Registered voter in Texas? Remember to vote today in the Texas primary. Twice delayed due to the shenanigans on biased redistricting by the Republican Lege, we finally get going on voting — after the precinct and Senate district political conventions have already occurred (just two weeks from the Texas Democratic State Convention).
Flags fly at the Texas Capitol; fly your flags today for election day (Photo credit: jmtimages)
Happy to see the Texas Democratic Party sending out notices that voters won’t be turned away from the polls for identification issues. Texas’s Jim Crow Voter Identification Hurdle Law has been stayed in litigation separate from the redistricting law suit. It’s a clear effort to deflate the voting discouragement campaign of State Attorney General Greg Abbott, Gov. Rick Perry, and the Republicans of the Texas Lege.
On Monday, the polls will open [TODAY] for early voting for the May 29th Democratic Primary Election. We’ll be selecting the Democratic nominees who will lead the charge towards taking back our state in 2012.
Use the same documents that you’ve used in the past to vote.No photo ID is required! The photo voter id legislation is not in effect for this election. All you need is:
Did the Republicans inform their voters of the ID requirements, or do they want to discourage even Republican voters? They keep booting me off their lists. Anybody got a similar letter from them, especially one showing how the Texas Voter Identification law does not apply to this primary election?
_____________
* The elections were delayed by federal court orders. Texas is a place that historically discriminated against minority voters, and so under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, reapportionments by the legislature must be approved by the Justice Department or a federal court as complying with the nondiscrimination laws. AG Abbott tried to do an end run around Justice, suing for approval as a first step. As part of its War on Democracy, the Texas Lege wrote a spectacularly Gerrymandered reapportionment plan, depriving Texas Hispanics from new representation despite the dramatic increase in their populations. Consequently the federal courts balked at quick approval. Instead, they asked for more information.
In the delay, the Washington courts ordered the federal court in San Antonio to draw up a more fair plan, giving at least three new seats to districts where historically minority voters hold broad sway.
Litigation against the Texas Jim Crow Voter Identification law is separate.
Early voting for the twice-delayed* Texas primary elections opens this week. The election is set for May 29.
Happy to see the Texas Democratic Party sending out notices that voters won’t be turned away from the polls. It’s a clear effort to deflate the voting discouragement campaign of State Attorney General Greg Abbott, Gov. Rick Perry, and the Republicans of the Texas Lege.
On Monday, the polls will open for early voting for the May 29th Democratic Primary Election. We’ll be selecting the Democratic nominees who will lead the charge towards taking back our state in 2012.
Use the same documents that you’ve used in the past to vote.No photo ID is required! The photo voter id legislation is not in effect for this election. All you need is:
I’d be interested to see that the Republican Party in Texas is doing something similar. They keep booting me off their lists. Anybody got a similar letter from them, especially one showing how the Texas Voter Identification law does not apply to this primary election?
_____________
* The elections were delayed by federal court orders. Texas is a place that historically discriminated against minority voters, and so under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, reapportionments by the legislature must be approved by the Justice Department or a federal court as complying with the nondiscrimination laws. AG Abbott tried to do an end run around Justice, suing for approval as a first step. As part of its War on Democracy, the Texas Lege wrote a spectacularly Gerrymandered reapportionment plan, depriving Texas Hispanics from new representation despite the dramatic increase in their populations. Consequently the federal courts balked at quick approval. Instead, they asked for more information. In the delay, the Washington courts ordered the federal court in San Antonio to draw up a more fair plan, giving at least three new seats to districts where Hispanics hold broad sway.
Litigation against the Texas Jim Crow Voter Identification law is separate.
Suzanne Bonamici won the Congressional seat for Oregon’s North Coast in a special election Tuesday, Oregon Congressional District 1. She had 54% of the vote, in an area that often votes Democrat and supported Barack Obama in 2008.
She will replace Rep. David Wu, a Democrat who resigned after he was accused of making sexual advances towards a daughter of a campaign donor. Bonamici must stand for election in November, too.
Is this a bellwether? Democrats had a scandal-plagued representative, but won anyway. The area traditionally votes Democratic. Portents of November results appear rather dim.
Clifford Berryman cartoon from 1912, "Congress will come to order!" National Archives
“Congress Will Come To Order!”
by Clifford K. Berryman Washington Evening Star, December 2, 1912
From the US Senate Collection, Center for Legislative Archives
The ultimate prize of a congressional election is control over the two houses of Congress: the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. This cartoon shows Congress following the pivotal 1912 elections when the Democrats swept into power and captured majorities both houses.
Some might hope that this history repeats.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Oh, I get all sorts of e-mail. This one made me smile — I remember when Rich Trumka was a young coal miner calling us at the Senate Labor Committee, agitating for mine safety and better working conditions and railing against mine union officials who didn’t agree with him.
So he ran for president of the union. Today, Trumka is president of the AFL-CIO. But he’s still campaigning for better working conditions.
Trumka sends news from Ohio.
Dear Ed,I’m in Ohio right now, where working families just won an incredible victory.Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to repeal Senate Bill 5—Gov. John Kasich’s attack on middle-class jobs that was designed to destroy collective bargaining rights in Ohio.
We pieced together a short, powerful video summing up the amazing energy that went into this. I hope you’ll take a moment to watch:
Watch now. Tonight’s victory represents a turning point in our collective work to protect good jobs, working families and workplace rights. But it’s more than that. It’s a long-overdue return to common sense.
From the very beginning of our jobs crisis, anti-worker politicians like Ohio’s Gov. Kasich have used our poor economy to push a cynical political agenda that favors the richest 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent. Today, Ohio voters rejected that agenda.
During this campaign, firefighters, nurses, teachers and other public employees were joined by construction workers, bakery workers and all kinds of private-sector workers. They came together to ensure the survival of the middle class. And together, we’ll keep doing it. Politicians who side with the richest 1 percent will find their radical efforts stopped by working people who want America to work for everyone. Watch the energy and dedication that went into this huge victory—and join us.
This is our moment, and we won with solidarity. We won because the working people of Ohio—public and private sector, union and nonunion—stood together.
But the solidarity went even further than that: Volunteers traveled not just from neighboring Wisconsin—but from states as far away as California and New York—to help get out the vote. And activists from dozens of states as far away as Alaska gave up their nights and weekends to call Ohio voters from home.
I hope you’ll celebrate this moment in your own way. But the most important thing is to find a way to keep your own energy going and growing—so you can be a part of sustaining and growing our movement for all working people—the 99 percent.
This fight we’ve taken on and won—and the threats we face going forward—are about more than Democrats or Republicans, or 2012 battleground states. They are about good jobs and our right to a voice on the job.
Together, we’re building a new kind of politics. A politics that works for the 99 percent, not just the 1 percent.
We’ve got to start getting ready now to win tomorrow’s victories. Over time—together—we’ll build a future that works for working America.
Thank you for being a part of this movement, and for all you do for America’s workers.
In Solidarity,
Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO
P.S. America is waking up. Here’s one big reason we won in Ohio—people can see that the firefighters, teachers, nurses and snowplow drivers hurt by SB 5 didn’t cause our economic problems. Wall Street did. Ohio voters saw through Senate Bill 5—they understood it was a plan to make the 99 percent bear the burden of Wall Street’s recklessness—and that it would do nothing to create jobs. Take a moment to watch the incredible energy that went into this win.
To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.
Here’s the video direct from YouTube (above, the link goes to the AFL-CIO site) — note it features more than a few teachers who worked to repeal Ohio’s SB5:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Washingtonians who recently registered to vote using the Department of Licensing’s website may not have actually been added to the rolls, the Secretary of State’s office disclosed today in a late afternoon media advisory.
The Department of Licensing, which issues driver’s licenses, vehicle licenses, and boat licenses, allows voters to request that their voter registration be updated when they update their driver’s license. DOL also allows Washingtonians to register to vote when obtaining a license through its website.
But apparently, DOL hasn’t been forwarding these new and updated voter registrations to the Secretary of State’s office. Until last Friday, that is.
The Secretary of State’s office says a total of 21,000 voters may potentially be affected in some way by the blunder.
Here’s a more detailed explanation from co-elections director Katie Blinn:
When people update their address for their driver’s license with the state Department of Licensing, they can also request to update their address for voter registration purposes. This program is commonly known as Motor-Voter. DOL recently added a question about voter registration to its address update page on its website. However, the Secretary of State’s office has not been receiving these voter registration updates from DOL, and therefore has not been able to pass these updates on to the county elections offices. The Secretary of State’s Office just received the information Friday evening, just two business days before Election Day.
Obviously, ballots have already been mailed to voters, so this is a problem. The question is… how big of a problem?
Approximately 14,800 address updates were submitted to DOL that were not received by the Secretary of State’s Office. However, we think that county elections offices had already received some of these address changes due to voters contacting the elections office directly, or receiving address update information from the Post Office.
We think? Wouldn’t it be better to know for sure?
An additional 5,900 people requested to update their voter registration information on the DOL website, but were not previously registered. The information previously provided by the DOL address update system is not sufficient to complete a new voter registration so these people will be receiving a notice from their county elections office asking them to complete the registration. They can respond to the notice or fill out a new voter registration form. If anyone wants to vote in this General Election, they can go to their county elections office to vote a provisional ballot and complete the registration.
Great. So that means nearly six thousand people who thought they’d done what they needed to do to be added to the rolls didn’t actually get added, and now they’re going to have jump through more hoops in order to vote.
Is this the result of years of budget cuts? Have we finally cut even great state governments like Washington to the point that they cannot even get the ballots out anymore?
Time to stop cutting government budgets, eh?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
No love lost between Hutchison and Perry. Hutchison opposed Perry for the Republican nomination for governor of Texas in 2010. Perry was brutal in his criticism of her, and he defeated her in the primary.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry should not count on the support of his state’s seniority senator (and his 2010 Republican gubernatorial rival) if he decides to run for president.
(Polaroid photo by Sarah Tung/Hearst Newspapers)
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Dallas, told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell today that she is looking for a Republican candidate with private-sector experience as her choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.
Perry is a career politician who has held elective office since 1985.
“He certainly has got government experience,” Hutchison told Mitchell on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” this morning, adding that “we need people who have been in the private sector, as well.”
The Republican senator’s comments hint strongly that she’d prefer one of the GOP candidates who has run a business: former Winter Olympics organizer (and venture capitalist) Mitt Romney, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain or former chemical company executive Jon Huntsman.
Hutchison said she has no immediate plans to endorse any candidate.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Ezra Klein’s on-line column this morning worries me more — will any Republican stand up for America?
No, I don’t mean lip service, I don’t mean flag lapel pins. I mean, will any Republican stand up for the policies we need to steer through the shoals of economic woe we face in the next 60 months?
The most telling moment of Thursday’s GOP debate wasn’t when Michele Bachmann cooly stuck a knife between Tim Pawlenty’s ribs, or when Rick Santorum plaintively begged for more airtime, or when Mitt Romney easily slipped past questions about his record on health-care reform. It was when every single GOP candidate on the stage agreed that they would reject a budget deal that was $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. Even Fox News’s Bret Baier couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He asked again just to make sure the assembled candidates had understood the question.
Primary debates are usually watched for what they say about the candidates, but they’re generally important for what they say about the party. This one was no different. With the notable exceptions of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, the candidates didn’t disagree over policy. They disagreed over fealty to policy.
Bachmann didn’t attack Pawlenty’s policy proposals. She attacked him for past statements suggesting he might believe in other policy proposals, like the individual mandate and cap-and-trade. Pawlenty’s assault on Romney took the same form. This debate wasn’t about what policies the candidates believed in. That was largely a given. This debate was about which of the candidates believed in those policies the most.
The best policy in this debate wasn’t the policy most likely to work, or the policy most likely to pass. It was the most orthodox policy. The policy least sullied by compromise. A world in which the GOP will not agree to deficit reduction with a 10:1 split between spending cuts and tax increases is a world where entitlement reform can’t happen. It’s a world where the “supercommittee” fails and the trigger is pulled, and thus a world in which $1 out of every $2 in cuts comes from the Pentagon. It’s not a world that fits what many in the GOP consider ideal policy. But it is a world in which none in the GOP need to traverse the treacherous politics of compromise.
Policies discussed weren’t mainline, capitalist economic policies, either. They’re so far out in left field they can’t even see the pitcher’s mound from where they are. Plus, they’re looking the wrong way.
Over and over again, [Michelle] Bachmann misstated basic facts. She said that Tim Pawlenty “implemented” cap-and-trade in Minnesota. He did no such thing. She said “we just heard from Standard Poor’s,” and “when they dropped our credit rating what they said was we don’t have an ability to repay our debt.” Simply not true.
S&P has never questioned our ability to repay our debt. That’s why we remain AA+. They have questioned whether political brinksmanship will stop us from paying our debt. The downgrade “was pretty much motivated by all of the debate about the raising of the debt ceiling,” said John Chambers, head of S&P’s sovereign ratings committee. That is to say, it was motivated by political brinksmanship from the likes of, well, Michele Bachmann.
It’s fitting that the candidate best able to resist compromise is the candidate who seems least able to correctly explain the policies at issue and the choices we face. It’s a lot easier to take a hard line if you don’t understand the consequences of your actions, and a lot simpler to belt out applause lines if you’re not slowed down by the messy complexities of the issues. But where Bachmann is leading, the other candidates are following. Mitt Romney knows perfectly well that a deal with $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases is a great deal for conservatives. What he probably doesn’t know is how he’s going to explain why he pretended otherwise when he was vying for the nomination.
Winners in the debate? Unclear. Losers? You, me, and every American.
Can any Republican explain where in the world they got these nightmare economic policies? Are they being made up on the spot?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Sen. Rob Cowles blocked one of six attempts by Democrats on Tuesday to oust a sitting Republican lawmaker from office, putting his party in a position to maintain control of Madison and continue its unchecked, aggressive agenda.
That’s about as polite as it is possible to be.
Democrats faced an uphill battle, but took two out of three seats from Republicans. It is not enough to flip the majority in the Senate.
Will it be enough of a scare to make Republicans talk sense? You’d think that, after watching the damage done to the stock market, almost as bad as the attack on the World Trade Center, Wisconsin voters would have been more circumspect.
But these six Republicans were well-entrenched. 33% is better than nothing. It means 33% of Wisconsinites appear to have awakened to the wolves at their doors.
How to wake up the rest?
Two Democrats face recall elections next week, revenge for the recall elections this week.
Will the assault on U.S. values, education and public institutions, continue?
After the Republican presidential candidates’ debate, observers of the pageant opined that Michelle Bachmann had little command of history (as usual, in her case), but a great command of turning phrases that telegraph to particular interest groups that she is one of them. For example, somewhere in the debate Bachmann sneaked in a claim that “we are the head and not the tail.” This was said to be a cryptic shout out to fundamentalist Christians, a reference to Deuteronomy 28.13.
So, if Bachmann is so thoughtful, so careful to send coded messages to her supporters, one may wonder: What group is she giving a shout out to, here, in her appearance in Waterloo, Iowa:
Oy. Wrong John Wayne to affiliate with Waterloo, or even to remind Waterloo residents about. History that is, regretfully, bogus. Or voodoo history, depending on whether one thinks Bachmann is conscious, not on drugs, and meant what she said.
Bachmann told CBS News that she’s running because “People are tired of being told things that aren’t so.” Practice what you preach, Ms. Bachmann?
Sunday I watched Bachmann vs. CBS’s veteran report Bob Schieffer. Schieffer asked her about her tendency to tell extremely tall tales — like her claim that the Obama administration had failed to approve any oil leases, when the total approved at that point was 270 leases. Bachmann went off on a tangent. Schieffer asked the question a second time. She went on another tangent. Schieffer asked a third time, a third tangent.
History challenged, veracity challenged: Every time Michelle Bachmann opens her mouth, it’s an adventure.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Sarah Palin's custom-painted bus, parked -- is this abandoned parking lot the last stop?
That’s rather unusual, don’t you think? Our Band of Merry History Teachers stuck to our bus tour last week until the bus wore out. I’d expect Palin to keep it up so long as the air conditioning held out.
No, I’m not running. I may be better prepared than some of the candidates, but I have a job to do, and I can’t speak Mandarin.
Ed Darrell wrestling with the Presidential Seal and a balky teleprompter.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I was traveling, learning about past presidents, and I missed did not see or hear the “debate” last week among Republican hopefuls for the presidency.
Old friend and commentator Pat Carrithers asked on Facebook:
What did we learn from the Republican debate last night?
We learned they all hate Obama.
We learned they have no new thoughts or ideas for economic recovery.
We learned that they still think “No” is a policy and a program.
So, I repeat, What did we learn from the Republican debate last night.
I look at the Republican field, and I worry. I may have explained before that my experience is that we should hope for, and work to obtain, the best possible candidate from each party, because circumstances well may conspire to elect the lesser of those two candidates. I cannot in good conscience hope for a clown like Bachmann or Palin to win the Republican nomination.
The Salt Lake Tribunes great, sharp-penned Pat Bagley's view of the June 2011 Republican Presidential Debates. (When is Bagley going to win a Pulitzer?)
It seems odd to me that the two candidates who rate highest on my Qualified to Lead (QTL) criteria are both Mormons, both of whom have employed people I worked with. (This contrasts sharply with Texas’s Rick Perry who is not in the campaign officially yet, but who, to my mind, has abandoned most standards of propriety in his false claims about his shepherding of Texas — remember he claimed we had a budget surplus a year ago, but this year announced deficits of nearly $30 billion, which led him to propose cutting essential functions of government; Perry would be at least a third clown in the Republican race, to me.)
So, why don’t the Republicans do what the people of Wisconsin want, instead? Why are Wisconsin Republicans acting as a special elite, ignoring voters’ wishes?
A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving.
While these numbers are clearly indicators of a strategy gone horribly wrong, there are some additional findings in the poll that I suspect deserve even greater attention.
It turns out that the state’s public school teachers are very popular with their fellow Badgers. With 77% of those polled holding a high opinion of their educators, it is not particularly surprising that only 32% among households with children in the public school system approve of the governor’s performance. Sixty-seven percent (67%) disapprove, including 54% who strongly disapprove.
Can anyone imagine a politician succeeding with numbers like this among people who have kids?
These numbers should be of great concern not only to Governor Walker but to governors everywhere who were planning to follow down the path of war with state employee unions. You can’t take on the state worker unions without taking on the teachers – and the teachers are more popular than Gov. Walker and his cohorts appear to realize.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Wisconsinite Jean Detjen.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I get e-mail from Nancy Pelosi from time to time, like tonight:
Ed —
It is my great pleasure to report that tonight, thanks to you, Democrat Kathy Hochul has won a triumphant grassroots victory in the special election in NY-26.
Victories like this are what happen when we fight together to protect our core Democratic values.
Congresswoman-elect Hochul’s victory in a staunchly-Republican district has shocked the political world and sent an unmistakable sign that the American people will not stand for the Republicans’ reckless and extreme agenda to end Medicare.
This is our third straight special election victory in New York — and it is truly one for the ages. All of the Republicans’ right-wing outside groups with their secret money and dishonest attacks were no match for the combined strength of grassroots Democrats.
Thank you again for fighting to protect and defend Medicare and bringing us one step closer to regaining our Democratic House Majority.
Nancy Pelosi
Democratic Leader
Is there a lesson in the election? Yes, there is: Republicans overreached when they started their march against Medicare.
Two months ago, the Democrat, Kathy Hochul, was considered an all-but-certain loser in the race against the Republican, Jane Corwin. But Ms. Hochul seized on the Republican’s embrace of the proposal from Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, to overhaul Medicare, and she never let up.
On Tuesday, she captured 48 percent of the vote, to Ms. Corwin’s 42 percent, according to unofficial results. A Tea Party candidate, Jack Davis, had 8 percent.
Voters, who turned out in strikingly large numbers for a special election, said they trusted Ms. Hochul, the county clerk of Erie County, to protect Medicare.
Kathy Hochul claimed victory at an election party in Amherst, New York, on Tuesday night. Hochul won a seat in Congress in what has traditionally been a Republican district in New York. New York Times photo by Michael Appleton
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
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