who pollute your air while you do it.
The misplaced priorities of the Republican leadership are evil. Republican officials are willing to fleece you upwards of $4.5 billion ($9 billion over two years) to bail out EFH and its out-of-state owners. At the same time, they claim to be completely unable to find the $5.4 billion (over two years) needed to avoid firing teachers, closing schools, and cutting financial aid to college students. Here in Texas Senate District 8, we need leaders that will stand up for the priorities of all Texans, not out-of-state donors.
Jack Ternan is the Democratic Candidate for Senate District 8. To email Jack - click here.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4 1776.
The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
From Forbes by John T. Harvey
. . . I am so distressed by the 2012 platform released by the Texas Republican Party that I find it impossible not to comment. While I am hardly in agreement with everything forwarded by the Democrats (and have taken aim at President Obama on a number of occasions, especially with respect to his desire to balance the federal budget), it is difficult to believe that what the Republicans put together during their convention in Fort Worth was even written in the 21st century. It is anything but pragmatic.
The GOP Platform (available here) has already made headlines with the portion that opposes the “teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills” and “critical thinking skills.” Although a partial retraction followed, this was in terms of the wording, not the general meaning.
It appears that their fear is that these “focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
. . . Another disturbing feature of the document is that while they “urge the Legislature to direct expenditures to academics as the first priority,” they also contend that “Since data is (sic) clear that additional money does not translate into educational achievement, and higher education costs are out of control, we support reducing taxpayer funding to all levels of education institutions.”
Not only is the second statement inconsistent with the first (not to mention rather frightening), it isn’t true. The implications of the data are far from clear. In point of fact, economists have found that–not surprisingly–it matters how the money is spent (see here for a survey of the relevant literature). For example, reducing class sizes and adding remedial help appear to be particularly cost effective. Thus, contrary to the Texas GOP’s assertion, there are programs that both add to costs AND increase educational achievement.
- We urge state and federal legislators to reduce spending.
- We urge Congress to adopt balanced budgets by cutting spending and not increasing tax rates.
- We recommend repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, with the goal of abolishing the I.R.S and replacing it with a national sales tax collected by the States. In the interim we urge the income tax be changed to a flatter, broader, lower tax with only minimal exemptions such as home mortgage interest deductions.
- We favor abolishing the capital gains tax.
- State Tax Reform – We encourage: Abolishing property taxes…Shifting the tax burden to a consumption-based tax
The first two would directly reduce the demand for goods and services, thus causing contraction and unemployment, while the last three would create a much more regressive tax system that shifted the burden onto the sector of the economy that would otherwise generate the highest level of demand per dollar of income: the poor and middle class (the top 20% of Americans spend 62% of their income, as compared to 87% for the rest).
. . . Note, too, that the second point above (regarding balanced budgets) is based on a false premise, i.e., that the federal government is budget constrained (see The Big Danger in Cutting the Deficit). ...The Texas Republican Party Platform also argues that, in contradiction to my last blog post (The Real Job Creators: Consumers), lower business taxes and deregulation will solve our jobs problem. This is false. What we really need is increased demand, which comes via consumers.
. . . This is not to say that there are not portions of the Texas Republican Party Platform that are perfectly reasonable. There are. But, by and large, it reads as if it were written in another age and in ignorance of the social, economic, and scientific evidence of the past half century. Let there be no mistake about it: the Texas Republican Party Platform is terrifying. Were its recommendations implemented, the US would resemble a third-world country with a cheap, uneducated workforce and a massive gap between rich and poor. Unemployment would be rampant, growth stagnant, and answers few and far between thanks to the systematic repression of higher order and critical thinking.
Read the full story @ Forbes.
Read the Texas Democratic platform and its comparison to the Republican platform after the "more" jump:The Supreme Court has struck down a Montana ban on corporate political money, ruling 5 to 4 that the controversial 2010 Citizens United ruling applies to state and local elections.
The court broke in American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock along the same lines as in the original Citizens United case, when the court ruled that corporate money is speech and thus corporations can spend unlimited amounts on elections.
“The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law,” the majority wrote. “There can be no serious doubt that it does.”No arguments were heard; it was a summary reversal. “To the extent that there was any doubt from the original Citizens United decision broadly applies to state and local laws, that doubt is now gone,” said Marc Elias, a Democratic campaign lawyer. “To whatever extent that door was open a crack, that door is now closed.”
A 1912 Montana law barred direct corporate contributions to political parties and candidates — a response to the election interference of “copper kings.” Mark Twain wrote of one such mining giant in 1907, Sen. William Clark (D), “He is said to have bought legislatures and judges as other men buy food and raiment. By his example he has so excused and so sweetened corruption that in Montana it no longer has an offensive smell.” The state supreme court upheld that ban late last year in spite of Citizens United, saying Montana’s history of “rough contests for political and economic domination” gave the state a “unique and compelling interests” in limiting corporate influence on elections.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer wanted the Montana case heard, arguing that Citizens United should get new scrutiny in the light of its effect on campaign finance. In his original decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that independent campaign expenditures by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Ginsberg argued that the Montana case was an opportunity to reconsider “in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance.” But today’s ruling shows that the five justices who supported the original ruling have not budged.
Read the full article @ The Washington Post.
The Supreme Court today upheld the "papers please" part of Arizona's illegal immigrant law in a 5-3 decision that allows police officers to ask about immigration status during stops.
The "papers please" part of the law, which never went into effect because of court challenges, can be immediately enforced in Arizona. Other parts of the law, including a provision that made it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work, will remain blocked, as the justices affirmed the federal government's supremacy over immigration policy.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's swing vote, wrote the opinion, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas partially dissented, saying the entire law or most of the law should have been upheld.
In the opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote that the federal government's "power to determine immigration policy is well settled." But he also sympathized with Arizona's burden in dealing with illegal immigrants.
"Arizona bears many of the consequences of unlawful immigration," he wrote. "Hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens are apprehended in Arizona each year."However, the justices found that Arizona cannot mete out their own state punishments for federal immigration crimes.
"Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the State may not pursue policies that undermine federal law," Kennedy writes in the opinion's conclusion.Police immigration checks are allowed, however, only because state police would simply flag federal authorities, when the identify illegal immigrants.
Since the passage of Arizona's "papers, please" law, likely voters in Arizona have shifted their support to Democratic candidates in a "very substantive way," according to analysis by Public Policy Polling. That shift is largely due to energized (and probably angry) Latino voters, say Tom Jensen, PPP's director:
A week after signing an executive order that bars the deportation of young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before they were 16 and have graduated from high school, President Obama today made a direct appeal to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Orlando, Florida.
Obama addressed the conference of Latino officials, just a day after the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, addressed the conference. Without mentioning Romney by name, the President drew a sharp distinction with his challenger on immigration, reminding the crowd of Romney’s opposition to the DREAM Act, the legislation derailed by Congressional Republicans that is intended to put many illegal immigrant students and veterans on a path to citizenship:
"Your speaker from yesterday has a different view. In his speech, he said that when he makes a promise to you, he’ll keep it. Well, he has promised to veto the DREAM Act, and we should take him at his word. I'm just saying."
Asked by pollsters, Latino voters overwhelmingly support Pres. Obama. So much so, in fact, that if Republicans can't pull some of that support back to their own party, Mitt Romney's chances of winning in November are close to zero.
Republicans' callous and deeply unpopular rhetoric against Latinos has created a serious rift between Latino Americans and the GOP.
This has the potential to be a serious problem for Romney and other Republicans on the Texas ballot this November given the staggering statistic that Hispanics now account for 38 percent of the Texas population -- and nearly 4 million Texas Latinos can vote.
This is probably why Texas Republicans are desperate to have their voter photo I.D. law in effect for the November 2012 Presidential Election. Up to 40 percent of Latino American citizens already registered to vote in some Texas counties do not have one of the limited selection of government issued photo I.D.'s needed to vote under this law. As I personally heard so many Republican voters comment when they checked-in to vote early for the Texas Primary last month, "we need that voter photo I.D. law enforced to keep the wrong people from voting."
Still, Texas Latinos historically have been apathetic about voting. The percentage of Latinos who vote has actually dropped over the past eight years. In 2004, roughly 42 percent of Latinos went to the polls, but that number dropped to 38 percent in 2008, falling to 22 percent in the 2010 election.
The newly elected Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, says that the flaw in the party’s strategy over the last several years has been its focus on so-called independent voters, when Democrats should be courting the state’s sleeping Latino demographic giant.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Hispanic turnout is where we’re getting beat,” Hinojosa says. “Anything you want to look at with regards to the Democratic Party, it comes down to that. We’ve got African-Americans, the LGBT community, Asians, women. The one that’s under-performing in greatest numbers and the one that makes up the greatest number of potential voters is the Hispanic community.”
Texas Democrats could learn, Hinojosa says, from California, Nevada and Colorado Democrats' successes in turning out Latino voters in the 2010 election.
In a year in which the Tea Party was killing everyone else, all three states had big Democratic wins due to Latino support. “Nevada spent a lot of money, but they had a focused strategy, and Harry Reid won because of the large Latino voter turnout.”
California has a similar Latino voting population to Texas, but it consistently turns out higher numbers at the polls. Census Bureau figures show that in California, nearly 60 percent of eligible Latinos turn out to vote. The national average is about 50 percent.
The Texas Democratic Party has already started Hispanic outreach programs, like the Promesa Project, that uses a combination of online and grassroots techniques to recruit young Latinos as the party’s messengers to their families, and social networks to get out the Latino vote this November.
Will the Texas Democratic Party's new Latino outreach emphasis pushed by Hinojosa, combined with Latino voters' overwhelming support of Pres. Obama, on top of Latino antipathy for the GOP boost Latino voter turnout back to 42 percent, or more, of that demographic group? We will find out on Election Day, November 6.
by Deborah Angell-Smith
Learn about the proposed Seaway Pipeline and the risk it poses to the North Texas water supply at a Democratic Network Educational Session, 10:45am this Sat. morning, June 23rd, at the John & Judy Gay Library in McKinney. (John & Judy Gay Library - 6861 El Dorado Parkway - Map)
Most of us have heard of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. This past November, a similar plan was announced to operate the Seaway pipeline, an existing 36-year old crude pipeline that passes through Collin, Grayson, Rockwall, and Kaufman counties, and crosses tributaries to Lake Lavon and other water sources supplying the DFW area.
In this plan, tar sands crude will travel 500-miles between Cushing, Oklahoma and refineries on the Gulf Coast. Tar sands is far more toxic, acidic, and corrosive than conventional crude since it has to be liquified with natural gas condensate and other chemicals to dilute it enough to push it through a highly pressurized pipeline.
The Seaway pipeline will be developed by Enbridge Inc., the operator responsible for the largest and most expensive tar sand spill in U.S. history, in a 50/50 partnership with Enterprise Partners. The toxic Enbridge spill on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan was due to a rupture in an aging, 43-year old repurposed pipeline, not unlike Seaway. Now, two years and $720 million later, people along the Kalamazoo are sick and their property is ruined.
DFW's already scarce water supply will be at risk with the transport of tar sands crude through this aging, repurposed pipeline. Join us this Saturday to learn more about Seaway and the actions we can take as citizens on this threat to our DFW water supply at our second Democratic Network Forum.
Our speaker will be Rita Beving, the North Texas organizer for Public Citizen. Her current focus is the Seaway and Keystone pipelines. She has more than 15 years activist experience on air and water issues. Rita also serves as the 391 consultant regarding the Keystone pipeline for the cities of Gallatin/Reklaw/Alto. In addition to her role as an activist, Rita operates a thriving antiques business. She is supported in all of her efforts by her husband, our good friend and former SDEC Committeeman, David Griggs.
We'll meet at the John & Judy Gay Library in McKinney, 6861 El Dorado Parkway, just east of Alma. It's centrally located in the county and a beautiful facility with plenty of room, so please bring interested friends and neighbors. Come for coffee and breakfast goodies at 10:45 am and the program will get started at 11. We'll wrap up by 1 pm and those who care to do so can adjourn to a nearby restaurant for lunch and continue the discussion.
If you're not able to come this Saturday, we hope you'll be able to join us at our next Forum. Our plan is to offer local residents opportunities to learn more about the issues that affect us right here in Collin County, and what we, as Democrats, are doing to make things better. We also hope to foster discussion groups in each of our local communities.
We invite your input on topics, speakers, format and other options - and encourage you to get involved in growing our network. We'll have sign-up and comment sheets at the event, but if you aren't able to attend, please e-mail us at info@collindems.net, or call (469) 713-2031 to leave a voice message.
