From CNN: Full text of Trump's executive order on 7-nation ban, refugee suspension

Catching up with this weekend's events.

- Click here for the story, which includes the order.

And from the New York Times:

- President Trump’s Immigration Order, Annotated.

The National Review thinks the reaction to the order is out of line.

- Trump’s Executive Order on Refugees — Separating Fact from Hysteria.

From the Texas Tribune: Federal court blocks Texas fetal remains burial rule

For our look at federalism.


- Click here for it.

U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks ruled Texas cannot require health providers to bury or cremate fetuses, delivering another blow to state leaders in the reproductive rights debate.

The ruling comes more than a month after the Texas Department of State Health Services slated the mandate to go into effect Dec. 19. Lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued in December to stop the rule, won a temporary restraining order to halt its implementation, and earlier this month Sparks delayed his decision, saying he needed more time to review the evidence.

The agency initially released the proposed burial rule in July just days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Texas’ abortion provider restrictions. The rule announcement spurred intense debate between reproductive rights groups and anti-abortion groups.

During two public hearings, department leaders heard stories of abortions, miscarriages, and general grief over losing a baby. While anti-abortion groups argued that the rule was a means to bring human dignity to the fetuses, reproductive rights advocates said the rule was another way for Texas to punish women who chose an abortion, saying the cost of the burials would be passed on to patients, making abortions harder to obtain for low-income Texans.

From the National Constitution Center: Podcast: Has President Trump violated the Emoluments Clause?

In a couple weeks I'll ask 2305 students about the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

Here's a head start on it.

- Click here for the podcast.

On January 23, the nonprofit legal watchdog group CREW filed a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump is violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause in Article 1, Section 9, which states: “[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

CREW points out that foreign governments are doing business at Trump hotels and other buildings in the United States, and that the Trump organization is conducting business abroad.

There are also questions about the Domestic Emoluments Clause in Article II, Section 1, which states that “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation … and he shall not receive … any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.”

Joining We the People to discuss are two experts in constitutional law who are actively writing and thinking on these issues.

From the U.S. Supreme Court: Lee v. Tam

In the second GDHS class this morning we discussed another free speech case, Lee v. Tam. The case also touches on the copyright clause of the U.S. Supreme Court. While the free speech clause protects the ability of people to say disparaging things, these cannot be copyrighted since that would suggest that the national government approves of it.

- Here's the transcript.
- Here's the audio.
- Here's detail from ScotusBlog.

Here is the question presented to the court:

Issue: Whether the disparagement provision of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1052(a), which provides that no trademark shall be refused registration on account of its nature unless, inter alia, it “[c]onsists of . . . matter which may disparage . . . persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute” is facially invalid under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

For background,

- Here is the Lanham Act
- Here is background on U.S. Trademark Law.

And here's a bit from ScotusBlog on the controversy in the case.

The debate over trademark rights and free speech has a long history. We shouldn’t forget it now, when trademark registration has become a First Amendment flashpoint. Trademark protection can promote expression, but it can also chill speech and debate. The dual nature of trademark means that sometimes limiting trademark rights – for example, by declining to register disparaging marks – actually advances First Amendment goals by curtailing private control over contested vocabulary and imagery.

In early trademark cases, courts understood that trademark claims were a form of commercial appropriation of language. Judges were accordingly skeptical about allowing private businesses to assert exclusive rights to words or phrases. Limiting expansive trademark claims was a way of keeping language in the public domain. As one court explained in 1883, the English language is “the common property of mankind,” belonging to all of us in “equal share.” Since those early days, doubts about the social benefit of robust trademark protection have faded. But the debate over who should “own” trademarked words and symbols, and to what degree, remains as relevant as ever.

In Lee v. Tam, the Supreme Court will consider a request by Simon Tam, an activist and the founder of an Asian rock band, to register his band’s name, “THE SLANTS,” as a federally protected trademark. The dispute in this case centers on a relatively obscure provision of the federal trademark statute, which denies registration to marks that “may disparage” individuals, institutions, beliefs or national symbols. Tam contends that his band’s name challenges stigmatizing stereotypes, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied registration after finding THE SLANTS disparaging to people of Asian ancestry. To Tam, the result is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and suppression of speech – all the more harmful and arbitrary because of his record of political activism and advocacy on behalf of Asian-American groups.

For more on viewpoint discrimination, click here.

Viewpoint discrimination is the term the Supreme Court has used to identify government laws, rules, or decisions that favor or disfavor one or more opinions on a particular controversy. For example, a government official who permitted ‘‘pro-life’’ proponents to speak on government property but banned ‘‘pro-choice’’ proponents because of their views would be engaged in ‘‘viewpoint discrimination.’’ Courts may also describe this constitutional requirement by saying that government laws and decisions must be ‘‘viewpoint neutral.’’ In recent decades, viewpoint discrimination has been distinguished from content or subject matter discrimination, which involves government regulation of an entire topic or subject, such as abortion, war, or sexual speech, either by punishing those who use this kind of speech (such as obscenity) or by completely excluding the subject from discussion on particular government property or in public forums.

From the U.S. Supreme Court: Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman

We briefly walked through this case in the first class at GDHS this morning. It involves the free speech clause of the First Amendment and pricing.

- Here's the transcript.
- Here's the audio.
- Here's detail from ScotusBlog.

This is question presented to the court:

Issue: Whether state no-surcharge laws unconstitutionally restrict speech conveying price information (as the Eleventh Circuit has held), or regulate economic conduct (as the Second and Fifth Circuits have held).

New York does not allow different prices for cash and credit card purchases - this is commonly done for gas around here. Doing so gives you an indication - communicates to us, which is speech - of what credit card transactions cost. Is New York violating a merchant's free speech rights by limiting their ability to set different prices? Is pricing speech?

From the Washington Post: Trump to sign executive orders enabling construction of proposed border wall and targeting sanctuary cities

Today's executive actions.

These appear to be actual orders, not memorandums.

- Click here for the article.

President Trump plans to sign executive orders Wednesday enabling construction of his proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and targeting cities where local leaders refuse to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation, according to White House officials familiar with the decisions.

The actions, part of a multi-day focus on immigration, are among an array of sweeping and immediate changes to the nation’s immigration system under consideration by the new president. The moves represent Trump’s first effort to deliver on perhaps the signature issue that drove his presidential campaign: his belief that illegal immigration is out of control and threatening the country’s safety and security.

Trump’s immigration blitz this week is widely seen inside the White House as a victory for the self-described populist wing of his inner circle — which includes chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions and top policy adviser Stephen Miller.

But discussions were ongoing Tuesday about just how far to go on some policies, in particular the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. The 2012 initiative has given temporary protection from deportation to hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in the United States as children. Trump vowed during the campaign to reverse it.

It was not yet clear late Tuesday whether DACA would be addressed as part of Trump’s immigration actions, according to a White House official, because of differing views among Trump’s advisers and associates about the timing, scope and political benefits of ending the program or suspending it for new entries.

From NPR: Trump Gives Green Light To Keystone, Dakota Access Pipelines

Tuesdays executive actions - both are presidential memorandums:

- Click here for the article.

President Trump on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for construction of two controversial oil pipelines, the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access.

As he signed the paperwork in an Oval Office photo op, Trump said his administration is "going to renegotiate some of the terms" of the Keystone project, which would carry crude oil from the tar sands of western Canada and connect to an existing pipeline to the Gulf Coast.

The pipelines had been stopped during the Obama administration. The State Department rejected a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, and President Obama ordered work halted on the Dakota pipeline after Native American groups and other activists protested its route near culturally sensitive sites in North Dakota.

Trump said the Keystone XL pipeline will mean "a lot of jobs, 28,000 construction jobs, great construction jobs."

You can read the three memorandums here:

- Dakota Access Pipeline
- Keystone XL Pipeline
- Construction of American Pipelines

From the Tyler Morning Telegraph: State versus local control expected to be overarching theme in 85th Texas Legislature

The Texas Legislature seems intent on usurping local power.

- Click here for the article.

For years, the real battles in the Texas Legislature haven’t been Democrats versus Republicans - they’ve been urban versus rural interests.

That’s changing. When the Legislature convenes on Jan. 10, the new battle will be local control versus state prerogatives. On big issues ranging from sanctuary cities to revenue caps and rules for ride booking apps such as Uber and Lyft, to smaller issues such as plastic bag bans and whether employers can ask job applicants about their criminal histories, lawmakers will contend with cities about the appropriate level of local control.

This flips the script. Local control has been a watchword of conservatives in years past, as they sought to limit rules and unfunded mandates coming out of Austin.

Now, though, it’s the conservatives who say the state is sovereign and that larger cities - which in Texas these days are often more liberal than the Legislature - enact their own rules that go beyond what some lawmakers see as appropriate.

On the right, the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation sees the matter as a proper restoration of the state’s role in policy matters that affect freedom and economic development.

“There’s a big conversation over local control,” said James Quintero, director of the TPPF’s Center for Local Governance. “Local control’s proper use is to rein in government and protect liberty. But it has been misused by those on the left to advance bad policy.”

On the left, the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities agrees that the flashpoints during the upcoming session will be local versus state control.

“That’s exactly what the problem is,” said the Center’s Senior Fiscal Analyst Dick Lavine. “And we want to see local control over local matters. The government closest to the people understands the feelings of the people in the community. And elections keep officials accountable.”

The article goes on to highlight areas of contention. Could be useful for 2306 students looking for a paper topic.

For opinion on the issue: TEXAS VIEW: Local control is the only way to go.

From the Saturday Evening Post: The Civil Rights Act vs. States’ Rights

A look at the tension between the two.

- Click here for the article.

Goldwater recognized that the Civil Rights Act would split the liberal and conservative wings of the Democratic Party. For years, the Democrats had been able to hold these two warring factions together, but as the liberal wing began supporting the growing civil rights movement, many white, conservative Democrats began withdrawing their support of the party their families had supported for generations.

The day would come, Goldwater predicted in a 1963 Post article, “The G.O.P. Invades the South,” when the region would vote solidly Republican. He noted that Republican candidates were already winning elections in Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia. The South would shift its party allegiance, he said, because of “a profound evolution of political thinking and acting.”

It had nothing to do, he asserted, with white voters being angry with liberal Democrats’ support of integration. Southerners were leaving the party, he said, because they believed in “state’s rights,” and limiting the role of the federal government. They viewed the Civil Rights Act as an intrusion that, Goldwater argued, would eventually lead to “the creation of a police state.”

Civil rights were important, Goldwater believed, but they were “resolved more safely and soundly on the state or local level.”

But the local level, as Anthony Lewis wrote, was precisely where the problem lay. (“Goldwater Is Wrong On Civil Right” September 26, 1964) The law in southern states and towns was vigorously enforcing racist policies, using intimidation and violence to deprive African Americans of their rights.

The U.S. Government had tried Goldwater’s approach for nearly a century, Lewis argued. When states were left on their own to handle race relations, “the result was massive inequality, injustice, and cruelty that shocked the conscience of this nation…The law has been cynically manipulated to maintain white supremacy, in defiance of the most elementary rights of a citizen.”

Federal intervention was necessary, he said, to prevent state officials from enforcing racist politics

From Bloomberg BNA: Scott Pruitt Could Tip Regulatory Power From EPA to States

Pruitt is Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

Note the use of the terms "cooperative federalism" in the story.

- Click here for it.

State regulators could see more autonomy and a new seat at the table as the Environmental Protection Agency drafts federal regulations under Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the agency.

Pruitt has conceded the federal government does play a role in protection of the environment, particularly when pollution crosses state lines, even though he has joined challenges to just such regulations offered by the Obama administration.

“I believe the EPA has an important role to play in our republican form of government. There are clearly air and water quality issues that cross state lines and sometimes that can require federal intervention,” Pruitt said during a House Science Committee hearing in May 2016. “At the same time the EPA was never intended to be our nation’s foremost environmental regulator. The states were to have regulatory primacy.”

Pruitt, who will appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for his confirmation hearing Jan. 18, could tip the balance of power on environmental protection toward states. As attorney general, Pruitt has fought back against federal regulations he argues encroach on state authorities—even setting up a federalism division in his office—and has questioned the EPA’s primacy when protecting the environment.

“What does turning more authority back to the states look like to states? What it looks like is flexibility and respect for state decision making and state choices. Right now, I would say there’s room for improvement,” Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, executive director and general counsel of the Environmental Council of the States, told Bloomberg BNA.

. . . William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute . . . predicted Pruitt would also be extremely deferential to states, even those that choose to pursue policies on greenhouse gases, while Dunn said a key area to watch in the coming months is how strongly Pruitt would advocate on behalf of states in a key area of water regulation.

Though the Clean Water Act allows states to ask for regulatory authority over the dredging and filling of their wetlands, Dunn said the Army Corps of Engineers has often denied these requests. Currently, only two states have successfully taken over wetland regulation from the federal government, though Dunn said many others have tried.
She would like to see Pruitt work harder than his predecessors did to try to persuade the Army Corps on this issue.

“This is where, if [he] is truly about getting authority to states that desire this authority, here’s a classic example where he can show leadership,” she said.

Some lawmakers and advocacy groups have praised Pruitt precisely for his approach to cooperative federalism, including Republicans such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the chairman of the Senate committee leading the confirmation hearing of Pruitt, touted in a Jan. 17 editorial on Fox News that Pruitt has a strong record of “standing up for states’ rights.”

For More:

- The National Environmental Policy Act.
- The Environmental Protection Agency.
- Scott Pruitt.

From the New York Times: Trump’s Health Plan Would Convert Medicaid to Block Grants, Aide Says

Some of my 2305 classes are covering federalism, which includes a discussion of categorical and block grants. Here's a story illustrating the latter.

- Click here for it.

President Trump’s plan to replace the Affordable Care Act will propose giving each state a fixed amount of federal money in the form of a block grant to provide health care to low-income people on Medicaid, a top adviser to Mr. Trump said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

The adviser, Kellyanne Conway, who is Mr. Trump’s White House counselor, said that converting Medicaid to a block grant would ensure that “those who are closest to the people in need will be administering” the program.

A block grant would be a radical change. Since its creation in 1965, Medicaid has been an open-ended entitlement. If more people become eligible because of a recession, or if costs go up because of the use of expensive new medicines, states receive more federal money.

If Congress decides to create block grants for Medicaid, lawmakers will face thorny questions with huge political and financial implications: How much money will each state receive? How will the initial allotments be adjusted — for population changes, for general inflation, for increases in medical prices, for the discovery of new drugs and treatments? Will the federal government require states to cover certain populations and services? Will states receive extra money if they have not expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, but decide to do so in the future?

Ms. Conway, speaking on the NBC program “Sunday Today,” said that with a block grant, “you really cut out the fraud, waste and abuse, and you get the help directly” to intended beneficiaries.

. . . Governors like the idea of having more control over Medicaid, but fear that block grants may be used as a vehicle for federal budget cuts.

“We are very concerned that a shift to block grants or per capita caps for Medicaid would remove flexibility from states as the result of reduced federal funding,” Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican, said this month in a letter to congressional leaders. “States would most likely make decisions based mainly on fiscal reasons rather than the health care needs of vulnerable populations.”

Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama, a Republican, said that if a block grant reduced federal funds for the program, “states should be given the ability to reduce Medicaid benefits or enrollment, to impose premiums” or other cost-sharing requirements on beneficiaries, and to reduce Medicaid spending in other ways.

In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, said he was troubled by the prospect of a block grant with deep cuts in federal funds. “Under such a scenario,” he said, “flexibility would really mean flexibility to cut critical services for our most vulnerable populations, including poor children, people with disabilities and seniors in need of nursing home and home-based care.”

Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, said that block grant proposals could shift costs to states and “force us to make impossible choices in our Medicaid program.”

“We should not be forced to choose between providing hard-working older Coloradans with blood pressure medication or children with their insulin,” Mr. Hickenlooper said.

For more:

- Wikipedia: Block Grants.
- Wikipedia: Categorical Grants.
- Reason: The Problem With Block Grants.
- Washington Post: The GOP plan to fund Medicaid through block grants will probably weaken it.

From Vox: Donald Trump just named a net neutrality foe to head the FCC

Another indication of a major policy shift from the Obama years

- Click here for the article.

Under President Barack Obama, the Federal Communication Commission passed regulations that provided strong legal protections for network neutrality. These rules, which were strongly opposed by telecommunications giants such as Comcast and Verizon, were designed to create a level playing field for online companies.

Now Donald Trump has taken the first step toward gutting those regulations: He has named Ajit Pai to be the next chair of the FCC.

Pai has served as a Republican member of the five-member FCC since 2012. He’s known for his deregulatory views generally and his opposition to network neutrality in particular. In a December speech, he complained that there was too much “regulatory underbrush” at the FCC, and vowed to “fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation, and job creation.”

Network neutrality is likely to be at the top of Pai’s hit list. But supporters of network neutrality rules say that repealing them would be a disaster for the open internet and online innovation.

“Consumers need to be worried about what this means for their access to the internet,” argues Chris Lewis of the pro-net neutrality group Public Knowledge. He warns that in a world without network neutrality rules, big ISPs like Comcast or Verizon could block access to certain websites or force customers to pay extra to reach sites they don’t own.

The president can appoint an existing FCC member chair without Senate approval, according to Ryan Radia, a legal expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. So Pai won’t have to go through the confirmation process in order to assume his new role.

Republicans will have a majority on the FCC and in Congress, so there’s likely nothing Democrats or liberal groups can do to stop Republicans from rolling back network neutrality rules. But it’s going to be a long, ugly fight that could tie up the FCC in the courts for years to come.

I can't vouch for this graphic, but its provocative

It's one person's analysis of the reliability of news sources combined with partisanship. Ideology seems inversely correlated with reliability. I should note that I tend to use all the sources in the upper middle bubble.

For more:

- MarketWatch: How does your favorite news source rate on the ‘truthiness’ scale? Consult this chart.

1/23/17 - Trump signs three presidential memorandums

Here's the skinny:

1 - Withdraws the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership - click here for it.
2 - Imposes a freeze on the hiring of Federal - non-military - civilian workers - click here for it.
3 - Reinstates the "Mexico City policy" aka: a block on funds for international family planning charities unless they agree to not discuss abortion - click here for it.

- What is a presidential memorandum?

a type of executive instrument typically issued by the President of the United States to manage and govern the actions, practices and policies of the various departments and agencies found under the executive branch of the United States government. Presidential memoranda and executive orders are closely related, both have the force of law on the Executive Branch. While executive orders are numbered a presidential memorandom is not. Presidential memoranda are generally considered less prestigious than executive orders. Presidential memoranda do not have an established process for issuance or publication.

- For more: Presidential memoranda vs. executive orders. What's the difference?

For stories related to each:

- NPR: Trump Signs 3 Memorandums, Including Withdrawal From Pacific Trade Deal.
- Chicago Tribune: Trump signs executive orders on TPP exit, federal hiring freeze, global abortion policy.
- NYT: Trump Abandons Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama’s Signature Trade Deal.
- The Atlantic: Here's What Trump's Latest Executive Orders Do.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Senate takes first step toward school finance overhaul - The Senate has tasked a new budget working group with coming up with ways to overhaul the state's school finance system.

This is a tall order that may or may not be accomplished by the end of the session

- Click here for the article.

Leaders in the Texas Senate are vowing to find ways to overhaul the state’s school finance system, saying a recent Texas Supreme Court decision granted them a prime opportunity to shake up the heavily criticized status quo.

On Monday, they announced the creation of a Senate budget working group — led by Friendswood Republican Larry Taylor — to tackle the issue. That group will work with the Senate Education Committee, which Taylor chairs, to propose replacements for the current school finance system.

“The opportunity is huge for us to get it right,” said Jane Nelson, chairwoman of the Senate’s powerful Finance Committee. “We need a whole new method of school finance.”
They'll face an uphill climb in a session where legislators face several obstacles to major reform, not the least of which is money. The announcement comes a week after the Senate unveiled its preliminary budget, which did not include additional funding for public education.

. . . The current system funds Texas public school districts arbitrarily and inequitably across the state and is held together by short-term fixes that have not been revisited in decades. Educators have repeatedly asserted the funding formulas do not provide them with enough money to meet the state's academic standards.

In May, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the state's existing funding system as constitutional, and at the same time tasked state legislators with reforming it.

"We're left with a question mark as to what this effort will mean by the Senate," said Lynn Moak, a school finance expert at the Austin-based consulting firm Moak, Casey & Associates. The main question is "whether they're trying to reform school finance within existing dollars or looking for possible additional dollars to fund the system."

Nelson last week unveiled the Senate’s $213.4 billion two-year budget proposal, calling it a bare-bones starting point for financial discussions in what promises to be a particularly tight-fisted year. That proposal did not touch funding formulas for public education.

The House’s base budget — also released last week — included an additional $1.5 billion that could be spent on public education only if the Legislature reforms the school finance system.

From the Texas Tribune: Thousands of school choice advocates expected to rally at Texas Capitol

File this under agenda setting - among other things.

- Click here for the article.

Thousands of students, activists and family members are expected to flood the Texas Capitol lawn Tuesday morning in a sea of signature yellow scarves as the Legislature prepares for a fight on whether to let parents use public money for private school tuition.

In advance of the "National School Choice Week" rally, an event that has become a session tradition over the past decade, organizers said they feel closer than ever to actually seeing a bill for private school choice make it to the governor's desk. For the first time, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick will headline this year's rally, scheduled for 10 a.m. on the Capitol's south steps.

Patrick is expected to unveil his bill this week advocating for education savings accounts — state-issued debit cards that parents can use for private school tuition and other education expenses. A former chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Patrick has championed private school choice legislation since he first became a state senator in 2007.

Abbott last month was more vocal than ever in his support of private school choice, saying he would sign the "most pro-school choice law" arriving on his desk.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas colleges fret about $1 billion in expected funding missing from budget plan

Higher education in Texas is prepared for a hit.

- Click here for the article.

Texas universities entered the 2017 session of the Texas Legislature gearing up for fights over tuition and who can use what bathroom.

But with the session underway, the schools have instead found themselves fighting for an arcane budgeting trick — one that could affect up to $1 billion worth of appropriations for higher education items such as museums, research projects and new academic programs. The House has signaled plans to keep the trick essentially in place. The Senate's first crack at the state budget almost doesn't use it at all.

. . . The trick is known as a “special item,” and in higher education it’s a way for lawmakers to insert money for particular university programs into the state budget outside the standard appropriations formulas. In 2015, the Legislature allocated 362 special items worth a combined $1.1 billion.

But when the House and Senate filed their first versions of the proposed state budget for 2018-19, there was a huge disparity. The House kept special items for universities at about the same level. The Senate included almost none.

Many university officials were surprised by the Senate’s first crack. They say their schools could lose serious money if the Senate budget holds up. That’s especially true for newer, growing schools, which depend heavily on the items.

“If those [special items] are not reinstated, we will have real difficulty keeping our doors open,” said Emily Cutrer, president of Texas A&M University – Texarkana.

But one key Senate leader says the schools shouldn’t panic. The budget is a work in progress, and months of negotiations between the House and Senate will happen before the final spending plan is produced. Special items are one of the key differences between the two chambers' plans. Nonetheless, it's likely that some funds will be added in even before the Senate finishes its version of the budget.

From the Texas Tribune

A handful to discuss:

- Analysis: Luckily for Texas, voters don’t get report cards.
- Travis County sheriff announces new "sanctuary" policy.
- Gov. Abbott demands Travis County reverse new "sanctuary" policy.
- Supreme Court rejects Texas voter ID appeal — for now.
- In West Texas, abandoned well sinks land, sucks tax dollars.
- Analysis: Spinning numbers in lawmakers’ proposed budgets.
- After GOP appeal, Texas Supreme Court agrees to take up same-sex marriage case.

From the Gallup Poll: Obama Averages 47.9% Job Approval as President

I'll begin posting a variety of items regarding Obama's tenure as president.

Here's a look at his approval rates as measured by the Gallup Poll.

- Click here for it.

Obama's highest individual job approval measurement in office was 69%, in January 2009 during the first few days of his presidency. He is one of only three presidents, along with Richard Nixon and Reagan, never to register an approval rating in the 70s.

And while he never achieved extremely high ratings, neither did he achieve extreme lows. At various points in his presidency his approval ratings dipped to 38%. This included in August and October 2011 after contentious negotiations over the debt ceiling limit and subsequent downgrading of the U.S. credit rating. Obama also failed to generate sufficient support for legislation designed to address the still-weak employment situation.

Obama's approval ratings also fell to 38% in September 2014, shortly after the Islamic State terrorist group released videos showing the beheadings of U.S. journalists captured overseas. Those incidents came on the heels of a summer of increased international tensions between Russia and Ukraine, and between Israel and the Palestinians.

Domestically, the deaths of young black men Eric Garner and Michael Brown in confrontations with white police officers led to increased racial tensions.
All other presidents except Eisenhower and Kennedy fell below 38% at some point in their presidencies, with five different presidents receiving ratings below 30%.

For more:

- President Obama Leaves White House With 58% Favorable Rating.

- What is the Gallup Poll?
-- Wikipedia: Gallup Poll.

On this day in history: London merchants petition for reconciliation with America

This is a part of the history of the revolutionary war I am not familiar with - though thats a long list to be honest. Discontent with British policies towards the colonies were not confined to the

- Click here for the article.

On this day in 1775, London merchants petition Parliament for relief from the financial hardship put upon them by the curtailment of trade with the North American colonies.

In the petition, the merchants provided their own history of the dispute between the colonies and Parliament, beginning with the Stamp Act of 1765. Most critical to the merchants’ concerns were the £2 million sterling in outstanding debts owed to them by their North American counterparts.

The merchants claimed that, a total stop is now put to the export trade with the greatest and most important part of North America, the public revenue is threatened with a large and fatal diminution, the petitioners with grievous distress, and thousands of industrious artificers and manufacturers with utter ruin. The petitioners begged Parliament to consider re-implementing the system of mercantile trade between Britain and the American colonies, which had served the interests of all parties in the empire prior to 1764.

Following the Coercive Acts of 1774, the colonies had quickly agreed to reinstate the non-importation agreements first devised in response to the Stamp Act in the autumn of 1765. They threatened to enter non-exportation agreements if Britain failed to meet their demands by August 1775. Because debts the colonies owed British merchants were generally paid in exports, not currency, such an action would indeed have caused tremendous financial loss to the British economy. Non-importation had a comparatively minor impact, because British merchants could and did find other markets. However, no one else would pay the vast debts owed to the merchants by tobacco planters like Thomas Jefferson or New England shipping magnates like John Hancock.

From the Pew Research Center: On Eve of Inauguration, Americans Expect Nation’s Deep Political Divisions to Persist

Polarization shows little signs of abating

- Click here for the study.

The current mood stands in stark contrast to January 2009, before Barack Obama took office. At that time, just 46% said the nation was more politically divided. But a few months into Obama’s first term, the share saying the country was more divided politically had risen to 61%.

The nature of the country’s political divisions is a rare point of partisan agreement: Comparable majorities of Democrats and Democratic leaners (88%) and Republicans and Republican leaners (84%) say the country is more divided these days than in the past.

The latest national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 4-9 among 1,502 adults, finds little optimism that the country’s political divisions will subside any time soon: 40% expect the country to be about as politically divided in five years as it is today, while 31% think it will be even more divided; just 24% expect divisions to lessen.

In the wake of Trump’s election, there has been an increase in the share of Republicans who think the country will be less divided five years from now. Still, just 36% of Republicans say this; even fewer Democrats (16%) expect the country’s political divisions to narrow in the coming years.

For more:

- LONG DIVISION: Measuring the polarization of American politics.

From the Washington Post: The traditional way of reporting on a president is dead. And Trump’s press secretary killed it.

File this under commentary, but the author - Margaret Sullivan - makes an interesting point about the changing relationship between the media and the presidency under Trump.

- Click here for the article.

Official words do matter, but they shouldn’t be what news organizations pay most attention to, as they try to present the truth about a new administration.

White House press briefings are “access journalism,” in which official statements — achieved by closeness to the source — are taken at face value and breathlessly reported as news. And that is over. Dead.

Spicer’s statement should be seen for what it is: Remarks made over the casket at the funeral of access journalism.

As Jessica Huseman of ProPublica put it: “Journalists aren’t going to get answers from Spicer. We are going to get answers by digging. By getting our hands dirty. So let’s all do that.”

She’s right. So was Tim O’Brien, executive editor of Bloomberg View and a Trump biographer, who urged journalists to remember that the White House briefing room is “spoon-feeding and Trump is a habitual fabulist.”

There’s a deeper story here, beyond a single briefing, no matter how memorable. Saturday made clearer than ever that President Trump intends to make the American media his foremost enemy.

During his first official visit to the CIA, Trump once again attacked the media, as he did throughout the campaign as he blacklisted news organizations and called reporters “scum.”

Journalists shouldn’t rise to the bait and decide to treat Trump as an enemy. Recalling at all times that their mission is truth-telling and holding public officials accountable, they should dig in, paying far more attention to actions than to sensational tweets or briefing-room lies — while still being willing to call out falsehoods clearly when they happen.

For more:

- What is "access journalism?"
-- The Price of Admission: Andrew Ross Sorkin’s debut and the limits of access journalism.
-- 'Access journalism' ... and the Silicon Valley reporter.
-- So Long, “Access Journalism” — & Good Riddance?

- Who is Press Secretary Sean Spicer?
-- Wikipedia: Sean Spicer?

- What is a White House Press Secretary?
-- Wikipedia: White House Press Secretary.

- Who is Washington Post reporter, and public editor, Margaret Sullivan?
-- Wikipedia: Margaret Sullivan.

- What is a public editor?
-- Wikipedia: Public Editor.

85th Texas Legislature preview

From Fox News: Trump reportedly forced to part with beloved cellphone

Trump is not a private citizen anymore.

- Click here for the article.

President Trump on Friday was forced to hand over his beloved Android cellphone in favor of a new encrypted phone he will use during his term in office, The New York Times reported.

The Times called Trump's Android his “Linus blanket” that held hundreds of contacts. The report said that security officials have also asked Trump to stop using the Twitter handle @RealDonaldTrump and to use @POTUS.

Trump recently told a friend that he had given up his phone, as security agencies had urged him to do. It was unclear whether he was following the lead of President Obama, the nation's first cellphone-toting president, who exchanged his personal device for a Blackberry heavily modified for security purposes.

The presidency has long been a lonely, isolating office, with security concerns keeping the commander in chief at a distance from the public.

Under Obama, worries about cyber intrusions — particularly by foreign governments — pulled the president's technology deeper into the security bubble as well. Many of the functions on Obama's Blackberry were blocked and only a handful of people had his phone number or email address.

Trump doesn't email, but he uses his phone to tweet — something he's made clear he plans to continue in office. He's known to make calls early in the morning and late at night, often seeking input from multiple sources when making a decision. Sometimes he leaves a voicemail.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., called Trump "amazingly accessible," saying the president-elect picks up his phone even when he doesn't know who is calling.

"My phone says, No Caller ID, so I'm not saying that it has anything to do with me," Corker said. "Nobody knows who it is that's calling when I'm calling."

From the NYT: With Trump in Charge, Climate Change References Purged From Website

Another indication of change in the Trump presidency, though it should be noted that Rick Perry acknowledged that human activity has contributed - at least a little - to climate change.

- Click here for the article.

Within moments of the inauguration of President Trump, the official White House website on Friday deleted nearly all mentions of climate change. The one exception: Mr. Trump’s vow to eliminate the Obama administration’s climate change policies, which previously had a prominent and detailed web page on whitehouse.gov.

The purge was not unexpected. It came as part of the full digital turnover of whitehouse.gov, including taking down and archiving all the Obama administration’s personal and policy pages. That also included a page devoted to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. At the same time, the official White House Twitter handles also changed over, allowing Mr. Trump to now post on Twitter as @POTUS.

But the digital change, which flashed into place at noon on Friday, immediately placed into sharp relief some of the starkest differences between the old president and the new. And for advocates of climate change policy, it presented the first concrete sign that Mr. Trump remains, as he was on the campaign trail, skeptical and dismissive of the established science of human-caused climate change, and committed to blocking policies to curb it.

Scientists fear the online deletions will extend far beyond changes to introductory websites and into the realm of government data. Climate change data gathered and stored by the United States government is considered among the most authoritative in the world. But scientists worry the data will be deleted during the Trump administration.

Since Mr. Trump’s election, about 50 scientists at universities around the country have volunteered their time — and computer servers — to save and store government data stored on the websites of the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, NOAA, and the United States Geological Services. Those websites keep records of key climate data such as atmospheric temperature trends, greenhouse gas emissions levels, and sea level rise.

The scientist gatherings have been organized by 314 Action — a nonprofit group named for the first three numbers of the mathematical concept Pi — which aims to make science more accessible to the public.

From C-Span: President Trump Official Documents Signing

The details necessary to actually become president - aside from the swearing in.

- Click here for the article.

From the Washington Post: Trump signs executive order that could effectively gut Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate

- Click here for the article.

President Trump signed an executive order late Friday giving federal agencies broad powers to unwind regulations created under the Affordable Care Act, which might include enforcement of the penalty for people who fail to carry the health insurance that the law requires of most Americans.

The executive order, signed in the Oval Office as one of the new president’s first actions, directs agencies to grant relief to all constituencies affected by the sprawling 2010 health-care law: consumers, insurers, hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, states and others. It does not describe specific federal rules to be softened or lifted, but it appears to give room for agencies to eliminate an array of ACA taxes and requirements.
However, some of these are embedded in the law, so it is unclear what latitude the executive branch will have.

Though the new administration’s specific intentions are not yet clear, the order’s breadth and early timing carry symbolic value for a president who made repealing the ACA — his predecessor’s signature domestic achievement — a leading campaign promise.

Additionally, the order’s language about easing economic and regulatory burdens aligns with long-standing Republican orthodoxy that the government exerts too heavy a hand on the U.S. health-care system.

- Click here for the text of the order.

For background:

- What is the Patient Protection and  Affordable Care Act?
- What are its main provisions?
- What is an Executive Order?

And for commentary:

- Trump’s Executive Order On Obamacare Means Everything And Does Nothing.
- What Trump's Obamacare Executive Order Means.
- Trump’s executive order on Obamacare, explained by two health policy experts.

Here's the new White House website

- Click here for it.

Trump Inauguration Speech (FULL) | ABC News

From Reuters: Executive actions ready to go as Trump prepares to take office

Now President Trump is prepared to hit the ground running.

- Click here for the article.

Donald Trump is preparing to sign executive actions on his first day in the White House on Friday to take the opening steps to crack down on immigration, build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and roll back outgoing President Barack Obama's policies.

Trump, a Republican elected on Nov. 8 to succeed Democrat Obama, arrived in Washington on a military plane with his family a day before he will be sworn in during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

Aides said Trump would not wait to wield one of the most powerful tools of his office, the presidential pen, to sign several executive actions that can be implemented without the input of Congress.

"He is committed to not just Day 1, but Day 2, Day 3 of enacting an agenda of real change, and I think that you're going to see that in the days and weeks to come," Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said on Thursday, telling reporters to expect activity on Friday, during the weekend and early next week.

. . . Trump's advisers vetted more than 200 potential executive orders for him to consider signing on healthcare, climate policy, immigration, energy and numerous other issues, but it was not clear how many orders he would initially approve, according to a member of the Trump transition team who was not authorized to talk to the press.

Signing off on orders puts Trump, who has presided over a sprawling business empire but has never before held public office, in a familiar place similar to the CEO role that made him famous, and will give him some early victories before he has to turn to the lumbering process of getting Congress to pass bills.

The strategy has been used by other presidents, including Obama, in their first few weeks in office.

"He wants to show he will take action and not be stifled by Washington gridlock," said Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer.

Trump is expected to impose a federal hiring freeze and take steps to delay a Labor Department rule due to take effect in April that would require brokers who give retirement advice to put their clients' best interests first.

He also will give official notice he plans to withdraw from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, Spicer said. "I think you will see those happen very shortly," Spicer said.

From the Texas Taxpayers and Research Organization: An Introduction to School Finance in Texas

This is a great look at school finance. Lengthy though.

We will look through this later this semester in 2306.

- Click here for the document.

- Here is a link to the website of the TTARA.

A variety of issues on the agenda of the 85th session

At least a partial list right now - expect more:

- The "bathroom bill," also know as the Women's Privacy Act.
- Border security
- Sanctuary cities.
- The Franchise Tax
- Reforming public school funding
- Abortion - burial of fetal remains
- Property tax relief
- Funding for Planned Parenthood
- Constitutional Carry
- Reforming Child Protective Services
- Private school vouchers - "education savings accounts"
- Rules related to ride-hailing: Uber and Lyft.
- Ban on texting while driving
- Limits on toll roads
- Outlaw use of traffic cameras
- Reforming marijuana laws
- Ethics reform: Lobbyists disclosures, transparency
- Mental care access.
- Highway funding
- Pension reform
- The costs of higher education
- Open records reform
- Local control
- Criminal justice reform

That's plenty for now.

Here are a handful of sources for more info on these issues:

- Austin American Statesman: Your Guide to the 85th Legislative Session.
- Austin American Statesman: 85TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE.

- Houston Chronicle: Texas needs to dump its franchise tax and come up with something better.
- KXAN: Break-down of top bills during 85th Texas Legislative Session.
- Austin American Statesman: Will lawmakers expand disclosure of lobbyist spending, transparency?
- Dallas Morning News: Texas lawmakers set to debate bathrooms, education, CPS as 2017 session launches.

From Blinn College: On the Road to the 85th Legislative Session and Discussion of TACC (Texas Association of Community Colleges) and CCATT (Community College Association of Texas Trustees)

Blinn College offers a terrific set of power points focusing on issues relevant to community colleges in the state and their strategy for achieving their objectives in the 85th session of the Texas Legislature.

These will be worth looking at in class.

- Click here for them.

From the Houston Chronicle: Woodlands crowd grills Brady over ACA repeal

Repealing Obamacare may not be as popular as some had hoped.

- Click here for the article.

U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, faced a skeptical and at times testy crowd Tuesday as dozens of people arrived at an afternoon meeting to make sure he knew they would not let the Affordable Care Act end without a fight.

The hourlong session, tucked away in a back meeting room at The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce headquarters, was not publicly announced and was billed by Brady's staff as a chance for "local people affected by ObamaCare" to "share their experiences with rising costs and loss of coverage and choice."

Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is a vocal critic of the law known as Obamacare and is among the conservative congressional leaders determined to repeal it quickly and replace at an unspecified later date.

But if he was expecting a completely friendly, like-minded group, he quickly found something else from many in the 50 or so who crowded the room.

"Don't lie!" shouted Emily Hoppel, a 39-year-old with her 2-year-old son perched on her hip, when Brady moved from one goal of dismantling ACA to another of defunding Planned Parenthood, which he said used taxpayer money for abortion.

In the Legislature - 1/19/17

A few random stories from the Texas Tribune:

- As Texas debates CPS fix, caseworkers face long days, late nights.
- Lawmakers likely to wage in-state tuition policy fight again this year.
- Expecting spike in special ed students, advocates push for better services.
- Joe Straus: Legislators need to be careful when it comes to "bathroom bill"
- Child Protective Services funding gets final OK — with restrictions

From CityLab: The Great Texas Pension Fix - Houston owes its police, fire, and city workers about $7.8 billion, and it doesn’t exactly have the cash on hand. Their hard-fought solution could serve as a model for the rest of Texas, and the nation.

Not only does this story touch on city budgets, but it also illustrates the concept of states - in this case cities - as laboratories of democracy.

- Click here for the article.

When Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner took office last year, he inherited a sweeping pension crisis. The city had an unfunded liability of $5.6 billion, a figure representing Houston’s obligations to its fire, police, and municipal pension systems.

Then it got worse: After he took office and got a closer look at the books, Turner saw the revised figure—$7.8 billion.

Pensions are the storm clouds on the horizon that threaten to wash out the so-called Texas Miracle, the wave of new jobs that kept the Lone Star State afloat through the Great Recession. Taken together, the four largest cities in Texas—Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio—owe more than $22 billion in pension shortfalls. Dallas and Houston rank second and fourth, respectively, on the list of cities nationwide with the largest unfunded pension liabilities, per a ranking by Moody’s. (At number one? Chicago.)

The road to pension crises is paved with good intentions. Officials in Houston and elsewhere tend to plan for funding pensions with sunny days in mind. When markets tank, the investments contributing to pension funds wither. And when the economy stumbles, cities sometimes withhold pension contributions to make up budget gaps. These effects add up over time, and correcting course usually involves contentious politics. Texas cities may have it worse than most because the local political climate is so hostile to tax revenues (even when Texas cities experience miraculous growth). Anywhere, though, officials and employees tend to kick the can down the road. It’s retirement, after all.

Admitting that you have a problem is the first step toward solving it; cities in Texas, whether they like it or not, are being forced to take that step.

Houston is further along than most. A proposal that the city will put before the Texas legislature this year would restructure the city’s obligations. The new dispensation would include benchmarks for bringing all parties back to the table to renegotiate terms, as necessary, until the unfunded liability is funded. It would also set a time period for meeting that obligation: a 30-year amortization schedule, something resembling a traditional home mortgage.

From the Washington Post: How Donald Trump came up with ‘Make America Great Again’

They turned out to be four very powerful words.

Here's a look at how the phrase came about.

- Click here for the article.

It happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the day after Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit in the Oval Office again.

But on the 26th floor of a golden Manhattan tower that bears his name, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at hand.

And in typical fashion, the first thing he thought about was how to brand it.
One after another, phrases popped into his head. “We Will Make America Great.” That one did not have the right ring. Then, “Make America Great.” But that sounded like a slight to the country.

And then, it hit him: “Make America Great Again.”

“I said, ‘That is so good.’ I wrote it down,” Trump recalled in an interview. “I went to my lawyers. I have a lot of lawyers in-house. We have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, ‘See if you can have this registered and trademarked.’ ”

Five days later, Trump signed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use “Make America Great Again” for “political action committee services, namely, promoting public awareness of political issues and fundraising in the field of politics.” He enclosed a $325 registration fee.

His was a vision that ran against the conventional wisdom of the time — in fact, it was “much the opposite,” Trump said.

To save itself, the Republican establishment was convinced, the GOP would have to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. “Make America Great Again” was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.
It sounded like a death wish.

But Trump had seen something different in the country, and in the daily lives of its struggling citizens.

“I felt that jobs were hurting,” he said. “I looked at the many types of illness our country had, and whether it’s at the border, whether it’s security, whether it’s law and order or lack of law and order. Then, of course, you get to trade, and I said to myself, ‘What would be good?’ I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, ‘Make America Great Again.’ ”

From the Guardian: Donald Trump dossier: intelligence sources vouch for author's credibility

If you like spy stories, you'll love this.

It describes the career of Christopher Steele - the British spy responsible for the dossier alleging that Russia has compromising information on Donald Trump. The facts are still in dispute, but the details about how spy agencies work is worth your time.

- Click here for the article.

Over a career that spanned more than 20 years, Steele performed a series of roles, but always appeared to be drawn back to Russia; he was, sources say, head of MI6’s Russia desk. When the agency was plunged into panic over the poisoning of its agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, the then chief, Sir John Scarlett, needed a trusted senior officer to plot a way through the minefield ahead – so he turned to Steele. It was Steele, sources say, who correctly and quickly realised that Litvinenko’s death was a Russian state “hit”.

As good as he was, Steele was unlikely to get the top MI6 job, perhaps because his specialisms were not a priority in that period – Russian espionage was taking a back seat to Islamic terrorism and non-state threats. And, of course, there is money to be made in the private sector – lots of it, particularly in the past two years. He decided to quit the service in 2009.

As the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, exerted influence in all kinds of spheres, so Steele’s background made him hot property. Though he could not travel to Russia, he appears to have maintained his contacts and made new ones, using old-school techniques: going out, meeting people, shaking hands, making friends – and paying for information.

With his business partner, Chris Burrows, he set up the London-based company Orbis Business Intelligence, which was busy and expanding. Their operation would have been a good choice for anyone trying to gather intelligence about Russia and Trump.

It is unlikely that Steele would have had direct contact with the unnamed Kremlin officials who allegedly gave sensitive information on the president-elect. In fact, it’s believed the former spy hasn’t been able to visit Russia for more than 20 years. Rather, Steele would have tapped up his network of sources deep inside the country, some of them dating from his time there and others cultivated later, British officials suggested.

In turn, these individuals will have had sources of their own. Steele would likely have subcontracted some of his Trump investigation to trusted intermediaries in Moscow, who will have reported back to him via secure channels.

For more: What we know – and what's true – about the Trump-Russia dossier.

Here's a key allegation:

It says Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years”. Moscow’s aim is “to encourage splits and divisions in the western alliance” and to upend the “ideals-based international order” set up after the second world war. Putin’s preference, according to the report, is for a return to the “Great Power” politics of the 19th century, where big states pursue their own interests.

Essay Topic for GOVT 2306

1000 Word Essay Topic
GOVT 2306

The Texas Legislature only meets for 140 days every two years. Lucky for us, we’ll be having class during that time. This will be the 85th time the legislature has met since Texas became a state in 1845. The legislature is responsible for passing the laws which will then be implemented by the executive branch. Several thousand bills will be introduced at the beginning of the session, and some will pass into law.

I’d like you to select one of the items that is on the agenda – a piece of legislation on a topical issue – and follow it. See what items the legislature thinks are important and how they choose to address it. This class will be over before the session is over – May 29th – but you should be able to determine whether or not it is likely that the law will in fact pass.

During the first week of class, I will provide a list of the issues likely to dominate this legislative session so you will have something to select from, but you can do your own searches and find this out for yourself. I’ll provide more clarity as we get further into the semester.

The final product should be at least 1000 words long, be objective, contain at least three outside references, and follow standard writing convention like MLA. And of course, its best that the work be grammatically solid and well written.

Essay Topic for GOVT 2305

1000 Word Essay Topic
GOVT 2305

Obviously the major story this spring on the national level is the transition of the presidency from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. As you are probably aware, this is more than just a transition from one person to another, it’s a transition from a relatively traditional – though not extreme – liberal to a conservative, albeit an unconventional one. So we should expect changes in how the presidency will operate, what policies it will produce, and how it will implement the law.

In this essay I want you to look at specific area of public policy and explain what changes we might see in it – or not, perhaps there will be no change in it. If that’s the case, explain why as well.

You have plenty of public policy areas to choose from, and plenty of places to look for information, though you should be careful about where you go. Over the course of the semester we will talk about items related to the topic, but start thinking about what areas of public policy you might want to focus on. Here are a few areas to consider:

- environmental policy
- labor policy
- civil rights
- military policy
- regulatory policy
- trade policy
- health policy
- diplomacy
- tax policy
- drug policy
- energy policy

And this just scratches the surface. I’ll provide more guidance later in the semester, but for now I’d like you to select an area to focus on. Read up on the direction taken by the Obama Administration on it and what changes the Trump Administration might make to it, as well as how they might do it. Also speculate on how successful they might be.

The final product should be at least 1000 words long, be objective, contain at least three outside references, and follow standard writing convention like MLA. And of course, its best that the work be grammatically solid and well written.

From the Washington Post: Obama largely commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning, U.S. soldier convicted for leaking classified information

Checking and balancing:

- Click here for the article.

President Obama largely commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, an Army private convicted in 2013 of taking secret diplomatic and military documents and disclosing them to WikiLeaks.

Obama also granted a full and complete pardon to Ret. Marine General James E. Cartwright for lying to the FBI in a probe of a leak of classified information about a covert U.S.-Israeli cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear program. A former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was known as Obama’s favorite general, Cartwright pleaded guilty in October and was sentenced last week to two years in prison.

In addition, Obama granted clemency to about 200 low-level drug offenders who were sentenced under harsh drug laws and would have received lighter sentences if convicted today. In all, the president commuted 209 individuals and pardoned another 64. He is expected to grant more drug commutations on Wednesday.

More from Vox: Chelsea Manning’s commutation is part of a historic year in reducing prison sentences.

A few days before leaving office, President Obama broke one of his own records. Pardoning 64 people and shortening the prison sentences of another 209, he made Tuesday the biggest use of clemency by a president in a single day in US history — breaking a record he himself set last month.

It’s the culmination of a year-long effort to use the president’s clemency power to get hundreds of people — almost all of them nonviolent drug offenders — out of prison sooner.

Depending on how you look at it, Obama’s effort in the twilight of his presidency is either a historic act of criminal justice reform — or too little too late. Obama’s rejected thousands of petitions for reduced sentences, and there are still thousands more waiting for review — and the Trump administration, under attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions, is extremely unlikely to give them a second look.

Obama still has more time to get even more people out of federal prison — after all, presidents historically get most aggressive with clemency in the very last days of their term. But while it’s now clear that Obama’s done something very significant indeed, it’s also near-certain that it will, in some ways, fall short.

From the Texas Tribune: Here’s what the Texas bathroom bill means in plain English

An analysis of Senate Bill 6.

- Click here for the article.

Following North Carolina’s lead, Texas Republicans last week unveiled the so-called “bathroom bill” to regulate bathroom use and keep transgender Texans from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

Senate Bill 6, one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities, would require transgender people to use bathrooms in public schools, government buildings and public universities based on “biological sex.” The measure would also pre-empt local nondiscrimination ordinances that allow transgender Texans to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.

To help you understand the proposal, below is the text of SB 6, annotated with our own context and analysis. Text with a red strikethrough are being proposed for removal from the current law; text with a green underline are additions.

 It's a good look at what bills actually mean.

- Click here for SB 6.

From the Texas Tribune: In dueling budget proposals, Texas House and Senate billions apart

Each chamber in the Texas Legislature has introduced their respective budgets, and they are $8 billion apart. The House is far more generous than the Senate.

- Click here for the article.

Texas House and Senate leaders unveiled dueling budget proposals — starting nearly $8 billion apart — in separate moves Tuesday that foreshadowed remarkably different priorities in the two chambers during a legislative session that promises to be even more tightfisted than usual.

Texas Senate Finance Chairwoman Jane Nelson on Tuesday proposed a $213.4 billion two-year base budget.

An hour later, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus outlined the lower chamber’s base budget, which included $221.3 billion over two years. The nearly $8 billion difference between the chambers — about $5 billion of which comes from state revenue — offers a starting point for leaders to begin negotiating how to spread limited funds this legislative session.

The proposed House budget offers about $2.2 billion more in state funds for education than the Senate’s. The House proposal for state spending on health and human services is about $2 billion larger than the Senate’s as well.

Nelson’s proposal would tap $103.6 billion in state general revenue, the portion of the budget over which lawmakers have the most control. That’s less than the $104.9 billion that Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar estimates is at lawmakers’ disposal amid relatively dour economic forecasts. General revenue is

“While we will need to prioritize and make efficient use of our resources, I am confident we can meet the challenges ahead,” Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said in a statement.

Straus’s budget proposal, on the other hand, would require about $108.9 billion — or $4 billion more than Hegar’s estimate. Straus said his base budget prioritized “investments in children and our future” while increasing state spending by less than 1 percent.

“This is the first step toward producing a balanced budget that reflects the priorities of the Texas House and does not raise taxes,” the San Antonio Republican said in a prepared statement.

Where House budget writers would find the additional $4 billion was not immediately clear Tuesday but state Rep. Drew Darby, a San Angelo Republican and House budget expert, hinted that his colleagues would consider tapping the state's Rainy Day Fund, which holds more than $10 billion.

For more on what's in the article:

- Legislative Budget Board.
- House Budget.
- Senate Budget.
- Texas Senate Committee on Finance.
- Texas Comptroller.
- Rainy Day Fund.
- Texas Association of Business.

From the Texas Tribune: Can Texas Republicans hold America’s reddest large urban county?

Tarrant County - Fort Worth - is the only large county in Texas not dominated by Democrats.

The author tries to find out why. Demographics seems to have a lot to do with it.

- Click here for the article.

Among the state’s five biggest counties, Tarrant is the only one that hasn’t backed a Democratic presidential candidate in the past decade. The 2016 presidential election heightened Tarrant’s status as an outlier. Even as the rest of the state’s big-city territories moved deeper into the Democratic column, Tarrant steadfastly emerged as America’s most conservative large urban county.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office this week, won the county by an 8.6-point margin. It was the narrowest win for a GOP presidential nominee in decades in Tarrant. But among the country's 20 largest counties, Tarrant was only one of two that swung Trump's way in November — and it had the wider margin.

Across Tarrant County, Democratic pockets are fewer and less powerful than their Republican counterparts. All four of the state senate districts that fall in Tarrant County are represented by Republicans. The GOP also holds eight of the county’s 11 state House seats. Four of the five county commissioner court seats are held by Republicans.
Residents, elected officials and experts here point to a nuanced union of demographic, cultural and political forces to explain why.

. . . Tarrant’s minority population, which tends to lean Democratic, hasn’t caught up to the state’s other big urban counties. At the same time, many Tarrant voters have a storied history of preferring practical governance to partisanship, according to officials and political observers. They say that helps support the moderate faction of the GOP, especially in Fort Worth, the nation's 16th-largest city.

Then there’s the county’s development pattern. A lot of Tarrant remains rural. And, unlike Harris, Dallas and Travis counties, many of Tarrant’s affluent suburbs and conservative bedroom communities lie within its borders, not outside them. That’s helped give rise to the NE Tarrant Tea Party, a passionate and organized group that simultaneously supports far-right local candidates and serves as a powerful base for statewide Republicans.

From Houston Public Media: Federal Judge Rules Pasadena Infringed On Latino Voting Rights, Orders Changes

This story illustrates a variety of topics we'll cover in class includes federalism, voting rights, equal protection, and the courts.

- Click here for the article.

A federal judge ruled late Friday that the the City of Pasadena promoted and implemented a voting plan intended to dilute Latino power at the polls.

In a 113-page ruling (a link is below), U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal ordered city officials to revert to an eight-single-member City Council voting plan used before 2014. That was the year voters narrowly approved a plan that elected six members from districts and two at large. In summarizing the ruling, the judge wrote:

“In the Supreme Court’s foundational decision on vote dilution, Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), the Court ruled that dilution was tantamount to infringing the very right to vote. ‘Overweighting and overvaluation of the votes of those living here has the certain effect of dilution and undervaluation of the votes of those living there. The resulting discrimination against those individual voters living in disfavored areas is easily demonstrable mathematically. Their right to vote is simply not the same right to vote as that of those living in a favored part of the [jurisdiction].’ In Pasadena, Texas, Latino voters under the current 6–2 map and plan 56 do not have the same right to vote as their Anglo neighbors.”|

Aside from restoring the previous voting plan, Rosenthal also said she will supervise the 2017 municipal elections in May and watch for any efforts to suppress Latino voting rights. The judge also ordered Pasadena to submit any future changes in its voting plan to the U.S. Justice Department for civil rights pre-clearance.

Here's a link to the federal judge's ruling:

- MALDEF vs City of Pasadena.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this in the Supreme Court in a couple years.

For more on the items mentions in the article:

- 14th Amendment.
- 15th Amendment.
- Reynolds v Sims.
- Voting Rights Act.
- Shelby v Holder.
- Pre-Clearance.
- MALDEF.
- U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal.
- Vote Dilution.

For other stories on the subject:

- Pasadena back under U.S. oversight - Judge orders elections be supervised until 2023 after Latino rights violated.

From the Hill: Republicans vote to weaken federal regulatory powers

Reigning in the federal bureaucracy seems at the top of the Republican to do list.

- Click here for the article.

Empowered by President-elect Donald Trump, Republicans lawmakers are moving to gut the vast regulatory powers federal agencies enjoyed during the Obama administration.

On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled House passed the Regulatory Accountability Act which puts a ceiling on the regulatory costs coming out of Washington by instructing federal agencies to craft the "least expensive" rules they possibly can. It passed 238-183 on a largely party line vote with five Democrats crossing the aisle.

This would give Congress more control over federal agencies.

“Some of the most significant decisions in Washington --- those that most affect the lives of the public --- are made by those who don’t stand for election,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said.

“What happens when the EPA imposes rules that deprive people of their property rights? Or when the Department of Health and Human Services tries to force nuns to violate their religion? Or when the VA perpetuates a system that lets veterans die while they wait for care?” McCarthy asked.

“The people can’t vote out the bureaucrats who write rules at the EPA or at the Department of Health and Human Services. They can’t vote out bad leaders at the VA,” he added. “And these bureaucrats know it.”

Regulatory reform is a key part of Trump’s economic agenda, and Republican lawmakers are working quickly to reshape the way in which regulations are developed before the president-elect takes office next Friday.

McCarthy indicated the House would begin repealing specific regulations after the inauguration.