“A Foiled Power Grab”: Voter ID Laws Face Major Roadblocks
Texas Republicans have been trying for years to pass a law that would require state voters to show identification before hitting the polls—and state Democrats have been equally determined to stop such a measure. The Rs came close in 2009, but the House Democrats, only two seats away from a majority, blew up the legislative session rather than see the measure pass. By 2011, however, fresh from Tea Party victories, the GOP had overwhelming majorities in both Houses. The bill was almost undoubtedly going to pass, and rather than go for a more moderate version of voter ID with non-photo options, the conservatives went for the gold, introducing one of the most stringent versions of a voter ID requirement. The only option left for the Democrats was to set up the grounds for the legal battles sure to come.
Monday, it looks like those efforts paid off. The Department of Justice has blocked the law, meaning that while the measure goes to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the Lone Star State won’t be allowed to enforce the measure. Not every state must seek permission before changing election law, a process known as preclearance. The entire reason Texas must preclear changes to its election law stems from the state’s history of civil rights abuses. 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed, it seems the feds are right to keep their guard up.
Of the many problems the DOJ outlines in its letter to the state, one major point came up repeatedly during the legislative debate on the subject: the plight of rural voters. Democratic senators hit hard on the problem of access to state drivers’ license offices; in the letter, the DOJ notes 81 of the state’s 254 counties lack operational drivers’ license offices. The DOJ also notes that in rural areas the gap between Hispanics and non-Hispanics who have the necessary ID is “particularly stark in counties without driver’s license offices.” The senators were also vehement in discussing the hardships low-income voters would face both in terms of logistics and in terms of monetary costs. The DOJ finds that someone lacking the necessary documents to get an ID would have to start by obtaining a birth certificate—at minimum $22.
The question, not surprisingly, stems from whether Hispanic voters will be disproportionately affected by the new hurdles. The DOJ is fairly damning here, looking separately at two data sets provided by the state, one from September 2011 and one from January 2012. The state failed to explain discrepancies between the two sets of data, but more importantly, the two sets both show similar trends. Latino residents are significantly less likely to have the identification necessary for voting. Furthermore, the letter notes that the state has done almost nothing to educate voters about the coming change: “The state has indicated that it will implement a new educational program;” the letter reads, “but as of this date, our information indicates that the currently proposed plan will incorporate the new identification requirement into a general voter-education program.”
The state attorney general has already filed a preemptive lawsuit, so the next step is the D.C. Courts. But in the meantime, the law can’t go into effect—a legal win for the minority rights groups and Democrats fighting against the state. It’s not the only victory. As the DOJ issued its letter, a second judge in Wisconsin has blocked the state’s measure to require idenfication. Back in December, the Obama administration nixed a similar proposal from South Carolina.
To me, the partisan quality of the debate stains almost everything. Last week, I wrote about Connecticut’s efforts to increase voter turnout—a rare example in the midst of efforts to make voter more difficult. I’ll say now what I said then. These measures have obvious partisan consequences—and voter ID would help Republicans and hurt Democrats in political races. It’s obvious that concern for power is motivating many of the actors in the debate.
But voting is a holy act in democratic governments. It’s a powerful right, one people have struggled and died to exercise, and only relatively recently have minority communities had the necessary legal protections to get to the ballot box. The fact that the DOJ’s decision may benefit one political party is hardly worth mentioning when one considers that it also benefits basic rights of citizens.
By: Abby Rapoport, The American Prospect, March 12, 2012
“State Sanctioned Rape”: When States Abuse Women
Here’s what a woman in Texas now faces if she seeks an abortion.
Under a new law that took effect three weeks ago with the strong backing of Gov. Rick Perry, she first must typically endure an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina. Then she listens to the audio thumping of the fetal heartbeat and watches the fetus on an ultrasound screen.
She must listen to a doctor explain the body parts and internal organs of the fetus as they’re shown on the monitor. She signs a document saying that she understands all this, and it is placed in her medical files. Finally, she goes home and must wait 24 hours before returning to get the abortion.
“It’s state-sanctioned abuse,” said Dr. Curtis Boyd, a Texas physician who provides abortions. “It borders on a definition of rape. Many states describe rape as putting any object into an orifice against a person’s will. Well, that’s what this is. A woman is coerced to do this, just as I’m coerced.”
“The state of Texas is waging war on women and their families,” Dr. Boyd added. “The new law is demeaning and disrespectful to the women of Texas, and insulting to the doctors and nurses who care for them.”
That law is part of a war over women’s health being fought around the country — and in much of the country, women are losing. State by state, legislatures are creating new obstacles to abortions and are treating women in ways that are patronizing and humiliating.
Twenty states now require abortion providers to conduct ultrasounds first in some situations, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization. The new Texas law is the most extreme to take effect so far, but similar laws have been passed in North Carolina and Oklahoma and are on hold pending legal battles.
Alabama, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Mississippi are also considering Texas-style legislation bordering on state-sanctioned rape. And what else do you call it when states mandate invasive probes in women’s bodies?
“If you look up the term rape, that’s what it is: the penetration of the vagina without the woman’s consent,” said Linda Coleman, an Alabama state senator who is fighting the proposal in her state. “As a woman, I am livid and outraged.”
States put in place a record number of new restrictions on abortions last year, Guttmacher says. It counts 92 new curbs in 24 states.
“It was a debacle,” Elizabeth Nash, who manages state issues for Guttmacher, told me. “It’s been awful. Last year was unbelievable. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
Yes, there have been a few victories for women. The notorious Virginia proposal that would have required vaginal ultrasounds before an abortion was modified to require only abdominal ultrasounds.
Yet over all, the pattern has been retrograde: humiliating obstacles to abortions, cuts in family-planning programs, and limits on comprehensive sex education in schools.
If Texas legislators wanted to reduce abortions, the obvious approach would be to reduce unwanted pregnancies. The small proportion of women and girls who aren’t using contraceptives account for half of all abortions in America, according to Guttmacher. Yet Texas has some of the weakest sex-education programs in the nation, and last year it cut spending for family planning by 66 percent.
The new Texas law was passed last year but was held up because of a lawsuit by the Center for Reproductive Rights. In a scathing opinion, Judge Sam Sparks of Federal District Court described the law as “an attempt by the Texas legislature to discourage women from exercising their constitutional rights.” In the end, the courts upheld the law, and it took effect last month.
It requires abortion providers to give women a list of crisis pregnancy centers where, in theory, they can get unbiased counseling and in some cases ultrasounds. In fact, these centers are often set up to ensnare pregnant women and shame them or hound them if they are considering abortions.
“They are traps for women, set up by the state of Texas,” Dr. Boyd said.
The law then requires the physician to go over a politicized list of so-called dangers of abortion, like “the risks of infection and hemorrhage” and “the possibility of increased risk of breast cancer.” Then there is the mandated ultrasound, which in the first trimester normally means a vaginal ultrasound. Doctors sometimes seek vaginal ultrasounds before an abortion, with the patient’s consent, but it’s different when the state forces women to undergo the procedure.
The best formulation on this topic was Bill Clinton’s, that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Achieving that isn’t easy, and there is no silver bullet to reduce unwanted pregnancies. But family planning and comprehensive sex education are a surer path than demeaning vulnerable women with state-sanctioned abuse and humiliation.
By: Nicholas Kristoff, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, March 3, 2012
GOP’s Sexist “Mad Men” Worldview Threatens Women’s Health
The new season of Mad Men is upon us, but my mother, a fan of PBS and quality television, still can’t bring herself watch it. Mad Men brings back too many bad memories for her of a time when women were second-class citizens, belittled on a daily basis. Many Republicans, on the other hand, seem to view Mad Men and its ritual humiliation of women as an instructive documentary. The Republican presidential field is in a race to the bottom on who can most obnoxiously turn back the clock to the pre-Griswold 1965. House Republicans don’t think women are qualified to testify on their own healthcare.
This week brings us the Senate hearings on the Blunt Amendment, which would allow any employer to deny healthcare coverage because of “moral objections.” There’s some question as to whether women will actually get to testify this time, or just patted on the head and allowed to fetch coffee. And if the amendment actually goes anywhere, I can’t wait for the first meeting of Women CEOs Against Viagra.
And in the states, it’s even worse. Utah House Republicans just passed a bill allowing state schools to opt out of sex ed and mandating those that keep it refrain from any mention of contraception. Nationwide, state legislators have introduced a slew of “personhood” measures that would ban hormonal contraception and ultrasound bills designed to shame women into changing their mind. And let’s be clear: these bills aren’t designed to “inform” women. They’re designed to punish them.
The tide of public opinion— or perhaps his own political ambitions—finally persuaded Gov. Bob McDonnell that Virginia’s internal ultrasound bill was a bad idea. But this month, the threat in Virginia became reality in Texas when its ultrasound law took effect. Furthermore, Texas just threw 130,000 poor women off of a healthcare program and the state is 50th in women getting prenatal care in the first trimester. So the only “healthcare” poor women get in Texas is a medically unnecessary procedure and a lecture from a complete stranger if they choose to get an abortion because they couldn’t get contraception or prenatal care.
Here in Colorado, Attorney General John Suthers has signed on to a letter with 11 other Republican AGs objecting to the contraception coverage requirement under the Affordable Care Act, even though state law already requires insurers cover birth control. Apparently Suthers doesn’t think the opinions of thousands of Colorado women who voted no with more than 70 percent margins on two anticontraception ‘personhood’ measures count for much.
And Republicans wonder why they’re losing the women’s vote. Much of the Republican argument seems predicated on the same judgmental discrimination at the root of the Komen debacle, as noted by my U.S. News colleague Susan Milligan: good girl healthcare vs. bad girl healthcare. Good girls get breast cancer. Bad girls get birth control.
Here’s a clue: Reproductive healthcare is healthcare, and contraception is an economic issue, especially when you’re usually the one determining what to use and how to pay for it. There is no more basic financial decision than determining the size of your own family. And no amount of public humiliation will alter a woman’s decision—in the words of the sage Lyle Lovett, “There’s nothing as resolute as a woman when she’s already made up her mind.”
I’m still able to fit into one of my mother’s beautiful vintage dresses from the Mad Men era and in fact have worn it to several costume parties. But much as I love the clothes, I have no desire to return to raw sexism of that era, and neither do most women—a concept Republicans increasingly seem unable to grasp.
BY: Laura Chapin, U. S. News and World Report, February 28, 2012
State Loan Program That Rick Perry Touted Had To Be Bailed Out
Gov. Rick Perry has anchored his presidential campaign to his claims of creating jobs.
With no business record of his own, Perry must contrast his ability to create jobs with public money against the records of two front-runners, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain, who tout credentials as private employers.
His GOP opponents already have sniped at his gubernatorial record, saying Perry inflates his job-creation numbers and takes credit for a business climate he inherited. Perry’s efforts to create jobs and spur agribusinesses as the state’s agriculture commissioner during the 1990s might provide even more fodder for the opposition.
Over his eight years as Texas’ farmer-in-chief, Perry oversaw a loan guarantee program with so many defaults that the state had to stop guaranteeing bank loans to startups in agribusiness and eventually bailed out the program with taxpayer money.
The state auditor panned Perry’s claims of creating jobs and criticized Perry and his fellow board members at the Texas Agricultural Finance Authority for not following their own lending guidelines.
In some instances, the auditor said, Perry and the authority guaranteed loans to applicants with a negative net worth or too much debt. Citing growing debts, the auditor finally suggested that state officials consider dismantling the program.
Even as the first alarms were sounded, Perry defended the program, saying no taxpayer money was at risk, blaming others and claiming he had fixed it.
It only got worse.
By 2002, Perry’s successor, Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, a Republican, stopped making loans as the percentage of bad loans neared 30 percent.
By 2009, her successor, Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, also a Republican, asked the Legislature to pay off the loan guarantees with a $14.7 million appropriation. The finance authority could no longer afford the $541,000 to cover the annual interest on the bad debts, almost all of which dated back to Perry’s tenure.
“It’s bad,” Staples told the American-Statesman at the time. “Unfortunately, taxpayers are on the hook for something that happened as long ago as 1987.”
In effect, Perry, as governor, signed his own government bailout when he approved the 2009 appropriations bill.
The Perry campaign did not respond to questions about whether Perry, as president, would use public money in economic development programs and what lessons he learned from his experience guaranteeing risky business loans with public money.
Mired in partisan politics
When the Legislature created the Texas Agricultural Finance Authority in 1987, the intent was to boost the state’s agricultural economy by selling state-backed bonds to guarantee bank loans to entrepreneurs who could not get commercial loans. The goal was to create small businesses and jobs by processing — rather than simply growing — Texas agricultural products.
The program immediately got mired in partisan politics, with Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, a Democrat, on one side, and the Republican members of the finance authority appointed by Gov. Bill Clements on the other.
The impasse ensured that no loans were made during Hightower’s term.
In 1990, Perry campaigned on a promise to create jobs and expand the rural economy by making loans to agribusiness startups that would process the state’s agricultural products.
Clements’ appointees to the finance authority board gave Perry, a board member, sole authority to guarantee loans before newly elected Gov. Ann Richards, a Democrat, could replace them.
Under the program, the state would guarantee 90 percent of a lender’s loan — up to a maximum of $5 million — to an applicant.
Entrepreneurs lined up for money to spin cotton into yarn, process meats, develop cotton insulation, market canna bulbs to wholesale nurseries and sell pinto beans as a ready-to-eat frozen meal, to name a few.
‘This has not cost Texans money’
Perry had made four loan guarantees for $5.8 million by the time the attorney general ruled that he had to share that authority with his fellow board members. Even then, Perry and his staff drove the decisions.
Mary Webb, a Richards appointee who joined the finance authority as chairwoman in 1992, said the part-time board members had to rely on Perry’s staff at the agriculture department when screening loan applications.
“They did the legwork,” she said. “We looked at the deals to see if they fit with the legislation: Would they create jobs and help the agriculture community?”
By the time Webb left the board in 1995, she said she knew a couple of loans were in trouble. She said she learned only later the scope of the problems with other loans.
The first loan guarantees were financed by selling $25 million in bonds.
Twice, in 1993 and 1995, Perry campaigned for voters to approve more bonding authority.
Perry claimed the first two years of the program had created 4,100 jobs and pumped $390 million into the economy by guaranteeing loans to 47 companies. He predicted more than 40,000 jobs could be created with the additional bonding authority.
He didn’t mention troubled loans as he touted the program’s virtues at a 1993 Capitol press conference: “We think that this Texas Ag Finance Authority is, without a doubt, one of the finest programs that the Texas Legislature, that the citizens of Texas have ever gone forward with.”
At another stop, Perry said, “We can truly say it has not cost the taxpayers of Texas any money.”
Voters turned him down in 1993, but Perry finally won an extra $200 million in bonding authority two years later.
“This is one of the few government programs that truly has worked,” Perry said. “This has not cost Texans money.”
In January 1997, State Auditor Lawrence Alwin first alerted state officials, saying Perry and the board had violated their own lending guidelines.
He said 10 of the 48 companies had defaulted, and six more were in trouble. The first bad loans were written off as uncollectible in 1995, according to records.
Alwin also debunked a $40,000 report by a state-paid consultant claiming the program had created or retained more than 5,000 jobs at a cost of $412 per job as well as contributing $600 million to the economy.
The consultant’s data, which Perry submitted to the Legislature, were “unverifiable, incomplete, untimely, and inconsistent” and based on unrealistic assumptions about job creation, Alwin concluded.
A year later, Alwin warned that the situation had gotten worse. The program was $5.7 million in the red because of bad loans.
The issue hit the newspapers.
Perry and his lieutenants defended the program.
Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Larry Soward told The Dallas Morning News that the audit reflected a number of bad loans made early in the program to farmers and ranchers trying their first business ventures.
“The business acumen of the people behind them might not have been as strong as possible,” Soward said.
But he insisted the program would rebound: “The fact that there is a negative balance does not mean the program is in trouble.”
Perry echoed a similar refrain in a guest column in the Amarillo Daily News.
“By their very nature, TAFA loans are considered higher risk. Because of this, some defaults were inevitable and a negative balance was expected in the early years of the program,” he wrote.
He blamed the problems on “some unfortunate decisions made by the previous TAFA board early in the program.”
Perry promised the problem was fixed. “Today, TAFA is on solid footing with a positive balance projected by 2010,” he wrote.
He reminded readers that the loans were funded by debt — commercial paper: “No taxpayer money has ever been used to make TAFA loans.”
In 1998, Perry was elected lieutenant governor, and Combs succeeded him as agriculture commissioner.
She talked of expanding the loan guarantee program to other borrowers beyond food and fiber processors. But she asked Alwin to do a follow-up audit.
His warning was prescient. He said a program that guaranteed loans to people who typically couldn’t qualify for commercial loans would have a hard time finding enough good loans to generate the income to offset the losses from the bad ones.
In 2002, Combs and the agricultural finance authority bowed to that reality, suspending any new loans.
Twenty-nine of 102 guaranteed loans defaulted, almost all of them during Perry’s tenure, according to the records provided this month by the agriculture department.
While the majority of the loans were in good standing, the majority of the original $25 million — $14.7 million — was bad debt. Just as the auditor warned, the income from the good loans could not generate enough cash to make the program self-sustaining.
“We hit a brick wall,” Staples said in 2009.
By: Laylan Copelin, American-Statesman Staff, Statesman.com, October 22, 2011
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