- https://www.pearlandisd.org/propa
- https://www.pearlandisd.org/cms/lib/TX01918186/Centricity/Domain/4537/Prop_A_PPT_2021_webpage.pdf
- https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/truth-in-taxation/rollback-elections.php
- https://www.tasb.org/services/legal-services/tasb-school-law-esource/business/documents/school-district-voter-approval-tax-rate-elections.pdf
- https://www.tml.org/DocumentCenter/View/1485/sb-2-qa_update_july-2021?bidId=
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Voter-Approval Tax Rate Election
HOME / PEOPLE l MICHAEL B. KIMBERLY
He's the guy representing David Wilson before the Supreme Court.
- Click here for his bio.
- About McDermott Will & Emery.
Links 11/3/21
https://www.pearlandisd.org/cms/lib/TX01918186/Centricity/Domain/4537/Prop_A_PPT_2021_webpage.pdf
https://www.pearlandisd.org/propa
https://results.texas-election.com/races
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_argument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_rights
https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/11/justices-seek-narrow-ruling-on-authority-of-public-bodies-to-censure-their-own-members/
https://www.harrisvotes.com/ElectionResults/ElectionDay?lang=en-US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/print-edition/2014/10/17/if-passed-school-bonds-could-offer-up-1-47b-worth.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2014/11/hcc-to-break-ground-on-major-projects-in-december.html
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
From Open Secrets: Restrictive Texas abortion law takes effect while abortion-rights groups continue to spend more than anti-abortion groups
- Click here for the article.
Money spent on abortion-rights federal lobbying dipped to one of the lowest totals in recent years in 2020 ahead of Texas’ restrictive abortion law going into effect that bans abortions after six weeks and places enforcement power on citizens.
While the clients lobbying for abortion rights and access have seen dips in their lobbying spending, the industry still spends more in a given year on federal lobbying than anti-abortion policy groups. However, the clients lobbying against abortion are trending toward increasing their lobbying spend.
In 2016, the anti-abortion lobby spent just $700,000. In 2018 that total jumped to about $1.1 million. And the industry matched its 2018 total in the 2019 off-year spending. During the 2020 presidential election year, clients lobbying against abortion spent about $1.1 million. It’s not clear if the industry will meet its 2020 pace, though, as it’s only spent $460,000 so far in 2021.
Over the last decade, abortion access across the United States has declined with laws in conservative states curtailing how long a person has to seek an abortion during their pregnancy, and the steps they need to take to actually have the procedure.
Whole Women's Health
The group behind the lawsuit against SB 8.
- Click here for their website.
From their link regarding advocacy
Our staff works hard to eradicate the stigma surrounding abortion care, as well as ensure that all people have safe, affordable access to abortion care. Since our founding, we have become an integral part in the reproductive healthcare movement in multiple states and nationwide. As one of the largest independent providers of abortion care in the U.S., we’ve worked to ensure that our lawmakers know that these attacks on reproductive healthcare will not happen without a fight.
We are committed to destigmatizing abortion and creating safe spaces for all people, whether it’s in our clinics or in the communities where we live. As such, we have created a Whole Woman’s Health Abortion 101 Program for advocates, activists, community partners, state legislators, media, and medical professionals. This workshop can be given at any of our Whole Woman’s Health or Whole Woman’s Health Alliance clinic sites, or administrative and advocacy locations throughout the country. This program serves as a way to learn about what someone would experience when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. By deconstructing the nuanced conflicts, emotions, language and conversations surrounding abortion, we are able to support the growth of people’s empathy and help shift the way that people talk, think, and feel about abortion in our country.
Whole Woman’s Health encourages you to get involved, whether it’s where we are state-based leaders (Virginia, Texas, Maryland, Indiana, and Minnesota) or at the national level. Register to vote. Educate your communities on what restrictive laws mean to reproductive healthcare. And donate. Whole Woman’s Health Alliance is a non-profit organization working to shift the stigma around abortion in our culture while also expanding access to abortion. Click here to donate today.
From Wikipedia: Government Speech
This is a concept central to HCCS v. Wilson
The government speech doctrine, in American constitutional law, says that the government is not infringing the free speech rights of individual people when the government declines to use viewpoint neutrality in its own speech.[1] More generally, the degree to which governments have free speech rights remains unsettled, including the degree of free speech rights that states may have under the First Amendment versus federal speech restrictions.The government speech doctrine establishes that the government may advance its own speech without requiring viewpoint neutrality when the government itself is the speaker. Thus, when the state is the speaker, it may make content based choices. The simple principle has broad implications, and has led to contentious disputes within the Supreme Court.[1]
The doctrine was implied in Wooley v. Maynard in 1977, when the Supreme Court acknowledged a legitimate government interest in communicating an official, ideologically partial message to the public. In the 1991 case of Rust v. Sullivan,[4] government-funded doctors in a government health program were not allowed to advise patients on obtaining abortions, and the doctors challenged this law on Free Speech grounds.[1] However, the Court held that because the program was government-funded, the doctors were therefore speaking on behalf of the government. Therefore, the government could say what it wishes, and “the Government has not discriminated based on viewpoint; it has merely chosen to fund one activity to the exclusion of the other."[5]
In Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, the Supreme Court held that, although providing government-funded legal services appeared similar to government-funded doctors, the speech of the lawyers was private speech because lawyers spoke on behalf of their clients. As a result, the government could not prevent these attorneys from filing constitutional suits against the government.
From Wikipedia: Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case regarding abortion. In a plurality opinion, the Court upheld the constitutional right to have an abortion that was established in Roe v. Wade (1973), but altered the standard for analyzing restrictions on that right, crafting the undue burden standard for abortion restrictions.[1]
The case arose from a challenge to five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982; among the provisions were requirements for a waiting period, spousal notice, and (for minors) parental consent prior to undergoing an abortion procedure. In a plurality opinion jointly written by associate justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter, the Supreme Court upheld the "essential holding" of Roe, which was that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects a woman's right to choose to have an abortion prior to viability.[citation needed]
The Court overturned the Roe trimester framework in favor of a viability analysis, thereby allowing states to implement abortion restrictions that apply during the first trimester of pregnancy. The Court also replaced the strict scrutiny standard of review required by Roe with the undue burden standard, under which abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional when they were enacted for "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." Applying this new standard of review, the Court upheld four provisions of the Pennsylvania law, but invalidated the requirement of spousal notification. Four justices wrote or joined opinions arguing that Roe v. Wade should have been struck down, while two justices wrote opinions favoring the preservation of the higher standard of review for abortion restrictions.
For more on the undue burden standard, click here.
The undue burden standard is a constitutional test fashioned by the Supreme Court of the United States. The test, first developed in the late 19th century, is widely used in American constitutional law.[1] In short, the undue burden standard states that a legislature cannot make a particular law that is too burdensome or restrictive of one's fundamental rights.
One use of the standard was in Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946). In a 7-to-1 ruling, Associate Justice Stanley Forman Reed fashioned an "undue burden" test to decide the constitutionality of a Virginia law requiring separate but equal racial segregation in public transportation. "There is a recognized abstract principle, however, that may be taken as a postulate for testing whether particular state legislation in the absence of action by Congress is beyond state power. This is that the state legislation is invalid if it unduly burdens that commerce in matters where uniformity is necessary—necessary in the constitutional sense of useful in accomplishing a permitted purpose."[2]
More recently, the standard has been used in cases involving state restrictions on a woman's access to abortion. The standard was applied by Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her dissent in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 US 416 (1983). O'Connor utilized the test as an alternative to the strict scrutiny test applied in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). The test was later used by a plurality opinion[3] in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), to uphold state regulations on abortion.[4][5][6] In City of Akron, O'Connor stated: "If the particular regulation does not 'unduly burden' the fundamental right, then our evaluation of that regulation is limited to our determination that the regulation rationally relates to a legitimate state purpose."[7] Justice John Paul Stevens in his partial concurrence, partial dissent to Casey further defined undue burden by saying, "[a] burden may be 'undue' either because [it] is too severe or because it lacks a legitimate, rational justification."[8]
The undue burden test has been used to judge the constitutionality of tax laws,[9] consumer product liability laws,[10] affirmative action,[11] voter registration laws,[12] abortion laws,[13] and even anti-spam laws.[14]
Some courts have described the undue burden standard as "a 'middle way' forward" for Constitutional analysis, between the strict scrutiny and the rational basis tests.
The case arose from a challenge to five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982; among the provisions were requirements for a waiting period, spousal notice, and (for minors) parental consent prior to undergoing an abortion procedure. In a plurality opinion jointly written by associate justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter, the Supreme Court upheld the "essential holding" of Roe, which was that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects a woman's right to choose to have an abortion prior to viability.[citation needed]
The Court overturned the Roe trimester framework in favor of a viability analysis, thereby allowing states to implement abortion restrictions that apply during the first trimester of pregnancy. The Court also replaced the strict scrutiny standard of review required by Roe with the undue burden standard, under which abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional when they were enacted for "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." Applying this new standard of review, the Court upheld four provisions of the Pennsylvania law, but invalidated the requirement of spousal notification. Four justices wrote or joined opinions arguing that Roe v. Wade should have been struck down, while two justices wrote opinions favoring the preservation of the higher standard of review for abortion restrictions.
For more on the undue burden standard, click here.
The undue burden standard is a constitutional test fashioned by the Supreme Court of the United States. The test, first developed in the late 19th century, is widely used in American constitutional law.[1] In short, the undue burden standard states that a legislature cannot make a particular law that is too burdensome or restrictive of one's fundamental rights.
One use of the standard was in Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946). In a 7-to-1 ruling, Associate Justice Stanley Forman Reed fashioned an "undue burden" test to decide the constitutionality of a Virginia law requiring separate but equal racial segregation in public transportation. "There is a recognized abstract principle, however, that may be taken as a postulate for testing whether particular state legislation in the absence of action by Congress is beyond state power. This is that the state legislation is invalid if it unduly burdens that commerce in matters where uniformity is necessary—necessary in the constitutional sense of useful in accomplishing a permitted purpose."[2]
More recently, the standard has been used in cases involving state restrictions on a woman's access to abortion. The standard was applied by Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her dissent in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 US 416 (1983). O'Connor utilized the test as an alternative to the strict scrutiny test applied in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). The test was later used by a plurality opinion[3] in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), to uphold state regulations on abortion.[4][5][6] In City of Akron, O'Connor stated: "If the particular regulation does not 'unduly burden' the fundamental right, then our evaluation of that regulation is limited to our determination that the regulation rationally relates to a legitimate state purpose."[7] Justice John Paul Stevens in his partial concurrence, partial dissent to Casey further defined undue burden by saying, "[a] burden may be 'undue' either because [it] is too severe or because it lacks a legitimate, rational justification."[8]
The undue burden test has been used to judge the constitutionality of tax laws,[9] consumer product liability laws,[10] affirmative action,[11] voter registration laws,[12] abortion laws,[13] and even anti-spam laws.[14]
Some courts have described the undue burden standard as "a 'middle way' forward" for Constitutional analysis, between the strict scrutiny and the rational basis tests.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/11/court-seems-inclined-to-let-abortion-providers-pursue-their-challenge-to-texas-law/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/11/a-community-college-spat-leads-to-a-first-amendment-retaliation-claim/
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/houston-community-college-system-v-wilson/
government speech
professional speech
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-804/184805/20210723134934856_20-804%20ac%20FIRE%20Final.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Volokh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hamilton_Houston
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/supreme-1
Monday, November 1, 2021
From Public Opinion Quarterly: Adolescent Determinants of Abortion Attitudes
Combining our look at the current court case and the development of public opinion:
- Click here for the article.
The Abstract:
The stability of abortion opinions suggests that pre-adult factors influence these attitudes more than contemporaneous political events. Surprisingly, however, we know little about the origins of abortion opinions, no doubt because the majority of research focuses on cross-sectional analyses of patterns across cohorts. We use a developmental model that links familial and contextual factors during adolescence to abortion attitudes years later when respondents are between 21 and 38 years old. Findings show that religious adherence and maternal gender role values are significant predictors of adult abortion opinions, even after controlling for contemporaneous religious adherence and the respondents’ own views on gender roles. Adolescent religious adherence matters more than religious denomination for adult abortion attitudes. The results have important implications for future trends in abortion attitudes in light of declining religiosity among Americans.
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/federal-courts-public
https://www.wholewomanshealth.com/
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/htm/HS.171.htm#171.005
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-463/197205/20211021195907665_Firearms%20Policy%20Coalition%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_or_Controversy_Clause
https://www.firearmspolicy.org/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/declaratory_judgment
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enjoin
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/injunction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Young
https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card/
Sunday, October 31, 2021
From Wikipedia: Jonathan F. Mitchell
Some background on the architect of SB 8
- Click here for the entry.
Mitchell was raised in a religious Christian home in Pennsylvania.[4] He had six brothers.[4] He attended Wheaton College, an Evangelical liberal arts college in Illinois.[4] Mitchell received a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 2001. He was an articles editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif.
Career
After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 2001 to 2002, and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court from 2002 to 2003. After clerking, he served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice.[5] He was appointed as Solicitor General of Texas in 2010. He was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2015 to 2016.
After his tenure as Solicitor General of Texas, Mitchell sought out academic appointments, but failed to find a tenure track position.[4] After Donald Trump became president, Mitchell sought positions in the Donald Trump administration.[4] Trump unsuccessfully nominated Mitchell to serve as the chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). In 2018, Mitchell created his own one-person law firm.[4]
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas anti-abortion bill that Mitchell helped to write.[4] In 2021, an increasingly conservative Supreme Court issued an order declining to enjoin the enforcement of a Texas anti-abortion bill (the Texas Heartbeat Act) from going into effect, pending the resolution of constitutional challenges to the bill. The challenged Texas bill bans abortion after cardiac activity is detectable.[4][7][8][9]
Mitchell has argued cases and written briefs before the Supreme Court of the United States.[10][11] In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Mitchell and a colleague authored an amicus brief on behalf of Texas Right to Life, arguing that overturning Roe v. Wade could lead to the reversal of other "lawless" court decisions such as those establishing a right to same-sex marriage, while distinguishing and defending the right to interracial marriage recognized in Loving v. Virginia.[12]
Here's a bit more on him from ScotusBlog;
- Click here for the source.
The law is largely the brainchild of Mitchell, a lawyer who served as a law clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia and as the solicitor general of Texas. Like the other “heartbeat” bans, S.B. 8 prohibits abortions starting around the sixth week of pregnancy. But unlike the other states’ laws, S.B. 8 delegates the sole power to enforce the law to private individuals, rather than state officials. The law allows anyone, including people who do not live in Texas, to bring a lawsuit in state court against anyone who performs an abortion or helps to make one possible. That means that someone who drives a patient to an abortion clinic or a family member who pays for the abortion could be sued under S.B. 8. A plaintiff in a successful lawsuit can receive at least $10,000 in damages, along with costs and attorney’s fees.
For Mitchell and other supporters of S.B. 8, the law’s unusual enforcement scheme is a feature, not a bug. By stripping the state of any role in enforcing the law, and instead outsourcing enforcement to private individuals, S.B. 8’s supporters hoped to make it harder to challenge the constitutionality of the ban in court, particularly before the law went into effect on Sept. 1. And by creating such broad liability, with the potential for hefty damages, the law’s proponents also wanted to deter virtually all abortions – even those that would occur before the sixth week of pregnancy.
What exactly is Roe v Wade?
From Wikipedia:
- Click here for the article.
According to the Court, "the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage". Providing a historical analysis on abortion, Justice Harry Blackmun noted that abortion was "resorted to without scruple" in Greek and Roman times.[11] Blackmun also addressed the permissive and restrictive abortion attitudes and laws throughout history, noting the disagreements among leaders (of all different professions) in those eras and the formative laws and cases.[12] In the United States, in 1821, Connecticut passed the first state statute criminalizing abortion. Every state had abortion legislation by 1900.[13] In the United States, abortion was sometimes considered a common law crime,[14] though Justice Blackmun would conclude that the criminalization of abortion did not have "roots in the English common-law tradition".[15] Rather than arresting the women having the abortions, legal officials were more likely to interrogate these women to obtain evidence against the abortion provider in order to close down that provider's business.[16][17]
In 1971, Shirley Wheeler was charged with manslaughter after Florida hospital staff reported her illegal abortion to the police. She received a sentence of two years' probation and, under her probation, had to move back into her parents' house in North Carolina.[16] The Boston Women's Abortion Coalition held a rally for Wheeler in Boston to raise money and awareness of her charges as well as had staff members from the Women's National Abortion Action Coalition (WONAAC) speak at the rally.[18] Wheeler was possibly the first woman to be held criminally responsible for submitting to an abortion.[19] Her conviction was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court.[16]
With the passage of the California Therapeutic Abortion Act[20] in 1967, abortion became essentially legal on demand in that state. Pregnant women in other states could travel to California to obtain legal abortions—if they could afford to. A flight from Dallas to Los Angeles was nicknamed "the abortion special" because so many of its passengers were traveling for that reason. There were prepackaged trips known as the "non-family plan".[21]
History of the case
In June 1969, 21-year-old Norma McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third child. She returned to Dallas, where friends advised her to falsely claim that she had been raped, incorrectly believing that Texas law allowed abortion in cases of rape and incest when it actually allowed abortion only "for the purpose of saving the life of the mother". She attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but found that the unauthorized facility had been closed down by the police. Eventually, she was referred to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington.[22][23] McCorvey would end up giving birth before the case was decided, and the child was put up for adoption.[24]
In 1970, Coffee and Weddington filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of McCorvey (under the alias Jane Roe). The defendant in the case was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, who represented the State of Texas. McCorvey was no longer claiming her pregnancy was a result of rape, and later acknowledged that she had lied about having been raped, in hope to circumvent a Texas law that banned abortions except when the woman's life is in danger.[25][26][27] "Rape" is not mentioned in the judicial opinions in the case.[28]
McCorvey's lawsuit was heard by a three-judge panel consisting of district court judges Sarah T. Hughes and William McLaughlin Taylor Jr. and appellate judge Irving Loeb Goldberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. On June 17, 1970, the three judges unanimously[28] ruled in McCorvey's favor and declared the Texas law unconstitutional, finding that it violated the right to privacy found in the Ninth Amendment. In addition, the court relied on Justice Arthur Goldberg's 1965 concurrence in Griswold v. Connecticut. The court, however, declined to grant an injunction against enforcement of the law.[29]
Ideology on the U.S. Supreme Court
- Click here for a graphical display.
Criteria used to determine ideology:
Criminal procedure – a higher number means pro-defendant votes in cases involving the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners.
First Amendment – a higher number reflects votes that advocate individual freedoms with regard to speech.
Union – a higher number means pro-union votes in cases involving labor activity.
Economic – a higher number means more votes against commercial business activity, plus litigation involving injured persons or things, employee actions concerning employers, zoning regulations, and governmental regulation of corruption other than that involving campaign spending.
Federalism – a higher number means votes for a larger, more empowered government in conflicts between the federal and state governments, excluding those between state and federal courts, and those involving the priority of federal fiscal claims.
Federal taxes – a higher number means more votes widening the government's ability to define and enforce tax concepts and policies in cases involving the Internal Revenue Code and related statues.
Two related questions about SB 8
First:
United States, Petitioner
v.
Texas, et al.
QUESTION PRESENTED:
THE APPLICATION IS TREATED AS A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI
BEFORE JUDGMENT, AND THE PETITION IS GRANTED LIMITED TO THE
FOLLOWING QUESTION:
MAY THE UNITED STATES BRING SUIT IN FEDERAL COURT AND OBTAIN
INJUNCTIVE OR DECLARATORY RELIEF AGAINST THE STATE, STATE COURT
JUDGES, STATE COURT CLERKS, OTHER STATE OFFICIALS, OR ALL PRIVATE
PARTIES TO PROHIBIT S.B. 8 FROM BEING ENFORCED.
_________________
Second:
Whole Woman's Health, et al., Petitioners
v.
Austin Reeve Jackson, Judge, District Court of Texas, 114th District, et al.
QUESTION PRESENTED:
The State of Texas adopted a law banning abortions at approximately six weeks
of pregnancy, in clear violation of this Court's precedents holding that a State cannot
prohibit abortion at a point before viability. To try to insulate this unconstitutional
prohibition from a federal challenge, the legislature crafted the law to prohibit
government officials from directly enforcing it and instead delegated enforcement to the
general public via civil actions that "any person" can file in Texas state court.
Petitioners Texas abortion providers and individuals and organizations that support
abortion patients-brought suit in federal court against, among others, the clerks and
judges of the courts where enforcement actions can be brought and the Texas attorney
general. The district court denied Respondents' motions to dismiss on standing and
sovereign-immunity grounds. Although Respondents' appeal is pending in the Fifth
Circuit, that Court has now issued an order that effectively forecloses Petitioners' claims
against the government officials.
The question presented is whether a State can insulate from federal-court review
a law that prohibits the exercise of a constitutional right by delegating to the general
public the authority to enforce that prohibition through civil actions.
______________________
For the text of SB 8, Click here.
The U.S. Currency Education Program ...
... The History of U.S. Currency.
Might be useful to know this history as we start to understand cryptocurrencies.
For our look at the budget, and the budgeting process
- Wikipedia: Fiscal Year, United States.
- CBPP: Policy Basics: Introduction to the Federal Budget Process.
- White House, Office of Management and Budget: President's Budget.
- Congressional Budget Office: Budget.
- Congressional Budget Office: Budget and Economic Data.
- House Budget Committee: FY22 President's Budget.
- Senate Budget Committee: The President's Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Proposal.
- House Appropriations Committee.
- Senate Appropriations Committee.
Saturday, October 30, 2021
From the Texas Tribune: Texas House committee to investigate school districts’ books on race and sexuality
This relates to the story below
- Click here to read it.
- Click here for a list of the books it seeks to investigate.
State Rep. Matt Krause, in his role as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating, notified the Texas Education Agency that he is "initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content," according to an Oct. 25 letter obtained by The Texas Tribune.
Krause's letter provides a 16-page list of about 850 book titles and asks the districts if they have these books, how many copies they have and how much money they spent on the books.
From the Texas Tribune: Texas lawmaker keeping mum on inquiry into what books students can access as school districts grapple with how to respond
The lawmaker is Matt Krause. He is challenging Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the Republican nomination for attorney general.
More on Krause:
- Texas Tribune: Matt Krause.
- Texas Tribune: House District 93.
- Texas House: Matt Krause.
- Click here for the article.
The Fort Worth Republican, who chairs the House General Investigating Committee, said he was limited in what he could say because it could compromise a potential or pending investigation. But House Democrats, many of whom have accused Krause of trying to censor progressive literature, are stressing that school districts are not compelled to respond.
Meanwhile, school districts were split over how to respond, with the Fort Worth Independent School District saying it will comply and the Austin and Dallas school districts dismissing Krause’s inquiry. A number of other major Texas school districts told The Texas Tribune they were still reviewing the letter.
Friday, October 29, 2021
From the Texas Tribune: Texas Republicans want to make the state the center of the cryptocurrency universe
An attempt to expand Texas' role in digital technology. I'm still trying to figure this out.
"state and federal lawmakers try to lay the groundwork for a blockchain technology explosion"
- Click here for the article.
HB 4474 recognized cryptocurrency in the state’s Uniform Commercial Code in an effort to set standards that clarify the rights of people who control the currency and make it possible to resolve disputes over ownership. The measure made Texas the third state to amend the laws regulating financial transactions as such. HB 1576 established a 16-member working group that will recommend policies relating to blockchain matters. Abbott signed both bills into law in June.
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/28/immigration-relief-in-flux-as-biden-unveils-reconciliation-framework/
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/28/house-punts-on-infrastructure-passes-highway-bill-extension/
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/28/white-house-releases-1-75t-framework-for-budget-package/
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/28/reports-show-lobbyists-get-more-active-on-esg-as-sec-works-on-climate-rule/
https://www.congress.gov/most-viewed-bills
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/133
https://appropriations.house.gov/legislation
https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Billionaires%20Income%20Tax%20-%20One%20Pager.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_(advisory_group)
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Link 10/28/21
https://www.leewayhertz.com/blockchain-government-public-sector-initiatives/
https://www.itcaucus.com/
https://texasblockchaincouncil.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergy
https://texasblockchainsummit.org/
https://www.bitcoinmining.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockdale,_Texas
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blockchain.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Broadcasting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_republic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/107769909507200309?journalCode=jmqc
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/28/texas-republicans-blockchain-bitcoin/
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/09/harvard-historian-examines-how-textbooks-taught-white-supremacy/
https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/analysis/pdf/HB01576H.pdf#navpanes=0
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Links - 10/27/21
https://www.boeing.com/defense/f-15ex/?dclid=CLi02anZ6vMCFQbfwAodTm0PNw
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/27/wyden-details-proposed-tax-on-billionaires-unrealized-gains/
https://appropriations.house.gov/
https://budget.house.gov/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/05/1175/facebook-algorithm-discriminates-ai-bias/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_Independent_School_District
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/27/transgender-athletes-bathroom-bill/
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/29/texas-hair-discrimination-bill-crown-act/
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/following-8-month-investigation-senate-judiciary-committee-releases-report-on-donald-trumps-scheme-to-pressure-doj-and-overturn-the-2020-election
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Interim%20Staff%20Report%20FINAL.pdf
https://homeland.house.gov/activities/hearings/ensuring-equity-in-disaster-preparedness-response-and-recovery
https://homeland.house.gov/imo/media/doc/BGT%20Opening%20Statement%20Full%20102721%20(002).pdf
https://www.alec.org/
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-96334-1_13
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin#Psychological
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_cognition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersoldier
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pain%20point
https://www.thefutureoftravelmobility.com/livestream/
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/19/competition-beer-supremacy-brewing-again-washington/
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/07/why-is-congress-grandstanding/
From Wikipedia: United States debt ceiling
An explainer:
- Click here for the article.
The United States debt ceiling or debt limit is a legislative limit on the amount of national debt that can be incurred by the U.S. Treasury, thus limiting how much money the federal government may pay on the debt they already borrowed. The debt ceiling is an aggregate figure that applies to the gross debt, which includes debt in the hands of the public and in intra-government accounts. About 0.5% of debt is not covered by the ceiling.[1] Because expenditures are authorized by separate legislation, the debt ceiling does not directly limit government deficits. In effect, it can only restrain the Treasury from paying for expenditures and other financial obligations after the limit has been reached, but which have already been approved (in the budget) and appropriated.
Management of the United States public debt is an important part of the macroeconomics of the United States economy and finance system, and the debt ceiling is a constraint on the executive's ability to manage the U.S. economy. There is debate, however, on how the U.S. economy should be managed, and whether a debt ceiling is an appropriate mechanism for restraining government spending.
From Roll Call: Debt ceiling hangs over Democrats’ legislative home stretch
In 2305 we will start to look at the budgeting process. Here's what's up now:
- Click here for the article.
Democrats have a brief respite to try to raise the debt limit before the Treasury Department runs out of borrowing authority as early as December. But the path forward is littered with procedural questions and political obstacles.
And, according to budget experts, reconciliation procedures appear to require lawmakers to vote for a specific debt limit amount, at least during the initial phase. That’s a potential political problem for Democrats’ preferred approach of taking the debt ceiling off the table until after the 2022 midterms, which could require raising the limit by something like $2 trillion — topping $30 trillion for the first time.
Monday, October 25, 2021
Fall Enrollment Drops Bring Fresh Worries
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/25/community-college-enrollments-worry-campus-leaders
Harris County attorney says Texas businesses should sue over Gov. Greg Abbott’s vaccine mandate ban
https://www.keranews.org/texas-news/2021-10-13/harris-county-attorney-says-texas-businesses-should-sue-over-gov-greg-abbotts-vaccine-mandate-ban
Links related to redistricting
All from Wikipedia.
- Redistricting in the United States.
- One man, one vote.
- Baker v. Carr.
- Reynolds v. Sims.
- Wesberry v. Sanders.
- Evenwel v. Abbott.
- Redistricting in the United States.
- One man, one vote.
- Baker v. Carr.
- Reynolds v. Sims.
- Wesberry v. Sanders.
- Evenwel v. Abbott.
From the Texas Tribune: Texas’ new political maps create safer districts for incumbents — and put an end to some challengers’ runs
Running for Senate District 9 would have seemed an uphill battle just a few years ago, but Salman Bhojani saw the growth in his North Texas community over the last decade as an opportunity.
State Sen. Kelly Hancock, the Republican incumbent, first won the district in 2014 with 65% of the electorate. But SD-9 has changed, fueled by population growth from Asian, Black and Hispanic Texans. Four years after Hancock first won, his portion of the total vote dropped to 54%. By 2020, President Donald Trump won the traditionally Republican district that spanned Dallas and Tarrant counties by only slightly more than 5,500 votes.
Bhojani, a Pakistani immigrant who in 2018 became the first Muslim to serve on the Euless City Council, thought he might have a chance against Hancock if he jumped in the race early enough as a Democrat. He announced his candidacy in May, built up a campaign staff and started producing video campaign ads.
State Sen. Kelly Hancock, the Republican incumbent, first won the district in 2014 with 65% of the electorate. But SD-9 has changed, fueled by population growth from Asian, Black and Hispanic Texans. Four years after Hancock first won, his portion of the total vote dropped to 54%. By 2020, President Donald Trump won the traditionally Republican district that spanned Dallas and Tarrant counties by only slightly more than 5,500 votes.
Bhojani, a Pakistani immigrant who in 2018 became the first Muslim to serve on the Euless City Council, thought he might have a chance against Hancock if he jumped in the race early enough as a Democrat. He announced his candidacy in May, built up a campaign staff and started producing video campaign ads.
From the Texas Tribune: Texas universities with federal contracts are caught between Greg Abbott and Joe Biden over COVID-19 vaccine mandates
Not sure how this affects UH.
- Click here for the article.
While more public universities across the country are announcing that all employees must be vaccinated to comply with the federal requirement, several Texas public universities — all managed by Gov. Greg Abbott appointees — told The Texas Tribune they are still evaluating the executive order, which applies to new federal contracts of $250,000 or greater and awarded as of Nov. 14 or existing contracts that have been renewed as of Oct. 15.
“This is unprecedented,” said Michael LeRoy, a labor law expert at the University of Illinois College of Law. “There have been conflicts between the state and federal government, but not at this magnitude with this kind of money on the line.”
LeRoy believes the issue will be resolved in the courts because of the two conflicting issues at the center. State universities receive funding from the state and federal level but they are run by a board of regents appointed by the Texas governor.
While LeRoy said it’s unlikely the federal government will immediately terminate a grant if universities don't comply, he said a university’s actions could impact future bids for federal grants. The federal government could begin to give notice to rescind a grant, he speculated, but that is a lengthy process. For now, universities are awaiting guidance from their own lawyers.
“... [T]he White House has been clear that noncompliance will not be excused, even in situations where state law contradicts the federal directive,” University of Houston spokesperson Shawn Lindsey told the Tribune in a statement. “It’s an extremely complicated situation that requires further analysis.”
From Federalist 47, James Madison: the very definition of tyranny
- Click here for the article.
HAVING reviewed the general form of the proposed government and the general mass of power allotted to it, I proceed to examine the particular structure of this government, and the distribution of this mass of power among its constituent parts. One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts. No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded.
Links 10/25/21
https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2021/texas-redistricting-map/?_ga=2.228142489.504487334.1635164418-1695662207.1629722146
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/22/texas-abortion-law-supreme-court/
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/22/texas-redistricting-political-challengers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_executive_departments
https://www.house.gov/
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/21/lobbying-revenue-up-at-top-firms-even-as-some-big-clients-dip/
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/22/budget-package-taking-shape-as-democrats-eye-aggressive-schedule/
https://energycommerce.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/hearing-on-caring-for-america-legislation-to-support-patients-caregivers
https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=408558
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-texas-2/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/10/court-adds-two-cases-on-native-american-law-and-issues-two-opinions-granting-police-officers-qualified-immunity/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_services
https://unctad.org/system/files/non-official-document/ciiisar37_WS_SRoss_en.pdf
https://www.fdd.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bennyjohnson/the-11-countries-congress-has-declared-war-on-and-why
https://www.senate.gov/about/images/SJRES119WWIIGermany.htm
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3555068?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/25/debt-ceiling-hangs-over-democrats-legislative-home-stretch/
https://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/
https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Political_Parties_vrd.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress)
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/introduction-to-budget-reconciliation
Sunday, October 24, 2021
For ACC GOVT 2305
Some testable terms for Test 3:
Privatization
Judicial federalism
The Grand Strategy
Lochner v New York
bureaucratic rules
circuit courts
Presidential approval
Tammany Hall
bureaucratic control
Creation of agencies
bureaucratic processes
agenda setting
expansion of the cabinet
the inner cabinet
rule of four
presidential persuasion
size of federal programs
power of the purse
specialized courts
division of labor
judicial review
implementation
the federal court system
oversight
GAO
GSA
turf wars
presidential powers
foreign aid
jurisdiction of federal courts
petitioner / respondent
captured agencies
press conferences
district courts
OMB
budgeting process
military power
War Department
Defense Department
spoils system
EPA
treaty making
the Federal Reserve
foreign policy
oral arguments
going public
laissez faire / Keynesian
Dartmouth v Woodward
White House Staff
judicial confirmations
strict scrutiny
Freedom of Information Act
military courts
presidential rankings
precedence
street level bureaucrats
From the Texas Tribune: Five takeaways from Texas’ third special legislative session
1 - Banning COVID-19 mandates is harder than people think
2 - Transgender student athlete bill ultimately passes
3 - Lawmakers opted to protect incumbents in redistricting over spreading their lead
4 - The House went back to normal after quorum break
5 - Conservatives still want more
2 - Transgender student athlete bill ultimately passes
3 - Lawmakers opted to protect incumbents in redistricting over spreading their lead
4 - The House went back to normal after quorum break
5 - Conservatives still want more
From Wikipedia: Frederick North, Lord North
Some background on the person Hutchison wrote his rebuttal to.
- Click here for it.
From Wikipedia: Thomas Hutchinson
Background on the man who wrote the loyalists rebuttal to the Declaration of Independence.
- Click here for it.
Saturday, October 23, 2021
From Avalon: Washington's Farewell Address 1796
- Click here for it.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.
Propaganda
Definition:
1 - information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, 2 - institution, nation, etc.
3 - the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.
From Britannica: Propaganda.
Propaganda, dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion.
From Wikipedia: Propaganda.
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented.[1] Propaganda can be found in news and journalism, government, advertising, entertainment, education, and activism[2] and is often associated with material which is prepared by governments as part of war efforts, political campaigns, revolutionaries, big businesses, ultra-religious organizations, the media, and certain individuals such as soapboxers.
- From Wikipedia: Propaganda in the United States.
Propaganda in the United States is spread by both government and media entities. Propaganda is carefully curated information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread, usually to preserve the self-interest of a nation. It is used in advertising, radio, newspaper, posters, books, television and other media. Propagandists may provide either factual or non-factual information to their audiences, often emphasizing positive features and downplaying negative ones, or vice versa, in order to shape wide scale public opinion or behavioral changes.
Friday, October 22, 2021
Was the King of England really attempting to create a tyranny in the North American colonies?
Jefferson says yes, Hutchison says no.
Hutchson's replies are in italics.
- Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
- A Loyalist’s Rebuttal to the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
- I remember no laws which any Colony has been restrained from passing, so as to cause any complaint of grievance, except those for issuing a fraudulent paper currency, and making it a legal tender;4 but this is a restraint which for many years past has been laid on Assemblies by an act of Parliament, since which such laws cannot have been offered to the King for his allowance [approval]. I therefore believe this to be a general charge [grievance], without any particulars to support it; fit enough to be placed at the head of a list of imaginary grievances
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
- Some laws may have their full effect before the King’s pleasure can be known. Some may injuriously affect the property of the subject; and some may be prejudicial to the prerogative of the Crown, and to the trade, manufactures and shipping of the kingdom. Governors have been instructed, long before the present or the last reign, not to consent to such laws unless with a clause suspending their operations until the pleasure [decision] of the King shall be known. I am sure your Lordship will think that nothing is more reasonable. . . . I dare say, my Lord, that if there has ever been an instance of any laws lying longer than necessary before the King’s pleasure has been signified, it has been owing to the inattention in some of the servants of the Crown, and that upon proper application any grievance would have been immediately redressed.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
- We shall find, my Lord, that Massachusetts Bay is more concerned in this Declaration than any other Colony. This article respects [deals with] that Colony alone. . . No Governor ever refused to consent to a law for making a new town . . . if provision was made that the inhabitants of the new town should continue to join with the old, or with any other town contiguous or near to it, in the choice of Representatives; so that there never was the least intention to deprive a single inhabitant of the right of being represented . . . This is a willful misrepresentation made for the sake of the brutal insult at the close of the article.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
- To the same Colony this article also has respect. Your Lordship must remember the riotous, violent opposition to Government in the Town of Boston, which alarmed the whole Kingdom in the year 1768.5 Four Regiments of the King’s forces were ordered to that Town to be aiding to the Civil Magistrate in restoring and preserving peace and order. The House of Representatives, which was then sitting in the Town, remonstrated to [petitioned] the Governor against posting Troops there as being an invasion of their rights. He thought proper to adjourn them to Cambridge, where the House had frequently sat at their own desire when they had been alarmed with fear of smallpox in Boston; the place therefore was not unusual. The public rooms of the College [Harvard] were convenient for the Assembly to sit in, and the private houses of the Inhabitants for the Members to lodge in; it therefore was not uncomfortable. It was within four miles of the Town of Boston, and less distant than any other Town fit for the purpose. . . . . . . The [Massachusetts] House of Representatives raised the most frivolous objections against the authority of the Governor to remove the Assembly from Boston, but proceeded nevertheless to the business of the Session as they used to do. In the next Session, without any new cause, the Assembly refused to do any business unless removed [moved back] to Boston. . . . They fatigued the Governor by adjourning from day to day, and refusing to do business one Session after another, while he gave his constant attendance to no purpose; and this they make the King’s fatiguing them to compel them to comply with his measures. A brief narrative of this unimportant dispute between an American Governor and his Assembly needs an apology [explanation] to your Lordship. How ridiculous then do those men make themselves, who offer it to the world as a ground to justify rebellion?
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
- Contention between Governors and their Assemblies have caused dissolutions of such Assemblies, I suppose, in all the Colonies, in former as well as later times. I recollect but one instance of the dissolution of an Assembly by special order from the King, and that was in Massachusetts Bay. In 1768, the House of Representatives passed a vote or resolve in prosecution of the plan of Independence, incompatible with the subordination of the Colonies to the supreme authority of the Empire, and directed their Speaker to send a copy of it in circular letters to the Assemblies of the other Colonies,6 inviting them to avow the principles of the resolve and to join in supporting them. No Government can long subsist which admits of combinations of the subordinate powers against the supreme. This proceeding was therefore, justly deemed highly unwarrantable, and indeed it was the beginning of that unlawful confederacy which has gone on until it has caused at least temporary Revolt of all the Colonies which joined in it. . . .
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.
- This . . . must relate to the same Colony only; for no other ever presumed, until the year 1774, when the general dissolution of the established government in all the Colonies was taking place, to convene an Assembly without the Governor, by the mere act of the People. . . . The town [Boston], without delay, chose their former members . . . and they sent circular letters to all the other towns in the Province [colony] inviting them to choose Committees also; and all these Committees met in what they called a Convention, and chose the Speaker of the last house their Chairman. Here was a House of Representatives in everything but name . . . This vacation of three months was the long time the people waited before they exercised their unalienable powers; the Invasions from without were the arrival or expectation of three or four regiments sent by the King to aid the Civil Magistrate in preserving the peace; and the Convulsions within were the tumults, riots and acts of violence which this Convention was called, not to suppress but to encourage.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
- I cannot conceive that the subjects in the Colonies would have had any cause of complaint if there never had been any encouragement given to foreigners to settle among them; and it was an act of mere favor to the Colonies which admitted foreigners to a claim of naturalization after a residence of seven years. How has the King obstructed the operation of this act? In no other way than by refusing his assent to colony acts for further encouragement. Nothing can be more regular and constitutional. Shall any other than the supreme authority of the Empire judge upon what terms foreigners may be admitted to the privilege of natural born subjects? Parliament alone may pass acts for this purpose. . . .
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
- I was, My Lord, somewhat at a loss, upon first reading this article, to what transaction or to what Colony it could refer. I soon found, that the Colony must be North Carolina, and that the transaction referred to is a reproach upon the Colony which the [Continental] Congress have most wickedly perverted to cast reproach upon the King. . . . In North Carolina, the law for [debtor] attachments8 was tacked to, or was part of, the same law which established their Courts of Justice. The Governor, as he ought to have done if he had received no instruction, refused a bill for reviving the law, because the provision for attachments was part of it. The Assembly refused to pass the bill without the provision, and in this way determined they would have no Courts of Justice, . . .
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
- . . . The Judges in America, except the Charter Colonies, have always been dependent on the Crown for their continuance in office; and in some Colonies, the salaries of the Chief Justice and sometimes the other Judges have been paid by the Crown, and the Colonies have considered it as an act of favor shown them. There has been a change in the constitution of England in respect of the tenure of the office of the Judges. How does this give a claim to America? It will be said the reason in both cases is the same. This will not be allowed, and until the King shall judge it so, there can be no room for exception to his retaining his prerogative. . . .
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
- I know of no new offices erected in America in the present reign, except those of the Commissioners of the Customs and their dependents.9 Five Commissioners were appointed, and four Surveyors General dismissed; perhaps fifteen to twenty clerks and under officers were necessary for this board more than the Surveyors had occasion for before . . . Thirty or forty additional officers in the whole Continent, are the Swarms which eat out the substance of the boasted number of three millions of people. . . [N]one but illicit traders ever had any reason to complain of grievances; and they of no other than of being better watched than they had ever been before. At this time the authority of Parliament to pass Acts for regulating commerce was acknowledged, but every measure for carrying such Acts into execution was pronounced an injury, and usurpation, and all the effects prevented.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
- This is too nugatory [trivial/insubstantial] to deserve any remark. He has kept no armies among them without the consent of the Supreme Legislature [Parliament]. It is begging the question to suppose that this authority was not sufficient without the aid of their own Legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
- When the Subordinate Civil Powers of the Empire became Aiders of the people in acts of Rebellion, the King, as well he might, has employed the Military Power to reduce those rebellious Civil Powers to their constitutional subjection to the Supreme Civil Power. In no other sense has he ever affected to render the Military independent of, and superior to, the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
- This is a strange way of defining the part which the Kings of England take in conjunction with the Lords and Commons in passing Acts of Parliament. . . And is it not the grossest prevarication to say this jurisdiction is unacknowledged by their laws, when all Acts of Parliament which respect [deal with] them have at all times been their rule of law in all their judicial proceedings? . . .
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
- When troops were employed in America in the last reign to protect the Colonies against the French invasion [French and Indian War], it was necessary to provide against mutiny and desertion and to secure proper quarters [housing]. Temporary Acts of Parliament were passed for that purpose and submitted to in the Colonies. Upon the peace, raised ideas took place in the Colonies of their own importance and caused a reluctance against Parliamentary authority and an opposition to the Acts for quartering troops, not because the provision made was in itself unjust or unequal, but because they were Acts of a Parliament whose authority was denied. The provision was as similar to that in England as the state of the Colonies would admit.
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
- . . . To try men before a biased and predetermined Jury would be a mock trial. To prevent this, the Act of Parliament [that the colonies] complained of was passed.11 Surely, if in any case Parliament may interpose and alter the general rule of law, it may in this. America has not been distinguished from other parts of the Empire. Indeed, the removal of trials for the sake of unprejudiced disinterested Juries is altogether consistent with the spirit of our laws, and the practice of courts in changing the venue from one county to another.
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
- Certainly, my Lord, this could not be a cause of Revolt. The Colonies had revolted from the Supreme Authority to which by their constitutions they were subject before the Act passed. A Congress had assumed an authority over the whole, and had rebelliously prohibited all commerce with the rest of the Empire. This act, therefore, will be considered by the candid world as a proof of the reluctance in government against what is dernier [last] resort in every state, and as a milder measure to bring the Colonies to a re-union with the rest of the Empire.
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
- How often has your Lordship heard it said that the Americans are willing to submit to the authority of Parliament in all cases except that of taxes? Here we have a declaration made to the world of the causes which have impelled separation. . . That of taxes seems to have been in danger of being forgot. It comes in late [in the Declaration] and in as slight a manner as is possible. And I know, my Lord, that these men, in the early days of their opposition to Parliament, have acknowledged that they pitched upon this subject of taxes because it was most alarming to the people, every man perceiving immediately that he is personally affected by it . . .
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
- . . . I recollect no cases in which trials by Juries are taken away in America by Acts of Parliament, except such as are tried by the Courts of Admiralty,12 and these are either for breaches of the Acts of trade or trespasses upon the King’s woods. I take no notice of the Stamp Act, because it was repealed soon after it was designed to take place. I am sorry, my Lord, that I am obliged to say there could not be impartial trials by Juries in either of these cases. . . .
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;
- I know of no Act, but that of the 12th of the present reign, to prevent the setting fire to his Majesty’s Ships, Docks, Arsenals, &c. to which this article can refer — But are these pretended [real] offenses? By an Act of Parliament made in the 35th year of King Henry the Eighth, all treasons committed in any parts [throughout] the realm may be tried in any county of England. . . An opinion prevailed in America that this Act was occasioned by the burning of the King’s Schooner Gaspee by people in the Colony of Rhode Island;13 but the Act had passed before that fact was committed, though it was not generally known in America until some months after. . . .
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;
- It would be impertinent to make any remarks upon the general fitness of the Quebec Act15 for the purposes for which it passed, seeing your Lordship has so lately fully considered and given your voice to it. But what, my Lord, have the American Colonies to do with it? . . . . . . What claim could any of the Colonies have to a territory beyond their own limits? No other security against an improper settlement of this country could have been made equally judicious and unexceptionable. This exception is therefore utterly impertinent . . .
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
- These two articles are so much of the same nature that I consider them together. There has been no Colony Charter altered except that of Massachusetts Bay, and that in no respect that I recollect except that the appointment and power of the Council are made to conform to that of the Council of the other Royal Governments, and the laws which relate to grand and petit juries are made to conform to the general laws of the Realm. The only instance of the suspension of any legislative power is that of the Province of New York for refusing to comply with an Act of Parliament for quartering the King’s troops posted there for its protection and defense against the French and Indian enemies. . . . The common people who, relying upon the authority of others, confound cases together which are so essentially different, may be excused; but what excuse, my Lord, can be made for those men, in England as well as in America, who, by such fallacies, have misguided the people and provoked them to rebellion?
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
- These, my Lord, would be weighty charges from a loyal and dutiful people against an unprovoked Sovereign. They are more than the people of England pretended to bring against King James the Second in order to justify the Revolution.16 Never was there an instance of more consummate effrontery. The Acts of a justly incensed Sovereign for suppressing a most unnatural, unprovoked Rebellion are here assigned as the causes of this Rebellion. It is immaterial whether they are true or false. They are all short of the penalty of the laws which had been violated. Before the date of any one of them, the Colonists had as effectually renounced their allegiance by their deeds as they have since done by their words. They had displaced the civil and military officers appointed by the King’s authority and set up others in their stead. They had new modeled their civil governments and appointed a general government, independent of the King, over the whole. They had taken up arms, and made a public declaration of their resolution to defend themselves against the forces employed to support his legal authority over them. . . .
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
What these oppressions were your Lordship has seen, for we may fairly conclude that everything appears in this Declaration which can give color to this horrid Rebellion, so that these men can never complain of being condemned without a full hearing. But does your Lordship recollect any petitions in the several stages of these pretended oppressions?
Has there ever been a petition to the King
——To give his Assent to these wholesome and necessary Laws to which he had refused it?
——To allow his Governors to pass laws without a suspending clause, or without the people’s relinquishing the right of Representation?
——To withdraw his instructions for calling legislative bodies at unusual, uncomfortable and distant places?
——To allow Assemblies, which had been dissolved by his order, to meet again?
——To pass laws to encourage the migration of foreigners?
——To consent to the establishment of judiciary Powers?
——To suffer [permit] Judges to be independent for the continuance of their offices and salaries?
——To vacate or disannul new erected offices?
——To withdraw his troops in times of peace, until it appeared that the reason for it was to give a free course to Rebellion?
And yet these, my Lord, are all the oppressions pretended to have been received from the King, except those in combination with the two Houses of Parliament; and they are all either grossly misrepresented or so trivial and insignificant as to have been of no general notoriety in the time of them, or mere contests between Governors and Assemblies so light and transient as to have been presently forgot. All the petitions we have heard of have been against Acts of the Supreme Legislature; and in all of them something has been inserted or something has been done previous to them with design to prevent their being received. . . .
A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Indignant resentment must seize the breast of every loyal subject. A tyrant, in modern language, means not merely an absolute and arbitrary but a cruel, merciless Sovereign. Have these men given an instance of any one Act in which the King has exceeded the just Powers of the Crown as limited by the English Constitution? Has he ever departed from known established laws and substituted his own will as the rule of his actions? Has there ever been a Prince by whom subjects in rebellion have been treated with less severity or with longer forbearance?
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