This report from Legistorm, on the record amounts private interests spent last year on trips for members of Congress and their staffs in 2011, is a microcosm of what’s wrong with Congress and our government(s). This is one area of Congress, it seems, where there is broad bipartisan agreement.
Private interests spent a record amount to send members of Congress and their staff on trips on 2011, and the individual trips were longer and costlier than ever before.
There were 1,600 privately funded congressional trips in 2011, worth a total of more than $5.8 million, the largest amount since ethics reforms were enacted in 2007 in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. The total amount is the highest since 2005, when a record 4,917 trips were taken totaling $9.9 million. The record for money spent came in 2004, when 4,780 trips cost nearly $10.4 million.
And Congressman John Carter (R-Round Rock) is stands out in the report.
The most expensive trip in 2011 was sponsored by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation, which paid $30,708 to send Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) and his wife to South Africa and Botswana for meetings on conservation and natural resource management.
Jock Friedly, president of Legistorm, the public interest group that compiled the report, says that all told, those trips cost $5.8 million last year. “When these private interests are taking members of Congress and their staff on these trips, they are definitely showing only one side of the story.”
Friedly says it violates the spirit of reforms made in 2007, after Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff got caught bribing officials with lavish trips. Now, lobbyists are banned from paying for extended travel. But groups that don’t lobby can still fund trips.
“Whether that’s overseas in Afghanistan, or if that’s overseas seeing some new technology that’s going to help us, they should be involved in it,” said Jim Clarke, senior vice president of public policy at the Center for Association Leadership. Clarke represents many groups that pay for congressional travel.
The Aspen Institute – which sponsored the Puerto Rico forum, and has spent half a million dollars on congressional trips to Vienna, Canada, and Barcelona – told CBS News it educates members of Congress, helps build relationships and civil discourse, and accepts no corporate or special interest funding. But unlike the Aspen Institute, foundations and other groups that do have corporate and lobbyist ties are paying for some trips.
“Lobbyists founded the foundation. They sit on the board of the foundation. But because the foundation itself does not lobby,” Friedly said, “it’s allowed.”
Is that a distinction without a difference?
“It could be to some people, yes.” Friedly said
As an example, Friedly points to the group that broke the all-time record for spending in a single year: The American Israel Education Foundation, which paid $2 million for 145 trips to Israel. They don’t lobby, but they share offices, a phone number and public relations person with a giant lobby called The American Israel Public Affairs Committee. When CBS News asked them about all those trips, the foundation said no government money funds the congressional trips, and diverse views are presents.
When confronted with the fact that groups that lobby and corporations are setting up foundations that in turn pay for congressional travel — a situation critics say skirts the intent of the rules — Clarke said, “I’m not going to defend that practice.”
“I would say that’s up to, it seems like it is what the law allows. If that’s not what Congress’ intent is they should review their processes.”
And that’s the thing, it’s perfectly legal. Here’s the video of the CBS report on this today.
This can be fixed and the way is not easy. Here’s a great discussion about this topic between Chris Hedges and Lawrence Lessig: Getting Money Out of Politics. Especially when Lessig compares current members of Congress to vassals of the Super PACs/corporations.
It’s an enthralling discussion. And they fully realize that this isn’t about Republican and Democrat, as both parties are knee-deep in this corruption. And there are no easy answers to this. (For a darker take on the future read this). But we must have a fundamental change in the power structure in our country.
Talk given at for the Humanity Center at UCSB, January 18, 2011. WhatsNew: A clearer articulation of the nature of the alliance that is necessary for outsider politics to work.
The number of Texans living in poverty jumped to more than 4.6 million last year, an increase of nearly 9 percent, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
For the second consecutive year, Texas’ poverty rate grew — to 18.4 percent, well above the national average of 15.1 percent.
Texas’ rate was sixth-highest among the states last year, trailing only Mississippi, Louisiana , Georgia, Arizona and New Mexico. Texas also ranked sixth in poverty in 2008 and 2009.
Once again, Texas led all states in the share of its population that lacks health insurance, at 24.6 percent. The national uninsured rate is 16.3 percent.
[...]
In child poverty, Texas moved up a notch. In 2009, the rate among state residents younger than 18 was 25.6 percent, or seventh-highest among states. Last year, at 27 percent, Texas came in No. 6, edging out Indiana.
Texas had 1.9 million poor children, the study found.
For residents living in poverty, the state doesn’t offer many services or even make federally-funded benefits easily accessible.
For instance, it has one of the tightest income limits — less than 12% of the poverty level — to qualify for federal cash assistance payments and one of the most meager benefits, a maximum of about $260 a month for a family of three, said Celia Cole, senior research analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income residents. The program serves less than 6% of poor children in the state.
Texas’ Medicaid program covers few non-disabled adults, instead providing health insurance mainly for children and senior citizens. And only an estimated 55% of those eligible for food stamps had signed up for the program in 2008, among the lowest participation rates in the country.
Enrollment has since improved after the state legislature allocated more money for administering the system after coming under pressure from the federal government and being hit with a class action lawsuit. However, Cole says, need has greatly increased as well.
The Texas Supreme Court has a long history of favoring corporate defendants over families and small businesses, according to a decade-long review of the Court’s decision making by Court Watch, a project of the non-profit Texas Watch Foundation.
Court Watch reviewed the 624 cases involving consumers decided by the Court between 2000 and 2010. The report, “Thumbs on the Scale: A Retrospective of the Texas Supreme Court, 2000-2010,” finds that the state’s high court for civil matters “has marched in lock-step to consistently and overwhelmingly reward corporate defendants and the government at the expense of Texas families.”
It’s long past time for Texas to become a top 10 state for the rest of us.
It’s not like this is a surprise to anyone who knows politics in Texas. To find out that during the redistricting process there was politics going on.
Asked what “really bad” meant in reference to judges, Hebert said that it meant Republicans didn’t want Democrats or minorities. “They knew all along their plan was discriminatory,” said Hebert. “This is confirming evidence.”
Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic advocacy group, agreed that the email confirms that Republicans wanted to skirt the voting rights law. “They were looking to rig the deal from the git-go.”
The Texas attorney general’s office declined comment. Interiano, who is due to testify in the D.C. court again today after testifying last week, did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s just that this kind of thing is only talked about in “quiet rooms”, not in open court with press taking not. It’s rare that we get a trial to bring all the “sausage making” out into the open. The Texas GOP can thank Greg Abbott for that.
The crux of the issue with redistricting in Texas boils down to the highlighted sentence below from Michael Li, Election schedule, interim map update.
In an order issued this afternoon, the San Antonio court cancelled the scheduled February 1 status conference and instead asked the parties to appear for a status conference this Friday, January 27, at 1 p.m.
However, the court told the parties that if they wish to maintain a unified April 3 primary date that they would need to agree among themselves on maps by February 6.
If the parties are unable to agree upon maps, they are to submit a list of unobjected to districts by February 6 for the court’s consideration.
The majority (GOP) is going to have to work with, i.e. compromise with, the minority (Democrats) in order to get a set up maps passed by the deadline for an April Primary to be possible. Isn’t it interesting that it comes down to that? Because the GOP was adamantly opposed to that during the legislative session is the reason we are in this predicament in the first place. It’s because of the shenanigans and unwillingness of the GOP leaders in the legislature to work with Democrats, in a few areas, that their redistricting plans failed to hold up to legal scrutiny.
The law, known as Senate Bill 14, would establish a very limited list of accepted forms of photo identification, and would require all voters to show an acceptable ID before they will be permitted to vote. Other previously acceptable documents, like birth certificates and utility bills, will no longer be accepted as sufficient proof of identification.
Notably, university student ID cards and state and federal government employee ID cards would also be rejected. This extremely narrow list of acceptable identification documents makes Texas’ law one of the most restrictive pieces of voter ID legislation in the entire country.
There were areas for compromise with Democrats on an ID bill but since the GOP had large enough majorities in the legislature they saw no need. And, again, their extremism and overreach brought about enactment of legislation that can’t hold up to legal scrutiny. There is a school of thought out there that believes the whole point of the GOP passing such extreme measures, in redistricting and photo restriction, is to bring about a constitutional challenge of the Voting Rights Act. That’s hard to argue with.
The race is on to get new maps in hand in time to keep the April 3 primary date, since all the options for after that date are distinctly unpalatable in one way or another. On Friday, the State of Texas asked the San Antonio court to get its work done by January 30. The courtasked for responses to that request; the plaintiffs said it wasn’t realistic while the state said they’d work late and by phone to make it happen. They also suggested moving the second filing deadline to February 6 and shortening the period for mailing military ballots to 25 days. The court responded with some requests of its own.
As we know, the Justice Department has been asking the state for data about how this law will affect minority voters, and it’s only in the last couple of weeks that the state has sort of fulfilled those requests. The DOJ refused to preclear a new voter ID law in South Carolina on the grounds that it was discriminatory, with AG Abbott expressing at that time the opinion that Texas’ law was headed for a similar fate. We’ll see what the DC court makes of this. For what it’s worth, they so far have not shown any inclination in the redistricting preclearance lawsuit to be more lenient on the state than Justice would have been. Postcardshas more, Texas Redistricting has a response to Abbott from MALC Chair Trey Martinez-Fischer, and a statement from Sen. Rodney Ellis is here.
Six months ago Rick Perry was on top of the world and seemed like he had the best chance to be the anti-Romney if he decided to enter the GOP presidential primary. But that was last summer and probably seems like an eternity to Perry loyalists and supporters. His decline, now complete, was swift.
One interesting dynamic of the GOP Primary is the connection between Perry and Newt Gingrich’s campaign. It seems that when one was up the other was down, and vice versa. Also in June of last year Perry’s campaign “brain trust” exited the Gingrich campaign. It’s very interesting to look back at how Gingrich and Perry were perceived by the right wing a little over six months ago.
It is not news that Newt Gingrich is disorganized and undisciplined – his 1,000-ideas-a-minute pace all but ensures it. His time away from active politics seems to have made that worse. Staffers have been highly critical of his management style, to say the least, and Newt has been all over the map, from veering toward the fringe with that “Kenyan anti-colonialist” business to veering into RINO territory denouncing “right-wing social engineering.”
I’d endorse Newt Gingrich for president . . . of a very good college. It is impossible to imagine him president of the United States.
I don’t know why Perry isn’t in, and I don’t know why Gingrich is.
Those staffers that were criticizing Gingrich back then, were the same ones that defected, and wound up running Perry’s campaign. It looks like Carney and crew didn’t fare too well in the 2012 GOP Primary. (Carney’s preception has certainly taken a hit since last summer, The Outsider.) Now Perry’s “gurus” are perceived as a bunch of Texas “rubes” and Gingrich won South Carolina by 10 plus. What a difference six months makes.
Reading this article in the Texas Tribune, Back in Texas, Rick Perry Has Relationships to Repair, about Perry’s failed presidential run – never going to get tired of typing that – there are a few other interesting items. It’s apparent now that Perry will say anything to try and win an election, (shocking isn’t it!?). Remember it wasn’t long ago that Perry was the tea party darling.
In his five-month run for the White House, he called Turkey’s leaders “Islamic terrorists,” blasted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s fiscal strategy as “treasonous,” and slammed gays serving openly in the military, moves that made some moderate Republicans choke on their lunch.
He offended Tea Partiers and some of his social conservative fans by saying opponents of in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants were heartless.
And he alienated big business Republicans by going after so-called “vulture capitalists,” prompting Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk show host, to compare Perry to Fidel Castro.
But when the going got tough Texas’ tea party governor folded like a pair of deuces.
But Texans learned something too — how their usually unflappable governor performs under national pressure.
They winced at the gaffes and unforced errors: When Perry misstated the voting age and the number of justices on the Supreme Court. When he said Texas teaches creationism in public schools. When he forgot the third agency he wanted to shutter during a presidential debate, prompting the “oops” heard around the cable news world.
And they cringed as Perry’s campaign rhetoric and candidate attacks grew more desperate.
There was the December “Strong” ad where Perry states, “There’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military” — which his advisers quietly called a blatant grasp at Christian conservatives.
When he was under fire in a Republican debate, his statement that those who opposed in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants did not have “a heart” rankled the same anti-immigration voters he was trying to court. And Perry’s allegation, with his back against the wall in South Carolina, that firms like the financial services company his opponent Mitt Romney founded were “vulture capitalists” outraged some Republican business leaders, in addition to the Republican pundit class.
JoAnn Fleming, chairwoman of the Texas Legislature’s Tea Party Caucus Advisory Committee, said Perry has some explaining to do back in Texas. She called his “vulture capitalism” comments the kind of attack a liberal would make, and said that although Perry defended Texas’ in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants on the campaign trail, she and other Tea Party activists will be calling on him to repeal it in the next legislative session.
News reports that Perry had begun drawing down his pension to supplement his gubernatorial salary did not sit well with small-government conservatives either, she said.
“He has some cleaning up of his own doorstep he needs to do,” Fleming said.
The tea party and the Texas GOP shouldn’t be surprised that their governor, that used to be a Democrat, was willing to change his positions on the issue most important to them. Perry has always been a political opportunist and changes his positions as often as the Texas weather. After all that is Perry’s political MO. All we can hope is that Texans finally see him for what he is.
My thoughts on whether Perry will run again in the future are these. Perry won’t leave until the voters make him. Until he says he isn’t running assume he is running for reelection in 2014. He knows nothing other than politics, and running the next race. At this point he’s like an aging athlete that doesn’t know when to quit. He’s accustomed to the lifestyle of bodyguards, drivers, chefs, etc…and doesn’t want to give it up. The earliest he would announce he’s not running would be after the next legislative session. A lame duck Perry would have no power. If he can’t mend those fences, mentioned above, and runs again he could finally get beat in Texas.
“We’ve got to make sure we put our best foot forward for Rick and Penny,” a senior adviser recalls Allbaugh telling the gathering.
Rick and Penny?
Presumably, he meant Anita Perry, the governor’s wife.
[...]
In the wake of the Perry’s gaffe-infused implosion, identifying which strategic move hurt the most is a difficult task, and one that may be impossible without more information and the benefit of historical reflection.
[...]
Perry’s own string of verbal goofs, probably some of the worst in modern American political history, were so crippling that it is questionable whether any paid professionals could have pulled him out of the ditch.
Maybe Perry would’ve done better nationally if staffers in his state races had pushed him into general-election debates, unfettered public discussion of his positions and more media access. Or maybe now we now know why they didn’t.
Regardless, his tight-knit team looks a bit unraveled. And for Perry, at least in Texas, that may turn out to be the biggest loss of all.
Dismissing former prosecutor Ken Anderson’s defense as strained, feeble and outrageous, lawyers for Michael Morton renewed calls Wednesday for a special court to examine allegations that Anderson intentionally hid evidence to ensure Morton’s conviction for a murder he did not commit.
Anderson denied any wrongdoing in a strongly worded court brief, filed two weeks ago, that accused Morton’s lawyers of building their accusation around falsehoods, incomplete facts and an incorrect reading of trial records.
[...]
Morton’s lawyers accuse Anderson, who was Williamson County’s district attorney for more than 16 years, of hiding five pieces of favorable evidence, including a police interview indicating that the Mortons’ 3-year-old son witnessed his mother’s attack and said his father was not home at the time.
A portion of the police interview was found in Anderson’s trial files last summer.
Morton’s lawyers accuse Anderson of violating of two state laws: tampering with physical evidence, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison that includes concealing “any record or document,” and intentionally concealing a government record, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
In addition, Morton’s lawyers said, Anderson should be held in contempt of court, which could result in jail time, for failing to follow trial Judge William Lott’s order to provide all reports and notes compiled by sheriff’s Sgt. Don Wood, the primary investigator in the murder case.
Anderson has said he explicitly followed Lott’s instructions, arguing the judge wanted to see only one Wood report.
Eric Nichols, Anderson’s lawyer, said the new court filing “adds nothing new and merely repeats the same arguments that are based on a fundamentally flawed reading of the trial record.”
It would seem that if Anderson was truly interested in making sure everyone knows there wasn’t “any wrongdoing” in this case he would want an inquiry like this to clear his name.
More via the WilcoSun, Morton lawyers: Anderson’s silence ‘speaks volumes’.
In a 27-page rebuttal, Mr. Morton’s attorneys with the New York-based Innocence Project say the judge fails to address many of the most salient details about his conduct during the Morton trial.
Defense lawyers claimed during and immediately after the 1987 trial that the prosecution was withholding evidence suggesting Mr. Morton might be innocent. Yet Judge Anderson never attempted to explain until this month’s brief why so many police reports weren’t made available to the court, Mr. Morton’s attorneys said.
“Nor do Mr. Anderson’s counsel mention — much less explain — the damning fact that their client effectively stood mute in response to these allegations during 24 years of post-trial proceedings,” the attorneys wrote. “A quarter century later, his silence still speaks volumes.”
The brief from Anderson’s lawyers doesn’t address a statement made by Assistant District Attorney Mike Davis, who told the jury that many reports were withheld from defense attorneys. It doesn’t address defense lawyers’ motion for a new trial, which demanded information about those reports. Judge Anderson “dodged” the issue of withheld evidence during appeals, Mr. Morton’s lawyers said, and that also was not addressed in the brief.
As a result, the need for a court of inquiry to determine if the former district attorney committed criminal misconduct is still very real, Mr. Morton’s attorneys said.
Though Judge Anderson argues the statute of limitations precludes the formation of an inquiry, Mr. Morton’s attorneys say the purpose of the court would be to determine if an offense was committed, not to prosecute the judge.
If the court finds that Judge Anderson did violate the law, that could have important consequences, either through disciplinary action by the State Bar of Texas or at the polls if the judge seeks reelection, Mr. Morton’s attorneys wrote.
“The Court of Inquiry statute thus remains a wholly legitimate vehicle to investigate and pursue probable violations of this State’s criminal laws,” the attorneys said in their brief. “And it remains particularly appropriate in cases where, as here, the target of the inquiry is a public official whose misconduct might otherwise evade investigation.”
The sooner everyone that was responsible for keeping Michael Morton behind bars for 25 years for a crime he did not commit comes clean, the better it will be for everyone.
The Texas Progressive Alliance thanks the state of South Carolina for all the laughs as it brings you this week’s blog roundup.
The big story last week was the SCOTUS ruling on interim redistricting maps. Off the Kuff has an initial look.
It turns out that PDiddie and Paula Deen have more in common than just their initials; there’s also a morality tale involved. Read “Paula Deen, diabetes, and Novo Nordisk” at Brains and Eggs.
At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw mourns for Texas in “Poor Texas Forrest Homer Simpson is Coming Back”. An eloquent requiem for a candidate who brought untold levels of derision to our state when he revealed how truly shallow and narcissistic he is. Give it a read!
A few months back, before all the sit-ins and other activity, spurred in great part by friends and family back home (I am from Nebraska), I was asking a friend in the administration about the Keystone Pipeline issue. They told me that it really wasn’t all that important a policy decision and that it would be made by technical staffers in the State Department with the president playing no role in it. Reading between the lines, I was getting clear signals it was a done deal. And now, for at least another year, it’s dead.
On another front, in December, I was inquiring of a very senior Senate staffer about the SOPA/PIPA issue, saying that while I certainly understood the need to do something about intellectual property piracy issues, that I was hearing from some friends in the netroots world that there was some overkill in these bills, and that perhaps senators ought to slow down and listen to the concerns different folks had. I was told that the train had left the station, and it was an unstoppable done deal. And now SOPA is dead as well.
Here’s another one: in December, people who care about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were in open despair about ever getting the administration to move on recess appointing Rich Cordray to head the bureau. It seemed like the White House and Harry Reid just didn’t want to pick the fight and force the issue. But pick the fight they did, and today Rich Cordray truly is acting like the new sheriff in town, taking on exploitive bankers right and left.
As Bob Dylan would put it, the times they are a-changin’. There’s a storm outside and it’s raging, baby. We really are shaking their windows and rattling their walls. Done deals are not getting done. Dead appointments are acting like Lazarus and rising from the dead. The establishment is getting very, very nervous. And grassroots activists, from the occupiers to the netroots to those chaining themselves to the White House fence or sitting in at the Wisconsin Capitol last year, are shaking and rattling things all over.
Lux goes on to point out that there’s another decision coming soon that President Obama needs to hear from us about.
But it is also no time to pat ourselves on the back: over the next 72 hours, an enormous issue will probably get resolved that will be the biggest single thing that will determine whether the dead housing market, as well as the broader economy, will get a boost that will bring it to life: the bank settlement deal. How this issue gets resolved not only will have a massive impact on the economy, it will go a very long ways in whether the President can credibly run for re-election as the guy who took on Wall Street and held them accountable when the chips were down.
The deal will be announced on Monday. Here’s what to look for:
-First, and most importantly, does the administration commit to a comprehensive investigation into the misconduct that led to the collapse of the economy and partner with the likes of aggressive AG’s like Eric Schneiderman on such an investigation? Does it have adequate staffing and a clear mandate to fully and broadly investigate the big Wall Street companies that clearly were engaged in all kinds of fraudulent activity in the years that led up to the financial panic of 2008? Will the bankers be brought to justice? If a bigger investigation is launched, given all the stinking dirty laundry the bankers have, we are almost certain to get a much bigger, better deal in the not too distant future, because their lawyers will tell them to cave.
-Second, on the settlement over the robo-signing perjuries, is the release granted the banks the narrowest possible release, or does it let the bankers off the hook for a wide range of fraudulent behavior? A narrow release allows the AGs that want to do more investigation, as well as any task force set up, to do a far more sweeping investigation in the coming months.
-Third, is the principal reduction that is supposed to come from this settlement have specifically enforceable timelines? Do the banks have to come up with the money by a given date, into a specified fund, or does this look like the disastrous HAMP program that was left to the banks’ discretion and therefore helped only a tiny fraction of homeowners?
-Fourth, how much money are we talking about anyway? I want, and the country needs, several hundred billion in mortgage writedowns. We won’t get that out of this settlement, but we might out of a broader tougher investigation. However even for this first step, the idea of getting just $20 or $25 billion, as has been leaked to various reporters, would be a real disappointment. Knowing that there was almost certainly more to come, I could be happy with more like $50 billion.
I have long been convinced that the health of our economy over the next few years, whether it will be a Japan’s lost decade kind of scenario or whether we fix the black hole of the housing market so that the entire economy can start to move again, will rest greatly on how this decision goes down. In part because of its effect on the economy, and in part because Obama’s best chance of winning by far is to run against Bain Capital and the predators on Wall Street, I also believe this decision will be the biggest decider in terms of whether Obama wins re-election. So if you care about any of that, or if you just care about holding Wall Street accountable, let the White House know what you think this weekend: sign this petition, call the White House switchboard (202-456-1414) or campaign headquarters this weekend, let them know what you think. People on the inside of these negotiations tell me things are still on the knife’s edge, and you can make a difference.
I will close by noting that, as I wrote about in my book The Progressive Revolution, positive change in America happens because of the combination of big progressive movements and Presidents open to that change. The last few victories progressives have won have shown us that formula is starting to work again. Let’s hope the next 72 hours show us that the progressive movement can muster its troops to make Wall Street accountability happen, and that the president remains open to change.
Yesterday in the pre clearance trial on Texas redistricting we began to learn just how the Texas Republicans gamed the system in redistricting, Texas Senate GOP Map was Pre-cooked.
The email was written only hours after the Republican redistricting plan had been posted to the State’s redistricting website. It confirms that Texas Republican leaders had no intention of listening to or responding to any comments from the public or accepting any substantive amendments from Senate Members.[Emphasis added] It further acknowledges their worries that the plan does not comply with the Voting Rights Act and may not survive legal review.
Redistricting is full of acronyms: CVAP (citizen voting age population), SSVR (Spanish surname voter registration), TO (turnout).
Well, one more has emerged an email that got turned over last week as part of the preclearance litigation in Washington – and it’s a doozy.
OHRVS
No, not the fishing supply shop used by noodlers. OHRVS stands for ‘Optimal Hispanic Republican Voter Strength,’ and it’s a measure devised by Republicans to calculate how simultaneously Hispanic and Republican they could make a district.
As explained in the email from Eric Opiela, counsel for the GOP congressional delegation, to mapdrawer Gerardo Interiano, the goal of the exercise was to “pull the district’s Total Hispanic Pop and Hispanic CVAPs [citizen voting age population] up to majority status, but leave the Spanish Surname RV [registered voters] and TO [turnout] the lowest.”
In other words: Mapdrawers were told – we want you to create districts that look Hispanic on paper but have a much lower chance for Hispanics to elect their candidate of choice.
The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, set aside the court’s map. Another federal panel is holding hearings now on the legality of the Legislature’s maps under the federal Voting Rights Act. That case will go on, and that court’s decision, along with proceedings that follow in federal court in Texas, will decide the final maps, primary dates and so on.
The San Antonio panel didn’t use the Legislature’s maps because those hadn’t been pre-cleared, as required by the Voting Rights Act. Even so, the Supreme Court ruled, they should have used those maps as their starting point:
Section 5 prevents a state plan from being implemented if it has not been precleared. But that does not mean that the plan is of no account or that the policy judgments it reflects can be disregarded by a district court drawing an interim plan. On the contrary, the state plan serves as a starting point for the district court. It provides important guidance that helps ensure that the district court appro- priately confines itself to drawing interim maps that comply with the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, without displacing legitimate state policy judgments with the court’s own preferences.
Local election administrators around the state have said they won’t be able to conduct April 3 primaries unless they have maps by the end of this month. The Washington court’s final arguments in the current case are set for Feb. 3, with the San Antonio proceedings to follow.
What this means is that Texas still has not current legal district lines (maps) for Congressional, or legislative (House and Senate) districts. It also sets back redistricting at the county level, whose lines can’t be drawn until the congressional and legislative districts are finalized. It now seems that an April primary in Texas is in serious doubt.
It will certainly be a challenge for the court to redraw districts that only impact a select few districts, as moving district lines has a “domino effect”. So again we wait. We wait for the preclearance trial to end and a verdict, and we wait for a new round or “interim” maps from the San Antonio federal court.
Today Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped out of the race to be the GOP nominee for US President in 2012. While many Americans will breath a sigh of relief that Perry is no longer be in the running for president, Texans, unfortunately, will still have to endure him as our state’s governor. Perry’s run will always be remembered for the “Oops” moment, and his many disastrous debate performances.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign fell apart for many reasons. The biggest of which is arrogance. It looks like he thought he could just show up, raise money, and win. Not having to campaign seriously for some time, then stepping into a Presidential campaign, was obviously a shock. Maybe the plan was to give the GOP electorate as little time as possible to look at Perry, and hope it wasn’t enough for to see the light? For that to be the case he would have needed to get in much later.
Another reason his campaign floundered was that Perry looked out of practice at campaigning, and never found a way to bounce back once his campaign started sinking. He has never faced the kind of scrutiny in Texas that he got from the national media, and his inept campaign didn’t know how to deal with running from behind. He’d never lost a race and thought that all he had to do was show up, with a big bag of money, and it was over. Well he did show up, and soon after he opened his mouth in a series of unscripted debates, it was over.
But the thing that is mind boggling is why the such a flawed candidate nationally finds such easy-going in Texas? It always seems to come around to the lack of media scrutiny he’s faced since becoming governor. There are several reasons for the lack of media scrutiny that statewide elected officials in Texas get. Of course budget cuts, and the change in the media landscape over the last 10 or so years has had considerable effect. But much of it has to do with what Jay Rosen calls “the church of the savvy“.
To the people inside it, savviness is not a cult. It is not a professional church or “belief system.” It’s not really an object fit for contemplation at all. But they would say that political journalists need to be savvy observers because in politics the unsavvy are hapless, clueless, deluded, clownish, or in some cases extreme. They get run over: easily. They get disappointed: needlessly. They get angry–fruitlessly–because they don’t know how things work in practical terms.
The savvy do know how things work inside the game of politics, and it is this knowledge they try to wield in argument…. instead of argument. In this sense savviness as the church practices it is the exemption from the political that believers think will come to them because they are journalists striving only to report on politics or conduct analysis, not to “win” within the contest as it stands.
Prohibited from joining in political struggles, dedicated to observing what is, regardless of whether it ought to be, the savvy believe that these disciplines afford them a special view of the arena, cured of excess sentiment, useless passon, ideological certitude and other defects of vision that players in the system routinely exhibit. As I wrote on Twitter the other day, “the savvy don’t say: I have a better argument than you… They say: I am closer to reality than you. And more mature.”
Now in order for this belief system to operate effectively, it has to continually position the journalist and his or her observations not as right where others are wrong, or virtuous where others are corrupt, or visionary where others are short-sghted, but as practical, hardheaded, unsentimental, and shrewd where others are didactic, ideological, and dreamy. This is part of what’s so insidious about press savviness: it tries to hog realism to itself.
The media used to be outside the club looking in, now they’re members of the club. And if they rock the boat too much they’re kicked out of the club.
To the extent they may share Mencken’s exuberant disdain for hoodwinker and hoodwinked alike, ambitious reporters are well-advised to keep it to them-selves. As a career strategy, thoughtful circumspection is advised. The uphill path to a sinecure on “Meet the Press” must be trodden carefully.
Many readers, for example, can probably identify a name-brand journalist such as Judith Miller, who fell into disrepute for parroting Bush administration propaganda about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. But can you name anybody whose skeptical reporting made them famous? No, you cannot.
Perry’s shortcomings were unnoticeable at the state level, but were unmistakable at the national level. Because of that Perry wasn’t successful in his bid for the GOP nomination. This has hopefully cast a shadow over his future in politics, but don’t be on it. We must remember that Perry was his own worst enemy in this campaign. Voters seeing Perry unscripted, and left to his own devices, was devastating to his campaign. Let that be a lesson to all of us. Because, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Further Reading:
Perry’s run cost the people of Texas and estimated $2,651,429.14.
