These are the topics raised by Ken Paxton in highlighted press releases

My GOVT 2306 2IN01 students are looking into conflict between the state of Texas and the national government. I reasoned that a good place to start would be the actions the Texas Attorney General has taken recently against the national government. These have been highlighted in recent press releases. I linked to them separately.

- Click here for that.

This is a list of the subject matter, it helps identify key areas of disagreement between Texas and the United States: 

Energy
- Liqui­fied Nat­ur­al Gas Exports.

The Environment
- ​Green Ener­gy Tran­si­tion.
- Emis­sions Rule.
- Cli­mate Pol­i­cy Expansion.
- Trans­porta­tion Emis­sions Rule.
- The Role that States Play in Reg­u­lat­ing Their Own Environment.

Poverty Programs
- Guar­an­teed Income.
- Med­ic­aid.

Guns
- Pri­vate Firearms Sales.
- ATF Rule.

Immigration
- For­eign Labor­er Rights than Amer­i­can Workers.
- Bor­der.
- Con­certi­na Wire Law­suit.
- Bor­der Wall Construction.
- Ille­gal Aliens.

Transgender Policies
- Trans­gen­der Poli­cies Into Schools.
- Gen­der Tran­si­tion Procedures.
- Gen­der Iden­ti­ty Accom­mo­da­tions in the Workplace.

First Amendment Rights
- Cen­sor­ship.
- Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights of Reli­gious Institutions.
- First Amend­ment Pro­tec­tions for Reli­gious Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions in High­er Education.
- Pro­tect Reli­gious Orga­ni­za­tions from Inva­sive Gov­ern­ment Interference.

Federalism
- States’ Sov­er­eign Immunity.

From the Houston Chronicle: Who's in charge during a major Houston storm? Here's a breakdown of city and county responsibilities

A good look at the consequences of federalism in a moment of crisis. The Houston are has over 100 distinct governing units, How do the cooperate during a storm? Do they even try?

- Click here for the article.

When the Houston area must contend with a major storm, countless city, county, state and federal employees work together to prepare residents for what's coming, rescue those in need and assist them through what can be a lengthy recovery process.

It's a good idea to understand ahead of time who represents you, which depends on whether you live within the city of Houston, one of the 33 other cities within Harris County, in unincorporated Harris County or in a neighboring county. More than 2 million people live in unincorporated Harris County, comprising the areas of the county that aren't part of a city.

In a disaster, overlapping jurisdictions share responsibilities, but here's a guide to who's responsible for making key decisions in your area. . . .

Check it out for more.

Texas Tribune: Texas and Biden administration lawyers face off in court over new law making illegal border crossing a state crime

- Click here for the article.  

A press release from the Texas Attorney General: Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton Sues Five Cities Over Mar­i­jua­na Poli­cies Pre­vent­ing Enforce­ment of Texas Drug Laws

The state intends to clamp down on cities that are lenient on marijuana possession.

- Click here for it.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched lawsuits against the cities of Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin, and Denton for adopting amnesty and non-prosecution policies that violate Texas laws concerning marijuana possession and distribution.

The five municipalities adopted ordinances or policies instructing police not to enforce Texas drug laws concerning possession and distribution of marijuana—an illicit substance that psychologists have increasingly linked to psychosis and other negative consequences. Texas Local Government Code forbids any political subdivision from adopting “a policy under which the entity will not fully enforce laws relating to drugs.” Further, the Texas Constitution notes that it is unlawful for municipalities to adopt ordinances that are inconsistent with the laws enacted by the Texas Legislature (Article 9, Section 5).

From the Texas Tribune: Here’s what Texans need to know about the new FAFSA to get aid for college

You might just find this worthwhile.

- and a terrific example of fiscal federalism

- Click here for the article.


Key Terms: 

- federal application
- aid for college
- Free Application for Federal Student Aid
- Mandated by Congress in 2020
- formula used to award need-based aid.
- U.S. Education Department
- Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
- Academic Success Program
- National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
- the old version was unduly complicated and acted as a barrier to college.
- funding formula
- Pell Grant
- sibling discount
- Brookings Institute
- high school counselors
- San Angelo ISD

Wikipedia: FAFSA.

Wikipedia: Higher Education Act of 1965.

Wikipedia: Higher Education Act of 1965 Title IV.

Congressional Maps in Georgia and North Carolina . . .

The one in Georgia has been overturned by a federal district judge.


- NYT: Georgia’s Voting Maps Are Struck Down.

Republicans in Georgia violated a landmark civil rights law in drawing voting maps that diluted the power of Black voters, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled on Thursday, ordering that new maps must be drawn in time for the 2024 elections.


- Politico: North Carolina’s new GOP gerrymander could flip four House seats.

Republicans have pushed through an aggressive gerrymander of North Carolina’s congressional map that will help them flip several seats in Congress. Those looming GOP pickups will bolster the party’s chances of defending their narrow House majority next year by erasing or even surpassing Republican losses elsewhere in the South, where courts have begun tossing out congressional lines for diluting the power of Black voters.


- Democracy Docket: Federal Judge Orders New Congressional and Legislative Maps in Georgia.

This major voting rights victory stems from three lawsuits challenging the Peach State’s congressional and legislative maps: Pendergrass v. Raffensperger (congressional), Grant v. Raffensperger (legislative) and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. v. Raffensperger (legislative). After the legislature enacted new maps in 2021, Black voters in Georgia filed lawsuits challenging the state’s congressional and state legislative maps for diluting the voting strength of Black voters and therefore violating Section 2 of the VRA. A trial was held from Sept. 5-14.

Today, a federal judge struck down the maps finding that “In light of this fact and in conjunction with all of the evidence and testimony in this case, the Court determines that Georgia’s congressional and legislative maps violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and enjoins their use in any future elections.”

To remedy the VRA violations, Georgia must adopt the following districts by Dec. 8:

- One additional majority-Black congressional district in west-metro Atlanta;
- Two additional majority-Black Senate districts in south-metro Atlanta;
- Two additional majority-Black House districts in south-metro Atlanta;
- One additional majority-Black House district in west-metro Atlanta and
- Two additional majority-Black House districts in and around Macon-Bibb.

- National Archives: Comparing Gerrymandered Districts in Georgia and North Carolina.


__________

For background: 

- NYT: Supreme Court Rejects Voting Map That Diluted Black Voters’ Power.

- Scotusblog: Allen v. Milligan.

- Allen v Milligan.

Recent Online Trainings

I have to do these every year. You might also, in some manner. 

They are required in order to ensure that ACC is in compliance with federal and/or state law. They've contracted out with Vector Solutions to implement them. 

So you can file these under
- federalism
- supremacy clause
- unfunded mandates (I think)
- privatization

In addition to the subject matter of each training.

Cheers: 

Mandatory Trainings

1 - Americans with Disabilities Act Overview.

- - major life activities: Major life activities are those functions that are important to most people’s daily lives. Examples of major life activities are breathing, walking, talking, hearing, seeing, sleeping, caring for one’s self, performing manual tasks, and working. Major life activities also include major bodily functions such as immune system functions, normal cell growth, digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, and reproductive functions.

- - Americans with Disabilities Act.
- - reasonable accommodation.
- - qualified individuals
- - undue hardship / undue burden / fundamental alteration in program
- - fundamental alteration.
- - animals fair housing act.
- - direct threat to themselves or others.

2 - Child Abuse: Mandatory Reporting.
- - Federal Child Abuse and Treatment Act.
- - neglect 
- - physical abuse
- - sexual abuse
- - psychological, maltreatment, or emotional abuse
- - mandatory reporting / liability / mandated reporter
- - poverty

3 - Drug Free Workplace
- - Drug Free Workplace Act.
- - costly burden
- - economic / insurance / medical
- - use / abuse / addiction
- - stress relief
- - enabling
- - inform supervisor
- - reporting of drug convictions
- - crisis situations

4 - Employee Acknowledgement of Student Rights and Responsibilities
- - Texas Education Code 51.9315(d)
- - free speech rights and limitations

5 - FERPA
- - Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
- - education records
- - confidentiality / privacy
- - privacy / inspections / corrections
- - information about students - what is public? what is private?
- - sole possession
- - disclosure
- - is information personally identifiable?
- - directory / non directory information
- - parental info / dependent students
- - student consent 

6 - Sexual Harassment: Staff-to-Staff
- - Educational Amendments of 1972, Title 9.
- - harassments free work environment
- - definition
- - consequences
- - CRA 1964, Titles 6 and 7
- - CRA 1991
- - employer liability
- - quid pro quo / hostile environment
- - process for filing complaints
- - EEOC

7 - Title IX and Sexual Harassment Prevention for Employees.
- - Educational Amendments of 1972, Title 9.
- - Clery Act.
- - Title IX coordinator
- - Grants - federal funding received - must comply
- - definitions
- - sex discrimination

8 - Title IX: Regulations and Roles Overview.
- - Educational Amendments of 1972, Title 9
- - Title IX coordinator
- - final rule - roles and responsibilities of coordinator.
- - grievance procedures.
- - OCR

What is Federalism?

What is Federalism?

Competing definitions: 

- Wikipedia: Federalism is a combined and compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system, dividing the powers between the two.

- Cornell: Federalism is a system of government in which the same territory is controlled by two levels of government. Generally, an overarching national government is responsible for broader governance of larger territorial areas, while the smaller subdivisions, states, and cities govern the issues of local concern. Both the national government and the smaller political subdivisions have the power to make laws and both have a certain level of autonomy from each other.

- Britannica: mode of political organization that unites separate states or other polities within an overarching political system in a way that allows each to maintain its own integrity. Federal systems do this by requiring that basic policies be made and implemented through negotiation in some form, so that all the members can share in making and executing decisions. The political principles that animate federal systems emphasize the primacy of bargaining and negotiated coordination among several power centres; they stress the virtues of dispersed power centres as a means for safeguarding individual and local liberties.

- Congress.gov: the division and sharing of power between the national and state governments.1 By allocating power among state and federal governments, the Framers sought to establish a unified national government of limited powers while maintaining a distinct sphere of autonomy in which state governments could exercise a general police power.2 Although the Framers’ sought to preserve liberty by diffusing power,3 Justices and scholars have noted that federalism has other advantages,4 including that it allows individual states to experiment with novel government programs as laboratories of democracy5 and increases the accountability of elected government officials to citizens.6

The three levels in American government: 

- National
- State
- Local

What authorizes each level?

- National: The People of the U.S. (The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution)
- State: The People of Texas (The Preamble to the Texas Constitution)
- Local: The State of Texas. (Articles 9 and 11 of the Texas Constitution)

What does each level do? 

- National
- - limited to what is allowed, directly or indirectly, in the U.S. Constitution.
- - internal and external security
- - promote and develop interstate and international commerce
- - coordinating state activities
- - enhance equal protection of the law and secure voting rights
- - delegated powers
- - implied powers
- - inherent powers
- - concurrent powers
- - prohibited powers

- State
- - Elections - the one power clearly delegated to the states 
- - anything that is not forbidden by the U.S. Constitution
- - police powers: the power to secure the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the community.
- - promote commerce within the state 
- - the creation of local governments
- - reserved powers
- - concurrent powers
- - prohibited powers

- Local
- - powers defined by the state
- - Dillon's Rule
- - actual enforcement of most state laws
- - basic infrastructure
- - resolve local disputes

Where can we see the specific powers laid out in legal documents?

- National:
- - U.S. Constitution: Article 1, Section 8.
- - U.S. Constitution: Article 2, Section 2.
- - U.S. Constitution: Article 3, Section 2.
- - U.S. Amendments 1 - 10 (limitations)
- - U.S. Amendments 11 - 27.
- - U.S. Code.
- - Code of Federal Regulations.
- - Case Law: Supreme Court Cases By Topic.
- - U.S. Executive Agencies
- - House Committees
- - Senate Committees

- State Powers:
- - U.S. Constitution: Article 1, Sections 2, 3, and 4.
- - U.S. Constitution: Article 1, Section 10. (prohibited powers)
- - Texas Constitution
- - Texas Statutory Code
- - Texas Fiscal Size-Up
- - Texas Sunset Review Commission
- - Texas House Committees
- - Texas Senate Committees

- Local Powers:
- - Texas Constitution Articles 9 and 11
- - Texas Local Government Code
- - Texas Constitution Article 3, Section 56 (limits on states)
- - Codes of Ordinances

- - City Departments


Terminology: 

federalism
nationalism
three levels of government
- national
- state
- local
concurrent powers
inherent powers
reserved powers
granted powers
enumerated powers
expressed powers
prohibited powers
implied powers
- examples of each
democracy
- direct
- indirect
unitary
confederal
federal 
Civil War
civil war amendments
- 13
- 14
- 15
progressive movement
Great Depression
matching grants
categorical grants
block grants
civic voluntarism
necessary and proper clause
full faith and credit clause
supremacy clause
- preemption
commerce clause
equal protection clause
dual federalism
cooperative federalism
- the New Deal / Great Society
- fiscal federalism
new federalism
- devolution
- privatization
- diffusion
- - regulatory policies
grants-in-aid
- categorical
- block
state republican government
expansion of the executive
judicial interpretation

From Ballotpedia: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

- Click here for the article.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an interstate compact to award member state's presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote. The NPVIC would go into effect if states representing at least 270 electoral college votes adopt the legislation.[1][2]

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives states the authority to determine how their electoral votes will be awarded: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…." This compact does not abolish the electoral college system; rather, the compacts awards all of the electoral votes from the member states to the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide.[1]

From Governing: How Many Local Governments Is Too Many?

- Click here for the article.

It’s not uncommon for one metropolitan area to be home to dozens of local governments. In lots of those places, mayors and other local officials often lament the difficulties of having to coordinate with so many cities, towns and counties.

There’s no agreed-upon definition for this local government "fragmentation," but most researchers measure it by the number of governments per capita. We used that measurement, along with the number of governments per square mile, to see which metro areas and counties are the most fragmented.

Our calculations are based on the latest Census of Governments survey, which is conducted every five years and counted 38,779 cities, counties, towns and other general-purpose local governments (excluding special districts).
According to the study, the Houston metropolitan area has 133 local governments.

From the Washington POst: Attorney General Jeff Sessions repeats Trump threat that ‘sanctuary cities’ could lose Justice Department grants

An example of coercive federalism?

- Click here for the article

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday threatened to strip some “sanctuary cities” of coveted Justice Department grants for state and local law enforcement, saying those places that did not comply with a particular federal law on immigration would not be eligible for money.

“I urge our nation’s states and cities to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, and to rethink these policies,” Sessions said from the White House. “Such policies make their cities and states less safe, and put them at risk of losing valuable federal dollars.”

Sessions’s announcement follows President Trump’s executive order in January that gave the attorney general the authority to sanction any city that doesn’t readily hand over undocumented immigrants for deportation.

This effort to punish cities where local leaders refuse to hand over undocumented immigrants for deportation is the latest effort by the Trump administration to crack down on illegal immigration.

Sessions said the Justice Department will take steps to “claw back any funds awarded to a jurisdiction” that violates federal law. The Justice Department will award more than $4.1 billion in grants to state and local jurisdictions this fiscal year.

From the Texas Tribune: U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Texas death row inmate

For our look at federalism and civil liberties in both 2305 and 2306.

The case is Moore v Texas.


- Click here for the article.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Texas death row inmate Tuesday, sending his case back to the appeals court and invalidating the state's current method of determining if a death-sentenced inmate is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution. Texas' method relies on decades-old medical standards and a controversial set of factors.

The high court's 5-3 ruling in the case of Bobby Moore, a 57-year-old man who has lived on death row for more than 36 years, said Texas’ refusal to use current medical standards and its reliance on nonclinical factors violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting.

As the court has previously instructed, "adjudications of intellectual disability should be ‘informed by the views of medical experts.’ That instruction cannot sensibly be read to give courts leave to diminish the force of the medical community’s consensus," Ginsburg wrote.

. . . In 2014, a Texas state court used current medical standards to determine Moore was intellectually disabled and could not be executed. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overruled the decision, claiming the lower court erred by using those standards instead of the state’s test.

The test, commonly known as the Briseno standard, was established by the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2004, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the intellectually disabled was unconstitutional. The court defined the test using a medical definition from 1992 as well as several other factors to help courts determine adaptive functioning. The Court of Criminal Appeals claimed, based on those factors, that Moore doesn’t have the disability.

Included in those factors is a controversial reference to Lennie, a character from John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men.” The Briseno opinion written by the Court of Criminal Appeals said most citizens might agree a person like Lennie should be exempt from execution. The state has argued the reference was an “aside;” critics say it exemplifies the arbitrariness of defining intellectual disability in Texas.

For more:

- Scotusblog: Moore v Texas.
- The decision.
- Oyez: Moore v Texas.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court to take up same-sex marriage case

Traditionalists in the state are finding ways to push back against Obergerfells v Hodges.

- Click here for the article.

Almost two years after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, Texas Republicans are still fighting the ruling — and they’re getting another day in court.

The Texas Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Wednesday in a Houston case challenging the city’s benefits policy for married same-sex couples. Though such policies have been in place since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, Texas conservatives are betting the Houston case opens up a path to relitigate the high court’s decision.

“This particular opinion will go to the U.S. Supreme Court and is a potential vehicle for overturning Obergefell given the changing composition of the court,” said Jared Woodfill, one of the lawyers leading the lawsuit filed against Houston on behalf of two taxpayers, and a prominent conservative activist in the city. “Ultimately, I would like to see Obergefell overturned.”

At the center of the Houston case is whether Obergefell, which legalized same-sex marriage across the country, requires the city and other governmental agencies to extend taxpayer-subsidized benefits to same-sex spouses of government employees.

In Obergefell, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 ruled that bans on marriages between couples of the same sex are unconstitutional and that states must recognize same-sex marriage as legal. Following that ruling, public employers in the state quickly extended benefits for same-sex spouses of public employees.

But opponents argue that interpretation was far too broad.

“Obergefell may require states to license and recognize same-sex marriages, but that does not require states to give taxpayer subsidies to same-sex couples — any more than Roe v. Wade requires states to subsidize abortions or abortion providers,” lawyers challenging the Houston policy wrote in a filing with the Texas Supreme Court.

They argue that the right to marry does not “entail any particular package of tax benefits, employee fringe benefits or testimonial privileges.” (In a separate case against the state’s now-defunct ban on same-sex marriage, the Texas Attorney General’s office actually argued that marriage is a right that comes with benefits the state is entitled to control.)

A spokeswoman for Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner declined to comment on the upcoming hearing, saying the city prefers “to offer our arguments in the court and our filings.”

Update: Treat same-sex couples the same as others, Texas Supreme Court told.

From the Texas Tribune: Judge: Texas can't kick Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid

Here's a current example of cooperative and/or coercive federalism - depending on your ideological point of view.

- Click here for the article.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ruled Tuesday afternoon that Texas clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood can continue to care for patients under the state’s Medicaid program, a phew-worthy victory for reproductive rights advocates and a loss for the state's GOP leaders.

In a 42-page ruling, Sparks wrote that the state's arguments in the case were "the building blocks of a best-selling novel rather than a case concerning the interplay of federal and state authority through the Medicaid program."

"After reviewing the evidence currently in the record, the Court finds the Inspector General, and thus [the Texas Health and Human Services Commission], likely acted to disenroll qualified health care providers from Medicaid without cause," the ruling read. "Such action would deprive Medicaid patients of their statutory right to obtain health care from their chosen qualified provider."

The ruling comes more than a year after Planned Parenthood first sued Texas to stay in the joint federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled. Texas had begun the process of kicking Planned Parenthood out — even though its participating clinics provided reproductive health care and cancer screenings, not abortions — in October 2015. But the state did not send a final notice to those providers until December 2016. The affiliates in the lawsuit include Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast and Planned Parenthood of South Texas.

. . . Shortly after the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a news release he was disappointed with the decision and plans to appeal. He said the videos provided sufficient evidence and "exposed a brazen willingness by Planned Parenthood officials to traffic in fetal body parts."

"No taxpayer in Texas should have to subsidize this repugnant and illegal conduct," Paxton said. "We should never lose sight of the fact that, as long as abortion is legal in the United States, the potential for these types of horrors will continue.”

In court, Planned Parenthood attorneys argued that not allowing the reproductive health provider to stay in the Medicaid program, which is largely funded by the federal government, would severely curb access to care for poor Texas men and women seeking preventive and sexual health services. The attorneys also argued that the state did not have the capacity to deliver these services in the same way Planned Parenthood does and reiterated that state and federal law already prohibit taxpayer dollars from being spent on abortion services.

- Click here for the ruling.
- Click here for Judge Sparks' Wikipedia page.

From the Texas Tribune: Federal judge sanctions Texas in voter registration lawsuit

More on both voter registration, and conflict between the state of Texas and the national government.

- Click here for the article.

A federal judge has ordered sanctions against the state of Texas for blowing past deadlines and ignoring a court order to hand over thousands of pages of documents in a lawsuit challenging its voter registration practices.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office’s “months-long delay” in producing the documents “has been disruptive, time consuming, cost consuming” and has burdened plaintiffs in the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio wrote in an order signed Thursday. Garcia ordered the state to pay some of the plaintiffs’ legal fees, including those tied to the sanctions request.

The Texas Civil Rights Project last March sued on behalf of four Texans who allege the Department of Public Safety denied them the opportunity to cast a ballot — and violated federal law — by failing to update their voter registration records online.

The group, hoping for quick action during the 2018 election cycle, argued in a motion for sanctions last month that foot-dragging from Paxton’s office was hampering its case. State lawyers turned over less than 2 percent of the 55,000 requested pages by Jan. 17 — a court-ordered deadline set after Texas asked for several extensions.

From the Washington Post: California and President Trump are going to war with each other

During the Obama years, the primary fight was between the presidency and Texas. Now the stage has shifted.

- Click here for the article.

Last week, Trump’s war with California took the form of attacking its public college system. After violent protests erupted on the campus of U.C. Berkeley, Trump suggested that he would pull funding from the school, which a) punishes the wrong party, since it wasn’t as though the school asked people to riot and b) can’t be done by executive order anyway.

For its part, there’s a movement in California to secede from the United States. Supporters of the idea are collecting petitions to get it on the ballot in the state in 2018, which, if passed, would have the effect of doing basically nothing. (We’ve been through this attempt-to-secede thing before; it ended poorly.) When Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, there was a briefly a similar effort by the biggest red state, Texas. It didn’t get anywhere, either. 

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that the most visible manifestation of the California economy — the tech industry — had broadly united to file a joint amicus brief in opposition to Trump’s executive order on immigration. The tech industry employs a lot of immigrants to the United States, so there’s clearly a business motivation to take such a stand.

So this is the Cold Civil War that’s erupted. Trump threatens California’s funding; California threatens to pack up and go. Neither is likely to happen. But still — if you predicted that a president’s relationship with the Golden State would be rockier than his relationship with Russia, I’d like to ask your help with some lottery numbers.

The story contains the following graphic:

From the Atlantic: Red State, Blue City

More on federalism and the conflict between state and city governments.


- Click here for the article.

The United States now has its most metropolitan president in recent memory: a Queens-bred, skyscraper-building, apartment-dwelling Manhattanite. Yet it was rural America that carried Donald Trump to victory; the president got trounced in cities. Republican reliance on suburbs and the countryside isn’t new, of course, but in the presidential election, the gulf between urban and nonurban voters was wider than it had been in nearly a century. Hillary Clinton won 88 of the country’s 100 biggest counties, but still went down to defeat.

American cities seem to be cleaving from the rest of the country, and the temptation for liberals is to try to embrace that trend. With Republicans controlling the presidency, both houses of Congress, and most statehouses, Democrats are turning to local ordinances as their best hope on issues ranging from gun control to the minimum wage to transgender rights. Even before Inauguration Day, big-city mayors laid plans to nudge the new administration leftward, especially on immigration—and, should that fail, to join together in resisting its policies. 

But if liberal advocates are clinging to the hope that federalism will allow them to create progressive havens, they’re overlooking a big problem: Power may be decentralized in the American system, but it devolves to the state, not the city. Recent events in red states where cities are pockets of liberalism are instructive, and cautionary. Over the past few years, city governments and state legislatures have fought each other in a series of battles involving preemption, the principle that state law trumps local regulation, just as federal law supersedes state law. It hasn’t gone well for the city dwellers.

Close observers of these clashes expect them to proliferate in the years to come, with similar results. “We are about to see a shit storm of state and federal preemption orders, of a magnitude greater than anything in history,” says Mark Pertschuk of Grassroots Change, which tracks such laws through an initiative called Preemption Watch. By the group’s count, at least 36 states introduced laws preempting cities in 2016.

From the Washington Post: Trump’s intervention into policing, voting and immigration sets up showdown with America’s largest cities

For out look at federalism.

- Click here for the article.

In an executive order signed Wednesday, Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to find ways to defund cities and jurisdictions out of step with his immigration priorities. That action — which could cost sanctuary cities including Washington, New York and Los Angeles millions of dollars — is the latest in a series of moves where Trump has appeared willing to step on state-level or municipal prerogatives.

In the scuffle, U.S. mayors have emerged as key players in the resistance to Trump’s agenda.

“Cities know how important local control is, because we are in touch with the people we represent most closely. This is a president who’s been clear that he wants to centralize as much authority as he can in himself,” Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges said Wednesday. “That is dangerous for our democracy, I believe, and he is using the levers of our democracy to centralize his authority.”

At the center of the sanctuary city debate is a disagreement over whether local police officers should be required to help immigration officials enforce federal immigration laws. Many liberal mayors, including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and New York City’s Bill De Blasio, have argued that requiring local police departments to assist immigration agents with deportations could sow distrust among immigrant populations. It could also discourage undocumented victims or witnesses from coming forward to report crimes.

“This is a federalism issue,” said Jorge Elorza (D), the mayor of Providence, R.I., who is the son of immigrants. “The idea of local control is deeply embedded in American history, and what we have now is a very aggressive attempt by the federal government to commandeer our local police departments to become immigration agents.”

He vowed “massive and aggressive lawsuits,” a resistance echoed by several local leaders.

Kevin de Leon, the Democratic president pro tempore of the California state Senate, said the state legislature is prepared to “explore all of our legal options” to fight the order.

“Singling out states and cities with punitive threats and withholding federal resources as today’s order on sanctuary cities does is unconstitutional,” de Leon said. “It’s not the job of our local and county and state law enforcement to turn the cogs on President Trump’s deportation machine.”

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 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