Trump a Danger to Our Democracy

There is so much press on the latest crazy thing Trump tweets or says that you’d think that was all there is to worry about with his presidency. Unfortunately those things are just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t mean that in just the sense of scale but also in the sense of what is readily visible as compared to the damage being done under that visible layer.

Although the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause prohibits taking things of value, like money, from foreign nations or their leaders Trump continues to profit from their spending at his various hotels and resorts. All Presidents in the last century have avoided such things with those in our lifetimes having put their businesses or investments in blind trusts or otherwise even having the appearance of profiting from their office. Trump does it proudly and often. What’s worse is that the Republican controlled Congress can’t be bothered to take action to enforce it and the courts have thrown out lawsuits filed by those who attempt to hold him accountable.

Trump has made numerous nominations or in some cases appointments of people who were manifestly unqualified. In one case a judicial nominee that couldn’t answer first year law student level questions. In another case the nominee lacked experience and failed to disclose that his wife works in the White House counsel's office. This from the man who when he campaigned claimed that he always hired the best people.

Trump’s first Secretary of Health and Human Services, former congressman Tom Price, was forced to resign over using tax payer funds to pay for private travel expenses. Other cabinet members were caught doing the same thing but managed to get away with it under cover of Price bowing out.

In addition to nominating those who are manifestly unqualified he has been installing agency heads who have previously urged the destruction or shrinkage of the agencies to which they’ve been appointed. First among them is our on former governor, Rick Perry, who when he ran for president said that the Department of Energy was one of the three agencies he wanted to eliminate and now he is the Secretary of Energy. Perry publicly admitted after his appointment he didn’t know that the Department of Energy is responsible for the development and maintenance of the nation’s nuclear warheads.

At the Environmental Protection Agency Trump appointee Scott Pruitt previously spent his career working to dismantle environmental regulations that keep Americans healthy. Pruitt has simply ignored a 2015 law that requires the agency to review areas of the country that aren’t meeting the standard set in 2015 and force compliance in order to protect the health of Americans in those area. Pruitt has begun replacing highly qualified scientific and medical professionals who server on agency advisory committees with people that have a track record of disagreeing with established scientific research and in some cases have financial connections to polluting industries.

Trump has repeatedly attacked judges who have ruled against him on issues like the travel ban. He has attacked the FBI which is investigating allegations of collusion with Russian agents. He has attacked the press and wants to enact laws to make it easier to sue for libel which would weaken the protections afforded by the Bill of Rights.

He has done all this and more in his first year in office and yet the only substantive legislation he has signed is a tax break for millionaires. The damage to our nation and most importantly to our democracy has only just begun.

Trump Policies Not Helping Rural America

On Monday, Trump went to American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention in Nashville to tout his tax law and preview a new strategy to help rural America but his administration is working on legislation and policies that are the exact opposite of what most farmers and ranchers say the need. Threats to terminate NAFTA and other trade agreements that have expanded agriculture exports to the advantage of American farmers and ranchers aren’t helping rural economies.

Just look at the tax law he signed as one example. According to analyses of the tax law by economists at the Department of Agriculture it could actually lower future farm output and effectively raise taxes on the lowest-earning farm households, while delivering large gains for the richest farmers.

Siraj G. Bawa and James M. Williamson, of the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service, developed a model which of the tax laws effects on farm households which projects that 70 to 80 percent of the law’s benefits will flow to the top 1 percent by income.

In a session hosted by the Agriculture and Applied Economics Association Mr. Bawa said the law actually shrinks tax refunds for the lowest-earning 20 percent of farm households. The reason stems from a combination of changes in the bill, including its elimination of a tax break for domestic production.

While many farmers have cheered Trump initiatives like rescinding tighter regulations on water pollution and weakening worker safety standards his immigration enforcement policies are causing those farmers problems finding enough migrant workers to pick produce.

Canada among other nations is beginning to export goods that have long been a staple of United States exports, such as lobster.

Agriculture industry lobbyists say Trump is hearing from them about maintaining trade agreements that support the rural American economy but they aren’t sure he’s actually being persuaded as they’ve seen no action on their concerns.

A good number of the folks who read this newspaper are involved in agriculture directly or indirectly. Just because they don’t own or work on a ranch or farm doesn’t mean their business or job isn’t dependent on the agriculture industry. Back in 1985 plenty of folks in New Orleans found out they were dependent on the oil industry even though they owned restaurants, clothing stores and lumber yards.

I doubt any readers are in the top 1% who will enjoy the benefits of Trump’s tax law, they’re much more likely to be among the bottom 20% who will see a tax hike. Even those who stand to benefit from the tax law will be hurt if access to foreign markets is reduced due to Trump’s protectionist agenda.

Trump’s rhetoric during the 2016 election campaign was often tuned to rural voters whose overwhelming support helped him win the electoral college victory which put him in the White House. If things don’t work out on the farm they might want to look into a job building Trump’s wall. Of course, once it’s built they’ll be out of a job again.

Published in the Seguin Gazette, January 12, 2017

No Taxation Without Representation Redux

The slogan "No Taxation Without Representation" summarized a primary grievance of the American colonists during the 1750s and 1760s and was one of the major causes of the 1776 revolution. The lack of representation was more obvious 242 years ago but it is nevertheless true today. Modern Americans suffer the same plight due to extreme partisan gerrymandering.

When voters aren’t able to choose their representation fairly it’s the same as not being represented at all so they are taxed without representation. In addition many of their other concerns are left unmet or even opposed unjustly.

Texas is a prime example of gerrymandering, our state has 36 congressional districts. In the 2016 election the vote split for president was approximately 55% to 45% so you’d expect that Republicans would hold about 20 seats and Democrats 16 but our state is gerrymandered such that Republicans hold 25 seats and Democrats 11. Numerous other states suffer similar unsupportable distribution of seats for the same reason.

Elected officials drawing the district maps use sophisticated analysis to create districts that favor one party or another. Packing refers to drawing districts in such a way as to maximize the number of disfavored voters in the fewest possible districts. Cracking refers to a technique that splits disfavored groups of voters into districts with majorities of the favored party’s voters so that they’re unable to amass a majority in any district therefore blocking them from selecting a representative of their choice. Both techniques are outlawed by the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and a number of states and smaller jurisdictions including Texas were once required to get approval from the Justice Department before finalizing redistricting due to prior bad behavior. Unfortunately the Supreme Court overturned Section IV of the VRA which covered pre-clearance in 2013 and parties in power in many states let fly with bad behavior that had previously not been permitted.

Last summer a three-judge panel of a federal district court ruled 2-1 that the drawing of two Texas congressional districts, the 27th and 35th, violated both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. The panel issued a similar ruling on maps for the Texas state House of Representatives. In early September the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling issued a stay of the order which means that this year we’ll again use the unconstitutional maps for our elections.

The Supreme Court currently has three gerrymandering cases from Wisconsin, North Carolina and Maryland before it. In the case of Maryland it’s the Democrats playing dirty. We can expect decisions in these cases by the end of the current term this summer.

Even if the Supreme Court rules against the states which have gerrymandered districts the ruling won’t have any effect until 2020 and by then many voters will have gone nearly a decade without fair representation. Worse yet, unless the court invokes a portion of Section 2 of the VRA known as bail in, which would require offending jurisdictions to once again submit redistricting for pre-clearance, we’ll just go through the same decade long legal stand-off all over again after the 2020 census invokes redistricting in 2021.

There is a solution to all this, Texas could follow Austin’s lead and create a citizens redistricting commission which would be tasked with creating fair district maps without regard to partisanship. Common Cause Texas proposed such a bill last session and it was filed by Representative Victoria Neave but the Redistricting Committee chair failed to even call a meeting the committee so neither it nor any other proposal even got a hearing. Hopefully the Texas legislature does better in 2019.