Texas Unprepared

Two weeks after Governor Abbott issued his executive order re-opening the state for business statewide the rate of new COVID-19 cases continues to accelerate, topping 47,000 over the weekend according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Thursday set a record for new cases in a single day at 1448 then Saturday that record was shattered with 1801 new cases. Deaths in Texas due to COVID-19 now number over 1300 and climbing as well due to Thursday’s record high 58 deaths. Remember that COVID-19 symptoms often takes two weeks to present and patients often spend a week or more in intensive care units before succumbing to the disease so there’s a strong probability that deaths due to infections contracted since re-opening aren’t included in the latest statistics and won’t show up until the end of this week or early next week.

While there have been 645,000 tests over the last 30 days the daily number of tests hasn’t increased at near the rate of infection or death. Assuming that no one has been tested twice that means just over 2% of the 29.9 million Texans has even been tested. Unlike states that are aggressively investigating COVID-19 cases by following up with people who have tested positive one on one then contacting anyone who may have come into contact with the infected person Texas is passively collecting that information by offering to accept that information on a state website. Some cities and counties such as San Antonio are operating their own aggressive contact tracing programs in an effort to stem the tide of infection and death.

So many Texans are not only unemployed, they’re also not receiving the unemployment checks they’re due. My brother is on furlough and though he applied for unemployment as soon as he was eligible it’s been a month and he still hasn’t received the money he is due nor has he been able to contact anyone at the Texas Workforce Commission about the delay as their phone number just plays a recording saying that they aren’t answering phones so they can concentrate on processing claims. Fortunately he’s not one of the 40% of Americans who lives paycheck to paycheck. Food banks all over the state have run short of food due to the overwhelming demand for their services and aside from assistance by a few private donors little is being done to alleviate the situation.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s solution is to just let people die rather than providing timely relief while protecting the lives of Texas residents.

Clearly Texas wasn’t prepared to re-open for business as usual and the employees of Texas businesses are the ones most likely to suffer for it. With the state not providing timely payment of unemployment claims and food banks running dry many Texans are going hungry. Gov. Abbott re-opening the state for business just increases the risks to workers who face a choice between not returning to work in order to protect their health thereby making themselves ineligible for unemployment benefits whenever the state gets around to paying and putting themselves at risk of not only contracting COVID-19 from someone they come in contact with at work and then spreading it to their families.

It appears that President Trump the only people whose opinion matters to Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick are their wealthy campaign donors who are only interested in restoring cash flow to their businesses. Remember that in November when it’s time to vote, send them a message by voting for Democrats in the state legislature races.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 20, 2020

Time for Vote by Mail

Vote-by-mail has been successful in many states, including Texas, for decades. In Oregon all voting has been done by mail for 20 years. In Texas it has been limited to those 65 and over or those who will be out of town and therefore unable to vote in person. Texas and the other states have proven that vote by mail is both secure and desirable.

Nationally in the 2018 midterm election, 27 percent of all voters cast their ballot by mail. In states that have used vote-by-mail extensively, such as Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Utah and California, it has proven successful in increasing access to the ballot while also ensuring elections are fair and secure.

The public desires to the option to vote by mail as shown repeatedly in polls by a wide range of organizations including: USA Today/Suffolk University Poll (April 21-25, 2020) :65% of Americans support vote-by-mail as an alternative; AP-NORC Poll (April 16-20, 2020) :60% of respondents support allowing people to vote by mail-in ballot without requiring them to give a reason; Harvard/Harris Insights Poll (April 14-16, 2020) :72% of respondents backed conducting the presidential election entirely by mail; NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll (April 13-15, 2020) :58% favor changing election laws to allow everyone to vote by mail; Pew Research Center Poll (April 7-12, 2020) :70% of U.S. adults support allowing any voter to vote by mail if they want to; Reuters/Ipsos Poll (April 6-7, 2020) :72% of all U.S. adults, including 79% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, supported a requirement for mail-in ballots as a way to protect voters in case of a continued spread of COVID-19 in 2020.

Efforts aimed at Vote-by-mail reforms have traditionally focused on ensuring that voters who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day because of work, school, health or other reasons are still able to vote. But now there are even more important reasons as we tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Voting by mail provides means of protecting public health as well as the people’s right to vote.

That’s why Republican and Democratic governors like Republican Governors Larry Hogan of Maryland and Mike DeWine of Ohio have turned to vote-by-mail as a solution in this crisis. Unfortunately even as support for vote-by-mail has grown among voters and political leaders alike, it has also been the focus of misleading attacks by President Trump. So let’s clear up a few things. First, there is absolutely no evidence that vote-by-mail benefits one party over the other.

It has been implemented in both Republican and Democratic states and has been deployed as an electoral strategy by both parties. In fact, GOP officials have openly admitted they used vote-by-mail as a strategy to help elect Trump in 2016.

Second, there is no evidence to suggest that vote-by-mail is less secure than in-person voting. In fact, vote-by-mail is a paper-based system that is not susceptible to cyber-hackers and can be easily audited by election officials to make sure the election results are accurate.

This is all to say that vote-by-mail is a great solution so voters do not have to pick between their right to vote and their personal safety amid a pandemic.

Of course here in Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is fighting in the courts to prevent us from having the opportunity to vote-by-mail. Paxton argues that his appeal of a lower court injunction that allows vote-by-mail for voters who don’t want to risk contracting COVID-19 from someone in line to vote. The ACLU says Paxton “gets the law wrong” which is really no surprise as he has that habit.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 13, 2020