Monday, January 19, 2009

Collin County Inaugural Gala

The Dallas Morning News:
Democratic women's big gala in Collin County symbolic of suburban gains
11:11 PM CST on Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Dallas Morning News / By THEODORE KIM


A fledgling Democratic women's group in [Collin] county is hosting what is believed to be the largest Obama inauguration gala in North Texas.

The $15,000 event, to be held at the Plano Centre, is black-tie optional. It will feature live music, a silent auction, a buffet and even a life-size cardboard cutout of Obama. About 400 people are expected.
"Women always get things done," said Barb Walters, president of the Texas Democratic Women of Collin County. The group is hosting the event with the local Obama campaign. "We want this to be a beginning, not an ending."

. . .The event is the latest signal that Dallas' affluent and politically important northern suburbs are becoming more competitive.

. . .Democrats, of course, still have their work cut out for them in Collin County, which for decades now has served as a base of power and resources for the GOP.
Republicans often mislabel the Democratic Party as the Democrat Party to convey their disdainful disrespect for those affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Note the difference in the DMN online headline, "Democratic women's big gala in Collin County symbolic of suburban gains" originally posted at 11:11 PM CST on Sunday, January 18, 2009 verses the headline "Democrat women's big gala in Collin County has symbolic significance" as updated at 12:00 AM CST on Monday, January 19, 2009.

The DMN does not want to be left open to a charge of "liberal media bias."

Voter ID Legislation To Pass Texas Senate In 2009

Updated January 19, 2009 11:00 AM
Republican Joe Straus, who is taking over the Texas House Speaker's Chair from hard right-winger Tom Craddick for the 2009 legislative session with the support of of every Democrat in the Texas House, commented to reporters on Friday, 16 January 2009, that he favors Voter Photo Identification
The Texas Senate on Wednesday, 14 January 2009, voted 18-13, along party lines, to exempt voter identification legislation from the longstanding “Two-Thirds” Rule. This rule requires that 21 senators must support a measure before it can be brought to the floor. Only one Republican, State Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas), broke ranks to join 12 Democrats in the near party-line vote to oppose the change to the two-thirds rule. The other 18 Republicans voted to exempt any bill brought forward in the Texas Senate that would require voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls before being allowed to vote.

Republican members of the Senate voted to exempt voter photo ID legislation from the two-thirds rule, similar to the way Congressional Redistricting was exempted by Republicans in 2003, over strong opposition from Democrats. Under the change, voter ID legislation can be brought up for a vote on the Senate floor with the approval of only 16 senators, not the 21 required under the customary two-thirds rule. Democrats could block votes under the usual two-thirds rule — and did so on the voter ID bill two years ago. Debate over voter photo ID in 2007 paralyzed the State Senate for weeks before the bill was rejected.

Wednesday's change to Texas Senate two-thirds rule will only apply to the voter ID bill; redistricting was dropped from the two-thirds exemption resolution before the final vote. Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to amend the voter ID two-thirds rule exemption resolution to also include exemptions on legislation for fully funding child health insurance, improved benefits for veterans, restoring funds to unemployment compensation, insurance rate regulation, foreclosure protection, tuition re-regulation and public education priority — to get the same majority-vote treatment as on voter ID. Republicans, as a block, voted against each program - a fact that that will surely be an issue that Democratic candidates can use against their Republican opponents during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles.

With the Texas House made up of 74 Democrats and 76 Republicans, after the 2008 election, the Voter ID bill will face a tougher fight in the Texas House. Republican Joe Straus, who is taking over the Speaker's Chair from hard right-winger Tom Craddick for the 2009 legislative session with the support of of every Democrat in the Texas House, commented to reporters on Friday, 16 January 2009, that he favors Voter Photo Identification:
Straus, who voted for the Voter ID bill in 2007, stated he thinks another examination of whether photo IDs are needed to combat voter fraud is appropriate. He said he does not yet know whether there are sufficient votes in the House to pass a bill.

The Voter ID bill, introduced in the House during the 2007 legislative session, (HB 218) passed by a vote of 76 to 69 when the House was made up of 69 Democrats and 81 Republicans. Two Republicans voted against HR 218. The voter ID bill introduced in the Senate during the 2007 legislative session was successfully blocked from advancing to the floor for a vote by Senate Democrats.
Read on: No Evidence Of Voter Fraud

No Evidence Of Voter Fraud

In Indiana and six other states, unless you have a valid government-issued photo ID, of the type that Texas Republicans seek to make mandatory for would be Texas voters, you can not vote for anything. That’s a lesson a group of Indiana nuns learned in 2008 when they tried to vote in Indiana’s presidential primary.

Ten sisters, all in their 80s and 90s, from the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in South Bend were turned away from their polling place by a fellow sister because they presented outdated passports or had no photo ID at all. A rule requiring a photo ID to vote in Indiana became official following an April 28, 2008 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court deeming it constitutional.

While Texas proponents of voter ID legislation argue that it's needed to combat voter fraud, there is no evidence that the type of fraud that these requirements address has occurred at any point since records have been kept.

Voter Fraud is the claim that large groups of people knowingly and willingly give false information to establish voter eligibility, and knowingly and willingly vote illegally or participate in a conspiracy to encourage illegal voting by others.

Twenty-five states require identification at the polls for all voters and seven states - Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana and Michigan now require or can request a government-issued photo ID. In Arizona voters may present two non-photo documents such as a bank statement and a utility bill in lieu of a photo ID. Arizona's list of alternative IDs is similar to the list of IDs that Texas voters may present in lieu of a voter registration certificate.

Even as additional states seek to pass more restrictive voter ID legislation, mounting evidence suggests that stricter voter ID laws actually do very little to ensure polling-place integrity.

The Politics of Voter Fraud Study by Lorraine Minnite PDF
According to Barnard College Professor Loraine Minnite, the available state-level evidence of fraudulent voting, culled from interviews, reviews of newspaper coverage and court proceedings, shows that only 32 people were convicted of or pleaded guilty to illegal voting in the U.S. between 2002 and 2005, an average of eight people a year.

While there is no actual evidence of voter fraud, many studies, such as conducted by the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, find that U.S. citizens of Latino, Asian American and African American heritage are less likely to vote as a result of increasingly restrictive voter ID requirements.

The Eagleton study examined the 2004 election and concluded that in states requiring voters to present an ID at the polls, 2.7 percent fewer citizens were likely to vote than in states where voters were merely required to register so that their name and address appears in the voting precinct poll book on election day.

According to the Eagleton study Latinos are 10 percent less likely to vote, Asian-Americans are 8.5 percent less likely to vote and African Americans are 5.7 percent less likely to vote.

Each of the groups listed in the Eagleton study tend to vote for Democratic candidates and are a growing percentage of Texas voters. The success of Democratic voter registration drives among these Texas groups in 2008 threatens to tip the balance of power away from the Republicans. As the tide of Democratic voters continues to grow across Texas, voter ID legislation would be an effective way for Republicans to hold back the tide.

Consequently, the use of baseless "voter fraud" allegations to promote voter ID legislation has become such an urgent priority for Republicans in the 2009 legislative session that Republicans in the Texas Senate felt compelled to change long standing Senate rules to advance the legislation.

The Eagleton Institute research is supported by findings from a November 2006 poll conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The Brennan Center poll found that as many as 11 percent of American citizens, more than 21 million individuals, do not have a current, government-issued photo ID. Elderly, poor and minority Americans are more likely to lack government-issued ID.

Voting rights advocates say that requiring photo identification threatens to disenfranchise many older Americans, a voting bloc with traditionally strong turnout. Senior citizens are less likely to have driver’s licenses or birth certificates, which are often needed to obtain a government ID.

Brennan Center research suggest six million elderly Americans do not possess a government-issued photo ID. Additionally, 15 percent of voting-age citizens earning under $35,000 a year do not possess such ID and fully 25 percent of voting-age African Americans do not possess this ID.

Further, according to the Brennan Center, as many as 13 million U.S. citizens, or seven percent, do not have ready access to citizenship documents of the type required by most state voter id legislation. This makes the requirement to obtain a government-issued photo ID in order to vote an unduly onerous equivalent of a "Jim Crow" poll tax.

Texans already must request and be granted a voter registration card from their county Election Registrar's office thirty days in advance of an election. New registration applicants must provide their current address and Driver's License number or their Social Security Number on the voter registration application.

The applicant's county Election Registrar along with the Texas Secretary of State are required to authenticate citizenship and all other information given on the voter registration application against Texas motor vehicle records or the U.S. Social Security Administration before approving the application and granting "active" voter registration status.

Further, county Election Registrars and the Texas Secretary of State actively track registered voter change of address and death notices and other official record updates to automatically suspend a voter's registration on any change of status.

There is no evidence of voter fraud in the Lone Star State.
. . .Steve Raborn, elections administrator for Tarrant County, said a two-year investigation by his office of questionable voter registrations in 2004 and 2005 found only three noncitizens on the county voter rolls, and they were later removed.

. . .
The county officials said voter fraud was difficult to carry out in Texas because each applicant must submit a driver's license number or Social Security number, which is entered into a statewide electronic database and checked by the secretary of state's office. Applicants are sent a voting card and officially added to the rolls only if there are no discrepancies and the secretary of state's office approves the application.
There is a long history in America of certain groups using allegations of voter fraud to restrict and shape the electorate.

In the late nineteenth century, when newly freed black Americans were swept into electoral politics to become a voting majority, white Southern Democrats threatened by the loss of power justified the so called "Jim Crow" voting laws by alleging "voter fraud" by black voters.

Many 20th Century "Jim Crow" Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party after President Franklin Roosevelt, President John Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson championed voters' rights and the elimination of "Jim Crow" type laws.

Cross Posted at DMN Trail Blazers Blog

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Friday, January 16, 2009

A Rush To Fill Hutchison's U.S. Senate Seat

Updated 01/16/09 at 10:00 AM

Talking Points Memo (01/15/09) - GOP Surprisingly Nervous About Texas Senate Seat -
Do Republicans think they could actually lose a seat in Texas, of all places? One Texas Republican source seemed surprisingly concerned, telling Election Central that the state Dems are "going through a bit of a renaissance," and have two decent candidates lined up for the eventual Senate race in Houston Mayor Bill White and former Comptroller John Sharp. "If Sharp and Bill White come back, there will be national Democratic Party money put back in Texas, and I think Republicans are gonna have to be on their A-game," the source said. Another on the record source, Mike Baselice, a local Republican pollster who works for GOP Gov. Rick Perry, told TPM, Democrats would have a low probability of winning a special election for the Senate.
The Hill.com (01/15/09) - Removing some doubt about her intentions to run for governor,
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) has transferred nearly her entire federal campaign account to her gubernatorial exploratory committee. Hutchison’s first filing with Texas elections officials shows that the senator had transferred just shy of $8 million from her Senate account to her statewide account.
Fearful that a special election for U.S. Senate could result in a Democratic victory, Congressional Republicans appear to be pressuring U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison not to resign unless and until she is elected governor. Republican insiders are increasingly indicating Hutchison will not resign at all if she is unsuccessful in her bid for the Governor's office.

Under Texas law, Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, would appoint a short-term replacement for Hutchison until a special election can be held. If Hutchison doesn't resign until shortly before the 2010 election, the special election for her open Senate seat could be held concurrently with the November 2010 general election, ensuring maximum turnout - a likely benefit for any Republican senatorial candidate. A special election would likely be held in November 2009 if Hutchison resigns before September 28, 2009. If she resigns later in 2009, the special election wouldn’t be held until May 2010.
If Hutchison doesn't resign until after the November 2010 general election the special election for her open Senate seat wouldn’t be held until May 2011.

There are now six people in the race for Kay Bailey Hutchison's U.S. Senate seat with at least five (or six) more believed to be considering throwing their hat in the ring too. And, speculation on U.S. Senator John Cornyn's comments in Roll Call suggests Attorney General Greg Abbott, one of the next five, may be throwing his hat in sooner rather than later.

Candidates: (Left to right) Houston Mayor Bill White (D), former State Comptroller John Sharp (D), Railroad Commission Chairman Michael Williams (R), State Sen. Florence Shapiro (R), former Secretary of State Roger Williams (R) and Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones (R)
Bill white senate John sharp senate 2 Michael williams senate
Florence shapiro
Roger williams senate Elizabeth ames jones senate

Potential Candidates: (Left to right) Rep. Kay Granger (R), Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R), US Rep. Joe Barton (R), Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R), Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) and TX State Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio)
Kay granger senate
David dewhurst senate Joe barton senate
Jeb hensarling
Greg abbott senate

Pictures from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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