Progressive Bloggers Of The South: Unite!

(Please feel free to distribute this to any Southern state bloggers you know!)

In the American South, in states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, and others, Democrats and Progressives face many of the same issues every election cycle. A lot of the typical “God, guns, and gays,” plus abortion and other so-called “wedge issues,” Republicans have made effective use of to turn the once Solid Democratic South into a Republican stronghold.

Bloggers in these states face unique challenges when it comes to framing issues and advocating for candidates in election cycles.

Recently, a new group has been started to help Southern State Bloggers “unite” and explore strategy and issue-framing options in anticipation of the 2008 election cycle: Progressvie Bloggers of the South.  
The purpose of the group is to help bloggers in states facing similar political challenges in a common geographic area communicate, discuss strategy and policy, and more.

This will be a useful tool moving toward 2008 as we prepare to “frame the debate” leading to Election Day.

Anyone interested in joining, please email vince.leibowitz-at-gmail.com with your name or pseudonym, and the name of the blog you write for, and I will add you to the group. This group is open to all bloggers in the South, whether you are a diarist at DailyKOS, MyDD, Booman Tribune, have a Blogger blog, or are an “A-Lister.” Come one, come all.

GOP Leadership In Texas Did Nothing When Notified About Sex Scandals At Youth Prisons

Texas Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, and Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick all knew about the acts of sexual violence being perpetrated on youthful offenders at the Texas Youth Commission as early as last fall.

But none bothered to act until this week.

I find it amusing that, though this was the lead paragraph of a Houston Chronicle story on Thursday, that the following fact seems to have been generally swept under the rug:

Gov. Rick Perry’s staff learned last fall of a Texas Rangers investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in 2005 at a West Texas state juvenile facility, but the governor took no major action to reform the Texas Youth Commission until after the report became public last week.

As Kinky Friedman might say, “Why The Hell Not?”

After all, this is the same governor that thought the desire of some TXU fatcats to raise their stock price and pollute the air was worthy of an Executive Order to fast-track 11 coal power plants. He acted mighty fast to fast-track those coal plants.

Yet, when he learns of sexual abuse at a juvenile prison, he does nothing for months.

Perry also acted fast when he thought that he could help his pals at Merck out by mandating use of the HPV vaccine on Texas’ schoolgirls. That popped up almost in the middle of nowhere though similar legislation was before both legislative chambers.

Yet, when it comes to sexual abuse in a prison, it’s business as usual for Perry & Company.

As John at Bay Area Houston points out, what is the deal with Republicans and cover-ups when it comes to scandals about sex and young people? Do they believe that, because they teach abstinence over-the-top moral values that young people aren’t ever taken advantage of by people in authority?

This is gross negligence on the part of Governor Perry and should make him an accomplice to this abuse after-the-fact. He knew about it. He could have stopped it. He did nothing.

Worse than that, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) form a triumvirate of back-turners on the critical issue, playing Hear No, See No, and Read No Evil because they, too, knew about this:

Perry spokesman Ted Royer said the governor, the lieutenant governor and speaker were notified of the original investigation in 2005, but he said the results were given only to TYC.

If the results were only given to TYC but Perry, Craddick and Dewhurst knew about it, then why didn’t they do something? Perry could have directed the TYC governing board to conduct an inquiry. Any one of them could have established a Joint Select Committee of the Legislature to look into it. Any one of them could have picked up the phone and called the head of TYC and asked, “What the hell is going on down there?”

None did. Still more:

Royer said the governor’s staff became aware of the report in November when public safety adviser Alfonso Royal was contacted by Alison Brock, the chief of staff for state Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston.

Royer said Brock asked Royal if the governor’s office could help getting Ward County District Attorney Randall “Randy” Reynolds moving on prosecuting the offending TYC officials.

Royer said Perry’s staff never saw the report, but Royal received the ranger’s notes and talked to the ranger about his investigation.

Royer said the district attorney told Royal he did not have the staff to prosecute the case. He said Royal then coordinated with Reynolds to get him help from the Texas attorney general’s prosecutor assistance office.

Once again, we have a Democrat who tried to get something moving while Republicans were running around playing footsies with utility companies and big business. I can’t wait for the day Alison Brock is called before the Select Committee that Dewhurst and Craddick appointed and tells the world in living color about her attempts on behalf of Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) to get the governor’s office to intervene.

So, they (the Governor’s Office) didn’t receive the report, but they did receive the Texas Ranger’s notes. That should have been sufficient, although I for one do not believe that they never saw the report in November.

Regardless of the role the Office of Prosecutor Assistance played in this (the involvement of the Office of Attorney General is a whole different ball of wax), Perry should have done something. His staff knew. If they didn’t tell him personally, then he needs to dump his staff.

I can see Perry not being notified if, say, someone over at the Texas Building & Procurement Commission misplaced a case of paper clips, but the staff not notifying the governor (if that is the case) that there are allegations of sex abuse in a youth correctional facility is a dereliction of duty to the taxpayers of Texas, the children confined therein, and the justice system for it not to have been reported to the governor.

If, however, his staff reported it to Perry and he personally did nothing, then the fault lies with Governor Perry.

In an administration full of scandals and mini-scandals, this will stand out as one of the worst. Forget that he handed the Texas Legislature to Tom DeLay for half of 2003. Forget that he basically gave a utility company carte blanche to pollute Texas skies for generations to come. He stood by while children were sexually abused.

That these are incarcerated children doesn’t make it any better. The reason for the Texas Youth Commission is, primarily, to rehabilitate offenders–not send them out in to the world in a worse state than when they came in.

Once again, the Republican Administration has failed Texas.

Okalahoma Environmental Officials Will Participate In Hearing Process For Texas Coal Plants

What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas, especially when it comes to air quality issues.

That’s why officials from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality are planning to participate in administrative hearings relating to 11 858-megawatt coal power plants that TXU plans to build in East and Central Texas.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from coal power plant interests, fast-tracked the administrative permitting process for 16 TXU coal power plants in 2005. Though that action has now resulted in litigation challenging Perry’s authority to issue the fast-tracking order, the administrative hearings process continues.

For those wondering why folks in Oklahoma might be concerned about new coal power plants in Texas, it has to do with the same issues Texans are concerned with: air quality. To wit:

Oklahoma regulators are concerned that emissions from new coal plants in Texas could worsen air quality near Duncan, Oklahoma, about 160 miles north of Dallas, said Skylar McElhaney, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma environmental agency.

Worsening air quality in southern Oklahoma could jeopardize  the area’s status under the federal clear air laws, McElhaney said. “Our interest is for those areas to remain in attainment,” she said.

The Texas Department of Administrative Hearings will hold a hearing on the permits February 21; that is when Oklahoma officials are expected to participate.

The quote from the Reuters piece above is particularly important because it touches on the status of an Oklahoma area under federal clean air laws.

What this refers to, of course, are counties that are currently at “nonattainment” status or very near nonattainment status when it comes to the levels of certain pollutants in the air under the federal Clean Air Act.

Texas already has five areas presently at nonattainment for at least one pollutant. More areas in Texas than that have previous histories of having been named nonattainment areas and it is safe to say several areas are on the verge of being named nonattainment areas.

That officials in another state are concerned about the impact these power plants and the pollution they generate will have on the environment there, it should send a major signal to naysayers in Texas who seem to think the plants won’t make much of a difference.

(X-Possted From Capitol Annex).

Hutchison Says She Would Have Voted Differently On Iraq War

SAN ANTONIO, Tex.–U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) Thursday night declared that she would not have voted for the war in Iraq had she known there were no weapons of mass destruction in that country.

Responding to a question at a televised League of Women Voters’ debate in Central Texas concerning whether she would have voted differently on the war in Iraq had she known that the nation had no weapons of mass destruction and no connection to al Queda, Hutchison said she would not have voted for the war.

Responding to a question at a televised League of Women Voters’ debate in Central Texas concerning whether she would have voted differently on the war in Iraq had she known that the nation had no weapons of mass destruction and no connection to al Queda, Hutchison said she would not have voted for the war.

“If I knew then what I had known now on the weapons of mass destruction, which was a key reason I voted the way I did, I would not have voted to go into Iraq then,” Hutchison said.

This came in a debate between Hutchison, Texas’ senior senator, Democrat Barbara Ann Radnofsky (D-Houston) and Libertarian Scott Lanier Jamison in which Radnofsky, who is running an uphill race, kept the heat on Hutchison who found herself on the defensive time after time on issues ranging from immigration to her votes against the minimum wage.

While Hutchison was on the defensive Radnofsky was on the offensive, and had help from the panel of journalists asking questions. The journalists specifically asked Hutchison about her broken promise to run for only two terms in the U.S. Senate.

Hutchison said that she now believed that Texas could be at a disadvantage because not all states have term limits. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that neither United States Senators nor U.S. Congressmen are able to be controlled by state term limits laws:

“I favored them  then and favored them now,” Hutchison said on term limits. “If you have term limits for one state but not others, it disadvantages your state…I have decided to run for a third time because I want to do what is best for Texas.”

And, while Hutchison touted bringing home more money for transportation during the Phil Gram era, Hutchison continued to point out her hypocrisy:

“For anyone to say that Rhode Island has the same infrasturcture needs is not from this planet,” Radnofsky said.

Texas Redistricting Roundup: Everything You Need To Know & More

[I rarely like to cross-post verbatim from my blog, but I noticed my fellow contributors here at BOR hadn’t posted yet on redistricting, so here is my massive missive Redistricting Roundup for your viewing pleasure. Not much commentary from me, mainly a digest of coverage and related links–VL]

Today was D-Day for Texas Redistricting opponents as attorneys opposed to the Tom DeLay engineered 2003 Congressional remap finally had their day before the U.S. Supreme Court.

People were reportedly lining up outside the court at 4 a.m. this morning to get the chance to witness history and a fairly unprecedented two-hour oral argument.  A number of Texas officials were also reportedly in attendence including many members of the Texas Congressional Delegation.

I haven’t yet seen any photos or audio of oral arguments or press conferences or anything related, but the DMN’s Todd Gillman did file an audio report shortly before the oral arguments which can be heard here.

Obviously, media outlets from all over are covering this. Here are some snippits, links, background and what-not:

Houston Chronicle: Texas’ 2003 redistricting, orchestrated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, was an egregious partisan power grab that violated the Constitution and federal law, challengers to the new map told the U.S. Supreme Court this afternoon in a case that could help determine control of Congress in November.

But Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, aided by a lawyer with the Bush administration, told the justices that the state’s election map was properly redrawn. The fact that Texas sent six more Republicans to Washington in the last election simply shows that the new map more accurately reflects the current voting choices of Republican-leaning Texans.

In an unusual two-hour afternoon session, the justices peppered each side with questions. But as the arguments dragged on, a few on the bench and many in the audience struggled to remain alert.

In previous cases, the high court has been reluctant to get involved in what is traditionally a political matter played out in state legislatures.

But centrist Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is expected to provide the decisive vote in these cases if they are close, has said there could be a case in which political map drawing gets out of hand, warranting the court’s intervention.

Today, however, the justice appeared unpersuaded that the Texas redistricting was egregious enough for the justices to get involved.

But Kennedy said he was concerned about allegations that the Texas map-drawers violated the federal Voting Rights Act by using race to redraw some lines.

In particular, he said several times, removing 100,000 Latino voters from the 23rd District in South Texas and then making sure the district remained 50.9 percent Latino was “an affront and an insult.”

But Chief Justice John Roberts asked what percentage of minority voters would be sufficient to deem the district majority minority.

“What’s the magic number?” he asked.

Still more:

AP: Texas Republicans were guilty of a naked political power grab when they re-drew congressional boundaries, the Supreme Court was told Wednesday in a case that could have a major impact on elections.

Justices are considering whether the Republican-friendly map promoted by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay is unconstitutional.

The 2003 boundaries approved by the GOP-controlled state Legislature helped the Republican Party pick up six seats in Congress, but it also led to serious woes for DeLay. He was charged in state court with money laundering in connection with fundraising for legislative candidates. He gave up his leadership post and is fighting the charges.

“The only reason it was considered, let alone passed, was to help one political party get more seats than another,” justices were told by Paul M. Smith, a Washington lawyer who represents the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the groups challenging the plan.

“That’s a surprise,” Justice Antonin Scalia quipped. “Legislatures re-draw the map all the time for political reasons.”

But Smith said lawmakers should not be able to get away with drawing oddly shaped districts that protect incumbent Republicans and deny voters their chance to vote for other candidates.

At least 10 Texas lawmakers showed up Wednesday for an unusual two-hour Supreme Court session on the intricacies of political boundary drawing that could have a major impact on their elections and the balance of power in Congress.

“We would like to see some finality, not only for the people who run for office but for our people in our districts so they know who their member of Congress is,” said Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, as he arrived for the arguments.

The session also drew Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

While state Rep. Royce West, a Dallas Democrat, said allowing the map to stand would have serious ramifications for the country, Republican congressman Michael Burgess of Texas said overturning the map would have little effect because Texas remains a Republican state.

The case was expected to be a difficult one for the justices, who have struggled in the past to define how much politics is acceptable when states draw new boundaries.

Two years ago, justices split 5-4, in a narrow opening for challenges claiming party politics overly influenced election maps. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was the key swing voter in that case and will be closely watched in Wednesday’s argument.

Texas Lawyer has a take, too:

Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court peppered attorneys for Democrats and minority groups and the state’s lawyer with questions during arguments over Texas’ 2003 redistricting plan, which gave Republicans a 22-11 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.

But as they listened to the March 1 arguments, the justices appeared more interested in whether the Texas Legislature violated the federal Voting Rights Act when it drew three districts in South and West Texas and the Dallas area and less interested in the partisan gerrymandering issue that some had believed was the reason the court agreed to hear the redistricting dispute.

“I think the way the arguments turned out, the voting rights issues are front and center, [and] that the justices heard loud and clear the message that you can’t manipulate voters on the basis of race,” Nina Perales, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, said in an interview following the arguments.

Perales joined Paul Smith, a partner in Jenner & Block of Washington, D.C., in arguing for the plaintiffs before the high court.

Ted Cruz, Texas’ solicitor general who argued for the state, downplays the court’s apparent interest in the plaintiffs’ allegations that the legislative map violates Article 2 of the Voting Rights Act with regard to Congressional District 23 in the western part of the state, District 24 in the Dallas area and District 25, which extends from Austin in the central part of the state to the Texas-Mexico border.

“The court is always thorough and careful,” Cruz said after the arguments. “It is their obligation to carefully scrutinize the record, to consider all the arguments raised by the parties, raised by the many amici who filed briefs. So the court did that here.”

The court heard arguments in four cases challenging the Texas redistricting plan: League of United Latin American Citizens et al. v. Perry, et al.; Jackson, et al. v. Perry, et al.; Travis County, et al. v. Perry, et al.; and G.I. Forum, et al. v. Perry, et al.

Prior to the arguments, most election law scholars had believed that the partisan gerrymandering would be the issue that would draw the court’s interest. In 2004, the Supreme Court split 4-1-4 in Vieth v. Jubelirer, a Pennsylvania redistricting case that raised the partisan gerrymandering issue.

In Vieth, four justices took the position that such claims are nonjusticiable, and another four justices said there could be too much partisan gerrymandering. Justice Anthony Kennedy was the “1” vote in Vieth. While Kennedy agreed that courts can consider partisan gerrymandering, he found that none of the tests suggested by four of his colleagues for measuring the gerrymandering are judicially manageable.

There was an indication early in the two-hour arguments in the Texas cases that some members of the court don’t take the partisan-gerrymandering issue seriously.

Smith contended that the only reason the Legislature redrew the congressional map in 2003 to replace a map that a three-judge federal panel had drawn two years before was so that one party could gain political advantage.

The Statesman had this to offer:

United States Supreme Court justices today appeared skeptical of Texas Democrats’ argument that Republicans’ 2003 redrawing of the state’s congressional districts on a political basis was unconstitutional.

“Legislatures redraw the maps all the time for political purposes,” said Justice Antonin Scalia

“It is impossible and undesirable to take the partisanship out of the political process,” said Justice David Souter. “Even in districting.”

The court today held a rare, two-hour afternoon session, hearing arguments on whether Texas’ congressional lines were unconstitutionally redrawn.

Based on what the court rules, Texas’ current congressional districts could be upheld — or several congressional districts could get tossed out even after voters elect candidates for them in next week’s primaries.

The court is considering whether the new districts diluted minority votes, whether the court has the right to intervene in partisan redistricting and whether the map, which was redrawn in 2001 and 2003, can be altered more than once a decade, if the main reason to do so is for partisan purposes.

Democratic attorney Gerry Hebert said before the hearing that the main argument to the Supreme Court is that the mid-decade redistricting was done solely for partisan purposes, to get rid of some of the state’s Democrats, which they argue is unconstitutional.

The 2003 redistricting map, which was orchestrated by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and approved by the Texas Legislature, turned Texas’ congressional delegation from a 17-15 Democratic majority to a 21-11 Republican majority and helped Republicans increase their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Neither the Democrats nor attorneys representing Texas spent much time today on the question of whether mid-decade redistricting violated the principle of one-man, one-vote because the 2003 districts were based on three-year-old census numbers and might not have been equal in size.

The justices, though, spent a substantial part of the hearing questioning the decision to alter minority voting percentages in congressional districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and in South Texas.

They also raised questions about Travis County, which was split among three districts, and whether the new districts — including one that stretches from Austin to the Mexico border — violated minority voting rights.

That largely Hispanic district was created by Republicans to make up for taking 100,000 largely Hispanic Laredo-area voters from Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla’s district, which stretches to West Texas.

Nina Perales, one of the Democrats’ attorneys, faced tough questions from Chief Justice John Roberts on whether the removal of 100,000 Hispanics from Bonilla’s district actually constituted illegal racial gerrymandering. Because the Hispanics were voting solidly Democrat, he asked whether it could be considered a removal of Democratic voters rather than minority voters.

The redistricting still left 50.9 percent Hispanics in that district. Roberts asked Perales to define what percentage would have made the redistricting constitutional.

“So what is the number? Somewhat more than 51 percent because you’re saying that’s a constitutional violation,” Roberts said.

But Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered a key swing vote on redistricting issues, questioned the state’s rationale for shoring up Bonilla’s district with Republicans to help him win re-election.

“That justifies the creating of District 25 (the new Austin-to-Mexico district)? That, to me, is a serious . . . violation,” he said. The court’s decision is expected by June. If it rules that the districts were drawn unconstitutionally, the map might have to be re-drawn — leaving candidates in affected districts in limbo.

But Hebert said if the court rules in the Democrats’ favor, their legal team will ask the Supreme Court to direct Texas to use the more Democratic-friendly 2001 map for this 2006 election cycle.

Texas found itself in similar straits in 1996, when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Bush v. Vera that three of Texas’ districts were unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. That ruling led to November special elections in 13 Texas congressional districts, which were affected by changes to the first three, and December runoffs in four of them.

As president, George W. Bush has appointed two of the new justices who will hear Texas’ latest redistricting challenge, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

Roberts has had some experience in Texas redistricting issues. In 1984 as an aide to Reagan White House counsel Fred Fielding, he helped edit a reply from Fielding to then-state Rep. Patricia Hill, who was challenging the state’s redistricting plan.

“As you know, the voting rights act imposes a burden on the state of Texas to demonstrate that redistricting plans do not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on the basis of race, color or language minority status,” according to the reply.

And, The Paris News tracked down Max Sandlin and got his comments on the case:

“I am very optimistic,” Sandlin said. “I believe the Supreme Court confirmed that Tom DeLay’s (U.S. Rep. R-Sugar Land) redistricting was clearly unconstitutional when they set the case for argument.”

Finally, Lyle Denniston of SCOTUS Blog offers this on the Redistricting cases:

The Supreme Court, showing few signs of reaching for a new consensus on the role it would allow partisanship to play in drawing new election districts, pored over the Republican-drawn congressional districts for Texas for two hours Wednesday. No one seemed near to gathering a majority for any new constitutional standard for judging party ambitions, and everyone who spoke up focused largely on the specifics of a plan crafted at the urging of Rep. Tom DeLay and national Republican party operatives that has produced decisive GOP gains.

Because a number of the Justices — including, notably, the potential swing voter, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — seemed troubled about the legislature’s treatment of Latino voters in southwest Texas, that part of the “DeLay map” appeared to be in some trouble, perhaps necessitating some corrective that would affect adjoining districts, too, but not all 32 in the state. The overall plan, under challenge since it was crafted in 2003, appeared not to be vulnerable.

The main reason election experts, politicians and constitutional lawyers are interested in the Texas cases (four of them were consolidated for argument) is that they provide a new review of the validity of redistricting plans that one party pushes through mainly to maximize its own candidates’ success at the polls. But the Court has never settled on a constitutional principle for when there has been too much partisanship, and the key question going into the Wednesday hearing was whether Justice Kennedy has found a principle he can embrace.

The most telling comment by him came midway in the argument of the challengers to the Texas plan. Kennedy suggested that it would be “very dangerous” if the Court were to take away from state legislatures the authority to reopen a districting plan that was found to be excessively partisan. Leaving open the option of drawing new districts within a single decade, he said, would act as “a control mechanism,” with legislators on notice that if they “over-reached” in creating partisan advantage, that could be corrected. The comment suggested that Kennedy does, indeed, think that partisanship was, potentially, a constitutional problem and that legislatures needed flexibility to deal with it. His emphasis, though, was more on a legislative corrective than a judicial one.

At other points in the argument, Kennedy elaborated a bit on the thought, suggesting that if an existing plans “freezes in Democrats, or party X,” in a way that deviates noticeably from partisan registration in a state, that should not be left in place without a correction. If a court fashions a plan that freezes partisan advantage in that way, he said, that should be “a ground for a new legislature to act.” He expressed concern that that was exactly what had happened in Texas, when a court-drawn plan favored Democrats while the state moved more toward a Republican voter majority. The “DeLay map” was, in fact, a GOP-driven response to a court-ordered plan.

The challengers’ lead attorney, Paul M. Smith of Washington, D.C., tried energetically to defend the displaced court-ordered plan as fair. Experts who analyzed it, he said, found that 20 of the state’s 32 congressional districts under that plan actually had voted for Republican for statewide offices, yet six of those districts had split their votes and elected moderate Democrats for Congress. Those six were then targeted by the 2003 redistricting. Smith said that the GOP legislature then used “the mechanism of voting” to tell voters in those six districts that they can’t have Democrats representing them.

That argument seemed to make little headway with the Court, and Justice Antonin Scalia — a clear supporter of leaving the Texas plan as is — would later dismiss Smith’s defense by saying that politicians would be most interested in creating new districts that would ensure that their party’s voters did not elect candidates from the other party.

Even Justice David H. Souter, who favors some limit on partisan gerrymandering, argued that it is “impossible to take partisanship out of the political process,” and cautioned Smith that if pure partisanship were illegitimate, any manifestation of partisan spirit in politics would always be illegal.

Texas’ solicitor general, R. Ted Cruz, focused much of his argument on the claim that the court-ordered plan displaced by the “DeLay map” was “profoundly distorted” in favor of Democrats in a GOP-dominated state. That plan, he said, was “out of step with the demonstrated will of the majority, and let 44 percent of the voters control the delegation.” Those comments seemed sensible ways to pick up on the concerns Kennedy had expressed about leaving an excessively partisan plan in effect.

Cruz also had a basic constitutional point: that is, that legislatures, not courts, should be the primary actors in redistricting. If that primary responsibility were shifted to courts, he said, it would create “an incentive for every minority party to deadlock the system” in the legislature, leading the courts to step in and put into place their own preferences about redistricting.

Much of Wednesday’s argument — in fact, the bulk of it — focused not on the partisan gerrymandering issue, but on the specific validity of three districts in the “DeLay map” — one in Fort Worth area that was challenged for allegedly diminishing black voters’ political clout, the strung-out District 23 (Justice Stephen G. Breyer said it resembled a “long walking stick”) for Latino areas in the southwest, and a newly created Latino District 25 to help facilitate what was done in District 23. Of those three, only District 23 drew sustained critical comments from the bench. Kennedy, for example, said flatly: “That’s a problem for me.” He told Cruz that “you want the Court to say that it is permissible to take away enough minority voters to favor the [Republican] incumbent, but leaving enough to make it look good [as a Latino district].”

Bit parts in the lengthy hearing (unusual for its two-hour length, and for its occurrence after lunch) were Nina Perales of San Antonio, who made an unfocused argument that District 23 was an invalid racial gerrymander, and Deputy Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre, who was there to defend the validity of the three districts challenged under the Voting Rights Act.

Check out the summary of the consolidated cases on redistricting (from an old BOR post for more.

Related Links:

The infamous DOJ memo on Texas redistricting

Redistricting Map

Redistricting Case Resource Center (briefs, etc., via Jenner & Block)

Previous Annex Redistricting Coverage

Lone Star Project Redistricting Memo

Google News: Texas Redistricting

Yahoo! News: Texas Redistricting

Google Blog Search: Texas Redistricting

Technorati: Texas Redistricting

NPR’s Day To Day: Texas Redistricting

Burnt Orange Report’s Redistricting Archive

Special Election: TX 106

Karl-T over at Burnt Orange Report is (along with some infrequent assistance from me, as I’m doing the same at Capitol Annex), is liveblogging Katy Hubener’s race in TX  HD 106. Hubener appears to have lost this one:
Katy Hubener 2,438 46.23%
Gene Freeman 48 0.91%
Kirk England 2,788 52.86%
TOTAL 5,274 100.00%

Ciro Rodriguez Calls For Investigation Into Possible Voter Fraud

It seems as though this year’s CD-28 primary is shaping up like last cycle. Ciro Rodriguez’s camp has already seen enough to suspect voter fraud and to make them call for an investigation by the Secretary of State, including 51 people aged 100 or over casting ballots. From their press release:

An abnormally high number of voters in Webb County aged 90 years or older prompted an attorney for the Ciro Rodriguez congressional campaign to request an investigation by the Texas Secretary of State.  During the first 4 days of early voting, 93 votes were cast by people 90 or over and 51 were 100 or older.

In a message addressed to Kim Thol, Programs Specialist for the Elections Division of the Secretary of State, Luis Vera requested “an immediate appointment for an inspector for Webb County.”  Vera reminded Thol, “Webb County has a long history of allegations of voter fraud.”  In the 2004 primary election, Vera added, “the fraud made national news.”  He was referring to the controversial election between Henry Cuellar and Rodriguez in which ballots, “discovered” days after the polls closed, eventually swung the election to Cuellar by a narrow 58 votes.

Vera also requested an investigation by the Voter Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.

According to the 2002 Statistical Abstract of the United States, something like 1.5 percent of the nations’ population is over 85 (linked census data here). So, this does seem to be an abnormally large number, although to determine if it is out of whack, we’d need to know the total votes cast. Either way, though, it seems suspect.

Court To Decide If TN State Senator Can Keep Seat

Tennessee State Senator Ophelia Ford appeared in a Memphis federal court today fighting to keep her senate seat. And, though only three senators were subpoenaed to testify, more than half the state senate showed up for the hearing.

Federal District Judge Bernice Donald said she would issue a final ruling in the in the long-contested election by Wednesday of next week. Until then, the Senate cannot void Sen. Ford’s election. Ford contends voiding the election would violate the equal protection and due process rights of Ford and several voters in the district, as well as the federal Voting Rights Act.
Tennessee State Senators were sscheduled to debating an ethics bill on Wednesday, but all 17 senatos who voted to void the election went to support their colleagues in Memphis. 16 Republicans and one Democrat went the federal courthouse in Memphis. Tennessee State Senators, Mark Norris, Curtis Person and Don McLeary were subpoenaed to appear in court, and ordered to attend. All the others came voluntarily. All of them voted to void the election of Sen. Ford, according to Nashville’s NewsChannel 5.

Ford sued the entire Memphis State Senate after they voted to void her special election victory. Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summer told the Court that the Senate had not even taken final action to void Ford’s election. Saying, therefore it is wrong for the court to intervene.

Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey said this morning before the hearing that he’ll push for the second vote to throw out the election unless the court extends its restraining order.

BACKGROUND

Ford won a special election last Sept. 15 over Republican Terry Roland by 13 votes. The Senate committee investigating the election irregularities in the race confirmed yesterday that nine illegal votes were cast in the election. The committee was appointed Sept. 23 after Roland contested the election. Ford was running to replace her brother, former Sen. John Ford, who resigned.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that the committee went through a series of unanimous votes, on motions by Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis, declaring the nine votes as illegal. Then Senate Republican Leader Ron Ramsey of Blountville moved to throw out all 31 votes in a North Memphis precinct that Ford carried 30-1 because a poll worker there was in New York on election day and her sister signed the missing worker’s name on documents certifying the precinct’s results.

When Democrats raised concerns about continuing to vote in light of Donald’s restraining order, the panel recessed until sometime after today’s hearing.

Earlier in Tuesday’s committee hearing, state Election Coordinator Brook Thompson said an analysis of Social Security numbers of people who voted Sept. 15 found no more instances of fraudulent voting using the identities of dead people, beyond the two already confirmed.

Ford, who was elected to represent a  70-percent-black district–and most voters under challenge are black–had claimed that the effort to remove her was racially motivated. She later said that comment was “a little bit harsh.”

The Associated Press has called Ford’s brother, whom she sought to succeed, ‘Tennessee’s Most Scandalous Senator.”

Over thirty years in the state senate, Ford lost paternity lawsuits, was alleged to gave given a political job to a girlfriend, and was sucessfully sued for sexual harassment. And, in 2004 he testified at a child support hearing that he maintained two households, one with a pregnant ex-wife and their three children, and another with a longtime girlfriend and their two children,  in addition to another young child he has with a third woman.

During that hearing, the release of Ford’s tax returns showed he received more than $230,000 from a consulting company with financial ties to TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program. This led to a Senate Ethics Committee investigation and an examination by a federal grand jury.

In 1974,  Ford’s family made its entry into public office.  John Ford’s brother Harold Ford beat a white incumbent to become Tennessee’s first black congressman while brother John Ford to the state Senate and brother Emmett Ford to the Tennessee House. Harold Ford kept his congressional seat for 22 years, and when he retired in 1996, he turned it over to his son, Harold Ford Jr., who is now considering a run for the U.S. Senate. Harold Ford, Jr., is the nephew of John Ford and Ophelia Ford.

The former Sen. Ford was arrested last May along with three other current and a former state lawmakera following a two-year FBI investigation, ‘Operation Tennessee Waltz.‘  The lawmakers were charged with taking payoffs to influence legislation. Ford was ultimately indicted and is scheduled for trial this year.