From the Miller Center: John Tyler: Foreign Affairs

This gives us a glimpse at foreign policy in the 1840s.

Tyler's presidency is largely ignored, but he was in office during a period of time when the primary objective of the nation was to occupy North America as quickly as possible. This brief appraisal of his presidency argues that his foreign policy achievements were far more significant than his domestic policies. Not the attention he gives to China.

- Click here for the link.

In sharp contrast to his domestic policies, John Tyler's foreign policy decision making went much more smoothly. Recognizing the coming importance of the Asian Pacific region to trade, he sent a key diplomatic mission to China. This move resulted in commercial and consular relations with the country, giving the U.S. the same trading concessions as the British. Tyler also extended the principles of the Monroe Doctrine to Hawaii, warned the British to stay away from the Hawaiian Islands, and began the process toward their eventual annexation by America.

Closer to home, the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842, negotiated by Secretary of State Daniel Webster, settled a longtime feud with England over where Maine ended and British-ruled Canada began. War had narrowly been averted between the two nations on several occasions over border and incursion issues, and the treaty was instrumental in bettering diplomatic relations.

With respect to his policies toward Native Americans, Tyler ended a costly and bloody war against the Seminole Indians. After defrauding the Indians of their remaining lands in 1833, the U.S. had waged a bloody but inconclusive war against Chief Osceloa. Tyler was able to announce the end of hostilities in 1842.

Tyler continued his predecessors' expansionist policies in the Northwest. He pushed for a chain of forts from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the Pacific but was unable to conclude a treaty with the British to fix the Oregon boundaries. Overall, Tyler could claim an ambitious, successful foreign policy presidency, due largely to the efforts of Secretary of State Webster, who served from 1841 to 1843.

From the Salt Lake Tribune: Lawmakers meet in Utah to draw blueprint for constitutional convention

This could be interesting. 

- Click here for the story.

For decades, but increasingly in recent years, state lawmakers have been pushing for a convention to add amendments to the U.S. Constitution, only to run into opposition from groups warning that such a meeting could devolve into the wholesale rewriting of the nation's charter.

This week, an estimated 100 bipartisan legislators from 30 states will be in Utah, attempting to put in rules and procedures they hope could act to keep such a constitutional convention on track, should legislatures from 34 states demand such a gathering.

"We're not focused on a specific amendment, so we're not advocating for a balanced budget or any other amendment that is being proposed out there in the world of the Internet, and there are many of them," said Utah Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, a member of the Assembly of State Legislatures' executive committee. "What we're focused on is establishing the rules and procedures under which a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution could be held."

Article V of the U.S. Constitution requires Congress to convene a constitutional convention to consider amending the document if 34 states adopt resolutions requesting an amendment.

Twenty-seven states have passed resolutions seeking a convention to consider a balanced-budget amendment and Niederhauser said the 34-state threshold could be crossed within the next year, as other legislatures consider the amendment.

Proponents of the amendment are targeting 13 state legislatures in the upcoming year and would need seven to sign on to trigger a convention.

But an Article V convention has never been held in the nation's history, and the Constitution doesn't lay out any rules for how the convention should be conducted.
For example, how many delegates will attend? How will they be chosen? And will populous states send more or will each state get a set number?

Who will preside over the convention? What rules of procedure will be in place? And could the convention be limited to considering specific amendments, or would it be open to whatever amendments might be proposed?

Others have attempted to answer those questions, but there has been no definitive conclusion.

That is a concern to some — both liberal and conservative — who fear that once meeting, the convention delegates could go wild and do wholesale rewrites on the Constitution.

On state and local economic policy

Both of these articles are form Governing Magazine. The first investigates whether private efforts to spur economic development are preferable to public efforts and finds mixed results. The second questions a standard line made about cities, that they are economic entities oriented towards growth, but growth can upset existing power structures - so there can be resistance to it.  

- Welcome to Jobs Inc., Where States Have Little Say in Economic Development.

Go down the list and every apparent advantage of privatization seems to have an equal and opposite downside as well. Proponents claim that private economic development corporations are more responsive, but looser rules open up the possibility that they’ll cut corners in dubious ways. And they may not be more nimble at all, since new entities add their own layers of bureaucracy to the mix. The privatized entities typically are more flexible when it comes to managing their own personnel, but there have already been examples of staff being grossly overpaid as a result.

In short, while it might make sense to give development officials a leash longer than is the norm for government work, that approach offers no guarantee of success. “There is no evidence that privatizing economic development either helps or hurts economic development,” Timothy Bartik, an economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, says flatly.

- Do Cities Really Want Economic Development?

. . . economic struggle can be a cultural unifier in a community that people tacitly want to hold onto in order to preserve civic cohesion.

Jane Jacobs took it even further. As she noted in The Economy of Cities, “Economic development, whenever and wherever it occurs, is profoundly subversive of the status quo.” And it isn’t hard to figure out that even in cities and states with serious problems, many people inside the system are benefiting from the status quo.

They have political power, an inside track on government contracts, a nice gig at a civic organization or nonprofit, and so on. All of these people, who are disproportionately in the power broker class of most places, potentially stand to lose if economic decline is reversed. That’s not to say they are evil, but they all have an interest to protect.

From the Fiscal Times: The Mega-Danger of Mega-Deals: Monopolies Are Crushing U.S. Workers and Consumers

In 2305 - in our discussion of economic policy and specifically market failure - we mentioned that most economists argue that one role of the government in enhancing the free market is in breaking apart monopolies, or preventing them from forming in the first place.

Here's a story about concerns over recent mergers and what they might do to a freely functioning marketplace. There is a trend towards market concentration apparently.

- Click here for it.

This week, the American Medical Association formally asked the Department of Justice to block two health insurance mergers (Aetna’s purchase of Humana and Anthem’s acquisition of Cigna) that would reduce that industry to effectively three participants. Left unmentioned was the significant consolidation among health care providers that has helped spur the monopoly formation on the insurer side. After all, insurers lose bargaining power on prices when facing giant medical conglomerates, and regain it when they grow themselves.

This week, Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller completed their $106 billion plan to combine, forming the world’s largest brewery, responsible for 30 percent of global beer sales. The new company said it would sell its stake in U.S. bottler MillerCoors to show regulators its commitment to competition. But it’s selling that stake to Molson Coors Brewing, its joint partner in the MillerCoors venture, diminishing its monopoly only by bolstering a large oligopoly partner. Molson Coors would instantly become the second-largest brewer in the U.S., right behind Anheuser-Busch InBev.

This week, Apple, Google and Amazon joined forces in a lobbying venture to promote technology-based financial services, or “fintech.” All the founding members of Financial Innovation Now have investments or outright subsidiaries in the fintech space. The teaming of three of the most powerful Silicon Valley firms to exploit a gap in financial regulation represents at least the appearance of collusion between companies nominally thought to oppose one another. It comes at a time when the same tech giants, along with Facebook and Microsoft, have entrenched control over the entire Internet infrastructure, from search to messaging to advertising to video and audio distribution to applications to storage.

Despite all these shifts in the economy, all moving toward greater market concentration, influencing every major issue for workers and consumers, the nation has met these changes with virtual silence. None of the major-party debates have posed a question about antitrust policy. Republican candidates talk around issues like high drug prices without mentioning that they are the by-products of monopoly. Stories pass through the news — like T-Mobile giving preferential treatment to a handful of companies for streaming services — without any recognition of how large companies get the benefit of a narrow market.

That story, and others like it, show how the new Gilded Age allows monopolists to help other monopolists, carving up the pie together and keeping out everyone else.

For more: Bring Back Antitrust.

From the Texas Tribune: Supreme Court to Take Up Challenge to Texas Abortion Law

I knew this would happen. We've been talking about the likelihood of the court hearing this case, so there's little surprise here.

- Click here for the article. 

Setting up what could be a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a legal challenge to Texas’ 2013 abortion law, which could shut down about half of the state’s 19 remaining abortion clinics.

The restrictions, passed as part of House Bill 2, would require that Texas abortion facilities meet hospital-like ambulatory surgical center standards, including minimum sizes for rooms and doorways, pipelines for anesthesia, and other modifications. A separate provision, which has already gone into effect, requires doctors who perform the procedure to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of an abortion clinic.

A coalition of abortion providers has sued the state, saying the restrictions are unconstitutional. State attorneys say the measure was passed to improve the safety of abortions and to ensure women are getting the highest standard of health care.

If the Supreme Court had declined to take up the case, half of the abortion clinics in the state would have been forced to shut down overnight. That would have left Texas with about 10 abortion clinics — all in major metropolitan areas.

The clinics will remain open until the court hears the case and issues a ruling. A decision is expected within the next year.

From Governing Magazine: County Migration Data

Here's an interactive data sheet that let's you see how many people are moving into each county in the nation and which counties they are moving from. Aside from giving a clear indication of internal migration patterns in the US, its a nice time suck.

- Click here for it.

I checked out Harris and Brazoria Counies - of course. Most people who moved into each came from other parts of Texas - ways donw the list came places like Miami and Los Angeles. In 2013-2014 94 people moved to Brazoria County from Miami-Dade County and 93 moved from Los Angeles.

For more from Governing Magazine on Counties:

- What America’s Biggest Counties Have in Common.
- The Counties Where Wealthier People Are Moving.

From the Fiscal Times: Here’s Why the GOP Can’t Stop Talking About the Gold Standard

While candidates for public office love talking about the gold standard, economists don't. Here's why:

- Click here for the article.

And more:

- Wall Street Journal: Greg Ip: What Republicans Get Wrong About the Gold Standard.
- The Atlantic: Why Are Republicans So Obsessed With the Gold Standard?

From the Fiscal Times: Looks Like Congress Can’t Stand the Idea of an Independent Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve is designed to be insulated from the political branches so that it makes its decisions according to economic, not political, factors. Nevertheless members of Congress - as should be expected from any group of ambitious people - want to control it.

Here's a look at what is driving this desire. The new chair of the Ways and Means Committee - area rep Kevin Brady - is at the center of these efforts.

- Click here for the article.

Economic policy and the 4th Republican Debate

Conveniently enough, the fourth Republican debate was oriented towards economic policy. Here's commentary on the various claims and statements made by the candidates:

Forbes: The (Fourth) GOP Debate In Tweets From Investors, Economists And Pundits.

Update: Ballotpedia's entry on the debate highlighted the following discussion segments. A good number of them focused on economic policy.

- Click here for the page.

Here's the complete list - economic topics in bold:

1 - Minimum wage
2 - National debt and cutting federal spending
3 - Job creation
4 - Income inequality
5 - Media portrayal of candidates
6 - Economic impact of illegal immigration
7 - Technological advancement causing the loss of traditional jobs
8 - Entitlements
9 - Regulations on businesses
10 - Taxes
11 - The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (TPP)
12 - National security and foreign affairs
13 - The financial crisis and bailouts
14 - Hillary Clinton
15 - Tax loopholes and businesses leaving the country
16 - Climate change
17 - Closing statements

I'll explain in class

- Click here for the story.

CARRINGTON v. RASH

I'll add detail.

- Click here for the decision.

A blast from the past: Texas Military Voting Qualifications, Proposition 2 (1954)

Members of the military - of the United States - could not vote in Texas prior to the passage of this amendment. It was ratified by a vote of 77% to 23%.

- Click here Ballotpedia's info on it.
- The Texas Reference Library has detail on what else was on the ballot.

Here's the language:

For the amendment of Sections 1 and 2 of Article VI of the Constitution of Texas so as to confer the privilege to vote upon members of the regular establishment of the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force, or component branches thereof, who are otherwise qualified electors; and so as to limit voting by persons in the military service of the United States to the county in which the voter resided at the time of entering such service; and for the repeal of Section 2a of Article VI of the Constitution, which now permits qualified electors in military service to vote without payment of a poll tax in time of war.

Notice that they didn't have to pay a poll tax. I wonder if this reflects changing attitudes about the United States military following WW2. The military occupation of Texas was a distant memory.

A blast from the past: Texas Poll Tax Payment, Proposition 1 (1902)

I love BallotPedia. This was the only constitutional amendment on the ballot that year. It passed 65% to 35%.

- Click here for the link from Ballotpedia.

For the terminology of the joint resolution passed by the 27th session of the legislature, click here.

This was the wording on the ballot:

Amending Article 6, Section 2, of the Constitution of the State of Texas, requiring all persons subject to a poll tax to have paid a poll tax and to hold a receipt for same before they otter to vote at any election in this State, and fixing the time of payment of said tax.

A couple pages down you'll find the concurrent resolution designating the bluebonnet as the state flower.

Here's a description of the politics of that time from the Texas State Law Library:

By 1901 the movement to make payment of the poll tax a voting requirement had become so strong that the legislature proposed the amendment, and it was adopted in 1902 by an overwhelming majority. No single factor can account for the success of the poll tax voting requirement movement; the issue had been constantly pressed upon the public consciousness for years, and over that period various circumstances and developments eventually led segments of the population to favor it. At least three important elements were involved. First, there was the desire to "purify" the ballot, which was one of the reasons most often advanced by supporters of the 1902 amendment who felt vote-buying and other fraudulent election practices could be reduced by adding to the cost of voting and by more carefully regulating election administration. Second, many saw the poll tax as a means to legally disfranchise the Negro. (See Strong, "The Rise of Negro Voting in Texas," 42 American Political Science Review 510 (1948).) Third, the successes of the Populist movement in the late 19th century threatened the entrenched Democratic Party and led to a desire to disfranchise the poor farmers and laborers who formed the backbone of the radical Populist Party.

It was all about keeping the Democratic Party in power.

- Click here for a look at the source of the above text.

The Galveston County Tax Assessor and Collector defends herself

There apparently snafus regarding registration in the recent election. She offers an explanation.

- Click here for the link.

The article “Amid concerns, county rechecks voter registrations” in The Daily News on Oct. 28 fairly well reported the situation with regard to the Galveston ISD election but, sadly, the entire story was not told. Clarification is necessary for the benefit of all Texas registered voters, voter registrars, county clerks and election administrators.

What was not included in the story is that the Galveston County Tax Office Voter Registration team knew in advance of the GISD election that there were issues with the state’s new system. What we did not know at the onset of that election is that only three system generated reports were working properly.

Over the summer, GCTO created a new election district for League City’s sales tax election. My staff worked overtime creating the new district. During this process, lists were being generated to insure everything was working properly. As we uncovered system errors, they were reported to the Election Division of the SOS’s Office for investigation. Workarounds were implemented to help us complete our task as new issues arose.

We discovered during that time that streets previously coded odd and even located on boundaries of every precinct (county commissioner, state representatives, justice of the peace and constables, city, school district and community college single-member districts, etc.) had been merged into the single category “both” during the state’s conversion. We began working with the EDSOS to identify affected streets and to request assistance correcting them as the existing process is manual and time consuming. Just recently we were provided a listing of more than 6,000 affected streets and a test environment through which the EDSOS will assist with untangling these streets and properly coding the districts.

In the interim, with an important local election underway, we focused on GISD and the League City elections. Another important piece missing from the article is that, for the first time in six years, the County Clerk’s Election Division and the GCTO Voter Registration Department were working in partnership — not at odds — to insure the integrity of the elections was preserved.

Of much greater interest statewide is that Galveston County is not alone. At the September SOS Election Law Conference, county clerks, voter registrars and election administrators from across Texas stood together in communicating to the EDSOS our concerns. Generally, no one could understand why a state agency with such impact on Texas voters prematurely went live in a system that was not ready and continues not be to ready for this election, for 21 million voter registration certificates being mailed out and for 2016 primary and presidential elections.

I have asked the head of the SOS Elections Division to notify other officials of potential issues and to speak to what is being done to correct them. I am still waiting for that communication. In the meantime, I will continue to work with them to correct those in Galveston County.

From the Houston Chronicle: Texas counties turn to voting centers to boost turnout

County officials are using apps to help voters find places to vote. This is from September, so there's no feedback yet on whether these actually worked.

- Click here for the story.

Just in time for the November election, Galveston County has launched the first mobile app of its kind in the state, called "Galveston Votes." It uses GPS to direct people with lightning speed to the closest voting center.

Fort Bend County in November will make its first foray into using "voting centers" that are open to all voters countywide, rather than restricting them to their neighborhood precinct.

Montgomery and Harris counties are studying whether to do the same thing.

These efforts are part of a growing trend to counter Texas' low voter turnout - ranked nationally in 2014 third from the bottom. More and more counties across the state are moving toward using these voting centers. They are looking for any way they can to make voting more accessible and entice voters to the polls.

The centers, which can be located anywhere from grocery stores to shopping malls, may be used by any eligible voter within a county. Voters will no longer be restricted to one precinct site.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says the possible advantages include convenience, financial savings and increase in turnout. Possible drawbacks include a loss of the tradition of neighborhood voting, confusion if the scheme isn't properly explained to voters and the cost of new equipment and technology.

Harris County will give these a trial run in March.

Harris County, like Montgomery, is studying the issue. Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart plans to test new infrastructure at a few polling locations during the primary next March that could be used for future voting centers.

But Stanart warns that converting a county as large as Harris, with its 4.3 million people and 769 polling stations, would be logistically challenging and costly. Each polling station has to be electronically linked to update in "real time" the names of those who are voting at various stations.

"We do that now in early voting with 41 stations, but don't have the ability to do 769 yet," he said.

About 13 percent of all Texas counties are now using countywide voting centers and the number keeps rising, said Alicia Pierce, spokeswoman for the Texas Secretary of State, who said many voters enjoy the convenience it affords.

From FRED: the Federal Funds Rate over the past 60 years

Will the Fed increase interest rates? If so, what will the effect be?

We've discussing economic policy in 2305, which involves a look at fiscal and monetary policy.

A key aspect of monetary policy involves the Fed's ability to influence interest rates. Since 2008 the Federal Funds Rate has been at 0% in order to stimulate the economy by making it cheaper to borrow money in order to boost the economy. We are a consumer based economy so that's how things roll.

For background:
- Wikipedia: Federal Funds Rate.
- Investopedia: Discount Rate.

But low interest rates have a tendency - historically - to overheat the economy, which leads to inflation, which leads to another crash. Pressure has built on the Fed to nip this in the bud by raising the federal funds rate, but it has resisted because doing so prematurely raising the rates can also weaken the economy and lead to a crash.

There's your dilemma - and what the Fed has to weigh as they make their decision.

Here's commentary from smarter people than me:

-  NYT: When Will the Fed Raise Rates?
- The Fiscal Times: 10 Ways the Fed’s Looming Rate Hike Touches You.

- Here's a bit from Quartz's analysis:

Americans are borrowing big again. The Federal Reserve’s credit numbers showed American consumers borrowed at an all-time record of $28.9 billion in September, besting the previous high-water mark set in November 2001. The surge wasn’t driven by mortgage lending, but by an ongoing rise in non-revolving credit—essentially car and student loans, which surged by more than $22 billion. Revolving debt—mainly credit-card debt—also increased, by $6.7 billion.

One month to go ...

Actually its less than a month. We've begun discussing the finals in class, so if you a lecture students you might consider showing up. I'll start dropping hints to online through Blackboard.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: Abbott and the Challenge of Twisting State Agency Arms

In 2306 we discussed the means Texas governors use to expand their power. Here's a look at Governor Abbott's efforts:

- Click here for the story.

Here are the legal powers of a Texas governor: Veto, appointment and persuasion.

The first and second are pretty clear. The governor can veto legislation he or she doesn’t like, and the Legislature can override that veto with a supermajority. Governors appoint the members of boards and commissions that oversee the state’s executive branch agencies, with the Senate riding shotgun to approve or disapprove of those appointees.

Like any other agency head, the governor attends to his own office work, like ladling out economic development funds, deciding who oversees the divisions of the governor’s office and so on. Almost everything else is persuasion.

Gov. Greg Abbott is testing his salesmanship skills this week with a letter asking the Texas Lottery Commission to stop exploring new forms of gambling.

But unlike governors in other states, Texas governors don’t have cabinet-style powers: They don’t have the ability to enforce their orders in the executive branch.

The governor can demand that an agency do this or that but can’t enforce that demand by controlling agency budgets, regulatory powers or even who remains on the payrolls.

Persuasion is the whole bag. A governor can’t even fire an appointee without the consent of the Senate.

That’s why you hear the political science and government nerds referring to Texas as a “weak-governor” state: The executive branch of government is powerful, but its titular head is not.

The Dallas Morning News grades the debate

Fiorina gets the only A.

From the Texas Tribune: Comparing Nondiscrimination Protections in Texas Cities

Five cities in the state - all big ones - have discrimination ordinances based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

- Click here for the story.

Despite a recent loss in Houston over the city's embattled anti-discrimination ordinance, gay rights activists across the state can still claim successes in enacting protections elsewhere. There are now 10 Texas cities with populations of more than 100,000 that have some rules or legislation in place to protect residents or city employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

For at least a decade, Dallas, Austin andFort Worth have had comprehensive ordinances offering lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents some degree of protection against discrimination in employment, housing and other public areas like buses and restaurants.

San Antonio passed a similar rule in September 2013 and was followed by Plano, where the city council voted in December 2014 to extend its nondiscrimination policy to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

From the Atlantic: Seattle's Experiment With Campaign Funding City residents approved a public-financing program in which voters will get $100 worth of election vouchers—the first of its kind in the nation

An innovative approach to dealing with the imbalances in campaign finance.

- Click here for the story.

When people talk up the idea of the public financing of elections, they are usually referring to a system that goes something like this: Candidates must first raise money from individuals, and then the government will chip in matching funds or a pre-set amount that campaigns can spend on their race.

In Seattle, however, voters just approved a system that flips that approach on its head. Starting in 2017, city residents will be able to contribute to local candidates without spending a dime of their own money. Instead, the government will send each registered voter four $25 vouchers that they can give to candidates of their choice. No cutting a check. No minimum contribution. Candidates can opt out, but those who participate will have to abide by strict limits on spending and on receiving private donations.

“The promise of vouchers is turning every single voter in the city into a donor,” said Alan Durning, the executive director of the Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based think tank and advocacy group that pushed for the new program.

The Seattle ballot initiative, which won with more than 60 percent of the vote, was one of three victories for major election-reform groups last Tuesday. In Maine, voters approved fixes on disclosure requirements and penalties in the state’s public-financing system after court decisions like Citizens United had weakened the program. And in Ohio, an anti-gerrymandering proposal that sets up a bipartisan redistricting commission for state legislative races passed in a landslide.

From the Federation of American Scientists: History of the National Security Council 1947-1997

In case you are into this level of detail, here's a look at the steps that the US government took after WW2 following the passage of the National Security Act to establish the security apparatus we have today.

- Click here for the report.

It's Veteran's Day

A little history - and a loot at Armistice Day and World War 1. Veteran's Day can be traced back to a celebration of the end of WW1 - the first major international military engagement the US was involved in. The US still had a string isolationist streak at that time - this would slowly ebb by the time WW2 ended.

- From the VA: History of Veterans Day.
- Wikipedia: Armistice Day.
- Wikipedia: United States in World War I.

To do list for 2305

A couple subjects to cover:

1 - A look at market failure - an economists' look at what might justify governmental intervention in the economy:

monopolies
negative externalities
public goods
asymmetric information

2 - A brief walk through main episode in the history of economic policy making in the US:

- Hamiltonian Economic Program.
- First Bank of the United States.
- American School of Economics.
- Bank War.
- The Free Banking Era.
- Panic of 1837.
- Sherman Anti Trust Act.
- Panic of 1907.
- Federal Reserve System.
- Stock Market Crash.
- Great Depression.
- Keynesianism.
- Bretton Woods Conference.
- Deregulation and Reaganomics.
- North American Free Trade Agreement.
- Great Recession.

From Vox: The Trans-Pacific Partnership, explained

We won't be able to fully discuss the proposed deal, but a walk through these slides should give us some familiarity with it.

- Click here for it.

From the Washington Post: Free speech is flunking out on college campuses

Hopefully next week we will start discussing free speech - this primes the pump for when we get there. What limits exist?

- Click here for it.

Women, sexual assault victims, people of color, transgender students. College campuses have created “safe spaces” for all sorts of marginalized groups. But in the process, one member of the campus community has lost precious real estate.

There have of course been complaints about censorship and political correctness on the nation’s campuses for a while now. High-profile speakers — Christine Lagarde, Condoleezza Rice — have been disinvited from or otherwise pushed out of commencement addresses, thanks to students who didn’t want to hear what they had to say. Comedians have sworn off performing at colleges because they say students can’t take a joke.

Even President Obama has decried illiberal tendencies in liberal arts settings, fretting that college students are “coddled and protected from different points of view.”

Check this out also:

- The Coddling of the American Mind.

From the New York Times: When Will the Fed Raise Rates?

For our look at monetary policy.

- Click here for the article.

One of these days, the Federal Reserve tells us, it will decide to raise interest rates.

The announcement will be akin to a doctor’s decision that a patient is well enough to be gradually taken off medication. The thinking inside the Fed is that the economy is finally healthy enough that borrowing costs should return to more “normal” levels to help keep future inflation from accelerating too much.

But it is a moment with challenges. It could send markets into a tizzy (if past experience is any guide), lead to a slower economic recovery and make it harder for workers to press for higher wages. For savers, it could signal higher returns, but those borrowing to buy a house or a car may soon have to pay more.

Nearly seven years ago the Fed put its benchmark interest rate close to zero as a way to bolster the economy. And for months now, officials have said they might raise rates by the end of 2015.

It’s a “liftoff” – to use the Fed’s own term – that’s getting the kind of attention that space aficionados once lavished on NASA rockets. Fed officials left rates unchanged after meeting in October, but when they do make their announcement, it will have lasting consequences.

The last time the Fed raised interest rates, in June 2006, Facebook was mainly for college students and had one-tenth the users of Myspace.

From the New York Times: Appeals Court Deals Blow to Obama’s Immigration Plans

From the annals of checks and balances - as well as the limits of executive power, complete with a dash of judicial procedures.

- Click here for the story.

A federal appeals court said Monday that President Obama could not move forward with his plans to overhaul immigration rules by providing up to five million people with work permits and protection from deportation.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, ruled 2 to 1 against an appeal by the Obama administration, saying a lawsuit brought by 26 states to block Mr. Obama’s actions was likely to succeed at trial.

The ruling is the latest blow to the president’s efforts to circumvent congressional inaction on immigration by using the power of his office to reshape the way immigration laws are enforced.

But the ruling may have come just soon enough to allow Mr. Obama’s lawyers to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court for consideration next year. Administration officials are hoping that the Supreme Court will overturn the lower-court rulings and let the president carry out his immigration program.

From the New Yorker: Politics and the New Machine What the turn from polls to data science means for democracy.

For an upcoming look at polling. New technology is making polling less and less reliable, but more pervasive than ever before..

- Click here for the story.

The modern public-opinion poll has been around since the Great Depression, when the response rate—the number of people who take a survey as a percentage of those who were asked—was more than ninety. The participation rate—the number of people who take a survey as a percentage of the population—is far lower. Election pollsters sample only a minuscule portion of the electorate, not uncommonly something on the order of a couple of thousand people out of the more than two hundred million Americans who are eligible to vote. The promise of this work is that the sample is exquisitely representative. But the lower the response rate the harder and more expensive it becomes to realize that promise, which requires both calling many more people and trying to correct for “non-response bias” by giving greater weight to the answers of people from demographic groups that are less likely to respond. Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal has recalled how, in the nineteen-eighties, when the response rate at the firm where he was working had fallen to about sixty per cent, people in his office said, “What will happen when it’s only twenty? We won’t be able to be in business!” A typical response rate is now in the single digits.

Meanwhile, polls are wielding greater influence over American elections than ever. In May, Fox News announced that, in order to participate in its first prime-time debate, hosted jointly with Facebook, Republican candidates had to “place in the top ten of an average of the five most recent national polls.” Where the candidates stood on the debate stage would also be determined by their polling numbers. (Ranking in the polls had earlier been used to exclude third-party candidates.) Scott Keeter, Pew’s director of survey research, is among the many public-opinion experts who found Fox News’s decision insupportable. “I just don’t think polling is really up to the task of deciding the field for the headliner debate,” Keeter told me. Bill McInturff doesn’t think so, either. McInturff is a co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, the leading Republican polling organization; with its Democratic counterpart, Hart Research Associates, he conducts the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. “I didn’t think my job was to design polling so that Fox could pick people for a debate,” McInturff told me. Really, it’s not possible to design a poll to do that.

Automatic registration

Suddenly this has become a flash point of sorts, one that divides the parties. Democrats do better when turnout is higher, so they ant to make it easier for people to vote. Republicans, not so much.

For detail on the proposal:

- Brennan Center for Justice: Automatic Voter Registration.

Odds and ends for today's 2306

- Tim Cole Commission begins work, optimistic for recommendations.

Richard Miles was just 19 years old when his nightmare began. In 1994, Miles was accused of murder and attempted murder and, though he steadfastly proclaimed his innocence, he was later convicted and spent 15 years in a Dallas jail — until a court determined he was a victim of prosecutorial misconduct because his Dallas County prosecutor withheld evidence that would have cleared him.

Now 40, Miles recently told the story of his wrongful conviction to the 11 members of the newly created Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission, a panel named after the late Texas Tech student who, in 1986, was convicted of a rape he did not commit. Although Cole died in prison of an asthma attack in 1999 — without being able to prove his innocence — a few years later DNA evidence from the crime posthumously exonerated him.

- Group seeks to repeal ordinances regulating where registered sex offenders can live.

Forty-six small cities across Texas are facing a new legal challenge to their ordinances regulating where registered sex offenders can live, the latest development in a national trend to relax residency limitations that opponents say create more problems with ex-convicts than they solve. On Monday, Texas Voices for Reason and Justice, a statewide criminal justice advocacy group, announced that it has “initiated action to compel, through litigation if necessary,” the repeal of the ordinances in so-called “general law” cities, those with populations of 5,000 or less.

Two Bexar County cities — Balcones Heights and Hollywood Park — are among the 46 whose ordinances are being challenged. Similar ordinances exist in hundreds of larger “home rule” Texas cities, which officials say have the legal authority to enforce them. Nonetheless, several larger cities already face litigation on the issue on the grounds that residency restrictions violate the U.S. Constitution.

- Democratic Group Called iVote Pushes Automatic Voter Registration.

As Republicans across the country mount an aggressive effort to tighten voting laws, a group of former aides to President Obama and President Bill Clinton is pledging to counter by spending up to $10 million on a push to make voter registration automatic whenever someone gets a driver’s license.

The change would supercharge the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the “motor voter” law, which requires states to offer people the option of registering to vote when they apply for driver’s licenses or other identification cards. The new laws would make registration automatic during those transactions unless a driver objected.

- Straus Forms Select Committee on Mental Health.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus announced Monday he's formed a select committee on mental health to take an all-encompassing look at the state's behavioral health system. 

The committee will review and make recommendations on issues including substance abuse, care for veterans, identifying illnesses early and improving delivery of mental health care, the speaker said in a news release.

“We have taken some major steps to address the state’s mental health needs,” said Straus, R-San Antonio. “It’s important not to look at these issues in isolation, but rather to take a comprehensive view of how to improve the system. Many legislators asked that we take a closer look at various issues related to mental health, and it became clear that one committee should look at all of those issues together.”

- Lopsided election puts political target on property taxes.

When property tax relief was approved by 86 percent of voters in last week’s election, you can bet Texas politicians noticed.

Calling the lopsided result a mandate for additional action, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick vowed to make property tax reform a priority when the Legislature convenes in 14 months. Any reasonable idea will be on the table, Patrick said, although his initial concepts focus on reining in budget increases for local governments, particularly cities and counties.

“I have the opportunity to put my shoulder behind those issues and push, and I don’t intend to sit on the sidelines,” said Patrick, a Houston Republican. One important idea, Patrick said, is to require a rollback election if city or county property tax revenue grows by more than 4 to 6 percent, though the final trigger number will need to be refined. Currently, tax-rollback elections are possible with 8 percent increases, and only if 7 or 10 percent of registered voters sign a petition, depending on the size of the budget.

Texas ranks 38th in state integrity

This is the finding in a study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity.

- Click here for their website.
- Click here for the study.
- Click here for the section on Texas.

The discuss their findings here:

- Only three states score higher than D+ in State Integrity Investigation; 11 flunk.

The good news is that Texas was not one of the states that flunked. It's budgeting process was given an A, but it scored very poorly in accountability, elections and access to information.  Here are the full results:

Public Access to Information:
GRADE:F
RANK: 48th

Political Financing
GRADE:F
RANK: 41st

Electoral Oversight
GRADE:F
RANK: 45th

Executive Accountability
GRADE:F
RANK: 44th

Legislative Accountability
GRADE:F
RANK: 36th

Judicial Accountability
GRADE:F
RANK: 41st

State Budget Processes
GRADE:A
RANK: 4th

State Civil Service Management
GRADE:F
RANK: 41st

Procurement
GRADE:C+
RANK: 9th

Internal Auditing
GRADE:B+
RANK: 4th

Lobbying Disclosure
GRADE:F
RANK: 45th

Ethics Enforcement Agencies
GRADE:D-
RANK: 19th

State Pension Fund Management
GRADE:C+
RANK: 9th

For commentary:

- Houston Public Media: Texas Gets D- In State Integrity Report.
- VICE: How Corrupt Is Your State? Chances Are: Very.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: A Peculiar Way to Disenfranchise Voters

Rapid turnover undermines the ability of a district to get a representative that has enough seniority to become powerful. Is this intentional?

- Click here for the story.

Texas lawmakers have designed a congressional district that is so slippery that neither political party can hang onto it, and where it is impossible for anyone to stay in office long enough to build up enough clout to get much of anything done for the folks at home.

You will get an argument about that from the people who have held the seat. Will Hurd, Pete Gallego, Francisco "Quico" Canseco, Ciro Rodriguez and Henry Bonilla will all say, in one way or another, that they have been effective representatives for the people who sent them to Washington, D.C.

Bonilla, a Republican, was there for 14 years. Rodriguez, a Democrat, was there for four, but served in Congress for eight more years representing another district — another redistricting tale for another day.

. . . Kevin Brady, a Republican from The Woodlands who served in the Texas Legislature with Rodriguez and Gallego back in the day, was elected to Congress in 1996. He is now poised to become the chairman of the powerful tax-writing Ways & Means Committee.

Midland Republican Michael Conaway was elected to Congress in 2004, and he’s chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, went to Washington after the 2002 elections and chairs the Financial Services Committee. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, who was first elected in 2004, chairs the Homeland Security Committee. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, who heads the Rules Committee, he joined Congress in 1997.

First thing to notice there is that you have to be a Republican to have a chairmanship in the current Congress. But the second is that nobody from the 23rd congressional district has had a chance to stay long enough to get into the line, even for the top minority positions. And their voters, it follows, have that much less power in Washington than other Texans from more stable districts.

Meet FRED

He can answer all of your questions about the state of the economy.

From Vox: A map of all the underwater cables that connect the internet

One of the roles the federal government has played - controversially - since day one is to help develop the infrastructure that allows for commercial development. Laying cables across the oceans is an example - it also helps explain the relationship between economic and foreign - notably military - policy.

- Click here for the story.

And for more:

- Wired: How the first cable was laid across the Atlantic.
- Wikipedia: Transatlantic telegraph cable.

From Federal Reserve Education.org: Monetary Policy Basics

For this week in 2305 as we begin to look at economic policy:

- Here's a link to the page.

Some highlights: 

What is monetary policy? The term "monetary policy" refers to what the Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank, does to influence the amount of money and credit in the U.S. economy. What happens to money and credit affects interest rates (the cost of credit) and the performance of the U.S. economy.

What is inflation and how does it affect the economy? Inflation is a sustained increase in the general level of prices, which is equivalent to a decline in the value or purchasing power of money. If the supply of money and credit increases too rapidly over time, the result could be inflation.

What are the goals of monetary policy? The goals of monetary policy are to promote maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates. By implementing effective monetary policy, the Fed can maintain stable prices, thereby supporting conditions for long-term economic growth and maximum employment.

What are the tools of monetary policy? The Federal Reserve’s three instruments of monetary policy are open market operations, the discount rate and reserve requirements.

Open market operations involve the buying and selling of government securities. The term “open market” means that the Fed doesn’t decide on its own which securities dealers it will do business with on a particular day. Rather, the choice emerges from an “open market” in which the various securities dealers that the Fed does business with – the primary dealers – compete on the basis of price. Open market operations are flexible, and thus, the most frequently used tool of monetary policy.

The discount rate is the interest rate charged by Federal Reserve Banks to depository institutions on short-term loans.

Reserve requirements are the portions of deposits that banks must maintain either in their vaults or on deposit at a Federal Reserve Bank.

From Ballotpedia: Ballot Access for Presidential Candidates

Here's the full rundown on how presidential candidates get on the ballot in each of the 50 states.

- Click here for it.

From Governing: Voter Turnout Plummeting in Local Elections

This is part of a long term - and troubling - trend.

- Click here for the article.

Voter turnout for local elections has historically lagged but is getting worse, prompting officials to explore new ways to get people to the polls. Just over a fifth of registered voters cast their ballots in the Los Angeles primary and runoff elections that ushered in Mayor Eric Garcetti last year. The elections continued a persistent downward trend in voter participation that’s not limited to Los Angeles. In New York, Bill de Blasio won a landslide election that similarly saw the lowest voter turnout since at least the 1950s.

More recently, just over a quarter of voters showed up for the District of Columbia’s hotly-contested mayoral primary – the lowest turnout in more than 30 years.
Voter turnout for local elections, typically held in off-cycle years, has historically lagged behind state and federal races set to take place in November, butrecent results suggest it’s slowly becoming even worse.

. . . Long ago, political machines routinely mobilized a healthy cadre of big city voters with often predictable results. Later, during the 1960s and 70s, more than two-thirds of registered voters cast ballots in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere when power shifted to racial and ethnic minorities. But now, voter participation in big cities is typically low, prompting officials to explore ways to get more people out to the polls.

Random items on last week's local elections

These are all from Governing Magazine

How People Voted on Local Ballot Measures Across the Country.

Social conservatives around the country hailed the sound rejection of an anti-discrimination ordinance in Houston. But progressives were able to claim victory on local ballot measures elsewhere that address housing, transportation, early childhood education and campaign finance.

Democrats, Women and LGBT Win Big in 2015 Mayoral Races.

Most mayors who were on the ballot Tuesday easily won re-election, but incumbents were ousted in Salt Lake City and Portland, Maine. In Philadelphia, Democrat Jim Kenney was elected mayor, as expected. Meanwhile, the mayors of San Francisco; Orlando, Fla.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Spokane, Wash.; Toledo, Ohio; and Boise, Idaho; all won new terms.

Democrats scored a victory in Indianapolis, with Democrat Joe Hogsett easily picking up the office being vacated by Republican Greg Ballard. He will be working with his party's new single-seat majority on the city-county council. Democrats will now serve as mayor of 22 of the nation's 25 largest cities. That is, if Sylvester Turner can win a runoff in Houston on Dec. 12.

2015 Election Results: State and Local Races and Ballot Measures.

From Deborah Rhode: Obesity and Public Policy: A Roadmap for Reform

The author looks at existing policy on obesity, evaluates it, and finds it deficient. She analyzes the current state of public policy and offers proposals.

- Click here for the article.

In principle, the United States is deeply committed to finding solutions to the rise of obesity and its health consequences. In practice, however, public policy has fallen short. The Surgeon General and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have pronounced obesity to be a national “epidemic,” and First Lady Michelle Obama has described it as a “public health crisis.” Almost four-fifths of Americans consider adult obesity to be a major public health problem. Yet many policy responses have proven controversial, and those most often recommended have frequently faced an uphill battle at the federal, state, and local level. At the same time that obesity rates have been rising sharply, many jurisdictions have resisted, or rolled back, strategies such as soda taxes or regulation of advertising directed at children.

This Article analyzes leading policy initiatives. It proceeds in three parts. Part I explores the causes and consequences of the obesity problem. Discussion focuses on the complex relationship between environmental, cultural, behavioral, and biological factors that influence weight, as well as the individual and social costs of obesity-related health conditions. Part II looks at the justifications for government intervention and the objections of paternalism that it evokes. Part III explores those interventions that have achieved the greatest prominence, including disclosure requirements, taxes, bans on certain sugar-sweetened beverages, food stamp modifications, zoning regulations, children’s marketing, physical activity initiatives, food policies, litigation, and education.

- Here's a Q&A with the author.

From TaxPayers for Common Sense: Political Footprint of the Oil and Gas Industry Lobby - April 2014

Here's a look at the number of ex-members of Congress who have lobbied for the oil and gas industry since leaving office. It helps explain the industry's influence.

- Click here for the report. 

Last year, the oil and gas industry spent $144.7 million, or more than $396,000 per day, lobbying the U.S. Congress and federal agencies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. It employed 763 lobbyists, nearly two for each member of the U.S. House of Representatives. More than 60 percent of these lobbyists were “revolving door” personnel, including former members of Congress, and Congressional staff. The industry has also spent more than $15 million in political campaign contributions since the beginning of 2013.

The oil and gas industry boasts an impressive roster of hired guns. Among the lobbyists working for the industry, 23 lobbyists were former Members of Congress, including 15 who had served on a relevant Committee (e.g. the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee). These include:

Former Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): Lincoln served on the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Her firm, Lincoln Policy Group, lobbies on behalf of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the Valero Energy Corporation.

Former Senator Trent Lott (R-MS): Lott served as the Senate Majority Leader and as Chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. He now works for the international law firm Patton Boggs LLP, which represents Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, among other clients.

Former Senator Don Nickles (R-OK): Nickles served on the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and was the Senate Majority Whip. His firm, The Nickles Group, LLC, lobbies on behalf of the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and Exxon Mobil. Nickles has also served on the Board of Directors of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Valero Energy Corporation.

In addition, at least 48 lobbyists were former White House employees, 20 worked at the U.S. Department of Energy, and 10 worked at the U.S. Department of the Interior. These lobbyists include former high-level agency executives (e.g. Assistant Secretaries). 

Introducing: Gephardt Government Affairs

In class - and in the class notes - I mentioned that ex-members of Congress can cash in after they leave office and offer their services to industry. By "services" I mean their internal knowledge of the legislative process and familiarity, if not friendships, with current members of Congress.

Examples abound, but here's a link to lobbying firm established by ex Democratic Majority Leader Dick Gephardt so you can get an idea of what these institutions look like.

- Click here for the website.
- Wikipedia: Dick Gephardt.

Catching up with the "revolving door"

The concept of a revolving door is central tot eh establishment and preservation of sub-governments. Legistorm reports that almost 500 people "revolved" between Congress and the lobbying community in the third quarter of 2015.

- Click here for the report.

Lobbying filings for the third quarter show revolving season is back after taking a slight dip in recent years.

With three quarters gone, 2015 has seen 498 people come and go between Congress and the lobbying community. That number already surpasses last year's total of 481 of staffers who became lobbyists and vice versa. Of the 498 revolvers this year, 399 moved from Congress to lobby and 99 moved from the private sector to Congress.

If this year's pace continues, 2015 will have the highest revolving volume since 2011, which saw nearly 800 people move between the Hill and K Street after Republicans took control of the House. The revolving door is used more often in off-election years. Since 2002, the earliest year for which LegiStorm records the revolving door, election years have averaged 471 revolvers while off-election years have averaged 717.

2007 saw the highest volume by far as the Democrats take control of the House and nearly 1,000 people switched congressional and lobbying roles.

2012 saw the lowest number of revolvers in recent years with only 405 going through the door, which came after an earmarks ban that went into effect in 2011. 2013 had the lowest volume of revolvers for an off-election year since 2002.

Democrats have thus far made up 40% of all 2015 revolvers, proportionally slightly less than their congressional makeup, while Republicans account for 59%. The remaining 1% are unaffiliated with either party or serve as bipartisan staff.

The process of people moving from positions in Congress - as well as the executive branch - to lobbying firms is one of the factors that ties together subgovernments - a topic we covered in 2305, and to a lesser extent 2306.

For more, click on the archives of previous posts here.

Also:

- Wikipedia: Revolving Door.
- Open Secrets: Revolving Door.

From the Texas Tribune: For Harris County Democrats, A Win and Two Losses

For our upcoming look at state and county parties in 2306:

- Click here for the story.

If everyone showed up at the polls, Houston — the largest city in Texas and fourth largest in the U.S. — probably would elect Democrat after Democrat, and then some. But with fewer than one-third of registered voters turning out Tuesday, Texas Democrats again watched their Republican counterparts upend the political landscape.

Though turnout was higher than usual for an off-year election, the numbers clearly did not entirely benefit the blue team. While Texas Democrats saw a longtime member — state Rep. Sylvester Turner — win the most votes for Houston mayor, they also saw the resounding defeat of the city’s polarizing nondiscrimination ordinance and the unexpected failure of a rising star, Adrian Garcia, to make the runoff for the city’s top job.

“It should be a wake-up call to Democrats in Harris County, even looking forward to 2016, in that the GOP at the local level is just a better-run, better-organized organization than their Democratic counterparts,” said Jay K. Aiyer, a Texas Southern University assistant professor of political science and public administration. “Both in terms of voter turnout, message discipline, organization, resources — they’re just better.”

From TribTalk: How HERO was defeated

I'll add more to this topic.

The author - Rice's Robert Stein - is one of the better commentators on Houston politics. He points to high turnout, not just among Republicans, but African-Americans who were opposed to the measure. Local political often includes unusual alliances - here's the latest example.

- Click here for the story.

The Conditional Motion for Preliminary Injunction on Implementation of 2013 Redistricting Plans for 2016 Election Cycle

A link in the Texas Tribune's story on the decision by federal judges to not require Texas' congressional districts to be redrawn prior to the 2016 election - click here for the story - has a link to the actual ruling.

Check it out if you wish.

- Click for it here.

Here's a chunk of the text highlighted by the Tribune:

“Even if movants could show a likelihood of success on the merits, the Court must balance the need to protect voting rights that may be affected by the 2013 plans with the need to avoid the adverse effect on voting rights that comes with delay and confusion during election time,” the three judges — Jerry Smith, Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez — wrote.

“If the Court enjoined the 2013 enacted plans and imposed yet another set of interim plans for the 2016 election, the shifting district and precinct lines would leave candidates in limbo, voters confused, and election officials with the burden of implementing new maps in a timely manner with very limited resources. It would be extremely difficult to implement new interim plans without tremendous interruption to the 2016 election schedule.”

From the San Antonio Express-News: U.S. Court panel says redistricting maps will stay the same for 2016 election

Texas' house maps - drawn in 2013 - are being challenged in the federal courts. Minority groups argue that the districts are drawn to diminish their voting strength, which would be a violation of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The paper reports that the panel of judges that are reviewing the accusation will allow the 2016 elections to be competed on the basis of those districts. This does not mean that they will not ultimately rule that the districts are unconstitutional.

- Click here for the story.

A three-judge panel in San Antonio on Friday rejected a motion to temporarily block a set of redistricting maps passed by the Legislature in 2013 for Congress and the Texas House. Litigation on the maps remains pending, as civil rights groups claim they discriminate against minorities. The three-judge panel said it has not reached a final decision and that the current boundaries are being “used on an interim basis only.”

However, the court made clear it has no intention to tweak the maps before the upcoming March primaries — a move that will avoid a repeat of 2012 when redistricting map litigation threw the election cycle into disarray and caused the primaries to be delayed from March to May. The ruling eases fears of Texas getting bumped from the "Super Tuesday" slate of March primaries. “The 2016 elections will proceed as scheduled, without interruption or delay,” the court wrote.

Roll Call reports that similar accusations are being made for the maps in five other states:

- 5 Congressional Maps That Redistricting Could Change for 2016.

Governing Magazine points out how these disputes will impact the 2016 election nationally. Two states - at least - already have to redraw their districts:

- How the Never-Ending Battle of Redistricting Will Impact 2016.

From the New Republic: How Opponents of LGBT Rights Are Exploiting the Politics of Disgust

We discussed this earlier this semester. It touches on what factors influence the decision to both turnout to vote and how to vote.

- Click here for the story.

The gay marriage movement succeeded by convincing people that gay men and women just wanted to be normal. Having lost that battle, the opponents of LGBT rights have made a partial comeback by turning their focus to transgender discrimination, bringing old fears of the abnormal and the deviant back to the forefront.

On Tuesday, voters in Houston overwhelmingly rejected a broad anti-discrimination ordinance by a whopping 62 percent to 38 percent margin after its opponents shamelessly pitched the measure as a vehicle for sexual predators to victimize young women. “Any man at any time could enter a woman’s bathroom simply by claiming to be a woman that day. … Even registered sex offenders could follow women or young girls into the bathroom,” warned one TV ad depicting a faceless man following a young uniformed school girl in into a bathroom stall and shutting the door. “It would allowed troubled men to enter women’s public bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms,” former Houston Astros baseball star Lance Berkman said in a radio ad against the ordinance.

That message preyed on all kinds of base fears and stereotypes—that trans people are disturbed freaks; that the world is crawling with sexual predators; and that women and girls must be shielded from men’s private parts. The reality is that 17 states and more than 200 towns and cities broadly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, including at public bathrooms. And there's no evidence that these laws are enabling sexual assault by sexual predators pretending to be transgendered. Violence against transgender people, on the other hand, is still distressingly real and on the rise.

Grand Jury Reform in the 84th Session

This was one of the more significant criminal justice reforms passed in the 84th session and signed by the governor. The key man system - also known as pick a pal - was replaced.

- Texas Tribune: Is it Time to Ditch Texas' Key Man Grand Jury System?
- Texas Tribune: Abbott Signs Grand Jury Reform Legislation.
- Texas Tribune: Texas Grand Jury Selection to Become More Random.

For a look at the the bill from the TLO click here: HB 2150.

The Supreme Court looks at racial bias in the jury selection process

The case is Foster v. Chatman. It reminds us that the actions of state and local courts are subject to review by the national courts based on nationally defined objective ( that some states might resist). In this case - once again - it has to do with whether court procedures are in compliance with the requirement that states no deny persons the equal protection of the laws.

Here are links for official background on the case:

- Scotusblog: Foster v. Chatman.
- Oyez: Foster v. Chatman.

The issue as presented before the court:

Whether the Georgia courts erred in failing to recognize race discrimination under Batson v. Kentucky in the extraordinary circumstances of this death penalty case.

For more:

- Slate: Racism Highlighted in a Green Marker.
- Slate: Amicus: Strike Zone: When black jurors are removed from the pool, how do we know that it’s not because of their race?

A couple items related to state courts

For 2306:

- The Atlantic: Will State Courts Fill a Void on Voting Rights?

In recent years, as the U.S. Supreme Court has limited its protections of the right to vote, some state courts have stepped in to fill the void. State judges have looked to their state constitutions—which are more explicit in conferring the right to vote—to provide relief from onerous election laws. And, in doing so, they have shown how these documents can be powerful tools to improve America’s democracy.

Forty-nine of the 50 state constitutions explicitly grant the right to vote to their citizens (Arizona is the only outlier), and just over half of them also provide further protection to the democratic process by requiring elections to be “free and equal” or “free and open.” Some state courts, such as in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Arkansas—and most recently Delaware—have analyzed their state constitutions in an increasingly expansive way, going beyond federal law to protect voting rights.

Yet other state courts—such as in Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Indiana—have ruled that their constitutions are merely coextensive with the U.S. Constitution, leading them to apply the more limited federal protection with equal force to the state constitution. That is, these courts have simply followed the current restrictive voting-rights rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, even though their state constitutions textually and explicitly provide more protection. This “lockstep” methodology strips the state constitutions of any independent meaning—and it allows courts to uphold election rules that negatively impact voters.

- Huffington Post: Money Flooding State Court Elections Threatens the Promise of Equal Justice.

Special interest money is flooding into our state Supreme Court elections, gravely threatening the impartial justice that our Constitution promises -- and raising troubling questions about whether courtroom decisions are for sale.

This fast-growing trend in American politics, spurred in part by the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2010, puts our system of justice at risk. When judges are pressured to answer to deep-pocketed special interests, disillusioned citizens may perceive them as little more than politicians in robes.

And when special interest groups air grisly TV ads accusing judges of being soft on crime or attacking them for decisions in controversial cases, those judges may find themselves especially vulnerable to election pressure.

Consider the startling transformation of state Supreme Court elections in recent years. Traditionally sleepy and low-cost affairs, these high court elections have become politicized, expensive, and dominated by powerful special interests.

The Texas Supreme Court weighs arguments on the rights of home-schoolers

The extent of religious liberty is back before the court, this time wrapped up in a case involving home schooling. The courts have dealt with home schooling issues before, so there's nothing new there. The case is McIntyres v. El Paso School District.

- Click here for the case.

The State's 8th District court of appeals had ruled on a previous issue involving accusations of truancy.

- Click here for that result.

Here's a bit from coverage by the Dallas Morning News:

- Click here for the story.

Laura McIntyre began educating her nine children more than a decade ago inside a vacant office at an El Paso motorcycle dealership she ran with her husband and other relatives.

Now the family is embroiled in a legal battle the Texas Supreme Court hears Monday that could have broad implications on the nation’s booming home-school ranks. The McIntyres are accused of failing to teach their children educational basics because they were waiting to be transported to heaven with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

At issue: Where do religious liberty and parental rights to educate one’s children stop and obligations to ensure home-schooled students ever actually learn something begin?

“Parents should be allowed to decide how to educate their children, not whether to educate their children,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

Like other Texas home-school parents, Laura and Michael McIntyre weren’t required to register with state or local education officials. They also didn’t have to teach state-approved curriculums or give standardized tests.

But problems began when the dealership’s co-owner and Michael’s twin brother, Tracy, reported never seeing the children reading, working on math, using computers or doing much of anything educational except singing and playing instruments. He said he heard one of them say learning was unnecessary since “they were going to be raptured.”

Then, the family’s eldest daughter, 17-year-old Tori, ran away from home saying she wanted to return to school. She was placed in ninth grade, because officials weren’t sure she could handle higher-level work.

The El Paso school district eventually asked the McIntyres to provide proof that their children were being properly educated and even filed truancy charges that were later dropped. The family sued, and an appeals court ruled against them, but now the case goes to the all-Republican state Supreme Court.

For more coverage:

- Texas Supreme Court takes up home-schooling case.
- Texas court considers homeschool autonomy.
- Conservative Texas court to decide if homeschoolers can wait for the Rapture instead of teaching their kids.

The Texas Home School Coalition has links to previous court decisions regarding the right of parents to home school students.

- Click here for the Leeper Case Decisions.

From the Atlantic: Why Non-Voters Matter

The non-voting public is very different than the voting public. This has consequences.

- Click here for the article.

In 2014, just 41.9 percent of the voting-age citizen population of the United States voted. But the people who voted are not only in the minority, they form an unrepresentative minority. Millions of Americans are too young to vote. Others are disenfranchised felons, unable to vote for health reasons, missed registration deadlines, stuck at work, dissuaded by voter ID laws. In many salient ways, voters are not like nonvoters: voters are richer, whiter, and older than other Americans. And my new report, Why Voting Matters, shows how their votes produce a government that caters to their interests—and how boosting turnout would lead to a more representative democracy.

Political scientists once accepted the idea that voters were a “carbon copy” of the nonvoting population. In 1999, Benjamin Highton and Raymond E. Wolfinger summarized this consensus, writing that, “simply put, voters’ preferences differ minimally from those of all citizens; outcomes would not change if everyone voted.” More recently, though, that view has come under attack. Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler, a pair of political scientists,argue that gaps between voters and nonvoters are real and have widened, and that the divergence in their views is particularly acute on issues related to social class and the size of government. However, measures that examine a one dimensional left-right axis obscure these divides.

Census data on the 2014 midterm elections quantifies some of these gaps. While 52 percent of those earning more than $150,000 voted, only 24 percent of those earning less than $10,000 went to the polls. That divide is further magnified by age. Among 18-24 year olds earning less than $30,000 turnout was 17 percent in 2014, but among those earning more than $150,000 and older than 65, the turnout rate was nearly four times higher, at 65 percent. There were also racial gaps in voter turnout. In 2014, 46 percent of white voters turned out to vote, compared to 40 percent of black voters, and just 27 percent of Asians and Latinos.