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Supreme Court to District Court: No, You Can’t Overturn the Democratic Process to Help Democrats. Not Yours.

Friday, January 20th, 2012

OK, they didn’t use quite that language (and I must prepend the usual I Am Not a Lawyer disclaimer). But in issuing the decision (they had previously blocked the District Courts’ maps), the Supremes did say the San Antonio District Court had exceeded its authority in drawing new redistricting maps for Texas for no clear reason, and ordered the District Court to go back to the drawing board and create maps closer to what the legislation passed in the first place:

Because it is unclear whether the District Court for the Western District of Texas followed the appropriate standards in drawing interim maps for the 2012 Texas elections, the orders implementing those maps are vacated,and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Time and time again in this decision, the Supreme Court criticizes the District Court for their approach:

  • “To the extent the District Court exceeded its mission to draw interim maps that do not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and substituted its own concept of ‘the collective public good’ for the Texas Legislature’s determination of which policies serve ‘the interests of the citizens of Texas,’ the court erred.”
  • “Because the District Court here had the benefit of a recently enacted plan to assist it, the court had neither the need nor the license to cast aside that vital aid.”
  • “Some specific aspects of the District Court’s plans seem to pay adequate attention to the State’s policies, others do not, and the propriety of still others is unclear.”
  • “The District Court also erred in refusing to split voting precincts (called “voter tabulation districts” in Texas) in drawing the interim plans.”
  • “The District Court also appears to have unnecessarily ignored the State’s plans in drawing certain individual districts.”
  • “The court’s approach in drawing other districts was unclear.”

    • Time in time again, the Supreme Court said to the District Court: “You screwed up. The State government has the responsibility to perform redistricting, and you shouldn’t overturn their work without explicit Voting Rights Acts reason, and you went and did it anyway.”

    Justice Clarence Thomas concurred with the opinion, but went even further, declaring that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the section requiring judicial preclearance of voting districts) was unconstitutional:

    In my view, Texas’ failure to timely obtain §5 preclearance of its new plans is no obstacle to their implementation, because, as I have previously explained, §5 is unconstitutional…Although Texas’ new plans are being challenged on the grounds that they violate the Federal Constitution and §2 of the Voting Rights Act, they have not yet been found to violate any law. Accordingly, Texas’ duly enacted redistricting plans should govern the upcoming elections. I would therefore vacate the interim orders and remand for the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas to consider appellees’ constitutional and §2 challenges in the ordinary course.

    Presumably, a more chastised District Court will come back in short order with a map that more closely resembles what the legislature passed, and not one designed to give Democrats in the court room what they couldn’t achieve at the ballot box.

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    Posted in Austin, Supreme Court, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Texas Senate Race Update for January 20, 2012

    Friday, January 20th, 2012

    Still waiting on Q4 fundraising numbers from the candidates. In previous quarters they came out around the 15th of the month after the deadline, but maybe the deadline is longer for End-of-Year reports.

  • Jason Embry notes that hey, this just might be a real senate race. Thanks for noticing.
  • Another blogger grading the TPPF debate. He ranks Tom Leppert first (followed by Ted Cruz, Craig James and Glenn Addison) and David Dewhurst last. However, the Leppert campaign will find no comfort in his analysis of their candidate: “Once Texans take a closer look at his actual record (and how deeply he appears to be in the back pocket of T. Boone Pickens), I think he’ll be reduced to what he actually is: the least conservative and—other than Craig James —the least qualified candidate running for KBH’s vacated seat.” Ouch! But his rating of Dewhurst is even worse: “There is a reason that Dewhurst has been ducking Ted Cruz and refusing to attend any of the previous debates: he’s really, really bad at it…Remember the cartoon Droopy the dog? That’s pretty much exactly what Dewhurst sounded like on stage on Thursday evening. No energy, seemed lost and confused at times. Halting, slow speech.” Double ouch!
  • KYFO has a poll up on the race.
  • They also did an interview with Cruz.
  • In The Dallas Morning News, Robert T. Garrett brings newspaper readers up to speed on the Huckabee/DeMint stuff I covered one to three weeks ago. Though he does manage to add some sneering liberal condescension at Fox News.
  • The American Jewish Committee and the World Affairs Council of Houston are sponsoring a foreign policy Senate candidate debate on Monday, January 23, at the Omni Houston Hotel. According to an email from the AJC, “12 of the 16 [candidates] have confirmed,” though Dewhurst and Democrat Paul Sadler were not among them.
  • Here’s a crappy headline: “Texas Republican candidates hold first debate.” Uh, no. It’s more like the 20th. Or maybe the 25th.
  • Speaking of which, maybe I just wasn’t paying attention heretofore, but I don’t recall nearly this many debates for statewide elections in previous cycles. I mean, we’ve already had three times as many Texas Republican Senate debates as there were Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858! Thanks to the Tea Party, Texans are really enjoying a golden age of grassroots democracy…
  • Dewhurst gets the endorsement of Michael Reagan, AKA “Ronald Reagan’s non-goofy son.” That won’t hurt him, but I also don’t see it swaying any undecided voters.
  • Glenn Addison gets some attention from his local Community Impact newspaper. (For those unfamiliar with the, Community Impact newspapers are very local (I get the one for NW Austin) free monthly newspapers delivered by mail. I generally find the quality of their stories better than the Statesman.)
  • He also gets compared to Ron Paul by KVUE. The problem with almost right analysis of this sort is that it would probably take way too much time to list the salient differences between the two than it’s worth expending…
  • David Dewhurst appeared on the Mark Davis show on WBAP:

  • As did Addison:

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Rep. John Carter Now Opposes SOPA

    Thursday, January 19th, 2012

    Rep. John Carter announced on his Facebook page that he’s withdrawing his support of SOPA. Carter is my congressman, and sadly, he was previously a SOPA cosponsor. It’s good to see that he’s seen the light.

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    Posted in Regulation, Texas | No Comments »

    Perry Out?

    Thursday, January 19th, 2012

    So say the tea leaves. An announcement is scheduled for later today. Word is he’ll endorse Gingrich.

    A sad turn of events, but also increasingly an inevitable one. After his autumn gaffes, Perry could just never regain traction. He joins Jack Kemp and Phil Gramm among the list of Republican Presidential contenders I’ve supported who have flamed out early. Sic transit gloria.

    (Hat tip: Ace)

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Ted Cruz (and Myself) Climb Aboard the Stop SOPA Bandwagon

    Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

    I’m sure that if you do any web-browsing at all, you’ve noticed all the Stop SOPA Blackouts (or, in the case of Fark, a white out) in opposition to the ill-conceived, MPAA-backed SOPA IP “protection” bill that would open up roughly, oh 99% of the web or so to frivolous lawsuits and censorship in the name of copyright protection. I haven’t been blogging about it because: A.) I have other fish to fry, B.) Lots of other bloggers are carrying the load there, and C.) I have a innate aversion to jumping on big internet bandwagons that everyone seems to agree with.

    But now that Texas Senate Candidate Ted Cruz has climbed aboard the Stop SOPA bandwagon, I have an excuse to do so. This is another example of how quickly the Cruz campaign acts on current events, and seems to get a jump on its rivals when it comes to hot-button issues, as it did on Fast and Furious, and a quick look showed nothing about SOPA up on the David Dewhurst, Tom Leppert or Craig James websites.

    SOPA is a bad bill, and while not nearly as big a concern as out-of-control spending by the federal government, it deserves to be killed.

    I note that one of the bill’s main backers, Republican Lamar Smith of San Antonio, has not yet drawn any primary opposition for House District 21. Perhaps some San Antonio conservative might rectify that when the extended campaign filing period opens up after the redistricting case is settled…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    New PPP Poll: Cruz Up, Dewhurst Still Leading But Down

    Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

    The latest PPP poll has David Dewhurst still leading the Senate race at 36%, but that’s down five points since their last poll, while Cruz is up 6 points at 18%. Leppert is a distant third at 7% and Craig James comes in at 4%.

    Most surprising piece of data: 39% of Dewhurst supporters identify with the Tea Party.

    Caveats: The margin of error is +/-4.2%, and PPP is a left-leaning polling company. Still, even at twice Cruz’s support, the Dewhurst campaign can’t be happy with the overall trends…

    Full report here.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Dewhurst Raises Disappointing $1.54 Million From Donors in Q4

    Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

    David Dewhurst only raised $1.54 Million from donors in Q4.

    While far from chicken-feed, those numbers seem really disappointing to me, especially given that he pulled in $2.64 million in donor contributions in Q3. Those are just donor numbers, and we don’t know much of Dewhurst’s own considerable wealth he tossed in until he tells us, or his official FEC numbers go up (there’s usually a significant lag between the campaign announcement and the FEC putting the numbers up).

    As the establishment candidate and presumptive favorite, Dewhurst should be running away in the fundraising race. He’s not.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

    TPPF Texas Senate Debate Roundup and Video, Plus A Few Other Race Tidbits

    Monday, January 16th, 2012

    I was busy with a family even over the weekend, so I haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch the debate all the way through. But I’ll go ahead and put it up for others to take a gander at (Hat tip: The Right Side of Austin). Be aware that the debate doesn’t actually start until over an hour into the video. I’ve heard of long intros, but that’s ridiculous…

    Watch live streaming video from texaspublicpolicyfoundation at livestream.com

    I’ll save my own comments until I get a chance to watch the whole video.

    Here’s a live blog of the debate.

    The Cruz campaign sent out a list of links, and rather than link all of them and claim them as my own, I’ll just direct you thataway.

    One link they didn’t send out was this review over at Big Jolly Politics, where he gave James, Addison and Dewhurst As, Cruz a B, and Leppert a C.

    Kathleen McKinney ranked it Cruz first, James second, and Leppert last (“Not a lot of flash there”), though her overall impressions of all were positive.

    In other Senate race news:

  • Reuters on the Tea Party/Establishment dynamic of the race.
  • Here’s another piece on how Ted Cruz told the absolute truth, but lazy reporters might misinterpret what he said.
  • Craig James appears on Fox News:

  • Democratic candidate Paul Sadler finally has a website, plus Facebook and Twitter pages.

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    Posted in Elections, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Saddle Up Texas Straw Poll Results

    Saturday, January 14th, 2012

    I’ve been busy hosting a family even this weekend, so I haven’t been able to do a post on Thursday’s debate. But I wanted to point out the results of the straw poll at Saddle Up Houston (which, with 3,321 voters, had a lot more attendees than I suspected).

    Keep in mind all the usual caveats that apply to straw polls: They don’t tend to mean a lot when it comes to real voting.

    President

    Ron Paul: 54.4%
    Rick Santorum: 15.6%
    Rick Perry: 13.3%
    Newt Gingrich: 11.9%
    Mitt Romney: 4.2%
    Jon Huntsman: 0.5%
    Charles “Buddy” Roemer: 0.0% (Jeeze, how do you not manage to snag even .1% of the vote?)

    That’s an excellent showing for Ron Paul, but Paul has consistently proven himself much more adept at winning straw polls than primaries. Caveats aside, it’s a bad showing for Rick Perry (if you can’t win a straw poll in your own state, where can you win it?) and Mitt Romney (the frontrunner should get more than 4.2% of the vote, even against two favorite sons).

    Senate

    Ted Cruz: 49.1%
    Craig James: 12.9%
    Glenn Addison: 12.0%
    Tom Leppert: 9.1%
    Lela Pittenger: 9.1%
    David Dewhurst: 7.1%
    Charles Holcomb: 0.3%
    “Doc Joe” Agris: 0.3%
    Curt Cleaver: 0.0%
    Ben Gambini: 0.0%

    That’s good news for Ted Cruz, Craig James and Glenn Addison, and bad news for David Dewhurst. And even though Tom Leppert outpointed Dewhurst, he can’t feel good at merely tying Lela Pittenger, who has neither campaigned as much as him, nor spent 1/1000th of what he has. (Also, Doc Agris can’t feel good about putting up such a paltry total in his own back yard.) Gambini getting 0% isn’t a surprise, since he’s been the invisible man. Cleaver getting 0% is a bit more surprising, since he’s had at least the semblance of a campaign.

    But again, these results don’t mean much, as I seriously doubt we’re going to see Craig James battle Glenn Addison for a spot in the runoff against Cruz. They do highlight an enthusiasm gap between Cruz and Dewhurst, but just how much of that gap will translate into votes remains to be seen. I don’t think we’ll get a glimpse of how the race is shaping up in the minds of actual primary voters until we see polls from some of the established polling companies like Gallup, Zogby and Rasmussen.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for January 12, 2012

    Thursday, January 12th, 2012

    I had a maid service come clean my house in advance of a family event I’m hosting this weekend. It’s amazing the difference between “Bachelor Clean” and “Clean Clean.” It’s almost as big as the difference between “Obama Smart” and “Actually Smart”…

  • Micheal Totten could use your help. He does good work, and I still need to review The Road to Fatima Gate. I donated, and so has insta.
  • Rick Perry tears into “Big Government Conservatism.”
  • Comptroller Susan Combs denies a wind farm subsidy. Personally I’d end all “green subsidies.” Let the market pick energy winners and losers, not government.
  • Free Pepper Spray for women being handed out in Austin. (Hat tip: Stuff From Hsoi)
  • Why it’s uneconomical to manufacture anything in the UK:

    If we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain, and it’s one of the reasons that so much of our manufacturing goes overseas. Right now, the way things stand means that a company doing its manufacturing abroad, depriving the UK economy, gets a tax break. It’s an absolutely mad way for the Inland Revenue to be running things.

    (Hat tip: Slashdot)

  • The difference between Obama’s vision of America and Republicans’.
  • After blowing over half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds, Obama’s green energy crony capitalism favorites are asking the bankruptcy judge to let them pay bonuses to remaining employees. And that’s on top of the hefty bonuses they paid executives right before declaring bankruptcy. Your tax dollars at work…

  • Obama is not so popular in Florida.
  • The New York Times, in its infinite genius, sends a vegetarian to review steakhouses and BBQ joints in Kansas City. That’s some mighty fine reporting there, Lou. (Hat tip: Dwight)

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Regulation, Texas | No Comments »

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