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September 2nd, 2021:

Killing Roe softly

Sep 2nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

Right there with them

Honestly, there’s not a whole lot to add here from yesterday. As of this writing, SCOTUS has still not acted on the emergency petition from Texas abortion providers over SB8. SCOTUS will issue a response to that request, but they can take their time about it if they want to. That right there tells you something.

Most of the stories out there that I’m seeing are further explainers of SB8 and how it works and what the current legal status is, some with a side helping of justified rage. They mention the state court injunction in passing, as it has a very limited effect. There are stories about the effect this law has already had on providers and patients, and stories about what SCOTUS has done by doing nothing and what we can do about it (nothing easy, unfortunately). There are reactions from politicians, with Democrats promising to fight, and calls to action from folks who understand that if you’re not ditching the filibuster, you really can’t fight effectively. And on and on.

And so we wait, and we try to figure out how to move forward, and we really better internalize the idea that 1) we need to win more elections, and 2) we need to effectively wield the power we have when we have it. This is what happens otherwise.

UPDATE: Welp.

A deeply divided Supreme Court is allowing a Texas law that bans most abortions to remain in force, for now stripping most women of the right to an abortion in the nation’s second-largest state.

The court voted 5-4 to deny an emergency appeal from abortion providers and others that sought to block enforcement of the law that went into effect Wednesday. But the justices also suggested that their order likely isn’t the last word on whether the law can stand because other challenges to it can still be brought.

The Texas law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks and before many women know they’re pregnant.

It is the strictest law against abortion rights in the United States since the high court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 and part of a broader push by Republicans nationwide to impose new restrictions on abortion. At least 12 other states have enacted bans early in pregnancy, but all have been blocked from going into effect.

The high court’s order declining to halt the Texas law came just before midnight Wednesday. The majority said those bringing the case had not met the high burden required for a stay of the law.

“In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit. In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts,” the unsigned order said.

Chief Justice John Roberts dissented along with the court’s three liberal justices. Each of the four dissenting justices wrote separate statements expressing their disagreement with the majority.

Roberts noted that while the majority denied the request for emergency relief “the Court’s order is emphatic in making clear that it cannot be understood as sustaining the constitutionality of the law at issue.”

The vote in the case underscores the impact of the death of the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year and then-president Donald Trump’s replacement of her with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Had Ginsburg remained on the court there would have been five votes to halt the Texas law.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor called her conservative colleagues’ decision “stunning.” “Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand,” she wrote.

I’m just sick.

First redistricting lawsuit

Sep 2nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Faster than a speeding bullet…

The first volley in what is expected to be a fierce war over Texas redistricting kicked off Wednesday in the form of a federal lawsuit filed by two Democratic state senators who argue that state lawmakers cannot legally redraw the state’s legislative maps this fall.

State Sens. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio and Sarah Eckhardt of Austin are asking a federal district court in Austin to take over the work of drawing up new political maps for the Texas House and Senate to reflect the state’s growth in the last decade. Joined in their lawsuit by the Tejano Democrats, a political organization, the senators argue the Legislature cannot constitutionally carry out that work in a special legislative session.

The Texas Constitution states the Legislature “shall” redraw the state’s legislative maps “at its first regular session after the publication” of each decennial census. But significant holdups in finalizing the 2020 census delayed the release of the detailed population numbers needed to redraw those districts for several months — far past the end of the regular legislative session in May.

Having a court redraw legislative maps could help Democratic chances for a more favorable map compared with what the Legislature’s Republican majority might draw up in a bid to hold power for the next decade in a state that is demographically moving away from the party.

Congressional and state House and Senate districts need to be reconfigured before the 2022 elections to account for the state’s explosive growth in the last 10 years. The census’ August data delivery showed people of color accounted for 95% of the state’s population growth of nearly 4 million residents since 2010. The suit does not challenge the Legislature’s ability to draw a new Congressional district map in special session. Lawmakers must rework that map to add the two additional districts Texas earned because of its fast growth.

Because the Legislature lacks the authority to redraw the legislative districts now, the lawsuit argues, that obligation falls to the court to ensure the maps won’t violate the 14th Amendment’s “one person, one vote” principle for the 2022 elections. The Legislature’s next regular legislative session won’t take place until January 2023.

State legislative districts are meant to be close to equal in population, but the state’s booming — and uneven — growth in the last decade means that population counts in the districts are significantly out of balance.

It’s an interesting argument, and one that has been a part of the discussion of how Greg Abbott’s defunding of Article X in the budget could screw with the redistricting process in this fashion. I have no idea what the odds of success are, but there’s one very interesting tidbit in this that Michael Li highlights:

That’s Republican Former Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court Wallace B. Jefferson acting as co-counsel for the plaintiffs. Lawyers have to make a living and all that, but this is nonetheless a very interesting choice of case for him to take. Given the likelihood that he’s set some bridges aflame, and given the level of esteem in which he is generally held, I have to think there’s some merit to this. We’ll see. The Chron has more.

Feds take first steps in the mask mandate fight

Sep 2nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Coming attractions.

The U.S. Department of Education is opening civil rights investigations to determine whether five states that have banned schools from requiring masks are discriminating against students with disabilities, the agency said on Monday.

The department is targeting Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, all Republican-led states, in its investigations. It said it was concerned that their bans on mandatory masking could leave students with disabilities and underlying health conditions more vulnerable to COVID-19, limiting their access to in-person learning opportunities.

“It’s simply unacceptable that state leaders are putting politics over the health and education of the students they took an oath to serve,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

“The Department will fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely and the rights of local educators to put in place policies that allow all students to return to the classroom full-time in-person safely this fall.”

[…]

Florida, Texas, Arkansas and Arizona are four other Republican-led states that have banned mandatory masking orders in schools. The Education Department left those states out of its inquiry because court orders or other actions have paused their enforcement, it said in a news release.

The department says it is monitoring those states and would take action if local mask-wearing policies are later barred from going into effect.

See here for the background, and here for the press release. It’s too early to say how this might go, and that’s before we get a resolution in the reams of mask mandate-related lawsuits that are still working their way through our system. Suffice it to say that the good guys have a lot of fight left in them.

Texas blog roundup for the week of August 30

Sep 2nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ringing all the bells and sounding all the alarms for the need for federal voting rights legislation as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

I-45 remains in the funding plan

Sep 2nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

For now. Ask again in 90 days.

Interstate 45 still is on a road to rebuild after Texas transportation officials on Tuesday kept the controversial project in the state’s 10-year construction plans, but warned that failing to get federal highway officials to remove their hold on it could halt the plan altogether later this year.

The Texas Transportation Commission on Tuesday approved the state’s 2022-2031 unified transportation program, keeping the I-45 project listed in it. The unified program is the guidepost for freeway construction in Texas, as only projects included can receive state funding.

That approval, however, is contingent on settling a dispute between the Texas Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. Federal officials told TxDOT in March to stop work on the project until concerns related to its impacts on minority and low-income communities and how TxDOT addressed those effects is completed.

“It is not the local support that’s the problem. It’s Washington, D.C., (that) is the problem, impeding our ability to go forward with this project,” Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Bruce Bugg said.

Federal officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We will give FHWA 90 days and we will come back and revisit this,” Bugg said. “After the 90 days have expired we will discuss what to do with the project.”

He said if the issues have not made progress, the commission could start the process of removing the project from the long-term plan. TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams said removing the project would require another 60-day public comment process.

Williams said discussions with federal officials are constructive and continuing, but he would not speculate whether it is practical or possible for federal officials to operate on the commission’s timeline.

[…]

As part of the UTP public comment process, TxDOT received 12,700 comments, 8,170 of them related to the I-45 project. The response, which included an online poll, was a record-breaking amount of public engagement for a TxDOT program, officials said.

Of those comments related to I-45, TxDOT said 5,529 — around two-thirds — supported keeping the funding in place.

Critics, however, questioned the process TxDOT used to solicit comments. The online poll, opponents said, set up a “take it or leave it” choice of either TxDOT’s vision or nothing at all.

“It is your responsibility as stewards of taxpayer dollars to engage the public in productive ways and you have failed to do so,” said Ines Siegel, interim executive director of LINKHouston.

See here, here, and here for some background; the version of this story from before the meeting is here. I might suggest that the issue here is not with the FHWA and its timelines, but if we had agreement on that point we probably wouldn’t be here right now. Not much else to say here, we’ll see where we’re at after we catch up with that can we just kicked.