Republican State Representative Todd Smith, architect of the 81st legislative sessions Voter Suppression Bill, is in the stiffest primary challenge of his legislative career as Tarrant County Republican Chairwoman Stephanie Click endorses his opponent, former Bedford City Councilman Jeff Cason. This from the Star-Telegram:
When asked whether she was endorsing Cason, Klick said, "I think that his temperament might be a better choice in this particular race."
Click's endorsement is a stunning example of how the Texas Republican Party continues to eat its own. Smith's opponent, Jeff Cason, is supported by Texas for Fiscal Responsibility, which conducted heavy recruitment efforts prior to the January filing deadline. Anti-Smith websites are up on the web as well. As the extreme element of the GOP becomes the mainstream, moderates like Smith are finding themselves without a home within the Republican tent.
At the center of Click's anger toward Smith is a voicemail, which was conveniently leaked, in where Smith chided the GOP chair for her efforts to encourage Republicans in Tarrant County to contact Smith in opposition to provisions of his Voter Suppression legislation. Smith left the following message for Click:
"This is the governor and the lieutenant governor's work, and I'm doing the work of the league of the Republican women, some of whom are too stupid to realize it and it's pissing me off, so bye."
Ouch! Not very statesman like now is it? Moreover, this message confirms what many of us were saying during the heat of the debate over the GOP's top manufactured issue---that Smith was doing the bidding of the extreme leadership of the Texas Republican Party.
Republican Smith, Representative for House District 92 in Bedford since 1996, has run unopposed from both sides of the aisle until the 2008 election cycle when Democrat Kalandra Wheeler challenged him. 2010 represents the first year in which Smith has had to fend off an opponent from the extreme element of his Party. Much like Smith did in the spotlight with Voter Suppression in which he folded like a house of cards, one wonders whether his house of cards will tumble at the expense of the extreme wing of his own political party.
Yesterday, Teas House Speaker Joe Straus released Interim Charges to his committees. You can look at them here (.pdf). In a letter to members, Speaker Straus stated, "these charges and the recommendations you develop will form the basis for major legislation we will consider next session."
The following is the third charge given to the House Committee on Elections:
Examine the prevalence of fraud in Texas elections. Study new laws in other states regarding voter identification and recommend statutory changes necessary to ensure that only eligible voters can vote in Texas elections.
Wasn't it already concluded that voter impersonation happens infrequently? Changes, clearly, aren't necessary no matter which way you slice it.
I am upset mainly, though, because Speaker Straus saw how a push for voter suppression derailed plenty of good laws last session. It was his one colossal failure as a first-term speaker, and he wants another go.
Wow. What happened to learning from one's mistakes? The only way I can see this as something other than a repeat of an error is if he feels his position is in danger from the Craddick-Right. Even still, Voter Suppression should be a non-starter with any leader, especially one that fell flat in its wake once already.
The Indiana Court of Appeals today declared Indiana's voter ID law unconstitutional because it does not apply uniformly to all voters.
The three-judge panel unanimously held that the requirement that voters present government-issued identification at the polls runs afoul of the Indiana Constitution's "Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause," which provides: "The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens."
Two reasons were cited by the Court of Appeals: the law doesn't require absentee voters to provide an affidavit affirming their identity even while requiring photo identification for in-person voters; and the law exempts residents of state-licensed care facilities from the ID requirement if their facility happens to be a polling place.
Texas Republicans have fought tooth and nail to suppress our voting rights, and they've continually pointed to the Indiana law as "proof" that it works. They have some serious egg on their face today, as the party of "No" learns what it means to be shot down for their illegal and dishonorable efforts to suppress voting rights.
You'll recall earlier this week that the intolerant Republican Representative from House District 4, Betty Brown, announced her campaign for re-election to a sixth term to the Texas House.
As mentioned in an earlier post, the Asian Political Leadership Fund made it clear that they intend to launch television advertising against the intolerant Terrell Republican. You can view the ad here.
As reported by the Quorum Report this week, Brown faces a crowded Republican Primary field:
First elected in 1998, Brown is seeking her sixth term as legislator. One of her opponents, Lance Gooden, said that he's running because Brown doesn't have too many accomplishments to show for her time spent in the Capitol. ... Others filing papers this summer to run in HD 4 include Jeffrey Fulgham Jr., an executive at the First State Bank of Brownsboro, and Melissa Pehle-Hill who announced her candidacy at the Athens Texas Independence Day Tea Party.
Brown has her hands full with an upcoming primary challenge from many angles of the Right. She narrowly held off a formidable opponent in 2008 with just 52.5% of the primary vote. The Asian American Leadership Fund is clearly looking to knock Brown off in the primary and might just accomplish that task. That likely means House District 4 will be represented by a Republican not named Betty Brown, as the district is clearly drawn for someone from the Right versus the Left.
Republican State Representative, Betty Brown of Terrell, announced her bid to run for re-election to House District 4, indicating she has no worries about being a high priority target of a large, national based Asian-American organization known as the Asian Political Leadership Fund.
You'll recall that the twelve year incumbent made news by demonstrating her, and her Party's level of intolerance during Voter Suppression Committee hearings this past spring, by interrupting Ramey Ko and his testimony with this bigoted remark:
"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese - I understand it's a rather difficult language - do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?"
"The world should see Texas as a big, modern, important state with the twelfth largest economy on earth.
Unfortunately, some of our politicians still seem pretty small.
Betty Brown - she made national news when she said U.S. citizens with Asian names should give up their birthright in order to vote.
If Texas is going to play a bigger role on the world stage, shouldn't our leaders be bigger, too?"
Matt Glazer rightfully pointed out in April of this year that Asian-Americans are a growing population in Texas. Clearly the remarks by ultra-conservative Brown have drawn the community's ire--and rightfully so. Brown has indicated that she intends to keep Voter Suppression as one of her top issues in her platform for re-election as a Republican in 2010---that, and say "no" all the time versus proposing constructive, forward-thinking legislation to solve problems of every day Texans.
The question is who will the Asian Political Leadership Fund actively back? In 2008, Brown easily won re-election to a sixth term in defeating former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Victor Morales. Where Brown ran into deep trouble was in the Republican Primary, where she squeaked by with only 52.5% of the vote. Will this national Asian-American organization back a Republican challenger or hold their gun powder for a general election? My bet is that the Leadership Fund will do whatever it takes, primary or general, to knock the intolerant Terrell Republican off the ballot.
If ever a case existed of a legislator's profile crumbling before our very eyes due to intense scrutiny and the demands of leadership then Representative Todd Smith was that case during the 81st legislative session. Despite these truths, House District 92 will likely continue to be represented by a Republican after the 2010 election cycle.
House District 92 contains the beating heart of the Mid-Cities, which is essentially Hurst, Euless, and Bedford, but also parts of Grand Prairie that fall under the Tarrant County umbrella. This territory is generally known as Northeast Tarrant County.
Todd Smith was first elected to the Texas legislature in 1996 after serving a prior five years on the Euless City Council. He has essentially run unopposed as a Republican in every election but was challenged in 2008 by Democrat Kalandra Wheeler who received 34% of the electorate vote in a district that voted 39% for President Barack Obama.
Republican State Representative Dwayne Bohac -- who is a member of the House Elections Committee and one of the key champions of voter ID suppression legislation in the Texas legislature -- has on his payroll for the company Campaign Data Systems a man named Ed Johnson, the associate voter registrar at the Harris County Tax Assesor Collectors office.
Here's the whole story from Off the Kuff -- with original reporting also from KHOU TV in Houston:
As you know, there was a lawsuit filed against Paul Bettencourt and the Harris County Tax Assessor’s office over allegations of illegal mishandling of provisional ballots in the past November election. That suit was later expanded to include allegations of voter disenfranchisement by Bettencourt’s office. According to KHOU, some mighty interesting facts have come out so far in the deposition phase.
“This is as blatant a case of election corruption that I have seen,” said Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project, a Democrat activist group.
The Lone Star Project’s complaint revolves around Ed Johnson.
Johnson is the associate voter registrar at the Harris County Tax Assessor Collectors office, but according to state documents, that’s just his day job. Johnson is also a paid director of a small company that provides voter data to Republican candidates for office. That company, Campaign Data Systems, billed at least $140,000 in 2008.
Campaign Data Systems happens to be owned by Republican State Rep. Dwayne Bohac, who also happens to be one of the big pushers of voter ID bills. Johnson testified before the Senate about supposed instances of vote fraud. He tells the Republicans what they want to hear in the guise of a nonpartisan election official, while being on their payroll. Nice little scam they’ve got going there, no? I think we all have a better idea now why State Reps. Garnet Coleman and Ana Hernandez called for appointed Tax Assessor Leo Vasquez’s resignation over Johnson’s (and George Hammerlein’s) testimony, and it makes Vasquez’s response look that much weaker.
Many Republicans, and even some others (such as Mr. Burka) have complained that Democrats are acting feisty on the wrong side of public opinion. But this is not a really good argument against Democrats for two different reasons. First, there is no very good way to know public opinion on the issue right now. Second, American tradition is not to listen to public opinion regarding the efficacy of democracy.
First Point: There is no very good way to know public opinion of the Voter ID issue right now. Proponents of Voter Suppression who point to public opinion point to the February-March poll by the University of Texas's Texas Politics Series, which found significant support for "voters should be required to present a government-issued photo id at the polls before they can be allowed to vote." The problem is, they don't really know about the issue. As Katherine pointed out yesterday, "we already have voter identification," it simply is not a strict photo identification. And many voters do not know that. When asked about their knowledge of the law in the same poll, 42% incorrectly stated that there is already Voter ID law and another 9% were not confident enough to answer. That's a majority of Texans who do not understand the issue!
In the Spring of 2008, I took a Public Opinion class at the University of Texas by Daron Shaw, someone I consider to be a very knowledgeable pollster. (Oh, Fox News thinks he is good, too.) He taught that polls are not necessarily a reliable barometer for public opinion if the voters were not knowledgeable on the topic. To quote from my notes: "Shaw thinks that if it something people haven't really thought about and cared about, than there really is no public opinion that is valid on it."
This is one reason that Democrats are not falling line and file behind the February-March poll. The only voters who have really "thought and cared about" Voter ID are a small amount of very politically active Republicans and Democrats. The majority of voters, who are not very politically active, have not thought much on the issue.
But there is a second point, too: Even if public opinion is clearly against Democrats, public opinion is not a judge of the efficacy of democracy. This is why the founding fathers sat in a room and discussed the Constitution alone, and then they made the Bill of Rights. True, state legislatures had to accept the Constitution, but it was not put to a referendum! If public opinion was followed when making decisions about Democracy, the Civil Rights Era would be nothing more than a footnote in our textbooks -- there would be no major Civil Rights Act!
The Democratic Party is the party that championed the Civil Rights Act under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson, and we will continue to support civil rights whether or not public opinion "agrees" with us. The reason for this is because civil rights -- specifically VOTING rights -- are not up for a vote.
So, to recap. We cannot really trust any polls on Voter ID because there is no thoughtful and informed public opinion on the issue. Even if there was, this is a voting rights issue; and voting rights are not up for vote.
