Texas Legislature 2023

We now know most of the results of the November 8 election and the story it tells is that Texas Republicans are very good at gerrymandering districts for partisan advantage. Their highly refined map drawing allowed them to pick up one seat in the state house, one seat in the state senate, and two congressional seats even though the statewide partisan vote split is approximately the same as it was in 2018. It’s amazing how well you can stick it to the other side when you control the rules of the game.

The state legislature will begin the 2023 session in just 7 weeks and they’ll have less than 5 months to pass a budget and get the rest of the people’s business done for the next two years. Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar has stated that record-high tax revenues over the last year will give Texas lawmakers an extra $27 billion to spend in the 2023 legislative session. Let’s see if our legislators and governor will allocate significant additional funds to public education where it is sorely needed or if they spend foolishly on fake border security as Greg Abbott did when he re-allocated funds from other important state responsibilities to continue and expand the National Guard presence on our southern border.

There are numerous other issues that the legislature really should address including action on the Texas power grid which is still in danger of failing when it is needed most at least in part because the model that utilities are required to use to determine whether or not they are prepared for extreme weather events doesn’t include the conditions we experienced in February 2021. Texas electricity users will be paying increased utility bills for a decade just to cover the outrageous rates that generators were able to charge for less than a week. The extra you’re paying on your bill doesn’t go toward improvements to prevent the same disaster in 2023 or further in the future.

It is way past time for Texas to make at least medical marijuana legal, the pathetic potency of the material legal in the state currently is little more than a placebo. There are clearly documented studies showing the value of marijuana for pain relief, something my wife would really benefit from. Presently she is using prescribed opioids which of course have numerous bad side effects including addiction and gastro-paresis, a condition in which the intestines don’t pump food and waste properly. The treatment for gastro-paresis is another drug which isn’t covered by many insurance plans and costs about $1000 a month so it isn’t really affordable at all. When we were out of state she was able to use medically approved marijuana edibles that relieved her pain and allowed her to function better than the drugs available here in Texas.

If the Republican leadership took a look at how successful decriminalizing recreational marijuana has been in states like Colorado where the sales taxes from it have been used to augment public school funding they might shift their perspective. I don’t really expect that to happen any time soon as it would take away one of the ways that Republicans generate fear in voters.

Various groups have been lobbying for changes to state marijuana law for years now and all we can hope is that our legislators will begin to see the light in 2023.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 23, 2022

Choose Wisely - Vote Democrat

Republican leaders, including Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been calling for violence against Democrats for several years and now that a Republican supporter has invaded Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and beaten her husband with a hammer former President Trump and many of those he has endorsed have remained silent instead of calling for an end to political violence.

Faux New, I mean Fox News, has spent the last couple of months making spurious claims about crime in America but considering they’ve been using the FBI statistics from 2020, even if what they say is true that happened under Trump so if a president is to be blamed then blame him.

Let’s talk about objective reality, something Republican candidates don’t do much of because it doesn’t make them look good. Last week saw the release of the most recent economic statistics which show that the U.S. GDP grew at a +2.6% pace in the third quarter of this year, that’s even better than expected. Especially when you consider that Republican doomsayers have been arguing for months that the US economy is in a recession and they’ve been rooting for a downturn.

Our economy has created 10 million jobs, unemployment is at a 50 year low, and U.S. manufacturing is booming. The report also shows that in the third quarter, Americans' incomes were up and the inflation rate came down. Gas prices are falling – down $1.26 since the summer, and down over the last three weeks. The most common price at gas stations in Texas today is $3.19 a gallon. Last week I paid $2.99 a gallon.

Much of the rising cost of food is due to the current high cost of grain which is in turn caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine one of the world’s major wheat producers. The same holds true for gas prices to a large extent so if you want to blame someone blame Vladimir Putin.

Democrats in Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration earlier this year passed laws that will bring down prescription drug prices especially for those on Medicare starting next year.

Congressional Republicans have a very different agenda – they’re planning to hold the archaic federal debt limit hostage against cutting Social Security and Medicare knowing that holding up the legislation will shut down the federal government. Putting those federal employees and all those who support them out of work will cost the economy tens of billions of dollars just like it did the last time they pulled this stunt. They plan to do it so they cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.

The Republican’s failed economic vision is not the way to give families more breathing room and grow our economy so working families can get ahead. It’s a road map for increased poverty and shorter life spans. We know from the bitter experience of the Reagan administration that “trickle down” economics only benefits the wealthy few. Democrats see and are working toward an economy that benefits everyone. Republicans can’t conceive of an economy like that so they work toward one that benefits they’re wealthy benefactors and themselves.

When you vote, notice I didn’t say if you vote, choose wisely and vote for Democrats because they have a plan to move the country forward with peace, equity, and compassion for all of us.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 2, 2022

Democrats The Right Choice

There’s still time to conservative leaning independent voters to come to their senses and reject the extremism that has taken over the Republican Party both nationally and here in Texas. There are a few things that they should be reminded of when deciding on whom to vote for this election.

In May, 68 Republican members of the House and Senate voted against military aid to Ukraine. A week ago House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made it clear that if the Republican Party takes power after the election; Ukraine will receive less support from the United States as it tries to defend itself and re-capture territory taken during Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion. At a recent Harvard Kennedy Center even Republican Representative Liz Cheney ripped into McCarthy for signaling support for slashing aid to Ukraine and former vice president Mike Pence called out GOP “Putin apologists” who have sympathized with Russia even as it invades a sovereign nation.

Can you imagine how different Europe and the U.S. would be today Franklin Roosevelt had been prevented from sending weapons, ammunition, and ships to the Allies while Hitler was invading country after country? If Putin isn’t stopped in Ukraine, which country will be next? How would the citizens and leaders of any other nation continue to consider the U.S. to be the leader of the free world?

Leading Republicans, including Representative Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), have stated that next year’s deadline to raise or suspend the debt ceiling is a point of leverage they'll use to cut Social Security and Medicare if their party can win control of the House in the November midterm elections. The debt ceiling is an artificial limit on the government’s ability to borrow money. That may not sound like a big deal or it might sound like a good idea until you realize that in reality it just limits the ability to pay for services and products that have already been delivered. It’s like ordering pizza delivered then when the driver arrives you take the pizza into the house and start eating it then tell the driver your spouse won’t let you use the credit card to pay for it.

The United States used to have the highest credit rating in the world because unlike other nations we always stood behind our debts. That credit rating has been damaged repeatedly over the last decade by Republican obstruction when it comes to raising the debt ceiling. You may remember when the federal government was shut down for 16 days in 2013. Or you might remember the 2018 shutdown that lasted 35 days which was caused by Donald Trump being unwilling to sign the appropriations bill that didn’t fund his useless border wall even though Senate Republicans passed the bill unanimously. Some of my customers were affected because their businesses operate on federal property, some of my neighbors were left without paychecks and had difficulty making mortgage payments.

If House Republicans take control of congress and get their way anyone on Social Security or Medicare and those who will become eligible in the next few years will suffer reduced income and higher medical bills. In contrast Democrats have raised Social Security benefits almost 9% this year to cover inflation.

So I have to ask, which party really cares about the economy? Which party cares about the health and welfare of our senior citizens? Which party truly supports in national security? Only Democrats can be trusted to address those concerns at this time.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 26, 2022

Biden Right on Marijuana Policy

President Joe Biden has finally taken initial steps to correcting both an injustice and bad health policy by instructing the Department of Justice to begin the process to issue full and unconditional pardons for citizens and legal residents with a federal conviction for simple possession of marijuana. This pardon will help thousands with prior convictions seeking housing, employment, benefits, and educational opportunities who are currently ineligible based on federal statutory or regulatory bars on individuals with prior drug convictions. The House passed a bill in 2020 that would have legalized and tax marijuana but the Senate never voted on it.

The President has asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to begin the administrative process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, treated the same as heroin and LSD and more strictly than fentanyl and methamphetamine – the drugs driving our overdose epidemic. Changing how marijuana is scheduled would advance research and facilitate the appropriate medical use of marijuana.

Until 1916 marijuana was legal in all U.S. states, by 1931 29 states had outlawed it, then came the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 which outlawed it nationally over objections from the American Medical Association regarding medical usage. Most historians familiar with the topic agree that the scare tactics used to encourage making possession and use illegal even for well documented medical purposes were just cover for racism against Mexican and Black men who were the primary recreational users.  One way to know the laws and their enforcement are racist is that white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, a disproportionate number of people arrested and convicted are Black and brown. According to historian Eric Schlosser’s article in The Atlantic “Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a ‘lust for blood,’ and gave its users ‘superhuman strength’.” Apparently police aren’t any better witnesses than civilians as anybody who has been around a marijuana user will disagree with those characterizations. Lust for food maybe, but there’s much more evidence of alcohol fueled violence.

Laws and enforcement tightened further over the next three decades until middle and upper class whites started getting arrested at which point most states backed off due to political pressure.  Then in 1976 a parent's movement against marijuana began affecting public attitudes which lead to the 1980s War on Drugs. Mandatory sentences were re-enacted by President Reagan including the "three strikes you're out" policy, requiring life sentences for repeat drug offenders. The failed War on Drugs has persisted ever since.

I am particularly interested in the use of marijuana for treating chronic pain as my wife suffers from it and has been prescribed opiates like morphine and fentanyl which can both be highly addictive unlike marijuana.

President Biden has urge all Governors to follow his lead and issue pardons for state marijuana possession offenses. Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the simple possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either. Gov. Abbott’s press office responded that he no intention of following Biden’s lead. Abbott’s Democratic opponent, Beto O’Rourke, on the other hand says he’ll work to legalize marijuana in Texas and expunge the record of those convicted of possession.

Social justice, new treatments for pain and other ailments, and better use of criminal justice resources, all from one change in policy. I’m voting for Beto O’Rourke for Governor of Texas and I hope you will too.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 12, 2022

Fascists Have Come to Cibolo

I’ve known for years that Republicans had lost sight of the principles on which this nation was founded but it was driven home Saturday as I was leaving my neighborhood to get the latest COVID-19 booster and flu shots. Driving toward the exit of the neighborhood I came across an older white man in a red t-shirt standing in the median holding a sign that said “Purge Democrat Voters…”. I couldn’t catch the rest at 25 mph in the smaller typeface but just what I could read said all it needs to say.

I’m among the last of the baby boomers, the children of the “Greatest Generation”, those who fought and bled in World War II. My dad was a private in the Army Air Corps, two uncles were in combat in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge, another served in the Navy in the Pacific supporting General Douglas MacArthur’s “Island Hopping” campaign. I can’t help but feel that the authoritarian direction of so many Republican candidates and voters is a direct insult to the men and women like my father and uncles who fought so bravely against fascists like Mussolini, Tojo, and Hitler. I had to restrain myself from stopping the car and getting out to confront the sorry excuse for an American.

The right to vote for our elected representatives is the most sacred right of every citizen of this nation upon reaching the age of 18. The very idea that this man and so many like him believe it is right and proper to disenfranchise someone with whom they disagree is beyond the pale.

These are the same people who rant about the constitution and yet either don’t seem to have read it or simply don’t understand it. They are the same people who will look you straight in the face and tell you that if it isn’t in the constitution then the federal government can’t do it while at the same time claiming that the United States is a Christian nation when the constitution says nothing of the sort and in fact says in Article VI: “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

One of their long running non-sense claims that has been pushed to the fore once again is the notion that the United States is “a republic, not a democracy”. That’s like a child saying that they're holding chocolate ice cream, not ice cream. Encyclopedia Britannica defines republic as follows: form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the citizen body. Modern republics are founded on the idea that sovereignty rests with the people, though who is included and excluded from the category of the people has varied across history. Because citizens do not govern the state themselves but through representatives, republics may be distinguished from direct democracy, though modern representative democracies are by and large republics. A republic is a flavor of democracy, a representative democracy, rather than a direct democracy where everyone votes on every issue of government. Not every nation holds true to the name they of their nation such as the USSR which was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; just like calling something a rose doesn’t make it smell sweet.

It’s important the people like the guy standing in the median with his frightening sign are overwhelmed at the polls so that the authoritarians that the Republican party has been raising into leadership don’t get their way. Just you voting is not enough, bring your family, bring your friends too.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 5, 2022

Only Democrats Fighting to Save the Planet

While it has rained a bit and even cooled off some in the last couple of weeks much of Texas and the country still suffers severe drought conditions that have impacted agriculture. According to experts at Texas Tech University the High Plains area around Lubbock and Amarillo, the most productive of the state’s nine cotton-growing regions, will lose $2.1 billion of this year’s cotton harvest. Farmers in the Rio Grande valley will also have a much less profitable crop of vegetables as they’ve been unable to plant this year due to the drought.

You’ve probably seen news reports of various surprises found in rivers and lakes where the low water levels. Five bodies have been found in Lake Mead including one in a barrel that appears to be a mob-related murder victim. In Europe the Danube river water level has fallen to one of its lowest levels in almost a century as a result of the drought, exposing the remains of more than 20 German warships sunk during World War II near Serbia’s river port town of Prahovo. The sunken ships are now causing problems for ships navigating the river. In Spain, a prehistoric stone circle dubbed the “Spanish Stonehenge” has re-emerged; it is usually covered by waters in a man-made reservoir created in the 1960's which have fallen due to the worst drought in decades.

These world-wide droughts and outrageous temperatures are becoming both more frequent and more intense. Only by reducing the production of greenhouse gases by a large fraction by 2030 will we stand a chance of preventing starvation, disease, war, and migration all over this planet. If you think there is a crisis at our southern border now, wait until the drought in Central America takes hold.

Not a single sitting Republican in the United States Senate or House will acknowledge the threat of human caused climate change let alone take any action to stem that threat. Democrats led by Joe Biden have acted. In addition to the various incentives and projects included in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act the Biden administration has directed all federal agencies to review and take action to reduce carbon emissions, recycle waste, set rules to make green energy projects easier to move forward, and put the funds they administer to work helping farmers, businesses, and individual citizens do the same. Another recently passed bill, the Chips and Science Act, includes funding for clean energy projects and battery production in addition to semi-conductors, nanotechnology, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence.

Joe Biden and the Democrats have made big strides toward reducing production of the greenhouse gases that are raising global temperatures but there is much more to do and not much time to do it. The only way that we’ll continue to see progress on this issue is if Democrats continue to control the House and Senate in addition to the presidency. Since Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have not only failed to take action in Texas they’ve actively worked against protecting our environment we can look forward to more of the same here if they aren’t beaten in the November election. Fossil fuel interests all over Texas are providing massive funding for Republicans and argue that they’re producing jobs while hiding the fact that green energy projects actually employ more people in higher wage, safer jobs than they do.

If you want to have a livable climate here in Texas for your children and grand-children there is no more important action you can take than voting for every Democrat on the November ballot.

 

Ted Cruz Fights Against Workers

This week includes Labor Day, a celebration of the workers who actually do the jobs that allow us to have food on the table, clothes on our backs, and roofs over our heads.

Last week Senator Ted Cruz sent out one of his email blasts touting his four week tour around the state and purported accomplishments in Congress. Among the topics included in the email was his tour of a Bitcoin mining operation in Rockdale, TX a rural town between Austin and Bryan/College Station. Bitcoin is one of the more well-known brands of cyptocurrency. The facility is a big warehouse style building with rack upon rack of computers and huge amounts of air conditioning drawing a significant fraction of the total electricity used in the entire town while providing very few jobs. In Cruz’s email he says he is proud to “lead the fight to promote and protect this burgeoning sector of our economy.” That’s really interesting since when he campaigned for president in 2016 one of his “big ideas” was to return to the gold standard, something antithetical to the whole concept of cryptocurrency.  I’m not sure if this is a flip flop on his views or pandering to a segment of his campaign donors.

Cruz also pushed his effort to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, a scheme that would leave millions of federal employees without a paycheck since half of federal revenue comes from income taxes. Cruz is fear-mongering that the 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service employees that the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act authorizes will somehow take food off the table of average Americans when in fact due to Republican led budget cuts the agency has been unable to investigate wealthy tax cheats for decades. If you don’t cheat on your taxes you as an individual have nothing to worry about especially if you are filing on Form 1040-EZ or a basic 1040A as nearly all the info you enter is already available to the IRS. The only people who benefit from fewer IRS employees are wealthy tax cheats, a group who if they actually paid their fair share would pay more than five times as much as the salaries of those additional IRS employees.

Cruz is also fighting against President Biden’s effort to forgive student loans, an effort that stands to improve the lives of 43 million people while boosting the economy. Cruz called folks who work at coffee shops and have student loans slackers. I don’t know about you but anytime I walk into a coffee shop the folks there are hustling to take care of the customers in line, that’s not slacker behavior.

The rest of his email is about Cruz talking to local government officials and business people but he apparently couldn’t be bothered to speak to average workers and struggling parents. Let’s remember that Ted Cruz spends his time in congress fighting for the wealthiest among us to pay less taxes and get more federal contracts, while hundreds of thousands of Texans aren’t sure when they’ll eat their next meal and can’t afford medical care to ease their suffering or protect their lives.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 7, 2022