Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Why Rehash Things That Went Wrong Last Election Cycle?
By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - June 1, 2009
It's all about process. Even though we are several hundred years old, the American System is a "work in progress." We're still evolving, fine-tuning, and hopefully getting better. Growth for a nation (or political party) is sometimes a jagged path rather than a straight line. Review and petition, discussion and revolt all play their part in refining the political process. We didn't learn to hold the tea cup correctly by just picking one up. We don't learn to conduct flawless elections by merely signing up to run as election judge! The Democratic Primary of 2008 showed people in Texas that there is room for much improvement beyond the mere electronics of voting machines.
It isn't about Obama or Hillary. It isn't about Democrat or Republican. It is important, I think, to examine what occurred in that election cycle and to evaluate what really went off track. We need to know where it departed from reflecting the intent of the voters in order to know where to work, petition, influence, and demand that it is improved for the next race.
It is also important to see what worked right and be thankful and appreciative to the millions of people who did their part. That includes people who disagreed with each other, voted for different candidates, worked for opposing campaigns, and donated/volunteered on all sides. Process includes everybody.
The candidate who is declared the winner of any election should be the one selected by the majority of the voters. The process for recording and reporting votes should be as flawless as it is humanly possible to make. The percentages reported up each step of the party selection process should mesh with the percentages of votes cast per candidate from the bottom to the top. (See Texas Presidential Voting Results)
It is important for those who market political candidates to understand that the perceptions of the people determine how folks vote and participate in the process. In Texas, no Democrat won any statewide office during an election cycle in which many thought the Democrats had "the" advantage. (See Texas Statewide '08 Voting Results)
It is beneficial for people who care about issues and causes to understand the events, behaviors, grassroots synergy, campaign strategies which worked, backfired or fizzled and their impact on voters' behavior. Those things all carry through and impact legislation.
Legislation authorizes or prohibits policies which create, fund, or implement infrastructure, human services, education, environmental protection, business development, property protection, transportation, etc.
One governor can veto legislation passed by every member of both houses! One Lt. Governor in Texas can stall legislation favored by the majority of the Senate. It is all a connected link and streams back to the citizen's perception of the process and their participation at the voting booth. One underfunded dark-horse candidate who receives only a thin slice of the votes can bring issues to the minds of politicians and voters which make their way into planks of major candidates and get passed in legislation.
It is important for people to know that their preference is registered accurately or we stop participating. (See Texas Voter Registration and Voter Turnout)
Those who market candidates need to understand the relationship between public perception and voter participation. When marketing overshadows democratic process, and people realize that their votes do not determine the party's nominee or ultimate winner of the seat, there are reactions. The PUMA movement in the Democratic Party in 2008 is a good example. It has crossed party lines, uniting women and causing both parties to examine the united power of female voters.
Jim Mattox's last speech was testimony at the West Committee on Texas-Two Step. Mattox told Democrats what needs to be changed for Democrats to win again in Texas.
Evaluation and reflection are tools which help us keep the process honest. It is how we are able to take that jagged line and straighten it out again, so that we can truly reflect what many think America is all about.
There were counties in Texas where voter participation exceeded 30%. There were others where it was less than 2%. After the balloons and confetti of election night have settled and the last acceptance or congratulatory/ concession telephone call has been made, it is beneficial for everyone for some to step back and look at the numbers, plug in the events and evaluate the message, examine the irregularities in the voting process and analyze the election cycle as a process. See Change the Caucus System - End the Texas Two-Step) It is hard to accurately plug in values for "likeable" or "unlikeable" and personality factors. However, it is possible to look at turn-out, party organization, campaign resources per voting area, and more importantly, party rules, state election law, and chaos in various parts of the process which created irregularities.
We can learn to avoid problems by experiencing them. The primary of '08 can be utilized as a learning experience for all of us. Democrats, Republicans, PUMAs, Obamabites, and Independents can all look at that election and identify places we need to improve. Participating lets us work with others to do it better next time.
I may not agree with you. You may detest everything I usually stand for. However, I will fight to the death for your right to have your opinion accurately recorded and reported at the voting booth. To me, the precept of one person one vote and that vote counted accurately without harassment or discrimination is the American Ideal.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Bury the Trans-Texas Corridor
By David Van Os, May 23, 2009
For all of you Texas patriots who have upraised your voices for the last three years against Slick Rick Perry's plans to sell off our public highway system to private interests so they can stuff their bloated pocketbooks with billions of dollars in predatory toll fees while devastating hundreds of thousands of acres of good Texas earth in massive land grabs - IT HAS COME DOWN TO THE NEXT FOUR DAYS.
The 2009 legislative session is nearing its end. The Texas Department of Transportation is facing legislative sunset this year. Various bills have passed one or the other of the two Texas legislative chambers, the Senate and the House, to reauthorize TXDOT's existence under different competing sets of values. Which will it be - democracy of the people, or despotism of the greedy?
In some of the pending versions of transportation legislation, the public will would finally be honored with the long-sought elimination of the Trans-Texas Corridor and the democratization of the Texas Transportation Commission. I want to take this opportunity to express special commendation for Rep. David Leibowitz, whose labors against the toll-building robber barons and the anti-democratic TXDOT bureaucrats are on the verge of success with the potential final enactment of his bills into law.
In other versions of transportation legislation, the use of private contracts to build and operate massive toll roads, particularly TTC-69 through the heart of East Texas, would be re-authorized. In one particularly ugly bit of backroom chicanery, a deal is already made to grant the building and operation of TTC-69 to a private company from Spain. We have been fighting the same spectre for years now, but as we know, the greedy don't give up easy.
It appears probable that the competing value systems will face off in House-Senate conference committee action on Tuesday, May 26. Long hours, days, and years of hard work for many thousands of grassroots Texans who have been fighting for democracy in Texas transportation planning may come down to making sure the legislators hear the voice of the people loudly and clearly over the next four days.
The TXDOT reauthorization bill is HB 300. The bad bills that the people have to defeat to nail the coffin shut on the Trans-Texas Corridor are SB 17 and SB 404. The latter bills would re-authorize CDAs (comprehensive development agreements); in other words, sell-out deals to put billions of dollars in toll fees into private pockets for operating toll roads that the people of Texas do not want.
If you want to do your part to make sure the people are finally rewarded with victory in this fight, CALL your Texas House Representative and your Texas Senator today through the Capitol switchboard at (512) 463-4630 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tell your Representative and your Senator, or their staffs, you are against SB 17 and SB 404 and anything else that allows comprehensive development agreements in highway construction. Tell them you expect them to GET RID of the Trans-Texas Corridor for good and to GET RID of private toll road development for good. Tell them you want a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission.
We the People have been speaking for a long time. We want democracy, not corporate-governmental oligarchy. Now let's bear down. Two years ago some of the legislators who had pledged to support the people's will wavered at the finish line. This time we can't let them waver. Let them hear our voices in this moment of truth. NO private contracts for toll roads, NO Trans-Texas Corridor, NO comprehensive development agreements, and YES to a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
David Van Os
Are Wall Street speculators driving up gasoline prices?
By Kevin G. Hall - McClatchy Newspapers - May 22, 2009
WASHINGTON — Oil and gasoline prices are rising fast as Memorial Day weekend approaches, but not because supplies are tight or demand is high.
U.S. crude-oil inventories are at their highest levels in almost two decades, and demand has fallen to a 10-year low, but crude oil prices have climbed more than 70 percent since mid-January to a six-month high of $62.04 on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, although refiners are operating at less than 85 percent of capacity, which leaves them plenty of room to churn out more gasoline if demand rises during the summer driving season, the price of gasoline at the pump has climbed 28 cents a gallon from a month earlier to $2.33.
This time, Wall Street speculators — some of them recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayers' bailout money — may be to blame.
Big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and others are able to sidestep the regulations that limit investments in commodities such as oil, and they're investing on behalf of pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and other big institutional investors, in part as a hedge against rising inflation.
These investors now far outnumber big fuel consumers such as airlines and trucking companies, which try to protect themselves against price swings, and they're betting that the economy eventually will rebound, that the Obama administration's spending policies and Federal Reserve actions will trigger inflation — or both — and that oil prices will rise.
Oil contracts are traded mostly in U.S. dollars, and inflation would erode the value of oil earnings, stocks or any other asset denominated in U.S. currency. Many investors are pouring money into oil futures — contracts for future deliveries of oil at specified prices — in the belief that oil prices will rise as inflation erodes the dollar's value.
This turns oil futures contracts into a way for investors to hedge against inflation at the expense of American consumers, who have to pay more to fill their gas tanks as oil and gasoline prices rise.
Masters and other critics say this speculative flow of money into commodities markets is a self-fulfilling prophecy that's distorting the usual process by which buyers and sellers set prices and is driving up the prices of oil, gasoline, grains and other essentials.
In a report May 6, CNBC television senior energy correspondent Sharon Epperson said that traders told her that prices were disconnected from supply and demand.
Morgan Stanley didn't respond to requests for comment via e-mail and telephone.
"Goldman Sachs declines to comment for your story," spokesman Michael DuVally said.
In a report April 16 on last year's spike in natural gas prices, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that similar investment flows drove up the price that consumers paid to heat their homes with natural gas.
During a visit to McClatchy's Washington Bureau, hedge-fund manager Masters also said that big institutional investors were sucking the air out of the fragile economic recovery, in part because their Wall Street partners were exempt from federal limits on how much they could bet on commodity prices.
Contracts for future deliveries of oil and other commodities are traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and the futures market for oil has position limits that restrict how much of the market big speculators can control.
However, big Wall Street banks are exempt from these restrictions, and there also are no such limits in derivatives markets. These vast unregulated markets involve private contracts between swaps dealers — usually big Wall Street banks — and large investors. These dark markets, also called over-the-counter markets, are thought to be 10 times larger than the futures market, and they have no position limits and no regulation.
A stream of financial deregulation under the Clinton administration, culminating in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, led to a global race away from regulation.
Does Dunn think that Wall Street is partly to blame for the current $27-a-barrel run-up in oil prices or for the 12-month run-up from $70 to last July's record $147, followed by the four-month collapse in prices to $56?
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which represents the big players in these markets, said in a statement to McClatchy that fundamentals, not speculation, were driving up prices.
o
Read more in McClatchydc
WASHINGTON — Oil and gasoline prices are rising fast as Memorial Day weekend approaches, but not because supplies are tight or demand is high.
U.S. crude-oil inventories are at their highest levels in almost two decades, and demand has fallen to a 10-year low, but crude oil prices have climbed more than 70 percent since mid-January to a six-month high of $62.04 on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, although refiners are operating at less than 85 percent of capacity, which leaves them plenty of room to churn out more gasoline if demand rises during the summer driving season, the price of gasoline at the pump has climbed 28 cents a gallon from a month earlier to $2.33.
This time, Wall Street speculators — some of them recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayers' bailout money — may be to blame.
Big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and others are able to sidestep the regulations that limit investments in commodities such as oil, and they're investing on behalf of pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and other big institutional investors, in part as a hedge against rising inflation.
These investors now far outnumber big fuel consumers such as airlines and trucking companies, which try to protect themselves against price swings, and they're betting that the economy eventually will rebound, that the Obama administration's spending policies and Federal Reserve actions will trigger inflation — or both — and that oil prices will rise.
"They're buying because they think it will diversify their portfolio, and they think it will diversify their portfolio against inflation, and maybe they think the economy will turn around," said Michael Masters, a hedge-fund manager who testified before Congress last year about the consequences of what are called exchange-traded funds.
Oil contracts are traded mostly in U.S. dollars, and inflation would erode the value of oil earnings, stocks or any other asset denominated in U.S. currency. Many investors are pouring money into oil futures — contracts for future deliveries of oil at specified prices — in the belief that oil prices will rise as inflation erodes the dollar's value.
This turns oil futures contracts into a way for investors to hedge against inflation at the expense of American consumers, who have to pay more to fill their gas tanks as oil and gasoline prices rise.
Masters and other critics say this speculative flow of money into commodities markets is a self-fulfilling prophecy that's distorting the usual process by which buyers and sellers set prices and is driving up the prices of oil, gasoline, grains and other essentials.
"There is definitely an inflation premium at work here," said John Kilduff, a senior vice president of MF Global in New York, a brokerage house that helps large investors trade in energy markets.
In a report May 6, CNBC television senior energy correspondent Sharon Epperson said that traders told her that prices were disconnected from supply and demand.
"Nymex traders tell me they're seeing new money coming in from passive funds that are reallocating assets away from precious metals and into energy holdings. It's this money flow — rather than the fundamental supply-demand data — that's driving oil prices higher," she reported.
Morgan Stanley didn't respond to requests for comment via e-mail and telephone.
"Goldman Sachs declines to comment for your story," spokesman Michael DuVally said.
In a report April 16 on last year's spike in natural gas prices, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that similar investment flows drove up the price that consumers paid to heat their homes with natural gas.
"This increase in commodity prices occurred as large pools of capital flowed into various financial instruments that essentially turn commodities like natural gas into investment vehicles," the report says. "Ultimately, we believe that financial fundamentals . . . explains natural gas prices during the year."
During a visit to McClatchy's Washington Bureau, hedge-fund manager Masters also said that big institutional investors were sucking the air out of the fragile economic recovery, in part because their Wall Street partners were exempt from federal limits on how much they could bet on commodity prices.
"What they don't realize is because we don't have position limits, the money they put in is driving up the price" for oil and other commodities, he said.
Contracts for future deliveries of oil and other commodities are traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and the futures market for oil has position limits that restrict how much of the market big speculators can control.
However, big Wall Street banks are exempt from these restrictions, and there also are no such limits in derivatives markets. These vast unregulated markets involve private contracts between swaps dealers — usually big Wall Street banks — and large investors. These dark markets, also called over-the-counter markets, are thought to be 10 times larger than the futures market, and they have no position limits and no regulation.
"We were in essence operating with a blindfold on for those over-the-counter markets that we couldn't see," Michael Dunn, the acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, acknowledged last week during a news conference to announce proposed new regulation of derivatives markets.
A stream of financial deregulation under the Clinton administration, culminating in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, led to a global race away from regulation.
"The Modernization Act specifically said we were not going to look at those; we weren't going to regulate them. Times have changed, and now we think it is time for us to look at them," Dunn said.
Does Dunn think that Wall Street is partly to blame for the current $27-a-barrel run-up in oil prices or for the 12-month run-up from $70 to last July's record $147, followed by the four-month collapse in prices to $56?
"Everybody has an opinion of what drove the market in the energy crisis. Do I think it was part of the problem? I do," he said. "Do I think it was all of the problem? No.
"I think monetary policies — a weak dollar — had an impact on it. I think speculation by the herd, people saying prices of fuel are going to go up and I want to get in on that" also played a part.
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which represents the big players in these markets, said in a statement to McClatchy that fundamentals, not speculation, were driving up prices.
o
"Oil prices are fundamentally driven by macroeconomic factors affecting supply and demand," the group said. "Energy derivatives are a key tool for helping companies manage the resulting fluctuations in prices."
Read more in McClatchydc
Good News Bad News in Reversal of Preemption - which Bush used to give Federal Law peremption over state law
By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - May 23, 2009
Interstate banks, and their offshore hedge funds protected investors, utilized Federal law and Bush administration policies in the 1990s and 2000's to encroach into states such as Texas with had state laws inhibiting predatory lending policies, protective ursury laws and homestead protections allowing Texans not to lose their homes when bankrupted by unsecured debt. A return to applying Texas State Law would have been a welcome reprieve if Rick Perry were not still in office in Texas. Now, after two decades of Republican control of the Texas House and Senate, giving State Law the preemption over Federal Law, may result in less protections here than other states are reaping under the Obama administration. A review of Texas Law, code by oode, will be required to determine if Texans would benefit more from reversal of Bush era Federal Law and enforcement of Federal Law preemption over state law, or preemption of Texas Law over the Federal.
In the past ten years, the Texas Legislature voted to amend, repeal or change more of the Texas Transportation Code than had been written in the past 50 years. Most of the changes allowed privitazion of public highways and bridges, streamlined environmental impact assessments, private toll operator preferences over public transporation authorities, and streamlined eminent domain claims for land claims by private toll, stadium, pipeline and water companies.
George W. Bush and Rick Perry used Texas as an incubator, where they frequently piloted corporate friendly, consumer detrimental policy before it debuted in the national political arena. Once George W. Bush was elected President, and Rick Perry advanced to Texas Governor, they welded their political clubs in unison. Now, Texans, who have hope that a change in the Federal Administration will overturn some of the more entrenched Bush era policies, view the overturn of Federal law pre emption as possibly being a two-edged sword. If corporate lobbyists were diverted from concentrating on changing state laws once they got repressive Federal policies enacted, there may be some bright spots for Texans with this new policy, which allow older policies to again become standard practice. However, with the Perry administration still in power, it is dubious that older, more consumer friendly policies which do not favor the largest donors and international banking/petro/drug kingpins will be dusted off and practiced in the Lone Star State.
The Obama administration is probably finding that thansforming "Change" into more than a mere political slogan is more difficult than they originally surmised. Although corporations are "forbidden" from making political donations, powerful PACS of corporate employees and individuals, frequently CEOs and stockholders with deep pockets, influence lawmakers and the Executive Branch on state and Federal levels. Lawyers, acting as lobbyists, cloaked under attorney-client privilege, present corporate friendly legislation to legislative counsels without having to report their contacts with Legislators. This is how much of the corporate/industry-friendly special interest legislation gets introduced. A nod or buzz from one legislator or aide to another and word passes among cliques of legislators who shared donors and friends during campaign battles moves the legislation in and out of committee, blocking others from hearing or debate, speeding enactment of protectionism and repeals of oversight regulation legislation.
Texas has some of the strongest anti-trust laws in any of the states. Weaker Federal policies and lack of enthusiasm for enforcement of Texas laws gave the energy sector and communication industries an almost free-run on Texas consumers for the past ten-years. In 2006, David Van Os ran for Texas Attorney general on a platform, promising to enforce Texas's Anti-trust laws. Re-elected, Gregg Abbott, has been less zealous in enforcing anti-trust legislation in Texas than some think David Van Os would have been, had he been elected Texas Attorney General. Van Os promised to utilize anti-trust statues to restrict oil and gas from gouging and price-fixing. The largest contingency of lobbyist in Austin last legislative session were employed by parties interested in the TXU acquisition. Legislation was passed tying the price consumers pay for residential electricity to the cost of natural gas, even if produced by less costly methods. This virtually took the benefit out of wind powered sources to the advantage of TXU, keeping electricity cost escalating higher in Texas than in neighboring states.
In Texas, until special interest groups which have placed their people on the inside of government, in office and bureaus with industry oversight, are displaced, Obama's attempts to relax Bush era environment detrimental and predatory consumer practices by reviewing Bush's policy of Federal pre-emption will probably not give Texas as much relief as can be seen in other states.
Quotes in this article are from tne Washington Post
Interstate banks, and their offshore hedge funds protected investors, utilized Federal law and Bush administration policies in the 1990s and 2000's to encroach into states such as Texas with had state laws inhibiting predatory lending policies, protective ursury laws and homestead protections allowing Texans not to lose their homes when bankrupted by unsecured debt. A return to applying Texas State Law would have been a welcome reprieve if Rick Perry were not still in office in Texas. Now, after two decades of Republican control of the Texas House and Senate, giving State Law the preemption over Federal Law, may result in less protections here than other states are reaping under the Obama administration. A review of Texas Law, code by oode, will be required to determine if Texans would benefit more from reversal of Bush era Federal Law and enforcement of Federal Law preemption over state law, or preemption of Texas Law over the Federal.
Obama Curtails Bush's Policy of 'Preemption'
It Let Federal Rules Override State Laws
By Philip Rucker - Washington Post Staff Writer - Friday, May 22, 2009
President Obama continued to reverse his predecessor's policies this week by undoing a controversial Bush administration rule known as "preemption" that used federal regulations to override state laws on the environment, health, public safety and other issues.
Obama, in a memorandum to federal agency heads issued late Wednesday, said his administration should undertake regulations preempting state laws in rare instances and "only with full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the states and with a sufficient legal basis for preemption."
The president ordered department heads to review all regulations issued in the past 10 years that are designed to preempt state law and determine whether they are justified under the new policy. If they cannot be justified, Obama said, his administration should consider amending the regulations.
Bush administration officials inserted preemptive language into dozens of federal regulations, in many cases shielding corporations from restrictive state laws. For instance, federal preemption provisions stopped California from enforcing a law limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
In the past ten years, the Texas Legislature voted to amend, repeal or change more of the Texas Transportation Code than had been written in the past 50 years. Most of the changes allowed privitazion of public highways and bridges, streamlined environmental impact assessments, private toll operator preferences over public transporation authorities, and streamlined eminent domain claims for land claims by private toll, stadium, pipeline and water companies.
"It's environmental law, it's drug law, it's mortgage law, it's a whole host of areas where the Bush administration was really aggressive about using regulatory action to clear state and local laws that businesses and corporations didn't like,"said Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center.
George W. Bush and Rick Perry used Texas as an incubator, where they frequently piloted corporate friendly, consumer detrimental policy before it debuted in the national political arena. Once George W. Bush was elected President, and Rick Perry advanced to Texas Governor, they welded their political clubs in unison. Now, Texans, who have hope that a change in the Federal Administration will overturn some of the more entrenched Bush era policies, view the overturn of Federal law pre emption as possibly being a two-edged sword. If corporate lobbyists were diverted from concentrating on changing state laws once they got repressive Federal policies enacted, there may be some bright spots for Texans with this new policy, which allow older policies to again become standard practice. However, with the Perry administration still in power, it is dubious that older, more consumer friendly policies which do not favor the largest donors and international banking/petro/drug kingpins will be dusted off and practiced in the Lone Star State.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that Obama's move could wreak havoc on businesses that would have to deal with different state laws, causing a flood of lawsuits."Removing federal preemption forces employers to navigate a confusing, often contradictory patchwork quilt of 50 sets of laws and regulations," said Lisa Rickard, president of the Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform.
The Obama administration is probably finding that thansforming "Change" into more than a mere political slogan is more difficult than they originally surmised. Although corporations are "forbidden" from making political donations, powerful PACS of corporate employees and individuals, frequently CEOs and stockholders with deep pockets, influence lawmakers and the Executive Branch on state and Federal levels. Lawyers, acting as lobbyists, cloaked under attorney-client privilege, present corporate friendly legislation to legislative counsels without having to report their contacts with Legislators. This is how much of the corporate/industry-friendly special interest legislation gets introduced. A nod or buzz from one legislator or aide to another and word passes among cliques of legislators who shared donors and friends during campaign battles moves the legislation in and out of committee, blocking others from hearing or debate, speeding enactment of protectionism and repeals of oversight regulation legislation.
The White House described the move as another step toward rescinding Bush administration policies and protecting the constitutional rights of states.
"This memorandum brings clarity and orderliness back to this rule-making process and also ensures that preemption will be done only in cases where it's legally justifiable," said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.
Obama's memo comes nearly three months after the Supreme Court called into question Bush's preemption policy while issuing a major setback to pharmaceutical companies. In Wyeth v. Levine, the court ruled 6 to 3 in favor of a woman who had her arm amputated after an improper injection of an anti-nausea medication. The court said drugmakers could not rely on federal regulation to shield them from lawsuits brought under state consumer-protection laws.
Texas has some of the strongest anti-trust laws in any of the states. Weaker Federal policies and lack of enthusiasm for enforcement of Texas laws gave the energy sector and communication industries an almost free-run on Texas consumers for the past ten-years. In 2006, David Van Os ran for Texas Attorney general on a platform, promising to enforce Texas's Anti-trust laws. Re-elected, Gregg Abbott, has been less zealous in enforcing anti-trust legislation in Texas than some think David Van Os would have been, had he been elected Texas Attorney General. Van Os promised to utilize anti-trust statues to restrict oil and gas from gouging and price-fixing. The largest contingency of lobbyist in Austin last legislative session were employed by parties interested in the TXU acquisition. Legislation was passed tying the price consumers pay for residential electricity to the cost of natural gas, even if produced by less costly methods. This virtually took the benefit out of wind powered sources to the advantage of TXU, keeping electricity cost escalating higher in Texas than in neighboring states.
The American Association for Justice, which represents trial lawyers, cheered Obama's move, saying his memo "makes clear that the rule of law will once again prevail over the rule of politics."Kendall, of the Constitutional Accountability Center, said that Obama "clearly understands the important role that state and local governments play in our constitutional system and has displayed a very different vision of our Constitution than President Bush displayed in his eight years."
In Texas, until special interest groups which have placed their people on the inside of government, in office and bureaus with industry oversight, are displaced, Obama's attempts to relax Bush era environment detrimental and predatory consumer practices by reviewing Bush's policy of Federal pre-emption will probably not give Texas as much relief as can be seen in other states.
Quotes in this article are from tne Washington Post
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Real Class War
By David Van Os - March 17, 2009
(The opinions expressed in this column are those of David Van Os and may or may not be the expressed opinions shared by DFWRCC and/or Faith Chatham. David Van Os practices law in San Antonio, Texas)
The corporate elite and their many political stooges love to scream, "Class war!" when change is demanded from the bottom up.
Their intention is to evoke in the public mind frightening images of bloodthirsty Bolshevik revolutionaries rampaging through the streets with torches and red banners, chanting "Dictatorship of the proletariat" and shooting every businessman and employer on sight.
With such propaganda what they are really trying to do is to divert the public's attention from the true fact that there really is socioeconomic class war in the United States of America, except that the aggressors are the elite denizens of the top, not the rest of us down here at the bottom.
The bailouts of Wall Street robber barons are some of the clearest manifestations of the real class war in a long time.
For example, in an attempted defense of the obscene bonuses paid to AIG executives with taxpayers' money, the first excuse we heard two days ago was that the executives were entitled to their bonuses by contract, and we could not intrude on the sanctity of contracts.
Well, now. When the automakers asked for government assistance to stay afloat, did anybody in decision-making authority say, "We can't interfere with the United Auto Workers' contracts"? Of course not! It was presumed by all, and expected by the Congress and the President (both the former and the current), that the hourly-wage workers would give up their contractually protected benefits and wages. The Auto Workers' contracts were no less legally binding contracts than the AIG executives' contracts. In fact, it seems to me the Auto Workers' contracts carried more sanctity, in having been agreed to and ratified by many more thousands of individuals
There was one big difference between the two situations. One involved the silk stocking elite, and the other involved hourly paid blue-collar workers. One involved the aristocracy, and the other involved the grassroots masses.
And in the paneled offices and conference rooms of the Beltway elite who inhabit the political administrations (both former and current), the aristocracy protected their own. Let's make the workers at the auto plants give up their contracts, but for heaven's sake let's not interfere with the sacred contracts of our wine-and-cheese buddies.
Meanwhile right here in Texas, the Neanderthal Republican Governor and his fellow Neanderthal Republican political elite have declared that out-of-work Texans should not benefit from the extended unemployment benefits offered by the federal stimulus package. In other words, Texas taxpayers should not participate in some comeback from their own federal tax dollars. I'm talking about all Texas taxpayers, not just the unemployed. Keeping unemployment benefits flowing into the otherwise penniless pockets of the jobless puts much-needed money into the cash registers of honest local retail businesses, thus keeping more employees from falling into the ranks of the unemployed. All of us are the victims of this top vs. bottom class war that we did not initiate, are we not?
Today journalistic pundits are breathlessly announcing that populist anger is cropping up in the countryside over the Wall Street executives' greedy personal self-enrichment at the hands of the taxpayers. Well, duh!
The President and his administration have joined the outrage parade - not as leaders, but as followers of We the People when it became politically necessary. Let's keep up the "populist anger", folks. We are in the lead. And when the corporate executives and Washington politicians start talking about "class war", let's remember who has really been making war on whom for a very long time.
Sincerely,
David Van Os
email: david@texas-patriot.com
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Message from Tom Love
Posted by Faith for Tom Love for U.S. Congress District 24 Campaign - Nov. 4, 2008
As we enter the final stretch of this incredible race, I want to take a minute to thank you.
This nation is built on the hard work and "elbow grease" of the American people. I have traveled District 24, meeting my neighbors. I've seen the dedication of North Texans. Despite personal struggles, I've witnessed neighborhoods and communities come together to help neighbors and strangers. You solve problems, care for your families, and work for a living, while serving others - like those who had to evacuate the Texas Gulf Coast. For some this would seem heroic, but for the "extraordinary people here in North Texas, "it's normal -- it's what we do."
It is my honor to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress for the 24th District. I have grown as I've traveled and listened and learned from you.
I give each voter, encourager, volunteer, and donor my heartfelt thanks. If the voters decide to send me to Washington, I will continue listening to you. Our nation is especially challenged right now but I am confident that the spirit which exists here in North Texas and the ingenuity and dedication of the people will prevail.
The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. If you have not voted yet, PLEASE GO VOTE TODAY.
If you send me to Washington, I promise that I'll be the working man on the hill fighting for the good of the folks here in North Texas.
Thomas P. Love
Democratic Candidate for U.S. Congress District 24
As we enter the final stretch of this incredible race, I want to take a minute to thank you.
This nation is built on the hard work and "elbow grease" of the American people. I have traveled District 24, meeting my neighbors. I've seen the dedication of North Texans. Despite personal struggles, I've witnessed neighborhoods and communities come together to help neighbors and strangers. You solve problems, care for your families, and work for a living, while serving others - like those who had to evacuate the Texas Gulf Coast. For some this would seem heroic, but for the "extraordinary people here in North Texas, "it's normal -- it's what we do."
It is my honor to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress for the 24th District. I have grown as I've traveled and listened and learned from you.
I give each voter, encourager, volunteer, and donor my heartfelt thanks. If the voters decide to send me to Washington, I will continue listening to you. Our nation is especially challenged right now but I am confident that the spirit which exists here in North Texas and the ingenuity and dedication of the people will prevail.
The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. If you have not voted yet, PLEASE GO VOTE TODAY.
If you send me to Washington, I promise that I'll be the working man on the hill fighting for the good of the folks here in North Texas.
Thomas P. Love
Democratic Candidate for U.S. Congress District 24
Friday, August 8, 2008
Elected or Designated: Democratic Nominee in Historical Perspective
OPINION: By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - August 8, 2008
Howard Dean and some so called "party leaders" are demanding that Hillary Clinton not have her name entered into nomination. News pundits have referred to the prospect of her being nominated as "unprecedented." Others discuss how having her name in nomination will take the spot light off of Obama.
The voice of 18 million voters seems inconsequential to Howard Dean and those who are threatening Senator Clinton, trying to force her not to allow her voters to be represented democratically at the Democratic National Convention.
A look at historical data shows that the "presumed nominee" does not always win the nomination. In fact, the "underdog" sometimes goes straight to the White House.
Instead of splitting the party, entering her name into nomination and allowing her delegates to represent the preference of 18 million Democratic Voters will unify the party. Unless her name is entered into nomination, a signification number of her 18 million voters will either 1. sit the election out, 2. vote only for down ticket candidates, or 3. vote for a candidate of a different party.
Democratic voters demand that the party treat every candidate fairly. Neither Senator Obama nor Senator Clinton should be marginalized or discriminated against. A fair, legitimate, honest election at the National Democratic Convention is necessary to energize and sustain the party. Howard Dean should step down as chair of the DNC because he just does not understand the importance of upholding the sacred American principal of one person one vote.
Howard Dean fails to lead. Instead he dictates and manipulates. In addition to threatening viable candidates, he appointed a third of the members of both the Rules and By Laws Committee and the Credentials Committee. Decisions by these committees to strip her of a significant number of her delegates through imposition of penalties for A RULE VIOLATION while similar penalties have not been imposed on other states where there are MANY DOCUMENTED RULES VIOLATIONS created a false perception that Senator Obama is the inevitable Democratic Nominee for president.
These committees have violated the trust of the members of the Democratic Party. Their role is not to DETERMINE who the nominee will be but to insure that there is a fair and honest process which honors the votes of American citizens.
The Chair of the Democratic Party is not elected to be a "king maker." Howard Dean's actions during this election cycle more closely resemble that of Josef Stalin than of an American leader. Chairman Dean should retire. Democrats deserve better. The American people deserve better.
Every candidate deserves to be treated fairly and respectfully.
In order to "unify the party" the nominee must win FAIR AND SQUARE. The manipulations of the Democratic Party to curtain fair electoral processes representing all candidates at the Democratic Party violate the precepts upon which the party was created.
This op-ed was posted on Daily Kos and has attacted a lot of heated comments by Obama supporters. The attitude shown by many on that site is what many Clinton supporters face in the community. There is a lack of understanding of the process and a lack of respect for the process.
If you want to join in on the discussion, register as a user of Daily Kos. Twenty four hours after you register you can comment and post.
Howard Dean and some so called "party leaders" are demanding that Hillary Clinton not have her name entered into nomination. News pundits have referred to the prospect of her being nominated as "unprecedented." Others discuss how having her name in nomination will take the spot light off of Obama.
The voice of 18 million voters seems inconsequential to Howard Dean and those who are threatening Senator Clinton, trying to force her not to allow her voters to be represented democratically at the Democratic National Convention.
A look at historical data shows that the "presumed nominee" does not always win the nomination. In fact, the "underdog" sometimes goes straight to the White House.
Instead of splitting the party, entering her name into nomination and allowing her delegates to represent the preference of 18 million Democratic Voters will unify the party. Unless her name is entered into nomination, a signification number of her 18 million voters will either 1. sit the election out, 2. vote only for down ticket candidates, or 3. vote for a candidate of a different party.
Democratic voters demand that the party treat every candidate fairly. Neither Senator Obama nor Senator Clinton should be marginalized or discriminated against. A fair, legitimate, honest election at the National Democratic Convention is necessary to energize and sustain the party. Howard Dean should step down as chair of the DNC because he just does not understand the importance of upholding the sacred American principal of one person one vote.
1980:
Jimmy Carter - 1981 delegates
Ted Kennedy - 1225 delegates
Uncommitted - 122
No way Kennedy could win, but his name was placed in nomination.
2004:
John Kerry: 2192.5 Pledged delegates
Howard Dean: 114.5 Pledged delegates
Dean had already dropped out with no chance of winning, but his name was placed in nomination.
2008:
Barack Obama: 1766.5 Pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 1639.5 Pledged delegates
The contender is being told to shut up for the sake of the party.
In addition, Teddy Kennedy has had his name on that first ballot in 1968 (12 votes), 1972 (12 votes), 1976 (1 vote), 1980 (1150 - he lost some supporters along the way).
Jesse Jackson has had his name on that first ballot twice: 1984 (465 votes), 1988 (1218 votes).
Howard Dean fails to lead. Instead he dictates and manipulates. In addition to threatening viable candidates, he appointed a third of the members of both the Rules and By Laws Committee and the Credentials Committee. Decisions by these committees to strip her of a significant number of her delegates through imposition of penalties for A RULE VIOLATION while similar penalties have not been imposed on other states where there are MANY DOCUMENTED RULES VIOLATIONS created a false perception that Senator Obama is the inevitable Democratic Nominee for president.
These committees have violated the trust of the members of the Democratic Party. Their role is not to DETERMINE who the nominee will be but to insure that there is a fair and honest process which honors the votes of American citizens.
The Chair of the Democratic Party is not elected to be a "king maker." Howard Dean's actions during this election cycle more closely resemble that of Josef Stalin than of an American leader. Chairman Dean should retire. Democrats deserve better. The American people deserve better.
Every candidate deserves to be treated fairly and respectfully.
In order to "unify the party" the nominee must win FAIR AND SQUARE. The manipulations of the Democratic Party to curtain fair electoral processes representing all candidates at the Democratic Party violate the precepts upon which the party was created.
This op-ed was posted on Daily Kos and has attacted a lot of heated comments by Obama supporters. The attitude shown by many on that site is what many Clinton supporters face in the community. There is a lack of understanding of the process and a lack of respect for the process.
If you want to join in on the discussion, register as a user of Daily Kos. Twenty four hours after you register you can comment and post.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Campaign and family business mix draws criticism
By JAY ROOT
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN — It's been almost a year since the Legislature made it illegal for lawmakers to use political funds to rent property from themselves or their spouses, but some legislators have managed to still keep campaign business in the family.
Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, has campaign space in an office building his wife owns, and records show he makes payments to her company for computer usage and paper.
Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, meanwhile, has reimbursed from campaign funds nearly $600,000 to two of his companies in recent years. He doesn't pay rent anymore but still advertises the address and a phone number at his Dallas management company, Associa, as his campaign contact information, records indicate.
Neither Shapleigh nor Carona reported a donation of office space on their recent campaign reports.
Controversy over mixing campaign spending with personal business prompted the Legislature to clamp down on perceived abuses in 2007. Though elected officials were prohibited years ago from using campaign money to buy real estate, many made payments to their spouses for the use of homes and offices. Critics said the loophole allowed politicians to acquire second homes in Austin and benefit from fat campaign accounts.
The Legislature closed the loophole last year and made it illegal for elected officials to rent property from companies they own or control.
Sens. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth and Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, quit paying campaign rent for luxury condos listed in their spouses' names, records show. Both had made more than $150,000 each in rent payments and related expenses to their spouses since 2000, records indicate.
Nelson's husband and Brimer's wife have since sold the condos, located in the tony Westgate building next to the state capitol. Spokesmen for both senators declined to give additional information.
Elsewhere, Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, adapted to the new law by moving his campaign office out of his Townview Professional Building. Until early last year, while the new law was still being debated, West had rented space from his own company, Skyview Development Corporation.
As for Shapleigh, the El Paso Democrat said he saw nothing wrong with continuing to make payments to his wife's company for Internet service, computers and paper. Records show he has paid the company, 701 N. St. Vrain Joint Venture, $2,423 for those purposes since the law changed last year.
Carona, chairman of the powerful Senate Transportation committee, since 2000 has reimbursed two of his companies $582,000 for various services, including rent and corporate jet travel. Carona no longer charges his campaign for rent. However, the Dallas Republican's political headquarters, as listed on his campaign Website, has the same address and phone number as Associa, his successful Dallas-based property management company.
Neither Carona nor Shapleigh reported the office space as an in-kind, or non-cash, contribution on their campaign reports.
Natalia Ashley, general counsel for the Texas Ethics Commission, said if candidates for elective office, their spouses or their business entities give their campaigns "something of value" — whether it's money or not — the gift must be reported.
It is not uncommon for elected officials to put family members on the campaign payroll.
House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, pays his daughter, Christi, thousands of dollars a month for consulting work, records show. But while the law allows payments to adult offspring and siblings, payments to dependent children and spouses living in the same household are heavily restricted.
Complaints were filed last year against two House members who paid their wives for accounting work. One of them, Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, acknowledged he had erred and has since begun paying the money back — more than $50,000 — out of personal funds.
"I found out it wasn't permissible," Eissler said. "When I found out it wasn't, I stopped."
But Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, continued to make payments in 2007 to his wife's company, Lubbock Bookkeeping Services, after the complaint was filed. Isett told the Austin American-Statesman in late May he saw nothing wrong with paying her company a total of $39,158 last year.
However, when contacted by The Associated Press last week, Isett's consultant, Todd Smith, said the Lubbock Republican had decided to stop.
Ethics watchdogs say laws prohibiting or restricting the mingling of campaign and family business are in place for a good reason: to ensure that politicians don't divert money they get from donors and special interest groups into their family bank accounts.
Read more in the Austin American Statesman
By JAY ROOT
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN — It's been almost a year since the Legislature made it illegal for lawmakers to use political funds to rent property from themselves or their spouses, but some legislators have managed to still keep campaign business in the family.
Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, has campaign space in an office building his wife owns, and records show he makes payments to her company for computer usage and paper.
Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, meanwhile, has reimbursed from campaign funds nearly $600,000 to two of his companies in recent years. He doesn't pay rent anymore but still advertises the address and a phone number at his Dallas management company, Associa, as his campaign contact information, records indicate.
Neither Shapleigh nor Carona reported a donation of office space on their recent campaign reports.
"If the space has value, which it clearly does, and it's donated to the officeholder or the campaign, it needs to be reported," said Fred Lewis, an Austin-based political activist who favors stricter campaign finance laws. "That's as clear as can be."
Controversy over mixing campaign spending with personal business prompted the Legislature to clamp down on perceived abuses in 2007. Though elected officials were prohibited years ago from using campaign money to buy real estate, many made payments to their spouses for the use of homes and offices. Critics said the loophole allowed politicians to acquire second homes in Austin and benefit from fat campaign accounts.
The Legislature closed the loophole last year and made it illegal for elected officials to rent property from companies they own or control.
Sens. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth and Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, quit paying campaign rent for luxury condos listed in their spouses' names, records show. Both had made more than $150,000 each in rent payments and related expenses to their spouses since 2000, records indicate.
Nelson's husband and Brimer's wife have since sold the condos, located in the tony Westgate building next to the state capitol. Spokesmen for both senators declined to give additional information.
Elsewhere, Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, adapted to the new law by moving his campaign office out of his Townview Professional Building. Until early last year, while the new law was still being debated, West had rented space from his own company, Skyview Development Corporation.
As for Shapleigh, the El Paso Democrat said he saw nothing wrong with continuing to make payments to his wife's company for Internet service, computers and paper. Records show he has paid the company, 701 N. St. Vrain Joint Venture, $2,423 for those purposes since the law changed last year.
"I'm over there and I'm responding to something that has to do with Senate activities," Shapleigh said. "I think we've followed the law."
Carona, chairman of the powerful Senate Transportation committee, since 2000 has reimbursed two of his companies $582,000 for various services, including rent and corporate jet travel. Carona no longer charges his campaign for rent. However, the Dallas Republican's political headquarters, as listed on his campaign Website, has the same address and phone number as Associa, his successful Dallas-based property management company.
Neither Carona nor Shapleigh reported the office space as an in-kind, or non-cash, contribution on their campaign reports.
"I don't do campaign work out of my business office," Carona said.
Natalia Ashley, general counsel for the Texas Ethics Commission, said if candidates for elective office, their spouses or their business entities give their campaigns "something of value" — whether it's money or not — the gift must be reported.
It is not uncommon for elected officials to put family members on the campaign payroll.
House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, pays his daughter, Christi, thousands of dollars a month for consulting work, records show. But while the law allows payments to adult offspring and siblings, payments to dependent children and spouses living in the same household are heavily restricted.
Complaints were filed last year against two House members who paid their wives for accounting work. One of them, Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, acknowledged he had erred and has since begun paying the money back — more than $50,000 — out of personal funds.
"I found out it wasn't permissible," Eissler said. "When I found out it wasn't, I stopped."
But Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, continued to make payments in 2007 to his wife's company, Lubbock Bookkeeping Services, after the complaint was filed. Isett told the Austin American-Statesman in late May he saw nothing wrong with paying her company a total of $39,158 last year.
However, when contacted by The Associated Press last week, Isett's consultant, Todd Smith, said the Lubbock Republican had decided to stop.
"Carl just thought it was better to end the practice altogether so there wouldn't be any questions," Smith said.
Ethics watchdogs say laws prohibiting or restricting the mingling of campaign and family business are in place for a good reason: to ensure that politicians don't divert money they get from donors and special interest groups into their family bank accounts.
"Texas law is designed to prevent campaign contributions from being used to enrich the officeholders or their spouses," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen of Texas. "There are firewalls and clear standards that have been set."
Read more in the Austin American Statesman
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Clear Channel Completes Merger
By DFWRCC - July 31, 2008
Media conglomerate Clear Channel's owenership change was completed yesterday. In Texas, many of the billboards in entire markets are entirely controlled by this company. Clear Channel has a significant impact on many political campaigns in Texas. Noted for donating (and reseerving) many billboards to their owner's favored right wing conservative campaigns, Clear Channel is a media which has utilized its resources to change (or keep) the Texas Political landscape conservative.
The new owners
The managing directors of the Boston-based TH Lee Parnership equity firm are:
Todd M. Abbrecht, Richard J. Bressler, Charles A. Brizius, Margaret W. Covell, Anthony J. DiNovi, Thomas M. Hagerty, David V. Harkins, Charles P. Holden, Scott L. Jaeckel, Seth W. Lawry, Soren L. Oberg, Joseph F. Pesce, Scott A. Schoen, Scott M. Sperling, George R. Taylor, Kent R. Weldon, Gregory A. White, Shari H. Wolkon,
DIRECTORS:
Joshua M. Nelson and Vivek Sharma
PRINCIPALS:
James C. Carlisle, Ganesh B. Rao, Jeff T. Swenson and J. Lucas Wimer.
VICE PRESIDENTS:
Joshua D. Bresler, Hobart A. Cook, Alexandra L. DeLaite, Daniel G. Jones, Dhruv A. Prasad, Jeremy Tan, Douglas H. Vandenberg
ASSOCIATES:
Joseph N. Benevento, Michael Beregovsky, Garrett B. Bockenek, Warren W. Chia, Varun P. Chopra, Kemper Diehl, Andrew Mayer, Megan Melican, Justina Wang and Elizabeth C. Williamson
Thomas H. Lee Partnership own Nielsen, a leading global media company providing marketing and media measurement information. Many advertising buyers base their advertising decisions upon viewership/readership data provided by Nielsen.
Another holding of T.H.Lee is UNIVISION, the Spanish-language media company which has top ratings in several key U.S. media markets.
They also own WARNER MUSIC GROUP, the hird-largest recorded music and third-largest music publishing company in the world. and CUMULUS, the largest privately-owned radio broadcasting company in the United States.
See list of holdings.
Media conglomerate Clear Channel's owenership change was completed yesterday. In Texas, many of the billboards in entire markets are entirely controlled by this company. Clear Channel has a significant impact on many political campaigns in Texas. Noted for donating (and reseerving) many billboards to their owner's favored right wing conservative campaigns, Clear Channel is a media which has utilized its resources to change (or keep) the Texas Political landscape conservative.
The new owners
The managing directors of the Boston-based TH Lee Parnership equity firm are:
Todd M. Abbrecht, Richard J. Bressler, Charles A. Brizius, Margaret W. Covell, Anthony J. DiNovi, Thomas M. Hagerty, David V. Harkins, Charles P. Holden, Scott L. Jaeckel, Seth W. Lawry, Soren L. Oberg, Joseph F. Pesce, Scott A. Schoen, Scott M. Sperling, George R. Taylor, Kent R. Weldon, Gregory A. White, Shari H. Wolkon,
DIRECTORS:
Joshua M. Nelson and Vivek Sharma
PRINCIPALS:
James C. Carlisle, Ganesh B. Rao, Jeff T. Swenson and J. Lucas Wimer.
VICE PRESIDENTS:
Joshua D. Bresler, Hobart A. Cook, Alexandra L. DeLaite, Daniel G. Jones, Dhruv A. Prasad, Jeremy Tan, Douglas H. Vandenberg
ASSOCIATES:
Joseph N. Benevento, Michael Beregovsky, Garrett B. Bockenek, Warren W. Chia, Varun P. Chopra, Kemper Diehl, Andrew Mayer, Megan Melican, Justina Wang and Elizabeth C. Williamson
Thomas H. Lee Partnership own Nielsen, a leading global media company providing marketing and media measurement information. Many advertising buyers base their advertising decisions upon viewership/readership data provided by Nielsen.
Another holding of T.H.Lee is UNIVISION, the Spanish-language media company which has top ratings in several key U.S. media markets.
They also own WARNER MUSIC GROUP, the hird-largest recorded music and third-largest music publishing company in the world. and CUMULUS, the largest privately-owned radio broadcasting company in the United States.
See list of holdings.
Clear Channel Goes PrivateRead more in RADIO INK.
SAN ANTONIO -- July 30, 2008: As expected, the $17.9 billion buyout of Clear Channel Communications closed Wednesday. The merger is with an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of CC Media Holdings, the corporation formed by private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital to complete the transaction that takes Clear Channel private. CCU stock will cease trading with the close of the market today.
"Today is a great day for our loyal and patient shareholders and, importantly, puts our company in the financial and operational position to continue to lead beneficial change in both of our core businesses," said Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays. "We are deeply grateful to our loyal employees who have remained focused and generated terrific results through their hard work and dedication."
TH Lee co-President Scott Sperling said, "We are pleased to have closed the acquisition of Clear Channel in partnership with Bain Capital Partners, the Clear Channel management team, and major public shareholders such as Highfields Capital Management and Abrams Capital. Clear Channel's strong leadership position in the radio and outdoor advertising business provides advertisers with an unparalleled platform from which to cost-effectively reach their target audiences locally and nationwide. We look forward to working with our management partners to continue building this great company."
John Connaughton, a Managing Director at Bain Capital, added, "We are very happy to have completed the purchase of Clear Channel. We continue to be impressed with the company's strong management team and its leadership position across its markets and media formats. We look forward to working with Thomas H. Lee Partners, Clear Channel management, and major public shareholders such as Highfields Capital Management and Abrams Capital to continue to strengthen Clear Channel's competitive franchise and drive value over the long term."
Monday, July 28, 2008
Man takes law into his own hands: Dripping Springs resident shows how citizens can bypass law enforcement.
By Steven Kreytak - AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF - Sunday, July 27, 2008
Gary Conner is not a lawyer, and he's not a cop. He's a Dripping Springs food service truck driver who says he has a healthy respect for the law.
That was enough this year for the 53-year-old to ignite a Travis County grand jury investigation into so-called "ghost voting," the practice of lawmakers at the Texas Capitol voting electronically for colleagues who are not at their desks.
The investigation wrapped last month with the grand jury issuing a report, condemning the practice and calling on the legislators to stop or change their rules, which prohibit members from voting for each other.
Conner didn't see lawmakers given the criminal charges he thinks were warranted, but, he achieved a rare feat by getting his criminal complaint considered by a grand jury, bypassing law enforcement and the district attorney's office in the process.
He relied on a seldom-utilized Texas law that allows grand juries, bodies that meet in secret and decides whether there is probable cause to issue indictments charging a crime, to take up criminal allegations from ordinary citizens. Usually, the district attorney chooses the cases presented to the grand jury.
Conner's effort required persistence with the Travis County district attorney's office and help from a state judge. It appears to reveal avenues for citizens to have criminal complaints investigated and evaluated directly by a panel of fellow members of the community.
House officials say that the practice of members voting for absent colleagues dates back to the 1920s, when electronic voting began. A KEYE television news report on the practice was posted on YouTube last year and has been viewed more than a million times. Lawmakers said it stirred up a storm of anger from constituents. One of them was Conner.
Instead of writing his representative, Conner researched the Texas penal code. Soon, he believed that the lawmakers shown in the news report were guilty of tampering with a government record and impersonating a public servant.
But Conner, a past delegate to a Republican party convention, was afraid that the issue was "too political" to be investigated by the Travis County district attorney's office, which has the authority to investigate state officials through its public integrity unit. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has been accused by some lawmakers of allowing politics to dictate whom he prosecutes, a charge that he has denied.
A defense lawyer Conner knows told him about a rarely-used part of the Texas Code of Criminal procedure that charges grand juries with investigating matters brought to them by any "credible person."
Article 20.09 of the code states: "The grand jury shall inquire into all offenses liable to indictment ... of which they shall be informed by the attorney representing the State, or any other credible person."
Armed with a copy of this law, an affidavit stating he is a credible person and a complaint he wrote that claimed 11 members of the Legislature violated the law, Conner in October went to the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, where grand juries meet.
He approached Nancy Gayle, a longtime grand jury bailiff, and said he wanted to hand his complaint to a member of the grand jury when they were not deliberating. Gayle refused, Conner said, and sent him to the district attorney's office. (Gayle no longer works as a bailiff and could not be reached for comment.)
Conner said assistants to Earle would not allow him to give his complaint to the grand jury and encouraged him to make his complaint with them.
The assistant district attorneys insisted that their office is not afraid of political cases, Conner recalled, and reminded him that they sought an indictment of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Conner agreed to hand over his complaint to them, he said.
On Feb. 7, Assistant District Attorney Gregg Cox, head of the public integrity unit, wrote Conner stating that his complaint is under review and that "this office will not make any further comment ... until the review is completed." Prosecutors later determined that no crime was committed.
Conner later asked defense lawyer Paul Velte, whom he supported when Velte ran for Hays County district attorney in 2006, if Velte "knew any judges that had any kind of regard for the Constitution."
On Velte's recommendation, Conner called state District Judge Charlie Baird.
Baird, who has been applauded by defense lawyers for what they call standing up to prosecutors, reviewed Conner's complaint and determined that he had a right to give it to the grand jury.
Baird submitted copies of Conner's allegations and DVDs of the KEYE report to two members.
Baird said it would be ideal for such citizen complaints to go through the district attorney's office, or at least to be passed by the district attorney's office to the grand jury members. But in cases when citizens feel they are being denied the ability to make their complaints, he encourages them to approach the judge that has empaneled a sitting grand jury.
Claire Dawson-Brown, chief of the grand jury division of the Travis County district attorney's office, said that Conner's complaint was mishandled. She said her office should have reviewed the complaint to make sure it was "a viable complaint," something she said Conner clearly had.
She said without that minimal screening, "you'd have all kinds of people showing up with all kinds of complaints," such as "someone with paranoid schizophrenia saying, 'People are planting bugs in my head.' "
Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which keeps watch on police and prosecutors, said the right of a citizen to have his complaint investigated by a grand jury without the consent of law enforcement "is one of the remnants we have of a real participatory part of the criminal justice system."
Harrington said he has previously mailed written complaints to grand jury members' by home addresses. Although the identities of grand jurors are not subject to open records laws, the minutes of their proceedings, which contain the name of the foreperson and any absent members, are publicly available at the district clerk's office.
Harrington said he cannot recall ever learning that his complaints were investigated.
Cutting law enforcement out of the equation "is a check to avoid corruption," Harrington said.
Read more in the AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN
Gary Conner is not a lawyer, and he's not a cop. He's a Dripping Springs food service truck driver who says he has a healthy respect for the law.
That was enough this year for the 53-year-old to ignite a Travis County grand jury investigation into so-called "ghost voting," the practice of lawmakers at the Texas Capitol voting electronically for colleagues who are not at their desks.
The investigation wrapped last month with the grand jury issuing a report, condemning the practice and calling on the legislators to stop or change their rules, which prohibit members from voting for each other.
Conner didn't see lawmakers given the criminal charges he thinks were warranted, but, he achieved a rare feat by getting his criminal complaint considered by a grand jury, bypassing law enforcement and the district attorney's office in the process.
He relied on a seldom-utilized Texas law that allows grand juries, bodies that meet in secret and decides whether there is probable cause to issue indictments charging a crime, to take up criminal allegations from ordinary citizens. Usually, the district attorney chooses the cases presented to the grand jury.
Conner's effort required persistence with the Travis County district attorney's office and help from a state judge. It appears to reveal avenues for citizens to have criminal complaints investigated and evaluated directly by a panel of fellow members of the community.
"Now, people realize that the grand jury belongs to us. It doesn't belong to the DA," Conner said. "If we're ever going to get our government back — if it's a government of the people, by the people and for the people — at some point in time, the people have to be respected."
House officials say that the practice of members voting for absent colleagues dates back to the 1920s, when electronic voting began. A KEYE television news report on the practice was posted on YouTube last year and has been viewed more than a million times. Lawmakers said it stirred up a storm of anger from constituents. One of them was Conner.
Instead of writing his representative, Conner researched the Texas penal code. Soon, he believed that the lawmakers shown in the news report were guilty of tampering with a government record and impersonating a public servant.
But Conner, a past delegate to a Republican party convention, was afraid that the issue was "too political" to be investigated by the Travis County district attorney's office, which has the authority to investigate state officials through its public integrity unit. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has been accused by some lawmakers of allowing politics to dictate whom he prosecutes, a charge that he has denied.
A defense lawyer Conner knows told him about a rarely-used part of the Texas Code of Criminal procedure that charges grand juries with investigating matters brought to them by any "credible person."
Article 20.09 of the code states: "The grand jury shall inquire into all offenses liable to indictment ... of which they shall be informed by the attorney representing the State, or any other credible person."
Armed with a copy of this law, an affidavit stating he is a credible person and a complaint he wrote that claimed 11 members of the Legislature violated the law, Conner in October went to the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, where grand juries meet.
He approached Nancy Gayle, a longtime grand jury bailiff, and said he wanted to hand his complaint to a member of the grand jury when they were not deliberating. Gayle refused, Conner said, and sent him to the district attorney's office. (Gayle no longer works as a bailiff and could not be reached for comment.)
Conner said assistants to Earle would not allow him to give his complaint to the grand jury and encouraged him to make his complaint with them.
The assistant district attorneys insisted that their office is not afraid of political cases, Conner recalled, and reminded him that they sought an indictment of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Conner agreed to hand over his complaint to them, he said.
On Feb. 7, Assistant District Attorney Gregg Cox, head of the public integrity unit, wrote Conner stating that his complaint is under review and that "this office will not make any further comment ... until the review is completed." Prosecutors later determined that no crime was committed.
Conner later asked defense lawyer Paul Velte, whom he supported when Velte ran for Hays County district attorney in 2006, if Velte "knew any judges that had any kind of regard for the Constitution."
On Velte's recommendation, Conner called state District Judge Charlie Baird.
Baird, who has been applauded by defense lawyers for what they call standing up to prosecutors, reviewed Conner's complaint and determined that he had a right to give it to the grand jury.
Baird submitted copies of Conner's allegations and DVDs of the KEYE report to two members.
Baird said it would be ideal for such citizen complaints to go through the district attorney's office, or at least to be passed by the district attorney's office to the grand jury members. But in cases when citizens feel they are being denied the ability to make their complaints, he encourages them to approach the judge that has empaneled a sitting grand jury.
Claire Dawson-Brown, chief of the grand jury division of the Travis County district attorney's office, said that Conner's complaint was mishandled. She said her office should have reviewed the complaint to make sure it was "a viable complaint," something she said Conner clearly had.
She said without that minimal screening, "you'd have all kinds of people showing up with all kinds of complaints," such as "someone with paranoid schizophrenia saying, 'People are planting bugs in my head.' "
Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which keeps watch on police and prosecutors, said the right of a citizen to have his complaint investigated by a grand jury without the consent of law enforcement "is one of the remnants we have of a real participatory part of the criminal justice system."
Harrington said he has previously mailed written complaints to grand jury members' by home addresses. Although the identities of grand jurors are not subject to open records laws, the minutes of their proceedings, which contain the name of the foreperson and any absent members, are publicly available at the district clerk's office.
Harrington said he cannot recall ever learning that his complaints were investigated.
Cutting law enforcement out of the equation "is a check to avoid corruption," Harrington said.
Read more in the AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Dallas County DA Watkins accuses attorney general of politics in mortgage fraud case
By TIARA M. ELLIS - The Dallas Morning News - Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and the Texas attorney general's office are at odds over what Mr. Watkins calls a political maneuver meant to embarrass him.
Central to the conflict is the release of a letter by the attorney general's office concerning a real estate fraud investigation that Mr. Watkins' staff asked the attorney general to investigate and prosecute.
Mr. Watkins and his wife, Tanya, own a title company through which authorities believe a man scammed a Dallas family out of their home with forged documents. Mrs. Watkins could be called as a witness in the mortgage fraud case, which would present a conflict of interest for Mr. Watkins and his office.
Because the state released the letter to a news organization under the Texas public information act, Mr. Watkins refused Friday to deputize an assistant attorney general to work on a gambling case in Dallas County.
"It's apparent to me that the AG is using this opportunity to play politics," Mr. Watkins said. "I would hope that I'm wrong. But now I have an issue of confidence as to what they are doing over there."
But an official with Attorney General Greg Abbott's office in Austin said in an e-mail Monday that Mr. Watkins' ire is misguided.
"Craig Watkins is subject to open records laws just like all other public officials," Jerry Strickland, communications director for the Office of the Attorney General, said in an e-mail. "It is unfortunate that a criminal case has been impacted simply because Craig Watkins appeared to expect that public information concerning him would be withheld from disclosure."
But Terri Moore, first assistant district attorney for Dallas County, contended Monday that the letter is part of an ongoing investigation and part of attorney-work privilege. As such, she said, it is not releasable under the public information act.
In the letter to the attorney general's office that was released, Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Richard Zadina wrote that "Mr. Watkins apparently rendered some legal services for the title company ..."
Mr. Watkins denies performing any legal work for Fidelity National Title, the company he and his wife own, or practicing law in any other capacity. Mr. Watkins said he agrees that the AG's office needed to investigate the mortgage fraud case. But he plans to find out why Mr. Zadina wrote that the district attorney was practicing law, which is prohibited.
Mr. Zadina did not return messages Monday.
In the meantime, the attorney general and district attorney remain at an impasse. It's not clear if officials in the attorney general's office plan to continue their investigation into the mortgage fraud case.
"The best thing we can do is distance ourselves from them," Ms. Moore said. "We want to have integrity in our process."
Mr. Watkins said if it is necessary, his office has the resources to prosecute the gambling case and could have an outside attorney prosecute the fraud case.
"We wouldn't have had an issue, but for them playing politics," Mr. Watkins said. "This has nothing to do with dispensing justice."
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and the Texas attorney general's office are at odds over what Mr. Watkins calls a political maneuver meant to embarrass him.
Central to the conflict is the release of a letter by the attorney general's office concerning a real estate fraud investigation that Mr. Watkins' staff asked the attorney general to investigate and prosecute.
Mr. Watkins and his wife, Tanya, own a title company through which authorities believe a man scammed a Dallas family out of their home with forged documents. Mrs. Watkins could be called as a witness in the mortgage fraud case, which would present a conflict of interest for Mr. Watkins and his office.
Because the state released the letter to a news organization under the Texas public information act, Mr. Watkins refused Friday to deputize an assistant attorney general to work on a gambling case in Dallas County.
"It's apparent to me that the AG is using this opportunity to play politics," Mr. Watkins said. "I would hope that I'm wrong. But now I have an issue of confidence as to what they are doing over there."
But an official with Attorney General Greg Abbott's office in Austin said in an e-mail Monday that Mr. Watkins' ire is misguided.
"Craig Watkins is subject to open records laws just like all other public officials," Jerry Strickland, communications director for the Office of the Attorney General, said in an e-mail. "It is unfortunate that a criminal case has been impacted simply because Craig Watkins appeared to expect that public information concerning him would be withheld from disclosure."
But Terri Moore, first assistant district attorney for Dallas County, contended Monday that the letter is part of an ongoing investigation and part of attorney-work privilege. As such, she said, it is not releasable under the public information act.
In the letter to the attorney general's office that was released, Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Richard Zadina wrote that "Mr. Watkins apparently rendered some legal services for the title company ..."
Mr. Watkins denies performing any legal work for Fidelity National Title, the company he and his wife own, or practicing law in any other capacity. Mr. Watkins said he agrees that the AG's office needed to investigate the mortgage fraud case. But he plans to find out why Mr. Zadina wrote that the district attorney was practicing law, which is prohibited.
Mr. Zadina did not return messages Monday.
In the meantime, the attorney general and district attorney remain at an impasse. It's not clear if officials in the attorney general's office plan to continue their investigation into the mortgage fraud case.
"The best thing we can do is distance ourselves from them," Ms. Moore said. "We want to have integrity in our process."
Mr. Watkins said if it is necessary, his office has the resources to prosecute the gambling case and could have an outside attorney prosecute the fraud case.
"We wouldn't have had an issue, but for them playing politics," Mr. Watkins said. "This has nothing to do with dispensing justice."
MEDIA TALK: Study Finds Gender Imbalance on 3 Newspapers' Op-Ed Pages
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA - The New York Times - June 23, 2008
In the great marketplace of ideas, the opinion pages of major newspapers offer nonjournalists — mainly academics — a rare chance to reach a big audience and influence public policy. So which college professors win the competition for that limited, coveted space?
Overwhelmingly, they agree with the editorial page, and they are men, according to researchers at Rutgers University. Unfortunately, those findings do not suggest the kind of forum for diverse views that newspapers say their opinion pages should be.
The authors of the study are Bob Sommer, who teaches public policy communications and is president of Observer Media, publisher of The New York Observer, and John R. Maycroft, a graduate student in public policy. They combed through 366 opinion articles written by college teachers or researchers and published by three newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Star-Ledger, the largest-circulation newspaper in New Jersey. Their study will be published in the journal Politics and Policy.
At each newspaper, 90 to 95 percent of the published articles agreed with the editorial page stance on the issue at hand, they wrote, and when the opinion pieces disagreed, “it was usually in a point/counterpoint format where at least one of the authors by definition had to take a view in opposition.”
The study says that men wrote 78 percent of the academics’ opinion pieces in The Star-Ledger, 82 percent in The Times, and 97 percent in The Journal. “Of all our analyses,” the authors wrote, “this is perhaps the most astonishing.”
They did not say whether the disparity was, in part, a reflection of the gender makeup at some university departments and institutes.
The study also found a pronounced tilt toward academics from a handful of high-prestige universities, including Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago.
Editors at The Journal and The Times declined to comment.
Josh McMahon, the op-ed page editor at The Star-Ledger, said he was surprised by the conclusions, adding that they did not reflect conscious biases.
“I’m often conscious of picking pieces I don’t necessarily agree with,” he said. “My only guideline is picking what I find interesting.”
Read more in the New York Times
In the great marketplace of ideas, the opinion pages of major newspapers offer nonjournalists — mainly academics — a rare chance to reach a big audience and influence public policy. So which college professors win the competition for that limited, coveted space?
Overwhelmingly, they agree with the editorial page, and they are men, according to researchers at Rutgers University. Unfortunately, those findings do not suggest the kind of forum for diverse views that newspapers say their opinion pages should be.
The authors of the study are Bob Sommer, who teaches public policy communications and is president of Observer Media, publisher of The New York Observer, and John R. Maycroft, a graduate student in public policy. They combed through 366 opinion articles written by college teachers or researchers and published by three newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Star-Ledger, the largest-circulation newspaper in New Jersey. Their study will be published in the journal Politics and Policy.
At each newspaper, 90 to 95 percent of the published articles agreed with the editorial page stance on the issue at hand, they wrote, and when the opinion pieces disagreed, “it was usually in a point/counterpoint format where at least one of the authors by definition had to take a view in opposition.”
The study says that men wrote 78 percent of the academics’ opinion pieces in The Star-Ledger, 82 percent in The Times, and 97 percent in The Journal. “Of all our analyses,” the authors wrote, “this is perhaps the most astonishing.”
They did not say whether the disparity was, in part, a reflection of the gender makeup at some university departments and institutes.
The study also found a pronounced tilt toward academics from a handful of high-prestige universities, including Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago.
Editors at The Journal and The Times declined to comment.
Josh McMahon, the op-ed page editor at The Star-Ledger, said he was surprised by the conclusions, adding that they did not reflect conscious biases.
“I’m often conscious of picking pieces I don’t necessarily agree with,” he said. “My only guideline is picking what I find interesting.”
Read more in the New York Times
Monday, June 2, 2008
Clinton Wins Puerto Rico Primary
By International News - June 2, 2008
U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton has won Sunday's Democratic presidential primary contest in the commonwealth territory of Puerto Rico, soundly defeating rival Senator Barack Obama by a two to one margin. VOA's Michael Bowman reports, the Clinton victory comes near the end of the U.S. presidential primary season, and will only slightly erode Obama's lead among party delegates that will determine the Democratic presidential nominee.
Conventional wisdom holds that, at this point, Hillary Clinton has only the faintest hopes of securing the Democratic nomination. Nevertheless, she is finishing the primary season on a strong note. In recent weeks, she has scored overwhelming victories in the states of West Virginia and Kentucky. Now, she adds Puerto Rico to her win column.
Exit polls in the island territory showed her winning among all age groups, and among both men and women. Puerto Ricans may vote in primary contests, but not in the presidential election in November.
Obama still holds a comfortable lead among party delegates accrued from states and territories that have held primaries and caucuses since the beginning of the year. But Clinton's recent victories have, by some calculations, put her ahead in the popular vote tally of all ballots cast in the primary season to date.
Clinton highlighted her popular vote totals in a victory speech to supporters in Puerto Rico.
Clinton added that so-called "super delegates" - party elders and elected officials who may endorse any candidate - will ultimately decide who becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. She urged super delegates to pick the strongest candidate to go up against Republican John McCain in November, and said she is that candidate.
But the Obama campaign counters that Clinton's popular vote argument is flawed, since it does not take into account vote tallies from many caucus states.
Read more
U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton has won Sunday's Democratic presidential primary contest in the commonwealth territory of Puerto Rico, soundly defeating rival Senator Barack Obama by a two to one margin. VOA's Michael Bowman reports, the Clinton victory comes near the end of the U.S. presidential primary season, and will only slightly erode Obama's lead among party delegates that will determine the Democratic presidential nominee.
Conventional wisdom holds that, at this point, Hillary Clinton has only the faintest hopes of securing the Democratic nomination. Nevertheless, she is finishing the primary season on a strong note. In recent weeks, she has scored overwhelming victories in the states of West Virginia and Kentucky. Now, she adds Puerto Rico to her win column.
Exit polls in the island territory showed her winning among all age groups, and among both men and women. Puerto Ricans may vote in primary contests, but not in the presidential election in November.
Obama still holds a comfortable lead among party delegates accrued from states and territories that have held primaries and caucuses since the beginning of the year. But Clinton's recent victories have, by some calculations, put her ahead in the popular vote tally of all ballots cast in the primary season to date.
Clinton highlighted her popular vote totals in a victory speech to supporters in Puerto Rico.
"More people have voted for us than for any candidate in the history of presidential primaries," said Hillary Clinton. "We are winning the popular vote. And it is important where we have won. We are winning these votes in swing states and among the very swing voters [that] Democrats must win to take back the White House."
Clinton added that so-called "super delegates" - party elders and elected officials who may endorse any candidate - will ultimately decide who becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. She urged super delegates to pick the strongest candidate to go up against Republican John McCain in November, and said she is that candidate.
But the Obama campaign counters that Clinton's popular vote argument is flawed, since it does not take into account vote tallies from many caucus states.
Read more
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Bank backs off from credit card policy: Chase Will No Longer Increase Rates Based on Credit-Bureau Information
By Chase-JP Morgan - Nov. 2007
WILMINGTON, DE (November 19, 2007) - Today, Chase Card Services announced the expansion of Chase Clear & Simple, an ongoing program designed to help Chase customers better understand and manage their accounts, with the adoption of new, clearer pricing practices.
Chase is eliminating a practice, commonly used in the industry, of increasing interest rates for individual cardholders when their credit-bureau scores decline. This change is effective on March 1, 2008.
"Chase's clear and simple approach has been developed to make us easier to do business with, helping us to build lasting, loyal relationships between ourselves and our customers," said Gordon Smith, CEO of Chase Card Services.
"As the founder of a leading consumer advocacy organization that has specifically focused on the card industry for about 10 years, I would like to commend Chase on taking such a strong stance on such an important and controversial industry practice," said Curtis Arnold, founder of U.S. Citizens for Fair Credit Card Terms and cardratings.com. "This is a major step forward for consumers. Chase's Clear & Simple program is a bright spot in the card industry and illustrates just how serious Chase is about being a consumer-friendly card issuer."
WILMINGTON, DE (November 19, 2007) - Today, Chase Card Services announced the expansion of Chase Clear & Simple, an ongoing program designed to help Chase customers better understand and manage their accounts, with the adoption of new, clearer pricing practices.
Chase is eliminating a practice, commonly used in the industry, of increasing interest rates for individual cardholders when their credit-bureau scores decline. This change is effective on March 1, 2008.
"Chase's clear and simple approach has been developed to make us easier to do business with, helping us to build lasting, loyal relationships between ourselves and our customers," said Gordon Smith, CEO of Chase Card Services.
"As the founder of a leading consumer advocacy organization that has specifically focused on the card industry for about 10 years, I would like to commend Chase on taking such a strong stance on such an important and controversial industry practice," said Curtis Arnold, founder of U.S. Citizens for Fair Credit Card Terms and cardratings.com. "This is a major step forward for consumers. Chase's Clear & Simple program is a bright spot in the card industry and illustrates just how serious Chase is about being a consumer-friendly card issuer."
2 Voter Rights Cases, One Gripping a College Town, Stir Texas
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL - The New York Times - Published: May 28, 2008
PRAIRIE VIEW, Tex. — “Vote or Die,” exhorts the faded slogan on a roadway at Prairie View A&M University, where black students once marched for the right to vote here in the town where they attend school, on a former cotton plantation about 50 miles northwest of Houston
The students won that battle in 2004, long after the United States Supreme Court supposedly decided the issue in 1979. But disputes over minority voting rights — along with accusations of election fraud — continue to rouse Prairie View, home to one of the nation’s leading historically black colleges, and other Texas locales.
“The cold war’s not over — they just moved the fence from Berlin to the Texas border,” said DeWayne Charleston, Waller County justice of the peace, who maintains that local officials failed to record hundreds of students whom he registered to vote in 2006. The federal Department of Justice and the Texas attorney general’s office say investigations are under way here, but will not give details.
Meanwhile, the attorney general, Greg Abbott, is a defendant in a separate voting rights case that goes to federal trial on Wednesday in the East Texas city of Marshall, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding Indiana’s tough voter identification law.
Arguing that antifraud provisions enacted in 2003 were being selectively enforced to intimidate minority voters who are largely Democrats, the Texas Democratic Party filed suit against Mr. Abbott and Phil Wilson, the secretary of state, both Republicans.
The suit, initially filed in 2006, contends that get-out-the-vote activists who help voters with mail ballots have been “interrogated, harassed and intimidated” by state investigators.
J. Gerald Hebert, the lawyer for the Democrats, said his first witnesses would be several elderly black women prosecuted on fraud charges for what Mr. Hebert described as help given other elderly voters in the mailing of early ballots in Texarkana, Fort Worth and Dallas.
Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson say they have a duty to prevent voter fraud. To complaints that any infractions at issue have been insignificant, they say that in pursuit of that duty, they must pursue violations of provisions like one that requires anyone mailing in a ballot to sign the envelope.
They say that “there is no evidence of any voters who have been unable to vote due to enactment or enforcement” of the provisions, which, they also note, were sponsored in the Texas House by a Democrat. Further, they say, there is no evidence that enforcement has intimidated anyone into stopping voter assistance efforts.
The Dallas Morning News reported on May 18 that all 26 cases of voter fraud prosecuted by Mr. Abbott had been brought against Democrats, almost all of them black or Hispanic.
But in their legal brief, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson said that the state had brought voter fraud cases against Republicans as well and that “mere questioning” of people about activities that might have broken the law did not deprive them of a constitutional right.
The brief said the two officials’ position was strengthened by the Supreme Court’s Indiana ruling, on April 28, which allowed states, as a way of preventing fraud, to require voters to show photo identification.
The suit against Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson involves enforcement of provisions that make it a crime in certain cases to carry someone else’s filled-in early-voting ballot to the mailbox, to possess another person’s blank ballot or to provide early-voting ballot assistance to anyone who has not asked for it.
The case, to be tried without a jury before Judge T. John Ward, has put Mr. Abbott at odds with Judge Charleston and some campus activists at Prairie View, who say they once looked to the attorney general as a champion of their voting rights.
In 2004, Oliver Kitzman, then the Waller County district attorney, challenged the students’ right to cast ballots here rather than in their home communities, although the Supreme Court had long ago decided they could. Students, claiming that the county’s white residents feared the voting power of the predominantly black 9,000-member student body, marched in protest, and Mr. Abbott wrote an opinion supporting them. Mr. Kitzman soon retired, and students continued to cast ballots here.
But other voting rights disputes have since erupted. Before the 2006 election, Judge Charleston said in an interview, he personally registered about 1,000 students. But on Election Day, he said, hundreds of them were turned away as not registered to vote. The registration cards were later found in county offices, he said.
Ellen C. Shelburne, the county tax assessor and registrar, who took office in January 2007, said she had recently been questioned by investigators from Mr. Abbott’s office and had told them that she knew nothing about the matter. Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Mr. Abbott, said, “We cannot comment on ongoing investigations.”
Jamie Hais, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said, “We do have an ongoing investigation into the matter,” but declined to comment further.
Judge Charleston said he had also complained to federal and state officials that Waller County had denied Prairie View students convenient polling locations. Further, he told them that for the May 10 school board election, not only did district trustees use public money to issue a voter guide, the guide also gave short shift to two black candidates, Jemiah Richards and Charli Cooksey, both Prairie View students, who subsequently lost to incumbents.
Patrick W. Mizell, a lawyer for the firm of Vinson & Elkins, which was hired to represent the school board, said that this was the first time the trustees had put out a guide but that he saw nothing wrong with it.
Anyway, Mr. Mizell said, “I don’t think a large number of Prairie View students have kids in the local school district.”
PRAIRIE VIEW, Tex. — “Vote or Die,” exhorts the faded slogan on a roadway at Prairie View A&M University, where black students once marched for the right to vote here in the town where they attend school, on a former cotton plantation about 50 miles northwest of Houston
The students won that battle in 2004, long after the United States Supreme Court supposedly decided the issue in 1979. But disputes over minority voting rights — along with accusations of election fraud — continue to rouse Prairie View, home to one of the nation’s leading historically black colleges, and other Texas locales.
“The cold war’s not over — they just moved the fence from Berlin to the Texas border,” said DeWayne Charleston, Waller County justice of the peace, who maintains that local officials failed to record hundreds of students whom he registered to vote in 2006. The federal Department of Justice and the Texas attorney general’s office say investigations are under way here, but will not give details.
Meanwhile, the attorney general, Greg Abbott, is a defendant in a separate voting rights case that goes to federal trial on Wednesday in the East Texas city of Marshall, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding Indiana’s tough voter identification law.
Arguing that antifraud provisions enacted in 2003 were being selectively enforced to intimidate minority voters who are largely Democrats, the Texas Democratic Party filed suit against Mr. Abbott and Phil Wilson, the secretary of state, both Republicans.
The suit, initially filed in 2006, contends that get-out-the-vote activists who help voters with mail ballots have been “interrogated, harassed and intimidated” by state investigators.
J. Gerald Hebert, the lawyer for the Democrats, said his first witnesses would be several elderly black women prosecuted on fraud charges for what Mr. Hebert described as help given other elderly voters in the mailing of early ballots in Texarkana, Fort Worth and Dallas.
Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson say they have a duty to prevent voter fraud. To complaints that any infractions at issue have been insignificant, they say that in pursuit of that duty, they must pursue violations of provisions like one that requires anyone mailing in a ballot to sign the envelope.
They say that “there is no evidence of any voters who have been unable to vote due to enactment or enforcement” of the provisions, which, they also note, were sponsored in the Texas House by a Democrat. Further, they say, there is no evidence that enforcement has intimidated anyone into stopping voter assistance efforts.
The Dallas Morning News reported on May 18 that all 26 cases of voter fraud prosecuted by Mr. Abbott had been brought against Democrats, almost all of them black or Hispanic.
But in their legal brief, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson said that the state had brought voter fraud cases against Republicans as well and that “mere questioning” of people about activities that might have broken the law did not deprive them of a constitutional right.
The brief said the two officials’ position was strengthened by the Supreme Court’s Indiana ruling, on April 28, which allowed states, as a way of preventing fraud, to require voters to show photo identification.
The suit against Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson involves enforcement of provisions that make it a crime in certain cases to carry someone else’s filled-in early-voting ballot to the mailbox, to possess another person’s blank ballot or to provide early-voting ballot assistance to anyone who has not asked for it.
The case, to be tried without a jury before Judge T. John Ward, has put Mr. Abbott at odds with Judge Charleston and some campus activists at Prairie View, who say they once looked to the attorney general as a champion of their voting rights.
In 2004, Oliver Kitzman, then the Waller County district attorney, challenged the students’ right to cast ballots here rather than in their home communities, although the Supreme Court had long ago decided they could. Students, claiming that the county’s white residents feared the voting power of the predominantly black 9,000-member student body, marched in protest, and Mr. Abbott wrote an opinion supporting them. Mr. Kitzman soon retired, and students continued to cast ballots here.
But other voting rights disputes have since erupted. Before the 2006 election, Judge Charleston said in an interview, he personally registered about 1,000 students. But on Election Day, he said, hundreds of them were turned away as not registered to vote. The registration cards were later found in county offices, he said.
Ellen C. Shelburne, the county tax assessor and registrar, who took office in January 2007, said she had recently been questioned by investigators from Mr. Abbott’s office and had told them that she knew nothing about the matter. Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Mr. Abbott, said, “We cannot comment on ongoing investigations.”
Jamie Hais, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said, “We do have an ongoing investigation into the matter,” but declined to comment further.
Judge Charleston said he had also complained to federal and state officials that Waller County had denied Prairie View students convenient polling locations. Further, he told them that for the May 10 school board election, not only did district trustees use public money to issue a voter guide, the guide also gave short shift to two black candidates, Jemiah Richards and Charli Cooksey, both Prairie View students, who subsequently lost to incumbents.
Patrick W. Mizell, a lawyer for the firm of Vinson & Elkins, which was hired to represent the school board, said that this was the first time the trustees had put out a guide but that he saw nothing wrong with it.
Anyway, Mr. Mizell said, “I don’t think a large number of Prairie View students have kids in the local school district.”
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Legislators may lose ghost employees: Full Time Work For Part Time Pay May Soon End At State House
Austin American Statesman TOPIX - Thursday May 8 “The House has allowed them to do that. Specifically (House rules) say that the House member has complete power over that aspect of their office funds.
"Those rules give the legislators so much leeway.”
The Legislature's long-standing practice of hiring full-time employees at part-time hours and pay may be nearing an end just as the issue becomes a political football for state lawmakers.
The Austin American-Statesman has reported that at least 12 House employees are paid less than $300 a month and work other jobs, but have been enjoying the insurance and pension benefits of full-time employment.
As lawmakers were asked to remove the so-called ghost employees from their payrolls, investigators began an inquiry into what rules or laws may have been broken after the newspaper report last week put the practice in the public spotlight for the first time. Read more
Also see coverage on KBTX
Texas House May No Longer Get To Hire Part Time, Pay Full Time
By KBTX - May 6, 2008
"Those rules give the legislators so much leeway.”
The Legislature's long-standing practice of hiring full-time employees at part-time hours and pay may be nearing an end just as the issue becomes a political football for state lawmakers.
The Austin American-Statesman has reported that at least 12 House employees are paid less than $300 a month and work other jobs, but have been enjoying the insurance and pension benefits of full-time employment.
As lawmakers were asked to remove the so-called ghost employees from their payrolls, investigators began an inquiry into what rules or laws may have been broken after the newspaper report last week put the practice in the public spotlight for the first time. Read more
Also see coverage on KBTX
Texas House May No Longer Get To Hire Part Time, Pay Full Time
By KBTX - May 6, 2008
AUSTIN (AP) - The Texas Legislature's long-standing practice of hiring full-time employees at part-time hours and pay -- may be nearing an end.
The Austin American-Statesman has reported that at least 12 House employees are paid less than $300 a month and work other jobs. But those employees have been enjoying the insurance and pension benefits of full-time employment.
Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick has ordered a review by the House Investigations and Ethics Committee.
House Administration chairman Tony Goolsby asked lawmakers to review their records, noting that such arrangements would violateHouse rules and state law.
The newspaper reported that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle also is investigating the practice for possiblecriminal violations. Earle's office would not confirm such aninvestigation.
Texas House rules allow each lawmaker to hire and supervise his employees, but the rules also define full-time status as 40 hours
per week.
-- At least two of the ghost employees employed by House Democrats were former lawmakers, whose pension is tied to years of service. That means the longer they remain a full-time employee,the more they get paid in retirement.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Texas officials criticized for cozy relationships
By BRETT SHIPP - WFAA-TV - Friday, May 9, 2008Are Texas Railroad Commissioners too cozy with the oil and gas industry operators they are supposed to be regulating?
It's a question being raised in the wake of a News 8 investigation into deadly natural gas fittings, fittings that some say Commissioners should have forced gas companies to remove years ago.
For most it's tragedy long forgotten. Three elderly people killed in a house explosion in Garland in January, 2000. Investigators ruled that a small gas pipeline had cracked and leaked, causing the explosion that killed Albert and Lillian Holbert and her sister Callie Hickerson. But the Holberts' daughter, Sydna Gordon, will never forget.
Still etched in her mind, the moment she found out that the faulty pipe that killed her parents had a legacy of failure and death in Texas dating back to 1983.
Only after her parents died, did State Railroad Commissioners order the faulty pipe removed from the ground. “The Railroad Commission is the governmental agency in this state that has the responsibility to make sure we are all safe and they don't do it," said Gordon.
West Texas rancher Jay Marcom is a frequent critic of State Railroad Commissioners. His ranch land is crisscrossed by a corroded, 80 year old natural gas pipeline which spring six leaks last year, polluting his soil and his wells.
When he tries to get Railroad Commissioners to protect him and his land he says they almost always side with the gas company... and he thinks he knows why. “As long as the Railroad Commission of Texas is funded and influenced by the oil and gas industry of the state of Texas there will never be a change," said Marcom.
According to the government watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, all three commissioners campaigns are heavily funded by the people they regulate.
Of the $1.6 million dollars raised by Victor Carrillo in 2004, 46-percent came from individuals connected to the oil and gas industry.
Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones raised just over $2-million dollars in 2006. Of that, 35-percent was oil and gas money.
And a News Eight analysis of Commission Chairman Michael Williams January campaign report shows of the $400,000 he raised, 42-percent came from individuals with ties to the oil and gas industry.
Critics say those percentages are hard to ignore. "With the Railroad Commission we don't know who these people are, nobody knows what they do for a living, except the oil and gas industry that they are supposed to regulate,” said Andrew Wheat, director of Texans for Public Justice. “But, at the same time that's the very industry that is paying for their political careers."
Chairman Williams says contributions do not buy influence. "I reject that notion,” said Williams. “I am very confident that I make decisions based on facts and based on good sound policy and based on what I think is the best interest of my fellow Texans."
Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones told News 8, "I've always called balls and strikes the way I see them, and I don't ever intend to stop doing that."
Commissioner Victor Carrillo rejects critics claims as well. "My personal integrity dictates that the decisions I make are based on sound legal, policy, and scientific reasoning and not based on who has contributed to my campaign," said Carrillo.
All three commissioners reacted quickly to our investigation into faulty gas couplings that led to two deaths in Wylie in 2006, and two more in Cleburne last year.
Just days after our reports aired Commissioners ordered the couplings removed from the ground.
But in the cases of the faulty couplings and the cracked pipe which killed the Holberts, past and present Railroad Commissioners had access to years of evidence that potentially deadly problems existed.
And for years no action was taken to force the removal of the potentially deadly products, a removal that would have cost industry officials millions of dollars.
To this day Gordon believes had Railroad Commissioners done their jobs her parents would still be alive. “The Railroad Commission is only interested in protecting the gas companies not the rest of us asleep in our beds," said Gordon.
Late last year a state audit criticized Railroad Commission inspectors for being too cozy with and accepting small gifts from the oil and gas operators they are supposed regulate.
Railroad Commissioners have pledged to discontinue that practice.
See more of News 8 Investigative Report
It's a question being raised in the wake of a News 8 investigation into deadly natural gas fittings, fittings that some say Commissioners should have forced gas companies to remove years ago.
For most it's tragedy long forgotten. Three elderly people killed in a house explosion in Garland in January, 2000. Investigators ruled that a small gas pipeline had cracked and leaked, causing the explosion that killed Albert and Lillian Holbert and her sister Callie Hickerson. But the Holberts' daughter, Sydna Gordon, will never forget.
Still etched in her mind, the moment she found out that the faulty pipe that killed her parents had a legacy of failure and death in Texas dating back to 1983.
Only after her parents died, did State Railroad Commissioners order the faulty pipe removed from the ground. “The Railroad Commission is the governmental agency in this state that has the responsibility to make sure we are all safe and they don't do it," said Gordon.
West Texas rancher Jay Marcom is a frequent critic of State Railroad Commissioners. His ranch land is crisscrossed by a corroded, 80 year old natural gas pipeline which spring six leaks last year, polluting his soil and his wells.
When he tries to get Railroad Commissioners to protect him and his land he says they almost always side with the gas company... and he thinks he knows why. “As long as the Railroad Commission of Texas is funded and influenced by the oil and gas industry of the state of Texas there will never be a change," said Marcom.
According to the government watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, all three commissioners campaigns are heavily funded by the people they regulate.
Of the $1.6 million dollars raised by Victor Carrillo in 2004, 46-percent came from individuals connected to the oil and gas industry.
Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones raised just over $2-million dollars in 2006. Of that, 35-percent was oil and gas money.
And a News Eight analysis of Commission Chairman Michael Williams January campaign report shows of the $400,000 he raised, 42-percent came from individuals with ties to the oil and gas industry.
Critics say those percentages are hard to ignore. "With the Railroad Commission we don't know who these people are, nobody knows what they do for a living, except the oil and gas industry that they are supposed to regulate,” said Andrew Wheat, director of Texans for Public Justice. “But, at the same time that's the very industry that is paying for their political careers."
Chairman Williams says contributions do not buy influence. "I reject that notion,” said Williams. “I am very confident that I make decisions based on facts and based on good sound policy and based on what I think is the best interest of my fellow Texans."
Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones told News 8, "I've always called balls and strikes the way I see them, and I don't ever intend to stop doing that."
Commissioner Victor Carrillo rejects critics claims as well. "My personal integrity dictates that the decisions I make are based on sound legal, policy, and scientific reasoning and not based on who has contributed to my campaign," said Carrillo.
All three commissioners reacted quickly to our investigation into faulty gas couplings that led to two deaths in Wylie in 2006, and two more in Cleburne last year.
Just days after our reports aired Commissioners ordered the couplings removed from the ground.
But in the cases of the faulty couplings and the cracked pipe which killed the Holberts, past and present Railroad Commissioners had access to years of evidence that potentially deadly problems existed.
And for years no action was taken to force the removal of the potentially deadly products, a removal that would have cost industry officials millions of dollars.
To this day Gordon believes had Railroad Commissioners done their jobs her parents would still be alive. “The Railroad Commission is only interested in protecting the gas companies not the rest of us asleep in our beds," said Gordon.
Late last year a state audit criticized Railroad Commission inspectors for being too cozy with and accepting small gifts from the oil and gas operators they are supposed regulate.
Railroad Commissioners have pledged to discontinue that practice.
See more of News 8 Investigative Report
Monday, April 28, 2008
Texas could close four schools if they fail again
By Kate Alexander - AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF - Monday, April 28, 2008
Four low-performing Texas schools, including Johnston High School in East Austin, are facing the highest of stakes on this year's high-stakes tests.
Rated "academically unacceptable" for at least the past four years, the schools must be closed or turned over to new management if attendance and student performance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills once again fall below state standards. Testing started for some grades weeks ago and will end in May.
The mandatory sanction is the most severe in the state's school accountability system and has not previously been imposed by the Texas Education Agency.
Despite ample public discussion about accountability, testing and standards, little attention has been paid to what happens when a school reaches the end of the line.
A dramatic move by the state, which could come as early as June, would serve as a cautionary tale to other low-performing schools and would also shake up the teachers, school leaders and district administrators.
Whether the students would benefit from a shake-up, however, is unknown, education experts say.
"We're trying a lot of stuff without having any kind of scientific research," University of Texas education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig said.
There is a "gut feeling" that tough sanctions will fix the problem, he said, and the sanctions allow political and education leaders to say they have done something to hold failing schools accountable.
But if the accountability does not work as advertised, Vasquez Heilig said, the students will bear the brunt of the adults' bad decisions.
"The real question is what do you do to ensure that you providea sound academic program to the kids there," said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University who has done research on Texas schools.
"The current kids don't have the luxury of waiting while someone else figures out how to better manage the schools."
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, who could not be reached for comment, said at a recent conference that no decision has been made on the future of the schools but that "we're going to do better for these kids."
The Legislature sharpened the teeth of the school accountability system in 2006 by mandating closure or outside management when a campus reaches its fifth year with an "academically unacceptable" rating.
Five years is a long time for students to be stuck in a failing school, so the Legislature added the mandatory provision to show the gravity of continued failure, said state Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, chairman of the House Public Education Committee. "You have a drastic penalty, and you admit that it is drastic so that everybody will know it and they won't get in that situation."
That penalty is stalking mostly urban schools with large populations of low-income students, many of whom are new to the schools. Eissler and others are considering ways to change the accountability system during the next legislative session to recognize the particular challenges of those schools.
The changes might include incentives to attract the best teachers and administrators to the struggling schools as well as altering how the state measures progress.
Any future changes will not help the schools that might pass the five-year threshold now.
Those schools can avoid the tumult by earning an "acceptable" rating — the third-lowest of four rankings in the state accountability system — based on the 2008 tests as well as meeting certain standards for attendance and the dropout rate. At least two of the schools have made strides over the past four years that have gotten them close to the mark.
Officials at Sam Houston High School in the Houston district are confident that the school can break its five-year streak of being rated academically unacceptable, said Karen Soehnge Garza, chief academic officer for the district.
Last year, the school missed the "acceptable" standard because of the performance of African Americans on the math test. The state granted a one-year waiver of closure or new management because the struggling group was very small — 59 test-takers in the subgroup out of more than 2,500 students.
In recent years, the district has pumped resources into the school to reduce class size, provide tutoring from college students and make other changes, Garza said. This year, that effort cost an additional $675,000.
"It is going to pay off," Garza said.
G.L. Wiley Middle School in Waco has experienced "phenomenal gains," district spokesman Dale Caffey said, and an "acceptable" rating is expected this year.
There is similar optimism at Oak Village Middle School in the North Forest district near Houston, spokeswoman Nakisha Myles said in an e-mailed response to questions.
The students struggled last year on the math and social studies tests, and the school also had a problem with dropouts.
North Forest's troubles extend far beyond one school. The district has a host of financial and management problems that have prompted Texas Education Agency intervention and talk of dissolution.
Of all the schools, problems appear the most pervasive at Austin's Johnston High.
Every demographic group that figures into the rating missed the state standards last year on every test. The passing rates largely dropped — many by double-digit percentage points — even with three years of the intervention and overhaul that is mandated by the state. Substantial gains will be necessary on this year's tests to meet the so-called required improvement standard and avoid state action.
Administrators acknowledged in a recent communication to the Austin district's Board of Trustees that closure was "probable," wording that was suggested by agency officials to underscore the dire situation.
A previous closure plan had most Johnston students going to Reagan High School, which has been rated academically unacceptable for the past two years. Other students would head to Austin, LBJ, McCallum and Travis high schools.
But the school board must approve a new plan in May, a requirement by the agency.
State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said the state needs to keep in mind the main objective of the accountability system in dealing with Johnston.
"The goal is educating our children and creating the opportunity for them to be educated," Watson said. "It is not just to have the ability to say, 'We have held you accountable by shutting you down and padlocking your school.' "
If Johnston does not meet standardsthis year, the state should find a solution that does not punish the students, the community and the school district, Watson said.
Use Johnston as an opportunity to show how school turnaround can be done with minimal disruptions and without creating a bevy of unintended consequences, he said.
"I fundamentally believe that we have to be willing to experiment with how we're going to keep urban schools open," Watson said. "We can't just be saying, 'In the name of accountability, we'll close these schools.' "
Closure can be a solution for a long-dysfunctional school that has become impervious to change, said Michael Petrilli, a former U.S. Education Department official who helped implement the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
"In terms of achievement, I think it is still an open question and the devil is in the details," said Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education reform group in Washington that promotes school accountability.
For the closure strategy to succeed, a comprehensive and tested "new school" plan must be in place that allows for aggressive change, Petrilli said. He has not found many instances across the country in which schools have been systematically closed and then established as better schools.
The Texas law does allow for keeping the campus open and turning it over to a nonprofit organization or another school district to manage.
An alternative approach would allow for more flexibility and innovation in running the schools, Petrilli said.
Austin school board members have said they would like to use that alternative route to create an "in-district" charter school at Johnston, if necessary. That option is available when there is a "reasonable expectation" that the school will earn at least an "academically acceptable" rating within three years of the new management, according to the law.
State Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston and a member of the public education committee, said the challenges before these schools and the students will not be resolved by relocation.
Chronic failure of a school "is not a function of the walls or the building. It is a function of the people who allocate resources and who make hiring decisions," Hochberg said.
"Forcing those kids to go to a different school won't necessarily fix the problems that those kids have but might make those kids disappear in the larger numbers at another school."
kalexander@statesman.com; 445-3618
Population breakdown for the four schools
Johnston High (Austin)
African American 16%
Hispanic 82.1%
White 1.8%
Economically Disadvantaged 81.6%
Limited English Proficient 20.4%
Mobile students* 43.9%
Sam Houston High (Houston)
African American 4.1%
Hispanic 92.5%
White 3.2%
Economically Disadvantaged 73.7%
Limited English Proficient 16.4%
Mobile* 27.2%
Oak Village Middle (North Forest/Houston)
African American 66.7%
Hispanic 32.7%
White 0.4%
Economically Disadvantaged 99.1%
Limited English Proficient 10.2%
Mobile* 24.2%
G.L. Wiley Middle (Waco)
African American 76.2%
Hispanic 21.8%
White 1.9%
Economically Disadvantaged 97.1%
Limited English Proficient 4.4%
Mobile* 47.7%
* Students are considered mobile if they attended a school for less than 83% of the school year (i.e., have missed six or more weeks at a particular school).
Source: Texas Education Agency
Schools facing possible closure or alternative management
Johnston High, Austin district
Sam Houston High, Houston district
Oak Village Middle, North Forest district (suburban Houston)
G.L. Wiley Middle, Waco district
Read more in the Austin American Statesman
Four low-performing Texas schools, including Johnston High School in East Austin, are facing the highest of stakes on this year's high-stakes tests.
Rated "academically unacceptable" for at least the past four years, the schools must be closed or turned over to new management if attendance and student performance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills once again fall below state standards. Testing started for some grades weeks ago and will end in May.
The mandatory sanction is the most severe in the state's school accountability system and has not previously been imposed by the Texas Education Agency.
Despite ample public discussion about accountability, testing and standards, little attention has been paid to what happens when a school reaches the end of the line.
A dramatic move by the state, which could come as early as June, would serve as a cautionary tale to other low-performing schools and would also shake up the teachers, school leaders and district administrators.
Whether the students would benefit from a shake-up, however, is unknown, education experts say.
"We're trying a lot of stuff without having any kind of scientific research," University of Texas education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig said.
There is a "gut feeling" that tough sanctions will fix the problem, he said, and the sanctions allow political and education leaders to say they have done something to hold failing schools accountable.
But if the accountability does not work as advertised, Vasquez Heilig said, the students will bear the brunt of the adults' bad decisions.
"The real question is what do you do to ensure that you providea sound academic program to the kids there," said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University who has done research on Texas schools.
"The current kids don't have the luxury of waiting while someone else figures out how to better manage the schools."
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, who could not be reached for comment, said at a recent conference that no decision has been made on the future of the schools but that "we're going to do better for these kids."
The Legislature sharpened the teeth of the school accountability system in 2006 by mandating closure or outside management when a campus reaches its fifth year with an "academically unacceptable" rating.
Five years is a long time for students to be stuck in a failing school, so the Legislature added the mandatory provision to show the gravity of continued failure, said state Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, chairman of the House Public Education Committee. "You have a drastic penalty, and you admit that it is drastic so that everybody will know it and they won't get in that situation."
That penalty is stalking mostly urban schools with large populations of low-income students, many of whom are new to the schools. Eissler and others are considering ways to change the accountability system during the next legislative session to recognize the particular challenges of those schools.
The changes might include incentives to attract the best teachers and administrators to the struggling schools as well as altering how the state measures progress.
Any future changes will not help the schools that might pass the five-year threshold now.
Those schools can avoid the tumult by earning an "acceptable" rating — the third-lowest of four rankings in the state accountability system — based on the 2008 tests as well as meeting certain standards for attendance and the dropout rate. At least two of the schools have made strides over the past four years that have gotten them close to the mark.
Officials at Sam Houston High School in the Houston district are confident that the school can break its five-year streak of being rated academically unacceptable, said Karen Soehnge Garza, chief academic officer for the district.
Last year, the school missed the "acceptable" standard because of the performance of African Americans on the math test. The state granted a one-year waiver of closure or new management because the struggling group was very small — 59 test-takers in the subgroup out of more than 2,500 students.
In recent years, the district has pumped resources into the school to reduce class size, provide tutoring from college students and make other changes, Garza said. This year, that effort cost an additional $675,000.
"It is going to pay off," Garza said.
G.L. Wiley Middle School in Waco has experienced "phenomenal gains," district spokesman Dale Caffey said, and an "acceptable" rating is expected this year.
There is similar optimism at Oak Village Middle School in the North Forest district near Houston, spokeswoman Nakisha Myles said in an e-mailed response to questions.
The students struggled last year on the math and social studies tests, and the school also had a problem with dropouts.
North Forest's troubles extend far beyond one school. The district has a host of financial and management problems that have prompted Texas Education Agency intervention and talk of dissolution.
Of all the schools, problems appear the most pervasive at Austin's Johnston High.
Every demographic group that figures into the rating missed the state standards last year on every test. The passing rates largely dropped — many by double-digit percentage points — even with three years of the intervention and overhaul that is mandated by the state. Substantial gains will be necessary on this year's tests to meet the so-called required improvement standard and avoid state action.
Administrators acknowledged in a recent communication to the Austin district's Board of Trustees that closure was "probable," wording that was suggested by agency officials to underscore the dire situation.
A previous closure plan had most Johnston students going to Reagan High School, which has been rated academically unacceptable for the past two years. Other students would head to Austin, LBJ, McCallum and Travis high schools.
But the school board must approve a new plan in May, a requirement by the agency.
State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said the state needs to keep in mind the main objective of the accountability system in dealing with Johnston.
"The goal is educating our children and creating the opportunity for them to be educated," Watson said. "It is not just to have the ability to say, 'We have held you accountable by shutting you down and padlocking your school.' "
If Johnston does not meet standardsthis year, the state should find a solution that does not punish the students, the community and the school district, Watson said.
Use Johnston as an opportunity to show how school turnaround can be done with minimal disruptions and without creating a bevy of unintended consequences, he said.
"I fundamentally believe that we have to be willing to experiment with how we're going to keep urban schools open," Watson said. "We can't just be saying, 'In the name of accountability, we'll close these schools.' "
Closure can be a solution for a long-dysfunctional school that has become impervious to change, said Michael Petrilli, a former U.S. Education Department official who helped implement the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
"In terms of achievement, I think it is still an open question and the devil is in the details," said Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education reform group in Washington that promotes school accountability.
For the closure strategy to succeed, a comprehensive and tested "new school" plan must be in place that allows for aggressive change, Petrilli said. He has not found many instances across the country in which schools have been systematically closed and then established as better schools.
The Texas law does allow for keeping the campus open and turning it over to a nonprofit organization or another school district to manage.
An alternative approach would allow for more flexibility and innovation in running the schools, Petrilli said.
Austin school board members have said they would like to use that alternative route to create an "in-district" charter school at Johnston, if necessary. That option is available when there is a "reasonable expectation" that the school will earn at least an "academically acceptable" rating within three years of the new management, according to the law.
State Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston and a member of the public education committee, said the challenges before these schools and the students will not be resolved by relocation.
Chronic failure of a school "is not a function of the walls or the building. It is a function of the people who allocate resources and who make hiring decisions," Hochberg said.
"Forcing those kids to go to a different school won't necessarily fix the problems that those kids have but might make those kids disappear in the larger numbers at another school."
kalexander@statesman.com; 445-3618
Population breakdown for the four schools
Johnston High (Austin)
African American 16%
Hispanic 82.1%
White 1.8%
Economically Disadvantaged 81.6%
Limited English Proficient 20.4%
Mobile students* 43.9%
Sam Houston High (Houston)
African American 4.1%
Hispanic 92.5%
White 3.2%
Economically Disadvantaged 73.7%
Limited English Proficient 16.4%
Mobile* 27.2%
Oak Village Middle (North Forest/Houston)
African American 66.7%
Hispanic 32.7%
White 0.4%
Economically Disadvantaged 99.1%
Limited English Proficient 10.2%
Mobile* 24.2%
G.L. Wiley Middle (Waco)
African American 76.2%
Hispanic 21.8%
White 1.9%
Economically Disadvantaged 97.1%
Limited English Proficient 4.4%
Mobile* 47.7%
* Students are considered mobile if they attended a school for less than 83% of the school year (i.e., have missed six or more weeks at a particular school).
Source: Texas Education Agency
Schools facing possible closure or alternative management
Johnston High, Austin district
Sam Houston High, Houston district
Oak Village Middle, North Forest district (suburban Houston)
G.L. Wiley Middle, Waco district
Read more in the Austin American Statesman
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