Tag: Texas

A Puzzling Protest

Texas, voting, elections, citizen voting

Talk about a blowout: a few days ago, Texans overwhelmingly supported Proposition 16 to amend their state constitution to clarify that noncitizens cannot vote in state and local elections in Texas. The vote: Yes, 72%; No, 28%.

Not everybody is happy.

Jeff Forrester, who happens to be running against Rep. Candy Noble, a major sponsor of this very amendment — just a coincidence I’m sure — professes confusion about why anybody would care about this question. He asserts that the state constitution already prohibits noncitizen voting and has flung himself into a major Twitter‑X tussle over the matter with the group I lead, Americans for Citizen Voting.

Per Forrester, the Texas constitution “already states that no one other than U.S. citizens can vote” in Texas elections.

But as we point out, prior to passage of the present amendment, the state constitution only explicitly protected the rights of U.S. citizens to vote. It did not “reserve the right to vote to only [U.S.] citizens.… It didn’t prohibit Dallas from giving the right to noncitizens to vote in local elections.”

Similarly deficient provisions in the constitutions of other states have also failed to prevent cities from allowing noncitizen voting on local matters. Now, with passage of Prop 16, there is no way for noncitizens to legally vote in Texas.

Those who assert that the Prop 16 amendment is pointless protest too much. If it’s so durn redundant, why isn’t the response to this voter-endorsed clarification simply a shrug?

Instead, we get finger-wagging opposition.

Very “mysterious.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags citizen, democracy, immigration, Texas, voting

insider corruption subsidy too much government

Ax Tax-Funded Tax-Grubbing

Some people in pursuing their business or charitable projects rely only on the voluntary support of customers or patrons. Other people rely on government funding, perhaps by default because it’s “always been that way.”

Still others not only feel entitled to government funding but are quite importunate about it, going so far as to use taxpayer dollars to pay for lobbying the government for even more taxpayer dollars.

My theory? If taxpayers weren’t so routinely robbed to fund lobbyists, fewer dollars in general would be siphoned from taxpayers’ pockets to the demanders’ pockets.

Lone Star state officials are making some progress toward ending taxpayer-funded tax-grubbing. The state attorney general, Ken Paxton, has reached an agreement with several Texas school districts guilty of taxpayer-funded campaigning against a school choice bill. They have agreed to institute safeguards to prevent themselves from doing it anymore. We’ll see.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott “has also had enough,” writes John Fund. Abbott is promoting a bill being considered in the legislature that would prevent cities, counties, and school districts from using tax dollars to hire lobbyists. Officials and teachers would still be able to talk to their representatives themselves.

“Texans are being taxed twice,” State Senator Paul Bettencourt, a supporter of the bill, explains, “once to fund local services and again to fund political lobbying they may not support.”

Yes, that’s the costly and corrupting problem all right. One that Texas is hardly alone in suffering but perhaps a ‘lone star’ in fighting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags corruption, lobbying, taxes, Texas

election law term limits

Texas Range War

Texas, Gerrymander, voting, democracy, elections

Fifty-one Democrats have left the Republic — er, State — of Texas.

Well, 51 Democratic state legislators have run past the border, all to prevent a redistricting scheme. They constitute a minority in the House, but without them a quorum cannot be reached.

Think of it as a form of filibuster.

Or “voting with their feet.”

“Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced that a quorum had not been met after roll call,” an Epoch Times article tells us, going on to say that “House members then approved a motion for the speaker to sign warrants ‘for the civil arrest’ of the members who said they would not be there.”

Since the fleeing pols are in other states, I don’t see how that can work out.

Meanwhile, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has taken her fellow Democrats’ side and said that she would re-district New York in favor of Democrats. “We’re not going to tolerate our democracy being stolen in a modern-day stagecoach heist,” she said, using a colorful metaphor.

Other Democratic states have fallen in line, upgrading the gerrymandering crisis from heist to feud.

Twenty-five years ago I wrote that “courts have struck down districts drawn to get a certain racial outcome, but have turned a blind eye to districts that arbitrarily favor one party over another. The solution to incumbents monopolizing our elections is term limits. But another key factor in promoting democracy is to stop the politicians from drawing rigged districts that squelch competition.”

Term limits sure would help, by de-stabilizing the “property rights” the two parties feel in their favored districts with old hands firmly tied to their estates.

It’s the wild, wild worst out there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags democracy, elections, gerrymander, gerrymandering, Texas, voting

free trade & free markets international affairs property rights

Idaho Foils Foul Harvest

One can be for free trade yet still demand, while sticking to principle, certain restrictions on international trade.

The State of Idaho has demonstrated one sort of restriction compatible with a free society’s free-trade rules. “As of July 1, it will be illegal in Idaho for health insurers to cover an organ transplant or post-transplant care performed in China or any country known to have participated in forced organ harvesting,” explains Frank Fang in The Epoch Times (No. 508, A5). The legislation had been passed unanimously in both legislative houses earlier in the month and was signed by the governor on April 10.

Idaho wasn’t the first state to do this, following Texas last year and Utah this year, with its law going into effect on May 1.

The problem to be addressed? The suspiciously short waiting time for organ transplants in China, especially after the Chinese government cracked down on the Falun Gong decades ago.

“In 2019, the independent China Tribunal in London concluded that the CCP had been forcibly harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience for years ‘on a substantial scale,’ with Falun Gong practitioners being the ‘principal source’ of human organs,” according to Mr. Fang.

This is not protectionism. And it really isn’t any unwarranted regulation on trade. For even in the freest of societies, with 100 percent free trade and freedom of contract, the sale and purchase of stolen goods is unlawful.

Rightly prohibited.

If anything has been taken away unjustly, it’s the internal organs of political prisoners by the Chinazis.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags China, Idaho, insurance, organ transplants, Texas, Utah

crime and punishment folly general freedom too much government

Ian and the Scurvy Knave

Florida, Texas, roofer, licensing, hurricane

Don’t help people after a hurricane!

Not if you live in another state and there’s no time to lose but … you’re licensed only in that other state.

Now, before you declare Houston-based Terence Duque an innocent victim because he was arrested for not being Florida-licensed, let’s take a cold hard look at the facts. Duque is licensed in Texas, has operated a successful roofing business since 2008, is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau, is called a “preferred contractor” by Owens Corning.

Sounds okay, right?

But hold on. After Hurricane Ian smashed Florida a few weeks ago, what did this scurvy knave do?

Shamelessly and with constructive purposes aforethought, Duque offered his services to residents of hard-hit Charlotte County, Florida!!!! No, seriously. Simply because homeowners had had their roofs ripped up, Duque offered to repair them!!!!! Yet this man calls himself a roofer!!!!!!!!!

Arrested by the Charlotte County sheriff, who says “I will not allow unlicensed contractors to further victimize [sic]” hurricane victims, Duque is charged with “conducting business in Charlotte County without a Florida license.” He faces one to five years in jail.

He says he thought he’d been allowed to help Floridians because licensing regulations had been loosened due to the emergency.

No.

Justin Pearson, an attorney with Institute for Justice, says Duque was punished for “doing the right thing.”

The right thing??? The man was honestly trying to help people recover from a terrible personal setback and fully qualified to do so!!!!!!! Look at the facts!!!!!!!!!

Throw away the key?

This is, er, Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Florida, hurricane, licensing, Texas

ballot access partisanship Voting

Are You Suppressed Yet?

Texas, voting, suppression, elections, democracy

Last August, the Texas Legislature considered changes to the state’s election process. Republicans called these changes “election integrity” while Democrats … well, they fled the Lone Star State for six weeks — even hanging out in the Washington swamp — to deny the majority party the quorum it needed to conduct legislative business.

Democratic Rep. Chris Turner said he left “because we are in a fight to save our democracy” against what he dubbed “nationwide Republican vote suppression efforts.”

Eventually, however, Democrats returned home and legislation was passed that The New York Times reported would “cement Texas as one of the most difficult states in the country in which to vote.”

Fast-forward to this year’s March 1 Primary Election, which The Hill reminds us “came amid the state’s new, more restrictive voting laws.”

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to democracy’s grand destruction … Democratic turnout went not down but up! On the Republican side, the number of votes increased dramatically — by roughly 33 percent — “nearly 400,000 more than were cast in the 2018 primary, and more votes than had ever been cast in a midterm GOP primary.”

But there’s more.

In Harris County, the new voting law triggered an audit, which just so happened to find approximately 10,000 “mail ballots” that “were tabulated but not counted,” informs The Associated Press.

Oops! Those Houston-area Democrats and Republicans (roughly 6,000 and 4,000 respectively) would have had their votes obliterated … save for the legislation roundly attacked as “anti-voter.”

So much for suppression.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: A week after the election, Harris County Election Administrator Isabel Longoria announced her resignation.

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Tenth Amendment federalism too much government

Not Nitpicky

Austin, woke capital of Texas, may have some difficulty keeping its mask mandates going in the face of Governor Abbott’s lifting of the statewide mask orders.

Abbott formulated this new policy last week, to nationwide controversy. Officials in Austin and Travis County responded by announcing their intent to keep the old orders in full effect until April 15.

At least.

“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Wednesday that his office will take Austin officials to court,” explains The Epoch Times, “if they continue to refuse to comply with an order lifting mask mandates across the state.”

Austin officials may think that the pandemic gives them a special license.

It doesn’t.

In these United States, the primary governmental entities are the states.

The federal government is built on top of the union of states, supreme only regarding the limited number of explicitly defined powers given to it in the Constitution. But beneath that, government entities are creatures of the states. Cities, counties, and metro governments are incorporated by their respective states, which retain overriding authority.*

Yet, perhaps as a sign of the general lawlessness of trendy tyranny, a spokesperson for Austin Mayor Steve Adler told Forbes yesterday that the city does not intend to rescind the order and that officials “will continue to do everything within our power, using every tool available to us to reduce the spread of the virus.”

Is it nitpicky to demand that our public servants not do “everything in their power” — but only things within their authority?

No, it is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Under Abbott’s new policy, Texas businesses and individuals remain free to determine mask policies on their property.

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ballot access crime and punishment

Harvest Season

election, cheating, Texas, ballot harvesting,

Democrats say Trump is going to steal the election. But what if they are “projecting”? Politics has gotten so nasty that you wouldn’t be a cynic to express no surprise at stories like these:

Project Veritas uncovered a “ballot harvesting” scam in Representative Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district, implicating, it seems, Omar (D‑Minn.) herself; and
Formal accusations against a Biden campaign official, and others, for a similar scheme in Texas.

The Minnesota story is juicy; the Project Veritas video speaks for itself.

But in Texas? “Two private investigators, including a former FBI agent and former police officer, testify under oath that they have video evidence, documentation and witnesses to prove that Biden’s Texas Political Director Dallas Jones and his cohorts are currently hoarding mail-in and absentee ballots and ordering operatives to fill the ballots out for people illegally, including for dead people, homeless people, and nursing home residents in the 2020 presidential election.” That, courtesy of the industrious Patrick Howley, in the thick of the investigation.

“Witnesses have shown me,” the former FBI agent testifies, “how the ballot harvesters take absentee ballots from the elderly in nursing homes, from the homeless, and from unsuspecting residences’ mailboxes. The ballot harvesters then complete the ballots for their preferred candidate and forge the signature of the ‘voter.’”

Several Biden campaign workers and two Harris County bureaucrats are implicated. It will be interesting to see if these accusations lead to charges.

And how many similar stories will emerge elsewhere.

Folks can argue about how much voter fraud happens, but when we find it, let’s act.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags ballot harvesting, cheating, election, Project Veritas, Texas

ideological culture political economy too much government

Ex-Californians

Texas, California, democracy, migration, immigration,

California, “the U.S. state most synonymous with all varieties of growth — vegetal, technological, and human — is at the precipice of its first-ever population decline,” writes Derek Thompson of The Atlantic. And folks in other states like Texas and Idaho are none too happy.

You see, the Californians fleeing are finding new homes elsewhere. Especially in Texas and Idaho.

Oddly, Mr. Thompson breezes by the biggest source of anxiety: ideology. “Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a warning on Twitter to Californians moving to his state: ‘Remember those high taxes, burdensome regulations, & socialistic agenda advanced in CA? We don’t believe in that.’ The sentiment was echoed in various warnings in Dallas newspapers about the awful ‘California-ing’ of North Texas.” Thompson quickly moves on to interrogate how real the general exodus from the Golden State is.

Which is interesting — but much more important is the main worry about all immigration: will these new citizens vote to overturn the order that attracted them in the first place?

There is certainly anecdotal evidence that this can be a real problem.

Also not mentioned in the The Atlantic squib is just how messed up California now is.

What can be done? The idea humorously floated by an Idaho politician — a “$26 billion wall to keep out people moving from the Golden State” — is just a joke.

And secession/expulsion of the 23rd state in the union is not realistic, either.

What is realistic is for non-California politicians to float in the U.S. Congress a willingness to break up the state into separate pieces, creating at least two new states. At least then, Jefferson State citizens could put up with West California émigrés.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. There are very serious political problems of representation in California that breaking up could help fix, by increasing the number of legislators and minimizing the ratio between representatives and the people they serve.

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Accountability government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism political challengers Regulating Protest term limits too much government

Strange It Is

Arlington, Texas, term limits, democracy, initiative,City Council,

Strange for the Arlington, Texas, City Council to hold a meeting on a Sunday evening, much less one to “consider suspending the city charter.”

That is how the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported “the latest twist in the term limit controversy that has engulfed the city with a lawsuit and competing ballot proposals.”

Led by Zack Maxwell, citizens in this Fort Worth adjacent community of 400,000 gathered 11,000 voter signatures to place a term limits charter amendment on the November ballot. It would limit councilmembers to three two-year terms. It also figures in past service, so five of the eight current councilmembers would be blocked from seeking re-election in the coming two years.

With swift legislative prowess, the council responded, passing its own competing “term limits” measure, which incidentally allows them to stay 50 percent longer in office.

But there’s one problem: the council did not follow the law, which requires multiple readings, with one at a regular meeting.

Actually, there’s a second problem: Mr. Maxwell challenged the council’s unlawful action in court.

The court blocked the council’s measure.

That left the council holding an unusual weekend meeting to suspend the rules and re-pass their fumbled alternative to the term limits voters really want. But news travels fast and city hall was “packed.”

“You’re suspending the rules because your jobs are in jeopardy,” charged one man.

A woman told the council, “You guys should be absolutely embarrassed about this.”

“After hearing from dozens of angry residents,” the paper explained, “[t]he council voted unanimously to not suspend the rules, finally killing its own term limit proposal.”

Politicians doing the right thing … having exhausted every other possibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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