Plano Independent School District Voting Starts April 27th

A strong public school system is not only good for our children, it also promotes business growth and keeps our residential property values strong. Early Voting for the May 9, 2015 election starts on Monday, April 27th.

Geographical school districts in Texas are completely independent from city or county jurisdiction, and are governed by a board of trustees.  Texas school district boundaries are not always aligned with county or city boundaries; a district can occupy several counties and cities, while a single city (especially larger ones such as Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio) may be split between several districts. Almost all Texas school districts use the title "Independent School District", or ISD. 

Plano's public school system is among the largest in Texas and is nationally rated as one of the best school systems in the nation. The quality of Plano schools is among the major factors convincing companies like Toyota to locate their national corporate headquarters to Plano.

City and School Board Elections In Collin Co

Early Voting for the May 9, 2015 election starts on Monday, April 27th.  Information about candidates can be found in the League of Women Voters of Collin County Voter's Guide www.lwvcollin.org/:

• Allen
• Frisco
• McKinney
• Plano
• Wylie
• Collin College

Early Voting Dates.

• April 27-29: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• April 30: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• May 1-2: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• May 4-5: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Election Day May 9, 2015 7:00 a.m.- 7:00 p.m.

Click here to review Collin County Elections sample ballots and polling place information

Click here to review voter Registration and I.D. Requirements

Your Campaign's Digital Media Strategy - Getting Started

If you are thinking about running for election in 2016, it's time for you to map out your digital campaign strategy.  A full mobile friendly campaign website is a must have, plus, Facebook and Twitter are essential social media sites (SMS) to drive your message across, sign up supporters, gather online donations, recruit volunteers and more. How do you get a beautiful new site that meets your needs, on time and on budget? It’s challenging, even for well funded campaigns.

Before you get started, there are pitfalls to watch out for. Let’s start with what the three deadly sins of campaign websites:

Campaigns and Elections

Millennial Generation Electorate

Journalist's Resource

Political strategists and candidates will be well-served to keep their eyes on an important demographic shift while thinking about how to connect with Millennial generation voters.

In 2015, the Millennial generation — those ages 18 to 34, and born between 1981 and 1997 — is set to become larger than the Baby Boom generation. (This will be true, even as the country’s median age continues to rise.)

Over the next three decades or so, the cohort of Baby Boomers will decline in size steadily, and by mid-century only about 1 in 5 will be living, as the Pew Research Center points out.

Voting Rights, By The Numbers

The Supreme Court struck down section 4 of the Voting Rights Act in June 2013 say that section of the VRA is outdated. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion saying, "discrimination against minority voters may have been pervasive in the 1960s when [section 4 of] the law was passed, but nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically.”

Under Justice Roberts reasoning, the law was still punishing states and local governments covered under section 4 for discriminatory practices the majority of Justices argued ended years ago. Section 4 of the VRA specified all or parts of 16 states and local jurisdictions, with long histories of overt racial discrimination in voting, mostly in the South, that were required to get approval from the federal government for any proposed change to their voting laws, as specified under VRA section 5.

The section 5 process, known as preclearance, stopped hundreds of discriminatory new laws from taking effect, and deterred lawmakers from introducing countless more. Without section 4, the section 5 is useless. Chief Justice Roberts, writing the 5-4 majority opinion, invalidated section 4 arguing, “today’s statistics tell an entirely different story.” In fact, today’s statistics tell a story little changed from the 1960s.

A comprehensive new study by a historian of the Voting Rights Act provides a fresh trove of empirical evidence that refutes Chief Justice Roberts' assertion. The study by J. Morgan Kousser, a professor of history and social science at the California Institute of Technology, examines more than 4,100 voting-rights cases, Justice Department inquiries, settlements and changes to laws in response to the threat of lawsuits around the country where the final result favored minority voters.

It found that from 1957 until 2013, more than 90 percent of these legal “events” occurred in jurisdictions that were required to preclear their voting changes. The study also provides evidence that the number of successful voting-rights suits has gone down in recent years, not because there is less discrimination, but because several Supreme Court decisions have made them harder to win.

Full Article: Voting Rights, by the Numbers – NYTimes.com.

Texas Lawmakers Say Frackers Can Drill In Homeowners' Backyards

UPDATED May 18, 2015

A Texas House bill supported by energy companies that prevents cities and counties from regulating hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and other oil and gas drilling on their land was passed by the House legislators on Friday.

House Bill 40 by Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) passed on a 122-18 bipartisan House vote. The bill is widely seen as a response to a fracking ban passed by Denton voters last November. The Texas Oil and Gas Association, representing major energy companies, has sued Denton and has been lobbying lawmakers. Denton sits on a gas-rich shale formation that stretches across 24 counties in north Texas.

The Senate approved the bill and Gov. Abbott signed the bill into law, overturning Denton’s fracking ban, Dallas’ drilling ordinance, and nullifies city ordinances around the state.

Denton and other cities around Texas have been trying to literally keep fracking gas drillers out of homeowners' backyards and public school playgrounds.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process used in nine out of 10 natural gas wells in the United States, where millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pumped underground to break apart the rock and release the gas. Scientists are worried that the chemicals used in fracturing may pose a threat either to underground aquifers or when waste fluids seep into lakes and public water supplies.

The rise in earthquakes as a result of fracking poses a massive problem for the oil and gas industry. The primary hydraulic fracturing drilling process does not foster earthquakes. Rather, the injection of waste water back into the ground that contributes to fault lines “slipping,” which results in heightened seismic activity.

Oklahoma has become the earthquake capital of the United States, surpassing even tremor-prone California. Oklahoma has averaged less than two earthquakes of a magnitude 3.0 or greater over the last 30 years. Shockingly, however, that rate has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2013, the state experienced 585 earthquakes with at least a 3.0 magnitude. If the current rate of earthquakes continues, Oklahoma could have 875 by the end of 2015.

Related:

State Preempts Municipal Control Over Gas Drilling

Republicans Vote Deficit Increase With Big Tax Giveaway

House Republicans voted Thursday to repeal the estate tax, a longtime priority of Republicans. Not wanting Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton to get too far ahead of them talking about policies that benefit working people, not the wealthy, Republicans talk like champions of the middle class, complaining bitterly about the wealthy benefiting almost exclusively from the recent economic recovery.

Not walking the walk of the talk they talk, House Republicans, en masse, voted for a $269 billion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 0.2% Americans. The House bill now moves to the Senate, where the Republican majority is eager to support it.

Under the plan, GOP lawmakers, who occasionally pretend to care about “fiscal responsibility,” would simply add the entire $269 billion cost to the deficit, leaving future generations to pay for a massive tax break for the hyper-wealthy.

At a time of rising economic inequality, House Republicans have prioritized a bill to make economic inequality worse on purpose. At a time in which much of Congress wants to make the deficit smaller, House Republicans have prioritized a bill to make the deficit much larger. At a time when prosperity is concentrated too heavily at the very top, House Republicans have prioritized a bill to deliver enormous benefits to multi-millionaires and billionaires – and no one else.

Asked to defend this, Republican House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters, confusing the facts, “The estate tax’s repeal is long overdue. Remember, all of this money that families have saved has all been taxed, much of it multiple times. Conservatives claim that the estate tax is a “death tax,” wrongly implying that the tax is paid when every American dies. In fact, the tax primarily is paid by estates of multi-millionaires and billionaires. The vast majority of deaths — 99.9% — do not trigger estate taxes today.

Preparing Big Data Social Media for Hillary

Bloomberg:

Meet the 21st-Century Political Alchemist Who’s Been Data-Mining for Hillary for the Past Two Years. The Bloomberg article gives a deep dive into the modern data-driven campaign with Obama veteran and Ready for Hillary senior strategist Mitch Stewart.

The 39-year-old Stewart has risen to the highest rank of Democratic operatives by thinking holistically about how those pieces of a modern campaign fit together, and how strategies and budgets need to change accordingly.

Read the full story at Bloomberg.com

Texas Photo I.D. Law Appeal Takes A Step Forward

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has set Tuesday, April 28th, as the date to hear oral arguments for the State of Texas' appeal of U.S. Southern District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos' decision to block Texas' photo I.D. law. The law remains in effect, pending the Fifth Circuit's decision on the appeal.

After a two-week trial hearing on the constitutionality of Texas' photo I.D. law conducted in September 2014, Judge Ramos struck down Texas' voter photo I.D. law with a 147-page opinion issued on October 9, 2014.

Judge Ramos found the law had been adopted “with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose,” created “an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote” and amounted to a poll tax. Two days later, and less than two weeks before the start of early voting for the November 2014 gubernatorial election, Judge Ramos entered an injunction blocking the law.

Social Media Activist Seminar

This social media activist seminar, on Saturday, April 18th, at 9:00 a.m., Collin College, Frisco, will provide an introduction on how to effectively use social media to communicate with voters.

The seminar will include a general overview on using social media for voter outreach and activation and focus specifically on how to use Facebook.

We will cover tips and tricks on using social media for outreach and to welcome people to help spread the word about Democratic candidates and issue positions!

All activists, volunteers, precinct chairs, and anyone interested in helping elect democrats in 2016 and beyond are encouraged to attend!

Click to the Facebook events page for details and to tell us you are going to join us for this seminar.