In case you missed it, State Senator Rodney Ellis recently demonstrated how to react to a failing grade in the spirit of the values that helped you earn it.
Empower Texans, a right-wing anti-government organization, released their legislative scorecard recently, with Sen. Ellis receiving an F. Not content to merely roll his eyes or shrug, Sen. Ellis penned a brilliant letter back to Empower Texans.
Of his failing grade, Ellis writes, "I know I am doing things right in Austin, and would seriously question both my judgment and values were I to receive any higher grade."
Ellis details his record from the 82nd session, which included many efforts to support our schools, bring fairness to the tax code, and support regular working Texans. He closes, "To paraphrase the greatest President of the 20th Century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: I welcome your hatred. After all, I'd much rather be a champion of the powerless than a lickspittle of the powerful."
This morning, I attended the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing. The hearing was called, largely, to hear testimony from the new Texas Forensic Science Commission Chairman, John Bradley.
Two things strike me as clear after attending the hearing:
The Democrats on the Senate Criminal Justice Committee -- Chairman John Whitmire, Senator Rodney Ellis, and Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa -- are going to do everything in their power to make sure that the Texas Forensic Science Commission begins to fulfill its role as an independent state agency that reviews mishandled and questionable forensic science in the Texas criminal justice system.
The new Texas Forensic Science Commission Chairman, John Bradley, is going to serve as Governor Rick Perry's puppet on the Commission, and work with Republicans like Senator Dan Patrick to deflect any of the public controversy brought to Rick Perry for his controversial mismanagement of the agency in the recent months and years.
From listening to Bradley's testimony in person today, here are the ways I think he will be nothing more than Perry's puppet:
Ignorance and Inexperience
John Bradley testified before the Committee that he knew nothing about the Commission before he was appointed by Governor Perry.
Blaming the Legislature - With No Proof
John Bradley accused the Legislature, on multiple occassions, of not having providing the Commission with the resources they needed to do their job. This was obviously a strong talking point that he had decided to pursue -- despite these obvious facts:
When pressed by State Representative Tommy Merritt about the specific budget issues the Commission was facing, he knew of none.
When pressed further about proving -- with a letter, or a phone call, or anything -- when the Legislature has denied the Commission more funding, he could offer no proof.
The Forensic Science Commission is only investigating three cases right now. When asked during the hearing and in a follow-up press conference he held outside the Committee room if the Commission had the necessary resources to fulfill its work on those three cases, Bradley answered, "Yes we do."
Continuing Perry's Political Cover-Up and Privacy
John Bradley believes the Commission should be allowed to meet privately. From the Texas Lawyer:
Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, the new chairman of the Texas Forensic Science commission, says he will recommend, among other things at the Senate committee hearing, that during an ongoing investigation, the commission should be allowed to meet in private to discuss the matter being investigated and that reports to the commission on an investigation be withheld from public release until the commission concludes its deliberations.
“It’s not a good idea to conduct an investigation in a public forum,” Bradley says.
Bradley did not back away from that during the hearing, until he began to hedge his bets when Senators Whitmire and Hinojosa pushed him on why an investigation on a process needs to be protected. He admitted that that should be transparent, but then -- when Senator Dan Patrick asked his Perry-friendly questions -- went back to talking about holding the initial parts of the investigation in private.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Boyd Richie, himself a former prosecutor, issued this statement:
It’s obvious the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to Rick Perry’s political appointees. Perry’s politically motivated cancellation of an essential review of Texas’ forensic science methods threatened the ability of our criminal justice system to work properly for Texans.
Delays, Delays, Delays
John Bradley intends on taking the coming months to write rules and guidelines for the agency -- a task that should have occurred already, but under Rick Perry's watch never occurred. Of course, Bradley refused to acknowledge that Perry was at all responsible for any delays, choosing to act like the Commission was performing its duties in recent years without a net.
Until, that is, that Senator Ellis pointed out that the Texas Attorney General's office had a person in every one of the Commission's meeting, to ensure that they had the legal authority to carry out all their decisions. The excuse of delaying the Commission's work for months is no excuse at all, but another stall and delay tactic from Rick Perry's hand-picked appointee, John Bradley.
Eventually, the bigger picture left the hearing -- that going forward, the Texas Forensic Science Commission should be a place where the best forensic science can be determined, where mistakes can be evaluated, and where the work done by law enforcement across the state can be guaranteed to be the best work imaginable. But that's only going to happen because of the work of Senator John Whitmire, Senator Rodney Ellis, and Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa. Of the Senators attending the hearing, the three Democrats carried the lion's share of the work. Republican Senator Dan Patrick asked questions that would have made a Rick Perry criminal justice staff person proud, and Senator Glenn Hegar sounded like he wrote his remarks while taking a bus to school in the morning.
Ultimately, I have faith that our Democratic State Senators will be able to kick-start this Commission into moving in the right direction. I also believe that John Bradley actually wants to make that happen. But that's only his second job.
Bradley's first job, which was made clear during today's hearing, was that he is to work as Rick Perry's puppet and delay the Commission's work for as long as possible -- at least until it is no longer politically damaging to Governor Perry.
The answers the people of Texas and, indeed, across the country are looking for from Rick Perry's cover-up are well protected and hidden with John Bradley chairing the Texas Forensic Science Commission.
"Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.
"My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pays attention. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that? But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot.""
"There are some issues that simply should not be legitimized in any way, shape or form, and secession is one of them," said Ellis. "By not rejecting out of hand the possibility of secession, Governor Perry is taking a step down a very dangerous and divisive path encouraged by the fringe of Texas politics.
"It was only 12 years ago that Texas had a deadly stand-off with those urging secession. Governor Bush stood up to those fringe elements. I urge Governor Perry to ramp down the rhetoric and state unequivocally -- as Governor Bush did in the 1990s -- that secession is not only not an option, it isn't going to be part of the political discussion.
"In the last week, we've seen an extremely troubling escalation of rhetoric," said Ellis. "Talking about state's rights, the oppressive hand of the federal government and secession brings up some pretty bad memories in this state. It was not all that long ago that those were the exact words used by those who opposed desegregation and the civil rights movement. The top elected official in the second largest state with our history simply cannot be so loose with his comments. He's not a radio or cable TV talk show host.
"The timing and focus of this talk doesn't make much sense," said Ellis. "Since 2001, the Texas budget has increased by 62 percent. The budget we are now working on includes $65 billion from the federal government. We didn't hear about the oppressive hand of the federal government when we asked for hurricane and wildfire relief and, we didn't hear these complaints when we took money for transportation and education and health care. We didn't hear about it for eight years of exploding federal budget deficits, so why now?
"I understand that the governor has a difficult political race on his hands, but that is no excuse to whip up this type of frenzy among people who are already worried about keeping their job or a roof over their heads," said Ellis.
Bright and early yesterday morning, US Representative Lloyd Doggett, State Senator Rodney Ellis, State Representative Mark Strama, and environmental and civil rights advocate Van Jones stood together to tout the Alliance for a Clean Texas' Texas Energy Future: Clean Jobs, Green Power Conference.
Rodney Ellis opened up the press conference, stating that this year's legislative session looks to be a very green session. He also mentioned, as he has before, that the legislature is at a crucial moment in terms of climate change action. If the legislature doesn't act this year, the federal government will likely pass and begin implementing comprehensive global warming legislation before the state legislature will have a chance to meet again. If Texas is not prepared for this kind of drastic policy change, we may not have a chance to address these issues again until 2011.
Senator Ellis then gave the mic over to the group he termed the "Dapper Three" (swoon!).
Six state legislators joined environmental advocates Monday morning to forecast a sunny session for solar power. Public Citizen, Environment Texas and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club hosted a statewide round of press conferences this week to roll out our solar report, Texas Solar Roadmap -- which can be downloaded at www.cleanenergyfortexas.org.
Texas Solar Roadmap highlights how a robust solar program would help put Texans back to work, reduce peak energy prices, curb climate change, improve air quality, and position the state as a world leader for solar production. The full report is a pretty good read, but if you're short on time I suggest the condensed version, Wildcatting the Sun.
Senators Troy Fraser (R-Abilene), Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio), Kirk Watson (D-Austin), Rodney Ellis (D-Houston), and Representatives Mark Strama (D-Austin) and Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas) all appeared to champion the solar bills they have introduced thus far.
Rafael Anchia's HB 278 and Florence Eliot Shapiro's SB 427 would require the state's electric utilities to support the development of 2000 megawatts of solar and other on-site renewable technologies by offering direct incentives to consumers and businesses.
This is right in line with Public Citizen's distributed solar goal, outlined in both Wildcatting the Sun and Texas Solar Roadmap. According to our report , such a standard could lead to installations on as many as 500,000 roofs in Texas by 2020 at a cost of about 98 cents per month per Texan (Polls have shown that 81% of Texas voters are willing to pay up to a dollar a month to encourage solar power. What about you?). This investment would create an estimated 22,000 jobs and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide emissions by 29 million tons, the equivalent of taking 4.3 million cars off the road for a year.
Anchia stressed that this should be Texas' solar session because it would answer two of our major challenges: air quality, and global warming. Senator Fraser was the first legislator to speak, proclaiming that this would be Texas' solar session. Chairman of the Business and Commerce Committee, Fraser is well positioned to be an effective solar champion...
On January 9, Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) filled Senate Bill 440 that would strip the Texas State Board of Education of all authority except that outlined in the state constitution. The constitution gives the SBOE control over the Permanent School Fund only. Other duties, such as the board's ability to set curriculum standards and adopt textbooks, would revert to the control of the Texas Education Agency.
Theoretically, this would reduce the politicization of the SBOE. Populated by ideologues and extremists such as chairman Don McLeroy, Cynthia Dunbar from District 10, Ken Mercer from District 5, and David Bradley from District 7, the SBOE has become a battlefield for the culture wars rather than a governing body.
For years, the SBOE hasn't been able to get anything done besides fighting about creationism, changing the dates of the Ice Age, removing references to safe sex in textbooks, griping about "overly disparaging" slavery, and counting the number of brown faces in social studies textbooks. It basically just gives aspiring ultra right-wing politicians a stage for their political posturing. It's time to move on from the culture wars, or at least handle them in an arena that is not at taxpayer expense and on the backs of Texas students.
Ellis's bill looks like a move toward good government. Giving the TEA a shot at handling these matters more neutrally would be a step forward for all Texans - we can re-focus on educational excellence and preparing our students for college.
The consequences of this bill are potentially huge, but it hasn't picked up a lot of attention on press or blogs so far. Donna Howard's HB 420, which would make the SBOE races nonpartisan, has gotten some attention. Given all the hubbub about the SBOE meetings last week, it might be time to take a look at this bill and whether it has a chance. The political climate under the new Speaker, and the general trend of using unity, transparency, good government, and bipartisanship as buzzwords would seem to favor this type of legislation. I'd love to know if anyone else thinks it stands a chance.
"Yes, like so many runaways, Rodney is here to break a legislative quorum in the Texas legislature." - Stephen Colbert
Keeping in line with thegreat coverage this week on where Texas Democrats were five years ago and all the fallout from the GOP takeover in 2002, with a bit of levity, here's a story Stephen Colbert did as a correspondent for the Daily Show in 2003 on redistricting in Texas.
After nearly a decade of work, Senator Rodney Ellis finally passed out SB 263, legislation which would create an Innocence Commission to address and fix the problems of the Texas criminal justice system. Republican opposition in the Senate had held up this legislation for years, but the bill finally made it through this session. So why is the Democratic Chair of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, Aaron Pena, holding up the bill?
After sitting on the bill for several weeks without setting a hearing, now the chairman refuses to allow a vote on the bill. Supporters of the bill tell Burnt Orange Report that they definitely have a majority of votes to pass it out of committee, yet Chairman Pena will not let the bill come up for a vote. All bills must be passed out of committee by this Saturday, or else they die.
Senate Bill 263 would create an independent commission to examine cases where innocent citizens who have been wrongfully convicted, identify the causes of those convictions, and recommend changes in the criminal justice system to prevent such future miscarriages of justice. While it was watered down by Senate Republicans, it remains a good bill and a powerful statement of the need to change Texas' woeful criminal justice system.
According to Senator Ellis' most recent press release on the issue, the legislation will "create an Innocence Commission to launch in-depth investigations each time an innocent person is wrongfully convicted, review what went wrong in these cases, why, and spell out the changes necessary to ensure these injustices are not repeated."
According to release, over 200 people nationwide have been cleared through DNA testing after they were convicted. In Texas 29 men have been exonerated by DNA testing and 14 of those cases have come out of Dallas County in just the past five years.
With all the troubles of the Texas criminal justice system, we are shocked that Aaron Pena is strangling this bill.
**UPDATE**Grits for Breakfast made a post on the same subject today. Chairman Pena commented in that thread that the bill should be heard on Friday.
However, Chairman Pena also stated in the comments on the Grits post that, "I am somewhat disappointed to learn from a lobbiest that his staff has sent out a press release to Burnt Orange Report that has muddied the water." To clarify, the press release we linked to was originally sent out on April 24. Our sources told us about what was happening, and upon further research, we found the press release on Sen. Ellis' website.
Glad to see everything the bill will be voted out before the Saturday deadline.
State Senator Rodney Ellis of Houston proposed a bill last week to create a Regulatory Commission for the authorization of Casino and Gaming projects in Texas.
SJR 18, filed on Jan 14 proposes a referendum to be held for:
...a constitutional amendment authorizing casino gaming and requiring creation of a Texas Gaming Commission to regulate gaming and casino-based development projects in this state.
According to KTEN News, the Texas Economic Development and Job Creation Act would allow for the construction of a dozen Casino's in large cities and popular coastal areas. Citing successes in nearby states, lawmakers argue that such projects could net billions of dollars in additional annual revenue.
