2021 Democratic Accomplishments

As this is the last column of 2021 I thought it important to review some of the things that Democrats led by President Joe Biden have accomplished this year. Democrats worked hard to overcome the obstruction of Republicans like our senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. While they haven’t done everything I think they could or should have, I firmly believe that the country is better off for their efforts. Many of our families, friends, and neighbors have benefited from the legislation and policies pushed by the Biden administration with the support of Texas Democrats like our congressman, Vicente González.

To me the most important act Biden took upon his inauguration was to rejoin the Paris climate accord which former President Donald Trump had left. His action put the U.S. back in line with the majority of the world's nations and also helped place the Biden administration at the center of efforts to tackle global climate change. While Biden has repeatedly stressed the need to curb climate change by transitioning to clean energy, the administration's approach has often disappointed me. The U.S. not signing the pledge to end the use of coal power announced at COP26 conference is one of those disappointments. On the positive side, last month the president unveiled a 100 country pledge to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas methane by at least 30 percent by 2030 and joined another agreement to end and reverse deforestation. This month the Biden administration ordered U.S. government agencies to stop financing carbon-intensive fossil fuel projects abroad.

Biden, an opponent of the federal death penalty, has reinstated a 17-year pause on federal executions on federal executions that former President Trump ended allowing 13 people were put to death between July, 2020 and January, 2021. It’s important to remember that according to a study published in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” at least 4% of people on death penalty/death row were and are likely innocent. Biden has pledged "to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow."

President Biden supported by the 50 Democratic senators has seen 40 federal judges confirmed so far more than any president in their first term since Ronald Reagan in 1981, and twice as many as Trump appointed during his first year. Now he just needs to address the 6-3 conservative dominated Supreme Court.

Many Americans are pessimistic about the U.S. economy given inflation at a 40-year high, yet it’s important to remember that Biden's first year in office has seen significant improvements in job and wage growth. The national unemployment rate fell from 6.3% in January to just 4.2% in November, the lowest since March 2020 and jobless claims fell to their lowest levels since 1969 in early December.

Yes, inflation has increased but more importantly wages and salaries paid by private businesses rose more, outpacing inflation by 2.4% from January to October and disposable income grew 3%. The American Rescue Plan, passed on a near party line vote and the historic economy recovery, combined to cut child poverty in half.

Next week I’ll cover what we have to look forward to in 2022 and what Republicans are doing to prevent the climate and economic recovery we so desperately need through voter suppression and gerrymandering.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 29, 2021

Public Dollars Belong in Public Schools Only

Next week is the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, unfortunately I’m feeling a truly long night lasting many years in terms of our government and political trends. Last week the radical right majority of the Supreme Court of the United States showed signs of once again reversing long held precedent to satisfy the demands of the most vocal Republican activists without regard to the consequences. This time the Court heard arguments in the case of Carson v. Makin; the question to be decided is whether the state of Maine is required to subsidize religious education. Based on the questions asked or not asked by the Republican appointed justices the consensus among Court watchers is that they’ll render a decision in favor of your tax dollars being funneled to religious schools.

While some readers may not see a problem with that as they send their children to religious schools and would like the extra funding or the lower tuition that might be available there are sound constitutional reasons for not changing the current state of affairs. The first amendment specifically states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” which given that later amendments made it clear that the constitution applies to state and local laws in addition to those passed by congress means that neither the state of Texas nor a county can favor a particular religion over another. Government funding religious activities or organizations has generally been viewed as a step toward establishing a state religion. Funding religious educational institutions with tax dollars comes under that heading.

Should the Supreme Court, as seems likely, decide that it’s fine for government to subsidize religious education realize that it can’t apply to just Christian schools. This is a case of “be careful what you wish for as you might get it”. Expect schools associated with any and all religions to demand their fair share, so look to Islamic schools asking for and getting the same subsidies. Don’t be surprised if a militant atheist group starts up a school and rightfully demands the same subsidies as well. Those on the radical right will first be stunned, then scream bloody murder that they never meant to subsidize everyone’s religious schools, just their own. I don’t mind eating popcorn while watching Republican heads explode but I’d much prefer that we continue the understanding that Constitution requires neutrality, as the Court held in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), “no tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.”

The doctrine of “Separation of Church and State” has served this nation well for nearly 250 years and is central to our freedom. Our founders were well familiar with the consequences of religious wars such as Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), which devastated Germany and killed one third of its population. In our lifetimes we’ve seen sectarian violence in both southeastern Europe and the Middle East. Continuing to chip away at that separation as Republicans have for decades will harm us all by adding more friction to the already polarized political situation we now find ourselves in.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 15, 2021

More Than Abortion At Risk

I am an adoptive father and the uncle of a foster child, I have first-hand knowledge that society is not prepared to handle a sudden increase in the number of unwanted children that would be the result of allowing states like Texas to make abortion illegal. A massive increase in the number of children in the foster care system and those in homes that can’t provide three healthy meals a day is only one consequence of conservative zeal to return to the days when abortion was illegal.

In “What Roe Could Take Down With It” published in The Atlantic, Kimberly Wehle, professor of law at the University of Baltimore, outlines the very real consequences of the Supreme Court’s likely vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that found a woman has a right to an abortion until the fetus is viable at around 24-28 weeks of gestation.

Professor Wehle points out that the reason overturning Roe v. Wade is about more than abortion is that the legal logic which threatens it could quite easily extend to other rights. Reversing Roe v. Wade invites states to try out new laws that regulate such choices as who you can marry – miscegenation laws made inter-racial marriage illegal until the Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. Also at risk is the right to choose with whom to be intimate, as homosexual acts were illegal in  several states until 2003 when the Supreme Court ruled those laws unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas. It was 1965 when the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction is protected by the constitution. The education of one’s own children is also at risk as some states made private schools illegal until the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional in Pierce v. Society of Sisters. They are all at risk because none of these rights we are now so accustomed to are specifically stated in the constitution and the current SCOTUS majority claim to be originalists arguing that if it isn’t stated in the constitution it isn’t protected by the constitution.

Wehle says the Court identified a “constitutional ‘right to privacy’ based on the Bill of Rights; in particular the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments” reasoning they operate to shield “an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician’s role in one aspect of that relation” from government intrusion. The “Court in Roe acknowledged that ‘the Constitution does not explicitly mention any right to privacy,’ but seized on the earlier Griswold case’s recognition of ‘a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy’ to strike down a Texas law criminalizing abortion.”

Professor Wehle goes on to list other rights and other cases which hinge on the implicit “right to privacy”  or meaning and scope of explicitly stated “liberty” a term which is nowhere defined in the constitution leaving the Court to make that determination. Many of the freedoms we currently take for granted are not specifically stated in the constitution yet many seem to believe they are. The same reasoning that currently protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy was used to determine that couples have the right to use contraception, get married, and decide how to educate their children.

Wehle concludes that “from a legal perspective, if Roe falls, it’s hard to see what else will still stand.” As with other arguments made by conservatives on a variety of topics they don’t seem to understand the consequences of achieving their goals.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 8, 2021