From Wikipedia: Janus v. AFSCME

 A case involving unions mentions in a previous post about business interests in the U.S. Supreme Court.

- Click here for the entry.

Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, No. 16-1466, 585 U.S. ___ (2018)—abbreviated Janus v. AFSCME—was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on US labor law, concerning the power of labor unions to collect fees from non-union members. Under the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which applies to the private sector, union security agreements can be allowed by state law. The Supreme Court ruled that such union fees in the public sector violate the First Amendment right to free speech, overturning the 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that had previously allowed such fees.

On June 27, 2018, the Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that the application of public sector union fees to non-members is a violation of the First Amendment, ruling against AFSCME. Justice Alito wrote for the Court, joined by Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Gorsuch. Alito wrote that agency-shop agreements violate "the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern."[15] Alito recognized that losing these fees would put a financial burden on the public sector unions, who would continue to have to represent nonmembers even without their agency fees, but stated that "we must weigh these disadvantages against the considerable windfall that unions have received."[15] In the decision, the Court held that the conclusion reached by Abood was inconsistent with the First Amendment and thus overruled that decision.

The Supreme Corp.: How Corporate and Right-Wing Interests Captured the U...

From the ACS: The Supreme Corp.: How Corporate and Right-Wing Interests Captured the U.S. Supreme Court

We normally think of agency capture. Supposedly we should broaden our use of the word.

- Click here for the article.

On May 8, 2019, ACS hosted a discussion about Supreme Court capture, featuring keynote remarks by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, author of the recently published ACS Issue Brief A Right-Wing Rout: What the “Roberts Five” Decisions Tell Us About the Integrity of Today’s Supreme Court.

In the era of Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed justices have delivered landmark victories for corporate and right-wing interests in dozens of cases, like Citizens United v. FEC, Shelby County v. Holder, and Janus v. AFSCME. Have the conservative justices on the Court been effectively “captured” by these corporate and right-wing interests? If so, what role has the nominations process played and what can be done to reverse this trend and ensure the Court serves only the interest of impartiality, objectivity, and the rule of law?

From Congress.gov: H.R.8337 - Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act

A look at the process the continuing appropriations act took on its way to become law.

It's why we don't have a government shutdown at the moment.

- Click here for it.

From Roll Call: House Democrats set leadership elections for Nov. 18-19

Between the general election and the beginning of the 117th term of Congress each party in each chamber selects their leaders. Here is one of them.

- Click here for the article.

House Democrats will hold their caucus leadership elections Nov. 18 and 19 and contested committee chairmanship elections the week of Nov. 30, Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries announced in a “Dear Colleague” letter Thursday.

The caucus leadership elections will occur just a few days after members return to Washington Nov. 16 for the first time after Election Day, leaving just a few days for any last-minute, in-person pleas for votes.

Every leadership position gets voted on, regardless of whether there is a contested race. The top three Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, are running uncontested for another term.

The highest-ranking contested race is for the No. 4 slot for assistant speaker. Current Democratic Caucus Vice Chairwoman Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, Democratic Policy and Communications Committee Chairman David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Congressional Hispanic Caucus BOLD PAC Chairman Tony Cárdenas of California are all running.

Related: [House Democrats’ leadership races reflect coming generational change]

From the National Constitution Center: On Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation

Topical considering Barrett's nomination.

- Click here for the article.

Originalism is a theory of the interpretation of legal texts, including the text of the Constitution. Originalists believe that the constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law. The original meaning of constitutional texts can be discerned from dictionaries, grammar books, and from other legal documents from which the text might be borrowed. It can also be inferred from the background legal events and public debate that gave rise to a constitutional provision. The original meaning of a constitutional text is an objective legal construct like the reasonable man standard in tort law, which judges a person’s actions based on whether an ordinary person would consider them reasonable, given the situation. It exists independently of the subjective “intentions” of those who wrote the text or of the “original expected applications” that the Framers of a constitutional text thought that it would have.

From Vox: 5.2 million people can’t vote due to their felony record, according to a new report

 States still have leverage regarding who can vote.

- Click here for the article.

Nearly 5.2 million Americans won’t be able to vote in this year’s election due to their felony record, according to a new report from the Sentencing Project.

It’s an improvement from 2016, when 6.1 million couldn’t vote due to a felony record. But it means 2.3 percent of Americans old enough to vote, including 6.3 percent of Black people otherwise eligible to vote, still don’t have a say in the country’s democracy.

The vast majority of people prohibited from voting aren’t in prison. Only 25 percent of people disenfranchised are in prison or jail, while 10 percent are on parole and 22 percent are on felony probation. The rest — 43 percent — have completed their sentences but still can’t vote.

There’s a lot of state variation. In Maine and Vermont, where people can vote from prison, 0 percent of the voting-age population is disenfranchised by a felony record. In Massachusetts, it’s 0.2 percent. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, at least 8 percent of the voting-age population is prohibited from voting due to a felony record.

That reflects differences in state laws. Only Maine and Vermont let everyone vote, even while they’re in prison. The rest impose some restrictions on voting rights — in prison, on parole, on probation, some or all of the above, or after people complete these sentences.

From Roll Call: States seek more federal funds as Medicaid enrollment grows

 A look at Congress, and back at cooperative federalism, and interest groups.

- Click here for the article.

The number of Americans on Medicaid continues to rise as people lose their insurance during the economic downturn, but policy experts disagree on how much additional funding states facing higher costs may need. 

National enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program jumped by 4 million between February and June, an increase of almost 6 percent, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data released recently.

Record unemployment levels have shifted individuals from employer-sponsored or other coverage to Medicaid, the nation’s program for low-income individuals.

States that accepted a boost in federal funds earlier this year in the first COVID-19 relief package are forbidden from disenrolling individuals from Medicaid during the public health emergency, which Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar recently renewed for 90 days starting Oct. 23.

While this ensures that more individuals have medical coverage during a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 210,000 Americans, it also further strains states that have struggled this year.

From Wikipedia: Ideological leanings of United States Supreme Court justices

For discussion, the court will swing further to the right as a result of President Trump's nominees.

- Click here for the entry.

Here is a look at what makes a justice liberal or conservative according to one measure: 

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.

Civil rights – a higher number means more votes permitting intervention on First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including Native Americans), age, indigence, voting, residence, military, or handicapped status, sex, or alienage.

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.

From the Texas Tribune: New Texas rule lets social workers turn away clients who are LGBTQ or have a disability

 Could be challenged in the Supreme Court.

- Click here for the article.

Texas social workers are criticizing a state regulatory board’s decision this week to remove protections for LGBTQ clients and clients with disabilities who seek social work services.

The Texas State Board of Social Work Examiners voted unanimously Monday to change a section of its code of conduct that establishes when a social worker may refuse to serve someone. The code will no longer prohibit social workers from turning away clients on the basis of disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office recommended the change, board members said, because the code’s nondiscrimination protections went beyond protections laid out in the state law that governs how and when the state may discipline social workers.

“It’s not surprising that a board would align its rules with statutes passed by the Legislature,” said Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze. A state law passed last year gave the governor’s office more control over rules governing state-licensed professions.

The nondiscrimination policy change drew immediate criticism from a professional association. Will Francis, executive director of the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, called it “incredibly disheartening.”

He also criticized board members for removing the nondiscrimination protections without input from the social workers they license and oversee.

Steven Parks, a social worker in private practice in Houston who works with child trauma victims, told The Texas Tribune the rule change was “both a professional and a personal gut punch.”

From the Texas Tribune: Early voting begins in Texas’ boisterous and competitive 2020 election

 It begins . . . 

- Click here for the story.

Early voting kicks off Tuesday for a high-stakes Texas election that has Republicans battling to maintain their dominance statewide and in a raft of down-ballot races centered on the suburbs — all amid a pandemic that has upended political normalcy.

Democrats enter the early voting period brimming with optimism. Statewide, they believe their presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has a real shot at winning Texas, and that their U.S. Senate candidate, MJ Hegar, is gaining momentum at the right time. The confidence increases farther down the ballot, where they are targeting 10 GOP-held U.S. House seats and driving to reclaim the Texas House majority they lost in the 2002 election.

While Republicans may not be as openly concerned with President Donald Trump or U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, they concede they are in for a battle down-ballot.

“The fight in Texas without a doubt is on the local level, it’s your down-ballot races where you see most of the spending and most of the political activity,” said Matt Langston, a Texas Republican consultant. “The big question: Are these campaigns gonna be able to execute in the final three weeks of the election? … This is a very strong turnout operation. Republicans have always done extremely well. 2020 is gonna put it to a test.”

From Texas Tribune: Texas counties can offer only one drop-off ballot location, federal appeals court rules, upholding Gov. Greg Abbott’s order

 I'm on record saying this would be overturned - I was wrong.

- Click here for the article.

Texas counties may collect mail-in ballots at only one location, a federal appeals court ruled late Monday, once again upholding an order from Gov. Greg Abbott that restricts voting options.

Abbott in July acted to lengthen the early voting period and allow voters to deliver completed absentee ballots in person for longer than the normal period. But after large Democratic counties including Harris and Travis established several sites where voters could deliver their ballots, Abbott ordered Oct. 1 that they would be limited to one.

A number of civil rights groups sued in at least four lawsuits, calling the order an act of voter suppression that would disproportionately impact low-income voters, voters with disabilities, older voters and voters of color in Democratic counties. A federal judge on Friday sided with those groups, blocking Texas from enforcing the ruling.

But a three-judge panel on the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily halted that ruling on Saturday and on Monday gave a more formal word on the matter in a written opinion.

- Click here for the opinion.

 

Links to Congress

The US House of Representatives.

The Senate.

Congress.Gov.

From ABCNews: A 'Twitterized Bush v Gore 2.0'? It's possible, election experts say

This touches on the impact the courts have had, and will continue to have on the election.

- Click here for the article.

The 2020 presidential election is already one of the most litigious in American history with the looming potential of a conclusion even more chaotic than the Bush v. Gore battle of 20 years ago.

Even before any ballots have been counted, there have been more than 300 active election-related lawsuits about changes to voting rules during the pandemic filed across 44 states -- an unprecedented number -- according to the Stanford-MIT Project on a Healthy Election.

Officials expect another tidal wave of legal challenges to hit once vote counting begins on Nov. 3, contesting ballot deadlines and processing rules, voting machine glitches and allegations of voter intimidation at the polls.

A record surge of mail ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to delay tabulation of results in many states, potentially for days after in-person voting ends.

“You know there’s going to be some issue. You don’t necessarily know what that is,” said New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver during a recent Georgetown University forum on election integrity.

“It’s been very hard, complicated, challenging,” Oliver added. “We’re all going to be really happy and proud when we get through the final days.”

. . . Judiciary cautious about election intervention

Chief Justice John Roberts has tried to steer the court away from political matters close to an election, in part to preserve the court’s reputation as above the partisan fray. That reputation took a hit after the divisive ruling in Bush v. Gore in 2000.

State election laws “should not be subject to second-guessing by an unelected federal judiciary,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Roberts ally, in a statement explaining the court's action on South Carolina witness signature requirement. “Federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election rules in the period close to an election.”

“The Chief sees the Court as an institution and has an institutional prerogative, but I think the entire Court would be skeptical” of intervention in the election, said Erin Hawley, a senior legal fellow at the Independent Women’s Law Center. “From time immemorial, judges have been cautious of weighing into intensely political matters.”

From Roll Call: House Democrats back antitrust overhaul of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple

For this week's written assignment.

- Click here for the article

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that Congress should consider forcing Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook, some of the country’s largest and most successful technology companies, to separate key sections of their business empires to reduce alleged market dominance.

A staff report and recommendations released by the committee’s majority — led by Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who chairs the antitrust subcommittee — said all four companies maintain monopolies in their unique markets: Amazon in its third-party seller market, Google in online search and advertising, Apple in software distribution on mobile devices and Facebook in social networking.

“By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy,” Nadler wrote in a foreword to the report. “They not only wield tremendous power, but they also abuse it by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them.

“Companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons,” Nadler wrote.

In addition to the prospect of forcing the companies to separate their businesses to prohibit them from exerting their market dominance in competition with “firms dependent on [their] infrastructure,” the report said Congress should limit the markets in which the companies could do business.

From Federalist 10 - Interests and the Legislative Power

For our transition to covering the governing institutions

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.

From Avalon: Federalist 51

To transition into next module's look at governing institutions.

The basic structure of the checks and balances.

- Click here for it.

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

An example of the Revolving Door

The career of Ajit Pai - chair of the FCC.

- Click here for it.

Following law school, Pai clerked for Judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana from 1997 to 1998. Pai then worked for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice as an Honors Program trial attorney on the Telecommunications Task Force. There, he worked on proposed mergers and acquisitions and on novel requests for regulatory relief following the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Pai left his Department of Justice post in February 2001 to serve as Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications Inc., where he handled competition matters, regulatory issues, and counseling of business units on broadband initiatives. Pai left Verizon in April 2003 and was hired as Deputy Chief Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. He returned to the Department of Justice to serve as Senior Counsel in the Office of Legal Policy in May 2004. He held that position until February 2005, when he was hired as Chief Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights.

Between 2007 and 2011, Pai held several positions in the FCC's Office of General Counsel, serving most prominently as Deputy General Counsel. In this role, he had supervisory responsibility over several dozen lawyers in the Administrative Law Division and worked on a wide variety of regulatory and transactional matters involving the wireless, wireline, cable, Internet, media, and satellite industries. In 2010, Pai was one of 55 individuals nationwide chosen for the 2011 Marshall Memorial Fellowship, a leadership development initiative of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Pai returned to the private sector in April 2011, working in the Washington, D.C., office of law firm Jenner & Block where he was a partner in the Communications Practice.

In 2011, Pai was then nominated for a Republican Party position on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama at the recommendation of Minority leader Mitch McConnell. He was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May 7, 2012, and was sworn in on May 14, 2012, for a term that concluded on June 30, 2016. Then Pai was designated chairman of the FCC by President Donald Trump in January 2017 for a five-year term. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate for the additional five-year term on October 2, 2017.

From ScotusBlog: Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project

Soon to argued before the court.

- Click here for the page.

Issue: 

Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit erred in vacating as arbitrary and capricious the Federal Communications Commission orders under review, which, among other things, relaxed the agency’s cross-ownership restrictions to accommodate changed market conditions.

The Case (From Ballotpedia):

The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") issued modifications and orders following its 2016 quadrennial review of rules governing ownership of broadcast media under the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A group of petitioners challenged several of the FCC's rule changes with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which retains judicial review of the FCC's orders. The 3rd Circuit held that the petitioners had standing, that the FCC's retention of the top-four component of its local television ownership rule was not arbitrary and capricious, that the Incubator Order’s definition of comparable markets was not arbitrary and capricious and was sufficiently noticed, and held that the FCC was not unreasonable in its delayed action related to a proposal to adopt procurement rules for the broadcasting industry. It also held that the FCC had not sufficiently considered the rule changes' effect on women- and minority-owned media. The court vacated and remanded the FCC's orders and its definition of "eligible entities", and denied the petitioners' request to appoint a special master to ensure timely compliance by the FCC with the court's rulings.

From Ballotpedia: Supreme Court cases, October term 2020-2021

A look at the cases the United States Supreme Court is ready to hear this term. We will look through a few.

- Click here for it.

These are being appealed from the 5th Circuit - which includes Texas.

- Salinas v. United States Railroad Retirement Board

- California v. Texas (Consolidated with Texas v. California)

- Edwards v. Vannoy

- Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc.

- Collins v. Mnuchin (Consolidated with Mnuchin v. Collins)

From Wikipedia: Rainbow Coalition and Fred Hampton

More background on the impact that increased diversity had on the New Deal Coalition. It continues to have an impact. 

It got a bit too radical for the taste of many.

- Click here for it.

The Rainbow Coalition soon included various radical socialist community groups like the Lincoln Park Poor People's Coalition,[2] Later, the coalition was joined nationwide by the Students for a Democratic Society ("SDS"), the Brown Berets, the American Indian Movement and the Red Guard Party. In April 1969, Hampton called several press conferences to announce that this "Rainbow Coalition" had formed.

The coalition later included many other local groups like Rising Up Angry, and Mothers and Others. The Coalition also brokered treaties to end crime and gang violence. Hampton, Jimenez and their colleagues believed that the Richard J. Daley Democratic Party machine in Chicago used gang wars to consolidate their own political positions by gaining funding for law enforcement and dramatizing crime rather than underlying social issues[citation needed].

The phrase "rainbow coalition" was co-opted over the years by Reverend Jesse Jackson, who eventually appropriated the name in forming his own, more moderate coalition, Rainbow/PUSH. Some scholars, including Peniel Joseph, assert that the original rainbow coalition concept was a prerequisite for the multicultural coalition that Barack Obama built his political career upon.

The group's organizer sounds fascinating

- Fred Hampton.

Fredrick Allen Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist and revolutionary socialist. He came to prominence in Chicago as chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and deputy chairman of the national BPP. In this capacity, he founded the Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots and the Young Lords, and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change.

In 1967, Hampton was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a radical threat. The FBI tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black progressive groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers. In December 1969, Hampton was shot and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; during the raid, Panther Mark Clark was also killed and several others were seriously wounded. In January 1970, a coroner's jury held an inquest and ruled the deaths of Hampton and Clark to be justifiable homicide.

A civil lawsuit was later filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark. It was resolved in 1982 by a settlement of $1.85 million; the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government each paid one-third to a group of nine plaintiffs. Given revelations about the illegal COINTELPRO program and documents associated with the killings, scholars now widely consider Hampton's death an assassination under the FBI's initiative.

From the Cato Institute:THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND NINETEENTH CENTURY TRANSFER POLICY

A look at a major source of revenue for the national government prior to the Civil War. Texas too.

- Click here for the article.

During the 19th century, about 871.2 million acres of lands held in common by the federal government were transferred to private individuals, businesses, and state governments. The privatization of public lands began in 1796, when the public domain amounted to approximately 233 million acres. Between 1796 and 1923, private parties purchased nearly 279.3 million acres of public land. Even though the total amount of federal land holdings grew enormously, the government sold off more acreage than had been included in its original holdings. Most of these sales occurred before 1862; from 1800 until the beginning of the Civil War, proceeds from the sale of public lands constituted a major source of revenue for the federal government, accounting for 48 percent of net receipts in 1836.

Denationalization of the public domain was not limited to privatization via sales. By 1923, nearly 592 million additional acres of the public domain were transferred to individuals, railroad companies, and state governments through grants; the overwhelming proportion of these transfers occurred after 1862. What had begun as a major revenue-generating device for the U.S. Treasury had evolved into an immense transfer program. A system of allocating scarce resources via auction had been transformed into one of political allocation based on rent seeking, with large sections of the public domain being transferred to politically favored groups.

Regarding the Ken Paxton Allegations

 All from the Texas Tribune.

- Who is Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general accused of bribery and abuse of office?

What do we know about the most recent allegations against him?

The letter with the allegations was sent to the state agency’s director of human resources and signed by Paxton’s first assistant attorney general, Jeff Mateer; Ryan Bangert, Mateer’s deputy; and five other top officials, including the deputy attorneys general overseeing criminal justice, legal counsel, civil litigation, administration and general policy divisions.“Each signatory below has knowledge of facts relevant to these potential offenses and has provided statements concerning those facts to the appropriate law enforcement authority,” the letter reads. The one-paragraph letter didn’t have any details about what abuses and criminal offenses were alleged. But media reports have tied the allegations to Paxton’s relationship with Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer and Paxton donor.

- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he won't resign after accusations of criminal activity by top aides.

In his limited public statements on the allegations, Paxton has pointed the finger back at the top deputies accusing him of wrongdoing. But Paxton claimed Monday that he was merely investigating a case that had been sent to the agency, as is his responsibility. “The Texas attorney general’s office was referred a case from Travis county regarding allegations of crimes relating to the FBI, other government agencies and individuals. My obligation as attorney general is to conduct an investigation upon such referral,” Paxton said. “Because employees from my office impeded the investigation and because I knew Nate Paul I ultimately decided to hire an outside independent prosecutor to make his own independent determination.”

- As Ken Paxton faces criminal allegations, an agency at war with itself must carry on the state’s business.

Even before the latest accusations against Paxton, the attorney general’s office has seen turnover and bad press in recent weeks. In addition to the departures of Rylander and Moutos, Katherine Cary, the agency’s chief of staff, was expected to depart this fall. Those are yet more challenges for a busy agency now enmeshed in a public relations disaster and potentially a criminal morass. Current and former employees describe an agency run through a strict hierarchy, where staffers check with their division chiefs, who check with the deputy attorney general they serve under, who would often check with Mateer or someone else in the top brass, before initiating an investigation or filing a legal document.

Any shakeup in that hierarchy “puts the agency in a very hard predicament,” said one longtime employee who declined to speak on the record about the fallout from the Paxton allegations in fear of professional retaliation. “I don’t know how they’re going to handle questions like that — who’s going to give permission for what and to whom?” the employee said. “If executive administration is losing so many people, how is the agency going to run?”

- Who is Nate Paul, the real estate investor linked to abuse-of-office allegations against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton?

According to the Houston Chronicle, former top aides to Paxton have alleged that the attorney general inappropriately appointed a special prosecutor to target “adversaries” of Paul, who donated $25,000 to Paxton’s reelection campaign in 2018. Those “adversaries” appear to include agents who raided Paul’s home and business office, though Paxton has confirmed only that he authorized an investigation into “allegations of crimes relating to the FBI, other government agencies and individuals” and that the investigation involved Paul.

. . . As media reports surfaced detailing Paul’s connection to the allegations against Paxton, Texas Republican politicians who had received campaign contributions from Paul announced they would donate the funds to charities. Campaigns for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Comptroller Glenn Hegar, Land Commissioner George P. Bush and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy distanced themselves from Paul’s campaign contributions, which ranged from $2,500 to $10,000. Roy, formerly a top Paxton aide at the Texas attorney general’s office, also called on Paxton to resign.

From Vox: Claudia Conway’s TikToks, explained

 Another social media app pushing information.

- Click here for the story.

Meet Lewis Cass: The first man Texans supported for president after statehood.

The year  was 1848,

- From Wikipedia.

Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, he attended Phillips Exeter Academy before establishing a legal practice in Zanesville, Ohio. After serving in the Ohio House of Representatives, he was appointed as a U.S. Marshal. Cass also joined the Freemasons and would eventually co-found the Grand Lodge of Michigan. He fought at the Battle of the Thames in the War of 1812 and was appointed to govern Michigan Territory in 1813. He negotiated treaties with Native Americans to open land for American settlement and led a survey expedition into the northwest part of the territory.

Cass resigned as governor in 1831 to accept appointment as Secretary of War under Andrew Jackson. As Secretary of War, he helped implement Jackson's policy of Indian removal. After serving as ambassador to France from 1836 to 1842, he unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination at the 1844 Democratic National Convention; a deadlock between supporters of Cass and former President Martin Van Buren ended with the nomination of James K. Polk. In 1845, the Michigan Legislature elected Cass to the Senate, where he served until 1848. Cass's nomination at the 1848 Democratic National Convention precipitated a split in the party, as Cass's advocacy for popular sovereignty alienated the anti-slavery wing of the party. Van Buren led the Free Soil Party's presidential ticket and appealed to many anti-slavery Democrats, possibly contributing to the victory of Whig nominee Zachary Taylor.

From Wikipedia: National Origins Formula

 The policy overturned in the immigration law mentioned below.

- Click here for it.

The National Origins Formula was an American system of immigration quotas, used between 1921 and 1965, which restricted immigration on the basis of existing proportions of the population. It aimed to reduce the overall number of unskilled immigrants (especially from Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia), to allow families to re-unite, and to prevent immigration from changing the ethnic distribution of the largely Protestant population of Northwestern European Americans.

The 1921 Emergency Quota Act restricted immigration to 3% of foreign-born persons of each nationality that resided in the United States in 1910.

The Immigration Act of 1924, also called the National Origins Act, provided that for three years the formula would change from 3% to 2% and the basis for the calculation would be the census of 1890 instead of that of 1910. After June 30, 1927, total immigration from all countries will be limited to 150,000, with allocations by country based upon national origins of inhabitants according to the census of 1920. The quota system applied only to non-Asian immigrants. It aimed to reduce the overall number of unskilled immigrants, to allow families to re-unite, and to prevent immigration from changing the ethnic distribution of the population. The 1924 Act also included the Asian Exclusion Act, which limited immigration to persons eligible for naturalization. As a result, East Asians and South Asians were effectively banned from immigrating. Africans were also subjected to severe restrictions.[1] Immigration from North and South America was not restricted.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 retained but relaxed the National Origins Formula. It modified the ratios to be based on the 1920 census and eliminated racial restrictions, but retained restrictions by national origin. President Harry Truman vetoed it because of its continued use of national quotas, but the Act was passed over his veto. The quotas were in addition to 600,000 refugees admitted from Europe after World War II.

The National Origins Formula was abolished by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which marked a significant change in American immigration policy. It replaced the system with two quotas for the Western and Eastern hemispheres.

From Roll Call: US adversaries could seize on Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis to spread disinformation

 One of our key terms is in the title.

- Click here for it.

The security implications of President Donald Trump’s contraction of the novel coronavirus are more likely to involve a stepped-up Russian disinformation campaign than any military event, several former top government officials said.

While more fake stories on social media would almost certainly not lead to war, they could roil an already tense and divided America just a few weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

In what would seem a positive sign about Trump’s health, the president returned to the White House on Monday evening after spending three days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the nearby Maryland suburbs.

But officials have acknowledged to reporters that Trump’s condition has been serious. He was given supplemental oxygen to help him breathe on Oct. 2. His blood oxygen levels plummeted suddenly on two occasions in recent days. And he was given a steroid that experts have said is normally reserved for those with extreme cases of COVID-19.

If the president's health does not worsen considerably, little of consequence is likely to change in the realm of national security. The president is 74, though, placing him at greater risk than most people of getting worse and even dying. And the virus can worsen in the second week and even after it has shown signs of subsiding, doctors have said.

Regarding John Peter Zenger

All from Wikipedia: 

- John Peter Zenger: 

... a German printer and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal. He was accused of libel in 1734 by William Cosby, the royal governor of New York, but the jury acquitted Zenger, who became a symbol for freedom of the press.

In 1733, Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal, which voiced opinions critical of the colonial governor, William Cosby. On November 17, 1734, on Cosby's orders, the sheriff arrested Zenger. After a grand jury refused to indict him, the Attorney General Richard Bradley charged him with libel in August 1735.

Zenger's lawyers, Andrew Hamilton and William Smith, Sr., successfully argued that truth is a defense against charges of libel.

- The New York Weekly Journal: 

...a weekly journal, printed by John Peter Zenger, from November 5, 1733 to March 18, 1751. It was the second journal in New York City and the only one that criticized New York Royal governor William Cosby, for which reason the journal was burned in its first year and John Zenger was put in prison. Zenger was released without charges, this being one of the earliest cases where a fight for the freedom of press led to a victory in America.

- German Palatines:

The German Palatines were early 18th-century emigrants from the Middle Rhine region of the Holy Roman Empire, including a minority from the Palatinate, by which the entire group was known. They immigrated to England as refugees and were both Protestant and Catholic farmers. Towards the end of the 17th century and into the 18th, the wealthy region was repeatedly invaded by French troops during the religious wars. They imposed continuous military requisitions, causing widespread devastation and famine. The winter of 1708 was notably cold, resulting in further hardships. The term "Poor Palatines" referred to some 13,000 Germans who emigrated to England between May and November 1709, seeking refuge. Their arrival in England, and the inability of the British Government to integrate them, caused a highly politicized debate over the merits of immigration. The English tried to settle them in England, Ireland and the North American colonies to strengthen their position abroad.

- William Cosby:

Brigadier-General William Cosby (1690–1736) was an Irish soldier who served as the British royal governor of New York from 1732 to 1736.

During his short term as governor, Cosby was portrayed as one of the most oppressive royal placeholders in British Colonial America. In 1735, Cosby accused publisher John Peter Zenger of sedition and libel for publishing unflattering reports about Cosby. In spite of Cosby's efforts, Zenger was acquitted of all charges and the case helped to establish the concept of freedom of the press.

- William Bradford:

an early English printer in North America. He is best known as "the pioneer printer of the Middle colonies" and the head of a family that included publishers for 140 years. He was also known for controversies regarding freedom of the press.

From Wikipedia: Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

Detail on the law mentioned below.

- Click here for the article.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law abolished the National Origins Formula, which had been the basis of U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s. The act removed de facto discrimination against Southern and Eastern Europeans, Asians, and other non-Northwestern European ethnic groups from American immigration policy.

The National Origins Formula had been established in the 1920s to preserve American homogeneity by promoting immigration from Northwestern Europe. During the 1960s, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, this approach increasingly came under attack for being racially discriminatory. With the support of the Johnson administration, Senator Philip Hart and Congressman Emanuel Celler introduced a bill to repeal the formula. The bill received wide support from both northern Democratic and Republican members of Congress, but strong opposition from Southern Republicans and Democrats, the former mostly voting Nay or Not Voting.

This issue served as an inter-party commonality amongst constituents and reflects the similar Congressional District and Representative voting patterns. President Johnson signed the Hart–Celler Act into law on October 3, 1965. In opening entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than Northwestern European and Germanic groups, the Act significantly altered immigration demographics in the U.S. Some sources assert that this alteration was intentional; others assert that it was unintentional.

The Hart–Celler Act created a seven-category preference system that gives priority to relatives and children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, professionals and other individuals with specialized skills, and refugees. The act maintained per-country and total immigration limits, but included a provision exempting immediate relatives of U.S. citizens from numerical restrictions. The act also set a numerical limit on immigration from the Western Hemisphere for the first time in U.S. history. Though proponents of the bill had argued that it would not have a major effect on the total level of immigration or the demographic mix of the United States, the act greatly increased the total number of immigrants coming to the United States, as well as the share of immigrants coming to the United States from Asia and Africa.

From Vox: How the Immigration and Nationality Act transformed America, in one chart

A 2015 article that provides an alternative theory about why things changed back in the 1960s.

- Click here for the article. 

The INA replaced the overtly racist immigration regime of the mid-20th century, which fully banned immigration from Asia or Africa and set strict national quotas designed to limit immigration from southern and eastern Europe. The quotas were based on the ethnic balance of the 1890 census — when, in the opinion of the Congress of the time, the United States was still a properly "white" country and wasn't in danger of being overrun with Italians and Jews.

The Immigration and Nationality Act replaced this with the legal immigration system we still use today. There's a flat cap on how many immigrants per country can immigrate each year, but individual immigrants aren't approved or denied based on where they come from. Instead, they're admitted largely through family members in the US; temporary work permits for specific employers; or refugee status or asylum (along with assorted other, smaller categories).

You can see the results in the chart above, which displays the number and origins of immigrants — naturalized citizens, legal immigrants, and unauthorized immigrants — living in the United States during the 1960 census (before the INA) and during each decade after.

In 1960, immigrants to the US were overwhelmingly European. Furthermore — at least partly because so few eastern and southern Europeans had been allowed into the country under the quota system — Jewish and Italian Americans had largely assimilated into the US, and were considered white in a way they weren't in the 1920s. But really, there were relatively few immigrants in the US at all.

The INA opened the door to millions of immigrants. The percentage of the US population that is foreign-born is almost as large today as it was during the peak of US immigration at the turn of the 20th century — when unlimited numbers of immigrants from Europe could come to the United States, but when there were only half as many people living in the US as there are today.

The Provisions of the Voting Rights Act

 Click here for them.

From Wikipedia: Shelby County v. Holder

The case that weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.

- Click here for the entry.

Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subjected to preclearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.

On June 25, 2013, the Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that Section 4(b) is unconstitutional because the coverage formula is based on data over 40 years old, making it no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states. The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction will be subject to Section 5 preclearance unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.

In its wake, the ruling has made it easier for state officials to make it harder for ethnic minority voters to vote. Research shows that preclearance led to increases in minority congressional representation and increases in minority turnout. Five years after the ruling, nearly 1,000 polling places had been closed in the U.S., with many of the closed polling places in predominantly African-American counties. Research shows that the changing of voter locations and reduction in voting locations can reduce voter turnout. There were also cuts to early voting, purges of voter rolls and imposition of strict voter ID laws. A 2020 study found that the jurisdictions which had previously been covered by preclearance massively increased the rate of voter registration purges after the Shelby decision. Virtually all restrictions on voting subsequent to the ruling were by Republicans.

From Wikipedia: Smith v. Allwright

The caser that ended the white primary in Texas.

-  Click here for it.

Smith v. Allwright questioned whether or not states had the constitutional right to deny voters based on party membership. The Democratic Party of Texas denied Smith the right to vote on the basis of his skin color. Smith was attempting to cast his vote for a Democratic primary in which candidates for the House of Representatives, Senate, and Governor were being nominated, in addition to other state officers. The Texas Constitution states that every person qualified by residence in a district or county, in addition to other factors that are not relevant, "shall be deemed a qualified elector" in Article VI, §2, and Chapters Twelve and Thirteen of the statutes require primary elections for Senators, Representatives, and state officers. The Democratic Party of Texas was a "voluntary association" and protected from interference from the state except "in the interest of fair methods and a fair expression by their members of their preferences in the selection of their nominees, the State may regulate such elections by proper laws," which is a right that is protected in the Bill of Rights of Texas.

The party is allowed to determine its own policies and membership according to Waples v. Marrast, and adopted a policy that all white citizens qualified to vote in Texas were eligible for membership, therefore allowing only white citizens to vote. Holding policies that only allow citizens of a particular race or color to vote is an inherently discriminatory practice. The Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth Amendments protect against such actions from any state. The argument, however, is whether the Texas Democratic Party is independent from the state and free to make policies as it pleases. Smith was not allowed to vote in a Democratic primary election on the basis of his skin color. He, the petitioner, argues that since he was not allowed to participate in a state election, the Party is not independent of the state. There were two conflicting Supreme Court decisions that were impeding the judicial precedent for this case: Grovey v. Townsend and United States v. Classic.

From the American Prospect: Trump's Curious Coalition

From 2018, so perhaps dated.

- Click here for it.

Trump's strategy for keeping power is to build up his coalition of America's white working class and the nation's ownership class.

It's a curious coalition, to say the least. But if Democrats don't respond to it, it could protect Trump from impeachment and even re-elect him. It just might create a permanent Republican majority around an axis of white resentment and great wealth.

Two decades ago, Democrats and Republicans competed over the middle class. They battled over soccer moms and suburban “swing” voters.

Since then the middle class has shrunk while the working class has grown, and vast wealth has been accumulated by a comparative few who now own a large portion of America. Some of their wealth has taken over American politics.

Enter Trump.

Counties whose voters shifted from Obama to Trump in 2016 had lost economic ground to the rest of America, even more than did solidly-Republican counties. Trump is counting on the unwavering support of these mostly white working class voters.

Meanwhile, much of the ownership class has come over to Trump. He's counting on it to bankroll Republican politicians who are loyal to him.

Since becoming president, Trump has sought to reward both sides of this coalition—tossing boatloads of money to the ownership class, and red meat to the white working class.

One boatload is the corporate and individual tax cut, of which America's richest 1 percent will take home an estimated 82 percent by 2027, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Another boatload is coming from government itself, which Trump has filled with lobbyists who are letting large corporations do whatever they want—using public lands, polluting, defrauding consumers and investors, even employing children—in order to push profits even higher.

Trump's red meat for the white working class is initiatives and tirades against unauthorized immigrants and foreign traders—as if they're responsible for the working class's lost ground—and other symbolic gestures of economic populism, along with episodic racist outbursts, and support for guns and evangelicals.

Every time Trump sends more money to the wealthy he sends more red meat to his base.

From the First Amendment Encyclopedia: False Speech

Probably appropriate given the nature of the times.

- Click here for it.

Because the First Amendment is designed to further the pursuit of truth, it may not protect individuals who engage in slander or libel, especially those who display actual malice by knowingly publishing false information or publishing information “with reckless disregard for the truth.”

Government does not stand as definer of truth

As a general rule, however, the government does not stand as the definer of truth, which is designed to emerge from the clash of opinions rather than from government fiat. Legally, it is difficult to identify a false opinion, although courts are consistently called upon to weigh factual evidence in both civil and criminal cases.
Court said Stolen Valor Act violated First Amendment

In United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. ____ (2012), the Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, which was designed to punish individuals who made false claims, not about others, but about their own military service. In striking down the law, the Supreme Court thus refused to expand the limited number of categories, like obscenity, true threats, and libel, where it permitted restrictions on the actual content of speech. Essentially, the justices thought that this was an issue that should be resolved in free and open debate rather than by government action.

The Court has taken similar positions with regard to statements made by political candidates who are running for office.

From the First Amendment Encyclopedia: Actual Malice

 What it takes for a public figure to successfully sue for libel. 

- Click here for it. 

Actual malice is the legal standard established by the Supreme Court for libel cases to determine when public officials or public figures may recover damages in lawsuits against the news media.

Public officials cannot win libel cases without proof of actual malice

Beginning with the unanimous decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court has held that public officials cannot recover damages for libel without proving that a statement was made with actual malice — defined as “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

The decision in Sullivan threw out a damage award against the New York Times, but only six of the nine justices fully agreed with Justice William J. Brennan Jr.’s use of the actual malice standard, which he derived from a Kansas Supreme Court ruling, Coleman v. MacLennan (Kan. 1908). Justices Hugo L. Black and Arthur J. Goldberg, joined by Justice William O. Douglas, thought the Court should go farther to protect criticism of public officials and debate about public affairs.

See also: Public Figures and Officials.

The Media and Polarization over Vietnam

This brings a few items together. Conflict over American involvement in Vietnam helped break apart the New Deal Coalition.

- Click here for it.

The media also played a substantial role in the polarization of American opinion regarding the Vietnam War. For example, In 1965 a majority of the media attention focused on military tactics with very little discussion about the necessity for a full scale intervention in Southeast Asia. After 1965, the media covered the dissent and domestic controversy that existed within the United States, but mostly excluded the actual view of dissidents and resisters.

The media established a sphere of public discourse surrounding the Hawk versus Dove debate. The Dove was a liberal and a critic of the war. Doves claimed that the war was well–intentioned but a disastrously wrong mistake in an otherwise benign foreign policy. It is important to note the Doves did not question the U.S. intentions in intervening in Vietnam, nor did they question the morality or legality of the U.S. intervention. Rather, they made pragmatic claims that the war was a mistake. Contrarily, the Hawks argued that the war was legitimate and winnable and a part of the benign U.S. foreign policy. The Hawks claimed that the one-sided criticism of the media contributed to the decline of public support for the war and ultimately helped the U.S. lose the war. Author William F. Buckley repeatedly wrote about his approval for the war and suggested that "The United States has been timid, if not cowardly, in refusing to seek 'victory' in Vietnam." The hawks claimed that the liberal media was responsible for the growing popular disenchantment with the war and blamed the western media for losing the war in Southeast Asia as communism was no longer a threat for them.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s top aides want him investigated for bribery and other alleged crimes

Part of the Texas plural executive. He has also been under indictment since 2015.

- Click here for the article.

Senior officials in the Texas Attorney General's Office have asked federal law enforcement to "investigate allegations of improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential crimes" by their boss, the Austin-American Statesman and KVUE-TV first reported Saturday.

The senior staff members, including Jeff Mateer, who resigned from his post as Paxton’s top aide this week after several years leading the agency, notified the agency’s human resources director that they sought the investigation.

“We have a good faith belief that the attorney general is violating federal and/or state law including prohibitions related to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses,” seven agency leaders wrote in a one-page letter obtained by the Statesman.

The brief letter, dated Oct. 1, says the officials notified law enforcement of a potential crime on Sept. 30, but does not provide detailed accusations. The officials also say they notified Paxton himself of the accusation via text message on Oct. 1.

For the PDF of Houston's 2021 Fiscal Year Budget

 - Click here.

From the Texas Tribune: Voters, voting rights groups sue Gov. Greg Abbott over order to close ballot drop-off locations

 As to be expected.

- Click here for the article. 

Voting rights advocates and civic groups have filed two separate federal lawsuits to block Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's last-minute order that allows Texas counties to provide no more than one drop-off location for voters casting absentee ballots.

Late Friday, the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, the get-out-the-vote group BigTent Creative and a 65-year-old voter asked a federal judge in Austin to overturn the governor’s Oct. 1 order, which forced Travis and Harris counties — two of the state’s most important Democratic strongholds — to shutter a number of drop-off sites they had already opened this week. The challenge came a day after The Texas and National Leagues of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Women Voters of Texas and two Texas voters filed a lawsuit calling the directive an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote that will disproportionately impact voters of color in the state’s biggest cities.

“The impact of this eleventh-hour decisions is momentous, targets Texas’ most vulnerable voters—older voters, and voters with disabilities—and results in wild variations in access to absentee voting drop-off locations depending on the county a voter resides in,” attorneys in the LULAC suit argued. “It also results in predictable disproportionate impacts on minority communities that already hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis.”

Recent Coalitions - post New Deal

Wikipedia: The Reagan Coalition.

The Reagan Democrats were Democrats before the Reagan years and afterwards, but who voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and for George H. W. Bush in 1988, producing their landslide victories. They were mostly white socially conservative blue-collar workers who lived in the Northeast and were attracted to Reagan's social conservatism on issues such as abortion and to his hawkish foreign policy. They did not continue to vote Republican in 1992 or 1996, so the term fell into disuse except as a reference to the 1980s. The term is not generally used to describe the Southern whites who permanently changed party affiliation from Democrat to Republican during the Reagan administration and they have largely remained Republican to this day.

Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, analyzed white, largely unionized auto workers in suburban Macomb County, Michigan, just north of Detroit. The county voted 63% for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and 66% for Reagan in 1984. He concluded that Reagan Democrats no longer saw Democrats as champions of their middle class aspirations, but instead saw it as being a party working primarily for the benefit of others, especially African Americans and the very poor. Democrat Bill Clinton targeted the Reagan Democrats with considerable success in 1992 and 1996.

Wikipedia: New Democrats (The Clinton Coalition)

New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they support cultural liberalism but take moderate or fiscal conservative stances. New Democrats dominated the party from the late-1980s through the mid-2010s

. . . The landslide 1984 presidential election defeat spurred centrist Democrats to action and the DLC was formed. The DLC, an unofficial party organization, played a critical role in moving the Democratic Party's policies to the center of the American political spectrum. Prominent Democratic politicians such as Senators Al Gore and Joe Biden (both future Vice Presidents) participated in DLC affairs prior to their candidacies for the 1988 Democratic Party nomination. However, the DLC did not want the Democratic Party to be "simply posturing in the middle". The DLC instead framed its ideas as "progressive" and as a "Third Way" to address the problems of its era. Examples of the DLC's policy initiatives can be found in The New American Choice Resolutions.

From RCP: Assessing the Obama Coalition.

The Democratic Party is really a coalition of several semi-distinct parts. At its core, it is comprised of urban progressives and racial minorities, both of which were relative latecomers to the coalition. Layered over this base, with varying degrees of loyalty to the modern Democratic Party, are white working class voters (added by FDR in the 1930s), suburbanites (added by Clinton in the 1990s), and the oldest portion of the Democratic Party, rural voters.

Part of the key to the modern Democratic Party's success, especially at the Presidential level, has been the Democrats' ability to maintain at least residual strength among the very first Democrats: rural "Jacksonian" Democrats in Appalachia (western Virginia, West Virginia, Northern Alabama, etc.) and in areas of the country first settled by Appalachians (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, etc.). But as I noted a year ago, the Democrats in 2008 essentially traded away Jacksonian Democrats at the Presidential level for an improved showing in the suburbs and increased turnout among minorities. This allowed President Obama to become the first Democrat since the founding of the Republican Party to win the Presidency without any electoral votes from West Virginia, Tennessee or Kentucky.

From 538: We’ve Had 56 Statewide Elections During The Pandemic. Here’s What We Learned From Them.

More for our look at elections

- Click here for it.

The 2020 primary season finally ended last month, meaning there have now been 56 statewide elections (presidential primaries, state-level primaries and even the occasional runoff) since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in mid-March — dress rehearsals of sorts for opening night on Nov. 3. And while, through mid-July, these “pandemic primaries” had an inconsistent record of success, more recent elections have settled into more of a groove.

Here are three takeaways from a primary season like no other, and what they could mean for the general election:

1. Mail voting is still way up, but more people are voting in person

2. The pandemic isn’t depressing turnout

3. Fewer problems are being reported

The Organization Chart for Houston's City Government

 - Click here for it.

For a look at Texas finances

From the Texas Comptrollers Office

- A Field Guide to the Taxes of Texas. 

- The Biennial Estimate for 2020-21.

From the Legislative Budget Board

- The Fiscal Size Up.

From the city of Houston: FY2021 Adopted Budget

 - Click here for it.

From the Texas Tribune: Gov. Greg Abbott limits counties to one absentee ballot drop-off location, bolstering GOP efforts to restrict voting

Expect a legal challenge soon - likely in the federal courts

- Click here for the article.

Gov. Greg Abbott threw the weight of his office Thursday behind Republican efforts to limit options for Texas voters who want to hand-deliver their completed absentee ballots for the November election — a rebuke to some large, Democratic counties that have set up multiple drop-off locations in what they call an effort to maximize voter convenience.

The Republican governor issued a proclamation directing counties to designate just one location for ballot drop-offs, and allowing political parties to install poll watchers to observe the process.

An unprecedented number of absentee ballots are expected to be cast this year as voters who qualify under Texas’ unusually strict vote-by-mail rules opt to avoid the health risks of voting in person. Republican officials have aggressively fought Democratic efforts to expand access to mail-in ballots during the pandemic.

From the Cato Institute: THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND NINETEENTH CENTURY TRANSFER POLICY

A look at an early source of revenue collection nationally (this also applies to Texas)

- Click here for the article. 

During the 19th century, about 871.2 million acres of lands held in common by the federal government were transferred to private individuals, businesses, and state governments. The privatization of public lands began in 1796, when the public domain amounted to approximately 233 million acres. Between 1796 and 1923, private parties purchased nearly 279.3 million acres of public land. Even though the total amount of federal land holdings grew enormously, the government sold off more acreage than had been included in its original holdings. Most of these sales occurred before 1862; from 1800 until the beginning of the Civil War, proceeds from the sale of public lands constituted a major source of revenue for the federal government, accounting for 48 percent of net receipts in 1836.

The Right to Retire

Apparently its been a thing for a while.

Here's an opinion piece promoting it.

- Retirement should be a right. But it’s in danger of becoming a privilege for the rich.

If, like many people, you dread your daily commute and the early mornings associated with work, why do it for more years than you have to? But for a lot of older people, that prospect is fast becoming reality – more than twice as many people over 70 are working now than a decade ago. Some people will naturally want to remain in the workplace on a full- or part-time basis, and enjoy their job, keeping active and spending time with colleagues. For many others, however, it is a necessity rather than a choice.

Like all of us, older people have been hit by the rise in living costs, and some are forced to keep working beyond the retirement age to avoid falling into poverty. The decision to retire is, for many, an individual one, and an awareness that your financial situation remains precarious, and that working while you can is your only prospect of topping up your savings and pensions, is likely to weigh heavily on any decisions to stop work. Pensioner poverty has fallen from its peak in the mid-1990s but has begun to rise again in the years following the financial crash, with 16% of pensioners living in poverty, despite benefits for over-65s having been protected against cuts.

From the Texas Tribune: No straight-ticket voting for Texas' 2020 election, federal appeals court says

Not a surprise.

- Click here for the article.

Texas voters will not be able to select every candidate of a major political party with one punch, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, upholding a 2017 state law that ends the popular practice of straight-ticket voting for this year’s general election.

The Texas Legislature acted years ago to end straight-ticket voting in time for the 2020 presidential contest, but a federal judge reinstated the practice earlier this month, citing complications to the voting process caused by the pandemic.

A three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision Wednesday, ruling that the law ending the one-punch option should go into effect even as voters and election administrators contend with the coronavirus pandemic, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s “emphasis that courts should not alter election rules on the eve of an election.”

“The Texas Legislature passed HB 25 in 2017, and state election officials have planned for this election accordingly. The state election machinery is already well in motion,” the judges wrote. Upholding the law and eliminating straight-ticket voting, they wrote, “will minimize confusion among both voters and trained election officials.”

Tammany Hall and Puck

 Political machines and the early magazine that exposed them.

- Tammany Hall.

- Puck.

The Wrecking Crew (2008) - Glen Campbell & The End of an Era