From the Atlantic: Will the U.S. Supreme Court Take Precedent Seriously on Abortion? Justices are set to hear a major case this week—and will be forced to decide whether they meant what they’ve said in the past.

Commentary on the court's upcoming look at Texas; abortion laws - Whole Woman's Health v. Hemmerstedt.

Here is the issue presented in the case:

Issue: (1) Whether, when applying the “undue burden” standard of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a court errs by refusing to consider whether and to what extent laws that restrict abortion for the stated purpose of promoting health actually serve the government’s interest in promoting health; and (2) whether the Fifth Circuit erred in concluding that this standard permits Texas to enforce, in nearly all circumstances, laws that would cause a significant reduction in the availability of abortion services while failing to advance the State’s interest in promoting health - or any other valid interest.

- Click here for the article.

From the Atlantic: Clarence Thomas Breaks His Silence The Supreme Court justice asked a question for the first time in 10 years, revealing a different dynamic since the passing of Antonin Scalia earlier this month.

The case was Voisine v. United States - click here for Scotusblog's page on it.

Here is the issue before the court:

Issue: (1) Whether a misdemeanor crime with the mens rea of recklessness qualifies as a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" as defined by 18 U.S.C. §§ 921(a)(33)(A) and 922(g)(9); and (2) whether 18 U.S.C. §§ 921(a)(33)(A) and 922(g)(9) are unconstitutional under the Second, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution.

- Click here for the article.

From the Texas Tribune: High Turnout Has Some Wondering if GOP Congressmen in Danger

The Tea Party looks to take out high profile Republicans - powerful ones.

- Click here for the article.

Expectations of a record turnout has some Texas Republicans on edge that a handful of U.S. House incumbents may be in tougher fights than usual.

Republican consultants are projecting the presidential primary will drive turnout for their party's primary to the highest levels in decades. And many of those Republican voters are expected to be first-time voters, drawn to the campaign by anti-establishment figures like real estate magnate Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

The question looming over the next 24 hours is whether those voters only weigh in on the presidential race or continue on down the ballot and vote against sitting members of Congress.

Four Republican incumbents, in particular, are the subject of the strongest interest among Republican operatives: U.S. Reps. Kevin Brady of The Woodlands, John Culberson of Houston, Pete Sessions of Dallas and Lamar Smith of San Antonio.

A key point to consider: All four of these incumbents have powerful committee assignments in Washington. A loss in a runoff may serve as a boon for base conservatives, but would decrease the state’s legislative clout.

None of these Republicans are expected to lose outright on Tuesday. In fact, all four could end up breezing past their rivals and onto re-election.

But they could also be kicked to a dreaded runoff on May 24 if they fail to draw a majority of the vote. Whether or not a runoff, where turning out voters can be tougher, translates to mortal electoral danger for these incumbents has become a point of speculative debate among Texas political observers.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Case Could Define Extent of Abortion Limits

For out look in 2306 at the relationship between the state of Texas and the national government - federalism they call it.

- Click here for the article.

Before Wendy Davis took to the floor of the Texas Senate for an 11-hour filibuster that ultimately failed to stop sweeping new restrictions on abortion, there was Casey.

Shorthand for Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court case reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion but gave states more power to restrict the procedure to “further the health or safety of a woman." The 5-4 ruling, however, also said states can't enact “unnecessary” regulations that have the “purpose or effect” of imposing an undue burden on those seeking the procedure.

On Wednesday, the court is expected to revisit the standards set by Casey — and potentially redefine the next era of abortion restrictions in the United States — when it takes up a legal challenge to Texas’ 2013 abortion restrictions, collectively known as House Bill 2. The Texas case, formally known as Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, will allow the court to address disagreements among lower courts over what constitutes an undue burden and clarify how far states can go in restricting abortion.

It's the next step of a legal journey that began in Texas when lawmakers passed HB 2 almost three years ago. The law requires abortion clinics begin to meet the same standards as hospital-like ambulatory surgical centers, which range from minimum sizes for rooms and doorways to the number of nurses required to be on staff. A separate provision requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of an abortion clinic.

Only 19 Texas clinics remain of the more than 40 that were open before HB 2 passed, and the restrictions are blamed. If the Supreme Court upholds the abortion law in its entirety that number could fall to less than 10, all in major metropolitan areas.

“There will be a right in name as long as Roe is still on the books, but if there are no clinics, then what does that really mean in terms of the right to abortion if you can’t exercise the right?” asked Cary C. Franklin, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “This case really puts that question front and center.”

From Vox: Don’t Assume Conservatives Will Rally Behind Trump

It's been a while since we have had a party realignment. Here's an argument that we have one coming up.

- Click here for the article.

If a Trump nomination happens, it will imply that the Republican Party has been weakened and is perhaps evenon the brink of failure, unable to coordinate on a plan to stop Trump despite the existential threat he poses to it. 

Major partisan realignments do happen in America — on average about once every 40 years. The last one, which involved the unwinding of the New Deal coalition between Northern and Southern Democrats, is variously dated as having occurred in 1968, 1972 and 1980. There are also a lot of false alarms, elections described as realignments that turn out not to be. This time, we really might be in the midst of one. It’s almost impossible to reconcile this year’s Republican nomination contest with anyone’s notion of “politics as usual.”

If a realignment is underway, then it poses a big empirical challenge. Presidential elections already suffer from the problem of small sample sizes — one reason a lot of people, certainly including us, shouldn’t have been so dismissive of Trump’s chances early on. Elections held in the midst of political realignments are even rarer, however. The rules of the old regime — the American political party system circa 1980 through 2012 — might not apply in the new one. And yet, it’s those elections that inform both the conventional wisdom and statistical models of American political behavior.

This doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be completely in the dark. For one thing, the polls — although there’s reason to be concerned about their condition in the long-term — have been reasonably accurate so far in the primaries. And some of the old rules will still apply. It’s probably fair to guess that Pennsylvania and Ohio will vote similarly, for example.

Still, one should be careful about one’s assumptions. For instance, the assumption that the parties will rally behind their respective nominees may or may not be reliable. True, recent elections have had very little voting across party lines: 93 percent of Republicans who voted in 2012 supported Romney, for example, despite complaints from the base that he was insufficiently conservative. And in November 2008, some 89 percent of Democrats who voted supported Barack Obama after his long battle with Hillary Clinton.

Why vote? Maybe there's no need.

Some Texas Races Decided Before Voters Hit Polls.

We are just one week away from Super Tuesday but before a single ballot is counted in the March 1st Primary, we already know who some of the winners will be in November.

There are 16 seats up for grabs in the State Senate in the 2016 election. If you look at the list of Republican and Democratic candidates, 12 of these elections are one party races—meaning there are only Republicans or Democrats in the running.

Nine of the State Senate elections are one-person races—meaning there is only one candidate in the running.
According to their party’s websites, the Libertarian and Green Parties will challenge six of those seats in the general election but that still leaves three State Senators who are set to win the election by default.

It is still possible for other third party independent candidates to join the statewide races before the November election, but it’s difficult to win as an independent, especially when a candidate joins this late in the game.

The primaries narrow the list of candidates to determine who the Republican and Democratic nominees will be, but in many races, primary voters will only have one option within their party.

Between the State House and Senate Races, 47 percent of the Republican candidates will run unopposed in the primary election. The same goes for 45 percent of the Democratic candidates— they face no inner-party competition.

Some candidates will go completely unchallenged, with no bipartisan competition in the general election.

Of the 150 seats in the Texas House of Representatives, 48 candidates are set to run unopposed in both the primaries and that general election—that’s including competition from the Libertarian and Green parties.

In total, with the 48 seats in the State House and three senate seats, that’s more than 30 percent of state legislature who are set to get elected not by voters, but by default.

Political consultant David Butts said some argue this is not what a democracy should look like. “It’s more a ‘dollar-ocracy.’ It’s money basically controlling that system,” Butts said.

65 percent of all the elections in the state senate and house are one-party races and with only Republicans or only Democrats in the running, that means the winners will likely be determined in the primaries.

“Why spend money in a race when there is no chance of you winning?” Butts said, “Even if you spent $1 million in some of these seats, you couldn’t win.”

He said gerrymandering has become a “very refined art,” not just in Texas, but all across the U.S. “There is just no reason for running in them, they are either so Democratic or so Republican that no one can challenge them,” said Butts.

A political consultant with more than 30 years of experience in Texas politics, Butts said It’s not worth the opposing party’s time or money to enter a candidate in a race—especially when the dominate party has an incumbent in the running.

“You’re more likely to get struck my lightening then get one of those seats,” Butts said. “This is a numbers game, it’s math—you realize that the odds of you winning are very, very remote.”

The state’s voting districts were last drawn in 2011 by the Republican controlled legislature.

“Democrats do it, Republicans to do it and that leads to sort of a one party system that develops out of that,” Butts said, “The problem is that you have very few districts where you have a real contest.”

If election season is the time for voters to make their voices heard, Butts said a lack of competition gives them little say.

Republican incumbents face primary challengers from their right

It's what primaries are all about. Texas isn't conservative enough for some people apparently.


Rep. Dan Flynn Faces Challenger From the Right.

In a race pitting an East Texas incumbent against an upstart challenger endorsed by conservative activists, a pair of unlikely issues has dominated the Republican primary fight for House District 2: toll roads and a controversy at the University of Texas at Austin. Bryan Slaton, a businessman and former Baptist minister, is hoping to unseat six-term incumbent state Rep. Dan Flynn of Canton, saying Flynn has stayed in office too long and has become less conservative over time.

Three House Committee Chairman from Texas Face Primary Challengers from the Right.

Three of Texas’ seven U.S. House committee chairman are facing primary challenges from the right wing of the Republican Party. Other Texas Republican House members are also facing serious challengers. The newly selected House Ways and Means chair, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), Rules Committee chair Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)  and Science Space and Technology chair Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) all have primary opponents who are challenging their conservative credentials, The Hill reported.

Culberson faces challengers from the right. (behind a pay wall)

From the Austin American Statesman: Travis County Public Integrity Unit still reels from Perry’s budget cut

This was, of course, the subject of the court case below. Who now investigates Texas government?


- Click here for the article.

On the sidelines of the dismissed criminal case against former Gov. Rick Perry stands the Travis County district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit, which has lost staff and struggled to remain afloat after a political firestorm over the past three years stripped it of much of its budget. The unit, its officials say, has had to start turning away cases and no longer has the resources to provide counties with the investigative support it once did.

“We are a shell of our former selves,” said Gregg Cox, the Travis County prosecutor who oversees the Public Integrity Unit. “We might be able to prosecute certain cases more effectively. We probably have more experience and a better track record of handling those cases, but we are still having to tell those agencies, ‘Sorry, take it to county X, we just can’t do it.’”

The Public Integrity Unit’s troubles began during the 2013 legislative session, when Perry threatened to veto its funding in an attempt to force District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg from office after her arrest and conviction for driving while intoxicated. When Lehmberg declined, Perry cut all of the division’s $7.5 million from the state budget, trimming the staff from 35 to 17 employees.

Perry was indicted a year later, and the Public Integrity Unit remained front and center in a clash between lawmakers, some of whom saw its duties as essential and others who believed its prosecutions were partisan and politically motivated.

The division, created by the district attorney’s office in 1978, mostly handles fraud against state programs, insurance fraud and tax fraud. But it has grabbed the most headlines for its investigations into the ethics abuses of officials at the highest levels of government, less than 5 percent of its caseload.

The state budget didn’t restore any of the vetoed money the unit lost for 2016-17, and the 2016 county budget allocated $363,000 of about $1.4 million requested to keep the unit intact, forcing officials to cut an additional seven jobs for the fiscal year beginning Oct 1.

Cox said that to deal with the losses, officials have had to dissolve and reorganize the unit, which now falls under the Travis County Special Prosecution Division. The latest cuts include two investigators and a forensic accountant. The Public Integrity Unit has to share the three remaining investigators and support staff with the white-collar crime unit, which handles financial crimes with losses of at least $50,000.

Cox, director of the special prosecution division, said the Public Integrity Unit has been further hurt by at least four prosecutors and investigators who have left voluntarily amid the funding battles. With no receptionists or support staff, the office on the second floor of the Granger Building in downtown Austin now seems abandoned.

The unit could once provide forensic financial analysis and contract expertise to counties that didn’t have such resources, its officials said, and it could consolidate cases from multiple jurisdictions, making it easier to prosecute agents and corporations stealing from the state. It can now only take those cases that have been almost fully investigated by local law enforcement agencies, the FBI or the Texas Rangers.

Evidence of its financial struggles surfaced last month when Travis County prosecutors said they were no longer leading a criminal investigation into the Austin tech firm 21CT and its controversial technology deal with the state that spurred sweeping contracting reforms. “It gives me heartburn to think we could not prosecute that case,” said Susan Oswalt, chief of the Public Integrity Unit.

In April, it rejected a request from the Department of Public Safety to reopen an investigation into controversial border security contracts, telling DPS Director Steve McCraw the unit doesn’t have “sufficient staff or resources to accommodate your request at this time.”

Appeals court dismisses Rick Perry’s criminal case
Timeline: Rick Perry indicted
Rick Perry: From Texas governor to Florida lobbyist

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: The Winner-Take-Some Texas Primaries

- Click here for the article.

Every presidential candidate wants to win in Texas, but the state’s major parties will also be rewarding second- and even third-place finishers in this year’s primaries.

It’s not a winner-take-all state unless a winner proves to be extravagantly popular with Texas voters.

In all likelihood, the Republicans and the Democrats will be awarding delegates to the top candidates in proportion to the votes they receive. Winning just one vote in five might sound bad in the headlines, but it could add to the all-important delegate tallies that will ultimately determine the party nominees.

The two parties allocate their delegates differently, but with the same idea in mind: sending a delegation to the national conventions that reflects the voting for top candidates here.

Republicans

The Republicans have 2,472 national delegates, including 155 from Texas. It’ll take 1,237 to win.

The state GOP doles out delegates in two batches: 47 of them are awarded based on statewide results, and 108 are awarded based on the results in each of the state’s 36 congressional districts.

How many a candidate gets depends on how well the candidate does. Winning more than half of the state votes gets a candidate all of the 47 delegates at stake. If the top candidate has fewer than half of the votes, the delegates are assigned on a proportional basis, but there is a nuance there, too. If the lead candidate is the only one with more than 20 percent of the vote, that candidate splits delegates on a proportional basis with the second-place finisher. Nobody else gets any delegates. If more than one candidate gets 20 percent or more, each of them gets delegates on a proportional basis. And if no candidate gets more than 20 percent, all of the candidates win delegates based on each one’s proportion of the vote.

Democrats

The Democrats have 4,763 national delegates, meaning it will take 2,382 to win the nomination. Of that total, 252 will come from Texas. That number includes 30 “superdelegates” from Texas, a term that refers to unpledged delegates who are not bound to a particular candidate except by their own choice. The group includes members of Congress from Texas, Democratic National Committee members and other party nobles in Texas.

Of the 222 delegates without that “super” label, 145 come out of the state’s 31 state Senate districts. The number available from each district is based on average Democratic voter turnout in the most recent general elections for president and governor. It ranges from a high of 10 delegates in Austin’s Senate District 14 to a low of two delegates in Senate District 31, which ranges from the Texas Panhandle down to the Permian Basin.

Candidates have to get at least 15 percent of the vote to get any delegates; those who meet that mark get delegates on a proportional basis.

The final 77 delegates are apportioned according to the statewide votes for the candidates. Again, anyone with at least 15 percent of the vote gets some delegates, and delegates are handed out proportionately to everyone above that mark.

From all things Texas Tribune about the election:

Tribpedia: 2016 Texas Elections

From Vox: Why critics are worried about the new FDA boss Dr. Robert Califf has close ties with the pharmaceutical industry

Classic - potential - case of agency capture.

- Click here for the article.

The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates about a quarter of every dollar Americans spend, has a new boss — and he's already under fire for beingtoo cozy with the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Robert M. Califf, a cardiologist and researcher, was nominated by President Obama in September to become the new commissioner of the agency. Hisconfirmation by the Senate was delayed by lawmakers, many of them Democrats, who worried that his links with the pharmaceutical industry would bias his ability to regulate that business and who voiced disapproval over the FDA's handling of the opioid abuse crisis in America.

"F.D.A. stands for Food and Drug Administration, but over the last 20 years it really stands for ‘fostering drug addiction,' " Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), said in a Senate floor speech today.

Despite the reservations, Califf was officially confirmed to the position in a 89 to 4 vote.
Califf has worked with many drugs companies, as both a paid consultant and through his research. As Scientific American points out, "In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Califf listed over a dozen pharmaceutical companies in his conflict-of-interest disclosure."

Unlike previous commissioners, he did not come from a public health background. Instead, the New York Times reported, he "ran a multimillion-dollar clinical research center at Duke University that received more than 60 percent of its funding from industry."

From Wikipedia: Judicial appointment history for United States federal courts

- Click here for a terrific graph outlining presidential appointments to the Supreme Court term by term.

From the Atlantic: Will U.S. Conservatives Mount a Third-Party Challenge If Trump Is the Nominee?

Trump's nomination is looking more and more likely. This might be the final way conservatives can stop him. Would thins hand the White House to the Democratic nominee?

- Click here for the article.

Last summer, Donald Trump scared movement conservatives and establishment Republicans—not because they thought that he would actually win the Republican nomination, but because they feared that, in defeat, he would refuse to support the Republican nominee. Back then, it was easy to imagine a general election pitting a Bush against a Clinton—and a third-party bid by an eccentric billionaire throwing the election to Hillary, just as Ross Perot’s bid arguably tipped the 1992 election to Bill.

Trump ultimately assuaged those fears, pledging last September to support the winner of the Republican primary process whether it turned out to be him or one of his rivals. Today, that bet seems smart. Trump appears most likelyto be the victor, having won three primaries while maintaining leads in nearly all of the rest. Still, I wonder if it occurred to Trump at the time that the movement conservatives and Republicans who pressed him to forswear a third-party bid made no commitment of their own to support him if he won the nomination. Would conservatives dare to greet a Trump victory with their own third-party challenge?

From the NYT: G.O.P. Senators Say Obama Supreme Court Pick Will Be Rejected

The party doubles down.

- Click here for the article.

Senate Republican leaders said Tuesday that there would be no confirmation hearings, no vote, not even a courtesy meeting with President Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, all but slamming shut any prospects for an election-year Supreme Court confirmation.

Together with a written vow from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee that they would not hold any confirmation hearings, the pledge was the clearest statement yet from the Senate’s majority party that it would do everything it can to prevent Mr. Obama from shifting the ideological balance of the nation’s high court.Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, urged Mr. Obama to reconsider even submitting a name.

“This nomination will be determined by whoever wins the presidency in the polls,” Mr. McConnell said. “I agree with the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation that we not have hearings. In short, there will not be action taken.”

For a look at the politics of this: Mitch McConnell Plays His Best Card.

From the Washington Post: Republican governor of Nevada Brian Sandoval being considered for Supreme Court

He was not on any initial list of nominees I saw, but his selection makes sense politically.

- Click here for the article.

The White House is considering Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican centrist, as a potential nominee for the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, NBC News has confirmed.
Sandoval, a former District Court judge and state attorney general, was the first Latino candidate elected to statewide office in Nevada.

While he is a Republican, Sandoval's record does match President Barack Obama's on many key issues. He has said he supports the Supreme Court's same sex marriage decision of last year and backs abortion rights.

However, Sandoval also signed into law last year a measure that exempts school construction projects from having to pay contractors wages considered industry standard in the area. While he hailed the move as a cost cutting measure, labor unions rallied to decry the effort.

Fron Scotusblog: A Responsibility I Take Seriously

A statement from the president on the nomination.

- Click here for the article.

From the Dallas Morning News: Two billionaires write checks to Texas House Speaker Joe Straus’ leading challenger

Billionaires don't like the Speaker apparently. The story doesn't give a clear indication why.

- Click here for the article.

Billionaires Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, and Farris Wilks, a fracking services entrepreneur from near Abilene, have opened their checkbooks to Speaker Joe Straus’ main Republican opponent in next week’s primary.

Straus challenger Jeff Judson recently received $180,000 from Walton and $50,000 from Wilks, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.
Walton, who Forbes magazine says is worth $32 billion, has given far smaller amounts to about a half-dozen Texas House candidates not aligned with Straus, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis. Still, the Texas House member to whom she’s given her second-biggest assist, after Judson, is Fort Worth GOP Rep. Charlie Geren, a Straus intimate. Walton’s given Geren $30,000, the reports show.

On This Day in History: Zimmermann Note presented to U.S. ambassador

I just found out what an impact this had Texas' attitudes towards the U.S. - especially the military

- Click here for the article.

During World War I, British authorities give Walter H. Page, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, a copy of the “Zimmermann Note,” a coded message from Arthur Zimmermann, the German foreign secretary, to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence in late January, Zimmermann stated that in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

After receiving the telegram, Page promptly sent a copy to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who in early March allowed the U.S. State Department to publish the note. The press initially treated the telegram as a hoax, but Arthur Zimmermann himself confirmed its authenticity. The Zimmermann Note helped turn U.S. public opinion, already severely strained by repeated German attacks on U.S. ships, firmly against Germany. On April 2, President Wilson, who had initially sought a peaceful resolution to end World War I, urged the immediate U.S. entrance into the war. Four days later, Congress formally declared war against Germany.

From the Austin American Statesman: Appeals court dismisses Rick Perry’s criminal case

This and an interesting series of events. I'll add links to relevant items later. 2306 students should note that the court refers to the state's separation of powers provision - we read through Article 2 of the Texas Constitution in class today - it didn't take long.

- Click here for the article

The state’s top criminal court on Wednesday threw out the remaining criminal charge against Rick Perry, sparing the former governor from trial and a potential prison sentence on a felony charge of misusing the power of his office.

The charge, related to Perry’s 2013 threat to veto money for Travis County prosecutors in an attempt to force District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg from office, violated the Texas Constitution’s separation of powers provision by improperly limiting the governor’s veto authority, the Court of Criminal Appeals said in a 6-2 ruling.

“The constitution does not purport to impose any restriction on the veto power based on the reason for the veto, and it does not purport to allow any other substantive limitations to be placed on the use of a veto,” said the opinion by Presiding Judge Sharon Keller.
The state’s highest criminal court ordered the remaining criminal charge against Rick Perry to be dropped Wednesday.

“The governor’s power to exercise a veto may not be circumscribed by the Legislature, by the courts, or by district attorneys,” Keller wrote. “When the only act that is being prosecuted is a veto, then the prosecution itself violates separation of powers.”

The court also spared Perry from a second felony charge of coercion of a public official, ruling that a lower court correctly tossed out the law last summer as unconstitutionally vague and a violation of free speech rights.

Wednesday’s ruling brought an abrupt end to the politically charged legal troubles that have dogged Perry for 18 months, looming over the closing months of his 14 years in office and casting a pall over his second unsuccessful run for president.

Ballotpedia provides info on the court and who is on it.

- Click here for it.

As opposed to the Texas Supreme Court - where 7 out of 9 justices were appointed by Perry, only one of the judges on the CCA was appointed by him. I did not check to see if she recused herself.

From the NYT: G.O.P. Senators Say Obama Supreme Court Pick Will Be Rejected

- Click here for the article.

Senate Republican leaders said Tuesday that there would be no confirmation hearings, no vote, not even a courtesy meeting with President Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, all but slamming shut any prospects for an election-year Supreme Court confirmation.

Together with a written vow from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee that they would not hold any confirmation hearings, the pledge was the clearest statement yet from the Senate’s majority party that it would do everything it can to prevent Mr. Obama from shifting the ideological balance of the nation’s high court. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, urged Mr. Obama to reconsider even submitting a name.

“This nomination will be determined by whoever wins the presidency in the polls,” Mr. McConnell said. “I agree with the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation that we not have hearings. In short, there will not be action taken.”

The right to video record police is conditional, according to a court.

Smells like a Supreme Court case.

- Click here for the article.

In recent years, lower federal courts have generally held that the First Amendment protects a right to videorecord (and photograph) in public places, especially when one is recording public servants such as the police.

Because recording events that you observe in public places is important to be able to speak effectively about what you observe, courts held, the First Amendment protects such recording. (By analogy, spending money on speech is likewise protected by the First Amendment, because such spending is important to be able to speak effectively; likewise, associating with others for expressive purposes is protected by the First Amendment, because such association is important to be able to speak effectively.) Some restrictions on such recording may be constitutional, but simply prohibiting the recording because the person is recording the police can’t be constitutional. This is the view of all the precedential federal appellate decisions that have considered the issue. (The Supreme Court hasn’t expressly considered this question.)

But Friday’s federal trial court decision in Fields v. City of Philadelphia takes a different, narrower approach: There is no constitutional right to videorecord police, the court says, when the act of recording is unaccompanied by “challenge or criticism” of the police conduct. (The court doesn’t decide whether there would be such a right if the challenge or criticism were present.) Therefore, the court held, simply “photograph[ing] approximately twenty police officers standing outside a home hosting a party” and “carr[ying] a camera” to a public protest to videotape “interaction between police and civilians during civil disobedience or protests” wasn’t protected by the First Amendment.

For more: Why so little video of Houston police shootings?

From the Houston Press; What has Sheriff Hickman changed since taking office?

For our look at county office holders.

- Click here for the article.

Here's a summary of the findings:

The Good:

- Improving Jailer Training Requirements
- Overhauling The Booking Process

The Bad:

- Cutting jail inspectors
- Cuts to LGBTI programs

Toss-Up:

- Hickman's New Budget

From the Texas Tribune: UT/TT Poll: A Presidential Field of Bad Choices

- Click here for the article.

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz have something in common, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll: Roughly half of the state’s likely primary voters think they would make poor or terrible presidents.

Voters were stingy with their “great” and “good” ratings, but Cruz, with 36 percent, got more positive responses from voters. Sanders and Clinton got high ratings from 30 percent of voters, Trump from 29 percent and Marco Rubio from 25 percent.

More than half of the likely primary voters said Trump and Clinton would be “poor” or “terrible” presidents, with the emphasis on “terrible.” Clinton got that forecast from 49 percent of voters, Trump from 42 percent — not surprising since those responses came from voters in both parties, but an ominous finding in the search for one person who will lead the country for four years.

“The suggestion here is that for candidates, particularly Trump, where you have 12 percent who think he could be great,” said Daron Shaw, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the poll. “But then you get 42 percent saying he would be terrible, which outstrips everything.

No big surprise that Cruz polled the best, but even he polled worse than Planned Parenthood.

So do we have debtors prisons or not?

The Texas Bill of Rights declares them illegal, but allegations exist that they do exist - at least indirectly, and that law enforcement effectively acts as bill collectors for the private sector.

Grits for Breakfast discusses this.

- Charging, and jailing, the poor: Suggestions to eliminate debtors prisons.

Debtors’ prisons should no longer exist. While imprisonment for debt was common in colonial times in the United States, subsequent constitutional provisions, legislation, and court rulings all called for the abolition of incarcerating individuals to collect debt. Despite these prohibitions, individuals who are unable to pay debts are now regularly incarcerated, and the vast majority of them are indigent. In 2015, at least ten lawsuits were filed against municipalities for incarcerating individuals in modern-day debtors’ prisons.

Criminal justice debt is the primary source for this imprisonment. Criminal justice debt includes fines, restitution charges, court costs, and fees. Monetary charges exist at all stages of the criminal justice system from pre-conviction to parole. They include a wide variety of items, such as fees for electronic monitoring, probation, and room and board. Forty-three states even charge fees for an indigent’s “free” public defender. With expanding incarceration rates and contracting state budgets, monetary sanctions have continued to escalate. Additionally, many states and localities are now outsourcing prison, probation, monitoring, and collection services to private companies, who add additional fees and charges to the criminal justice debt burden of defendants.

The impact of criminal justice debt is especially severe on the poor and minorities as they are frequently assessed “poverty penalties” for interest, late fees, installment plans, and collection. Often they have to decide between paying criminal justice debt and buying family necessities. The deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore have prompted renewed calls for investigation of the adverse treatment of the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system. The fear of arrest, incarceration, and unfair treatment for those owing criminal justice debt creates distrust in the system.

From 538: Ted Cruz’s General Election Strategy Is Wishful Thinking

There are multiple reasons I like this story. The graph below breaking voter turnout into ideological categories might be the best.

- Click here for the article.

From Vox: The 1968 scandal that gave us the modern primary system (Part one)

I nice look at how things have changed.

- Click here for it.

Right now, presidential candidates are crisscrossing the country, begging primary voters for their support. So it's easy to forget that not too long ago, these voters had no say in who their party nominated for president.

But everything changed after the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
In the nation's early days, members of Congress picked their party's nominee. And for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, party bosses told delegates at the convention which candidate to support, and everybody else found out in the papers and on TV.

But things changed in 1968. The party was split over the Vietnam War: the incumbent Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, supported it. Liberal voters were opposed. And when party elites nominated a pro-war candidate who hadn't won a single primary, all hell broke loose.

The riots, police violence, and lack of party unity paved the way for a Republican victory in the general election. And the Democrats decided they had to reform the way they picked their nominee.

Enter presidential primaries. Voters get a lot more say, but the new system is far from perfect.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: A Field Guide to the 2016 Texas Primaries

Here's something to set us up for next week;s election - the one that really matters in the state.

- Click here for the article.

Early voting starts [last] Tuesday in Texas, and the races for the presidential nominations are not — in spite of all that noise they’re making — the only contests on the ballot. Here are the most competitive contests for state and federal seats on the state ballot. *

Ignore the asterisk above at your peril. In every election, there are a few candidates who think they are in dire trouble — or whose friends believe that. And there are always candidates who never know what hit them — and who don’t appear to be in any danger until their chances have been dashed. That’s the disclaimer; now to the primary races (and for reference, here’s a full list of who is on the Texas ballots).

Catching up with the primary race for Texas Supreme Court

Both from the Texas Tribune:

- Three Supreme Court Justices Face Challenges.

In all three state Supreme Court seats up for election this year, Republican incumbents face primary challengers on March 1 — but that's where the similarities end. Medical malpractice litigation dominates one race. A second pits two men named Green against each other. And the third features a two-time loser trying again to reach the state's highest civil court.

Supreme Court justices are elected at large. No Democrat has won a seat on the court since 1992, so the GOP primary effectively picks the winners. Here's the rundown:

You'll have to click on the article for the rundown.

- Analysis: In Supreme Court Primary Race, a Question of Judgment.

Something unusual turned up in the arguments over which Green — Paul or Rick — should be the Republican Party’s nominee for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court.

Their primary isn’t just about confusion over their names, but about their judgment. And their disagreement over a much-remarked 2015 ruling by the high court reveals a lot about what each would do after donning the judicial robes.

- Analysis: Could Surname Be Key in Republican Supreme Court Race?

What’s the deal with Texas Republican primary voters and candidates with Hispanic names?

This question comes around every two years — usually as part of an election autopsy exploring why a particular candidate lost.

The question describes risk more than it describes certainty: Sometimes, it does not apply at all; sometimes, the difference in names seems to be the only reason for an election to come out the way it did.

It’s a risk for Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who finds herself in a Republican primary against Joe Pool Jr. of Dallas, who has unsuccessfully tried to get on the court two times before this year.

For all the candidates for the Texas Supreme Court - as well as the rest - click here.

From The Hill: GOP fights off primary challengers in deep-red Texas

The current crop of house Republicans from Texas are pretty powerful, but primary challengers are set to change that.

- Click here for the article.

Powerful GOP chairmen in deep-red Texas are fending off primary challengers in an election cycle dominated by the anti-establishment fervor gripping the country.

At least four of the Lone Star State’s seven House chairmen — new Ways and Means ChairmanKevin Brady, Rules Chairman Pete Sessions, Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry and Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith — are working to beat back challenges from the right ahead of the March 1 primary.

So is Texas Rep. Bill Flores, chairman of the 170-member conservative Republican Study Committee who was swept into office during the Tea Party wave in 2010.

“I’m sure when you have a chairman title, someone will say that makes you a target, that makes you part of the establishment,” said Flores, a former oil executive who’s squaring off next week with two GOP challengers, former McLennan County GOP Party chairman Ralph Patterson and local businessman Kaleb Smith.

Sixteen-term GOP Rep. Joe Barton, the dean of the Texas delegation and a former Energy and Commerce chairman, has two challengers of his own, while 85-year-old GOP Rep. Sam Johnson, a decorated U.S. fighter pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war, is defending his Dallas-area seat against three rivals. And the man taking on Rep. John Carter has questioned the powerful House appropriator and former Texas judge’s conservative credentials.

Even Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, the GOP gadfly and frequent cable TV guest, has a challenger. Rancher Simon Winston has said Congress has devolved into a circus and Gohmert is “one of the main clowns.”

To be certain, all of the incumbents are favored to win reelection. They are better connected, better funded and have better name ID than their long-shot challengers.

From Grits for Breakfast: Primary races to watch

A good look at how locally elected positions can impact how state laws are implemented.

- Click here for the post.

Criminal-justice related political races are odd birds because the issues do not fall along obviously partisan lines, even if candidates are elected on those terms. Thus, Grits doesn't follow these elections through a partisan lens, particularly, but rather based on which candidate is best for promoting criminal-justice reform. Every cycle there seem to be a few local races which have statewide implications, so it's worth mentioning a few of them ahead of the March 1 primary.

The Sheriff's race in Fort Bend County features a reformer incumbent, Troy Nells, vs. a revanchist candidate backed by disgruntled ex-deputies complaining they lack free speech on the job. (Think: How much free speech do you get to exercise at your job when you disagree with your boss?) One of the challenger's big issues is to repeal an officer-safety based policy that reduced deputies' opportunities to initiate high-speed chases. Fort Bend County is growing fast and in many ways this is less a Tea Party vs. the Establishment race than a generational dispute between a young suburban professional class and old-school sheriff's deputies who liked the autonomy they enjoyed back when Fort Bend was more of a rural outpost. A Nells victory would signal that county voters have matured enough to accept the responsibilities of what increasingly has become a large suburban county.

From the Texas Tribune: In Major Water Case, Win for Ranchers is Loss For Cities

Water rights have always been a thing in Texas,and with depleted water tables peppered with the occasional drought, they're becoming more of a thing.

The interests of cities will not take precedence over the interests of farmers and ranchers.

- Click here for the story.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday handed a victory to farmers, ranchers and other longstanding water rights holders by declining to take up a Brazos River case with widespread implications for future water battles in drought-prone Texas.

Denying a state petition for review, the justices left in place a lower court’s ruling that said Texas cannot give special treatment to cities or power generators over more “senior” water rights holders on parched rivers — even if the state declares it necessary to protect the “public health, safety and welfare.”

That means some cities, power generators or others with more “junior” river rights would need to pay up or go thirsty when severe drought strikes.

The Texas Farm Bureau, which challenged a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality policy giving cities preferential treatment in certain water skirmishes, hailed the Supreme Court’s decision to leave in place an April 2015 decision from the 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi.

Just for grins . . .

. . . let;s open up Guidry News Service in 2306 tomorrow and walk through it.

It's all about news in local governments - so it fits our topic this week.

- Click here for the site.

From the Austin American Statesman: Appeals court’s rulings limit warrantless blood draws

The Bill of Rights in Texas as defined by the Texas 3rd Court of Criminal Appeals.

- Click here for the story.

The Texas 3rd Court of Appeals delivered three rulings Wednesday that essentially gutted a portion of the state law that allowed police in certain circumstances to draw blood from suspected drunken drivers without a warrant.

The court ruled that police can no longer rely on portions of the Texas Transportation Code that say they don’t need a warrant if a driver has two previous convictions for driving while intoxicated or if the driver had caused a serious injury.

One case reviewed by the court involved a suspected drunken driver who was involved in a 2011 crash that sent two people to the hospital. The driver, Gina Roop, refused sobriety tests and didn’t consent to police taking a blood sample.

However, at the Travis County Jail, the Austin police officer who detained her ordered her blood drawn, which indicated Roop’s blood alcohol level was 0.276, more than three times the legal limit. Roop tried to have the blood test suppressed in her case, but a judge ruled against that. She later pleaded guilty to felony driving while intoxicated.

One of the three rulings Wednesday voided her conviction and ordered a new trial. The appeals court ruled that blood could only be taken without a warrant if a police officer was in a situation in which a warrant couldn’t be obtained before the driver’s blood alcohol level returned to normal. In Roop’s case, a magistrate was on call at the time of her arrest, but the officer made no attempt to get a warrant.

From Vox: The 17 saddest moments of Jeb Bush’s very sad campaign

There's more along these lines - and I'm hoping someone in 2306 decides to write about why his campaign never took off.

- Click here for the article.

Here are the top five: 

1) The moment when Jeb's family "gathered to rescue" him [October 26] 

2) The moment when Jeb Bush had nothing to do but email with some random dude about football [November 4]

3) The moment when the most-Googled question about Jeb was "Is Jeb Bush still running for president?" [November 10]

4) The moment when the Internet realized JebBush.com redirected to Donald Trump's campaign site [December 7]

5) The moment when Jeb's campaign accidentally hyped the "final debate" [December 15]

From Ozy: A CHERISHED RIGHT THAT WAS ALMOST NEVER BORN

The right to privacy is not in the Constitution. For some this is sufficient to maintain that it does not exist. Other argued that it exists in the loose language of clearly stated rights in the Bill of Rights. Scalia was no fan of the right since it did not fit his preferred means of interpreting constitutional language.

Here's the story of how the right was claimed in the case of Griswold v Connecticut.

- Click here for it.

For 50 years, thanks to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, Americans have enjoyed a constitutional right to privacy. That right, nowhere expressly mentioned in the Constitution but now relied upon by millions, has since been invoked to cover everything from contraception to abortion to gay rights, helping to ignite a raging culture war along the way. But few realize that this right, considered by some a “bedrock principle” of American law — and one that has prevented countless unwanted pregnancies and births over the past half century — came very close to never being born.

In fact, just two months before the Supreme Court issued its controversial decision in Griswold on June 7, 1965, the embryonic right was mostly confined to the scribblings of a 66-year-old jurist. Shortly after being assigned to write the majority opinion in the case, Justice William O. Douglas, a committed civil libertarian who authored 1,164 opinions in 36 years on the Court, had sketched out a first draft — a mere six typewritten pages in length. 

. . . None of the nine men sitting on the Supreme Court thought Connecticut’s 1879 anti-contraception law, both prohibiting the use of contraceptives and abetting that use, was a sensible law (in his dissent, Justice Potter Stewart called it “uncommonly silly”). But the problem was finding something in the Constitution that agreed, a task willingly undertaken by the seven-justice majority. Douglas’ solution, cobbled together like an all-you-can-justify meal from a Bill of Rights buffet, was ingenious and somewhat laughable — and one reason Griswold has since become a lighting rod for those decrying the court’s judicial activism.

According to Douglas, the specific guarantees enunciated in the Bill of Rights “have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance,” and the “right to marital privacy” violated by the Connecticut statute emanated from the “zones of privacy” created by several constitutional amendments, including the first (free association), third (prohibition on the quartering of troops), fourth (searches and seizures) and ninth (other rights retained by the people).

When Douglas’ draft opinion was circulated, says Garrow, the clerks in other chambers were shocked at how thin it was, and the references to “penumbras” and “emanations” elicited more than a few sniggers. Could such an unorthodox opinion command a majority of the court? Even Chief Justice Earl Warren, the court’s liberal lion who had assigned Douglas the opinion, was hesitant to sign on. One of Warren’s clerks, John Hart Ely, later a preeminent constitutional scholar, wrote him a 30-page memo on the case. “No matter how strong a dislike for a piece of legislation may be,” Ely counseled, “I do not think the Court should enforce clauses which are not there.”

From the Pew Research Center: 5 facts about the Supreme Court

Mostly facts about the public's attitude about the Supreme Court.

- Click here for the article.

A summary:

1 - Unfavorable opinions of the court reached a 30-year high after the end of last year’s momentous session.

2 - There is a wide partisan gap in views of the court.

3 - Partisans have starkly different views over how the justices should interpret the Constitution.

4 - In the wake of last session’s major decisions, views of the court’s ideology have shifted and become more politically polarized

5 - The justices of the court are a mystery for most Americans.

Apparently only 32% of Americans knew who Antonin Scalia was.

Scalia was a funny guy.

For a Supreme Court justice anyway. Click here for audio.

- A “view” from the Courtroom: “I’m Scalia” and other quips.

Justice Antonin Scalia was known for his sharp-elbowed writing, which is preserved for posterity in his opinions. But his many memorable quips from the bench, usually during oral argument, are also an important part of his legacy.

Justice Scalia regularly topped the scholarly and quasi-scholarly lists of “funniest justice.” As Adam Liptak observed in The New York Times in writing about one of the first such studies, in 2005: “What passes for humor at the Supreme Court would probably not kill at the local comedy club.”

Nevertheless, Justice Scalia could crack up a room of his eight colleagues, dozens of lawyers, and scores of tourists and other spectators. Oral arguments will not be the same without him.

Thanks to recordings preserved (for now) on the Oyez website, we can listen to the late Justice’s quips the way they should be heard: in his own voice.

Security trumps Civil Liberties

I guess there's no better verb to use.

This part of an occasional series looking at how the general public handles this seemingly inevitable trade-off between freedom and security. Little surprise that during times of crisis people are willing to yield on civil liberties like free speech and press, and procedural freedoms against unreasonable search and seizures and self incrimination.

Given that there have been no large scale attacks sustained in the nation in some time, and ISIS has been out of the news for a while, it's worth figuring out what's driving this attitude. Language used on the campaign trail is a likely suspect.

- Views of Government’s Handling of Terrorism Fall to Post-9/11 Low.

Concern over government restrictions on civil liberties has fallen dramatically since July 2013, following Edward Snowden’s leaked details about NSA surveillance programs. At that time, more expressed concern that government policies had gone too far restricting civil liberties (47%) than that they did not go far enough to protect the country (35%).

The share expressing greater concern that policies do not go far enough to protect the country is now roughly the same as the historical high seen in early 2010, shortly after the failed Christmas-Day terrorist attack on an airliner en route to Detroit (when 58% said policies did not go far enough).

Both Republicans and Democrats have become more likely to say that the government’s anti-terrorism policies do not go far enough to protect the country (rather than that they have gone too far restricting civil liberties) since Snowden’s disclosures in 2013. But the shift has been more pronounced among Republicans. Slightly more than seven-in-ten Republicans (71%) now say their greater concern is that anti-terrorism policies do not go far enough, up 14 points since January (57%) and 33 points since July 2013 (38%).

From Scotusblog: What happens to this Term’s close cases?

A good question. For our purposes it might be best to ask how it impacts the cases the cases on the docket involving Texas. Most of the affected cases seem to involve Texas now that I think about it.

- Click here for the article.

The passing of Justice Scalia of course affects the cases now before the Court. Votes that the Justice cast in cases that have not been publicly decided are void. Of course, if Justice Scalia’s vote was not necessary to the outcome – for example, if he was in the dissent or if the majority included more than five Justices – then the case will still be decided, only by an eight-member Court.

If Justice Scalia was part of a five-Justice majority in a case – for example, theFriedrichs case, in which the Court was expected to limit mandatory union contributions – the Court is now divided four to four. In those cases, there is no majority for a decision and the lower court’s ruling stands, as if the Supreme Court had never heard the case. Because it is very unlikely that a replacement will be appointed this Term, we should expect to see a number of such cases in which the lower court’s decision is “affirmed by an equally divided Court.”

The most immediate and important implications involve that union case. A conservative ruling in that case is now unlikely to issue. Other significant cases in which the Court may now be equally divided include Evenwel v. Abbott (on the meaning of the “one person, one vote” guarantee), the cases challenging the accommodation for religious organizations under the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, and the challenge to the Obama administration’s immigration policy.

The Court is also of course hearing a significant abortion case, involving multiple restrictions adopted by Texas. In my estimation, the Court was likely to strike those provisions down. If so, the Court would still rule – deciding the case with eight Justices.
Conversely, the Court was likely to limit affirmative action in public higher education in the Fisher case. But because only three of the liberal Justices are participating (Justice Kagan is recused), conservatives would retain a narrow majority.

From the Houston Press: THE TEXAS RACING COMMISSION KILLS HISTORICAL RACING (WITH GLENN HEGAR'S "HELP")

And now for a state level issues - one that also illustrates how checks and balances work in Texas.

- Click here for the article.

After more than a year of defying the state legislature, the Texas Racing Commission finally, sort of, caved in on Thursday.

After being deadlocked on whether to allow historical racing to remain on the commission's books back in December, this time around, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar weighed in and helped end the long battle between the state legislature and the racing commission.

The commission voted 5 to 4 to repeal historical racing.

The vote comes after months of contentious back-and-forth between those in the horse-racing industry, some racing commissioners and the Legislative Budget Board.

State lawmakers have long insisted that historical racing, in which people bet on races that are shown on video with all the identifying information about the race removed, is actually an expansion of gambling, which many Legislative Budget Board members and other state legislators are firmly against for whatever reason. (Actually, the main reasons seem to be a mix of religion and highly effective casino lobbyists from neighboring states.)

It all started, of course, with a vote. In August 2014, the Texas Racing Commission voted 7-1 to approve historical racing for the state. The decision was met with rabid enthusiasm from the Texas horse-racing industry.

Texas thoroughbred horse racing returned to the state after the 50-year ban on parimutuel wagering ended in the 1990s. For a brief period, the Texas horse-racing industry boomed, but in recent years race attendance has declined. While some states, like Louisiana, prop up their thoroughbred horse-racing industry with fat purses drawn from racetrack casinos, Texas racetracks didn't (and still don't) have that option.
Dwindling crowds forced officials at Sam Houston Race Park and other Texas tracks to choose between offering more races with smaller purses or offering the larger purses that tend to draw the better jockeys and horses in the industry. Soon the top horses and trainers, even the trainers who started out in Texas, had stopped bringing the good horses to the Texas racing circuit and the quality of the races started a swift decline.

But there was a problem with that 2014 decision. Namely, some state legislators were rather displeased that the racing commission had voted to allow historic racing without getting the state legislature to sign off on the decision, as we've previously reported. In fact, a group of legislators quickly started to insist that the TRC didn't have the authority to make such a decision. Things rapidly deteriorated from there.

From the Houston Press: RICE'S KINDER INSTITUTE GIVES THUMBS UP TO MAYOR TURNER'S POTHOLE INITIATIVE

You can't get more local than potholes.

- Click here for the article.

On Wednesday, Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research confirmed that Mayor Sylvester Turner is not kidding about obliterating Houston’s pot holes.

Kinder Institute researchers set out to make sure that the stats Turner has been keeping on the pothole project's very own website, houstonpotholes.org, are accurate. Between January 4 and February 16, Public Works crews have filled a total of 9,815 potholes — 1,976 of which were reported by citizens on 311 calls. Ninety-five percent of the time, crews fixed potholes reported by citizens within the next business day, as Turner promised upon taking office.

When Kinder did its own analysis of the data, it turned out correct.

“This independent verification confirms that we are delivering on the promise to quickly respond to pothole complaints,” Turner said at a press conference. “This is an example of the new level of customer service I expect city employees to deliver. Now it’s time for us to focus on achieving success for more complicated street repairs.”

Those more complicated repairs include things like street paving and panels that need to be repaired on skid patches — more extensive work that may be covered under ReBuild Houston, an initiative to repair Houston’s streets and drainage infrastructure. If a citizen calls in a pothole that falls under an existing ReBuild Houston project or larger repair project, that pothole won’t be fixed. Potholes also won’t be fixed if they’re on private property or if the crew doesn’t think they're actually hazards. The Kinder Institute recommended that the city find a better way to make this clear to 311 callers, so as to avoid angering citizens.

As for funding the pothole obliteration, Turner said that the city is only using existing funds and those left over from Mayor Annise Parker’s $10 million initiative to do the same.

But to continue at this rate, he said the city might have to expand repair funds for 2017’s budget — and given Turner’s promise to make budget “sacrifices,” that could be tricky.

Politico: Trump's 6 populist positions. His challenges to GOP orthodoxy spur soul-searching among party elites about how to snag working-class voters.

"Populism" was one of the terms we discussed in 2305 when we looked at ideology.

- Click here for the article.

Donald Trump may be blowing up Republican politics as we know it, but his most lasting impact may be more substantive — he has pushed the GOP into a much more populist corner on policy, challenging the party’s platform on everything from free trade to entitlements.

Trump’s populist positions on Wall Street (“Hedge fund managers are getting away with murder”), free trade (“We need fair trade, not free trade”) and immigration (“We’ll have a great wall”) are resonating at a time when conservatives are openly grappling with how to reach working- and middle-class voters when the GOP platform best reflects The Wall Street Journal editorial page.

“We have to develop policy ideas that deal directly with their concerns,” said longtime GOP pollster and strategist Glen Bolger.

John Brabender, political strategist to former Sen. Rick Santorum who sought unsuccessfully to appeal to working class voters in his presidential campaign, said GOP elites who covered their eyes eight months ago are paying attention to Trump now.

Here are the specific policy areas they cover. It might be worth discussing what the populist positions are in each of these.

Immigration

Trade

Entitlements

Taxes

Education

Defense/National security

From NPR: Automatic Registration Is The Latest Chapter In Fight Over Voting Rights

For our look at elections.

- Click here for it.

President Obama backed a bill in Illinois last week that would automatically register people to vote when they apply for a driver's license or state ID.

"That will protect the fundamental right of everybody," he said. "Democrats, Republicans, independents, seniors, folks with disabilities, the men and women of our military — it would make sure that it was easier for them to vote and have their vote counted."

But so far, support for automatic voter registration — now being considered in about two dozen states — has pretty much broken down along party lines. Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, generally think it's a great way to expand the electorate, as does Bernie Sanders. But Republicans are far more wary. Some say they're worried it could expose voter rolls to mistakes and fraud.

And there's a philosophical divide, too. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, a Republican, says it's important that citizens take the initiative when it comes to registering.

"If they just get it, because they're turning a certain age, it kind of takes away from the value that should be associated with the ability to participate," he said. "Because it's a privilege to participate in the electoral process in our state and in our nation, and people need to recognize that."

Unspoken, is the concern over which, if any, group might benefit from the change. Will more Democrats or Republicans be signed up if it's done automatically at the DMV?

From the New York Times: Supreme Court Nominees Considered in Election Years Are Usually Confirmed

Which argues against a point made by some.

- Click here for the article.

Since 1900, the Senate has voted on eight Supreme Court nominees during an election year. Six were confirmed. But several of those were for seats that had become vacant in the previous year.

The Senate has never taken more than 125 days to vote on a successor from the time of nomination; on average, a nominee has been confirmed, rejected or withdrawn within 25 days. When Justice Antonin Scalia died, 342 days remained in President Obama’s term.

The graphic in the article is worth your visit.

From the NYT: How Long Does It Take to Confirm a Supreme Court Nominee?

The NYT has a graphic showing how long the confirmation process took for all justices going back to day one. It's worth a quick look. Like most things involving the national government, the whole process takes longer.

- Click here for it.

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has set off a partisan battle over whether the Senate will confirm a successor nominated by President Obama, whose term expires in 342 days. The Senate has never taken more than 125 days to vote on a successor from the time of nomination; on average, a nominee has been confirmed, rejected or withdrawn in 25 days. But few presidents have successfully filled vacancies announced in their final full year.

For more, click here for Supreme Court nominations present-1789 from the Senate's website.

From the Washington Post: What a divided America actually hears when Obama speaks

More on partisan polarization in the American public. Similar things could likely be said about the current presidential candidates.

- Click here for the article.

As President Obama spoke of the country’s deepening sense of alienation and anger last month, a teacher in Michigan listened, her eyes fixed on the stone-faced Republicans in the House chamber who in her view represented the problem.

“Let’s get over the party lines and work together!” she tweeted during the president’s State of the Union address.

In Maryland, a retired lawyer was listening to the exact same words. He, too, was worried about the anger and division gripping the country, but as Obama spoke, his resentment toward the president only swelled.

"Hearing him complain about political rancor is frankly nauseating,” he wrote.

The two tweets flashed across the Internet within seconds of each other, each in their own way capturing the country’s mood and the challenge facing the president in his final months in office — not simply a partisan divide, but a deep mistrust that has become so entrenched that it seems to affect the very way Americans hear the president’s words and see each other.

Part of the problems seem to be that people who identify with the two parties know little about each other - or themselves it seems. Add this to our discussion of political ignorance.

From the Congressional Research Service: Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of the President, Judiciary Committee, and Senate

Everything you could possibly want to know about the process in one big big source.

- Click here for it.

Here's the summary:

The appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is an infrequent event of major significance in American politics. Each appointment is important because of the enormous judicial power the Supreme Court exercises as the highest appellate court in the federal judiciary. Appointments are infrequent, as a vacancy on the ninemember Court may occur only once or twice, or never at all, during a particular President’s years in office. Under the Constitution, Justices on the Supreme Court receive lifetime appointments. Such job security in the government has been conferred solely on judges and, by constitutional design, helps insure the Court’s independence from the President and Congress.

The procedure for appointing a Justice is provided for by the Constitution in only a few words. The “Appointments Clause” (Article II, Section 2, clause 2) states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court.” The process of appointing Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature — the sharing of power between the President and Senate — has remained unchanged: To receive lifetime appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. Although not mentioned in the Constitution, an important role is played midway in the process (after the President selects, but before the Senate considers) by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On rare occasions, Presidents also have made Court appointments without the Senate’s consent, when the Senate was in recess. Such “recess appointments,” however, were temporary, with their terms expiring at the end of the Senate’s next session. The last recess appointments to the Court, made in the 1950s, were controversial, because they bypassed the Senate and its “advice and consent” role.

The appointment of a Justice might or might not proceed smoothly. Since the appointment of the first Justices in 1789, the Senate has confirmed 120 Supreme Court nominations out of 154 received. Of the 34 unsuccessful nominations, 11 were rejected in Senate roll-call votes, while nearly all of the rest, in the face of committee or Senate opposition to the nominee or the President, were withdrawn by the President or were postponed, tabled, or never voted on by the Senate. 

Over more than two centuries, a recurring theme in the Supreme Court appointment process has been the assumed need for excellence in a nominee. However, politics also has played an important role in Supreme Court appointments. The political nature of the appointment process becomes especially apparent when a President submits a nominee with controversial views, there are sharp partisan or ideological differences between the President and the Senate, or the outcome of important constitutional issues before the Court is seen to be at stake.

For briefer descriptions:

- Appointment and confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States.
- How does a president select a Supreme Court nominee? Here’s how.

The Texas Tribune: UT-Austin Issues Campus Carry Rules Barring Guns From Dorms

Let's see if there is push back from this - a Second Amendment lawsuit perhaps?

- Click here for the article.

Save for some narrow exceptions, guns will be allowed in classrooms but not in dorms at the University of Texas at Austin next school year under guidelines reluctantly issued by university President Greg Fenves on Wednesday.

Fenves submitted the rules to comply with the state's new campus carry law, which goes into effect Aug. 1. The law, Senate Bill 11, allows the concealed carrying of weapons in public university buildings by license holders across the state. But it gave universities the power to create limited rules that designate some "gun-free zones" in areas where it would be too dangerous to have weapons. Those zones must be limited in scope, however, and can't have the effect of making it practically impossible to carry a gun anywhere on campus. 

. . . Fenves' rules will ban guns in dorms except for three specific exceptions: Concealed handguns will be allowed in dorms' common areas; people who work in the dorms will be able to carry and family members visiting the dorms will also be allowed to carry.

While no classroom ban will be imposed, faculty members who don't share an office with anyone else can ban guns in their specific areas, Fenves said.

He also issued strict rules for how those guns can be carried. In most cases, students and other people carrying guns must keep the weapons "on or about their person" at all times. If people aren't carrying their guns, they'll have to keep them in their locked cars. Gun safes will only be allowed in one place — university apartments, which are mostly reserved for families and graduate students.

All guns that are being carried will have to be kept in a holster that protects the trigger. The gun can't have a bullet in its chamber. And it can't be visible; the state's new open carry law doesn't apply to college campuses.

From the Texas Tribune: Turnout for Texas Primaries Expected to Be Highest Since 2008

It'll still be very low compared to the general election though. This despite the fact that the primary election in Texas is the only one that really matters in the state due to gerrymandering and other factors.

- Click here for the article.

With the race for the Republican presidential nomination too close to call and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont still waging an energetic campaign against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, election officials are bracing for exceptionally high turnout in this year's Texas primaries, where early voting begins today.

“I think Republican turnout is going to blow the doors off,” said Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart. “We’re planning on 100,000 more than we’ve ever done before.”

Both major parties are holding their primaries on March 1, and this year the Texas contests come unusually early in the presidential nomination process. Usually, far more states have primaries and caucuses scheduled before the Lone Star State, meaning that a prospective nominee is typically on the way toward wrapping things up by the time Texans weigh in, depressing turnout.

Presidential election years draw the most voters. Despite important federal, state and local races on the ballot during midterm elections, turnout typically suffers without a high-profile race for the White House at the top of the ballot. In elections of any kind, turnout tends to increase with the stakes: if candidates appear locked in a fierce battle, more people show up at the polls.

Be sure to check the bar graphs in the article for recent turnout numbers.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Sheriffs, Jails on Immigration Front Line

A good example of federalism - unintended perhaps. The national government has authority over immigration policy, but the practical reality is that local governments have to deal with immigrants more often than state or national officers.

- Clck here for the article.

The success of federal deportation policy in Texas and nationwide depends for the most part on a heads up from county sheriffs. They run the jails where people are taken when arrested and where the culling of criminal immigrants begins.

Being at the bottom of the enforcement pyramid places tremendous pressure on them — political, legal and otherwise — sheriffs say, and with federal policy increasingly targeting serious, repeat criminal offenders, their role in the process has grown.

“When some of these sheriffs talk about bringing in an undocumented, it may be one a month,” said Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez. “With us, it’s several a day.”
The legal tool federal authorities use to take custody of immigrants they want is the detainer. Around in some form or fashion since the 1950s, detainers are notices sent to jails asking them to hold on to an immigrant once local authorities are done with them so federal agents can come by and get them.

In its latest incarnation, the detainer is reserved for the most serious convicted immigrant criminals. This new, narrower restriction, imposed in November 2014, has caused the number of detainers to drop. As of October 2015, the latest monthly figure available, 7,117 detainers were issued. That's down from an all-time monthly high of 27,755 in August 2011, according to voluminous Freedom of Information Act requests made by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Texas is central to the federal agency’s deportation efforts. Nationwide, only eight jails received more than 1,000 detainer requests in the last year, according to clearinghouse data. Four were in Texas — Harris, Travis, Dallas and Hidalgo counties.