Texas Progressives talk this and that

As I did last week, I have split this week's Texas Progressives roundup into two parts.

SocraticGadfly, with last Thursday being Aug. 6, did a roundup of old thoughts, with some new additions, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Houston-area parents' bid to get an immediate hold placed on the Texas Senate's 10 Commandments bill failed, but a hearing on an injunction is set for Aug. 17.  

The Porvenir massacre site is under threat from a Big Bend-area portion of Trump's border wall. (I was last in Presidio County before the marker erection, but via Doug Swanson and others, am familiar already with the story.) 

The Observer says Mike Miles appears to be resorting to cheats to inflate campus accountability ratings in Houston ISD. 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project visited the site of the ICE murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

Steve Vladeck strongly questions the notion that this SCOTUS is somehow "independent" from Donald Trump.

Mustafa Tameez observes that AI has developed intelligence faster than it has earned legitimacy.

The Houston Press urges the passage of a real immigration reform law to reduce the chances of more ICE killings.

Texas Public Opinion Research reports on what the people want with a variety of policy ideas.

Framing and spinning voting issues in Tarrant County

Lon Burnam was arrested over voting rights  issues at a special Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting, part of a larger protest. Per the first link, Burnam is talking about suing Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare, who may also have violated the Americans with Disabilities Act with a previous speaker.

But, per the second link, and per both Republicans and Democrats on the court, the county elections official, a nonpartisan appointee, Clint Ludwig, suggested the cut in voting sites, which the court eventually decided to table.

We'll see what Kuff says about that one. As of Aug. 9, nothing, not even about the Burnam arrest, let alone that the protests were misguided; the Trib stories went up Aug. 6.

Lone Star Left reported on the situation in Tarrant County and tries to spin it as a D win with O'Hare "caving" when the full court, presumably 5-0, tabled action on the proposed cuts. It doesn't even mention county elections head Clint Ludwig. So, it did Kuff's dirty work for him; he submitted the link as part of his set for this week's Texas Progressives roundup, and I separated the whole schmeer, with my links above, out of the mix. I also restacked Lone Star Left's piece with a shorter version of the first sentence of this paragraph. And, Michelle Davis, with a "you're free to believe what you want" opener, responded. In her response, she ignored what I said then, and two paragraphs above. 

From the second Trib link:

[T]he commissioners — both Republicans and Democrats — said at the meeting that they didn’t suggest the plan.

There you are, Michelle. 

John Roberts does it again on voting issues

Rick Hasen notes a ticking time bomb at the tail end of Moore v Harper. Here it is, edited to shorten:

In the last part of his majority opinion for the court, the chief justice got the liberal justices to sign on to a version of judicial review that is going to give the federal courts, and especially the Supreme Court itself, the last word in election disputes. The court held that “state courts may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections.”

To understand these dense words, we need to go back to the last time the Supreme Court decided a major election case, the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision (a case cited in Moore, for the first time ever, in a majority opinion in the 23 years since that decision).  ....

After the Florida court ordered the recount, Bush appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A majority held that the recount ordered by the Florida court violated the equal protection clause because there was no guarantee that uniform standards were used or could be used to conduct it. But three justices—Chief Justice William Rehnquist, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Thomas—adopted this milder version of the independent state legislature theory at the time. In essence they argued that the Florida court’s interpretation of the Florida election statutes to allow this recount was so far from ordinary statutory interpretation that the Florida court was essentially making up the law for itself, and taking away the legislature’s power to decide the rules for conducting federal elections in the first instance. 

It is this milder version of the independent state legislature theory that the court embraced in Moore. It did not spell out its contours, and whether to adopt the Rehnquist Bush approach or some other approach. But Kavanaugh, in a concurrence, endorsed the Rehnquist approach and said that in engaging in this second-guessing, federal courts need to compare election law in the state in earlier decisions. The greater the deviation, the more likely they’d be to find a violation of the independent state legislature theory. 

Make no mistake: This apparent new test would give great power to federal courts, especially to the U.S. Supreme Court, to second-guess state court rulings in the most sensitive of cases. It is going to potentially allow for a second bite at the apple in cases involving the outcome of presidential elections. In the 2020 presidential election, for example, Trump allies raised this theory in arguing that Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court could not extend the days for the receipt of absentee ballots by three days in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were not enough of these late-arriving ballots to make a difference in 2020, but if there had been, according to the approach laid out in Kavanaugh’s concurrence, the Supreme Court would have had to look at Pennsylvania court precedents to decide if the state court went too far in deciding matters under its own state laws. ...

It fell to Thomas, who ironically joined Rehnquist’s Bush concurrence, to point out how much discretion Roberts’ test. ...

Thoughts?

First, besides the time bomb, is the making Bush v Gore precedent now, explicitly rejecting Rehnquist, speaking for the five kingmakers, saying that it shouldn't be, and even that it wasn't.

Second, Roberts has dropped such time bombs ever since being the fifth vote on upholding Obamacare — at the price of truncating the Commerce Clause by calling the penalty a tax, and other things. And, he's used that in years since.

Although the court upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, that would be one way this could come into play in the future — keeping it technically still alive, but further narrowing its parameters.

Or, in the case of absentee ballots, things such as what counts as a defaced ballot, equal access and drop-off locations and more will all be in play for federal review.

Texas Dems' new suit against Abbott will quickly die

For the unaware, in the middle of last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott partially tightened his expansion of early voting rules that he had done because of coronavirus.

He had initially allowed counties to have several drop-off stations for in-person submission of vote-by-mail ballots as well as adding a week to early voting.

He pulled back on the "several drop-offs" and cut it to one. 

And now he's being sued. Twice And, in federal, not state court, on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds as well as Voting Rights Act grounds. More here. And here. Complaints are here and here.

This is going to get crushed. And, in fact, the crushing may start with a venue rejection.

Next? There is no First Amendment ground on this case. None, so even if the feds don't bounce this on venue issues, that won't fly.

Second, as the Fifth Circuit rejected the Twenty-Sixth Amendment based attempt to expand vote by mail, the Fourteenth and VRA claims here that are age-based will also be bounced.

Back to state courts it will be, and they'll reject it, too.

Is this unethical by Abbott? Absolutely.

Could it backfire on him, at least a bit, also affecting outer-ring suburban voters? Possibly.

Is it illegal? Most certainly not.

Finally, given this is NOT Judge Marmolejo ruling, it will likely get crushed in state court when sent there. There's really not a lot of parallel between the two cases, legally. Abbott is modifying an executive order which had suspended part of the state's election code on early voting. He's not junking his original modification, nor is he being even worse and trying to tighten state election code. In the straight ticket voting case, it was an attempt to end run an established state law.

So, again, unethical? Yes. Illegal, no. Sorry, Kuff, both on your take, and on your degree of weirdly bromancing Abbott's degree of good action on coronavirus stuff before this in the last graf.

US courts in Texas don't care about third parties

The federal voting rights lawsuit over the Texas Legislature's House Bill 2504 and related items of Texas voting law, filed by the state's Green and Libertarian parties, along with smaller parties and independent voters, last summer, as discussed by me in detail here, is not supposed to go to trial UNTIL NEXT YEAR.

You read that right.

Note: This does not include the suit filed early this year in state district court out of Harris County when SoS (Same old Shit, Secretary of Shit or whatever you prefer) Ruth Hughs ignored the clear intent of Drew Springer's language and tried to charge all third party candidates, not just those who are actually nominated at their party conventions, the new filing fees. Libertarians there (Greens not a party) sued and got a temporary injunction, but that was overturned on appeal at the state's 14th Appeals Court, with trial set for February. The history of the appeals level is here. The trial court docket is here.

From what I can tell, the temporary injunction was eventually reinstated, as the likes of David Bruce Collins are running as candidates.

TX Progressives say ixnay to Southwest,talk elections, Earth Day, Alex Jones

With this week's lefty blog post roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance won't be flying Southwest Airlines for awhile.  Not even for five grand in cash and another G in flight vouchers, thanks.

In that *ahem* spirit, Socratic Gadfly looked at Southwest's fatal engine blowout and sees it as a continuation of past bad practices

High Plains Public Radio reports -- and links to more in the Houston Chronicle ($) -- regarding the Texas gerrymandering lawsuit, with opening arguments before the Supreme Court this morning.  The Texas Observer posits that disgraced former Congressman Blake Farenthold was one of the undeserved beneficiaries of those goofy, and possibly illegal, maps.  And Alexa Ura of the TexTrib, at the SCOTUS today, has the explainer.  (Three weeks ago she reminded us why this 7-year-old-saga has everybody angry.)

To commemorate Earth Day, Texas Vox participated in EarthX in Dallas, with a seminar conducted by Public Citizen's David Arkush, called "Wake Up and Smell the Carbon!" And two leading Green Party members discuss environmental activism at Consortium News.

With the Ted Cruz-Beto O'Rourke faceoff taking center stage, Jonathan Tilove at the Austin Statesman's First Reading broke down some of Cruz's bellicose verbiage.  Off the Kuff analyzed that Quinnipiac poll, then scoffed at some of the more hysterical responses to it.  And Brains and Eggs recommended not betting on Beto this early.

Ted at jobsanger took the Q-poll's current affairs questions and bar-graphed them to reveal how Texas is s l o w l y changing into something a little less conservative.

 Ahead of Lewisville's municipal elections, the Texan Journal quantified the city's Power Voters.

In his weekly roundup of criminal justice news, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast collates the reports about the undocumented necropolis discovered at the shuttered state prison facility in Fort Bend County.

DBC Green blog took down Egberto Willies for that tired binary logic we've come to expect from Democrats with their blinders strapped on too tight.  He also posted Scott McLarty performing the same bodyslam on Robert Reich (who used the word 'siphon', as if elections were zero-sum.  Reich is too smart for such weak logic).

Dan Solomon at Texas Monthly reports on the the defamation lawsuits threatening the media empire of bombastic Infowars host Alex Jones, and Danny Gallagher at the Dallas Observer sees that Glenn Beck's company is tumbling down around him.

In book releases, Bud Kennedy at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram interviews Lawrence Wright, the author of the acclaimed God Save Texas.  And Gregg Barrios at the Texas Observer profiles Jorge Ramos and his manifesto for journalists.

ProPublica looks at Betsy DeVos' U.S. Department of Education spiking an investigation into racial disparity in school suspension.

The Dallas Observer reports Dallas cops continue to target minorities for pot smoking.

Feds another non-ruling "ruling" against Texas on voting rights

Texas' racially-driven gerrymandering of Congressional districts has been in the federal court system for about five years now.

Friday, a three-judge panel of federal district judges, on a 2-1 split, made another ruling that confirms previous ones. It's clearly the correct decision, just as much as it's clear how much Will Hurd's 23rd District is gerrymandered, as further detailed here. Some Texas Democrats are hoping that the latest ruling will wind up putting Texas under preclearance stipulations that existed before the Supreme Court gutted them in 2013.

More here from Rick Hasen.

Not likely on that preclearance issue. Nothing's changing on the court since then, other than Gorsuch presumably replacing Scalia.

See, first of all, that panel of judges ordered no specific remedies. Second, their ruling came at the end of business on Friday — the same Friday that's the deadline for filing bills in the Texas Legislature session.

Over all the time the judges have dealt with redistricting, I cannot believe they're ignorant of the Lege's bills calendar, nor can I believe the two judges in the majority are ignorant of Texas AG Ken Paxton and minions — and before him, AG Greg Abbott and minions — attempting to run out various clocks whenever possible.

Hasen has an updated, in-depth analysis. He may be right that this will indeed lead to new maps for the 2018 midterms. But, really, I kind of doubt it. And, I'm less optimistic than him about a court imposing "bail-in" preclearance. For more on why I doubt this will happen before 2021, read this piece about the anti-immigrant and anti-minority troika of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House Counsel Steve Bannon and henchman Stephen Miller, formerly of Sessions' Senate staff. At least Hasen has the proper degree of skepticism about Sessions actually enforcing any pre-2021 preclearance.

TX Progressives discuss voting issues

The Texas Progressive Alliance brings you the pneumonia-free version of this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff is not surprised that the Justice Department is accusing the state of Texas of misleading county election officials about the updated voter ID requirements.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos believes the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News should hold the Texas Republican Party to the same standard as it does Donald Trump. According to the Dallas Morning News Donald Trump is no Republican. But neither is the Texas GOP for that matter.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes a bad week for Ted Cruz: afraid of 'Value Voters' and dissed by John Cornyn.

Socratic Gadfly looks at the Texas Trib and Bizjournals touting "the world of apps" as an allegedly surefire get-out-the-vote idea, is sure that it's NOT a surefire idea with folks like Valley Hispanics, but expects the Texas Democratic Party to be suckers for it anyway with pretty much the same results as before.

Neil at All People Have Value added a page of his public art and revised his photography page as well at NeilAquino.com.

Equality Texas hopes for more civility on transgender issues after AG Paxton met the Briggle family.

Texas Sharon is again in the fracking crosshairs.

Egberto Willies wants to pump up the outrage volume over EpiPen.


=============

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Juanita reminds us of the Trump U - Greg Abbott connection.

Eileen Smith looks at the Catholic angle on Donald Trump.

Anna Dragsbaek chastises Bexar County DA Nico LaHood for his misinformation about vaccinations.

The TSTA Blog is hesitant to be optimistic about pre-K in Texas.

Houston's Metro is looking for an urban designer.

Nan Little Kirkpatrick makes the connection between abortion access and transgender health care.

Jenny Dial Creech is not having Art Briles' apology.

#VoterID: Greg Abbott sues Obama again, loses again ... and again,

Yes, the former Texas AG, now its governor, has won a few cases here and there, but his "wake up and sue Obama" schtick has lost more than two-thirds of the time and cost the state millions of dollars.

And, it just did again.

A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of appeals unanimously killed the state's new voter ID law. Details here.

The appeals court reversed plaintiffs' one claim of discriminatory intent and told the district court, which had ruled in their favor, to look again at that issue. It rejected in toto the claim that it was a poll tax, which the district court had ruled it was. Since that ruling, the state had removed fees to obtain some voter-related IDs, so this was the correct ruling there. Overall, yes, per the Morning News, it was a narrow ruling.

But, it said that it did violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Given how conservative the Fifth Circuit is, this has to be considered some sort of win. And it's notable that it specifically mentioned Section 2, the "effects" clause, which that Wikipedia link notes has not had clear rulings by SCOTUS.

However, even if narrow, the Fifth Circuit did indicate it wanted a remedy.

Which means our state's beloved AG, "Kenny Boy" Paxton, upholding the tradition of idiotic Kenny Boys, is just wrong with this news release, which says in part:

“Today’s ruling was a victory on the fundamental question of Texas’ right to protect the integrity of our elections and the state’s common sense Voter ID law remains in effect.”

Uhh, that sentence is totally wrong, at least the primary clause.

Again, the judges said:

We AFFIRM the district court’s finding that SB 14 has a discriminatory effect in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and remand for consideration of the proper remedy.

Period.

That means that it wasn’t a victory. Period.

Hell, even Dan Patrick partially disagrees with Kenny Boy:

“I strongly disagree with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which rejected a portion of that law,” Patrick said in a statement. “Texas’ Voter ID law was passed by the legislature with the intent of preserving the integrity of the voting process. There was never any intention of preventing anyone from voting who is legally qualified to do so.”

Back to you, Kenny Boy.

On the other hand, the Fifth Circuit may be hinting it wants the nation's blind, business-tilting umpire, John Roberts, to make a definitive ruling. However, Wiki notes that SCOTUS, in Mississippi Republican Electoral Opinion vs Brooks, issued a summary judgment that Section 2 is constitutional.

So, stand by.

A Roberts Court could use this as a final gutting of a key portion of the VRA. Or, it could stand aside.

As for remedies? If that's upheld, it's not clear if the state will take any in-depth remedies before 2016's primaries, or even general election. Again, stand by.

SCOTUS to take Texas redistricting case — Voting Rights Act tie-in?

This should be interesting.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Texas voting case, Evenwel, where plaintiffs argue that voting district reapportionment, in this case a state senate district, should be done on the basis of potential voters, not general population.

Part of the key to Evenwel goes back years, as Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog notes. Who is a "voter" for terms of equal apportionment of electoral districts. Is it any person? Any person who's eligible to vote? Registered voters only? A running average of actual voter turnout?

In the past, the Supreme Court has said that states are NOT required to include aliens, transients, felons barred from voting, and other things, and had indicated that within this, states had some latitude. So, he's surprised that this portion of Evanwel may come into play.

Hasen's co-blogger, Richard Pildes disagrees, as he says it's not surprising the Supremes took this case and he hopes we get a clear, uniform standard from it. He stands in part on Voting Rights Act issues, noting Sims and most other cases were adjudicated before the 1965 Act, let alone later amendments, were adopted.

I'm not sure of what mind I am.

I agree with Hasen that there's clear precedent here. On the other hand, per Pildes, I can see that not addressing this could bring "minority voter dilution" issues into play. Of course, those issues could get worse if SCOTUS mandates national use of "potential voters" for redistricting.

Given that, per the top link, Clarence Thomas reportedly rounded up three fellow justices to vote to grant cert, I'm sure that's what the far right on the court intends. Scalia and Alito probably agree with Thomas. Either Roberts or Kennedy may have been the fourth vote, not because they agree, but because they want clear standards, especially re the Voting Rights Act.

That said, knowing the Chief's stance on it, he'll vote for the plaintiffs, leaving Kennedy as the presumed swing vote.

One would assume the plaintiffs are hoping this is what the granting of cert indicates, given the legal team backing them and previous cases with their involvement.

#GregAbbott trying to run out the court clock on voter ID

Yesterday, federal district court judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos struck down Texas' voter ID law. Ramos ruled it was much more restrictive on the types of ID it allowed than other states whose voter ID laws have been approved all the way through the Supreme Court.

And, here's where it really gets fun. Because many of these restrictions involve costing voters money, Judge Ramos said this is a de facto poll tax. Plaintiffs' attorney Chris Dunn explains in detail.

The 24th Amendment abolished such, of course, because they were used in the South to block black voters.

And, this could land Texas in more hot water:

A panel of judges previously shot down the state's request to implement the law on the grounds that it posed “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor.” But Texas was allowed to move forward after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted a provision of the Voting Rights Act that had prevented the state from implementing voting changes without permission from a court or the federal government due to the state’s history of racial discrimination.

What hot water?

Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog explains.

Also extremely important: the court expressly finds intentional discrimination relevant to bail-in under the Voting Rights Act, and says it will consider a bail-in order in the days to come.  If the court indeed follows up with a bail-in order, Texas could become the first state brought back under a preclearance regime since Shelby County.

Shelby County was the SCOTUS ruling that gutted "preclearance" for most Southern states that had shown a pattern of racial discrimination in voting access and rights, requiring changes in voting regulations, redistricting and everything in between to be "precleared" by the U.S. Department of Justice. However, the majority of the Nine allowed for states with new violations to be "bailed back in" to preclearance oversight, which is exactly what could happen here.

Meanwhile, with the start of early voting less than 2 weeks away, what does this mean for this year's general election.

Well, that's where it gets fun. Judge Ramos, in her ruling (full baby here) failed to tell the state of Texas what to do, which leads to AG Strangeabbott "seeking guidance," while hoping his guidance-seeking lets him run out the clock on the election. Per friend Perry, a piece by Think Progress spells out how that might happen.

Abbott was going to appeal to the Fifth Circuit anyway. But, he needs to know whether to appeal immediately, or whether he can stop sweating.

Per my top link, Dunn says Abbott needs to get on the express train:

We expect Judge Ramos to issue an order formally blocking enforcement of the Texas voter ID law within the next few days. Greg Abbott has already announced that he will appeal her ruling and ask the 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals to reverse her order. After the 5th Circuit rules, the case will almost certainly be appealed to the US Supreme Court. It would not surprise me if both the 5th Circuit and the Supreme Court issues rulings on this matter in next ten days.

Getcha popcorn! Yet more, including the likelihood of Texas' No. 1 waster of taxpayer money losing again with the Supreme Court, from the Morning News.

Meanwhile, this is "fun" for those of us who are newspaper editors as well as bloggers.

Redistricting in Texas: Time for #GregAbbott to lose in court again?

A federal judges' court troika in San Antonio has started its hearing on the state of Texas' proposed redistricting for U.S. House and state Lege seats, and the US Department of Justice is getting more involved, not just minority rights groups. Here's why:

“The state of Texas, as it has in redistricting cycles since 1970, adopted maps that discriminated against its citizens,” Bryan Sells, an attorney for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said during opening statements.

The big issue is one of intent, as the story notes:

 What’s at issue is whether Republicans drew the original maps with the intent to discriminate. If so, Texas could be required to continue seeking federal preclearance under Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act. That section has rarely been employed because the same effect was formerly achieved through the better-known part of the law that is now eliminated.

One of Texas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott's flunkies denies such intent:

“No one in the Texas Legislature discriminated on the basis of race,” Patrick Sweeten, an assistant Texas attorney general, said during his opening statement.

However, that's hard to square with this:

Sells argued that an email written by an attorney for House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, explains seeking blocs of voters with few Spanish surnames to pack districts that would otherwise favor minority candidates.

But Sweeten said that message was taken out of context and that the process was “not about just drawing the map but drafting legislation and getting enough support for it to pass.”

That is BS on the part of Sweeten, and we have a lot more evidence to that end.

Salon has a great story with the details:

On Nov. 17, 2010, Eric Opiela sent an email to Gerard Interiano. A Texas Republican Party associate general counsel, Opiela served at that time as a campaign adviser to the state’s speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio; he was about to become the man who state lawmakers understood spoke “on behalf of the Republican Congressmen from Texas,” according to minority voting-rights plaintiffs, who have sued Texas for discriminating against them.

A few weeks before receiving Opiela’s email, Interiano had started as counsel to Straus’ office. He was preparing to assume top responsibility for redrawing the state’s political maps; he would become the “one person” on whom the state’s redistricting “credibility rests,” according to Texas’ brief in voting-rights litigation.

In the Nov. 17, 2010, email, Opelia asked Interiano to look for specific data about Hispanic populations and voting patterns.

“These metrics would be useful to identify the ‘nudge factor’ by which one can analyze which census blocks, when added to a particular district [they] help pull the district’s Total Hispanic pop … to majority status, but leave the Spanish surname RV [registered voters] and TO [turnout] the lowest,” Opiela writes to the mapmaker.

Interiano responded two days later: “I will gladly help with this Eric but you’re going to have to explain to me in layman’s terms.”

Let us explain in layman's terms, Mr. Interiano.

This was microtargeting Census tracts to make Hispanic districts a bare majority on paper, but doing so in a way that was intended to actually dilute Hispanic voting power.

As friend Perry notes in his blog on this issue, Opiela is a wingnut who ran for the GOP nomination for Ag Secretary this year, but couldn't make it to a runoff.

As for intent? About three years ago, in its Shelby County ruling, by a 5-4 (shock me) majority, the Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That's the section that required "pre-clearance" of electoral boundaries in states like Texas that had shown a past history of discrimination. But ...

If the Obama administration and the minority plaintiffs show in Perez that the Texas defendants intentionally discriminated against minority voters by diluting their votes, they could dramatically undo the Texas consequences of Shelby.

But, the Salon piece notes that not all of the VRA was gutted.

(T)he high court stripped only a pivotal lever used to trigger Section 5, specifically Section 4b of the same act. That stricken provision laid out formulas for determining which states, based on their histories of discrimination, the Department of Justice could impose preclearance requirements upon.

The Shelby ruling left intact: Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act — or its “Secret Weapon,” as Travis Crum, a former clerk for U.S. District Judge David S. Tatel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, refers to the provision in his 2010 Yale Law Journal article. In the article, Crum explains that the Voting Rights Act’s Section 3 allows: a federal court to find evidence of a state intentionally racially discriminating against voters and therefore order the state to submit to DOJ preclearance.

Nina Perales, vice president of litigation for MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in San Antonio, who represents Perez plaintiffs, believes Opiela’s emails show evidence of intentional discrimination and thereby provide the federal government with a spare key to restart Section 5, replacing the one the Shelby decision removed from the ignition.

And that's why Abbott's flunky protested so vociferously.

That said, this will be way too late to affect 2014 elections, and AG Strangeabbott will do his best, especially if elected governor, to try to make sure it doesn't affect 2016 either.

Additional reasons to support the popular election of US presidents

Nearly 14 years ago, bush v. Gore reminded us that the popular vote in presidential elections doesn't always square up with electoral votes. Even without the loser in the popular vote winning the electoral vote, in a very tight election with third-party candidates, the winner may have only a plurality, not a majority.

But that's not the only reason to support direct popular vote of presidential elections.

Here are some related reasons.

First, we technically have no official national vote for president. That's because of the electoral college system, compounded with the fact that each state's voters, in what is now essentially a formality, vote separately. The electoral college is the only official vote there is. Usually, as it has been for years of presidential elections, the Associated Press's tally of state-by-state popular voting is summed up and made into a quasi-official figure. But that's not the same.

But that's just a minor point, albeit the introduction to the main one.

If we have direct popular voting for the presidency, that would be a national vote, across state lines. And, it would therefore require federal government oversight of presidential elections. I don't know if, in addition to fear of "the masses," this was another reason the Founding Fathers rejected direct election. I've never seen it mentioned in serious constitutional histories. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Obviously, even more than the tatters of the Voting Rights Act that still remain, this would arguably allow for direct federal polling observation, etc., in places of concern. As far as disenfranchising voter ID bills, it would arguably prevent states from applying such a standard to presidential elections unless red-staters could force through a federal voter ID bill of similar stringency, or unless they decided they wanted to go to all of the expense of officially conducting all other elections separately from a presidential vote.

Obviously, this would mean that we would need a Federal Election Commission with actual legal teeth.

And, in the case of those pluralities, if we rightly insisted on an absolute majority to win? The FEC, rather than going through an expensive runoff process, could institute instant runoff voting or something.

Dear small Texas counties: Blame Abbott for your #VoterID bills

As I blogged yesterday, the state of Texas and its "sue Obama" attorney general, Greg Abbott, are now being sued BY Obama and the U.S. Department of Justice over both Texas new voter ID law and over redistricting.

Well, the local county clerk is complaining about the cost of running a legal notice for the details of the new voter ID law. It would cost, unless she can get the Secretary of State to let it be trimmed, about $250 to run bilingually.

Hey, I don't want to soak the county unnecessarily, but, if that's what the state says is needed, that's what's needed. (And, I don't know if it's a required posting, but I sure got that indication.)

Once again, Texas' money-waster in chief rears his head. And, with DOJ officially involved, the voter ID bill may at least face an injunction before this November's constitutional amendments election. If so, more money wasted.

Oh, and ain't it funny, or "funny," that the law does nothing to address vote fraud, actual as well as alleged, in voting by mail? Why? Because in the past, that's been the provenance of old, white, rural Republicans, in many cases, though that's probably changing.

(I'm waiting for the GOP to try to figure out how to "cage" voters by mail.)

SCOTUS tells Perry, Abbott: Redistrict away!

The Supreme Court did not officially junk the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, but it did say the 2006 update, used to guide preclearance, is out of date.

(And, Texas AG Greg Abbott has wasted no time in noting this applies to voter ID law in Texas, as well as redistricting.)

While the Court did not specify how this would affect cases such as Texas' redistricting, I would think the takeaway is redistrict away until Congress follows SCOTUS' suggestion and does a better update than the latest renewal of the act in 2006, in line with more current demographics.

Likelihood of the current House doing this? Zero. 

So, do preclearance cases sit in limbo? Use older, pre-2006 guidelines for now, or what?

This is typical of the Roberts Court on cases like this, just like the ID provisions case in Arizona decided earlier this month. Once again, it's telling Congressinoal conservatives, "Write a bill like this!"

Likelihood of the House doing that, and gutting the VRA in the guise of updating it? High. 

The real solution, as I've blogged before, is to nationalize Section 5. That's what should have been done from the start, but northern "machine" Democrats of big cities, and northern suburban moderate Republicans alike didn't want to address racial issues in voting in their backyard at the time. Technically, SCOTUS struck down Section 4, as the New York Times story on the ruling notes, but, properly nationalizing Section 5 would include Section 4. That, in turn, gets at how this is, in essence, a legal memo from Roberts saying "Do this!"

Anyway, Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott are certain to treat this as a green light for pushing every possible envelope on Texas' redistricting ideas. 

And, the Dallas Morning News, whose editorial pages have gotten reasonably better, in fits and starts, over the last couple of decades, is moronic on this issue. The Snooze's editorial board is clueless of how this fits into a Roberts Court pattern of legislative directives from the bench, while inviting actions like Abbott's until the "right" legislative directive gets written. Scotusblog also recognizes the other "obvious" issue which the Snooze misses, and which I touch on above, and that's that Sections 4 and 5 are intertwined.

The only silver lining is that this may ("may," I said!) help Battleground Texas actually turn the state a little less red. But, as I've noted here, BG and the Texas Democratic Party need to do more than just boost Hispanic turnout.

Let's nationalize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act

In places like Gov. John Kasich's Ohio (selectiveness with absentee ballots), Gov. Rick Snyder's Michigan, and Gov. Scott Walker's Wisconsin, recent attempts to hinder voting of some groups, either more narrowly based on race or more generally based on socioeconomic class, have shown themselves not to be limited to the South. At the same time, on the racial level, the growing numbers of , and clout of Hispanics (even if not as solid as folks like Texas Democrats might hope), show that race-based voting discrimination, in the narrow sense, also may not be, or remain, limited largely to the South.

So, even as wingnuts hope the Supreme Court guts Section 5, as it may, what's really needed is to nationalize it.

Not just for elections, but for redistricting. If race can't be the primary factor in gerrymandering majority-minority districts, it can't be the primary factor in gerrymandering "over-minoritied" districts, either. And, because Section 5 is data-driven, and electoral "consultants" rely ever more on computers to drive partisan-based redistricting, Section 5 is tailor-made for the issue.

At the New York Times, columnist Charles Blow agrees on nationalizing it.

And, as Barack Obama's election, and even more his re-election, showed, there's still racism all around the country.

Add to that, that way back in the 1920s, when the "Second Klan" came into being, there were more lynchings north of the Mason-Dixon Line rather than south. Indiana was a hotbed of the Klan. There were lynchings all the way up in Duluth, Minn.

Update, June 25, 2013: Given the Supreme Court's ruling today, this is more relevant than ever.

Two simple ideas to address attempted voter blocking

Both, of course, would require a President and an Attorney General with cojones, therefore they won't happen while the Compromiser-in-Chief is still in office.

The first is one I've touted before.

Nationalize the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Including the "preclearance" part. In my legal layperson's mind, especially when combined with the 1964 "one man, one vote" ruling by the Supreme Court, it could also be used to attack gerrymandering more generally.

The Act established extensive federal oversight of elections administration, providing that states with a history of discriminatory voting practices (so-called "covered jurisdictions") could not implement any change affecting voting without first obtaining the approval of the Department of Justice, a process known as preclearance.

And there's legal grounds for this. State laws clearly designed to impede the right to vote of the urban poor, especially those of color, are to be found in several Rust Belt states where the GOP has recently gained state control. Also, American Indians arguably face voting discriminations in far more counties and states in the western United States than is often reported.

Tool No. 2?

Employ the 14th Amendment. Specifically, the second sentence of Section 2:

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

That's right. Arguably, it's Congress' power to enforce this, but, a strong President could take the bit in his mouth, and if necessary, sue Congress to take three House districts from Texas, two from Florida, or whatever else is deemed necessary. (Or one or two from Michigan, for that matter, per the discussion above.)

Of course, per the start of discussion, this administration would never do it.