Saturday, January 17, 2015

SCOTUS will rule on marriage equality this year

But as Hair Balls points out: will Texans just have to cool their jets until then?

Last week, when the federal Fifth Circuit appeals court heard oral arguments regarding gay marriage bans in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, things looked promising for advocates of marriage equality.  [...]

Both (plaintiffs' attorney Neel) Lane and the State of Texas had already asked the Fifth Circuit to rule, regardless of whether or not the Supreme Court decided to hear a gay-marriage case - "It is the only thing we agree with the state on," Lane says. If the Fifth Circuit does come down with a ruling in favor of gay marriage, it's unclear whether Texas' new attorney general, Ken Paxton, would try to further delay things by appealing the case to the Fifth Circuit's full 15-judge panel.

Nevertheless, Lane believes that the Fifth Circuit judges' questions last Friday indicate their willingness to lift the current stay that's kept Texas' gay-marriage ban in place. If the Fifth decides not to punt, there's the very real possibility that Texas could see gay marriages before the Supreme Court takes up the issue.

"The question is whether the Fifth Circuit will rule on the three cases before it, knowing that the Supreme Court is likely to give a definitive answer by June," Lane told us. "I hope the Fifth Circuit will rule rather than wait, because my clients have waited long enough for their rights to be recognized."

I'm skeptimistic.  I think much of that is a pile of BS waiting for Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick and the worst conservatives in the state legislature to roll around in, smear on their faces and all over each other, and generally continue to further embarrass the state of Texas in the eyes of the nation.

So I'll prognosticate a worst-case scenario and hope that any better outcome will happen.

To begin, my anonymous legal eagle has (fairly safely) predicted a 2-1 Fifth Circuit decision, with Higginbotham and Graves in the majority and Jerry Smith writing some harshly-worded minority rebuke.  My source similarly thought that ruling wouldn't come down for several months.  With this Supreme Court development, I would be surprised if the appeals panel waited until the summer; I'll fashion that they now move up their deadline.  As Michael Barajas of Hair Balls intimates, this opens the door to AG Paxton busting his move, which the full Fifth takes and then rushes to some conclusion ahead of the Supremes, probably an unfavorable one for marriage equality.  If the Supreme Court favors the plaintiffs and legalizes gay marriage -- not a silly guess at all -- then you've got an opening for Abbott to call the Lege into special session, with a charge to outlaw it in Texas on some convoluted application of the theory of nullification.

And yet another years-long court battle.

Update: More than a couple of lawyer-types have indicated that the Fifth Circuit is is likely not to issue a decision en banc before the SCOTUS rules (if that happens in June) due to the historical snail's pace at which these things move through the courts.  I welcome additional input that improves the nightmare described above.

If you really want to be disheartened, then read this speculative legal analysis behind why the Supremes took on these cases: because the reworked questions and their narrow framing might enable them -- most specifically, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy-- to vote to criminalize gay marriage.  Update: And take this as encouragement that Kennedy is the fifth vote to legalize.  And yes, this as well.

The past 15 weeks have shown, time and time again, that a majority of the Supreme Court is not only ready for, but has been preparing the country for, a decision enforcing nationwide protection of same-sex couples’ right to marry.

Paranoia aside and if the high court rules in favor of marriage equality, I cannot see the governor, the attorney general, Dan Patrick and the Lege just lying down and 'getting it crammed down their throats'... as conservatives enjoy saying so much.

All this while HERO's jury trial comes to a head.  It's going to a tempestuous year for the 'mophobes.  That much is the only certainty.  Via Charles, this Buzzfeed post is best for all of the SCOTUS details.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Just vote progressive in 2016 (and 2015)

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, blahblahblah.

Will she or won't she?  Only her hairdresser knows for sure, I suppose.  I remain of the opinion that these relentless entreaties to get her to jump in, mostly being made by MoveOn.org but also others, are just sad to watch.

As for Bernie, he's narrowed his own options down to 'not running'.  And don't worry, Democrats; the Greens still have essentially nobodyThe Libertarians might be set for some fun, though.

But it's really up to the Republicans to provide the next two years of entertainment, and thankfully they aren't disappointing us.  That will continue to be a target-rich environment for a snarky blogger, but I'll keep efforting to limit my contributions to the 140-characters-or less-variety, occasionally seen in the column to your right.

I'm going to try to keep the focus on H-Town politics for the year, as there is so much news breaking that some of it will go national.  The only thing you need to remember to do -- besides vote, that is -- is to vote for the most liberal candidates and issues on your ballot this year (and next, please).  Toss out the labels.  Which is what they want you to do anyway, seeing as how it's supposed to be non-partisan and all.

We don''t need annnny more conservatives down at City Hall.  That goes for conservative, pro-business, mushy-middle moderate Democrats as well.  With the tiny number of Houstonians historically participating in city elections, with the well-motivated right-wing freaks in the 'burbs excluded by geography but not by activism, we need all progressives on deck.  Houston cannot be allowed to devolve by apathy into Lubbock.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Gun goons invade Capitol, threaten state rep in his office

An already-well-documented atrocity by many others, here's the video and the Houston Press account.

A video posted by Kory Watkins, a member of Open Carry Tarrant County, shows gun activists confronting State Rep. Poncho Nevarez, a Democrat from Eagle Pass, in his capitol office Tuesday. The crew of gun-rights supporters was apparently shopping a bill filed by GOP Rep. Jonathan Stickland, which, if passed, would allow Texans to openly carry handguns without even obtaining a license.



This type of deliberately confrontational behavior -- over guns, on the first day of the legislative session -- is even more sobering when you consider it's actually easier to get into the State Capitol with a concealed carry license than without one (no line, no metal detector, no routine security check for concealed carriers).

Just imagine the scene if some black or brown people had done something like this.  The Lege has responded, moving quickly toward some safe-guarding of their members, which will hopefully be in place before the next brazen stunt that threatens to spin out of control into violence.

These Open Carry Tarrant County thugs (mugshots of two of the perps at this link) are at odds with the Open Carry Texas contingent in tactics but not in goal.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Open Carry Texas leader CJ Grisham condemned Open Carry Tarrant County on Facebook and Twitter. “I am so pissed at the actions of people today inside the Capitol. Totally counterproductive and unprofessional."

“I mean, it’s the first day of the Legislature, we are this close to getting open carry passed, and now these guys want to come and manufacture a firearm on the steps of the Capitol? I just don’t get it.”

That helps, but not if Rep. Stickland keeps throwing gas on the fire, as he did right before this standoff occurred.

"With your help, we are going to storm this Capitol and quit getting on our knees and asking for the Second Amendment back," Stickland told the armed crowd gathered Tuesday. "We are going to take it back."

Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America had the best analysis.

“This divide within the open carry groups right now in Texas seems like an easy way for some of these bills to seem more ‘reasonable’, said Watts. “Moms are here to make sure these attempts do not go unchecked, we remember the threats and intimidation, and we will not sit idle and let this sort of behavior become acceptable.”

Earlier this week members of the Texas chapter of (MDAfGSiA) visited 175 offices in the state legislature with cookies and strollers in tow to introduce themselves and discuss common-sense gun legislation and the chapter’s opposition to expanding open carry in Texas.

The bill is going to pass, gun nuts.  Take your toys -- the ones that compensate for your shortcomings, inadequacy, and self-confidence -- and go home so that cooler (big) heads can calm this situation down enough for you to get what you want.  Threats and intimidation simply aren't good PR moves for an inexorable gun activist movement.

We'd like to avoid any Newtowns, Auroras, and/or Charlie Hebdos from you.  Thanks in advance.

Update: Texas Leftist has this.

As this legislature gets rolling, let’s hope that they remember one thing about guns.  If you pass an Open Carry law for Texas, you pass it for everyone.  All the panic buttons in the world won’t change that.  It’s time for Texans to unite for common-sense policies, and say no to a Big Government legislature that would force all of us to be less safe.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Rick Perry's Texas Miracle is leaving with him

You can't really blame the guy for being stupid enough to run for president again after his 2012 debacle.  That was just a one-off; he's been crazy lucky all his life, after all.  But the circumstances surrounding the state's economic winning streak are not being extended to his successor.

“This is going to be a painful period of time,” explained Texas Governor Rick Perry. The oil price plunge is going to make things “very uncomfortable” in the oil patch of Texas. There would be “a bit of belt-tightening in places,” and some areas would “have to make some changes,” he said.

His speech to a conservative forum on Friday in Austin made one thing clear: for Texas, the largest oil-producing state in the nation, the oil bust won’t be easy, even if seen from the perennially optimistic point of view of a politician.

Some oil companies are starting to lay people off, some are are already going bankrupt.

Yet, even as capital expenditures are getting slashed brutally, companies have not lowered their production forecasts.

And they won’t, at least not for a while; they’ll keep pumping at the maximum rate possible, especially now that revenues from unhedged production have been plunging – while the costs of servicing their mountains of debt have remained the same, and rolling over that debt has become a lot more expensive. Cutting back on exploration, drilling, and completion stems the cash outflow, but it doesn’t cut production, not until the decline rates of existing shale wells start making a visible dent into it.

The market price of oil hasn't touched bottom yet.

Analysts say that richer (OPEC) cartel members like the United Arab Emirates have been ready to accept the price fall in the hope that it will force higher-cost shale producers out of the market.

"We cannot continue to be protecting a certain price," UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said. "We have seen the oversupply, coming primarily from shale oil, and that needed to be corrected," he told participants in the Gulf Intelligence UAE Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.

Oil prices continued their slide towards six-year lows in Asian trade on Tuesday after Brent crude closed below $50 a barrel the previous day for the first time since April 2009. 

The fall came after Wall Street investment titan Goldman Sachs slashed its price outlook, adding to anxiety about global oversupply, weak demand and soft growth in the key Chinese and European markets.

One more from that Goldman report.

One such estimate for future crude oil prices became available Monday, predicting West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices of $39 and $65 a barrel in the next six and 12 months, respectively. Brent crude prices will fall to $43 in the next six months and rise to $70 by the end of the next 12 months.

So the reason this is important to Texas is because Jethro Bodine, Counter of Beans, is predicting something similar in his biennial state revenue forecast, upon which all spending decisions by the incoming legislature will be made.

Comptroller Glenn Hegar is forecasting that Texas lawmakers will have about $18 billion in new or carried over state revenue to spend in the next two-year budget...

A big part of Hegar’s comparatively optimistic forecast: He estimates the price of West Texas intermediate, the benchmark for oil in commodity markets, will be $64.50 in fiscal 2015 and $69.25 the following year. That’s a slow but steady rebound from current prices.

So if he (and Goldman Sachs and everybody else) just happens to be wrong about that, then Texas' books are cooked.  Sid Miller's cupcakes are going to be in a pickle and Dan Patrick's plans to cut property taxes will turn into a big pot of stew for him to steam in.  Oh, and the governor-elect's ideas about spending more money on road and highway improvements go off into the ditch as well.

A sustained period of $40 dollar oil is going to crush the hardhats in the oil patch, eventually catch some petroleum engineers in its undertow, wreck the state's finances, and maybe even screw up the political futures of a few Texas Republicans along the way.  So keep your fingers and toes crossed that the sheikhs are bluffing, and that WTI will rebound just as soon as all those TeaBaggers in the sticks buy a few more big SUVs and new Ford pickups.

I suppose the truly desperate among us could pray for a refinery explosion or two, maybe another terrorist attack, or a wider war in the Middle East to disrupt production.  Oversupply being what it is, when Mitch McConnell is kneeling over the Keystone XL pipeline with a wrench, you know things are already bad.

Socratic Gadfly has more.  Update: And so does Charles, but without mentioning much about the future price of crude's impacts.  And Lisa Gray has this.

If you've lived in Houston long, you recognize this moment: the haunting, suspended-in-motion months when we all know that the city's roller-coaster economy has entered a dive, but while we still hope that maybe it won't be bad, that maybe Texas is diversified now, that maybe OPEC or Libya or something — anything — will change.

Sure, there've been oil-related layoffs here and there, and sure, people are asking questions about loans and banks and the risks that frackers have assumed. But with oil under $50 a barrel, Houston remains eerily normal. We see the car crash coming, but haven't felt the impact; the ball, thrown in the air, slows at the top of its arc; the hurricane might still change its path.

Monday, January 12, 2015

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is girding its loins for what is likely to be an ugly legislative session as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff highlights the ongoing voting rights dispute in Pasadena by showing how fallacious the city's argument for changing to a hybrid At Large/district model for its City Council is.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos and Daily Kos has heard whispers about the possibility of accepting federally expanded Medicaid in Texas. She wonders how can this be sold to far right wingers like Dan Patrick and the tea party ultra conservatives. If expanded will Medicaid be called Jesus Care or Koch Care?

As the 84th Texas Legislature prepares to convene, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs says, "Kansas-sippi here we come!"

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know what the difference is between Henry Cuellar and the Republicans who kiss Wall Street ass-ets? Really? Is there any difference?

Neil at Neil Aquino.com likes how the 1976 Walter Matthau movie Bad News Bears takes a swipe at liberalism.

Burnt Orange Report took note of the Longview News-Journal's recent op-eds on the upcoming legislative session.

After a holiday hiatus, Texpate rounded up some of the latest goings-on at Houston City Hall.

Dos Centavos gave us the heads-up on the Americans United program next month called "The Bible in Texas Schools? Why Not?"

And Texas Vox is looking for people to work with Public Citizen for the legislative session.

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

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

Somervell County Salon notes that AGTX-elect Ken Paxton took the baton from Greg Abbott and immediately stepped on the line.

Juanita Jean took a poke at state Rep. Cecil Bell, and his mean-spirited bill to punish courthouse workers who might issue marriage licenses for gay couples in Texas.

Durrell Douglas tells Oprah why their movement will have no "leaders".

Carol Morgan is dreading Tuesday in Austin, as the Lege kicks off with an educational reverse Robin Hood for the wealthy and other bad bills.

Socratic Gadfly has an update on the Dallas Morning News' continuing stumbles in digital marketing.

Prairie Weather caught the $40 billion dollar gift to 'homeland security' (i.e. local police) from Congressional Republicans.

Unfair Park is not a fan of the Jerry Jones-Chris Christie bromance.

The Lunch Tray interviews USDA Under-Secretary Kevin Concannon.

Texans Together examines the elements of an effective pre-K program.

The TSTA blog reminds the Legislature that its obligation is to public, not private, education.

Better Texas Blog has a cheat sheet for the biennial revenue estimate.

jobsanger is still waiting for the GOP to come up with a rationale for the Keystone XL pipeline that isn't based upon lies.

And an activist with the Texas Tar Sands Blockade is suing the Wood County sheriff's department after being tortured while in their custody.  Yes, tortured.