Madison is Rolling in His Grave

There are those who are heathens to the church. Blasphemers who not only have a lack of faith, but also spew atrocities, words the church would consider lies and evil. There is a such thing as the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, where it is not necessarily required to follow the law word for word, but its original intent. If devotion to the church, ones pious religion, means to adhere to its teachings and rules, then surely the core of our civic religion as a nation would be to follow the Constitution as well as its intent. Not just the words, but what the founding fathers wanted for this nation. But, those in the Texas legislature have spat on that intent. The state representatives and senators who double vote for other elected officials on a floor vote I guarantee you are making Madison, as well as all the other signers of the Constitution, roll over in their grave.

One of the biggest causes of the American Revolution was unequal representation. The colonies were not being represented in the English parliament, so we declared out independence and so on and so forth. We now have a system on the state and federal level where residents of a specific district elect officials or delegates to represent them. One man, one vote. They are elected to vote in Congress according to the wishes of their constituents. One man, one vote. But, we have clear evidence of these “elected officials” doing something entirely different. There is video footage of State Rep Michael Hamilton, who during the HPV vaccination vote back in the early 2000's, voted for himself as well as State Rep Daniel Branch and State Rep Charles Howard and he voted in place of State Rep Wayne Smith. If James Madison was alive today, I swear to God, that man would deck State Rep Hamilton, hard, on the nose.

It is written in the Rules and Precedents of the Texas House for the 81st Texas State Legislature, in Rule 5, Section 47 “Any member found guilty by the house of knowingly voting for another member on the voting machine without that other member’s permission shall be subject to discipline deemed appropriate by the house.” Yet, somehow they get away with it. Even State Rep Debbie Riddle, the one who proposed a bill requiring all voters to show a driver's license in order to be able to vote, has been caught on tape voting more than once. She tries to justify her actions with the coy excuse of doing it out of necessity. “We have a lot of votes, we have a lot of amendments; and there's times when we don't break for lunch, and we don't break for dinner, we don't have bathroom breaks...” she says. Has she no shame? Being a commoner in the Texas populace, I will admit I do not fully understand every nuance of the Legislature, but surely we can all agree a representative should vote only under their name and in accordance to their constituents. Yes, I understand there may be times when a given Representative cannot make it to the House floor to vote on a given bill for some reason or another, but it is not difficult to have an authorized proxy for him/her; an attaché if you will, who has the key to operate his given Representative's desk.

Representative are voted into and out of office based on several factors, and one of the big ones is their voting record. In my district John Somebody is up for reelection, but I cannot accurately decide if I want to vote for him because Joe Otherguy has more than likely illegally voted in his stead. It throws the system out of sync and discards integrity.

Unfortunately, I cannot suggest a true alternative for how to run the floor vote. I am but a commoner, and I do not fully understand how the floor works as well as all the rules. All I can say is State Representatives need and must live by the One Man, One Vote standard.

Oscar Wilde, this man is not.

Gritsforbreakfast. That is his name. Gritsforbreakfast. There was no real name in his “about me” section. So, before I get to Gritsforbreakfast’s post, I have to ride him for being childish enough to succeed in not posting his name in his profile.

As for the post I read, Grits took a completely valid position on a county jail in Howard, Texas being overcrowded. He was a good boy by giving us external links to actual numbers that show how many people were in the county jails, as well as the actual fine print of various laws, and even a PDF guide showing alternative methods to help keep the population under control in the jails. But, this guy is horrible. He cannot write to save his life, unless we broaden the definition to those who can spell. He had just terrible sentence structures, and he could not have been anymore droll in his language. Grits had no panache in his writing nor did he have subtly. He just presented facts, and blatantly stated his opinion. A good post would have presented the fact, but the language used would have had underlying connotations which displayed the writer’s emotion toward the subject. I understand I am not following any of my critique right now, but that is simply due to the fact that I am writing a critique of this guy. There is no subtle way to describe just how lackluster this Grits is. So, Mr. Gritsforbreakfast, learn how to add tact to your writing. It will go a long way.

Is there a "West Wing" in the Governor's mansion?

It looks like Peggy Fikac knew what she was talking about in her piece on the upcoming redistricting which follows the even closer upcoming 2010 census, and how the Democrats in the Texas Legislature hope to get the scales to tip in their favor for the mid-term elections. Peggy showed she knew both the state House and Senate must pass the bill on the redistricting and the Governor must sign it. Here is where she gives us a poorly written episode of the West Wing, an episode sans Aaron Sorkin writing the story. Peggy informed us the House has a 76-74 GOP majority. Many think the Democrats will actually succeed in taking the House, while the GOP will keep the Senate. You see, the Democrats want the House for more than just having the House. They want it with the bonus incentive in having a shot at tipping the redistricting scale in their favor.

Should the Democrats take the House, and they create the perfect mudslinging fight on the floor is when all hell breaks loose. You see, should the Legislature not be able to come up with a resolution, the Legislative Redistricting Board is called into settle the matter. The LRB is an impromptu committee composed of the lt governor, House Speaker, attorney general, comptroller and the land commissioner. All of which are held by the GOP. Even if the Democrats take the House, only the House speaker would be a Democrat, and would be overturned by the rest of the members of the board.

So with the background story laid out, Peggy went on to talk about all the inside baseball that is going on and would go on in the upcoming Fight For Redistricting. She gave a voice to a few Democrats up against the odds. Thus begins the afore mentioned West Wing episode where Peggy is giving us more information and allows the reader to sit and think after reading this. “What will happen next?”

Not bad, Peggy. You gave us a completely benign commentary on the Democrats’ struggle to take back the House and have a miniscule chance at redistricting in their favor.

Bullets Are Cheaper

Christopher Coleman, 37, was executed yesterday, September 22, at 6:22 pm. Coleman, a convicted hit man was put to death for a triple drug related slaying in Houston nearly 14 years ago. Lethal injection was the method used, and counted as Texas’ 18^th this year, making us the nation’s most active death penalty state. (Criminals beware!) Christopher Coleman, 37, was condemned for his part in a scheme by a Colombian man who hoped to eliminate a drug debt by staging a robbery. Four people wound up shot in a car on a dead-end street. Three of them, including a 3-year-old boy, died. The whole story was a good novella made for TV, so keep a weather eye out for a TV spin off or a movie.

Story from AP