My Statesman: Greg Abbott presses Texas Supreme Court to limit gay-marriage ruling

More - expected - conflict between Texas and the U.S.

- Click here for the article.

Ratcheting up pressure on the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, Gov. Greg Abbott and other leading GOP officials Friday urged the court to revive efforts to abolish employee benefits the city of Houston provides to married same-sex couples.

The case has become a rallying point for the state’s social conservatives, with the stakes growing larger now that Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Attorney General Ken Paxton have weighed in — telling the court that the Houston lawsuit provides an opportunity to limit the impact of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage.

“This court should take this opportunity to remind the lower courts that all disputes involving the right to same-sex marriage have not been resolved,” Abbott, Patrick and Paxton said in a friend-of-the-court brief.

The Houston case presents a particular challenge for a court that strives to appear above politics while its justices are forced to run every six years as members of a particular political party.

Opponents of same-sex marriage have peppered the court with dozens of emails asking justices to strike down the Houston benefits or face a voter backlash in future Republican primaries. The barrage makes it clear that some GOP voters view the case as a litmus test for party loyalty and adherence to Christian values.

From the UK Indepedent: Texas governor Greg Abbott ‘secretly’ proposes rule requiring burial and cremation of aborted fetuses - The governor will bypass state legislation to implement the rule

A twist on the rule making process.

- Click here for the article.

Only days after reproductive rights advocates celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a law that would have shuttered the vast majority of abortion clinics in Texas, Gov Greg Abbott quietly proposed new rules that would require aborted foetuses to be buried or cremated.

Mr Abbott published the proposal 1 July to be available for public comment for 30 days. Following that period, the new rules could easily be implemented, bypassing a vote by state legislators.

“Governor Abbott believes human and foetal remains should not be treated like medical waste, and the proposed rule changes affirms the value and dignity of all life,” the governor’s spokesperson, Ciara Matthews, told theAssociated Press.

In Texas, state agencies can implement new rules without receiving formal approval from lawmakers. Although, it is unusual for governors to propose the rule themselves, but agency staff. Along with his appointed director of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, Mr Abbott proposed the new rules without formal review period with the agency.

Abortion rights advocates see the move as yet another effort by the anti-abortion governor to make abortion inaccessible for Texas women, and the new rules would bring non-medical ceremonial, non-medical processes into medical regulation.

“I think the biggest point is you have [a state] agency, through the governor’s fiat, propose his own idea of tradition and ceremony into a space where it doesn’t belong,” legal counsel for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas Blake Rocap told The Independent.

From TribTalk: Greg Abbott's right about one thing: We should amend the Constitution

The author says up from that he agrees with very little of what Governor Abbott has to say, but seems to think that his proposals for modifying the Constitution are worth while, and that a nation-wide discussion of if and how the document should be changed is a good thing.

- Click here for the article.  

The only way to make sense of Abbott’s remarks is to view them as acknowledgment that the Constitution we have, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, may not be the Constitution we want to structure our politics in the future. I couldn’t agree more with the governor — with whom I usually agree on very little — in this case. We are long overdue for a serious discussion about the adequacy of a very old Constitution drafted for a very different country and world. Where Abbott and I almost certainly disagree is on what the particular defects of the Constitution are.

My own favorite presidential campaign was that of 1912, when all four candidates — Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Eugene Debs, and William Howard Taft — offered serious suggestions about constitutional reform or, as in the case of Taft, defenses of the constitutional status quo. Perhaps as a result, the ensuing decade featured four genuinely important amendments, even though one of them (the 18th Amendment, which introduced Prohibition) was later judged to be a failure and repealed. But that decade exemplified the view, as explicated by Publius in the very first Federalist, that Americans were in fact capable of engaging in genuine “reflection and choice” about how we wished to be governed.

The ensuing century, alas, has seen a diminution of that faith. Most of us seem scared to death (sometimes for legitimate reasons) of the viewpoints and political preferences of those who disagree with us, and the idea of a new constitutional convention, as I have learned over the last decade while advocating one, is likely to provoke horror. But to fear such change is, ultimately, to believe that the promise of a truly democratic politics is impossible because “We the People” are no longer capable of engaging in sufficient “reflection and choice.”

I'd like to point out that the last sentence points to the precise reason why the state of Texas wants its students to take two classes in government. It allows - hopefully - for the knowledge necessary to engage in reflection and choice.

Read up on the author - Sanford Levison - here.

Governor Abbott joins list of politicians calling for a convention to amend the United States Constitution

Looks like good material for the spring semester.

The Texas Tribune writes up his call here: Abbott Calls on States to Amend U.S. Constitution.
Here's a direct link to his full proposal: Restoring the Rule of Law with States Leading the Way.

He calls it the Texas Plan and its intended to reign in what he deems excessive activity by the national government, laws and regulations that interfere with the states. On page 4 of the document he proposes offering nine constitutional amendments.

I. Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one State.

II. Require Congress to balance its budget.

III. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from creating federal law.

IV. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from preempting state law.

V. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

VI. Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law.

VII. Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution.

VIII. Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds.

IX. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a federal law or regulation.

These will be worth considering independently over the course of the semester. I've also intended - at some point - to summarize the lawsuits Abbott filed against the national government when he was Attorney General. I have a hunch there is a strong relationship between the subject of those lawsuits and these proposed amendments.

Not everyone is on board - including some fellow Republicans. The Texas Tribune article concludes with some cautionary notes:

Critics of the convention approach say the constitutional rules governing a meeting of the states could allow for a "runaway convention," in which an unlimited number of amendments could be offered, potentially creating drastic changes to the U.S. Constitution. Tea Party groups opposed Perry's 2011 proposal on similar grounds.

Konni Burton, now a Republican state senator from Colleyville, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that year that such a convention could allow "anyone to offer up any number of amendments... based on their own ideology and interests, which could ultimately radically change our Constitution." At the time, she was speaking on behalf of the NE Tarrant Tea Party.

Abbott insists those fears are unfounded. His policy paper argues the Constitution "leaves it to the states to limit the scope of the convention." And even if additional amendments were offered, he writes, "none of the delegates' efforts would become law without approval from three-fourths of the states."

It concludes with a quote from Senator Cruz that ties this effort into an originalistic view of the Constitution. I'm working on written assignments that will dig into the different ways that the Constitution is interpreted.

As Abbott was preparing to unveil his proposal on Friday, his protégé in the attorney general’s office, presidential contender Ted Cruz, was pledging to push for “quite a few” constitutional amendments of his own if elected. Speaking with reporters while campaigning in Iowa, the U.S. senator from Texas said a balanced budget amendment is among the add-ons the country most critically needs.

Cruz, the former solicitor general of Texas, went on to reiterate his calls for constitutional amendments that would impose term limits for members of Congress and justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. He has also proposed a constitutional amendment that would leave it to state legislatures to define marriage.

“There are many more amendments we need, in part because the federal government and the courts have gotten so far away from the original text and the original understanding of our Constitution,” Cruz told reporters after a stop in Webster City, Iowa.

In the news: Christmastime pardons

You should anticipate a handful of questions about the separated powers and the checks and balances on the final next week. Here are some items that popped regarding on of them.

One of the principle checks the executive has over the judiciary is the pardon (also the reprieve along with granting amnesties for a category of people). Pardons have also become something of a holiday tradition. Both Governor Abbot and President Obama participated in that tradition - the governor was much more stingy.

- Gov. Greg Abbott pardons four Texans who committed minor crimes.

- Obama’s clemency list brings joy to the lucky and anguish to the disappointed.

Grits for Breakfast is unimpressed with Abbot's 4 pardons and wonders why there isn't a greater call for large scale pardons for non-violent drug offenders. There's been a movement in that direction both on the state and national level.

- Thanks for nothing, Greg Abbott: Why conservatives should demand 'industrial-scale' clemency.

I'm not a great fan of the Christmastime pardon tradition, but at least it acknowledges the gubernatorial function. So far, Greg Abbott has shirked this responsibility. To his discredit, in Abbott's first year as governor, Barack Obama has granted clemency to more Texans than him, and Obama's clemency record is abysmal.
It's not like the Texas governor really does much: Sign or veto bills, make appointments, and clemency really are the main things on his plate under the state constitution. But one of those three has been all but abandoned.

The American Conservative this week published an article lamenting "small trickles of clemency" by President Obama and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo "where what is demanded is a rushing, roaring pipeline scaled to the globally unprecedented size of our prison population and incarceration rate. We need industrial-scale clemency."

As the author recognized, "the real action is at the state level, which handles most policing, sentencing, and imprisoning." In this discussion, former Gov. Rick Perry made an appearance among "recent governors [who] have distinguished themselves with their appalling miserliness." Citing a data point which originated with research on Grits, he declared that "Rick Perry appointed a clemency board of tough-on-crime hardcases, then rejected two-thirds of their pardon and commutation endorsements."
Clemency these days mostly comes up in the context of capital murder and innocence cases. But this article suggests that governors embrace "industrial-scale" clemency aimed at reversing mass incarceration.

And in the world of celebrity pardons:

- A Christmastime Pardon for Robert Downey Jr.

The actor, who spent more than a year in prison following a drug conviction in 1996, was among 91 people pardoned Thursday by California Governor Jerry Brown.

Catching up with Governor Abbott

He's been very busy.

- Gov. Greg Abbott heading to Cuba.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday announced that he will lead a delegation to Havana, Cuba next week to talk travel, trade and exports. “Opening the door to business with Texas will expand free enterprise and the freedom that flows from it. I look forward to expanding business opportunities for both Texas and Cuba,” Abbott said in a statement.

The visit is Abbott’s second international trip as governor, and it comes after President Obama this summer announced that the U.S. was re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who is charging hard for the Republican presidential nomination, has called Obama’s decision a tragic mistake. Cruz’s father fled Cuba’s dictatorial regime in the 1950s. But other Texans have welcomed the thawing relations, including a delegation of business leaders who visited Cuba in April to discuss trade.

- Greg Abbott tells mayors they can't ban guns in city halls.

Texas mayors cannot prohibit the concealed carry of handguns in city halls and other government buildings even if they contain security-sensitive areas such as courtrooms, according to Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott, the former attorney general, last month told his successor Ken Paxton that under a new law that went into effect Sept. 1, city, county and agency leaders must allow concealed handgun license holders to carry their weapons into government buildings. The Abbott memo was sent in response to letters from Hays and Tom Green County officials asking Paxton to clarify when and where they can continue to ban concealed carry in their facilities.

- Greg Abbott’s pension board pick draws protests from labor.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s choice to lead the Texas Pension Review Board has drawn sharp criticism from labor organizations that equated the appointment to a betrayal of trust by the governor. Abbott tapped Josh McGee on Monday, lauding the Houston economist as a leading national expert on retirement policy — a fine fit for a board that reviews the health of public retirement systems, studies potential problems and recommends solutions. Josh McGee was named to lead the Texas Pension Review Board by Gov. Greg Abbott. A dozen labor groups representing police and firefighters, however, quickly called on Abbott to rescind the appointment, calling McGee one of the state’s harshest critics of public pensions.

 - Greg Abbott and faith groups head toward showdown on Syrian refugees.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office appears headed toward a legal showdown with refugee resettlement agencies and their sponsoring faith organizations over Abbott’s efforts to keep any Syrian refugees from resettling in Texas in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks. Following Abbott’s directive, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Chris Traylor on Thursday sent a toughly worded letter to 19 refugee resettlement agencies in Texas — including Caritas and the Refugee Services of Texas in Austin — asking that they scrap any plans to resettle Syrian refugees in Texas and that they notify his office by 4 p.m. Friday if they had any plans to resettle Syrians in the state.

After consulting with a number of the resettlement agencies and representatives of their sponsoring religious denominations, Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact, an umbrella group for Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups, wrote Traylor a letter Friday expressing their “shock and dismay,” describing his letter as “an unprecedented attempt on the part of a state agency to pressure private, nonprofit organizations to violate federal law and their federal contractual obligations.” By directing the agencies to refuse to resettle Syrians, Moorhead said that Abbott and Traylor are asking the agencies to violate federal anti-discrimination statues, and “we cannot imagine how any organization could contemplate complying with HHSC’s directive without first obtaining legal counsel.”

Abbott calls for crackdown on "sanctuary cities"

First, a definition. This is from Wikipedia's entry of sanctuary cities:

Sanctuary city is a term that is applied by some to cities in the United States or Canada that have policies designed to not prosecute illegal aliens. These practices can be by law (de jure) or they can be by habit (de facto). The term generally applies to cities that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about an individual's immigration status. The designation has no legal meaning.

According to this list, Texas has three such cities (Dallas, Austin, and Houston). The criteria are loose, so other cities - notably San Antonio - also tend to make the list.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the governor is trying to pressure the Dallas County sheriff to reverse their policy and is promising to pursue legislation regarding the issue on 2017:

Gov. Greg Abbott, targeting “sanctuary city” policies on immigration, warned Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez on Monday to back down from a policy change on federal immigration detention requests.

“Your refusal to fully participate in a federal law enforcement program intended to keep dangerous criminals off the streets leaves the State no choice but to take whatever actions are necessary to protect our fellow Texans,” Abbott wrote. 

His spokesman, Jon Wittman, confirmed later Monday that the governor was throwing his support behind legislation to bar “sanctuary city” policies, under which police are barred from asking those they stop about their immigration status. Abbott wants the Legislature to address the matter in 2017, Wittman said.

A Valdez spokesman defended the policy as a modest change, and allies said the governor was distorting what she had done.

For more:

- Abbott says election key to sanctuary-city ban.

Gov. Greg Abbott said voters should elect state lawmakers who will approve a ban on so-called sanctuary cities in 2017, suggesting Wednesday it would be fruitless to summon back the current Legislature for a special session on the issue. His declaration came as the San Antonio Police Department said it would put into writing its policy against officers asking for the immigration status of people who are detained — a move that’s anathema to sanctuary-city opponents.

- Dan Patrick ups ante in sanctuary city debate.

On Monday, Abbott's admonished Sheriff Lupe Valdez over her recent decision to not automatically detain all undocumented immigrants, saying so-called sanctuary cities will "no longer be tolerated in Texas." Patrick's supporters quickly noted that Abbott stood quietly by and did not lobby last spring for passage of a bill to prohibit sanctuary cities, even when it was just two votes short in Patrick's Senate. Abbott was also unwilling to call a special session when lawmakers left Austin in June without passing a sanctuary cities bill. As a state senator, Patrick authored legislation to end sanctuary cities and said in August he thinks he now has the votes in the Senate to pass the measure.

A few items related to Governor Abbott's vetoes

For GOVT 2306's most recent written assignment.

Don't limit your search to these.

- From the governor's office: Governor's Veto Statements.
- Texas Legislature Online: List of Bills Vetoed by Governor.
- Amid Veto Period, Lobbyists Keep Working Abbott.
- Abbott Vetoes Overdose Defense, Emergency Detention Bills.
- Abbott Nixes Water Conservation, Contract Bidding Bills.
- Abbott veto lands in the middle of 'David and Goliath' fight.

All you need to know about Perry, Abbott and Davis from the Texas Tribune

I anticipate that they'll do something similar for other politicians, but they provide pages devoted to all the stories compiled for these noted Texas politicos.

- Perrypedia.
- Abbott Archives.
- Davis Digest.

Greg Abbott explain the Texas Lawsuit Against Health Care Reform

An interview in the Texas Tribune.

Not so Fast

So I got you all excited about the 5th Circuit's decision to declare the Texas sex toy ban unconstitutional, and you were all set to hit the town, but fortunately our state attorney general, Greg Abbott, is here to keep you in check. He's requesting that the 5th Circuit review its own decision.