Fight Looms Over Voter Photo ID Bill In Texas Legislature

According to The Houston Chronicle Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, has alerted senators he plans to bring up the Voter photo ID bill before a special Senate committee on March 10 to obtain approval of the 16 senators required to bring it to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. The Voter photo ID bill could pass in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 19-12 majority, as soon as March 16.

If the bill passes in the Senate, as it likely will, the Texas House is the only opportunity left for Democrats to mount a fight to block the measure. But, it will be a tough fight!

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 this year than it did in 2007 when it passed the House, but failed to pass the Senate. That said, Speaker of the House, Joe Straus (R), will likely allow the voter ID bill to go the House floor for debate and an eventual vote, given his comment to reporters on Friday, 16 January 2009, that he favors Voter Photo Identification:

Straus, who voted for the Voter ID House 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 Texas Senate on Wednesday, 14 January 2009, voted 18-13, along party lines, to exempt voter identification legislation from the longstanding “Two-Thirds” Rule. The two-thirds rule requires that 21 senators must support a measure before it can be brought to the floor for debate and a vote. The vote was 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.

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. (This is the vote now scheduled for March 10.)Democrats could have blocked voter ID legislation under the usual two-thirds rule — as they did two years ago when debate over voter photo ID in the 2007 legislative session paralyzed the State Senate for weeks before the bill was finally rejected.

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.

Any claim that voter fraud is rampant in Texas is false.

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.

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.

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, who returned for the 81st legislative session, voted against HR 218 in 2007. The voter ID bill introduced in the Senate during the 2007 legislative session was successfully blocked from advancing in the Senate by Senate Democrats.

Straus, who is consider to be a somewhat more moderate conservative, took over the Speaker's Chair from hard right-winger Tom Craddick for the 2009 legislative session with the support of every Democrat in the Texas House. So far, Straus has not shown much appreciation to House Democrats for putting him in the Speaker's Chair and the he'll likely give no exception for the voter ID bill.

Locate your Collin County legislative district representatives in the House and Senate District here. Your Texas Legislative House and Senate District Numbers can be found on your Voter Registration Card. Check your voter registration card information online here.

TX Sen. Cornyn May Be Pushing Senate To 60 Dem Votes

Kentucky GOP Senator Jim Bunning is increasingly angry that the GOP senatorial committee has appearently recruited someone to run against him in the 2010 GOP primary. In a conference call with reporters this week, Bunning lashed out at Texas Senator John Cornyn, the Texan who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which recruits and supports Republicans to run for the Senate.

Senator Cornyn confirmed Monday, in an interview with The Washington Post, that some Republicans wanted Bunning to retire, but added that "as long as he says he is running I will be supportive of him." Bunning said in the conference call with reporters, "I don't believe anything John Cornyn says. . . I've had miscommunications with John Cornyn from, I guess, the first week of this current session of the Senate. He either doesn't understand English or he doesn't understand a direct 'I'm going to run,' which I said to him in the cloakroom of our chamber when he asked me."

In recent weeks, Senate Republican leaders have all but declared open war on Senator Bunning. Minority Leader (and fellow Kentucky senator) Mitch McConnell and others reportedly believe Bunning is likely to lose his reelection race in 2010, and so are trying to nudge him into retirement by sending signals that the party establishment will not back him. According to a story in the HuffingtonPost, Bunning reportedly has said privately that, "if he is hindered in raising money for his re-election campaign he is ready with a response that would be politically devastating for Senate Republicans: his [immediate] resignation."

The implication is that Bunning would allow Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, to appoint his replacement -- a move that could give Democrats the 60 votes they need to block Republican filibusters in the Senate.

Backlash On Gov. Perry's Rejection Of Federal Stimulus Money

As Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) continues to threaten to reject millions of dollars in federal stimulus money for increased unemployment insurance, there is growing anger among the unemployed over being handed conservative ideology rather than a stimulus generated job or an unemployment insurance check.

Gov. Perry joins with the Republican governors of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alaska and Idaho in extending to unemployed workers conservative ideology that government has no role to help them rather than a helping hand.

From the NYTimes:

For people like Henry Kight, 59, of Austin, Tex., the possibility that the money might be turned down is a deeply personal issue.

Mr. Kight, who worked for more than three decades as an engineering technician, discovered in September that because of complex state rules, he was not eligible for unemployment insurance after losing a job at a major electronics manufacturer in Texas.

Mr. Kight and other unemployed workers said they were incensed to learn they were living in one of a handful of states — many of them among the poorest in the nation — that might not provide the expanded benefits. [Unemployment regulations in these states, involving such matters as the length of a person’s work history or reason for leaving a job often disqualify newly unemployed workers from receiving benefits.]

Currently, when considering a person’s work history, most states do not include wages earned in just the current or preceding quarter. Instead, they look to see what the person earned in the four quarters before that, which can often hurt low-wage workers, people facing a second or third successive layoff and people just entering or returning to the work force.

In Mr. Kight’s case, he was unemployed for the second half of 2007, after being downsized from an earlier job at a different electronics manufacturer. As a result, when he applied for unemployment benefits after the secon layoff, he did not have enough immediate work history to qualify.

“I have worked for so many years, a total of probably 30 years, contributing to the support system that helps people when they get in a tough spot like I’m in,” Mr. Kight said. “I haven’t needed it too much in the past, but I sure could use it right now.”

About 40 percent of applicants who are now disqualified from receiving benefits because they do not earn enough would qualify if states offered an alternative base period, according to the National Employment Law Project.

“It just seems unreasonable,” Mr. Kight said, “that when people probably need the help the most, that because of partisan activity, or partisan feelings, against the current new administration, that [Gov.] Perry is willing to sacrifice the lives of so many Texans that have been out of work in the last year.”

He was referring to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who has said he may decline the extra money rather than change state policy.

“I remain opposed to using these funds to expand existing government programs, burdening the state with ongoing expenditures long after the funding has dried up,” Mr. Perry wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama last week.

It is not clear why participating in the expanded unemployment insurance program would result in "ongoing expenditures." The recovery package will fund state unemployment for approximately three years, at which point Texas could — if it chose to do so — return to the more restrictive unemployment regulations. And, if the job stimulus successfully helps to put people back to work, then fewer workers will be unemployed and needing assistance.

Obama: It Begins With Energy

'Green News Report AT BRADBLOG' - February 26, 2009
With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

Obama tells Congress, "It all begins with energy" ... Cool green innovations you may want to buy soon ... and flushing old-growth trees down the toilet --- literally!

Green960 (KKGN) in San Francisco and ActionPoint Online in Phoenix are running the 'GNR'. Is your favorite station? If not, tell them to pick it up for free! Contact us at GreenNews@BradBlog.com for easy details!

Download MP3 (6 mins), or listen online here...

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