Clinton, in Houston, touts universal voter registration

And an extended early voting period.  Her short talk on expanding voting rights in H-Town yesterday afternoon stomped all over Rick Perry's presidential declaration, and may have even affected turnout at the mayoral forum next door at U of H (in the evening).  And she busted a lot of Republican balls in the process.

"What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other," Clinton said at the historically black Texas Southern University, where she received a leadership award named after the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.

The former Secretary of State and the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president also suggested a national requirement for at least 20 days of in-person early voting, including options for weekend and evening voting.

"If families coming out of church on Sunday are inspired to go vote, they should be free to do just that," Clinton said after calling on Congress to replace the portions of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.

You may recall that the Texas Legislature passed, in 2013, what was generally acknowledged as the most restrictive voter photo ID bill in the nation.  A federal judge struck it down about a month before the 2014 general election, but the Fifth Circuit quickly reversed that, and with just a few days before early voting was to begin, the Supreme Court -- having quashed several other states' less restrictive laws -- declined to intervene in the Texas case at the last hour.  So we got the lowest recorded voter participation since the Great Depression in the past statewide election cycle.  Oh yeah, Democrats got hammered.

Coincidence?

The Fifth is yet to rule on the case, having heard arguments at the end of April.  It will likely go on  to the Supremes after that, perhaps for a final ruling this time next year.  But the SCOTUS declined to stop a similarly harsh law in Wisconsin just this past March.  If the Texas law ultimately stands, Democrats are going to have to keep grinding on their potential voter base to get registered, get ID, and then get their asses to the voting booth.  But photo ID or no, a blue wave is coming, and only the US House -- gerrymandered to hell and back -- may remain red after November of 2016.  The US Senate is primed and ready to revert to Democratic control.  In other words, there may be no stopping the removal of these ridiculous obstacles to citizen participation in Texas elections (save the electorate's own apathy, of course).

Read Clinton's full speech here, and her reference to Oregon as the model.  Or watch it below.

More presidential logo hilarity

So Rick Perry stole his campaign logo from Popeyes? pic.twitter.com/tLA0UyopEi

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) June 4, 2015

This is the result of too many corporate PR firms "expanding their markets" into politics.  Bernie Sanders, notably, doesn't suffer that problem.

Second mayoral forum draws sparse crowd, few fireworks

Houston mayoral hopefuls swapped plans to shore up the city's finances at a forum Thursday, pledging everything from pension reform to scrapping the city's crime lab.

The event drew little in the way of political fireworks, with the rival candidates largely sticking to their own talking points at the University of Houston student center. More than 200 people were in attendance.

I wasn't one of them, and neither was Ben Hall.  Twitter coverage was also skimpy, and non-existent after the first 30 minutes or so.  Reading the story at the Chron made me sleepy.  I'll have to assume that the affair put everybody's feet to sleep, save the wonkiest of those present.  Here's a sampling of statements by the six in attendance without ellipses.

City Councilman Steve Costello, who chairs the city's budget and fiscal affairs committee, focused almost exclusively on taming the city's pension costs, calling it a "looming crisis" and promising to achieve reform. "So here's what happens if we don't get pension reform," Costello said. "We won't be able to do things like after school programs we won't be able to do summer jobs, we won't be able to district service accounts. These are this issues that we have."

Former congressman and City Councilman Chris Bell acknowledged the city's current pension costs are not "sustainable" but he pushed for a broader approach.

Bell called the city's revenue cap, which limits the property taxes the city can collect, a "bad policy." He said he would support considering an exception to the cap for public safety spending, a change that would need voter approval.

"I happen to feel that it's disingenuous though to try to lead voters to believe that as the next mayor you can simply cram a solution down the throats of the Houston firefighters," Bell said.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, too, said he would support a possible carve-out for public safety spending under the city's revenue cap.

"For a growing city the revenue cap works against our interests," Turner said.

Turner authored a bill during this year's legislative session aimed at lowering Houston's pension payments by $77 million over three years, but it never made it to the House floor. The effort drew praise from some corners but critics called it a short-term solution.

Turner said the budget conversation needs to be broader than just pension reform.

"You have to bring everything to the table," Turner said. "Be very careful when you're talking about pensions.

Former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia touted his management and budget experience, saying he thinks the city needs to "match up our core services to our available revenue stream." On the pension front, Garcia also said he would work to restore "desperately needed local control."

Former mayor of Kemah Bill King said the city's budget woes are "not a revenue problem."

He said he would push for more cost-saving partnerships with the county, particularly merging the city's independent crime lab with the county's lab.

"I cannot for the life of me figure out why the city is still in the crime lab business," King said. "I think we've pretty thoroughly demonstrated this is not one of the city's core competencies."

Businessman Marty McVey largely skirted the pension and revenue cap issues, instead focusing on expanding the city's property tax base.

"I think the reality is this: we cannot cut our way to prosperity," McVey said. "We have to look for ways to increase our tax base, we have to go out and recruit new businesses."

So (IMHO) Costello, Bell, and Turner remain at the head of the class in terms of understanding the issues and communicating their solutions effectively.  King's got the grouchy Republican vote cornered, Garcia brags about something he shouldn't be, and McVey still thinks Rick Perry's business initiatives are a good idea.

This is all going according to my plan.

Some 2016 light bites

-- Rick Perry's up and running, as of 2 a.m. this morning and, formally later today, live from Addison.  Jeb Bush will be also -- after some pointed legal criticism -- in a couple of weeks.

-- Lincoln Chafee, in his announcement yesterday, wants Edward Snowden to come home, the US to convert its weights and measures to the metric system, and negotiations with the IS to be on the table.  There's bound to be a few people outside Rhode Island, where he was both senator and governor as a Republican, for which that platform represents hope and change.

-- Ted Cruz has been telling a weak joke about Joe Biden for some months now.  This time he told it just after Beau Biden passed, so it came off a little worse than previously.  The audience still laughed heartily.

Afterwards when he was asked about the appropriateness of the timing of the joke, he stalked off from the reporter who questioned him about it.  Crooks and Liars characterized his behavior as 'sociopathic'.  I wouldn't go that far -- his actions haven't resulted in people dying, like those of Rick Perry and Greg Abbott (denying Medicaid expansion) -- but Cruz is a turd and a massive jerk, and just because somebody died doesn't mean he's not going to make a joke about it.  He'll just make sure he does so when there aren't any cameras or microphones present.

-- The Duggars continue to make excuses for their son's child molestations.  Cringe-worthy.  Mike Huckabee wasn't available for comment after the Fox News interview with the family patriarch last night, by all indications.  If he still wants to be president, he should keep doing that.  Making himself unavailable for comment on this matter.

Update: State Rep. Bill Zedler of Arlington chimed in today, saying "The Left hates the Duggars because they have standards".  We were running on stupid fumes until this moment.  Now we have a full tank again.

-- A billionaire Wall Street hedge fund manager named Leon Cooperman didn't like Hillary Clinton's pandering to the Warren crowd and promptly jerked her chain.

"I don't need anybody crapping all over what I do for a living," the founder of $9.2 billion hedge fund firm Omega Advisors said.

[...]

"[She] hangs out with all these people in Martha's Vineyard and in the Hamptons and then the very first thing she has to say is to criticize hedge funds," he said.

It's all crap, Leon.  You should know this.  This crap coming out of her mouth is the full extent of what is being passed off as Hillary's progressivism.  Everybody in the whole wide world knows it except for you, Leon.  (And maybe Ted.)  So stop taking it personally.