Texas District Attorneys Feeling the Heat

Texas Tribune argues that people in this once exalted position are under fire:

District attorneys were often big personalities — the courtroom muscle of the criminal justice system, the people showing up on TV to play out the real-life version of “truth, justice and the American way.” Candidates for Texas attorney general — an office with almost no duties in criminal law — have tried to capture the crime-busting aura of prosecutors for years. It was strong stuff in a political arena. 

Running a political campaign against a sitting prosecutor in Texas was a job for egotistic dunces and legal-minded Quixotes. Even weak DA’s were invincible.But a strange thing is happening in the impervious ranks of high-profile Texas prosecutors. That cachet is taking a beating. 

One prosecutor is in jail. A former district attorney is facing charges related to sending an innocent man to jail. One county spent nearly $400,000 settling a sexual harassment charge against its DA. Another prosecutor is fighting contempt of court charges after refusing to testify in a prosecutorial misconduct inquiry. 

Terrorism 2002-2005

This internal report from the FBI might be of interest to some students.

Terrorism 2002-2005.

Its provides definitions of terrorism, and a look at terrorist activities. Here's it's definition of terrorism:

Definitions 

There is no single, universally accepted, definition of terrorism. Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85). 
The FBI further describes terrorism as either domestic or international, depending on the origin, base, and objectives of the terrorist organization. For the purpose of this report, the FBI will use the following definitions:

• Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.

• International terrorism involves violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any state. These acts appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. International terrorist acts occur outside the United States or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to coerce or intimidate, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.

Was the 20 block search for the Boston bomber legal?

In its search for the bombing suspect, the Boston police searched every home in a 20 block area where the bomber was believed to be. While it seems that most consented to the search, was the search legal? Could someone have refused the search absent a warrant?

Balkanization asks this question and highlights a paper prepared by the Texas District and County Attorney Association (one of our states' professional associations) regarding warrantless searches that suggest the search was probably illegal.

The article states:

Four circumstances must be present when officers enter a home, without consent or warrant, to search under these circumstances:

•    the offender might escape if police do not make an immediate entry;

•    the offender has demonstrated that he poses a danger to the community (for instance, the crime just committed is a crime of violence);

•    the offender has been pursued into the house continuously from the crime scene; and

•    the warrantless arrest would be lawful if accomplished in a public place but that cannot be done because of the suspect’s decision to retreat into a private place.

And Balkanization points out that one of these factors was not met in the search:

There was ample justification for the arrest of the suspect, there was little question that he posed a danger to the community, and there was a credible flight risk. Importantly, however, the suspect was not “pursued into the house continuously from the crime scene.” He was pursued into a large, general region of a city. Even in cases involving a single house, “[t]he information must be fairly specific … merely investigating a potential danger may not justify warrantless entry.” The lack of specificity here is only more pronounced; officers had no specific or articulable reason to believe that the suspect was present in any given house in the 20-block perimeter. In fact, the suspect was ultimately found by accident, and not by police but by a civilian, safely outside the 20-block area.

And what about the idea that the magnitude of the crime justifies the legality of the search? The author points out that Justice Scalia argued against that justification in an opinion issued last year:

Nor do the Fourth Amendment’s requirements evaporate due to the serious nature of the crime being investigated. “There is no precedent” for such a proposition, as Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the Court, reaffirmed just last Term. And accepting such a “novelty” would lead to a cornucopia of “vexing problems”: in investigations involving “extraordinary offenses,” if it’s okay to conduct nonconsensual warrantless searches of every house in a 20-block area, what of searching every house in a 30-block area? Or a 100-block area? What exactly constitutes an “extraordinary offense”?

The article from the TDCAA makes a useful point about the desirability of warrants:

Without question, federal and state law contains a decided preference for warrants. The advantages of having a warrant are: 1) the officer or prosecutor drafting the affidavit can discuss the facts and craft a statement of probable cause with care; and 2) a magistrate reviews the information from the officer or prosecutor before deciding to issue the warrant. When a case involving a warrant goes to court, the presumption is that the seizure was lawful, and the burden is on the defendant to show the warrant was deficient. 

Nonetheless, courts recognize that it is not always practical or desirable to ask an officer to stop what he’s doing to get a warrant, and for this reason, federal and state constitutional law recognize several exceptions to the rule requiring a warrant for any search.

More pointers on prepping for the final

I gave a few hints in class about how best to prep for the final - I'll repeat it here online students:

Since a handful of the questions will be repetitions of old assessment questions, I strongly advise reviewing them. A lot. Memorize them if you can. The assessments are about learning and retaining facts anyway (the written work is about critical thinking) so do it.

Also, since some of the questions will be brand new but based on past assessment questions, use the assessment questions as starting points for thinking broadly about the material presented. If an assessment question is about the equal protection clause for example, consider the different ways it has been interpreted, and the various standards used to do so.

A small group will be based on information not asked previously, but contained in the power points, so don't forget to review those.

I also strongly advise you - especially 2305 students - to review fundamental documents, especially the constitution - whichever you are focusing on. I tend to pull a large number of questions from it.

More to follow.

I've figured you out

A few hints for the final

Finals week starts May 6th for 16 week classes, and is a few days earlier for the 8 week classes (May 3rd).

Click here for the finals schedule.

I'll start posting hints about what to think about for the test, but here's a reminder of the particulars (which you can find on the syllabus - as you already know right?).

Most of the questions will be based on the assessment questions you have taken over the course of the semester. About 30-35 will be repetitions of those questions. The rest will alterations of those question while a small handful - perhaps 5-10 - will be subject matter we did not cover in the assessments at all, but was in the class notes.

I suggest spending time reviewing the assessment questions, and considering them broadly. Think about the related topics surrounding these questions. Don't forget to cover the powerpoints and whatever notes you took in the class.

You will have two hours to answer 100 multiple choice questions, and these will primarily focus on various facts associated with the subject matter of your class. The written assignments are meant to test critical thinking skills. If you are a lecture student, please bring a scantron and a pencil to class. If you are an online student, note that the format of the final will be different than the assessment. You will have two hours for all 100 questions, and these will be given to you one at a time and you will not be able to revisit the questions.

As opposed to the asessments - which were open ended and designed to help you learn the subject matter - this is ment to be an actual test.

I've mentioned several times - in class at least - that the final is meant to be tough. The assessments, written assignments and 1000 word report, not so much. This is where I separate the A's and B's from the rest of the pack. If you have done well on the other assignments, most likely you have built up enough of a base grade where you can't fail the class even if you blow the final. Its only worth 25% of your grade. Hopefully that helps lower any stress you might have about the test.

Keep comng back to this blog since I'll drop hints about what to study for as I put the finals together.

Good luck and try to relax.

Sequester pushes up spending on lobbbying

I've reading through report on the sequester, when this came along from Roll Call:

Some companies, associations and issue groups have filed their lobbying reports early and many have shown increases in spending. First-quarter issues of sequester allocations, passage of the fiscal 2013 authorization for the rest of the year, and the president’s budget submission for fiscal 2014 may have pushed lobbying budgets higher.

Here are a few examples of increased spending:

American Medical Association $4,910,000 — up from $3,400,000

United Technologies $4,630,000 — up from $3,889,000
Lockheed Martin Corporation $3,710,000 — up from $3,600,000

It's a lot of money, but its safe to assume they receive more than they spend.

Testing the limits of ther free exercise of religion

It does protect a couple that denies medical treatment for a child in favor of prayer if the child dies as a result. We discussed similar cases earlier in 2305 when we covered the religious freedoms established in the Bill of Rights. Here's an example:

A couple serving probation for the 2009 death of their toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor could face new charges now that another son has died.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith healing. They lost their 8-month-old son, Brandon, last week after he suffered from diarrhea and breathing problems for at least a week, and stopped eating. Four years ago, another son died from bacterial pneumonia

. . . A jury convicted the Schaibles of involuntary manslaughter in the January 2009 death of their 2-year-old son, Kent. The boy's symptoms had included coughing, congestion, crankiness and a loss of appetite. His parents said he was eating and drinking until the last day, and they had thought he was getting better.

The Schaibles were sentenced to 10 years' probation.

At a hearing Monday, a judge told the couple they had violated the terms of their probation, noting the Schaibles had told investigators that they prayed to God to make Brandon well instead of seeking medical attention.

"You did that once, and the consequences were tragic," Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner said, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

From Foreign Policy: How Geography Explains the United States

This isn't exactly a new observation, but its worth both repeating and clarifying. The author points out that the United States' unique geography - especially the fact that it borders two major oceans and has had more or less peaceful relations with its bordering nations - explains the world view of its citizens, as well as its history.

The United States is the only great power in the history of the world that has had the luxury of having nonpredatory neighbors to its north and south, and fish to its east and west. The two oceans to either side of the country are what historian Thomas Bailey brilliantly described as its liquid assets.

Canadians, Mexicans, and fish. That trio of neighbors has given the United States an unprecedented degree of security, a huge margin for error in international affairs, and the luxury of largely unfettered development.

Those last two points are huge: we have had a margin for error in foreign affairs (we could make mistakes and get away with it) and develop ourselves without worrying about attacks. But it has lead to a worldview the author claims is unrealistic. We are pragmatic, idealistic, arrogant and ambivalent, and we can be all that because we can make decisions without worrying about immediate repercussions - because of our unique geography. But it means that we can not always understand - or appreciate - what motivates other countries - which can lead to mistakes.

U.S. nationalism was defined politically, not ethnically. Anyone can be an American, regardless of color, creed, or religion. America's public square has become an inclusive one -- and is becoming more so, not less. That's all good news, but too often, it leads Americans to see the world on their terms and not the way it really is.

Just look at America's recent foreign-policy misadventures. Americans' mistaken belief that post-invasion Iraq would be a place where Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds would somehow look to the future to build a new nation reflected this tendency. It's the same story with the Arab Spring: From the beginning, America seemed determined to impose its own upbeat Hollywood ending on a movie that was only just getting started and would become much darker than imagined. The notion that what was happening in Egypt was a transformative event that would turn the country over to the secular liberals powered by Facebook and Twitter was truly an American conceit.

Since we are prepping for the finals, I took note of this bit that suggests that our isolated geography allowed us to carefully draft and discuss our constitutional order. Other countries have not had that luxury.

Sure, it was America's unique political system that forced compromise and practicality. But we shouldn't kid ourselves: The United States' success was made possible by a remarkable margin of security provided by two vast oceans, which allowed Americans the time and space to work on their union largely freed from constant external threats and crises.

Other countries have not been so lucky. It's fascinating to observe, for example, that Israel has no written constitution. Instead, it has a series of "basic laws" that have evolved over time. Why? The Israelis could not devote the time or risk the divisions that might have resulted from debating core issues when they were struggling to preserve their independence. These core questions -- such as those about the religious character of the state and the role of Arab citizens -- remain largely unresolved to this day.

Although the U.S. political system failed to resolve the problem of slavery without a civil war, the United States did manage to make it through that war as a united country. Location had much to do with this: You can only imagine America's fate had it been surrounded by hostile neighbors eager to take advantage of years of bloody war.

Maybe this helps explain Texas' 50 year struggle to find the right constitutional system - one that we continue to tinker with to this day.

This makes total sense

The first commercial transaction over the internet involved the sale of a bag of marijuana.

In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts at Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory engaged in a commercial transaction with their counterparts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before Amazon, before eBay, the seminal act of e-commerce was a drug deal. The students used the network to quietly arrange the sale of an undetermined amount of marijuana.

Public executions as social control

A journal kept by a prolific German executioner who worked in Nuremberg from 1573 to 1618 has been found and published, with commentary.

Here's an interesting bit from a review. Note the two sentences in bold. They point out what governments sometimes do to keep the population in line. So are public executions instruments of coercion?

Frantz Schmidt was a master executioner. He had a notarized certificate to prove it. He apprenticed under a master; he paid his journeyman's dues. He mostly worked in the imperial city of Nuremberg during his forty-five years of service, 1573-1618. He executed 394 people: men, women, and some boys and girls. Schmidt, always poised, delivered a good death, whether he beat you to kingdom come with a wagon wheel or applied the pitch and touched the flame, slipped the noose or cut off your head.

A "good death" was meant to shock and awe the locals, to keep them ruly in the absence of any effective central authority during some seriously unruly times. Executions were carefully orchestrated, ritualized brutality that sated the drive for retribution, with clear rules and conduct. The fathers of Nuremberg, a city then at the zenith of its power and wealth, hired Frantz Schmidt: reliable, honest, pious, reflective, loyal, sober Frantz, a rare bird in the world of executioners. Literate, too, and Joel Harrington's The Faithful Executioner has drawn on Schmidt's personal journal to shape an involved and evolved portrait of this terrible, ancient, and utterly familiar instrument of state violence, one who here inspires gawps of horror and aches of pity.

An Empty Boston

There are tons of sweet images of an empty Boston from last Friday - and some are having a field day debating the wisdom of locking the city down - but the bombers were found and either caught or killed, so the lockdown served its purpose. After the final arrest, the city celebrated, so the move seems to have received support.

Nevertheless, it is one of the more unique examples of police power in a major city in recent memory. We had to face something similar after Hurricane Ike and a 7pm curfew was imposed on Houston. It wasn't strictly enforced, but it was largely followed. And driving through a dark, empty city was eerie.

As we begin to review for the final and think about the consent of the governed, and how this manifests itself, it might be worth thinking about this as one of the more unusual examples.

Why did gun control fail in the Senate? Intensity, Demographics, and Social Networks

A Monkey Cage writer summarizes why 90% support for gun control measures - the background checks anyway - was not sufficient to get the proposal passed. This tells us alot about what does and does not drive the political process.

What doesn't? Presidential Rhetoric:

I will not linger on dubious claims by Stuart Stevens, Maureen Dowd and others that President Obama should have been able to win 60 votes via more adept arm-twisting, deal-making and speechifying. Pundits’ abiding belief in Presidential omnipotence seems immune to the evidence assembled by scholars like George Edwards and Frances Lee that Chief Executives’ ability to affect the votes cast by Members of Congress is limited and that Presidents’ embrace of a policy may repel legislators as much as it attracts them.

Intensity matters, but it is an insufficient explanation:

Certainly, elected officials hear far more from the gun rights side of the debate, even when it is badly outnumbered. There may well be more passion on the pro-gun side. Yet in politics it is a mistake to simply infer greater intensity of concern from greater mobilization. Two additional factors should be examined that may help explain why pro-gun advocates are so much better able to mobilize supporters and win the day on Capitol Hill: the demographic characteristics of those on each side of the debate and differences in the extent to which their social networks and activities facilitate their collective action.

Demographic Characteristics:

Polls tell us something about the characteristics of gun rights supporters and gun owners specifically. If we look at these categories, we see that they are disproportionately white, male and old. Disproportionately white, male and old is a description that fits the Senate and,to a lesser degree, most other American political elites quite well. For example campaign contributors are disproportionately white male, and old too. Gun rights supporters are also more likely to be registered to vote than gun control advocates. So from this standpoint the cause of gun rights gets more of a hearing because it appeals to the kind of citizens who are already comfortable and used to participating in politics.

And Social Networks:

People often go hunting and target-shooting in groups. Gun enthusiasts assemble at gun shows. There are businesses that cater to gun owners; firearms and ammunition manufacturers and the operators of target ranges and gun shows. It is well-known that firms find it easier to build effective lobbies than do large groups of citizens, but beyond that gun owners’ social activities facilitate organizing. They are embedded in social networks of people with similar views and simply by socializing, engaging in recreational activities or reading publications devoted to their hobbies, they may learn about political efforts that at least some of them are predisposed to support. It’s not an accident that many of the most successful social movements in American history from abolition to Prohibition and the Civil Rights Movement were based in churches. These campaigns piggy-backed on pre-existing social organizations and communities rather than building connections from scratch.

Gun control proponents are far too diffuse to be as effective:

By contrast, gun control supporters have no shared social activities, no common identity and no companies that cater to them. Their jobs don’t bring them together. Unlike gun rights advocates’ they don’t find and stay in touch with each other without a conscious and sustained effort to do so. Under these conditions, it is not surprising to find far more effective mobilization of sentiment on the gun rights side. So even if there was significant intensity of feeling on the part of a sizable minority of gun control advocates,(say 10% of the 90% favoring background checks) we should expect them to have greater difficulty in channeling those feelings and building durable political organizations.

More than most any other story I've come across in recent years, this one best explains the ability of strong cohesive groups to be more effective that public opinion. We might consider changing our defitnition of democracy from rule of the people to rule of groups - or factions as Madison might put it.

The Review Period has Started

If you've been paying attention - and I know you have - you'll note there has been no new information required for class since last week. Today officially started the review period.

In lecture classes today, I tried to make sense of the structure of the class and we walked through the topics of each separate section, seeing how they fit together. And i threw out a few vague hints about what questions might end up on the final.

I'll do the same here, so I'd advise students to follow the blog closely.

Here's a link to the final exam schedule. 

Here are links to review sheets I put together at the end of the fall 2012 semester. The tests will be changed up a bit, but these should help you get going.

- GOVT 2301

- GOVT 2302
- GOVT 2305
- GOVT 2306

Pearson in the spotlight

The legislature is taking a critical look at Pearson Publishing and the increasingly powerful testing lobby in the state:

Pearson holds a five-year, $468 million contract through 2015 to provide the state assessments that students begin taking in third grade. While policies that led to the contract won unanimous approval four years ago, lawmakers looking to understand what brought the state to this point have settled on what they view as the excessive influence of the testing lobby in the policymaking process.

“Testing companies are in the business of making a profit, but let’s not confuse their mission — their mission is to create as many tests as they can and then grade them at as little cost as possible,” Senate Education Chairman Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said Tuesday at a hearing on a comprehensive education bill that would reduce the number of high-stakes tests students must take to graduate.

An ex-legislator points out the Pearson is only doing what previous legislatures allowed them to do:

If lawmakers are looking for answers, said former Rep. Scott Hochberg, a Houston Democrat who retired after the 2011 session, said that they should first look at themselves.

“As far as I know, Pearson doesn’t vote in the Legislature,” he said. “Pearson didn’t decide how many tests there would be. They didn’t decide how many tests had to be passed.”

Hochberg said the company was “a convenient target," but not an accurate one. “If they have too much power, it’s because they’ve been given that power,” he said.

Some attention is being paid to the influence opf at least one well connected lobbyist:

Asked about the backlash Pearson faced in the Legislature, Susan Aspey, vice president of media relations for Pearson, said in a statement that the company’s goal was “fair and accurate assessments that help educators and parents know that all children are learning.”

Ratcliffe said she did not understand the complaint that the company had driven policymaking in the state. When the state develops a new assessment program, she said, the testing company provides technical consultants, but the education agency also accepts input from committees of teachers and policy experts from around the country.

Nonetheless, the ethics amendments in the House were aimed specifically at the activities of one Pearson lobbyist on those committees, Sandy Kress, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and Dallas Independent School District board member. Kress, who declined to comment for this article, was an architect of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which mandated standardized testing as a way to hold states accountable for students’ achievement.

He first served on an agency committee in 1996, Ratcliffe said, before his association with Pearson began. She said he had continued to because he brought the perspective of the business community, and experience in federal policy and as a former school board member

.

Should everything be criminalized?

Grits for Breakfast points to documents produced by the Texas Public Policy Foundation that provides guidance about when criminal penalties ought to be established or enhanced.

Here are the bullet points:

•Have sentences already gotten tougher?
•Is there evidence that current penalties are ineffective?
•Will an enhancement deter the conduct?
•Does the enhancement reduce the discretion of judges, juries and corrections officials?
•Will the enhancement make the penalty for the offense more or less commensurate with other penalties?
•Are there other solutions?

- Analyze before you criminalize.
- Look Askance Before you Enhance.

Is remaining silent prior to arrest an admission of guilt?

Apparently the court has never ruled on this before. Now they have the chance.

Last week the US Supreme Court heard Salinas v Texas, which originated in Harris County and pitted one of Harris County's district attorneys against a Stanford law professor.

The NYT describes the case here:

Salinas v. Texas, No. 12-246, addresses a major open question in the court’s Fifth Amendment jurisprudence: May the failure to answer a police officer’s questions before an arrest be used against a defendant at trial?

The Supreme Court has said the amendment’s protection against self-incrimination applies after arrest and at trial. But it has never decided, in the words of a 1980 decision, “whether or under what circumstances pre-arrest silence” in the face of questioning by law enforcement personnel is entitled to protection.

The case arose from the 1992 murders of two brothers, Juan and Hector Garza, in Houston. Among the evidence the police found were discarded shotgun shells.

They questioned Genovevo Salinas, who was said to have attended a party at the Garzas’ apartment. Mr. Salinas answered questions for almost an hour but would not say if a shotgun the police had taken from his home would match the recovered shells.

The question about the shells was the only one Mr. Salinas refused to answer. Instead, a police officer later testified, he “looked down at the floor, shuffled his feet, bit his bottom lip, clinched his hands in his lap, began to tighten up.”

Mr. Salinas was charged with murder after a friend told the police that Mr. Salinas had confessed. The jury deadlocked at his first trial. At a retrial, prosecutors again relied on testimony about the confession and ballistics evidence. They now also emphasized Mr. Salinas’s silence about the shells.

“An innocent person,” one prosecutor told the jury, “is going to say: ‘What are you talking about? I didn’t do that. I wasn’t there.’ He didn’t respond that way. He didn’t say, ‘No, it’s not going to match up.’ ”

Mr. Salinas was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In urging the justices not to hear the case, prosecutors in Texas said Mr. Salinas had effectively answered the question about the shells through his conduct. In any event, they said, the Fifth Amendment does not apply when “there is no official compulsion to speak.”

For more on the subject:

- ScotusBlog - Salinas v Texas.
- Grits for Breakfast.
- You can find the transcript of the oral argument here.

Alvin's city council jump all over the architects hired to design a proposed animal shelter

The bid was a bit high, so the reception was a bit rough.

The Sun-Advertiser caught the fun:

Council Member Greg Bullard told HBL representatives, “Everyone of us here on council has some form of construction experience. You need not treat us like a bunch of dumb asses. We need to set up an all day meeting to discuss this issue. Plan to bring your lunch for that meeting and plan to have your heads down and your asses up,” he urged.

He went on to remind the representatives that this shelter will be built with taxpayer money. “It appears like there is not a whole lot of information about this project. We need a simple explanation,” he added.

A recess was then called. City Manager Terry Lucas, Mayor Gary Appelt and City Engineer Jim Nance took time during the recess to get their heads together. When the meeting was called back in session, Council Member Scott Read asked HDL to send information on the shelter to council members prior to a future planned meeting so they could review in, and not hand it out just prior to the meeting.

Appelt told the community the city remains committed to the building of the shelter. “First, however, we need to work through these numbers. We are trying our best to get where we need to be. We have this project on the front burner,” he concluded.

- The Alvin Animal Shelter.
- The Animal Shelter Advisory Committee.

From the Houston Press: Shakedown: The HCAD Appraisal Game

The Houston Press investigated the Harris County Appraisal District and found evidence that it is reducing the appraisals of high value properties and making up the difference by increasing those of lesser value. HCAD pushes back and blames the state legislature since they establish the rules the determine how property is to be appraised in the county. And owners of high end property are more likely to be able to afford attorneys who can challenge the appraisal - especially the large companies that own area refineries.

According to a report by the SEIU, successful protests of high end property has resulted in a reduction of almost 2 and half billion dollars in Harris County's tax base. As a result:

. . . the City of Houston and Harris County lost out on $15.4 million and $9.4 million in tax revenues respectively, while the Harris County Hospital District was deprived of more than $4.6 million in revenue. Local school districts, including Alief, Spring Branch and Katy, were shorted $29.1 million in property-tax revenue.

For related stories:

- George Scott Reports.
- HP stories on chief appraiser Jim Robinson.

Why did the Senate vote down background checks for gun purchases if 90% of the population favored it?

A handful of political commentators try to figure that out, click here.

And click here for the source of the 90% figure.

Is the TCEQ a captured agency?

Something to chew on.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is supposed to be Texas' version of the national Environmental Protection Agency, but since the governor appoints the TCEQ's commissioners, and he is staunchly pro-business, there are concerns that they protect the interests of business rather than the general public.

Some related stories:

- Agency of Destruction.
- TCEQ: Captured and Corrupted.
- Polluters and Penalties.

The Texas Legislature seems intent on limiting its jurisdiction:

- Texas House Strips TCEQ of Greenhouse Gas Authority.
- Bill Filed to protect buyers of facilities regulated by TCEQ.
- Greenhouse Gas Permits?

Was the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas due to lax regulations?

That question is making the rounds.

The Waco Tribune has a comprehensive look at the investigation thus far, and includes this:

Meanwhile, a hazy picture emerged Thursday of the fertilizer plant’s past regulatory issues. Because of the plant’s age, it was “grandfathered” and exempted from a TCEQ air permit until 2004. But it continued without the required permit until 2006, when the TCEQ received a complaint about strong ammonia smells in the neighborhood and served the company with a notice of violation.

That same year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined the facility $2,300, citing several deficiencies in its risk management plan. The plant got its TCEQ permit in late 2006 for the anhydrous ammonia storage, promising to mitigate any accidental releases of the substance offsite. Another permit for loading and storing dry fertilizer was granted in March 2007. The TCEQ had no records of inspections after January 2007.

The Dallas Morning News reports that Texas regulators did not consider the plant to pose a significant risk to the surrounding area.

The explosion came after years in which state and federal agencies overlooked the potential for what some say was a preventable catastrophe. “Last night’s tragic explosion points to the need for stricter regulations of plants that store and use large quantities of hazardous chemicals,” said Tom O’Connor, executive director of the National Council on Occupational Safety and Health, a union-affiliated nonprofit group.

Neil Carman, a Ph.D. chemist with the Sierra Club in Texas and a former state environmental inspector, said lax controls are putting people in danger in scores of Texas communities “A basic concern here is that the chemical ammonia, NH3, is very weakly regulated at the federal and state level, or else this accident would not have likely occurred,” Carman said.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality did not respond to questions about why they repeatedly approved the companies’ operations without addressing the risk of explosions.

The Huffington Post comments that one culprit is the reduced funds given to regulatory agencies to actually do their jobs:

According to the 2011 budget submitted to congress by OSHA, which provides most of the federal oversight for that industry, there are 7.5 million workplaces in the U.S. and only 2,218 inspectors to check them for safety violations. The number of employed nationally means that there is one inspector for every 57,984 workers. One analyst reported that means OSHA has the capacity to inspect a business work place once every 129 years. Fortunately, state level OSHA workers aren't as pressed and they can get to a facility every 67 years.

The Washington Post surveys a variety of issues related to fertilizer plants, including commentary on regulatory oversight:

. . . the operators of the West Texas facility thought an explosion was impossible. The Dallas Morning News obtained a copy of the facility’s internal safety review for fire or explosive risks. “The worst possible scenario, the report said, would be a 10-minute release of ammonia gas that would kill or injure no one.”

As for other oversight: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration tends to be understaffed and inspections are relatively infrequent. The Texas fertilizer industry has only seen six inspections in the past five years — and the West Texas Fertilizer Co. facility was not one of them.

Two theories about what's ailing the US economy

Both look at factors that retard the ability of people to spend, whcih is critical in a consumer based economy like ours.

1 - It's high student debt:

Nowadays, younger Americans are becoming less likely to take out loans to buy a house or a car. One possible reason? They’re too overloaded with student debt.

. . . student debt has grown dramatically over the last decade — some 43 percent of Americans under the age of 25 had student debt in 2012, with the average debt burden now $20,326. By contrast, back in 2003, just 25 percent of younger Americans had debt, and the average burden was $10,649.

What’s particularly notable is that these student loans appear to be crowding out other types of borrowing. For a long time, younger Americans with student debt were more likely to own homes than those without — largely because college grads are likelier to have higher earnings. But that trend has reversed . . .

2 - It's underwater mortgages:

It is widely recognized that the fall in housing prices had a “wealth effect” that led homeowners across the country to cut back on spending. In the updated paper, Mian, Sufi and Rao measured how much more underwater borrowers probably cut back on spending compared to borrowers without an overhang of mortgage debt. (More precisely, they measured how much homeowners cut back on auto spending for each dollar loss of housing wealth. But that’s important; the decline in auto sales was a significant part of the economic contraction.)

The authors found that being underwater makes a big difference. . . Zip codes with fewer than 15 percent of homeowners only cut back only a little – spending only half a cent less for every dollar their home fell in value. But in Zip codes where more than 50 percent of homeowners were underwater, borrowers cut back five times as much – spending 2.5 cents less on car purchases for each dollar of reduced housing wealth.

Is there a reason for businesses to hire workers?

Maybe not. This graph shows that since the end of the recession, productivity (the blue line) has increased despite the fact that employment (the red line) has barely budged. In fact this seems part of a trend that dates back to the 70s. Maybe more indication of the impact of technology on employment.

What types of jobs will be available in the future?

And will these be good jobs? Are face with increased inequality in the future? Here's commentary:

The NYT wonders if the good jobs are gone, and whether governmental policies can address this issue. Can the market - on its own - create the next wave of middle skill jobs that will limit increased inequality?

Richard Posner points out the various ways that technological advances displaces - but does not eliminate - labor. While he mentions jobs that do not require high IQ's he points out that many jobs that are specialized - including the practice of law - are vulnerable.

He has this scary point to make about driverless cars:

Take the case of the driverless car. This technology is advancing very rapidly and has great promise for reducing labor costs (drivers), traffic accidents (for example by eliminating drunk driving), traffic violations, and traffic jams (by optimizing speed, lane usage, and choice of routes and times). There are approximately 4 million truck, taxi, limousine, and bus drivers in the United States, not to mention gas station attendants and traffic policemen. Not all these jobs will be eliminated overnight, but they could go quite fast.

He also points out that these trends - coupled with increased life expectancy - wil lincrease the dependent population:

These trends bear on the current debates over the size of government. Technological advances are increasing longevity, and with it an increase in the dependent population. By reducing demand for workers, and therefore employment and wages, in many labor markets, the same technological advances may be creating a second dependent population, consisting of people of working age and their children who cannot support themselves without public assistance that will either replace or augment wages. Republicans may therefore be tilting against windmills in thinking that the size of government can be reduced.

Gary Becker tells us that the future will not be kind to low skilled workers, and that the rewards for skilled workers may not be as great as they have been in the past:

During the past 30 years the market for workers with few skills has been weak pretty much everywhere. The reason is that economies, including developing economies, have increased their demand for knowledge workers at the expense of low skilled workers. The future is not likely to be any kinder to workers with little education and few other work skills.

Various forces have favored skilled workers during the past several decades; indeed, many of them began much earlier. Technological changes and automation, including the development of computers, the Internet, and electronic controls, have reduced the demand for certain types of skilled workers, such as secretaries and clerical workers. They have increased the demand for workers who command considerable knowledge, and who know how to access any additional knowledge necessary to perform various tasks.

He is critical of governmental policies that impede the incentives for individuals to increase their skill levels, as well as those that limits access to the opportunity to do so.

Busy night apparently

The Dish has complied a variety of posts on Twitter that followed last night drama in Massachusetts.

- #MITShooting.

Apart from the bombing itself, the big news will likely be the role social media - and the proliferation of smart phones - has played in breaking this case.
- Reddit: Find Boston Bombers.

NPR commented that the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics would have been solved much more quickly if a similar amount of images had been available at the time.

By the way - I find it troubling that two guys can effectively shut down a city.

More evidence that the Senate is not a democratic institution

This is a point we make a lot in 2305 (and it applies to 2306 as well). The Senate was designed to be removed from the direct preferences of the electorate, which was done partly by connecting it to states which are then treated as equal political entities. The six year overlapping terms does much of the rest.

So it an undemocratic institution, which some commentary about the gun control vote noted. Senators from smaller states had more sway over the amendments tha those from larger states.

Here's one take:

The Manchin-Toomey bill received 54 aye votes and 46 nay votes. That is to say, a solid majority of senators voted for it. In most legislative bodies around the world, that would have been enough. But it wasn’t a sufficient supermajority for the U.S. Senate.

Of the senators from the 25 largest states, the Manchin-Toomey legislation received 33 aye votes and 17 nay votes — an almost 2:1 margin, putting it well beyond the 3/5ths threshold required to break a filibuster. But of the senators from the 25 smallest states, it received only 21 aye votes and 29 nay votes.

Another points out that the Senators who voted for the amendments represented almost 2/3rds of the population:

If you assume, for sake of argument, each senator represents half of his or her state’s population, then senators voting for the bill represented about 194 million people, while the senators voting against the bill represented about 118 million people. That’s getting close to a two-thirds majority in favor of the measure.

In a legislative body that didn’t give sparsely populated rural states the same representation as densely populated urban ones—and in which a minority of representatives lacked the power to block debate indefinitely—those kinds of numbers would be more than enough to pass something like the background check proposal.

A third provides graphical evidence of the ratio between the largest and smallest states over time:

And the smallest share of the electorate that can comprise a majority in the Senate:

Gun measures filibustered in the Senate

The US Senate filibustered a variety of amendments to the gun control bill, though a couple other amendments seem cleared for a vote.

The bill is S. 649, the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013. Click here to find the bill on Thomas.


The NYT has a graphic that walks through the amendments.

The ones that failed would have expanded background checks for online sales and guns shows and substituted checks for enforcement mechanisms for the mentally ill, banned assault weapons and limited the size of magazines, made straw pruchases a federal crime, mandated that concealed firearms licenses from any state be accepted in all states, and ensure that only judges could deem veterans unfit to own a gun due to mental incompetence.

The two that passed today are meant to improve mental health programs and impose penalties on states for releasing gun ownership data.

Constitution Project’s Report on Detainee Treatment

The Constitution Project has released a comprehensive report on detainee treatment after 9/11 that Andrew Sullivan argues effectively proves the US engaged in torture and systematically violated the Geneva Convention. meaning that some decision makers might be guilty of war crimes.

Read the report here.

Bill proposed to allow for appeals to death sentences that might have been imposed due to race

It's long been noted that African American and Hispanic defendants convicted of murder are more likely than Anglos to receive a death sentence.

The Texas Tribune describes a bill introduced in the Texas House (HB 2458) that would allow for appeals if race may have contributed to the sentence.

Under the bill, prosecutors would be able to argue that race played no part in a conviction, and a judge would decide whether to maintain the death sentence. The bill would require a the defendant who files such an appeal to waive their right to object to a sentence of life without parole.

Similar versions of the bill, which do not include such a waiver, have been filed by state Rep. Eric Johnson (HB 2614) and state Sen. Royce West (SB 1270), both Dallas Democrats. The proposals have already had an effect on death penalty cases even before they were considered by the Legislature.

Death row inmate Kimberly McCarthy — who is black and was convicted of murdering her 71-year-old white neighbor — was scheduled to be executed on April 3, but Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins asked a judge to temporarily delay the execution in case the Legislature approves a bill that could affect race-based appeals in death penalty cases.

Former Governor Mark White testfied before the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee that:

“We must make sure that racial discrimination does not poison our death penalty decision-making,” White wrote.

He pointed to a statistical study by Ray Paternoster, a professor of criminology at the University of Maryland, who found that from 1992 to 1999, Harris County prosecutors sought the death penalty for African-Americans roughly three times as often as they did for whites with similar cases.

SB 2 - the charter school expansion bill - passes the Senate

The Bill now heads to the House - click here for info from TLO.

From the Texas Tribune:

As colleagues praised Education Chairman Dan Patrick's efforts at building consensus, a significantly altered version of his expansion of the state's charter school system quickly passed out of the Senate Thursday afternoon.

Patrick, R-Houston, said Senate Bill 2 accomplished what should be the goal of lawmakers — lifting everyone through quality education.

"The key to that is to have the opportunity for a great education, and I'm real proud to be a member of the Senate today," he said as senators approved the measure by a vote of 30 to 1.

The lone dissenter, Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, did not explain his reasons for doing so from the floor but later issued a statement saying he could not vote to expand charters until the Legislature adequately addressed the issues of over-regulation and inequitable funding in traditional public schools.

. . . Patrick originally intended to lift the state's 215-school cap on charter contracts. After amendments, including one from Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, it now incrementally increases the limit on charters, reaching a hard cap of 305 by the year 2019. Charter schools aimed at dropout recovery or operated within traditional school districts would not count toward that cap.

The Senate dropped a requirement for school districts to lease or sell underused buildings to charter schools and another that would have provided facilities funding for charters, which — along with the state cap on charter school contracts — is a primary issue in a lawsuit pending against the state.

Some superintendents and school board members objected to the proposal, saying that in a time of limited resources, charter schools that serve only 3 percent of the public school population should not received additional state funding for facilities. Other critics said that before adding more new charter schools, the state should focus on closing those that perform poorly.

On Thursday, Democrats in particular commended Patrick for his effort to be inclusive and bipartisan in drafting the bill, which has undergone many changes since it was originally introduced.

Governor Perry supports dedicated car sales tax to fund highways

From the Texas Tribune:

Gov. Rick Perry on Friday came out in support of dedicating a portion of future sales tax revenue from car sales to the state’s highway fund, while also leaving the door open to spending more of the Rainy Day Fund on infrastructure projects that he had proposed three months ago.

. . . The remarks put Perry in lockstep with the main proposal put forth by Senate Transportation Chairman Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, and House Transportation Chairman Larry Phillips, R-Sherman. Both have filed bills gradually dedicating a portion of future vehicle sales tax revenue to the highway fund.

. . . While Perry and Williams may be moving toward agreement on the Rainy Day Fund, the two don’t see eye to eye on whether the state should dedicate tax revenue from car sales to road projects. In a recent interview with the Tribune, Williams said such a plan would make things difficult for future legislatures as, over time, a bigger portion of state tax revenue gets automatically dedicated to roads. He has said he prefers raising the registration fee to raise more money for transportation.

“We’re going to have a great discussion on that, and I totally respect Tommy’s position,” Perry said. He said he prefers dedicating the vehicle sales tax over other proposals “because it’s not a new tax. It’s not a new fee.”

Perry also reiterated his support for ending diversions of the state gas tax to areas other than transportation, an issue budget writers in the Legislature have said they still hope to address this session.

By combining all his ideas on transportation funding, Perry said, “Texas would be able to capitalize more than $41 billion in transportation projects over the next 20 years. That should be enough to take care of the major improvements we need in this state.”

Transportation has been a politically tricky issue for Perry over the last decade. In 2002, he proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, a hugely ambitious plan to blanket the state in a network of privately operated toll roads, railroad tracks and utility lines. He later scrapped the plan once public opposition mounted and virtually the entire Legislature disowned it.

HB 5 - the high school curriculum bill - clears the Senate Education Committee

Now it heads to the Senate floor.

The Texas Tribune touches on the controversies associated with it - especially allegations that by limiting end of course tests, and redusing the number of required sources, the state is watering down is high school education standards.

Senators are hearing testimony Tuesday on House Bill 5, which does away with the state’s so-called 4X4 graduation plan, which requires four years of courses in math, science, social studies and English. Instead, students would complete a “foundation” program with four credits in English, three in math, two in science, three in social studies and earn "endorsements" by completing five credits in areas like humanities, science, engineering, technology and math, and business and industry.

Speaking Monday night at a “tele-town hall” hosted by Empower Texans, Gov. Rick Perry said that he was in favor of keeping the 4X4 plan while also noting the national attention.

“I support the efforts to re-evaluate our state’s curriculum but we need to keep that 4x4, those four years of science, those four years of math, and protect the academic rigor that keeps our graduates able to compete in the global marketplace,” Perry said.

A battle seems to be brewing that pits Senator Patrick against governor. Perry seems worried about what the reduction in course requirements will have on Texas' competitiveness. Other opponents believe the reduction will negatively affect job prospects for minority students.

Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, D-San Antonio, offered an amendment, which has not yet been voted on, that would automatically place students in the college preparatory plan and allow them to "opt over" to a career-skills focused graduation plan if they earned low scores on their state standardized exams. It would also add a fourth year of math and science to core curriculum. She said it addressed concerns raised by national advocacy groups like LULAC and MALDEF that the legislation would hurt the academic achievement of low-income and minority students because they would not be encouraged to take the most rigorous courses.

"There's a way to have high-level math and science courses that are relevant to a career," she said.

The business community is divided on the legislation — a fact Patrick alluded to when he challenged the "misinformation" that a majority of Texas businesses are against it.

Some leaders, like Texas Association of Business CEO Bill Hammond and Texas Institute for Education Reform Chairman Jim Windham, who both testified Tuesday, see it as backing off from hard-won accountability measures.

Windham said that it would be a "huge disservice" to the state if algebra I and English II became the highest level for state standardized exams, adding that all of the current 15 tests should continue to be administered and reported to the state, whether or not they were required for graduation.

"What gets measured gets done," he said.

But others, like Hector Rivero, the president of the Texas Chemical Council, favor the changes. Speaking on behalf of a coalition that represents 300,000 companies in the state, Rivero said, those companies couldn't find workers with the qualifications necessary to meet their high-paying jobs.

"The current education system while well-intentioned is not meeting needs of employers," he said.

A few related links:

- TLO: HB 5.
- TEA: State Graduation Requirements.

More limits proposed on the ability of local governments to pursue environmental claims

In addition to the bill described below that would limit how counties can pay for legal representation in cases against poluuters, a separate bill would allow the Texas Attorney General "to settle environmental lawsuits filed by cities and counties without input or approval from local officials."

Like the previous legislation, the bill seems focused on limiting the activities cases in Harris County.

From MySA:

“It surprises me a little bit because there is no history of us settling cases in opposition to the attorney general or against the wishes of the attorney general,” said Rock Owens, who heads the environmental division in the Harris County Attorney's office, which historically has filed the most civil environmental lawsuits in the state.

Owens said the legislation would diminish an authority local governments have had for decades to punish environmental offenders, and also make for an uneven playing field because governments cannot afford to pay private attorneys on an hourly basis like the companies they sue.

While Harris County has been filing environmental cases for a long time, it only recently began recruiting outside counsel. Six cases have been assigned to private firms.

Not surprisingly, the Texas Association of Business is pushing these laws:

The powerful Texas Association of Business supports the bills, saying local government lawsuits have the potential to harm economic development statewide if left unchecked.

“These lawsuits do nothing but demand dollars from companies,” said Stephen Minick, vice president of governmental affairs for the TAB. “To have the county come in and attract money from these companies who are doing everything the state and federal government have asked them to do just seems to us to not be in the public interest.”

Minick said that while the association does not oppose municipal and county attorneys being able to file such civil cases, it believes that lawsuits seeking “absurd demands” for penalties “that the state would never pursue” actually harm a company's ability to help pay for cleanup and may deter other companies from buying and redeveloping contaminated land.

The Harris County Judge disagrees.

The conflict seems to stem from an ongoing conflict involving an old dumping ground dating back to 1965.

I wonder if this is also a way for the more conservative state government to restrict the power of the more liberal metropolitan areas in the state. This seems to be a trend.

Texas on the Brink points out where Texas lags behind other states in education and health care.

This is the sixth edition of the document, produced by the Legislative Study Group.

The Texas Tribune comments here.

Can human genes be patented?

The Supreme Court considered this question this week in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.

From NPR:

Myriad Genetics, a Utah biotechnology company, discovered and isolated two genes — BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 — that are highly associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad patented its discovery, giving it a 20-year monopoly over use of the genes for research, diagnostics and treatment. A group of researchers, medical groups and patients sued, challenging the patent as invalid.


There is no way to overstate the importance of this case to the future of science and medicine. In the view of Myriad and its supporters in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, patents are the keys to making these medical discoveries possible. Their opponents, including leading medical groups and Nobel Prize-winning scientists, contend that Myriad's patent improperly puts a lock on research and medical diagnostic testing.

The U.S. patent system, authorized in the Constitution, gives temporary economic incentives to inventors to advance science. The general rules of the patent system have been established in statutes and Supreme Court case law for over 150 years. You can't patent a product of nature or a law of nature. It doesn't matter that the task was difficult or costly. Nature is immune to patents. So, even though it may have taken Einstein a long time to figure out that E=mc2, he couldn't have patented that law of nature. 

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

I don't really have anything to say about this case (Scotusblog does), except that it has the greatest name ever.

How should Texas fund its transportation projects?

It's dawned on state leaders that Texas' growth requires investments in transportation infrastructure, but there is little consensus about how to pay for it.

From the Texas Tribune:

“We say we have a $4 billion shortfall for budget for transportation. I believe it’s closer to $7 to $9 billion to do what we really need to do to be successful," said House Transportation Committee Chairman Larry Phillips, R-Sherman.

To help fill that hole, Phillips has filed a bill this session that would dedicate future motor vehicle sales taxes to road construction. Right now that money is sent straight to the state’s general fund, where it can be gobbled up by any state agency.

State Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, has the same bill in the Senate. Both phase in the shift to roads to soften the blow of removing $3 billion from other agencies.

“The way I described it, in a 10-year period it’s $13 billion, so $13 billion of new congestion-relieving projects could be on their way under development," Nichols said.

But that’s just one idea. Late last week, a constitutional amendment was proposed that would draw $3.5 billion from the state’s Rainy Day Fund to set up an account that would dole out grants to leverage public and private money to get roads built.

Even Perry is calling for using Rainy Day Fund money to jump-start the state’s plan to catch up on roads. But not all of Perry’s supporters like the idea.

From StateImpact Texas: Bill Would Stop Private Lawyers Who Help Counties Sue For Pollution

The bill is HB 3119, and it is still in a House committee which makes it unlikely it will pass, but the bill would change the ways counties pay for law firms they hire to sue companites they accuse of pollution. The bill seems focused specifically on Harris County:

Here's the report:

Some county governments have found that when it comes to suing corporations over polluted property, hiring a private law firm on a contingency fee basis is the way to go.

But against the backdrop of a multi-billion dollar dioxin case in Harris County, there’s an effort to outlaw those arrangements in pollution lawsuits. The House Committee on Environmental Regulation has scheduled a hearing today on a bill that would ban counties from using private firms, HB 3119.

. . . Harris County, which was the focus of the conservative group’s report, says contingency fee arranagements are vital to its efforts to litigate pollution cases.

“We don’t have money to go out and hire lawyers. You’re talking about, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of dollars that we would have to spend up front just to go to court. With the contingency fee, we don’t have to do that. We only pay if we win,” said Terrence O’Rourke, special assistant to the Office of the Harris County Attorney.

The issue is nothing new to the county. In a case before the Texas First Court of Appeals, attorneys for two corporations challenged Harris County’s right to hire contingency fee lawyers in a case involving a dioxin-contaminated site along the San Jacinto River. In the 1960s, waste from a paper mill was dumped into ponds. It’s now an EPA Superfund site. Signs in the area warn that fish are contaminated and should not be eaten.

Lawyers for the companies argued in court that the case could result in $2 billion to $3 billion in civil penalties with 25 percent going to the private lawyers, according to coverage of the hearing by Law360. The companies’ lawyers reportedly said that the contingency fee arrangement created a profit incentive that would be unfair to their side, denying them a neutral prosecution of the case.

The Office of the Harris County Attorney portrays the fee arrangements differently. The county argues that contingent fee contracts are reviewed and approved by the Texas Comptroller and are governed by state law that caps payments according to the amount of work performed.

And the county points out that the big corporations fighting the suits often use very experienced, highly-paid attorneys.

Bob Perry (1932-2013)

Perry (no relation to the governor) owned Perry Homes and became a significant supporter of both the Republican Party (though he supported some Democrats) and various conservative causes. He played a significant role in Texas' political transformation from a Democratic to Republican state. Some detail: 

From Texas Tribune:

The self-made Houston homebuilder was one of the biggest bankrollers of conservative causes over the past two decades, a financier of politicians like George W. Bush, Rick Perry and Greg Abbott, of Super PACs like American Crossroads and Make Us Great Again, and of 527s that include, most famously, the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. He gave $28 million to Texas candidates and causes between 2000 and 2010, and another $38 million over that period outside of Texas, according to a Texas Tribune analysis. The Center for Public Integrity counted $23.5 million in contributions to super PACs during the last election cycle, among other contributions. 

. . Perry fits into a line of rich Texans involved in politics, a list of names that includes brothers Herman and George Brown, Dan Root, members of the Hunt family, Louis Beecherl, Fred Baron, Bernard Rapoport and a few dozen more, who gave big to both parties. They weren’t the only sources of political money in their times, but they were often the most important ones.

The New York Times:

Mr. Perry attracted wide attention as a national donor during Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign, in 2004, when he gave $4.4 million to a group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for its attack ads accusing Mr. Kerry of overstating his military accomplishments in Vietnam and discrediting his former comrades in arms.

. . . Mr. Rove’s causes and candidates often benefited from Mr. Perry’s money. They worked together in Texas in the 1980s on limiting the liability of corporations in civil lawsuits, an effort known as tort reform.

Mr. Rove once said that Mr. Perry had contributed to Republicans in Texas when few others were “willing to write checks to Republican candidates.”

In 1986, Mr. Perry served as campaign treasurer for the successful campaign for governor of William Clements, a Republican, while Mr. Rove was a political consultant.

“He plays big, and he plays often,” Bill Miller, a Texas lobbyist, said of Mr. Perry in an interview with The Texas Tribune in 2010. “ ‘Small’ is not a word that’s in his vocabulary.”

The Dallas Morning News:

Rove tapped Bob Perry as a major donor for his super PAC, American Crossroads, in 2010 and 2012. In 2004, Perry was also one of three major contributors who launched Swift Boat Veterans, a group that targeted Democrat John Kerry and helped elect George W. Bush to a second term in the White House.

But Perry’s role as godfather of Texas political giving began years earlier as part of a small network of GOP donors who methodically backed Republican candidates in down-ballot races with hopes of eventually ending the long Democratic dominance in Texas.

“Karl Rove laid the groundwork. His donor list developed in Texas was the base when Bush first ran for president,” said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign fundraising. “What we see now with the super PACs is that federal elections have been Texasized.”

Perry was one of the earliest contributors to the GOP effort to turn Texas red.

When Bill Clements ran in 1978 to become the first Republican governor in Texas in a century, Perry sent the campaign committee a check for $5,000 — a large sum at the time in state political races.

“Prior to 1978, all the big business money was going to conservative Democrats,” said Jim Francis, who was Clements’ campaign manager. “When Clements won the governorship in ’78, it became acceptable to give money to Republican candidates who might have a chance of winning.”

Clements won, then lost four year later. When he ran again in 1986, Perry was a major donor in a campaign where Rove headed direct-mail fundraising.

What is "terrorism?"

Was yesterday's bombing an act of terrorism, or a criminal act? What's the difference? Is it significant?

It took a little while for the Obama Administration to decide to use the term

From the Washington Post:

The word, and whether President Obama used it quickly enough or correctly, became a political issue in last year’s campaign.

But Obama and his staff still appear to be puzzling over when — and how — to call an attack a “terrorist” act and when to wait for a clear determination of the motives behind one.

Hours after the Boston Marathon bombing, Obama appeared in the Brady briefing room to assure the nation that whoever carried it out would “feel the full weight of justice.”

He did not characterize the attack as terrorism, advising instead that the public “shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.” It was the caution of a president who once snapped at a reporter during a news conference, “I like to know the facts before I speak.”

Not long after Obama’s appearance, though, a senior White House official e-mailed reporters to make clear that the Boston bombings “will be approached as an act of terror.”

The official said the multiple explosive devices placed at the marathon finish line were telltale signs of deliberate terrorism. On Tuesday morning, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called the Boston strike “ a cruel act of terror.”

A senior administration official said Tuesday that “based on all the available evidence at the time, it was a very reasonable assumption that this was an act of terror.”

But White House officials said the evidence must be definitive for the president to use the term when speaking to a national television audience in the midst of a crisis. The flexibility available to White

House officials, though, allowed the administration to clarify what they didn’t feel Obama should — that the attack was assumed to be terrorism and that the government would operate its investigation under that assumption.

Obama spoke Tuesday morning on the attack, calling it “heinous and cowardly.”

“Given what we now know of what took place, the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism,” Obama said.

The “terrorism” term has been used subjectively for years, not only in the post-9/11 era but in conflict zones around the globe. Labeling a group or a state as “terrorist” has legal implications within the U.S. government, and for companies who may be doing business with those so classified.

But in the American political debate, the word has also become a rhetorical measure of how committed a politician is to combatting extremism.

For a president who has made repairing U.S. relations with the Muslim world a priority, Obama has sought to use the term as precisely as possible over the years — while avoiding the criticism that arises when an act, group or person is not labeled a “terrorist” soon enough

From Forbes: How The Boston Marathon Bombing Investigation Will Be Conducted

Forbes offers a helpful primer on how the different levels of government will respond to yesterday's bombing.

Some more:

- CNN reports that the FBI will lead the investigation.
- The Huffington Post concurs.

Military spending in the US

The Economist reports that we still spend more than any other country, and almost as much as the rest of the developed world combined.

Gun control measures split both parties

It seems to be unusual issue - not like others where the parties line up against each other.

From the NYT:

Deep divisions within both parties over a bipartisan measure to extend background checks for gun buyers are threatening its chances as the Senate this week begins debating the first broad gun control legislation in nearly 20 years.

In spite of a vote last Thursday in favor of debating new gun measures, some Democrats who are facing re-election next year in conservative states have already said they will not vote for the background check measure offered by Senators Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, forcing Democrats to look desperately across the aisle to fill the gaps.

Republicans, in the meantime, are bitterly torn between moderates who feel pressure to respond to polls showing a majority of Americans in support of some new gun regulations and conservatives who are deeply opposed to them.

Where did your tax dollar go?

The Dish flags a graphic from the Heritage Foundation showing where federal dollar were spent in 2012:

The Texas Tribune: Donations to Judicial Campaigns Spur Ethics Worries

More on the problems posed by judicial elections in Texas:

Tom Phillips, a former chief justice on the Texas Supreme Court, has a strong opinion of the state’s judicial elections. “Of the ways you can elect judges,” he said, “Texas has one of the worst systems.”

In 1988, when he ran for the state’s highest court, he voluntarily capped individual donations to his campaign at $5,000. Today, his law firm — which regularly represents clients before the state Supreme Court — routinely donates tens of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of the justices who preside over those cases.

. . . “Voters insist they want the right to elect their judges,” said Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, who has served since 2005. “Ask them to name one, and they'll likely come up blank. But they want a voice, even as they say that judicial fundraising raises appearance concerns.”

A case that illustrates those concerns is one that former Chief Justice Phillips, now an Austin-based attorney for the law firm Baker Botts, helped argue before his former colleagues.

In 2001, 71-year-old Leonel Garza died of a heart attack after taking the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx for 25 days. His family sued the drug manufacturer Merck & Co. in what was one of numerous wrongful death lawsuits filed around the country. A district court and a San Antonio appeals court agreed with the family, awarding them nearly $7.75 million in damages.

Merck — which was represented by Baker Botts — appealed to the state Supreme Court, arguing that Garza had a history of heart problems and that there was no proof that the company’s drug caused the heart attack. In August 2011, the court sided with the company.

In the 10 years preceding the decision, justices who sided with Merck in the 7-0 vote received at least $85,000 combined in campaign contributions from the Baker Botts political action committee. Justice Nathan Hecht, who wrote the court’s opinion in the case, received $20,000. Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson received $12,750.

While no one admits to being influenced by a campaign contribution, a relationship between teh two has been found to exist:

In the 1994 Democratic primary between Rene Haas and Raul Gonzalez, the two candidates together spent nearly $4.5 million campaigning. The following year, the Texas Legislature responded by passing the Judicial Campaign Fairness Act, which limited contributions to justices to $5,000 for individuals and $30,000 for law firms.

That measure may have curbed spending, but researchers found it didn't curb influence. Madhavi McCall, a political science professor at San Diego State University, conducted a study of the relationship between judicial decisions and campaign contributions in 530 Texas Supreme Court cases between January 1994 and June 1997. “In every instance,” she said, “the probability of a party garnering votes increases if the party contributed to a given justice’s campaign.”