Voting Safely Up To County

Early voting for the Primary runoff starts Monday next week, Guadalupe County’s Elections Administrator has announced a series of measures her office will take to prevent the spread of COVID-19 unfortunately she believes is limited by the Secretary of State guidance to suggesting voluntary measures to voters. If a voter doesn’t want to wear a face covering elections staff can’t require it and that puts both staff and other voters at risk. One good cough or sneeze not covered can spread the virus to anyone in the area by entering through the eye.

While the trend lines for the original COVID-19 hotspots like New York and New Jersey continue downward the lines for Texas and Florida are going up at about the same rates. Naysayers claim that infection rates are going up due to more testing but that doesn’t account for the increase in the number of infected found per number of people tested or the increasing number of people requiring hospitalization due to the virus.

Many areas of Texas such as San Antonio are reporting record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 over the last week with the rate going up nearly every day for the last two weeks. Several restaurants that opened in Comal County shortly after Gov. Abbott relaxed pandemic precautions have had to close again due to large numbers of their staff becoming infected.

This issue is extremely important to me as my wife has serious health issues that put her at high risk of death if she were to contract COVID-19. Her doctors have urged her to avoid going anywhere beyond the house. As it stands today state law prohibits many people like her from voting by absentee ballot. Even if she could vote absentee, I would still be at risk of infecting her if I go vote and become exposed to someone who is infected and not wearing a face covering.

Our county commissioners can take steps to protect public health since Gov. Abbott has explicitly approved of Bexar County’s measures. We, the citizens, of Guadalupe County must advocate for public health measures similar to that of Bexar County which requires anyone entering a public building or business to wear a face covering. That means contacting our commissioners and the county judge. You can call your county commissioner at 830-303-8857 then press the number of your precinct to be connected to your commissioner, Judge Kutscher can be reached at 830-303-8867.

The county should provide disposable face masks at all polling locations so that anyone unprepared can comply with face covering requirements and still exercise their right to vote. Since this is a runoff in a primary election, turnout is likely to be relatively low so the county will have the opportunity to develop and test procedures prior to the November general election when the risk of exposure will surely be even greater due to the much higher turnout.

If proper precautions are taken by the county and all voters we can vote safely.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 24, 2020

Orwell, Trump, and Black Lives Matter

In a case of Orwellian doublespeak the fascist thug in the White House claimed to be “an ally of peaceful protesters” while tear gas and rubber bullets were fired to disburse crowds near the White House so Trump could walk across the street to stand on the steps of a church he doesn’t attend and flash a bible he is unlikely to have read. Days later he ordered troops to confront and intimidate peaceful protesters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial further demonstrating that he is the true threat to our republic and our democratic institutions. US Park Police, Arlington Police, DC Metro Police and the Secret Service have all denied using any kind of tear gas on peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square Monday last week even though numerous canisters were recovered by journalists on the scene.  The kinds of authoritarian actions taken by this president over the last week are what I have feared since he was first elected in November of 2016.

I am not a fan of Sen. Mitt Romney (R) and his brand of vulture capitalism but it’s important to give credit where it is due so I am obliged to point out that he joined a thousand evangelical Christians marching in support of  Black Lives Matter in Washington, D.C. Sunday. Romney told reporters that he was participating in the demonstration "to make sure that people understand that black lives matter."

Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday "We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution. And the President has drifted away from it." Powell joins nearly 500 other former Generals, Admirals, Ambassadors and State Department officials who "are concerned about the use of U.S. military assets to intimidate and break up peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C."

150 demonstrators participated in a peaceful march protesting police violence against black people in Vidor and other east Texas over the weekend. If it can happen in a town like Vidor which has a reputation as a racist stronghold it should be a wakeup call for Sen. John Cornyn (R) and members of the Republican congressional delegation that it’s time for them to get on board the call for racial justice; whether or not they’ll head that call is anyone’s guess.

When asked what he thought of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police our Guadalupe County Sheriff, Arnold Zwicke, made a fool of himself saying “if people would simply comply with a lawful order, they wouldn’t find themselves in those situations.” If all lives really mattered to Zwicke and his supporters we wouldn’t be seeing protests by Black Lives Matter activists because police wouldn’t be treating our black neighbors with the violence and scorn so often aimed their way.

Admittedly Gov. Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz have made a few remarks directed at their Texas Republican colleagues calling them out for claiming that the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis was staged and similar non-sense but I have yet to see either of them call for actually addressing the underlying reasons for the protests. No calls for accountability, no calls for systemic change in recruiting and training police, just calls to tone down language. That’s the same and saying take a nap and it will all go away. Abbott, Cruz and Cornyn need to do better and if they don’t at least Cornyn and Trump can be replaced come November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 10, 2020

Trump Violates Oath of Office

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, the squatter in the White House continues to violate his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution by adding three new attempts to violate the Constitution to his already lengthy resume. His first violation occurred immediately upon taking office and the court case continues on his violation of the emoluments clause prohibiting a sitting president from accepting things of value from foreign governments, something Trump does every day as his Washington, D.C. hotel rents rooms to ambassadors and other foreign dignitaries. Now in the wake of declining poll numbers he’s on a tear.

The most recent three started when Trump called for re-opening the economy as he also demanded that churches be allowed to hold services with no restrictions on attendance and insisted he could force governors to do his bidding thus proposing to violate the Tenth Amendment which states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. Since nowhere in the Constitution does it give the president or congress the right to force states to act in a manner contrary to their need to protect public health Trump doesn’t have that power. Any attempt to assert such control would be a violation of states’ rights. Given that the conservatives often much spurious claims that Democrats especially President Obama don’t recognize the Tenth Amendment I find it curious they haven’t made strong statements opposing Trump’s claims.

In Trump’s response to violent protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police he stated “…when the looting starts the shooting starts” indicating that police should shoot protestors a looting sites. Here Trump indicates his willingness to violate the Fourth Amendment which the Supreme Court said in the 1985 case Tennessee v. Garner  “…a police officer may use deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect only if the officer has a good-faith belief that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” Aside from constitutional considerations a president who was truly a leader would be acting to calm the situation and address the very real concerns of the protestors, not seeking to inflame tensions with incendiary language and threats of official violence.

And then Trump made threats to shutdown Twitter when they marked two of his tweets with fact checks showing that claims he made in those tweets weren’t truthful. Taking official action against Twitter in such a case would be a violation of the Tenth Amendment protections of freedom of expression which is oddly enough what he claims Twitter violated by showing the public he lied. Since Twitter is a private company and not a government agency nothing they could do would ever violate the Tenth Amendment as it only prohibits government censorship. Just the act of threatening to shutdown the company is in itself a violation of Tenth Amendment protections as such threat of official action can have a chilling effect on public discourse.

Sadly you won’t hear either Senator Cornyn or Senator Cruz calling out Trump for failing his oath of office or attempts to violate the constitution and that means that at least in spirit they too have violated their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Remember in November and vote both Trump and Cornyn out of office.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 3, 2020