A redistricting special session

Being on vacation for a week -- and now tending to a death in the family -- has left me unprepared to comment on current events. This post yesterday afternoon, however, by Harvey Kronberg is worth mentioning.

COULD IMMEDIATE REDISTRICTING SPECIAL SESSION LEAD TO MORE PROLONGED LITIGATION?

Abbott argues interim maps judicially approved; minority plaintiffs say process confirms intentional discrimination

It is an increasingly common article of faith that Governor Perry will call the Legislature back into a redistricting special session on May 29, two days after sine die.  Any number of other issues could be added to the call but Attorney General Greg Abbott’s clear message for months has been that the Legislature needs to endorse the interim maps, preferably before the Supreme Court rules on the Shelby case (expected in late June) which could determine whether or not Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act survives.

May 29 also happens to be the day the three judge federal panel in San Antonio has ordered a status hearing on Texas redistricting maps in order to prepare for the 2014 elections.  They have instructed lawyers to be prepared to argue whether or not evidence from the DC case should be admitted into evidence in the San Antonio case and whether the record should be supplemented with more current demographic and election data.
  

The three judge panel in DC unanimously concluded that Texas had intentionally discriminated against minorities in drawing the 2011 maps.

Apparently Greg Abbott is putting in a little extra work.

The linchpin of Republican control of the US House of Representatives is their dominance of state legislatures --- and the maps they draw -- which is one of the great algae blooms from the GOP's Red Tea Tide in 2010. Without the most odious gerrymandering, legislatures (and governors) in blue states like Wisconsin and Michigan wouldn't be able to accomplish what they have. What Abbott understands better than nearly everyone on his team is that the GOP is the besieged at the Alamo in terms of electoral inexorability. His lawsuits against the federal government only delay the day that the Republican party falls down in Texas, and fails to get up nationally for a generation or more.

But, as with the weekly Congressional vote to overturn Obamacare, he must keep fighting the good fight.

If the SCOTUS upholds VRA, then it's just back to the drawing board for everybody. But if they bag it, then the GOP can dig their little claws into the landscape for the rest of the decade.

If you think about it, it's really the only chance they have left to avoid going extinct on a national level.

Update: Kuffner with more.

Taosmosis

n. - An altered state of consciousness derived from high elevations, crisp pine-scented air, jaw-dropping vistas, and a laptop that hasn't been opened in a week.*

When we last visited New Mexico (at almost exactly this time five years ago) it was difficult to return home to foul humid air, crowded freeways, and the rat race. It was even harder this time, because now we know we're going to retire there, not too many years from now.

My brother's vacation home in Red River afforded us the opportunity to get away and so we took it. It's a quick two-hour flight to Albuquerque and about three and half more driving north, through Santa Fe, Espanola, Taos, and Questa before arriving in the little Swiss-themed ski hamlet in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, foothills to the Rockies. Having spent much time in Santa Fe on previous trips, we decided to focus on exploring Taos, and weren't disappointed.

First, the little slice a' heaven in RR.

Temperatures during our time dipped into the high 20's at night and nosed up over 70 during the day. Humidity ranged between 5-15%.

The deer, who come down from the mountains in-between houses to forage and graze at dusk.




A drive around the Enchanted Circle, and a stop at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Angel Fire.

In Taos, the Gov. John Bent house and museum and the Kit Carson home and museum. And then the cemetery where the famed mountain man/tormenter of the Navajo is buried, beside his wife Josepha.

This short snip of video from the museum has one of the man's great-great-great- grandsons portraying him.

The Rio Grande River Gorge bridge (where our friend Bob Wells had his ashes scattered a couple of years ago). This is a good video. My acrophobia kept me from venturing too far out onto the bridge.

A few shops, a few galleries.

Posole and blue corn enchiladas smothered in green chile at Doc Martin's inside the Taos Inn. A Moroccan shrimp salad at Graham's Grille. A pulled brisket burrito at Orlando's.

A little gambling -- slots and Preakness -- at Buffalo Thunder.

Some other interesting Taos sightings.



A last night on the Old Town Square in Albuquerque, at the famous Bottger Mansion bed and breakfast.

Can't wait until we can go back to stay.

*Yes, this is plagiarized and revised advertising copy.

Eric Dick, Republican, running for mayor

Charles has the official campaign announcement. Oh, what fun it is to be a blogger now.

There will be plenty of opportunities for crude double entendre' later. My first (serious) reaction was, "Annise Parker might find herself in a runoff". Probably not against Eric Dick any more than she would Don Cook, but possibly Ben Hall.

This seems to set up as a perfect redux of 2009. I just can't tell if it is Cook or Dick that's playing the role of Peter Brown. The best news, however, is that I will have plenty to blog about without ever having to mention this race.

The only thing that could make the mayoral contest more comically bad is if Dick hired Marc Campos to run his "campaign". If that should happen, I have a slogan all ready, and I offer it at no charge: "Two for the Price of One!"

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is counting down the minutes until sine die as we bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff comments on another Battleground Texas story, and what it says about how the organization is doing so far.

The state has plenty of money and the GOP is still gutting government. That's why WCNews at Eye on Williamson says that this is a golden opportunity for them, in The oath or a pledge.

McBlogger asks if it's a good idea to ask the 'rich' to forego Social Security.

Angelina Jolie's killer boobs, the walking dead in the Texas Lege, and Ted Cruz killing off the Republican party. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs wonders if Dia de los Muertos came early this year.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw gives us the big picture on Texas and national party politics. Check out: Texas is One BF Deal.

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

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

Open The Taps explains what they did not get accomplished this session with the craft beer bills, and which they plan to address again next session.

Letters from Texas says we need less judgment and more truth in the matters that are now dominating the news headlines.

Texas Clean Air Matters warns that it is too soon to remove Texas City from the air pollution watch list.

Juanita Jean at the World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon laments that some political endorsements just aren't worth what you'd think.

Nonsequitesue has some role models for charity.

Texas Leftist reconsiders Houston Mayor Annise Parker as a role model for GLBT rights.

Texpatriate looks forward to Rick Perry peeing in a cup.

Amy Valentine discovers that Amazon has a strange definition of "erotica".

Jason Stanford connects the dots between high-stakes testing and cheating scandals.

BOR writes that Big Tobacco is on the verge of snuffing out its smaller competitors in Texas.

The Bloggess reminds us that we don't need a giant corporation to teach our kids what strong women look like.

Sunday Funnies

Regular posting resumes in short order.

Two out of three ain't bad. But it ain't good, either.

That's like a 67, or a D+. (Same number Julian Castro got in his re-election last Saturday, as I recall. Some people call that "whopping".)

Anyway, two of the three "scandals" were laid to rest yesterday: Benghazi is finally over, and so is the IRS thing, at least for the most part. That leaves Eric Holder, twisting a bit in the wind.

Attorney General Eric Holder is facing what is likely to be aggressive questioning by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee on topics ranging from the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at The Associated Press to the government's handling of intelligence before the Boston Marathon bombings.

The panel's chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said he was concerned about the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, which is now the focus of an investigation by Holder's Justice Department. The hearing was to take place Wednesday.

The more time they spend on IRS, the less time there will be for the only thing left that matters.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday defended the Justice Department's secret examination of Associated Press phone records though he declared he had played no role in it, saying it was justified as part of an investigation into a grave national security leak.

If it was so grave, then why wasn't he involved?

Asked about it at a news conference on a separate topic, Holder said he removed himself from the leaked-information probe because he himself had been interviewed by FBI agents as part of the investigation. He said he wanted to ensure that the probe was independently run and to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. It was the Justice Department's No. 2 official, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who made the decision to seek news media phone records, the department said.

"This was a very serious leak, a very grave leak" that "put the American people at risk," Holder said. He called it one of the two or three most serious such episodes he had seen since he became a prosecutor in 1976 but did not say specifically how the disclosure of information about the plot had endangered Americans.

In February, CIA Director John Brennan provided a less-than-ominous description of the plot in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. He told the panel that "there was never a threat to the American public as we had said so publicly, because we had inside control of the plot and the device was never a threat to the American public."

That should be enough contradiction for Republicans on a mission witch hunt war path.

I don't feel bad for the AG. As I posted yesterday, he's probably stayed too long. And he's likely to stick around longer just to keep the GOP from bragging about a scalp on their belt.

Condemnation of the government's seizure of the AP phone records came from both political parties.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called on Holder to resign, saying he had "trampled on the First Amendment."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said "the burden is always on the government when they go after private information, especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. ... On the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden."

Declared the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland: "This is activity that should not have happened and must be checked from happening again."

Yeah I thought that was the job of the Congress, too.

Holder is that half-gallon of milk in the fridge with yesterday's expiration date on it. It might still be okay, but it probably isn't. If you have a cast-iron stomach, though, go ahead and drink it.

Me? I'd throw it out. Getting rid of it now might keep the bad bacteria from spreading to other things in the fridge. The longer you wait, the worse it's liable to get.

But whatever you do, don't listen to Morning Joe. They're ALL idiots over there.

Actual governmental scandalous behavior

Though some believe that the Benghazi business will eventually grow some legs, it's not a big deal now and not ever likely to become one. The matter of the IRS targeting tea party organizations is much worse... but to the chagrin of conservatives and their sycophants in the media, still not something that risks much political injury to Obama (or Hillary Clinton in 2016). There is in fact a bigger deal you're not hearing much about yet, and the main reason is that conservatives aren't bitching about it.

First, what's developing with the IRS.

Congress was not told tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted by the Internal Revenue Service, even after acting agency Chief Steven Miller had been briefed on the matter.

Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra scrutiny, the IRS said Monday.

At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without disclosing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, but again did not mention the additional scrutiny — despite being asked about it.

I really like what the 'toonists are doing with this.

Snark at the Tea Pees aside, it's an abuse of power for the Tax Men and Women to have done this, and worse that they tried to cover it up by not telling Congressmen the whole truth about what they were doing.

At the hearing, Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, told Miller that some politically active tax-exempt groups in his district had complained about being harassed. Marchant did not explicitly ask if tea party groups were being targeted. But he did ask how applications were handled. 

Miller responded, "We did group those organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. We continue to work those cases," according to a transcript on the committee's website.

Earlier, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., had raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed. Boustany specifically mentioned tea party groups in his inquiry. 

But in a June 15, 2012, letter to Boustany, Miller said that when the IRS saw an increase in applications from groups that were involved in political activity, the agency "took steps to coordinate the handling of the case to ensure consistency."

He added that agents worked with tax law experts "to develop approaches and materials that could be helpful to the agents working the cases."

Miller did not mention that in 2011, those materials included a list of words to watch for, such as "tea party" and "patriot." He also didn't disclose that in January 2012, the criteria for additional screening was updated to include references to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

[...]

When members of Congress repeatedly raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed last year, a deputy IRS commissioner took the lead in assuring lawmakers that the additional scrutiny was a legitimate part of the screening process.

That deputy commissioner was Miller, who is now the acting head of the agency. 

There's more at the link above.

The IRS simply can never be a political tool to punish one's opponents. It cannot even take that appearance. Some bureaucrats are going to lose their jobs over it, and they should.

Update: And then there's this -- When the IRS (under Bush) targeted liberal groups.

This news arrives alongside a matter even more disturbing (and less widely mentioned) (that all changed this morning): the disclosure of the overreach by a Justice Department investigation of the Associated Press in reporting the CIA's involvement in foiling another underwear bomber.

AP learned of the plot a week before publishing, but “agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately” due to national security concerns. But, by reporting the CIA’s involvement in foiling the plot, they put AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Asian Peninsula) on notice that the CIA had a window into their activities. The AP’s reporting also led to other stories involving an operative in place within AQAP, and details of the operations he was involved in. That operative, it was feared, would be exposed and targeted by AQAP as retribution for siding with the United States.

John Brennan, who is now the head of the CIA, said at his confirmation hearing that the release of information to AP was an “unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.” That the Department of Justice would be pursuing information on these leaks is also not new, given Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of federal prosecutors to look into the disclosures last year. What is surprising is the large amount of information the Justice Department seems to have acquired in its pursuit:

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

The Associated Press released its letter to Holder denouncing the invasion of their records without their consent, calling it an “unprecedented step” and “a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.” 

I haven't been a huge fan of Attorney General Holder. Except for his full-court defense of the VRA -- he spoke in Houston at the NAACP convention about it last July -- he's mostly avoided picking the right battles to fight and been a lightning rod for controversy.

I would have rather seen him go the way of several other Cabinet members after the re-election, but it looks like we're stuck with him for another 3 1/2 years. He needs to work harder to avoid embarrassing the administration with his department's overzealousness going forward. And that goes double for whoever inherits the reins at IRS.

Update: More here. And also...

Is This the End for Eric Holder?

The attorney general has been in the middle of controversies over whether to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison and whether to try suspected terrorists in U.S. courts. He has defended the U.S. right to wage drone strikes, to stage the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and to use lethal force against a leader of al-Qaida who was also a U.S. citizen.

[...]

It is unclear how Holder fits into the latest firestorm, but he's a battered survivor of many controversies and this could be the one that finally convinces him or Obama that it's time to go.