Where each state stands on ACA's Medicaid expansion

I'm working on material for 2306's upcoming look at health and human services policy in the state and ran across this site which outlines which states are participating in the expansion of Medicaid and which are not. Here's a graphic describing the current state of affairs:



Note that the map roughly fits the breakdown of the nation into individualistic, traditionalistic, and moralistic cultures.

Happy "Texas Being Readmitted to the Union Day!"

We tend not to celebrate this one, but its as momentous as the rest.

From the TSHA:

On this day in 1870, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act that ended Congressional Reconstruction and readmitted Texas to the Union. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Texas had been in turmoil, first under Presidential Reconstruction and then, beginning in 1867 with the passage of the First Reconstruction Act, under Congressional Reconstruction. The latter required that Texas have a constitutional convention, with delegates elected by all male citizens over the age of twenty-one, regardless of race, color, or "previous condition of servitude." The convention was to write a new state constitution that would provide for universal adult male suffrage. When the constitution had been written and the state had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, Congress would consider the case for readmission to the Union. The convention met at Austin in June 1868 and did not adjourn until February 1869. The constitution it produced differed significantly from previous constitutions by authorizing a more centralized and bureaucratized system of government, with greater power in the hands of the governor. In February 1870 the Twelfth Legislature assembled at Austin to adopt the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments and select United States senators in preparation for readmission to the Union. They quickly approved the amendments and selected Morgan C. Hamilton for a six-year term and James W. Flanagan for a four-year term. This completed the requirements set by Congress for readmission.

Also on this day in 1849, a seccessionist paper was founded in Marshall:

On this day in 1849, the Marshall Texas Republican was established by Trenton A. and Frank J. Patillo. The paper is most closely identified with Robert W. Loughery, who became associate editor in July and editor in November, and two years later bought the paper outright. Under his fiery leadership, the Republican became one of the state's most articulate voices for secession, and his editorials were reprinted around the state. Loughery's support played an important role in the election of his fellow townsmen James Pinckney Henderson and Louis T. Wigfall to the United States Senate, and the Republican was among the staunchest supporters of the Confederacy during the war years. Once the war ended, however, Loughery vigorously advocated conciliation and compliance with the requirements of surrender, though he changed his stance after the imposition of congressional Reconstruction. His last great journalistic fight involved the Stockade Case at Jefferson, in which a number of citizens were held without formal charge and finally tried by a military tribunal. Loughery's complaints about the military's refusal to turn the case over to civilian courts or to release the prisoners on bail came to the attention of President Andrew Johnson, who asked for an explanation from Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds, commander of the troops in Texas. After the Republican ceased publication in 1872, Loughery went on to help found several other Texas newspapers. He died in 1894.

So some Texans began agitating for seccession 4 years after joining the union. We really have ongoing issues with being a part of the US don't we?

A look at the 2012-2103 Texas budget process.

For 2306's, as we position ourselves to look at the Texas budget.

The use of drug sniffing dogs without a warrant limited by the Supreme Court

The court had more to think about than just gay marriage this week.

From the NYT:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday limited the ability of the police to use drug-sniffing dogs outside homes.

The case concerned Franky, a chocolate Labrador retriever who detected the smell of marijuana outside a Florida house used by Joelis Jardines. Based on Franky’s signal, the police obtained a warrant to search the house, and they found a marijuana-growing operation inside.

Mr. Jardines moved to suppress the evidence, saying that using Franky to sniff around his residence was an unreasonable search barred by the Fourth Amendment. The Florida Supreme Court agreed, and so did a majority of the United States Supreme Court.

The 5-to-4 decision in the case, Florida v. Jardines, No. 11-564, featured an unusual alignment of justices. Justice Antonin Scalia, a member of the court’s conservative wing, wrote the majority decision. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, a frequent ally, along with three of the court’s more liberal members, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Justice Scalia said the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches, is particularly concerned with the home and its immediate surroundings. Allowing a dog on a six-foot leash to roam outside a residence, he said, was “an unlicensed physical intrusion” that was different in kind from visits from, say, salesmen, Girl Scouts or trick-or-treaters.

“To find a visitor knocking on the door is routine (even if sometimes unwelcome),” Justice Scalia wrote. “To spot that same visitor exploring the front porch with a metal detector, or marching his bloodhound into the garden before saying hello and asking permission, would inspire most of us to — well, call the police.”

- Click here for the actual opinion of the court (click on Florida v Jardines).
- An NYT editorial comapres this case to Kyllo v US.

And there is such a thing as the Congressional Small Brewerws Caucus

There is light at the end of the tunnel after all.

Craft Brewers are petitioning DC as well as Austin

This is not just for 2306 anymore:

Craft beer brewers marched on Washington this week for their industry’s first conference in the nation’s capital. They were there to engage in a local pastime that goes pint in hand with drinking: lobbying. As part of the conference, hundreds of small-scale brewers met with Congressional staff members to press for a tax cut that they say would make it easier for them to brew more beer and hire more workers.

“For every 31 gallons that we brew, $7 goes to Uncle Sam,” said Jeff Hancock, a co-founder of DC Brau, one of five craft breweries that have opened in the District of Columbia and its close suburbs in the last two years, joining dozens more in the rest of Virginia and Maryland.

Washington is just one of many places where craft brewing is booming.

“We are the victims of our own success,” said Patrick Conway, owner of the Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland. Mr. Conway brought a delegation of 12 employees to Washington to network and publicize his brews with tap takeovers at local bars. “We’re always being courted by distributors,” he said. “It’s not our intention to sell in every state, but we are flattered.”

The Brewers Association, which organized the conference, says 409 small breweries and brew pubs opened in the United States in 2012, up 18.5 percent from the year before. Craft beer’s success defies the economic conditions businesses have faced since the recession, largely because it is considered an affordable luxury.

A few good links:

- The Brewers Association. (Wikipedia)
- Craftbeer.com.
- From Open Secrets: Large, Micro Brewers Lobbying Congress for Competing Tax Cut Bills.

Today in federal rulemaking: The EPA issues cleaner gasoline rules

From the Washington Post:

The Environmental Protection Agency will move ahead Friday with rules requiring cleaner gasoline and cars nationwide, despite fierce protests from the oil industry and some conservative Democrats, according to several individuals briefed on the matter.

The proposed rules — which had been stuck in regulatory limbo since December 2011 in the face of intense political opposition — would cut the amount of sulfur in U.S. gasoline by two-thirds and impose fleetwide pollution limits on new vehicles by 2017.

The regulation enjoys support from auto companies, state regulators, environmental groups and equipment manufacturers. But oil industry officials and their congressional allies argue the proposed standards would raise gasoline prices and could result in greater carbon dioxide emissions because they will spur additional refining activity.

Opponents estimate the standards would force refiners to spend $10 billion to upgrade their facilities and an additional $2.4 billion in annual operating costs, adding 6 to 9 cents to the cost of a gallon of gas. Public health advocates say the ultimate cost would amount to less than a penny per gallon because of provisions giving refiners flexibility in complying with the standards.

For FAQ's about rulemaking by the EPA click here.

Taiwanese Legislative Brawl

A bit of fun in class today.

A state by state summary of age of marital consent laws

Much of the argument in favor of DOMA was based on the idea that the federal government has an interest in there being consistent marital laws across the states. In class we discussed the variance in laws related to when one could consent to be married and stumbled across the following list.

A sampling of the laws:

Alaska: The age of consent is eighteen. With parental consent, parties can marry at the age sixteen. Parties can marry at a younger age, also with parental consent. Common law marriage is not recognized.

Mississippi: The age of consent is twenty-one. With parental consent and/or the consent of the judge, males can marry at age seventeen and females can marry at age fifteen. Common law marriage is not recognized.

Texas: The age of consent is eighteen. With parental and judicial consent, parties can marry but not below the age of fourteen for males and thirteen for females. Common law marriage is recognized.

Utah: The age of consent is eighteen. With parental consent, parties can marry at age fourteen. However, this parental consent is not required if the minor has already been married. In addition, each county is authorized to provide premarital counseling before issuing a marriage license to applicants under the age of eighteen and those who are divorced. Common law marriage is recognized.

Do school vouchers hurt public schools?

Something to consider as the Texas Senate continues to wrestle with whether to head in that direction. Many states have been doing the same. It gives expanded opportunities to students to pick which schools they wish to attend, but might further weaken the schools they leave behind.

Here's a summary of the arguments, and the current movement towards vouchers.

Proponents say tax-credit and voucher programs offer families a way to escape failing public schools. But critics warn that by drawing money away from public schools, such programs weaken a system left vulnerable after years of crippling state budget cuts — while showing little evidence that students actually benefit.

“This movement is doing more than threaten the core of our traditional public school system,” said Timothy Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association. “It’s pushing a national policy agenda embraced by conservatives across states that are receptive to conservative ideas.”

Currently, 17 states offer 33 programs that allow parents to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools, according to the American Federation for Children, a nonprofit advocate for school vouchers and tax-credit scholarship programs that give individuals or corporations tax reductions if they donate to state-run scholarship funds.

Regarding US v Windsor

Click here for the written transcript of yesterday's oral argument, and here for the audio file.

Here are the issues presented in the case:

(1) Whether Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws as applied to persons of the same sex who are legally married under the laws of their State; (2) whether the Executive Branch’s agreement with the court below that DOMA is unconstitutional deprives this Court of jurisdiction to decide this case; and (3) whether the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the United States House of Representatives has Article III standing in this case.

The NYT provides an overview. They note - as do many - that the likely decisive Justice Kennedy focused on federalism question, not equal protection questions. Does the federal government have the power to decide what marriage is? The states clearly do because this falls under the reserved powers, especially the police powers. Has the federal government intruded on this power?

Some analysts suggest this means the case is likely to be decided on federalism grounds, not equal protection, which means it might not be quite the victory gay and lesbian groups were hoping for. The equal protection clause will not be made applicable to sexual orientation - as it is to race, gender, age and the rest.

Here's the Wall Street Journal's Live Blog of the DOMA arguments.

Here's Andrew Sullivan's analysis of the oral arguments.

And here's commentary from people smarter than me:

Tom Goldstein points out that a federalism ruling in Windsor makes the case for the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth stronger. California can decide for itself whether marriage can be same sex or not, and Proposition 8 said it couldn't. Presumably that means that the equal protection argument would not work. Unless the court argues the plaintiffs lack standing.

Jeffrey Toobin argues that the Supreme Court is not central to the direction same - sex marriage is heading, and the justices know it. He highlights the following: Toward the end of the argument, Roberts asked Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer for Windsor, “You don’t doubt that the lobby supporting the enactment of same sex-marriage laws in different states is politically powerful, do you?” Kaplan—somewhat improbably —denied it. Roberts fought back: “As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case.”

Andrew Cohen is concerned that not enough was said in the oral arguments about the history of anti-gay discrimination in the US. Thsi will not bode well for this court's reputation: "I think history will judge the Supreme Court, and by extension the rest of us, by what was not argued this week. The Court did not confront and condemn the discrimination at the core of these laws. It did not signal a willingness by the judiciary to stand up to the tyranny of the majority. And it did not even minimally force the laws' defenders to justify with facts their disparate treatment of same-sex couples. It was instead a court openly looking for a way out, which, in the end, makes you wonder what kind of court it is at all."

Birth of Texas: Houston A Nation's Capital

A fellow student watched this recently and recommends it. It's showing on PBS along with a companion piece on Spanish Texas.

Here's a description, looks awesome:

For two hurly-burly years, the Bayou City was the capital of the Republic of Texas. As Sam Houston, Mirabeau Lamar and others squabbled over the direction in which they would lead the fledgling nation, scores of drunken, furloughed soldiers battled in makeshift saloons, on the town’s muddy streets and at the dueling grounds which was located south of Texas Avenue, and therefore away from the city limits. Noted author and historian, Stephen Hardin, leads a tour of locations that serves as the backbone of this documentary. Interviews with other scholars, snippets of contemporary journals, photographs, maps, music and graphics makes this an engaging way to learn about Houston’s beginnings.

A bit more on HB 4: How will the state fund its water plan?

That seem to me to be all this bill is about. The state long authorized the establishment of wate development projects, they have yet to figure out how these will be funded. The amount this will cost will be steep, so the controversy is not surprising. Nevertheless the bill passed by a 144-3 vote, so the issue seems mostly worked out, with a couple exceptions described in theis Quorum Report piece:

The Texas House today took a first step toward enacting the funding structures to finance the state’s 50-year water plan. On a 144-3 vote, they gave preliminary approval to HB 4, which sets up the revolving investment bank that would support the state’s $27 billion share of fulfilling the plan.

The actual funding would come via a transfer from the Rainy Day Fund. That will be taken up later in HB 11.

The first long term water plan dates from 1997 but the Legislature has taken its time about establishing a funding source for the projects called for in the plan.

According to the House Research Organization, demand for water in the state will increase by 8.3 million acre-feet by 2060. The most recent iteration of the state’s water plan would develop 9 million acre-feet through 562 water projects and calls for spending a total of $53 billion.

HB 4 sets up the State Water Implementation Fund (SWIFT), which would be established outside of the state treasury and would be overseen by the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company.

The Texas Water Development Board would come up with a system to prioritize water projects based on how much local money is being put up, how quickly a project is needed and how ready the project is to begin among other criteria.

The bill includes some safeguards to make sure that the funding isn’t too concentrated geographically. It would require at least 10 percent of the funding for water projects to go to rural areas of the state and would require another 20 percent of the funding go toward water conservation and reuse projects.

The first key vote came early in the debate when state Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) submitted an amendment that would make the conservation and reuse requirement optional.

The 20 percent standard actually understates what the 2012 water plan calls for. The long term planning document envisions about 34 percent of the 9 million acre-feet that would be developed by 2060 would come from conservation and reuse.

The standard, though, came under fire from conservatives. Arlene Wohlgemuth of the Texas Public Policy Foundation called the 20 percent standard “problematic” in a statement this morning. She added that neither conservation nor reuse “is guaranteed to expand the available supply of water in Texas.”

State Rep. Doug Miller (R-New Braunfels) spoke against the King amendment. Drawing on his tenure serving on his regional water planning group, he said his experience was that conservation projects represent “the cheapest form of water” and should be pursued in the water plan.

King’s amendment died on a 104-41 vote.

That was soon followed by state Rep. Van Taylor (R-Plano) who sought to insert language cutting off the Rainy Day Fund as a source of funding for the water plan. Taylor said he was motivated by the desire to keep the balance in the economic stabilization fund healthy enough to keep the state’s bond ratings as high as possible.

If successful, it would have thrown a serious roadblock into the funding structure behind HB 4, which relies on a $2 billion transfer from the RDF.

Echoing what Gov. Rick Perry laid out in his budget, Taylor said the RDF needs to keep a balance of about 7.5 percent of GR funds. That’s about $7.2 billion, he said. Taylor’s position was also backed by Wohlgemuth who said this morning that funding for the water plan shouldn’t come from the RDF and should be within the state’s spending cap.

The Taylor amendment died on 129-15 vote.

When Taylor then followed with another amendment that he said would preserve the purchasing power of the fund, he was challenged by state Rep. Lyle Larson (R-San Antonio) who asked if Taylor intended to vote yes on HB 4.

Taylor said no, leading Larson to accuse Taylor of being “disingenuous” in offering his amendments for “political purposes.” Taylor later said he would have been in favor of the bill if his amendment removing the RDF as a funding vehicle was successful.

His second amendment also failed on a 127-18 vote.

Taylor later tried to take the bill down on a procedural point, saying that the bill wasn’t filed according to the 5-day posting requirement. His point of order was denied, allowing debate to continue.

Texas Forensic Science Commission finds that the Department of Public Safety crime lab fabricated evidence against drug offenders. The Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to reverse the convictions.

The story is in myhighplains.com, among other places.

Since the criminal justice system in the state is decentralized, each affected county is responding to this in different ways:

Each district attorney may handle the situation as he or she chooses. Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healy told the Houston Chronicle that he was waiting for retesting of cases by DPS before alerting defendants and their lawyers.

Jack Roady, the district attorney in Galveston County, said he looked at each case and dismissed every one in which evidence had been destroyed or possibly "tainted by Salvador's involvement." Of the 700 convictions in this category, he said he focused on the 26 cases in which the defendant was still in prison.

In Harris County, Sara Kinney, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said all pending cases connected to Salvador's work were dismissed. "Now we will just review, case by case, any writ we get as a result of that problem," she said.

Bob Wicoff, who heads the appellate division of the Harris County Public Defender's Office, said that his staff is beginning to file appeals, "armed with the Galveston cases," for some of the more than 400 Harris County cases that involved Salvador's work. He said that just four Houston defendants whose cases were handled by Salvador remain in prison; Harris County was less affected because it relies on a range of labs, not just the one where Salvador worked.

The story provides a link to the appelate court's ruling on a case involving a man sentenced to serve 32 years on a fabricated charge.

While the tests were the result of one employee, the report from the forensic commission finds that the DPS had a culture that tolerated such work, so the blame is being spread around.

The DPS employee responsible for the misconduct, Jonathan Salvador, has been the subject of an investigation by the Texas Forensic Science Commission. At the commission's last meeting in January, Nizam Peerwani, a member of the committee and the chief medical examiner for Tarrant County, said that Salvador was part of an office culture that "tolerated under-performance." Commissioner Sarah Kerrigan said that after multiple interviews with Salvador's colleagues, the commission concluded that his work was "marginal" and of "low quality."

Salvador, who could not be reached for comment, was suspended from his duties as a forensic scientist with DPS in February 2012, when the department discovered problems with his work, including the falsification of results in numerous cases involving marijuana, cocaine, heroine, pharmaceuticals and other controlled substances. Salvador had worked on 4,900 drug cases in 30 counties since he took the job in 2006, DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said.

After an internal investigation by DPS and the Texas Rangers, Salvador was brought before a Harris County grand jury in May 2012, which chose not to indict him. In August, he resigned from DPS.

"The department implemented more stringent quality control measures to help prevent similar issues in the future," Vinger said, adding that the department continues "to provide assistance in cases worked by this former employee, including re-examining evidence when requested."

DPS Laboratory Manager Keith Gibson also sent a letter to district attorneys around the state with a list of nearly 5,000 convictions that could've been affected by Salvador's work.

The US Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge to Texas' Open Meetings Act

Politico calls this a win for transparency advocates in the state.

The denial of certiorari leaves intact a ruling from a federal appeals court, which upheld the law against a challenge from local government officials, who claimed it restricted their First Amendment rights.

The Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits officials of certain governing bodies from “knowingly participating in a closed meeting, to organize a closed meeting, or to close a meeting to the public,” according to the Fifth Circuit Court opinion.

In 2005, two Alpine, Texas, city council officials were indicted for violating the Texas Open Meetings Act over emails they exchanged, which the government argued constituted a closed meeting. Though charges were later dropped, some of the officials involved in the email exchange sued, saying the act was a restriction of free speech, overbroad and vague.

The district court and circuit court both upheld the statute, rejecting the plaintiff’s claims.

The three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit held that not only is the law content-neutral and constitutional, it also serves an important purpose for open government.

“Here, government is not made less transparent because of the messages of private speech about public policy: Transparency is furthered by allowing the public to have access to government decisionmaking. This is true whether those decisions are made by cogent empirical arguments or coin-flips. The private speech itself makes the government less transparent regardless of its message,” opinion from Judge Jerry Smith stated.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, who defended the act, issued a statement praising the Supreme Court’s move to let the lower court ruling stand as a win for open government.

United States v. Windsor

Here's a link to Scotusblog's page on the DOMA case argued yesterday before the Supreme Court. More to follow.

Budgets are policy instruments also

The Texas Tribune reminds us that budgets provide ways to set public policy. Its not just about number, its about what those numbers do. These are contained in a number of "riders" legislators - or more acurately members of the House and Senate Approproatins committees - are able to add to the document as it works its way through the chamber.

Riders are often added to the budget to ensure that a state agency spends a certain amount of money in the exact way lawmakers intend. If a rider in the proposed House budget plan is ultimately signed by Gov. Rick Perry, for example, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will spend $1.5 million cleaning up “a site of a closed battery recycling facility in a city with a population in excess of 120,000.” The description describes only one facility in Texas: the Exide Battery Recycling Plant in Frisco, which has had issues with hazardous waste disposal. Exide announced it was shutting down the plant last year.

Frisco City Manager George Purefoy said the city has been working with local lawmakers “as well as members of the appropriation and finance committees to address Frisco’s unique challenge, resulting from years of Exide Technology’s operation in our community.”

Sometimes, it’s the absence of a rider that signals a change in lawmakers’ thinking. Last session, the budget included a rider allowing the comptroller to spend up to $2 million on a program highlighting the economic cost of obesity in Texas.

The comptroller’s office requested the money again this session, hoping to maintain a website and award grants to public schools for obesity prevention and intervention programs.

So far, it is missing from both the House and Senate budgets.

“We do not plan on asking for additional funding for the Reshaping Texas obesity web portal,” said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for the comptroller’s office. “We will continue to use available resources to implement this important program.”

Water Bill passes the Texas House

The bill is HB 4, and it provides a funding mechanism for water development projects.

From the Texas Tribune:

The Texas House approved legislation Wednesday that would use $2 billion to start funding water projects in the state. House Bill 4, by state Rep. Allan Ritter, R-Nederland, would create a water bank that would offer loans for projects like new water reservoirs, pipelines and conservation projects.

“As Mother Nature has reminded us in the last couple of years, we can’t change the weather,” Ritter said at the outset of the hearing, “but with sound science and foresight and planning, we can conserve and develop supply to meet our future demands.”

The bill passed nearly unanimously, with only two votes against it, from state Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, and state Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano. Now the bill is headed to the Senate.

The bill survived several amendments that would have drastically changed how the water funding will work. One was to remove the requirement that 20 percent of the money goes to conservation. The other would have taken away access to the state’s rainy day funds, effectively gutting the bill.

Click here for the 2012 State Water Plan.

Should counties still have to publish voting locations in the newspaper?

Houston area State Rep Sarah Davis (R) thinks it's sufficent to post them online, which would save counties money. Harris County spends $80,000 a year to have them published in city newspapers, but not everyone is online, so not everyone may get this information - poor people anbd the elderly especially. Anyone not habitually online. Democrats are especially concerned because they tend to be more competitive when turnout is high. Republicans, not so much.

The bill is HB 816.

From the DMN:

Davis expressed surprise that her “little bill” generated so much interest. Somebody send her that one memo about fighting with people who buy ink by the barrel… They pay attention.

As a comical aside, one witness was initially left off the witness list and nearly skipped. Before Davis closed on her bill arguments, the witness stood up and said she’d used the online witness registration kiosk outside the committee room door to register as a witness – but apparently that didn’t take.

The woman laughed and said, “I’m not on the Internet Superhighway.”

Then she revealed herself to be an executive board member of the AARP and testified against the bill.

And from the Chron:

Our voter turnout levels are already dismally low. Not knowing the location of a polling place, especially in the numerous special elections in which voting locations often are changed or consolidated, shouldn't cut those turnout numbers further. We fear that will be the unintended consequence of a bill by state Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston. Davis' HB 816 provides that: "If notice of a general or special election is given by publishing the notice in a newspaper, the notice may provide the address of an Internet web site that lists the location of each polling place instead of stating the location of each polling place."

We share Rep. Davis' view that notice should be on the Internet, but in certain circumstances, and for certain populations, making publishing of the polling location optional in paid public notices would present clear problems.

Many elderly and economically disadvantaged Texans still do not have ready access to the Internet in their home or via smart-phones. They rely on published notices. We do not want this "digital divide" to end up confusing or discouraging a single registered voter. We should be expanding access to important information such as this rather than limiting it.

For what its worth...

The Westboro Baptist Church filed an amicus brief in the Prop 8 case. Enjoy.

Walter Dellinger's Amicus Brief arguing that Hollingsworth lacks standing to sue in favor of Proposition 8

Click here for the brief. 

From the Monkey Cage: 9 Things You Should Read about the Politics of Same-Sex Marriage

The smart guys at the Monkey Cage have complied a list of readings if you want to understand the political issues associated with same sex marriage.

Pew Research Poll shows public opinion of the Surpeme Court eroding

Overall opinion of the court is high. There's still a 21 point gap between the favorable and unfavorable rating, but the trend has been downward for 25 years. And Democrats are more likely to support the court than Republicans. The decline among Republicans has been especially severe. Democrats have had a relatively steady opinion of the court since 2008. Republicans responded negatively to the two most recent nominations to the court as well as the decision in the ACA.



Liberals and conservatives might as well be looking at two different institutions based on this data:



Overall the court is seen as being middle of the road, but conservatives think it is liberal and liberals think it is conservative.

Police drones are coming

Grits for Breakfast reports on the FAA's licensing of Arlington PD's drones, and the efforts in the legislature to regulate them. Private drones are soon to follow:

Since the FAA won't be licensing private drones until September 2015, I'd prefer to see the focus for now remain on a warrant requirement for police surveillance and curtailing their regulatory use by government. By 2015, the issues surrounding private use of drones will be in sharper focus, the issue will be more ripe for legislation, and there is still time to enact it before the FAA approves private use use of drones in their airspace the following September. Today, in 2013, the goal should be to limit their use by state and local government which, as in Arlington, is the main consumer at the moment of privacy invading drone technology.

Prosecutor Accountabilty Bill passes Senate unanimously

The Bill is SB 825 and was introduced by John Whitmire. It is one of many such bills introduced this session following the Michael Morton case we discussed earlier this semester.

From the Texas Tribune:

It would extend the statute of limitations for offenses involving the suppression of evidence by prosecutors. Under current law, the four-year statute of limitations begins on these offenses when they occur, but Whitmire's proposal would begin the four years when a wrongfully convicted defendant is released from prison. It would also require the State Bar of Texas to issue a public reprimand for prosecutors who suppress evidence that they should have given to defense attorneys.

A public reprimand hardly seems sufficient. The bill now proceeds to the House.

Other bills aimed at decreasing wrongful convictions being considered by lawmakers include SB 1611, by state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and HB 1426, by state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, both of which would codify the requirement that prosecutors share certain information with defense attorneys before a trial begins that could bolster a defendant's claims of innocence. Both bills are set to be discussed Tuesday by legislative committees.

Debate rages over assessments in K-12

House Bill 5 intends to change high school graduation and student testing requirements. The Texas Tribune provides this description:

Aycock's proposal, House Bill 5, would move public schools to an accountability system with grades of A through F, a concept that has drawn support from Sen. Dan Patrick, the Houston Republican who chairs the upper chamber's education committee, and Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams. It would also significantly reduce the number of standardized tests students must pass to graduate.

The legislation removes a requirement that graduating students must achieve a certain cumulative score across 15 end-of-course exams and changes the number they must take to five in reading, writing, biology, Algebra I and U.S. history. Students would be able to count satisfactory performance on Advanced Placement, SAT or ACT exams toward graduation requirements. It also expands the diploma options available to high school students, allowing them to earn "endorsements" with focuses on areas of studies like humanities, science, engineering, technology and math, or business and industry.

"House Bill 5 will improve education in Texas by better equipping schools to meet students' individual needs," Aycock said in his announcement. "The filing of this bill is the first step in a very important conversation about the quality of both our schools and our workforce."

But not everyone belives this is the case. Quorum Report tells us that two nationa interest groups - La Raza and the Education Trust - testified that the changes will do little to address the achievement gap that persists between white and minority students in the state. They have been joines by business groups and Rod Paige, the former Secretary of Education.

Two nationally recognized groups that advocate for closing the achievement gap between white and minority students have urged Texas House members to reconsider the graduation plans created under House Bill 5.

This is one of the first times in recent memory that national education advocates have raised concerns over Texas policy. In past policy decisions, such as requiring four years in core subject areas or setting college readiness standards, Texas has been ahead of most states. In the letter from La Raza and Education Trust, sent to House members on Friday, however, the two groups said the state was taking a step backwards from recent progress and raised concerns about the treatment of minority students.

“The proposed changes would take Texas back to the bad old days of pervasive tracking, ignoring the clear evidence that all students, regardless of the path they choose after high school, need the same rigorous course content to succeed in an economy that demands high-level skills,” wrote Kati Haycock of Ed Trust and Janet Murguia of The National Council of La Raza. “We urge you to stay the course; maintain rigorous expectations for all students.”

The two groups are not the only ones to raise concerns. Last week, a business coalition raised similar concerns with the Texas Senate, noting that rigorous coursework was the prime indicator of potential success in a two- or four-year college. According to the letter, fewer than 20 percent of those whose highest level of math was geometry ever earn a college degree. Among those who take trigonometry, that rises to 60 percent.

And this morning, former Secretary of Education Rod Paige sent out his own statement, urging lawmakers to reject House Bill 5 for weakening both high school graduation requirements and standardized assessments.

“I urge the Texas House to reject House Bill 5 and to say no to these kinds of efforts to lower the standards in Texas schools,” Paige said. “Our children and our schools need high standards of learning, and abandoning strong accountability and assessment is wrong for Texas.”

- The Fort Worth Star Telegram is not impressed with the bill: "It has elements aimed at making students feel better about their academic performance.

- A grassroots group called Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment has advocated for the bill in order to limit the number of assessments given to students.

- The Texas Association of Business intends to support a number of amendments to the bill.

- The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board commissioner argues that the reduction of assessments will reduce college readiness. 

Texas constitutional amendment regarding open beaches debate in the House

This is an attempt to overturn recent decisions by the Texas Supreme Court that negated the Texas Open Beaches Act.

From the Chronicle:

A Texas House panel on Monday debated where private property rights end and public beaches begin, as lawmakers considered a proposed constitutional amendment and another measure that could reverse two contentious state Supreme Court rulings on coastline boundaries.

Rep. Harold Dutton is sponsoring an amendment and companion bill that would more clearly define boundaries for public beaches and hold them in a public trust. The amendment means the law would become impervious to future court challenges should it be approved by Texas voters and added to the state Constitution.

Both are in response to a 2010 Texas Supreme Court ruling on the Open Beaches Act that found if an act of nature erodes a beach, the landowner's right to the remaining property is not diminished by state law — even if it is now part of the beach. A federal appeals court questioned that decision, but the court reaffirmed it last year.

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit that was filed after Hurricane Rita pounded the Texas shoreline in 2005, eroding the sand and leaving Carol Severance's home on a sandy beach along Galveston Island's West Beach. The state ordered Severance to demolish her home, saying her land was now considered a public beach. Instead, Severance sued.

Dutton, D-Houston, said Monday that since 1959, the Open Beaches Act has stated that a beach up to the vegetation line is state property and therefore open to the public.

In the Severance case, Texas argued that its right to the land automatically shifts with the sand, but the court disagreed.

Sometimes winning is losing

Especially with Supreme Court cases. A decision in favor of gay marriage could actually set the cause back. The author support gay marriage, but does not want the court to overturn Proposition 8 urges the court to practice restraint and let this issue play itself out through the political process:

The Prop 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, poses thornier questions about political equality, and could have much broader consequences, because it calls into question the rights of all states to limit marriages to unions between men and women. I fully support marriage equality. But, strange as it may sound, I believe that in the Prop 8 case, the court should decide not to decide the gay marriage issue at all. The proposition has already been struck down by federal judges at the trial and appellate levels, the governor and attorney general of California have refused to defend the proposition and the parties seeking the Supreme Court’s review lack the legal capacity, or standing, to pursue the case.

If the court decides to resolve the merits, it should rule that the Constitution commands recognition of same-sex marriage on equal terms with opposite-sex marriage. A decision to the contrary would be a modern-era Plessy v. Ferguson, the notorious 1896 decision affirming segregation as “separate but equal.” Correspondingly, a decision ruling Prop 8 unconstitutional would be the Roberts court’s Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 decision that struck down racial segregation in schools. The legal and moral choice should be clear.

But the Brown analogy should give us pause. Same-sex marriage is legal in nine states and the District of Columbia, but is the country ready for a decision requiring all 50 states to recognize such unions immediately? Brown triggered a notorious backlash, in both the South and the North, and its impact was blunted by demographic changes and later court rulings, leading to what the education scholar Gary A. Orfield has called the “resegregation” of American schooling.

Or consider Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that protected women’s right to have abortions. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an unabashed defender of abortion rights, has criticized Roe for imprudently intervening in that debate, at a time when the idea of abortion rights was already gaining ground at the state level. The Roe decision galvanized the anti-abortion movement, with political impacts that still linger.

In the long run, national recognition of same-sex marriage is inevitable. Same-sex marriage rights, at first imposed by courts, have now been recognized by state legislatures and prevailed in all four states where they were on the ballot in last year’s election. Young people overwhelmingly support it, and public opinion has shifted on this issue faster than on almost any other social issue in history. It is only a matter of time before all state laws reflect that view.

In the Supreme Court today: Hollingsworth vs. Perry

As we discussed previously, this case is about the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, which was an initiative passed by the California electorate in November 2008 that stated that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

This was overturned in August 2010 by a U.S. District Judge that found the proposition to violate the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. The case went through the 9th Circuit Court for a couple years before it was determined that the District Court decision should be upheld, but the decision was not unanimous.

- Click here for a brief description of the process the case went through on its way to the Supreme Court.
- And click here for the process thus far in the Supreme Court.

According to ScotusBlog, these are the two questions the Supreme Court is charged with considering: (1) Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman; and (2) whether petitioners have standing under Article III, § 2 of the Constitution in this case.

A quick word on "Hollingsworth" and "Perry."

Dennis Hollingsworth is the named petitioner. He, along with a few others, is the person who lost the previous cases and asked for the Supreme Court to review the case by requesting the court file a writ of certiorari. He and the others were affiliated with the groups that helped organize the original inititiatve. The question of standing resulted because the state of California has decided to not argue in favor of the law in court, so it is not clear that the petitioners have suffered a harm that allows them to take a case to the court.

This helps solve some confusion regarding the court case because two others - Perry v. Schwarzenegger and Perry v. Brown - were batted around for a while. Each refers to one of California's recent governors, but since neither decided to pursue the case, they were each dropped, but Holingsworth and Company were allowed to pick it up.

Kristen Perry is the named defendant who was married to her partner in 2004 when San Francisco briefly recognized them prior to the 2008 ballot inititiative. Aftee they received their license they were informed that the marriage had been voided. After passage of Proposition 8 they joined a challenge to it organized by the American Foundation for Equal Rights.

- Click here for a look at these and other players in the case.
In 2305, we've mentioned several times that the equal protection clause has yet to be used, by the Supreme Court, to resolve disputes over unequal treatment due to sexual orientation. They've done their best to avoid it, but no longer. This could easily turn into one the courts more important decisions, depending on what they rule and how expansively they make their decision. Will it only affect California? Or only the states that have ruled in favor of same sex marriage? Or possibly all the states?

Stay tuned.

Beer reform laws reported out of Senate Business and Commerce Committee

Laws regulating the marketing and sale of beer in Texas not changed much since the repeal of prohibition, but efforts to change them and and bring them into the age of craft breweries seems underway. That said, there's a great deal of conflict among the different interests involved in Texas beer industry, and this is reflected in the battles over the different bills being considered.

Despite the fact that I like craft brews, I'm no expert on the different groups involved (brewers large and small, brew pubs, distributors and all), so I recommend a look at the following to get into the nuances if that's your thing:

- My SA.
- Brewed and Never Battered. (this contains a great compilation of comments on the bills and their process through the legislature).
-  A Small Rant about Beer Laws. (commetary on the last legislative session)
- Changing Beer Laws in Texas One Bottle at a Time.
- Open the Taps.
- Compilation of posts from Off the Kuff.

There's more, but they should give you a better idea of the issues involved thatn I can. Suffice to say that two competing groups have been attempting to enhance their respective interests. The Texas Craft Brewers Guild has developed and had had introduced four bills - SB 515, 516, 517, and 518 -- intended to allow smaller brewers to sell and distribute their product, as well as sell their beer on premises.

These are supported by the lobbying groups that supports the beer industry in Texas: the Texas Beer Alliance.

An additional bill -  SB 639 - was introduced with the support of the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas. The bill was intended to ensure that the rules governing the distribution of beer favored the statust quo. This raised objections by the craft brewers, but a compromise seems to have been reached by the interested parties:

A fifth bill, SB 639, was introduced at the last moment by committee chairman Sen. John Carona. It was a wish list of demands from the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas, one of the distributor trade organizations. As written it would also have forced brewers to give distributors uniform pricing for all geographical areas, something very disadvantageous for breweries. Rarely are ABInBev and MillerCoors on the same side of an issue as the likes of Real Ale and St. Arnold, but this issue accomplished that.

In the end, the Brewers Guild and Texas Beer Alliance was able to have some provisions stripped from the bill to make it less onerous, and even managed to define certain brewery-distributor agreements on issues of shared marketing costs and services that were formerly in a legal no-man’s land that few were willing to touch. But what many saw as the worst part of the bill was the disingenuous way that it was introduced. Since the last legislative session, Sen. Carona has been involved in discussions between the Craft Brewers Guild, distributor and retailer organizations, and other pro-craft lobbying groups such as Open The Taps to hammer out a set of legislation all could live with. Keeping the demands contained in SB 639 secret until the last moment and then threatening to hold all the bills hostage until a compromise was found was disingenuous at best. Some point at the fact that Sen. Carona has been a leading beneficiary of distributor campaign contributions as a motivator for his actions.

Regardless, observers think substantive changes are in order, meaning that beer drinkers in the state will likely have even more choices. The craft brewers guild commissioned a study suggesting that they already have a $608 million imapct on the state economy, and that this may well rise to over $5 billion in eight years if the industry is allowed to expand.

I promise to do my part to help them succeed.

The impact of low turnout primaries on state policies

We discussed this in 2305 today. Few voters - generally 5% - 10% of the population - vote in primary elections, which means that the candidate in general elections are selected by the more ideologically polarized elements in each party. There's no moderate primary. Well before each election, members of Congress and state legislatures have to prep themselves for the next primary by voting in a way that will not only make likely primary voters happy, but will reduce the likelyhood that a more ideologically polarized candidate will challenge them.

The electoral system fosters extremist politics.

Here's an example from Kansas:

Until World War I, the state was a hotbed of radicalism: it produced figures such as John Brown and Mary Lease, and was a major base of operations for the Populist and Socialist movements. Then, for eighty years, the state went quiet, becoming a watchword for everything middling and dull in American politics. It is only since the 1990s that Kansas has become associated with a long row of reactionary ideas, leading many commentators to argue that the state took an abrupt right turn. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case: Kansas is terminally moderate. What’s troubling about the case of Kansas is that conservatives have framed all their ideas in the blandest common sense discourse, while their opponents have rarely been capable of responding with anything more vigorous than polite disagreement. The result threatens to undermine the very existence of the state.

The fact is, the conservative faction in Kansas is relatively weak. Though Kansans vote overwhelmingly Republican, there are seventeen states where a higher proportion of residents self-identify as “conservative.” Because most Kansans will vote Republican most of the time, but most Kansans do not identify themselves as conservatives, the results of low-turnout primary elections can lead to dramatic political swings. The protracted contest over evolution, for instance, hinged on Republican primaries for seats on the State Board of Education, with extremists, moderates, extremists, and moderates winning in four successive elections.

You will more likely than not achieve the same level of education as your dad's

Here's another argument that the United States does not have the level of social mobility we think we do. People tend to attain to the level of education that their parents do - in this case their fathers:

If your father didn't graduate high school, then you are 8 times more likely not to graduate high school than if your father did. If your father graduated college, then you are 3 times more likely to graduate college than if your father didn't.

You would think this would be a result of income inequality. Fathers who don't graduate high school, with children who don't either, tend to be much poorer than fathers who have, with children who have. That's true.

But you'd be wrong to think that this effect is largely explained by income. It's not. Intergenerational inequality in educational attainment persists after adjustment for income inequality.

The data suggest inequality is a problem of families, not of individuals. Even among the poor, basically every person whose father graduated college graduates high school themselves, and 40 percent or so graduate college. Whether your father graduated high school is much, much more predictive of whether you have than how much you make.

So how might this alter our attitude towards education policy?

A brief history of the estate tax

The authors of this study find that estate taxes, and the rates they are set at, come and go with war - natoable the bog ones that require a high level of sacrifice across the board. The same argument applies to progressive tax rates. The less wealthy were subject to the draft - that was their sacrifice. The estate tax was intended to equalize sacrifice:

Our research identifies the political reason that estate taxes, and taxes in general, became more progressive in countries that mobilized for war. Proponents of progressive taxation made a clear case that if the broad population was to sacrifice for the war effort, then on grounds of fairness the wealthy should make a financial sacrifice to pay for the war. During World War I this came to be known as “the conscription of wealth,” a turn of phrase arguably as impressive as “death tax,” in contemporary debates. Likewise, during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and American labor unions made use of the term “equality of sacrifice” to call for heavier taxes on the wealthy. Since war debts continued after each war’s end, these two terms retained their salience even after conflict had ceased.


A striking illustration of our fairness argument can be gleaned by using the Google Ngram Viewer. This allows users to scour the archive of full-text searchable historical documents to see the frequency of specific phrases. Since John Stuart Mill’s use of the term in 1848, “equality of sacrifice” has been one proposed criterion for judging whether a tax system is fair. By the late 19th century, many economists argued that equality of sacrifice could be assured only if the wealthy were taxed more heavily than the rest. Each dollar in taxes represented a smaller sacrifice for the rich than for the poor. Nevertheless, the Ngram’s evidence shows that “equality of sacrifice” gained real salience only with the advent of the First World War, seven decades after the term’s introduction. See the graph:

Visualizing Economics

I stumbled across a site that specializes on graphical displays of economic data: Visualizing Economics. This is a compilation of graphics that began as a kickstarter project -neat idea.

Here's a two sample. I'll steal a few.

Weekly Assignment #10 - 16 week classes

2302 and 2305: Last week - March 20 - was the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War. This allowed for various commentators to analyze the decision to go to war and not only decide whether it was the right thing to do, but what the decision said about the current state of foreign policy in the US. It also has an impact on the future foreign policy decisions likely to be made by the nation. Read up on the commentary and weigh in on it. In sum total was it the right decision? And regardless of your point of view - how is the conflict likely to influence the type of foreign engagements we will choose to instigate in the future?

2301 and 2306: The sequester is about three weeks old now, but each state is trying to figure out how it will be impacted by the spending cuts. This includes Texas. One of the issues the Texas Legislature is wrestling with is what to do about the amount of money the state is projected to lose. I want you to do a little research and find out what exactly Texas stands to lose as a result of the cuts and what the legislature considering to do to counteract the cuts - if anything.

Here are two links - one and two - to get you going.

Weekly Assignment #4 - 8 week classes

I want you to do the same assignments my 16 weeks classes did (or are still thinking about maybe doing) for week 9.

Click here to get them.

Vote-A-Rama begins

The Senate has begun voting on a series of amendments - 400 apparently - to the budget.

Click here for a live blog of the vote.

The Hill provides background:

After getting off to a late start, the Senate finally began its much-anticipated budget "vote-a-rama," the free-wheeling process by which senators can seek an unlimited number of amendments to the 2014 budget bill. Senators were scheduled to start at 3 p.m., but began the process at 3:45 p.m. 

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) started the day by urging members to limit amendments to the typical 25 to 35 that are normally seen during these votes. But the pent-up budget frustrations on the part of Republicans, after four years with no Senate budget process, could lead them to push for more. 

Consideration of amendments is the penultimate phase of budget work for the Senate. Once all requests are considered, the Senate hopes to pass it either late tonight or possibly in the early hours of Saturday morning.

But before then, amendments could be called up on any number of subjects that have been the subject of debate over the last several months. Amendments have been filed on the legality of drone strikes against Americans on U.S. soil, cutting taxes, ending offshore tax havens, repealing the healthcare law, gun control, immigration and even withholding the pay of White House officials if the budget is late.

Can Texas turn blue?

The national Democratic Party is making a play for Texas - for the first time in at least 20 years. I have to fill in gaps in this story, but the National Journal wonders if Rick Perry might help Democrats reach their goal. His refusal to accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid is only part of it:

Rejecting the federal money might not pose an immediate political threat to Texas Republicans, whose coalition revolves around white voters responsive to small-government arguments. But renouncing the money represents an enormous gamble for Republicans with the growing Hispanic community, which is expected to approach one-third of the state’s eligible voters in 2016. Hispanics would benefit most from expansion because they constitute 60 percent of the state’s uninsured. A jaw-dropping 3.6 million Texas Hispanics lack insurance.

Texas Democrats are too weak to much affect the Medicaid debate. But if state Republicans reject federal money that could insure 1 million or more Hispanics, they could provide Democrats with an unprecedented opportunity to energize those voters—the key to the party’s long-term revival. With rejection, says Democratic state Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas, Republicans “would dig themselves into an even deeper hole with the Hispanic community.” 

In 1994, California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson mobilized his base by promoting Proposition 187, a ballot initiative to deny services to illegal immigrants. He won reelection that year—and then lost the war as Hispanics stampeded from the GOP and helped turn the state lastingly Democratic. Texas Republicans wouldn’t be threatened as quickly, but they may someday judge their impending decision on expanding Medicaid as a similar turning point.

Does the 113th Congress really mirror the American public?

Of course not.

The Federal Communications Commission chairman is stepping down

Story in the National Journal.

Wikipedia: FCC.

Wikipedia: Julius Genachowski

FCC website.

Falsely shouting bingo in a crowded hall

A fun story from the Volock Conspiracy, and a twist on the falsely shouting fire limit on the First Amendment protections for speech:

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Austin Whaley was found guilty of disorderly conduct for going into a bingo hall and shouting “bingo” as a hoax. “This caused the hall to quit operating since they thought someone had won,” a police officer who was moonlighting as a security guard at the bingo hall at the time. “This delayed the game by several minutes and caused alarm to patrons.

Ratings determine what the media covers

Andrew Sullivan flags this as his quote for the day (for today):

“When a broadcasting executive gets out of bed in the morning, before his foot hits the floor, his thoughts are ratings. ‘What are my ratings?’ Not unlike Wall Street people, who get their—and CEOs, their first thought is the price of their stock,” – Phil Donahue, reflecting on his firing from MSNBC for being too anti-war.

We'll be covering the freedom of the press and the media soon enough and this will be a recurring theme. Much of what we see on the news is based on what attracts the most viewers - or at least does not turn them away. There's lot of soul searching going on since we just passed the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Some are wondering why so many media sources, even liberal ones, were so gung-ho about it. Apparently opposing it seemed bad for business at the time.