The author points to some recent Texas Supreme Court decisions and notes that they prioritize "liberty" over "democracy." Apparently the two concepts can contradict each other. He also suggests that the recently completed legislative session - partially by limiting local governments - undermined democracy in the state.
In Texas liberty trumps democracy. The Texas Supreme Court itself says so. In a recent decision, three of the five Justice majority bluntly declared, "(O)ur federal and state charters are not, contrary to popular belief, about 'democracy.'" They are about "liberty's primacy."
The Justices concluded the Texas Constitution gives primacy to liberty because of the sequence of wording "That the great, general and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and established," is how the Constitution begins. The word "liberty" comes first.
Relying on the sequence of words to establish primacy could have gotten the Justices into trouble when it comes to the federal Constitution, a situation they adroitly finessed by quoting only part of the Preamble. "The federal Constitution, in the first sentence of the Preamble, declares its mission to 'secure the Blessings of Liberty,"" opined the Justices. But before securing liberty the Preamble lists several other objectives that would have primacy: "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, (and) promote the general Welfare."
Texas politicians love to sprinkle their orations with words like liberty and freedom but even they must concede that all societies establish formal and informal rules governing individual behavior and virtually all interfere to some degree with someone's freedom of action. No matter how extreme our libertarian bent, most of us accept the need for driving licenses and the restrictions one-way streets and stop signs impose. And however reluctantly we agree that the government can take our money even while profoundly disagreeing on how public money should be spent.
Most of us also accept that property rights are not absolute. Just because we own land doesn't mean we can build a 30-story building or a slaughterhouse in an otherwise residential neighborhood.
Who should make the rules? Again I believe most of us prefer that decisions be made closest to those who will feel the impact of those decisions that is, by local government. More remote levels of government should defer to governance closer to the people except in rare circumstances.
Keeping this framework in mind, how did the tension between democracy and liberty play out in this year's Texas legislative session?
A tidbit from the Texas State Historical Society that helps explain why some wanted Texas to join the US:
On this day in 1842, Mexican general Ráfael Vásquez, with 700 soldiers, occupied San Antonio. Unable to raise an army in time to resist this invasion, the Texans surrendered and evacuated the town without a fight. Vásquez raised the Mexican flag over the town, and declared Mexican laws in effect. On March 9 the Mexican army abandoned San Antonio and began to withdraw to Mexico. The incident was part of a series of raids and counter-raids in 1842 as Mexico sought to recover Texas and the Texans fought to maintain their independence.
. . . the Mexican legislature, meeting in Saltillo,
passed the State Colonization Law of March 24, 1825. The legislation was
designed to bring about the peopling of Coahuila and Texas. It
encouraged farming, ranching, and commerce. For a nominal fee, the law
granted settlers as much as a square league (4,428.4 acres) of
pastureland and a labor (177.1 acres) of farmland. Immigrants
were temporarily free of every kind of tax. Newcomers had to take an
oath promising to abide by the federal and state constitutions, to
worship according to the Christian (i.e., Catholic) religion, and to
display sound moral principles and good conduct. After accepting these
terms and settling in Texas, immigrants earned the standing of
naturalized Mexicans. Empresarios Stephen F. Austin and Green DeWitt,
among others, started their colonies under this law.
Capital: HoustonOther Cities: Corpus Christi, Beaumont, Baytown, GalvestonPopulation (2008 Estimate): 7,494,089 (about as many as Virginia)Congressional Districts: 10 (would increase to 11 following 2010 reallocation)Electoral Votes: 12 (would increase to 13 following 2010 reallocation)Area: 36,547 square miles (14% of former Texas territory, about as large as Indiana)Demographics: 32% Hispanic, 16% Black, 5% AsianEconomic: 32% college degree (adults 25+); 16% below poverty line2008 Vote (Excludes third parties): McCain 1,350,322 (56.1%), Obama 1,058,446 (43.9%)
This somewhat unusually-shaped state, which looks a bit like West Virginia rotated 90 degrees, would contain the Houston metroplex, while then meandering to include nearly the entirety of Texas' Gulf Coast, from the Louisiana border up to (but not including) Texas' southermost reaches in Cameron County. Gulfland's economy would likely be heavily dependant on offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
However, there are a few things for Democrats to like about Gulfland -- it would be a majority-minority state (although barely) and Barack Obama won Houston's Harris County in November (also barely). Gulfland might be incrementally more competitive than Trinity, although very likely only for the Senate and not the Presidency, as Democrats have been gradually losing ground in this part of the country.
Much of this fits with 2305's coverage of the executive branch and its role in implementing the law. Here's the first of a few links to stories that relate to subject matter we've either covered, or will get to soon.
The snafu in question is the problem the federal government is having getting its health insurance exchange - which is meant to help the currently uninsured get insurance - up and running. In the 16 week 2305 classes we've been discussing the expanding role of the federal government, and creating exchanges for purchasing health insurance - for those who cannot afford it at the prices commanded in the existing marketplace - is an example. As far I know, the federal government has never done anything like this before. Some services - like Social Security and Medicare - are provided by the national government directly - so there is no need to create an exchange which allows people to purchase the service from a private provider. Others - like Medicaid - are funded by the national government, but run by the states.
Kliff points out which states have opted to create their own exchanges and which have not.
The exchanges created in many of the states have apparently been working well - New York's for example.
Some aren't doing quite as well:
What about states running their own marketplaces? Are they doing any better?
It depends a bit on the state. A few, like Kentucky and Connecticut, have been able to enroll people pretty seamlessly. They credit this to extensive testing prior to launch and realistic expectations. Connecticut, for example, scaled back its workload about a year ago, deciding to focus on getting the really important pieces of the marketplace ready to launch on day one.
Other states have...had some trouble. Hawaii’s Web site only launched last Tuesday, two weeks after it was meant to go live. Oregon has signed up lots of people for Medicaid -- but technical issues have prevented their exchange, Cover Oregon, from enrolling anyone into private insurance coverage.
Note that Texas chose to not create its own exchange. This was a contentious topic in the 83rd session of the legislature earlier this year. People who want
to purchase this insurance in Texas have to go to the national exchange -
here's a report that Governor Perry wants Texans
to sign up through the federal exchange. When we discussed federalism -
in both 2305 and 2306 - we discussed the pros and cons of allowing
state discretion in the implementation of public policies - this might
be a further argument in favor of state implementation of laws.
A nice counterpoint to the three part description of political culture across the states we cover in 2306. This is based on personality traits and asks whether that provides the best way to understand differences between the states?
Here's Texas:
The Temperamental and Uninhibited Region is the deep orange area that covers the Northeast, New England and Middle Atlantic states. There are also lighter concentrations in the contiguous areas of Ohio and Indiana, as well as Texas. This region's psychological profile is defined by very high levels neuroticism (hence the temperamental moniker), moderately high levels of openness, low levels of extroversion (or high levels of introversion) and very low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. This constellation of personality traits depict a type of person that is "reserved, aloof, impulsive, irritable, and inquisitive," while also being "passionate, competitive, and liberal." This region is highly educated and affluent, with high levels of ethnic and cultural diversity and a liberal political orientation.
And commentary:
While most analysts focus on the concretely measurable attributes of a place (its ethnic and cultural divisions, religious orientation or economic characteristics), these findings suggest that psychological factors play a role. The profile and traits of the Midwest (Friendly and Conventional) implies a regional cluster of personalities that are family-oriented, religious, and thus drawn to more conservative political orientations.
There is a psychological dimension to highly innovative, entrepreneurial and creative places
Their research also offers potentially new insights for economic development, specifically for understanding the geographic clustering of talent and innovation. The study suggests "part of the reason why certain regions of the United States are economically vibrant may have to do with the psychological characteristics of residents."
It calls attention to the selective migration of certain regional personality types. People in the Friendly and Conventional Region are more likely to stay close to family and friends. People in the other regional types are much more likely to be drawn to and engage in inventive, entrepreneurial and creative activity as well. This helps explain the cluster of innovative and creative activity in places like Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York and Boston. The orange shading in Texas also helps explain the high level of innovation and creativity in Austin and around Houston.
A theoretical physicist studied the movement of currency - aided by the program WheresGeorge.com which allows for bill to be tracked by participants - and argues that this map more accurately reflects the regions in the U.S. than our state maps do:
Money spent in one area does not necessarily cross the blue lines - notable the dark blue lines.
Regarding Texas, notice how El Paso is off on its own, but all other metropolitan areas in the state are interconnected. And only minimal barriers exist between Houston and the rest of the Gulf Coast. And we don't seem to engage much with Oklahoma do we?
It would be interesting to add to this the direction of this interchange Currency exchange is not a two way street.
On this day in 1870, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act that ended Congressional Reconstruction and readmitted Texas to the Union. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Texas had been in turmoil, first under Presidential Reconstruction and then, beginning in 1867 with the passage of the First Reconstruction Act, under Congressional Reconstruction. The latter required that Texas have a constitutional convention, with delegates elected by all male citizens over the age of twenty-one, regardless of race, color, or "previous condition of servitude." The convention was to write a new state constitution that would provide for universal adult male suffrage. When the constitution had been written and the state had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, Congress would consider the case for readmission to the Union. The convention met at Austin in June 1868 and did not adjourn until February 1869. The constitution it produced differed significantly from previous constitutions by authorizing a more centralized and bureaucratized system of government, with greater power in the hands of the governor. In February 1870 the Twelfth Legislature assembled at Austin to adopt the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments and select United States senators in preparation for readmission to the Union. They quickly approved the amendments and selected Morgan C. Hamilton for a six-year term and James W. Flanagan for a four-year term. This completed the requirements set by Congress for readmission.
Also on this day in 1849, a seccessionist paper was founded in Marshall:
On this day in 1849, the Marshall Texas Republican was established by Trenton A. and Frank J. Patillo. The paper is most closely identified with Robert W. Loughery, who became associate editor in July and editor in November, and two years later bought the paper outright. Under his fiery leadership, the Republican became one of the state's most articulate voices for secession, and his editorials were reprinted around the state. Loughery's support played an important role in the election of his fellow townsmen James Pinckney Henderson and Louis T. Wigfall to the United States Senate, and the Republican was among the staunchest supporters of the Confederacy during the war years. Once the war ended, however, Loughery vigorously advocated conciliation and compliance with the requirements of surrender, though he changed his stance after the imposition of congressional Reconstruction. His last great journalistic fight involved the Stockade Case at Jefferson, in which a number of citizens were held without formal charge and finally tried by a military tribunal. Loughery's complaints about the military's refusal to turn the case over to civilian courts or to release the prisoners on bail came to the attention of President Andrew Johnson, who asked for an explanation from Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds, commander of the troops in Texas. After the Republican ceased publication in 1872, Loughery went on to help found several other Texas newspapers. He died in 1894.
So some Texans began agitating for seccession 4 years after joining the union. We really have ongoing issues with being a part of the US don't we?
A fellow student watched this recently and recommends it. It's showing on PBS along with a companion piece on Spanish Texas.
Here's a description, looks awesome:
For two hurly-burly years, the Bayou City was the capital of the Republic of
Texas. As Sam Houston, Mirabeau Lamar and others squabbled over the direction
in which they would lead the fledgling nation, scores of drunken, furloughed
soldiers battled in makeshift saloons, on the town’s muddy streets and at the
dueling grounds which was located south of Texas Avenue, and therefore away
from the city limits. Noted author and historian, Stephen Hardin, leads a tour
of locations that serves as the backbone of this documentary. Interviews with
other scholars, snippets of contemporary journals, photographs, maps, music and
graphics makes this an engaging way to learn about Houston’s beginnings.
The denial of certiorari leaves intact a ruling from a federal appeals court, which upheld the law against a challenge from local government officials, who claimed it restricted their First Amendment rights.
The Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits officials of certain governing bodies from “knowingly participating in a closed meeting, to organize a closed meeting, or to close a meeting to the public,” according to the Fifth Circuit Court opinion.
In 2005, two Alpine, Texas, city council officials were indicted for violating the Texas Open Meetings Act over emails they exchanged, which the government argued constituted a closed meeting. Though charges were later dropped, some of the officials involved in the email exchange sued, saying the act was a restriction of free speech, overbroad and vague.
The district court and circuit court both upheld the statute, rejecting the plaintiff’s claims.
The three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit held that not only is the law content-neutral and constitutional, it also serves an important purpose for open government.
“Here, government is not made less transparent because of the messages of private speech about public policy: Transparency is furthered by allowing the public to have access to government decisionmaking. This is true whether those decisions are made by cogent empirical arguments or coin-flips. The private speech itself makes the government less transparent regardless of its message,” opinion from Judge Jerry Smith stated.
Attorney General Greg Abbott, who defended the act, issued a statement praising the Supreme Court’s move to let the lower court ruling stand as a win for open government.
Yes, come check out Texas. Check out a state that ranks dead last in
the percent of its population with high school diplomas. Come check out a
state that is last in mental health expenditures and workers'
compensation coverage. Come check out a state that ranks first in the
number of executions, first in the number of uninsured, first in the
amount of carbon dioxide emitted and first in the amount of toxic chemicals released into water.
Texas certainly has some attractions for business, and California
certainly needs to work harder to create a friendly place to start
companies and grow jobs. But California is creating businesses all the
time, partly because of our natural assets – great weather and stunning
mountains, beaches and deserts – and an excellent although underfunded
system of higher education.
If we invest in that system and protect our environment, our state will continue to create companies such as Apple, Google, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Craigslist, Yelp, Twitter, Sun Microsystems, Genentech, Cisco, Intel and Qualcomm, and the list goes on and on.
The ball is back in our court - let's see who steps up.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/06/5168690/pity-rick-perry-his-big-state.html#storylink=cpy
In a decision certain to be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, state district Judge John Dietz ruled Monday in favor of more than 600 school districts on all of their major claims against the state's school finance system. With a swift ruling issued from the bench shortly after the state finished its closing arguments, Dietz said that the state does not adequately or efficiently fund public schools — and that it has created an unconstitutional de-facto property tax in shifting the burden of paying for them to the local level.
"There is no free lunch," he said. "We either want increased standards and are willing to pay the price, or we don't."
Dietz said that issues raised by another party in the lawsuit, Texans for Real Efficiency and Equity in Education — a group representing parents, school choice advocates and the business community that argued the current system was inefficient and overregulated — were better solved by the Legislature. He also declined to find the state cap on charter school contracts, or the charters' lack of access to facilities funding, unconstitutional.
Moments after Dietz spoke, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Michael Williams issued a statement emphasizing that the ruling is "simply one step on this litigation’s path."
“All sides have known that, regardless of the outcome at the district level, final resolution will not come until this case reaches the Texas Supreme Court," he said. "I’m appreciative of the strong case presented by the Attorney General’s Office on behalf of the state. The Texas Education Agency will continue to carry out its mission of serving the students and educators across our state.”
Sounds like he's counting on the Texas Supreme Court to overturn the decision. The governor has been able to appoint most members of the court, so there's reason to believe they will be inclined to do so.
I'm adding a link to Public Policy Polling's section on Texas, will refer to it periodically. It'll help us keep track with where opinion in Texas diverges from opinion in the US as a whole. Here are recent highlights:
- It's early, but Hillary Clinton is polling well in Texas and could possibly win the state is she decides to run for president in 2016. If that happens it would be the first time since 1976 that a Democrat won the state.
- The governor's support seems to be slipping - even among Republicans. He might be vulnerable to a challenge from Greg Abbott, though no Democrat seems likely to have the ability to do so.
In Texas Monthly's current issue on Texas cities - which I'll be pulling material from for a while - has thoughts from Texas author Larry McMurthy on changes he's noted in the major cities on Texas. It seems that Texans have grown more urban since the 1960s. The frontier mentality common then has waned.
My point, much reiterated, was that Texans in the main were not yet able to handle the pressures of urban life. I saw this demonstrated on a hot summer day on the Houston beltway, where traffic neither moved nor offered the slightest prospects of movement, when the two cars in front of me bumped fenders; their drivers, both wearing ties and pinstripes, got out and flung themselves at one another. Soon they were rolling around on the burning pavement, in the traffic. Several drivers, including myself, tried to reason with them, and eventually it took, up to a point. Neither car was hurt at all, but the two men got up, exchanged insurance info, shook hands, and got back in their cars. Twenty minutes or so later the traffic moved normally again. Terrible traffic is the price Houstonians pay for living in a real city.
When I published my essays with the Wittliffs, they had no interest in curbing my wordage; they wanted as much book as they could get. Not so the Monthly: it serves a readership whose attention span is far from limitless. More than forty years have passed since I took that first look at the cities of Texas. Now many of its citizens have shaken off the frontier ethic and become mature urbanites. In response to this change, most of the cities have gone to the trouble to provide their better-informed residents some of the trappings of high culture. There are several excellent museums and an opera house or two. In addition, these cities have produced a number of locally grown artists who are good in various spheres. This is no small thing
He does not speculate on what has lead this change, but a massive influx of residents from around the nation and world undoubtedly helps, in addition to the simple fact that many of us - though not all - are one or two additional generations separated from the farm. Are we growing more comfortable being in close proximity with others and in allowing courts to mediate our disputes? There comes a point where we may no longer be fit to be called Texans.
I wonder whether Texans' increased fixation with guns is related to a decline in the frontier. The decreased reality of the frontier leads to it becoming more prominent in our imagination. Just a thought.
Here's coincidental trivia: McMurthy is a three time winner of the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Ny 2306s are readign up on Jones this semester.
This week - in 2306 - we begin to look at federalism, and the role state's play in the federal system. I was hunting for graphics and ran across this:
It's from Constitution Daily, and it contains an unusual depiction of Texas from 1862. You can see it on the bottom row towards the right. Its not the one we usually think of when we have a mental image of the state.
And of course we are familiar with the more expansive map that shows the border following the Rio Grande up through most of New Mexico and that contains bits of what is now Colorado and Wyoming. One thing that is in common with all of them is that they were wishful thinking to some degree. Despite claims to land, Texas and the US had yet to actually settle most of it. This process would not be complete until the Indian Wars were completed in the 1880s.
The point - for our purposes - is that states, along with nations, are political entities and their borders are defined by political means, despite whether they can actually govern all they contain.Cities are different. Cities are economic entities and have to obtain some degree of control over an area before they can lay claim to it. They are far more organic than states.
Something to bear in mind as we begin to explore federalism.
This is huge. Texas' history of racial discrimination made it subject to pre-clearance when the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. This is to ensure that discriminatory decisions are checked. The original map drawn up in the 82nd session of the Texas legislature had already been tossed out, but this confirms the previous decision and sets up a Supreme Court challenge to pre-clearance itself.
