Republican Party of Texas Doubtful On Unified April Primary Election

Echoing an advisory from Texas Democratic Party chair earlier this week, the Republican Party of Texas chair has today issued an advisory to party members cautioning that it may not be possible to have an unified April 3 - or even April 17 - primary. The advisory said in part:

"The schedule put forth by the court today does not lend itself to an April 3rd unified primary date," the release said. "While it is still theoretically possible to have an April 17th primary date (if the court issues a very quick decision after the February 15th hearing and immediately drew new maps), in all likelihood, this new schedule means that a new single unified primary date could not be held until at least April 24th."

Texas county election officials have already informed the San Antonio court that they are unable to accommodate an April primary after April 17 because they must begin programming and testing voting equipment for municipal elections. Early voting for municipal elections is scheduled to begin on April 30.

While it is still theoretically possible (barely) to have a unified primary on April 17, if the San Antonio court issues new interim districts maps by about Feb 17th and a few other things quickly line up, all parties have all but lost hope in that outcome.

The Coming Bitter And Divisive Super-PAC Driven Anti-Obama Media Tactics

The Democratic Strategist

The Republican primary campaign has provided a foretaste of the bitter and divisive super-PAC driven media tactics that will be used against Obama in the fall. The fundamental and inescapable fact is that Democrats will be on the receiving end of a propaganda campaign of a scope and ferocity unparalleled in American history. Democrats must begin planning now how they will respond.

The attack will be three pronged:

First, there will be a "high road" attack directly sponsored by the Republican presidential candidate - now almost certainly Romney - and the RNC. It will be based on sanctimoniously accusing Obama of having "failed" -- that he has not fulfilled his campaign promises and that his policies have proved ineffective.

Second, is a feverish invocation of the culture war narrative -- one that will far excel Sarah Palin's sneering and divisive "we're the real, the good America; they are the degenerate coastal elites" framework that she used in the 2008 campaign. The ads - which will come from Super-PAC's more than official sources -- will be ugly and distasteful: they will portray Obama as deeply "un-American" - foreign and alien to the heartland values and daily life of the "real" America. Romney and the Republicans have already made this the centerpiece of their "hardball" attack.

Third, is a flagrantly dishonest and utterly propagandistic "low road" attack - one that will be conducted both above and below the radar. The below the radar attack will be the most important and destructive change in 2012 will be in the vastly expanded online networking dissemination of anti-Obama propaganda person to person through social media, e-mail lists, discussion boards, and comments by trolls across the spectrum of online media publications, in addition to traditional robo calling and snail mail circulars.

In 2008 the low road attack on Obama was conducted largely outside the official candidate and Republican party media or the major PAC'-s (one clumsy ad by the McCain campaign that attempted to make a "dog-whistle" suggestion that Obama was the anti-Christ was a notable exception). Most of the 2008 low road attacks circulated under the radar - through distribution to informal e-mail lists and comment threads, through micro-targeted direct mail, through robo-calls and through phone banks run by shadowy outside firms. Within these closed communication channels the claims were widely circulated that Obama was a secret Muslim, a radical/communist, a sympathizer with domestic terrorist bombers, and that he was behind a range of "Birtherist" and other conspiracies.

It may seem premature to predict an attack of this extraordinarily grotesque character but there are two reasons why a massive "low-road" campaign of this kind is quite literally inevitable.

Continue reading the full article @ The Democratic Strategist

Why Millions of American Voters Have No Government Issued Photo ID

You probably heard about 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper who couldn't get a free voter photo ID card at a Tennessee Driver Service Center in October. Tennessee has a voter photo ID law nearly identical to Texas' new ID law. Cooper never had a driver's license so she had to get a "free" voter photo ID card to vote in future elections. Even though she had a birth certificate and other ID the Driver Service Center wouldn't issue an ID card because she didn't have her marriage certificate.

Perhaps you've also heard about a 93-year-old Tennessee woman, Thelma Mitchell, who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office and who won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades because she also couldn't get a "free" voter photo ID card at a Tennessee Driver Service Center. Ms. Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented immigrant because she couldn’t produce a birth certificate:

Mitchell, who was delivered by a midwife in Alabama in 1918, has never had a birth certificate. But when she told that to a drivers’ license clerk, he suggested she might be an illegal immigrant.

Listen to the Story from NPR (5:54) - NPR digital correspondent Corey Dade looks into why people don't have and may not be able obtain government-issued voter photo ID.

Maybe you've heard about a 84-year-old Brokaw, Wisconsin woman, Ruthelle Frank, who won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades because she also couldn't get a "free" voter photo ID card at a Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles.

Born after a difficult birth at her home in 1927, Frank never received an official birth certificate. Without her birth certificate, she can’t secure the state ID card that the new voter photo law requires. The state Register of Deeds in Madison has a record of her birth, but the attending physician at Frank’s birth misspelled her maiden name, so the name on her state recorded birth record does not match the name given on Frank's other identity documents.

The Tennessee and Wisconsin Departments of Motor Vehicles were following requirements of the federal Real ID Act of 2005, which is mandated to take effect in all 50 states by January 2013. After January 2013 even young women across the U.S., who already have a driver's license, may face the same ID road block as 96 year old Dorothy Cooper.

After the commercial airliner attacks of September 11, 2001 the federal government implemented a "war on terror" photo driver's license "Real ID" law, with regulatory oversight given to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Federal 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, personal identification cards or election identification cards.

Applicants for first time 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.

Dorothy Cooper, Ruthelle Frank, and Thelma Mitchell typify what many seniors are experiencing. They were born at a time when there was not a lot of attention paid to these sort of identity documentation details, particularly for African-Americans. Many of them never had birth certificates to begin with, and if they did, they were incorrectly - their names were incorrectly put onto these documents. And if that's the case, then you're not going to get an ID - free or otherwise. They will not accept no birth certificate or discrepancies between your birth certificate and other forms of ID that you may have, like a Social Security card.

Texas Democratic Party Doubtful On Unified April Primary Election

Today, Boyd Richie, Chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, sent out an email saying,

"Yesterday a federal DC court heard closing arguments in the Texas redistricting pre-clearance case. So far, there have been two panels of federal judges and a hearing before the United States Supreme Court on Texas redistricting. Every court that has examined the redistricting maps enacted by the legislature has found the maps to be discriminatory in some way.

As you’ll recall, a previous court order stated that we would have a second candidate filing period which would conclude on February 1st. Because there are still no maps that date has been postponed by a court order issued over the weekend and the second filing period will now take place on a date to be determined. Once interim maps are released, we will re-open the filing period for all candidates.

At last week’s redistricting trial in San Antonio, the court gave all parties to this lawsuit a deadline of February 6 to agree on interim maps in order to make an April 3 [unified] primary possible. If there is not an agreement on maps prior to February 6th, the April 3rd [unified] Primary date will no longer be possible."

Also today, The D.C. District Court three judge panel entered a order in the preclearance case telling parties that they should not expect a ruling for at least 30 days:

The Court directs the parties to comply fully with the page limits and briefing schedule set in this matter so that it can be timely resolved and also notifies the parties that this Court does not anticipate issuing any order within the next 30 days.

A number of participants in the case had been expecting the court to rule by February 15 and some had felt that a ruling might even be possible next week.

This afternoon, in light of today's D.C. Court advisory telling the state and plaintiffs in the preclearance case that they should not expect a ruling for at least 30 days, the Texas Democratic Party (TDP) filed an advisory with the San Antonio District Court, that has jurisdiction over interim district maps and the primary election schedule, saying it no long believed a unified primary was still possible on any date in April, absent a near term settlement between the state and plaintiffs in the interim redistricting case before the San Antonio District Court.

TDP Feb 1 Advisory to SA Court on April 3 Primary: