2015 Texas Constitutional Amendments

Resolutions proposing changes to the state constitution must be approved by at least two-thirds of the members of both the Texas House and the Texas Senate. Texas voters then have the opportunity to approve the amendments with a majority vote. The following identifies proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution to appear on the November 3 ballot. This article on constitutional amendment resolutions approved by the 84th Texas Legislature was originally published when the 84th Legislature adjourned on June 1, 2015, and was updated on June 17, 2015 when the Texas Secretary of State published the proposition order for the constitutional amendment ballot:

Voter Registration and I.D. Requirements

by Michael Handley

CLICK HERE To go to information on the December 2015 renewal mailing of 2016-17 Voter Registration Certificates, and to stay current on the status of Texas' voter photo ID law in the federal courts.

VOTER REGISTRATION 2014-15 -- You MUST be registered to vote in the county in which you currently reside, and have a currently dated government issued photo I.D., to vote in any Texas election. You must be registered, or have mailed your registration application to be postmarked, no later than midnight of  the thirtieth day before the election date. And you must present I.D. at the polling place to vote in person.

NOTE: On Wednesday, August 5, 2015, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously agreed with U.S. Southern District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos' October 2014 finding that Texas’ SB14 photo voter ID law has a discriminatory effect on black and Latino voters, and therefore violates section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Fifth Circuit did not throw out the SB14 law entirely.

The three-judge appellate court panel remanded the case back to Judge Ramos with an order to fashion a specific legal remedy that recognizes legislators' declared interest to preventing voter fraud in passing the SB14 law. The voter ID law remains in effect, as of October 19, 2015, pending action by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Required voter I.D. is listed below.

Every registered Texas voter should have received their new 2014-15 orange Voter Registration Card (VRC), mailed during the first part of January 2014, or within thirty days after you submitted your registration application. If you asked to register to vote while updating your driver's license with the Texas DPS, and you never received a VRC, your registration application may not have been processed.

Blog Talking The Democratic Presidential Debate

We invite you to Blog Talk the first Democratic Primary Debate with us Tuesday, October 13, 2015, at 9:30pm CT.

We will be LIVE with BlogTalkUSA Eyes Wide Open Post Debate Roundtable discussion immediately following the first Democratic Presidential Primary Debate and we want YOU to join us!

Call (347) 855-8118 to listen LIVE, share your opinions, or join the discussion!

(We will delay our regular Tuesday "Eyes Wide Open" BlogTalkUSA radio program to start at the conclusion of the debate.)

Archive of selected Talking The Talk On Internet Talk Radio

Texas Replaces So. Carolina As Post New Hampshire Make or Break Primary

Updated Tuesday, October 13, 2016 @ 8:22 AM.

As usual, media political pundits are applying what they remember from past primary schedules to the 2016 primary schedule. So they are focused on the South Carolina primary being the big swing decision factor for 2016. But 2016 is different and Texas, not South Carolina, is the big prize primary, after Iowa and New Hampshire.

In 2008, Iowa Democrats caucused on January 3rd. The 2008 New Hampshire primary followed on Jan. 8, with South Carolina Democrats voting on Jan. 26th and Florida Democrats voting on Jan. 29th. That made SC and FL the key post NH swing decision stories in 2008, leading into the 23 state and territory primaries and caucuses held on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5th.

Another 13 states held their primaries and caucuses during February 2008. Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island held their primary on Tuesday, March 4, 2008.

The 2016 primary season kicks off a month later than in 2008.  Iowa precinct caucuses will allocate 46 pledged delegates on Monday, Feb. 1, 2016 and the New Hampshire primary will allocate 24 pledged delegates on Tuesday, Feb. 9th.

Texas primary early voting starts on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 and runs through Friday, February 26, 2016. The 2016 South Carolina Democratic Primary date is currently set for Saturday, Feb 27th, the day after Texas early voting concludes. Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina will allocate 121 pledged presidential delegates.

Texas is the big post Iowa and New Hampshire prize on Super Tuesday with Texas Democrats selecting 237 delegates, including super delegates, for largest single delegate count of any state up to and including the other super Tuesday states.

‘Level the Playing Field’ Democratic Strategy

In May the Roosevelt Institute released its Rewriting the Rules economic agenda crafted by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Since the report's well publicized release, the Roosevelt Institute partnered with Democracy Corps to determine whether its Rewriting the Rules analysis and recommendations translate to political policy messaging objectives.

The public policy research conducted through this partnership tests policies Roosevelt Institute economists believe would re-balance the economy by producing broadly shared economic growth. This research finds the public embraces a 'Level the Playing Field' policy agenda, and rejects the conservative ‘Trickle Down’ economic agenda.

‘Level the Playing Field’ progressive messaging, is electorally compelling. It gets a stronger and more intense response than conservative ‘Trickle Down’ messaging. It leads the disengaged to be more engaged, particularly audiences of the newly emerging 21st century American majority. It also produces much stronger results than Democratic main-stream identity issue messaging strategy - that is silent on inequality.

'Level the Playing Field' progressive messaging seeks an economy that works to stop the toxic influence of corporate money, and seeks to level the playing field for all so we can build and strengthen the middle class by restoring the American promise of equality and opportunity. Level the Playing Field messaging performs dramatically better than traditional Democratic identity politics messaging with self-identified Democrats and, the critical swing group, white working class voters. It is more motivating for Millennials, and it performs equally well with independents.

The final and most important result is the re-engagement of the disengaged. At the end of the survey, the big ideological debate, the bold policies, and competing progressive and conservative messages energized the emerging 21st century American Electorate of racial minorities, unmarried women and Millennials who could comprise 55 percent of the voters in 2016 - if they are motivated to turnout to vote.

Public Now Rejects Trickle-Down Economics, Seeks Inclusive Growth

Obama's Campaign Guru Calls Bernie Sanders' Campaign A Phenomenon

David Axelrod tweets that Bernie Sanders' appearance at his University of Chicago Institute of Politics alma mater is a phenomenon.

Got a first-hand look at the @BernieSanders phenomenon today @UChiPolitics. 2,000 in hall. 500 in overflow. And 2500 couldn't get in. —  David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) September 28, 2015

David Axelrod was the Chief Strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, which created the same kind of phenomenon as Bernie's campaign.


Bernie Sander speaks at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics - YouTube

The Blackmail Caucus, a.k.a. The GOP

Robert Reich, NYTimes OpEd:  John Boehner was a terrible, very bad, no good speaker of the House. Under his leadership, Republicans pursued an unprecedented strategy of scorched-earth obstructionism, which did immense damage to the economy and undermined America’s credibility around the world. Still, things could have been worse. And under his successor they almost surely will be worse. Bad as Mr. Boehner was, he was just a symptom of the underlying malady, the madness that has consumed his party.

Read the full OpEd at NYTimes.com

After Hearing Pope, Speaker Boehner Says GOP Is Party Of False Prophets

House Speaker John Boehner abruptly announced his resignation Friday, shutting down a Tea Party drive to oust the nation’s highest-ranking Republican.House Tea Party Republicans unhappy over Boehner's refusal to shut down government over yet another budget-based Tea Party minority power play to force their will on the majority.

House Tea Party Republicans were organizing a formal challenge maneuver against the speaker not used for over 100 years. Boehner's resignation means the long brewing battle for the soul of the party is over: the Republican Party now is the Tea Party.

In his first one-on-one interview since his resignation announcement, Speaker Boehner appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday, blasted Tea Party Republicans as “false prophets” who “whip people into a frenzy” to make legislative demands that “are never going to happen.”

Asked if his critics on the right are unrealistic, Boehner exclaimed, “Absolutely they’re unrealistic!”

“The Bible says, beware of false prophets. And there are people out there spreading, you know, noise about how much can get done,” Boehner said. “We got groups here in town, members of the House and Senate here in town, who whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things they know — they know! — are never going to happen,” he added.

“Our founders [who wrote our constitution defining our system of government] didn’t want some parliamentary system where if you won the majority you got to do whatever you wanted,” he added. “They wanted this long, slow process. And so change comes slowly. And obviously too slowly for some.”

John Boehner, a devout Catholic, abruptly and unexpectedly stepped down as Speaker of the House one day after he listened to Pope Francis' address to Congress. Boehner broke down in tears as he heard Pope Francis speak of the duty of conscience for those in positions of power and authority to serve the common man and woman.  With Boehner alluding members of his Republican caucus are "false prophets" on CBS’ Face the Nation, one wonders if he had a revelation or crisis of conscience that he could no long serve an immoral political party, upon hearing Pope Francis' words.

The House of Representatives is supposed to be the most direct reflection of the people, all the people, and the driving force of policy change. It’s where the work of the common man and woman is supposed to get done. Looking back at Boehner’s tenure as speaker, we can only conclude that either that mission is no longer possible or he was not the man for the job — and perhaps both. Somewhere inside John Boehner’s conscience there must persist some awareness that the United States Congress is supposed to serve a higher purpose. By all accounts Boehner is a decent guy. Perhaps listening to the Pope, Boehner had a revelation he could no long serve the morally bankrupt Republican ideology.

The Ohio Republican also declared on CBS’ Face the Nation that there won’t be a government shutdown this week, though he’s “sure” it will take Democratic votes to pass a temporary funding extension. “I don’t want to leave my successor a dirty barn. I want to clean the barn up a little bit before the next person gets there,” he quipped.

Boehner’s difficulties with tea party conservatives — first elected in a huge 83-person freshman class in 2010 and whose ranks grew in 2014—has been a challenge throughout his speakership. Tea party congressmen pushed Washington partisanship to levels unseen in recent decades, shutting down the government and refusing to raise the government’s debt ceiling to advance causes they believe mainstream conservatives had long ignored. They demanded confrontation on shutting down Obamacare, cutting federal spending and most recently ending all federal aid for women’s health services at Planned Parenthood which also provides abortions.

House Speaker John Boehner's sudden resignation Friday "signals that the crazies have taken over the party," New York Republican Peter King said Friday. “I think it signals the crazies have taken over the party, taken over to the party that you can remove a speaker of the House who’s second in line to be president, a constitutional officer in the middle of his term with no allegations of impropriety, a person who’s honest and doing his job. This has never happened before in our country," King said in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash on Friday afternoon. "He could have stayed on.”

Boehner's decision to resign is "like throwing raw meat" to more extreme factions of the caucus who are trying to "hijack and blackmail the party," King said. "They’re not going to see it as a gesture of peace, they’re going to just look for more."

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke on Friday about the resignation of Republican House Speaker John Boehner and the implications. Sanders said Boehner was “unable to control” the Republican party and that his resignation could leave the GOP in a more chaotic state. “It appears that even a very conservative speaker like John Boehner is unable to control the extreme right-wing drift of Republicans in the House,” said Sanders. “Without Boehner, it may get even worse.”

Whoever ends up being the new Speaker he will likely be a tea party darling. The new tea party Speaker will continue the strategy of 100% obstruction against the Obama agenda, but now it’ll be done with more verbato and brinksmanship. The new Speaker will pull more political stunts, and invoke more extremist rhetoric that turns off everyone but its own far-end base. He’ll also be less political adept, meaning that even as the republican role dissolves into stuntcasting over the next year and a half, Obama will be in a position to muscle even more of his agenda through side doors.

Moderate and undecided voters tend to ignore ideology and instead vote for whichever party has the appearance of propriety or whichever candidate has the appearance of class. The Republican Party about to fall entirely into the hands of tea party extremists who care less about the future of the party than they do about carrying out their faux-revolution in the form of holding office and refusing to govern. Voters undecided who to vote for in 2016 are about have clear preview of what the nation would be like with Tea Party President and Tea Party controlled congress.

Until now, John Boehner was really the only half-sane Republican leader in Congress keeping the GOP out of the controlling hands of Tea Party lawmakers. The angry and misspelled comments from right-wingers who lashed out at him for not pressing the Tea Party agenda hard enough for their liking are an indication of the coming extremist control of the House Boehner struggled to hold back. Speaker John Boehner’s departure will now allow the fringe elements to finally take over, and hasten the demise of the GOP as a national party. It hasn’t been a question of if, but when, and now the Tea Party will hain full control of Congress – they’re already targeting Mitch McConnell in the Senate as their next victim.

John Boehner was: Anti-choice; Anti-environment; Anti-sensible-gun-laws; Anti-gay; Anti-education; Anti-veteran; Anti-first-amendment; and Anti-privacy. The fact that today’s Republican Party doesn’t think he’s conservative enough should scare the hell out of you.

The Dark Truth Of John Boehner's Resignation"
Pope Francis Addresses Congress

Iran Nuclear Deal Ticking Bomb For Republicans

The Iran nuclear deal is a ticking bomb for Republicans on Election Day, November 2016. It's why they are desperate to block it. An election prediction model that has never been wrong forecasts the Democratic presidential nominee will win the 2016 election in a landslide, if Iranian economic sanctions are lifted.

Moody’s Analytics’ election forecaster, which uses oil and gas prices as a key determinant, has accurately predicted the outcome of every presidential election from 1980-2012.   The model forecasts whether or not the incumbent party will maintain control over the White House. Its latest finding shows Democrats winning almost as strongly as President Obama did in 2012:

Our Moody’s Analytics election model now predicts a Democratic electoral landslide in the 2016 presidential vote. A small change in the forecast data in August has swung the outcome from the statistical tie predicted in July, to a razor-edge ballot outcome that nevertheless gives the incumbent party 326 electoral votes to the Republican challenger’s 212.

The Moody’s model also uses housing prices, the state of the economy, and presidential approval, in addition to the key determinate of oil and gas prices, in predicting election outcome.

There's a huge surplus of oil in the world, stemming from both buoyant world production supply and stagnate demand, likely to leave crude oil and gasoline prices at low levels not seen in decades, through election day 2016.

Pope Delivers Pointed Address On Greed, Power, And The Climate At UN

Pope Francis spoke before the United Nations General Assembly Friday morning, articulating an urgent call to address the world’s many interconnected problems, especially economic inequality, climate change, and war. Pope Francis’ speech to the General Assembly may have addressed similar themes as his address to Congress on Thursday, but the tone was an indictment of the U.N.’s failure to fulfill its mission.

Read the story at Think Progress