Constitutional Amendment Election

Not everyone realizes that there are to separate elections in May. There’s the run-off for congress and other partisan offices on May 14 and the less well known Constitutional Amendment election on May 7. There are two propositions on the May 7 ballot, both are related to property taxes.

Proposition 1 says “The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school purposes on the resident homestead of a person who is elderly or disabled to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maximum compressed rate of maintenance and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on a homestead.”

Yes, it is widely agreed that the ballot language sound like gibberish, even lawyers have to ask experts what it means. Those experts will you refer back to the actual legislation that generated the proposition and the Texas constitution and explain that if passed it would reduce property taxes for elderly and disabled Texans by decreasing the amount they pay to public schools, which is generally the largest part of a homeowner’s tax bill. The state is responsible for making up the reduced revenue for school districts. This amendment will increase the state’s share of public school funding by more than $744 million from 2024 to 2026.

The reason that the Texas legislature passed this amendment by a wide bi-partisan margin is that in 2019, they passed a law which provided a property tax reduction to many homeowners but failed to include disabled or elderly homeowners because under the Texas Constitution, their tax rate is frozen. Proposition 1 would amend the Constitution to allow disabled and elderly homeowners to receive the benefits from the 2019 property tax reduction that other homeowners received and freeze their tax rate at a lower rate.

The language of Proposition 2 is much more straight-forward and says “The constitutional amendment increasing the amount of the residence homestead exemption from ad valorem taxes for public school purposes from $25,000 to $40,000.”

If passed by Texas voters, Proposition 2 would raise Texas’ homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000 for school district property taxes, saving an average homeowner around $180 on their annual property tax bill. The amendment requires the state of Texas to make up $600 million annual decrease in school district revenue.

Opponents of these propositions make the argument that they don’t fix the real problem which is that our public schools are largely funded by property taxes. While that’s true these propositions do make the issue slightly less onerous and swing the pendulum back toward the state with regard to the percentage of funding provided by the state versus local property taxes. For the last decade or so, in most districts, the local portion has steadily increased so in that sense these propositions are a welcome reversal.

Monday April 25^th is the first day to early vote and Saturday May 7th is election day, I urge you to make time to vote “For” both these important propositions.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 20, 2022

Republicans the party of fraud, fear, and fascism

The leadership of the modern Republican Party have taken the party down the path of fraud, fear, and fascism. First they use fraud to create scenarios and conspiracy theories on topics that will instill fear in conservative voters. The next step is to blame liberals and Democratic officials and candidates in particular for participating in or enabling the feared behavior. All of this is in aid of winning electoral contests so that the Republican Party retains power in order to do the bidding of the oligarchs that provide their campaign funds and very lucrative jobs when they are out of office.

Republican leaders and media figures peddled non-sense like the 2016 Pizzagate conspiracy in an effort to defeat Hillary Clinton. In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election Trump made claims that refugees from Central and South America were mostly criminals and we therefore needed a wall on the southern border to protect us. Now, many of those same Republican leaders have added equally absurd, yet even more dangerous hokum such as connecting homosexuality with pedophilia or Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick throwing vulnerable transgender children under the bus by making them scapegoats with their overwrought claims that they somehow threaten to overwhelm high school athletic competition.

Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory - like Trump’s National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn Lt. General, U.S. Army ret. falsely claimed that illegally hacked emails between John Podesta, Hillary Clinton, and others contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and certain restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring. Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C. was purportedly the central hub of the conspiracy and holding children in the basement. A North Carolina conservative bought into the conspiracy theory so strongly that he drove to Washington, D.C. and barged into the restaurant whereupon he fired a rifle in an effort to unlock the door to a storage locker that was supposedly the entrance to the non-existent basement. Washington , D. C. police and numerous other respected organizations have thoroughly de-bunked the entire conspiracy theory.

With very few exceptions the people trying to cross the southern border to get into the U.S. are suffering from poverty and violence in their home countries very often caused by drug traffickers that are financed by their customers in the United States. Often the migrants are unaccompanied children who have been sent on their way after being threatened by drug gangs. If Republicans really wanted to do something constructive so that those migrants would stay at home they’d advocate for legalizing all drugs especially marijuana to undercut the finances of the drug gangs. But then, they couldn’t rail at Democrats about open borders or fill up private prisons with men of color who then can’t vote for their opponents or compete for jobs with white men of similar education and skills.

Frankly, there is stronger evidence of a conspiracy to protect pedophiles and groom children within the Catholic Church than there is for gay men but you don’t see Republicans attacking the Catholic Church.

Republican justifications for bill’s restricting transgender students from participating in high school sports largely rely on scare tactics, stereotypes, and unwarranted claims that transgender women have a physiological advantage over cisgender women—despite a complete lack of evidence that transgender sports participation has had any measurable impact on the success of cisgender athletes.

Republican candidates still genuflect to Trump because their voters demand it. The Trump-Putin axis scares me as Trump has continued to speak admiringly of Putin even as Putin endeavors to annex Ukraine through armed invasion.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 13, 2022

Religious Freedom For Me Not For Thee

Religious freedom is near and dear to me and I’ve written here before on the topic. To me and others it means being able to practice your faith or non-faith without interference or coercion by government at any level. Republicans seem to mean something else entirely when they speak of the topic. As exemplified by the cases below, to Republicans religious freedom means the freedom to push their faith on everyone else.

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, is a case which will be argued before the Supreme Court in April on behalf of the public school district in Bremerton, Washington, which is trying to protect the religious freedom of its students and their parents. Kennedy is a one-time football coach who was placed on paid administrative leave after he refused to stop leading prayers on the 50-yard line after games.

Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram of Knoxville, Tennessee are a Jewish couple who wanted to foster and adopt a Florida child, and they needed to obtain foster-parent training and a home study authorized by Tennessee to do so. The only accessible place to get those services was Holston United Methodist Home for Children, which is funded by the state to provide the services. But Holston canceled the couple’s training because it only accepts “families that share our [Christian] belief system.”

Aimee Maddonna of South Carolina, was denied a similar opportunity because of her Catholic faith as was another South Carolina couple. Both have sued after they were rejected by Miracle Hill Ministries, the largest state-contracted and government-funded foster care agency in South Carolina, because Miracle Hill restricts "eligibility to prospective foster parents who are evangelical Protestant Christians." U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina denied a motion to dismiss those suits, ruling that "to the extent defendants' assert that their actions are immune from challenge under the Establishment Clause as 'religious accommodation,' such argument is directly contrary to the well-pled allegations in the complaint and long-established federal jurisprudence and must be rejected at this stage of the proceedings."

According to the civil complaint "For prospective foster parents who live in South Carolina's upstate region and do not meet Miracle Hill's religious requirements, the primary foster care agency serving the region is not available to them. Such denial creates a practical barrier to fostering, as not all foster care agencies are equivalent or offer the same services, and also stigmatizes these families, branding them as inferior and less worthy of serving as foster parents. Moreover, this discriminatory treatment of prospective foster parents denies children access to families they need."

Lawyers for the families allege that the state violated the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution by essentially establishing a religious test for foster parents in northern South Carolina.

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had granted a waiver to Miracle Hill Ministries from federal non-discrimination rules. The Biden administration stopped this blatantly unconstitutional practice.

All of these folks are paying taxes to support discrimination that victimizes them. I don’t know about you but if I paid my taxes and got such a slap in the face I’d be pretty upset.

This is exactly the kind of government funded discrimination that our founders were concerned about and which the first amendment clearly opposes yet Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, refers to as “so-called separation of church and state”. We all have reason to worry about out religious liberty when Republicans are in control.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 23, 2022

Republican Proposition Non-sense

Sometimes you have to wonder what rock a person lives under to be so unaware of the world around them. The Texas Republican Primary ballot included Propositions on a variety of typical conservative boogeymen and the resulting vote count suggests that there is a very large field of rocks somewhere under which most Republican Primary voters apparently live.

One need only look with a clear eye at the propositions and vote counts, and keeping up the news over the last few years to come to that conclusion. First is the demand to “immediately deploy the National Guard, Texas Military Forces, and necessary state law enforcement to seal the border, enforce immigration laws, and deport illegal aliens,” which garnered 92%. The problem is that Gov. Abbott deployed Texas National Guard troops to the Mexican border a year ago. Abbott remains committed to keeping National Guard troops on the border even though judges have ruled that many of the program's policies violate federal jurisdiction over immigration. Three months before announcing his re-election campaign, Abbott ordered a massive deployment of about half the state's 20,000 or so National Guard troops to the border and gave them just over two months to get it done creating a logistical nightmare that has led to poor living conditions and deteriorating mental health which may have contributed four guard members committing suicide.  Guard members report that their days are idle because they don't feel qualified to make arrests. One of my neighbors is among the troops who have been deployed for a year.

The next goofy idea on the Primary ballot was so dumb that it only earned 75%, still an overwhelming majority. The Texas Republican Party leadership thought it would be a good idea for Texas to “eliminate all property taxes within ten (10) years without implementing a state income tax.” Now while we would all love not to pay property taxes the problem is that also not paying a state income tax means that either you raise sales taxes to make up the difference or you stop funding programs that rely on property taxes. No one should be surprised to find that more than 50% of public education funding comes from property taxes so what Texas Republicans have essentially said is they want destroy public education entirely. That’s been the goal of “school choice” proponents all along.

Of course Republican foolishness isn’t limited to fake border security and taxes. Republican leadership and 88% of their primary voters also consider your health and the health of your family of no consequence. The third proposition on the ballot says “Texans should not lose their jobs, nor should students be penalized, for declining a COVID-19 vaccine.” Well friends I have to tell you that my wife is immune compromised and the notion that she or someone like her would be put in the position of either risking her life or giving up a job because others are too selfish and obstinate to do what they’ve been doing since they first went to school and get a darn shot makes my blood boil.

Apparently 92% of Texas Republican voters are historically challenged as they approved a proposition that says “Texans affirm that our freedoms come from God and that the government should have no control over the conscience of individuals.” If freedom comes from God, why did the 13 colonies fight a revolutionary war starting in 1776, and why did Texas fight a revolutionary war against Mexico starting in 1835?

There is plenty more non-sense where this came from, just remember what Republicans stand for in November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 9, 2022

2022 Democratic Primary Recommendations

Early voting in the Texas Primary has started, you’ve got nearly 10 days of early voting left then election day so really no excuse not to cast a ballot. Whether or not you think Democrats have a chance at winning statewide positions like Governor, there are two really important seats with districts that Democrats can and should continue to hold. One of those is the Texas 28^th Congressional District which I’ve already written about and hope you’ll vote for Jessica Cisneros. The other seat is State Board of Education District 5 in which Rebecca Bell-Metereau is the excellent incumbent, she’s a career educator, a professor at Texas State University in San Marcos and a strong advocate for teaching historical truth and real science as well as replacing Texas’ high stakes testing which benefits the test making companies and not the students. Our children deserve the continued efforts of her leadership and scholarship.

In the statewide races the race for Governor has five candidates but the only one with a track record on public policy issues and running for election is Beto O'Rourke. O’Rourke had a strong run against Ted Cruz four years ago and is our best chance to beat whoever Republicans put up including the incumbent who is backed by corporate funds including the very power companies that he failed to hold accountable for last year’s statewide power outage during the snow storm. The power companies got off the hook and those of us who pay our electric bills were left holding the bag, many of us will be paying extra on our electric bills for many years to come in order to cover it.

There are three outstanding candidates for Lieutenant Governor and I’m siding with Mike Collier who has worked tirelessly for years working to unseat the unscrupulous incumbent. Collier ran for the spot previously and has built name recognition around the state. He faces Carla Brailey, a university professor and social justice advocate. Also running for the seat is Michelle Beckley who won a state house seat in District 65 in 2018 beating the Republican incumbent, she’s an advocate for expanding Medicaid in Texas and fixing the power grid among other widely supported Democratic priorities.

There are five contenders for the Attorney General nomination. Joe Jaworski made a strong impression on me when I had the opportunity to listen to his pitch and ask him questions. Jaworski is a practicing attorney in Galveston and has held various local political offices over the years. His platform includes starting a Civil Rights division within the Attorney General’s office to insure that Texans are able to count on the Office of the Texas Attorney General to protect civil rights in employment, education, housing, voting, the courts, physical access to accommodations and above all interaction with our criminal justice system.

Comptroller of Public Accounts is a position that most of us don’t even recognize but is a truly important job. Janet Dudding is a CPA who began her governmental accounting career with the Office of the State Auditor investigating allegations that governmental officials had embezzled taxpayer money or taken kickbacks. She’s spent her professional life holding government officials accountable to the citizens, not special interests. Dudding is ready to hit the ground running and deserves your support.

There are four contenders for Commissioner of the General Land Office provides funding for Texas public schools. Jinny Suh is a community organizer, former patent litigator, and when I spoke to her expressed her determination to use the office to protect the environment while expanding funding for education.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - February 16, 2022

Republicans White-washing History Again

Republicans are now trying to prevent our children from learning about the ways in which our country has too often failed to live up to the promise of our constitution. They don’t want kids to learn about the way that wealthy whites have often used propaganda and economic power to build and maintain their wealth and control over the lives of not just minorities but others who are less well off as well.

A few years ago when there were efforts around the nation to take down statues honoring Confederate leaders and slaveholders, Republicans made ridiculous claims that it was an effort to rewrite history. They made the same non-sense arguments about efforts to stop flying Confederate flags over state government buildings. All activists really wanted was to put a stop to honoring traitors and those who enslaved and abused other human beings for the benefit of themselves.

Over the last year or so all over this nation state legislatures controlled by Republicans are enacting laws outlawing the teaching of topics that might make a student uncomfortable. While using vague and often inaccurate language these efforts are aimed at discouraging teaching about how so much of this nation was built by enslaved Africans on the grounds that white children shouldn’t be shamed for what other white people did over 100 years ago. Of course, they give no consideration to the black student who feels uncomfortable when only white historical figures and achievements are discussed. Texas Republicans don’t want teachers to talk about the racist actions of the Texas Rangers toward Hispanic citizens.

While they literally white-wash history Republicans claim that Liberals are at fault for something they’ve named cancel culture. That’s what they call it when an educational institution or media outlet decides that some individual with a hateful message should not be given an opportunity to use that organization’s resources to spread their ugly propaganda. In fact, it is Republicans who are the big cancel culture proponents, besides delegitimizing the teaching of black history; their latest efforts are to ban more books from public schools. One such book is Maus, which is an award winning children’s book about the holocaust using mice as stand-ins for people. Many of the books Republicans find offensive are written by members of the LGBT community about children and adults that don’t fit their narrow-minded heterosexual orthodoxy.

When the Texas legislature took up the topic if restricting what could be taught in public schools last session the Republican Speaker of the House admonished all our representatives to not use the term racist to attack the regulations that they were working to pass even though much of what they were doing was in fact racist and that’s why it needed to be attacked. That’s like telling the prosecution that they can’t say the goods were stolen when the perpetrator did in fact take things that didn’t belong to them from the premises of the rightful owner.

Last week Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced he would seek to abolish tenure for professors at Texas’ public universities. In addition he said “The law will change to say teaching critical race theory is prima facie evidence of good cause for tenure revocation.” Critical Race Theory is another boogeyman for Republicans with many claiming it is taught in elementary and high school when in fact it isn’t. The reality is it is a method used in graduate level courses to see the connections between government policy and the economic and social consequences of minorities.

Republican censorship won’t solve our problems, talking those problems and our differences out might.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 2, 2022

Cisneros For Congress

Primary elections are an opportunity to choose a standard bearer for the values we hold. The March 1^st election features numerous such opportunities including half a dozen state wide offices and both congressional seats representing Guadalupe County. The 28^th congressional district which will cover the westernmost corner of the county is a strongly Democratic leaning district currently held by a 16 year incumbent who represents big money more than the people of the district.

For the second election in a row the incumbent is being challenged by Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney from Laredo who once was an intern in his Washington, D.C. office. In the last election she lost by a mere 4% and this time around she has much better name recognition. Ms. Cisneros is passionate about the need to reform our broken immigration system with which she is intimately familiar as the child of Mexican immigrants with family members on both sides of the border.

Ms. Cisneros is a strong advocate for addressing climate change and is endorsed by the “Texas Drought Project” because she recognizes that south Texas is one of the first areas that will suffer from higher temperatures and more erratic weather. When I spoke to her about her views on the issue she made clear that she recognizes that many on the district worry about jobs more than climate which is why she also reminds voters that green jobs are good paying jobs. Building and maintaining wind farms or installing and caring for solar panels is safer and healthier for the workers while paying just as well or better than oil and gas jobs. Drilling for oil and gas is a cyclical business so those jobs come and go often leaving communities in debt with damaged infrastructure like the roads that get beaten up by all the heavy trucks going up and down them. Solar and wind farms need constant attention so jobs are steady and numerous by comparison.

Jessica Cisneros is supported by “Justice Democrats” because she advocates for raising the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation so that workers never again see their earnings eroded by inflation while congress fails to act to restore their buying power. The last time minimum wage was raised was 2009 which makes this the longest period in history between adjustments. The buying power of minimum wage has fallen 21% since then. Had minimum wage kept up with inflation since 1968 it would now be well over $11 an hour. The incumbent has withheld support for raising minimum wage using the excuses dreamed up by his wealthy campaign donors.

24% of citizens in TX-28 didn’t have health insurance when the pandemic broke out, leaving our community particularly vulnerable to the global public health crisis. The average family with health coverage is spending $12,000 out of pocket on health care premiums and deductibles. The incumbent voted to weaken the Affordable Care Act, reducing the number of workers eligible for coverage and making long-term and comprehensive care more expensive. Ms. Cisneros believes that health care is a right, not a privilege. She supports single-payer, Medicare For All which would insure every American with comprehensive health care. Medicare For All would eliminate premiums and deductibles while expanding coverage to include dental, hearing, vision, and mental health, thereby lowering overall costs to families, small businesses, and government.

While Tannya Benavides holds similar positions she doesn’t have the experience that Ms. Cisneros has.

When early voting starts Tuesday February 14 I’ll be voting for Jessica Cisneros, I hope you will too.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - February 2, 2022